“You’re taking her mind! Her mind!” Anger seethed through him, obliterated the careful caretaker he had been. Noa couldn’t look away, even as every Guard ignored him.
“You can’t do this to her!” he yelled wildly at their indifferent backs. “She has to get out!”
Not even a glance.
Movie Star’s face twisted horribly, became deranged. It was the ignoring, Noa knew, the willful not hearing, not seeing. He was not only imprisoned, he was being erased.
She knew what he was going to do before he did it.
Movie Star howled in rage and alarms split the air, screeching from the tube bracelets around his wrists, now strobing virulent green. A pulse of pure hatred blasted down the hall; its shock wave flung Noa back into her cell as Movie Star hurled every bit of violent loathing that he had. The Guards definitely noticed him now; the hatred lashed across their faces like burning whips, leaving sizzling marks across jaws and eyes and cheeks.
Mustache and Squeaky charged Movie Star’s cell, flung back the bars to tackle, pummel, destroy him. Spider-Eye joined the fray, dragging two unconscious Color Fae behind him. Movie Star screamed as Spider-Eye first Channeled Red to tear into his mind and fry his brain, then Channeled Blue to snake him with razor-sharp cables, conjured from the floor. Movie Star’s body thrashed against the bladed noose tightening around him, slicing off its own flesh to the bone. Chunks slopped messily into blood down around his feet; Movie Star slipped in the marsh of his own matter and juices, writhed on the now-sticky, tacky floor—
And then the woman came.
Noa could tell right away she was a senior officer. She wore the special silver stripe of Captain that Noa had seen on Arik, but far more noticeable was the fact that she was missing an ear. A mottled stump led into an ugly, dark scar that sliced down half her face and pulled her mouth into a twisted, terrible scowl.
The Captain barely glanced at Movie Star’s still-alive carcass, writhing and whimpering on the floor. Her eyes wandered past him to her—Crazy, the pixie Movie Star was so desperate to protect. The one he clearly loved.
The Captain nodded lightly at the Guards. Spider-Eye hoisted Crazy over his shoulder. For once, she made no sound. Mustache, scowling in disgust, picked up what was left of the dripping, oozing Movie Star, and Squeaky grabbed the feet of the two unconscious Channeling slaves to drag them up the hall. They all followed the Captain to the little glass room at the front of the ward, the one whose windows Squeaky cleaned so religiously. The Guard station visible to every cell, yet for some reason never used.
“Keep him conscious,” the Captain said. Noa realized she recognized the Captain’s voice—she was the woman who had supervised their imprisonment with Squeaky. Spider-Eye deposited Crazy inside the glass room, then came back out and grabbed Movie Star’s squishy, dripping shoulder and one of the unconscious Color-Fae slaves. He Channeled Red once more, and Noa saw the light flare wildly back into Movie Star’s eyes. Movie Star’s body remained in ruins, but, sickeningly, Noa knew, he could now see and process everything.
Spider-Eye and Mustache hoisted Movie Star right up against the outer window of the glass Guard station, forcing him to watch whatever was to come inside. A sludge of bloody goop dripped from Movie Star’s mangled body down the windowpane.
The Captain entered the glass room where Crazy was slumped, shell-shocked. The Captain moved meticulously, like a doctor, and delicately put on a pair of white plastic gloves.
The Woman with White Hands.
Noa bit her lip hard, tasting blood.
The Captain took something from her breast pocket, something delicate and silver, and clasped it around her wrist. Noa squinted, trying to see it better, then recoiled as the woman suddenly throttled Crazy’s throat with those clinical white-gloved hands.
Crazy’s eyes bulged and swelled as the Captain strangled her; her mouth flew open to scream, but no sound came out. Noa was thankful at least for that, to be spared the screams—and then she realized how much worse that made it.
