No matter how many times one was kissed, there was always that moment when it still came as somewhat of a surprise. When lips touched, and even though both were quite soft, they caused a spark as if they were made of flint. Ari had wanted Marx to kiss her, and he had, but not because he was all-knowing, but because he knew all there was to know about her. Outside, and in.
She was a little taller thanks to her shoes, but Marx could account for any height difference. She didn’t have to push herself up, he wrapped her in those same arms from her memory and pulled her straight to him as if she held all the weight of a cloud.
To Ari, it didn’t matter if this was the hundredth time this happened or the thousandth, it would never be any less thrilling than the very first time.
And she would never be content when they had to stop kissing, but it was especially true at that moment.
Someone was clearing their throat behind them, loudly, as though they had been for some time, while being thoroughly ignored. Anger rose from Ari like waves of lava. At first, she’d thought Ripley or Leo had followed them—and that would be awful for a variety of reasons—but it was someone else.
Marx set Ari down gingerly, his eyes darted away only briefly, and flashed back to Ari with an intensity that could have knocked her down, or raised her up, or done anything else they wanted.
The spell was only broken when the face of the man behind her exploded into her mind. Sometimes, Ari wished Marx was really capable of shutting off her brain, but as it was, he was the closest she would ever come to mind-numbing happiness.
Fernando Garcia was Marx’s teacher. But that man, like everyone else who ran in their circle, was a tangle of multiple titles and duties, that was only further complicated by the fact that he was responsible for guiding and teaching people, who for lack of a better term, outranked him.
The Soul Painters, an organization Ari was technically not even a member of, might have billed themselves as a group of enlightened artists. Artists who recorded history, artists who understood and bared witness to some genuine forms in reincarnation, but the truth was, all those artists weren’t equal.
They weren’t even all human.
Lucia—Leo’s Lucia—had founded the organization many lifetimes ago, and Ari feared what would happen to them without her, so much so, that she hadn’t even been looking in that direction of time.
Only now that Mr. Garcia stood behind them, clearing his throat yet again, did Ari wish she had. There was something unpleasant about the presence of this man. Though he taught at Ari’s school, and, in Lucia’s steed led the Soul Painters, Ari couldn’t seem to get used to him.
Get used to, not like, and certainly not trust. Ari had made it to old age in multiple lives, and an Oracle didn’t do that by trusting anyone.
An Oracle didn’t do that period. Though it was hard for her to confirm by her usual means, she had started to believe that she might, in fact, be the last one.
It made Ari sadder than she thought it would, and that must have seeped into her eyes. Marx looked at her for a moment, strange and silent, before turning her around to face Mr. Garcia.
He was an old man in the present. Wrinkles deeper than knife wounds in vibrant brown skin, and heavy hooded eyelids over eyes so dark they looked black even from the small distance.
The man’s eyes crinkled in the corner as he smiled back at them, but Ari wasn’t buying it. Any man who worked that hard at trying to make people like him, was to be trusted far less than everyone else. It was apparent to her that he was as fake as the rocks and the vines, and this whole tourist trap. Maybe even faker.
But that didn’t necessarily mean he was dangerous. He could just be a nuisance. He was making a solid showing for one now.
Ari stared daggers at him, but he didn’t take the hint. The well-meaning adult types never did, not until you could pass for one of them.
“Did you need something?” Ari asked.
It took a lot more out of her than it should to put on a blank face, to remove the anger from her voice, and all of it was wholly unappreciated.
Mr. Garcia’s smile fell faster than a brick in a well.
“I hope you don’t plan on leaving us so soon?” the man asked.
It was in the way adults did when they weren’t actually asking a question so much as telling you what was going to happen. Of course, as well-meaning as he might have thought he was being, there was one major flaw in his way of thinking.
“Because of the current disarray of the Soul Painters,” Ari began, like venom would shoot from a snake’s fangs. “Maybe no one has told you, but we don’t answer to you. We don’t answer to anyone.”
