She just wasn’t very relatable. Her eggs were subpar. And Maria and Jackson Ryan weren’t the type who’d ever planned to have children. After fifteen years of Claire’s presence, they were still simply very nice people who had a great deal of trouble actively remembering that once upon a time, her mother had given birth.
“You have to get back out there, Claire.”
Claire heard something in her mother’s voice that went beyond the words. “You’re leaving again, aren’t you?” she asked.
“No. Of course not. We’ve probably been gone too much.”
Rationally, her mother knew this.
Emotionally, though, Claire had deep and abiding suspicions that her parents couldn’t quite put their finger on why it was they were supposed to stay.
And no matter how this conversation ended, no matter what she said, Claire knew that she wouldn’t be able to give them a reason.
“I guess I’ll go swimming.”
If her mother noticed the low and broken tone in Claire’s voice, she certainly didn’t give any verbal indication of it. “I think that’s a very good idea.”
This is probably the closest I’ll ever come to making her happy, Claire thought. And nearly getting myself killed by what she’s sure is my imaginary boyfriend actually made her frown.
Sometimes, trying to make people see her felt like attempting to dent solid steel by kicking it with her bare foot. At the end of the day, the steel was steel, and her toes were broken or bruised. Flushed down the drain, like unwanted eggs.
“I’ll go put on my bathing suit.”
And just like that, Claire was back to routine. The house may as well have been empty. She may as well have been alone. And if she got picked off on the way to the pool, if she wasn’t crazy, and the police and her parents and everyone who counted were wrong about everything …
What did it really matter?
Situation: What would happen if an assassin came to kill you—and you let him?
Claire picked up her bathing suit—the white one that she’d left on the floor for the past three days, a constant reminder of what had happened—and walked to the bathroom with it crushed in one hand.
I guess my routine has changed, she thought. Before, she’d always gotten dressed in her room.
Tears sprang to Claire’s eyes, and she fought them. Given her current situation—her parents, the police, the boy who wanted to kill her—it was ridiculous to break down just because she was changing clothes in the bathroom.
She squeezed her eyelids tightly together, but it didn’t help. Tears trickled out the sides, and she bit down on the inside of her lips, trying to keep the rest of the downpour in.
Someone tried to kill me, and I’m going swimming. I’m going swimming, because it doesn’t matter. I’m going swimming, because I don’t matter. I’m going swimming, because that’s what Claires do. We swim and we daydream and we read and we wait for someone to care, and they never, ever, ever do.
Her teeth lost their grip on her lips, and once freed, her lips trembled. Bathing suit still in hand, Claire slammed her fist onto the bathroom counter. And then she slammed it down again. And again.
She tried so hard not to get upset. She tried so hard to find the fun, to be happy, to be sweet. To not ask for things. To not make a nuisance of herself. She tried so hard to build her own little world and love it and not mind so much that the rest of the world left hers alone.
Does your daughter have an overactive imagination?
Claire glared at the mirror, the policeman’s question echoing in her mind. “Yes. Yes, she does. She has to. Don’t you understand that? She has—I have to!”
This was why Claire didn’t wallow for more than two minutes a year. It was so much lonelier this way. So much harder to believe that it would ever change.
Somewhere out there, there’s a boy. He looked at me. He saw me. And sooner or later, he’s going to kill me.
Mechanically, Claire began undressing, her body still shaking with the whirlwind of emotions she spent her life holding back.
She put on her swimsuit.
She reached down and did the clasp.
And then, tears still streaming down her face, she put on her oversized sunglasses, layered a worn yellow sundress over her swimsuit, and walked down the hallway and out the front door without telling either of her parents good-bye.
She’s coming out her front door. She’s closing it behind her. She’s walking down the sidewalk. She’s turning away from the unmarked van.
Nix catalogued Claire’s movements in simple, mechanical terms, but even from nearly a block away, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. The way she moved, her weight on the tips of her toes, like she was continually trying to make herself just a little bit taller. The slight slouch in her shoulders that rendered that effort useless. The rhythm of her steps, the color of her skin.
Even knowing that an entire team of Sensors was in the vicinity, Nix couldn’t bring himself to look at anything else. He told himself that it was vigilance, that he was a fox and she was a rabbit, and like any good hunter, he was tracking her every move.
But the truth was, she was breathtaking.
He could almost understand why the universe had chosen her to be the type of person who could command love with a snap of her fingers.
She’s walking toward me. Her footsteps are erratic, like she can’t decide whether to walk or run. I wonder if she knows I’m here. I wonder if she knows I’m watching.
I wonder if she knows she’s dead.
He decided not to wait for her to come to him. Slipping out of the bushes, Nix faded and walked toward her. She was wearing sunglasses, hiding her soulless eyes from the world, but he could still see them.
He could see everything, all of her, and he drank it in like a drug.
His heart began beating faster—
Less than shadow, less than air. That’s what you have to be to kill my Claire.
He flicked his wrist, and the needle appeared in his hand. His was a specially made poison—untraceable, invisible, unreal.
