Eternal Hope (The Hope Series)

by Rose, Frankie

  A scruffy, moth eaten cat sat on the porch step, sheltering from the rain. Its scraggly ginger and white fur was already clumped together where the fine mist had saturated it, giving it a quirky looking mohawk. It yowled at them plaintively as they climbed the step and Anna hissed at it. It bolted like a shot into the undergrowth, growling.

  “And she’s an animal lover, too,” Daniel muttered, considering if he could get away with shocking her. Just a little. She totally deserved it. He felt the prickle at his fingertips and hesitated, warring with himself over whether it was worth the backlash. Before he got a chance the front door squealed on its hinges, and Beatty stood there in the doorway. Or rather, half of him stood there in the doorway. Daniel barely recognized the man. He had always been a little rotund in a bear-like kind of way. This Beatty was skeletal. His eyes flickered nervously over them, edgy and sharp.

  “Beatty,” Daniel said stiffly, studying the haunted way he peered up and down the street. Behind him in the darkened front room of the house, the silhouette of a figure slipped silently through into the kitchen, pulling the door closed.

  “Daniel,” Beatty returned. He swallowed, running his huge hand over his grizzled black beard. “Thank you for coming.” He darted back into the shadows beyond, letting them slide by as he continued to survey the street. The dank room smelled of mildew and dirty clothes. The place was a shell; there was nothing in it apart from a pile of crumpled blankets in the corner, and four hard-backed chairs sitting on the bare, splintered floorboards. The door creaked shut, trapping them inside.

  “You okay, Beatty?” Cassie whispered. Daniel tensed; he’d forgotten Cassie knew Beatty. He’d taught her to fight once upon a time. The older man hadn’t even looked at her when she’d come in.

  “I’m fine, Cassiopeia. Just fine.” He turned sharp eyes on Daniel. “Where is she?”

  “Where’s who?”

  “The girl. Where’s Farley?”

  Daniel looked at him hard. Why was he so twitchy? The souls whispered louder, the sound like a heavy wind blowing through rustling leaves. “She’s somewhere safe. What’s wrong? Where is everyone?”

  Beatty narrowed his eyes. “Gone. They’re gone. This is unfortunate. This is very unfortunate…” He started pacing, the floorboards complaining with every step.

  A tension settled over Daniel’s muscles. This wasn’t right. Beatty wasn’t right. The fact that he was so troubled by Farley’s absence was an incredibly bad sign. “What’s going on, Beatty?”

  The man paused, giving Daniel a pained look. “They thought you’d bring her.”

  Cassie and Anna exchanged confused glances. Cassie was wired- he could see it in her eyes.

  “We needed to keep her safe,” Daniel said carefully, “Tell us what’s going on and we’ll be able to help you.”

  A tired laugh bounced off the low, dimly lit ceiling. “I doubt that, Danny. They have my family. The Immundus caught up with us right after we left the silo. We heard Elliott and the others were dead but there seems to be a new power in charge now. I’ve seen hide nor hair of a Reaver but there’s definitely someone pulling the strings back in the Tower. Whoever it is, they want Farley bad. I had to agree to get you here, otherwise…” His eyes welled. There was no recrimination in his words, but Daniel felt incredibly guilty. Who knew what Beatty had been through over the past month. If Daniel had been there at the silo instead of brooding over his love life, then maybe none of this would have happened.

  “I didn’t know. I-”

  “It’s okay. You would have come for us, and that wouldn’t have ended well.”

  “Where did Agatha go?”

  Beatty’s jaw ticked. He stared at Daniel, his expression troubled. “Where no man could follow.”

  What did that mean? A high-pitched humming started ringing in Daniel’s left ear. It felt like his head was filled with cotton wool. Beatty rushed forwards, heading for the door. “We don’t have time for that, though. They’re not going to be happy you didn’t bring Farley. You should go. Forgive me for calling. They threatened my son. I had to. They would have-”

  Before any of them could move, the door to the kitchen burst open and two men in black coats snaked into the room. They held sleek-looking guns in their hands. They pointed them at the girls. Daniel leapt forward instinctively, just as one of them pulled off a warning shot, missing Anna’s face by less than an inch. She screamed, staggering back into the wall.

