We did good tonight. Real good.
A screech ripped the air, and then something whizzed past my ear and embedded itself in the wood behind me with a metallic twang.
5
A fork handle vibrated at eye level, the prongs embedded firmly in the wood. Two thoughts skimmed through my mind: the first, that Ma really needed to stop buying forks this sharp, and the second that only one person threw cutlery with such lethal force.
“Ha, you missed!” Joti, my twelve-year-old sister, taunted her younger sibling.
But Nina was frozen, her eyes wide as she stared down the hall at me. The cutlery flinger knew she’d been busted. Yeah, you’d better be afraid, you little rascal.
Joti glanced over her shoulder and then grinned at the sight of me. “Oh, hell, you’re in trouble now, Nina.”
I plucked the fork from the wood and pointed it at Nina. “How many fecking times have I warned you?”
“You said not to throw knives,” Nina said.
Oh, she was pushing her luck.
She winced at my expression. “Sorry?”
“You don’t sound so sure.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry, okay. I won’t do it again.”
“She will, Didi. She so will,” Joti said. “She always does it.” The tattletale of the family finished with a smug smile.
Ah, didi, the respectful term to address an older sister. Joti was buttering me up so I’d take her side. And, of course, I should. Nina just threw a fork at her, after all, but I knew that if Nina had meant to hit her, she would have.
My youngest sibling had excellent aim for a ten-year-old. And yes, there was pride in that thought. But Joti… Urgh, she was an annoying brat who needed to learn to stop goading everyone.
“She could have hurt me,” Joti said with evident glee.
“I suppose she could have.” I shrugged. “If she’d meant to.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Nina and I locked gazes, and an unspoken communication passed between us.
I smiled sweetly at Joti. “Darling, if Nina meant to hurt you, that fork would be sticking out of your face right now.”
Joti’s mouth popped open in surprise, and then she threw back her head and wailed “Ma!” before brushing past Nina and running for the kitchen.
Nina’s shoulders sagged in resignation, her face pinched, and she tucked in her chin, allowing her long, dark hair to fall forward and hide her face. “I better go get my tongue lashing now.”
“No. Go upstairs and wash up for dinner. I’ll talk to Ma.”
She looked up, hope shining out of her chestnut eyes. “You will?”
I smoothed a hand over her head. Okay, so you’re not supposed to have a favorite sibling, but fuck that. “Yeah. I will. But Nina, no more cutlery throwing, okay?”
She nodded, looking miserable again. “I’m sorry. She just makes me so…So mad.”
“What did she say this time?”
Nina shook her head.
“Come on, Nina.”
“There’s a party at school after break to celebrate the Hunt, and Bethany said that Tim said he wanted to ask me to go with him.”
Bethany was Nina’s best friend. “That’s great.”
Nina’s mouth trembled. “But Joti said he’d only ask me as a joke because who wants to go to a disco with a girl who can’t dance.”
My gaze fell to her legs, to the clumpy boot that leveled out her limbs and allowed her to walk, albeit with a rolling gait. Nina was born with one limb shorter than the other and a mind as sharp as a tack. Joti was born with a vindictive streak that needed a good smack from Ma.
I crouched and pulled Nina into a hug. “Next time you throw a fork at her, aim for her thigh.”
Nina gave me a watery smile and sniffed. “I love you, Dani.”
“I love you too.”
“Nina!” Ma shouted from the kitchen.
Nina tensed. “Oh, crap.”
“Let me handle this.”
Ma glared at me as I entered the kitchen. Flour smudges kissed her cheeks, and a pile of fresh chapattis sat in a plate to her left. Her dark hair, threaded with silver, was pulled back in a messy bun.
“What time you call this, huh?” She waved the rolling pin in my direction. “You should have been home hours ago. Not right, a young girl out so late at night. Nina!” she called again.
Joti stood by the fridge, arms crossed, looking smug.
