by Ted Dekker
“Good to see you, Neah,” Rom said. “Can we come in?”
Triphon stepped aside.
Rom registered Triphon’s nod as he stepped past, more conscious than ever of the fact that he was four inches shorter than Triphon.
Inside, he turned back to see Avra step inside and face the full brunt of Neah’s stare.
She turned from Avra to Rom. “So? What are you doing here?”
“Saving you from Triphon’s proposal,” Rom said.
Triphon closed the door. “Neah was about to accept.”
“No, I wasn’t!”
“You both look terrible,” Triphon said. “Are you ill?”
Rom was suddenly unsure what to say.
“We’re in trouble.”
“Trouble?”
He began to wonder if Avra was right, and coming here was a bad idea.
“We poisoned ourselves,” Avra blurted. “By accident.”
“What?” Neah paled. “What do you mean, poisoned yourself by accident?”
“We didn’t poison ourselves,” Rom quickly corrected. He glanced at Avra. “We have this vial that was passed to me. This vial of ancient blood. It apparently has some kind of effect.”
“Like a drug?”
“Maybe. Yes. Kind of like that.”
“Yes,” Avra said.
“Idiots,” Neah said.
Rom looked from Triphon to Neah. “We need help.”
Neah said, “Let me get this clear: You found some old blood. You took it. It poisoned or drugged you. And you come here, to my apartment? What kind of friends are you?”
“We can’t go home,” Rom said.
“What do you mean, you can’t go home?”
Rom weighed how much to say. “There are some people after this blood. Because of its properties, I think. It isn’t safe for us to go home.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Neah said. “You should have gone to compliance immediately.”
“We can’t,” Avra said.
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
Triphon followed the verbal volley, one eyebrow cocked.
Neah stared at her. “What aren’t you telling us?”
“Listen,” Avra said, stepping between them to take Neah by the arm. “The point is, we came across something that we’re not sure what to do with, and we’re not sure what it’s done to us. But we think it’s something bad, that it might be poison—”
“It’s not poison.” Rom shot Avra a look, stepping up. “If it were poison, we’d be dead, instead of going through this…these feelings. And I wouldn’t feel the way I do about…people…with this…attraction.”
That stalled them all. Or Triphon, at least.
“Make sense!” Neah said.
“If these feelings are any indication, then it could very well be poison,” Avra said, speaking directly to Rom. Why was she countermanding him?
“Attraction?” Triphon said, glancing between them. “What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s this…You know.” Rom looked at this bull of a man who had circumvented custom to present a contract for marriage directly to Neah. Why? It wasn’t out of desire, because as far as Rom knew no one on earth felt true desire for another human being.
No one but he and Avra now.
Rom searched for a way to sound compelling. He took a step toward the taller man. Triphon was more likely than Neah to be an advocate. “Attraction. Desire. Yearning, wanting to be with someone not out of fear of loss but for the fulfillment of something more. It’s a magical thing, and now Avra and I have it.”
Triphon frowned. “Is that so?”
“The things you’re talking about don’t exist,” Neah said. “Not anymore. Avra’s right, you’re both ill. You should go to a wellness center.” Neah turned to Triphon. “You should escort them there on your way home.”
“We can’t,” Rom said, taking a breath. “We’ve gone against Order.”
“What do you mean, you’ve gone against Order? Then you need to report yourselves!”
Avra gave him a pointed look as though to say, See? I told you!
“About this attraction,” Triphon said. “You mean like a sexual urge?”
Rom paused. Sex was an acknowledged and common urge, like the urge to eat or drink. But now as he thought about it, with Avra standing nearby, the very notion of sex seemed vastly different to him. No longer a mere need to procreate or to find release, it seemed like something far deeper.
“Yes,” he said, drawing a slow breath. “Like hunger or thirst. But for the companionship of another, not simply to satisfy the body.”
“Maybe Neah should try some,” Triphon said.
Rom continued before she could object. “But it’s more than that. I’m telling you, we’ve stumbled onto something that has awakened our fundamental emotions.” He glanced at Avra, who was watching him intently. “Wonder, beauty, love.”
“Impossible,” Neah said.
Rom ignored her, eyes still on Avra. “There’s anxiety and worry, but we already had the better part of that in fear. If I’m right, we’re something more than we were before.”
“That’s absurd,” Neah said. “You’re talking about something archaic. As far behind us as living in caves.”
“No. It’s alive. In us.”
“That’s sacrilege.”
He could feel his heart accelerate. “If this new blood rushing through my veins is sacrilege, then something is wrong with our understanding of that word!”
“You’re against the Order!” Neah cried, stabbing her finger at Rom. “You need to turn yourselves in. And if you don’t, then Triphon and I will!”
Despite the steeliness of Neah’s gray gaze, Rom knew her sharpness came from fear. She held a good job in the Citadel arranging itineraries for the royals. She had much to lose in not upholding the Honor Code.
“About this magic potion,” Triphon said. “Let’s see it.”
Rom glanced at Avra’s coat. Triphon followed his gaze.
Avra looked between them both, cornered.
Rom nodded.
“I’m not going to take part in this,” Neah said. “I won’t be implicated by your actions!”
