by Dany Stone
It is never my own face anymore.
Always choose the protection that comes from another’s skin.
Footsteps sound on the tile behind me, and I turn back, away from the pool, away from the haunting reflection. At first glance, silhouetted in the shadows, I think the newcomer is Aiden and I pull myself up to greet him. Running through the prepared speech in my head.
The newcomer steps forward.
Out of shadow.
And I find that it is Ki looking down at me.
A Ki that I have seen only once before.
So furious he is a stranger.
His every move is punctuated with rage, his gaze eaten alive with bitterness and the hard edge of revenge. I stumble up to my feet, but find I cannot move forward, can’t even move away.
Can only stand there teetering on the edge of the pool.
Staring up at him.
“Why would you stay here? When you know how dangerous it is?” Heavy hands slam into my shoulders, send me slipping back toward the water. But I do not fall.
In this moment, I do not fall.
“How could you do this?” He strikes me again, blows as desperate as they are fierce. Blows I don’t even try to fight back against.
Simply close myself behind the protective walls of my heart and pull myself free of this moment.
And all at once I am floating back. Out into nothingness, back over the pool, back over the courtyard, out of sunlight and into the fanged silhouette of shadows. Shadows reaching out, pulling me against the alley wall where Mikah died.
The polluted lights of the Yamacraw wash over Kres’ face.
Warping, changing, transforming him out of himself, a blackened mask that is not human at all. Not a face I recognize. And yet it is Ki. Surely it is Ki.
For no one else would know what I hear him asking.
No one.
“Did you tell them why?” His voice changes. Deepens. Altered beyond any human timbre. “All the reasons your mother wanted you dead?”
Why she wanted. Me. Dead.
The whimper rises low in my throat. Rising.
Choking through me.
The way my mother’s hands choked around my neck.
The night she told me she hated me.
The night everything erupted.
The night that the ultimatums began.
“You ruined all my chances for a normal life.”
Because of my cursed powers.
My illegal magic.
“You know what she would have done to you,” Ki whispers. Accusation striking regret. “That is why you struck. Isn’t it. Because the things she said. Everything she knew.”
No. No. No.
Not everything she knew.
All the implications, all the lies—
I know I am looking up, up at Ki, and yet I no longer see him at all. Another face slipping over his, the one I most do not want to face —do not want to forget— morphing in place like a mask.
Dark eyes searing through me with fury.
Betrayal.
Searing me with everything I want to reach back through the portal of time and set to rights.
Everything it is too late to correct.
Too late to find my way back.
Too late—
Ki’s face interposes back into my vision, dissolving the sudden regret in those eyes. His hand suspended mid-blow.
Why she wanted you dead wanted you dead—
“Lux.” His voice changes again. Rising. Then all at once Ki falls back beyond me, dissolving into mist until I cannot see him at all. Can only hear him.
Calling my name with an urgency that punctures through my subconscious. Pulling me back.
As I realize the voice is coming somewhere from beyond my dream.
KI
The pain in her eyes sends nausea rising up my throat.
You hurt her.
I only intended to make her more vulnerable, more receptive.
But now I wouldn’t blame her if she cut me out or refused to acknowledge me.
I watch her pace by the edge of the pool, her slender figure a shadow against light.
In the dream, I reach for her.
A long moment of hesitation.
Before she finally turns toward me.
LUX
Ki’s eyes are fixed on my face, smiling in a way I haven’t seen in far too long. “Lux.” He whispers my name. Almost like it’s a precious thing.
My heart stirs with longing and I find myself reaching for him. My fingers brush his jaw and up his face. And I find that I remember every contour, the feel of his skin against mine.
Ki grabs my fingers. “Don’t make me hungry for something you can’t feed me.”
“Who says I can’t?” I ask. Smirking.
He stares into my face without answering
My stomach knots, and I pull my hand away.
Only to find his arm wrapping around my shoulder, pulling me against him.
“Hear my heartbeat?” He cups my face and gently draws me back against his chest. “Just focus on that.”
Small sounds break through the barrier, shards breaking into my consciousness. The rhythm of Ki’s breathing. The steady thump of his heart in my ears. His thumb brushing my palm.
This is love.
This is where I belong.
But where I never can be in real life.
“Where are you, Lux? Talk to me.”
