Shadow (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #4): Bridge & Sword World

by JC Andrijeski

  “Don’t,” he said. “Please don’t, Allie.” His voice broke. “Please.”

  I ignored that, too.

  After a moment, I felt the resistance go out of his limbs. His hand clasped my leg instead, his fingers tightening above the cuff on his wrist. I fingered it with my other hand.

  “I want them to take them off,” I said. “I asked them to, Revik.”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  I smiled, but it was humorless. “You’re agreeing with Balidor now?”

  He gripped my leg tighter. “Allie. Send Vash. Send Vash for the rest.”

  I felt tears come to my eyes. Nodding, I held him tighter, gripping his shoulder with one hand. Letting my back soften against the wall, I caressed his hair. My other hand, the one that had been holding his shoulder, began to massage his back when he didn’t move away. I felt his body relax against mine almost reluctantly, his fingers loosen on my thigh. Closing his eyes, he swallowed, merging his light into mine, even through the collar.

  We didn’t talk for what felt like a long time.

  I was still caressing his hair, using my fingers to massage the back of his neck, when he finally broke the silence.

  “I don’t want you to see the rest, Allie,” he said.

  I nodded, sliding my fingers back into his hair.

  “I know.”

  “I know what I said. But I changed my mind. I don’t want you to hate me.”

  “I won’t hate you, Revik.”

  “Yes, you will.” His voice broke, even as tears came to his eyes. “Allie, you will.”

  I gripped him tighter, fighting to swallow what couldn’t get past my throat. I continued to touch him, caressing his fingers where they lay on my leg. I watched his face, saw the pain return to his expression, even as he began caressing my calf, then my bare foot.

  “Allie,” he said then. “I still want it to be you.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want it to be… but I don’t know if I can do this with anyone else.”

  “I know,” I said, caressing his face. “I know, Revik.”

  “Do you still love me?” he said.

  His voice was so low I barely heard him.

  Before his words had fully penetrated, before I’d heard them all the way with my ears, I hugged him against my lap, tightly enough that he closed his eyes, gripping my leg in return.

  “Yes,” I said. “More than anything, Revik. More than I ever have.”

  He looked up at me, his eyes holding pain again, a near reluctance.

  “And you still want to do it?” he said. “You still want to see this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why, Allie?”

  I stroked the hair back from his face. It was soft again, clean from whatever the Adhipan had done to him while I was out. Looking him over more critically, assessing his long form, I realized his cheeks had drawn in more since I’d last seen him. They’d fed him, of course. Jon said they’d even put an IV drip on him for awhile, giving him vitamins and hydrating him and whatever else, but he needed to eat more before we went in again.

  Hell, we both probably did. He looked and felt clean though, and he wore a fresh set of clothes. He also looked exhausted. Leaning down, I kissed him on the mouth.

  I studied his eyes after I had, raising my head as he caressed my jaw with his fingers.

  “You’re sure, Allie?”

  “Yes. I’m sure.” Tracing his cheekbone, I felt my throat close as I shrugged with my other hand. “I think you need me to see it, Revik. I don’t think you’ll ever believe me if I don’t. I don’t think you’ll ever believe anyone.”

  Gripping my hand in his, he met my gaze. While I looked at him, his eyes grew bright once more, even as he fought to smile.

  “I still might not believe you, Allie,” he said.

  Looking at him, at the serious look in his eyes, I smiled back.

  Then I laughed a little, wiping my own eyes. Laughing again, I gripped his hair tighter, watching his expression relax as he studied mine.

  “Yeah,” I told him, still smiling. “Yeah. I know, Revik. I know.”

  32

  THE LESSON

  WE STARTED AGAIN a few hours later.

  He picked the time. We got some push-back from the techs, who wanted to give Revik another 24 hours, let us both build up some strength, but Revik was adamant.

  I got him to eat more first.

