Then a bright light appeared at the other end of the street.
“Zilch?” Finn looked up quickly, squinting. Maybe they’d found a flashlight or something. It was small and white, like a little searchlight bobbing at head level, like the ones on the lighted helmets worn by miners before the fires.
Another bright light appeared next to the first one. Finn could clearly see the figures behind them now: two men in black body armor, helmets and gas masks. He gasped and froze, cold panic flooding his every vein. Swallowing hard, he very slowly raised his hands above his head, and looked desperately for tall shadows. They’d have to come to him, because he couldn’t scream.
The two men stood facing him, very still and silent. Finn held just as still—and just as aware of their size, their heavy armor, and their weapons.
There was an electronic click-hum as one turned his skull-like mask to look at the other, communicating silently on a police radio frequency wired into their helmets. Finn waited for almost ten seconds—but it seemed like much longer—anxiety rising as they held a conversation he couldn’t hear. Suddenly the radio-hum clicked off, and both men lurched forward as one, each taking an arm and pinning Finn facedown on the car.
He tried to scream, but a gloved hand muffled his voice. Cold handcuffs snapped around his wrists, biting painfully into his flesh, and a fast series of loud pops sounded from somewhere above them, like a string of fireworks exploding all at once. Finn struggled but couldn't move, panic overwhelming him—
“Take your hands off him.”
All three heads snapped up to see a very tall, thin figure standing in the middle of the street, sharp and pitch black against the pale sputtering light of a streetlamp. Their long shadow stretched toward them all, so dark and solid it almost seemed like an extension of themself. A slight breeze wafted a puff of smoke through the street and blew at the hanging shreds of their ragged layers; Finn remembered an old cowboy movie he’d seen once, a gunslinger, high noon…
Then their thin arms reached up and slowly lowered their hood. Now the pale light shone on a cold, hard stare, stripes and angles of stitches, and bared, broken teeth.
“Zero.” One of the SkEye men actually spoke out loud on a frequency everyone could hear. The electronically-altered voice sounded marveling, admiring and accusatory all at once.
Their eyes narrowed. Slowly, they took a step forward.
“Zilch!” Finn was simply overjoyed. He also hadn’t heard the other word at all. He couldn’t see anything but their intensity and determination; nothing stopped Zilch once they started to walk like that, and now they were walking right to him. “I knew you’d come back! Five minutes!” He laughed, face lit up with relief, almost excitement—then one of the enforcers slammed a savage fist into his ribs, knocking the wind along with all resistance.
Immediately, Zilch froze mid-step, jerking as if they’d been the one punched. For one long moment they hung perfectly still in the air as if paralyzed, eyes nearly popping from their sockets. Then, as Finn watched, horrified, they clutched desperately at their own chest, doubled over in stunned agony—and went down hard.
Finn gasped, struggling harder against the armed men; he still couldn’t form words, much less scream, but he wanted to. Zilch was sprawled on the ground, motionless, and he couldn’t see why. There had been no gunshots, no explosions, but when they moved it was to slowly curl onto their side. He couldn’t remember he’d ever seen Zilch in pain before. He hadn’t actually known they could feel it. But they still weren’t getting up.
One of the SkEye men waved a hand high, and the ever-present background noise of overhead engines grew louder in response. A moment later harsh white light flooded the street and a helicopter descended into the urban trench with a deafening roar. Its searchlight was blinding, and the wind from its spinning blades churned up the ashes and smoke like a cyclone.
“No!” Now Finn screamed. Now he fought, kicked, tried to bite, all while struggling to get his breath back, his head spun. Something slammed into his temple and his world exploded and then went black. All up and down the street, garbage cans and mailboxes exploded and lit up the smoke-filled night like the Fourth of July. And above it all the engine roar rose, closer and louder with every second.
As the men shoved his limp body into the chopper, Finn forced his blurred vision back into focus for just a second longer. Zilch still wasn’t here. But they were trying. Even clinging to consciousness and overwhelmed with terror, Finn felt a faint wave of warmth. He watched as with what had to be every last bit of strength in their dead, stitched-together body, Zilch forced themself up onto their feet, and staggered forward—and fell again.
