"How do you feel?" he asked.
I blew on the hot soup. "My head feels weird, but other than that, I feel okay. You?"
He nodded. "The same."
I looked at Chase, who shrugged. "I feel normal," he said.
Dunstan came into the room , followed by Doyle. Doyle was wearing a tuxedo—probably what he'd worn to the ball. Although I didn't remember seeing Doyle there, I was sure he’d been there somewhere. They both pulled up chairs and sat side by side at the head of the table.
"So far everything is going according to plan," Dunstan said. "Colden's bringing back three more bodies. The more blood we can get into you the better. Once you all are stabilized, we can recruit more Grims."
"Where's my sister?" Bram demanded.
"I'll take you to see her once you've finished eating," Doyle answered.
I hoped my friend was okay.
Chase finished his soup and pushed the bowl away from him. "So what's next?"
"Tomorrow, someone will come here to meet you. He'll tell you about your first assignment," Dunstan answered.
Bram dropped his spoon, letting it clank in the empty bowl. "Wait. I thought we were supposed to be having a life of freedom away from doing assignments. I knew this was bogus."
"Hear him out," Doyle said. "What we're offering you is much better than anything Dunningham can give you."
"What?" Bram asked. "Dunningham gives us life and money. What can be better than that?"
"What we're offering you," Doyle said. "Trust me."
Dunstan stood. "I've made arrangements for you to stay with Newar while you're here. She has plenty of room for you."
I'd only eaten half my soup, but I was full. Bram grabbed my bowl and ate the rest. Once he was done, Dunstan ushered us to another room in the facility.
He slid a large metal door open , and we followed him into the darkness. A light flicked on. There on a table lay Naomi. She looked paler and smaller than usual, but it was my friend. She sat up slowly, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the light. I couldn't help but run and embrace her.
She looked so weak and sick that I felt like I would break her if I held her too tight. "Naomi, I've been so worried about you."
She sobbed into my shoulder. I held her quietly for a minute and then stepped away for Chase to say hello. He hung back for a moment, then caressed her. Chase loved Naomi , and she loved him too, although she'd never admit it.
Chase pulled back and held her face gently between his hands. "I'm glad to see you."
Bram stood back, staring at Naomi. This was typical Bram. I knew he loved his sister , and it was hard for him to see her like this. He'd talked about coming to the Outskirts to save her, but now that she was here, he acted like as though he didn’t care. Naomi looked at him for a moment and then looked at the ground.
"Bram, say something to your sister," I said.
Finally he stepped toward her. She stood and threw her arms around his neck. It took a few seconds, but he hugged her back and whispered something in her ear that I couldn't hear. I was glad. She needed to know that her brother still loved her.
Dunstan took the four of us to Newar's house , where we would spend the night. I felt so out of it I wasn't even sure how much time had passed since we'd arrived. I knew my parents, all of our parents, had to be worried sick about us. I didn't even want to think about how angry Dunningham had to be since I'd deserted him.
Newar's cottage was a little larger than some of the other homes on the Outskirts. She was a short, stout woman with silver hair and plenty of wrinkles.
"Boys, you will sleep in the living room area and the girls will share the extra bedroom."
She led Naomi and I to her extra room as the boys situated themselves in the living room.
Dunstan assured us that all our needs would be met, but I knew we wouldn't be living in nearly as much comfort as we did in Farrington.
"So what's going on in Nowhere?" Naomi asked as we prepared for bed. I tossed her the extra nightshirt I had packed.
There was so much for us to talk about, I didn't know where to begin. "Well, Bram got engaged to Senka and backed out at the last minute during their ceremony and… I got engaged."
Naomi’s eyes widened. "Seriously? To who?"
I cleared my throat as I fluffed a pillow. "Dunningham."
She snickered. "Right."
When I didn't laugh with her, Naomi's mouth dropped open. "No way! How did that happen?"
I shrugged. "My parents came home one day and told me he had asked for my hand in marriage."
