The Warrior

by Kay Camden

  We reach the opposite end of the little woods and stumble onto the street where we stashed the R5. She drives. I try not to pass out. The window bangs against my head, and I realize how unsuccessful I’m about to be.

  *

  I wake to a citrus colored sunrise spilling a weird mixture of light into the car. The road noise in the R5 is an undying drone, the music of crappy sleep littered with fun memories. It’s okay, Rex, you killed her. Yes, but she burned my arm when I was what, six? She gave me a bandana. Told me to wrap it around my arm then she set it on fire. When I asked why, she said, “Because you didn’t ask me which arm.” And I was the one who got punished, for crying. Thanks, Uncle Jared, you’re the best. And thanks, Dear Mother, for watching the whole thing and not doing shit about it.

  I unload all the gun paraphernalia from my pockets into my floorboard and find my pills. Is it rude to knock myself out and leave her alone at the wheel for who knows how much longer?

  I straighten up. “Hey.”

  She’s a driving robot. Eyes locked in an uncompromising stare ahead, hands firm on the wheel.

  I poke her in the arm. “Let me take over.”

  She points to a billboard. Budget Motel, 5 miles ahead.

  Five miles later we’re outside the office. I’m checking my shoulder wound in the car window, and she’s applying the Bevan mind trick to some cash. Because wow, one glance at us, someone needs to cue the horror movie scream.

  She must’ve done something extra to the cash because our age isn’t a concern this time. In the room I let her shower first. She blows her hair dry in the tiny box of a bathroom while I shower. Privacy no longer matters after what we just did together. Then I close the heavy curtains against the rising sun, fold the bedspread back, punch the pillow down, and lie down with the bedbugs on a mattress that’s more metal than cushion. If this is poverty, or even how most people live, I’m so glad I was born rich.

  Sloane stands there looking at her untouched bed, physically present, mentally gone. Exhausted? Traumatized? Rethinking the whole thing? Probably all of the above. Turning onto my side to face the door, I pat the mattress behind me. “Join me?” Totally kidding.

  She does.

  Don’t react, Rex, don’t react. The weight of her there, the slightest disturbance of air. Tension has hijacked my backbone, and damn it all, there’s the jerk of muscle. All she does is move in tighter as if she didn’t just feel my whole body seize.

  I don’t dare move as she snuggles against my back because punishments and gifts coexist in my world and maybe if I pretend I’m not here, that punishment won’t find me this time. I don’t dare turn toward her because I’m afraid of what I’ll do. And I don’t dare take that pill I crave for fear of missing any second of her warm breath against my back, her knees interlocking behind mine, the pads of her toes pressing into my bare calf. Her skin, god, her skin.

  “Oíche mhaith,” I whisper, because no one’s ever wished me a good night and I’ve always wanted to say it.

  Falling asleep is a miracle and a crisis and stupidly unavoidable due to how exhausted I am.

  *

  Wakeup call: Sloane Bevan is still in my bed. It’s worse now. I’m on my back. She’s slung a leg over mine and has somehow traveled between my arm and me. In peaceful sleep she doesn’t even look like the kind of creature that would bite a man. She used the same shampoo as me but in her hair it’s rain in the mountains—fresh air, loamy soil, pine needles, dew. I’ve never been to the mountains though, so I need to shut up. Sensing the same fragrance on her as me corrupts my brain somehow, tricking me into thinking she’s a part of me, or I’m a part of her. And what’s in my shorts is completely untrained and should probably be removed from the ring before it hurts itself.

  The sun drives in low from the west. I put on my sneakers outside the door and take a good look around. I’m starting to miss the food at home. Fresh fruit in the morning. Multigrain homemade bread. Steak, gourmet soup, wine. All we have out here are meals prepped in two minutes with enough salt and grease to make up for absent taste. My stomach’s all about salt and grease right now with how it’s started tumbling all over itself, so hey, can’t argue there.

  A video call comes in when I’m almost back from picking up breakfast—oh, balls. Aaron’s dad. Ignore and wait for them to kick in the door or accept and deal with it now?

