Fourth Debt

by Pepper Winters

  Just try me.

  Almost on cue, the door slammed open again, smashing against the dresser with a resounding crack. A curse fell in the silence; they jiggled the knob, followed by another smash.

  I stood vibrating on the other side, pulling my dirk free from my waistband.

  Daniel would need a bomb to move the dresser, but it didn’t mean I was safe. Who knew if he had secret passages into this room? Ancient houses such as Hawksridge had rabbit warrens of unseen pathways and secret compartments.

  The door slammed again, banging louder with frustration.

  I huddled into a battle stance, preparing to stab Daniel’s hand through the crack. My mouth watered with the urge to hurl profanity and curses. To threaten and thwart.

  “Nila, open the damn door.”

  I froze.

  It wasn’t Daniel.

  Time ticked past, stretching uncomfortably.

  “Nila…it’s me.”

  Me?

  The voice was feminine. Sweet and soft but hushed and worried.

  Not a man with rape on his mind but a sister with grief.

  A sister I couldn’t stand.

  I laughed coldly. “So forcing me to sign myself over to you this afternoon wasn’t enough, huh?” My hand curled tight around my blade. “Come to cause more damage just like your fucked-up family?”

  Jasmine sucked in a breath.

  I inched closer to the door, nervousness popping in my blood.

  “Just open the door. Now.”

  “What? So I can welcome you inside for a sleep-over and we can paint each other’s nails?” I snorted. “I don’t think so, Jasmine. You’re a traitor to your brothers—a snake just like your grandmother.” Filling my voice with venom, I spat, “You’re just like them, and I want nothing to do with you.”

  “You have no choice. Let me in the damn room.”

  He’s dead because of you. He’s dead because he loved you.

  My teeth clamped together. God, if she were in front of me, I’d stab her through her heartless chest.

  “Piss off.”

  “Let me in.”

  “No chance. The next time we see each other, it’s not going to end well. I suggest you get out of my sight.”

  Jasmine punched the door or rammed it with her chair—the noise signalled rapidly fraying anger. “Ah, fuck, what did he ever see in you?!” She bumped against the door again, lowering her voice. “We need to talk.”

  “I don’t talk with betrayers.”

  “You want me to get someone to help? ‘Cause I will. And you won’t like the consequences.”

  My hand rose, the light from my side lamps kissing the blade with promise. “Do whatever you want, but I assure you it’ll be you who doesn’t like the—”

  “Fine!”

  Silence fell.

  Animosity throbbed, slowly settling the longer we remained quiet.

  Finally, a small whisper met my ears. “Just give me two minutes. Just listen. Can you do that? Or is that asking too much?”

  I paused.

  Two minutes was nothing in a lifetime. But two minutes to me was too high a cost. I existed on borrowed time.

  “Why should I?” I drifted closer to the door despite myself.

  “Because…it’s important.”

  The genuine honesty in her voice dragged me forward. She sounded more real and true in that one microsecond than she had all afternoon.

  Leaning around the dresser, I looked through the crack.

  Not much was visible, but Jasmine’s face glowed in the dark corridor. Red-rimmed eyes, sad-bitten lips, and sorrow-dusted cheeks—she didn’t look well.

  In fact, she looked ten years older than when I’d seen her at the meeting. Almost as if the past few hours had drained her of everything.

  I wanted to slap myself.

  Don’t believe it!

  It was all an act. The perfect con-artist making me trust her because she looked so undone.

  “It won’t work, you know.” I scowled. “I’m not buying into your sad sister act. Not after what you’ve done.”

  Jasmine looked up, her face haggard. “I know you hate me. I feel it. But you have to put that aside and listen to me.”

  If the door didn’t separate us, I’d wring her neck and throttle whatever conniving words she wanted to spout. “I don’t have to do anything.”

  She reached through the door.

  I stepped backward, raising my knife. “Don’t, unless you’re happy with four fingers instead of five.”

  “God, why don’t you listen?!”

  “Because I don’t believe a word you say!”

  “No, not with your ears, you silly cow.”

  I laughed. “Great way to get me to listen. Call me a cow again and we’ll see—”

  “Didn’t Jethro teach you anything?”

  I froze.

  Livid rage cascaded down my back, into my legs, my arms, my mind. “Don’t you ever—”

  “Talk about him? He’s my brother. He’s been mine a lot longer than he’s been yours.”

  My ears bled. “Was, don’t you mean. He was yours. But he’s gone. He doesn’t belong to either of us, and that’s all your fault!”

  She sighed, rubbing her face with her hands. “Why are you so damn stubborn?”

  “Why are you so damn confusing?” My eyes dropped to her attire.

  I paused, forehead furrowing.

  A black blanket covered her legs, along with a black hoodie and black gloves. She’d either taken mourning to a new extreme and fashioned her pyjamas in darkness too, or…

  “What are you up to, Jaz?”

  Her eyes wrenched up. “Finally! You finally ask a decent question.” She looked over her shoulder. “Let me in. I’ll tell you.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Not going to happen.”

