Rush of Blood

by Heather Shahan

  I opened my eyes and watched as the little girl chased a butterfly, skipping after it. After a minute she stopped short, fascinated by something at her feet. I could see her smile as she bent down to observe, curious just like I always was. She reached her hand out to pet it and I wondered what she saw.

  Jerking her hand back, she turned and ran to her father with tears streaming down her face. “I just wanted to cuddle it but it bit me!” she cried out as he lifted her off the ground.

  “What bit you?” he asked, concerned.

  She shrugged, holding out her hand for inspection. He studied the bite area, muttering something I couldn’t hear.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “It doesn’t hurt but I just wanted to pet it. Why wouldn’t it play with me?”

  “Let me know if it starts hurting, ok? It looks fine for now.” She nodded and he placed her back on her feet.

  “Will you push me, Daddy?” she asked, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand. He smiled and held his hand out, leading her over.

  I looked up at the clouds, but I didn’t daydream. I need to plan, I thought to myself. Somehow, I will get Crow’s attention. I need to do something that intrigues him, as Barley put it, so that he doesn’t kill me or give me the serum.

  If they try to kill me, I need to do something that won’t make the public hate us. I could freeze the water in their bodies so that they can’t move; then it would just look as though they’re standing still watching me, not that I’m hurting them.

  If he tries to give me the serum, what would I do? I can’t harden my skin like Jax could… I wonder if I would be able to use the water in my blood to push the serum back out? That would definitely interest him enough to capture me, right?

  Should that be my plan, rather than my backup? Should I actually get in the serum line and ask him to give it to me? Would he even accept, not knowing what my element is?

  I snap back to attention when the father begins calling for help, just in time to see her fall to the ground from wobbling legs. Her hand looks swollen and discolored, her breathing weak. A crowd begins forming around her and the jumble of voices grows.

  “Her pulse is fading,” one says, her fingers pressed against the girl’s neck.

  “She has two puncture wounds. Did a snake bite her, James?” another asks.

  “Someone find the doctor!”

  “He’s in Brook this week. There’s nobody here.”

  The commotion has gotten Crow’s attention. Without thinking, I walk over and push myself through the crowd. I take her good hand in mine, and close my eyes to focus. I feel everything as she does: the heavy tongue, nausea, and pain everywhere. I can sense the poison streaming through her.

  I picture the poison breaking apart, just as I had imagined my mother’s sliced finger closing up or my dad’s flu fading in the past. When I open my eyes her breathing is stronger, her eyelids fluttering. Her hand’s swelling has faded and the wounds have closed.

  The look on her father’s face changes so many times in only a minute. Relief, awe, confusion, contemplation, realization, and then fear.

  “After all this time, I finally have my answer,” I hear Crow say behind me. I stand and face him. “Hello, Peony. I have wondered what became of you.”

  -

  Two Guardia soldiers bring me back to Rockwall on Crow’s orders and I let them. He doesn’t realize that I could kill them and escape if I wanted to and he wants to play with me more.

  All eyes are on me as they walk me through the front gates, so I study the ground and try to look defeated. Inside, I count everything—steps, turns, and the number of windows between them—until they throw me in a cold, dark cell to wait.

  Somehow Anza found out that Gray, Barley’s dead best friend’s son, was here and being kept in the clinic. Barley didn’t know most of Rockwall, but she did know where the clinic is from the outside and made sure that I did, too. In the dark, I envision Barley’s sketch of Rockwall’s shape, approximate my location, and figure the direction and rough number of steps it’ll take me to get to the clinic.

  Hours later, I hear the steps approach, disturbing the silence, and ready myself. Everybody here is my enemy. They would all have me dead, are all complacent in the genocide of my people. They cannot be reasoned with. I will do what I must to save who I can and fight. I hold this objective in my mind as I grasp onto the water of the blood coursing through the veins of the soldier unlocking my door.

  He explodes and I rise to my feet in one synchronized movement, his blood splattering my skin like war paint. We told ourselves that we would fight this war against Trinity. We began rebuilding and training and preparing, but everything we have done has been held in check by the concept of humanity, an attribute they abandoned long ago.

  They have portrayed us as this evil, mutant monster that will fell The Republic of Trinity. If that were true we might have a shot at winning. What has saved them has been the fact that they were lying.

  I cannot sneak through these halls and hope to pass. I am not fast enough to merely paralyze everyone I pass and break out before they catch me. I must take that step we have been too terrified to consider.

  I will become that monster.

  I don’t see their faces. I see them instead for what they are: instruments in my demise. For that, I do not falter. A fog has drifted up, clouding everything around me so that I see shapes, movement, and the red of their life splashing the stone of the walls. I know that this fog is the anger I’ve built up obscuring my sense of conscience and accountability and I embrace it.

  The soldier at Haven was my first kill and I accepted that in time as unavoidable. I could brush this aside and call it the same but it is not. That day was a defense against an attack. This is warfare. The soldier bringing me food was first, the flick of the match. The soldier standing guard outside my cell was second. His expression had just begun changing from boredom to surprise.

