by Jasmine Walt
Soon, my screams are no longer quiet. They are loud. Loud and scary enough to render the entire haven silent.
I’m so caught up in my own grief, in my own bullshit ass weakness that I barely hear Kiwi. I cradle Ana’s broken body—Ana, who is only a few years older than Sadie—in my arms and wail. Not a siren’s wail. A very human wail. A wail that instead of ripping others apart, almost cracks me in two.
She has to shake me out of it. “Pike!”
I turn my head, and she’s sitting beside me. She’s looking at me, not with disgust, but shock and what I guess is sympathy.
“Gods, Pike. What happened?”
I try to speak, but when my mouth opens all that comes out is another howl. She winces and rubs my shoulders.
“Gods,” she says again. “What happened, Pike? Why did you do this?”
I shake my head. My mouth is still stretched wide open. I can’t answer. I can’t find the words to answer.
She touches the side of my face and nods. “Okay. Just let me…” She starts to pull Ana out of my arms.
It takes a great effort because I don’t want to let go. After several moments of struggle, I resign. Once Ana is on the floor in front of me, Kiwi jumps up. Her footsteps shuffle behind me. Finally, she returns with a blanket and covers Ana’s body.
I close my eyes and let my head hang.
I can’t believe I did this. I didn’t want to do this.
“Pike.” Kiwi’s arm is on my shoulder again.
I shake my head before looking at her. Her eyes are wide with questions.
I rub my nose and laugh bitterly. “Juliet. I think it was Juliet.”
She scowls, tilting her head.
I clear my throat. Now that some words have come to me, maybe I can find the others.
“I went to check on her. And she had this… this button on her watch. She pressed it. Then…”
Kiwi’s already widened eyes widen further. “Oh, gods.” She closes her eyes. Her small hands ball into fists. “She must have gotten orders from Colonel Jax.”
The sound of his name puts the taste of shit in my mouth.
“The chip in your head… it must have a mind control function. I heard about them from Tripp. They put one in his, in case he Orced out when he wasn’t supposed to.”
As soon as she finishes telling me this, Male laughter swims around in my skull. I press my hands to my ears. In the distance, Kiwi calls my name. She shakes my arm, but the laughing only gets louder.
Then, the word bubbles away.
An image of Colonel Jax, eyepatch and all, swims into my vision.
“Hello, Pike,” he says in that fucking whisper of a voice. “Juliet says you were getting out of control.” Then he holds up a head with vacant eyes. It’s Sadie.
Well, it’s a thing that looks like Sadie. Her bones punch up against her skin, and her eyes are the stain milk leaves on a clear glass.
My teeth grit. I try to stand, but stumble back to my knees. Kiwi is still shaking me.
“Don’t get out of line again,” Jax says. “Remember, you’re my monster now.”
Before I can say anything, his face swims away. The thing that looks like Sadie swims away, too, and the room oozes back into focus.
I glance from Ana’s dead body, to Kiwi, who is still saying my name.
“It was Jax,” I say before she can ask what happened again.
Her hands cover her mouth. “He has a retina projector installed in your chip, too.”
I don’t give enough of a fuck to ask what she means by that. All I know is I have to get out of here. Away from Ana’s dead body. Away from the innocence I curse from existence.
“I have to… Leave.” My voice sounds like a power sander on low. I feel powerful and weak at the same time.
“Okay.” Kiwi shakes my head. “Okay, I’m going to get you out of here.”
She stands again and goes to lift up Ana’s body. I close my eyes. Not wanting to know what she’s doing with the body. Feet shuffle all around me. Then, Kiwi is slipping her arm under my shoulder.
She lifts and lets out a grunt. “Come on, Pike. Help me out a little.”
I gather whatever strength I have left and stumble to my feet. I let myself lean on her a little bit as we scramble out the door and into the night.
I would thank the gods that almost everyone is tucked away inside their little prairie cabins, but the gods are assholes.
