by Sarah Fine
“Or in a house fire,” I muttered, glancing over at her.
Tegan’s short brown hair was sticking up, like she’d rolled out of bed. She looked in the backseat. “Hey, Henry. You look like shit.”
He laughed and then coughed a few times. “I know. Thanks for picking us up.”
I looked back and forth between them, and Tegan patted my leg. “Henry’s my stalker.” She didn’t say it in a freaked-out way, though.
Henry rubbed a grimy hand over his face, which only made it more evenly filthy. “She’s more perceptive than I figured. She also . . .”
“Henry drove me home after Jim ditched me,” Tegan said, her voice changing, becoming tight and strained. “I was too messed up to realize Henry was probably a serial killer. But he hasn’t slaughtered me yet.”
I gave Henry a tight-lipped glare. In his ordinary human life, he pretty much had been a serial killer. The only difference was he’d gotten paid.
Henry smiled, and I realized he kind of liked Tegan, too.
“Anyway,” she continued, “when a few creeps cornered me outside the mall a few days ago, Henry ran them off. We have an understanding.”
“As Jim’s uncle,” Henry said, “it was the least I could do after my nephew took off. He ran with a rough crowd, and I felt responsible.”
Tegan pulled up to her property and punched in the security code. As the metal gates swung open, I looked across the rolling lawn. Malachi had been here the night we went to prom. That meant Juri knew it was her house.
“How much security do you have around this place?” I asked.
Tegan snorted. “Considering that my dad defends some of the most unsavory characters in the state, I’d say . . . a lot. He’s kind of paranoid.”
Perfect.
She followed a narrow roadway around the back of the mansion. “You can spend the night in the carriage house,” she said. “If you don’t want to go home to Diane, that is.”
Diane. Before I could ask, Henry leaned forward and said, “She’s fine, Lela. She’s okay.”
“Pretty upset, though,” added Tegan. “She’s called me several times, wanting to know if I’ve seen you. She’s afraid yours might be one of the bodies in that club that burned. I was, too, until Henry told me you were just hiding out for a while. I had no idea you were trying to escape from a gang, Lela. You could have told me.”
I hadn’t known myself, but it seemed a pretty good cover. “Um. Yeah. My past is sort of . . . yeah. But now I don’t want anything to do with them.” I rubbed my eyes. I needed to rise from the dead and let Diane know I was okay. But I knew that was going to be a pretty intense experience, and right now, all I wanted to do was sleep. “I’ll go see Diane tomorrow. She’s probably at work right now.” Ironically, she might be safer down at the medium-security prison than she was in her own home.
We got out of the car, and Tegan unlocked the carriage house, which was about the size of Diane’s regular house. She flicked on the lights in the entryway and pointed up the stairs. “There are three bedrooms up there. I’ll bring you guys some clothes. Lela . . .” She seemed to notice my outfit for the first time. “What the hell are you wearing?”
She narrowed her eyes and came toward me, reaching out to touch my goatskin tunic. I stepped back into the shadows as she said, “Is that a knife? Is this a costume, or have you lost your mind?”
“Ah, Tegan, I would love some regular clothes, though I don’t think your pants would fit me.” Tegan was built like a pixie, and I was a bit more . . . more.
She waved her hand. “I’ll bet my mom has stuff. I’ll bring it over tomorrow. I’m going back to bed.”
She walked toward the door and then turned to me again. “Lela, are you okay?” she asked quietly. “You look . . . different.”
Because I’m done, I wanted to say. I’m running on empty and I’m afraid it’s not going to be enough. “I’m all right.” I forced the words out. “It’s just been a hard week.”
Her brow furrowed. “See you tomorrow?” She didn’t sound sure at all.
I nodded. “I’ll be here. Thanks again, Tegan. I’m sorry for all this.”
Her fingers ran down the doorframe, and she watched their motion, like her thoughts were far away. “It’s okay.” Then she left us alone.