Just. Like. Him.
She was within ten steps of him now. He picked up his pace, his arm ready, his fingers shaking with anticipation.
And then she did it again. She whipped her head up like she’d been electrocuted, and she looked directly at him. Her mouth dropped open in a little O, her body trembled, and then she did the most amazing thing.
She picked up her pace.
And then they were running at each other, closing the distance between their bodies in a heartbeat. But his arm, the one holding the needle, wouldn’t move, so he did the only thing he could think of to do.
Instead of slipping poison into her veins when she came within range, he ducked his head and just kept on running—straight toward her. Faded, he should have been able to pass through her body as easily as the door to his room, but he knew that he wouldn’t.
Couldn’t.
You have no energy. You can’t affect anyone. Faded, you can’t even touch them.
In a fit of impossibility, their bodies collided. Nix’s target went flying through the air and onto the grass, her sunglasses falling from her face. In an instant, he was on top of her.
So much for his plan to take her by surprise.
Down the street, the unmarked van started its engine, and Nix knew that he had to move fast. The Sensors probably couldn’t see him through the fade, but chances were good that they had a lock on her. And if they were moving, that meant that they were coming to take her away.
“You’re mine,” Nix said fiercely. “I’m the one who kills you.”
His skin hummed every place that their bodies touched, like a tuning fork, adjusting to the perfect pitch.
Null.
She was doing this to him on purpose. To make him weak. Because she could.
“Who are you? Why are you doing this?”
Her questions seemed so human, but he couldn’t let himself forget, even for a second, that sh
e was a monster.
A monster who said she wanted to know who he was.
“Nobody,” Nix whispered. “I’m Nobody.”
For the first time in his life, that felt like a lie. He only had one thing going for him, and she was taking it away.
“You’re nobody,” the girl beneath him repeated. “Yeah, right.” And then she started laughing hysterically.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He was supposed to kill her. He was going to kill her, and she was laughing at him.
Nix raised his hand, his fury propelling the motion, and that was the exact moment that he noticed the redness of her face, the tear tracks on her cheeks. It should have made her ugly, and anything that took away from her lethal beauty should have made her easier to kill.
But it didn’t. Didn’t make her ugly. Didn’t allow his needle arm to inch even slightly closer to her veins.
She’d been crying.
Before he’d caught her, before she’d known that she was as good as dead, she’d cried long and hard enough to leave marks.
But Nulls don’t have feelings. Not like that. They only cry for show.
His hands were drawn away from hers to his own arms and his own scars, and she scrambled away from him and to her feet.
She’s not going to trick me again, he thought, but he couldn’t make himself give chase—not until he saw her stumble backward into the street.
Not until he saw the unmarked van accelerate.
“No!”
Claire jumped at the sound of his voice, back onto the sidewalk, and the van swerved to hit her. They must have been aiming for a clean hit, but they miscalculated, and instead, the van clipped her in the side and sent her flying.
Nix was by her side in an instant. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and he knelt next to her. The Sensors had lost control of the car after it hit her, but it wouldn’t take them long to recover, and then they would be here. They would finish what they had started.
No.
He couldn’t let them kill her. That was his job. They’d almost taken it from him, and it was his.
She was his.
And if he wanted to kill her, if he wanted to be the one who saw through the charade she presented to the world, tears and all—
—looked so real, they looked so real. She’s hurting. She’s beautiful, and she’s hurting—
He had to get her out of here. He had to get her away from the Sensors. Because if he wanted to kill her—and he did, truly—he’d have to save her first.
Less than shadow, less than air. Worthless. Empty. Void.
Nix covered her body with his. He lifted her up and projected his own nothingness outward, a strange warmth filling his body as his fade covered her. And then, with the Null in his arms, he walked straight past the Sensors and disappeared.
5
Claire was about ninety percent sure that she was asleep. An abandoned road stretched out on all sides of her. She was walking, but the dirt and gravel didn’t crunch under her bare feet. It felt like she was floating, walking just above the ground instead of on it.
She hurt.
Wasn’t I wearing shoes before?
Before. Before. Before.
The word seemed to echo all around her, its song interweaving with the eerie silence in a way that made Claire shiver.
There’s something I’m supposed to remember. From before.
But she couldn’t make her brain leave the abandoned road. She couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there. And she couldn’t get rid of that disconcerting ten percent chance that this wasn’t a dream.
I hurt. Things aren’t supposed to hurt in dreams.
She looked down at her side, expecting to see bruises or blood, but all she saw was blackness. Empty space where her torso and legs should have been. This, Claire knew objectively, should have been upsetting. But it wasn’t.
Before. Before. Before. I’m supposed to remember what happened before.
She could remember kindergarten. She could remember the lunch box she’d picked out at Walmart, the way she’d gotten lost in the store and looked and looked and looked for her mother, who’d been so overwhelmed with back-to-school shopping that she’d checked out and packed up the car and driven home without realizing that she was missing something.
Someone.
