I turned and hobbled back toward Emma’s house.
The pain intensified, but I pushed through. No. There was no pain. I burst through her door and, staggering into the kitchen, began pulling out drawers. There had to be something I could use, anything.
There.
It gleamed wickedly at me. Its sturdy handle signifying it was of good quality. I reached in with a trembling hand and picked up the cleaver.
I was not going to die today. Not if I could help it.
Tea towels would work as a tourniquet . . . needed to sit and tie them together. It hurt . . . couldn’t think. Shit. I needed to get to the flesh. Cleaver cuts denim. My leg . . .
My leg was dead.
Focus dammit.
I tied the tourniquet as tight as I could get it, and then stared at my leg. My cells were dying. Death was crawling over my skin. A low keening filled the air . . . Was that me? Oh, god. Please god. Please. My vision blurred as heat flared in my chest, rising up to scorch the backs of my eyes. God wasn’t listening. I had to do this. Me.
Find a safe place . . . Bella’s face . . . safe . . .
I lifted the cleaver.
My leg was dead.
I brought it down.
The lethal sharp metal bit into my flesh and for a moment there was only the crunch and crack of bone, and then I was on fire. My body, my brain, there was nothing but the pain and my bloodcurdling scream. It wasn’t done. Not over. Darkness reached for me. Not yet, no . . . Body shaking with shock, I hacked over and over, my arm an automaton, throat raw from screaming.
I wanted to live.
And then oblivion claimed me.
***
“So sorry, so fucking sorry,” Brett’s voice.
“Hey . . . What’s up? What . . .” so tired . . .
“Mummy, will she wake up soon?”
Bella. I wanted to sit up and hug her but I was trapped in the dark, unable to move.
“Sweetheart it’s gonna be okay. I promise. Everything will be okay.”
I let the darkness cradle me.
TEN MONTHS LATER . . .
CHAPTER 16
“S
he’s in there! It has her, please you have to help!” The woman; petite, dark-eyed, and vibrating with fear practically shoved me up the dark staircase.
I didn’t take it personally; the circumstances didn’t call for niceties. In fact, she was damn right composed for someone in her situation.
I glanced over my shoulder at her. “How old?”
“Six. She just turned six,” her voice trembled and my chest filled with icy rage. “It’s the second door on the left.”
“What’s her name?”
“Katie.”
I took the stairs carefully, one at a time, my hand on the banister the whole way. I paused on the landing and withdrew Frieda from her sheath at my waist. Frieda had been temperamental for a while; black market everlight wasn’t as potent as the pure shit, but it was all I had. I flicked my wrist to activate her blade and squinted as the landing was bathed in light.
A couple of swishes and she held her luminescence. “Good girl.” She flared a little brighter as if in response.
Passing the first door on the left I came to a halt by the second. Adjusting my grip on Frieda, I grasped for the handle and pushed the door open. The room beyond was pitch black, a darkness that was unnatural, viscous, and completely out of place.
“Katie, don’t be afraid. I promise I won’t let it hurt you.” That is, if it hadn’t hurt her already. “Katie, can you say something. Katie?” The darkness shifted, my pulse jumped, but I held my ground.
“Okay Frieda, time for you to do your thing.” I stepped into the dark.
It wrapped around me, eager to claim me, but the everlight staved it off, surrounding me in a protective cocoon of gentle luminescence. It wouldn’t last though.
“Katie, follow my voice, come on sweetie, your mummy is waiting for you downstairs, I can take you to her.”
“Please . . .” The voice was tinny and far away.
Shit! “Katie, stay with me honey. Come on, follow my voice.”
The darkness parted and a little girl stepped through; she stopped just outside Frieda’s halo of light.
“Katie?”
She held out her hand. “I’m scared. Please . . .”
I squinted to get a better look at her. “Come into the light, hun.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. Please, I’m stuck.” She jerked forward then fell back as tendrils of darkness wrapped about her waist. She held up her hands to shield her eyes. “It hurts. It’s too bright.”
To anyone else this would have made sense—she’d been in a pitch-black room for some time now, bright light would hurt her eyes, right?
Wrong.
This was a sign that I was too late, but just to be sure . . . “Come on. It’s your birthday tomorrow. Don’t you want to get out of here and celebrate it?”
The girl nodded and held out her hand again. “Yes, yes, my birthday. Please get me out of here.”
The cold rage that sat on my chest at the best of times became an iceberg of pressure. “Where is she?”
The little girl blinked up at me once, twice, and then her pretty brown eyes turned dark and ate away the whites. “Aw, what gave me away?”
“Where. Is. The girl?”
“Where. Is. The girl?” the changeling mimicked in a taunting tone.
My heart was racing and fire filled my veins. I raised Frieda, ready to strike.
“Wait! Please. I have information. If you let me go I’ll share, I will.”
It was too disconcerting, this thing parading as a little girl inside our town walls, inside a family home. It didn’t belong, and I could never let it go free. It must have seen the intention in my eyes because it dropped its hands and melted back into the darkness.
