by W. J. May
Something in the words jogged Rae’s memory, and she looked up in horror.
“Or…they were disappeared.”
Julian’s eyes locked with hers and both of them grew suddenly still.
They had both been there that night in Texas, when their new friend Camille’s parents had explained why it was they had kept her on the run. People with tatùs that exceeded a certain limit on the Privy Council’s ‘risk-o-meter’ often vanished and were never heard from again. It was the reason they had taken their daughter to start a new life off the grid. It was the same reason that every other person they’d met was on the run from the Privy Council.
Rae thought back to the words of her father.
“…I would ask you to take a closer look at the workings of the high and mighty Privy Council. They were not always as spotless and forthcoming as they would have people think. You need proof? Just ask Pete and Kathy…”
He knew she would find this. He knew she would go to see their file, only to end up finding all the other Privy Council cold cases… All the other people who vanished without a trace. She sucked in a sharp breath, horrified at the realization.
“You can’t think…” Julian looked a little sick. “You can’t actually think the Council had a hand in this.”
“The Council had me arrested. The Council hid for years behind the ‘certainty’ that a man they needed to believe was dead wasn’t wreaking havoc and infiltrating their organization. The Council dictated impossible laws about how we can live, and who we can love…and put countless families on the run because the parents wanted to protect their children.” She took a slow, deep breath to steady herself. “Yeah, Julian. I can believe the Council is capable of pretty much anything.”
Julian was shaking his head, his mind rebelling against the idea. Unlike Rae, he had grown up in the tatù society. Until his missing father had returned, they had been his only anchor of support. The possibility that their leading body, the Privy Council, could be no better than their enemies… He couldn’t believe it to be so. He wouldn’t.
“Rae, please,” he pleaded softly, “think about what you’re saying. I mean…we work for these people. They basically raised us. You really think they could—”
She took his hand again, pressing her finger into each of the names. “Think about it, Jules. Churches have killed in the name of salvation, kingdoms have destroyed in the name of freedom or more land. What makes you think the Privy Council didn’t get greedy at one point? Look what everyone is doing to the earth. Shouldn’t it be treated as sacred?” She wanted to cry. “It makes sense. What about that book of ink in the Guilder library? It lists every tatù that’s ever been born in order of category, right? Some are common, some are rare; it goes up in levels, right?”
He nodded reluctantly and tried to pull his hand away, but she wouldn’t let go.
“Julian, in all your years here have you ever seen one of the rare tatùs walking around?” Besides me? she added silently, wondering if the only reason she was still here was because of her father.
It was like a light went out inside of Julian. His shoulders fell and his body flinched like he was expecting to get hit. It was true. She’d just convinced him.
But then, just as suddenly, a light went on as well.
He looked up at her with rigid intensity, staring deep into her eyes. “Just you.”
As obvious as it was, it was a piece she hadn’t quite put together yet, and hearing it said aloud sent chills careening up and down her arms. What did that mean? Were her days here numbered as well? But just as she considered it, she realized that it also wasn’t entirely true.
“And Ellie,” she added, thinking of her young friend.
The names strung together as easily as could be, bringing along with them a natural truth.
Julian’s voice was as low and fractured as she’d ever heard it. “You think the Council is imprisoning hybrids.” He didn’t say it as a question. They knew by now it was a fact. “To kill them or to…to experiment on them?”
They both thought back to Cromfield’s dungeon, and automatic tears filled their eyes.
“What does it matter?” Rae answered. Her voice was cold, not an ounce of emotion left to give it any color. “Who the hell is going to know…if they’ve simply disappeared?” She suddenly wanted to disappear as well.
* * *
Rae went out walking alone that night. She had been grateful for Julian’s company at the time, but after coming to terms with what had happened both of them needed to be alone. He went back to his house to pick up Angel for a long drive, and Rae wandered the darkened London streets.
The Privy Council imprisoned hybrids. Vanished them because they were too dangerous to control.
She turned the words over and over again in her head, trying to accustom herself to the horrifying reality. Strangely enough, it wasn’t the words themselves that were hard to believe. It was the fact that it had been happening right under her nose this whole time.
And right in front of who else? She couldn’t help but ask the question.
Did Jennifer know? Lanford? Did Dean Wardell know what was going on? Did Rogers or Callam—her old case commanders? Did Carter know what the Council had done? Was possibly still doing?
She forced herself to answer no to these last two questions. Carter could not have known what was happening; she refused to believe he could. She also refused to believe it was possible that these sort of mass abductions were still going on.
With the school sitting on top of the Council rooms? Guilder students walking around on the grass right above the holding cells? It was too much. Someone would have seen something, would have reported something. Someone would have had a friend go missing, and then the cat would be out of the bag.
No, this had to have happened years ago, in the dead of night. Most likely during the Simon Kerrigan Scandal, she realized with an ironic start. When someone else was already front page, ready to take all the blame…
She had wandered in a wide circle, around the river and back to her home. She was just passing the garden now, breathing in the beautiful orchids as she walked past Julian and Devon’s new house. She was halfway past it and heading back to her apartment, when she noticed the strange town car pulling to a stop in front of their driveway.
