by Darcy Coates
Beth wasn’t spared. Shock and pain registered on her features. Clare saw everything in those precious seconds: Her back quivered as though an electric current ran through her. Her eyes rolled. Her head jerked towards Clare. They made eye contact. Beth’s lips opened in a plea for relief, an apology, or words of blame—Clare couldn’t tell.
The spines on her back burst like balloons filled with jelly that had been squeezed too hard. Blood ran from the sites, mingling with what had already covered her. Her skin turned blotchy grey and white. She crumpled like a puppet with its cords cut. Clare had just enough time to see her sister hit the floor, then she clenched her eyes closed as the code caught up to her.
The sensation was unlike anything she had felt before. It was as though a million threads ran through her body, and all at once, someone took hold of them and tugged. She was being pulled, but in what direction, she didn’t know. It was agony. Her skin, muscles, and bones all burned. In the span of a second, the heat was overtaken by cold. She couldn’t breathe. She tumbled, sliding down the wall, barely conscious of the screams and thumps of falling bodies around her.
The noise ended in a matter of minutes. The howls grew fainter in waves as the code flowed past Winterbourne, until Clare could no longer hear it.
Her vision was blurred. She blinked, trying to clear her eyes, trying to shake the ringing out of her ears. She felt as though she had been hit by a train.
Around her, bodies lay in heaps. Some faced the ceiling, eyes dead and mouths slack. Others had fallen with their arms outstretched, as though they hoped to crawl away from their destruction. A grey pus-like ooze ran from their orifices and any open wounds on their bodies. It mixed with the blood in awful patterns.
Clare couldn’t prevent her eyes from moving to the one body that was familiar. Beth, no longer bearing spines, lay facing away. One arm had been thrown backwards, and Clare had the awful idea that Beth had been reaching towards her in those last seconds. She tried to lift her own hand, to reach towards her sister in return, but the muscles wouldn’t obey. Everything was painful, even breathing.
Footsteps approached from behind. They moved slowly, heavily, each one accompanied by the creak of the stairs’ floorboards. Clare forced herself to move and tilted her head back to rest it against the wall. She could see Dorran at the edge of her vision, pausing at the base of the stairs, one hand braced on the railing. He shook as he scanned the scene. It took Clare a second to realise he must be looking for her. She was so covered in blood that she was almost unrecognisable amongst the massacre.
“Hey,” she croaked. It hurt to talk.
The fear in his eyes gave way to relief. He moved towards her, his steps not as stable as normal, but filled with purpose. Clare blinked furiously, trying to see him more clearly. He was splattered with blood, as well. But he was standing.
“Are you okay?” He dropped to his knees beside her. Hands ran across her cheeks, then roved lower, searching over her body, seeming to find every place that ached.
Clare flinched as he tried to pull the fabric away from the bite on her leg. “I’ll be fine. You?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.” His smile was shaky. “Oh, my darling.”
Something shone in his eyes, an emotion Clare couldn’t properly read. “Yeah?”
“It’s over.”
She smiled then coughed, tasting blood on her lips. She felt herself slipping towards blackness, but still didn’t let her smile fade as she echoed him. “It’s over.”
Chapter Forty
Clare woke lying on something soft and warm. Her mind was fogged, memories and dreams blending into something unrecognisable. She forced her eyes open. The world was desaturated and dark, and she couldn’t see much except an indistinct figure moving towards her. The voice was familiar, though, and spoke in soft, warm tones. “Hey there.”
The mattress bowed as weight settled onto it. Clare rubbed her palm across her eyelids, flinching at the raw skin and bruises on one of the knuckles. When she opened her eyes again, she could see Dorran more clearly. He was clean again, wearing a fresh burgundy knit top and with his hair combed back from his face. Fresh bandages wrapped around his hand, and one on his neck peeked out from his collar. A plaster covered a mark near his temple.