24
Kiwi and I wind up going to the tank because I can’t stand being in the haven anymore. I roll my sleeping bag out on the floor then crumple down on it like a deflated blow up doll.
Kiwi crouches over me. “Are you going to be okay?”
I give a grunt of confirmation.
“Well,” she says after a few seconds. “I’ll let you have some alone time.”
As soon as she moves toward the hatch, I grab her arm.
“Please,” I say, trying not to sound like a little bitch, “I don’t want to be alone.”
She stares at me for a while, then nods. “Okay.”
We sit forever in silence. I’ve always hated it. The quiet. I hate the shit even more now. Silence lets in thoughts, and mine are torturous right now. Tiny demons dripping straight from the lips of Hades.
I feel every inch of myself tightening. Trying to keep out what I just did. It doesn’t work. Not even a little bit. Kiwi finally shatters the unbearable quiet by touching my shoulder.
Lazily, I turn my head in her direction.
“Hey, this wasn’t your fault.”
I stare at her for a long time. So long, her shoulders fall forward, making her appear smaller than she is. I’m making her as uncomfortable as I am.
I laugh, surprising both of us. Not a dark, bitter thing either. An I’m losing my fucking mind laugh, loud and dangerous. I sit up and stare at her with what must be crazy eyes.
“Not my fault?” I ask, my tone higher in pitch than I’ve ever heard it. “Does that even fucking matter?” I’m yelling now. “Does it fucking matter if I made the choice to kill her myself, or if Colonel Jaxass was pulling my strings?” I grab her by the shoulders and shake her. “Isn’t she just as fucking dead? Isn’t she just as dead because of me?”
Kiwi goes as still as Ana. As lifeless. She stares at me, but nothing moves behind her eyes. The likeness in that moment, between Kiwi and Ana, freaks me out. I drop my hands and bury my head in them.
The quiet returns. I run my hands back through my dreads so hard they tighten and threaten to come right out of my scalp. Then, I peer back up at Kiwi.
“I’m sorry,” I say in a shaky voice. “But I’ve killed so many people.” I look down. “So many. And most of the time, I liked it.” I scoff and shake my head. “No, all of the time, I loved it.” I look up into her eyes. “I loved it, Kiwi. But I didn’t want her to die.”
I start to shake. After a moment, she puts her hand on my forearm. After another moment, she says, “When my sisters were alive, all I had was the laser vision.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“I’ve killed lots of people, too. But I always knew it was righteous. My other sisters would locate them, the ones that needed to be sent to the Underworld, and I’d just send them there. Zap, dead. No questions asked.” She sighs and sits with her legs crossed beside me. “After they were murdered and I got all their power, it became more complicated. I could see people’s darkest selves. The worst of them… it was easy to twist their minds, to make them think they wanted to kill themselves, but I found a gray area.” She meets my eyes. “And killing in that gray area is hard as hell. Harder than my sisters ever made it look.”
We stare at each other for several charged moments.
“So, we’re both killers,” she finally says. “Sorry I was such a bitch to you when we first met.”
I nod, still staring at her. Somehow, her face is the only thing keeping me together at the moment. “It’s cool.”
“And for what I did to Sadie. That was… hard.”
My answering smile is tight. “Let’s not talk about that.”
She nods and glances down. Man, she is so hard not to stare at.
I ask, “So, what do you see when you look at me?”
She glances back up and widens her eyes.
“Am I in that gray area? Would I be hard or easy to kill?”
She shrugs and tucks her bang behind her ear. “Most times I think it would be easy.”
I cough. “You serious?”
She shrugs again, and I clutch my hand over my heart. “Damn, girl. That’s cold.”
She gives me a look, like a challenge. “Whatever. You know you could kill me easily, too.”
I nod. “Without a thought.”
She swats at me, and I duck out of her reach. “Bitch ass.” My laugh is tired when it comes out. “If it makes you feel any better, I’d fuck you a few more times first.”