It wasn’t that simple, what the Captain was doing—she wasn’t just choking Crazy, taking her breath. As the Guards forced Movie Star to watch—the one who had urged Crazy to eat, who had calmed her night after night—Crazy’s face melted like a grotesque candle, eyes and mouth oozing away, her whole head liquefying into jelly. Noa understood then why the Captain had put on those white gloves: the pixie’s remains spilled down and through her fingers, thick and viscous and darkest red. It didn’t stop at Crazy’s head, either: the melting spread downward, rendering arms, legs, and torso like pig fat until the pixie was no more than red slop on the floor.
The one-eared Captain stayed impassive, but Noa saw the tiny glint of triumph in her eye as she nodded briskly outside. It was then that Noa realized she had summoned an entire squad of Guards—twelve, probably any and all on duty from the active wards—and they had gathered eagerly, gleefully, noses practically pressed against the glass for the show.
The Guard the Captain had summoned wasn’t one Noa knew. He was broad and hulking, with bunched-up shoulders, and dragged an unconscious Blue behind him. Channeling the Blue, Shoulders made the Red sludge that had been Crazy pool together and then fill a long silver canister in his hand. Still Channeling, he put his palm over the canister’s top and neatly sealed it off.
Noa almost vomited as she recognized the fluid in the canister: it was the same fluid that ran in the alarms around the city. The gallons and gallons and gallons of fluid.
The fluid then ran in the tubes around her own wrists.
At the glass wall of the room, the thing that had been Movie Star strangled out a gargled, searing moan. In her horror, Noa had forgotten that he was watching too, that however horrific the scene had been for her, it was so much worse for him.
“Let him bleed there,” the Captain said, handing off her soiled gloves to be thrown away. Shoulders handed her the filled canister of Red fluid, and the Captain promptly walked to the supply shaft—where Spider-Eye received the prisoners’ daily bread—and pushed it through the swinging silver door. There was a slight swoosh as the canister was sucked away.
Finally, carefully, the Captain unclasped the bracelet-type thing from her wrist and gave it to Mustache. She tossed her head toward the trembling carcass of Movie Star. “When he loses consciousness, Review him too. We could use more Green now that we’re making the Smoke.”
The Captain then turned her twisted face to the ward. Noa shivered. In Aurora, the Captain could easily have had her injury healed by a Blue. She had chosen to remain monstrous.
“Let this be a reminder,” she said calmly, commanding every prisoner’s attention with no need to raise her voice. “Do not resist, do not rebel, and above all, do not defend.” Her gaze seemed to wander directly to Noa, who shrank back despite herself. “If you try,” she continued softly, “you will watch as those you seek to protect are punished for your sins.”
Then the Captain turned toward the Guards and said the worst thing of all:
“Interrogations tomorrow. Ready the Reds.”
• • •
“Sure you don’t want to enjoy your last night, pixie?” Geezer hissed in Noa’s ear that night, waking her from a troubled sleep. He trailed a bent finger, jagged with a broken nail, in a circle around her shoulder where she had been curled against the wall they shared with the brothers’ cell. Noa’s eyes snapped open and she shoved him back with flailing arms and feet. His lined face became clearer in the darkness: he was laughing at her.
“Come on, Blondie, we’re all gonna be oozed…. I may be the last Fae face you see.”
“Get back,” Noa snarled. Geezer’s eyes danced as he glanced at the window above her head, the one that connected to the next cell. It was still empty. “Seems your protectors are weaklings, girlie. That Smoke done did them in.”
Noa kicked out at Geezer again; he retreated a little, e
yes still glittering.
Noa heard a little thunk in the dark beside her. She reached behind her and found a piece of the rock-hard prison bread, stale and gnawed into a sharp, shard-like blade. When Geezer circled closer again, she didn’t hesitate; she leapt forward and stabbed him in the stomach. He yelped in surprise, falling backward, looking in confusion at the trickling blood in the center of his shirt.
From the next cell, Judah chuckled. Noa and Geezer looked up at the window; he wasn’t there, but his whisper came across clean as ice.
“Guess she protects herself.”
Geezer frowned angrily but retreated to his corner, slumping down in a hulk. He faced the wall, muttering, and through his gray rag of a shirt, Noa saw his old ribs curled away from her.