“I sent Nina to get washed up for dinner.”
“She’s not getting any dinner,” Ma said. “You know what she did? She threw a fork at your sister. She could have taken out her eye.”
“Yeah, Ma, she could have.” I raised both brows. “You know how good Nina’s aim is.”
Ma faltered for a moment. “Tut, still, she can’t do this. She needs to learn.”
“And Joti needs to learn to stop making fun of Nina’s leg.”
Joti’s eyes widened in an oh, shit, I’m busted look. Yeah, you little shit. I narrowed my eyes at her.
Ma frowned. “Nina’s leg? Joti, what did you say, huh? What did you say to your sister?”
Joti bolted from the room, and Ma shook her head in resignation. “Danika, I don’t know what to do with these girls. You know, they’re getting so big. They’re fighting all the time.”
I pulled her into a hug, getting flour all over myself. “It’ll be fine. Look how well I turned out.” I gave her my best dimpled smile.
She laughed. “Away with you. Go get washed up. Tell your Baba to come set the table. Dinner is ready.”
Dinner was a silent affair. The girls ate quickly and then retired to their rooms. It was late, and even though there was no school tomorrow, Ma would have a list of chores for them to do. She didn’t believe in idle hands. Auntiji dozed in her seat, a bit of chapatti clutched in her hand.
Ma gently took the food from her fingers and laid a blanket over the older woman. She’d nap for at least an hour now.
Baba sat back in his seat. “David from next door called round, said there’s been another delivery.”
Ma perked up. “The Black Raven?”
Baba nodded. “He covered the outer district this time.”
“Bless him.” Ma put her hands together in a prayer gesture and looked up at the ceiling as if expecting to see the Black Raven hovering.
Hey, over here. I bit the inside of my cheek. I didn’t do what I did for recognition.
Baba looked worried. “It’s only a matter of time before he’s caught.”
“Hush,” Ma said. “Don’t say such things. May the hand of God be on his head. May he prosper and live long.”
Baba sighed. “David says the intercity deliveries will be diverted to the main warehouse at the edge of the district from now on. The warehouses in the outer districts are being shut down. Food will be delivered directly to the markets every week.”
Shit. Without the warehouses to pilfer from, my good deeds would have to come to an end. Stealing from the market was impossible. The shining ones posted Umbra guards everywhere, and those shadow fuckers maimed first and asked questions later.
It meant that people would be forced to pay the atrocious prices set by the market owners. Those bastards lived in the inner districts, venturing forth only to bleed us dry.
My enterprise began so I could feed my family, but I’d ended up feeding the whole district. They’d come to rely on me. What now? What did I do now?
“…Hunt, eh?” Ma was looking at me with an expectant expression.
Shit, pay attention, Dani. “Um… Sorry, I zoned out.”
Baba frowned. “You look tired, sweetheart.”
His English was much better than Ma’s, who preferred to cling to her Hindi mother tongue. She was born and raised in the Summer Iron City in the district of Mithra, filled with culture and a variety of languages. But Mithra was a smaller, shittier version of the outer district of Middale, and poverty forced them to brave the trade routes and find asylum on the outskirts
of Middale where Winter ruled and had done so for five decades.
“Doesn’t she look tired?” Baba asked Ma.
“Bah.” Ma waved a dismissive hand. “How hard is it to shelve books?” She widened her eyes. “Wait, don’t tell me. Did you have customers today?”
“Ha-ha, very funny, Ma. No, I didn’t have work today. I had guard duty.”
Her amusement vanished. She hated that I’d joined the guard, that I had to leave the walls and put myself in danger two to three times a week.
But I’d do it every day to keep them safe.
The library, on the other hand, was my government allocated job, even though everyone knew it was a joke. The library was a government-funded operation stocking books approved by the Winter Court. It served to educate humanity on the glorious nature of our benefactors, but in reality, it was the hub of propaganda.
