by Lucy Smoke
"Good afternoon," he begins in a strong, but clear voice. "Thank you for coming at my late request.” As Victor speaks the crowd begins to quiet, listening intently as he continues. “Two days ago, Commander Tilde and a private team infiltrated a Tank pod complex believing to house a kidnapping victim. We determined that they did, indeed, have possession of this kidnapped victim and as such, we exercised the rights of the people to retrieve this person and return them to their loved ones."
I peak over at Kida only to see the stiffness with which she holds herself. Her face is a mask of stony indifference as if she's trying to separate herself from what happened to her. Gently, I reach over and touch the back of her hand with my fingers. Her face doesn't betray her emotions, but she opens her fist and lets me take her hand in mine.
"...will be contained until trial, but I can assure the public that this behavior will not be tolerated. No more will Tartarus claim home to the worst criminals of our time. I can assure you that the Tanks in custody will be dealt with severely and with righteous justice," Vincent states as camera lights flash and reporters shove themselves closer to the front. He has such a commanding presence, it's astounding. He holds the audience captivated with his passion, his speech, and his mere presence.
I turn my head and all the guys are watching with rapt attention. Kida's hand slips from mine startling me from my thoughts and I turn as she dives forward, a crack sounding in the distance as she shoves her godfather from his position at the podium. I take a step towards her. Thayer's hand touches my arm when Kida's head is thrown backwards and a rain of blood slaps my cheek.
Mouth gaping open, I don't compute the screams of the audience or Vincent being yanked away by several of Commander Tilde's enforcers. On the ground, in front of me, Kida looks up at the sky, her golden eyes dull and wide. She's looking, but she can't see. A bright red hole in the upper section of her forehead stares back at me.
I drop to my knees and touch her face. I slap her cheek, wanting to wake her. Thayer's hand on my arm becomes firm as he tries to pull me away. I shrug him off and pull her head onto my lap, not caring if the blood ruins the expensive dress. I blink, my body hot, but no tears fall.
"Kida?" I choke out.
"Cass, she's gone," Thayer says by my ear. I ignore him, tapping her cheek again. "Cass, the shooter is still out there," he warns. I don't care. Kida needs to wake up.
"Vincent was the intended target," I hear Haze say. "Tilde got him inside before there was time for a second shot. The shooter is likely long gone by now."
"How did she even see it coming?" someone asks.
I blink down at Kida's face and a lean fingered hand appears in front of it, gently closing her eyes. The moment Kida's golden gaze is gone, I burst into sobs. Huge wracking sobs. I sob, but no tears fall as I hunch over her, gasping for breath, slapping her face harder. She has to wake up.
"She's gone, Cassie," Levi says quietly at my side. "I'm sorry. She's gone."
"No," I whisper brokenly, looking up at him. "She... can't... I love her."
Unshed tears glisten in his gaze and he closes his eyes to keep them from falling. He speaks to me with those eyes shut. "And she loved you, Troublemaker."
Loved, past tense. I sob harder, the gasps in my chest making my wound ache. Levi manages to pry me away from Kida's body and hands me to Thayer and Aaron who urge me into the medical building. I'm shaking, my whole body trembling as Kida's blood slides down my face, dripping from my clothes. Inside, the world is in chaos. Vincent is practically foaming at the mouth as he tries to fight his way free of several enforcers. Tilde is on her communicator, her lips pinched and her cheeks pale. It all stops when Vincent sees me.
"No..." He stares hard at me, eyes taking in the mess coating the front bodice of the dress, and in the lap of the skirts. "Not... no..."
I can barely walk. Tears finally break free, sliding over my cheeks mixing into the drying blood.
"NO!" Vincent's pain-filled roar rattles the windows of the medical center. Inside, it leaves me empty.
Epilogue Part 1: Noaz
I press a button to end the communicator call. It's official, Archibald Billford, known by official documents as Arthur Lancaster, is dead. The night before, his pod complex was infiltrated, and he was injected with a lethal dose of medical grade anesthetic. The Architect had, indeed, had good reason for his paranoia. We, too, should have heeded him.
