The Outcasts

by Alexa Black

  “No,” Kara said. “One cannot destroy a soul.”

  The Outcast stopped. The man stood for a long moment, his back shot through with void, the winds moving through him. Then he began to walk, his movements slow and laborious, as he fought against the wind. Where he passed, embers glowed. The Outcast behind him followed with slow flaps of his wing shadows.

  “What happens now?” asked Sue.

  The humans stopped again. Sue closed her eyes. She’d seen enough.

  “They march on. Toward the obelisk.”

  “And what happens to them there?”

  Kara shook her head. “I will not take you inside.”

  Dread crept through Sue again, freezing her veins. “More of the same?”

  Kara nodded. “Yes. More of the same. Only—”

  “Only worse. I get it. But what about after that? What happens when they’re done being punished?” Sue shivered. The old religion had said you burned forever. Was that what happened to these people? Over and over and over again?

  Kara said nothing.

  “What happens after?”

  “That is not our concern.”

  “Kara—”

  Kara sighed and held up a hand for silence. “I mean only that it depends on the will of the One.” She growled. “A will we do not know, and have no reason to trust.”

  “But…” Sue trailed off. She couldn’t bring herself to keep pushing.

  “Humans were always beloved by the One,” Kara said after a moment.

  That wasn’t an answer. But it would have to be enough. “And there are a lot of these things?” Sue pointed at one of the obelisks. “These towers, or whatever they are? Where your people punish the damned?”

  Kara nodded again. “There are many on the surface. That was our task: to maintain them. To mete out the punishment the humans have earned.”

  “Your task?”

  “That is what all Outcasts were given to do when we were banished here.”

  “All of you?”

  “Yes.”

  Sue stared at Kara, at the strange woman with the stone skin, the horns, the claws, the fangs, the fiery eyes and glowing scars. She’d grown used to her, used to it all. She’d liked it, even. A monster for a bodyguard and a titan for a bedmate.

  That was fine. That was all fine. But this? She should have known it, should have guessed it. Or maybe she had guessed it and just hadn’t wanted to think about it, not when Kara’s scars looked like gold and her claws felt like freedom.

  What did those claws feel like to the people she was supposed to use them on? Sue bit her lip hard enough to hurt, then opened her mouth and exhaled. “All the Outcasts punish humans. Even you.”

  “Yes,” Kara said again and lowered her head. “Even me.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Take me home,” Sue said. “Now.”

  “Very well.” Kara tapped at the controls again and their craft zoomed into the air, too fast. Like Kara wanted to get out of here as badly as Sue did.

  They rocketed toward a bay in one of the outer Rings. As before, Sue stared at the controls, the readouts, the scrolling glyphs. But before, she’d felt a pilot’s yearning. Now, she forced herself to focus on them, trying to ground herself. I’m a pilot. Even if all I do is fly a bus.

  She took deep breaths, willing away what she’d seen and heard. Even after their craft had docked, she kept it up, inhaling and exhaling as slowly as she could.

  Kara walked in front of her as always, a tantalizing shadow. But every time she looked over at the sway of her hips, she also saw a pair of milky, hazel eyes.

  The door of Kara’s apartment opened. Sue walked in, her steps robotic. “Leave,” she said.

  “This place is my home.”

  “I need to be alone. I need to think about what I saw down there.” I need to be away from you.

  Kara looked away. “I should never have showed them to you.”

  “That isn’t the problem.”

  Except that it was. Except that now her mind filled with images of a still and bleeding boy, the dark eyes she remembered replaced with the blank, shifting eyes of the damned.

  “Please, just leave me alone, Kara. Leave me be. This is about me and my people. Not you.”

  “Sue, I can’t do that. I chose to protect you.” She looked down. “And I failed. I can’t leave you alone now.”

  “I’m stranded here, Kara. Stuck. In a place where my people are doomed. Are tortured.” The words poured out of Sue before she could stop them. “The last thing I want right now is to be around one of the people who does it!”

