Refraction

by Naomi Hughes

  The mirror’s reflective surface is aimed at the wall, hidden from sight, but Elliott gets at least two shades paler. I’m shaking a little too. I’ve done hundreds of deals like this, but every time is still terrifying. I’m usually better at hiding it, though.

  I stride over to the darkest corner in the room and put the lux meter atop a dusty whack-a-mole game. While I set the test up, I’m careful to keep the mirror turned away from me and Elliott. Any Beings and fog that are generated on the island only last a minute or two—unlike the permanent ones on the mainland—but if one of those monsters accidentally gets spawned here and now, it’d only take it a matter of seconds to finish us both off.

  I turn the meter on, then step back and reach into my pocket again. There’s some other stuff in there, the precautions I took just in case this meeting went bad, and I maneuver around those shapes carefully until I find the penlight I’m looking for. I pull it out and flick it on. Its tiny beam of light spears through the growing shadows.

  I hold the mirror out. With my other hand, I turn the penlight back toward me until its beam falls on the mirror’s surface. A weaker ray of light bounces off the mirror and hits the wall, and I adjust my aim until the reflected light hits the lux meter. The little machine chirps, and red numbers flash on its screen.

  I turn off the penlight, lower the mirror, and carefully reapply the masking tape before holding it out to Elliott.

  “There,” I tell him, a dare in my voice. “I’ve proven it’s reflective. That’s my end of the deal finished. Your turn.”

  He’s still staring at the mirror, solemn and still. I wonder if I’ve gone too far, if I’ve scared him into calling off the deal. I need to remind him of why he needs to go through with it. I don’t have to ask to know his reasons for being here; there’s only ever one reason for anyone to buy a mirror.

  “What are you hoping to power with this?” I ask, forcing my tone into something resembling curiosity even though I’m desperate to be done with this meeting and on my way to Ty. “A desalinator? Medical equipment?”

  Whenever a mirror generates a Being, the event also creates a massive electrical field that can, with a little ingenuity, be harnessed to power just about anything. Everyone who deals with me is willing to risk the Beings to harvest its energy. All of them always believe they’ve thought through every extremity, taken every precaution. About a third end up dead anyway. Some of them take bystanders with them too, people in the wrong place at the wrong time. It sucks for those folks, but dealing mirrors is the quickest way for me to get where I need to go, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen.

  Elliott doesn’t answer, but my words snap him out of whatever trance he was in. He lifts his eyes to mine. For the first time, I see real emotion there, though in the shadows I can’t quite make out what it is.

  He lifts his hand and takes the mirror from me. He drops it into his pocket. Then he turns his head and glances at the front door like he’s planning to bolt.

  I go on high alert. No way is he going to short me, leave without giving me the info he promised. I dip my hand into my pocket and curl my fingers around the precaution I put there. Another mirror. I tug the tape off its cover and hold it in my pocket, the silvered glass cool against my palm.

  Then I go still. There’s a noise coming from the boardwalk, a scuff of wood, something quiet but familiar. Footsteps. Elliott must’ve heard it too, that was why he turned to look. I make out a shape ducking behind a booth across the way. It’s a person clad in a blue uniform. The muted light of sunset glints off the gun in his hands.

  Cops. The cops are outside. The cops have found me during the middle of a deal.

  Panic screams through me. I spit out a curse. I take a step toward Elliott—should’ve trusted my instincts, should’ve known he was a damn snitch, have to get the upper hand on him now before he can officially inform on me—but he’s too quick. He lifts up the back of his shirt, pulls his own gun out of his waistband, and points it at my chest.

  “Marty Callahan,” he says, “you’re coming with me.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  DESPERATION RISES AT THE BACK OF MY THROAT. I can taste it.

  Elliott jerks his head at the door to the boardwalk. “Move,” he orders, his voice dead calm.

  I cough out a harsh laugh. “Make me, asshole.” I take a step toward him. Maybe I can force him to shoot me here and now, I think wildly. Take out the middleman. Sam was right: It would be better.

