by ST Branton
Ahead of me, I saw a small metal door set into the wall a few feet off the ground. A metal loop on the side indicated there should be a lock, but there wasn't one. I made my way up to it and grabbed the open ring.
"It's Hunt," Akker said like he was reading my mind. "People don't lock anything around here."
"Well, that's not exactly true."
He looked at me strangely. "What do you mean by that?"
My mind went to the office door and the keypad I destroyed to get in the first time.
"You'll see." I opened the metal door and peered inside. "I think it's a laundry chute."
"Leading to the outside?" Akker asked.
"For the linens to come out to the laundry truck?" I peered back over my shoulder at him. He shrugged, and I climbed into the tube.
"You have to be kidding me. You're not going to try to climb up a laundry chute, are you?"
"I'm not trying anything. I'm going to climb up the laundry chute. Remind me sometime to tell you about how I escaped The Deep. Unless there were some severe incidents in a few of the linens sent down this chute, nothing up here is even a close comparison to that. Now, are you coming?"
"Will I fit?"
"Only one way to find out."
Turned out, the answer to that was 'no.' One of these days, I would need to send a letter of apology to the doctor's office. Then again, maybe not. They were kind of jerks. If they put half as much of the concentration on a fundraiser as they were the whole furious mob thing, they could easily get together the money to fix their keypad and replace the now bashed out of shape laundry chute.
Once I managed to pry Akker out of the tube, we realized we were a floor up from the makeshift morgue where his father’s body lay. Doctors chatted down the hallway, and the distinct smell of disinfectant burned in my nose. I shuddered. I'd always hated doctors' offices. We crept out of the storage room where we landed and headed down a back staircase to the floor below.
When we got to the office, I noticed a strip of black tape stretched across the disabled keypad and a new sign hanging on the door that read "Authorized Personnel Only."
It didn't slow us down for a second. Akker grabbed the doorknob, and we pushed into the room. As soon as the door closed, I turned to him.
"Are you sure about this?" I asked. "We can leave right now. Seeing your father this way isn't something you can prepare yourself for. You can wait until they release him, then have a funeral."
Akker shook his head adamantly. "No. He isn't theirs to 'release.' He's ours, and I won’t let them decide when or how I see him. I'm sure."
I nodded and made my way to the drawer in the wall. After I pulled it out, I stood in front of the body for a few seconds to block as much of it as possible. I wanted to give the young man a chance to get used to having his father's body out there in the room with him, and to process the reality of it being spread out on a metal table. After a few seconds, he stepped up beside me.
The breath streamed out of Akker's lungs as he stared down at his father. Somehow, the body looked worse than it did when I first saw it. Maybe because it had an identity now. It wasn't only the corpse of a dryad, or a dead Farsider. This was Qulma’s slain husband and Akker’s father. He was real, with a past and a stolen future. It made it harder to look at the horrible signs of his torture.
"How could someone do something like this to another living being? How could they put him through this?" Akker's hand shook as he reached out and touched some of the signs of the beating his father endured before his death. Suddenly, the touch paused and he leaned closer to get a better look. "What's this? What are these?"
I looked more closely and saw he was pointing at several wounds that stood out compared to the others. They looked strange, and I couldn't put my finger on what they might be. A chart hung beside the drawer, and I picked it up. After flipping through the notes, I found a description of all the injuries. As soon as I read it, I remembered the other times I'd seen those types of wounds. They were scattered across the backs and arms of murderous wood elves who briefly shared my cell in The Deep.
"Arrow holes," I murmured.
He shook his head. “That’s no weapon to use underground. He was killed in the woods and dragged to the mine.”
"But why? And who? If not the Farsiders, who would do this?" I couldn't understand what we saw. Learning about the signs of murder on the body made the whole situation more confusing rather than making it clearer. "And who would know about the Vrya being Farsiders? It's not like the concept of The Far is widely known. The Vrya are a little less than ordinary, but it’s a pretty big jump from that to murder the monsters.”
"I don't know, but we didn't do anything to anyone, Far or not. We've been living peacefully and keeping to ourselves. I don't understand why anyone would want to cause any harm to the Vrya, especially to my father."
"It doesn't make much sense," I agreed. "Unless it's part of something much bigger."
Akker suddenly pushed away from the table and stormed out of the morgue. I chased after him, but he was moving so quickly I almost lost sight of him rushing back up the stairs toward the laundry chute. Either the view of his father's mangled, tortured body stretched out with so little dignity or respect on the cold metal table broke him, and he needed a few moments to get hold of his emotions, or his fury had overcome him, and he was out for the revenge he believed he deserved.
Either way, I needed to keep up with him. Now was not the time for him to be alone.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
For someone who had to bend the metal sides of the laundry chute to smash his way into the building, Akker was surprisingly speedy getting out. Of course, me having to fling myself into an open room and hide in the dark with what might soon be another temporary resident of the morgue slowed my pace a little.
Once the doctors passed and the coast was clear, I tipped myself head-first down the chute and rolled out onto the back parking lot. The young dryad was nowhere in sight, but I took off in the direction of town. He was so angry and hurt that I figured my best bet was finding him prowling the people he believed brought that pain.