“No you fucking don’t!” I leapt forward, bringing Frieda down in a swift arc. The changeling screamed, relinquishing the Katie facade and converging into its true form—faceless, grey, black, and spindly. It writhed on the ground as I brought Frieda down again, slicing instead of simply impaling. It needed to feel the pain, to suffer for what it had done. The everlight sliced into its leathery flesh with ease.
“Please, I know where you belong!”
I paused briefly, chest heaving.
Its faceless visage split and morphed until I was looking at my face, but not my adult face. No, this creature had my child face, minus my birthmark.
“I know a secret, a big secret.”
Ten months ago I may have taken the bait. I may have spared it long enough to interrogate it.
But I was no longer that woman.
I brought down my shaft of light.
The darkness around me began to retreat, seeping back into the crack from where it had come. I didn’t turn look where it was going, my attention was fixed on the changeling—dicing and slicing as its inhuman screams composed a symphony for my ears.
Finally it began to fold in on itself until it winked out of existence entirely, and that’s when I allowed myself a glance behind me at the crack that had allowed it entry. It was box, laid on its side up against the wall, a box which had obviously contained a gift for Katie—a doll perhaps—and she had been so excited, the parents too distracted that they’d forgotten to flatten and dispose of it. The darkness was all but gone. Soon there would be no evidence of what had transpired in this room, save for the cold grey body of a six year old child curled up on the floor by her bed.
***
I sat in the corner of Clovers, Valla’s special brew clutched in my hand. The shooting pain in my leg brought perspiration to my brow. I took another swig from my glass, eager for the alcohol to numb the pain. Valla’s gaze was a hot brand on the side of my face as she worked the bar, but she knew better than to say I told you so.
My body needed a bed, my brain craved sleep, but in order to satisfy them I’d have to walk over to the bar and take the stairs down to the basement. I coul
dn’t trust that I wouldn’t buckle. The journey to the east side of Lindrealm, expelling the changeling back to Evernight, and the journey back had been too much. I’d known it when I’d gotten the call for help, but like always I’d been unable to say no.
Things had gone from bad to worse for Lindrealm. Four boroughs had been completely cut off from Fearless aid, and the price of luma was still rising, pushing taxes up. Soon the only safe haven in our world would be Everlight. War was on the horizon. We’d kill each other before the denizens had a chance to finish us off.
The world was going to shit.
A figure slid into the booth opposite me and a packet of yellow powder was pushed across the table toward me.
I picked it up and pocketed it. “Thanks Cimren.”
He nodded, his face grave. “I won’t have any more for a while. The bastard shaman that makes it has tripled the price, but I’ll find a new vendor, I promise.”
My brain was a haze of pain. The powder helped, taking the edge off when it got too bad. Made from the stamen of the moonflower, with some other crap thrown in, it was the only painkiller that did shit when I was like this.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Cimren said. “This isn’t your fight anymore.”
“Don’t. You did the right thing.” I exhaled. “But I was too late.”
His brows came down. “Not your fault. You tried.”
“Yeah.” So why did I feel like crap?
“Susan asked after you.”
“How’s the baby?”
“Good. Look, take the herbs and get some rest. Come see us when you can.” He slid out of the booth and toward the exit.
Funny how life worked out. A year ago I wouldn’t have believed that a djinn and a Twilighter would be my only friends but now . . . I snorted.
My phone buzzed and I glanced at the caller ID.
Brett.
How long had it been since we’d spoken?
Yeah, around the same time I’d woken up from my body’s self-induced coma to find myself without a leg from the knee down. That time in my life was one I didn’t care to recall. I’d lived, but it was no longer a life I valued, and Brett . . . I still wasn’t ready to forgive him for his part in it.
“I’m sorry, so sorry.”
He’d been passed out drunk when the call had come. Killing his own pain the only way he knew how. Although I understood why he’d done it, I just couldn’t forgive him for not being there for me. Not yet.
I drained my glass.
Okay, time to walk.
I pulled myself up and began to shuffle across the floor. I took my time, grateful for the fact that everyone in here was too busy with their own shit to notice the woman hobbling toward the bar. Valla didn’t even look up, she continued to wipe the bar and flipped the latch to let me back there as if on autopilot.
My eyes pricked with tears.
I loved her for not making a big deal about this.
Each step down to the basement was a shard of fire lancing up my thigh, and by the time I made it to my bed and sat down, my body was shaking with sobs. I swiped at the tears. Fucking hated being this weak.
I was alive dammit.
Alive was good.
Then why did it feel so crap?
I rolled up my trousers and stared at my prosthetic. I hated that thing. It wasn’t a part of me, and yet without it I was grounded. I undid the clasps that pressed it to my flesh and tugged it off. It was an old design, but had been all I could afford. After The Event, national health had been abolished. Everything cost money now, and although Fearless insurance was great, it didn’t cover loss of limbs, which kind of sucked considering the job we did. I guess they figured if you were going to be maimed in such a way and be of no use to them then they weren’t going to be footing the bill.
They said I was lucky I’d cut below the knee joint so I still had that movement. They said I was lucky they’d found me when they did. I’d lost a lot of blood. Emma had led them right to me, bless her.
