The Seventh Hour

by Tracey Ward

  “You guys don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie ardently.

  “How’s her kissing game?” Krysan asks. “I’ve been dying to ask. Is it strong? Weak?”

  “I’m not talking about this.” I push past them, moving deeper into the shallow store. The shelves are packed in tightly, barely wide enough for the width of one man. I hear the guys follow me, fanning out over the other two aisles, and it all starts to feel very claustrophobic. Like I’m being cornered. “It’s none of your business.”

  “There are no secrets in the mountain,” Tae intones ominously.

  “Yeah. I’m getting that.”

  “But seriously,” Kryasn insists, “her skills? Does she have ‘em?”

  “That’s my sister,” Gav cautions calmly.

  “Let the man answer!”

  “I’m not telling him not to answer. I’m only reminding him not to be graphic.”

  I’ve reached the back wall of the store. There’s nowhere else to run.

  “There’s nothing graphic to tell,” I swear.

  I’m starting to sweat. The thick smell of tobacco is heavy in the air. The earthy odor of incense and oils. I’m surrounded by dark wood and low ceiling, low lighting, and it’s all closing in on me too tightly.

  Krysan nudges me from behind. “Gray.”

  “Good,” I snap. “She’s good. She’s great. She’s…” I lick my lips. “She’s sweet.”

  “Sweet how? Like emotionally or tasting?”

  I glance nervously at Gav where he’s leaning casually against the counter in the corner. “Both.”

  “That’ll do,” he informs me.

  “Agreed.”

  “So this is why you broke up with Karina?” Krysan guesses.

  I shake my head, frustrated. “I never broke up with Karina because we were never together. We were just friends.”

  “The way you and Liv are just friends?”

  “You can’t compare the two, so don’t.”

  “Are you gonna at least follow through with this one?” Tae demands. “’Cause I can’t watch you spend the next few years pining over another girl you refuse to make a real play for. It’s not very compelling.”

  “It’s stupid,” Krysan agrees.

  “Thank you,” I tell him sarcastically.

  Easton gives me a sympathetic look. “No one wants to watch you go through that again. That’s what we’re saying.”

  “It doesn’t matter. She’s going back. This isn’t her life. Her life is on the boat with Gav and their dad and the writing on her side and wherever that takes her.”

  Gav stands up straight, his eyes hard as flint. “How do you know about the writing?” he growls.

  I shake my head. “It’s not what you think.”

  “What I think is that you have intimate knowledge of my sister’s body. Knowledge only a man with marriage on his mind should have.”

  “I don’t,” I vow. “I have no idea what the words say. I only know about them, I’ve never read them.”

  “And how do you know about them?”

  “It was an accident. I walked in when she was changing once. I saw the tattoo but I didn’t read it. She covered it up immediately.”

  “Skeevy move, Gray,” Tae mumbles.

  “I didn’t do it on purpose. I thought she was in trouble.”

  “Did you see anything other than the tattoo?” Gav demands.

  “No. She was wearing a bathing suit. She was dressed, but her side was bare.” I put up my hands innocently. “I didn’t see anything.”

  “That better be the truth.”

  “It is. I swear.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Krysan demands. “The tattoo on her arm?”

  Tae smacks him on the shoulder. “They said her side, Kry. Keep up.”

  “I’m trying!”

  I shoot them a glance, begging them to both let it go. But Gav nods, his body relaxing.

  “Go ahead,” he tells me quietly. “Explain it to them. I’d like to hear your take on it.”

  “Seriously?”

  He stares at me blankly, waiting.

  “Okay,” I mumble slowly. Uncertainly. “Uh, it’s a ritual. I guess? Like part of a marriage.”

  “It’s the proposal,” Gav clarifies.

  “I didn’t know that. Are they engaged when they see each other’s words when they… during se—“

  “Sister.”

  “Yup. Got it.”

  “What are the words?” Easton prods.