  “I don’t have all freaking night, Nila. Let me inside before it’s too late.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “What—what do you mean? Too late?”

  “I’ll tell you if you open the door.”

  “Tell me before I open the door.”

  I wasn’t naïve anymore. I wouldn’t fall for any more Hawk traps.

  She had her motives and secrets—same as everyone else. Only, what she’d said about listening…what did she mean? With my instincts? With my heart? What could she possibly have to tell me that I didn’t already know?

  She was a heartless bitch who should’ve died and not her brother.

  She scowled, her sleek black bob pinned back from her face. The more I looked at her, the more my heart raced. Something was off—something was wrong.

  She looked like a ninja about to go on a robbery spree.

  She looked as if she knew something I didn’t.

  She looked as if everything she’d lived through the past few hours was a lie. And this was the truth.

  This was real.

  I lowered my knife. “What—what’s going on?”

  She smiled tightly, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks. “Will you believe me? Are you finally listening?”

  Goosebumps scattered over my arms.

  I swallowed. I nodded.

  She sagged as if she could finally share the burden she carried.

  “In that case…” She sucked in a breath. “I need your help.”

  It took an eternity for me to find courage.

  I knew the moment I spoke, my world would change all over again.

  Finally, I murmured, “Why?”

  Reaching through the door, she grasped my hand.

  Her eyes glossed.

  Her lips trembled.

  Her voice split me in two.

  “I need your help…because…” She squeezed my fingers, joy exploding on her face. “Nila, he’s alive.”

  DEATH WAS WORSE than I ever imagined.

  I’d hoped when the day came that it would be gentle—a tender snip when I was old and grey—a simple transition from one world to the next. It didn’t matter that I never believed
I would reach old age…it was what I’d fantasised.

  However, if I had known how excruciating it would be, if I’d guessed how prolonged and agonising actual dying was—I would’ve put myself out of my misery years ago.

  Because this? There was nothing survivable about this.

  This wasn’t heaven. Shit, it wasn’t even hell.

  It was damnation on Earth and still I clung—no matter how fucking painful.

  “You still—” I coughed, unable to continue. My lungs were heavy, my body on fire. I existed on the brink. The brink of slipping far, far away and never coming back.

  I wasn’t dehydrated or starved.

  I wasn’t cold or unprotected.

  But none of those simple human requirements could save me. I’d run out of time, and it was now a simple matter of gambling on which malady would kill me.

  The steady bleeding?

  The spreading fever?

  The bullet hole?

  I’d given up trying to choose. I thought I’d faded hours ago, finally giving in to the pain.

  But no.

  I still clung, dangling off the proverbial cliff, too weak to let go and too weak not to.

  God, please let it end!

  I flinched as I sucked in a deeper breath.

  Breathing…funny how I hated and loved the action.

  Hated because another breath meant I’d survive another few minutes. Loved because another breath meant I still existed for Nila.

  Nila…

  My heart tried to hurry, conjuring the dark-haired seamstress who’d captured my heart. But all it managed was a pathetic patter.

  Groaning with the weight of a thousand daggers, I looked at the cot across the dungeon from mine.

  How we arrived down here, I had no fucking clue.

  Why we had drips in our hands, blankets bundled around us, and crudely administered medicine was an utter mystery.

  Who did this?

  How long had we been here?

  How much time had passed?

  Was this perhaps purgatory? A place of in-between, a deplorable existence where only the worst went to pay penance?

  We couldn’t possibly be alive. Could we?

  A flickering light in the corner kept the vampires of the crypt at bay, but it offered no warmth—no reprieve from the ancient ice seeping into my bones from the godforsaken catacombs.

  I stared fuzzily at the shape of a man cocooned in blankets. Only, he hadn’t moved, moaned, or made a sound in hours. My gift—no, my curse—no longer worked.

  There was someone else down here with me. Yet, there were no thoughts, no fears, no pleas.

  I didn’t want to admit it, but my brother…he was no longer alive. However, I had to try to bring him back from the dead. I had to remind him I was there for him—for him not to give up, even though slipping off the cliff became more enticing every minute. “You—you still a—alive, K—Kes?”

  I never heard his reply.

  The moment I finished, I fell into a stupor that lasted God knew how long. My energy flat-lined and I drifted into dreams, nightmares, and fantasies.

  One moment, I flew through the forest on Wings.

  The next, I was back in that hated room hurting Jasmine to fix myself.

  One second, I made love to Nila, sliding inside her heat.

  The next, I was shivering with ice running away from Hawksridge when I was fourteen.

  Each hour, I grew weaker. Each hour, I slipped a little more.

  If it weren’t for the terror at leaving Nila in the heinous world I’d helped create, I would just let go and disappear.

  I want so fucking much to disappear.

  I wanted freedom from pain.

  Sanctuary from agony.

  I wasn’t strong enough to live with such soul-crushing torment.

  But no matter how hot and flaming my pain became. No matter how delirious and wracked with trembles I was, I couldn’t die.

