by Amber Garr
I reached up and grabbed his cheeks, wanting so badly to kiss his pain away, yet knowing that we hadn’t quite hit that step yet. “I’m sorry. But I need to go.”
“Home?” he asked, not moving from under my grasp.
I nodded. “River made a surprise visit and he’s freaking Brit out.”
“You want me to go with you?” The concern in his eyes was evident as the sincerity in what he was offering came crashing down around me. For the first time in…forever…I felt like I could have someone who would back me up no matter what. And I knew that if this didn’t work out, Noah Hawke would surely break my heart.
I lifted my lips and kissed him gently on his own. He didn’t flinch and it was hard for me to pull away from the electrical sparks flying between us. “No, thank you. I need to handle him on my own.”
Dropping my hands, I grabbed my bag and fished out my car keys. “I’ll talk to you later?” I asked Noah with probably a little too much desperation in my voice.
“Of course,” he said.
I leaned out around him. “Bye Rome. Thanks for breakfast.”
“Ciao, bella,” he called out after me, making me wonder again where he might be from. But my mind stayed blank. No puzzle pieces fitting together this morning.
“Okay,” I said reluctantly to Noah. I hated to admit that the strong pull between us was almost enough for me to stay. But Brit needed me. And my brother needed a reminder about boundaries. “Bye.”
Noah held the door open for me as I left the front porch. “I’ll call you soon,” he said and I smiled like the Cheshire Cat. If River didn’t ruin the day for me, I think this is one that I would relive over and over.
But for now, I needed to focus on the second unexpected visit from my brother in as many days.
As I pulled into our parking lot, I didn’t notice a single foreign car. I had no idea what my brother drove for the Imperium, but I’d always suspected it would be something black and fancy. Considering our neighbors and the cheap rent here, a car like that surely would have stuck out.
Before turning off the ignition, I sent Brit a quick text letting her know I was on my way up. I wasn’t exactly sure why I felt that I needed to do this, but I had a feeling that surprises were out of the question today. Plus, I guess I wanted to set her mind at ease as quickly as possible.
With my bag on my shoulder, I stepped outside only to be greeted by sharp, bitter air. An omen for what was to come? Perhaps. A visit from my brother couldn’t be a good thing. In the five years since he finished high school and joined the Imperium, he’d never visited my home. We didn’t have that kind of relationship.
Despite it being late morning, the stairway leading up to our apartment was blanketed in darkness. As I passed Mr. Padlo’s home, his door creaked open.
“You going up to handle that?” he asked with a scratchy voice. His white eyes glowed more than I’d ever seen before and a forest of goose bumps claimed my skin.
“Yes,” I said hesitantly. “Why? Did something happen?” I glanced up to the next floor as though I could see inside my apartment, wondering what he was talking about.
“They tell me he is surrounded.”
“Surrounded?” I asked, totally confused with this conversation. “They?”
“Hush, I here ya,” Mr. Padlo spat over his shoulder. “He is tainted.”
“Who? My brother?”
“He is your brother?” Mr. Padlo’s eyes widened and he crossed himself. “You must be careful, Ms. Cressa.”
Now the shivers had burrowed their way into my blood, racing through me like a bad dream. If Mr. Padlo’s spirits were scared of my brother, I needed to get to Brit right away.
“I will,” I called out, already taking the stairs two at a time. I didn’t hear Mr. Padlo’s door close until I opened my own. A part of me, a small part considering all of the fear clawing inside, was thankful that he was concerned for my well being. Again, it made me feel wanted and protected. Something that I’d lost many years ago with the disappearance of my mother and the death of my father.
“Cressa!” Brit cried out and raced over to me as soon as I stepped inside. She looked tired, with the makeup under her eyes and the rats nest curling up on the back of her head. How early had River arrived? But her pupils were fully dilated and the sharp smell of coffee wafted off of her like she’d bathed in it.
I squeezed her outstretched hand in an attempt to calm her. “Where is he?” I whispered.
“In the kitchen,” she said. Biting her finger nail, she looked toward the kitchen and then back at me. “I didn’t know what to do. He just showed up demanding to see you and…” Her voice trailed off when I gave her a hug.
“It’s okay. You did the right thing. Thanks for stalling him.”
She stepped away from me, but not before I noticed how much she was shaking. “He really freaks me out.” She shook herself and sucked in a deep breath. “It’s too bad though. He’s cute,” she said wistfully, and I wondered if he’d spelled her. My brother may have good looks, but he was pure evil underneath.
“I’ll take care of him,” I said, ignoring her comment.
“I have to go to a study group,” she said.
“On a Saturday?” I questioned as I noticed the slight blush in her porcelain cheeks.
“Yep,” she said with a raised brow and a wink. “Don’t expect me to come home tonight.”
Always amazed at how quickly Brit could switch emotions, I had to smile at the way she’d turned this one into something positive. With her brain already wrapped around a “study date” with Carson, she’d totally forgotten about my brother—
“Cressa.” River’s voice punctured through me like molten metal. He stood in the hallway, head peeking around the entrance to the kitchen and living area. “I’ve been waiting,” he chided.