With a glare, she hisses at me, but the hiss quickly dissolves into a giggle. It’s a nice sound. When she laughs, her face is softer. I can almost forget this woman could probably kick my ass.
“Yeah, me too,” she finally says.
I grin and stare at the tank floor, not knowing what to say now. I try damn hard not to think. I try, and fail. Like I failed to not kill Ana.
Like I failed Sadie so many times.
I sigh. “I don’t even know why I’m doing this shit anymore.”
Kiwi doesn’t say anything for a few moments, then she clears her throat. “For Sadie. And because…. Because it’s right.”
I peer up at her. “Right?” I rub my eyebrow. “Nothing about this feels right.”
“It will.”
“Yeah? You sure about that?”
She nods. “Yes.” She stretches her legs out. “And besides, what choice do we have? Live like this?”
I roll over on my side and prop my head up on my hand. “It’s like choosing between two shit bombs about to explode. You go with the one furthest from you to minimize the shit that’s going to spray you in the face.”
Her face scrunches up. “Nice metaphor.”
“Well?”
She sighs. “Yeah, I guess you can look at it that way. But, you are saving people.”
“People that want to make me their bitch. People that made me kill an innocent…” My throat tightens, and I shake my head. No need to finish that thought.
“You’ll find a way out from under them.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“I am.”
I lock eyes with her and furrow my brows. “Why?”
She half smiles. “I believe in you, dumbass.”
I shake my head. “Why?”
She extends her arms out behind her and lounges back. “Mostly because Tripp believed in you.”
Hearing his name is like having tiny rodents scratch up my chest cavity. I close my eyes. I can’t go there. I can’t remember losing him.
Not after seeing Sadie.
Not after killing Ana.
I’ll lose my footing and won’t be able to stand. And I have to stand. I have to keep going.
I open my eyes and try on a smile. I try on having a short memory. I try forgetting all the shit bombs.
“I really should have given him the dick before he died.”
Kiwi’s eyes widen, then she bursts into laughter. Not just any laughter. She sounds like a horse-dolphin cross breed. It’s almost ear splitting, but contagious. I laugh with her. And it comes easily. After all that’s happened, it comes easily.
When our laughter dies down, I stare at her and smile. A warm, cookies just came out of the oven smile.
“Thanks Kiwi.”
She frowns. “For what?”
I roll my eyes because I think it’s obvious. “For not leaving,” I finally say.
She nods. “No problem. We’re a team.”
I sit up slowly, still staring at her. She freezes in the wake of my movement.
“Yeah? Is that all we are? Teamies?”
Her mouth falls open. I lean over and press my lips to hers. Her mouth moves against mine in the warmest kiss I’ve ever received.
It’s also the kiss that made me hard the quickest.
25
I’m so wrapped up in the kiss that when she pulls away, it’s like having my head snatched out of water after I’ve been under a long time.
I open my eyes. I’m about to ask what’s wrong when she rears back and cracks me across the face with a fist. Pain slices into all the good stuff I was feeling a second ago. I grab my cheek and gape at her.
“Ow! What the fuck?”
She backs away from me. “What the hell are you doing?”
I drop my hand and stare at her like a dumbass. “What?”
“I said, what are you doing?”
I feel like this is a test. “Kissing you?”
She hisses. “Obviously. Why are you kissing me?”
I should have studied my text book for dealing with crazy women before this test. “Uh, it felt like a kissy moment?”
“You can’t be frickin’ kissing me!”
I gesture to my warm cheek that feels like its swelling already. “Clearly.”
Crossing her arms across her chest, she says, “Just when I decide to give you some credit, it turns out you really are a dumbass.”
Failing the test, I close my eyes and rub my forehead. “Okay, I’m not going to get offended. I’m just going to ask, what the hell?”
She doesn’t respond, so I open my eyes and widen them at her.
She looks at me, expression tight, like I’m the dumbest thing she’s ever had the displeasure of speaking to.
