Only Ashes Remain
Page 7
Nita had learned a lesson, though not the one her mother wanted her to. She didn’t stop wanting to go to college, she just kept it a secret. She’d stolen money, hoping to save enough to take her GED and apply for college. If her mother didn’t know, then she couldn’t punish Nita.
But Nita had never defied her mother to her face like she had today. This was more defiant than she’d been in the college discussion, more than the dact war, more even than freeing Fabricio.
Her hands were still shaking.
She wondered what her punishment would be.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Nita swallowed back the terror oozing up her throat like acid, and instead focused on praising herself. She’d done a good thing. She’d stood up for herself. She hadn’t let her mother trample her dreams.
Nita looked up at the bright sun and let the warmth suffuse her body. She leaned against the side of a brick building and the rough surface scraped her clothes. She took another breath of cold air, and her lungs felt like they expanded wider than she’d ever thought. People walked down the street, ignoring her, and the cool air was bracing. Almost cleansing.
It was strange. She felt terribly vulnerable, but also wonderfully light, almost giddy. She was frightened of the uncertainty, of the depth of how much she had to do and how little she had. But she was also full of helium, like the sun, and she just wanted to smile.
It was like she’d shed a great burden when she’d left her mother. She’d been carrying a planet on her shoulders, and now that it was gone, she could see the vastness of the universe and how small she and the planet she’d been holding were. It was daunting, but it was also breathtakingly beautiful.
She was alone. And that was okay.
A blast of cool air made her shiver.
She was alone—which meant she was completely unprotected, and the entire black market wanted her in a cage to take apart and sell.
But they didn’t know where she was. She had time to formulate a plan.
She thought about her end goal—to become a researcher in unnatural science, to present papers at university conferences, to research and dissect various unnaturals with the blessing of universities and governments around the world.
She thought about the black market that stood in her way. And how she could get rid of it.
She needed the market to respect her, to fear attacking her so much they left her alone. But how could she ever give herself that kind of reputation? Especially now, alone, with no money, in yet another foreign country?
She stilled. She didn’t have to do this alone.
She pulled out her cell phone and connected to the Starbucks Wi-Fi across the street.
Swallowing, she sent an email to Kovit. Hey. Are you in Toronto now? Can we meet?
The response came a moment later.
I’d love to. Where are you now?
Nita smiled and began setting up a rendezvous.
Nine
NITA STOOD IN FRONT of a small café, a wooden sign with black letters burned into it hanging above the door. It had a jungle theme that made Nita shift from foot to foot, reluctant to step in. It felt like stepping into the past, returning to the market along the Amazon River. If she opened the door, Boulder or Reyes might be waiting for her, tranquilizer guns and chains in hand.
Her missing toe tingled, and she bit her lip, trying to banish the memories of Mirella screaming from her mind. She could hardly believe only a week had passed.
Nita’s fingers curled around an invisible scalpel. She focused on all the wonderful dissections she’d do when she had a moment to herself, trying to soothe her nerves.
Inside, the café was full of cushy faux-leather chairs that wasted far too much space and small, too-short tables. The walls were patterned with more trees and plants. A painted monkey stared out at her with huge blue eyes and a wide, toothy smile. In the corner, a jaguar hung on a tree, almost completely obscured by a real, leafy plant in the corner. Even the ceiling was painted green with leaves meant to emulate the claustrophobic sense of being trapped beneath the canopy. The room was lit with lanterns that gave the café a dim, almost romantic atmosphere.
It looked nothing like the actual Amazon, but that didn’t make it any less surreal to step inside. It was fuller than Nita expected, and the noise assaulted her ears, voices chattering and echoing in the small space. She ran her eyes across the seating, searching for a familiar figure.
There.
Kovit lounged in a cushy chair, staring pensively at a picture on the wall of a group of grinning bleached-blond girls holding a giant snake. His eyes were dark and fathomless, and thick dark eyebrows were arced in a question. He was smiling slightly, and there was something undeniably wrong with the smile.
Nita’s heart did a familiar fear flip when she saw him, and she flexed her sweaty palms.
She swallowed, watching him for a moment. He looked so innocuous in a dark green sweater and jeans, so . . . normal. Like he belonged here. At the same time, there was an indefinable sense of danger from him. People who walked by gave his seat a wide berth. They didn’t seem to even be doing it consciously—they just walked all the way around another table to avoid him, and sat at the table next to him despite how crowded it was.
It was like their subconscious could sense the danger and avoided him, even though their conscious couldn’t identify why.
Nita had always heard that girls liked “bad boys,” but none of the girls were giving Kovit appreciative glances or approaching him, despite the fact that he was definitely attractive. He’d eaten pain recently, and his face glowed with health, his hair as shiny as a shampoo commercial. His eyes were dark and thickly lashed, and his skin was warm brown.
She wondered if the girls-like-bad-boys stereotype was a lie, or if Kovit was so far from bad boy and so deep into straight-up monster that he didn’t count anymore.
