The Siders Box Set

by Leah Clifford

  Her heart thumped hard in her chest. “Okay, we’ve got this,” she said, with a calm she wasn’t even close to feeling. She couldn’t keep the desperation from her face when she turned to the other girl. “Madeline, we have to grab a cab.”

  Madeline headed to the corner, her arm raised. Eden helped Az to the curb as a cab sluiced toward them.

  “Thank you,” she said to Madeline, slipping into the car beside Az. She gave the driver the cross streets distractedly, her attention on Az as the car drove off, leaving Madeline behind.

  Eden rested her head on his shoulder, her lips against his ear. She forgot about Madeline’s offer, the cab, the world. “I’m with you,” she said to him soft as a lullaby. “I’ll always be with you, right here next to you. I love you.”

  She ran her fingers up the side of his neck and gently tilted him closer. He dropped against her and she moved a subtle hand to his back. Under her fingers his wings trembled.

  “I am not leaving you,” he grated out, his arm wrapping around her. The tightness of it stole her breath. He heaved a gasp and under her hand his wings flexed, straining against the ace bandage she knew would be wrapped around his chest and back to keep them hidden.

  “Fight it,” she whispered. “You fight it. Don’t you dare leave me.”

  His lips rose from her shoulder to her neck. He kissed her there, his hands winding into her hair. Desire ripped through her at the intensity, his skin hot against hers. He pulled back suddenly, drawing a breath.

  “Shhh,” she murmured.

  “They can’t make me go.” Every word came softer, trepidation in each one, as if he didn’t quite believe what he said.

  “I know,” she said, running her hand through his hair. A tiny knot of dread tightened in her heart.

  Only talking about Gabe had set him off this time.

  He was getting worse, getting weaker.

  Az lowered his head back onto the seat, his breathing slow and even, his eyes closed though she knew he couldn’t be sleeping. He looked younger when the tension left his face.

  She slid her phone from her pocket, careful not to jostle Az. If Luke was angry, maybe Gabe wasn’t as evil as he’d hoped. Maybe…

  Maybe he was still himself enough that he would help Az.

  She hesitated and then typed out a text to the last number that had called her.

  He needs Gabe back. You need Vaughn dead. Find me Gabriel first and then I’ll handle Vaughn.

  Eden watched Az silently. Taking out Vaughn meant she would be sending him Downstairs. The thought made her sick. Beside her, Az heaved a sigh. She ran a finger down his temple, across his cheek and chin, knowing she’d made her decision.

  “Whatever it takes,” she whispered.

  Chapter 5

  Kristen’s hands were freezing, curled into fists and tucked against the folds of her dress. She shook her head, tossing free the layer of snow that had settled on her hair, and wrapped her bare arms around herself. Her teeth had stopped chattering. How long ago, she wasn't sure.

  Panicking, she became suddenly aware of the bench she sat on, the empty park around her. How did I get here? she thought.

  You knew this would happen, her mind argued. You're slipping without Gabriel.

  Her jaw felt wired shut. For a split second she strained against the wires, hardware glued to her teeth, holding her mouth shut.

  Not real. It's not real.

  The tightening in her muscles released. She sucked in a huge stuttered gasp of air. She'd banished the hallucination. It was all the proof she needed. “I am not slipping.”

  Not yet.

  The Bound. The thought came from nowhere.

  “My God,” she whispered. Gabe had been able to read her thoughts. Maybe others who were Bound would be able to put thoughts there. “That's it,” Kristen said to herself. “It has to be.”

  But how had she gotten to the park?

  Her breath clouded, hovering before it dissipated. Had someone brought her here? Would Gabe have been angry enough with her to tell the Bound about the Siders? She shook her head. No, if he did, they would come after his precious Eden, too.

  Gabriel had worked so hard to hide the Siders away, keep them a secret so the Bound wouldn’t have them destroyed. But maybe they hadn’t needed Gabe. Maybe they’d found her anyway. Discovered the Siders. Were tormenting her.

  She heard a sad scoff.

