by Daryl Banner
Least of all Athan, who stares at them in wonder. Did I just—?
The bearded man, his eyes wide with rage, baring his teeth, red-faced and angry, finds the dart in the wall behind him, having gone clean through his arm. Grabbing feebly at the dart, his hands painted red from the effort of trying to stop his arm from gushing blood, he spins about and, in a blind, gurgling fit of rage, throws the dart once again at the bound form of Athan on the wall.
The next hole is in the bearded man’s forehead.
He drops to the ground at once in a tumble of muscle, weight, and blood. The man on the left staggers backwards, terrified, staring at his fallen friend. The other just stands there with a blank look on his face, almost a glower.
Athan feels the vibrant, raging panic in his system slowly subside like flood waters rushing out of a grate in the floor. He wonders if he was even breathing that whole time as he stares down at the corpse of a man who was, only seconds ago, throwing darts at his body.
One of the men, the one on the right, is the first to speak, and his voice is as small as the hole in fork-beard’s forehead. “H-How did you do that?” Only his tiny, glassy eyes flick over to Athan. “What’s your Legacy?”
The one on the left, however, gives a fierce kick into the side of their friend’s corpse. “Good riddance,” he growls down at him, then makes his way across the room and reaches for Athan’s binds.
Athan watches in part wonder, part confusion. “Did you—?”
“Silence,” says the man, struggling to undo the tight cords.
When Athan is freed, he brings his wrists to his chest to nurse them. Then he faces the man. “Who are you?”
“None of your concern,” answers the man, whose scar that cuts down his left cheek looks like a jagged dagger. “The duty’s done. You are free, and you’ve your life.” Then he eyes Athan. “Do you truly have no access to your Lifted gold?”
The assumption’s become fact, clearly. “Truly,” answers Athan.
The man nods once. “Fine.” Then he nods at his friend. “Come. We are releasing the other one, and then we’re making our way.”
His friend seems as confused as Athan is, unsure whether to go on, stay put, or piss his pants.
Judging from the clear lack of emotion, these two were clearly not attached to the bearded man. Maybe they were only members of a temporary band of street fists, or had just met at the pits a week ago. Maybe they were even hired by him to be his extra muscle with a promise of Lifted gold for payment. Athan may never know.
Athan stares down at the man. “What was his name?”
“Kinni,” answers the one on the right.
Athan takes a step back when the pool of blood from the man’s fatal wound spreads more, sickened. He was about to kill you, Athan tries to tell himself, his core shaking for a different reason entirely. Don’t mourn him too deeply. He was about to take your life.
But then somehow, inexplicably, unexplainably, Kinni’s life was taken instead.
What happened? And how?
“Did you do this?” he asks again of the scarred man. “Did you send his darts straight back at him? Why?” Athan presses, knowing the answer to the first question and moving right on. “Why did you spare me my life?”
“Kinni always had a temper,” the man answers, “and now he’s no temper at all.” The man tilts his head and smirks. “Looks bloody peaceful, if you ask me. Now are we finished with the questions?” He eyes Athan. “You’ve a friend to collect, and a home to return to.”
Edrick, as it turns out, had been bound to a chair in a room just down the hall. Athan walks through the dark office full of chairs and desks and abandoned filing cabinets to arrive at the room containing his new friend, who is in the company of the other two men, one with boyish brown hair swept over his eyes, the other bald and bug-eyed with brown spots all about his scalp.
When the men see Athan freed, the bald one smirks proudly. “So he broke, aye? Where’s the gold, then? What’s our plan?”
The scarred man steps into the room past Athan. “Release him. That’s what our plan is.”
The boyish one wrinkles his face. “What? What about—?”
“Release the fucking man,” states the scarred one, voice stern, “and make haste on it, for fuck’s sake.”
The bald one bristles. Then a certain thing occurs to him late. “Where’s Kinni?”
“RELEASE THE FUCKING MAN!” he repeats. “NOW!”
While the bald one stares at them, dumbfounded, the boyish one pushes bangs out of his face as he rushes up to the chair to swiftly unbind Edrick’s hands. The pleasure boy rises at once and stumbles over to Athan in a hurry, clinging to his side as he stares at the men with a mixture of resentment and fear.
