by Lara Hayes
“Fane,” she says. “My Maker.”
“How does he know about me? And why does it matter to him?”
“It is my sincere hope that he does not know about you yet. He merely suspects that you exist. He is certain that I am hiding something from him, and he has sent Mr. Collins to find out what that is.” Her words are fraught and bitter. Moments ago, she was a feral thing, cagey and vengeful. Now she has an air of timidity. If something as strong as she is fears what will happen next, what can she possibly expect from me?
“I can’t live like this.” My mouth is a hairbreadth from hers, though I have no memory of leaning in. Stela reaches up with a trembling hand and her fingers slide up the back of my neck, tangling in my hair. The same hand that held me pinned against her, the same that flung a man against a wall as though he weighed nothing, is shaking.
“Neither can I,” she confesses, lips brushing against mine. The words are weighted with heartbreaking sincerity. What must it be like? A life lived in darkness, a life dependent upon anonymity? What restrictions does she have, if simply giving her name to me could cause such havoc? Does she have any real freedom?
Our knees knock, mouths open and lips touching, though only my staccato breath and pounding heart can be heard. Her fingers tighten around the back of my head, at once pulling me closer and pushing us apart. I’m the first to close my eyes, and Stela is the first to step away. The absence of her registers before I have visual confirmation of the fact. I stand beside the open patio door, fingers pressed to my lips, still parted in preparation for a kiss I didn’t know I wanted so badly.
The door groans when I slide it closed, as it should, as it always has when anyone other than Stela has touched it. I stand in the empty kitchen, watching the shadows skitter over the deck, and chase the sinking sensation in my gut all the way down to the cold, forbidding tiles beneath my feet.
VII
Renaissance
Mr. Collins has not strayed far from his vehicle in nearly five days. I may have underestimated his work ethic. He is getting her habits down before he risks confrontation. Under different circumstances, I would admire both his discretion and his dedication. I too have hunted a person of interest—dozens, in fact—but the terrain has been irrevocably altered. Bodies were once as common as vermin in the gutter. Surveillance these days demands a level of distance and discipline that is not for the impatient, or the impassioned.
Every evening, before I can glean a few precious hours of sleep, Elizabeth sends me a message detailing small changes to her route and routine. She rises later than he expects one day, and much earlier the next, keeping to the house in her off hours, and walking with her mother only on the busiest streets during the most congested time of day. But subterfuge is only half the battle. There is not a doubt in my mind when he readies his camera to capture the likeness of every tall blonde rounding the corner, or crossing the street, that Elizabeth is not the only one Collins has been sent to monitor. And what is worse, I am certain he was not sent merely to lurk. His actions are too meticulous. He is careful to leave no trace of himself, changing the position of his nondescript van, even the vehicle itself.
That very paranoia will be his undoing. The blindingly bright red Dodge he used to tail Elizabeth yesterday was his own private car. Andrew asked no questions when I gave him the license plate—fear is a potent motivator—and forwarded the request on to one of Opes and Sons’ unlisted freelancers.
The answers were surprising. Mr. Collins’s home is modest and neatly kept. Two small boys with their father’s crooked mouth, criminal features softened by their mother’s round blue eyes. I lingered over the glossy photo of their sharp little faces, considering the time it would take to leave their cold bodies tucked in bed for Collins to find. His wife prostrate on the narrow kitchen table, the blood pooling over the pockmarked linoleum beneath. Normally, I am not one for waste, but neither do I bother with empty threats. However, Mr. Collins is also a person of interest to Fane, and of course, to his benefactor Bård. Whatever mishap befalls the loathsome lackey must be subtle, and above all—untraceable.
Elizabeth has been a far better sport than I anticipated, but I imagine that when you are gambling with your life petty inconveniences are just that. Still, she has managed to sling her barbs, even while we are restricted to text, following my added instructions with a curt good morning to you too. More than once she has referred to me as her preferred stalker. I should take less pride in the title. Being, once again, annexed to the shadows of her life is a punishment in and of itself, but we cannot risk being photographed together.