“Well, next time you should call,” I snapped. Brit had already disappeared into her room, so I stomped past my brother to throw my bag on the couch in the living room. “You aren’t welcomed here,” I added.
Looking like I’d just stabbed him, River’s mouth popped open. “Well, that’s not very nice,” he said and for a moment, I almost believed the act. A concerned brother? I think not.
“Why are you here?” I asked with annoyance. Brit quietly crept into the kitchen, and I could see her through the small opening between the two. She may be afraid of my brother, but she certainly wasn’t scared of fresh gossip.
River suddenly moved beside me and grabbed my arm. His fingers dug into my skin, for sure squeezing tight enough that I’d have several bruises. “Come here,” he growled, and started pulling me toward my bedroom.
I glanced at my bag, now too far away, and wondered if I needed that knife inside. I also wished, for just a moment, that I had Noah’s telekinetic powers. “River, you’re hurting me,” I said through gritted teeth. I tried to pull my arm free, but his grip held firm.
“Stop fighting me,” he growled.
As he dragged me down the hallway, my elbow slammed into the wall. Pain flared through my joint, making me angrier. Once we reached the threshold to my room, he spun me around and pushed me inside first. Stumbling over the small rug lining the wood floor, I almost fell back into my bed. River slammed my door shut and just as I opened my mouth to tear into him, he held up his hands.
“Cressa, wait,” he said. His voice sounded calm, almost too calm considering how he’d just physically forced me in here. “We need to talk.”
“So you have to attack me?” I spat.
River adjusted his duster and rolled his eyes. “I hardly attacked you.”
“What happened to you?” I questioned. I could still remember the scared boy who asked me to keep his bedroom light on for him. River hadn’t ever been a strong person, let alone a bully. “The Imperium has changed you.”
“Yeah, well my job may be what saves you today,” he countered like a child.
My heart stopped cold for a moment. He was here on official business? “What
are you talking about River?”
Seeing my panic, River basked in the shift in power. “Where were you last night, Cressa?”
“At a friend’s.”
“And what did you do?”
“That is certainly none of your business,” I argued, knowing full well that he was referring to my job at the cemetery.
“Do you understand what they will do to you if they catch you?” he asked. With a softened voice and a more relaxed scowl, I thought I sensed a small bit of concern in my brother’s tone. Could he even have that emotion anymore?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Cressa, don’t you think the Imperium has spies everywhere?” River asked with a huff.
“Why should that concern me?” I tried to emit a strong face, but I worried my fear would shine through the façade.
River hung his head, seemingly torn over whether or not to continue this conversation. “I am a tracker.”
“I know.”
“But there are better trackers than me.” I made a small noise of disdain and he glared. “And those trackers specifically look for unusual activity.”
“Like what? Encounters from the third kind?”
“Like coffins rising up out of the ground and corpses talking to the living.”
Panic sucked the air right out of me. No longer could I breathe. No longer could I put together a cohesive thought. They knew. They already knew.
“You’re lucky I have friends,” River said over my deafening alarm. I wanted to make some sarcastic remark about it, I really did. But my mind was blank. Or maybe it was too busy trying to comprehend what he was telling me. “And this friend of mine promised to stay silent so I could have a chance to talk some sense into you first.”
“I’m allowed to practice necromancy. They can’t stop me from using my natural skills.” I didn’t really know why I said that, except that I suddenly felt tired of hiding who I truly was. “Dad was allowed to do it. He didn’t have to hide in the shadows.”
“That was before the wars, Cressa, and you know it.” River stepped closer to me, but when I retreated, he opted to sit on my bed instead. “You are allowed to use your magic, but only when sanctioned.”
“Which is never,” I grumbled like a child.
“Which is most likely never,” he agreed. “But there are reasons. We need to be careful. Humans still don’t trust us, and without that trust, we won’t be welcomed in society.”
“You sound like a training manual, River. When are you ever going to have an opinion of your own?” My brother, the Imperium robot.
He sighed and shook his head. “And when are you ever going to follow the rules?”
I turned to face him, arms crossed and shoulders back in defiance. “As soon as I get mom out of the Reformatory.”
“You’re an idiot, Cressa,” River grumbled.
“Get out!”
He ignored my command and instead jumped to his feet and grabbed my wrist. I felt the cold metal press into my skin before I saw it. Some sort of thick bracelet clattered against my wrist bone, snapping into place with just one click. “What did you—”
“You want to keep defying our rules? Let me show you what’s in store if you keep this up.” River’s hand clamped down hard around my arm and he mumbled an unfamiliar incantation. A second later, my bedroom disappeared and flashes of pink and white light streaked by me at a speed greater than that of sound. In them, I thought I saw images…faces, buildings, trees. Things flying by us at an impossible rate.
“River?” I tried to speak the words, but instead I think that I was only able to form them in my mind.
Relax, we’re almost there, a silent voice soothed me. A moment later, we stopped moving although it felt like the world around us continued spinning in supersonic speed. Nausea boiled in my stomach, almost as bad as my payment for raising the dead. But surprisingly, I held strong and although I was tempted to hurl all over my brother, I swallowed it down and sucked it up.