I took a sip of my water. “What about the Hunt? It doesn’t affect us. Isn’t it one of the mid-districts turns to be hunted?”
“A notice came this morning,” Baba said. “The Hunt will be reaping from the outer districts.”
“What? They can’t do that. The Hunt ran here last year.”
“And it will run again this year. Politics,” Baba said. “Greasing of palms.”
“It’s good for our district,” Ma said, nodding eagerly. “The children need food, good homes. The shining ones can provide that.”
Was she listening to the words coming out of her mouth? “Children need their families. And if the shining ones care so much, why not just come to the door and offer to take in some of our starving children. Why do they have to make a fucking spectacle of it and hunt them in the streets like animals? Oh, here’s a thought, why not just give us more fucking food?”
Baba tucked in his chin, but Ma stared at me in horror.
“Danika, you will not use that language in this house. You will not speak bad words against our saviors.” Her chin quivered.
I forced myself to draw a calming breath. Dammit, Danika, calm down. This didn’t affect us, not anymore. “I’m sorry for cursing, but I’m not sorry our household is exempt.”
Baba and Ma exchanged glances.
Foreboding tightened my scalp. “What?”
“You didn’t hear?” Baba said. “I would have thought your commander would have informed you all.”
“Informed us all of what?”
“The exemption has been lifted,” he said. “Every household has been entered into the lottery.”
Ma smiled. “It will be fine. If one of the girls is chosen, they will be fine. They’re strong. If they survive the Hunt, they’ll have a good home in central Middale. Food and clothes and luxury.” Her mouth moved with the words, her head bobbed, but her eyes were dull.
If they survived.
If.
If they didn’t get butchered.
She wasn’t stupid, she knew the score, but she was saying all the right things, and then a sob caught in her throat. She pushed back her chair and ran to the sink, where she proceeded to bang pots and pans together.
I stared at the tabletop. Joti and Nina were both of age to be entered. Joti was fast and strong, but Nina… Nina wouldn’t get far with her leg. Nausea rolled in my stomach, churning up the lentils and chapati I’d just consumed and threatening to bring them back up my throat.
I took a sip of water. “Do the girls know?”
Baba shook his head. “We thought it best not to say anything. It’s the term break. They won’t see anyone who can let it slip for another week.”
He wanted them to have a week free of the threat looming over them. He wanted them to be children for a few more days before they went back to school and heard that our district was the Hunt’s target this year.
Baba let out a deep sigh. “This is our world, Danika. The shining ones protect us, and we give what we can for that privilege. There is nothing outside those walls for us except death. Yes, times are hard, and politics of the capital can take their toll on the outer districts, but the shining ones aren’t to blame for that. They saved our lives. They saved us from extinction. Remember that when you’re tempted to think ill of them. Now, I think you should get some rest.”
I headed out of the room, my stomach in knots.
They’d changed the rules.
They’d changed the rules, and my family was no longer safe.
6
I climbed the steps to the top of our townhouse and knocked on Rav’s door. He didn’t like visitors, and more often than not, he wouldn’t open the door. Ma would bring his food up and leave it on the unit outside his room. He had a bathroom to himself up here. We’d been close when we were younger.
He’d been my idol, and then he’d been chosen for the Hunt.
The red letter had arrived in the morning of that fateful day. He’d been two days off his fifteenth birthday, which would have exempted him from the lottery.
Two days.
I remembered feeling relief that it wasn’t me and then guilt immediately after at the look on my mother’s face.
But Rav was confident. He was fast, strong, young, and optimistic, and the idea of winning, of surviving till dawn and being whisked off to central Middale, had appealed to him. And so, he’d infected us with excitement instead of fear.
We’d been so wrong.
He’d survived. Barely. He’d come back broken. Unchosen. I’d been thirteen at the time, and luckily for us, the Hunt had moved on to the other districts for the next three years, and by the time it came back to us, I’d joined the guard and gained exemption for my family.