I was right. I finally caught up with him walking around town, his eyes cutting into the people who dared come out of the buildings. I huffed and puffed my way to his side, wondering if my predominantly taco diet was making a negative impact on my health. One of his long strides equaled about three of my steps, so catching up with him didn't give me much relief.
On the bright side, our little speed-walking expedition was good for my cardiovascular health. I would probably need that for future fights.
"What are you doing?"
"I thought you might like some company. You shouldn't be alone at a time like this."
"I want to be alone. That's why I left."
"First, hurtful. Second, I understand how you feel." My voice softened as I transitioned into trying to comfort him.
If there was anything good I could take out of the ten years I spent buried in the hellhole of that prison, it was empathy. It came with a good dose of distrust and cynicism, perhaps more of a tendency to lash out, and a decided proclivity toward making acquaintances through my switchblade before conversation, but it was there.
"You do?"
I nodded. His pace slowed enough for me to get into a comfortable stride as we made our way down the sidewalk.
"I know what loss feels like. My mother died a few years ago." I paused, thinking over those words and realizing they weren't accurate anymore. I let out a short, mirthless laugh. "I guess it wasn't actually that recently. She's been gone for way more than ten years now. But I still remember how much it hurt to lose her. It still hurts. But you learn to live with it. And it isn't only her.
“While I was in The Deep, I had one friend. Other than Splinter, of course. He was the one who taught me everything I needed to know about The Far, explained how things worked and taught me to survive. He made my switchblade and the tools I used to escape. His name was Solon, and he
died before I got out. It was horrible and left me feeling so alone. His death pushed me even harder. I knew I couldn't lose anything else to that prison. Me escaping was something he wanted so much, and I had to make sure it happened for him."
I reached up and rubbed Akker's back. It took a few seconds, but he finally turned and looked down into my face. Emotion misted his eyes, but he gave me a tiny hint of a smile.
"My father was a good man."
"I know he was. He had to be to have your mother as his wife, and you as his son."
"He always wanted the best for all of us. Not only our family but the entire community. He worked hard to give us the best life he could and try to advance diplomacy with the people of Hunt. It cost him his life. But, I'd like to think he would be proud to die defending his people."
Although we still didn't know the exact circumstances behind his father's death, I agreed with Akker's evaluation. Even if he wasn't actively in defense of the rest of the Vrya community when he was attacked and killed, it didn't seem like much of a leap for me to believe it was his actions that put him next on the list for the murderers.
"I'm sure he was also proud of you."
He nodded, his shoulders pulling back and his back straightening with courage and strength. He would fight in the name of his father now, and never let who he was be forgotten.
“Can I ask a few questions about your father?” I asked.
“I would like that. Speaking of him makes me feel less like he is gone.”
I had to tread carefully here. There was a kernel of a theory rattling around in my head, but I needed more information. Perhaps Akker’s father was the key.
“Did your father have any enemies that you know of? Other Vrya, or other dryads who had a grudge?” I asked.
“No, my father was well-respected. He was a little stern, but everyone who knew him knew that about him, too. He was always fair.”
“He seems like he was a good leader. Did he ever mention anything about the people of Hunt or what was going on?”
“Yes, actually. It ate away at him. My father always felt like the people of Hunt and the Vrya could have a good relationship if they could learn to respect our boundaries and our ways. But the killings seemed to change him. He got harsher when he talked about them, and he spent more and more time in the woods.”
“He was investigating.” It was a statement, not a question. Akker nodded.
“Even when he spoke poorly of the people of Hunt, he still maintained that something wasn’t right, that they were being led astray for some reason. Others in our community thought he was too soft toward them, but they dared not speak up against him publicly.”
This time, I nodded. Of course, no one would speak up against him. He was an Elder and a protector. Which meant he was a perfect victim to inspire violence.
It was the kind of thing Hobbes would do.
We had continued to walk as we talked, and I suddenly realized we had ended up near the burnt-down bar. We both stopped and stared at the blackened shell. The acrid smell of the charred building soaked in water still clung to the air. It made my throat burn and my stomach flip. But it also created a new wave of anger that crawled up the back of my neck and tingled in my fingertips and toes.
"I need you to be honest with me, Akker. Do you think your people would have done this?"
There was a chance the question could have offended him and sent him into another rage, but he stayed calm and shook his head.
"No," he said matter-of-factly. "There's no way. Even if members of my community did want to do something horrible to the people in town, they'd never resort to something like this. We hate fire, for obvious reasons. None of us would ever use it as a form of attack."
It was the answer I expected, but it made my mind churn as thoughts tangled and unfurled, repeated themselves, and bounced off each other, all jockeying for position. None of them answered all my questions. There was one thing that was completely obvious to me. It had to have been a human who caused this fire. Why would someone in the town want to create such devastation and fear throughout Hunt? They had gotten the fire under control fairly quickly, but the damage was still expensive. If it hadn't been for everyone working together so closely, it could have wiped out far more of the town and taken many lives. Why would anyone want to do that?