  “Get out of my head,” she commanded. “I know what you're doing. You're trying to make me think I'm going crazy, but I'm not!”

  A stick snapped behind her. Footsteps crunched in the snow. “Kristen?”

  “No. You leave me alone.” Her voice broke. Gabriel had warned her how the Bound worked when wronged. Miracles took second seat to plagues, death, and destruction. They would torture her. Use her to find out how to kill the other Siders.

  If there was anyone there at all.

  Kristen squeezed her eyes shut. “I'm not playing your games.”

  Pressure on her shoulder. A hand there.

  So real.

  “Kristen, open your eyes.” The footsteps rounded the corner of the bench. The rustle of fabric as someone--no, you're imagining this--as she imagined someone squatting in front of her.

  “No one's there.” She leaned forward, rocking against her knees. A touch of fingertips, a hand forcing her to straighten. She shuddered against the back of the bench. It all felt so real.

  “Open your eyes.” the voice demanded.

  “I'm not going crazy,” she whispered.

  “Going? From the look of you that line got crossed some time ago, my romantic hopeless.”

  She didn't bother answering. Sane people didn't answer voices.

  “Kristen?” Tender tones now. New tactics. Beware, some part of her mind cried. They'll trick you. When he spoke again any semblance of kindness had disappeared from his voice. “You're in the park. You're also covered with snow and it's freezing. Now, clearly you weren’t batshit when you called me for help—”

  “I did not call anyone.” She pressed her lips together.

  “It's Luke, Kristen.”

  Her breath caught. Slowly, she opened her eyes.

  He was only inches from her face, flakes of snow caught in his black curls. He reached out to her, and in her shock, her hand lunged from her lap and seized his. A smile flashed across his lips at the contact, satisfaction glinting in the obsidian of his eyes.

  “You called,” he said. “And I came to you.” He rose from his knees in one lithe move and slid beside her on the bench.

  “I...” She trailed off. “No. No, you stay away from me.” She squeezed his hand for a second, long enough to feel the bones, make sure it was real before she tossed it away. “You don’t get to talk to me ever again.”

  “Today hasn't been so good?” He said it like she'd missed her bus or misplaced her keys.

  She hesitated, but his smile broke her down. There was no pity in it. He took her hands again, rubbing his over them slowly to generate warmth.

  She glanced around. Everything lay under at least an inch of fresh snow. The lamps along the path were lit, fooled by the cloud cover though it wasn’t yet dark. She blinked as the wind shifted into her face. Save for herself and Luke, the park was empty. No one would see her talking to him.

  Her fingers looked frostbitten, mottled with patches of maroon and white, the nails an unhealthy, pale blue-gray. Luke followed her gaze down to their hands.

  “Could you go? Please?” She heard the desperate plea in her words, knew before he answered, it wouldn’t be that easy.

  “Come on, you know I’m not going to leave you. Not in this condition.”

  She licked her lips and they seemed to freeze almost instantly.

  Anxiety flooded through her. How long had she been gone? Had anyone seen her leave? Why couldn’t she have called Sebastian?

  Her face crumbled, and Luke lowered his voice. “No one has to know you let me help. We’ll keep it between us.”

&n
bsp; “I don’t want anything from you,” she whispered. His name already sullied too many of her secrets.

  “None of what’s happening is your fault. You shouldn’t have to go through this,” he said.

  She searched his eyes, waiting for some sign that he played her, malice hidden in the darkest corners, but found none.

  “Kristen,” he said, slouching forward to rest his elbows on his knees. His fingers rubbed either side of the bridge of his nose, ran across his high cheekbone to tuck his black curls behind his ear. He scooted closer. “Let me inside.”

  She heard a faint pop, the sound of static. Even her own diseased brain reacted in fear.

  She’d only let him do it once. Too easily she remembered the slippery shivers, the dangerous thrill of opening her mind to him, letting him inside. Fallen or not, he had the same skills as Gabe when it came to fixing her brain.

  “No.” Panic rose in her throat. “I shouldn't have come here.”

  “Kristen, stop.” Luke gripped her chin, forced her to face him.