“I can’t be intimate with you, Pike. I can’t feel anything for you.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Well, a little too late, don’t cha think? We’ve already fucked.”
“I know.”
I expect her to explain herself so I wait. She doesn’t. She acts like I know.
“Okay, like we’ve fucked hardcore. As in, hard core fucking.”
She nods. “I was there.”
This time I raise both eyebrows. One just isn’t enough. “And, sex is intimate…”
She shakes her head. “Not like that. Not like kissing.”
I roll my eyes. “You’ve seen too many chick flicks.”
“No, actually I haven’t. It’s true.”
I sigh. “So, you didn’t like it?”
“No!” She hisses. “I did. Why the hell did you have to do that to me?”
She’s more upset by the fact that I kissed her than by the fact that I just killed someone. I don’t know what to call that.
I hold up my hands. “Okay, calm down. I really don’t get why you’re so. . .upset.”
I almost said crazy. That would not be good.
“Because, Pike.” Her shoulders deflate. “I’m going to die.”
Her words pump suffocating silence into the room. The kind you choke on. The kind you run away from. As hard as I try to forget them, the shit bombs keep on dropping.
“So I can’t feel something for you, because I’m as good as dead.” Tears form in her vast eyes, but she quickly blinks them back. “And you just made me feel something.”
I have no idea what the hell to say. I don’t know what this is with her. I don’t know what I’m feeling, only that it’s something, which is better than nothing. She’s the first woman to bring this out in me.
Sadie’s mother didn’t.
Nor any of the female company I’ve ever kept.
I don’t know what it is, I just know that I want it in the middle of this shit storm I’m in. It feels like a weapon, and I’m not ready to put it down.
I reach out for her arm. She slaps my hand away. I draw back.
“Come on, Kiwi.”
“No, Pike.”
I reach for her again. This time, she doesn’t fight. She hisses, but she lets me pull her close to me, anyway. It’s not until I wrap my arms around her tighter that she starts to struggle.
&nbs
p; “If you kiss me again, I’ll make you kill yourself.”
I laugh. “I can’t believe I still want to.”
She frowns and peers up at me. “Why?”
I laugh harder. “Because you’re kind of fucking cracked.”
Her frown deepens. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Girl.” I cup her face in my hands. “Just shut up.” I press my lips to hers again. She beats against my chest. Resists me. I pull inches away from her and peer down into her eyes. “Come on, Kiwi. Feel something with me.”
She freezes. I inch her closer.
“Feel something with me.” Then I brush my lips against hers. She’s still as ice water at first, then slowly, she starts to kiss me back. My body fills with warmth like I’m drinking hot coco. I drink her in.
As I kiss her deeper, I lean back and pull her on top of me. I grip her firm ass and squeeze her closer. With a gasp, she lifts up and frowns down at me.
“What? What’s wrong?” I rub her back, trying to keep another crazy outburst tucked inside her. I hate the blue balls.
“I don’t wanna do it in a tank.” She sniffs. “It smells like gun powder.”
I glance around. “Well, we can… We can go outside.”
She grins and brushes my hair away from my face. “Can’t you just do that siren shit?”
I mirror her smile and wink at her. “Oh, you want me to do my thing?”
“Will it kill me?”
“No, it only works that way on humans and lesser descendants.”
She smiles. “Then I want you to do it.”
“Where you wanna be girl?”
Her lips purse and her gaze drifts toward the ceiling. “Hm.” Her eyes slowly drop back to my face. “I’ve always wanted to fuck in a textile factory.”
I freeze.
Talk about random as all fuck.
“Um.” I sit up slightly. “Like, where they make shirts?”
She smiles, wide and sexy. “And pants.”
I stare at her. “But, why?”
She frowns. “Does it matter?”
After thinking about that for a few seconds, I decide that no, it doesn’t. I reach into my memory bank for a textile factory. It’s not as hard as I thought it would be, because I can feel her thinking about it. I reach in through her skin and draw out the fantasy. Then I project it all around us.