I would believe the pang to be one-sided were it not for the way her striking eyes search the street, stopping only briefly on Collins’s van. She can sense my proximity, though not as acutely as I can sense hers. She flashes a private grin from her stoop, she stands a bit taller, she walks with a long stride, and does not shrink away from the strangers on the sidewalk.
I have to sleep.
The hours are blending into one another, and a piercing shriek has taken root between my ears. Even the night has begun to blister my sun-leathered eyes, and I am no good to her this way. No use to anyone if I cannot think clearly. Daylight is extraordinarily draining, and despite my superior tolerance, I fear I cannot continue without rest for much longer. I have been careful to be present and accounted for every morning, disappearing through the service entrance Erebus uses to come and go from my quarters. But I have no way of knowing whether or not Fane is in the habit of checking in on his sleeping children.
The others will notice soon, assuming they have not already. I am not as quick, or as patient as I should be. Twice yesterday, I took the bait with Lydia—thinly veiled barbs about my apathy, hinted that I was not as adept with managing Fane’s fortune as she. Which, as of late, has regrettably proved to be true, and I nearly went across the conference table in our meeting hall. My attack was halted by Fane’s booming disapproval, accompanied by a heavy hand on my shoulder from Crogher—the least likely of my brood to intervene on anyone’s behalf, providing they do not walk on all fours. Darius was all eyes, poor soul. He has never been one for outward displays of aggression. Indeed, it is a wonder he can feed himself at all. He gathered the month’s statements into his ledger and scurried back to the sanctuary of his library.
Fane suggested that perhaps a change in station would reinvigorate my loyalties. Loyalties, not my strengths, not my abilities. Would it please me to keep the hounds for a year, to see to security and tend to the compound? That was the first time in my life Fane had questioned my allegiance, albeit indirectly. In retrospect, it had been a mistake to blame Bård for my financial oversights. And it was not entirely a lie. My brother has been lax in sending me the figures from our newest business venture with Collins.
“Yes, my dove,” Fane said. “I am sure that he has. Bård has never had a mind for figures. Yet, Lydia, our faithful seamstress was able to provide documentation of profit. Are you challenging her reflection of the account?”
“No, my Lord.”
“Good, because it is sound. The profit she quoted falls in line with my own projections.” Fane has been checking my work. Another first. Did Lydia get a copy of the quarterly statements from him? Or Darius, perhaps? I could not protest with his unflinching stare upon me. He let me linger in silence, twisting on the hook for a while before he released me. “Come now, Stela. It would not be banishment. It was merely a suggestion. Besides, I doubt Crogher could be pried from his duties willingly.”
I straightened in my seat and offered my humility, my sincerest apologies that my recent performance did not reflect my gratitude. Fane accepted all of this with a disinterested wave of his wide hand.
“I trust this is not a conversation we will be forced to revisit, my dove,” he said. “You will rouse yourself from your musings, and apply yourself fully to the tasks you are assigned.”
I bowed and took my leave. Fane let me depart without a taste, without a kiss or a
hand on my arm, or the promise that I would come to him at the evening’s end. Did he hasten my exit to speed along the inevitable? Rushing me away so that I might be seen with Elizabeth, my treason caught red-handed by Collins, so that I may be proven the traitor Fane suspects, once and for all? Tending the compound was a threat, implying underground confinement. No one is more familiar with the integrity and the subtleties of our tunnels than Crogher.
Fane had been a great general. He was never impetuous—unless it served him somehow. His eyes never strayed from the goal. He is nothing if not patient.
Elizabeth is a powder blue smudge darting down the sidewalk, unforgivably late for her shift this afternoon. Typically, Mr. Collins is fast on her heels, taking service roads to reach the hospital long before she arrives, where he sits behind the wheel with a crossword puzzle in his gloved hands and waits for her shift to end. I usually accompany Elizabeth from afar, occupying a separate train car entirely, but close enough to hear her heart beating.
