He leapt off the edge of the opening, launching himself at the building across the alley. Extending his right leg, he caught the wall with his boot. Momentum bunched the muscles of his leg. He sprung off, repeating the process against the other building, ricocheting back and forth until they finally reached the ground.
Abella was trembling when he finally released her, but it wasn’t merely due to fear—anger flared in her eyes. He settled his hand over her mouth, silencing any forthcoming reprimand.
“Need to go,” he rasped. “Now.”
Brows angling over the bridge of her nose, she snapped her head away from his touch and glared at him. “Fine.”
He took her hand and led her down the alley. They needed to cover some distance before he removed the tracker, but they didn’t have the luxury of time.
“At least give me some warning next time before you—”
Abella’s words were cut off when an explosion sounded behind and above them. Rubble rained onto the spot where Tenthil had touched down only moments before. She turned to look back, but he tugged her along.
The time for looking back had long since passed for both of them.
Six
Abella’s leg muscles burned as she and Tenthil ran, and her ribs felt like they would either crack open or collapse inward with every labored breath. Tenthil kept his arm around her shoulders, holding her securely against his side, making an already strenuous activity more challenging. No matter how many times she tried to pull away from him, Tenthil didn’t release his hold on her, didn’t slow his pace even a little.
Their path weaved through countless dark alleyways and passages, the twists and turns well beyond Abella’s ability to track. Her body told her she’d been running for days, but her rational mind—its voice muted by her pain—insisted it couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes. The wounds from her punishment had combined with days of hunger and isolation in a dark, cramped space to severely limit her endurance.
When her knees wobbled, threatening to give out, she decided she was done. She dug her heels into the ground and shoved against his side. “Enough.”
Tenthil stopped but did not ease his hold. “Need to keep moving.”
Wheezing, Abella bent forward as much as his grasp allowed. “I can’t…keep going.”
Tenthil crouched, wrapped an arm around her legs, and hefted her over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” she screeched as her world tilted upside down and flattened her palms against his back to push herself a little upright. “Oh, I’m going to hurl.”
But he was already running, even faster than before, darting across a quiet street and into another dank, dirty alley that looked just like all the rest. Though the city had seemed far more intriguing from that damned cage on the back of Cullion’s hovercar, she preferred it from the ground despite the filth—though she’d have preferred it even more were she walking with her own two legs to a destination of her choice.
Fortunately, Tenthil didn’t carry her very far—the alley ended on a railed walkway that ran perpendicular to it, beyond which was a huge tunnel. Vehicles of all sorts sped by through the tunnel, their engines silent but for low hums she felt more than heard.
Tenthil bent down and set Abella on her feet. He twisted to look back.
Abella’s stomach lurched, and she spun away from him, doubled over, and covered her mouth with one hand as she gagged. She took in a series of deep breaths, forcing the sickness back. Once she was reasonably certain she wouldn’t puke her guts out, she straightened and turned to face him again.
One of his hands was positioned at the base of his skull, holding his hair aside, and his head was tilted to the right. He lifted his left hand, which held a knife.
Abella’s brow creased. “What are you doing?”
Without hesitating, he pressed the tip of the blade against the back of his neck and sank it into his skin; crimson blood welled around the tip. Abella’s jaw fell as he pressed the blade deeper, wiggling it and producing fresh blood that trickled down his neck in a rivulet.
The only change to his expression was a slight bulging of his jaw muscles.
She heard the knife scrape against something, and a shiver ran down her spine. Her stomach flipped and clenched.
He twisted the knife slightly and tilted his head to a harsher angle. Now his expression did change; his eyebrows fell low, and his pupils dilated to swallow his eyes.
“Tenthil! Stop it!”
He grunted and wrenched down on the knife grip, producing another hard, scraping sound.
Something was hooked on the tip of the blade as it tore out of his skin. Shifting his hold on the knife to free his forefinger and thumb, he pinched the crimson-smeared object and pulled on it.
The object, which looked like a small bone with a glob of mangled, bloody flesh attached to it, made a wet, sucking sound as he tore it out. She heard the sound clearly despite him releasing a guttural growl at the same moment.
Everything she’d seen, everything she’d done—she’d killed someone less than an hour ago—rushed back in a merciless torrent, combining with Tenthil’s self-mutilation to finally push Abella past her limit.
She spun away, clutched the nearby railing, hunched over, and emptied her stomach onto the concrete walkway. Disgustingly, the food she’d eaten looked the same coming out as it had going in.
Averting her gaze from the mess she’d made, Abella settled her hands on her thighs and breathed for a few seconds. Once her stomach eased, she spat some of the foul taste from her mouth, wiped her lips with her sleeve, and glanced at Tenthil over her shoulder. “What did you just do?”
He drew his arm back and threw the bloody object over the railing. Abella turned her head to follow its trajectory, but the visual chaos of moving vehicles caused her to lose sight of it almost immediately; its path seemed to cross with that of a huge garbage hauler that sped by an instant later, though she couldn’t be sure.
Abella straightened and turned toward Tenthil.
