by eden Hudson
Mikal screamed—a sound like massive amp feedback—and I braced myself for the stake.
But there was this crackle.
Then Harper screamed, “Jax!”
I looked up just in time to see Mikal slam Jax into the wall, her fingers wrapped around his neck.
“Little boy,” Mikal growled. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to play with magic?”
Jax’s sneakers banged and scraped against the wall. He was trying to push himself up. His face turned purple, mouth moving like he was trying to say something. He grabbed Mikal’s wrist, but couldn’t pry her hand away from his throat.
I pushed up off of Colt and sprinted, ready to tackle Mikal, but she dropped Jax and swung around before I made it that far.
Getting gut-checked by Mikal was like getting plowed down by a semi running eighty. We smashed into the opposite wall. Plaster and laths broke off around me and stuck in my back. Mikal screamed again and the room echoed that feedback sound. The vamp reaction was to hiss at her. Colt’s blood sprayed through my teeth onto her cheek.
And that’s when the vamp speed crapped out on me.
Mikal let me go, grabbed the TV stand, and snapped the other legs off. She was back before I could move. She shoved the sharp end of the first stake through my stomach and pinned me to the wall. I heard the point break through the wood siding outside. I screamed, even though no sound came out.
“You were fun, Tough,” Mikal said, stabbing another stake through my dick and pelvis and out my back. That one dug into a stud. “But Colter is mine.”
We both looked over at him then, twisting and turning and gagging on the floor. Red-brown bubbles were foaming from his mouth and nose. He was trying to scrape the venom off, get it out, do anything to make it stop hurting. When Tiffani had made me, I remember thinking that the venom was burning me alive and wishing I would die faster so it would stop. With all that going on, I bet Colt couldn’t feel his lungs fighting and his heart seizing up.
It seemed like forever before he slowed down, then, finally, stopped moving. His arms and legs relaxed. His eyes half-closed. He shivered and then his body shut off. I felt it.
I killed him. He’s dead. I saved Colt.
The third TV stand leg cut through my Adam’s apple and hit a stud, too. It’s hard to believe how much that one hurt, even compared to the dick-stake.
Mikal grabbed Colt’s stake from where he’d dropped it earlier and aimed for my heart. I jerked and twisted and fought, but I couldn’t get off those fucking stakes. I was going to die and burn in Hell for the rest of forever and all my stupid brain did was start looping this song Ryder had made up about Mikal.
One up, one down, and she don’t mess around—fuck!
Two up, two down, and she don’t mess around—shit!
Three up, three—
“Wait,” Jax half-yelled, half-rasped. He jumped up from where Mikal had dropped him. “Tough’s not under your jurisdiction! He’s not a human living in Halo anymore—which means he’s not responsible for finding a protector—and since he’s an NP now, you have to follow the NP laws and take up any grievances in a court with Kathan!”
Mikal’s head snaked all the way around on her neck so that she could glare at Jax.
Jax made a strangled sound in his throat. His voice was a few notes higher when he started talking again. “They’re your rules. All non-people are required to follow the laws set forth by Kathan for the NP community at the creation of the Armistice or be brought up on formal charges before the sitting NP circuit judge—who is also Kathan.”
Mikal didn’t move.
“And even if you weren’t bound by those laws,” Jax said, “You know that Desty will never agree to become Kathan’s joint-familiar if you stake Tough. It has to be a willing agreement on her part for Kathan to rise to commander. Stake him and you’re throwing away any chance your army has of winning the last battle.”
No one breathed. I could hear Jax’s heart pounding, Harper shaking. A glob of vamp venom and spit dripped from the corner of Colt’s mouth into the pool of blood on the floor. The Tracker’s eyes made a scratching noise in his sockets every time he looked from Mikal to Jax, then back.
Mikal laughed. “You’re such a good friend, Ajax. So loyal.”
I didn’t get why she thought that was funny. Right then, I could’ve French-kissed the guy.
Mikal’s head twisted back around until she was facing me. She touched the tip of the last TV stand leg to my chest and put just enough pressure on it to snap the bone without shoving it through my heart. Pain shot out in every direction, but I was too scared to squirm.