“Then don’t look,” Triphon said.
Avra handed the box to Rom, who took it to the table and set it down. He opened the clasp and removed the vellum-wrapped vial. Triphon pressed close behind, so that Rom could practically feel the bulk of him peering over his shoulder.
Neah edged closer to Avra, at his side. Now all four of them looked down at this bundle that had cost the old man and both Rom’s parents their lives.
The memories mushroomed in his head, and with it a bubbling sorrow that filled Rom’s chest. He lowered the vial, unable to hold back the sob that erupted from his throat. But he managed to swallow the second before raw emotion overtook him.
“What’s this?” Triphon asked. “You’re weeping?”
“He’s overcome with fear,” Neah said. “He knows this is wrong. Look at him. He’s lost his mind.”
“Leave him alone,” Avra snapped, tears in her eyes. “He’s just lost his mother to this thing. He’s feeling sorrow, and if you weren’t asleep yourselves you’d cry, too!”
“Lost his mother?” Neah said. “She’s thrown you out?”
“Sorrow,” Triphon said, as though it were a foreign word.
“No, she was killed,” Avra said.
The words hung between them.
“That’s impossible. Who would do such a thing?”
“The Citadel Guard,” Rom said. Now they had condemned themselves for sure.
“That can’t be right,” Triphon said.
Neah looked ill. “Whatever that is, get it out of my house.”
“Listen to me,” Rom snapped, turning on both of them. “Ask yourselves why the Citadel Guard would kill an old man and my mother for a single vial of old blood.”
Triphon blinked. “Old man?”
Rom held up a hand, keeping the wrapped vi
al close to his chest. He stepped away from them. “Listen, I’ll tell you everything from the beginning. But you have to promise to listen until I’m finished. Hear me out.”
New emotions reverberated in his voice. The love of his mother, of Avra, of his lost father, the beauty of life. He told them everything, beginning with the old man in the alley, ending with Avra’s drinking of the blood in the storeroom of the basilica. Neah’s jaw grew more fixed by the moment, but Triphon’s eyes drifted again and again to the wrapped bundle in Rom’s hand.
“I’ve never felt so…alive,” he said, summing it up the best that he could.
“Let’s see it,” Triphon said.
Rom walked back to the table, unwrapped the vial, and set it down. He spread the vellum and pointed out the verse at the top. It was the only intelligible writing on a landscape of seemingly random characters. But Triphon’s attention was on the vial. He plucked it from the table, held it up, and squinted at it. “You drank this?”
Rom nodded.
“You, too?” Triphon said to Avra.
“Yes, me, too.”
“It was the stupidest thing either of you have ever done,” Neah said. She stormed to the table and snatched up the vellum. “This clearly belongs to the Citadel. I’ll return it myself if I have to.”
“Neah!” Avra cried. “You have no idea what it is and what we’ve been through. No idea!”
“You’re a fool. Do you know what you’re risking?”
Neah continued berating Avra, but Rom’s attention was on Triphon, who already had his fingers on the metal cap.
Triphon opened the top, sniffed once, then brought the glass rim carefully to his lips and tipped the vial back.
Rom did nothing to stop him.
Neah’s face went white. “Triphon!”
Triphon lowered the vial. His single gulp had taken the blood down past the next measure—a fact Rom registered with some alarm. There had been only enough for five, but now fewer than two measures remained.
“Well, I can tell you it tastes terrible,” Triphon said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and resealing the vial.
“Have you gone mad? Now I’ll have to report you as well!”
Triphon shoved the vial back at Rom. “I’m doing my duty as one of the guard.”
“What duty? You’re in training.”
“To see if there’s a breath of truth to anything these two—”
He grunted and staggered backward, doubled over as though punched in the stomach—and then fell into an end table, knocking a lamp and a ceramic bowl to the floor with a crash.
Rom bounded forward and tried to catch him before he landed on the ceramic shards, but Triphon managed to recover enough to lurch toward the kitchen.
“Some—water—”
He collapsed under the archway between the two rooms.
For a moment they all stared at him, unmoving.
“You’ve killed him!” Neah cried.
“No—”
“You’ve lost your minds and killed Triphon!”
Neah spun and ran for the door, vellum flapping in her hand.
“Rom!” Avra shouted.
With a glance back at Triphon’s unmoving form, Rom thrust the vial at Avra and took off after Neah, out the door and down the stairs.
He could hear Avra’s feet racing behind him. Neah’s escape would be their undoing.
It was daylight. If Neah got out into the apartment complex’s communal yard, there would be no way to stop her without witnesses. All the apartments on this side of the building looked out on that same yard. Compliance would be on them in minutes.
He chased her, feet firing down the stairs like pistons. She was nearly three-quarters of the way down, five steps ahead of him, when he launched himself past her to the landing below. He whirled just as she crashed into him.
They tumbled to the ground floor in a tangle. The vellum came free from Neah’s hand and flew toward the gate on a stiff breeze.
Avra tore down the stairs and rushed past them both, nearly tripping over Rom’s foot as she ran for the vellum. She snatched it up before the wind could blow under the gate and into the yard.
