by Kitty Thomas
Then silence.
It was as if death had fallen over all the inhabitants of the hall—even its predators.
The humans who’d been forced to watch the carnage, cowered as the guards stepped aside to let the gluttonous beasts through. Their faces and clothing were smeared with rebel blood. It was nothing like the feedings I’d witnessed.
I hated Gabriel for making me participate in his cruelty.
***
It was a full restless sleep after the massacre before Gabriel got everything in order enough for us to leave. Silence filled the car as Santo drove. He’d been a ghost at the palace, his job to wait until it was time to shuttle us back to our own city.
I sat in the back with Gabriel and Ivy. He’d wiped her memory of all that had happened and everything she knew that might cause her any sadness. True to his word, he’d spared her life, and the only way to do that in a city that killed you at the first sign of aging, was to bring her with us. She was happily oblivious to the chill between Gabriel and I as she stared out the window.
“I can’t wait to see your city!” she said.
The poor fool had no idea her boyfriend had just been slaughtered right in front of her or that she was sharing an enclosed space with the monster who’d ordered it. I shut my eyes, trying to block out the memory of her screams as she watched them rip the man she loved to shreds along with all of her friends.
It was my fault. I’d taken everything away from her. I should be hired out to kill people’s families. I was so damn good at it.
I hadn’t wanted to believe Gabriel could be so cruel. He’d kept his promises to me. I thought something would happen but not this. Couldn’t they have used mind control to shut down the rebel faction?
It seemed doubtful many citizens of the city would jump into the fight. They were both too afraid and too comfortable. They didn’t want to ask the hard questions or confront the reality that surrounded them.
The dehumanizing way they were treated, made my stomach churn. But when I’d gone outside to see how night operated, it had been so different from what I was used to. People seemed happy, safe. I didn’t see any sign of crime or danger.
Women and children could wander outside at night with no fear of what might happen to them. They were all well-fed and cared for, and everyone seemed to have nice homes with enormous windows that would let the sun in during the day and the moon and starlight in by night. None of the houses had the crazy level of security mine and all the rest in the first city did.
Even with the price they paid in their bodies and blood…even with their lives cut so short by decree, at least the entire time wasn’t spent in terror or struggle. For the briefest moment I wished for their life—even knowing my parents would have been gone in that reality as well.
I couldn’t forgive myself for ripping everyone Ivy loved away from her, or for taking the death sleep away. I knew how tempting it was to stay in that beautiful safe place. No doubt her dream had been just as wonderful. What did it matter if it all faded into oblivion if you didn’t see it coming? I couldn’t say it was any more evil than watching death march toward you and all the awful things that happened on the trip to get there.
But for now, Ivy had no idea of what had been taken from her. Her bar code was gone. So was mine. But I still felt like a thing to Gabriel instead of a person. He dressed it up differently, but it was the same.
The weight of the collar around my throat seemed as if it were choking me. How could it have been so few hours since Gabriel and I were here together, and all I’d wanted was to be with him forever? When he’d said I belonged to him and made me repeat it, despite the panic, I craved it—to never lose him, to never leave him, even as thoughts of never seeing my sister fought in the background of my mind for attention.
Gabriel watched me in what appeared to be a detached way, but under the surface, something boiled. He’d been silent during the trip. I’d been silent. Ivy still stumbled along in her mind-control fog, unable even to see the discord that surrounded us.
“Ivy?” he said.
She turned, still happy and excited. “Hmmm?”
He put his hands on either side of her face and stared deeply into her eyes. “You will not hear or remember anything else said by anyone while in this car.”
When his words took full effect, and she fell into a deeper hypnotized haze to give us privacy, he turned to me. “Helene, we must talk.”
Great. She’d been my buffer from him.
I looked away, fighting the tears that started to flow down my face.
His hand was gentle on my back when he spoke again. “Helene, I know this is hard for you. I can’t imagine what you must think of me or what you must feel.”
But couldn’t he? If he wanted, couldn’t he tear into my mind like it was paper? Couldn’t he just feed and know? Of course he could.
“Then let me enlighten you,” I said. “You’re a monster. There is nothing in you that’s good. I will never care for you no matter what you make me do or how long you keep me.”
I resisted as he pulled me into an embrace. He pressed my cheek against his shoulder and stroked my hair.
“Do you think I took pleasure in that? Do you think I enjoyed slaughtering innocent people?”
“Yes. I do. I think it gave you a great big hard on.”
“My poor, sweet, confused Helene. Amari left me no other choices. If the rebellion ever took hold, it could spread to our city. What about your sister?”
He’d played that card about as far as he could already. I couldn’t keep taking the bait like some easily played fool.
“It wasn’t right. You know it wasn’t right.”
He sighed. “There are times when there is no right choice, only a series of bad ones. You look at me, and you see power and privilege, but I’m the one who has to do the hard things to keep the city alive. The war was fought to determine guardianship of this world. I have to protect my piece of it. Even if, from your perspective, the road to get there seems evil. There is no one else but my kind who can save and keep it all going. This world must have guardians to survive. And there are always prices. Deaths. Casualties. Sometimes by my hand. I know you can’t truly understand that, but I took no pleasure even if it looked that way. I couldn’t show weakness. They would have turned on us, and I couldn’t have protected you. That blood was spilled for you.”