  “Greetings and salutations, Mr. Bevan. I mean, Mr. Moore.”

  Christian Moore is not smiling. Which is kind of a big deal with that guy. He’s always smiling. “Where’s my niece?”

  She’s not his niece. Probably shouldn’t correct him though. Everyone acts like they’re not afraid of him, but they’re not fooling me. He has allies on both sides and not a care in the world. The dude is a walking nightmare. “Sleeping.”

  “Sleeping where?”

  “You don’t already know?” I keep the phone close to my face so he can’t gather any details from my surroundings.

  “Dial down the sass, kid. Your mother’s influence is showing.” He waits for me to say something, but all it would do is prove him right, and I’m not giving him that. “Don’t smirk, you little shit. It’s not a compliment.”

  “Says the guy who banged her.”

  He laughs, big and loud, and I get the impression my last comment made him like me more, not less. Why does everything keep backfiring in my face?

  “Touché. You have about two minutes to get that camera on a very happy and healthy Sloane Bevan, though, so—”

  “Chill out, geezer. I’m almost there.” I let myself back into our motel room. She’s sitting cross-legged on the bed, shielding her eyes from the slant of light I’ve let in the door.

  “Here, it’s for you.” I hand her the phone, set down the bag of food, and take a seat beside her. As her kidnapper, I have to monitor phone calls with her family. Except technically he’s more my family than hers. Kind of depends on definition of family though. Blood relatives who don’t give a crap about you versus distant non-blood relatives who do.

  She lights up when she sees him, spelling like crazy with her hand, expression off the Sloane Bevan expression charts.

  “Slow down, girly. You’re gonna have to use the text.”

  She types, Where are you? Can you meet us? I miss you, miss everyone so much.

  “No,” I say. I go for the phone. She jabs me in the ribs.

  We tried that. Didn’t work out. Aaron says you’re good though, are you good?

  She gives a thumbs-up. Types: Some weird stuff though.

  He looks right at me. What kind of weird?

  Barfing up gross black liquid. Eyes hurt in any kind of light.

  That sounds bad.

  She nods.

  I’ll have to ask around.

  She nods again, signs something.

  Good call. I’m wondering why you’d say that, though. But we can talk later. So you’re okay for sure?

  Another thumbs-up.

  Your dad’s about to hang himself. He’ll trust what I’ll tell him, but I have to be certain. So answer correctly to this if you’re okay. Who’s your hero?

  She signs something, her smile getting away from her. It breaks up that lasting exhaustion-slash-trauma from earlier, which is a good thing but makes me feel like a worthless moron.

  He nods and kisses two fingers, presents them to the phone. She pretends to catch it. It kind of makes me sick. Not because I’m jealous—hell no. Not because Christian Moore is an asshole. Everyone knows that. More because she has all these people—her people—and yeah, I have people too, but no one’s checking up on my health. No one would ever.

  He texts, Get back to work destroying my bloodline, then. He covers his mouth and says, “Rex, you hurt her and it’s not the Bevans you’ll need to watch out for.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you and Aaron. I get it.”

 
“Not us. I’ll sic a black witch on you. She’ll hand you a potato peeler and make you think it was your idea to skin yourself alive.”

  “Sounds like a party.”

  “Yep. I’ll bring beer.”

  As the video goes black I’m moving onto something else: none of these people hassle her about what she’s doing. There are no demands, no orders, no questions. It’s just pure trust. That’s bullshit.

  She’s gone into the bathroom to stand before the mirror and that’s bullshit too because this food I just brought back is getting cold, and I’m not getting her any more. So I get up to tell her that and catch her tugging her shirt collar down to reveal an angry blazing wound across her chest. My brain sends a sadistic throb straight to my own burn scar. “Holy oak, Sloane, when did you get that? That’s—”

  Bad. Emergency medical assistance bad.

