The Warrior

by Victoria Scott

  I pace the basement, dodging lamps and stacks of books as I walk. “How will you find the words that unlock the scroll?”

  “There are bits and pieces in old books, most of which are in the Hive’s library. That’s why I came here, to sort through them.”

  I’m exhausted by our conversation, by learning that there’s a traitor among us, that the doorways to hell aren’t going anywhere until we find out who’s opening them, and that the way to unlock the scroll’s message resides inside the Hive.

  I slap Oswald on the shoulder, and he shows every last faux tooth in his mouth. “That’s some pretty scary shit you just told me. But I’m glad you did. I won’t tell Kraven I know.” I run a hand along my jaw. “Let’s hit the sack, huh? Charlie and I’ve got training tomorrow, and you’ve got to work on that scroll.”

  Charlie glances at the scroll once more, perhaps wondering why it is she could read one part, but not the others. She sighs and comes to stand by my side. I run my thumb over the back of her neck, and we head toward the door. As we’re leaving, I see a book on an iron table. I pick it up. It’s the same book Blue had in his hand when he confronted me in the hallway. An old western novel that Oswald can’t possibly need.

  “Did Blue lend this to you?” I ask. “He was reading it, I think.”

  The old guy’s shoulders tighten. He mutters something.

  “Oswald?”

  Oswald starts turning in circles.

  8

  Kick of Confidence

  After I wake, I find Annabelle sitting in the lounge area. She’s the only one up.

  “What up?” she says around a mouthful of egg.

  The Quiet Ones are standing nearby. I thank them for the grub and then grab a bagel and seventy-three pieces of bacon, give or take. The orange juice is good, and the bacon is better, but my stomach won’t take it without complaint. Not after what Oswald told Charlie and me last night.

  Traitor.

  Annabelle looks chipper this morning. She’s wrangled her dark hair into a stubby ponytail with the help of bobby pins galore, and she’s wearing black yoga wear. And black tennis shoes. And black wristbands. She looks like a ninja.

  “You think Kraven’s going to let you train?” I flick my fingers toward her get up.

  She leans back, eyeing me over her juice. “It’s happening.”

  “He wouldn’t let you train before. What’s changed?”

  “It’s happening,” she repeats.

  I laugh. “Annabelle, you’re my kind of awesome.”

  Annabelle beams. She pushes herself forward and offers her closed fist. I bump it. We don’t often express how we feel about one another, but I know Annabelle respects me. And I’ve got mad love for the girl. She cares for Charlie, and I care for her.

  I take a bite of my bagel, chew, swallow. “Are you scared, Anna?”

  Her face rises from her plate, her eyes wide with surprise. She considers me for a long moment. “Yeah, I am. That collector appeared out of nowhere. Do you think it’ll happen again?”

  I bite the inside of my cheek and glance away.

  Annabelle sighs. “They’re after Charlie, huh? I barely slept last night. Just watched Charlie. Girl slept like the dead, like there aren’t demons popping up out of thin air searching for her.”

  I think how Annabelle may have slept more than she realizes since she doesn’t know Charlie left the room. “I’ll sit in tonight after Charlie falls asleep.”

  Annabelle looks like she’s arguing with herself. Like on one hand she wants to say she can take care of Charlie, and on the other she’s dog tired and wouldn’t mind the help. “Okay,” she finally relents. “That’d be cool. For Charlie’s sake.”

  I roll up my napkin and chunk it at her. She swats it out of the air like she’s blocking a shot. “Still got your touch.”

  “Napkinball or basketball, these hands will always throw your crap away.” She crosses her arms and purses her lips like she’s a thug and this is her house, her court.

  I laugh and head toward her room where Charlie still slumbers. For whatever reason, I can’t think of it as Charlie’s room, even if she has spent the last ten nights there. I shut the door behind me and sit beside her on the bed. She’s asleep on her stomach, her head tilted to the side. Blond hair kisses her cheek and sticks to her forehead. I brush it away and lay my lips there instead.

  “Angel,” I whisper. “It’s time to get up.”

