by Talis Jones
I smile.
“So, nightfall,” Arcas interjects. “That gives us a few hours to case the spot just incase this kid is a devious psycho with surprises up his sleeve.”
We disperse, each going to our own corner or tasks, but KJ stands there tense and deeply troubled. Walking up to him he doesn’t even seem to register my approach until I wrap both arms around his middle and squeeze him in a tight hug. He doesn’t hug me back, not that I expect Kill Joy to ever hug anyone, but he doesn’t shove me off either. A miracle.
“What the hell is this for?” he asks staring down at me with those ice-cold eyes.
I smile up at him with only warmth in return. “You just seem like you really need a hug.” Giving him one final squeeze I release him and head to my room. I stretch out atop my cot once more acutely aware of how useless I am. Each member of the crew is elite in their own right, honing their skills with each breath. Even Frocket has been useful in this mess. But me? I am the mess. What can I even do to help? Nothing that isn’t already being done by someone else. I’m a redundant crew member, a toxic redundant crew member that not only isn’t useful but may become its downfall.
Glad I removed my moping attitude from the group I decide to utilize this solitude by realigning my thoughts into something productive. Yosef wouldn’t have let me join if I didn’t have some use for the crew. He wouldn’t even like me if I was really a useless sack of dead weight. Shoving on my headphones I cocoon myself in melodies determined to not let the dismal possibilities of my fate to roadblock me before they even come true.
“You tear at an echo long ago screamed from my heart but listen, listen, you’re no longer there…”
The address is for a small park beside one of the main marinas and we set out for it at dusk. Yosef, Frocket, Castor, and I will meet with the boy who is hopefully the missing kid we’ve been searching for while Arcas, Nyx, and KJ keep watch from the shadows.
We stand huddled together in the cold, Frocket shivering like a leaf while Castor tucks her into his side to share some warmth. The final dregs of sunlight drain from Yosef’s face and his eyes disappear into pools of shadow, hungry and hunting, reflecting the light of the crescent moon and the solitary street lamp not far down the path. My skin tingles on alert, my senses heightened with a steady thrum of adrenaline flushing my veins of fear as we wait. I only hope the boy shows up before it runs out and I return to the hand-wringing mess I was only moments before stepping out the door.
Minutes tip their hats and bid us adieu as the night unfurls with a yawn.
Full dark is upon us.
The park is silent.
No one is here.
“Maybe he isn’t coming,” I murmur softly, just loud enough for my friends to hear. “Frocket, did you tell him to expect so many of us? He might’ve been spooked.”
Frocket meets my gaze and in the winter light I realize just how pale it is and cold as the moon. “You’re right,” she answers not bothering to hush her words. “I said there would be two of us, not four.”
In a pivot so quick I blink and it’s done Frocket twists to throw her weight behind her strike as she plunges a knife deep into Castor’s thigh. Castor lets out a roar of shock and pain, blood pouring into a puddle staining the snow. Yosef grabs my arm but suddenly three figures jump from the shadows armed with guns and he pulls his own on them in turn. He shoots one down as we sprint for cover.
One of the attackers heads towards the trees where we hide and I recognize him from the Christmas Eve ball. The other aims his weapon at Castor and I can’t help the shout that tears from my throat. Yosef yanks me behind a tree and I hear the shot go off. Terror halts the tears about to erupt when I hear the slump of a body hit the ground. Risking a glance I find Castor trying to find his feet and the enemy dead beside him, one of Nyx’s signature daggers protruding from his chest in victory.
Frocket comes running back onto the scene – when had she left? – with fury on her face and worry in her voice. “They fried the van and killed Drew,” she bursts. Arcas, I think.
The final intruder readjusts his grip on his weapon as he continues a slow, searching approach towards our hiding spot. “Fan out,” he orders. “We can’t let the girl get away. I’ll call in backup.”
Yosef grabs my shoulders and ice-cold command fills his eyes. “Run,” he whispers before shoving me further into the trees. Leaving his own cover he stalks the enemy popping off shot after shot forcing the man to retreat while also herding him in the opposite direction from where my feet carry me.
