Renegade Red

by Lauren Bird Horowitz

  “Noa…,” Callum began. He leaned back to look into her eyes; his were clearing, becoming vulnerable and open—

  —and then suddenly, he was screaming. “Intruder! Intruder!”

  Noa sprawled backward where he had thrown her, slid with a crash into Judah’s bars. Her vision blackened for a second as she heard the door flung open, the sound of him racing out into the hall.

  “He’s going to get the others,” Judah said hurriedly.

  But Noa didn’t panic. She got up tiredly, turned to Judah’s cell, and put Callum’s keys into the lock. The ones she had lifted from him when she’d embraced him.

  “You didn’t … that wasn’t real? You didn’t trust him? You did it to steal the keys?”

  Noa looked past him at the wall. “I’ve learned.”

  Quickly, Noa slid open the door to Judah’s cage and helped him out.

  “I’m okay, I can do it,” Judah insisted, moving jerkily but with slowly increasing steadiness. He paused to tentatively touch her arm. “Just knowing you forgive me, forgive us both, for what happened, that you don’t hate us—”

  Noa snapped her arm away. “I do hate you!” she said, looking anywhere but at his face. “When are you going to get that?”

  “Callum killed Marena, not me!”

  “And you let it happen! And now I hate him too, is that what you want? Is that what this is all about?”

  Judah lurched back, stung and angry. “I’ve told you before how I feel, Noa—”

  “How you think you feel, Judah! But I never loved you, I’ve told you that over and over! And now I never could. So get over it.”

  “Why did you even come back for me at all then?” Judah demanded, flinging her arm away. “Just go and leave me here to rot!”

  “Because I need you now! To help me find Sasha and get her home! You owe me that.” She spun from him because she did not want to see his face twisting back into its scowl. “You must know where the weapon room is, they must have talked about it. Take me there now.”

  “That’s stupid, Noa—”

  Tears stung Noa’s eyes as she whirled on him. “Do it or I will kill you now, I swear it!”

  “No Noa—” he yelled back, stronger with his hurt, his anger.

  “Now!” Noa ordered.

  “Fine!”

  Judah pushed past her, flung open the door. She followed him out into the hall and quickly down the corridor just as the alarms began to blare.

  • • •

  They ran, and Noa watched the ropey muscles jerk in Judah’s back. He moved quickly but unsteadily, tripping and stumbling as he careened down the hall. She did not offer a steadying hand, however, and he did not turn to make sure she could follow.

  In truth, Noa was somewhere else entirely. Her heart pounded with each step, her blood rushed and blurred her eyes—she was going to see Sasha, Sasha at last, Sasha her sister, her love, that crown of curls, her sticky hands, Sasha, Sasha, Sasha …. Noa pictured her, just how she’d look inside the room up in this Tower, how when they flung the door open, there she’d be, down to that sparkle in her eye; the way she’d fly to Noa’s arms like she’d been waiting and knowing all along…. Again and again, each step the beat of Noa’s prophecy: exactly what she would see, how Sasha would look, how then they would just fly away—

  Noa and Judah turned one last corridor and saw the room. Two grim-faced Guards blocked the door: Spider-Eye and Mustache. Judah skidded to a halt just before he completed the turn and became visible.

  Judah glared at Noa, coming up behind him—I tried to tell you, which felt a lot like I told you so—but Noa didn’t even miss a step. Her body flew around the corner, thundered down the hall so fast that by the time the two Guards turned, she was already bowling into Spider-Eye and knocking him into Mustache like rickety pins. Mustache’s head cracked on the ground; his body fell limp; but Spider-Eye stumbled to his knees, the pupil within the spider contorting wildly in confusion.

  Noa didn’t see it; she didn’t see either of the Guards. She saw only Sasha’s face, Sasha’s hands, the silkiness of those dewy curls. How they would be bouncing as her little legs hurtled toward her long-lost big sister, in her awkward, urgent gate. How Sasha would smile, then laugh, her laugh a shriek, how it would split the air with joy and finally break through Aurora’s heaviness; how Sasha would leap into Noa’s arms, cling to her, then squirm to go back down so she could lead the way—

  Mind dancing somewhere with Sasha’s, Noa felt her body move on its own, with its new and fluid instincts. Her hands went to Spider-Eye’s temples and he fell limp without a scream or even a whimper, his mind suddenly made silent.