  Charlie groans.

  I chuckle and lay down beside her, wrapping my arms around her waist. My body reacts immediately. It’s almost embarrassing how much I ache for her.

  I’m waiting for her to scold me, but she just laughs into her pillow. “I’d ask if you’re happy to see me, but…”

  I pull the pillow from beneath my head and hit her with it. She explodes with laughter and rolls over. I drop back down beside her and the smile leaves her beautiful face. When I run my thumb over her full, pink lips, she closes her eyes.

  “I wish I could stay in bed with you all day like this,” she says.

  Her words are like a hand around my heart, squeezing. It feels almost euphoric hearing her talk like that. When she does, it’s like we’re back in her pink bedroom, seconds from jumping on the bed and raiding Gram’s kitchen.

  “Did you sleep okay last night?” Her eyes flutter open.

  I gaze at those beautiful eyes. I can’t help thinking how they looked behind her glasses before the soul contract corrected her vision. They were atrocious frames, but with the right style, she could have looked emo-awesome.

  Charlie pulls herself close and kisses me. Her fingers trail up my neck and into my hair. A deep rumble emanates from my throat, and I tug her closer. My hands are everywhere at once, running over her back, grasping her hips, cupping her rear, and using it to draw her near. She ends our kiss too soon and lays her head against my shoulder.

  “We’re safe because you’re here,” she says.

  It’s the absolute best thing she could have said. It kicks confidence into my entire body and gifts me this sense of calm. She’s right. I will never let anything bad happen to her. Not again.

  I raise her chin and ensure she sees I’m serious. “I will protect you with my last dying breath.”

  “Again,” she says.

  My face pulls together with confusion.

  “You died fighting for me once before, Dante Walker.”

  She’s right, I suppose. I broke my collector cuff off to save her from Rector and the other collectors. It’s the biggest sacrifice I’ve ever made, considering collectors without dargon die a final death. No afterlife. No hell. Just an eternity of silence. Being a liberator is different, though. It’s something about the dargon, Kraven says. Big Guy blesses it so that if it’s removed, he can make a choice about our bodies. He can bring us straight to the heavens, send us to Judgment, or damn us to eternal silence. I’ve heard he’s never damned a past liberator, but hey, there’s a first time for everything.

  “You think Oswald made anymore headway on the scroll after we left last night?”

  I hear her question, but I don’t want to think about it. I want to pretend war is make-believe, and the only thing that’s real is Charlie. I hug her close and breathe in the smell of her skin. Then I pull her head beneath me and rest my chin on her head. We’re still embracing each other when Annabelle snorts at the end of the bed. “What should I call this, Demon Porn? Wait, Charlie does freaky stuff with her hands. I should work that in the title somehow.”

  This time it’s Charlie who tosses the pillow. She gets up after Annabelle smacks it away the same way she did my napkin.

  “Why are you dressed all in black?” Charlie asks Annabelle.

  “Don’t get her started,” I say.

  Fifteen minutes later, the Quiet Ones are leading us toward the training room. Annabelle and Blue trail behind, and Charlie walks next to me, still knuckling her eyes from sleep.

  I hear voices up ahead, and as we close in on our destination,
my blood spikes. Every muscle in my body twitches anticipating physical exertion. There are a few things I don’t excel at, things like looking fugly, but I’m a champ at anything that includes the word training. My hands curl and uncurl, and my focus ripens like a snoozing cat sensing movement.

  There’s music. It throbs and pounds, and the sound is delicious to my ears. Maybe this idea isn’t the worst Kraven’s had. Maybe it won’t hurt to take a day or two to sharpen my skills.

  I bounce on the balls of my feet and crack my neck. Bring it on, liberators. Let’s see what you’ve got.

  I walk through the doorway.

  And I’m on my back.

  9

  Let’s Dance

  Without thinking, I spring to my feet and face my attacker. The guy is my height but has twenty extra pounds around his middle. It won’t do much for him.