  Three guards followed, stationed at regular intervals in the hall. The fourth caught me off guard, standing ready around a corner. His sword sliced into my arm, the sting barely registering before I sealed the wound, my training paying off. A smile rose up as shock appeared on his face, his eyes moving to mine in fear. His death brought the number to six.

  Twenty feet more and I pull open the door to the clinic. The doctor sees my blood-splattered body and approaches. Seven. The nurses scream and hide.

  “Peony?” Gray asks, sitting on a cot in the corner of the room. Does he know me from The Compound? I didn’t remember him.

  Guards rush through the door—eight, nine, ten. “Let’s go!” I shout to him.

  “Why are you doing this?” he asks.

  “I was sent to get you out of here,” I tell him. Why wouldn’t he want that?

  He motions to the blood where bodies once were. “I could get out of here like that if I wanted to.”

  “Then why haven’t you?”

  “Crow isn’t going to kill me; he’s going to give me the serum and leave me alone.”

  “You don’t want to be a talist anymore?”

  He shrugs and I can tell the thought hurts. “I have no reason to.”

  I remember what Barley said about the first attack on Haven and the fact that she originally thought him dead. “Barley is the one that sent me,” I tell him.

  His eyes meet mine, wide, and he opens his mouth but doesn’t speak. A moment later, he moves towards the door and I follow. “I know a faster way out,” he says.

  We encounter Eliza first and I remember her volunteering back at The Compound. Is she with Crow or is this how Anza has gotten her information? She studies Gray and me in turn, then steps to the side. He nods in thanks and we continue on.

  He leads me down a different hall than the one I came from, through a courtyard with faux weapons on racks along the wall, down a hallway barely lit by moonlight, and stops at the door at the end.

  “The main entrance is outside and to the left. Since I doubt
you can shapeshift like I can, we’re going to have to fight our way out,” he whispers. I nod.

  He opens the door and we race for the open gate, choosing speed over stealth. Confused guards move to attack, but the ground opens up beneath them and swallows them whole. By the time we reach the safety of the dark forest, his count is higher than mine.

  23

  Gray

  We walk north in silence, side by side, for more than an hour before I speak. “Where is Barley?” I ask.

  “Haven,” Peony says simply. Her voice is soft, not the determined warrior I met at Rockwall.

  “Where is Haven now?”

  “Northwest of Lavon Lake.” I stop walking and she turns to face me.

  “Were you attacked about a week ago?” I ask, thinking of the raid on a talist settlement I just barely missed helping with.

  She nods, no emotion showing on her features. “We killed them all, then took out the border station they came from.” I think of Wel and Emi, Jasper and Smallwood, the Lieutenant that happily thought he was signing my death warrant… all dead and spoken as a statement.

  I nod and continue walking.

  We pass the well-worn turn off between the lakes and stop for the night an hour later on the bank of the northern lake. Neither of us lay down nor try to sleep, the last of the adrenaline still in our systems.

  I study her out of the corner of my eye. Despite the dried blood splatter, she’s cleaner than The Compound allowed. Her hair used to be a dull, mousy brown, but now it shines in the moonlight. She looks good in the mix-match of animal skin clothes that are common to Haven. More than physical appearance, I sense confidence from her rather than fear.

  I think back on the time Eli and Beth ridiculed her as a wannabe vanilla, when I cut in and told them she would get there in her own time. I smile; she definitely did.

  “So you’re Aqua, then?” I ask. I haven’t seen anyone explode a person like she did, but I can’t imagine the other elements being capable.

  She looks at me then, deciphering my words as though she were pulled out of deep thought. “Yes.”

  “It always bothered the others that you didn’t take pride in your element, but I figured you just needed time. Not everyone grew up somewhere it was accepted, like I did.”

  She turns her gaze back to the lake, then after a moment holds her arm out in front of her. She still just has her number tattooed there. Silently, she pulls a dagger out of her pack and carves an upside down triangle with a small dot in the center into her skin. I watch as she lets it heal just enough to stop bleeding, leaving the wound so that her symbol will become a scar.

  “You have good control over your element,” I comment. I realize that it isn’t a new thing, either; her bruises never healed faster than usual in The Compound.

  “What have I missed?” I ask, changing the subject away from her. “Eliza only told me that an Ignis caused an explosion at The Compound and most escaped. I overheard enough at the clinic to know what’s going on with the serum.”

  “Most escaped when Solar blew it up, yes. We setup camp where two of the arch lines intersect and Anza and Eli have been leading things. Barley found us in Spring Creek when...” she says, pausing. She takes a breath and continues, skipping something. “Anyways, she and Anza are working together long distance. Some of Barley’s came down to help Anza and I went to Haven with some others.”

  “Did Solar die?” I ask, remembering their relationship and wondering if that’s what changed her.

  She breathes out quick through her nose and her eyebrows come together in the middle. “He wishes.”

  “How did he survive that?” I ask, incredulous.

  She doesn’t answer, but I see her eyes flick down to her new scar. So she healed him, but she said he wishes he died… was he upset that she saved him?

  “Did you grow up training at Haven?” she asks, changing the subject.

  “Yes, from the moment I sparked.”

