by Amir Lane
A place? What kind of place was there around here? There were no convenience stores or fast food restaurants. As I followed, I realized what she meant. It was the middle of the day, and everyone in this neighbourhood would be either at work or at school. Nobody noticed us slink across a back yard and in through an unlocked garage door.
“We’re breaking into somebody's house?” I hissed.
“Like that's the worst thing you've ever done?”
I wasn't sure what the worst thing I’d ever done was. Killing Rutherford Bromley was, maybe. Even if he was a centuries-old serial killer who was harvesting parahuman organs to make himself immortal, I’d still killed him. Almost nobody really believed Bromley was real, so I’d completely gotten away with it.
That meant officially, this was the worst thing I'd ever done.
“I beat someone's up in self-defense. I'm not a real criminal,” I hissed.
The dirty look she shot me made me feel bad enough to mutter out an apology. We made our was up the wood stairs and into a house much nicer than what I would be able to afford. I comforted myself with the fact that even when Ariadne paid off her student loans, she didn't like this kind of stuff anyway. I was the flashy, showy one. She liked simplicity. Simplicity was within my budget.
“I found bolt cutters,” Audra said. “Let me see your hands.”
I held my arms up and squeezed my eyes shut. The edge of the cutter bit into my wrist as she wedged it under the manacle. Metal crunched against metal, and the manacles clattered to the ground. She crouched to break the ones around my ankles.
It wasn't just the physical weight that disappeared. I didn't know if it was a slight release of my powers or just the lack of confinement, but even my head felt a little better. She pushed the bolt cutter into my hands and held her wrists out to me.
Was this a good idea? No, obviously not. She was a ‘real’ criminal, a murderer, whose dryad powers were only held at bay by the iron on her wrists and ankles. I didn't know what she could — or would — do when I took the cuffs off.
“Well?”
Okay. Focus. Think. What would Kieron do?
Kieron would have a long talk about what she was planning on doing and how she could turn her life around if she really wanted to. He'd probably be able to convince her to turn herself in. I was definitely not Kieron. What would Rowan do? He wasn't exactly a role model, but he was a bit more practical.
Rowan would head-butt her in the face to knock her out.
Okay, what would Rowan do if I was missing and she might know where I was?
He'd keep playing along.
Or maybe he wouldn't. It didn't matter. What mattered was what I was going to do. And I was going to see this through.
The handcuffs weren't easy to cut through, but I managed. I almost expected her to kick me in the face and make a run for it when I broke the cuffs on her ankles, but she didn't. Instead, she let out a relieved sort of sob and stretched her arms out. As I stood, white, papery bark spread across her skin. When she smiled at me, it almost looked genuine.
“Get cleaned up and I'll take a look at your head. The lady's clothes in the closet might fit you.”
I went upstairs while Audra rummaged through the fridge, and locked the bathroom door behind me.
“What are you doing?” I whispered to myself.
I ran the tap and paced the small bathroom. A plan, a plan, a plan… I didn't have one.
“Khara…”
I looked like hell, even though my reflection was warped and distorted. My hair was a mess. Black bruises covered my arms, and there were a couple on my face. My lip was still split and a little puffy. There were dark shadows under my bloodshot eyes. I swallowed and forced a small laugh. At least Elias’ spell still seemed to be holding up.
The mirror was one of those ones that had a cabinet built into it. I opened it and caught the magnet and paper that fell. The paper was a prescription for something I couldn't make out. I set them on the counter so they wouldn't land in the sink. There was a bottle of ibuprofen tucked away between makeup and medication bottles. Taking four might not have been the best idea, but as I washed the pills down with a handful of water from the running tap, I couldn't bring myself to care. Nothing I'd done in the past four days was a good idea.
A stick of eyeliner caught my eye. As much as I missed wearing makeup, I wasn't thinking of my appearance when I picked it up.
The owners of this house would come home, and either they would know we'd broken in or they wouldn't. It depended on how we left the place. Audra might not want it to be obvious and, from the perspective of someone on the run, she was right. Balancing who I was and who I was pretending to be was a delicate situation. I didn't know what Rowan would do, either the Rowan I knew or the one who was apparently running around murdering gangsters, but I wasn't Rowan.
“You almost done in there?” Audra called. “We can't stay here long.”
“Just a second!”
I uncapped the eyeliner and hunched over the counter to write on the back of the prescription.
Call 9-1-1. Ask them to tell Kieron Harper.
That was probably too bold for something Audra might see but I couldn't risk something more vague, something that might come across as a threat. I folded the paper and stuffed it into a bottle that said Take Daily. I splashed water on my face, brushed my teeth with toothpaste on my finger, and grabbed a hair elastic to tie my hair back.
Audra was tapping her foot impatiently outside the bathroom door, wearing jeans and a hoodie that hung off her narrow frame. She muttered in relief and squeezed past me.