“Get off!” Neah screeched. “Get—”
Rom clamped a hand over her mouth and rolled over so that he could get his feet under him. But she was twisting and flailing so hard that he couldn’t, screaming into his hand.
Avra strode back. “You’re going to have to knock her out,” she said.
“I can’t do that!”
Neah kneed him in the groin.
Killing her suddenly became a possibility.
Rom fell on top of her, bearing her to the concrete on her back this time. When he had recovered, he jerked her upright. Avra grabbed her by the ankles.
Panting with exertion, they hauled her up the stairs and back into her apartment. Avra closed and locked the door. Triphon’s long form remained unmoving in the kitchen entryway.
Neah began to twist and jerk with renewed urgency.
“We’ll have to tie her up.”
“You realize that you have to give her the blood now.”
Rom hadn’t thought that far ahead, but he saw her reasoning. It would be the only way to persuade her to help, if only for her self-interest. They certainly couldn’t leave her bound in her closet to starve to death.
Neah cried her objections into his hand.
“Hurry.”
Avra vanished into the kitchen with the vial of blood in hand.
Rom dragged Neah to the couch and pulled her down, back to him, on top of him. He swung a leg up, tried to capture both of hers, but only managed to trap one. He jerked his hand away just as she tried to bite him.
“Avra!”
“Hold on—”
“A little help?”
Neah screamed.
“And maybe a sock or two—the neighbors are going to hear!” He clamped his hand back down on her mouth.
Avra emerged from the kitchen with a cup and a funnel. She set the cup down on the sofa table and pushed the end of the funnel through his fingers. After a few tries and another scream from Neah, Avra got it into her mouth.
“Tip her head back more. Hurry.”
He did, the narrow end of the funnel firmly between two of his fingers. He could feel her biting down on it, trying to push it out with her tongue, but his fingers held it in place. Avra retrieved the measuring cup, filled halfway with a lighter red fluid.
“I mixed it with honey water,” Avra said.
She climbed onto the kicking Neah, dropped a knee in the middle of her chest, pinched her nose, and poured a small amount of the fluid into the funnel. Neah choked and sputtered. Avra leaned back a little and waited as some of the fluid spewed back up out of the funnel. The rest disappeared into Neah’s mouth. She watched her throat work, and then poured the rest of it in.
Neah coughed, whimpered once, and started to settle. When all the fluid had drained from the funnel, Avra pulled it out.
“I’m sorry, Neah. It’ll make sense, I promise.”
They waited until Neah stiffened with a cry and finally went still.
“She’s out?” Rom asked.
Avra climbed off. “She’s out.”
A few seconds later they stood over Neah’s limp form. She was breathing more rapidly than Triphon on the floor behind them, but within a few seconds, her quick pants began to subside.
“This isn’t quite how I thought this would go,” Rom admitted.
Neah’s braid had come nearly all the way loose. Pale strands of her hair were strewn across her face. Her teeth and the inside of her lips were lined in macabre red.
He’d never thought of Neah—hard-nosed and as Ordered as they came—as pretty before, but in that moment he realized that she was quite beautiful. In the silence of Neah’s apartment, he found himself wanting to lift her hand, to turn it over and marvel at the crook of her wrist.
A hand lit on hers, but it wasn’t his. Avra stroked the back of Nea
h’s hand, traced the line of the other woman’s fingers.
“I feel like my heart’s breaking for her. I don’t know why. Will she forgive us, do you think, for what we’ve done?”
“We’ll find out, I suppose,” he said.
He glanced around her apartment, really seeing it for the first time. It was all perfectly organized, from the placement of the pictures on her walls to the neat stack of books on her coffee table. Every color, every texture in her home spoke of calm. There were no bright tones, no alarming hues, no harsh surfaces. Everything in this apartment had been chosen with one specific purpose: to soothe one who lived rigidly within the confines of Order.
Order and fear.
“Now what?” Avra whispered.
He straightened. The room was draped in uncanny quiet.
“We wait.”
He reached out for her hand, led her away from the sleeping Neah, past the sprawling form of Triphon, and into the kitchen.
“What if Neah’s right, Rom? That all of this is criminal. How do we know if we’re doing the right thing?”
Something from his past clicked into place.
He said, in a low voice, “My father said something to me when I asked him a similar question once.”
“What was it?”
“He said that what we call love is the shadow of something lost.”
“How could he have known that?”
“Because he was a keeper. What the old man said was true. And what my father said about love is true. I didn’t know then, but I know now. I don’t know what the right thing is, but I do know that we’re closer to the truth than we were before.”
He thought if he stared into her dark eyes long enough, he might see through to her thoughts. That he might know them without asking. He was trying to search those depths when she stepped into him, sliding a hand behind his neck.
He wasn’t aware of his bending toward her, only that her breath was warm against his mouth. That her lips, when he kissed her, were immeasurably soft.
He wanted to taste her. To inhale her. The thought of kissing her—an act born of tenderness in the storeroom—sprang to full-fledged need. How had he never done this before today, how had it never occurred to him in all those years and days together?
He let go of her hand and slid both arms around her, kissing her deeply. She was sweet and salty and wet. Her small fingers tightened in the hair against his nape.