by S King
We started walking in the opposite direction when Demir’s voice stopped me.
“Luminous, you need to come with me.”
“Why?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at him.
“Because…” he trailed off looking at Karina’s smartass told ya so smirk. “You need to trust me.”
I barked out a laugh, giving him a once over, “I’ll take my chances with the unknown.”
Again, Karina and I started walking, ignoring Dristan and Demir’s protests. It wasn’t until we were coming out of the woods on the opposite side of the city did Karina try speaking.
“What do you think is going on that the HG is after you?”
My head snapped around to look at her, “me?”
“As opposed to the dog down the street? Yes, you.”
“I didn’t do anything for them to be after me.”
“You know and I know the Honor Guard doesn’t come after anyone without the black courts order.”
“Obviously, but…” I trailed off as I caught sight of the notice from the black courts plastered on Silver Guard’s HQ.
I ripped the thing off reading it as quickly as I could. Sitting there on cream colored paper, scrawled in black ink was the order for mine…and Demir’s life. In bullet points below the announcement was a list of our supposed crimes, everything we had done.
“Oh my god,” I breathed unable to comprehend what I was reading.
“What?” Karina looked at me worriedly, “what is it?”
My mouth chose that moment to go dry like a desert while my heart stalled out. Demir had known about the order, so did Dristan. That’s why both men were trying to get me to go with Demir tonight.
“What?” Karina snapped before snatching the notice from my hands and mumbled to herself as she read the notice.
I braced a hand on the wall and hid in the shadows, “what else am I not being told, Karina?”
“This is bullshit,” she said tossing the notice to the ground. “What happened to the stay?”
“I was…I was gathering information to prove our—”
“Our? What do mean our?”
“Demir didn’t kill anyone form our sect, Rina.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.” Taking a deep breath, I ripped my hair free from the ponytail. “I haven’t thought that far, the only thing I know for sure is he did not kill anyone from our sect. There’s no way.”
She breathed out a heavy breath and looked around, “so what’re we going to do now?”
I shook my head, still trying to come to grips with my new reality. “No, there’s no we this time. I…have to do this on my own.”
“Bitch, you’ve lost your mind,” she stared at me and raised a brow, “now, I’m going to ask you again. What are we going to do now?”
I wiped my eyes, knowing crying wasn’t going to solve anything. “What would you do?”
She made a face and twisted her mouth, “well, you can do one of two things.”
“The options being?”
“A, you can blindly follow Demir and run with your tail tucked between your legs.”
“Or?”
“B, you could earn your Black Diamond Order,” she winced on the suggestion but offered it, nonetheless.
“Meaning?”
“Go after the judges who put the order out.” She stooped down, swiping the notice from the soggy ground and handed it to me. “Holt and Sooter.”
I had spoken to Judge Sooter only days before and there was nothing to indicate I had pissed her off so bad as to order my death. So, now the situation begged the question, what the hell happened in between then and now?
When my silence became too much, Karina tilted her head. “I hate to break it to you, sis, but you’re running out of time. So, what’re you going to do?”
With a heavy resolve and determination running through my veins, I stared down the street toward the hidden cul-de-sac where the judges of BC rested their heads for the night.
“I’m going to need you to do me a favor.”
A malicious, unforgiving smile covered my best friend’s face as she recognized my thought process.
“Tell me what I can do, and it’s done.”
§§§§§
Tonight I didn’t need Karina to help me break into a facility or a store. No, I was doing this job solo after handing down my marching orders to my best friend; I had gotten past the HG dogs that were tracking me and slipped through the enclosed sanctuary of the gated community.
I narrowed my eyes at the woman in the window and tried not to lash out in anger. Judge Sooter was busy typing away with a bottle of wine behind her laptop and a half-glass of the red stuff sitting by her hand.
She seemed like she was living her best life. Unbothered, not worried about the dangers that lay in wait for her. Nothing seemed to faze her in this moment, and that was fine by me. Little did she know I had a taste for blood, hers specifically.
I let my whip fly through the air and snap her fuse box in half. Thanks to the house being a historical structure she hadn’t been allowed to upgrade her system to an electrical service panel on the interior of her house. Probably because the work would be too much for her, considering the position she held at night time.
In a second, Judge Sooter was sitting in the dark with only the illumination of her computer screen to light the way. Her head snapped up from her computer as she looked around to see just what had made her precious dollhouse of a home fall into total darkness.
Naturally, she did what anyone else would do in her situation, she got up and looked out the window. Scanning her quiet and reserved neighborhood to see if she was the only one without power.
I smirked as I watched her narrow her eyes on the very spot I was at before looking to her ceiling and mouthing something. Apparently, she wasn’t able to see me; so, a lot of things really had changed since she was a guard member—whether it was Gold or Silver, I had yet to figure out and really didn’t care to know at the moment.
The scientists and trainers had taught their newest batch of experiments—like myself, Demir, Dristan, Svenia, Karina and so on—to stop our breathing and virtually become a statue under the cover of darkness. Unlike Sooter, I had enhanced vision at night and was able to track her every move as she disappeared further into the house.