The chopper was lifting up and away now, and Finn was going along with it and Zilch wasn’t going with him. They were a small figure now, and getting smaller, crawling on their hands and knees and clawing at the air and walls.
Finn thought he heard Zilch yell something, but their voice was lost in the blizzard of garbage and ash and howling wind and the rushing in his own head.
But it was too late. The chopper lifted up and away before Zilch made it halfway there, its searchlight still sweeping the area. All they could do was watch helplessly as it disappeared. As they gasped and tried to push themself to take another step, the roar faded, and the street was still again. The enforcers, the helicopters, and Finn were gone.
“I’m sorry…”
Zilch collapsed to the ground—and their heart, wherever it was, sank.
“At least your mom’s okay,” Rose said, searching for a silver lining. It might take a while, but she always found one.
“‘Okay’ is relative term at this point, I think.” Evelyn buried her face in her hands. The only sounds were Danae and Jack’s soft breathing from the nearby bed; they were curled up together, sleeping. In dreams, Danae looked the happiest she’d been all day, with Jack’s little arms and legs splayed out and one finger almost in his mama’s mouth.
“Was she always like this?” Rose asked gently.
“No. She used to be my best friend.” Evelyn brought her knees up against her chest, rested her chin on them. “She still is. This isn’t her, it’s her… I can’t even call it an ability. Before, she always had anxiety and depression. Horrible, debilitating. But with Chrysedrine…” Evelyn sighed. “It’s a kind of future sight, but several possible futures, and usually they’re… not good. All the things that scared her before, now she actually sees it happen. Like hallucinations but—but worse. Because some of them are real, she just can’t always tell which ones.”
“That’s… I can’t imagine.”
“You wouldn’t want to. Seeing all the things she sees? And then watching some of them come true, and then the relief when others don’t? I can’t imagine either, how infuriating that must have been, trying to pick out the truth from the lies. And terrifying. But she’d try to warn us, about everything. Every single one. And eventually… we stopped listening. I stopped.” She shut her eyes, curled tighter around her knees. “And then I had to leave. And I tried to keep talking to her, but I stopped even that… it hurt to see her. If I hadn’t left her alone, maybe she wouldn’t have—”
“Evelyn, stop,” Rose said gently. “You had to save yourself. You know how it goes, secure your own oxygen mask before assisting others.”
“I know. But now that I’m back…” Evelyn frowned, and let out a frustrated noise. “I’m trying to fix this, and just keep running into roadblocks. I thought she’d tell me everything but she didn’t and it’s not because she doesn’t know. She wouldn’t. She actually—Liam’s up to something. My uncle is up to something even worse. My mother knows what it is, but she’s not talking—and I can’t help if I’m in the dark!”
“I know you want to help,” Rose said after a pause, “And I agree, Cassandra definitely knows more than she’s telling us. But from everything you’ve told me, it would be a mistake to underestimate her. That nurse, Lisette, seems to care too—and be pretty on top of things. Even i
f she’s just a kid.” She chewed her bottom lip, slipping back into her thoughtful analysis groove, and Evelyn had to smile at this small reminder of life as it should be. “A smart kid. Who definitely seems to have Liam read like a book. I wonder who sent her and—what was the other one’s name? Wren? I wonder where they’re from. I bet they know a lot about what goes on behind the scenes here…”
“I’m so glad you’re here.” Evelyn smiled. “Nobody else I’d rather have in my corner.”
Rose looked up and smiled back once the words sunk in through her contemplative reverie. “Just trying to put all the pieces together. Do you think your mother would talk to me?”
“Can’t see why not. She’s always said she wanted to meet you and Danae. And-and Jack.” Evelyn’s voice caught and Danae’s hand went to rub a slow circle between her shoulder blades.
“The feeling’s mutual, believe me. And I might be able to help her cope better with her attacks. She might not see horrible things so much, then.”
“Thank you so much—you’ve just been amazi—”
The loud banging on the door made them both jump.
