by Emma Hamm
The two men walked towards her, and Jasper hunkered down in front of her. “I’ll be right back. You want the jacket?”
She nodded, and he stripped the leather jacket from his broad frame. Jiminy remembered that Lyra got cold very easily. He could see why, considering that her entire body was soaking wet after her little episode.
He had completely forgotten that she was a Siren.
Jasper stood back up and held out his arm for Jiminy to take. Before his hands could touch the other man’s skin, Jiminy noticed the fine webbed tattooed pattern upon Jasper’s arm that disappeared underneath the line of his shirt.
“You know,” Jiminy said. “You’ve never actually told me what you are.”
Jasper jerked the shirt down lower. “Not your business. Take my hand, Jiminy. We don’t have time for bonding.”
Of course he was right. His hand slapped down, and for a few heartbeats, the two of them didn’t exist. Jiminy didn’t know how the other man did it, but teleporting had always felt like he stopped existing. There was no breathing. There was no heartbeat. There was nothing but the sound of static.
They landed hard, as though Jasper didn’t quite know where the ground was. Both of them staggered as they immediately started coughing. Smoke swirled around them and stifled their ability to breathe.
“Jasper, where did you take us?”
Said man was waving his hand in front of his face while trying to breathe in a clear breath of air. “Back to Wren’s place.”
“I don’t think so!”
The same time as Jiminy said that, a stiff wind blew the smoke away from them. The two men gaped at the sight before them.
What remained of Wren’s building was now ashes. The smoke was being emitted from the blackened frame of what had once been the Juice Bar. Rubble decorated the base, and as they watched, the last remaining piece of the second story came crashing down.
The damage was unique in that it had only affected the building itself. None of the neighboring houses were touched by the destruction. Not even a smudge of grey ash or smoke. Yet, nothing remained of the building that seemed to glow in the darkness of the night.
Coals burned hot at the base. The fire must have been incredibly fast to burn something so large to the ground. Jiminy stepped off of the sidewalk and towards the building. The ground crunched beneath his feet as he walked over shards of glass and shattered wooden pieces.
In the center of all the destruction, sat a woman with hair as black as night. He wouldn’t have noticed her if her shoulders hadn’t moved in a silent sob. Wearing all black, with those dark curls tumbling down her shoulders, she appeared as if she were part of the night itself.
She sat upon her knees where the main counter used to be. Her form appeared so much smaller than he remembered, but perhaps that was the curled set of her shoulders as she tried to disappear into the ground.
Fluttering white ashes decorated the air around her. They lit down upon her hair and took on the form of stars in the universe that she had created. Fire danced behind her as the flames struggled to stay alive in the rubble.
The frame of the building groaned loudly around them.
“Wren?” He called.
Her hand moved forward to brush through the ashes, and he could see her fist close around a vial. She was shaking.
“Wren?” He picked his way through the building and brushed aside the smoke that threatened his vision. “Is that you?”
She looked towards him then. Her eyes were darker than he had ever see them as a strand of inky hair pushed past her high cheek bone. The wind drifted around her, and the coals around her knees flared to life.
“It’s gone.” The whisper was carried through the air to him.
“I’m so sorry.” It was the worst thing to say. But he didn’t know what he could tell her. “I should have been here.”
“All of it,” she continued as though she hadn’t heard him. “Everything that was mine. Everything that was left of me.”
“Wren, tell me you’re alright.” He picked his way across what used to be a beam, but froze when the building groaned again. “It’s not safe to be here.”
He could see the tracks of tears down her cheeks now. Soon he would be close enough to touch her. He would be close enough to grab ahold of her and not let go. Not fail her again as he seemed to always do.
The wind picked up again. The black tunic she wore was split up the sides which flared to reveal pale skin and a long length of torso. Smoke swirled around her legs and danced up her arms. “It was Pitch.”
“The Juice seller? Why do you think that?” He had to keep her talking. She couldn’t move or walk towards him, not with the looming threat of being buried alive.
“He was here,” she muttered. “He was right in my window and then… nothing. Nothing but darkness.”
Jiminy recognized that tone. She had done the same thing immediately after she had stepped back into her body. Wren was losing herself in the vast expanse of Legion.
“I need you to listen to me.” His voice remained calm, but his hands were shaking. “You need to get up and walk towards me, darling. This building is going to fall down, and you can’t be inside it.”
“He was the one that brought me to meet Malachi. I don’t know why I didn’t see it.” A tear rolled down her cheek, and she clenched her fist hard. He watched a curled wisp of green Juice escape from between her knuckles. “He was my friend. Or so he told me. He betrayed everything that we had.”
“Sweetheart, you need to listen to me!” He shouted this time to be heard over the creaking of the building.
“It was him!” The shout echoed around them as though thousands of voices had shouted at the same time. The building stilled at the sound, but Jiminy knew that was only the beginning.
“E!” His desperate shout was the last thing he had at his disposal. “E, if you don’t take control of her, we will both lose her forever!”