  They brought us food, a lot of it, actually, once they realized we were serious about going back in. We did our best to make a good dent in it, but both of us had to work at it. The last month or so had cut both of our appetites quite a bit, from our stomachs shrinking to just being constantly in the Barrier.

  Balidor threw a fit when I dragged my blankets and pallet over to lie with him, but even he let it go when he saw us eating together.

  I didn’t know if it would be harder this time, to go back in. I didn’t know if it would be one of those three steps forward and two back things, or if we’d end up somewhere in the middle of World War I, or some other timeline I hadn’t yet seen. So far, he’d taken me to see very little of the war itself, so I had to assume that was probably next.

  There was no transition.

  We laid down together, my head on his chest, his arm wound around my back.

  We slid into the Barrier together, our light already entwined.

  And then, with no preamble––

  HE IS STANDING in the field behind his uncle’s house, holding a gun.

  The others linger around the fence near the back of the house, watching him.

  He feels their collective presence like a pack circling, waiting for a signal from the alpha. He feels Merenje’s breath by his ear, almost a caress, and he flinches from the stink of it, unable to take his eyes off the woman in front of him.

  “Don’t do it,” Merenje whispers. “Don’t do it, Nenz. Please.”

  The boy flinches, tries not to hear him, but he can’t help it.

  Merenje smiles, exhaling more fumes from the whisky he’s drinking in a laugh.

  “Please don’t do it,” he says. “Please, you little cowardly fuck… please. You have no idea how badly I want you not to do it.”

  The boy swallows, fighting to hold the gun in one hand, fighting not to meet her eyes, or the eyes of his uncle standing nearby.

  “We’ll have so much fun with her, boy,” the human laughs, tugging sharply at Nenzi’s ear. “So much more fun than you could ever have. We’ll play with her for days. Smash out all her teeth. Cut off her tits, her fingers…”

  The boy winces, closes his eyes.

  Biting his lip, he fights the images out of his head.

  The one that remains is the girl kneeling in front of him, naked and bound, her hands tied behind her back, a gag in her mouth, sucking inwards against her breath. Tears are running down her face, and she’s shaking her head at him, pleading him with her eyes.

  “What is the delay, nephew?”

  He turns his head.

  Silence envelopes the field.

  The tall seer stands by the door to the back of the house. The deep-set, yellow eyes bore into his face, as if trying to see past it to his bones. Nenzi feels the faintest flavor of disgust from the old seer’s light, a darker whisper of disapproval.

  He looks at the boy, and the boy sees nothing forgiving in that face.

  “Are you attached to her, Nenzi?” he says.

  “Uncle––”

  “What did I tell you about that, Nenzi?” he says. “About getting attached to these creatures? Haven’t we spoken about this?”

  The boy looks at Merenje, seeing the smile on the human’s face.

  “Nenzi!” the seer commands, forcing the boy’s eyes back to his. “Why is this hard for you, of all people, to understand? Do you not see? It was relatives of hers––creatures just like her––that killed your parents.” His voice grows colder. “Do you know how many seers died in the last year at human hands, nephew? Do you
?”

  The boy grips the gun tighter, looking at the old seer.

  “No,” is all he can say.

  “They kill us in their labs, experimenting on us. They sell us as slaves, as whores. They tear us from our mates––rape us with impunity.”

  The boy stares back at the girl, feeling his stomach go cold.

  He remembers the first girl they gave him. Before Gisele, there was another.

  He never knew her name. Even so, he lost his virginity to her. She had dark hair, eyes the color of new leaves. She was quieter than Gisele, almost shy. He lay with her, and then Merenje came in with three of the others, and they raped her in turns in front of him.

  When he tried to stop them, Merenje shot her in the head, his cock still inside her.

  She died without making a sound.

  He still remembers her face though.

  He sees it sometimes, her eyes staring up at the ceiling of the stone cellar.

  Merenje only looked at him after he did it, his mouth quirked in a half-smile as he studied his expression, trying to determine if the message had penetrated.

  It had. He didn’t fight them when they wanted Gisele.