“I’m here. With you.” In his arms. And yet – I know it is a lie. I’m in the dark, somewhere beyond this pool
I start to pull myself up, out of his hug, but his grip holds firm.
“I’m not foolish, Lux. I know this is a dream. But, somehow—” His grip tightens. “I feel like you’re here with me. Listening.”
“I am listening,” I say. I’m smiling, but my heart aches like I’m pressed under a weight of stones.
Something is wrong.
He looks down at his hand, realizes he’s holding me, but he’s slow to move away. His fingers slide away one by one, and I’m left with skin tingling with cold.
Ki strides to the edge of the roof.
“I shouldn’t be here.” The lines of his back are straight, stiff. Cutting me out.
“You want to see me, Ki.” I follow him to the edge of the roof. A hot Kid scorches between us until I’m no longer cold. “Don’t walk away.” I catch his arm. “Turn. Look at me.”
His shoulders hunch. Resisting my touch. “I don’t know what you’re up to,” he says. “Maybe I don’t want to know.”
“Ki –”
“I should just walk away. But I can’t. Not from you.”
That’s when he turns, turns with his arms outstretched, and I find myself moving forward, into his arms. It’s only a step. But it changes everything.
His arms close around me, his face tilted toward mine. And then I’m falling. Falling into the beautiful dark pools of his eyes.
His trusting, trusting eyes.
I wrap my arms around him until we’re face to face. Eye to eye. Lip to lip. Holding each other close like we can protect each other. Like working together will be the solution.
And not the destruction of everyone we love.
This is right. I scream at the voice of reason in my head.
This is where we should be.
Forget the rest of the world. The rest of the galaxy.
This is where we need to be.
Above us, stars dance in their reflection in the deck’s dome, sprinkling their light across us. We are stars, part of the night, and our love is just as beautiful. He hugs me tighter, and this time I don’t push him away. Emotion stirs between us. Feather-soft. A beautiful weakness that leaves me aching.
I lean against his shoulder, breathing in his warmth. “I’ve missed you, Ki my Ki.”
More than you’ll ever know.
He pulls back slightly and something about his smile is suddenly strained. “Lux. What’s over is over. We don’t need to revisit it.”
>
I lean in close, my face inches from his. “Did you ever try to find out where I went?”
He whispers, “All the time.” His lips brush my cheek with each word. Drawing closer to my lips.
His fingers pressed into the back of my neck as he pulls me in for a kiss.
Electricity kicks between us.
A kiss that goes on for an eternity.
And yet isn’t long enough.
His lips, his body, his heart – I want it all.
Need him like he is my last source of oxygen in a dying planet.
“Don’t leave me,” I whisper against his lips and he tugs me even closer.
“Never.” His hands move up my shirt, caressing me.
Something sparks between us.
A lightning flash like – a shield? A shadow? I draw back, breaking the kiss, and Ki’s hands tighten, desperate to pull me back.
“Lux—”
“Did you see that?”
He kisses my neck and I wonder if he’s avoiding eye contact. “You’re the only thing I want to see.” He kisses his way up to my jawline, but the pleasure I felt only moments earlier is gone.
A strange emptiness taking possession of my every sensation.
“Ki.” I grip his forearms. “Something is wrong. We need to get out of here.”
His mouth opens seconds before his face is cut away, a wave of static cutting between us.
Slicing him away like he is only a projection.
Not here with me at all.
What in hell—
I grab for his arm, but that too is dissolving. His body dividing like dust, disappearing into the atmosphere. Too fast for me to blink, to protest, to process.
I can only watch as Ki dissolves into shadow.
And then the pool – the trees – the sky itself – all are gone.
The dust around me rising.
Shrouding my entire world in a cascade of ash and dying light.
And then there is nothing left to see at all.
As I stand there alone.
Twenty-Three
KI
My mind swims with her stolen memories.
Kisses with Aiden.
Wet dreams of Aiden.
Always stupid fucking Aiden wherever I skip through memory.
I hate the very sight of his face.
“Excellent work.” Blade adjusts the cords running from my temple. His orderlies swarm around us at all sides, keeping the cords at a perfect angle to prevent them from pulling loose.
We can’t afford to lose a single memory.
And she can?
Shit. Nothing like bombarding me with my own guilt.
