Our Dark Duet

by Victoria Schwab

  “Riley said there’s no autopsy yet, but there’s a pretty decent hole in his chest, and the heart is missing from the organ inventory. That part’s not public knowledge, of course.”

  “Wouldn’t want to scare anyone,” said Kate dryly as she scrolled down, looking for more details.

  She passed a brief mention of the explosion on Broad, and then her hand stopped, hovered over the next article, the familiar face staring up at her, blond hair curling into dark blue eyes.

  THE VILLAIN OF VERITY

  She held her breath, caught by the sudden blow of meeting her father’s unflinching gaze. His voice ground through her head.

  Katherine Olivia Harker.

  “Kate?” pressed Bea.

  She forced herself back to the coffee shop, the table, the Wardens’ waiting stares, and flicked her fingers so the page scrolled back up, the article vanishing.

  “We’ve been talking,” said Teo, “and Bea and I, we want to help.”

  “You are helping.”

  “You know what he means,” said Bea. “We could go with you. Provide backup.”

  “Yeah!” said Liam.

  “Not you,” said Teo and Bea at the same time.

  “Not any of you,” said Kate.

  “Look,” said Bea, leaning forward. “When this all started, it was a theory, right? But because of you we know it’s real, and it’s not going away, so maybe—”

  Kate lowered her voice. “You don’t know the first thing about hunting monsters.”

  “You could teach us,” said Teo.

  But the last thing Kate needed was more people to worry about, more blood on her hands. “Send me the location of the crime,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’ll check it out tonight.”

  The members of the FTF Council stood in the command center, talking over and through one other, their voices tangling in August’s ears.

  “Every person we take in is another mouth to feed, another body to clothe, another life to shelter.” Marcon brought his hand down on the table. “My allegiance is to the people we already have. The ones who chose to fight.”

  “We’re not forcing any of our troops across that Seam,” said Bennett, a younger member, “but the fact remains that what we’re doing now, it’s not enough.”

  “It’s too much,” argued another, Shia. “We’re running out of resources—”

  “This isn’t a war, it’s a siege—”

  “And if you would agree to attack instead of defend then maybe—”

  August stood silently against the wall, his head resting back against the map of the city. He might as well have been a picture; he wasn’t there to speak or even to listen. As far as he could tell, he was there only to be seen, to serve as a warning, a reminder.

  There is power in perception, observed Leo.

  Not Leo, he corrected himself. Not real. Only a voice. A memory.

  Not-Leo tsked.

  At the head of the table Henry Flynn said nothing. He looked . . . tired. Shadows permanently stained the hollows under his eyes. He’d always been slim, but recently he’d started edging toward gaunt.

  “We tried to take a fridge last night,” said Marcon. Fridge, that was what they called the buildings where Malchai and Fangs were keeping prisoners. Fridge—a place to store meat. “And we lost five soldiers. Five. For what? Northerners who didn’t give a damn about us until they had no choice. And people like Bennett and Paris who think—”

  “I may be blind but my ears work fine,” sniped the old woman across the table. The first time he’d met her she’d been dripping cigarette ash into her eggs in a house two blocks north of the Seam, but she looked right at home in her council chair. “And everyone knows my support for those across the Seam. Easy to say what you would have done if you were there, but you can’t fault them for wanting to live.”

  The quarrel started up again, the volume rising. August closed his eyes. The noise was . . . messy. The situation was messy. Humanity was messy. For the majority of his short life, he’d thought of people as either good or bad, clean or stained—the separation stark, the lines drawn in black and white—but the last six months had shown him a multitude of grays.

  He’d first caught a glimpse of it in Kate Harker, but he’d always thought of her as the exception, not the rule. Now everywhere he looked, he saw the divisions made by fear and loss, hope and regret, saw proud people asking for help, and those who’d already sacrificed determined to refuse it.