When she was in the jungle, it had been easy to justify allying with Kovit to herself. He was a monster, no question, but they had the same goals, and working together was the fastest way to get out. But out here, in the real world, it was different.
She knew that he hurt people. She knew he enjoyed it. He’d never made a secret of the fact that he could get his pain without torture, by sitting in emergency rooms or going to a war zone. But he chose not to.
He chose to make his own pain. He chose to be the monster people painted him as.
Her mind knew this, but her feet carried her over to him. Her heart rate spiked, and Nita’s ability let her sense every red blood cell rushing through each vein and capillary.
She stopped in front of him, and he turned his gaze on her. His mouth stretched into a warped grin, crooked and slightly off, though she was hard-pressed to say how.
She grinned back, and she wondered if her smile was as broken and twisted as his was.
He laughed and rose. “Nita.”
“Kovit.”
She waited for him to take the lead, because she had no idea what to do now. Shake hands? That felt weird and formal. Hug? Equally weird and too intimate.
Social situations were confusing.
Nita sat down quickly, before he could do anything or the distance between them could stretch.
“Hungry?” he asked, still standing.
Her stomach growled, and she remembered she hadn’t eaten anything with her mother. She’d left before the food came. It was already nearly dinnertime.
“Very,” she admitted. Then she hesitated. “I have no money.”
He waved it away. “This one’s on me.”
She sagged in relief, and he flashed her a grin and went to the counter. His walk was a little slow, and one hand hovered over his side before falling again. Over the bullet wound he’d gotten trying to save her from being cut up.
Nita shoved away the memory, but the sound of the gunshot and the feel of the knife against her skin lingered in her mind.
Kovit approached the cashier with a smile Nita guessed was meant to be friendly but wasn’t. Th
e cashier, a pretty black girl with cornrows, flinched, glasses slipping down her nose and catching on her nose ring. She pushed them back up, and punched his order in with trembling hands.
He returned a moment later, leaving the girl at the till still shaking.
“Did you really need to terrify the cashier?” Nita sighed.
Kovit let out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “It wasn’t intentional. I’m not used to people.”
Nita understood. He hadn’t had to interact with normal people much in his life. She didn’t know how restrictive the mafia family he’d worked for had been, but she’d repeatedly got the sense that the creepy smile and constant fear was something he’d worked to inspire as a survival mechanism. And she didn’t think he’d ever been in a situation where he needed to turn it off.
Nita never had to interact with people much either, but for her, it was more a lack of skills than using the wrong skills in a situation.
A moment later the girl came over, two plates of curry balanced on her hands. Her eyes kept nervously flicking to Kovit as she handed them over, and she walked quickly away once freed of her burden.
Nita attacked the food, shoveling food into her mouth like she hadn’t eaten in a week.
Kovit laughed and leaned back in his seat. “Did INHUP not feed you?”
Nita rolled her eyes and swallowed a bite of chickpeas. They were a bit salty. She’d forgotten how much North America liked salt. “Not since this morning.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I see you enjoyed your time there.”
Nita nearly choked. “Hardly.”
“I’m all ears.” He put down his curry and propped his chin in his hand.
Nita sighed. “It was just uncomfortable.”
He raised his other eyebrow. He wasn’t going to let it go.
She sighed, and leaned closer and lowered her voice so no one else would overhear. “I had to murder someone without getting caught, and it didn’t go right.”
“Well, you clearly did the not-getting-caught part right, or you wouldn’t be here.” He grinned, lowering his voice to match hers.
Nita couldn’t help but grin back. “For now.”
“So, who were you trying to murder?”
Nita gave him a quick rundown of what happened with Fabricio.
“Well,” Kovit said when she finished. “At least when you’re both out of INHUP’s clutches it’ll be easier to murder him.”
“Agreed. And I won’t have to use poison.” Nita clenched her jaw. “I want to make him scream for what he’s done.”
Kovit’s eyes darkened, and he licked his lips. “I can help with that.”
A small thrill sizzled through her body. “I might take you up on that offer.”
“Anytime.”
She shivered at his voice, full of dark promises.
Someone walked by, and both of them went silent. Kovit leaned back, the darkness in his face vanishing.
“How goes your search for your sister?” Nita asked to fill the sudden silence.
Kovit’s sister wasn’t a zannie, like him, just a regular human. She’d missed that little genetic gift. Kovit had told Nita that he hadn’t seen his sister since he was ten years old, when she’d hidden him from INHUP agents storming their house to murder their mother. INHUP agents Kovit himself had called after his mother tortured his classmate.
Shortly after, Kovit had been scooped up by an American criminal organization and taken away from Thailand. When he and Nita had parted in Brazil, he’d said now that he was free, he wanted to find his sister.
Kovit sighed. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know how the search is going?”
He clarified. “I’m second-guessing if it’s such a good idea.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“What if she doesn’t speak English?”
Nita blinked. “So? Don’t you speak Thai?”