Now the adrenaline reigniting my veins is pure fear but I let it power my muscles and send me bolting through the sparse sprinkling of trees at the edge of the park with no real plan other than to run. Too late I hear another pair of lungs panting for air and I’m tackled into the frozen ground with a yelp. Frocket, stronger than someone her size ought to be surely, wrestles me into the ice-crusted snow and I fight back just as hard. We tumble down a sudden embankment landing with a painful ice-shattering crack into the quaint pond below, the force of the cold and fall tossing us apart.
Refusing to hesitate I gasp for air and drag my limbs out of the pond, frigid water sloughing off my drenched clothes. I manage one step then another when the tiny hellcat hooks my ankle and I slam down hard onto the earth again. Digging my fingers into the grit I scramble to regain my feet when a small body stomps the air from my lungs and tiny fingers snatch at my hair.
Frocket pins me with her weight while pulling my head up by my hair, bending my back painfully, and I begin to panic when the sudden press of sharp cold metal at my throat stops all thought. They need me alive, I tell myself trying desperately to calm down. They want me alive. A second and forbidden thought surfaces. Die now and it will all be over. I’ll be free.
“Do you know what I could do to you?” she mutters tauntingly. “Do you know how difficult it has been to hunt you down?”
She gives my head a shake and I can’t help the pained whimper that leaves my lips.
“So much research destroyed. So many bones left in your wake,” she continues. “Even those you called your friends. We found those bones too and each one led us closer to you.” Voice rough with outrage she adds, “And to think one of Convici’s dogs almost snagged you first.”
I say nothing. Even if I wasn’t afraid that speaking might press my throat closer to her blade I wouldn’t know what to say. My mind is blinded with panic and it’s all I can do not to start shrieking and flailing again. Perhaps I should. Maybe someone would hear me. A slit throat is better than going back to Hell. But…I don’t want to die. Despite everything, I don’t want to die and I certainly don’t want to die without knowing if my family is okay. The longer I keep Frocket here with me, their true hunt, the safer my family will be.
“Nothing to say?” she sneers. “Of course not. You don’t even see it, do you? The way you manipulate everyone around you to bow and scrape to your every whim. Even a crew of mercenaries buy you treats and pat your head, dancing in circles to please you. Well, I am not impressed with your pathetic powers. They certainly never worked on me.” Frocket bends further to whisper right into my ear. “Let me show you what I can do.”
Tears pour thickly now and I whimper in terror. “Please, Frocket.”
“My name is Chi42686,” she shouts fervently, pulling back her hand holding the knife and I tense for whatever pain she’s about to pierce me with when her weight suddenly jerks off my back.
Rolling over with a gasp of relief I find Frocket in KJ’s furious grasp. Nyx and Arcas burst into the clearing with weapons raised clearly having run on KJ’s heels.
“Caught you, little rat,” he says in a voice calm with death’s kiss. “We have some questions and I think I will enjoy asking them.”
Frocket responds with a knowing sneer before her body suddenly goes limp, her spirit impossibly shifting bodies. KJ lets out an anguished gasp, dropping Frocket to the ground, before turning his collected gaze upon me. Her gaze. “Tell Li
z it’s her move,” she sneers. And before I can stop it KJ’s hands unsheath a blade and sink it deep into his own chest.
“KARTER!” Yosef’s voice rends the forest, the winter, the very air with his pain. Rushing past me he catches KJ and lowers him gently towards the ground, hugging his brother in all but blood tightly against him.
We all watch fixated on this impossible sight. If we could get him to a hospital quick enough even this mortal wound could be reversed but that’s just it. We’d never get there quick enough. KJ’s throat convulses around staggering gasps and his eyes flit around the group to each of us.
“Laugh, bastards. Laugh,” he rasps before giving a final shudder and sinking into visible relief as his spirit ascends leaving the pain of this world far behind.