When he let go of my arm, I rested mine against the side of a wall. A cold wall, that once I took note of my surroundings, I knew was an interior, gray wall. The smell of electronics swarmed my senses just as I focused my eyes on the large computer screens lining three sides of the room.
“Where are we?” I asked in a whisper, voice still not catching up with the rest of my body.
“The Reformatory,” River said, and I jumped back in shock.
“What?”
“I need to show you something.” He grabbed my hand and yanked me away from the wall where we’d just…appeared.
“How did we get here?” I looked down at the metal bracelet on my wrist and started to feel my brain wake up. “What is this metal? Did we just teleport?” If we had, then River was way more powerful than I’d ever imagined, and a part of me knew this was not a good thing. For anyone.
“It’s made of electrum. And yes.” River didn’t make eye contact with me, even when I tried to pull free. Several Imperium workers stared at us as he dragged me through the center of the room like a prisoner. But River ignored them and instead walked us over to a computer screen on the far side of the room. Not much bigger than a college classroom, I briefly marveled at the amount of equipment squeezed into the tiny space.
“Move,” he yelled to a young man sitting at a seat with ten different monitors in front of him. When he didn’t budge, River looked sharply at the guy. “Now!” The man, dressed in all black from head to toe, nearly fell as he stumbled out of his seat. River pulled me over and pressed me down into the abandoned chair with a bit too much force. “Do you see this?” he spat and pointed at one particular screen in the lower left.
“Yes—”
“Look closer,” he cut me off.
With tears in my eyes, I tried to will them away. I wouldn’t let River see me like this. I wouldn’t be controlled by my traitor brother. “I don’t know what you want me to look at!”
Someone nearby made a noise, but River deftly ignored them as his ice cold hands grabbed my head to turn my attention to the monitor. “Do you see her now?”
In the pixilated image of what I could only guess was a prison cell, sat a lone woman. She was sitting on the floor, completely ignoring the bed in the center of the room. The walls were bare, and only a dark, black ring encircled the perimeter like a flat fence. Dressed in a white long-sleeved top and white pants, she sat completely still. I wasn’t sure if the sound had been muted or if that silence was something typical for the Reformatory prison cells. My focus glanced to the split screens—hundreds of rooms, all looking similar in style and occupants. I didn’t understand why River brought me here.
“I still don’t know what you want me to…” My voice drifted off when she looked up. As if knowing that I was here watching her, my mom’s haunted eyes stared up at me through strings of thick, black hair. “Mom?” I whispered, tears once again distorting my vision.
River leaned over me, and with a few taps of his fingers my mother’s image occupied the full screen. “You want to keep breaking the rules? You will end up in here just like her.”
“Mom?” I asked again, wishing that she could hear me. Her eyes never left the camera and if I wasn’t mistaken, I thought I saw her say my name.
“You need to stop, Cressa. You don’t belong in here,” River said quietly so just I could hear.
I rested my hand on the screen, trying to reach out and touch my mom that left us so many years ago. “Neither does she,” I whispered through the lump in my throat.
“Yes, she does.”
I snapped my head up to yell at my brother, but when I saw his face, my anger dissipated like the glass Rome had broken. “Why? What do you know that I don’t?” I was only thirteen when my mother left us, but it wasn’t until I was sixteen that I’d learned the truth about where she’d gone. My father had lied to us, telling stories about how she’d decided that she didn’t want to be married anymore.
“It’s not my place to tell
.” River looked around the room at the other workers who were pretending not to listen to us. “You just need to trust me, Cressa, and stop playing with fire. The Imperium will find out.”
I huffed at his notion of trust. “How do I know you’re not the one spying on me, brother?”
This time he made a noise of disgust and pointed to the screen again. “Do you really think I want to see another family member in here? You see that dark ring around the perimeter?”
I nodded, curious about where he was going with this.
“It’s lodestone. The whole room is surrounded with it. In fact every cell in here is rigged that way.”
“But lodestone inhibits magic,” I said in disgust.
“Not just inhibits, it totally prevents it. It’s like cutting off an arm for anyone who’s used to having magic. It basically mutates people like us.” River swallowed hard enough for me to notice. This actually scared him. To be cut off from magic completely would certainly be the death of most of us.
I slowly turned my head to look back at my mother. She continued to stare at the camera in a blank and empty way. Had she been destroyed by her incarceration? “I need to get her out of here,” I whispered to myself. I only needed nine thousand more dollars.
“Jesus, Cressa,” River spat at me through gritted teeth. “I didn’t bring you here to encourage you! I brought you here to show you what happens to magic whores!”
If River thought this would discourage me, then he never really knew me at all. All those years where I’d stood up for him. Protected him. Trained him. He should have known that giving me any glimpse of hope meant that I would put all of my energy into it. But for now, I needed to appeal to his sense of duty so I said the most neutral thing I could think of.
“I don’t want to end up in here.”
River sighed, shoulders relaxing and the creases in his face disappearing. “Good.” He tapped the keyboard again, and my mother disappeared back into the other tiny images. I wanted to reach through there and touch her, just one time. It had been so long, and a teenage girl growing up without her mother had been hard. I needed her. I’d always needed her.
