Beyond the Between

by Anna Webb

  Dead and limp.

  Just like Elisha’s body.

  Allyra tried to let go of the memory, but it clawed at her, pulling her in. A voice was speaking, a man’s voice, its tone somber and gray.

  “—their lives cut short violently. But we must take solace in the fact that Henry and Catherine Cairns leave behind a great legacy—their sons, my nephews. Thomas, Alexander, and Matthew. Every one of them powerfully Gifted. I know that they will not let Henry and Catherine’s deaths go unpunished.

  “Though sadness clouds our lives today, we must never let go of our hope and faith. Hope that this terrible event will be the catalyst that catapults the Gifted into action. Faith that it will usher in a new age of peace where none will ever live in fear of Revenants again.”

  The voice was familiar—forceful and charismatic, even when speaking of a subject shrouded in grief and sorrow. But Allyra struggled to place it.

  Finally, a small section of her vision swam into clarity—Alex. He was making his way up to the platform, flanked by two others, but they remained cloudy and unfocused to her. Alex’s face was pinched with pain and grief, his normally pale skin tinged with gray. He stepped onto the platform with his brothers. A complete and profound silence fell over the watching crowd.

  Power welled up from within Alex. Like a pebble rolling down a hill, picking up speed and force until it became an avalanche—his Gift exploded from him, more powerful then she imagined possible. It combined with his brothers’ Gifts, and they poured themselves into Fire that consumed their parents’ bodies, creating a funeral pyre that burned so brightly and fiercely that the heat of it scorched through the passing of time, burning the memory away.

  Finally, Allyra began to understand. Grief. She understood the power of grief and how it might drive someone to do desperate things.

  * * *

  The next time she was fully aware, Allyra was standing in a small room facing Jason, his dark eyes filled with concern, as he grasped her shoulders.

  Lost in the past, she’d missed Henri and Adriana’s bout against the Fifths from the Inferno College—June and Dinesh.

  “Who won?” she asked listlessly.

  “June and Dinesh.”

  “Henri and Adriana?” she asked desperately.

  “Both alive,” Jason said. “They conceded in time.”

  Allyra looked up sharply. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Jason took a deep breath, and he couldn’t quite meet Allyra’s searching eyes. “They’re both all right, but Henri’s back could be broken. She might never walk again.”

  She drew in a sharp breath, and it turned to ice within her, the freeze spreading through her lungs and into her veins until she felt numb. She allowed Jason to pull her into his arms, to wrap his magnificent warmth around her.

  “What is the point of all this?” she whispered.

  His head was bent low, and she could feel his warm, steady breathing in the crook of her neck.

  When he didn’t answer, she continued. “Pierre and Chi, and all the others lost in the Second Final. Elisha. And now Henri paralyzed. So many deaths and lives ruined. What is the point?”

  “I don’t know,” Jason said softly.

  Allyra took a shuddering breath and asked the same question she’d asked him during the Elemental Trials, in those last days before the Final Trial. “Why do you do it? What prize is worth the risk?”

  “Why do you?” Jason asked, reflecting her question back at her. “There’s no longer a threat of imprisonment, no threat against your life. Jamie isn’t here, so no one can hurt him either. So why are you giving it your all? No one would have given it a second thought if we’d failed in the First Final, yet you helped me and pushed us to finish. So, the question is, why are you still here, Allyra?”

  There were so many reasons. Her mind passed over her list.

  Her father.

  Emma.

  Pierre.

  Chi.

  Alex.

  So many reasons but none that she could put words to. Silence stretched between them.

  “We can walk away,” Jason said quietly. “Say the word, and I’ll leave with you right now.”

  Things had changed enough between them that she knew what it cost him to say those words. Perhaps he even meant them. She shook her head. “No, I’m not walking away from this. I intend to tear this house of brutality to the ground. I intend to make them pay.”

  Jason pulled back and smiled dangerously, his indigo eyes bright. “Embrace the Gift?”

  She nodded. “Who are we facing?”

  “Owen and Eric.”

