The Siders Box Set

by Leah Clifford

  “When did this start?” he asked in disbelief. Everything else faded away. He searched her face, her pallor, looking for signs he’d missed. She’s sick. She’s dying.

  “It’s not bad yet,” she said, as if it would be some consolation.

  “Damn it, that’s not the point.” Jarrod jammed on his shoes. He rushed down the flights of stairs but stopped just before the bend that would let him see out the windows beside the security door.

  Sullivan and Az had followed right behind him. Together, they stepped around the corner. A yelp of surprise tore out of Sullivan even as she tried to squelch it.

  Faces.

  They pressed against the glass, three of them, heads swiveling as if they rolled on broken necks. Across their cheeks, black smears stood out against pale skin. One tapped his finger against the glass and then curled it, calling them closer.

  The girl was the same demon they’d seen at Milton’s, but this time her features seemed to shimmer slightly in and out of focus. Her lips came closer to the glass. She blew an oval of steam. For a claw of a finger squeaked out. Eden. The steam evaporated. She pointed down, below the window, where Jarrod couldn’t see. Come out, the thing mouthed.

  At the sight of Sullivan, the demon raised a hand and gave a slight wave, a smile cracking a horizontal split across its face. The smile faltered as it caught sight of Az.

  “They can’t be near me,” Az said, slowly taking a step down. “I’m only half Fallen, which means to them, I’m still half Bound.” For every step they retreated, Az moved forward one. Jarrod watched Az’s wings spread, slide up over the railing, and spill across the stairwell. Slowly, the demonic trio backed off the stairs and onto the sidewalk, retreating until they were down the street, out of sight. Only then did Az open the door.

  “Jarrod,” he called out. “Come on. I need your help.”

  On the stoop, leaned against the building, was a hulking mass of blackened…something. Then the smell hit him. Smoke and meat. Cooked flesh. Jarrod gagged. It moaned.

  Oh God, that can’t be a person.

  “Jesus Christ.” Sullivan pushed around him and dropped to her knees beside what was left of the Sider. When she looked up, Jarrod saw her horror, but her voice came out unwavering. “We have to get him upstairs.”

  “Az, get Eden. Bring her down.”

  “No.” Sullivan’s demand stopped Az before he could take off. “Help me. We’ve got to get him up.” The Sider screamed as she slipped her arms under his. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  Four flights of agony. Stifled moans, as if the Sider knew he had to keep quiet, couldn’t let the neighbors hear and come to investigate. The smell was awful.

  What the hell are we doing? Jarrod thought. Twice he stopped, but Sullivan urged him on.

  “Please, just help me,” she said.

  Finally, they got the Sider inside the apartment and set him on the couch.

  Sullivan lowered, worked slowly, pulling strips of what used to be a shirt off the shoulder. The cracks in his skin wept pink liquid. A mix of fluid and blood, it ran like tears over his bumpy skin and dripped off to soak into the cushions.

  “I need cold water,” she said. “Any towels you can find me. Fast.”

  Jarrod squeezed her shoulder. This was only drawing out the burned Sider’s agony. “Eden will take away his pain a lot faster than—”

  “Now!” she snapped.

  Jarrod gestured for Az to follow him. In the kitchen, the tinny splash of water filling the mixing bowl covered his words.

  “Get Eden,” Jarrod told him. “I don’t know what Sullivan’s doing. It would take a dozen Siders’ worth of Touch to heal him, and even then . . .” He couldn’t figure it out.

  Az took the bowl and a clean hand towel from the cabinet.

  When they came around the corner, Sullivan’s fingers hovered, shaking, just above the Sider’s blistered black skin. “Hang in there,” she said. “I’ll fix you.”

  Az set the bowl beside her. It sloshed over the edges onto the carpet. “We’re not torturing him anymore.”

  “You don’t recognize him? Jarrod.” Her head snapped up. “Please. It’s Vaughn.”

  The room was silent except for Vaughn’s cries as she laid the sopping cold towel on him, the steady plop of dripping water. Every drop, every touch seemed to drive him further into agony.

  Suddenly, Az stood.

  “Don’t make Eden kill him!” Sullivan begged, catching his hand before he could leave.