Using a piece of cloth, he cleaned his fingers, knife, and neck. “Was being tracked.”
“That was a tracker?” she asked. “And you just…cut it out of your neck? You could have killed yourself! What if you cut an artery, or damaged your spinal cord?” The sucking sound of the object coming free replayed in her mind; she shuddered, stomach churning all over. “You’re crazy.”
He shrugged as he folded the cloth. Fresh blood oozed from his neck wound, flowing down to disappear beneath his shirt. Moving at a leisurely pace, he pulled something that looked like a small bandage from a pouch on his belt, removed it from its packaging, and placed it over the wound.
“That’s it?” Abella stepped closer, frowning. “You’re just slapping a band-aid on it and calling it good?”
The bandage glowed faintly for a moment, and when the light faded, the bandage seemed to meld into his skin. The wound vanished. There was advanced tech on Earth, especially for medicine, but the level of technology on display in this city was on a whole new level. She would’ve slowed down to appreciate how amazing it was if the delay wasn’t likely to get her killed.
Tenthil turned to look at her, his face back to its neutral, unreadable expression. “We need to go.”
Abella’s gaze fell to the scars on his cheeks. If tech here was capable of healing wounds as quickly and completely as she’d just witnessed, why did Tenthil have such prominent scars? Cullion had left his share of marks on her over the years, but he’d always erased them eventually, else her back would’ve been comprised of ninety percent scar tissue.
“Who were those people?” she asked. “Who was that man in the room? Why are they after you?”
Tenthil look back in the direction they’d come from before taking her hand and tugging her closer. “Later.”
Abella yanked her arm back. “No. If they’re trying to kill you, what’ll stop them from killing me, too?”
“Me,” he growled, maintaining his hold on her hand. He
leaned closer. “They will do you no harm.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Five.”
“What?”
“We killed five,” he replied. “Will kill them all if needed.”
The promise in his harsh tone sent a chill through her. “Who are they, Tenthil?”
“Need to go, Abella.”
“Then go without me.” She tugged on her hand again. “I’m just slowing you down anyway.”
He bared his teeth, revealing sharp fangs—his canines came in pairs, enhancing the menace of the expression—and his brows fell low. “You are coming. Now.”
He pulled on her arm again, and though she knew she couldn’t overcome his strength—he could easily toss her over his shoulder again—Abella fought him.
“Let me go!” She bent at the waist, leaning her backside away from him to use her weight as an anchor.
Without displaying any signs of strain or difficulty, he tugged her closer.
Abella dropped her hand to her hip and drew the gun holstered there, pressing its barrel against his abdomen. Her hand trembled as she adjusted her grip on the weapon. “I said let me go, Tenthil.”
His body stilled, and his eyes dipped to glance at the gun before meeting hers. His expression betrayed nothing of his thoughts or feelings. The only thing Abella could be sure of was his utter lack of fear.
She’d never been a violent person, had never even been in a fight. Her involvement in the battle at the safehouse had been encouraged by adrenaline and panic. But this, threatening Tenthil with a gun, made her feel almost as sick as watching him mutilate himself.
Yet what choice did she have? She wanted to go home, and whether he promised to keep her safe or not, he was currently holding her against her will.
“I was just freed from one captor. I’m not going to let myself be taken by someone else,” she said. “Just let me go.”
He held her gaze for what felt like an eternity. Her heartbeat grew louder with every passing moment.
“No,” he finally said, instilling that short, simple word with crushing finality.
“Don’t make me shoot you.”
“Later.”
“What? I…I have a gun pressed against your stomach. Do you not understand that, or—”
“Abella, we need to go now. They are near, and if they find us, they will kill you, too.”
Each of his words was a little raspier than the last, each sounded a little more pained.
She yanked against his iron grip on her hand. “Then release me and go!”
Faster than her eyes could perceive, he caught the barrel of the blaster in his fist and wrenched it aside. She gasped as the weapon—her one bit of leverage—twisted out of her hold. He slipped his other arm around her, pressed a hand to the small of her back, and forced her body against his.
“I did all this for you,” he said, eyes instantly black, fangs bared. “Tracked Cullion to get you. Killed them all to have you.” He lowered his face closer to hers, drawing her even tighter against him so her body was flush with his. “I will not let you go.”
Abella stared up at him with rounded eyes and parted lips. The logical voice in her mind told her this was not okay—his motivations only made this whole episode more disturbing, and she was right to be afraid of him. Yet, another part of her was turned on by his vehemence, by the way his eyes and arms locked her in place. As much as she wanted to pull away, she couldn’t deny feeling an urge to press closer and absorb more of his heat.
Just as she was forming a response, Tenthil wrapped an arm beneath her ass and lifted her onto his shoulder.
Anger swept through her, and she punched his back, succeeding only in making her hand ache. “Damnit, Tenthil!”
She was getting tired of being hauled around, her wishes ignored. She’d had her fill of such treatment over the last four years, and Tenthil’s continuation of it was infuriating.
But again, what choice do I have? Wander an alien city, lost and alone, until whoever is chasing us murders me, or stick with the devil I know?
