The Siders Box Set

by Leah Clifford

  “Why are you fighting this, Eden?” Luke asked, but Eden couldn’t take her eyes from Az, his lips. They were moving, forming soundless words. “If Az Falls you two can be together. I give you my word.” It almost looked as if Az was mimicking Luke, but the words didn’t quite match. She squinted.

  Unconsciously, she took a step forward.

  Luke shot a pointed finger up as she moved. “Don’t come any…!”

  Az’s hand flashed, the balled end of the broken chair arm smashing Luke on the chin, his head ricocheting back. Az raised his other arm and dropped through the loop of Luke’s loosened grip. He hit the ground with a hard ‘oof’, already crawling, even before his knees made contact.

  Luke gave his head a rough shake, but there wasn’t enough time to recover before Jarrod crashed into him. They teetered on the ledge, a whirl of arms before Jarrod pushed his hands into Luke’s chest—the last momentum needed to topple them both over the edge.

  “No!” Eden yelled. She leapt for Jarrod’s arm, barely caught it in time. His head snapped up, eyes panicked as his body hit the building. Her fingernails scraped his skin, his other hand whipping up, trying to catch hold as her grip slipped to his wrist. For a second she thought she had him, but then his fingers slid through hers. “Jarrod!”

  She tipped over the edge, one hand stretching into the empty air as he dropped. The other desperately swatted away the hands grasping her waist. A tangle of arms wrapped around it, pulling her back.

  Ten stories below, the two bodies laid on the debris in a shattered heap.

  “He’s moving,” Az said from beside her. Luke wriggled out from under Jarrod’s legs, flopping them off to the side.

  “We’ve got to get down there. I need to dose Jarrod. He’ll need more Touch to heal.” She winced, spasms cramping her abdomen. “I have to get rid of some too.”

  Luke reached for Jarrod’s face, yanking the jaw back and forth before Luke dropped his hand. The deadweight of Jarrod’s head smacked against the ground.

  Even from the roof she could make out the smile twisting Luke’s mouth.

  “It’s a start,” he yelled up, his voice bouncing between the buildings, the threat echoing in doubles. He rose slowly as if testing his limbs to make sure they still worked, then lifted Jarrod over his shoulder. “We’re not done,” he promised before he winced, an arm slung tight across his ribs. He only made it a few steps before he collapsed to his knees.

  “You’re fucking right we’re not done,” Eden yelled, her hands curled over the edge. She scrambled to her feet. “Gabe! Come on! He’s headed out of the alley!” Gabe stared at her blankly, like she spoke something close to, but not quite English. “What are you waiting for! If he takes Jarrod he’ll torture him!”

  Gabe moved toward her. The look in his eyes shifted something inside her, her blood running cold. His head tipped to the left, the angle strange, almost avian.

  Az stepped closer to her. “Careful. He’s not himself right now.”

  “I don’t care what he did, Az.” She strode forward shaking her hand free when Az grabbed for it. “Gabe, I forgive you. It doesn’t matter anymore. But we need to go get Jarrod now.”

  Eden bolted across the roof, down the rusted ladder, not waiting for Az with his wounded limp.

  Luke hadn’t made it far. He kneeled half a dozen paces from where Jarrod slumped against a wall. Eden kept an eye on Luke as she leaned in to dose Jarrod with Touch. She was relieved to find him conscious.

  “That should help. Give it a minute.” She squeezed Jarrod’s shoulders. “You okay?”

  “Okay is a bit of a stretch. Not so tight.”

  She pulled back enough to catch his pained smile and settled for a death grip on his hands.

  “I was so right,” he said.

  “About what?” Eden asked, confused.

  “Skin and concrete. So don’t mix.” Jarrod grimaced.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Az said.

  At his voice, Eden looked up, her smile faltering. Luke swayed on his feet.

  “And if I do?” Luke challenged, a bubble of blood popping from his mouth to coat his chin red.

  “He couldn’t carry me,” Jarrod said. “He’s bluffing.”