  Vaughn croaked out a whisper. She leaned closer, dabbing at his wrecked face. Blisters burst in her wake. His charred fingers rose suddenly, clamped around her wrist. She froze, staring down in horror. The touch dropped her glamour.

  Her skin molded over, sores opening on her arms. Her mouth opened wide in terror.

  “They killed us,” Vaughn rasped, oblivious. “They killed us all.”

  “Get him off me.” Sullivan’s words sped up as she spoke, slurring together. “Jarrod, get him off me. Get him off me now!”

  Before Jarrod could move, Vaughn let go, one split and crumbling finger snapping off.

  “Please,” Vaughn moaned. “Make it stop.”

  Sullivan staggered backward. Just before she bumped into Jarrod, she turned. Gray tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “I can’t help him. I can’t do this,” she whispered, her fingers gripping fistfuls of Jarrod’s shirt even as his arms came around her. “I have to get out of here.”

  He looked at Az helplessly, stroking her hair. Seconds ago she’d been strong, determined. Now she melted into his shoulder, barely holding herself up.

  “I’ll get Eden,” Az said, already heading in that direction.

  Sullivan ripped away, bolting for Jarrod’s bedroom, leaving him behind, unsure what to do.

  “Come on,” he heard Az say to Eden. “I’ve got you.” Az came out, Eden hoisted in his arms, balled up tight. “Jarrod, go after Sullivan. Close your door,” he said as he passed.

  In his room, Sullivan sat on the bed with her back against the wall, her knees pulled up against her chest. Through the door, sounds came from the living room, Eden’s voice breaking, and all the awful sounds Vaughn made.

  Jarrod swallowed hard. “Even if you’d been able to pass to him, it wouldn’t have…” He trailed off when she looked up at him, tears trickling down her cheeks. He moved a foot closer, still keeping enough space between them that it was her choice if she wanted to come to him. He didn’t know whether to touch her or not, what would help. “This isn’t your fault. You know that, right?”

  Something in her gaze hardened. “Don’t patronize me.”

  “Patronize?” Jarrod cocked his head. “This was the Bound, Sullivan. They did this. They would have tried to kill us, too, if we were there.”

  “But I . . .” Her shoulders shook, her eyes wide and confused and afraid. “I wished for it. I wished it so many times, for him to die. Even before I took off. I just never thought….”

  He deserved that and more for what he did to you, Jarrod thought, his confusion slowly edging into anger. How could she be crying over Vaughn after everything he’d done to her?

  He remembered what it was like when James died, and they’d found him in a doorway. Adam killed by Libby on the roof. Neither death compared to waking up in the alley, his head screaming and Sullivan and Eden gone. He’d thought for sure they’d both been ash. He’d never lost anyone he’d loved. There was a knock on the door.

  “Yeah,” Jarrod said, his voice weak. Az’s head popped into the room.

  “It’s done,” he whispered, peeking at Sullivan’s back, his face clouded with worry. His fingers curled around the frame. “There’s something you need to know. About Gabe.”

  “Now?” Jarrod said.

  Az dropped his eyes to the floor. “You know how on the roof, when we were fighting Luke, Gabe couldn’t keep from confessing what he’d done to Eden? How it was just a compulsion?” Jarrod nodded. “Well, Upstairs it’s the same w
ay for promises.” Az hesitated. “Gabe promised he would kill Eden.”

  Jarrod’s arms fell away from Sullivan as he stood in surprise. “What?”

  “It’s not what you think!” Az said quickly. “Gabe set up the Bound. Once he made the promise, he has to be the one to fulfill it. None of the Bound can kill her but him. It was all he could do to protect her.”

  Jarrod shook his head, trying to wrap his brain around the idea. “You angels are fucked up.”

  Az didn’t bother to deny it. “It would be better for him if he didn’t know where she was,” he said, his brow furrowed. “Eden told me how he came here. That he wants her to find out how the Siders started.”

  Jarrod nodded as he made his way to the doorway.

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Az said, stepping back into the hall. He glanced over to where Sullivan had curled up in the bed. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “She’s like Eden now, isn’t she?”

  “Luke. In the park,” Jarrod said quietly. “We were looking for you.”

  Az’s frown deepened. “I’m so sorry.”