  She smiled grimly, her Gift surging, filling her with untold power. “Let’s make them wish they’d lost that first round.”

  * * *

  Allyra tested the ground beneath her bare feet. The sun’s tropical heat had soaked into the black rock, making it uncomfortable to stand in one spot for any length of time. The ground was uneven, smooth in places and jagged in others. The evening light reflected from the black glass like a rainbow, finding beauty in the islands violent origins.

  Beautiful and deadly. The Combat Arena would punish any missteps severely. Allyra allowed the crowd’s baying to fade to silence and her vision to narrow until she saw nothing but Owen Fan and the path she would take to get to him.

  Like a distant echo, she heard Marcus’s call for them to begin. She took two quick leaps forward, then stopped, and waited. Every breath she took was steady and measured. The rhythm her heart beat out was calm. Allyra realized that she wasn’t nervous or afraid. She was just—ready.

  This was the strategy she and Jason had come up with together. There would be no running, no hiding, and no holding back. This fight would be their statement to the Council, the crowd, and the remaining Five Finals Competitors. They were here to win.

  Owen’s forward progress slowed at her sudden halt. There was a deliberate glint in his eyes as his gaze ran over her from head to toe. “Don’t be scared,” he said with slow malice. “I promise it won’t hurt—much.”

  She didn’t reply, because he wasn’t worth the words or the effort. Instead, she stared him down with undisguised revulsion.

  The smile on his face quickly twisted with anger, and he leaped at her. Time seemed to slow, pulling everything into perfect and brilliant focus. He was fast, but she was faster still. This was what she had trained for. With practiced ease, she twisted effortlessly to the side.

  And so, it began.

  Chapter 26 – Jamie

  He didn’t want to be here.

  The crowd screamed with a single voice, their lust for blood sending a bolt of pain throbbing through Jamie’s head. There was too little space and too many people. They pressed in close, and the heat of too many bodies combined with the humid heat of the tropical sun to make Jamie feel claustrophobic for the first time in his life.

  He tried to shift in his seat to make room for Pete as he pushed his way past, his arms full of an assortment of snacks—everything from popcorn to beer. The sight of it made Jamie feel more than a little sick. Like this was somehow less a brutal fight to the death than some cheap form of entertainment.

  Pete sat down and offered up his armful of food, handing over a box of popcorn to Eva and chocolates to Gemma. Jamie refused the food but downed a beer from a plastic cup in a single gulp, hoping that the alcohol might settle his nerves. He instantly regretted it when the foamy liquid turned on his empty stomach.

  “The bookies are going insane down there,” Pete said. “The odds on Allyra have shortened considerably. I think I might’ve missed the boat on taking a bet out on her winning.”

  “She was at a thousand to one odds when I took the bet on her,” Gemma said.

  “How much did you put down?” Pete asked.

  “Ten grand, I think,” Gemma replied off-handedly. “I can’t quite remember.”

  Jamie swallowed, but the saliva in his mouth felt thick, like melted chocolate that he couldn’t quite force down his
throat. Gemma might not act as entitled as some of the Gifted, but her casual comment showed just how little she understood about poverty in a country where ten grand could’ve fed an entire family for a few months. He glanced at Eva, and from the frozen expression on her face, he knew that the cavalier approach their wealthier friends took to money didn’t sit well with her either. Eva didn’t like to talk about her childhood, but he knew she’d been an orphan. Perhaps she’d even experienced poverty firsthand before discovering the privileged world of the Gifted and those who lived in it. In this, he and Eva were all too similar—they were Gifted but somehow didn’t quite fit into the mold.

  A sudden hush swept over the crowd, and Jamie lifted his eyes, trying to see what had caught their attention. The two Five Finals pairs who weren’t fighting in the first round were making their way up the stands to seating set aside for them. First to come into view were François and Xolani.

  Pete nudged Gemma. “Your brother looks confident,” he said with a grin.

  Gemma rolled her eyes. “That’s just his default setting anytime he’s with Xolani.”