I crossed my arms, waiting patiently for her to come out of the house to check the fuse box. Still, I didn’t move. I wasn’t going to make a move until she was back in the safety of her home, trying to find her cellphone to call for an electrician. Patience was a virtue in this line of work and funny for me, I had an overabundance of the stuff.
Sure, enough exactly three minutes later the honorable judge appeared with a flashlight in her hand and came around to the side of the house. I was only ten feet away from her and could’ve easily killed her with one strike from my whip. But I had questions for the woman examining the destroyed box and I wouldn’t be able to get my answers if she were dead. So, as I watched her grumble under her breath about one thing or another, I cut the cellphone reception in the neighborhood with the app Karina had installed on my phone a few years ago.
Sometimes it was just easier to deal with the problem at hand without having the constant thought of someone being nosy, calling the police.
Smirking on the idea of watching her curse her luck, I turned my attention back to the dead woman standing only a few feet away from me. Judge Sooter raked her hands over her hair and went back into the house several seconds later, opening the window for me to start the night’s events.
I crossed the lawn, keeping to the shadows; glancing over my shoulder as I reached the back of the house, I made sure nobody was headed out of their house to come check on their neighbor. But all was well and the occupants of the homes surrounding Judge Sooter were busy minding their own damn business. Smart on their part, I thought to myself.
Looping my whip across my body, careful to not slice up my chest with the razor wi
re embedded in the leather, I launched my body airborne and caught the bottom of the overhead balcony on the second level of the home.
Pulling my body up over the rail, I looked into the sliding door and took note of the seemingly normal layout of the room. A queen-sized bed, two nightstands, a buffet dresser with a TV sitting on its top, a tall dresser cluttered with jewelry and pictures. All in all, the room looked like any other single female’s bedroom. Clean enough to see the floor but messy enough to indicate someone’s consistent presence within the room.
But I wasn’t going in through the bedroom, not tonight. If Sooter knew the fuse box was a message from me she was going to expect me to come in through the bedroom. Not only that, but I wasn’t about to enter through the sliding door and set off the alarm. One run in with the HG was enough for one night.
I balanced my weight between my feet as I stood on the thin wrought iron rail and jumped to the top of the roof, barely missing the gutters. After hauling myself to a sitting position, I couldn’t help myself from looking around at Castlehedge.
The city was a lit with bright lights—reminding me of a small version of Reno or Vegas; the sound of cars honking, sirens going off, the constant chatter of happy drunks and in love young couples always brought a smile to my face.
If it weren’t for the circumstances, I had found myself in, I would’ve had time to feel the melancholy of not having my sister here to enjoy this moment with me. Inessa loved to sit on the roof with a case of soju and just talk for hours on end until we were so shit faced the stars seemed like they were right in our grasp.
With a deep breath, I stopped my mind from reminiscing the happy memories I had shared with my sister. Now wasn’t the time to be sorrowful or filled with regret for what I couldn’t change. I had to make one of the two people answer for the life I had been forced to live.
I stood up and took another look out over the city, before walking over to the chimney and climbing down. It had been years since I used the chimney as a method of entry, but like riding a bike, the simple act of bracing my hands and feet on the soot covered brick was like breathing.
There had been no smoke coming from the flue and luckily, I didn’t hear Sooter loading wood in the hearth. Granted, I didn’t know how long that was going to last, given the cold temperatures blanketing Castlehedge. Even the honorable judges of Onyx Elite felt the bitter cold of winter.
It took me three minutes to slither my body down the chimney and step lightly on the ashes and forgotten embers. For a second, I felt like Santa, but the make believe was just that. Make believe. If anything, I was more like Krampus and Sooter was the kid getting punished tonight in the worst way.
I had to duck in order to not knock myself out and looked around the living room. Compared to the scene from outside, the room looked like something off a Pinterest board. But I wasn’t concerned about Sooter’s interior decorating skills or the color scheme she had chosen.
Narrowing my eyes on the adjacent room, it took everything I had to not lash out at the esteemed judge. She was sitting in her dining room with her back to the wall, facing the window. Completely unbothered by her imminent death.
My steps were light as a feather and thanks to my boots, I had been able to wipe the soot off on the black mat sitting in front of the fireplace. Once Castlehedge’s finest came into the home, there wouldn’t be any trace of me or what I had done. To them, the judge simply met an unsolvable, violent end.
“Won’t you join me Luminous River?” The judge’s calm voice was like a bullhorn in the silent house.
I slowly, walked to the dining room where she was and stared at her.
She didn’t jump or make an attempt to feign surprise. Instead, she took a sip of her wine and didn’t meet my eyes.
“Are you here to execute some kind of order on me?”
“In a way.”
She smirked, glancing out the window, “you’ve come here to validate your Black Diamond Order, yes?”
“I might as well, considering you and Holt decided my fate without considering any other possibility.”
