by Logan Keys
Without burning.
I feel the burns all over me. They’ve healed, yet the pain is still there. But Shade is impervious to the sun.
“It seems that I’m not all the way changed yet.”
“How long has it been?” I ask.
“Half a day,” he answers.
I frown and put a hand to my head. So much time has passed. “You should be changed.” I sound as confused as I feel.
His handsome face---the real one that’s no longer a void---breaks into a smile. “One of a kind.”
I smile back. “Stop doing that. It hurts me for you.”
Shade strides near. “Why did I find you laying outside, Dallas? If I hadn’t been there. If I had been too late…”
“I deserve it,” I murmur, rolling onto my side, away from him.
He pushes my shoulder back, his golden halo of hair falling into his eyes. So opposite of before. Now he’s bright as the sun. “Because of me?”
“And others.” I put a hand to his perfect cheek. “I’m sorry, Shade. I’ve never been sorrier for anything in my life. You will thirst for blood now. Once the transition is complete, oh how you will hunger. What I do disgusts you but you, too, will now eat this way.”
He grabs my hand, turns his head and kisses my palm. “I know that,” he says. “But I have you. Fully. Not just with shadow kisses.”
I shiver at the caressing. I swallow. Tears burn their pathway down the sides of my face. “Do you? Do you want me? Still. Even after all that I’ve done to you? Don’t you hate me?”
He grabs my hands and puts them to his face. “Feel that? I have this to thank you for. I’m me again. I will miss the invisibility, the ability to go to the nowhere. Yes, that part is gone. But, Dallas, I have not seen my own face in so long… I’m not angry with you. I could never hate you.”
I grip the sides of his face and give him a good shake. “You should be,” I grit out. “You don’t know what this life is like.”
He leans closer, stares deeply into my eyes. “The only person who hates anyone here is you. Stop hating yourself. And the others, they are not going to hate you either. They knew what they dared. Death. But you gave them another chance. War is war, they understand that. And Joelle didn’t kill them. She could have.”
“But she stole their real life. This is not the same. We are not alive.”
I put my hand to his chest and I gasp. Beneath my fingertips is the strong and steady beating of a heart. “I feel your heartbeat.”
Shade covers my hand. “Is that a problem?”
“No. You said you felt pain. That’s the feeling of dying.”
His lips find mine. “That’s funny. I don’t feel dead, I feel more alive than ever.”
And Shade kisses me again before I can say anything more. Hungrily, I kiss him back.
He breaks away from our feverish need. “Rest,” he whispers. “Heal.”
I nod and fall asleep before my head stills on my neck.
Chapter 60
Crystal
“Was it my son?”
I watch Karma’s glacial face try so very hard to depict a wounded mother. It’s laughable.
“No,” I answer.
Jeremy has never been their son. Although, their downfall will be that in fact he is their son biologically. Interesting how things like that go.
Karma comes closer. “Crystal, I know you think that you do something brave by denying me this, but you will tell me who it was that tried to rescue you as soon as you are purged, anyway. I will know everything about you. Everything about your rebels. Their families. Who has helped them. And I will hunt each one down until there is no one left to say your little quote. What was it? Against all Authority? Who came up with that?”
She smiles. “I bet it was you. It’s not poetic enough for my boy. No. It sounds brutish. Like a girl who wants to be a man trying to sound tough with big words.”
Karma leans in to whisper into my ear. “But one with small ideas.” She grips my face painfully between her fingers, and says, “If someone even mentions your name again, they’ll be hung from the hooks.”
When she backs away, her mouth is an “Oh” of surprise. Her mind has not understood what her body already has.
Her hands grip her throat where I’ve cut her. The knife Jeremy had held before, the one he’d cut my ties with, I’d kept it after his escape. And stupidly, the guards had never re-tied my hands. They were only told to bring me back, and so they had, and I’d held my hands together behind my back, knife hidden between.
For just this moment.
Just this chance that Karma would be stupid enough to get close. Too sure of her control over me.
I never expected it to work and so now I share her surprise. My arm had come almost of its own volition to strike at Karma like a cobra. And a red line beneath her chin has appeared as if by magic.
Karma staggers backward, blood trickling down onto her pretty dress. Her perfectly pale skin is marred by reality in every which way now, the dirtiness of her soul and deeds bleeding all over it.
She can’t even scream, but Carolina does. Jeremy’s sister rushes forward. “Get the doctor!”
Karma falls, and Carolina catches her, rips her shirt off, and puts it to the wound. But already I can see that it’s too clean a cut, and far too much blood is pooling around the Cromwells on the ground already.
The doctor rushes in, and I have to keep myself from gaping at the man from the island.
He runs to Karma’s side. “Lift her. She needs surgery,” he says.
“Do it!” Carolina barks at the guards who quickly obey.
And so, it is all of the Cromwells they will listen to. Jeremy’s father had never let on that the programming included his children. If we’d only known… before.
They take Karma away in a flurry, and the doctor follows them, sparing me only one quick glance that conveys nothing of his plans.
And then we are alone in the room together, Carolina and I. I still have my knife and there are no guards to protect her.
Her one eye watches me, and she approaches, boots squeaking on the tiled floor.