Her shaking hand raised to touch her lips. He could see blood dripping down her palm from where the pieces of glass she had crushed in her hand had sunk into flesh. His poor, mad girl who had never experienced a quiet life next to a lake. His poor, mad girl who tried so very hard to be normal.
Her eyes started to flip back and forth. She was both darkness and light, each eye changing in succession as E struggled to gain control over the mind that it inhabited.
“That’s it,” he muttered. “That’s it E.”
His hand stretched out towards her as she stood upon shaking legs. A tendril of a vine fell from her lap; at the same time, a large white ash settled delicately upon his outstretched hand. Like a butterfly it hovered against his warm skin before it disintegrated.
Her eyes flicked back to their stormy grey color, and he watched as tears gathered in her eyes once more.
“What am I to do, Jiminy?”
“Come with me,” he said fiercely. “I will keep you safe.”
“How can you?” The whisper sounded like a scream to his ears.
She took another step towards him. She was nothing more than a shadow, the silhouette of a woman that had no form or constant shape. The split tunic slapped against her knees, but split along her sides to reveal the physical form beneath the shadow. Black leggings hugged against the muscles of her legs and revealed delicate bare feet.
The very tip of her foot sank into another shadow. They both had a moment to stare into each other’s eyes before she disappeared.
A portal, left by the people who had burned her home down. A portal that had taken her from him again. A portal that had turned him into a liar once more.
“No!” His angry shout echoed as he ran out of the house that gave one last groan before the supports gave out.
Jasper lurched forward as soon as he recognized the expression upon Jiminy’s face as the Dream Walker exited the building.
“Don’t!” Was the last thing Jiminy heard before he launched himself into the dreaming world. He had to find her, and she had to be c
lose enough to find.
His body crumbled to the ground. His head struck the earth, and a plume of ashes fanned out around his face. Dark smudges left shadows against the hollows of his cheeks as he desperately tried to follow her in any way he could.
CHAPTER 9
Her life seemed to be happening in cycles. As she stepped onto the portal, Wren realized that her life was entirely out of her control. Her body seemed to dissolve as she had felt so many times before in dreams. But this time it was different. This time, she disappeared entirely.
The feeling was slightly calming. Suddenly she didn’t have to worry about filling in for a prophecy. She hadn’t been ripped out of her life. And she certainly wasn’t having issues with the magical creature inside her head.
Not existing was…. well, it was a little bit better than existing in the troubled world that she was now living in. But relief can only last for so long, at least in Wren’s experience.
Her body formed back into itself, and she became herself in a different place entirely. She hadn’t been through a portal since she was very little, but Wren remembered very clearly the disoriented feeling that she was experiencing. A body wanted to remain in one place, not be surprised and jerked into another.
Along the way, she had lost her shoes. Sometimes that happened through portals. It was so easy to lose things while one’s body was no longer part of itself. Wren counted herself lucky that she still had all of her fingers.
She hated portals with a passion.
The bottoms of her feet grew cold as they touched the cold stone beneath her. The dim light made it difficult for her to notice details about where she was. A witchlight glowed in the corner, and it appeared that there were bars in front of her.
She stepped forward. The light sound of padding feet was the only noise she could hear in the darkness. Her fingers traced the bars that felt cold against her palms. The tingling sensation meant these were likely iron. Whomever had caught her wanted her to remain exactly where they wanted her.
Her eyes flicked up to see whether there were any cracks along the wall. Unfortunately, the bars were anchored inside the stone itself. Her back was to a shallow cave where jagged edges of rough stone jutted towards her. There was no other way to escape this place.
“Shit,” she muttered.
Immediately upon her words, a clinking sound could be heard from farther back in the cave. She narrowed her eyes to attempt and catch a glimpse of whatever was moving.
She needn’t have tried. Like whips, chains snaked out of the back of the cave. Manacles were attached to the ends that wavered in front of her as though they were cobras. Her eyes followed the movement as she froze in place.
The question was raised in her mind, should she move or should she stay where she was? The enchanted bindings were likely to follow if she moved. But if she was fast enough, she might be able to move outside of their reach. The chains had to be short to keep people near the back of the cave.
There wasn’t really a choice to what she had to do next. Her muscles bunched, and she leaped away from the chains that laid in wait for her.
Movement was clearly what they had been waiting for. A cracking sound was followed by a blinding pain in her wrists. Wren was brought up short as the chains yanked her arms backwards.
Cold metal wrapped around her wrists. They were not overly tight but had hit against her bones hard enough to make her flesh swell. She dropped to her knees as air hissed out of her mouth.
Wren had never been very good at handling pain. E had always had to step in and take the brunt of the memories. It was precisely why she had never created any Juice for Pain or Agony. She simply could not do it.
“E,” she whispered as she cradled her aching wrists against her chest, “where are we?”
Wren waited for the voice in her head that had always provided comfort. That voice did not speak. She felt only a small bit of stirring at the back of her head. In that moment, she understood why E’s true form was black smoke.