  “Don’t move,” the first man snarled. He stalked past Daniel and shoved Beatty so hard he fell to the floor. “Where is she?”

  “They don’t have her,” he groaned.

  The man turned, pinning Daniel in his gaze. A fine thread of silver encircled his iris, the embodiment of malice shining in the dark. It was incredibly pale compared to most of the eyes Daniel had seen like that before, but there was no denying it: this guy was Immundus. A surge of power built inside Daniel, begging to be released.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the Immundus hissed.

  Daniel gave him a slow, calculated smile. “And why not?”

  The man, still pointing his gun at Anna, formed a smug smile of his own. “Because if we don’t return, our master will kill this one’s blood.” He knocked Beatty’s foot with his boot and cocked his head to one side. White teeth flashed in the dimly lit room. “And we’re expected home real soon.”

  The hair prickled on the back of Daniel’s neck. There was something different about this Immundus, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. The others had always been a little stiff- vacant, like puppets. This guy seemed fully compos mentis and had a real bad attitude to boot.

  “I’m assuming you’re Daniel. I’m Clay. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. There’s someone else I was hoping to meet today, too. Where’s the girl?” he asked, his voice a little too playful. He was a cocky bastard. Daniel scowled.

  “Nothing in this world will make me tell you where she is.”

  “And what about… her?” Clay stabbed the gun towards Anna. “Do you think there’s anything in this world that could make her tell me where she is?”

  Daniel looked over at Anna; her eyes were wide with fear, her chest rising and falling way too fast. Trembling, she held her hands above her head in surrender. Clay’s smile grew wider. “No, I don’t think it would take much to get this one to tell me where you’re keeping her.”

  He took a step towards Anna, his leather boots creaking loudly. He didn’t make it very far. In a black and white flash, his body flew back through the air and landed with a cracking sound as the rotten floorboards shattered beneath him. Cassie crouched low, pointing his gun at him with a look of single-minded hatred on her face. At least she hadn’t dropped out on her training.

  “Stay away from her,” she growled.

  Clay laughed, holding his hands up. “Now, now… play nice, kitty cat. I was only going to ask her a question.”

  Cassie straightened and did the unimaginable: she kicked him in the balls. The effect was dramatic. He crumpled in on himself like a snapping elastic band. The Immundus at the back of the room, the one who hadn’t breathed a single word, turned out to be the silent but deadly type. The crack of the gun seemed to come way after the muzzle flash. Cassie’s body flew back, her arms and legs trailing through the air, her hair swirling about her face like she was being pulled backwards through water. The smell of burning and gunpowder instantly filled the room.

  “NO!!!” Daniel didn’t recognize the voice as his own until he felt the painful sting at the back of his throat. He was moving before he could think, but it wasn’t to pick up Cassie. It was towards the Immundus with the gun. He had to kill him. Hurt him. Tear him limb from limb.

  “Stop!” Cassie’s cry cut through the air just as Daniel launched himself at the Immundus, knocking him down to the ground. He pinned the Immundus, snatching the gun away and flinging it across the room. It had been years since Daniel had used his bare hands to hit someone, and yet it was the only way he was g
oing to vent this rage. He needed to smash the guy’s head into pulp.

  “STOP!” The second time Cassie cried he heard her. There was panic in the word that he couldn’t ignore. He rolled off the Immundus and fell back onto the floor, his chest heaving. The silent Immundus finally made a sound. His manic laughter echoed around the room like a madman’s.

  “We can’t kill him,” Cassie groaned. She clutched at her collarbone, where a river of red ran through her fingers.

  The laughter grew louder and even crazier. Daniel pitched himself forwards onto his knees, looking down at the damage he’d done. The guy’s face was split open in four different places, notably across his cheekbones and chin, and his nose had exploded everywhere. Blood poured down into his eyes as he rolled on the floor, clutching at his stomach as though he had a stitch from laughing too hard. Daniel drew back his fist and slammed it down into his face as hard as he could. The laughing stopped.