“Yes?” Rose called softly so as not to wake Jack or Danae. Nobody answered after a second, so she turned back to Evelyn. Then they both jumped at the second knock that nearly broke down the door. “What in the—”
“Shh!” Evelyn sprang up, placing herself between the door and her family in a heartbeat and instantly slipping into a fighting stance, ready to kick, punch or scream, all of which would do significant damage. Instead, she carefully opened the door.
A tall figure in hooded black rags stood outside, looking like it had crawled there directly out of the grave. Or maybe up from Hell.
Evelyn and Rose both jumped back, letting out soft gasps, and Rose automatically raised her forearms as a forest of sharp thorns sprang out of her skin. In front of her, Evelyn opened her mouth wide, ready to let loose a hurricane blast—
“Help me.”
Evelyn stopped just in time. She let out her breath, but not in a scream, as the a pair of long arms reached up and slowly lowered the hood, revealing a face that appeared to be stitched together from different people, skin of different colors and ages and textures, but none of them at all healthy. Their strikingly wide eyes were fever-bright and unnaturally still, fixing her and Rose with an unblinking stare, and even these didn’t look quite alive. If she didn’t know better, she’d say a living corpse stood before her, some kind of dead and re-animated horror movie monster—
Until they raised their hands from in surrender.
“I’m sorry. Don’t—please don’t be afraid. Help.”
Rose stood up and stepped toward them very slowly, trying not to feel like she was walking toward death itself. “Who are you?”
“Where’s Chimera?”
Rose and Evelyn exchanged a glance more confused than terrified now. “I don’t know th—”
The stranger whirled around and staggered back into the hall. Evelyn and Rose slowly turned to face one another, expressions shocked mirror-images, and followed. Rose stopped to close the door behind them over the sleeping Danae and Jack. In the hall, their unexplained guest banged on the door and didn’t stop until Regan pulled it open.
“Zilch? What—”
“Chimera.” Their voice sounded like the scraping of metal across concrete as they leaned in close, terror in the whites of their boggling eyes. “I need your help.”
“What happened?” Regan whispered, neck frill starting to twitch and jump as his yellow eyes widened and pupils narrowed to slits.
“Arrested. They took him!”
“Okay. Okay, just hang on, we’re gonna—Evelyn?” Regan called, opening his door the rest of the way and stepping outside. He immediately waved her over when he saw her and Rose doing the same, looking almost more relieved than Zilch when she hurried down the hall toward them. “Evelyn, this is—”
“Zilch,” she finished, several puzzle pieces snapping together in her head. “Hello, good to finally meet you face to face, sorry it’s under these circumstances.”
“Evelyn Calliope.” The face in question was, admittedly, terrifying under the dark hood under which it had been previously obscured. But more relevantly, its eyes were wide and staring with what she immediately knew to be fear. At once, the strange and unsettling Zilch got a lot less frightening; Evelyn always knew what came next when people were frightened, and needed protecting. “Finn. My friend. Taken. Save him. Please.”
“Of course.” Evelyn’s hands balled into fists. “It was SkEye, wasn’t it?”
“Wait. Start from the beginning,” Rose said as calmly as she could, and made herself look up at the strange and intimidating figure looming over them in the hallway. Zilch didn’t look like any other trauma survivor she’d ever encountered, but she’d learned fast and early in Parole that this was one area in which appearances couldn’t matter less. They were showing the same signs. So she was going to treat them the same way. “Now. What happened after you left the house tonight?”
Strangely, Zilch’s bone-thin, angular shoulders rose and fell, as if they were going through the motions of taking a deep breath. No lungs inflated in their chest—the organs were stored miles away in a jar of formaldehyde in the library basement—but the ritual helped to calm them down. They opened their lopsided mouth to speak, but didn’t get the first word out.
“S’going on?” Danae asked, coming out of their room and rubbing one eye with the heel of her hand. She stopped dead, freezing as soon as she laid her one open eye on Zilch, and immediately let out an involuntary scream, stumbling backwards into the wall.
