Such A Secret Place (Stolen Tears Book 1)

by Cortney Pearson

  Ice-Cream-Head Girl pulls a butterfly knife and whips it around, though it’s clear she’s not sure who to aim for. Someone else knocks into her. Dazed, she can’t seem to right herself and topples, knife pointed outward.

  “Isabel!” I shout, but it’s no use. Too many people stand between the gypsy and me. I’ll never get to her in time. The girl’s blade embeds into Isabel’s side as another guy takes Ice-Cream-Head Girl in tow and heads toward the blasted wall.

  The gypsy’s mouth hangs open, blood dribbles over her rotting teeth, and she collapses, knocking over her trunk and its contents. I attempt to run toward her, but Gwynn is tugging on my hand.

  “What are you doing? Come on, let’s go!”

  Two jars, including the one with the twisted neck, have fallen to the cement. Feet knock my vial to the side, trampling over the other one, shattering the glass and releasing the liquid.

  My vial. The twisted jar’s low, rumbling tone calls to me. I can’t let it be smashed too. The pulsing in my stomach doesn’t stop. The tears are somehow calling for help.

  I yank free of Gwynn and ram my way through the mob of spastic people. One person pushes back, and I trip. Someone else steps on my hand, shooting spikes of pain up my arm, but I have to get that vial.

  I lunge for it, but miss, and I knock the vial with the tips of my fingers. It rolls beneath a nearby couch.

  Most of the room has emptied now. At least, no one else is dodging around me or accidentally stepping on me. I ignore the logical voice in my head squawking at me to get out while I still can, and I squirm my way deeper into the room. Toward that couch.

  Out of nowhere, a boy shoots out. His hands fetter around my shoulders and pull me quickly behind the same couch. His hand goes to the back of my head, forcing my cheek to the rough, cold cement. I struggle, but his grip weighs on my scalp.

  No, he can’t do this. I have to get those tears.

  I attempt a push-up, but he presses down harder. “If you ever want to make it out of this room,” he orders in a whisper to my ear, “stay down and play dead.” He has a slight accent, but I can’t quite place it.

  I don’t have a clue who he is. I didn’t catch much of anything about him in the darkness other than the fingerless gloves on his hands. Still, I succumb, flopping down completely. But not because he tells me to. A glow emanates from the couch’s underside. There. On its side, gleaming a brilliant blue, tapping its hum into my veins. My vial.

  The Arcs probably can’t see us from this spot. All I have to do is reach, and I’ll feel the gloss of it in my hand. I’ll ease its whine. My fingers ache to fold to its surface, but something hard, like the boy’s elbow, digs into my back, a not-so-gentle reminder of his mandate.

  I know, I want to tell the jar, to console it. In a minute. I’ll get you as soon as I can. The hum deepens, its pressure hardens, and of its own accord the jar rolls slightly toward me.

  I can’t take it. My hand shoots out, bends around the warm tears. Bubbling with heat, the hum zings and spirals up around my spine. I shudder until the feeling passes, stuff the jar in my pocket and drive myself up against the pressure on my back. Too fast, I’m slammed down again, but not before something slices the corner of my shoulder, taking my sight with it.

  I wake to the tangy scent of apples, mixed with heady spices. Wassail, maybe? Though it’s silent in the room, the edges of my skull pound. Pain slashes at my shoulder. A rush of images plays out in my mind, and I try to sit up though the movement magnifies the drums in my head.

  “Stay down,” says a male voice with an unusual accent—his vowels are longer. My eyes focus and zero in on the jade green gaze peering over the rim of a mug.

  He can’t be much older than I am. His blond hair is short and unkempt. His forehead is broad, his mouth a firm line as if daring someone to make him smile. A scar stretches along the length of his jaw, and he tips the mug completely toward his mouth before tossing it in an open backpack with a clang.

  Orange shag carpet covers not only the floors in the tiny room, but also crawls up along the walls. Does he live here? Who is he?

  “Where are we?” I ask.

  “Where you were an hour ago. Just in a different room.”

  Oh angels, I’m still at Black Vault. My thoughts hurdle, one over the other in a frantic race. Is Ren okay? Did Gwynn make it home?

