Renegade Red

by Lauren Bird Horowitz

  “Judah!” Arik demanded.

  But Judah was looking at Noa, searching, listening, hearing—

  “Impostor…,” he echoed, or maybe he just mouthed it, and maybe Noa mouthed it too, and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  “Judah! Now!”

  Judah looked at Arik, nodded once, took a step forward in obedience—but then his body turned and ran, crashed toward the wall, thrust Noa into the supply chute and slammed the cover tight.

  The last thing Noa saw was his confused, conflicted face. Then the door crashed closed and the thunderous screams grew faint as she plummeted backward in total darkness.

  PART IV: ISLANDS

  Callum couldn’t see it happen clearly because the other soldier—the one who looked like him, who wasn’t quite a stranger but felt better, worse, and more—was smudged and fuzzy around the edges. Even though it happened quickly (so said the shouts and leaping-into-action), it still happened the way everything happened now: smoothly, like pirouettes in ice. The other soldier (Judah who remember is my brother, though I do not think I love him) had been holding the blond girl tight, waiting his turn to come and do his duty. But then he was hoisting her up (like a mermaid) and running and pushing her into the delivery chute. She disappeared, blond hair last (or maybe the tail, the long green tail, something that glittered).

  Except the girl was not a mermaid. Her hair was many colors of yellow, that was true, and that meant something except it didn’t. Because she was a prisoner, and she was not diving down some towered tree of kelp, she was escaping down that chute like the garbage that she was.

  And the other soldier (my brother Judah, remember, but maybe it’s that he does not love me) let her escape instead of going into the room of glass and doing his duty, doing what was right. The room of glass was the place where the things that did not make sense—the feelings like who loved who, and who was what, and what was good or bad or lies—were purified, melted down to smooth, clean color, poured neatly into thin tubes that went on to serve an ordered function. Because order was the most important thing. Order, which was neat and clean—and safe.

  There was no room for mermaids—half-Fae, half-fish, half-fable—in a world of order.

  So after it happened, Callum strode over to the chute, where the other soldier (my brother, remember, who needs my love because look at how he makes mistakes) was now blocking the silver door with his body. Judah was tall and strong but not so tall and strong as Callum. Judah could fight the others and even Captain Arik but not his brother who knew all the ways he flailed. Callum couldn’t place the memory exactly, but his muscles knew just how Judah would pretend he had six arms and legs. His body knew the ways to work around it (my brother thinks he is an octopus, but he is not, it is the trick of that tricky mermaid).

  Callum pinned Judah in front of him, the way Judah had so recently pinned the girl. Callum used his gift to block the air from Judah’s brain to make Judah fall asleep. Then Callum calmed. He was surprised, for he had not realized he was so agitated—that his muscles had been pulsing, seething, until Judah was immobilized, safe from making the wrong choice.

  Warmth spread through Callum—thick, pleasing in a numbing sort of way—to know Judah now was protected. Callum had done his job. Callum was, after all, the one who could see, and who wanted to be good. Callum knew to make things quiet when they were noisy, bad, and bright.

  “Good work, Callum,” Captain Arik told Callum brusquely as he got back to his feet from the place Judah had kicked him down (Octopus legs, Judah has, but not the eyes to see). Callum felt another swell of pride because he liked to please this gaunt, stretched-out man (whose face is like an eagle). But it was strange how Captain Arik never met Callum’s eye, and even though his words of praise—like all words and voices, and ordered noise—came to Callum slightly fuzzy with round edges, they still sounded sharp. Like Captain Arik didn’t want to say them, or was biting off their perfect, rounded ends.

  Things like this sometimes made Callum wonder if Captain Arik really saw the way that Callum did. If he really understood the importance of order.

  Callum closed his eyes a moment, let the pleasant warmth expand and blur away that thought. He had discovered it was very good for that. Callum didn’t like to think badly of Captain Arik: Captain Arik had rescued Callum, after all, and reminded Callum of what he’d used to know so well: the certainty, the blissful certainty, of helping his Great Otec father. For even though Callum’s other memories crumbled like dry sand, his memory of helping Otec Darius remake the world was crystal clear, and clean.