  But Elliott is ready for me. His left hand stays on the gun while his right snakes out, grabs my shoulder, pinches some nerve there. The flash of pain makes me flinch, just long enough for Elliott to get behind me and shove me toward the door. Another blue-clad cop strides across the boardwalk in front of us, talking into a walkie. They’re breaking out their walkies for me, using up precious batteries for this op. It’s the worst possible sign of how important my capture is to them.

  My pulse kicks up to somewhere around heart-attack level as I stumble forward. I’m going to die. This is it. I’m a goner—and all because of my determination to find a big brother I’m not even sure is still alive. A brother I can now be absolutely positive I’ll never see again, because even if he’s not dead, I’m about to be. I close my eyes.

  “I’m scared,” eight-year-old me whispers in the dark. Lightning flashes outside and thunder rattles the plywood that’s nailed over my bedroom window. The wind is screaming. It sounds like a panther I heard at the Miami zoo once—high and wild, shrieking like a dying thing.

  “Of the hurricane?” Ty rubs my head with a grin. “It’ll have to go through me first.”

  I open my eyes. Fury snarls in my veins. I won’t give up on Ty. Not till I take my very last breath. I’ve still got the second mirror in my pocket. I would never actually use one, not when I’m close enough to be a victim myself, but Elliott and the cops might not be willing to bet their lives on that. And if I can get Elliott to come one step closer with that gun, I might be able to take it away from him—and that’s a weapon I am willing to use.

  My hand is still in my pocket. As we move toward the door I pull it out, keeping the small mirror hidden in my fist. This one has sharp edges. They cut into my palm. I barely notice.

  I reach the door. I lower one hand to push the bar, ignoring my compulsion to tap on the door frame, though it’s harder this time than it was earlier. The muggy island air smacks me in the face—it’s gotten more humid in the last few minutes, the cloud cover simmering over almost the entire sky now. It turns the boardwalk into a sweatbox, steaming us with the smell of rotted fish and algae.

  “Get on the ground!” shouts the cop who’s crouched behind the booth across the way. The red-gold light of the sunset makes it hard to pick out details, but I recognize that mop of hair immediately. One of his eyes is sporting a purple beauty of a bruise, and dried blood is still crusted beneath his nose. Ginger. He’s so tense that his gun is shaking. That only makes the situation more unstable.

  I sweep my gaze left and right, counting. Three. Four. Five. More than enough cops to take me in. Probably more of them under the boardwalk, too, waiting to cut off any escape attempt I might make.

  I swallow and raise my hand, opening my mouth to shout that I’ve got a mirror. But before I can speak, a blur of movement flashes in the corner of my eye, and something knocks my legs out from under me. I fall hard onto my stomach. The mirror bounces out of my grip. Everything else forgotten, I squeeze my eyes shut and whip my head away from it, my heart hammering. I can’t look at the mirror. Please, God, I pray, let no one else look at it either.

  No one screams.

  I dare to crack an eye open. No mirror in sight. We’re only a few yards from the edge of the boardwalk—it must’ve sailed over the edge, unseen.

  I blow out a breath. No Being. But no leverage now, either.

  Elliott’s got one knee on my back, pinning me facedown to the boardwalk. He’s the one who swept my feet out from under me a moment
ago. “Cuffs,” he demands now, still ice-cold calm, not even looking at Ginger as he tosses out the order.

  My racing heartbeat pauses as I take in his tone. My eyes narrow. That doesn’t sound like a snitch trying to make a deal with a cop. That sounds like he’s … what, one of them? But he’s too young to be a cop. He’s eighteen at most, and the mayor set the age limit to join at twenty-one.

  “Get on the ground,” Ginger repeats at a shout.

  “He’s on the ground,” Elliott snaps.

  “Not him,” Ginger replies, raising up out of his crouch and advancing on us, gun still held out in front of him. “You.”

  Elliott goes still, finally looks up. “You can’t be serious.”

  His disbelieving tone doesn’t make sense. He punched a cop earlier today, and now he’s surprised that cop wants to arrest him? And even if he means to rat me out, he’s got to know that the mayor tosses snitches onto the bridge just as frequently as the dealers they help catch. Anyone who breaks the law against participating in a mirror deal is liable to exile.