Lucky? Ha! More like empty and worthless. A raw pit of darkness had opened up inside me, eating away at the essence that was me. At first I’d told myself, It’s just a leg, you’re still you. But it hadn’t stopped the Fearless from putting me on indefinite leave—what use was a crippled Fearless to the force?
I couldn’t do the job I had been trained to do in an official capacity, so I’d turned to doing it on the sly.
I didn’t want to think anymore.
Tipping the contents of the sachet into my mouth, I lay back and closed my eyes and waited for the pain to ebb. Sleep would find me soon.
The Hat Man’s laughter echoed in my ears, his deadly shadow fingers reached for me. I tried to run but fell on my front. Tried to stand but something was wrong. Something was missing. A glance over my shoulder revealed the problem. My legs were gone, and in their place were two smooth stumps. They wiggled up and down in a desperately futile dance. And the Hat Man laughed and laughed and laughed.
***
The sensation of something cool being rubbed into my skin woke me. Lauren sat on the end of my bed, smoothing soothing ointment into the skin below my knee.
“Your mother called.” He didn’t look up from his task.
“I guess I should go see her and Bella.”
“She said she wishes you’d move back home. They miss you.”
My chest tightened. “I can’t. Not yet.” Maybe not ever. I couldn’t cope with the mollycoddling and concerned looks that they thought I didn’t see. I’d end up resenting them and that would kill me. “I’ll visit soon, I promise.”
Lauren finished rubbing in the ointment and patted my leg. It was funny how I didn’t mind him touching me. It was strange how he was the creature I’d turned to when I’d needed to run away. He’d given me this room, a job at the bar, and his time. The last was the most valuable of all.
I’d known him forever, but it was only now that we were becoming friends.
I sat up. “So, any news on the luma situation?”
He met my gaze, his rich dark hair shimmering in the lamplight. It was getting longer, past his shoulders now; he kept it tucked behind his ears, which I could see tapered to a fine point, but to all other humans would look completely normal. There was no need for everlight here. denizens abhorred Twilighters, and to them Clovers probably reeked of excrement.
“I needed to speak to you about that. A more immediate problem has arisen in Twilight which I and my comrades must attend to. It may or may not be related to the luma issue. But I’ll be leaving in a few days and may not be back for some time.”
A lump formed in my throat. “Oh.”
“I promise I’ll be back as soon as I’m able.”
“Of course.” I smiled to mask the erratic fluttering in my chest.
Lauren, Valla, and Cimren were my only friends now. But Lauren was more . . . he was my crutch. It would be strange without him. Had I told him how much his time meant to me?
“Thank you for everything, Lauren.”
He locked gazes with me, stealing my breath and stirring something familiar within me.
“I don’t know what I would have done without you these past months. I’ll miss you.”
His pupils dilated. “Kenna, that means so much.” He leaned in.
My phone buzzed violently on the bedside table and I jerked back. Had he been about to kiss me?
Cheeks hot, I answered the call without checking the ID. “Hello?”
“Kenna?”
My breath whooshed out and my knuckles tightened on the handset. “Blane . . .” Oh, god, I shouldn’t have answered.
“It’s good to hear your voice.” His tone was a familiar caress.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “What do you want?”
A long beat of silence. “I need you to come into the office.”
“No.”
Another beat of silence.
“It’s not a request, Kenna. It’s an order.” His manner was no longer soft.
It was brusque and business-like. “Nine tomorrow morning. Be there or we’ll send a unit to fetch you.” He hung up.
Send a unit to fetch me? Arctic fingers burrowed under my skin.
“Kenna? Is everything alright?” Lauren asked.
My throat was too tight to speak.
They knew about my expulsions.
They knew, and I was in deep shit.
CHAPTER17
I climbed out of the taxi and adjusted my coat. It was long and disguised my gait. My eyes were gritty from lack of sleep; the nightmares were back. Would they ever truly be gone? After I’d awoken, sweat soaked and breathless, it had taken two shots of whisky to steady my nerves and send me off into a dreamless slumber.
I prepared to be checked in, to have to explain what I was doing back here after so long, but I’d taken barely two steps when the gate buzzed and began to roll open with a clatter. The guards raised their hands in greeting from the guard’s station, and I raised mine in return, eyes misting.
They hadn’t forgotten me.
The journey across the floor, past the cubicles was the worst—all the fake smiles, the ‘Hey, great to see you’ comments. It made my stomach hurt, and I hated Blane for forcing me to do this.
Brett’s cubicle was empty, which was a small relief.
I made it to Blane’s office, desperate to get away from all the scrutiny, to find a matronly, bespectacled woman sitting at Vanessa’s desk.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
Blane’s office door opened. “It’s alright Cathy, I’m expecting her.”
Cathy nodded and went back to her paperwork, but I was too busy being hit by a memory.
“It’s okay, you’re still you.” he’d said.
But I’d seen the contradiction in his eyes, the pity. I’d needed to know for sure, so I’d ripped back the covers exposing my mutilated leg. “Can you love me like this?”
Oh god, how I’d wanted him to say yes. But the gasp that ripped through him, the curl to his lip, the disgust that replaced the pity, spoke a thousand denials. He might as well have taken a scalpel to my heart.
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