Henry had sunk onto a stool at the breakfast bar. “I’ve spun a lot of lies in the last week. Raphael didn’t take much from her. Just the memory of the club. But she remembers the ambush. And she thinks she remembers a fight with Jim.”
Jim. I wished he was here right now. He’d become a really dependable Guard, and we needed all the help we could get. “Where do you think he is now?” I asked as we trudged toward the stairs.
Henry shrugged. “That kid had a lot of stuff to work out. He did well at the end, though.”
“It would have been nice if he’d had a chance to live. I know it’s what he wanted. I think it’s what he was missing.” Jim had spent his entire existence in the Countryside, a perfect sort of paradise, and somehow, it hadn’t been what he’d needed. Or maybe it had been, but only after he’d had a chance to make his own mistakes and experience the consequences.
“Everyone’s heaven is different, I think,” Henry said, and I suspected he was thinking of Sascha, of what they’d shared in the desolate Wasteland. I knew what he meant, too, because Malachi and I had that. In the worst place in the universe, we’d been together, and at moments, we’d had happiness and safety and contentment. I hadn’t wanted anything else.
Sadness flooded me, and I waved my hand at one of the bedrooms as we reached the top of the stairs. “Get some rest,” I said to Henry, my throat tight with sorrow. “I need to take a shower and sleep.”
I’d reached my limit. One more word or reminder or demand and I’d crack. Henry retreated silently into one of the bedrooms, and I limped into the bathroom. I laid my knife on the counter and stripped myself down. The mirror told me all I needed to know. Grimy face, scarred body, greasy hair. I looked as broken as I felt.
I turned on the shower and stepped in, welcoming the spray of hot water on my face. Wishing I could melt and flow down the drain. Wishing someone would lift this stuff off my shoulders. The creatures I had to kill, the people I had to protect.
The boy I had to miss.
A sob came out of me before I could stop it. “I miss you,” I whispered. “I didn’t want to do this without you.” And I wasn’t sure I could.
I sank to the tile and wrapped my arms around my knees, letting the water wash away the dirt, leaving only the wounds. If I succeeded in this mission, what then? Succeeding probably meant staying alive, and staying alive meant staying here. Growing up and getting old. All while Malachi roamed the Countryside, forever young and strong and perfect.
If I died, though, it would mean I’d failed. And if I did, what would happen? Juri would be free to live and to kill. Who knows where I’d go next. Hell, the Judge might even send me right back into action. By the end of it all, I’d be a zombie girl held together with scar tissue.
I let out a miserable laugh. “Who am I kidding? I already am.”
If Malachi were here, he’d be thinking about his mission. But I couldn’t. I was too tired, too sad. So I let the water run until it turned cold, and then I scrubbed myself shiny clean and tiptoed into an empty bedroom, where I crawled naked between the sheets and cried myself to sleep.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“READY FOR THIS?”
“No.” I held on to the strap of my seat belt and stared at the front of Diane’s house. Her car was in the drive, but the shutters were closed, which was unusual for her. She liked the light.
Tegan poked my shoulder. “Maybe she’ll understand. She’s always seemed pretty cool, if a little scary.”
I stared at the house. “She’s both those things.”
“Will you be at school?”
“He hasn’t been at school since prom, either. I figured you were together.”
“We’re not. Definitely not.”
She shrugged. “There were a lot of post-prom breakups. It’s been a big drama fest. Greg is still in the hospital, Alexis is hobbling around on crutches, and we had two assemblies about gang stuff last week. Ian has hardly said a word to anyone. He just looks shell-shocked.” She gave me a sidelong glance. “I told him you were alive, but I’m not sure he believed me.”
Another intense encounter I wasn’t looking forward to. My fingers closed over the door handle. “I’ll talk to him later, assuming Diane doesn’t kill me first.”
“Good plan. Do you want me to wait?”
