by Skye Malone
Shivers quiver through my midsection. He’s looking at me like Amar and the others aren’t even here. Like I’m his responsibility to protect.
I don’t know what else to do but nod.
His gaze flicks to Sorcha and the werewolves then, and lands a heartbeat longer on Amar.
“Ready?” he says to Ram like nothing happened.
The big guy nods. Katsuro echoes the motion and then heads for the door.
I can see Amar’s glower when he comes up beside me. Without a word, he walks after the others. I trail him, eyeing the buildings around us worriedly. The few streetlights create pools of light and shadow that look infinitely threatening. I can’t hear most of the people around me walking; vampires and werewolves alike, they’re deathly silent.
It feels lonely and creepy, all at the same time.
We round a corner.
“Hold,” Ram whispers.
Most of Katsuro’s people stop and we do too. Tank and several other enormous people who have to be trolls continue to Ram’s side.
Ram glances over the rest of us as if checking to make certain everyone has obeyed his command, and then he and the other trolls start forward again in silence. But nothing else happens. My brow furrows in confusion. Why did he want us to—
The air around the trolls shimmers like the iridescent surface of a soap bubble.
My eyes go wide. Ram and his companions keep going. Striding forward, they continue through air that has started roiling like water on the boil—at least beyond them. Right where they are, the chaos seems to clear, like they’re holding back the impossibly shimmering air with the sheer force of their presence. But each step farther seems to be coming with difficulty. I can see them breathing hard while, one by one, they come to a halt like they’re forming a line.
Ram stops last. Effort lining his face, he casts a quick look back to us.
“Go,” he growls.
Katsuro and his people dart forward. Ducking low, they skirt past the trolls’ sides like they’re hurrying through a tiny tunnel.
Which is basically what seems to be happening.
“Come on,” Amar says.
He doesn’t wait for my response. Taking my hand, he pulls me onward. Static brushes my skin, growing stronger and making the hairs on my arms stand on end. The air hisses and snaps like an electrical circuit on the verge of breaking. My heart pounding, I duck while Amar does the same.
And we rush forward.
My skin crawls with electricity and the air feels burned. My feet crunch fast over the gravel and unbidden, the thought of what might happen if I trip flashes through my mind. What lies beyond this tiny tunnel of safety held up by trolls?
Before I can find out, we’re past Ram and the air clears. Still hanging onto my hand, Amar runs to the cover of a nearby building, where Katsuro and his people are already waiting. Sorcha and her companions come after us, their attention locked on our surroundings.
But nothing moves. When Ram and the other trolls leave the strange wall of electricity, even the air returns to its ordinary state of calm.
Katsuro glances to Blue, his brow twitching up. She gives a small shake of her head.
His mouth tightens, and then he motions to his people. Without a word, they split up. Two groups head away from us. Katsuro nods to several of the remaining people. In silence, they slip from the cover of the shadows and dart toward a building up ahead.
They reach the door. A heartbeat passes in which they seem to be picking the lock, and then the weighty metal thing swings open.
No alarms go off. No shouts ring out.
Sorcha tenses beside me. I look to her.
She’s wincing. So are the other mercenaries beside her. At my glance, she touches her nose, a disgusted look on her face.
My confusion clears. She smells something.
Katsuro motions for the others to go on ahead, but from the way his gaze flicks to Sorcha, I can tell he caught her gesture too.
We head for the door.
A smell like rotten meat greets us from a dozen yards away.
My stomach tries to flee by way of my throat. I choke it back down, fighting to draw in air. Oh god.
The vampires eye us warily. They don’t breathe, I realize. They can’t smell this at all.
Lucky.
Taking the shortest breaths possible, I continue after the others. My eyes are stinging by the time I reach the door. The darkness when I follow the others inside is impressive, but right away, it’s obvious somebody is still paying for electricity around here. An exit sign flickers in the distance, though two of its four letters are mostly blacked out. E. I. It feels like some esoteric code, signifying who knows what.