“We’ve freed the slut,” the bald one growls, impatient and likely annoyed at having been yelled at. “Now tell me, Garros, before I lose my calm here, where the fuck is Kinni?”
“Dead,” answers the scarred one named Garros.
The men stare at him, uncomprehending. It’s like the words did not even register.
Athan steps forward, a pinch of boldness filling his chest. “You have my gold from today’s earnings. Keep it. All of it.” He looks at Garros, as if hoping the deal is done, and no more is wanted from him. “You won’t see me at the pits again. I swear it. Fight to your heart’s delight. This will be the last you ever see me.”
“Join us on our next mission,” Garros offers calmly. The man at his side—one of the men who witnessed Kinni’s sudden death and nearly shit his pants—mutters a quick, hushed, terrified protest at his words, which Garros ignores. “Our next mission will get us gold ten times what Kinni dreamed. Keep your own gold, whatever bank it’s in. I’ve no interest in stealing. The gold I wish to earn is honest gold.”
A man still bleeds from a hole in his arm and a hole in his head, where likely some brain has escaped, too. The thought is enough to convert all the courage Athan was feeling before into a splitting and stomach-spinning headache.
“I am not interested,” Athan answers. “As I said before, this is the last you’ll see of—”
“We are only passersby,” Garros presses on. “Gone all the way across the wards, we have. We plan to land in the third where I will reunite with an old friend who is close to the Slum King. There is gold there promised to me, gold I will share.” The man is stout and wide-shouldered with black curly hair atop his head that bleeds into a light, close-trimmed beard, peppered with grey. His face is free of all blemish, save that one jagged scar on his cheek. “Join us.”
Athan uses his last stroke of courage to handle the men. “Allow me to rephrase.” He eyes them hard. “This is the last you will want to see of me, lest you wish your like to end in the way of Kinni.”
“I’m the one who ended Kinni’s life,” states Garros, batting away Athan’s flippantly. “I am an object Charmer. My brother calls me the curser, for I curse weapons to turn on their owners, if I wish it so. It is my talent—not yours—for which you ought to thank for still having your life.”
Athan blinks. A stone sits in his chest. “Why save me, Garros?”
“Because I’ve seen you fight. We all have. And we need a fighter among us.” He eyes the others. “A real one. And so I am offering you a better, far less violent alternative to fighting in those stinking, filthy pits.” He lifts his dark, superior eyebrows. “Join us.”
Athan puts a protective arm around Edrick, then asks of Garros, “Why would I join someone who would so easily turn on his own companion? You cursed his darts and made them—”
“Companion?” Garros snorts. “I’ve been waiting for that fucker to breathe his last for years. He was a thief, a rapist, and a drunk. He was no companion of mine. Do you see any love in any of our eyes?”
Athan isn’t comforted by the words. He keeps staring, silent. Somewhere deeper in him, his body still trembles at the very thought that if this man hadn’t done what he did, Athan would be dead.
And pun
ctured with holes.
“Join us.” Garros’s words sound less like a request, more like a command.
Athan’s hand instinctively tightens his hold on Edrick. “I’m … I’m afraid it isn’t an option.”
Garros is perfectly still for a long while, his eyes suspended on Athan fiercely. Then, at last, his body relaxes, and he steps aside. “Very well, then.”
Athan stands there uncertainly for a moment, unsure whether he is really being allowed to leave. After too long a moment, he takes Edrick’s hand with force and moves across the dark office, then together they descend the nearest stairwell, push out of a set of heavy doors, hurry down a dark hall toward the exit, and shove their way back onto a deserted back alley, which leads them to the street.
It’s around the corner, one street farther, and then halfway past a familiar nine train station that Athan stops and bursts into tears.
Edrick pulls him in, wrapping his arms around him. “It’s okay. We’re safe. We’re free. You got us out.”
“How??” sniffles Athan against Edrick’s shoulder, completely at a loss. “How did I know? How could I possibly have known?”