No one looks at Frocket’s glassy-eyed body. Only rage that can never be satisfied lies there.
Silent mourning permeates each of us like an unwelcome guest. Nyx appears unsettled. So acquainted with death yet KJ’s departure seems to have shocked her and she doesn’t quite know what to do with that. Arcas has shut down, reverting to that impervious unreadable shell of an Android fresh from the factory, to process tonight’s events. Yosef rocks KJ gently refusing to cry but not knowing what else to do. Castor…Castor is…
“Castor?” I ask softly, hesitantly.
“He will be fine,” Arcas responds in an eerie voice I’m not used to coming from him. He’s always seemed so human but all I see now is the truth of his programming.
“This is your fault,” Yosef whispers so softly I think I imagined it.
“What?”
“This,” he says stronger now, “is your fault.”
My mouth falls open to protest but no defense comes forth because he’s wrong but he’s right and the weight of guilt pressing me down down down through the very earth into Hell below blocks all light of hope and I’m consumed with every single way that this tragedy is my fault.
If only I hadn’t been so afraid of honing my powers I would’ve known not to trust Frocket, known not to trust Charlie… Maybe I’d discover other powers, other uses, other skills that could’ve made me more useful…
If only I hadn’t come into their lives and ruined it with sentimentality and feelings…
If only I wasn’t such a burden to everyone around me, relying on others to save me time and time again while never giving anything in return…
If only I didn’t seem to have developed the habit of keeping my life in exchange for the lives of anyone too close to me…
If only… If only… These are the devil’s favorite words and I dance to them as if trapped to a wheel letting them roll through me over and over again with no relief in sight.
Yosef spurns his grief in favor of anger and he flings it at me in waves I no longer hear. He hurls curses and damnations at me, at the others, at Sanctuary, at anyone his mind can think of, and I take it all with hunched shoulders and shame. Castor comes limping into the clearing and tries to calm him down while dealing with the shock of KJ’s death for himself. Eventually the winds of hatred die down and as Yosef deflates, unable to fight his grief back any longer through rage I see apologies and guilt rising in his eyes, shame clutching his heart knowing we deserved none of it. I look away. I don’t want to see it. He may settle and decide I’m innocent but I’m not. I’m not. I can’t look at him. I can’t look at anyone.
Castor carries KJ’s body over his shoulder while Nyx and Arcas stay behind to deal with the other bodies and their van. They must’ve tampered with the cameras in the park or else we’d be swamped by police and pinned under glaring lights by now. Yosef takes my hand offering apologies and his touch is so tender I want to shove him away but I don’t. His grip tightens each step towards home using me as an anchor and I let him because it’s my fault. It’s all my fault. He can take whatever he needs though I know even in this I am not enough.
Each step towards home, each step inside, each step to his room, both of us silently mourning.
I sing songs in my head, using them to grieve, to process, to seek resolve for the morning. Yosef who has remained such an untouchable pillar for so long has just unleashed more emotion in one night than he likely has in years. It’s shocked and exhausted his system and he sleeps fitfully still tightly clinging to my hand. I watch over him through the night while singing songs in my head. My mind churns over the past few days, past few years, until settling back onto Frocket. Chi. She wasn’t right, but I didn’t listen. Maybe it’s time I listen.
“The devil’s in your shadow but you smile with angelic grace…”
Twenty-Two
YOSEF
Sunlight pries open my eyes and I give in feeling…calm. Karter is gone. I remind myself of this firmly turning it from emotion to fact. Karter is gone. Frocket – Chi – was the kid Osman and Sanctuary were hunting. She wasn’t a runaway, she was a spy and she was their enemy. Our enemy. As far as I’m concerned they are all my enemies: Chi’s people, Osman’s people… Karter is gone. Karter is gone but Maddy isn’t.
I flex my hand. It feels unusually cold as if it’d gotten used to warmth and had it ripped away.
Maddy.