At least Tenthil wasn’t trying to kill her.
His words echoed in her mind—I did all this for you.
Why would he risk his life to obtain her? What was so special about her?
And what did he intend to do now that he had her?
Tenthil limited himself to a brisk walk as he led Abella across the enclosed catwalk bridging two abandoned factories together. Whether motivated by anger, fear, exhaustion, or some combination of the three, she hadn’t spoken a word since shortly after he’d removed his tracker. Her silence was unsettling to him, but he admired her perseverance all the same—they’d abandoned their stolen hovercar in a maintenance tunnel almost two kilometers away and had traveled here on foot.
He glanced out one of the catwalk’s long, narrow windows to the sector outside. Most of the surrounding factories and warehouses were dark, abandoned husks, forgotten by the city above and left to slowly rot. Detritus littered the area—metal scraps, broken chunks of concrete, wires, and pipes, along with countless, less identifiable objects. Everything here in the Bowels had a worn look, the result of decades—if not centuries—of neglect.
Surveillance was limited in places like this, making them favorable to those who had nowhere to stay—they were sanctuaries to the homeless and fugitives, people desperate for refuge.
Tenthil supposed he and Abella were both homeless and on the run; where better for them to hide until they determined their way forward?
He held his blaster at the ready as they entered the next building. In the Bowels, abandoned had taken on a new meaning, and was no longer synonymous with uninhabited. Tenthil slowed his pace, and Abella kept close to him, her footfalls quiet despite her apparent weariness. Few of the interior lights were functional, but Tenthil’s eyes adapted to the gloom.
The inside of the building was as messy as the outside, but there were signs of habitation—beyond the tiny tracks and droppings in the dust that marked the presence of unseen vermin. The old food wrappers, musty blankets, and broken-down heating coils scattered about were clear indicators of people having sheltered here at some point after its abandonment.
But Tenthil didn’t plan to hunker in a dark corner with a filthy blanket over his shoulders; he had a specific destination in mind. He’d chased a mark into this building years ago—an ilthurii gang boss who’d run afoul of some powerful individuals—and had found his target hiding in a secured room nestled deep within these silent halls.
Without access to the Order’s resources, his list of potential places to stay had become alarmingly short.
“Is this place…safe?” Abella asked.
Her voice jarred him from his thoughts. She’d been quiet for so long that he’d thrown all his focus into keeping alert for danger and visualizing the route of that long-ago chase. He glanced at her over his shoulder.
Abella’s features were drawn with worry, dark circles hugged the undersides of her eyes, and her already light skin looked even paler than normal. Tenthil frowned; he was uncertain of the limitations of her species, and she was likely being pushed too hard.
“Safe enough,” he replied.
Her deepening frown suggested his answer hadn’t been reassuring.
She is not trained for this life, he reminded himself. He’d spent so long in the Order that he often forgot his experiences were not typical.
After fifteen minutes of searching—just as his frustration had built enough for him to consider turning around and leaving—he discovered the door for which he’d been searching. The dirt on the floor in front of it was undisturbed; it hadn’t been opened for some time. He stopped at the door and released Abella’s hand to draw his masterkey from a belt pouch; it was a small, egg-shaped device with an old-fashioned touch screen on its face.
He raised the masterkey to the door’s wall-mounted control panel and activated it. A tiny wire extended from the tool’s narrower end and latched onto the panel. The k
ey began its program. Fortunately, he’d used the same masterkey to open this door the first time he’d come, meaning it still had the decrypted access codes stored in its database.
The masterkey’s screen flashed green, and the door slid open, its rumbling disturbing the nearby dust to create a cloud in the air. Tenthil waved the dust away as the lights inside the room—yellowed and dim but functional nonetheless—flickered on.
After returning the masterkey to his belt pouch, Tenthil took hold of Abella’s hand and led her across the threshold.
The room they entered could only have been considered clean in comparison to the rest of the building; there were no vermin droppings on the floor, at least, and the dust was minimal, but the wear of time had dulled everything.
A large, banged-up desk had been pushed against the far wall, its narrower sides wedged between the tall, dilapidated shelving units that ran along the same wall in both directions. The computer terminal, a projection screen built into the top of the desk, was dark and cracked. A sagging couch rested against the left wall, its fabric tattered, cushions flat, and frame buckling in the center. A pallet fashioned of numerous blankets and a couple cushions from the couch lay in the right corner. The sliding door toward the back, which led into a bathroom of questionable functionality, was stuck two-thirds open at a slanting angle.
Tenthil glanced down at the dark stain at the center of the floor.
He’d removed the ilthurii’s body after his contract’s completion but hadn’t bothered cleaning the blood; the Eternal Guard rarely ventured into the Bowels and weren’t likely to take any interest in the murder of a known criminal, even had they found this evidence.
Twisting around, he pressed the interior button, and the entrance door rumbled shut. It sealed with a metallic clang that likely echoed through the whole building, alerting anyone and anything inside that this door had just been used.
“Thank God,” Abella said as she released his hand and walked toward the couch.
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