  “Ah, you people take everything so seriously,” Clay wheezed. He’d gotten to his feet but he still looked a little shaky. “It’s high time we got back to our master.”

  Daniel sucked in a deep breath, trying to push down the wild urge to wipe the smile off of his face too. “High time,” he snarled.

  “We’ll be taking this one with us.” He gestured towards Beatty, who automatically got to his feet.

  “Oh, no, you won’t.”

  “It’s okay,” Beatty said quietly. “I need to be with Nyla and Scout.”

  “See,” Clay said congenially. The shining coronas flashed in his eyes. “At least one of you can see sense.”

  “We’ll come looking for you,” Cassie warned, gritting through her teeth. This seemed to amuse the Immundus immensely.

  “Oh, don’t worry, Sweet. We won’t be hard to find. I wonder if we’ll be able to say the same thing of you.” He snatched his gun roughly out of her hand. Her face distorted with agony.

  A boiling, angry sky was waiting when he flung open the door, throwing down sheets of dirty grey rain. The Immundus Daniel had beaten so badly hobbled out first, followed by Beatty, whose thick, dark hair instantly plastered to his head as he gave them one last look over his shoulder. Clay pulled the collar of his long black coat up against the weather. “And you,” he hissed, scowling at Daniel. “You tell Farley we’re coming for her. You tell her that her husband is waiting.”

  Twenty

  Drowning

  “Crav Maga is the art of-”

  “Getting your ass kicked,” Farley interrupted, rushing Kayden with her blade. It felt good to be armed again, even if Kayden did side step and carry her momentum around, twisting her arm until it felt like it would break. She dropped the knife to the ground at his feet.

  “Wanna rephrase?” he asked. His eyes were smiling.

  “You cheated,” she winced.

  “And by cheated you mean overpowered you because you attacked blindly with poor judgment and little planning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thought so.” He stooped and collected the knife. It was dull, but he clearly thought she could do herself an injury just by looking at it sitting there on the tarmac of the basketball court. “You need training. And lots of it.”

  “Train me, then.”

  A shadowed looked fell over his face. “Daniel will train you.”

  “No, he won’t,” she said. “He doesn’t think I should be fighting.” Which was just about the most ridiculous idea in the world given that Beatty and Cliff had both worked with her and said she had potential. Potential to be a ferocious warrior. She liked the thought of that, especially now that death-race-everybody-try-and-kill-Farley was back on, but with newer, creepier rules this time round. Kayden wore a poorly hidden mask of amusement.

  “Farley, face it. You couldn’t fight your way out of a wet paper bag.”

  “And what would you know? I’ve fought before.”

  “And won?”

  “I’m standing here, aren’t I?” A tug of anger pulled at her. She shielded her eyes, realizing Kayden was tilting the blade of the knife back and forth, shining the sun’s reflection into her eyes.

  “C’mon. Who’ve you fought?” he laughed.

  Something snapped inside her and she reached out and snatched hold of the knife, wrapping her hand around its blade. The metal was dull, but it still hurt. She yanked it out of his hands and the smile fell from his face.

  “I fought my mother, okay?” she snapped.

  “That doesn’t count. Every teenage girl fights with her mother. I mean fight, fight,” he boxed at her, “with your fists.”

  That was the final straw. Farley sank low into a crouch and leapt forward, pushing into Kayden’s chest with as much strength as she could muster. He staggered backwards with his hands raised, careful not to touch her as she drove him back.

  “I fought, fought with my mother,” she hissed. “Tobin turned her into a whyte and she tried to kill me. She tried to bite me, and then she tried to drown me, and I used my knife and I stabbed her over and over again!”

  “Farley!”

  She froze. Daniel stood on the other side of the chain-link fence, his dark hair ruffled, staring at her like she’d lost her mind. It was then she realized she was holding the point of the knife up to Kayden’s throat.

  “Oh, crap! I’m sorry!”

  Kayden carefully let his hands fall down to his sides. He looked utterly miserable. “No, no. I didn’t realize…” A small shake of his head. “I shouldn’t have said…” he trailed off. “I guess you were right.”

  “I was right?”

  “That it was only a fluke I hadn’t managed to piss you off yet.”