  “We didn’t choose that. It was a decree.”

  “But you obeyed it. Your people did it. You did it.”

  “I’ve done many things, Sue Jones. Some of them I regret.” She looked down. “Like this one.”

  Anger flared through Sue. She put her hands on her hips, knew she must look ridiculous, wasn’t sure she cared. “You don’t regret war.”

  Kara’s head snapped up. Fiery light blazed between her clenched fangs. “I don’t regret fighting for my people. I don’t regret protecting them, as I tried to protect you. But I do regret war.”

  Protecting them? Sue knew Kara wanted to protect her, like Sue might protect a dog or cat or exotic creature from one of the colonies. But what was this? “That’s not what you said to me before.”

  “You’re right. It isn’t. But it’s true, all the same.”

  Sue hung her head. What could she say to that? And yet…

  And yet she glanced over at Kara’s hands and imagined them wrapped around the handle of a whip. A whip that tore people away. A whip that erased them.

  “I need time,” Sue said. “Time to think. Time to rest.”

  Kara huffed. “Very well.” She looked around. “Would you like the bedroom to yourself?”

  Sue shook her head. She wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight, not with those eyes boring into her every time she tried to close her eyes.

  You should let Kara stay with you. Just for that, if nothing else.

  “Go ahead,” Kara said. “Sleep inside. I can rest here.”

  Sue shook her head again, violently this time. “The couch in here is fine.”

  Kara sighed. “Very well,” she said again. She strode over to the door without sparing another look at Sue.

  But when the doors slid open, she turned back. “You’ll find the blue foodstuff in the cooling cupboard. It might soothe you.”

  “Thanks,” Sue returned, her voice flat.

  * * *

  Just like she expected, Sue didn’t sleep. She stayed awake, her heart beating too fast, her eyes staring at the light panels in the ceiling. She tried to study them, count them, catalog their patterns. But blood and eyes and still faces kept invading her vision. Her bad leg throbbed.

  Worse even than the jumble of memories was Kara’s face, floating among them. In Sue’s mind’s eye, Kara tilted her head back and laughed, a horrible cackle from a burning throat.

  They’re demons. They torture humans. It’s what they do.

  What exactly were you expecting?

  Sue tossed and turned on the little cot. Her stomach growled. She hadn’t looked in the fridge—cooling cupboard, some part of her mind reminded her, a part that sounded a lot like Kara—for the bowl of blue liquid, even though she felt hungry for it.

  It’s what they do. And Kara does it too.

  And yet Kara had wanted to protect her. Had talked like the war was about protecting the other Outcasts.

  Thinking about that was the worst part. She missed Kara. She wanted Kara with her now.

  She slid a hand down her inner thigh, looking for the spot where Kara had bit her. The skin felt soft, too soft, too vulnerable.

  She slipped her hand over the mark, the grooved scab rough under her fingers. A day ago, she’d welcomed it, a fierce warrior’s mark on her flesh. Now it seemed harsh, violent. The mark of a cruel creature, the kind that wouldn’t change.

 
That’s not fair. You told her you forgave her.

  And Sue had touched her, too. She held out her hand and looked at it, remembering the thick ambrosia of Kara’s wetness. Kara had trusted Sue. Had let Sue inside her. A mere mortal she’d called a pet.

  Sue remembered the warmth, the eagerness. The flesh, not as soft as a human’s, but open, warm, inviting.

  The fangs, nibbling at her lip. Breaking the skin, in a burst of sensation that had stung but hadn’t hurt.

  It had felt good. Not frightening. Not then.

  You didn’t tell her you forgave her. You told her there was nothing to forgive.

  Sue tossed and turned again on the sofa. It felt cramped, constraining, uncomfortable. She welcomed the discomfort. It fit how she felt now.

  That was about war. That was about a rebellion. This is about torture. How can I forgive that?