  Jarrod shook his head. There was nothing to say. “If Eden’s good to move,” he said, changing the subject, “when do we leave?”

  “Now. If you want to grab some stuff, this would be the time.”

  “Right.” Jarrod started to move toward the closet but stopped. It was the worst time for the question to pop into his head, but once it did, he had to ask it. “Hey, how did you get back here?”

  Az locked eyes with him. “I was let go for a favor requested in return. I won’t say what, so you’re just going to have to trust me.”

  Jarrod called out when Az started to walk away down the hall. “Do you know how to kill the Bound?”

  Az stopped, one hand on the wall. His wings swelled in and out with each breath he took.

  “Is there a way?” Jarrod asked.

  For a long time, Az didn’t answer. “Metal forged of fire and sin,” he said finally, without turning around. “Blades made by the Fallen.”

  “Where would we get them?” Jarrod pressed.

  Az’s wings shuddered. A feather drifted slowly to the carpet. When he turned to Jarrod, Az looked grim. “Luke,” he said. “I wouldn’t count on getting your hands on any.”

  Jarrod gave him a slight nod.

  “We should pack some stuff,” Jarrod said to Sullivan when Az had gone. He sat beside her on the bed, and she leaned onto his shoulder for a beat as if drawing strength. He wrapped an arm around her and stroked her back.

  Jarrod glanced around the room. It felt weird to know he’d only lived here a few months. It was home. He pulled away from Sullivan and headed to the closet. Buried in the back, he knew there was an old backpack of Adam’s. He grabbed that and a duffel bag and stood staring.

  He ran a hand over the hangers that held Adam’s old tattered band T-shirts. The few flannels that James had worn.

  I’ll probably be with you guys soon, he thought. But the thought didn’t bring him any comfort. Libby had killed both James and Adam and sent them Downstairs. They didn’t get some afterlife relief. If they still existed at all, they were in Hell. Suffering. He pulled a few flannels out and tossed them to Sullivan.

  “Here, these should fit you,” he said as he crossed over to the dresser and opened a drawer. A minute later and the bag was full. He slid out a small side drawer full of old receipts and wrappers, kept tugging when he got to the end of it. Holding the drawer in one hand, he swept his hand along the back.

  He took out a tightly wrapped roll; the few bucks he’d managed to hole away, mostly tips from Milton’s. It wasn’t much, maybe forty or so dollars. “Ready?”

  Sullivan looked up at him from the bed, her brown eyes glossy. He hooked a thumb in the waistband of his jeans and slung the backpack over his shoulder.

  “We didn’t have rent,” he said quietly. “We would have gotten kicked out anyway.”

  He thought she’d say something. Tell him it was going to be all right. He didn’t know why he expected it—it was such a terrible thing to ask of her after what had just happened—but when she didn’t, he got a sinking feeling of dread. “You all right?” he asked her.

  “Nope.” She stood up, the duffel in her hands only half full of James’s shirts. “But it doesn’t change anything. We still have to go.”

  Chapter 21

  Luke kept his bedroom black, the windows so blocked out that not even the city lights stole through. When Kristen moved against the covers, she heard the crackle of flames. Fire. She rolled herself into a tight ball on the bed, tucked into the corner near the headboard and against the wall. Clamping her hands over her ears, she tried to keep out the horrible sound of the flames that had eaten them all.

  But in the darkness, her terror only grew.

  “'I have been here before/But when or how I cannot tell,’” she cried, the words instinctively rushing out of her. The cadence of the poetry was off, though; it did nothing to settle her. Bits of nightmare tortured her—Sebastian cresting over the side of the mattress, his face melting, an eye boiling and bursting as he used the blanket to drag himself closer. The glowing coals of his finger bones singing into the fabric.

  “'I know the grass beyond the door.’” Kristen’s voice shook. “'The sweet keen smell’!” she screamed.

  The door swung open, flooding the room with sudden light. Luke stood silhouetted against the glare from the hall. “Kristen? Are you all right?”

  She stared around in confusion, soaking up every detail. The deep maroon of the walls. Luke’s dresser. The closet was open, the clothes he’d bought her hanging neatly.