  François and Xolani raised their hands to greet the crowd before taking their seats, and that tiny gesture seemed to fuel to crowd’s excitement, building it to fiery new heights.

  A few minutes passed, and then, without fanfare, Jason and Allyra appeared. They kept their eyes straight ahead while climbing the stairs up to their seats, and once there, they sat down without once acknowledging the crowd, seemingly in a world that contained only the two of them.

  “Well, they look friendlier than the last time I saw them,” Eva said cynically.

  “Given that the last time you saw them, they were trying to kill each other—anything would be friendlier,” Jamie said sarcastically.

  But Eva was right. Jamie could see the change in Allyra and Jason’s relationship. It was in the way Jason’s fingers brushed gently against Allyra’s waist as he stood aside to allow her to walk past him. It was in the slight smile she gave him in return.

  Watching them, Jamie felt a flash of jealousy that he had no right to feel anymore. Jason’s blond head was tilted toward Allyra’s dark one, and there was no denying that they made a handsome couple. Each one of them was beautiful, but together, they seemed to enhance each other. Tall and willowy, there was a magic that surrounded them, and next to the heavy bulk of François and Xolani, they appeared to be creatures from another world altogether.

  * * *

  The first couple bouts were everything Jamie had expected them to be—brutal, vicious, and utterly painful to watch. Trying to spare himself the horrors of the Arena, Jamie found his eyes drifting to Allyra and watching her reactions. In the time since discovering her Gift, Allyra seemed to have also perfected her ability to keep her emotions to herself. If it had been difficult to read her thoughts before, now it was nearly impossible. Beyond a swift widening of her eyes at the sight of Elisha’s lifeless body, Allyra’s face remained hard and expressionless.

  There was a break in the proceedings after the completion of the first round during which Marcus entered the Arena to perform the draw for the next round of fights. When Allyra and Jason were drawn against Owen and Eric, Jamie felt a wave of ice sweep through his veins. Eva glanced at him and took his hand, holding it tight. Jamie didn’t try to take it back, finding comfort in her touch.

  “She’ll be fine,” Eva whispered, “Jason might be a complete ass, but he’s deadlier than either Owen or Eric.”

  Eva was trying to be reassuring, but her words fell well short of the mark. Jamie’s chest seemed to collapse into itself as Allyra and Jason walked into the Arena.

  Once again, they didn’t acknowledge the crowd or their opponents, and when Marcus called a start to the fight, Allyra and Jason took a couple of steps forward and then stopped abruptly, waiting for Owen and Eric to come to them.

  “What are they doing?” Gemma muttered. “They should move—run or hide or something.”

  “Hiding didn’t work out so well for Elisha,” Pete said sardonically.

  Owen slowed his progress and started to prowl around Allyra, reminding Jamie of a hyena circling wounded prey. Owen shouted out a taunt to Allyra, but she didn’t bother to reply, her face a perfect picture of disdain. It only seemed to enrage Owen further.

  Owen rushed Allyra, but she stood her ground, and at the last second, she sidestepped lightly out of his way. Owen struggled to stop his forward momentum, reaching out to one of the columns for support. But Allyra didn’t push her advantage, simply waiting for Owen to right himself and turn back to her. But this time, when he looked at her, there was something new in his gaze, as if he finally recognized her for what she was—a worthy opponent.

  The fighting, once it started, was so fast it was hard to follow. Owen used every bit of his Inferno Gifted speed, but somehow, Allyra was just as fast, easily twisting and dancing away so that every one of Owen’s punches sliced through nothing but air. A small but dangerous smile had worked its way on to Allyra’s lips. It was a smile that seemed alien on her, and though Jamie tried to push it aside, a small voice in his head wondered if she might actually be enjoying herself.

  Allyra and Jason fought with clinical precision and practiced ease that did nothing to feed a crowd that was baying for more death and bloodshed. The fight was terrifyingly one sided. Jamie didn’t know if it was because Owen and Eric had fought once before and were tired. Or whether Allyra and Jason were just so much better. But the result was the same—the fight ended without any fuss and with a complete lack of excitement. It simply came to an end with Allyra and Jason walking from the Arena without so much as a backward glance, leaving Owen and Eric battered, bloody, and unconscious, but both still breathing and without any permanent damage.