  And yet her mind flashed back to the shuffling, color-drained humans. Their sluggish movements and their pupilless eyes had made them look empty, unthinking. Like they walked the sands because they had to. Because the same curse that kept the Outcasts here brought them there.

  But they’d also raised their hands above their heads and laced them together. Like a ritual.

  Like consent.

  Could she blame the Outcasts for something these humans had asked for? Could she blame Kara for giving it to them?

  And yet, imagining one of those Outcasts with Kara’s golden eyes made her heave. She’d been okay with it before. Or so she’d thought. But now…

  She closed her eyes and waited for morning, knowing sleep wouldn’t come tonight.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sue slipped out of the apartment and wrapped her clothes around herself. If anyone could see her now, they’d call her frightened. They’d assume she was shaking from nerves, a fragile little beast who couldn’t calm herself.

  But she was calm now. Still inside. More still than she thought she’d be, fear and joy both gone, somewhere light years away from where she belonged. And Kara wouldn’t like what she’d chosen to do.

  Kara had good reasons not to like it. It would probably get Sue hurt, or killed. Or at the very least dragged back to Kara in some stranger’s claws. She could hear the lecture now: Your pet is a damned fool, warrior. Take it home and keep it on a shorter leash, for its own protection.

  But something felt right about this, something she could never explain to Kara or to some overbearing Outcast who wanted to protect the silly human. She’d made a choice, even if it was a stupid one. Starfighter pilots did those kinds of things. Maybe not such reckless things. But they made choices and stood by them, even if they seemed risky or impossible.

  And Sue would do that now.

  She knew the way to the hangar. Her feet remembered it. She was a pilot, and always would be. Even if all she flew was a spacebus.

  She slipped down the corridors, not even trying to hide. There would be cameras watching her anyway. And curious Outcasts. She could see one already, turning toward her, orange eyes bright.

  “Human. What are you doing here without one of us to escort you?”

  Sue puffed out her chest, trying to look so sure of herself the woman wouldn’t ask any questions. “I don’t need an escort.”

  “You belong to Kara, don’t you?”

  Sue winced. “She sent me to check on her craft. We flew it yesterday and some sand got in the, uh—” She tried her best to mimic one of the words she’d heard Kara use for some delicate part.

  The woman didn’t help. “And you think you could repair it? You aren’t one of us. You haven’t been here long enough to learn how our ships work.”

  Shit. “Probably not. But that’s the only chance I have of going home.”

  “Going home?”

  “I don’t belong here. I’m a living human, not a dead one. And I haven’t done the things that make you…” Sue trailed off.

  The woman shook her head. “I could help you repair it, if that really is the only problem. But what makes you think you could find your way home? Or are you hoping I’ll take you?” She snorted, nostrils flaring. “I don’t mind humans, but I’m not flying through a wormhole for one.”

  Dammit.

  “She’s not looking for Kara’s ship.”

  Sue turned. She knew that voice.

  Dehek swaggered toward them, his wing shadows curling around him. “She’s looking for her own ship.”

  “What are you doing here?” The Outcast woman said it, not Sue. Sue was too shocked to say anything.

  “Nothing, Tel.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I heard Kara’s human snuck out, and I couldn’t resist seeing it for myself.”

  He sidled up to them, shadows swishing around him, red streaks bright against his ash-pale skin.

  “But it’s not just about sneaking out, is it?”

  Sue glowered up at Dehek. Glaring at a demon was easier than she thought it would be. “It’s none of your business why I came here.”

  He turned away from her and looked at Tel. “Like I said, she’s not looking for Kara’s ship.”

  “Too afraid to say that to my face, Dehek?”

  It wasn’t courage that made Sue goad him. Or at least, it didn’t feel like courage. It felt like anger, and recklessness, and being a stranger in a strange land who was probably never going home. It was something much more bitter, and Sue wasn’t sure if she loved it or hated it. But she did wish Dehek would lean in closer so that she could spit in his face.