“I’ve wanted this moment for a long time, Crystal,” she says. “Ever since my father was murdered by your little friend. I don’t know what my brother sees in you people.”
We circle one another. “Us people? You mean patriots. True citizens.”
“I mean poor.”
“I was never poor, Carolina.”
That makes her eyebrow quirk and I realize I’ve said too much.
“Your move,” she says.
“After you.”
She smiles, jumping forward, her lithe body nimble and quick.
I spin away from her long legs, scratch the knife down her arm, tripping her, and backhand her in quick succession.
Carolina regroups, touching the blood on her lip.
I smile and shrug.
This time I’m the one who closes the distance, and she lets me get into her space too easily. With the knife at her throat, I hold her ponytail, but she has a hand between the blade and her neck.
Her head flings back into my jaw with a crack. I see stars, and an iron tang fills my mouth from where my teeth have ripped open my cheek on the inside.
Carolina hunches forward, pulling me onto her back, her bony ass cutting into my stomach. I cough from the air leaving my lungs and spit a spray of blood onto her shoulder.
With a twist, she takes my wrist, and spins it behind my back. We trade places, and she reaches for the knife, but I let it go on purpose, stomping on her knee while she’s distracted. She limps away, crying out, gripping her leg.
I take advantage, quickly flipping her onto her back.
I jump into the air, prepared to land with a face-crushing blow from the force of my body coming down behind a knee, but she rolls away.
We circle each other once we are both on our feet.
Fast jabs test each other’s style. We trade punches, and after I almost kn
ock her visor off, she lands blows to my nose that rock me to my core. More blood sprays out from my mouth.
I don’t back off, or hesitate. Her punch lands as I’m already tackling her. I grab her by the middle and take her to the ground. Brute strength is how I’ll win this match.
One of her hands in mine, I break the bone in her arm---or at least I thought I had. Any normal bone would have snapped like a twig, but nothing happens.
She laughs at my surprise, punching me, and I realize, the half of her that has the fake eye is entirely robotic. Her super strong hand grips me by the throat now and launches me into the air.
I land with a thud, and she comes over, her boot swiftly kicking me in the ribs. And again.
I roll to the side, but she drops on top of me, grappling strength against strength, and with that arm, I’m losing.
I’m pinned as she leans into my face, and wraps the fake hand around my throat, cutting off my air.
“You’ve stolen everything from me,” she hisses.
“Kill. Me.” I grit out.
She starts to cry, but they’re angry tears of rage from her one organic eye. Tears of hatred. “Oh, I will. Just not now, Crystal. It will never be this easy. I want to watch you die a little at a time. But before that, and this is the most important part, you’ll watch your rebellion die first.”
I struggle with her mechanical hand, gasping, fighting for air.
She smiles as my world shrinks down to a red robotic eye.
Chapter 61
Dallas
There were only two that Joelle forgave who’d not worn their scarlet fabric. Her parents. Her father stoically gave up his forces, and his daughter took control of it all. Her mother, well her mother, had seemingly gone mad over the events and hid in her tower.
The rest of the changes completed. Even the specials became vampires.
Shade did not.
He was strong, and fast, and special, but he was not hungry, and he could walk in the light. The opposite of Joelle, but equally powerful. The second perfect special to counter her own.
He was light and fair. While she is dark and dusky.
From what Shade has told me, this is what Simon had lived for. A pair of specials impervious to the weaknesses that plague the others. I had seen Joelle walk through fire. It is possible that light would not destroy her as she’d previously thought. Not now.
But since they’ve been created, I wonder what will drive this leader and man.
Shade is right. He is one of a kind. And it took Joelle to make him because she was the mother of it all as her own special seemed to demand.
However, Joelle is far more interested in other things. “We have our army now, and we are stronger than the Authority together. Bring me the old man.”
They move to let an old soldier come forward. His uniform says: Nolan.
“I never thought I’d see the day,” Nolan says as if he’s still adjusting to the new leadership.
Aren’t we all?
Joelle glances at the bright red ribbon on his arm, and smiles. It’s not a welcoming smile. “I did not expect that.”
“Well, I like to surprise.”
“Can you follow me?”
“Yes.”
“Even after we ransacked your men?”
“Brutality has its place. I respect firm decision making and strategy. I respect that you felt this was the only way, and you were not willing to back down. All of that is something that might actually win a losing war, my lady.”
He bows.
Lotte rushes to my side. “Dallas,” she whispers.
Joelle turns to us, her mind racing. “Tommy’s coffin.”
The two say it at the same time. Joelle is reading her mind before I can read Joelle’s.
“What?” I demand. “What is it?”
Lotte’s eyes are filled with confusion. “There was an accident, it was knocked over during the fight.”
“What?”
“It’s empty.”
Chapter 62
Liza
I walk on steady legs that become wobblier until I’m unable to stand on them. I fall near a stream, the sword splashing in, and I can’t care… numb fingers let it wash away.
My retching is loud and violent. I haven’t had much to eat since coming aware of myself, but it’s like the evil of the night froths on my tongue and out of my throat and guts.
Cory finds me like that, still trying to push my soul out from between my lips.