“No, go ahead and get to school. I’ll catch up with you later.” I got out of her car and trudged up the steps. My eyes skated over the tulips in her flower beds. Lovely and normal. It was a painful sort of illusion. In the dark city and the Mazikin realm, things looked exactly as horrible as they were. Here, there were birds chirping in the trees, and little kids shrieking and giggling at a nearby playground, and the sweet scent of honeysuckle in the air. All of it seemed safe, and clean, and right. But none of it was. Not for me, and not for anyone close to me. I sniffed as the breeze lifted my curls. Would the Mazikin still smell like incense now that they weren’t doing their possession ritual to bring more of their family to the land of the living? Had we lost that advantage, too?
I reached the front door and knocked. I didn’t have my key. Heavy footsteps caused my stomach to tighten, and then the door swung open. My foster mother’s usually smooth face was creased with worry and grief, and her silver hair was a dry, broken mess. Her deep-brown skin had a grayish cast; her eyes were puffy and bloodshot. She stared at my face and then looked me up and down. In that moment of stillness, my heart beat so hard that I couldn’t breathe. She was the only one who hadn’t abandoned me. Yet.
“I’m sorry, Diane,” I whispered.
Her eyes widened as tears spilled over, so fast that they were flooding down her cheeks. Then her hands shot out and grabbed my arms, and in a raw second I was pressed against her chest as she sobbed. Her grip on me was steely yet soft as she held me close. “Are you hurt? Do we need to go to the hospital? Do you need to eat?”
Before I could answer, she shook me by the shoulders, hard enough to rattle my teeth. “Where the hell have you been? Do you have any idea what the last week has been like for me?” she yelled, her voice rising with every word. “No one had any clue where you were! I thought they’d either find you dead or tell me you were gone for good! What got into you?”
I tried to twist myself out of her grip before she snapped my neck with her frantic shaking. “I’m sorry! Let go! Diane!”
She stepped back, her chest heaving. “Explain, baby. Right now. Because a lot of people have been looking for you. And me—” She put her hand to her mouth to hold in another sob, all the while waving her finger at me.
I reached forward and grabbed that finger, giving it a little shake that made her upper arms wobble. “If you’d give me a chance, I’ll explain!” It hurt to see her so upset. “I’m so sorry, Diane. I had to lie low for a few days after that prom gang-fight thing. I didn’t want anyone I cared about to be hurt.”
“It’s my job to make sure you’re safe!” she shouted. “You could have come to me.”
“But you are one of the people I care about. I didn’t want you to get hurt, either.”
She put her hands on her ample hips. “They can come at me. Who are they—just baby thugs? You think I haven’t dealt with worse every workday for the past twenty years?”
I rubbed my hand over my face. Sleep hadn’t restored my strength or energy. In fact, I felt emptier. Every word made me more tired. “More than baby thugs, Diane. Look, I know you can handle a lot, but I didn’t want to . . . I don’t know . . . bring it here.” Not that I had a choice in that. If Juri wanted to destroy me, he’d come here sooner or later, right when he thought it would hurt the most. And as tough as Diane was, few people could last more than a second against him. I wasn’t sure I could, either. “They could still come around.”
She sighed. “What did you get yourself into?”
“Uh, if I said ‘hell,’ could we leave it at that?”
She seemed to swell before my eyes, like an angry rooster. “What do you think?”
“How about you help me get back on track? Can we do that? I turn eighteen in less than two months. The state won’t have to worry about me after that, but I’m sure Nancy would love to put me up in the RITS until then.” My probation officer dogged my every move, waiting for me to screw up.
Diane mm-mm-mm-ed her disapproval. “One of the conditions of your probation is staying in school, baby. What did you think she would do?”
“She’s already put in the violation order, hasn’t she?”
“She said she would if you turned out to be alive.”
“How sensitive of her. What did you say?”