  Eden’s eyes flicked to Az. He hesitated before he spoke. “You can barely stand. It’s over, Luke.”

  Luke smeared his hand across his lips, fresh blood coloring the skin even as he wiped it clean. He gave a resigned nod.

  “For now. Two out of three isn’t so bad.” He started to stumble away, holding himself up on the wall.

  “Eden isn’t yours.” Az called after him.

  Luke looked back. “Gabe made her. Her Siders go Downstairs now.”

  Then he turned the corner. Eden shuddered. She felt Az’s arm at her waist, turned into his embrace. It was over.

  “I thought I was going to lose you,” she said, tucking her head onto his shoulder. He rubbed one hand over her spine, ran the fingers of his other through her hair.

  “Never.” He pulled back, gazing into her eyes. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.” She ached to kiss him, knew she couldn’t. His lips pressed against her forehead. Is this all we’ll be able to have?

  “Az,” she said quietly. “Was Luke right? About my Siders going Downstairs?”

  She wasn’t sure he would answer, but he whispered, “I don’t know. I think he might be.” He wrapped his arms around her again. “We’ll make sure before you take any more Siders, okay?” Eden thought about Libby crumbling into nothing. Too late, she thought.

  Jarrod let out a long moan. She pulled out of Az’s arms, stooping to him. “You all right?”

  “Everything hurts,” he mumbled, his breaths sharp, erratic pulls for air. His skin paled. She wondered if he was going into shock.

  “Jarrod needs somewhere he can rest, heal. Let’s get him up.” Eden glanced past Az as they struggled to get Jarrod to his feet. “Where’s Gabriel?”

  “He Fell, Eden.”

  “I know that. But where is he now?”

  Az wouldn’t look at her, shrugged a shoulder under Jarrod’s arm to take on more of his weight. When Az spoke, his voice came out quiet and broken.

  “There is no Gabriel anymore.”

  Epilogue

  Hovering behind them, Gabe let his gaze wander to Az. Az he knew.

  Az he could count on, even if he was only half Fallen. But the black-haired girl, pink strands twisting wild...the boy with her who’d swan dived off the roof...

  The girl was next to Az. Did she belong to him? Gabe held a hand out but stopped when he caught the look of caged fear in Az’s wary glance back, the way he moved to put himself between Gabe and the girl.

  Gabe tensed. Something was amiss. Why was Az protecting a mortal? They were such dispensable, delicate toys.

  Gabe stepped from them slowly.

  The girl was… Vague foggy memories rose like bubbles in a tar pit, never quite reaching the surface, caught under a layer of sticky darkness. The memory of her was trapped in there somewhere. She felt harmless but…not. He inhaled, searching the air for clues, thoughts. An old habit? Either way it didn’t work.

  But the girl? His head pounded as he tried to put it together. Eden. Her name. It had to be. Whenever she spoke, it rang through him like a melody. She, Eden, was sitting up now, getting to her feet. Az reached out, grabbed her hand. There was kindness on her face when she glanced at Az, a blatant weakness that dulled the curves of cheekbones with such potential for cruelty. So wasteful.

  Gabe stood back from their little group. He had no reason to stay any longer.

  The others didn’t notice his absence. They were not his kind. He wandered off toward the street. Somewhere out there were others, dark like him, huddled in the dim recesses of the dilapidated buildings flanking the blacktop. The possibility of wicked things was crisp on his tongue, begging to be tasted.

  Squinting through the dim shades of morning, Gabe followed the cracked sidewalk alone.
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br />   Chapter 1

  When the kitten broke out of the shadows in front of Gabe, he’d thought it was another rat until he heard the pathetic mewling. It darted for his leg, fearless, sliding against his stained jeans. He reached down without thinking to pinch the black fur of its scruff and lifted it.

  The kitten dangled. Gabe cupped his hand and plopped the tiny back end of the kitten into it, the animal nothing more than a tight casing of fur stretched over bones. It let out another pitiful cry.

  “Helpless little thing aren’t you?” he said, quietly.

  It twitched bent whiskers.