She could feel it churning in the back of her head. Great billows of smoke curled throughout the channels of her mind until she could smell the acrid scent of burning wood.
“It is dangerous to be here.”
“I kind of guessed that,” she grumbled.
“Wren, where have you taken us?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking you.” Her heart rate sped up. She had never heard E sound frightened before.
“This place tastes of death.”
“You can’t taste anything.” She could at least attempt some kind of humor.
“So many creatures have died here.” Wren’s head vibrated as E moaned. Thousands of voices in her head echoed the sound. “Too many to absorb but too many to leave.”
“What are you going on about?” Wren asked. “You’re not making any sense.”
The creature inside of her appeared unable to respond. She could still hear the various voices in her head, some moaning and some muttering words she did not understand. Her aching wrists pressed harder against her ribs as she tried to resist clutching her head in her aching hands.
Now she understood why madness was an unavoidable circumstance.
Her shaking hands rose to her head. Even though her fingers were limp, she pressed the swelling flesh against her temples to try and stop herself from hearing the voices. They rose in a crescendo until she couldn’t hear anything but the babbling noise of thousands of voices shouting inside of her skull.
Bright sparks of color pricked at the edges of her vision as her breathing rapidly increased. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t hear. She could do nothing other than squeeze the prison that was her skull as she shivered on the cold stone floor.
The sweet scent of herbs curled into her nose and coiled inside of her skull. The smoke she inhaled banished the screams in a split second. Wren was stunned as silence inside of her mind seemed even louder than the cacophony of sound that had rendered her immobile.
Her hands slowly dropped away from her head. Her fingers had swollen even further. They were so drastically different that she wondered just how long she had been kneeling on the stones.
Once graceful fingers now looked like sausages attached to the blue tinged flesh of her hands. It was highly likely that her wrists had actually been broken or perhaps so bruised that she needed to see a healer.
More smoke was blown into her face, and the haze of pain and confusion cleared. Her hands remained in the same sorry state, but she could not feel the angry throbbing anymore.
Dread made her stomach churn. She hadn’t eaten much today, but what little that was in Wren’s stomach threatened to exit her body via mouth. A deep breath expanded her lungs, and she tilted her head to look out of the bars.
A woman crouched there. A familiar woman with dark hair that looked like ink spilling down the length of her back. Wren had seen this woman at the warehouse.
“You,” Wren whispered.
The woman did not respond but smiled instead.
“Why am I here?”
The woman stood then and walked towards one of the glowing orbs in the corner of the room. She lifted the glass and brought it close to her mouth.
“Deactivate the portals. Our guest has found her way here.”
“Hardly a guest,” Wren muttered.
The chains around her wrists shifted. They curled tighter as though they were snakes who had sensed her nerves. Wren watched with morbid fascination until she gasped as the pain came rushing back.
“Can’t have that.”
The dress around the woman’s ankles shuddered as she walked towards Wren. The black fabric elongated her form and made her appear to stretch before Wren’s very eyes. She was a shadow, a darkness that was threatening to swallow her whole.
Wren liked to think she was a brave woman. She liked to think that in a time like this she would stand up to whomever was holding her captive. Or that she would escape and find her freedom.
But that was not what she
did. Instead, she squeezed her eyes shut as three bars melted into pools of iron at the woman’s feet.
She could hear the soft padding sound of movement and could feel the brush of air as darkness stooped down in front of her.
“Open your eyes.”
The words were whispered in front of her, but Wren felt as though they were sliding down the length of her spine. She gulped and opened her eyes.
Black fabric fluttered around a hand that was tipped in clawlike nails. Wren tried not to flinch when those fingernails trailed along the length of her jaw. They left indents in her skin, just barely holding back from puncturing her soft flesh.
The woman leaned closer and closer to her until Wren flinched backwards.
“What are you doing?” The words burst out of her chest.
The woman arched an eyebrow in response. “Doubtful anything you’ll like.”
Her claws dug deeper into Wren’s cheeks as she descended. Her jaw dropped farther than should be possible as her mouth covered Wren’s nose and lips.
In shock, she inhaled. But what she hadn’t expected was sickly sweet smoke to flood her nose and mouth. The more she breathed, the more she wanted to breathe. Her limbs began to feel heavy, and her eyes drooped even as her mind screamed for her to stay awake.
“That’s enough.” The voice was deep and commanding.
Wren lurched forward until her palms struck the stone floor. She desperately dragged clean air into her lungs, but the damage had been done. Whatever the woman had done to her had already worked it’s magic. Wren knew the taste of Juice better than most.
But she didn’t know what kind of Juice it was.
A man stepped forward, and the remainder of the bars melted onto the ground. He was a tall and imposing man, though thin in a deceiving way. Wren knew just how dangerous this person was.
“Malachi,” she whispered.
The full red lips curved into a smile as he bowed before her. “I’m afraid we did not make you very welcome. My full apologies for such mistreatment.”