  “He is serious,” calls another cop from farther down the boardwalk as she advances on us, her own gun held out even though her tone sounds oddly apologetic. The name tag above her badge reads DIAZ. “Do as you’ve been ordered.”

  A note of impatience threads through Elliott’s prior calm. “I’m Elliott Ackermann,” he says to Diaz. Something about his name tries to catch at my attention, but the adrenaline is too strong, the panic too loud. Elliott is still talking but I barely hear him. “I’m the one who tipped you off. This is my op—”

  “We know who you are,” Ginger says, cutting him off.

  Elliott tenses up, his knee digging a little harder into my spine. “Then how about you put the guns down? We’re on the same side here. Cops,” he says, gesturing at them with his free hand—and then, gesturing to himself: “Shadowseeker.”

  Shadowseeker. The name arcs through me like electricity. Not a snitch. Not a cop. He’s much worse than that.

  The bastard. The bastard. He knew the crowd was going to the bridge this morning, because he was the one who’d helped put Sam up there. He must’ve planned to attack Ginger to win my trust. He dangled information he knew I wouldn’t be able to resist, used my own brother against me. Then he closed the trap.

  “Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” Ginger warns Elliott—the same thing he said to me earlier. I bare my teeth, appreciating the irony.

  Elliott goes still for half a heartbeat as he takes the situation in. Then, in one quick motion, he takes his knee off my spine, grabs me by the back of the collar, and yanks me to my feet so I’m standing in front of him. He puts my body between him and the cops. The cool metal of his gun brushes against my left shoulder blade.

  There. He’s taken that one step closer that I was needing. Maybe I can get myself out of this without a mirror after all.

  Someone shouts below us, one of the cops lurking on the beach beneath the boardwalk. It’s the best distraction I’m gonna get.

  I step inside Elliott’s reach. I duck under the gun. I ram the heel of one hand into his wrist, lock my other hand around the gun, and wrench it sideways. I’m at a weird angle because I’m used to practicing this for right-handed people and he’s a lefty, but I manage to get the gun almost away from him before he reacts. He curses, his eyes widening. I have milliseconds before he gets over his surprise and fights back, and he’s brawny enough for me to know he’ll win if that happens. I twist inward, lift my right foot, and kick hard at the inside of his knee. He crumples to the deck. I have the gun … for exactly one second before Ginger knocks it out of my grip.

  The gun clatters and skids a few feet away. I start to dive after it, but Ginger grabs my arm, uses my own momentum to twist me around and knock me to the ground right next to Elliott. Something cold snaps around my wrist. My heart takes a nosedive. Handcuffs. I’ve been cuffed. Which means I’ve been captured, which means I’m dead, dead, dead.

  Bodies. Gnawed to pieces, shredded like they ran through an acre of barbed wire, nothing but scraps left to wash up on the beach. It’ll be me soon. Will I die on the bridge, or will I get to the mainland first? Maybe there’s a way I can make it to the airport there. But the nearest one is dozens of miles inland, through the fog, and I won’t have a pilot, won’t have anything but the clothes on my back.

  Elliott is on the ground too now, shouting something. “—telling you, check with the mayor!” he yells. “I’ve apprehended the last mirror dealer on the island! She’ll make an exception for me—”

  Ginger stands back up. “You know she doesn’t make exceptions,” he says tightly. “She’s already scheduled your exile.” He aims his gun at Elliott, who goes silent, frozen in shock.

  It’s then that I realize only one of my hands is cuffed. I roll to my side, glance down at the matte black metal ring around my wrist, and follow the chain to the other cuff—which is locked around Elliott’s wrist.

  We’ve both been arrested. He’ll be exiled along with me. I laugh, a little wildly. Elliott turns his gaze to me. His cuffed hand curls into a fist. He reaches toward me with his other hand, his gaze burning with a cold fury that looks a hundred times more real than the cool, satisfied mask he wore earlier. I snap my mouth shut, recognizing the sudden hatred in his eyes, and try to roll away. Which is difficult when you’re handcuffed to the person attempting to murder you. Elliott yanks his cuffed hand back, pulling me off-balance, and some bit of debris on the ground digs painfully into my ribs. I catch myself with both hands splayed on the boards.