  “I have to go.” I swing my legs over the table edge and attempt to stand.

  “Hold up,” he says, pointing to my right. “How’s the shoulder?”

  I groan when I find a rip along the seam of my favorite red shirt.

  “I had to tear off your sleeve,” he adds.

  He tosses a wad of white, blood-soaked bandages into an empty sack. Traces of blood smear across the narrow, newly healed scar on my bare shoulder.

  “What happened? What cut me?”

  Before he gives any kind of answer I remember why I went toward the couch, why I got knocked out in the first place, and my fingers rove to my pocket. I suck in a breath. The jar is there, sticking out from my pants like a tiny growth. If only I could pull them out and look at them again. The tears give out a warning.

  I catch the boy’s gaze. The green of his eyes is so light-colored and such a strange hue that I stare longer than I should. They hold an intensity, as if they see all of me in one rigid look and aren’t about to spill an opinion. It’s more expression than I’ve ever seen any stranger possess. I shudder.

  “I stabbed you with a pinion dagger,” he says, breaking the glance.

  “You did what?”

  He continues bustling about, throwing a striker on the bandages in the waste basket so the room fills with the smell of smoke and burning fabric. “It was all I had on hand. You weren’t holding still, and I couldn’t risk you giving me away.”

  I can’t believe he admits stabbing me. Like it’s nothing. “What’s a—?”

  “The blade is made by magic that oozes on impact. Magic that has only one purpose.”

  “One purpose? Are we talking death?”

  “Don’t worry. I stopped it seeping through the rest of you.” He rolls another cloth and shoves it into the backpack with a sleeping bag strapped over the top of it.

  “So that’s why I blacked out?”

  He nods.

  I’m not quite sure what to say. He stabbed me with a blade that could have killed me, just so I wouldn’t give him away?

  He continues moving in a determined way, his attention hard-focused on the task at hand. Like he doesn’t even care. It makes me want to kick him in the shins or something juvenile like that, or maybe turn him in. But even if we still had law enforcers, I wouldn’t go to them. That would require telling them pesky details like where I was and what I was doing there.

  I had no clue he was hiding behind that couch. The only reason I dashed for it was for the lump now in my pocket. I squeeze a hand over it again. He doesn’t appear to know I have the tears with me, and I’m not about to tell him I was headed toward them, not him.

  “Whatever,” I say, because it all seems absurd. “I’m going home.”

  I make another attempt to stand, but my feet send fuzzies into my head, and I nearly fall back again.

  “Whoa there.” He catches and stabilizes me. “Easy now,” he adds, making sure I can stand. Those green eyes snare me, and against my will something flutters in my belly. Drawing away, he slings his pack over a shoulder and heads for the door.

  I sip the air, slowly clearing my head of him. I stand for a few beats, making sure my legs are going to function before I cross the room to my patched jean jacket lying on the table. Lacing my arms through it, I hurry to meet Green Eyes at the door.

  The residue of smoke lingers in the dry air. He lopes ahead of me with silent footsteps in the darkened hallway. He has the walk of a hiker, of someone used to being on his feet. I shuffle to keep up through the varying twists of the dim passages.

  “Thanks,” I say at one point. “You know, for your help.”

&n
bsp; Ugh. Why did I just say that? He stabbed me with a magical blade that kills, all so I wouldn’t give away his location away.

  He grumbles a low, “You’re welcome,” and says nothing else.

  We take several turns. I know I’d be lost without his help, but I’m more than eager to be free of him. He stalks toward a door with chipped paint and presses the wide, silver handle open.

  Chilled air pierces my skin. It’s lighter out than it was earlier, and the fog is gone. Concrete slabs lead the way to a set of rusted, steel stairs. He mounts them, and I keep pace.

  “What’s your name?” I ask, trying one more shot at conversation.

  He stops, one hand on the stair rail, and slides me a look. “Seeing as how, one—” He holds up a bare finger though the rest of his hand is gloved. Dirt smiles at the bottom of his fingernail. “—You’ll probably never see me again, and two, that could be dangerous information, let’s leave things the way they are.”