Diane looked away. “I had to be escorted out of the Department of Children, Youth and Families by a security guard. She’s not pressing charges, though.”
I fought a smile. “You’re awesome. You know that, right?”
“I don’t like anyone threatening my kids, baby.”
And I didn’t want anyone threatening Diane. I needed this to be over, quickly. Once I had terminated every single remaining Mazikin, then they could put me in jail or whatever. It wouldn’t matter. I felt so numb that I didn’t think I’d care. The future I’d wanted felt like a distant daydream. I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought it could be real. “If I show up at school, will Nancy send cops to pick me up?”
She smoothed her hair down. “I’ll call your social worker and tell her what’s going on. Maybe Jen and I can settle Nancy down. But you have to go back to school, baby. If you miss another day before graduation, you’ll only be handing her ammo.”
I glanced toward the kitchen, at the microwave clock. “I’d better get ready, then. Can you drive me today?”
She nodded, a sad smile pulling at her lips. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said hoarsely. Then she put her hand over her mouth again and trundled back to her room. I went to my own bedroom and paused in the doorway. My backpack was propped against my desk. My bed was messy—like no one had touched it since I’d left. A pile of shoes lay at the foot of my bed. My usual clutter.
I walked toward my chest of drawers to pull out a more Lela-like outfit than what I had on, but I froze when something glinted in my periphery. Slowly, I turned to look more closely at the pile of shoes.
Under my sneakers, partially obscured by a pair of boots, was a pair of high-heeled sandals. Silvery, strappy, deadly. The heel of one of them was smeared with blood. These were the shoes I’d worn to prom and left in the Guard house.
I knelt near the pile, cold sweat prickling the back of my neck, and pulled one of the sandals from beneath the other shoes. As I did, it snagged on a shimmery piece of material that had also been tossed—or placed—in the pile. It was one of my thigh sheaths, specially made to hold my knives against my skin beneath the fluttery skirt of my prom dress. It had been ripped off me when the Mazikin had ambushed our prom limo. A small curled piece of paper, the size of a sticky note, slid from the sheath. My fingers shook as I unfolded it.
The only way to keep them safe is to come back to me.
Don’t make me wait.
~M
I sat in my first three classes, barely registering the stares and whispers from my classmates. The no
te from Juri was tucked in my pocket—and so was a knife. I was risking getting in major trouble, but we were tucked into suburbia, free of metal detectors. So unless someone patted me down, no one would know as long as I didn’t have to whip it out and stab someone. If I saw Juri, that was more or less my plan. I’d frantically checked all the doors and windows at Diane’s house—and found that the basement lock had been broken. As much as I hated to scare her, I showed it to Diane before she drove me to school. I wanted her to be vigilant, and sometime last night, someone had broken in.
I knew exactly who. And I was sure he’d taken a sick pleasure in the note, in being able to write in Malachi’s neat, precise script, in signing it using Malachi’s initial. I figured he’d show up at school, thinking he could taunt me, but he wasn’t in the morning class Malachi and I had shared. As I walked to fourth period, though, hands closed over my shoulders from behind. I reacted instantly, throwing back my elbow and spinning around to slam a knee strike into any available body part.
My victim let out a moan and crumpled to the floor. I yelped and knelt beside him. “Ian! God, I’m so sorry!”
He was on his hands and knees in the middle of the hallway, and people were glaring at me like I’d tried to murder the Easter Bunny. Or, in actuality, their prom king. I looped my arm under his and helped him to his feet, only to have him push me against the lockers. This time I didn’t fight, because I knew one false move would have teachers scrambling—and someone calling 911. I braced my palms on his chest and looked away from his green eyes. His fingers dug into my shoulders, his thumb pressing into the spot where one of the Mazikin guards had driven a blade right through me. I winced.
His grip loosened. “Tegan told me you were alive, but I didn’t know—” His hands fell away, and his voice shook as he said, “The last time I saw you, I thought it really would be the last time.”