  I never left, she thought suddenly. It was a dream, all a dream. Not just the fire but so much more—Luke and how she’d left him at the club, Gabriel being Bound again, everything.

  With a violent shudder, she threw off the covers and leaped for him. She curled her arms around his neck. Luke stiffened.

  “I’m hallucinating.” She pulled back and stared up at him, her heart raging. “A fire, and Gabriel . . . I’m going mad. You have to help me. I’m giving you permission. Please!”

  Luke looked at her for a long second before slowly drawing her against him again. “It wasn’t a hallucination.”

  Kristen slumped.

  If I’d stayed with Luke, there never would have been a ball, there never would have been a fire. “I didn’t know what would happen. If I’d known the price,” she started.

  “Come to the kitchen with me,” he said, brushing her hair back. “I already have the kettle on. We should talk.”

  Still shaken, she let him lead her down the hall, halfway there before the wording struck her.

  I already have the kettle on, he’d said. A trickle of paranoia leaked in at the back of her thoughts. Had he given her the nightmare to wake her up? Could he do that? The comfort of his hand in hers dissolved.

  When they got to kitchen Luke headed for the stove, where, just as he’d said, the kettle steamed lightly, two mugs sitting on the counter with tea bags already in them. Kristen took a seat on one of the bar stools and watched him pour the boiling water. He glanced over at her.

  “Nothing,” she said in answer to a question he hadn’t asked. She shook her head, turned her attention to the rings decorating her fingers. Instead of staying on his side of the counter, Luke passed back into the living room, to her stool, setting both mugs next to her.

  “Have you begun to imagine your revenge yet?” He dropped a sugar cube into one of the mugs and slid it toward her. “In your nightmare, did you hear your friends screaming?”

  “Why would you say that to me?” Like a fingernail scraping a match, a flame of hate sparked to life inside her. “Why would you ever—”

  “Sebastian, Madeline, the others? Fists were plunged through their chests. The Bound murdered them,” he said. “And so I’m asking if you’ve begun to plan your revenge yet, that’s all.” Fury coursed through her. Luke’s words were low. “You don’t need to shy awa
y from that darkness inside you.” As an angry heat flushed her face, he took the tips of her fingers, kissed each one until she dropped her hand. “Not with me.”

  Backing slowly away from him, Kristen worked her face into a mask, pushed her roiling emotions down deep. “What you did to me last night? Making me watch them turned to ash?” They wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t invited them. She wrenched the thought from her mind. “What you did was unforgivable.”

  Luke’s grin was unexpectedly playful, dangerous. “Then don’t forgive me.”

  Just out of her view, he reached onto the counter and slid something across it. She couldn’t see what he held behind his back. “What is that?” she asked, walking backward.

  Luke paced her step for step. His arm stayed cocked, whatever he had, hidden. “I have something for you.”

  “Show me,” she said, nodding toward his hand. Her back bumped against the apartment door.

  “This will be useful to you,” he said, bringing a knife out from behind his back. The slight curve of the eight-inch blade shimmered with the light stealing in from the hall, intricate designs carved into the silver finish. Luke continued his slow saunter toward her. His eyes smoldered like spent coals.

  “Do you wonder where you would be without me?” he said as he reached her. He flattened his hand against her breastbone. “Heart torn from this exquisite chest, your soul burned into nonexistence? You’d be just like the others. Nothing.”

  Her shoulders tensed, sure any moment she’d feel the searing pain of the knife buried in her side. Instead, it clattered to the floor. Without warning, Luke’s fists slammed against the door on either side of her. The loud bang rattled her. Through her thin sweater, the door leached away her warmth, her back against the metal.

  She froze as Luke’s hands slid down. He grabbed her chin and wrenched her face upward. “When we first met, you didn’t dare tell anyone about us. I was your darkest secret. Because you wished it, I told no one,” he said, enunciating each word. “The second time we met, I came for you when you were sick, fixed the broken parts of your mind when no one else could.” Kristen tensed at the memories, praying he’d stop, but Luke went on. “I gave you dresses. I gave you poetry. I gave you anything you wished. Yet when Gabriel came for you, I was banished from your world yet again, wasn’t I?” He waited for her to answer. “Wasn’t I?” he asked again.