But Rav…Rav had never been the same. I’d given up trying to engage him and reignite our bond. I’d let him be. But not tonight.
I knocked again. “Rav, it’s Dani. We need to talk. It’s urgent. The Hunt runs in a week, and I’ve lost my exemption.”
There was a thud then the sound of something being dragged, followed by another thud. The scrape of a key turning in the lock was loud in the silence before the door was pulled open to reveal the large room beyond—gloomy and lit only by a single lamp.
Rav glared at me with his good eye. The other one was scarred over. Gone. Torn out by the minions of the Hunt. He limped back to his desk, using his walking stick to brace himself. His left leg was missing from the knee down.
Not missing.
Eaten.
They’d eaten it.
They’d almost killed him.
He hobbled to his desk and sat on the wooden chair. “How old are they now?” His voice sounded rusty from lack of use, but it still had a melodic edge that I’d loved as a child.
I’d made him read to me all the time. My heart squeezed painfully around the poignant memory.
“Nina is eleven, and Joti is twelve.”
He closed his eye. “I’m sorry.”
I sat on the edge of his neatly made bed. “I need your help, Rav. I need you to tell me what it was like. Tell me what you remember. Anything that we can use to help the girls.”
“They might not be chosen.”
“We need to be prepared in case they are.”
His chest began to rise and fall rapidly. “I can’t.”
“Rav, please.”
He clenched his teeth and growled at me. “I can’t. Don’t you get it? I literally fucking can’t.” A raw sob broke from his lips.
Oh, shit. “They silenced you…”
He looked at me through a sheen of tears.
All this time, I’d thought that he was just too traumatized to talk about it. We’d had to surmise what had happened based on the injuries, the bite marks on his leg, the claw marks around his missing eye.
Too traumatized to talk about it, that’s what the doctor who’d treated him said, but it was more than that. He couldn’t talk about it. He couldn’t vent and cleanse and share his pain. They’d spelled him to be unable to speak of that night.
Those bastards.
Anger bloomed white-hot in my chest. “Do Ma and Baba know?
”
He nodded.
That’s why they’d told me to back off. To leave him be. But they’d been wrong. We should have surrounded him with love. Drawn him closer to us and given him our understanding even if he couldn’t explain to us what had happened to him to need it.
He drew deep breaths through his nose. “If one of them is chosen, you better hope they die quickly. Now, please. Go.”
I wanted to reach out and hug him, but Rav no longer did physical contact.
I stopped at the door, my back to him. “I love you, Rav. I miss you.”
He didn’t reply.
I huddled into my fleece blanket as I sat on the roof and watched the snow fall lightly around me. It would last a day and be gone, only to return in a few more days. I fucking hated it.
I sensed Killion’s presence a moment before he lowered himself beside me, his shadow form radiating heat that cocooned me. What choice was there but to lean closer?
“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” he asked.
“How do you always know where to find me?”
“You know the answer to that, even though you may not believe it.”
I believed it all right, fantastical as it was. I believed that we were bound because I recalled death’s icy kiss, and I recalled the warm breath that brought me back.
It was after Rav. I’d been full of rage. Reckless. I’d ventured out after curfew, defiant and destructive. No idea what the fuck I’d been thinking. I’d fallen prey to the denizens of the night. I couldn’t remember the pain or the fear, even though I knew it had been there. I did remember the warehouse they dragged me to, and I remembered my rage and the silent cry that had shattered my mind as I called out for help, and then he’d been there, and the denizens were gone.
Killion had pulled me out of the darkness and away from the bone-numbing chill by pushing his breath into my lungs. He’d dragged me back to life, to those beautiful blue eyes staring at me in wonder, and I’d known with a preternatural certainty that he would never let anything hurt me again.
“You saved my life.” My voice cracked with the memories.
“And you saved mine,” he said.
Taste My Wrath (The Iron Fae Book 1) Page 4