“I did.” He looked away. “I mean, I do. But I haven’t spoken it since I left Thailand when I was ten. There was no one to talk to. So I don’t know. What if I’ve forgotten how to speak?”
Nita leaned forward. “You’ll relearn. Or maybe she speaks English. You won’t know if you don’t try and find her.”
“I did. Try. No hits online.”
“Yet.”
“Yet,” he agreed.
She raised her eyebrows. “It sounds to me like you’re making excuses. Did something happen to make you doubt if you should look for her?”
“No,” he said, but he looked away, and changed the subject. “We need to find somewhere to stay tonight.”
Nita let the topic lie. “Yeah. A hotel?”
“Hotels are expensive. Hostels are cheaper.”
“One of those, then.”
“All right.” He hesitated. “Do you have ID?”
Nita shook her head.
“You need to show ID. It’s the law in Canada.” He shrugged at her look. “I Googled.”
She sighed, thinking of her brand-new passport in her mother’s hands. She wasn’t getting that back anytime soon. “Maybe you can book a hostel and just check in yourself, and then sneak me in the window?”
Kovit tipped his head back. “Not a bad idea. But I think the only way we could do it would be in a hotel.”
She frowned. “Do you have the money for that?”
“Nope.” He mused. “I could mug someone?”
“Let’s hold off on that as long as we can.” Nita’s answer was a bit too fast, and she took a breath before she explained, “I want to maintain a low profile.”
“All right. Do you have a better idea to get money?”
“No.” Nita snorted, yanking her hair back from her face and tying it back. “I feel like all we ever do is try and figure out how to get money when we run out.”
“Money makes the world go round.” Kovit’s voice was singsong.
She grinned. “That it does.”
They were quiet for a time, before Nita finally offered, “We could sleep in the park?”
Kovit made a small sound of distaste. “No.”
“I don’t know what else to do.”
She could contact her mother. But after her dramatic exit, she’d rather sleep on a bench than go back to her mother.
Kovit hesitated. “There is one other option.”
“What?”
He ran a hand through his hair, and wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I was in Toronto before, three years ago, with my friend Matt and the Family.”
“Who’s Matt?”
Kovit blinked and looked away. “He was my friend in the Family. He screwed up, and I was supposed to torture him as punishment, but—”
“But you helped him escape. And as punishment you got shipped off to South America.” Nita nodded. “I remember.”
Kovit cleared his throat. “Well, anyways, a few years ago when we were in Toronto, Matt had an . . . incident.”
“What kind of incident?”
“The kind that the Family couldn’t find out about.” He shivered.
Nita raised an eyebrow. “What happened?”
“It, uh, it involved a body to clean up.”
“Matt murdered someone?”
Kovit shrugged. “I mean, you didn’t think he was some saint, did you? He worked for the Family. He was friends with me.”
Nita snorted. “I’m friends with you.”
“Yes, and you’ve got a bigger body count than me and him combined.”
Nita opened her mouth to deny it. She wasn’t like Kovit. She didn’t thrive on others’ pain, she did what needed to be done to survive. But she closed her mouth without saying anything. Because in terms of sheer numbers, he might be right.
She’d burned a whole market full of people alive.
A strange emptiness opened inside her when she realized that. It wasn’t that she hadn’t known that she’d done something awful, but she’d always just assumed she wasn’t as evil as Kovit, that she had the moral high ground on him.
Nita forced a breath out, and tried to draw them both back into the story. “All right, so, you needed to get rid of the body.”
“Yeah. Matt knew someone who ran a cleanup service for incidents like that.”
“Meaning this wasn’t the first time Matt had needed a cleanup.” Nita’s voice was deadpan.
Kovit shrugged and wouldn’t look at her. “I doubt it.”
Nita shivered, something in the back of her mind deeply uneasy at the thought. Kovit wouldn’t look her in the eye when he talked about the body. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was ashamed.
Any crime that made Kovit feel guilty was serious.
She cleared her throat before imagination let her take that thought too far. “So you think this person who covered up for Matt will put us up? Seems risky, and we already have a money problem.”
“He takes payment in information too.” Kovit still wouldn’t look at her.
Nita considered what she had to offer. A list of corrupt INHUP officials. Knowledge about her mother, the fate of Mercado de la Muerte. “That might work.”
Kovit took out his phone, but hesitated. “There’s something else you should know about this guy.”
“What?”
Kovit sighed and leaned back. “He’s a kelpie.”
A kelpie.
Well, fuck.
“You want to trust a kelpie?” Nita was incredulous.
“You’re trusting me, and I’m a zannie,” he snapped.
Nita flinched. She swallowed and went to tell him that was different, but stopped, because it wasn’t, not really.
Nita sighed. “Fine. So you trust this kelpie?”
“Not at all.”
She glared. “Then why are we even considering this?”
“Because we’re out of options.” He raised an eyebrow. “Unless you have another idea?”
She didn’t.
“Fine.” She frowned. “But do we have any assurance he won’t drag us under the water and eat our rotting corpses?”
Kovit shook his head. “None.”