  I clear my throat gently. “Liv has a tattoo on her side. It’s written in white in a fancy script. No one knows what it says but her and I’m guessing whoever tattooed it on her. All the women Eventide get them when they’re thirteen. They’re the start of a sentence, but only half of it. It’s unfinished. Men get them too, but they get the second half of a sentence. They have no idea what the women get and no one is supposed to let anyone read their words until they choose who they’re going to marry. Then when they see each other completely,” I pronounce carefully, earning a nod of approval from Gav, “their words come together and they make a whole sentence.”

  “What if their sentence makes no sense?” Krysan asks. “Like what if Liv’s tattoo says something like ‘Waves rise to break on the shore’ and the guy’s says ‘peanut butter for dinner’?”

  I’m relieved when Gav grins at him. “It doesn’t work like that. You pick words from a set selection. The women’s options are designed to match up with the men’s. They’re not always beautiful but they always make sense.”

  “What does yours say?”

  “Kry,” Easton scolds.

  “What? We’re all guys and none of us are Eventide. What does it matter?”

  “It’ll matter to her someday,” Gav tells him.

  “Her who?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. I haven’t met her yet.”

  “That’s weird,” Krysan mutters.

  Tae hits him again. Hard this time.

  “It’s romantic,” Easton corrects. “It’s meaningful to them. So it’s a good thing Gray didn’t read the words or we’d be sending him off on a ship in six months to get married.”

  I turn to the shelf behind me, grabbing three bottles at random. “I don’t think it works that way.”

  “Our father would never welcome Grayson on an Eventide ship,” Gav agrees. “And he’d certainly never let him marry his daughter.”

  “Who’s racist now?” Tae asks boldly.

  “My father,” Gav admits, unfazed. “Half the members of the Council. They’re all old men with old ideas. The same stereotypes and hate passed down to them from their fathers and their father’s before them. Hundreds of years of prejudice and distaste based on nothing anyone can remember anymore. It’s a shame. And it’s going to change.”

  “You think you’re going to be the one to change it?”

  Gav nods once decisively, his eyes solid as the stone beneath his feet. “I know I’m going to be one of the first to try.”

  I’m grateful when the group nods and mutters approval to Gav, letting the subject drop. We ring the bell on the counter, pay old man Mathers, and leave the store. The cave feels huge compared to the cramped confines of the shop, the air deliciously clean. Far on the other side of town one of the doors is still open letting in the fresh air. You can feel it everywhere. Cool on your skin, salty on your tongue. The ocean is in the air. It reminds me of stepping outside with Liv for the first time. The look on her face when she met the stars. The swell of love I felt for her in my chest that ached and throbbed like an illness. Like I was dying just as I started to really live.

  I put my arm around her shoulders as we walk. She gives me a surprised, questioning look, but I smile at her calmly. They already know. We’re already outed, so I may as well revel in it. I might as well enjoy her while I still have her.

  We head back to the Forces dorm where everyone but Easton is staying. Mayor Gustafson agreed that Gav should stay with Liv in her apart
ment, filling the second bedroom. We’ve already been by once today to drop off his bag. It was full of a few more rough looking clothes that the L will no doubt burn and replace with something nicer.

  “Camdon is a little less civilized than Gaia,” Gav comments, his eyes scanning the buildings as we pass them. “What you have here looks more like a true city, like Ambrios, only smaller. Real buildings, not a series of tents or huts scattered around.”

  “Gaia looks a lot like Porton,” Easton mentions.

  “Does it? I’d love to see it.”

  “You’ll get your chance when the next Seventh comes. You and Liv both will.”

  Liv looks at me sideways, her eyes searching my face. I keep it blank.

  “Another six months under ground,” Gav sighs. He grins at Liv. “It’ll be easier now that I know you’re safe. I was worried about you.”

  “Did you know I was alive?”

  “Your Captain told us, yes. That was the last transmission we had from him. ‘Eventide Livandra Pamuk rescued in Gaia.’ I recited those words to myself every night before I went to sleep.” His face darkens, his eyes clouding with concern. “You didn’t know if I was one of the survivors in Camdon, did you?”