The brown skin of the old man’s face flooded to a blazing shade of red in one stomp of Ari’s spiked heel.
Mr. Garcia said nothing more and fled down the path they’d come.
Ari had been out of spoons for weeks, she simply didn’t have the bandwidth for it, but Marx whistled at her anyway and shook his head.
“This is why people think I’m a bitch,” Ari whispered.
But she wasn’t sure why she bothered. It wouldn’t make her feel better, it wouldn’t make Marx feel better, and it certainly wouldn’t change a thing.
“Yes,” Marx hissed, “You’re a bitch because people keep testing you when you’re already at the end of your rope. Girl, you don’t owe men like that a thing. Actually, you don’t owe anyone anything. Shall we?”
Marx held out his arm, waiting for her to take it so they could go. He wanted Ari to leave with him. Maybe he wanted Ari to leave and never come back.
It was cooler there, in the midst of the waterfall than anywhere else in the glass box. Ari reached out with one hand and wished she could gather the water spray and keep it with her. The end of the school year was near, and she knew it was pushing ninety-five outside, but they’d have to brave it eventually.
“You’re wrong,” Ari said, but she took his arm anyway.
“If I’m wrong, and it happens when you date a hot chick who knows all, I’m sure you’ll tell me about it before I fall on my face.”
Ari laughed, as they headed down their last flight of stairs, but she couldn’t make the warmness of it cheer her.
“So, are you going to tell me what I’m so wrong about now?” Marx asked.
He was teasing, trying to get her to laugh as she just had, but it only made Ari feel cold on the inside.
“It’s Leo,” Ari breathed so low anyone but Marx would have missed it.
“What? Am I wrong about him?” Marx asked.
They pushed through two sets of hinged glass doors and were assaulted by a wall of air conditioning as they entered the hall that would lead them blissfully to the exit.
Curiosity made Marx pause right where they were meant to check for rogue butterflies. Tourists parted around them like a river rolled around rocks.
“I do owe him,” Ari said, even if she swallowed down the “a lot.”
4
There had been many lives, Marx knew, where they did not have air conditioning. He could remember bits and pieces of dozens of them. None of that knowledge stopped him from wishing to retreat inside a mere ten feet across the oppressive blacktop parking lot. Even the white lines hurt to look at. The afternoon sun had joined forces with the pavement to cook them alive, and it wasn't even summer proper yet.
It should still feel like spring. But no one had told Galveston, Texas.
Part of the bay danced happily in the far corner of their vision. Marx gazed at it longingly, crappy brown water and all, wishing the breeze would bring relief from the scorching heat.
It wouldn't, but when Marx refocused on where he should be walking, at the far end of the parking lot, he saw something dodge away from his roaming eyes. At first, he thought it was a large dog. The height of whatever was lurking inched just above the bumpers of the last line of cars where Marx's old Mustang was parked, taking up two spaces.
"It's ridiculous that you worry about having your doors dinge
d,” Ari said to him. “That car is older than you are."
And it wasn't the first time she'd said it, either. It wasn't even the first time that day, and she was no less exasperated having to express her displeasure to him again.
"Wait," Marx said and stopped walking as soon as he'd seen the shadow-like figure.
But Ari wasn't waiting. She'd breezed past Marx as the gooseflesh rippled along his bare arms even in the dreadful heat.
"I don't need to hear that it's a classic...again," Ari said over her pale shoulder.
Marx had maybe mentioned it a few—dozen times, but that wasn’t what he'd been about to say.
"No, Ari," Marx said.
He hadn't moved to grab her; he hadn't even twitched to draw more attention in their direction. Ari hadn't met his eyes, but it was enough. There was something in Marx's tone, so much was between them that it wouldn't have taken much for her to know exactly what he meant.