  The FTF was divided—not only the Council but the troops themselves. Tens of thousands of soldiers, and only a fraction of them willing to cross to the North.

  “We need to protect our own.”

  “We need to protect everyone.”

  “We’re buying time with lives.”

  “Have we gained any ground?”

  “August. What do you think?”

  He blinked, coming back to himself. What did he think? He thought he would rather be reading, rather be fighting, rather be doing anything than standing here listening to men and women talk about human lives as if they were nothing but numbers, odds, watching them reduce flesh and blood to marks on paper, X’s on a map.

  He fought the urge to say exactly that, searching instead for other truths.

  “Monsters,” he said slowly, “all want the same thing: to feed. They are united by that common goal, while you are all divided by your morals and your pride. What do I think? I think that if you cannot come together, you cannot win.”

  Silence fell across the room.

  Spoken like a leader, said Leo.

  A tired smile tugged at Henry’s mouth. “Thank you, August.” There was a warmth in his face, a warmth August had spent years learning to imitate, and even now his features tugged automatically into that shape, before he stopped himself, forced his face smooth.

  Shortly after, Henry gave his marching orders and the room disbanded. Finally free, August slipped out.

  Across the hall was the surveillance room where Ilsa stood before a bank of monitors, her strawberry hair haloed by the screens as light and shadow played across her skin, causing the stars on her shoulders to wink in and out.

  August slipped past her, and then past the comm center with Phillip at the board. His left arm rested on the table in a way that might have passed for natural if August hadn’t seen the damage himself—held Phillip’s thrashing body down on the medical counter as Henry tried to suture the shredded skin and muscle where the Corsai’s claws had raked down to bone.

  Phillip had learned to shoot with his other hand, was one of the too-few FTFs willing to fight across the Seam, but Harris wouldn’t let his old partner back onto his squad until he could take his friend in a fight. Today a bruise colored the hollow of his cheek, but he was getting close.

  August was nearly to the elevator when he heard Henry’s long stride catching up.

  “August,” said the man, falling in step beside him. “Take a walk with me.”

  The elevator doors opened and they both stepped in. When Henry punched the button for the second floor, August tensed. It was easy to forget that the Compound had once been an ordinary high-rise. The second floor housed the fitness facilities and ballrooms, all of which had been converted into training spaces for the new recruits.

  The doors opened onto a broad hall.

  Newly minted FTFs jogged past in rows of two, and August forced himself to straighten under their gaze.

  Through a door on his right, a huddle of children sat on the floor while an FTF captain spoke in a calm, even voice. There, in the middle of the group, was the little girl from the symphony hall, her face scrubbed clean, her eyes wide and sad and lost.

  “This way,” said Henry, holding open the ballroom door.

  The massive space beyond had been quartered into training areas, each one crowded with recruits. Some were being taught self-defense, while others knelt over disassembled weapons, and Henry’s wife, Emily, led a group of older conscripts through a hand-to-hand combat sequenc
e. Em matched her husband in height, but where he was fair and thin, she had dark skin and a fighter’s build. Her voice rang out, crisp and clean, as she called formations.

  August followed Henry onto the track that ringed the training space. They kept to the outer edge, but he still felt like he was being put on display.

  All around the hall, heads were turning, and he wanted to believe they were looking at Henry Flynn, the legendary head of the FTF, but even if their eyes were drawn first to Henry, it was August they lingered on.

  “Why are we doing this?” asked August.

  Henry smiled. It was one of those smiles August couldn’t parse, neither happy, exactly, nor sad. Neither guarded nor entirely open. One of those smiles that didn’t mean one thing, and usually meant a bit of everything. No matter how many hours August practiced, he would never be able to convey so much with only the curve of his lips.

  “I take it you mean this as in taking a lap, and not this as in the battle for North City.” Henry walked with his hands in his pockets, staring at his shoes. “I used to run,” he said, almost to himself. August could see it—Henry had the long, lean build that made motion seem natural. “I’d go out at dawn, burn off all that restless energy. Always felt better on my feet—”

  His chest hitched and he trailed off, coughing against the back of his hand.