Claire could remember fifth grade. She could remember the class play, and how everyone was supposed to have a part, and how she’d hoped and hoped and hoped that she’d get to be the country girl who changed places with her cousin in the big city, and how, when the cast list had been posted, she wasn’t on it at all. Not as either of the cousins, or any of their friends, or part of the chorus, or even as a tree.
I wouldn’t mind being a tree, Claire thought, her mind muddled. Am I a tree?
With her lack of body, it certainly seemed possible. Before she could ponder the likelihood any further, she heard something: a rustling of leaves, a parting of mist behind her. She whirled around. Even once she stopped, the world kept spinning—but through fog and mist and her own dizziness, Claire saw him.
The boy.
His face was expressionless. His eyes, which tilted up on the ends, met hers.
“You look at me,” Claire said, trying to remember what it was that had brought this boy to her, what she knew about him, what he knew about her.
The boy said nothing, and a memory rose to the surface of Claire’s mind—a van. It had hit her. It had sent her flying. And then there had been a blur, and a boy.
“What the hell were you doing?” he had said. And he’d called her an ambulance, and they’d fought. His face next to hers. His voice a low growl, his hands on her shoulders.
That’s not what happened.
It was, and it wasn’t. Why couldn’t she remember? What was she missing?
She looked for the answers in the boy’s face. His eyes were blue—light, light blue—and shaped like almonds. His skin was pale, light in color, but rich in tone—like his heritage had sprinkled it with gold that had been stripped only partially away by a complete lack of sunlight. His jaw was strong, his cheekbones razor sharp, and there were markings on his arm that made him look like a warrior from another time. And yet …
He looks so sad, Claire thought. His features were mature, but his expression—hidden behind a mask that blocked it from the rest of the world—was a boy’s.
“I want to help you,” Claire said. “Can you help me?”
It was a simple statement, a simple question, but the words were lost under the heavy silence of the fog. Somewhere behind them, a car revved its engine.
Van. It’s gonna hit me. It’s gonna hurt me. Again.
This time, Claire felt panic. Her emotions surged, breaking through the seal that had been placed on them.
“We have to get out of here,” she yelled at the boy. Determined to save him, she reached out, and he lifted one of his hands out to her. She smiled, imagining the tips of his fingers brushing her palm.
And that was when Claire saw a glint of silver, and she realized that the hand she was reaching for was holding a gun.
The boy had it aimed directly at her chest.
Again.
Nix had never brought another person into his fade before. Never realized it was possible to spread his nothingness over someone else like it was a blanket. He’d never wanted to share his sanctuary with another living person.
Not a person. She’s a Null.
The thought challenged Nix’s grip on the fade, and after a moment’s resistance, he stopped fighting and let himself solidify. The distance he’d put between himself—and Claire—and the Sensors was sizable, but it wasn’t enough, might never be enough. Nix knew, better than anyone, how long The Society’s reach was, how merciless Ione and her Sensors were when it came to eradicating a threat.
That was when he saw the bus.
Nix walked toward it. The Null was dead weight in his arms, but so small. Her chest leapt with each beat of her heart, and Nix tried
not to feel it, see it. He closed his eyes and pulled her closer, cradling her body against his.
I’m only saving her so I can kill her, he reminded himself. But that didn’t stop him from walking unnoticed onto the bus. It didn’t stop him from taking a seat, and it didn’t stop him from holding her shivering form, letting the heat from his body warm hers.
Weak, he berated himself. Stupid. Worthless.
She was marked for death. He was the executioner. He should have taken the Null’s blackened heart in his hand and crushed it.
But even miles into the wilderness, he didn’t dare place his cargo into an empty seat. She was a Null, and by definition, Nulls were noticeable. If Nix didn’t want The Society to follow wherever he ran, he’d have to keep her close and hope that his nothingness would negate the beacon of her presence.
No choice.
He had to carry her. Hold her. Marvel at the curve of her cheekbones. Count the ways for her to die.
One, for poison.
She was so still. Soft.
Two, for knives.
Her wheat-colored hair, plastered with sweat to her forehead, called to the edges of his fingers. He wanted to touch it. To kill the Sensors for the steady trickle of blood at her temple.
She was beautiful, this Null.
Manipulative. No conscience. No soul. He forced himself to remember what she was, what it meant to be born a Null. His fourth kill, a psychopath who had a thing for carving up little boys, had looked as innocent as Claire did now. Nix couldn’t afford to let himself forget that the bundle in his hands—no matter how sweet, no matter how small—had been on The Society’s kill list for a reason.
Sensors located Nulls. The Society eliminated them. That was the purpose for which it had been founded, the mandate it had followed for thousands of years.
This girl was a monster. She had to die.
Is she warm? She feels warm.…
Claire shivered in Nix’s arms, a high-pitched, keening sound caught in the back of her throat, halfway between a dog’s whine and the wail of an ambulance. Her brow furrowed, and she jerked, trying to pull herself away from his grip. Away from whatever pain her body was fighting.
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