I glance over my shoulder at Cassandra as she sits between Aaron and Thayer on one of the fold out chairs the medical center employees have brought out. There are so many injuries from the shooting, not from the shooter himself, but from the stampede following, and the lobby is filled with moaning and crying reporters and audience members.
Cassandra isn't crying anymore, but the evidence of recent tears still remains in the clean tracks they have made through the blood on her face. I grimace. Why hasn't anyone cleaned the blood off her yet?
I pull out a handkerchief from my pocket and make my way across the room. Crouching down in front of her, I gently wipe her cheek, startling her. Big, blue eyes blink at me, coming back into focus from her faraway look.
"Noaz..." she croaks. I wipe down the side of her face and blanch when I realize the blood has already dried to her skin. "Noaz..." she says again. I quickly hand the handkerchief to Levi and ask him to wet it in the bathroom and bring it back. He nods without complaint and disappears.
"Yes, Sweetheart?" I ask, returning my attention to Cassandra.
She opens her mouth and there are hundreds of questions in her eyes, but I suppose she doesn't know how to voice them because a moment later her lips pinch shut once more and then her eyes. More tears leak out and it cuts me to my core. Levi returns and hands me the handkerchief. I take it and finish wiping the blood from her face.
"It's going to be okay, Cassandra," I say. "You're not alone." I take her hand and hold it in both of mine. "You're not alone," I repeat.
I don't know if she hears me or if she even really cares at this moment, but I do know that I mean it. I can see in both Aaron and Levi's faces that they would rather face containment or exile from Tartarus than leave her side. I could see it on Thayer's when he realized what was happening.
I stand slowly, releasing her hands to her lap, and look at my team members. "You'll watch her," I say. I know, though, that they would have done so whether I had said anything or not. They both nod and I turn to make my way across the room to a shattered Vincent.
He leans against the wall, dark skin paler than I've ever seen. His eyes shrouded by ghosts. When he sees me, he doesn't even bother to sit up, to give the illusion that he's still very much the governor in charge of Tartarus, the city of criminals. I sit next to him, my back against the wall, and sigh.
"Well, old friend," I say, feeling decades older than my twenty-five years. "This is a royal fucking mess we've got ourselves into."
"She's gone, Z." Vincent's soft and broken voice grates across my mind. I hate having to do this to him, but it's imperative that he understands just how much danger he is in, how much danger Penelope and his child are in.
I look straight at him, his dark eyes unfocused and filled with pain I'm all too aware of. "Kida is gone, but you live on," I say. He flinches, reeling from the blow. "You have people you need to think of now. Your wife, your unborn son, your people."
When he doesn't say anything, I reach over and grasp his shoulder, shaking him slightly. "I know it hurts, V," I say. "It hurts like the motherfucking devil." I don't curse as much as I once did, but I find that in situations like this, it's freeing to let a few slip through. "And you will let it hurt, she deserved that much. But you can't let it consume you."
"Cassandra..." Vincent finally says. "How is she?"
I sigh with relief. "She's the same as you, I suppose. Probably worse since they were..." I trail off, unsure if I should reveal the exact nature of the relationship between Kida Washington and Cassandra Walker.
"Since they were together, you me
an," Vincent finishes for me. He even manages to crack a small smile. "In the biblical sense." I nod fractionally. Vincent heaves a great breath before holding his hand out to me. "Think you could help an old man up, friend?" he asks.
"It would be my honor, sir," I say, grasping his hand and pulling him to his feet.
Vincent takes a moment to regain himself, sucking in a breath that brings him back to his full height. He stares out over the crowded medical center lobby and takes one shaky breath. Two years ago, when I met him, I saw the kind of man he would become. Eight months ago, I knew he would do anything to save the woman he loved. And now... now, I see everything good that could ever happen for the human race when I look at him.
I see it, too, in Cassandra. And I hope like hell they will be able to heal from this loss in time to deal with what's coming. If they don't, I don't know if anyone will survive.