  Smoke seeps through my fingers.

  I stop struggling and frown at the ground. “The boardwalk is on fire,” I say slowly, but a sense of wrongness tickles the back of my mind.

  Ginger keeps his gun trained on us as he presses a button on the walkie that’s crackling at his shoulder. “Gamma team, report, is there a fire? Does Callahan have accomplices—do you need backup?” He waits a second, but no one answers. Ginger backs up a few feet toward the edge of the boardwalk. His gun is shaking again. “Report!” he shouts toward the beach below, without taking his eyes off us. “Is there—”

  He stops talking suddenly, jerking. He blinks once, twice. A bloom of red opens in the middle of his chest.

  Jutting out from its center is a ray of darkness.

  The lines of it are crisp, unreal, an impossible razor’s edge of night. Smoke—no … no, fog—bleeds out from it. From either side of Ginger, wings wrap around him softly, gently, cocooning him. The feathers are each defined, beautifully wrought, tines of void and shadow.

  Ginger’s gaze meets mine. Those eyes—bright green, painfully so. I called them expressive earlier. Now, they’re screaming.

  Ginger vanishes, encircled entirely by the wings of whatever creature is hidden behind him. There’s a muffled noise, something that’s almost a cry, cut off by sudden silence.

  The wings unwrap. The black ray retracts. The creature sweeps gracefully back down to the beach, and Ginger’s body sags, lifeless, to the ground in front of us.

  Elliott and I are both silent for the space of a single breath. My hands are still on the boardwalk. The fog curls through my fingers. Warm. Smoky. Sliding across my palm, tickling my wrist. In an instant it’s burgeoning all around us, cutting off the russet sunset clouds, the crashing ocean below, until everything is muted by a film of gray death.

  People are screaming beneath us now, a chorus of voices. They won’t stop. They’ll never stop.

  Because the thing that dug into my ribs when Elliott pulled me down, it wasn’t debris. It was the feeling I get when a mirror is uncovered nearby. The mirror that tumbled over the side of the boardwalk must’ve landed near one of the officers down there. They looked at it. They loosed a Being on themselves—and on everyone else in the vicinity.

  Including me.

  My heart isn’t racing anymore. It isn’t beating at all. I’m not breathing. Not looking. Not thinking.

  I have a lot of expe
rience with fear. Sometimes it slips over you bit by bit, slow and insidious. And sometimes it closes you up so tightly in its fist that you forget you ever knew how to feel anything else.

  I’m on my feet. I’m running across the boardwalk. The handcuff bites hard at my wrist, making me stagger. Elliott stumbles behind me, panting and gasping, his expression blank like he’s afraid to think too. All I see is Ginger wrapped up in those wings. All I can hear is the screaming below us.

  Being. That was a Being, no more than ten feet away from me.

  I’ve heard the stories. The shadowy monsters come in all shapes and sizes. Bearlike. Tiny, crawling spiders with fangs that drip darkness. Once, when someone looked into a mirror while on a boat just offshore, it brought a vast black whale with teeth like saws and an unhinged jaw that swallowed up the sailing vessel whole. But I’ve never seen one myself. Not till now.

  Shouting ahead of us. More cops. Thoughtlessly, I reverse directions. I can’t get caught, can’t get exiled to a mainland full of those things. Elliott shouts and tries to wrench me away, but it’s too late—I don’t see Ginger until I’m tripping over his body. I land hard on my left side, taking Elliott down with me. He scrambles to get up but slips, twisting me further toward the corpse.

  Ginger’s eyes are still open. Still screaming, somehow, even though they’re empty. Red soaks into the boards beneath him, puddles in the divots, funnels through the cracks. I’m close enough to register the smell: coppery-bright blood mixed with the tang of fresh dryer sheets.

  I roll to my side and clutch my head in my hands, trying not to throw up. I’ve seen dead bodies before. Some of them, the ones they plaster on posters around town as warnings, were way worse than this. Ginger died quickly. It wasn’t that bad. I don’t care anyway. Why should I care? He was my enemy. And now he’s dead. It’s good news. It’s good.