  Callum remembered every detail with the fineness of a photograph: how he had learned to use the finest aspects of his gift, sometimes to knit broken skin and bones, and other times, to convince the ones who did not understand about the stillness (and the order) that, for their own protection, they should speak the things they thought were secrets. Many times, those Fae (confused Fae, named Rebels) thought things were true that were really lies they didn’t even know would hurt them.

  It made sense, perfect logical sense, then, what Callum had performed as his duty in those days: he’d shown these misguided Fae, in a way they could feel (since they could not see), how their messiness was hurting them. It was not enough to reorder things from the top, to Awaken the real, clear truth—you also had to make it stick for those too confused to see it. That was why hard things were necessary then, and why they were necessary now.

  The small girl, Callum thought, was a good example. She had flailed and bit like Judah in Callum’s arms but was light as a paper doll. She’d been in the cell with the mermaid (not a mermaid, remember, even if she has a mermaid heart), and Callum hadn’t wanted to pick her up because she was a child. But he had to, because seeing the small girl, and especially the other not-a-mermaid (the one who is gone now, remember, because Judah let her escape), had caused that unpleasant chaos to race across Callum’s skin. The small girl (and more, the other) disturbed the warmth of Callum’s inside order.

  So the hard thing had to happen.

  And so Callum had done it, just as Captain Arik had commanded. He’d picked up the small girl and taken her to the glass room and done his duty (even though inside I screamed! Where is my voice! Whose are these hands!) and hadn’t stopped till it was done (her little limbs dissolving into pure, pure Green, but it does not feel clean, oh no, not clean at all—). Callum had successfully transformed the girl’s messy noise into a still and silent tube of purpose, ready for the preciseness of its job.

  (But sick, nauseated, inside-out, and the bottle feels so cold.)

  Now Callum held Judah pinned in front of him unconscious, because Judah’s mistake had made a mess and let the mermaid girl escape. Callum closed his eyes again, waited for the numbing salve of fuzzy warmth. It worked, the way it always did when everything was finally in its place.

  “He must be fighting the collar somehow, that’s how he disobeyed,” Captain Arik said to Callum. Callum opened his eyes and saw Captain Arik fling down Judah’s wrist, the one with the red tube that held the special charm. Callum had made that charm, another hard thing needed to keep the order (but it hurts for some reason to remember this, it does not feel warm and safe, even though Arik says it is … ).

  “What about the prisoner who escaped?” Callum asked in that voice that wasn’t his but always knew just what to do. Relief poured over him to hear it; it was so much easier when that voice took charge.

  “Forget her, she’s not important. But we’ll have to put him into a cell again until I can find a more permanent way of swaying him.”

  Callum’s warm numbness hitched unpleasantly. Captain Arik looked upset. His plan for Callum’s brother had not brought order.

  “No, I don’t want to do that,” Callum’s strong voice said.

  Captain Arik glared at Callum. “It’s not up to you to decide.”

  Callum’s ears twitched, hearing so
mething funny in Arik’s voice. Callum squinted: Arik was not glaring into Callum’s eyes, but at a spot between them.

  Captain Arik was afraid.

  There was no room for fear in order. Not with hard things to be done.

  Callum, Strong Callum, stood up straight and turned to the Guard on Arik’s left. This Guard had a spider tattoo around his eye and admired Callum—he had followed Callum around the compound and asked about those memories, the sharp ones, of when Callum had served in the Otec’s regiments.

  “We are not going to put him in a cell,” Callum’s strong voice told Spider-Eye directly. Spider-Eye glanced at Arik, and Callum’s shoulders squared. The warmth came again, but sharper, stronger, in a way that was different than before.

  “Don’t look at him. You look at me,” he ordered Spider-Eye.

  “You’re out of line—” Arik began, but Callum caught his spindly arm as it made a move to grab the bracelet on Callum’s wrist. Callum twisted the arm back, told the elbow joint to break. Arik screamed, but Callum didn’t listen. Arik knew how pain had to be used to teach what was right.

  It was not right that Arik touch Callum’s bracelet, not anymore.