She scrunched her face. "But he's so old and ew!"
I laughed. I'd missed my BFF. "I know!"
"What did you do?" she asked in a more serious tone.
"What could I do? I accepted it because I didn't have a choice."
Naomi sat on the bed and leaned back against the headboard. "Wow. I can't believe that. So what are you doing here?"
"I ran out on our engagement party. Naomi, you should have seen it. It was the most magnificent ball a girl could imagine, but I just couldn't do it—spend the rest of my life with him."
There was a soft knock on the door.
"Come in," I called.
Bram and Chase walked in. "You guys all right?" Bram asked.
"Yeah," I answered. "We're just getting ready to turn in."
"Did you guys know that Keira's engaged to Dunningham and that she ran out during the engagement party?"
Bram rolled his eyes. "Of course, we know."
"Dunningham's going to flip his lid when you go back there," Chase said unnecessarily. "Do you know how embarrassed he must be that you ditched him like that at a party in front of all those rich people?"
I had already decided that I was never going back. How could I?
"Enough talk about Keira and Dunningham," Bram said, stepping toward the door. "It's over. Good night." The boys left, closing the door behind him. Naomi turned off the lamp as the two of us crawled underneath the covers.
I sat up in the darkness for a long time thinking about Dunningham. I imagined him coming up with terrible ways to torture me for running away. I thought about his two former wives who'd evaporated into thin air, never to be heard from again. What if Dunningham managed to track me down? Was I going to become missing wife number three?
The next morning[C4] , Newar made us a nice breakfast of porridge and biscuits. I felt guilty eating it, knowing that they didn't have much on the Outskirts. Dunstan picked the four of us up right after breakfast.
"Where are we going?" Bram demanded. He always had to be in control. I knew he didn't like Dunstan calling the shots.
"To meet with my associate."
We followed Dunstan silently as he led us to the building we had been in the day before. I realized then that I hated the smell of the place. It smelled of rot and something dying. He took us to a room at the back of the building, an area we hadn't been in before.
Dunstan opened the door and held his hand out, motioning for us to enter. Inside was a large wooden table with chairs placed around it. A round man in a white suit and a long gray ponytail sat behind a desk wearing a cowboy hat.
The man looked at us, wide-eyed. "Well, look at that."
"You can see us?" Chase asked.
The man nodded. "Sure can."
"Humans can see you here," Dunstan informed us. In the Human world, Humans could sometimes see us right before they died. Except from the unwilling blood donor from the day before, I had never seen a full-blooded Human in our dimension before so I wasn't sure what to expect.
A tightness squeezed my chest as I moved toward a chair, nervous about why this man wanted to speak with us. A voice in my head told me that the situation was all wrong. Here we were on the Outskirts without permission, with human blood flowing through our bodies—a surefire death sentence. I took a deep breath as I lowered myself into the burgundy chair. I noticed a huge golden ring on the man's right pinky.
"Kids, my name is Buddy Lawson. Ca
ll me Mr. Lawson. I'm not sure how much Dunstan told you all, so I'm just going to start at the beginning. I have a problem and you have a problem. We can solve each other's problems, make a hell of a lot of money, and live happily ever after. It's a no-brainer in my book."
"What do we have to do?" Bram asked impatiently.
Mr. Lawson laughed heartily. "I like you. Get straight to the point, right?"
I agreed with Bram. This man was a fast talker and a smooth talker rolled into one—a bad combination in my book.
Mr. Lawson continued. "See, we all have something in common. We're all in the death business. I think it's time we join forces."
Chase shifted in his seat. "What do you want from us?"
Mr. Lawson sat back, stroking his thick white beard. "There's some terrible people in the human world. Some of whom should have never been born. Don't you agree?"
"We don't think about things like that," I answered. "That has nothing to do with us. We just do our jobs."
Mr. Lawson nodded. "Good. Good. That's what I like to hear. Now, what I do is I take care of people who do horrible things—murderers, thieves, rapists—I kind of exterminate them if you will. That's my business."