“So, Ajax,” Mikal said, “Can you tell me why I haven’t staked this pathetic little redneck cockroach yet? Without the legalism. You know I would get away with it. What’s the real reason I don’t just waste him?” She waited. “Nobody? Then let me enlighten you—Tough here turned his back on God.”
Mikal looked over at Colt’s body again, then back at me. “You are a disease, Tough. You ruin everything you touch—you always have. Your Creator was the only one who could’ve loved a piece of shit like you, but you turned your back on Him. Now, your sorry ass belongs to me.”
The black in her eyes was so deep that it felt like they were trying to suck me in.
“I’m going to get my money’s worth out of you,” Mikal said. “You will be the reason we win the last battle. You will be the Whitney who lives to watch everything you love crack under my boot—just like your mama’s skull.”
I tried to hock something up to spit in her face, but I gagged on the Adam’s apple stake.
“Then, when it’s all over, I’m going to send your ass first-class to Hell.” Mikal’s smile was so wide that I could see all of her teeth. “Want to know what it smells like when a soul burns for all eternity?”
She yanked my arm into the sunlight coming through the screen door.
Fire popped like someone had sprayed me down with lighter fluid and flicked a match at me. I could smell the meat cooking on my bones and hear the crackling. I couldn’t fight my way off the stakes, but I kept trying, even with the pain shredding my throat and stomach and dick. Compared to that scared-shitless screaming in my head, the stakes barely registered.
Mikal’s voice cut through the noise. “I think I’ll save this stake for later. Be seeing you real soon, Tough.”
The screen door opened and closed twice. Then someone was running. A blanket smothered the flames. I sagged on the stakes. I probably should’ve been trying to get them out, but screw it, I was too tired.
“Okay, okay, don’t panic, guys,” Harper said. “For right now…”
I could hear her mopping up something with the blanket. Then she was rubbing it on my face and arm—everywhere I was burned. It was like morphine. The pain faded into fuzz.
Harper went back to soaking stuff up again, then she shoved the wet corner of the blanket into my mouth.
“Sorry,” she said. “I know it’s Colt’s, but blood is blood.”
I sucked it down like I was trying to drain the blanket.
After a few seconds, I tried to open my eyes. One eyelid stuck. The other ripped. Harper winced and Jax looked like he might barf. I reached for the blood-blanket. Harper handed it to me. Another couple mouthfuls and I pulled the Adam’s apple stake, then the stomach stake. The stake through my dick really freaked me out. I had to psych myself up, count to three, then rip it out.
I don’t know why I thought I’d be able to stand. Vamps can take a lot, right? But I hit the floor on my hands and knees and I’m pretty sure I was lucky to stay like that. Especially when the healing started.
It felt like maggots were chewing the damaged skin off of my body. I tried to scratch and just ended up tearing off as much of my skin as I could get ahold of. The skin I couldn’t reach peeled away and turned into dust, but it all happened too slow to stand. Splinters and bits of the old plaster and laths and nails from the wall pushed to the surface and dropped onto the f
loor. I’d never missed being able to scream so bad.
Seemed like it took forever before everything on me stopped moving. When it was finally done, I stood up and shook myself off. I felt like I needed to so that my body would know I was back in charge.
This time I rubbed my eyes before I opened them. That whole stuck-together thing had freaked me out and I needed to make sure I wasn’t extra crispy anymore.
“Jesus, Tough,” Harper said. She looked like she was trying not to cry. “I don’t even know what to say. Is this why? So you could—” She pointed at Colt’s body.
I nodded.
“It’s not a fair trade,” Harper said. She choked and started sobbing. “Not even close, you idiot.”
I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t think of anything appropriate to calm Harper down and Jax wasn’t doing anything but staring at me like I killed his best friend. Which I guess I sort of did.
Finally—and it seemed like too damn long to me—Jax snapped out of it. He put his arms around Harper and started whispering how everything was okay.