  She kept her eyes closed, her lips pressed tight. A giggle broke out. Kristen whimpered as she realized it came from neither of them. It grew into a laugh, echoing.

  What will he do when she loses her mind in his clutches? a small voice asked.

  A ricocheting cacophony burst through her skull. She would never Are you sure She wouldn’t dare But he has the same talents as This one crossed her betrayed her and she won’t make that mistake again Never let him in

  Never let him in.

  “I’m asking your permission.” Luke’s voice. Louder than the others. “Kristen,” he snarled, and then his voice softened as he took her hands. “You can’t make me see you like this and then ask me to do nothing. Open your eyes. Let me help you. No catch.”

  Her breath came in short gasps. Soon she’d be drowning in the madness. She’d never be able to hold out for Gabriel.

  Luke’s lying He cares nothing for her It’s all a game If she gives in he wins

  “Shut up!” she screamed. She wanted to yank her hands over her ears, but Luke had her hands.

  Just this once. Letting him in even a little would give her time to reach Gabriel—hell, she’d go through Az if she had to—apologize a thousand times. She swallowed hard, her heart slamming in her chest. She only needed a little help, to give Luke a few seconds, no more.

  What if it’s a trick? She cleared her mind as best she could. Banished thoughts of Gabriel, Eden, Az. And then she opened her eyes.

  “Do it quickly,” she choked out.

  His fingers wound gently around the back of her head, massaging into her hair, but she was barely aware, locked into the black pupils, the absence of light concentrated in the center his eyes.

  She felt the connection take, the cool sizzle of him sliding into her skull. His breath hit her lips. The static dialed up, a scream of white noise, then again, louder. Get him out.

  “Enough.” She managed to lift her arms, pushing him away as her clarity returned. “Stop,” she murmured. “Stop.”

  Luke untangled from her hair when she started to resist and squeezed her shoulders. “I need to finish.”

  “STOP!” she screamed.

  He turned his head and the noise snapped off. Everything dulled. Kristen blinked hard, sudden tears of relief and embarrassment caught in her lashes. Luke. She’d let Luke into her head. Again. Shame rolled over her.

  “I wasn’t done!”

  She jerked her shoulders from his grasp and staggered to her feet. “Stay away from me,” she ground out.

  “Kristen!” he called after her, louder as she made her way from the park. “It won’t last!”

  Luke stayed where she’d left him on the bench. She quickened her steps anyway. Not to see if he’d chase, only to get her blood pumping again, get warm. Nothing more.

  She pushed the thought of him from her mind, her scalp still tingling where his fingers had pressed tight.

  Chapter 6

  For half an hour, the demons had been trailing Gabe from subway car to subway car. They were there with him as he switched trains. He couldn’t shake them. They didn't look mortal, not to him, their faces slowly melting downward, starting over at their foreheads like eternity pools, but the humans passed by them, not one reacting. Demons were beyond the capabilities of mortal eyes.

  A sharp pain shot through his upper arm. Gabe didn't look back, quickened his pace. He would have thought, being Fallen, that the minions of Hell would be on his side.

  He would have been wrong.

  Perhaps it was because he resisted the dark urges.

  The demons stood behind him, growing more brazen with every passing minute as he waited on the platform. He gritted his teeth and shifted his arm away, rubbing it through his coat. Fingers closed over his, clammy reptilian skin brushing away his own hand. The same pinch on the back of his arm came again. This time he couldn't stifle his cry.

  Behind him, the demons cackled in glee.

  “His suffers taste like sugar!” The demon girl's voice crackled like glass through the freezing air. “Sweet sorrows,” she said, and Gabe heard the mocking pout in it.

  “Touch me again and I'll have your hands,” he said without turning around. Pain shot up the back of his arm. He spun, his lips curled in a snarl, and hissed at them. They went hysterical, practically falling over themselves as they giggled behind him through the station.

  Gabe glanced at the mortals on the platform, but not one met his eyes. To them, he was merely a ranting lunatic. It was only then that he saw the penknife in the demon boy’s hand, the thin blade bloodied. He wondered what the mortals would think when the blood soaked through his jacket.