"So you're a murderer," Naomi said.
"No, no. Well, yeah, I guess if you want to be technical. But the way I see it, I'm ridding the world of its scum, making it a better place for us all."
"And?" Bram asked.
"Y'all would be perfect for my business. You can take lives without being caught because you won't be seen. The law in the human world has no authority over you."
Bram stood. "Sorry, but we don't do that. It's against our Covenant. We collect lives only after a person dies. We don't cause deaths. We're not murderers."
"But you can be," Mr. Lawson said. "Work for me and I can give you an amazing life in that world."
"Is that what this is about?" Chase asked. "Can we leave now?"
"At least think about what he's offering you," Dunstan said. "It's not just about money. It's about freedom. Freedom from Grim Law. Freedom from my brother's tyrannical rule. Freedom for Naomi. She can't stay in Nowhere , and I'm quite sure that she doesn't want to live in the Outskirts for the rest of her life. Hell, I don't want to live in the Outskirts."
I looked at Naomi, who only shook her head. It was true. She couldn't go back, but then neither could I.
"We don't even know if we can stay there," Chase said. "So we got a little human blood in us and we seem fine now. What would happen if we stayed there for a full day? A week? We don’t know."
"That's something we will monitor closely," Dunstan answered.
Bram folded his arms across his chest. "Mr. Lawson, I'm sorry, but we have to decline your offer. You're going to have to find yourself some other murderers."
Lawson grinned at Dunstan. "You didn't tell them the whole story, did you ? . They seem to think they have a choice."
"What does that mean?" I asked Dunstan.
He sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. "He means that this is part of the deal. I put human blood inside of you. I reunited you with Naomi. Now it's time for you to do your part."
Bram edged closer to the door. "Maybe you didn't understand me the first time I said it. We're not doing this."
Dunstan walked past Bram and opened the door, "I thought you might say that."
Colden and two other boys entered the room. One of them pulled Naomi's chair back and lifted her from her seat by the waist.
Bram made a move toward the boy and Naomi, but Colden stood in between them. "I spend hours digging graves every day. You see my arms? I can break you in half."
Bram, never one to react well to a threat, shoved Colden into the wall. The boy who wasn't holding Naomi pulled a knife from his pocket and pointed it at Bram. Bram put his hands up, but that didn't stop Chase from running forward. I screamed, not wanting him to get stabbed, but the boy kicked Chase in the stomach, causing him to double over in pain.
"Chase!" Naomi shrieked.
I moved forward, trying to make it stop. The boy pointed the knife at Naomi and I froze. "Don't forget, she can die just like we can. I can slit her throat in seconds."
"All right. All right," Bram said. "Dunstan, don't do this, man. We can make a deal."
"Take her away," Dunstan ordered the boys. Then he looked at Bram. "I gave you your one and only option. You want your sister, you hold up your end of the bargain."
Bram and Chase both looked lost for words. There was no way any of us would let Naomi stay there as a prisoner. It looked like we were going to become murderers.
9
The three of us were led back to Newar's with a crossbow to our backs. I'd begged Bram not to do anything stupid. We needed to tread lightly to keep things calm. At that moment, Dunstan had the advantage. He had Naomi, and we were grossly outnumbered by Foragers.
Newar fixed us lunch: some kind of soup from roots and herbs. It was tasty, but I longed for my mother's food in Nowhere.
"Why don't you guys take food from the human world?" Chase asked. "Real food."
Newar scooped herself a bowl of soup. "Don't you think we've tried that? Whenever someone tried to bring food over, it evaporates as soon as it gets here. Just dries up and turns to dust within seconds."
"But what about the medical supplies?" I asked. "Those came from the human world."
Newar settled onto a stool with her bowl. "Yes. For some reason those things are fine. But when we've tried to bring food, weapons, or other things—no luck."
"That's weird," Bram muttered.