“Dee, it’s okay!” Evelyn immediately slipped between her and Zilch, blocking her view of the cadaver-like face or flowing black layers. “This is Zilch, and they—they?” She shot a quick glance over her shoulder, and Zilch did indeed shoot her a quick nod back, though they didn’t lower their hood either. “They’re not gonna hurt anyone, they need our help. Breathe, hon.”
“I’m good,” Danae gasped, nodding a few times but still sucking in breaths. “Jeez Louise—I’m fine, wow, just startled is all, just a little… little bit.”
“That’s it,” Evelyn rubbed her back and gently steered her over to Rose, so she could look back up at Zilch with an apologetic and carefully calm expression. Truly, she couldn’t blame Danae for being startled. Evelyn might have picked a stronger word. “We’re gonna help their friend Finn in a minute. Remember Finn? He was arrested by SkEye tonight.”
“I’m sorry.” Zilch whispered, raising their black hood, where it shadowed the most disturbing of their features. “This is not… I don’t like. Meeting. People like…I’m sorry.”
“No, no, it’s—you’re fine, my fault, I know the fe…” Danae risked a glance up at Rose. “I asked Finn to pick up some of our stuff. Wanted to surprise you. Looks like I set the kid up for…” Then she realized something, and she immediately paled. Her eyes snapped up to Zilch. “Wait. You went with him? To our house?”
“Yes.”
“I told him not to tell anyone!” Danae exclaimed, before shutting her mouth again and looking anywhere but at the bizarre, patchwork-gray face.
“He only told me.” Zilch pressed a hand against their forehead hard, trying to keep more skin from peeling off, and keep themself focused. “He thinks I don’t count. He tells me everything.”
“You care about him, don’t you?” Rose asked gently, one arm still around Danae’s shoulders. She might not have seen anyone quite like Zilch in her life before, but she knew despair, vulnerability, and exhaustion when she saw it. They were common symptoms for life in Parole, often occurring simultaneously, and Rose made it a priority to alleviate them wherever she could. “He’s important to you.”
“Yes.” Zilch fell silent. When they spoke again, their words came out in a tumble much faster than their usual measured rhythm; anyone else might have been close to hyperventilating. “Help me, help him, Finn did nothing wrong, never an
ything wrong, just the wrong place, wrong time, always, always the wrong place, always the wrong time, doesn’t listen, no sense, never any sense, wants to help, tries too hard, I’m not breakable, he is—”
“Just take it slow,” Rose said, voice low and grounding. “We’ll focus on Finn one-hundred percent once we’re done here, and we’ll move fast, I promise. But first, just take us through what happened, nice and easy.”
Zilch focused on her warm gaze with an intense stare of their own. She had the unsettling impression that she was looking into the predatory eyes of a bird of prey—just colder, dead—and tried not to shiver. Rose tried to stay in the moment, remember her training, be an anchor no matter who the person she was working with looked or sounded like. It seemed to help, because they continued more easily. “We found your house. It was too quiet. Unsecured. That was wrong. I knew it was wrong. Shouldn’t have let him go in…”
By the time they were done relating the night’s traumatic events, Danae was leaning against the wall, rubbing her forehead. “Oh, God…” She sighed. “I should have never sent him there. I should have known SkEye would be swarming the place. If something happens to him, it’s my—”
“No, hon.” Evelyn said firmly. “It’s SkEye’s fault, same as always. Not yours.”
“Zilch?” Rose spoke up from her thoughtful silence. “Where were you when the enforcers arrested him? Were you inside the house?”
“No.” Zilch jerked as if they’d been slapped—or struck by whatever had incapacitated them back on the street. “I saw them arrive. On foot, outside. I went to head them off. I came back, and they had him. Then something hit me. It… hurt,” they tilted their head, as if deeply confused by the memory. “I fell. They took him. Explosions. Too much. I couldn’t reach him.”
“Explosions…” Danae frowned, reflecting back over something that had puzzled her before. It made perfect sense now. “I kept hearing booms when we were in the elevator together—and on the taxi ride here. Those were him, aren’t they?”
Chameleon Moon Page 18