I felt uncomfortable walking into somebody else's bedroom. The dressers were open, clothes sticking out. There was no way to tell whether that was Audra or the owners. I picked through the woman's clothes until I found a pair of jeans that only just stayed on my waist and a plain black t-shirt. They fit me better than they fit Audra. Trying not to look at the couples’ photographs, I crossed the room to grab a simple blue belt to hold the pants up. A makeup kit sat on top of the dresser. I couldn’t walk around looking like a battery victim. The concealer was paler than my complexion, but I managed to lighten the bruises to a less concerning level.
I wasn't sure how long we'd been here for, but it was too long. The hairs on my arms and neck were standing on end. At least the ibuprofen was starting to kick in. I strode down the hall and knocked on the bathroom door.
“We have to go,” I said.
The door clicked open. Audra wiped her face on her shoulder. Her hair, like mine, was tied up, though her ponytail was much neater than my bun. She walked past me without a word. I followed her down the stairs. She beelined for the kitchen, while I grabbed a pair of sneakers from the shoe rack near the front door. They were half a size too small, but they would do. Wearing shoes in the house felt wrong, but I walked to the kitchen in them anyway. Audra was filling a grocery bag with the fruits sitting in a basket. A combination of guilt and hunger worried my stomach. It was bad enough to steal their clothes, but their food, too?
I opened my mouth to say something about it, but a sound outside interrupted me. Our eyes met, panic in them, and we turned to the source of the sound:
A mechanical click, and the whirring of a garage door opening.
Chapter Ten
The first thing Audra did was grab a knife from the wood block beside the coffee maker. A car door opened and shut. We had seconds, a minute at most, before whoever was in that car entered the house.
I grabbed Audra's wrist and pulled her back.
“You can't break into somebody's home and attack them with a knife,” I hissed. In case she later wondered why I'd stopped her, I added, “They could have powers, and we aren't at full strength.”
I wasn’t, anyway. Who knew about her?
She turned to face me. There was anger on her face, but something else. It was fear. Anger could make people do stupid things, but fear was worse. Her charcoal eyes fixed on mine, and then refocused with cla
rity.
“Right. You're right.”
She set the knife back.
“Honey?” A muffled woman’s voice said from the garage. “Did you leave the back door open.”
“What?”
A wood step creaked. We were in big trouble. The front door was too far. Maybe the basement had a patio door. But what if it didn't?
“Balcony,” Audra whispered.
The balcony!
She ran to the back of the kitchen, abandoning the bag of fruit. The glass door slid open easily. The mesh door behind it stuck a little but a hark yank got it open with a screech. We didn't bother closing them behind us. It wouldn't take the owners long to realize we'd been there, and we needed the extra second.
My worry about whether or not Audra would be able to get over the high balcony was quickly dismissed. She braced her hands on top of the rail and hoisted herself up not unlike getting out of a swimming pool.
An unwanted image flashed through the back of my mind.
My unofficial swim partner, Rachel Cherry. Dead. Lying in the street. Sawed in half at the waist, her legs missing. Empty, vacant eyes staring up at me.
For a moment, I forgot how to breathe. I forgot where I was. I would have stayed there, frozen for who knew how long, until Audra shouted my fake name.
“Faiza! Move it!”
The owners were in the house, calling out cautiously to ask if anyone was there. If they rounded the corner into the kitchen, I was done. Pain flared through my bad shoulder as I pushed my weight into it and threw myself over the railing. The ground was still thawing from winter, which I realized as all 180 pounds of me hit it with whatever force gravity was. As I rolled to keep my ankles from breaking, I wished I'd taken introductory physics as my first year hard science elective instead of geology. Take an easy elective so you can get into law school. Physics would have helped me more now.
Actually, a law degree might have helped me more now. I had broken more laws today than I had in my entire life, and it would have been nice to be able to get started on my defense now.
Well, Your Honour, it all started when I found a murdered phoenix. Yes, Your Honour, that's a real thing. Please stop laughing.
Rough hands grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet. Audra didn't say anything, just started running with me in tow.
“Hey!” a man shouted. “Get back here!”
No way. We were getting as far away from here as physically possible, thank you. Muscle memory took over as my body remembered that I knew how to run through the ache in my thighs and calves. It helped that my head was feeling better. I overtook Audra quickly, my longer legs giving me an advantage over her. When I looked back, she was right behind me. Her face was fixed in concentration. My competitive nature took over and I pushed harder.
We cut through a wooded backyard, then a small park, until we hit the busy streets. The crowd covered us and suddenly, we were just two girls. There was nothing odd about the fact that we were messy and sweaty and out of breath in clothes that didn't fit us too well. This was Toronto, after all. We were probably just a pair of hipsters.
I rested my palms on my thighs and panted. The back of my new shirt was already sticking to my skin. My hair was matted with sweat and blood, making my scalp itch. I'd almost forgotten about my head injury. Maybe it wasn't a concussion, then. I was due for some good luck.
“What do we do now?” I said, still gasping a little.
I turned my head up to look at her. Her expression was hard. She might have been weighing the pros and cons of abandoning me versus taking me with her. Finally, she let out a long sigh.
“I know a safe place for people like us,” she said. “Are you good to keep going?”
For a gang enforcer, she was surprisingly nice. How much of her angry persona was a facade? She might have needed it to survive.