  “What the hell?” Judah panted, limping and gasping as he caught up to where she was. “What the hell was that?”

  “They’ll be fine when they wake up,” Noa’s voice said, there but not there. She reached for the door, flung it open—

  “Sasha … ”

  “Noa, listen, wait.”

  But she didn’t listen, she wouldn’t wait, because all she wanted was Sasha’s face and Sasha’s voice and Sasha here and in this room, the moment as she had imagined it, coming finally to life—

  The room was empty, so very empty. No one. Nothing. A lonely bookcase holding test tubes. A bubbling vat shoved in a corner.

  Noa looked into the emptiness, mind and body stunned. Neither could register what her eyes told her to see.

  “Sasha? Sasha!” Noa cried, suddenly knowing only panic. Her body flailed in chaos, frenzy; she tried to run every direction, all directions all at once, flung herself wildly about the room. But no matter where she looked or where she ran it was the same: empty empty empty, a shelf of stupid tubes, a metal vat!

  “I tried to tell you,” Judah said weakly behind her, voice cracking from exertion. “She’s not here, she was never here. Only this.” She turned to him, desperate; scowling, he’d raised his wrist. She hadn’t noticed it before, in the place of the talisman—a tube bracelet filled with black. She looked from it to the tubes on the bookcase, the heating liquid in the vat: the same. Black and viscous, liquid tar.

  “I don’t understand…” Noa began.

  “It’s Kells’ blood. His blood is black, not Green now, and he’s learned to use it like the other Colorline bloods. Except it’s not the same.” Judah wiped at his cheek angrily, though no tear had fallen. He spoke louder, more defiantly. “It’s the opposite. It blocks magic, Noa, it blocks all gifts. Makes you powerless for real….” He swallowed. “None of my gifts will work, I’m nothing now—”

  “Kells? Wait, Mr. Green? The Gatekeeper Thorn fed to the Portal?” Noa cried in confusion. “What does he have to do with this? He’s dead!”

  Judah sagged, in exhaustion or defeat, Noa couldn’t tell. “No, he’s not dead. He traveled right through the Portal when Thorn threw him in, it didn’t even try to hold its master. He came out in Aurora and killed my father. He’s been the Otec all along—”

  “And this … this blood is his weapon?” Noa whispered, falling to her knees. It was too much to process; the floor was spinning, falling.

  “Kells used me to test it.” Judah broke her gaze, face hot with shame. “He thought if I were powerless, I might follow him, too, like Callum. He wants everything Darius had and more—”

  “No, but this can’t be!” Noa shrieked in anger. “The weapon was supposed to be Sasha, I picked it out of Captain Lia’s head. It had to be her!”

  “No, Noa,” Judah said tiredly. “But we’ll keep trying.”

  “How?” Noa wailed, as Sasha’s face swam before her eyes.

  “Together!” Judah snapped.

  “We will never be together, Judah!” Noa didn’t even need to look away as her anger slapped his face; she could not see him now at all. How was this possible? She had been so sure, Sasha had been here, she’d seen it, they were to be reunit
ed, this was the end of this nightmare, this horrid dream, she’d seen it!

  Noa began to sob. It was a dream, only a dream, that’s all this had ever been. A false hope, her own denial. Sasha was not here, was never here, was only in her mind.

  Noa’s brain told her to push Sasha’s face away, to put the image back into its box with all the things that hurt too much, wind the reel of their reunion back into its canister. Lock it all up, bury it deep and somewhere else, somewhere safe; stop being Noa and become animal alone. Focus on getting out alive.

  Except this time she couldn’t do it. The box wasn’t big enough, her arms weren’t strong enough, and her mind, her mind was too fractured now to care.

  So she thought of Sasha, Sasha’s face, the loop of the reunion that now would never be; she watched it over and over, gave it form the way she often conjured Isla’s ghost, and she let Dream-Sasha settle into the corner of this wretched, empty room.

  That was when the door slammed open, and Callum, Kells, and another ally thundered in. Noa watched in shock from her place on the floor, discovered she yet had room for one more loss:

  Kells’ and Callum’s ally, wearing white, was Hilo.

  • • •

  “Hilo,” Noa murmured from the ground, not believing at the same time as she believed it all too well. Hilo had the grace to look at least a bit ashamed: she stood by Kells’ side, clearly by choice, but she averted her light-blue eyes.