"It's like the entire universe wants us to starve," Newar said.
Once she was done eating her soup, Newar announced that she was going out to collect some water and left with a pail in her hand.
"We're going back to Nowhere," Bram declared.
"I'm not," Chase and I said at the same time.
"You know I can't go back there," I added.
Bram ran his fingers through his hair. "Well, what are you going to do, Keira? We can't stay here and we're not doing what that man wants us to."
"Think about her options, Bram," Chase said. "Who knows what Dunningham will do to Keira? She can get killed if she goes back there."
"No, she won't," Bram said. "She can keep that from happening."
There was the possibility that Dunningham would be forgiving. I was probably the reason Dunningham had given Naomi mercy in the first place.
I remembered his clammy touch of his skin and his wicked smile. There was no way I could go back there.
"What do you want to do?" I asked Chase.
"I'm not leaving Naomi."
Bram scoffed. "That's stupid."
"Why? I don't want her to be alone. Besides, my family's not like yours. Dunningham treats us well enough, but my father doesn't play that political game with him. I'm destined to live an average life in Nowhere. I already know what I'm getting there. I'd rather take my chances."
Bram sat back in his seat and tapped the table. "You guys aren't thinking straight. Maybe it's that human blood that's inside of you. We get our years of life from lifestones. That man can't offer us that."
Chase stood and zipped up his hoodie up, despite the fact that it was warm in the Outskirts. "You can do what you want, Bram. I won't let Naomi spend the rest of her life being Dunningham's servant and I won't make Keira go back and marry that creep. I'm not staying here in between to just waste away. I'm going for a walk." He left, slamming the door behind him.
Bram and I sat silently for a moment. I watched him run his fingers over the splintered wood of Newar's table.
"Bram, I have five-hundred-and-two years left. That's a long time to spend with that man, if I don't mysteriously disappear like his other wives. I can't do it."
Bram looked me in the eye. "You can do it, you don't want to do it. There's a difference. Nay's father was a human, but Keir, we were born into this. We don't have a choice. You just can't decide that you don't want to be a Grim anymor
e."
"I don't mind doing my job. I mind being forced into a marriage that I don't want. I mind having to dedicate my life to a man who doesn't give a damn about us. Bram, you saw how many people were hurt during the riot. He still hasn't gotten help for them. He'll let them spend the rest of their lives in pain and he doesn't care."
Bram took a deep breath. "If we leave, the years we have now, that's all we'll ever get."
"That's fine. I'd rather live ten years in freedom than thousands in that prison. I think we should listen more to what Lawson has to say. It wouldn't hurt to hear all the details."
Bram took my hand. "All right. I'll listen to him, but I can't make any promises."
That night , Bram, Chase, and I went through another transfusion. It was easier than the last time. As I lay on the cold table, I wondered what Dunningham was doing at that moment. Had he sent a search party looking for me? I hoped my family wasn't in danger. I hadn't thought about how my disappearance would affect them before escaping from my engagement party.
I crawled into bed that night at Newar's. We had been away from Nowhere for two days. Bram stuck his head in the door. "Good night."
"Night."
He hung in the doorway. Neither of us had said anything about the conversation earlier, but we both knew there was no way Naomi or I were going back to Nowhere.
I pulled the covers over me and rolled on my side, facing away from him. I was angry at him for suggesting earlier that I go back to Dunningham, although I understood why he'd said it. It was easy for us to say that we would take Lawson up on his offer and live in the human world, but we hadn't said anything about the cost. We would have to become murderers.
"Keira?"
"Yeah?"
"You know you're not going to be able to do it. Kill people."
I closed my eyes.
He kept talking. "We would have to kill. That's the only way Lawson and Dunstan will arrange for us to leave here. We can't even get to the human world without Dunstan."
I rolled over and looked at him. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. But I don't plan on killing anyone. I'll figure something out."
Keira Grim: The Final Breath Chronicles Book Two Page 7