As if I didn’t already feel guilty enough.
A moment later his wrist was in front of my mouth. I didn’t want to drink down all his lies, but I had no choice. He wanted me to see the truth for myself. But seeing it didn’t make it much easier to swallow.
Chapter Eleven: Fifteen hours until day
I lingered in the entryway of Gabriel’s home like a stranger in a foreign land while he took Ivy to get settled. I was hanging on by a thread. It would take only the tiniest extra bit of horror for me to shut down completely and be right back where I started, longing for death, beckoning it to me like a dear friend, fantasizing about its dark embrace.
When Gabriel returned, he spoke with a guard in hushed tones. I heard the queen’s name and watched the guard’s eyes widen, but he nodded. From the moment we’d returned, he’d been preoccupied, first with finding a room for Ivy, and now with going to see the queen. I wasn’t sure he even remembered I was there.
I followed a distance behind him down to the dungeons. Gabriel went to the far cell, the one we’d inhabited for so many hours. It felt like the place I’d been born in, but then he had to go and remind me of what he was and ruin everything I thought we’d shared.
The door didn’t shut all the way, and I eased up to the opening to listen.
“Your rebel problem is taken care of,” Gabriel said.
“I…but…are you sure? How can you be sure?”
I jumped when something heavy slammed against the wall. Had he thrown a chair? The table?
“Amari, did you think I wouldn’t find out? Did you think I’d let you stalk me for hundreds of years and never r
etaliate? I told you NO. We all agreed to go our separate ways and rule our individual territories. You thought I would join with you to save your city from an imaginary rebellion?”
“It’s not imaginary!”
Gabriel’s voice went lower, and I had to strain to hear. “Like hell it’s not. You should have been more discreet. Did you think I wouldn’t be able to find a rebel to pull the truth out of? You instigated it. You used your mind control powers to convince humans to go against you to form a resistance. You let it fester so that when you lured me out there, it would seem as if there was some immediate danger.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
She gasped for breath, and I imagined he must have his hand around her throat, choking her—even though such a thing wouldn’t cause any permanent damage. He was only intimidating her for now.
He growled. “Is it?”
She coughed. “Even if your story were true, there is a resistance now. We must stop it. It will spread. We could use mind control, but we don’t know who has been recruited. It would be impossible to isolate everyone and stop the seed of rebellion now that it’s taken root.”
“How convenient for you, but that won’t be necessary. I squashed it. The humans will be too terrified to go against my city now.”
“Your city? Don’t you mean mine? Or ours?”
“No. I mean mine. Your people know you’re a traitor. They believe you dead. No one is coming for you. You will be executed on the rooftop at sunrise. Santo is coming to chain you up there. Unless, of course, you want to become my slave alongside Helene. The offer is still on the table. I would love nothing more than to spend the rest of eternity with you at my feet where you belong.”
A growl. “I’d sooner die.”
“Then die, you shall.”
I jumped when a hand landed on my shoulder and spun to find Santo. He pulled me away from the door. “Hear anything interesting? You’ll be in a lot of trouble if he catches you eavesdropping.”
Santo took me to the end of the hallway and what looked like another dungeon door. “You need to go to his private quarters and wait for him. Go this way. It’s a tunnel that connects the buildings. It’s faster.”
He pushed me through the door and shut it behind me. He was right. The last thing I needed was for Gabriel to add to his list of my punishable infractions.
***
I don’t know what else Gabriel did between the time I was shoved into the tunnels and when he walked into the cottage, but he was gone for a few hours. It was only twelve hours until day would be announced. Twelve hours until my sentence would have been over, but now I barely held out the hope I’d even see Simone again. Things had shifted too far. Gabriel seemed to have fallen into a sort of madness where I was concerned. Or I’d gained an awareness of what had been there all along.
He’d been gone so long, I wondered if the queen had begged him, if she’d seduced him, if she’d convinced him to spare her or agreed to his terms.
Gabriel looked tired when he came through the door. I’d never seen him tired. He always appeared vital and healthy and sharp and alive. Strong. Dangerous. Right now he almost looked human.
“Helene,” he said quietly.
“Why didn’t you erase my memory, too?” If Ivy could be free of the burden of seeing and remembering the slaughter back at the palace, why wouldn’t he do the same for me?
“I don’t want secrets between us. I want what we have to be honest.” He sat beside me on the sofa, and took my hands in his.
I pulled away. “We have nothing.”
His eyes glowed, and I sensed him hold back the beast and the full shift that turned him into something I couldn’t pretend to relate to. It energized him, made him come alive again.
“You are MINE,” he snarled.
I’d dropped the Master language, and he hadn’t called me on it because we both knew that I didn’t care. If he would leave Simone alone, he could just kill me if he wanted. I don’t know how I ever could have thought that he could magically heal psychic wounds as deep as mine. There was no healing for me, and he’d never understand. He would never know what real pain or suffering or fear was like. He’d never know vulnerability or weakness or the feeling of being trapped in one’s home for fear of what lay outside it.