  On Kells’ other side, Callum stood erect, face steady but body on edge. His eyes flicked warily to Noa; he stood half a step behind his leader.

  Hilo turned deferentially to Kells, who nodded, and Hilo ran to Judah’s side. Noa realized, with shock, that he’d collapsed into the wall. Hilo knelt tenderly beside him and held him, soothed him as his eyes fluttered weakly.

  Feeling sick, Noa turned to Kells. “Mr. Green,” she said, though calling him by that name here felt absurd.

  “Ms. Sullivan, you recognize me.”

  Noa suddenly registered the great change in Kells’ body: somehow she had not noticed until this moment that his body had untwisted and now stood strong and virile. As if his essence had met her first, and that was still wasted rotten.

  “How did you—”

  “Light, my dear,” Kells answered, but his face turned bitter. “But alas, some things do not come back. Thanks to Darius, the physical is all I get. My gift is gone. Lucky for me, I have found a way to use my predicament.”

  His eyes wandered proudly to the vat, the tubes of black.

  Rage flared in Noa as she thought instantly of Marena. “So the liquefying thing is just because you like to kill people? Because there’s your blood, but you’re not some murdered puddle.”

  Kells chuckled, as at an impertinent puppy. “My blood is the opposite of magical now, so it is useful without my essence. Not like the Colors, I’m afraid, though the product works in a remarkably similar way.” His eyes twinkled at her. “Very lucky for me, don’t you think?”

  “Noa, I’m sorry, please—” Hilo suddenly burst out from where she cradled Judah. “I had to—”

  “That’s enough,” Kells said as he reached into his pocket. Hilo screamed and grabbed her head. When Kells brought his hand back out, he was holding three bracelets—all encased in red tubes. Talismans. He smiled at Noa as Hilo moaned.

  “I suppose I have you to thank for these, my dear. You don’t even know the revolution you started, all because Callum couldn’t control himself around you and made you that bracelet. Young love. Generation after generation, we never learn.” Noa flushed as Kells picked out one bracelet and held it up gingerly, as if it were a rodent, then flung it away into the far corner of the room. “Though that one’s useless, clearly,” he said disdainfully, eyeing the lump of Judah on the floor. Hilo’s face reddened but she said nothing, holding him closer protectively.

  “It’s okay, Hilo,” Noa said, not taking her eyes from Kells. “I get it now. He’s controlling you with a talisman, like Callum.”

  Kells let out a loud, sharp laugh. Callum looked at him nervously, meeting Noa’s eyes for a split second and then looking quickly away. Kells held up one of his two remaining red-tubed talismans.

  “You think I need this with that little turncoat?” Kells laughed, nodding at Hilo. “Please.” Without warning, Kells threw Hilo’s talisman into the bubbling vat of black blood. Hilo screamed as if she’d been shot by a cannon; her chest began to gush with blood as the vat sizzled and boiled and hissed.

  Kells nodded tersely to Callum, who went over to knit the flesh of Hilo’s wound and stop the pain. Hilo stopped screaming, but her eyes remained frantic, terrified. Noa knew she could still feel the injury and always would: a piece of her soul had just been destroyed forever.

  “I doubt you’ll miss it after too long, my dear,” Kells called to Hilo. “You don’t strike me as the wholesome sort to begin with.”

  Noa locked eyes with Hilo’s—they were scared, and beaten. Still ashamed, still apologetic, and even sadder now than before. She didn’t move. And then Noa knew Kells was right—Hilo had chosen Kells’ side. She was a survivor; this was the bargain she’d made to survive with Judah at her side, talisman or no talisman controlling her.

  Noa turned away and retched.

  “That’s not very pleasant,” Kells commented distastefully. “At Harlow, I would have had to clean that up. Mortals can be so filthy.”

  “You realize what you’re doing? What all this is leading to?” Noa coughed, flinging her arm toward the black vat. “You’ll destroy this world—”

  “Yes. And then I’ll come for yours.”

  “Why?”

  Kells’ eyes grew hard. “Because Darius took everything from me, even my gift, and revenge is all I have left.” He took a breath, pushed away his emotion. “And now, my dear, as helpful as you’ve been in getting the whole thing started, I’m afraid you’ve outgrown your usefulness. I simply can’t have you pulling at my puppets’ strings and making them go off-book, the way you did with that one.” He glared briefly at Judah. “Don’t worry, the ending comes full circle.”