“You can thank your husband for that, Miss. River.”
I frowned, not putting the pieces together. I wasn’t married and hadn’t ever been married.
“Demir Losett, Miss. River,” she looked at me with a raised brow. “Are you unaware of the fate that has been designed for you?”
“No, I’m fully away of the fate that has been designed for me. But this isn’t about my so-called fate, is it?”
“I dare say, it is not,” she agreed and took another pull from her glass. “What is the plan, Miss. River?”
“I trusted you to have my back,” I said more to myself than to her.
It was the truth; I had made the mistake of trusting an Onyx Elite judge based off a cocky attitude and thinking I was in the good graces of all of the judges. Come to find out, everything was a lie from beginning to end. But if I were telling myself the truth, was it really a surprise? That was a big fat, fuck no.
“Trust?” She laughed under her breath and finished her wine. “Miss. River, I’m going to advise you on something I wish someone had told me a long time ago. There is nothing in this world so weak as trust. The hardest thing to earn and the easiest thing to lose.”
I shook my head, not liking her calm demeanor. “Why bother to tell me that when you were the one to play me for a fool?”
“We could go around for the rest of the night about the whys to this situation, Miss. River. The problems is, however, nothing will change.”
“Then answer me this, why did the courts show me leniency when I defended Demir? Why did I not face any punishments for the wrong I had done?”
A rueful smile kissed her lips, “because you are Silver’s angel. You’ve come a long way with leaps and bounds. In truth, we thought you to be a woman of many talents that would eliminate guard disloyalties while also unifying the guards as one.”
“What changed?”
“That, my sweet child, is something I cannot divulge.”
“Even on the brink of death you’re willing to keep your mouth shut to protect a group of people that wouldn’t do the same for you?”
She considered the question for a moment and stared at an empty spot on the table. Finally, she tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes for a second before saying.
“I have my reasons, the same as you.”
I allowed my whip to unfurl and nodded, “any final statements I can relay to the courts?”
In a hollow resolved voice, she looked out the window and said, “I hope you find the answers you’re looking for Luminous River. But more importantly,” she turned her haunted gaze to me, “I hope you find your way out of Silver, alive and happy.”
Her statement was cryptic at best and forced me to hesitate. She was telling me the same thing Demir, my father, Rasmussen and all of the others had told me. Get out while I had the chance and make sure I came out alive. Still, I took a deep breath and a step back, with a single crack shooting through the air, the leather went flying and with it so did Judge Sooter’s head.
It took a me a moment to realize I hadn’t moved in a while. Instead, I found myself standing in Judge Sooter’s dining room with a blood dripping whip in my hand and the honorable judge’s head staring at me from across the room.
One down, one to go, I thought to myself. There was no purpose in cleaning up the mess because members from the BC’s personal guard would come looking for her when court resumed.
Leaving the same way I had come in, I made quick timing with running through the backyards of the neighboring homes. Judge Sooter and Holt lived in the same, closed off neighborhood, which—in the long run—made my night easier.
Unlike his coworker, Judge Holt lived in a new home. Unfortunately, getting into his abode was going to be a little more difficult. Or so I thought.
I ducked behind a tree on the edge of the property and narrowed my eyes on the house. There were no lights on, and I c
ouldn’t see anything in the house. Even with my enhanced vision.
“Maybe he’s asleep,” I mumbled to myself.
Just then the back door slid open and Judge Holt leaned against the jam as he looked in my direction toward the tree line.
“Come in, Miss. River for some tea and a long chat.”
He didn’t wait for me to answer. Instead, he opted for making the assumption I wasn’t going to kill him when his back was turned.
However, I had an open invitation and if I had to fight my way out of an ambush. Well, at least, I was close enough to the city limits I could make it to Karina’s apartment.
When I stepped into the house, Judge Holt had started a fire, but kept the interior lights off.
“Would you like a brandy or your favorite?” He asked with his back still turned to me.
Narrowing my eyes on his head of snow-white hair, I sneered, “how about your blood on the rocks?”
The muscles in his back tensed and he stopped what he was doing for a second before sighing and nodded.
“So, this is what I think it is.”
“Your own execution. Is that what you thought?”
“Yes…and no,” he admitted, hobbling over to an armchair by the fire as he swirled whatever was in his tumbler. “If we’re being honest, which I’m assuming that is why you haven’t killed me outright.”
“Somewhat.” Keeping my answers short, I stared at him.
“I figured you would be here at some point to ask for clarification on your situation.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Right, Luminous because you really needed to play twenty questions right now.
The sun would be up soon, and the Honor Guard wasn’t going to rest as long as mine and Demir’s BDOs were still active.
“Because we thought it best for you not to know.”
My father’s words came crashing into my mind as Judge Holt’s own words sank into my senses. My parents knew, the judges knew, all of the ranking officials knew. Was it only me and Demir who didn’t know how our lives had been manipulated since we’d been designed?
“Why is unifying the guards so important?”