  A single cough, but the sound was like a gunshot in August’s skull. For four years, he had lived with the static of distant gunfire in his head, an echo of his catalyst, a staccato noise filling every silence. But this single sound was worse. He slowed his step and held his breath, waiting to see if it would come again, counting, the way you counted seconds between lightning and thunder.

  Henry slowed and coughed a second time, softly, but deeper, as if something had come loose inside him, and as they reached a bench, he sank onto it, hands clasped between his knees. The two of them sat in silence, pretending it was natural, instead of an excuse for Henry to catch his breath.

  “Stupid cough,” he muttered, as if it were nothing, a nuisance, the relic of some protracted cold. But they both knew better, even if Henry couldn’t bring himself to say it, and August couldn’t bring himself to ask.

  Denial—that’s what it was called.

  The idea that if a thing went unsaid, it didn’t really exist, because words had power, words gave weight and shape and force, and the withholding of them could keep a thing from being real, could . . .

  He watched Henry watch the training hall.

  “FTF,” he mused when the coughing fit had passed. “I’ve always hated that name.”

  “Really?”

  “Names are powerful,” he said. “But a movement shouldn’t be built on, around, or for a single person. What happens when that person is gone? Does the movement stop existing? A legacy shouldn’t be a limitation.”

  August could feel Henry’s mind bending toward him, the way a flower bent toward the sun, the way mass bent toward a planet. He didn’t feel like a sun or a planet, but the fact was that he exerted more force on the things around him than they did on him. In his presence, people bent.

  “Why did you bring me here with you, Henry?”

  The man sighed, waving a hand at the new recruits. “Sight is an important thing, August. Without it, our minds invent, and the things they invent are almost always worse than the truth. It’s important that they see us. See you. It’s important that they know you’re on their side.”

  August frowned. “The first thing they see me do is kill.”

  Henry nodded. “That’s why the next thing you do matters so much. And the next, and the next. You’re not human, August, and you never will be. But you’re not a monster, either. Why do you think I chose you to lead the FTF?”

  “Because I killed Leo?” he ventured darkly.

  A shadow crossed Henry’s face. “Because it haunts you.” He tapped August’s chest, right over the heart. “Because you care.”

  August had nothing to say to that. He was relieved when Henry finally freed him from the track, from the prying eyes, the fearful looks. He slipped back into the hallway, and headed for the elevator.

  “Hey, Freddie!”

  August turned and saw Colin Stevenson in FTF fatigues. He was struck by a split second of memory—an ill-fitting uniform, a cafeteria table, an arm around his shoulders. The brief illusion of a normal life.

  “That’s not my real name,” he said.

  Colin gaped at him. “Are you serious?” He clutched his chest. “I feel so betrayed.”

  It took August an instant to catch on: sarcasm. “How’s training?”

  Colin gestured down at himself. “As you can see, it’s doing wonders for my physique.”

  August actually smiled. The last six months had stretched him into a new shape, but Colin hadn’t grown an inch.

  The boy’s family had been found on a rescue mission in the yellow zone during those first weeks. They’d been cornered by a pair of Malchai content to wear them down or starve them out. August himself had been on the extraction team, which was quite a shock to Colin, who’d known him only as Frederick Gallagher, quiet sophomore transfer student, but in Colin’s words, “I guess the whole saving thing kind of clears the slate.”

  The weird thing was, Colin didn’t treat him differently, now that he knew. He didn’t cower or startle whenever August entered a room, didn’t look at him as if he were anyone—anything—but who—what—he’d been.

  But Colin hadn’t seen him fight a Malchai or reap a sinner’s soul, hadn’t seen him do anything monstrous.

  Then again, knowing Colin, he’d probably say it looked “badass” or “cool.” Humans were strange and unpredictable.