Sitting up in a rush I knock something onto the floor. Reaching down I pick up a box wrapped in bright paper with my name written on a tag. Unwrapping it with a precision Maddy always teases me for I unveil a small wooden box within. Frowning I examine it unsure of what I hold until I unwittingly hit a pressure point and succumb to the puzzle. At last a drawer pops open and I withdraw the gold chain lying in wait. A pair of praying hands hangs from the loop and I shake my head with a smile until I realize...
My heart freezes.
Shoving myself out of bed I take in my empty room with a glance before flinging open the door and scouting the rest of the house. My heart pauses as I pass Karter’s door but my feet continue desperately prowling until I come to a stop on the main floor where Castor fights with the dishes in the kitchen and Nyx and Arcas seem to have given up playing cards.
“She’s gone, isn’t she?” I rasp, the necklace still dangling from my fist. Where the hell has my composure gone? My reputation won’t last another day if I can’t get myself under control. Karter is gone. Maddy is gone but coming back.
I am alive. I am fine. I am unchanged.
Bullshit.
“She left a note,” Arcas offers. His words are followed by a particularly brutal clanging of pots and a curse from Castor.
She wrote an actual letter. On paper. And I’m glad because then no one can have it but me. For a moment I recall when she was determined to practice her handwriting, to improve it from the child’s scrawl she’d been left with. It seemed a waste of time back then but now I clutch this scrap of paper with an unfamiliar swell of gratitude.
It’s addressed to all of us, a section written out to each of us individually. I scan it all trying not to rush to find my own name on the list.
To my family,
Castor, thank you for finding me that day, for bringing me home and becoming my brother. Your big heart inspires my own and your delicious food transforms strangers into friends, friends into family. Never stop cooking.
Nyx, thank you for being my sister. You taught me how the world works for us but never stopped me from carving my own path. You’re beautiful, but your art is powerful. Never stop painting.
Arcas, thank you for being my best friend. You showed me what it is to be human – the good and the bad, the gift and the curse. You are more than the sum of your parts; you’re my friend. Never stop living.
Yosef, thank you for everything. You gave me purpose, you trained me to protect myself, you took me in, you loved me, and above all you taught me how to be free. It’s my turn to set you free except I’m selfish and so I can’t. Not yet. I have some things to do but Yosef, I’m not done with you yet.
KJ, thank you. You died for me, for this family, and now I’m going to make sure you didn’t die in vain. You’ll be with me each step and I am stronger for i
t. I’ll take care of this family for you, I’ll try my best, but right now let’s go break the chains.
Love,
Madeleine Elizabeth Sinclaire, #143
A bona fide grin stretches my cheeks and I tuck the letter carefully into my pocket. I turn around and see the others have gathered, warily watching for my reaction to Maddy’s departure. I’ve given them just cause to be worried. I’m violent and I’ve never tried to hide that, instead I built an empire upon the fact, but right now…dammit Maddy what have you done to me?
“We’ve got work to do, lads,” I announce invigorated, eager for the challenge. Oh yes it’s been a while since I set my sights upon a longer game and I’m practically humming with the anticipation. Karter will watch over Maddy and I’ll watch over the rest.
If anyone could inspire me to change, to leave behind this life I’ve spilled blood to build for myself, it’s Maddy. She’s on a separate path now and as much as I want to snatch her back and hide her away I know that would smother her light and I’ll do many things but not that. I clasp her gift around my neck grateful for even this connection to hold onto.
She says she’s not done with me and that little selfish notion keeps the grin on my face because Maddy, I’m not done with you yet either. While she’s off on the frontlines, I’ll be here doing what I do best: research. I’ll find every speck of information on Sanctuary, Osman, Chi, everything. I won’t stand in the way of Maddy choosing this, flying free under her own choices, but nothing can stop me from protecting her in this way; by finding out who exactly has a hold over her, how they tie into the experiments done to her as a kid, and how to break the chains. Luckily I have all the files Osman handed over, years worth of debts owed, and better yet Maddy gave me a place to start: her full name and her subject designation number along with the names of all the survivors from the facility that are tattooed on her back.