Epilogue Part 2: Cassandra
It rains on the day we send Kida's body back to Earth in an inferno that consumes her flesh and bones. With no place to bury the dead, we send them in a hovering pyre built to withstand heat up to hundreds of degrees back to the human race's home planet. The machine that lowers her body from the docks back to our society's homeland will eventually return, but my best friend never will.
Even Vincent Diamond has chanced the raw anger of the gangs of Tartarus along with his wife Penelope to be here for Kida's funeral. The majority of the Tanks are in containment, or well on their way to exile, or death themselves. The rest of the gangs have sent their highest members to pay respects to Vincent's goddaughter, Kida Yukino Washington.
He's lost a member of his family. It's only respectful. I've lost what feels like the only person to ever love me for who I am—an eternal fuck up, a thief, a liar, a criminal born among criminals.
My eyes are red and swollen from all the tears I've shed. Somehow, though, on the day that we lay Kida to rest, I can't muster up a single one. It seems as if they have all been shed and the only thing left inside of me is seething rage and an empty cavern where my heart once beat for someone else.
Penelope told me that once, far before the technology that increased the pollution and toxicity to Earth, certain cultures wore white to funerals instead of black. Listening to her story, I understood why. White is a symbol of purity and there's nothing so purifying as death. I had never been to a funeral before, and upon arrival I understood why she had told me the story. The attendees, people there out of respect, people who had never even known Kida, much less the way I had known her, were dressed in black shawls, dress shirts, and slacks. Penelope, Vincent, and I had arrived with Noaz, Haze, Aaron, Thayer, and Levi not far behind and we were all dressed in white.
After the religious representative that Vincent had insisted be flown in on airship directly from Arawn says a few words, he nods for the dock workers who will wait for the machine carrying Kida's body to return, to back away from the end of the docks. I stand at the edge of the docks and watch as the impure air far below the sky villages and cities activates the embers beneath Kida's body and the fire escapes and consumes her. It's merely a spec in the distance. I can't make out anything other than a golden-red dot. I stand there all the same. Hollow.
Vincent strides up to my back, the cologne he put on in the morning alerting me to his presence. "I must see to the attendees," he says thickly.
I nod my head but can't bring myself to reply. A part of me is bitterly angry that he's not standing at the edge with me watching the last that we will ever see of Kida. I know, though, that even with the Tanks under control for a change, there is still unrest that Vincent must calm. In the days following Kida's death, he and Penelope have been exceedingly kind and understanding toward me. More so than anyone. Kida has been my entire life. I will respect their duties. I will respect them.
Vincent leaves, his booted feet hitting the metal landing of the dock with echoes that pick up a beat in my head, pounding against my skull. I know that Oren is dead and wherever his body is, I can't seem to care. At least I know that there is one less evil in the world even if he was likely my only living blood relative. He did teach me an important lesson. Oren, Kida, Vincent, Penelope, Aaron, Noaz, Thayer, Levi, and Haze all did. Loyalty and love are thicker than blood.
"Let the dead bury the dead, Cassandra." Noaz's distinct voice comes barreling into the silence of my solitude at the end of the docks.
"I don't know what that means," I admit as he comes to a stop beside me.
"It means that you need to leave the past where it is and move forward. Mourn. Grieve. But don't stay stagnant."
"What would you know about grief?" I ask. Though it may sound bitter to an outsider, he knows I'm not being cruel or short. I'm truly curious. He relies so much on facts and it's odd to hear him spout such prosaic conjecture.
"I know quite a bit about it," he assures me. "And no, not merely from reading." His smile is small and slightly amused at having given me an answer before I had the chance to ask. He enjoys that.
"Where from then?" I ask.
"Family has a way of disappointing the people within its frame," he says. "Many of my family still live and yet, not a single one of them cares to know whether I'm alive or dead."