  “You’re personable, aren’t you?” I mutter. “It was just a question.”

  “Questions can get you in trouble,” he says.

  I want to laugh, until a frightening thought suffocates all humor from me. Oh drag, he’s an Arc, he must be. No wonder he seems to feel things.

  But if he was, he wouldn’t have bothered saving me. He would have tried to take my magic by now.

  We reach the top of the stairs. He cranes his head to look at me. “Can you find your way from here?”

  “Would you care if I couldn’t?”

  His blinks as if stumped for the slightest moment. And with another shrug, he turns away. It doesn’t take long for the shuffles of his footsteps to fade, and in moments I’m alone at the top of the stairs.

  That’s that.

  Shaking off the questions he left behind, I hug myself and rub away at the cold. Peer right first, then left. The alleyway stretches on both ends like a long, bleary tunnel. Haunted, misty ghosts fold along the lower levels of brick, and a sensation prickles the hairs at my nape. Though I’m uncertain, I stick out my chin, my breaths making steam on their way out. I can figure this out. Who needs him?

  All I did was ask a question. It wouldn’t have killed him to give me a simple answer.

  Exhaustion weighs heavily on my mind. I hope Gwynn made it out okay. She probably drank her tears already and dodged out of town. I hoped she would at least say good-bye first.

  Burning tightens the corners of my eyes. I press a gentle finger to the bridge of my nose, waiting, hoping maybe this time it will happen for me. Maybe this will be enough to make me cry.

  It isn’t. I suffer through, blinking at the stinging burn until it fades. Just like always.

  I wander along alleyways for what seems like hours, kicking at scattered garbage and discarded cans collecting along the exterior walls of buildings, until I find my way back to Vander's ice cream shop. I pause for a moment in the gray dusk, picturing Ren’s dark silhouette against the glossy windows. The way he stepped up and took control when the soldiers appeared.

  It’s a miracle I haven’t run into any more of them. They’re probably too busy dealing with Black Vault to patrol right now. Still, I hurry past the Guerra Tree toward my house.

  Incognito Boy’s hard-edged face burns in my mind. Though I chafe at the way he blew me off—and the fact that he was the one to stab me—I can’t shrug off his rugged features, those gleaming, translucent eyes or the way his mouth moved when he spoke.

  I lift the horseshoe latch on our chain-linked fence and brush the grass in our backyard with my feet. The windows of my split-level house are all dark. A beautiful, gangly fickory tree twines its verdant arms toward my window and the black-dipped stars in the early morning sky.

  Like a monkey I scale the cold limbs until I pull myself to the branch level with my balcony. And I gasp.

  Gwynn sits against the brick, clasping her shoulders. A huge bruise purples her face, and blood drips down her cheek. The fabric of her pale blue shirt gapes at the side seam, giving me a peek of the skin on her belly.

  “Gwynn!” I fumble over the ledge and slide the window pane upward. She shivers.

  “The Arcs, they—?” I stop the thought. It couldn’t have been—it’s been hours. Once I finally figured out my way home, I hadn’t caught sight of a single Xian claw.

  The openness in her childlike eyes and the trembling in her lip tell me who it was. “Oh, Gwynn. Are you okay? He didn’t…I mean…did he?”

  “Not this time. But I hit him over the head with the hilt of his dazeblade and grabbed the rest of his money. Then I came straight here.”

  She’s shaking so badly. My throat closes. She came straight here. And I wasn’t here to open my window.

  “Come inside, I’ll patch you up.”

  I duck in. The wooden flooring creaks under my feet, and I dash over on tiptoe to crack open my door. Dad’s soft snores chug out from the outline of their bed in the darkened room across from mine. Ren’s door is closed, the way I left it earlier. Did he make it out okay? I’m dying to check, maybe on Gwynn’s aud, but right now, Gwynn needs my help.

  I pause at the light switch after shutting my door once more. The glass canteen below the switch within the wall barely glows. Its magic level has dropped below the lowest notch. It’s early enough; Arcs won’t care that lights are on. I could ask Gwynn to fill the canteen for me once more, but she limps into my room and tries to cover the part of her torso where her shirt is ripped. Forget light; we can see well enough with the moonlight pouring through.