Noa sighed heavily and sat with her back against the wall separating her from Judah. She could feel him now on the other side, his back leaning against the same place as hers.
“How’s Cal—I mean, Blue?” she whispered.
“I’m here,” Callum whispered back, voice faint and strained.
“He’s next to me. I think we’re finally coming out of it,” Judah said.
“Just in time to be interrogated,” Noa murmured, stomach sinking. “Think that’s a coincidence?”
There was quiet murmuring from the other side.
Finally, Judah whispered, “Are you sure?”
Noa nodded, then remembered they couldn’t see her. “I heard the Captain—not Arik, a woman. She ordered it.”
Silence. When Callum finally spoke, his voice was barely audible. “We have to be careful. With what they read in our minds.”
“What if they…” Noa looked through the dark at Geezer, who seemed to be lying still, but she barely breathed it all the same: “Find out about … the weapon?”
Another silence. Then Judah: “When we were back in the … your home … Fabian kept trying to break into my mind in the Club, remember? I learned to sort of … block it.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Noa thought she saw Geezer twitch. Or maybe it was a shadow.
“Well when Thorn used Fabian on me, he found out nearly everything,” Callum replied heavily.
“But not about Sa—the weapon,” Noa pointed out.
“True. But I don’t know how much longer I could have kept her—it—a secret. Besides, back then I could anchor myself to you, Noa … to your certainty, your belief in me…” He trailed off.
Noa flinched into the dark. “I still believe in you—”
“Well, Blue, you’ll have to find a way,” Judah hissed. “You owe us that.”
“You’re the one who threw Sa—the weapon—here in the first place!”
“For the last time, that was an accident—”
“Stop,” Noa interrupted with quiet force. “Blame is not the point! The weapon’s here and so are we! And we can’t let Otec Darius get it, no matter what your brother issues are!” They grumbled quietly, but Noa didn’t even try to hear what they were saying. “And what about me? I’m not like you two. Even if you hold up with your gifts, I have no chance!”
The boys answered at the same time.
“We’ll protect you,” Callum said, just as Judah said, “You’ll just have to fight it.”
Bickering broke out again.
“She’s not like us, Red!”
“She’ll have to manage!”
“How—” Noa began.
“Yeah, how?” Callum demanded.
“Like your plan would work? Just sacrifice ourselves trying to protect her when obviously it would be impossible?”
“No,” Noa hissed, interrupting. “I mean, really, how? Jud—I mean, Red—how would I do it? Block it out?”
Noa heard Callum sigh, but Judah seemed to press closer to the wall. She could feel it. He began to whisper, low and clear. “Well, I guess you sort of … see it. When Fabian was trying to invade my thoughts, I could see it, the threat coming in. I kind of faced it, saw all its angles, then pushed it away.”
Noa frowned, struggling to understand.
“Are you a moron, Judah?” Callum muttered. He whispered urgently across the wall, “The important thing is to shield from the attack, not look right at it. Put the things you don’t want them to know in a kind of box. Close the lid, seal it up, then push that box down deep and far away. Bury it so deep they can’t find it. Then look away, and hope they do too.”
“No, that’s the opposite of what I’m saying,” Judah argued.
“What you said made no sense!”
Noa breathed shakily. “I-I’ll just have to do my best.”
“You’re stronger than you think, Noa,” Callum whispered urgently, though which of them she was trying to convince, she wasn’t sure. “You ransacked the Clear Province all on your own.”
“I had help—”
“From a child,” Judah whispered.
Noa’s stomach twisted painfully. “You’re wrong though, both of you,” she whispered in panic, needing to explain, needing them to understand. “Marena really helped me, and it was like … I don’t know, it was like the adrenaline or something made me braver and quicker than I really am. I was able to ignore the injuries and, I don’t know, common sense I normally have! It was fight or flight!”
“Well, this is too. Even more,” Judah whispered unhelpfully.
“So is staying here, interrogations or not,” Callum pointed out. “We need an exit plan.”