  It had been a display of skill and strength. If Jason was ruthlessly deadly, Allyra had shown herself to be his equal in every way. Jamie tried to shake the memory of the smile on Allyra’s face as she punched Owen into unconsciousness, but it seemed to have been permanently engraved into his mind.

  “Shit…” Eva breathed out quietly. “That was—impressive.” She turned to Pete wide-eyed. “You should’ve taken the bet—I think the odds on Allyra might be shortening considerably even as we speak.”

  Pete shook his head in disbelief, seemingly at a loss for words. “I didn’t know Allyra had it in her,” he said finally, throwing a worried look at Jamie. Perhaps seeing the shocked expression on his face, Pete hurried to fill the ensuing silence. Turning to Gemma, he said, “Your brother might actually have some competition for the crown.”

  Gemma nodded and grinned quickly. “Well, he certainly deserves to be taken down a few pegs though his ego may be too huge to even see Allyra and Jason as actual competition.”

  The voices of his friends seemed to fade into the distance, and all that Jamie could see was Allyra slamming her fist, over and over, into Owen’s face while the smile on hers grew. What had The Five Finals turned her into?

  “Jamie!”

  The sound of his name being called out jerked Jamie back into the present. “Yes?” he replied.

  “Eva was asking what kind of training you put Allyra through over December,” Pete said. “And could you share it with us?”

  Jamie shook his head slowly, his eyes fixed on the dark tunnel through which Allyra had disappeared. “That wasn’t us,” he said slowly before snapping his eyes to Eva. “You know Jason—what is he turning her into?”

  Eva seemed reluctant to meet his eyes, and when she did finally, her own were filled with a horror that matched his own.

  “He’s turning her into a mirror of himself—a remorseless killer,” she said softly. “You need to stop her before it’s too late.”

  Chapter 27 – Allyra

  Numb. She felt numb.

  Allyra looked down at her hands. She seemed to be looking at them through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. They were covered in blood—Owen Fan’s blood. Her fingers were sticky with it, but she felt
it distantly, as one might feel within a poorly remembered dream.

  It didn’t seem real. None of it did.

  “Here,” Jason said, his voice echoing through her mind. Too loud and too bright.

  Jason set a glass bowl filled with water and ice in front of her. Her fog-filled mind didn’t know what to do with it.

  Numb. So numb.

  Jason looked at her carefully, and in a moment that seemed to stretch indefinitely, his sharp indigo eyes bored into her. Finally, he took her hands gently and submerged them in the icy water.

  Allyra let out a gasp as the cold hit her, shocking some of the numbness away. Suddenly, the horror of the fight became all too real. The water in the bowl stained red, washing the blood from her hands. It created swirls in the water, like ink painting beautiful and unknowable patterns. She flexed her fingers slowly, and a sharp pain flashed through them as fractured bones grated against each other. A reminder that it took significant force to beat a person into unconsciousness—more when the person was Gifted. She’d broken her hand punching against Owen’s face. The memory of it flashed through her mind—her knuckles splintering as his flesh gave way beneath her fist, wet and sticky with blood.

  “You did what you had to do,” Jason said deliberately. “You were amazing.”

  Bubbles of hysteria threatened to emerge. There had been nothing amazing about anything that had happened in the Arena today. Not the death and injury that others had wrought and certainly not anything she’d done. Owen and Eric had taken a life in the Arena, and she’d sought catharsis in dealing out pain to them. But all she felt was—nothing.

  What kind of monster felt nothing at all?

  Jason gripped her wrists, his fingers biting into her flesh. She blinked away a grimace of pain. “You’re hurting me,” she said slowly.

  “That’s my intention,” he replied, his voice measured and controlled.

  “Why?” Allyra asked, with equal control.

  “Because I want you to hear me.”