He looked better than he had in a long time. His posture was relaxed, but there was something else different about him. He’d lost the quiet desperation that had taken up residence in his eyes. They were filled with warmth now, calm and confident as they smiled down at her.
She grinned back. “Sorry. Fell asleep.”
“You needed it.” His fingers traced over her forehead, brushing strands of hair out of the way. He almost sounded like he was purring. “Rest a while longer. I’ll bring you some food.”
The pressure left the mattress as Dorran stood. She watched him as long as she could, until he’d left the room. He pulled the door nearly shut but left the latch free. Clare felt a split second of panic at the sight. She had to consciously unclench her hands.
We can leave doors open now. Nothing will be coming in.
The offer to rest was tempting. She felt like she’d been tied down with bags of sand, and each movement was a herculean task. It would be all too easy to close her eyes and fall back under.
Nope. Time to get up, lazy. You’ve slept enough. She grumbled to herself, then put in the effort to sit up. Muscles screamed. A hundred cuts scattered across her body burst into fire. Clare clenched her teeth.
She’d thought she’d grown tougher in the silent world, more able to push through pain. In retrospect, she realised, adrenaline was probably owed a lot of thanks—along with the thanites. They had stopped the hollows from feeling most pain, so it made sense that they would dull the aches in a regular person, too.
That’s a shame. I liked thinking about myself as a tough, no-compromise woman. Turns out I’m still a wuss.
She chuckled to herself, but the laughter faded quickly. Everything was still too recent. Too raw. Making jokes felt somehow sacrilegious.
How long was I out? Clare squinted towards the windows and frowned. They were in the wrong side of the room. It took her a second to realise why. Dorran had put her in the mirror bedroom, the one that joined the shared bathroom. That made sense. The original bedroom would need a deep clean after what had happened to it.
It was night. The room was lit by the fire and a candle left on the bedside table. She couldn’t have been out for more than a few hours, but Dorran had been efficient. He’d cleaned the worst of the grime off her and bandaged her cuts. Her clothes were gone, except for her underwear. She touched her hair and guessed he must have tried to clean it for her, too. It wasn’t revolting, but she was still looking forward to a proper bath.
The door creaked as Dorran nudged it open with his shoulder. He carried a soup bowl in one hand and a towel and spoon in the other. As he closed the door, Clare shuffled to sit up properly.
“No, don’t try to get up.” Dorran placed the soup on the bedside table and fetched the pillows from the bed’s other side. He plumped them behind Clare’s back, giving her support, then resumed his place on the bed’s edge, sitting at an angle so that he could face her. He draped the towel over her lap, then sat the soup bowl onto it. When Dorran dipped the spoon into it and brought it up to Clare’s lips, she tilted forward to drink. The soup tasted of parsley, celery, and what might have been eggplant. It was good. He had a knack for bringing out the best in plain ingredients.
“I can feed myself,” Clare said once her throat was wet enough to let her talk.
“Of course you can,” he said, the contented note still in his voice as he dipped the spoon into the soup and brought it back up for her.
She laughed, realising the exercise was as much a comfort for him as it was for her, and drank.
“Much of this comes from our garden,” Dorran said and moved his thumb to catch a drip running over Clare’s lip. “The plants were left intact, thank mercy. I only needed to repair th
e wires for the lighting where they had been chewed through.”
“The hollows chewed the wires?”
“One did—and was cooked for its efforts. It must have been part of their attempts to escape the light. They couldn’t get to the bulbs. Otherwise, they likely would have smashed those directly. We were lucky.”
“We sure were.” Clare frowned, taking another mouthful of soup. “What’s it like out there?”
“Hah.” He took a deep breath, his chest swelling, then let it out in a rush. “Except for the garden, I would be inclined to call this place a lost cause and torch it all.”
“That bad?”
He shrugged lightly. “I’m making progress in pieces. There are many priorities, though, so I am not as fast as I would like. I have begun removing bodies and burning them in the furnace. But the dead hollows are everywhere, and… they ooze. It will take some scrubbing.”