  “I’ve learned so much in the month or so I’ve been there,” she says. “I can’t imagine how much you know from the years you trained.”

  I nod. “Far more than I’ve been able to let on since I was captured,” I respond. “It felt good to be able to use some of it tonight, killing aside.”

  She smiles, then grows silent. “I can feel the blood coating my skin,” she says after a few moments, somber.

  “I get it. Those were my first kills,” I tell her. I’ve been trying to push the weight of their deaths aside all night, reminding myself that I didn’t have a choice and that I chose something quick.

  Peony shakes her head. “No, I mean I can actually feel it coating my skin. Can’t you? It’s grating on me, like a droning noise that just won’t fade.” She begins rubbing her arms.

  “So get it off,” I say, motioning to the lake. She looks at me and then the lake, aghast.

  I laugh, a smile widening on my face. I lay back on the grass and cover my eyes with my arms, still beaming. “Don’t worry; I won’t look.”

  I connect to the earth to sense her presence and wait her out. Eventually, having decided to trust me or wanting badly enough to rid herself of the blood, she strips her clothes off and walks into the lake. I smile again and move my arm back to my side, though I keep my eyes closed.

  She splashes me a minute later, water easily soaking through my thin shirt. I jump up and laugh, mouth open in play shock. She doesn’t return my laugh, though. A small smile plays on her lips and her eyebrows lift, just enough.

  I pull my shirt off and she ducks under the water, though I’m unsure if she’s giving me privacy or hiding from the splash fight she has to know is coming.

  In the water, I wait until she comes up for air and splash forward. Her eyes go wide as her smile grows and she ducks back under. Deciding not to wait her out, I give chase but soon find that she’s much faster than I am.

  “This isn’t a fair fight!” I shout, hoping she hears me from under the water. “You’re connecting to the water, Peony!”

  She swims up from behind me, her hands on my shoulders, and laughs as I turn to face her. I can’t help but join in. Without thinking, I rest my hands on her waist and kiss her lightly on the lips. She studies me for a moment, her mirth fading into thought before reaching up to kiss me back.

  When our kisses grow ardent, we swim back to the shore. Emotions high from the combat we shared back at Rockwall, we share this too.

  Later, I remember the little details: the way her kiss felt when it lingered, that her eyes never left mine as we moved together even though she never seemed to hold my gaze before, the gentle tug on my scalp when she entwined her fingers in my hair, or the way we felt like a puzzle that fit together perfectly.

  We fell asleep tangled together, her head resting against my chest.

  24

  Anza

  —Why didn’t you tell me you were sending someone here to free Gray?

  Eliza’s voice in my mind wakes me and I sit up, trying to get my bearings.

  —What? I ask, brain still fuzzy with sleep.

  —I told you that Gray was back, but you never told me you were sending Peony in to get him! Anza, I cannot help you if you don’t let me in on your plans.

  I close my eyes, my jaw tightening. Barley actually went through with it, sending Peony to set Gray free?

  I’m going to have to tell Eliza the full truth. I take a deep breath before responding.

  —It wasn’t me, Eliza. The leader of another group of talists found us. She had formed a community outside of Trinity and offered her help. It turns out that Gray is pretty much her nephew and she wanted him out before he was given the serum.

  —She’s why you wouldn’t tell me about your interest in Gray?

  —Yes. I thought it better that you didn’t know of their existence. I didn’t think she’d go through with it when she mentioned sending Peony. Are they alright? Did they kill her or can you get them free?

  A long silence stretches between us before she a
nswers and all of the worst case scenarios flood my mind.

  —Peony killed everyone in her path, Anza. Somehow she used the water in their bodies to make them explode. Gray finished off just as many on their way out.

  Her voice is deeper, solemn.

  Peony, a killer?

  What did Barley do to her to make her cross that line so easily?

  —Anza, am I still safe here? Crow is due back and I’m not sure if he’ll believe that I didn’t know or help.

  —I think that is for you to decide. If Peony did what you described, you could feign fear for your life. You knew that she would know that you had betrayed them by agreeing to help him and hid.

  I almost hear her scoff.

  —My fear won’t need to be feigned, Anza.

  My first inclination is to reach out to Barley and berate her. Peony is the gentlest person I’ve met and I sent her to Barley to give her a lower stress environment to recover. What the hell happened?

  Would it risk our alliance to question Barley? Would I get an answer even worth the risk? She had said that I had underestimated Peony. Underestimated what? Her ability to kill? Is that what Barley values?

  —Barley. I reach out, second guessing my choice immediately.

  —Yes? she responds; unlike me, she wasn’t asleep. Was she doubting her little assassin?

  —I heard that Gray successfully escaped tonight with Peony.

  —Good. Thank you for letting me know.

  I pause, but then go for it.

  —I was told she killed everyone in her path, somehow causing them to explode.

  —What is your question, Anza? Are you wanting to know if that was her objective or if she went rogue? Or is it that you didn’t think her capable?

  —I sent her there to recover, not to be trained as a killer.

  —She has recovered because of her training. Peony needed to know that she was strong enough to survive. She needed to feel in control of her life. Training has given her strength, control, and confidence. Would you have me withhold that from her, Anza?