I didn’t want to deal with the body on the floor yet, didn’t even want to have to think about him, so I looked at the ceiling. Made myself hear past Harper and Jax to Desty. Her breathing had been really shallow before. What if she’d stopped while I was paying attention to everything going on down here?
One pump of her heart, a rush of blood. Then, later, another pump, with too long in between. I needed to make sure she was really okay. I took a step toward the stairs.
Don’t! Tiffani’s yell stopped me. Leave her alone.
Her heart—
It’s a side effect of the bite sedative, Tiffani said. I tried to shut her out. Stop it, Tough, I opened this connection, it’ll close when I tell it to.
I don’t want to hurt her, I said. I just want to see her.
You have to burn Colt’s body so he doesn’t come back as a zombie. He deserves to be able to move on.
That was true at least. I tried not to be a pussy, but turning around took a whole lot more willpower than I thought I had. I swallowed—another reflex, I guess—and looked down.
The vamp venom was drying on Colt’s face, even on his eyelashes. Around his mouth and nose, the bubbles had made little circle patterns. Between Harper’s blanket and Colt’s Lucky shirt, most of the blood from his arm had soaked up off the floor.
You always hear that people look peaceful when they’re dead, but Colt looked like someone had ripped out the vein in his arm and drowned him in poison. And like some bitch had been keeping him as her dog before that. He didn’t look peaceful. He looked exhausted.
I didn’t want to touch him, but I wanted that fucking collar off. The vamp speed kicked on. I went into the kitchen, came back with a knife, and started cutting.
Shit. The knife was dull. Why the hell didn’t we have any of those serrated blades? Did they really cost that much?
“You could just undo the—”
I knocked Jax’s hands out of the way and kept sawing.
“Tough,” Harper said, but she knew better than to touch me.
I tore through the last eighth-inch of the band and threw the collar across the room. Where it had been rubbing against his neck, Colt’s skin was darker, hard, and cracking. I wondered whether I could scrape that off somehow, if that would even matter.
No, it wouldn’t, because the next step was shoving a stake through his heart and setting him on fire so he didn’t come back rotting and soulless and a zombie like the Tracker.
One of the TV stand legs was on the floor next to Colt’s shoulder. Splintered, vamp venom on the bottom, burnt near the middle.
Pick it up, I told myself.
I didn’t move.
Pick it up!
My throat closed. I hit him. Then it was like I couldn’t stop, I just kept swinging and screaming inside my head, You asshole, why didn’t you just get a protector? What’d you have to pull this shit for?
Somebody had ahold of me. Two somebodies. They dragged me off him. I ducked my head and tried to make it sound like I was coughing, not bawling like a little bitch, but crying never sounds like anything else.
“You got him away from her, Tough,” Harper said. She picked up the TV stand leg. “You did the hard part. Jax and I can do the rest.”
He’s my brother. I grabbed the stake away from her. Leaned over Colt. It’s my job.
That’s when it happened. A concussion wave exploded off his body. Harper screeched. I slammed back-first into the bottom step. I heard Jax hit the wall.
Colt’s body rose up like someone was scooping him up off the floor. His head fell back, mouth open, and his arms and legs hung down. Light shined out of his skin. And there was this sound. Music—like the very first kind of music that ever existed, back when there was nothing else to fill up all the empty space where there wasn’t a universe yet, no instruments and no voices and no light. It was warm and so clear and perfect and holy. Until I heard it, I didn’t realize that I’d been listening for it my whole life.
And that it was so far away I would never, ever get to touch it.
Being cut off like that hurt so bad that it knocked me back down to my knees. I wiped my eyes on my forearm, but I ended up having to put my face down on the floor and cry. I don’t know what about. Yeah, I felt empty and cold and dead, but I don’t think it was just being lost that got me. Some of it was knowing for sure that I would never see Sissy or Mom and Dad again. Even Ryder, some. And realizing that if I had made Colt or Desty, I would’ve dragged them down to Hell with me.
The house went quiet. I heard Colt’s body hit the floor.
I looked up. Harper and Jax were shivering, blinking, trying to adjust to that music and light being gone.