Clare’s memory snapped back to Beth, and sharp grief washed through her. She closed her eyes, breathing through her nose, trying to bring herself back to the present. She had been forced to accept Beth’s death weeks ago, before they had even arrived back at Winterbourne. “I’m amazed you’ve had a chance to do anything. How long have I been out? Four, five hours?”
Dorran laughed. “I am not quite that efficient, though I appreciate that you think I am capable of it. The code was activated a little over a day ago. Don’t worry, I spent my share of time asleep, as well.”
Clare lifted her eyebrows. “I slept through the day?”
“The code hit you badly.” He lifted the spoon again, nudging it against her lower lip until she drank from it. “Not to mention the blood loss. And there was swelling on the side of your head. You may have a concussion.”
“Huh.” That explains the headache. Clare rested her hand on Dorran’s forearm, searching his features. “What about you? How are you coping?”
“Much better than the first time. I didn’t have as many thanites as you; just what I received through the transfusions. I felt sick for a couple of hours, but that was all.”
“What about after we were separated? You were trapped in the room with the hollows. How badly were you hurt?”
“A couple of scratches, that is all.”
She searched his face for any sign he was hiding serious injuries, a habit she couldn’t get him to shake. But there was no sign that he wasn’t telling the truth. She sighed.
“I had my back to the wall.” Dorran lifted the spoon again. “I was able to keep them from overwhelming me, but I was pinned, and the exertion wasn’t sustainable. Ten more minutes, and they would have won. We were very lucky.”
“Very,” Clare said. She saw Beth in her mind’s eye—that final, sad glance, the way her sister had crumpled. Her throat suddenly felt too tight, and she shook her head as Dorran offered her more soup. “I think I’m full. Thank you, though.”
His expression grew sombre. One hand stroked over her cheek, a wordless comfort. She leaned into his caress. Did he find her body? Did he even recognise her? She barely looked like herself. Clare exhaled, and forced herself to smile. “I’m all right. It’s just… a shock that it’s all over. We’re finally free. And that’s good.”
“It is,” he murmured. His thumb lingered on her chin, and his voice fell into a whisper. “Do you feel well enough for a short walk?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it would be good to move about a bit, now that I can.” She managed a laugh. “I was waiting for freedom for so long, so I’ll enjoy this.”
He kissed her lightly then took her hands and helped her out of bed. Clare staggered. Her legs took a moment to remember how to walk, but Dorran held her until she was steady. Then he took an over-sized dressing gown off the back of a chair and helped thread her arms through the sleeves. He knelt and carefully sild socks over her feet.
“I can go without socks.” Clare laughed as he put slippers over them. “I don’t need coddling.”
“Hm.” His fingertips traced over her leg as he stood. “Perhaps. But it is cold out, and I am never taking another risk as far as you are concerned. Not for the remainder of eternity.”
“Oh no, we might have a differing opinion on that.”
He matched her grin as he kissed her again, then he took her hand and drew her towards the door.
He hadn’t been exaggerating about the cold. Even with the dressing gown, Clare shivered as she stepped through the door. It was so cold that she expected to see frost growing across the stones.
“Another storm set in after the code was activated,” Dorran said. He kept a firm hold on her hand, rubbing his fingers over hers. “The snow is deep. At least, this time, we have enough supplies inside Winterbourne that we will have no fear of going hungry.”
“And we’ll have plenty of cleaning to keep us busy.”
Dorran had opened many of the curtains, and Clare could see signs of the massacre. The nightmarish grey ooze stained the carpet in patches, showing where each hollow had fallen. In some areas, there was blood where a skirmish had occurred. The bodies were gone from the upstairs hallway, but the overwhelming smell lingered. Clare breathed through her mouth to fight the rising nausea.
“Not far now,” Dorran said.
“Where are we going?”
He smiled, but there was a trace of sadness in it. “I had not planned to show you until later. But… I think you need it now.”
“Dorran?”