  That sadistic throb pulses again, head to toes this time, so hot it’s cold. Not from the memory held in that scar but from the shock of understanding something new. One hand has gone to the door frame, nails digging into wood, the other to Sloane’s arm to get her to look at me. “Did that woman—”

  Breathing takes the controls. If it didn’t, I’d be tearing through these walls to take the R5 back to D.C., find her corpse, and destroy it. Tear skin, crush bones. Set it all on fire.

  “No,” Sloane says, her hand on my chest.

  Her voice, like her skin. So perfect it hurts.

  She plucks her amulet off the sink and holds it against her chest. Makes her hand open around it, a simulated explosion.

  “Fire?”

  Scrunched brow, a pensive shake of the head. Almost like she can’t remember.

  “Heat?”

  She nods, removing my hand from the door trim I’ve almost ripped off the wall. Okay, Rex, calm down. No need to go rabid over some imaginary attack on Sloane that needs to get out of my head because it didn’t even happen. What did happen is technically the Bevans’ fault. Their amulet, their own stupidity. So we’re done here. Stop thinking about her burn, Rex. It has nothing to do with you.

  God, what time is it? I check my phone and see a recurring calendar entry I must’ve missed when I cleared the rest of them. I’m hours overdue for Latin class. I leave her and go into the main room, yanking the curtain aside for some kind of distraction to the sharp lash of homesickness. My R5 waits outside, soaking up the orange glow from the sunset. It’s the only piece of home I have. I ache for the return to my pain-in-the-ass schedule. For the regularity of the pills. For the mindlessness of my downtime spent reading, gaming, sitting by the lake and watching the water for hours.

  I won’t even fit at home until Sloane puts my brain back together. That encounter with my D.C. relatives brought a new weight to my mega load. Until today it never clicked: how much I hate them, how many things they’ve done to me that I simply dismissed. It’s all in my face now, as glaring and present as my burn scar. And I’m not so sure I want to fit at home anymore.

  Here’s the point though: When I go back, it’s not going to be the same. With everyone’s power diminished, I’ll have no reason to hate. They’ll no longer have the power to do anything to me. With zero Bevans remaining, and no drain of constant war, we can all just chill.

  I take the bottle of black magic out of my pocket and turn it over in my hand, watching how the magic responds to the late-day light. Slipping and twirling around itself, testing the glass, tendrils pressing against the cork. Soon I can release it. Soon this will all be over.

  If I can figure out a way to shield Sloane from its Bevan-aimed beam, everything I want will be mine.

  Chapter 23

  Sloane

  The moment the final slice of the sun sinks below the horizon, I know. It’s a strange sensation, knowing something visual when I don’t even have it in my sight. My boots are still wet from being rinsed of blood in the sink, but I slide them on anyway and head outside. Rex looks up from his phone but stays slumped in the chair by the window. He must know I need a moment alone.

  Because now I have a plan. A really good plan. So good, I’m afraid to tell Rex for more than one reason. He could find an unfixable hole. He could also sabotage it. But holes need to be found and sabotage has to be disregarded. We’re a team, and I trust him, and he trusts me. So what’s my problem?

  Finality, that’s it. I finally have a way to the end. The way itself is not so bad. The end? Not so pretty for me, with no options to fix it. And I don’t know how to spin it to Rex so he isn’t clued in. Maybe I should just straight up ask him. You cool if I’ve decided to die a martyr?

  Dying as a martyr is okay if you have no one to mourn you. I have too many hearts to break.

  I walk to the edge of the parking lot and step onto the dry ground, brown grass crunching under my boots. A breeze ruffles my shirt against my burned chest, still biting with sensitivity even though it’s halfway healed. At least the smell never stuck. Burning flesh is a smell I’ll gladly forget and take big steps to avoid forever.

  Cars streak by on the road ahead, taillights blinking like a team effort when the light turns red. Street lights come alive all at once, dim at first, growing brighter. Across the road a filling station sits like a spotlight the dusk, its shiny white light contrasting against the darkening sky, making my sensitive eyes water. I’m afraid I’m turning nocturnal, and I’m not sure how to stop it.