  “Mr. Stevenson,” called one of the squad leaders. “Back to your training circle.”

  Colin gave an exaggerated groan. “They make us do sit-ups, Freddie. I hate sit-ups. Hated them at Colton, hate them here.” He started walking backward. “Hey, some of us are meeting in the lobby for cards. You in?”

  You in? Two small words that shook something loose in August, that almost made him forget—

  But then his comm buzzed, and he remembered who he was.

  What he was.

  Alpha.

  “I can’t,” he said. “I work Night Squad.”

  “Cool, cool.”

  “Mr. Stevenson,” called the captain. “I’m adding sit-ups for every second you’re late.”

  Colin started jogging off. “Once they give me the all clear, I’m signing up. Maybe we’ll end up on the same team.”

  August’s spirits fell. He tried to imagine Colin—kind, short, bright Colin—hunting monsters beside him in the dark, but instead he saw the boy lying on the pavement, warm eyes open, his throat torn out.

  August had never belonged in Colin’s world, and Colin didn’t belong in his, and he would do whatever it took to keep him out.

  Corsai.

  Kate’s pen scratched across the paper.

  Malchai.

  Letter by letter, square by square.

  Sunai.

  She ignored the puzzle’s clues—six down, “a spicy pepper,” four across, “the largest supercity”—just killing time. Now and then her attention flicked up from the crossword and through the bookstore windows to the crime scene across the street, the alley roped off with yellow tape.

  There had been a cop out there earlier, and then a few photographers lurking around to get a shot, but now that dusk had given way to dark, the scene had emptied out. Not much to see with the body carted off and the business closed.

  Kate abandoned the crossword and stepped out into the night, fitting the wireless bud into her ear. She tapped her phone and silence gave way to voices talking over each other.

  “Not what I’m saying—”

  “—strike you as weird?”

  “Mercury in retrograde or something—”

  Kate cleared her throat. “Hey guys,” she said, “reporting for duty.”

  She was met by a swel
l of “hey” and “what’s up?” and “it sounds cool when she says it.”

  “Any updates?” she asked, setting off down the block.

  “No new leads,” said Teo over the continuous tap of fingers on a keyboard.

  Kate crossed the street, heading toward the crime-scene tape. “Square one, then,” she said, ducking under the yellow line. She skirted the markers, trying to recreate the scene in her mind. Where had the monster come from? Where would it go next?

  “You think it’ll come back?” asked Liam.

  Kate crouched, fingers hovering over the shadow of a bloodstain. “These monsters aren’t all that bright. This one found a meal. No reason it won’t come back looking for another.”

  She pulled a UV light from her back pocket. As she switched it on, the bloodstain beneath her turned vivid blue against the pavement. So did a trail. It led away like bread crumbs, clusters of dry drops where the blood had dripped from the monster’s taloned hands. Kate straightened, following the trail down the alley.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she whispered. “Nice juicy human heart.”

  “Not funny, Kate,” said Riley.

  But the blue dots had already vanished, the trail gone cold. Kate sighed and pocketed the light. It had taken her two weeks to find the last pair of monsters, with three bodies to go on. But the night was young, and she had to start somewhere.

  “Time to widen the net,” she said.

  “Already on it,” answered Bea as the furious sound of typing filled Kate’s earpiece and the Wardens did what the Wardens did best: hack street cameras across the city.

  “Let’s start with a quarter-mile radius.”

  “I’ve got eyes on First through Third over to Clement.”

  “Fourth through Ninth as high as Bradley.”

  “Hey, little lady.”

  The voice came from behind her, its edges slurred. Kate rolled her eyes and turned to find a man leering, his eyes glassy as they roved across her. Because of course, monsters weren’t the only thing she had to worry about. “Excuse me?”

  “Kick his ass,” offered Bea.

  “Kate,” warned Riley.

  “Shouldn’t be out all alone.” The man swayed a little. “Not safe.”