However, today Collins waits a full twenty minutes before setting off for the hospital, and I remain trapped on the neighboring corner—the blistering sun hot on my face—and my back pressed against the stone staircase of an adjacent stoop, staring down the street long after I lose sight of her.
The mobile in my pocket buzzes to life. Elizabeth has sent only a single question mark. I had been uncertain if she could sense my absence. But I have my answer. She may not know that I was kept by this uncharacteristic idleness in the deplorable Mr. Collins, but she is certain that I am not as near as she would like. I warn her to keep her wits about her for the remainder of the night. It is possible that Collins has kept me in place, so that another—sent in his stead—might watch Elizabeth unobserved, and without obstruction.
After an age, his engine rumbles to life. Collins’s van is parked in the Emergency lot when I reach the hospital. This is the first evening he has beaten me to her, though I doubt he can be sure. I settle at the window in an abandoned office on the second floor to keep watch over him and reach out to Elizabeth with my mind, as easily as a finger pressed to a pulse point. She is troubled by the unexpected change in routine, but the gentle intrusion of my presence quietens her darker imaginings.
Twice a night Mr. Collins ventures into the building through the emergency ward to procure a cup of coffee, and tonight is no exception. This little expedition takes him exactly six and a half minutes. Tonight, he has been gone from my sight for ten. He could be wise to my tactics, and using them against me. Forcing me to intervene directly simply by changing his own timeline. I slink up the stairwell to Elizabeth’s ward to make sure.
The fourth floor has few occupants this evening, and the staff have dwindled to match. Elizabeth is not at her station. I consider playing the part of a grieving daughter once more, searching for her father’s nurse, but I am unfamiliar with Elizabeth’s patients and it would not serve to draw unnecessary attention to her absence. Besides, her heartbeat echoes like distant thunder trapped in the elevator at the end of the hall, making its way back up the building with my precious cargo, and taking its sweet time.
With no choice but to wait, I linger in the doorway of a darkened room, ignoring the soft snores of the unconscious occupant at my back and watch a janitor flip and drag a gray mop along the polished tile. A doctor and a nurse march directly by, ensnared in some boisterous disagreement.
When the elevator doors open Elizabeth is a whirl of chestnut hair. Her eyes wide, her pulse erratic, clutching a thin manila folder to her chest. With her arms crossed, the edges of her angry scar are just visible beneath the cuff of her blue scrubs. The young man she favors, James, makes a joke about her sudden disappearance. Elizabeth mumbles something about a prank phone call and the smacks the folder down on the counter in front of him.
I slip further down the hall and return to the waiting room where I first encountered her. Sealed inside, I close my eyes and let her name fill my mind. Elizabeth senses my call, and her heart pounds louder than her shoes knocking down the hall. My name blooms against the roof of her mouth, but she swallows it back.
She opens the door barely wide enough to permit her body to slink across the threshold, and shuts it firmly behind her with a tremulous exhalation. She does not acknowledge my presence, but stands facing the closed door, collecting herself. Elizabeth turns on her heel, and I expect to be greeted with harsh words regarding this intrusion, or reprimanded for calling her away from her work.
Instead, the scent of her hair engulfs me—citrus and cinnamon—as two thin arms tighten around my shoulders, and her racing heart presses against mine. With no chance to hunt before this unexpected embrace, my body goes rigid in her arms, reacting to such temptation when I haven’t fed. Like anyone would, Elizabeth pulls away.
“He was here,” she confirms with affected calm.
“He has been here every evening this week. Did he approach you?”
Elizabeth bides her time closing her eyes and pushing the dark, curling locks from her face. Twice she begins to answer me, and both times a tremor threatens the corner of her mouth. I loathe Collins for it.
“We got a request for a patient file, from Pathology. I answered the call, so I agreed to take it downstairs. It’s been a slow night. The elevator stopped at the third floor and a man boarded with me. The pictures you sent…I didn’t recognize him without his hat, but he was wearing the same jacket. Stela, I—he knew that I knew who he was. He stood right beside me, edged me into the corner, leering the whole time. There was nothing covert about it.”