Acting on instinct, she ducked quickly behind a clump of bushes and watched with narrowed eyes. The driver’s door opened, and she held her breath. But out stepped the last man in the world she expected to see.
Wasn’t that…wasn’t that the old man they’d met in San Francisco? The chemist from Oxford?
Rae watched in amazement as he darted around the back of the car and pulled open the front passenger door. What she saw next amazed her even more.
Devon tried once to step out onto the curb, but gave up almost immediately and fell back against his seat. It wasn’t until the elderly professor took his arm that he was able to manage it, leaning heavily on the old man all the while. The two of them hobbled up the front steps, at which point the man turned to Devon and began speaking in an urgent undertone. Even using the fox tatù, Rae was unable to make out what they were saying. But whatever it was, Devon wasn’t having it. He simply raised a shaky hand, and shook his head. He thanked the man kindly for whatever it was that had happened, and turned to the door. After fumbling around in the lock for a few seconds he finally got his key to work, and disappeared inside. The old man stared after him for a long while, before eventually returning to his car and driving off into the night.
Rae couldn’t think. She could only react.
Devon was inside that house alone. And he was hurting.
In a flash of speed, she bolted up the front steps, throwing open and front door and slamming it shut again behind her. “Devon?” she called as she paced hurriedly through the house, searching for him. “Devon, where are you?”
She found him at the base of the stairs. His back was to her with one hand gripping the banister, but he had frozen in
place when he heard her voice.
“Listen—enough games, okay? You need to tell me what the hell is going—”
Then he collapsed.
“DEVON?!”
All her anger vanished in a heartbeat as she raced over to catch him before he could hit the ground. As she turned him gently over onto her lap, she sucked in a quick breath of air. He looked terrible. His tan skin was a sickly ashen color, his legs and arms twitched with periodic spasms, and there were dark sinister-looking bruises beneath his red-rimmed eyes.
“Rae?” His eyes flitted open and he looked incredibly confused to see her there. “What are you…what you doing here?”
“What are you doing?!” she shot back, her voice shrill with panic. “Why the hell are you on the ground—what happened?!” Her heart raced, her body flipping through tatùs, trying to find one to fix the problem that she felt helpless to stop.
He tried to push up onto his arms, without any luck. “Just go. I’m fine.”
“Bullshit you’re fine! You just collapsed.”
Holding him steady with one hand, she pulled out her phone with the other and began pressing buttons at the speed of light. The fact that she could restrain him with one hand absolutely terrified her, and she dialed even faster.
“Don’t,” he breathed, still trying to get up, “don’t call anyone. Please.”
She ignored him and held it up to her ear. There was flood of background noise as the line clicked open, and then a young woman’s voice answered cheerfully on the other end. “Hello?”
“Alicia?”
“Rae?” she sounded surprised. “Hey! Haven’t heard from you in a while; what’s going on? Is everything okay?”
Rae’s eyes travelled over Devon, and her face paled. “No, everything’s not okay. I’m going to text you an address. Can you come over here, please? It’s an emergency.”
There was a brief pause.
“I’ll be right there.”
The line went dead.
One of the good things about growing up in a tightknit group of tatùs, isolated from the rest of the world, was that it made you family. When someone asked you to come—you came.
“It’s okay, honey,” she murmured, stroking a hand across Devon’s scalp, “Alicia’s on her way. The hospital is only a few minutes from here and…” She trailed off, watching him in horror.
He had flinched away from her touch, rubbing his temples like he was on some kind of sensory overload. She tried again to soothe him, but he recoiled even further.
“Please, don’t touch me,” he groaned, looking at her like she was the worst thing that could have possibly walked through his door. “Just—” she raised her hand again, and he slapped it out of the air, “get away from me!”
She dropped her arms to her sides, feeling as though he’d just hit her with his car. Still cringing on the ground, Devon looked up in horror.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he gasped, clutching his hair in fists and shaking like a leaf in the wind. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—.” He fell back with a groan, squeezing his eyes shut; curling up so his knees were pressed against his forehead.
Rae had no idea what to do. Over the years she’d seen him hurt. She’d seen him damaged. Hell, she’d seen him almost dying. But she’d always known what had caused it. She’d always known, in theory, how to fix it. This was something else entirely.
As tentatively as possible and instinctively taking care to avoid his skin, she picked him up and half-carried him to the sofa. She was just helping him lie down when there was a knock on the door and Alicia rushed inside.
“Good thing you called when you did,” she exclaimed, taking off her jacket and setting her bag down on the floor. “I was out at a restaurant just around the corner—”
She stopped cold when she saw Devon, and her face grew abruptly grave. “What happened?”
Devon leaned back against the cushions, unable to speak, and Rae simply shook her head with tears in her eyes. “I don’t know!” she cried. “He won’t tell me!”
For a split second all was still.