  Kells nodded at Callum. Callum swallowed hard—his body twitched a little, clearly uneasy—but he began to walk toward her, looking anywhere but at her eyes. Noa couldn’t breathe.

  Callum was going to kill her.

  So Noa did the only thing she could. She refused to look away. She looked at him unflinchingly, and willed him to wake and see her. And then she realized that even if he didn’t see, even if he couldn’t, she was revealed, just as she was, all that she was—and she was not afraid.

  “It wasn’t Darius, you know, who took away your gift,” she said to Kells, suddenly realizing he too should know, even if he was a villain, maybe because he was a villain, even if it was the last thing she ever did. “Your black blood wasn’t Darius.”

  Kells face creased in frustration, misgiving. He wanted to ignore her, she could tell—but he couldn’t. “Wait,” he commanded Callum. Callum paused with a little heave of relief. “Look at me.” Kells focused on Noa with hard black eyes. “You’re lying.”

  Noa smiled at him as serenity filled her. Sasha was next to her, holding her hand, where she would always be from now on, where Noa could never lose her. Noa met his eyes calmly, an oracle, her words ringing with the peaceful clarity of truth: “Only love is powerful enough to change blood. Darius didn’t do it to you, he couldn’t. You didn’t love Darius. You loved Lorelei, truly, and Lorelei loved you—but she didn’t choose you. Your blood was poisoned by a love that couldn’t be. Your love, for her.”

  Kells’ face flared in anger—then crumpled, his body sagging under itself into the husk it once had been. His lips, dry now and chapped, parted, let out a whispered moan, a keen: “Lorelei…”

  The name made Callum turn from Noa, body vibrating like a tuning fork.

  Kells keened again, agai
n—then filled with rage.

  Kells didn’t need Callum at all, wouldn’t wait for him to do it. Kells wanted to kill Noa himself and kill her now, for shattering the only thing that mattered. Kells’ hand flew to his other pocket, brought out a vial of Blue Smoke—the Smoke that denatured spines and atoms, that ripped the body’s world apart—and hurled it at Noa with everything he had. It happened in a flash, an instant, but once the vial was in the air, time seemed to slow as every head watched its graceful arc: Callum, Kells, Hilo, Noa, like some bizarre serve in a tennis match of death—and then in a flash, time exploded again as the vial hit and shattered on the floor in front of Noa, as the Smoke unleashed like a roaring, seething lion, uncoiling huge and leaping, jaws wide open, for Noa’s kneeling frame—Noa closed her eyes, chin high, the dream of Sasha hand in hand beside her, and she felt unafraid—

  And everything went silent.

  Noa breathed.

  Her body felt cold.

  She opened her eyes slowly and gasped: the devouring Blue Smoke cloud was frozen in a massive wave of ice. Callum, Kells, and Hilo were encased too, glacial, turned to sparkling crystalline statues absurdly caught in time—their mouths open midword, midscream, their hands up, outstretched, reaching, turning, leaping. And all around the frozen, ice-filled room, glittering snowflakes of ice shimmered down, leaving cool, brief kisses on Noa’s arms, in her hair, soft as brief brushes of butterfly wings.

  “Noa … ?” Judah said weakly from somewhere behind her. His voice broke the isolation of her wonder, and Noa turned to find him. The glacial ice had sucked itself around Hilo’s figure and left Judah untouched. He was slumped on the floor, blinking into consciousness in confusion at this fragile fantasy of ice-and-prism. Noa took a step toward him, just as confused and mesmerized—

  —and then she heard it.

  “My Noa.”

  Tears sprang to Noa’s eyes, her body spun, her world became a lightbox filled with sound. That voice, that piercing, joyful voice, and now those quick and stumbling footsteps, half-dance half-flee half-fall—all notes pinging off the crystal ice, blending into the made-up, shrieking song Noa had tried so hard to remember. And then Sasha, her Sasha, in full and living color, burst through the bright reverberations, gave the bells and music form as she ran under a cresting frozen wave—an archway, really, though Noa hadn’t noticed it before, because it opened up the world again even as it held their enemies at bay. Sasha ran beneath and then broke upward, leaping into Noa’s arms.