“Well, we must be in the castle, right? Somewhere in the dungeon?” Judah guessed. “Maybe we can use the interrogations tomorrow to figure out more about where we are. And maybe even where the ‘weapon’ is being kept—”
“But I don’t recognize this ward,” Callum replied. “That knife-down gate is something new.”
“That’s my point. If we can figure out where we are, we can figure out how to break out.”
Silence.
“That sounds … like as good a plan as any, right Blue?” Noa finally whispered tentatively.
Judah scoffed. “Of course not, since I thought of it.”
“That’s not it,” Callum murmured. Something in his voice made Noa’s stomach tense. “I’m just thinking…”
“What?” Judah asked derisively.
Callum began whispering so softly, so rapidly, Noa could barely make out the words, though she was pressing as hard as she could against the wall. “Darius’s quarters have to be somewhere above us. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe we should go to him, maybe there’s a chance that we can appeal to him, reach him, he is our father—”
“Are you insane?” Judah whisper-cried in outrage.
“No listen, he really loved me—”
“Before! Before you supposedly killed Lil—the weapon!”
“But if he has the weapon now, then he knows that wasn’t what really happened—” Noa pointed out.
“Yeah, and you think he’ll be pleased Cal—Blue stole it instead?”
Noa bit her lip. “He’s right, Blue,” she whispered.
“You just don’t understand—”
“Let’s get out of here first, okay? Then we can debate whether you’re still the apple of psycho-Papa’s eye.”
Noa felt Callum’s pain, wanted to soothe him. She put her palm against the wall, as if to reach to him. “We just have to be careful, Blue. Look what Darius has put in motion here. You ran from him once—”
“I know, I just—” Callum broke off. “What if I was wrong? What if I shouldn’t have given up on him? I have to try—” His words became so soft Noa could barely hear them. “Don’t people you love deserve a second chance?”
Judah huffed and Noa closed her eyes, pain fluttering in her heart. In the corner, she heard Geezer shift.
“I think…,” she whispered carefully. “I think we should all try to get some rest. We need our strength
for tomorrow.”
Seemingly in agreement, or maybe just acquiescence, they all lay down in silence.
The next day, they came for Noa.
• • •
The morning started like the others: the familiar ping of the supply chute, Spider-Eye’s twelve footsteps toward its silver latch, the creak as he pulled it down, the thump as he removed the sack of bread. Then his footsteps, punctuated by falling stones of staleness, down the ward.
At Noa’s cell, Spider-Eye shoved two hard chunks of bread through the bars. She quickly snatched both pieces, smirked at Geezer with a curling lip.
Geezer squinted narrowly, but he made no move to challenge her, slinking back. Noa thrilled a little. Maybe she was stronger than she thought.
Then she heard the Captain at the front of the hall. “Intake.”
Noa looked through the bars as the Captain and Squeaky dragged a new prisoner toward the cells. Noa couldn’t see the prisoner very well, but she could see where the Guards were headed—to the now-empty cell that had been Movie Star and Crazy’s. Noa shuddered, remembering what had happened to them—then felt incredibly angry that this place had made her someone who could have forgotten something like that, even for a moment.
Squeaky tossed the new prisoner into the back like a sack of moldy potatoes. “They hit her with a lot of Smoke. Probably be a while—”
A rock of bread suddenly soared past him and the Captain. It hit the ground and bounced toward the front gate, which slammed down and pulverized it instantly. As if the ghost of Crazy had returned.
“Who did that?” the Captain demanded furiously, turning to the ward. It was the first time Noa had heard the Captain raise her voice. Noa looked with her up and down the hall, praying it hadn’t been Callum or Judah who had been so foolish. She clenched her fingers around her second piece of bread—and realized her first was gone.
Noa stumbled backward, stunned. What did I do?
The Captain stormed down the aisle, and Noa cowered backward, terrified—when suddenly, from every jail cell on every side, rocks of bread soared like grenades into the hall. The front gate slammed down and stretched up again and again, but even it was too slow to keep up with the onslaught. The noise of the smashing, lifting gate, of the skittering stones of bread, of the shouts of Guards and yells of prisoners was thunderous, shaking the very stone beneath their feet.
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