Edrick shifts slightly. “How did you know what?”
“That he—that Garros—was going to save my life??” Athan is desperately replaying the scene over and over in his mind already. “I felt this surge of confidence. I felt absolutely certain that I was not going to die—and yet I was terrified. I was terrified!”
“Listen, I don’t know, Athan. I don’t care. You did what you had to do. The man is dead. That Garros guy let us go. We’re fine.”
Athan can’t stop crying. After a while, he isn’t sure he’s crying about the man he just killed—or indirectly assisted in killing—in that room. Maybe his tears are for Anwick, all the remaining tears that haven’t spilled since his death at the top of Cloud Tower.
Or he’s just crying out of sheer relief for still being alive.
“Come on,” Edrick encourages him with a touch of impatience in his words. “We’re out in the streets, exposed. This isn’t the time or place for crying like a baby. Everyone in a five mile radius can hear your blubbering, and they don’t even need my Legacy to do so. Let’s get back home.”
“Home.” Athan sniffles loudly, then lets go of Edrick and wipes his eyes, strength returning to him. “Home.” He isn’t sure the ninth will ever feel like his home. He isn’t sure the headquarters in the sixth felt like home, either. He isn’t sure anything will feel like home that isn’t Broadmore Manor with his cold parents sitting by him at a too-long dinner table with thirty tall, empty chairs save two for his equally cold sister and his curiously warm brother.
But Broadmore Manor is now empty. Maybe gone.
Like Anwick.
Like Radley and Janna.
Mother.
Father.
The reality hits him as they continue their way down the road. Slum streetlamps buzzing dimly over his head, getting dimmer and dimmer by each passing night, Athan realizes that nowhere in the world will ever feel like home again.
0248 Ellena
It might have been the remark in the cafeteria while Ellena was trying to enjoy a simple bowl of peppered mashed potato.
Or perhaps it was the remark in Ennebal’s room when Ellena just wanted to spend a little time with her unborn grandchild.
Yet maybe it could have been the derisive comments the woman made about Halvesand’s neck armor looking ugly.
Whatever the reason, Ellena decides today that she’s had quite enough of her sister, and she doesn’t mind if she never sees the cold, awful, intolerable woman ever again.
“I’ve had quite enough of my sister,” Ellena states heatedly, “and I don’t mind if I never see the cold, awful, intolerable—”
“The streets still aren’t secure,” the hard-voiced Guardian tells her. “Just yesterday, a band of brigands only two blocks away tried—and failed, mind you, thanks to our intervention—to rob a clothier’s. And a trip to the ninth is too far a journey to secure a—”
“It’s daylight outside!” Ellena argues. “It’s safe, with the sun up and all. Are you afraid an alley dog will make a nip of my ankles?”
“No time of day is safe.”
“You’re speaking to the most dangerous woman in this hospital,” Ellena retorts irritably, her patience lost. “Need I remind you who my hands have touched?”
The Guardian leans over the counter, his face in hers. “Careful, my dear. There’s a new Lead Officer in charge, and she might be well open to reconsidering your suspiciously cleared-and-forgiven case. Not all of us despised Mr. Redbrade as much as you did.”
Ellena’s eyes flash. “How dare you speak to me like that.”
“And who are you?” he goes on, pressing her. “Queen Lesser? The woman with the deadly hands?” He throws a rude gesture at her, then turns his face back to his work. “You’re as rough about the teeth as your loud sister. Keep biting all you wish, I won’t budge.”
Ellena, red faced and furious, backs away from the counter and marches on toward the doors anyway, but the Guardian posted there do not allow her by. She grits her teeth. “To fuck with you all,” she spits, then turns on her heel and stalks away angrily.
The cold sheets of an unoccupied bed on the sixth floor meet her ass, and she stares out the window. The midday sun cooks it, making the glass hot to the touch. She can’t quite manage to enjoy the view or the peace of this vacant room, still too mad about the Guardian and the awful way he treated her. Mr. Redbrade, she thinks bitterly. Even I am not proud that the discovery of the other half of my Legacy came at the cost of a young boy’s life, whether he happened to be the self-important spoiled rotten asshole Marshal of Order or not. He was still a child just the same, and I didn’t mean to kill him.