  I hurry over and close the window behind her.

  “I hope your stepdad burns for this,” I say, fuming as I pull the homemade first aid kit from my closet. It gets used a lot on Gwynn’s behalf. “Just thought you should know.”

  Gwynn sinks onto my bed, gasping in short breaths. I’m not used to seeing her overwrought. Usually she trembles, but that’s about the extent of it. Seeing this reaction makes her leaving that much harder.

  “I went back for my bags, but that was stupid. I should have known better.” She shakes her head. “And now I’m never going back, Ambry. This is it.”

  I dab peroxide on the cut on her cheek with a cotton ball and then put a few butterfly bandages on it. This totally stinks. If I had magic I could probably learn to heal her. But every time I try to feel it inside the way everyone says I should, my bones just fill with vapor.

  Gwynn can do about as much as I can, though. Her magic isn’t very strong. Her stepdad beats it out of her, that’s my opinion.

  “I wish I knew how to heal you,” I say, sharing my thoughts.

  “Doesn’t matter. No amount of magic can heal what he’s done. I’m never going back.”

  “What about school?” We still have a year before we take the PAE’s. Our Pledgeschool Acceptance Exams. She can’t get into pledgeschool without them.

  Gwynn’s graceful mouth tugs at the sides. “I wanted you to be present. That’s why I waited.” She pulls the glowing blue jar from her purse, and I swallow, even more aware of the one in my pocket. “I’m drinking them. And I’m out of here.”

  “I don’t want you to leave.” My eyes are drier than ever.

  “I know,” she says.

  “But…” I can’t help it. I have to say something. “But what if they’re just some lame nymph’s tears, and all they make you do is sing or something? It might not change anything.”

  Gwynn’s eyes are glued to the uncorked jar in her lap. “I know they’ll help me.”

  An empty gap lingers between us.

  “What do you think it feels like, Ambry?” she asks softly. “To cry?”

  Her eyes are full of questions, but I don’t know what to say. It’s something I’ve thought many times. The rare sadness in her voice strikes like a well-played chord.

  “What does it take?” she goes on. “Why only a few people cry, and others don’t? You’d think, I mean, not to make myself sound all angelic or whatever, but you’d think after all I’ve been through they would
have slipped out at some point.” Her voice is heated, and her pinched brow makes her features even more piercing. I’ve never heard her express herself this way, not in years.

  “That dream. It was so real.” She glances down at her cut knuckles. “I never knew how wrong it was—what he…does to me. I always had a lingering sense, I guess, but I was like, trapped, you know? Like I was pushing against a wall I never knew was there. That’s probably why the Arcs are so angry. Maybe none of them has ever cried or felt emotion, and they’re taking it out on us.”

  “The spell didn’t work on them,” I say. “It was cast before they invaded.”

  “You know, if that vrecking wizard were alive and forced to remove his spell, I bet there wouldn’t be any crime anymore.”

  I exhale and shake my head. “I don’t think crying would solve all of our problems like that. I think people just do stupid things. The Arcs are power-hungry. And your steploser…”

  She lets out a weak chuckle.

  “Who knows? Maybe he doesn’t know how to communicate or something.”

  She raises a hand to her cheek. “Believe me, he knows how to communicate.” Seconds tick by until she shrugs. “Oh well. Here goes.”

  I’m curious. I can’t help it. Aside from seeing my mom cry once, tonight is the first time I’ve actually seen tears.

  Gwynn smiles and then winces from the pain in her newly patched cheek. “To you. For never giving up on me.”

  What a thing to say. “Of course I’d never give up on you.”

  Her lips do another wincey smile, and she tilts the jar to them.

  “Wait…” I say. But the tears trickle in. I hold my breath, heart pounding, the tears in my own pocket tapping my leg.

  She chews her lip, her eyes darting around. Then she gasps, her head arching back.

  I gasp, too. The butterfly bandages I put on fall to the ground, the cut healing itself. The scratches on her knuckles also sew over as if with new skin. My eyes scamper over her, eager, waiting. But nothing else happens.

  Is that it? They mended her wounds?