It's a sad story, but not at all unheard of in Tartarus. Where Noaz is from, though, I expected better. In my mind, Arawn and the other cities are true civilization. It seems civilization isn't necessarily a place or even the people within those places. It's a dream that doesn't seem to exist anymore.
"I feel grief, not because they have physically moved beyond, but because to them I am dead and to me, they are no longer family."
"Moved beyond?" I repeat, focusing on his wording. "I didn't take you for the religious sort."
After a long moment of silence—so long in fact, that I begin to wonder if he didn't hear me or if he will never respond—he finally speaks.
"We all die, Cassandra. Every single one of us will be lowered back to Earth where our kind began, and we will all be ashes by the time we finally hit the ground. For a long time, I believed I would make that journey far sooner than most and I had to console myself in some way. No, I'm not of the religious sort." He pauses, turning to face me. I do the same. "I am, however, the sort that needs to be comforted because not only do we all die, we all fear death, we fear the unknown."
"I'm scared," I admit as the last of his words echo around us. They hit me deep within, punching a hole through a wall I didn't realize that I had built. "I'm scared to live without her. I'm scared of being alone. How do I console myself knowing that she's gone forever?"
His smile now isn't amused, it's filled with sorrow and empathy. Not pity, thankfully. I couldn't handle that. "You don't need to console yourself," he says. "You have us."
Behind him, Thayer, Levi, Aaron, and Haze all stand in their white dress shirts and slacks watching us. Aaron comes forward the moment our eyes meet, and the rest follow behind. Before I know it, I'm surrounded by five sets of arms as loving and caring as the arms that I will never have hold me again.
Though it's not the same, I am grateful for the way they hold me up when it finally slams into me that I'll never see Kida again. I'll never kiss her, be kissed by her, hold her hand. She’s gone. Forever.
Peaceful Eyes: Sky Cities Series Book 1.5
“When all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri
Dark Dreams
I stare out across the chrome, metal, and glass that make up the vast city of Tartarus. My heart lies barren and decaying on the floor before me. Not literally, of course, but it might as well be. On the bed, the picture of Kida and I that I took back from my wrecked pod sits face up. It’s been there for what feels like days.
I haven't left Vincent's penthouse since the funeral. The city is too dangerous right now. Penny has been confined here as well, at least until the baby is born. She's not happy about it, but Vincent worries that she’ll be next. Kida hadn't been the inte
nded target, but her loss was no less staggering. A lone tear slides down my cheek before I realize it's there and I brush it away, sniffing hard and sucking down the breath.
It's okay to grieve, I remind myself, but I can grieve without any more tears. I've already cried enough. I don't want to cry anymore.
"Rocket?"
I gasp as Aaron's voice intrudes on my solitude and more tears leak out of the corners of my eyes. I choke on a reply and quickly wipe them away before I turn towards him. I stride across the room, grab the image and move it to the bedside table, closing it in the top drawer. Once her face is no longer watching me in the background, the pressure on my chest lifts slightly.
Aaron, big and imposing, takes up almost the entirety of the doorway. He takes one look at my splotchy and tear-stained face and his eyes soften. He approaches me slowly, with gentle care—the giant Sky Rover and the little mess of a Rocket, chipped, beaten, and broken. Aaron goes on bended knee before me and takes my face in his large hands.
"Oh, Rocket," he says quietly, "no more tears, she wouldn't want you to suffer so deeply."
I let out a small, watery laugh. "I know." I look back to the side, though he keeps my face between his rough palms. I can't help it. My gaze is drawn to the city. Tartarus. It has been both my home and my prison for so long.
I don't know how long we sit there—my eyes on Tartarus, Aaron's warm palms pressed to my dried cheeks—but when we pull away from each other, someone else has joined us in our quiet reverie. Levi stands just slightly back from us, an enigmatic expression on his face. I sniff once again as Aaron pulls away.
"Noaz wants us in the study," he says before turning on his heel.
Aaron casts me a look with those dark blue irises that nearly swallow his pupil—or maybe not... his eyes are so dark, sometimes I can't even tell.