She never considered that some Guardian might hold loyalty to the old regime and see her as a real murderer. Some Guardian might have actually liked Taylon Redbrade, despite his “character flaws”.
It doesn’t change her situation at all. Unless she musters up the courage to open a window and scale the side of the building, she is not leaving this hospital in a hurry.
“Mom?”
Ellena turns to find Aleksand standing at the door. He always has a way of finding her. “Do you see me for a murderer?” she asks.
Aleks’s face wrinkles up. “What sort of question is that?”
“An honest one. Never mind. They still won’t let me outside.”
He takes a seat next to her on the unoccupied bed. “I told you, they’re even strict on our like. Nowhere’s safe out there. We have to wear these extra pads under our armor, in the case of some radical Legacies or Outliers, and—”
“Outliers? We have a war on Outliers now?” Ellena shakes her head. “It’s just fear they’re selling you out there. It’s a bunch of fear and nothing. They act like we’re still suffering the Madness, like at any second the Red Bolt is going to strike again. It won’t strike again. Impis is dead, I truly believe it.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“I need to get home, sweetheart.” Her voice changes as she looks on her son’s face. He looks dubious at best, his forehead wrinkling up as he listens. “I just have a feeling … a strong feeling … that Lionis and Link and Anwick will be there. They have the sense to return to home in a time like this. I think they’re looking out for each other, and if we fetch them and bring them back here, then we can all be safe. Or else I’ll stay with them. Please. I have to know.”
Aleks shakes his head. “This is because of Aunt Cilla, isn’t it?”
“Stop.”
“It is. She made you panic because she said Lionis left her house and never came back.” He takes his mother’s hand. Ellena withdraws it at once. “Mom. Come on.”
“I have to get to the ninth. It’s killing me, not knowing. I want all of my boys back together. And then your father—”
“Mom.”
“Your father will get out of that Keep and
he will find us, too. Damn it, Aleks, you are being so fucking difficult.” Ellena shuts her eyes, takes a breath, then lets it all out over her hands. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m a mess. Yes, it’s my sister. I can’t fucking stand her.”
“I know.” Aleks scoots closer to his mother and starts to rub her back soothingly. “It’s okay. I know. Siblings are …” He lets out a half-choked laugh. “Siblings can be real dicks sometimes.”
Ellena pulls away quickly and looks him in the eyes. “You and Halves are getting along, aren’t you?”
He shifts between thirteen emotions very hastily across his face before settling on a neutral smile. “Of course. We’re great.”
Ellena knows better, but she doesn’t press the issue. The two of them have been at each other’s necks as badly as Lionis and Anwick. How did I manage to raise two sets of quarrelsome siblings, and then a fifth wheel of overflowing teenage angst in the youngest? The first thing she will do when she sees her precious Link again is wash all of that ridiculous black dye out of his hair.
Aleks bites his lip, glances back at the window with a thought, and then he makes a sudden decision. “Alright. Come with me.” He grabs her hand and rises off the bed. “Come. Up, up.”
She stands. “Why?” She goes with him across the room and to the hall. “Where are we going?”
“Don’t say anything. We have to hurry.”
Ellena obeys, confounded. The two make their way down the hall and around the corner. They board a lift and take it to a very high floor, clearance gained by Aleks’s Guardian badge. When the doors open, he pokes his head out and looks both ways before he drags his mother out of it and down the hall.
When they arrive at a Guardian locker room, currently empty of any Guardian at all, Aleksand’s plan becomes clear. “Aleks …”
“Just do it,” he states, shoving the helmet and armor at her. “It is the only way. Mom, get them on in a hurry, before anyone comes in. These ought to fit you.”
Ellena glances back at the door, clutching the helmet and armor tightly. They’re lighter than I expected. She gives that door a second of hesitation before mumbling, “Fuck it,” and shrugging on the armor over her white blouse, slapping the helmet over her head, and then stepping into the greaves and boots Aleks provides her next.