  “Bound and broken, sins are spoken. Doesn't make you one of us,” the demon boy said in singsong. He reached forward again and Gabe grabbed the hand, squeezing until he heard bones crack. The knife clattered to the ground. The girl demon was on it before Gabe had a chance to dive. When Gabe released the boy, the demon shook out his hand. The broken bones rattled down into the skin of his fingers, filling them like balloons stuffed with rocks.

  The demon girl’s arm shot forward, her nails gouging out a chunk of Gabe’s exposed skin near his wrist. “You’re dark as daylight, Failed One. We’ll have you piece by piece.”

  Gabe pressed into the crowd, away from them. At his back, a mortal boy stumbled in the yellowed painted caution area before the sunken tracks. He caught his footing, distanced himself from the edge and shot Gabe a glare. Around him the crowd had grown uncomfortably silent. He could sense their fear of him, the way they leaned away like a receding tide. The platform was too crowded for them to move far.

  “I’m sorry,” Gabe mumbled, trying to give the teenager room.

  The girl demon cackled in his ear. “Apologizing to mortals when he should be slaughtering them?” The sharp laugh dropped to a guttural snarl. “You want the scent of his blood on your skin. The thought pleases you, does it not?”

  The crowd on the platform strained forward toward the tracks, restless.

  “Newly Fallen. No resisting the urge,” one demon laughed to the other. “The boy’s brains will butter our bread.”

  Gabe focused on the back of the boy’s jacket. He hated himself for the quaking in his arms, the muscles jerking as he fought not to raise them. He hated how much effort it took not to give in, his quickened breaths, his spiking adrenaline.

  Push him, fetch agonies.

  The hot need overwhelmed everything. Newspapers stirred, swirling on currents of air. A train approached. So little to tip him forward.

  A whimper rose from Gabe’s throat, but he cut it short. The demons curled closer, sensing his weakness, oozing around him as if their bodies were part smoke. With every dark cell of his body he willed the train to come. Push the boy in front of it.

  “No!” Gabe clenched his hands at his sides.

  Fetid breath skated across his cheek. “Why ache for slaughter? Don’t deny yourself!”

  “What
harm to kill only one?”

  “How glorious to bathe in his blood,” the demon cooed in a high-pitched wheeze.

  Gabe barely registered the press of the penknife into his palm. His fingers curled around it unconsciously.

  “Slit him open. Ear to ear.”

  Breakable, so breakable. Mortals clawed through these tunnels like rats. A plague of decaying flesh, rotting cell by cell, day by day. His foot slid forward of its own volition. His gaze rose to the pale skin of the boy’s throat.

  “No.” Gabe tore his eyes away, staring down the tunnel.

  “Wicked wants. They’re inside you. You can’t forsake the darkness.” A breath of words across his ear. “Kill him.”

  “Kill him,” the other purred.

  Gabe trembled. No, the platform beneath him trembled. He sighed in relief. Thirty seconds and the train would be there. Twenty. Ten.

  The knife jerked out of Gabe’s hand. He screamed as it stabbed into his own shoulder, biting deep. He yanked away from the blinding pain and slammed into the mortal. The train clattered, breaks screamed.

  Everything happened too fast. The boy stumbled forward, sneaker laces caught under Gabe’s boot. The horn blaring. A wet smack. Fluid sprayed across Gabe’s face.

  Only the boy’s arm remained. It stood straight, crushed in the gap between the platform and the now stopped train. The fingers twitched, waving goodbye with the final death spasms.

  Around him, chaos erupted. Screams echoed through the train station.

  Gabe lunged for the stairs. It was an accident. He retched, dry heaving at the first trickle of regret. His body sought out the feeling, expelled it from him like a poison. A pair of police officers rushed down the stairs to the subway, walkie-talkies screaming codes.

  Gripping the stair rail, Gabe hauled himself up to the street. The image of the arm with its waggling fingers burned behind his eyelids with each blink, stained upon his retina.

  Find another thought. Anything.