The orderlies circle around me as we reach the transfer chair, cords extended, and I duck through. Head pounding with the constant cycle of memories, Lux’s voice on endless loop in my head.
I never knew that having her so close could hurt so much.
I glance at Blade as I take a seat. Know I shouldn’t ask, but –
“He won’t hurt her in interrogation, will he?”
Blade focuses on the horoscope starlighting across the wall behind me. “It hardly matters, now that we have the information we need.”
Hardly matters?
We’re talking about Lux here.
Her pain.
The chance of her dying in HAVOC, stretched to her limits of pain under the hands of some sadistic angel.
How can he be so careless?
I close my eyes to prevent my anger from spilling out. My emotion hidden in the chaos of movement all around me.
You’re as expendable as she is.
Convenient only when you’re a vessel.
OK, I’m really starting to hate the voices in my head. One life’s memories are bad enough. I don’t need Lux’s emotions and guilt and, well, magic, crowding me.
I need her out of my head.
I close my eyes as Blade connects the cords to the horoscope.
And the memory transfer begins.
Twenty-Four
LUX
I cease to breathe when I wake up in the tube. My eyes are open, but I no longer see the world.
Instead I am part of the galaxy.
So far beyond that I’m no longer within reach.
“This will only take a few minutes,” the woman says from the seat beside me. “Focus and relax as we monitor your vitals.”
Dr. Laveau.
They found her – and now she has found me.
The coldness in my veins turns to ice.
“Focus on the screen.” A series of lights replace the woman. But I still see her face, a haunting in my mind’s eye.
If Laveau was found – then what happened to Ias? Her entire mission during the heist was to keep the doctor out of sight in the warehouse.
I’m not the only one Aiden betrayed with his abandonment.
I find a breath.
The trembling increases.
“Eyes on the lights, Lux,” Laveau whispers. “This will hurt only for a moment.”
I am swimming in a sea of stars. Entranced in light and beauty —- all the things I crave.
And yet, after today, I will crave them no longer.
No longer will need them.
I reach up and pull down a handful of stars. They shrink until they fit into my palms, sharp edges softening into a tickle. They’re only stars, but it feels like I’m holding all the planets of a universe.
You will be free.
Dead, but free.
I open my hands and watch the stars dissolve into the glittering expanse. Still looking upward when the light enters my head, slicing into my consciousness. Searching, probing, into all I am.
All I will be.
As the countdown to the end of my existence begins.
Aiden once told me that life was a scar, and, like all scars, it too would fade. But now, under the lights, under the burn, I wonder.
Because everything he ever told me was a lie.
I watch the needle enter my skin, a faint bubble of red rising beneath the surface. A quick prick. Another dot of blood. Laveau is seated in front of me, her face blank as an empty mirror as she crisscrosses my arm with dots. My blood spots the four streaks on her hands, the marks of her level and achievements.
“I suppose I should thank you.” She doesn’t bother to look at me. Her voice an ethereal whisper that seems to come from far, far away. “You did an excellent job of walking into our plan.”
Our plan?
The unease inside me explodes into alarm.
I try to pull myself up, but the straps hold firm.
Find myself staring down at the needle as it enters my skin again and again.
Drawing out the faintest remainders of magic dust that still exists in me.
Making sure I don’t have even a weak magic to hold to.
She raises her gaze for just a moment and laughs aloud when she sees my expression. “Don’t worry. I won’t give away your little secret.”
Secret?
She can’t be talking about Tigo’s plan.
Can’t know about the real reason why we needed the Shroud.
But what else is there for her to know?
I drag my fingers over my leg restraints, fighting wildly and in vain for freedom that is just out of reach. Her laugh deadly beneath its gentle veneer.
“Really, Lux. Did you really think I would let myself be caught alone in a place like the Undone – unless it was exactly what I wanted to happen?”
Suspended magic burns across my skin. Pain I prefer to focus on rather than acknowledge what she’s telling me.
She’s lying.
Has to be.
I stare wildly into her calm, empty smile.
Inwardly screaming for myself to wake up. For Ki to find me. For Damien to search for me. Even for Greyson to return.
I should have gone with Damien, even if it means going to Hell’s fucking Court to face torture by brimstone.
But reality remains unchanged.
As Aiden emerges from the shadows behind Dr. Laveau and into my line of sight.
“Hello, Lux.”
To be continued…
The Adventure Continues
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