  Farley closed her eyes, gripping hold of the knife handle so hard her fingers began to go numb. How had the morning turned to crap in less than five minutes? She’d gone psycho over her mom and nearly impaled Kayden on a knife that would only kill him by giving him septicemia. And Daniel had watched the whole thing. So much for convincing him she was stable. She hadn’t seen or heard from him in four days, and she’d left him eight voicemail messages before she’d realized she was starting to look a little desperate. Following which she’d refused to text or call him at all, and even made Grayson tell him she was out when he’d called the cabin, simply to counteract her initial crazy. These were not the actions of a normal, well-balanced girl.

  She caught Daniel’s eye through the fence, where his face was framed through one of the diamond links. Everything about him was hard and sharp. There were dark shadows beneath his eyes. He moved slowly to the gate and stalked through, approaching them watchfully. He stopped in front of her and surveyed her head to toe before turning to Kayden.

  “What did you do to her?” he said carefully.

  Farley looked down to see that there was blood dripping from the tips of her fingers. She must have cut herself when she grabbed the knife. It had already dripped onto her sneakers, leaving fat, round circles of crimson on the white fabric. “He didn’t do anything, Daniel. I did it,” she said quietly.

  He turned his sharp look back on her, clenching his jaw. “Come into the house.” He turned and walked away without another word, far too quiet, far too poised. The way he carried himself felt dangerous and more than a little frightening. Kayden stared down at his feet, his hair blocking his eyes from view.

  “I’m sorry, Farley.”

  She jabbed the point of the knife into her finger angrily, wishing she could rewind time. “It’s okay,” she muttered, meaning it. Because it was okay. At least things with Kayden were, anyway. He’d apologized. He never apologized to anyone for anything. She trailed after Daniel, wondering how it was that two words from Kayden could make right the fact that he’d caused her lose the plot and try and kill him, when she was probably going to need a dictionary full of words to sort things out with Daniel.

  *****

  He was waiting for her in her room. At some point it had become her room and no longer Charlie’s. Probably when she’d boxed up the perfume bottles
so she could stop from sneezing and removed all of the scribblings from the corkboard. Now the room just housed the bed and her duffel bag. And Daniel.

  His eyes flickered to her when she entered the room and then went back to staring at the ceiling. He lay on the bed with his ankles crossed and his hands stacked on his chest. It kind of looked like he was ready to be nailed into a coffin. Farley went and sat on the edge of the bed, trying to figure out what to say.

  “When did you get back?” she finally asked.

  “Just now.”

  “What happened with Beatty?”

  A long pause stretched out. Eventually, he said, “You know about Agatha?”

  “Yeah, Kayden told me.”

  Daniel closed his eyes, his brow wrinkling like he was in pain. He rolled onto his side, facing away from her. He was tracing his finger along the seam where the wallpaper joined together when she noticed his knuckles were bloody.

  “Why are you hurt? Daniel, what happened with Beatty?”

  His finger stopped moving, paused on the wall where the paper curled away and had ripped a little. “Are you happy with me?” he whispered.

  The question took her aback. There was such a stillness to his body as he lay there, not looking at her, that it felt wrong to reach out and touch him. She did it regardless, resting her hand against his shoulder. “Of course I am. Are you happy?”

  He shook his head, mute. After a while, he murmured, “I’m not happy. I don’t like feeling like this. I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

  She didn’t need to ask who he was. Didn’t need to be a genius to figure out how much what he’d just said had cost him. He’d never been like this. The fact that he couldn’t look at her spoke volumes. Her heart stammered, actually physically hurting.

  “Daniel-”

  “Promise me you’re not going to fall in love with him.”

  The words felt like tiny paper cuts, each one of them stinging brightly. Such a stupid, ridiculous thing to say. Farley collapsed down onto the bed next to him, folding herself against him like he’d done to her five nights earlier. “Of course I’m not going to fall in love with him.” She reached around and tentatively touched his hand, waiting for him to unfreeze himself from prodding the wall. It was a full ten seconds before he allowed her to thread her fingers through his. He drew her arm around him, cradling their joined hands to his chest.