The sun could hurt them, but even if he had to spend time indoors, it wasn’t as if he lived under any real threats. It wasn’t as if someone could storm into his place and hurt him.
“So I guess you aren’t letting me go in the morning.”
“You will be released when the sun rises as we agreed. But you will return to me by nightfall or Santo will come collect you. You acknowledged our relationship has changed. It was no longer about the deal. You knew you belonged to me in a more permanent way. You agreed.”
“We have no relationship!” Maybe day would give him enough time and distance to lose interest in me. But if I pushed too hard, he might keep me locked away forever and not even give me the brief relief of the sun.
He took my hands in his again, this time holding tight even when I fought to escape. “Look at me, Helene.”
I didn’t. He squeezed my hands.
“Ow! You son of a bitch!” I glared up at him. In truth, he could have crushed my hand. Was I supposed to bow down in gratitude that he hadn’t? That he’d only squeezed enough to hurt me a little? That he only used enough force to get me to comply while repackaging everything like it was some version of mercy instead of cruel manipulation?
“Fuck you!”
“Helene, don’t be melodramatic. You will see your sister. You’ll have plenty of time in the sun in safety. Then you will be safe here with me.”
He held the carrot out. Security. Safety. I hated him so much, but he didn’t seem inclined to truly harm me—at least not for now. And I knew that with him at night, I was safe from the rest of the world. I wasn’t sure I could have coped with full freedom anyway. Night still lurked, waiting for me. It still was the long ceaseless stretch of time locked behind doors and terrified.
“What about Simone? How is she expected to survive night by herself?”
“She won’t be by herself. I’m sending Ivy to live with you. I’m arranging for a new house in a nice, secure neighborhood—plenty large enough for the three of you. When night comes, Simone will have everything she needs and extra security as well as a roommate.”
“What will I say to her about my absence?”
“You’ll tell her you made a deal, and you’re paying a debt.”
“And will this debt ever be paid in full?”
Gabriel didn’t answer. I struggled to pull away from him. He released my hands, and I broke down.
All the anger and hopelessness and tears I’d held back came cascading out of me. I stood and paced because I couldn’t sit next to him. I couldn’t stand for him to be so physically close to me. It made me feel ill.
“Please, erase my memory. Please. You can’t expect me to go on like this with you, knowing your cruelty. I thought there was something civilized in you. Something good.”
I’d started to feel happy and safe with him. Down in the cell, I’d bloomed inside his care. I’d felt connected to him in ways that words can’t express. Every bit of language I could find to describe it would be a dim echo of the real thing. But now that all seemed like lies, fantasy. A merciful death sleep evaporating and ripping my illusions away piece by piece.
I dropped to my knees beside him. “Please, take this away from me. I can’t know what happened back there. I can’t handle it. I’ll never feel anything for you but revulsion if you don’t make me forget.”
“I know, despite having my blood, you still think I’m heartless and that I take some sick pleasure in the suffering of others. I don’t. Not my kind. Not your kind. But the way of the world cannot be changed. You live, you suffer, you die. We all suffer.”
“You don’t.”
He looked away. “Amari was a threat to this city. And she made her city a threat t
o us. I neutralized that threat. Tomorrow night, my kind will begin erecting strong, high gates around our city to further protect it.”
He said it as if his system of unrestrained night was such a moral and noble system. Given the choice between the two, I might have chosen Amari’s rule.
There was a knock on the cottage door.
“Come in,” Gabriel said.
It was Santo. He carried a large black bag.
“Leave it.”
Santo dropped the bag beside the door and left.
Gabriel turned to me. “Simone is being assisted in moving into the new house right now. Ivy will go home with you when morning comes. Money has been transferred into your and your sister’s accounts. An account has been set up for Ivy as well. The bag contains food, some money, and directions to the train. It’s a two mile walk through the path in the woods behind the property. It will be safe in the day, and Ivy will be with you. You’ll take the train to the neighborhood listed on the paper. The house is number 438. You’ll need the key box inside the bag to get through the main security gate, and the second one is for the house.”
None of this would pay for the lives he’d taken, the lives he’d ruined. His speeches about “the way things are” weren’t working anymore. I could never believe or accept that he understood me or anything I’d ever gone through. We were opposites in every way.
When he looked into my eyes, he saw it. He saw that he’d lost me. He could put a collar around my throat. He could keep me prisoner. He could whip and chain and fuck me, but he would never have me again. I was sure I was beyond his reach now.
“Come with me, Helene.”
I followed him downstairs to his own private dungeons, cringing as we moved down the stone hall. I didn’t want any part of whatever he had planned for me. The door to the cell creaked open. It was smaller and even more intimate than the cell in the main house. This room, too, looked like it could be lived in, and was already sparsely furnished. I wondered if he spent time down here during the day. There were stacks and stacks of books.
“We will not leave this room until you surrender yourself to me again. I don’t care how long it takes.”