For a split second, Marx watched in horror as Ari froze. It was for less than half a shaky breath, but the terror pulsed its way through his veins like poison, swift as a flash of lightning and icy cold. It made his head spin, and he couldn't shake the feeling away any more than he could shake away the sun on his skin.
Marx was out of practice at living in mortal peril, and he felt it showed in his posture and response time, but Ari was terrific, he realized. As soon as she was tipped off, she'd backtracked until she was a mere arm's length away from Marx.
He thought about grabbing her and running back the way they'd come. She wasn't a fast runner in those spiky shoes she was prone to wearing, but she was always a quick thinker.
The person—and it definitely was one—crouched next to the back end of a white SUV, too far away to get a read on.
It was either a boy, a girl, or a tiny woman. Shorter than Ari, even without the shoes, and she was pocket-sized compared to Marx. This person seemed thin boned as well, like a dark and fragile little bird, and some birds were excellent predators. Which was another reason Marx knew not to trust. Looks were usually deceiving.
"Can you see him?" Marx asked.
She'd moved to stand by his side. Marx hadn't meant if she could see him, as in a few hundred yards away. He meant for her to see him, to flip through the immense knowledge in her mind and see if she could quickly access anything about the shadowed lump ahead.
Marx didn’t want to admit it, but he knew that level of pressure wasn't very good for getting information out of Ari. Stress, Marx thought, is the reason they were having trouble with everything else these days.
The clothes looked dark and boyish, but it was hard to tell, and Marx wasn't in much of a hurry to walk up and find out.
"It's a boy," Ari said, but she sounded unsure of something else, "maybe fourteen. Something..." Ari trailed off, and Marx weighed the likelihood of success of their different escape routes in his head.
This was his element, and if there was only one assailant, then he might as well be dealt with.
Except that would likely mean fleeing to some other area for a time, and Marx knew this was where Ari was needed.
The shadow boy hadn't moved since they’d thrown themselves behind the SUV, and Marx began to hope that he was just some sort of strange coincidence.
Ari didn't believe in those, however, so he kept his mouth closed about his hopes that they'd get lucky. He may as well have just jinxed them both. Best-case scenario, it was some kind of fanboy. He wouldn't have any idea who Ari was, or what she could do, he would just like her face and harsh style. Marx wouldn't want Ari to be anything but who she was, but sometimes he thought it would be a lot easier if she wasn't so cute—or she could maybe be persuaded into wearing less eye-catching clothing.
Of course, she was beautiful no matter what she wore, and morons tended to notice.
"Look out!" the shadow shrieked at them, but they didn’t move.
Marx's blood boiled as hot as a geyser. Had he missed accomplices?
At that moment, a car jerked out in front of them in hurried little jolting motions. They weren't just tourists pissed that Marx and Ari had come to a stop in the middle of the main lane in the parking lot. No, they wanted something. The rush of Marx's blood turned to ice in his veins as he realized who it was they would want.
"Run, Ari," Marx hissed, but she was frozen, eyes distant, probably in the depths of whatever horrors were about to befall them.
Marx grabbed Ari's shoulder and tossed her back. "I said run."
She shook herself but looked no less horrified as she turned on her heels and ran.
It was good that Bayside wasn't like other schools on the island. Casual attendance options were delightful, but the ability to keep a stash of weapons on him was an absolute must.
Three men jumped from the car, sickly-looking things, but sizeable. He headed off two, but he feared the person who had darted quickly from the back-driver’s side door of the black sedan would catch Ari if he didn't make fast work of the two idiots who were coming at him. The men had sticks and staffs, and one had a rough-looking wooden bat.
From the top of his paint-splattered black boots, Marx pulled two small forked daggers with three wicked points. They were shined to perfection, and deadly in Marx grasp. They were also easy to conceal. If Marx made it out of this alive, he'd probably make the evening news under gang violence. It wouldn’t be the first time.
People rationalized things however they wanted, and that almost always involved Marx being the bad guy.