They stopped in front of a door. It was several rooms down from Clare’s own, and when Dorran turned the handle, she saw it let into a bedroom almost identical to hers, only with green-and-gold wallpaper and green curtains.
The fire was lit. Clare blinked at it, trying to understand the logic of maintaining a fire in a room they weren’t using.
“Nothing is certain yet, but…” All of a sudden, Dorran seemed anxious. One hand hovered over her shoulder, as though he were preparing to pull her back.
A body lay in the bed, resting chest-down. Her back had been crisscrossed in thick layers of bandages. Blooms of red had soaked through the fabric wherever the spines had once cut through. Her head was facing towards the windows, away from Clare, but a halo of thin, shoulder-length gold hair spread behind her, limp on the pillow.
Clare felt as though her world were slipping away. She rocked back, and Dorran caught her and steadied her. She looked up at him, not ready to believe, half afraid that she had misunderstood, that it was somehow a cruel joke, that she was looking at her sister’s corpse on the bed. But Dorran was smiling, even if hesitantly. Clare looked back towards the body. Beth’s back rose a fraction as she breathed.
“I…” Dorran licked his lips. “I cannot make any promises. The damage is extreme. By all rights, she should not be alive.”
Clare stepped closer, and Dorran followed, the steadying hand still in place. She didn’t think she was going to cry, but then a tear slipped over her lower lid and disappeared into the plush green carpet. She grazed the fingers over Beth’s hair. Dorran had tried to wash it, but the gold strands were still stained red. The colour would take a long while to come out.
“You saved her,” she whispered.
“I did my best. But even if she lives, there was a lot of damage to her spine. And… and even then… there may not be much of Beth left.” His hands squeezed her shoulders gently. “Do you understand?”
She nodded, past the point of speaking. She rested her hand on Beth’s shoulder, one of the little parts of her back left unbandaged. The skin was warm. Human.
He saved her. Clare tried to stop herself from crying, but more tears came. Out of everyone, he had the most reason to resent her, to fear her. She had almost killed him. He could have ignored her in the foyer. Simple neglect would have ended her. I never would have known. But… he saved her.
The bandages had been tied with care. Even the way he’d washed her hair showed a level of compassion that Clare doubted many people could have brought themselves to.
She still couldn’t speak, so inste
ad, she turned and hugged him as tightly as she could. Warmth enveloped her as his arms cocooned her, and they held each other for a long while.
Chapter Forty-One
Dorran prepared a warm bath for Clare then helped wash her hair and rebandage the cuts. Then he wanted Clare to sleep more. She thought she’d slept plenty and wanted to do her part in cleaning the house. It turned into an argument that ended with Dorran physically picking her up, cradling her to his chest, and carrying her back to her room. Clare, laughing hysterically, slapped his shoulder. “Put me down, I want to clean!”
“No, you want to sleep.” He adjusted his hold on her, barely smothering his own chuckles. “I promise, you really do.”
“You fiend.” She ducked as he used his foot to knock the door open. “What sort of brute forces a woman away from her mop?”
“Absolutely unforgivable,” Dorran agreed as he placed her onto the bed. “Now, would you like something to drink?”
As they sipped black tea, sitting cross-legged on the bed together, they came to a compromise. Clare would work in the garden, an environment Dorran deemed safe and comfortable enough, while Dorran continued to dispose of the bodies.
“I’m cautious about putting too many through the furnace at once.” He swirled his drink thoughtfully. “They release an awful black smoke.”
Clare pulled a face. “Like the one that came down the chimney.”
“Exactly. But it’s probably still the best way to dispose of them, isn’t it?”
“Hmm. I don’t like the idea of burying them.”
“No, neither do I. There is no way to know what they might do to the soil. If they were just dead humans, I would expect them do decay naturally, but…”
“Yeah. The hollows were a long way from natural.” Clare rolled her shoulders as she glanced towards the window. The storm continued beating flecks of white against the glass, its chill threatening to invade their haven.