Elizabeth shivers, and I lead her over to the small sofa in the corner. I would give anything to have hunted before I began shadowing Collins, so that I could comfort her now the way she so clearly desires. Even her warm hands around my wrists are enticing. Gently, I move to free myself from her hold, but she tightens her grasp.
“What is it with you?” she snaps. “One second you’re inventing excuses to touch me, but the minute I initiate physical contact you pull away?”
I have met few people quicker to anger than she is, myself included. Elizabeth is angered if she is afraid, if she is sad, and above all when she has been made to feel foolish. She is her mother’s daughter completely, more so than she would like to think.
“I mean you no offense. I have not yet fed this evening, and it would be wise if you kept your distance until I have.”
Elizabeth releases me and straightening her scrubs, moves quite obviously as near to the opposite armrest as she can. A nervous laugh escapes her lips before her hands can smother the sound, but she says nothing, eyes skirting the edges of the room as though she only just realized that she has effectively sealed herself inside with a deadly occupant. I had hoped we were beyond this distrust.
“Elizabeth, if my intent was to harm you, I would have done so weeks ago.”
“But you want to, right? A part of you…that’s what you’re saying.”
Reasoning with this woman is exhausting. If you raised a lion from a cub, it would be loyal to you. But if you starved that animal for days on end, deprived it of sleep, and then tried to hold it in your arms, would you blame the lion for attacking? We are all animals at our core, in the most basic sense. Another sharp scream builds at the base of my skull, and the muscles in my body constrict against the pain. I rub my temples, willing the discomfort to the back of my mind, focusing on the sounds of the hospital: the hum of the lights, the thrum of fingers against keyboards, and the drip of IVs. I reach inside my coat pocket and slip on my sunglasses.
“Please,” I beg her. “Continue. Mr. Collins boarded the elevator, then what happened?”
“He lifted my shirtsleeve and asked about my scar.”
“What did you tell him?”
She shrugs. “I just said it was an accident and pulled away. He laughed at me and stepped between me and the doors.” Elizabeth fights off tears. “He lifted his shirt. There were three poorly sutured GSWs on his torso, fully healed. Old wounds. He said, ‘yeah, these w
ere accidents too.’ And he winked at me, like we were friends.” Her hands ball into white fists, and her shiver is one of disgust, not fear. “When the doors opened, I shoved him in the chest as hard as I could, and pushed past him, and he let me go. He was still laughing as the doors closed. He said my name. When I got to Pathology they told me no one had requested a file from the fourth floor.”
I place my hand on her forearm, and Elizabeth relaxes under my touch. The roar in my head eases too, and I find myself wondering if some small part of this pain is due to my refusal to accept this woman’s hold over me. And could I lose myself entirely in her warmth?
“I knew you were here,” she whispers. Her eyes meet mine without hesitation. “The air changes the closer you are.”
“In what way?”
She brushes her fingers over my arm. “I don’t know,” she admits. “Charged. Almost electric.”
A pleased smirk steals across my lips and I run my palm over her shoulder blades. A sigh catches in her throat, and she turns away from me. The sensation that accompanies Elizabeth’s proximity is similar—it simply exists, as she exists. Magnetic. The nearer she is the more influenced my environment becomes by her emotions. Now she is frightened, and alone. The chill of that fear reaches me before the sound of her quiet sob. I pull her shoulder back, but she refuses to look at me. I cup her chin in my hand and turn her face. Her cheeks are splotched with pink, and her rich brown eyes are red-rimmed and weary.
“Are you afraid?”
Elizabeth pulls her chin from my palm and reaches for a box of tissues.
“No. I mean, yes, of course I am. But it’s everything. This man—Collins. My mother. You. This…” She gestures vaguely between our bodies, and crumples the tissue in her palm. “I’m not usually a crier.”