The dim red glow thins the shadows, though, revealing what looks like a room—a large one. I can’t find the ceiling in the darkness and there aren’t any walls on either side of us. Hulking shapes occupy the expanse between us and the exit sign. Machinery, maybe. Most of it seems broken; I can’t be sure.
But that’s not all. My gorge rises when I spot the carcasses heaped on the floor. Cows, I think. Or horses. In the shadows, it’s hard to tell.
Suddenly, the vampires flinch, their footsteps coming to a stop. At my side, Sorcha halts too, a pained look on her face.
I’m lost. What is it now?
The other werewolves turn fast, their gazes darting around like they’re scanning the walls with the intent of killing them. Someone takes my arm. I barely stop myself from jumping a mile.
Katsuro is there.
“What?” I mouth desperately.
He glances on toward Amar, who reaches up and taps his ear with a questioning look. Katsuro nods.
Sound. I can’t hear anything, though.
Right.
My confusion turns to dread. Something beyond normal human range of hearing then, and obviously I don’t have that. But the vampires and werewolves do. And between that and the dead animals still trying to make me lose my lunch, the implication is clear.
Somebody prepared for this. Us. The place is crawling with measures to hide something from werewolves, vampires, and goodness knows who else. But beyond the sound and smell, no one is attacking. Everybody around me is studying our surroundings like they can see far better than me and, given everything else that’s happened so far, I have no reason to doubt they can. They don’t seem to spot any threats, however. It’s only this. Magical barriers. Rotting carcasses. Some horrible noise I can’t hear.
And a clattering.
I start to turn. I hear somebody shout.
A blinding light bursts across the world and a deafening noise comes with it. In an instant, the darkness turns to day, only to plunge back to black and I can’t see. Can’t hear. I don’t know what’s going on.
Someone slams into me, bearing me down to the ground. I tumble, my hands flying out on instinct, and fire scorches across my palms when they hit the floor. Sounds start to penetrate the ringing in my ears. Popping noises. So many popping noises. And screams.
I gasp, blinking in desperate attempt to clear the stars from my eyes. Sorcha is there, holding me down. We’re behind something bulky. Some of the machinery, I think.
A figure rushes past only to stumble like they’ve been hit by something, and then they’re gone, staggering out of view. I can’t tell who it was. What happened.
I can guess.
Sorcha’s grip disappears and then Amar is at my side. His mouth moves. The words are lost to the whine in my ears, but I can read his lips. Come on.
Not waiting for an answer, he hauls me up from the ground. I look for Sorcha, but she’s not there. Not as a human, anyway. Where she had been, a huge wolf now stands.
She looks back at me, her hackles raised, her massive form silhouetted in the faint light. Her amber eyes glow, fierce and terrifying like they’re lit by a fire inside. She makes a barking motion, almost like a shout for us to go.
Amar takes off. I stagger away from Sorcha, struggling to stay by his side. With his a
rm around me like a shield, he pulls me with him while he races through the narrow paths formed between the machinery. I can’t tell where we’re going. I can barely even see.
And then a wall arrives. A door. Amar grabs the handle and whatever is locking the door shatters. It’s like déjà vu of the other night.
He yanks the door wide, but unlike the other night, no empty hallway greets us this time. Instead, there are emergency lights and people with guns aimed right at our chests. In the yellow glow, I see their eyes go wide behind their ski masks. Their hands clench on their weapons.
A wave of ice rushes around me, burning with static, invisible as the air. Every nerve of my body flies instantly to high alert, as if some sixth sense from primordial times has suddenly started shrieking that I’m in mortal danger.
The people ahead of us crumple like marionettes with slashed strings.
Amar doesn’t hesitate. Still holding onto me tightly, he hurries around them and brings me along.
I stagger after him, but I can’t take my gaze from the people on the ground. They haven’t moved. They’re probably unconscious.
But every instinct I possess is screaming that something so much more horrible has happened.