Then, like flipping a switch, Alicia turned into ‘doctor mode.’
Rae took a step back and watched with the only flicker of hope she’d felt since seeing Julian’s hands a few hours before. Aside from Ellie’s hybridism and Julian’s unprecedented clairvoyance, Alicia’s was the only tatù she had been unable to master. She suspected it was due to the complex nature of the ink. Alicia was a diagnostician. In fact, she was the best diagnostician in the world. There was no one on the planet Rae would rather have looking at Devon right now.
Already she had sunk to her knees in front of the sofa, and was running her hands gently up and down his body. Rae watched in terror as her lovely face clouded. “What is it?” she asked pre-emptively. “What’s wrong?”
Even Devon was staring up fearfully, waiting for Alicia’s response.
“It’s…everything,” she murmured. “Your whole body… it’s in some kind of shock.” Her face tilted to the side as her brow furrowed in concentration. “I’m not sure quite what to—”
All at once, she jumped back like something had startled her. Her head snapped up and she stared at Devon in amazement. Devon on the other hand stared back without surprise… almost as if he had been waiting for it to happen. Almost as if he had planned it.
For a second, they were lost in their own private communication. Then Alicia pushed slowly to her feet. As Rae looked on in wonder, Alicia glanced between the two of them and shook her head.
“This is…I’m going to leave this to the two of you.”
She’d already put on her coat and picked up her bag, when Rae snapped back into action.
“What?!” she cried, grabbing Alicia by the arm and steering her back to Devon. “What’re you talking about? He’s sick, Aly! Look at him! There’s something—”
“I told you already,” she answered quietly, reclaiming her arm, “he’s in shock. I don’t know what caused it, but I do know it’s no longer life-threatening. He needs to rest.” She moved back towards the door, but squeezed Rae’s hand on her way out. “Rae—I can’t stay here for this.”
Then she was gone.
Rae and Devon stared at each other for a brief moment after the door closed.
Then there was an explosion.
“What the HELL is going on here?!” Rae shouted, towering over the couch.
He pushed himself up as best he could, matching her in volume and rage. “You don’t have a right to know. Just drop it!”
“Yes, I do!” she cried, eyes welling up with tears. “Damn it Devon! You’re my best friend in the whole world. I love you. I need you! You have to tell me what happened—”
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” he interrupted. “I’ll be fine. Just get out of here. I need to sleep.”
It was the strangest thing. She sensed that he didn’t want to hurt her—that it was literally killing him to say these things—but yet, here he was doing it anyway; causing just enough damage that she would be offended and leave. Well, she wasn’t one to be shaken off so easily.
“Devon, please. I just want to help—”
“WE’RE BROKEN UP!” he shouted, raising himself up on his elbows and staring her down. “We don’t kiss under beds anymore; we don’t hold hands. You CHEATED on me! We’re not together anymore and it’s YOUR FAULT!”
A sob shook through her body as a dozen tears spilled over her face. Without thinking about it, she reached out and took his hand. But as soon as she touched him, he wheeled back in pain.
“Don’t—” he began, but something distracted him.
They both looked down at her hand. Then down at his.
There was a huge red mark where her fingers had been just seconds before. Like she had burned him. Her breath caught in her throat, and when she spoke her voice was rough and low. “Devon…what did you do?”
He was shaking. All over, he was shuddering. But when he spoke, he had never been so
sure.
“Rae…get the hell out of my house.”
Chapter 13
Rae ran out of Devon’s house like a bat out of hell.
She didn’t bother to hide her speed from any late-night voyeurs who might be watching. She didn’t do a thing to stop the constant stream of tears either, nor did she even bother to take the time to stop and think. By all accounts, she might have continued running for hours if a familiar humming in her skin hadn’t stopped her dead in her tracks.
She broke out of the run and came to a standstill so abrupt that the path ahead of her was showered with a spray of dirt and broken bits of stone. Her sharp breath echoed in the still night and she held her hands out in front of her.
It was Devon’s tatù. Her eyes narrowed as she suddenly realized what was throwing her off her game. It was Devon’s tatù and she couldn’t stand to be using it a second longer.
Without stopping to think, she switched to something else. Anything else. Anything that wasn’t a part of her vengeful ex-boyfriend.
Her brow furrowed as a rather unfamiliar feeling floating to the surface. It was something she recognized, yes, but not something she was in any way accustomed to.
Julian.
His name popped into her head as she simultaneously identified his tatù. She supposed it made sense that she would have slipped into his, as ill-equipped as she was. In times like this, her body instinctively chose the ink that would most serve to protect her.
And right now, she couldn’t think of anything she needed more.
She whipped out her phone and was about to the press speed dial, when she suddenly paused. How could she answer his questions when she had no idea what was going on? How could she even string together a coherent sentence right now? A flashback of Devon’s furious screams echoed through her head, and she shuddered.
There was no way in heaven or hell she would leave him alone in this. Even now. Even after how many times he’d told her to leave.
But there was no way she was steady enough to handle it either.