  She shakes her head. “We didn’t get word until the line was repaired. It was a long wait.”

  “I’m so sorry, Liv.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “No, but that had to be tough. And seeing Mother like that. It’s awful that you had to go through that alone.”

  “I wasn’t alone.”

  Gav’s eyes fall on her hand held in mine. He runs his hand through his long, brown hair thoughtfully. “I’d like to visit where she’s buried tomorrow. Can you take us there, Grayson?”

  I nod solemnly. “Absolutely.”

  “It’s nothing much. There wasn’t time for anything grand.” Liv chuckles self-deprecatingly. “She’d be so angry at me for not insisting on a burial at sea. I probably should have, but I was sick and alone, and I—I didn’t have the strength.”

  “You did everything you could,” Gav consoles her. “And anything is better than the alternative.”

  I know what he’s thinking. Vishers. I want to ask if they had any trouble with them while he was in Camdon but I don’t for Liv’s sake. She’s relieved he’s here and alive, she doesn’t need to think about all of the ways he could have died before he found her again.

  I pull out my keys to unlock the backdoor to the Forces dormitory. “We can go tonight if you want. It’s not that late and—“

  I stop, put on alert by a torrent of nothing.

  The light at the end of the alley is out. Since we turned the corner to find the door we’ve been sinking deeper and deeper into nearly perfect darkness.

  No sight. No sound.

  Nothing but the faint, unmistakable click of a gun.

  It comes from my right, closest to Gav, but my instincts send me to my left. To Liv. I throw her to the ground, laying my body over her just as a deafening crack echoes through the alleyway. Light flashes, illuminating everything – the dark, dirty ground, the chipped walls of the building, the golden glow of Liv’s hair – for just a heartbeat before sucking the life from the air. My ears are ringing, Liv is screaming, Gav is shouting, Easton is grunting, and the potent scent of gunpowder permeates the air. It’s in my nose, the back of my throat. I taste it sharp and acrid on my tongue.

  Another shot is fired.

  This one I can’t taste. This one I can feel.

  My back bursts into flames. I cry out as my hold on Liv slackens. As my shirt grows heavy and warm with blood, pressing down on me. On Liv.

  Another shot. Another shout, this time from Krysan. Then from Fren. The clatter of the gun hitting the floor.

  I’m burning up. I’m shivering. I’m gasping. Stuttered breaths that don’t do me any good. I’m drowning and gulping but I can’t swim. I can’t come up for air. I’m in the hot springs. I jumped in the wrong spot. I’m broken and sinking. I’m boiling alive.

  I’m dying.

  And Liv is crying.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Liv

  Everything is gray. Colorless. Lifeless. It’s dark and meaningless. Everything but the blood. The blood glows red, vibrant and alive. Growing cold. Growing hard and unforgiving. It’s soaked into my shirt. My pants. My skin. It’s on the floor where it drips from Grayson’s body, being left behind. Forgotten. Does he have any left? After the trail he left up the hill to the hospital, the puddle he left in the alley, I don’t see how. I don’t have much hope.

  Kanden is ready for us when we arrive. Gav and Easton hand Grayson off to her, saying things I don’t understand. Their words are muffled and underwater. Too distant to hear. Too tragic to understand. Dr. Kanden suddenly takes Grayson away on a gurney, shutting the door in our faces.

  Captain Fuller shows up, out of breath and angry. Fren and Krysan appear not long after. They have a hushed, heated conversation with Fuller in the corner of the lobby. I watch numbly as they hand him a matte black pistol. He flips it over, reading the serial number at the bottom, the one Grayson told me they use to assign guns to each Forces member. Fuller’s face turns red when he reads it, shivering with rage. He doesn’t say a word to us when he leaves, storming out the door and into the cave. Krysan and Fren follow closely behind.

  Five minutes later the alarm system is blaring. The town is waking up. Lights will be turning on. People will stumble bleary eyed into the streets, looking for trouble. Looking for answers. Fuller and his Forces will be looking for a man.

  “You got the closest to him,” Easton reminds Gav. “What’d he look like?”