  He watched her take it from them. He watched her enjoy it sometimes, her back arched as their more adult cocks drove into her, forcing her to feel.

  Pain grips at his heart, hurting his chest.

  “I thought I taught you better,” his uncle says, disappointment prominent in his voice. “I thought you understood, Nenzi, why it is vital you not become attached to these things. They cannot feel the way we do, nephew. They are not like seers. They have no awareness in their aleimi. To them sex is purely an animal act, devoid of feeling. They use only their bodies during intercourse, Nenzi… nothing more.”

  The old seer purrs in a series of disdainful clicks.

  “…You might as well be using your hand.”

  The boy looks at him, pain knotting in his chest. He tries to think past his uncle’s words, to find other, better words for why he can’t do this. He fights to bring a voice to the dread that rises in his chest, the pain that lives there, but he can’t.

  His uncle’s voice pounds past whatever logic lives in his mind.

  “You think this female cares for you, nephew?” he asks, his voice a cold splinter in the air. “For all the time you have spent with her, with her body, do you think she thinks of you at all? That she would not betray you without a second’s hesitation, at her very first opportunity? Do you think she desires anything of you, nephew, other than her own survival?”

  “And I can’t give her that?”

  He blurts it out, a half-plea.

  His uncle’s eyes narrow, boring into his.

  “It is one thing, Uncle,” Nenzi says, subduing his voice. “A trivial thing… as you said.”

  “You would jeopardize our entire goal here? Our purpose, by letting her live? You would leave her as a witness to what you are? To what we are doing?” He clicks in admonishment. “Nenzi. Must we always come back to this? To the greater good?”

  “She can come with us,” he says. “She can come with us, Uncle. I’ll keep her…”

  The old seer shakes his long face, gesturing no in seer.

  “Please, Uncle. I won’t let her get away.”

  “You are too old to keep humans as pets anymore, Nenzi.”

  “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me. Everything.”

  “This is not a punishment, nephew. You must let her go. You are becoming a man now. It is time to put away childish things. It is time to make your own way in the world, including in this.”

  The boy can’t think. He holds the gun, and it trembles in his hands.

  The only word in his mind is no.

  He looks at the girl. Tears catch in his throat as he looks at her face under the sodden gag, the tangle of her light brown hair. He hears the truth in the old seer’s words. He knows she’s never cared for him. He knows she never did anything but try to stay alive, doing what she had to with him to make herself valuable. He knows she looked at the other humans with as much longing as him––more, probably. She knew they had the power of life and death, and he only had it in words, in his pleading with them.

  “I will let him, Nenzi,” Menlim cautions. “I will let Merenje dispose of her in any way he pleases. I will let him and his friends take as long in that process as they like.”

  He pauses, motioning with one long, white hand.

  “And if that happens, you will watch, Nenzi. You will watch, and when he is finished, we’ll bring another girl, and we’ll do it all again… from the beginning. And again, if you need the lesson a further time. And again. This will go on, nephew, until you learn. Like every other lesson you are given.”

  The boy looks at Merenje.

  The tall, lanky human was a teenager when he first met him. He is over thirty now. Merenje stares back at the boy, his dark eyes holding a dull spark of intelligence buried in a confident and comfortable cruelty.

  He would enjoy it, the boy knows.

  The human’s shoulders are broad, almost a wrestler’s shoulders. His hands are large, but they can be subtle, hauntingly dextrous when he desires them to be. His arms are strong, corded with muscle. He looks at the boy’s face, as if reading him in his assessment, and he smiles, the spark in his eyes flickering in pleasure.

  “Don’t do it, boy,” he jeers. “Be the little girl that you are. Tell daddy uncle no, you can’t hurt the tart who sucks your cock. Tell him you want me to do it for you…”

  The boy bites the inside of his cheek, hard enough to taste blood.

  His eyes leave the human’s face, focusing back on the gun in his hands.