We reach a corner and Amar pushes me back against the shelter of the wall. Quickly, he peers past the turn. “We’ll shadow-cross to the outside,” he tells me. “I’ll figure out a way to get us past the barriers once we’re there.”
“What…” I gasp.
He glances to me. My gaze twitches from him to the fallen people and back again.
His mouth tightens. “Outside.” Pulling me with him, he races into the next stretch of hall.
Three people rush around a corner ahead, guns raised. I hear the gunshot. Feel something sting the side of my face.
And the wave of cold returns—stronger, faster, ripping around me like I’ve become a rock in a torrential river of razor-edged ice, and in it I freeze. I can’t breathe from the force. From the power serrating the world around me.
The attackers topple. From the corner of my eye, I see Amar cast a quick glance to me and then we’re moving again. I can’t hear gunfire anymore. I can’t hear anything but the sound of my own gasping breaths.
I stumble to a stop when we come closer to the fallen people. My arm yanks from Amar’s grasp of its own accord.
They’re dead. They have to be dead. Their eyes stare emptily at the ceiling, their mouths slack with horror, and their guns... sweet god, what happened to their guns? The metal has crumpled in on itself like tinfoil.
“Cait.” Amar takes my arm again, trying to keep me moving. “Come on.”
I tear my gaze from the bodies and the weapons, only to stare at him. And I have no words. He… he killed them. With a thought. With a look.
Has he told you what he is?
Rumors of what he can do…
Monster…
I push away and stumble back from Amar, my hands raised like they stand a chance in hell of protecting me.
Desperation tinges his expression. His gaze flashes to the hall. “Please. They’ll be coming. We have to—”
I stifle a shriek, but the sound cuts him off. Shaking hard, I draw a ragged breath. “What… what—”
I can’t get past the word. And I have to get out of here. Away from this building, these demons…
Him.
I stop at the thought, my blood running cold for a whole new reason. Do I want that?
Do I really want that?
My insides shake like I’ve been frozen to my core. Do I want to run with no chance for an explanation? To give into my fears and decide that, yes, Amar is the monster everyone else has claimed him to be?
Or do I trust what I’ve seen? What I’ve felt? Do I trust… me?
I draw a tiny breath. This is madness. I’m being an idiot. I’m trusting my gut, my fallen-for-a-guy-I-clearly-don’t-know-enough-about gut, over the whole damn world.
It’s insane.
“Please, Cait,” Amar begs.
Insane, and possibly my only chance of making it out of this building alive.
“Let’s go,” I say, my voice choked.
Amar pauses like the words have taken him by surprise. “Okay.”
He begins to reach for my hand only to reconsider when I flinch, not quite retreating from him. Another heartbeat passes.
“Right,” he allows, and in spite of everything, the pained note in his voice hurts. He nods to the corridor, dropping his gaze from mine. “This way.”
We don’t make it to the next turn before someone else barrels into the hall.
“Don’t!” Ram shouts, his hands flying up.
And nothing else happens.
Paralyzed, a cry trapped behind my bloodless lips, I twitch my gaze to Amar. He hasn’t moved. Not a single thing about him hints at what he could have done if it hadn’t been Ram ahead of us.
And that’s terrifying.
Ram lowers his hands slowly and glances to the people with him as if checking to make sure they’re still alive. “Katsuro’s found her,” he tells us shortly.
Amar starts toward him and, nervously, I follow.
“We’re securing the area,” Ram states. “Our people found the defense controls and have them in hand. Your wolves are sweeping the rest of the property, and they don’t seem too happy about the defenses Linden put in place to slow them down.” His metal teeth glint when he gives a cold grin. “I think they’re taking it out on whatever stragglers they find.”
He makes a curt gesture back the way he came, and then begins walking that direction.
I try not to notice how the others watch Amar as much as the hallway while we follow Ram. I know Ram said there were only rumors about what Amar could do, but from the way they’re all looking at him, I wonder how terrifying the stories were.
And how close they were to the truth.