  Gabe squatted, resting on his boot heels. Behind his ribs, the evil took hold, liquid nitrogen spreading frost down his arms. It clawed like ice crystals under his skin. Crept into his fingers.

  A trickle of shame slid between his shoulder blades, but he knew the feeling wouldn’t win. One flick of the wrist. A slight twist and he would feel much better.

  “I’ll be so quick,” Gabe whispered. He slid his hand down the kitten’s neck, the sharp spine grating against his palm. “So quick.”

  Under his fingers, the damaged thing began to suddenly rumble. He felt it even through the icy numbness.

  “Are you purring?” he asked it. It bumped a pink nose into his palm, rattling with pleasure.

  He could feed it. The thought popped into his head. A whole new possibility suddenly there. A hollow ache rippled through him, his fingers warming, the coldness receding.

  The kitten’s matted tail curled around his wrist as if to claim him.

  “You,” he told it, “are making a mistake. You should run. This won’t end well.” Still, he stood with a wince and carried the kitten back home, to the random apartment. It mewed again as he climbed to the security door. “Almost there.”

  Inside, the decrepit elevator groaned as it rose, really no more than a gated cage on cords. Gabe kept his fingers clear of the metal until it came to a stop. He juggled the kitten and eased the grate open. The carpet in the hallway was beyond threadbare, stained and cigarette burned. A light flickered dully from down near the stairwell.

  The kitten was still and silent in the crook of his arm as he unlocked the door. Clicking the light on, he unzipped his coat.

  “Mi casa es su casa,” he said, dropping the animal to the gouged hardwood. It sniffed curiously, then sat looking up at him as if waiting.

  Gabe squeezed his hands into fists.

  “It’ll pass,” he mumbled, more to himself than the furry creature below. “I can learn to control this, right? Not so hard.” The last words came out more a question than anything else.

  The kitten poked warily around the efficiency.

  “This time will be different. You’ll be a test,” Gabe said, wandering to the kitchen. The refrigerator was nearly bare—a few ancient take-out boxes he was afraid to touch, and a slew of lunch meat containers close to expiring. He retrieved the freshest one, snapped it open and tossed a hunk of shaved turkey to the tiles. The kitten pounced, sucking the meat down in airy gulps. Gabe tapped the rest of the package onto the floor and licked his fingers.

  He let out a slow breath, wishing there was a couch, a TV to channel surf for distractions.

  The mattress in the corner laid atop a box spring, but the bed had no frame. He slunk onto it, listening to the kitten chomp down the last bits of turkey.

  His memories from the beginning were murky, those first days after he’d spoken his sins aloud and become one of the Fallen. He remembered little of the initial week, and something deep inside wasn’t sure he wanted that to change. When he had snapped out of his haze, he’d found a card in his pocket, folded tight, curled around a key. Scrawled in his own handwriting had been a note. You look great in black, it had said, but make sure it’s a temporary trend. Never good for more than a season. Go here. Fight the urges. Remember what Az said. The address to the apartment had been below.

  No one had bothered him about rent. There’d been a stocked pantry, a few thousand dollars rolled up and tucked into the medicine cabinet. Things had come back to him in the quiet darkness, slowly at first and then more frequently as time passed. A name, out-of-focus faces best forgotten for their safety. But he still had no idea what the note meant. No idea what Az had said or what he was supposed to be doing.

  A week passed. Then another. Nights in Polaroid snapshots. A dark club. Back rooms. Offers. He led the mortals astray, feasted on the hatred in their eyes when he turned them down. Left them wicked and unwanted.

  Most times.

  Lately, he locked himself in. Prayed to wake up alone and in his own bed. He drifted off, hoping this was one of those nights.

  Kristen.

  Gabe slammed against the floor. His eyes darted around the shell of an apartment even as he shielded them from the sunlight slanting in through the blinds, searching to find the person who’d spoken.

  “Kristen?” Her name broke on his lips. Dust sparkled through the light. The room was empty.

  Gabe curled his legs underneath him on the hard floor.