  My brother shakes his head sadly. “I didn’t get a good look. He had dark hair, I think. He was about my height, pretty average. Not a big build. Not small either.”

  “Average?”

  “Yes,” Gav admits reluctantly. “That’s all I know. It was dark in that alley. I could hardly see my hand in front of my face.”

  Abby comes out into the hall, her expression empty. Her shirt covered in crimson.

  I leap out of my seat. “Abby, what’s happening? Is he alive?”

  She goes to the supply closet, ignoring me.

  “Abby!”

  “Not now, Liv!” she shouts from inside the closet.

  “Is he alive?” I insist.

  “Yes.”

  “Is he going to be alright?”

  She shuts the closet, turning to head back to the room.

  I move to follow her down the hall. “Is he going to be alright?!”

  Abby continues to ignore me.

  I growl in the back of my throat, going up on my toes to take off after her. To grab her, shake her, slap her until she answers me.

  Gav grabs me around the waist, lifting me up off the ground. “Take it easy, Liv,” he tells me, his voice deep and soothing in that magical way he has. “Let her work. They’ll tell us what’s happening when there’s something to tell.”

  I go limp in his arms, tears burning the backs of my eyes. The back of my throat.

  I hate this impotent feeling, knowing he’s hurt and I can’t help him. I can’t see him. It’s wearing on my nerves. It’s making me jumpy and crazy.

  Gav lowers me slowly, letting me walk on my own back to the lobby where I collapse on a chair next to Easton, burying my head in my hands.

  A little while later Krysan comes into the lobby with Holster close on his heels. They’re both in full gear, carrying guns on their hips next to their radios. I’ve never seen them carry anything but a baton in the city. Grayson said the guns were only used sparingly, usually during visher attacks. But this is serious. There’s a violent criminal loose in the city and one of Forces’ own has been hit. It’s why the alarms are sounding. It’s why Fuller ran out of here like his head was going to explode.

  If the shooter had a numbered gun, he got it from Forces.

  Or worse. He is Forces.

  I look at Holster appraisingly, compa
ring him to my brother. He’s shorter. Slighter. Not average on any scale.

  “Any word?” Krysan asks nervously.

  Easton shakes his head. “Abby came out a little bit ago. She said he’s alive. That’s it.”

  “Any luck finding who did it?” Gav asks him.

  “We’re searching the city now,” Krysan tells him, his voice turning oddly official. I’ve never seen him in Forces mode before. He’s more serious than I ever thought he could be. “We don’t have much to go on. None of us saw anything but a shadow. Even when we chased him he stuck to the dark.”

  “How’d he lose you?”

  “He was fast. He knew the streets. Fren and I think he had an escape route planned. He probably slipped into a building and let us run right by him.”

  “We found broken glass in the alley,” Holster adds. “He knocked out the light above the door.”

  “We have the whole town looking for him. Every light is on. Every door is being unlocked. People know Grayson was hurt. They won’t stand for it. If anyone sees him, they’ll turn him over to us.”

  “Have the tunnels been shut off?” Easton asks.

  Holster nods. “First thing we did before setting off the alarms. Front doors have been closed too. We’ll do a roll call in a couple of hours. If anyone is unaccounted for we know we have our guy.”

  “Or if we have anyone extra,” I mutter.

  Holster frowns at me. “You think someone came in from another city to do this?”

  “That depends. How far away is Bale?”

  Krysan’s radio crackles, an unfamiliar voice coming over the line. “Krysan, I’ve got a girl here says she knows Grayson. Karina. She wants to come to the hospital to see him.”

  Krysan turns to Easton, raising his eyebrows questioningly. “It’s your call, E.”

  Easton nods solemnly.

  “Let her up,” Krysan calls back into the radio.

  “Are there guards outside the hospital?” I ask curiously.

  “Have been since you got here,” Krysan tells me. “Fuller posted Fren and I outside when he left. We got relieved to change, meet up with our partners. Now Holster and I are assigned to the lobby. Mason and Stead are at the base of the hill sweeping buildings.”