Which was a natural assumption as he was about to throw the first blow. The two men who were trying to corner him against a light pole seemed to just be biding their time, unwilling to engage. Their friend only needed to catch up to Ari in her stupid shoes, and then they'd have their prize without even throwing a punch.
Ari was the only reason Marx had to live, and he didn't like what he was forced to do when someone tried to take that away from him.
Behind him, Marx heard a muffled thud, and fear filled the frantic space between each heartbeat. He knew they had her, he knew, but he had to look anyway.
To his surprise, the shadow boy, and he could see clearly now that it was, had tackled the man who'd run after Ari. The man was easily twice the boy's size, but he'd sacked him like an enemy quarterback and held tight.
"Run!" the boy shouted, because Ari had stopped to face him.
Marx could finally breathe as Ari turned again to run, but by then, it was too late. His focus had been pulled away too long from the men who had surrounded him.
A wadded cloth was pressed against his mouth, and before he could wonder at the purpose, blackness whirled on the edge of his vision like ink. Marx felt himself fall, but he was out just as he felt his knees hit the ground.
*
His head swam—it reminded him of oxygen deprivation and fear, or waterboarding, and too many other bad ends to count.
Marx woke, hot and sweat-soaked in a cage. There was no other word for it. It wasn't a hot-sounding metaphor to describe a room with bars on the doors and windows. It wasn't a room at all. It was a rough cement box. There were three harsh walls with sharp bumps, a steel door with a square peephole that seemed to be recently cleaned of muck. The door was the only thing they'd cleaned it off of. Dirt and moss and yuck clung to everything else, including Marx. Before him, a black iron gate twice as tall as he was loomed, cutting off his escape. The bars were topped with razor wire, and there were two plastic bags stuck on the cutting ends, shaking in the little wind.
It was a cage, the kind from an old zoo where things were meant to pace and watched by their captors, and that was precisely what Marx was doing.
Someone had removed his shirt, and his boots, as well as his socks. All of his weapons, save his head and fists, were long gone. He stood barefoot and bare-chested, his eyes trailing a streak of blood that ran all the way down his front before his finger went to his nose. It was scraped and tender, but not broken. He must have fallen forward when he was knocked out.
> The cage was outside, but the sun had mostly set. There was no light, not even the moon had begun to rise, and only a thick swash of pink in one corner of the sky was left to illuminate the dreadfulness of the situation he'd found himself in.
Not that Marx really needed to shine a light on how bad things had gotten, and so quickly, but he needed an escape. Out the front of his cage, Marx saw a small stone-lined walking path. Less than ten feet from the front of his pen was another one, a mirror image of his.
And that cage wasn't empty, either. He saw a small female form, and a flash of blond hair before throwing himself onto the iron bars to get a better look.
But that was a mistake. The rods were electrified and designed to keep animals with claws and teeth and fur away from the openings. For beings with a thicker hide than Marx. It was designed to keep the beasts away, so they couldn’t hurt the people who put them in these boxes.
Hissing, the bars burned at his palms, and chest, and the underside of his chin, leaving thick ruts where the top layer of skin had been split and curled away. The wounds were shallow and straight, but they were horribly painful and ugly red.
Marx cried out before he could stop himself. He'd known pain before, in this life, and many others, but no pain had been like this. It was like being bisected by an acid-covered blade.
"They're electric," the blond girl said.
But it was far too late for that warning.
And the girl wasn't Ari, that was the worst part of the whole thing. Now that his eyes were adjusting, he could see that she didn't even look like her. This girl was finer boned, taller, with thinner hips and legs. Her shoulders slumped as though the weight of the world had been centered between her bones. Even with the world on her shoulders, Ari had never looked so defeated. It was hard to know if that was better or worse. On the one hand, Ari wasn't locked in a cage, but Marx couldn't be sure if she'd gotten away or befell an even worse fate.
The word “fate” reminded him of their other troubles and made his heart ache even worse.
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