  Out here in this unfamiliar town filled with artificial light and rushing cars, I’m losing my sense of self. If I went home right now, would my family recognize me? Or have I been too changed by the things I’ve done? Instead of killing Rex Moore I saved him and joined him. I’ve hurt people. I’ve witnessed death and not stopped it. I’ve gathered hate and darkness and taken it inside my body, and I don’t know what to do with it. If my blood were to run, it would swirl red mixed with shiny black. This darkness speaks to me. It justifies the awful things Rex did in that house. It tells me to do awful things.

  I cover my face with my hands and think of home. My trees, the straight steeples of their trunks against the clear blue sky, their needled branches bouncing in the breeze. The snowy peaks of faraway mountains on display at Aunt Tara’s. The glitter of the river, catching sunlight as it travels through the woods. The coyotes’ presence all around, their wise eyes, their bristly coats brushing under my fingertips.

  If I quit now, if I went home, I could have all that back. I’d be changed, but not too changed. Maybe this resident darkness inside me would slowly die, be consumed by good, be dissolved. No longer my family’s warrior, I’d be their failure. I’d disappoint, but I wouldn’t break their hearts.

  I take in a shaky breath. Okay then. Okay. A good plan with a bad end makes a bad plan. So I cast it away. There’s nothing better. All that’s left is surrender, failure, hands in the air, I give.

  Moths swarm above me, vying for my attention. Someone coming. I close my eyes. The moths’ senses join mine to fill in details I can build into an image: upright, sturdy, focused, unthreatening to the moths because of how his eyes are so keenly set on me. Could be a stranger I suppose, but I know it’s not.

  Rex comes to stand beside me, eyes aimed tightly ahead like he’s trying to figure out what has me so entertained. Although I haven’t been crying, I’ve wanted to and my eyes are wet enough to smudge if I wipe them, so I blink, trying to clear the tears before he sees them. He shoves his hands deep in his pockets almost like he’s shackling them so they don’t do something else.

  I thrill at the thought of bringing Rex home with me. So much that my heart goes a little berserk. He ducks away from the swooping moths, agitated, a carefully hidden swear on his lips. I dare them to swoop harder and they do, and now his hands are out, swatting, and I’m laughing into my hand.

  If I give up, I’ll have to bring him home. He has nowhere else to go. It sobers me so much a tear escapes, my breath hitching before I can catch it
.

  He forgets the moths and turns to me. Concern looks different on everyone. On him, it’s a forehead with a deep, angry furrow. An initial flash in the eyes that softens, reaching. And crossed arms, ensuring protection from whatever is wrong. Shielding him so something doesn’t accidentally seep in.

  I’m done, I fingerspell. I’m going home.

  No, he says, one slight change in his eyes moving his expression from concern to anger.

  I can’t do this.

  He grabs my spelling hand, his eyes so hard on mine I feel a defiance rising, my instinct to fight him waking with the power it had the first night he came into my room. I make a fist with my other hand, prepping to sock him in the ribs.

  He’s talking now, but I can’t make it out. The moths flutter behind him, and I gather the sound through them and hear the words inside me: Not just you. We. We can do this.

  I open my held hand inside his. He interlocks his fingers with mine, rough like a restraint, not at all sweet. He says again, We can do this.

  And I know my eyes are smudgy now because why? Why does he want to help me? My ancestors never saw this. We’re walking new ground here and it’s quivering under my feet. I don’t know which step will be solid and which will sink. Each little move either one of us makes could lead to miracle or disaster. It seems safer right now just to stand still.

  With a finger he brushes my hair off my cheek. A move he initiated yet he still has to subdue that touch-me-not shudder. Anger lingers in his eyes but they’ve been touched by something sparking and electric, something ripe to explode.

  I should look away. Looking away would discourage his next predicted move: a kiss. My move is to not look away. Where we’re headed, miracle or disaster, right now it doesn’t really matter. His anger tempered by that spark, my defiance softened by that hot trail left by his finger on my cheek. The mixture coils heavy between us, and that thing sparking in him is arcing toward me.