  “Go on,” Merenje calls out, louder. “Let me have her, you little prick. You know you want to. I’ve watched you. You get off watching me do it. You can pretend all you want, you little fuck, but I know what you are…”

  He doesn’t look over at the human.

  Merenje laughs, raising his voice. “Go on. Little fucking pussy. Kiss her one last time. Tell yourself you’re doing her a favor… that you’re ‘good’ and I’m ‘bad.’ Then go brainwash some other bitches to lick your cock. Tell yourself how ‘good’ you are then… all the while imagining what I’m doing to your little friend here while you spill your seed in their mouths.”

  The boy’s fingers clench. His anger turns cold, to a deeper fury.

  It builds until he considers turning the gun on the male, on blowing a hole in him right there, no matter what his uncle says.

  Merenje sees the change in him, and gradually, his smile transforms, turning to a colder leer. His dark eyes shift in a blink, holding an expression and intensity the boy recognizes. He sees the hunger in them, a near desire. He stares at the boy, as if willing him with his eyes. Willing him to aim the gun at him, to give him an excuse.

  “Come on then,” he says. “Be the big man. Show uncle Merenje how big your little cock is now. Maybe we’ll see if your balls have finally dropped…”

  Nenzi’s fingers tighten on the gun. His jaw hardens.

  But the other voice rises, forcing his eyes back towards the house.

  “You could do that, too, Nenzi,” his uncle cautions, softly.

  Taking a step down the stone staircase, the old seer folds his hands in front of his robe, inclining his head in a seer’s half-shrug.

  “You could kill the hired help, certainly,” he says, gesturing vaguely with one hand towards the humans by the wall. “But it would not be the lesson, nephew. It would not teach you what I need you to learn. That would be vengeance… not clarity of purpose. I would only acquire another human like him, and we would start again.”

  The boy looks at the old seer, his voice defiant.

  “He is human, too,” he says.

  “He is,” the uncle concedes with a gesture. “But he is of use to us, Nenzi. Like a pack horse, or any other beast of burden. You do not kill what has use, Nenzi. Not out of anything but childish motives. And th
at, above all else, is what I need you to learn.”

  “She is not useless.” He looks at the girl. “She has use to me.”

  Menlim smiles at him.

  It is a small smile, a bare wrinkle around the fleshless lips, but it stretches the skin further around the bones of his sallow face.

  “Does she?” he muses. “Despite the crudity of his remarks, Merenje is not wrong, nephew. From what I hear, you are doing quite well with the female humans of the neighboring townships on your own.”

  “That’s different,” he says. “You told me to do that. You told me to get better at pushing them… erasing them.”

  “And you are doing remarkably well,” his uncle says, his voice final.

  His voice holds the thread of a compliment, though, unusual enough that the boy looks at him again. At his stricken look, Menlim waves a hand dismissively, clicking again in that soft purr.

  “No, nephew. Do not lie to me. You do not need this female anymore. And we will be changing location soon. We need her disposed of. Now, before we begin making preparations.”

  He meets his gaze, his voice gentle.

  “You are only prolonging the inevitable, my boy.”

  The boy looks at Merenje. He sees the leer on the human’s face, the broader smile only half-covering it.

  He knows what he has to do. He knows.

  Before his mind can fully grasp it, before he can second-guess it once again, he shifts the gun back to the girl, aiming without thought, using his light to align the points and then firing before he’s taken another breath.

  There is a silence after he shoots.

  In it, he sees smoke, feels the kickback of the gun, into his shoulder.

  He’s been practicing for months. Using the grid his uncle showed him, using his light to pinpoint targets with a deadly accuracy, again and again, until he rarely misses.

  He sees her waver, for the barest breath, her body suspended.

  Then she is thrown unceremoniously to her back. She lands with a dull thud. The hole in her head looks small to him, a mere dark spot on her pale skin.

  He doesn’t see her eyes close. He doesn’t see her expression change at all.

  Then he is just standing there, the gun aimed towards the ground.