We reach another door and Ram steps aside, motioning for us to go on ahead. I trail Amar past the doorway, working hard to hide my anxiety.
And then I see the inside of the room and I fail miserably.
There aren’t any other Touched. No one at all, save for Katsuro and his people.
And a girl.
She’s in her late teens or maybe younger, but she sits on the floor with her legs curled under her like a child. With a finger, she’s tracing abstract designs in the dust. Scrubs like a nurse would wear cover her. The khaki fabric is smudged with dirt and the seam by her shoulder is ripped. Her long, red hair hangs around her face in a tangled mess; a strand of it is caught on her mouth, but she gives no sign of noticing. She’s humming a tuneless song while mist floats from her like steam, all weird and wrong and making my eyes ache. But it’s not the only terrible thing.
A thick, metal collar encircles her neck, as if she’s an attack dog more than a human being. From either side of the collar, large chains run to heavy bolts in the wall. The metal rattles every time she moves.
She spots us. A happy, burbling noise leaves her and her cornflower blue eyes go wide. But it doesn’t last. After only a heartbeat, her gaze ambles away, climbing the walls, drifting over the ceiling, lighting back on us briefly and then losing focus again. Her hands skitter over the floor, abandoning the abstract patterns, and they don’t seem to be in sync with the rest of her body. They spasm and twitch; they chase each other around on the grit and concrete. She doesn’t even seem aware of their motions.
“Kitty?” she calls. “Kitty? Marbles in the partridge tree.” Animal noises follow, grunts and squeaks that return to speech a moment later. “Are they squishy? Who’s climbing the mountain?”
I shudder. Oh my god, we have to fix this.
“So?” Katsuro prompts.
Amar gives him a flat look and then strides toward the girl. The same happy, burbling sound escapes her again and the twitching of her hands speeds up. One of them skips toward Amar, making scrabbling motions.
He glances briefly to her chains and the bolts on the wall, and then
sinks down just beyond the full reach of her arms.
“Shiny? Shiny? Shiny?” She says the word over and over, her body rocking with each repetition. The anticipation on her face makes my skin crawl.
Amar lets out a breath and then extends a hand. His fingers wrap around her wrist.
Her eyes snap to his, cold and piercing. “You’ll kill her, you know.”
Amar jerks away like he’s been burned. The girl’s icy expression vanishes. She gnaws on her lip while her gaze loses focus again, her attention wandering off like she’s tracking something across the floor.
For a moment, Amar doesn’t move. I can’t even see him breathing. And then slowly, he reaches out to grasp her wrist again.
Her excitement lasts less than a heartbeat this time, and her eyes go wide as a surge of static fills the room. The electric sensation fades quickly; it feels almost as if it’s being brought back under control. But the girl clearly doesn’t like it. Short, angry noises leave her and her free hand grips her arm, trying to yank it from Amar’s grasp.
He doesn’t let go. Her motions become more frantic. More terrified. Her noises transform into animal-like screeches, and she lurches as if she’s being shocked. Her head thrashes, the tangles of her red hair whipping around her face. Her other hand flails out, clawing at the concrete behind her, trying to drag her away from him.
And it doesn’t stop. The struggle, her frightened expression, none of it. Instead, she begins to choke like she’s swallowing her own tongue.
With a muttered curse, Amar releases her. “It’s not working. I can’t…” He shakes his head.
I falter, watching the girl. In ragged gasps, her breathing slows, though small keening noises leave her. She rocks back and forth as if comforting herself, but in only a moment, her hands begin twitching as they had before.
“Okay,” I allow, “but… now what?”
Guardedly, Amar glances to Katsuro. “We can’t leave her for the Houses.”
“And I won’t leave her as she is,” Katsuro replies.
Amar meets his gaze. A grimace twists his face a moment later.
Chills creep through me when I read between the lines. “You can’t kill her.” My stomach rolls. “Please. Amar, I don’t know what you—” I can’t finish the sentence. I can’t deal with that right now. “She’s the victim here. We can’t—”