  “Your wreck will kill you if you get into it, human.” Tel said it, not Dehek, and Sue felt almost disappointed. “We don’t have the materials to repair it, and even if we did it wouldn’t last long against the winds.”

  “That’s all right,” purred Dehek. “I can take her where she wants to go.”

  Tel put her hands on her hips. “You’re a young fool, not a pilot.”

  “But I can fly a ship.”

  “Through a wormhole? You haven’t even learned where to find them yet.”

  Dehek laughed. “Who said anything about a wormhole?”

  Sue froze. “This is about me going home.”

  “Is it?”

  “You can’t do that, Dehek,” Tel said again. “You’re no pilot.”

  “She doesn’t want to go home.” He sidled closer to Sue. His shadows settled over her and she flinched away. “Do you, little live one?”

  “I…” Sue stammered, her throat parched.

  “You want to go down there, don’t you?”

  Words froze in Sue’s throat. She wanted to shake her head but couldn’t manage it. “Kara took me already,” she forced herself to say.

  “Kara took you. But that doesn’t tell you all you need to know, does it?”

  “Kara.” She whispered the name.

  I chose to protect you.

  Sue shook her head. The last thing she wanted right now was Kara in it.

  “Kara is this human’s owner,” Tel said. Sue bit back a curse. Don’t make this harder than it already is. Please.

  Dehek purred. “Yes. And all she wants right now is to take a little trip to the surface. Without Kara.”

  “That is suicide.” Tel’s eyes flickered. Sue recognized it as worry.

  “No. Just—”

  “Absolution,” Sue finished for him.

  “That is insane!” Tel growled. “You are a living human, and our weapons are designed to be used on the dead.”

  “I know.” Sue bit her lip to keep it from quivering. “But your people could have killed me already, and you didn’t. You don’t like me much, I know that. But you don’t want me dead. You just want me to pay, like the others do.”

  Dehek smiled.

  “And I have things to pay for, just like anyone else.”

  “So you will let this child take you.”

  Sue glanced from Dehek to Tel and back again. “If he’s willing to take me, yes. If you’re willing to take me, I’ll go with you instead.”

&n
bsp; “With me?”

  Dehek snickered. “She doesn’t like me much. But she knows she needs this.”

  “She knows you are a fool.”

  She knows she needs this. Was that true? Or were those the words of a young demon, made seductive by Sue’s own despair?

  “I want to go,” Sue said at last. “I don’t want to die, but I want to see for myself.”

  Dehek grinned, smug.

  “Kara told me that no Outcast is born innocent. That every one of you is born without wings, because of what the first ones did.”

  “Because of our rebellion, yes.” Tel’s voice was sharp, the beast-burr of her growl still there among the echoes.

  “No human is innocent either.” Or at least, I’m not.

  “And you want your own punishment, don’t you?” Dehek purred, his voice smooth as an incubus.

  “Maybe I do,” Sue said, thinking of the boy, thinking of Kara, thinking of herself, ready to hop into a craft with Dehek just to purge herself of it.

  I chose to protect you, said a voice in her head again. And I failed.

  “You feel safe with Dehek?” Tel asked, the light in her eyes flickering again.

  “Of course not. I’m a human, not an idiot.”

  “Well, then.”

  “But you won’t take me, will you?”

  “I want no part of this, human. If you want to punish yourself, do it your own way.”

  “Then I’m going with him.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Dehek didn’t threaten her.

  Dehek didn’t do much of anything but keep his eyes on the destination and his claws skating over the controls. He didn’t even look at Sue. But he did smirk, the line between his lips a thin thread of red flame.

  Sue felt grateful for it. She didn’t think she could endure much more of his taunting. She’d get mad, and she didn’t want anger. Not right now. Not when she’d decided she deserved his taunting anyway.

  There’s nothing to forgive. She remembered her own words, the fierce kiss she’d given Kara. She could imagine Kara returning it now.

  And yet, she’d asked Kara for the truth and shunned her when she’d found it. Because she couldn’t get her memories out of her head. Maybe this would help.