Colt’s dark, blue-green Whitney eyes opened wide and he sucked in a breath that sounded like it scraped his lungs.
Son of a bitch. I crawled across the floor and threw my arms around him.
His heart was beating. His brain was firing. He was alive. And he was shaking like a guy freezing to death.
“Mikal—” Then I think Colt saw me for real, because he said, “Tough?”
Then he passed out.
PART III: OUTSIDE LOOKING IN
Colt
Something wasn’t right. I couldn’t open my eyes. I used to have nightmares like that, where I would hear gunfire all around me and Sissy yelling for me to get Tough, but it was like my eyes were glued shut.
Except this time everything was quiet, and instead of feeling as if my eyes were glued shut, it felt like something wasn’t working right in my brain, like the first time I tried alcohol. That was the night Sissy died, two weeks after my fifteenth birthday. Ryder had said, “Who came through for you, Sunshine? This motherfucker right here,” and tossed me the bottle. Between us we drank the whole thing. The last I remembered, I’d tried to stand up, but no part of me would move.
That memory wasn’t right. Ryder and I had gotten shitfaced on Southern Comfort the night Sissy died and we buried what was left of her by the cabin, but the first time I ever drank was after that fallen angel—Kevin or something—cut Dad’s head off.
Dammit, that wasn’t right either.
“Why don’t you get your lazy ass out of bed,” Ryder griped.
“Didn’t know you were here,” I said.
“Open your eyes. Kind of makes it harder for people to sneak up on you.”
I blinked, but it was too bright. Closed my eyes and tried again. When they adjusted I could see Ryder leaning against the wall, wearing his faded black Skynyrd t-shirt and carpenter jeans, with a soda bottle for spit in one hand and the other hand hooked in his back pocket.
“Where’s Mikal?” I asked.
Ryder rolled his eyes. “Don’t act like a dumbass, Colt. That’s Tough’s job.”
Screaming. Mikal holding a hunting knife. She started at Ryder’s feet and made sure he stayed alive as long as possible.
I couldn’t think of anything to say. I rubbed my fac
e with both hands. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to blow up the foot soldiers’ barracks? I would’ve helped. I could’ve figured out the way to do it so it counted.”
Ryder laughed.
“Man, you’re one cocky son of a bitch,” he said. He spat some tobacco juice into the soda bottle, scraped what was left off of his lip with the rim, then pointed it at me. “I paved the way for you, Sunshine. Where’s my thank you?”
That sounded right. I figured something out because of Ryder, but I couldn’t remember what it was.
“Come on, let’s go see if you can piss without Mikal telling you to,” he said, nodding at the door.
“I don’t have to.” I looked around. A girl's vanity in the corner. A mirror on the back of the door. I couldn’t remember what the bedroom at the cabin looked like, but I knew this couldn’t be it. I nodded at a poster on the wall of a guy in a trench coat. “Blood City III? Is that a movie?”
Ryder shrugged.
“I wouldn't pay to see it,” he said.
Then the memory of Ryder getting cut to pieces snapped into place. I’d had to gather up what was left of him by myself because Tough had disappeared as soon as he heard. I buried Ryder by Sissy. That was when I drank SoCo Hundred Proof until I couldn’t move, so I stayed the night out by Ryder and Sissy and prayed God would get Tough lost or killed somewhere far away from Halo. It had been right after that that I started having trouble sleeping in the cabin’s bedroom. Every time I’d tried to lay down, the bed felt like a grave.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” I told Ryder.
“Yeah,” he said. “Awful lot of that going around.”
The bedroom door opened. Tough. It took a second before I realized he was at least five years older than that last memory. And he had a set of fangs.
—is he talking to? Tough’s voice. Hearing it echo in my head locked down walls and slammed cell doors.
No, no, no, no, no… I hugged my arms around my stomach, trying not to feel the straightjacket. The lunatic’s cell. The electroshock was bad enough, but it was just for obedience training. The lunatic’s cell—I was being punished. I’m sorry, Mikal. I’ll be good, I swear. Tell me what I did wrong. I’ll never do it again. I swear to God I’ll be good, just please let me out.