“I'm fine. Where are we going?”
“You'll see.”
That worried me. We turned away from the crowd and down a long, twisting side road. It was an odd little road, one I’d never been down before. Half the attached buildings looked like houses, the others like shops. Cars were parallel parked on either side of the street, but I didn’t see any people.
"It should still be here,” she said.
"What are we looking for?”
She didn't answer. I didn't have much choice but to follow until she stopped in front of the shop with a stone dragon perched outside and steps leading down to the white door. The small sign read Black’s Books in a fancy, barely legible font.
“A bookstore?” I asked.
“It used to be a sort of community library. Then permits became a thing, and they converted to a bookstore with some great trade-in options. A library in everything but name,” Audra said, a small smirk playing on her lips.
“If you're in trouble, find a library,” I said quietly.
It was a piece of advice my father had given me. Historically, libraries had been centres for sanctuary. They served a similar function to churches in that regard, but without the religious overtones or persecution. It was nice to know the tradition lived on in modern Toronto.
“Exactly.”
Audra crouched in front of the dragon and waved her hand in its face. The stone shifted. Emerald eyes opened and looked at her, then at me. I jumped back and yelped.
“It’s alive!”
“Not quite. See these symbols? I bet you the person controlling it is inside.”
She waved at the dragon, or whoever was controlling it. I crouched next to her to get a closer look at the statue. What I'd thought initially were caved scales were actually several very small symbols lining its body. I'd never seen anything like it. I’d heard of people using magic to animate stone, mostly in reference to golems, but I thought they were just stories. What kind of witch could do something like this?
“That's amazing,” I whispered.
The dragon turned its head to me. “Thank you,” it said in a deep, rumbling growl.
I squeaked in surprise and jerked upright. Audra stood too, but more slowly. Had she seen this dragon before? If she knew of its existence, it was very likely she had. Through the lingering headache, I struggled to remember if she’d been in the city before her arrest. It seemed possible that she’d heard about the dragon from somebody else.
“My companion is hurt and needs shelter,” she said.
I snapped my head in her direction. What about her? She was hurt too, and she needed shelter at least just as much as I did. There was no way I was going to let her leave me here alone.
The dragon stared at me for a long few seconds. I shifted uncomfortably under the weight of its glass eyes. It was just a statue. It couldn’t do anything to me. Its voice echoed again, making me jump a little.
“You are hiding your true nature.” It wasn't a question. “You have done cold things but your heart is good. You may seek sanctuary here.”
I swallowed and tried to gauge Audra's reaction without turning my head. Of course I was hiding my true nature. If Audra found out I was a cop, I was dead. Could this dragon, or the witch controlling it, see through Elias’ spell? Was it going to tell her the truth? It turned its head to her, and I almost gave into the urge to shove it off its platform to keep it from sharing my secret.
“You are a killer of men. There is blood on your hands, but none of it innocent. There is still good in you.” Despite Audra's snort, it added, “You may seek sanctuary here.”
It’s not very picky, is it?
I immediately chastised myself for the thought, almost before I’d even completed it. Audra might have done terrible thing, but she might not have had many options if she was trafficked like Rowan. He'd gotten lucky but for most people, the decks were stacked against them. Did that make up the things Audra had done? No. Not at all.
Okay, maybe. I couldn't say that Rowan’s cross-European murder spree was sort of maybe a little bit justifiable and not give Audra that same benefit of the doubt. The dragon did say she had
n't killed innocents. That had to be worth something. It was my job to think in black and white. People either committed crimes, or they didn’t. The reasons and justifications, the scale of grey, was the Court’s responsibility, not mine. But I still had my own morals. The letter of the law wasn’t always just.
I thought of the scars on the sirens’ throats and nearly shuddered.
The world was shades of grey. I couldn’t let myself think in black and white. The dragon was right. Audra had good in her heart. If she didn’t, she would have abandoned me long before now.
I waited to follow Audra's lead. There might have been some other customs here I didn't know about. I didn't want to disrespect — I glanced back down at the sign hanging above the shop door — Black or their books. Audra shook her head and took a firm step back.
“I appreciate the hospitality, but I have somewhere else to be.”
Somewhere else? No, that wasn't good. If she was going somewhere else, she might have been meeting someone. And if she was meeting someone, she could have been involved in the crash. And if either of those things were true, she was going to disappear and we would never find her again.
“You're leaving me here?” I blurted.
“You'll be fine,” she assured, thankfully misreading my panic.
“What about you?”
“Don't worry about me, pretty girl. I've been on the streets before. I know how to keep a low profile.”
That did not make me worry any less. She gave me an awkward nod and started walking back the way we came. I watched her disappear, rocking back and forth on my heels. These shoes were not comfortable. The second thing I was going to do when this was over, after holding Ariadne until she couldn't stand it, was book a spa day.
Which was all well and good, but what was I going to do now? I couldn't let her disappear. The best case scenario was that she got arrested again. Then what? I pretend I got caught too and try again? Yes, that was a great plan.
When she turned around the corner, I faced the dragon again.
“Thank you, but I can't stay here. I'm going with her.”