  I spot Charlie coming up beside me, and I step in front of her. My brain says this is a training drill, but I can’t be certain since I’ve never seen this dude a day in my life. The guy opens his arms like he wants to give me a bear hug and bends his knees. We circle each other, and as we do, I step toward the back wall and away from Charlie. I’m like an owner tempting a dog with a tasty treat. Follow me. This way.

  I stumble when my heel hits a training mat, and the guy springs. He takes me to the ground, and I scramble to escape his grasp. The guy climbs on my back and presses my face to the floor. I growl and buck like I’m the main attraction at a rodeo.

  Behind me, I hear the sounds of other people struggling. When I imagine one of them is Charlie, I blast like a shotgun. My elbow finds his side with a dull thud, and I roll away when his grip lessens. Then I jump to my feet. My boot finds his rib cage, and he howls in pain.

  Now he’s up, too, coming at me again. I’m not sure what else to do when I remember something Kraven said during the training Blue and I went through. Self-defense can not only save your life, it can tire their spirit so that they flee.

  When he comes at me again, I’m ready. I dodge his punch and then throw my own fist into his kidney. He doubles over and then goes for my legs. I spring away and shove him down as he passes me. He’s up quickly, and this time his hands find my throat. I shove my arms inside his grasp and circle outward. His hold breaks enough for me to spin away.

  Kraven’s voice booms. “Enough.”

  My gaze dances around the room, searching for Charlie. She’s near the room’s entrance. She appears fine, but her face is red from fighting Valery. It looks as though Valery has been working with another woman to hold Annabelle in place, while Blue was fighting a man twice his size.

  Kraven approaches Blue. “You’re category three. You’ll work with those two over there for the remainder of the day.” I follow Kraven’s gaze and see a man in his early forties and a girl in her teens motioning for Blue to join them. They don’t seem friendly.

  Kraven strides up to me next. “Dante, you’re a two. You’re over there.” He motions me toward a cluster of people. Among them is Paine, his eyes glued to Annabelle.

  The head liberator leaves my side and crosses the room to where Annabelle and Charlie stand. He waves Valery away, and she goes to join a group that includes Neco—Kraven’s buddy ol’ pal.

  “Thank you for participating in that exercise.” Kraven says to Charlie next. “I do wish for you to learn basic self-defense, but for today, you’ll be working with Oswald.”

  Charlie glances in my direction and then heads toward the basement. I don’t want her out of my sight, but after learning what Oswald knows, I decide that maybe he can help her harness that blue energy or that she can help him with the scroll.

  I resolve to make a point of asking Oswald about Charlie’s ability after we’re done here. Over the last few days, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Aspen in hell and about how to win a war where we’re largely outnumbered. But I’ve ignored the fact that Charlie shot a bolt of power through her hands in hell.

  Maybe I don’t dwell on it because it scares me. Because it rattles me to the core that I could love a girl I don’t fully understand.

  Kraven turns his attention on Annabelle. “Leave.”

  “I’m not going to,” she says, pretending not to see him. “Not this time.”

  “I don’t need you in the way,” Kraven responds, though I can tell some of the bite has left him.

  “I want to learn how to protect myself. It doesn’t take dargon to know how to fight.” Annabelle motions toward the humans in the room, the ones I guess are here to help us train. Her voice drops. “If a siren puts his hands on me again, I won’t take it quietly.”

  It was the wrong thing to say.

  Kraven shoots forward. Annabelle stumbles back until her shoulder blades are pressed against the wall. Kraven’s arms are on either side of her shoulders, blocking her in. His face is dangerously close to hers, and he growls like a diesel engine. I start toward Annabelle, anger flooding my vision. I stop when Kraven bends his head to her neck. He whispers something in her ear, and Annabelle’s face falls. The frustration leaves her in an instant and is replaced by disbelief.

  No one says a word as Kraven’s chest heaves.

  Annabelle places a hand flat against his abs, and without looking at him, she gently pushes him away and leaves the room.

  Kraven has barely turned around when he’s on the floor. Paine stands over him, his face painted red. “If you ever treat a girl like that again,” Paine says. “I’ll stop your heart.” He moves to go after Annabelle, like he didn’t want her to see him attack Kraven, but now he wants to check that she’s okay.