The fire wasn't the only thing to blame on a human. My mind finally settled on the reality that it must have also been a human who committed the horrific murders of the Vrya. Was it the same person? Or were they working together?
Before I had much of a chance to follow that train of thought or to share it with Akker, I heard my name shouted down the sidewalk. I looked up and saw Ally running toward us. Her eyes were wide, and she looked frantic as she reached for me. Her hands grasped my arm, and she pulled on me, trying to get me to run with her.
"Ally, what's wrong? What's going on?"
"You have to come now. We did everything we could to stop them, but they wouldn't listen."
"What do you mean? What's happening?"
"The mob has gone to attack the Vrya compound!"
Chapter Thirty
“It’s chaos,” Ally explained through labored breaths as we ran through the town to the entrance of the woods. “They couldn’t be talked to. No matter what I said, they kept yelling and getting angrier.”
“Where is Jonas?” I rounded the last building and headed up past the mine to the woods where the Vrya lived. The town was empty now, and it was creepy. Some of the houses were left so suddenly that the doors stood wide open. Dogs ran loose in yards, and the air had the smell of gunpowder added to the lingering smoke smell of the fire. It smelled like the beginning of a riot.
“We split up to try to cover more ground. It was a mistake because he got lost in the crowd almost immediately and I couldn’t find him again. I went to look for him, but then I realized Cale was gone and people had followed him. One of the stragglers told me they were going into the woods to confront the…” she stopped and looked at Akker, who nodded. “The Freak-ahs.”
“Right, the stupid name from the stupid man. If he’s done anything to those people, I swear I’m going to hit him right in his dumb jaw.” I wasn’t kidding. His dumb jaw had a target painted on it in my mind. One punch might not be enough, though.
Ally looked especially nervous. This wasn’t her element, although I suppose nothing that happened since she and I reconnected was really her element. I brought a world of insanity to her life, and she was doing a remarkable job of dealing with it as it came. The violence was getting to her, though, and I knew it. The constant war with the Fae was enough to upset her, but this was something wholly different. This felt bigger than us, and at the same time, I felt uniquely qualified to mediate it and make things work.
I dealt with my prejudices against Farsiders, and still dealt with them, all the time. Farsiders imprisoned me for crimes I didn’t commit. If anyone should have a grudge, it was me. But my time spent with the Vrya, and Archie, and even Splinter…it was changing me. If anything, now it was regular people who were pissing me off. Cale, to be specific, was the most colossal asshole I’d met in a long time. I was sure there was one in every town, spread out across time and space.
The one blue-collar guy who the rest of the town thinks is a jerk, but he’s so good at bullying and manipulating people to do what he wants, they grow numb to his behavior. Then it gets worse and worse and worse.
Now he was calling them to murder peaceful beings who only wanted to live quietly and without persecution. It was abhorrent, and I needed to stop it. Not try to stop it. I needed to stop it. One way or another.
We were now in the woods and making our way as fast as we could toward the clearing. Akker was ahead of us but kept stopping to hurry us along. He wanted to get there to help his people, but he knew we were his best hope. If his hood fell off, all it would take was one look at him to notice the markings on his skull, the skin already turning to bark on the back of his head, for
them to turn him into a target too.
“Ally,” I said under my breath, trying not to alert Akker who was moving ahead of us again, getting to the other end of the clearing and finding the trail. “How many of them have guns?”
“Enough of them,” she responded.
“Ally, that’s not what I asked.”
“What do you want me to say, Slick? This is the sticks! Everybody has a gun here,” she exclaimed, but Akker didn’t turn around so I hoped he didn’t hear.
“We have to talk them down,” I said, and Ally laughed. It was a mirthless laugh, but it was something. “What?” I asked.
“Sara Slick, the Farside ass-kicker, saying we need to talk our way out of it. You’ve come a long way, bestie.”
“I might be a Farside ass-kicker, but I don’t know if I’m a match for thirty angry dudes with guns pointed at me.” I knew full well I would take those odds if it meant protecting the Vrya. “And as tough as the dryads are, no way a fight like this ends without serious death and destruction. Keep an eye on Akker. He’ll want to mix it up.”
Ally saluted as she ran, and we caught up with Akker, exploding into the woods and heading down the trail. We mostly ran in silence, our ears scanning the countryside for any other sounds, especially sounds of violence. I didn’t know if they would find the clearing or be able to get to it, but it took us too long to get here.
We bounded over the last of the obstacles before rounding the area with the craggy cliff. Ropes hung from the top, and the area was torn and beaten like a lot of people had already been there. We were late. The only hope now was that no one had found the actual entrance.
“Come on,” I shouted while hopping up to grab a rope and climb. In my near-panic, I flew up the line like every dream I ever had of destroying gym class. Coach Stefanko would be so proud. Or he might yell at me for not having the right form. He was always able to find something he could get you to improve on. Granted, if he saw me literally kicking the ass of a bunch of Farsiders, I think he might have let up a little. Maybe.