He gently pulls my hair out of my eyes, and then, once I’m finished, he helps me to my feet.
I feel naked without Spirit. Frantically, I search around for her, running into the water up to my chest.
Cory helps.
He fishes her out of the river, and we both are in the frozen water, unfeeling, uncaring of the cold. I take the now clean and glowing blade and slide her into her new home at my back.
Together, Cory and I wade back to the edge and out of the water.
Energy gone, I stumble, and Cory grabs me and pulls me into his arms. “You’re freezing.”
“I don’t feel it.”
“I know. Neither do I. With Spirit full, we’ll recharge soon enough, so that you won’t even feel tired.”
He must be right. Cory’s warm to the touch still, stronger than I am.
Realizing I’ve relaxed into the embrace of my captor, I thrust Cory away. “What am I doing?” I whisper to myself.
He grins, grabs my wrists, and tugs me back into the shelter of his body.
Anger snaps each part of my spine erect. I shove at his face with my palm as hard as I can.
The night having strung me out, the killing having made me deranged, I’ve run out of restraint. A transformation occurs from Liza then---who’d been merely trying to survive---to Liza now, a murderer because he’d said to. Because she was too weak to say no.
“Don’t touch me!” I scream. “Don’t you ever touch me again! You hear me? You said by your side not in your arms. Stay away from me or I swear to God, Cory…”
He holds up his hands and backs away. “Okay, okay.”
And then Cory slowly begins to clap, eyes sparkling with enjoyment. “There she is!” he crows. “That’s who I’ve been waiting for. Come on, Princess. Doesn’t it feel good? Oh yeah! Show me a little righteous anger! Come on. Do it. I’ll let you get one shot---just one so make it count. A good one. Freebie. Right in my ole kisser.”
“I mean it! Come on,” he jeers in a high-pitched voice.
It makes my cheek twitch.
“What are you doing?” I ask, but already my fists are balled up. I want to. I want to punch him right in the face.
He acts like he’s going to grab me, and I duck away.
“Do you regret killing that man?” he asks, still circling me.
“Shouldn’t everyone regret killing?” I follow his lead, circling the other way.
“Wrong answer,” Cory says lunging for me.
He’s fast. I duck a punch aimed for my head, springing around my own axis, and he toys with me nabbing Spirit from my back, mid-spin.
Naked without her, I give in to my gut reaction of pure hatred. I move faster than I know I can and backhand Cory so hard it echoes across the forest. I’ve struck him with everything God and genetic engineering has gifted me with.
And it feels glorious.
Blood sprays in a giant arc from his mouth, a rainbow of thick, steaming blood that seems to suspend momentarily high into the breeze before it falls in a long line to the ground of proof that I’m not completely owned.
Proof that Liza still has a spine somewhere deep down in her bag of flesh.
Fog has rolled in and the blood is black almost with the gray tinting everything. My skirt is the only thing bright enough to be visibly red in the screen of smoke. Cory’s pale and gaunt and still grinning like a lunatic.
But I won’t lie to myself, even now, he’s a handsome man, a lure put together well enough that I’d let him lead me into a trap
back in La La Land. I’d befriended the one who’d killed my best friend, and now he’s talked me into killing someone else.
I gasp. “You did this to Tommy.”
“What?”
“The soldier Tommy said he killed when you tricked him. This is what you do, isn’t it? This is what you are. You want everyone on your level. You’re a worm, Cory Prince.”
Cory wipes his mouth and laughs. Spirit is held tightly in his hand. “There she is. Ooo, she’s starting to get it. She’s starting to realize it, isn’t she?”
“The purple eyes?” he asks with crazed venom. “The good ole boy. Everyone you get around you become like them, don’t you? You were all for revolution with Jeremy. All for peace with Tommy. For me? Oh, what will you be, Liza?”
I stare at him confused. He’s not going to punish me for wrecking his mouth? Could I run away?
“No, you can’t run away,” Cory warns. “You’ll learn that soon enough, but would you try? You’ve done your part, now we have to see if I’ll do mine, correct? The bargain, remember?”
“Give me Spirit.” I hate the desperation in my voice. “Give her back. Now.”
“Would you regret killing me, Liza? That terrible man can’t be worse than I am, right? He starved his own daughters. Admit it. Admit I’m not as bad as him, yet you wouldn’t feel sorry for killing me.”
He can see the truth inside of my head. “Probably not.”
“Fine. You want Spirit? Come and take her.”
I step forward.
He holds her out to me. She’s inches from my grasp. But when I move to take her, Cory stabs me through my stomach.
Chapter 63
Liza
“Don’t move! For God’s sakes, don’t move!” Phillip’s blurry in the fog. His eyes are the only thing piercing through to remind me that death has not gripped me completely, it’s not yet stolen me from this agony.
I open my mouth, but there’s no sound. Phillip grips my shoulders pinning me down. “I’m going to pull the sword out, okay?”
I barely nod my head and he leaves me and the fog takes his place. Through the gloom, I see his hands gripping the sword’s hilt, and with a yank, Spirit’s free. And I am free to bleed my lifeblood onto this cold forest ground.