  “You are not his son!” Arik cried, voice strangled and piercing and slurpy with pain. Messy.

  Callum told Arik’s mouth to seal itself and turned away because Arik’s face was messy too.

  “Put him somewhere until he calms down,” Callum told the Guard beside Spider-Eye, the one with the squeaky voice. With each order, Callum felt more robust with purpose. Still and calm and clean.

  Callum turned to Spider-Eye, knowing just what was supposed to happen next. “Take my brother and me to see the Otec; it’s time to join our father.”

  • • •

  Noa tumbled and tumbled down the chute, sliding and careening down the cold silver walls. It felt like being swallowed—the slippery, slipping darkness, the gurgle clang and rub—but Noa didn’t care. Anything was better than what she had just seen, still saw, could never now unsee: Marena melting, Marena melting, right through Callum’s white, white hands.

  So it was too soon, much too soon, when the dark throat expelled Noa into the stomach of the palace—the heat and steam and sweat of the grinding, belowground laundry. Gray-shirted Colored Fae rushed, ironed, wrung, and hauled in a constant state of siege and sweat. The pile of sodden Colored Fae rags that broke Noa’s fall was sopped with the heavy air.

  No one noticed Noa’s entrance amid the chaos and the heat, which was just as well since Noa’s eyes still only saw Marena, Callum, and not what was in front of her. Fortunately, her body didn’t need her eyes to help; it reacted on its own. Her arms reached down into the moist, hot rags, pulled some on over her bruises, limbs, and scar. Her feet walked to the stove, her hands picked up a bubbling pot of boiling water, her head bowed itself over the steam, and her legs scurried across the fray.

  “What the hell are you doing?” a fat pixie yelled when Noa slopped hot water on her rag-wrapped foot. Noa tried to focus on her face, but instead of lines and jowls she saw Marena, only Marena—

  “Watch out, you gobbin’ cul! What’s wrong with you?”

  Noa clumsily dropped the pot, pushed past the pixie to the center of the Laundry. Mounds of silver uniforms were being sprayed and steamed; sizzling liquid swirled down a huge grated drain. Noa walked directly into the seething steam, heard but did not feel its sizzle on her skin. She took a white-hot uniform, used it to pry up the scalding grate.

  Somewhere distantly behind her, Noa heard the fat pixie’s anger turn to fear and swell with other voices, mixing with the hiss and spray, but Noa didn’t listen and didn’t care. It was so hot, so hot, so hot, but Marena had melted so what did it matter if Noa melted too, and anyway, Noa couldn’t see so she couldn’t see to be afraid—and she jumped directly into the hole of boiling heat and burning air.

  Down, down, down Noa fell inside the scalding drainpipe, down, down, down, burning and searing off her skin. But it didn’t matter how hot it was, how much flesh she lost, because at least it was dark and away and so who cared—

  —and then she hit the hard, tepid wet where hot droplets met a stagnant, shallow pool.

  Noa’s body curled, then rolled. She looked up, but any sign of the opening from which she’d fallen had been lost, along with light. The only light now was weak and sickly. Lavender.

  Noa had been here before, in this sandpaper place.

  Her legs stood, her body walked. Forward then left then right then right then left until she was so deep into the Tunnels, so far gone into the endless maze, that finally, finally no one could ever touch her.

  • • •

  Bump, bump, bump. Bump, bump, bump.

  Judah’s head was hitting, jolting, against something hard that rose and fell—something hard, but breathing. He tried to see what it was, but it was difficult, because whatever it was was moving—and so was he.

  He was being carried. Up stairs.

  Judah felt shocky, disjointed. Like his mind had been disconnected then put back too loosely, with the wires all wrong. So when he turned the switch, his fuses blew.

  Bump, bump, bump.

  Judah tried to glimpse the breathing mass of white against which his head kept hitting. He saw the shine of a silver button, the crisp neatness of the fabric—a soldier’s uniform. He cringed, and as he cringed he caught that scent: trees, sea, a little bit of lavender.

  His brother.

  In uniform.