  The apartment was so cold. He forced himself up and to the thermostat. The heat was on, cranked to seventy-eight. He pressed the button, the numbers rising, rising, but his mind caught hold of something else. A flicker of warmth inside himself.

  “‘She’s alone’,” he said to the empty room, his eyes focused beyond the cracked paint on the wall, the yellowed stain reaching like a splayed palm from the ceiling. “‘With all the old nocturnal smells that cross and cross across her brain.’”

  He could see her, the vision strengthening as the words leaked from him. Her alone and sick, two years ago. Dark hair in long tangled waves, desperate eyes. She’d been so ill, trapped in her psychosis, before he’d healed her. She’d been the first Sider he’d dared speak to, and she had told him what little she knew of her kind. They’d helped each other, their friendship growing strong. He’d been the only person she’d trusted.

  And what’s become of you without me? he thought. Her lips moved in mute, his name trembling across them.

  “Kristen,” he whispered again, and like the smallest pressure on fractured glass, the spell shattered.

  Gabe closed his eyes. No. It was best not to think of those who used to consider him a friend. Kristen, Az, Eden. He was too dangerous, someone to be kept locked in and hidden away where he couldn’t hurt anyone.

  A draft slid over his shoulders. He followed it across the floor to the other side of the room and swore softly. When he sighed, he could see his breath.

  Sometime in the night, he’d awoken. The window was open.

  The kitten was gone.

  Chapter 2

  Kristen knew the warning signs, knew to call Gabe when the thin whispers started. The static of white noise came next, when the shadows started to follow her instead of staying pinned down in the darkness. She’d called. Ninety-seven times she’d called Gabriel over the past month.

  “Please,” she whispered, hope fluttering in her chest as the line connected. The ribbons of her red ballet flats wrapped around her legs, cutting into her calves. She bounced lightly anyway, waiting through the ringing.

  When his voicemail picked up she stretched impatiently onto her toes, relishing the tightening pinch before she dropped and the ribbons loosened.

  Kristen closed her eyes, exhaustion dragging down her shoulders. At least there, on the recording, she could still hear him, could take comfort from Gabriel’s voice.

  Soon his voice wouldn’t be enough.

  You have other options.

  “None I’d ever consider,” she whispered to her reflection. “Stop overreacting.”

  Why are you pretending Gabriel’s the only one who can help you?

  Part of her wondered if he was there, ignoring the calls.

  There was silence on the line. Her mind had drifted.

  “Hello, Ghost,” she said, wondering how much dead air the recording captured before she spoke, if her earlier words were trapped there for him to hear
. Embarrassment washed over her, but if he heard her talking to herself, maybe he’d forgive her and help. “This is…” She hesitated. “Life.” Sighing, she gave in and let the plea come, all she’d really needed or wanted to say. “Come back to me, Gabriel. I’m not doing well. You promised.”

  She hung up, dropping into the chair in front of her vanity, and met her own eyes in the mirror. She kept the cell in her hand. If he’d been close and only missed the call…

  The phone stayed silent.

  You should have apologized.

  She rubbed a finger underneath her eyes but the black smudges there had nothing to do with makeup, everything to do with Gabriel’s absence. He’d saved her two years ago when she’d been lost to the world and out of her mind, living in an abandoned shack of a chapel at the back of a cemetery. He’d culled the schizophrenia, brought her back to herself. But he could never get it all, could never stop the roots of what was left from spreading like ivy. And so she and Gabriel had traded—her knowledge of the Suiciders for his skills at stripping the disease from her brain every few weeks. They’d learned to trust each other. Kristen depended on him. He’d promised her he’d be there, never let her get so sick again.

  And then came Eden, Kristen thought bitterly.

  Below her, across the lacquered surface of her vanity, bottles of nail polish were lined up according to color. She put them in order from dark to light, then switched her tactic, going by the level of polish left. The patterns were wrong. All of them.

  He hates you; that’s why he’s gone.

  Her fingers shifted the bottles like notes on a musical staff. Was the pattern supposed to be a song? If so, she could find the right cadence and things would be better.