  Kraven grabs Paine’s ankle and drags him to the ground. They claw and kick at one another as I head to the glass wall that overlooks the water. Ocean sprays into the air and then glitters back to earth. Over and over again. It’s eerily beautiful and a strange contrast to the crass grunting sounds coming from behind me.

  “Remember your defense, Kray-Kray,” I say, inspecting my nails. I knew this dude once who used to get manicures. He argued it wasn’t feminine. ‘They’re called manicures.’ Please. I enjoy sporting fashion labels, but nail files are way too chick for me.

  At some point, Kraven whips his wings out, and that’s when Neco steps in. “All right, boss,” he says. “That’s not really playing fair, huh?”

  Neco drags Kraven back, and I have no doubt that Kraven lets him do it. It’s like he’s finally realizing how uncool it is that the guy who doesn’t lose his composure just lost his mind, his self-control, and his dignity.

  He turns his back on Paine and straightens his clothes. In typical Kraven fashion, he says as if nothing happened, “Before we start training, I’d like to go over something. As I stated last night, we’ve asked for additional help monitoring the Hive at night while we sleep. But that doesn’t change what happened. A collector breached our residence quite suddenly and vanished as quickly. We must be on alert at all times. I’m not certain whether this will happen again, but we must plan for it. Going forward, I’ll ask all of you wearing a cuff to be on alert at all times. That means if you are alone in the Hive, you need to be sensing if another cuff is nearby. When you do sense something, check it out. Once we finish training, I’ll unveil what’s next in our plan of action in the impending war. For now, those are the orders.” He clears his throat. “The day of reckoning will take place in two weeks, on January twenty-one.”

  A chill rushes through my body hearing the date we will fight. It makes it tangible, and it makes me that much more eager to ensure we have a plan to win.

  I raise my hand.

  He ignores me.

  I sigh and say, “First off, nice wrestling match with Paine. Solid entertainment. Second, this sensing plan of yours, won’t we just sense each other’s cuffs over and over again?”

  He doesn’t reply, which means this is the best idea he has so far. Extra eyes and sensing each other’s cuffs all day long for two weeks.

  Good times.

  “Please go through th
e basic self-defense techniques for the next twenty minutes,” Kraven continues. “We won’t stay on this sector too long since you’ve all been through it. Still, it is essential.” Then he is quiet again, standing near the wall, watching as we look at each other like dude’s crazy and start training.

  Max is in my group of trainees, but he hardly speaks. He just glares at Kraven like he’s the villain in an action movie. I slap him on the back a couple of times, and he seems to relax when I do. I decide I need to kick it with him tonight to ensure he’s doing okay with the whole Valery thing. I can’t imagine how hard this must be on him…

  My eyes snap to my best friend, now a bitter fiancé to Valery.

  Oswald said there was a traitor among us.

  No. There’s absolutely no way. I know my friend, and he wouldn’t risk losing Red for good. He’s been working hard to win a liberator cuff from Big Guy, even though that would mean a current liberator cuff would need to become available. Maybe if Max helps me uncover who’s opening vultrips, then he’ll win that cuff for sure.

  Paine slams me down onto the matt.

  “Where’s your head?” he asks while offering a hand.

  “It’s about to be in your gut.” I slam my cranium into his bread basket, and he doubles over.

  “Defense, not offense,” a human—one of the walkers—reminds us. Not sure what all these humans are doing buzzing around, or why Kraven doesn’t just tell them the truth about us, (which I’m certain they already know) and let them help our cause in the war. Because if push comes to shove on January twenty-first, and things get particularly ugly, I’ll save the savior if I have to carry that girl off the battle field kicking and screaming.

  Caveman style.

  Great, now I’m fantasizing about Charlie’s rack again, and Paine’s way too close, and this is getting awkward fast. Paine lunges at me, and I play all kinds of defense to avoid his ass.

  “Great,” Human exclaims. “Very good, Dante. That’s the kind of energy I want to see.”