  Panic and pain exploded in Judah’s head, wild and indecipherable; he cursed the faulty wiring that was so slow to translate. Something bad had happened, really bad, they’d both been lost and a pixie—

  No, not a pixie, Noa—

  Had vanished into a hole—

  “Callum,” Judah crackled, knowing the name only as he spoke it. “Where are you taking me? What happened? Where’s Noa?”

  “Don’t worry, Brother,” Callum replied. “I’m going to help you. I’m going to make sure you are all right.”

  But Callum’s certainty didn’t calm Judah; it did the opposite, the way Judah guessed it was not supposed to. Things were mixed up, backwards, inside out. Impostor. But who was the impostor? Was it Callum? Noa? Him?

  Fear exploded in Judah’s throat. “Who am I? Who am I, Callum!”

  “You’re my brother. Don’t worry. Our father will fix you.”

  “Callum, no!” Judah cried, not sure of anything except that he was terrified. He wanted to struggle, to get away, but his body would not obey, as if his veins were filled with tar. Panic bloomed atop the terror, another horrific certainty: “Something’s wrong! Something’s wrong with me! Something’s happened!”

  “Shh,” Callum soothed, neither missing stride nor slowing. “You made a mistake, but that’s what you do and then I help you, and so will Otec Darius—”

  “He’ll kill us, Callum!” Judah screamed, again discovering the truth only as he screamed it.

  “Shh, Brother,” Callum cooed.

  “No! No!” Desperation made Judah’s words slurred and messy, impossible to control with sharpness. “No!” he whimpered, then sobbed. “No!” But Callum wouldn’t hear, and somewhere Judah had known he’d never hear. Now they were at the top of those endless stairs and a Guard with a spider on his eye was opening the door.

  “Callum!” Judah screamed.

  “Hail, Otec!” Spider-Eye proclaimed, opening the door.

  The boys walked in together; the Otec, their father, turned—

  —but it wasn’t their father, wasn’t Darius at all.

  It was the Gatekeeper.

  It was Kells.

  • • •

  Deep within the labyrinth, Noa’s legs finally gave out beneath her. Her body sprawled on the wet ground, cheek in some unknown, stagnant runoff. It was probably crawling with disease. It was prob
ably infecting all her burns. She didn’t care.

  Marena was dead.

  Marena was dead, Callum was lost, and Judah was … something. And Sasha—

  No.

  Noa could not bear to think of Sasha, of the hole where Sasha was supposed to be, on top of everything else. Better, safer, to think of this filthy puddle and try to sleep. Even sleep forever, if it meant oblivion now.

  “Nose, hello, Nose! Don’t make me poke you, girl. I just painted these bad boys.”

  Olivia’s neon-yellow fingernails wiggled in front of Noa’s eyes. The fourth fingernail on each hand was painted Day-Glo pink.

  “Nose! I am in the middle of telling you about my Jeremy drama! And yo, did you get dressed in the dark this morning?”

  Noa looked down. Her wrinkled Harlow oxford had definitely seen better days.

  “Your mom the moon again?” Olivia asked gently.

  Noa looked into Olivia’s soft, concerned dark eyes.

  “It’s gonna take time. At least your aunt’s helping now, right? Here, wear mine.” Olivia went to her closet. “I keep it ironed on the hanger. I swear, my parents trained me to be OCD.”

  For some reason, Noa felt tears come to her eyes. “What were you saying about Jeremy?” she asked, the way she knew a good friend was supposed to.

  “Oh, just I get the feeling he’s gonna ask me to the Alumni Ball, and I need a good excuse. Not the ‘it’s-not-me-it’s-you,’ because duh, it’s totally him.”

  “Wait, I thought you and Jeremy were dating—”

  “Um, what are you smoking, and can I have some?”

  “No,” Noa remembered, confused. “No, you’re right, he just wanted to be with you, that was his wish, what kept him happy in the In Between, but none of that was real….”

  Olivia put the shirt down, sat down slowly next to Noa. “Are you okay, Noa?”

  Noa shook her head, tried to smile. “Yeah, yeah, I’m just … dream hangover. You know me and my weird artist brain.”