  I refused to fucking die.

  I can’t. Not while they’re alive.

  It was my duty to end them. To end the madness of my heritage that’d gotten away with murder for centuries.

  Only once I’d balanced the scales of right and wrong could I relax and let go.

  Only once I’d saved the one who’d saved me could I say goodbye and slip into the void.

  My heart occasionally stuttered, out of sync, out of power—almost as if it recognised death and wanted to give in. I forced it to do the bare essentials, keeping me from a grave. I was in the coffin ready to be buried, but I wasn’t a corpse just yet.

  I squinted in the lacklustre light, following the contours of my brother’s body.

  He still hadn’t moved.

  Time had an odd context down here. It could’ve been decades since I’d asked if he was alive, or only seconds.

  I could turn to face him, expecting to see a blood-flushed body, only to come face-to-face with a dusty skeleton instead.

  Anything was possible on the cusp of death.

  My dying lungs did their best at working through ash and mildew to speak again. “K—Kes…”

  A minute ticked past or maybe it was an hour—but, finally, my brother shifted. His grunt of agony echoed around the walls.

  I wasn’t alone.

  Not yet.

  More time passed.

  I had no way to measure it.

  I raised my head off the scratchy pillow, staring at the iron bars.

  Our coffin was the same catacombs that housed my ancestor’s bones. The same cell where Daniel beat me on Cut’s command. The same dungeon where I’d started the course of drugs to numb me.

  Those memories had been sharp and recent. But now they were muddy and distant.

  Same as all my memories.

  Nila’s voice faded from my heart. Jasmine’s promises disappeared from my ears. My life deleted itself as if I wasn’t allowed to carry any memento from this world to the next.

  I didn’t want to forget.

  I don’t want to forget!

  I willed my dried-up, malnourished brain to remember: how we arrived here. How a night of intimacy and love had transformed into my murder.

  But try as I might, I couldn’t.

  There was nothing but splatters of mismatched images.

  Blazing hot pain.

  Jasmine’s screams.

  Bonnie’s barks.

  Nila’s sobs.

  Then more pain shoving me deeper and deeper down the drain of consciousness.

  My blood was weak, diluted with agony. My soul broken but refusing to abandon a body that was hours away from succumbing to the black shroud of everlasting sleep.

  Help us…

  The bars were locked. There was no way out.

  However, they could’ve been wide open and there wouldn’t have been a hope in fucking hell of moving.

  We were dead.

  The fact we were holding on was merely a formality.

  More time passed and I stopped trying to catalogue it. I was drifting, twisting, fading…

  Not long now.

  A sudden burst of strength let me say something I should’ve said many times in the past. Something I always took for granted. “I—I lo—ove y—you, Kes.”

  A cough wracked my body, clutching my pain, increasing it tenfold.

  As the fever bathed my skin and my lungs rattled with sickness, I sighed and gave up. I’d said goodbye. I’d done everything I needed.

  My senses slipped across the room to my dying brother and I held on. Hopefully, we’d find each other again. Hopefully, I’d find Nila again when I deserved her and paid for my sins.

  Hopefully, all would be better in a different world.

  I’m sorry, Nila. For everything.

  Brother to brother. Soul to soul.

  There was nothing else here for me.

  I closed my eyes.

  I let go.

  I CHASED HER.

  He’s alive!

  Vertigo tried to trip me as I jogged in th
e wake of her wheels. Disbelief and suspicion did their best to kill my intoxicating high.

  He’s alive.

  He’s alive.

  It’s a miracle.

  I’d never had such words affect me. Never had a voice slammed into my heart, tore it out, restarted it, and dumped me into a hope so cruel, I didn’t want to breathe in case I unbalanced this perilous new world and found out Jethro wasn’t alive after all.

  I wanted to cry. To scream. To laugh.

  He’s alive!

  I ran faster as Jasmine shot forward.

  I’d never been friends with someone with a disability. I liked to think I was open-minded and treated everyone the same way—but society still had a stigma about equality.

  Jasmine shattered every misconception I had.

  I thought I’d have to dawdle beside her. Wrong—I had to jog to keep up.

  I thought I’d have to open doors and offer assistance around tight corners. Nope—Jaz manoeuvred her chair, doorway, and lock faster than I ever could.

  She was fierce and strong, and even though she sat below my eye level, her personality consumed mine.

  I was in her shadow.

  He’s alive.

  But how?

  She hadn’t given me answers. The moment she’d told me Jethro hadn’t died, I’d emptied the dresser, shoved it out of the way, and followed her with no other encouragement.

  Was it a trap? A cruel joke?

  Entirely possible, but I couldn’t ignore the chance of saving Jethro. I had to break this heartache before it broke me.

  Finally listening to Jasmine gave me new comprehension. I stopped listening with my ears and trusted with my heart. I noticed things that’d been so obvious, but I’d been so blinded. She adored her brothers. She was shattered with their pain. Yet, instead of hating me…she was…she’s trying to save me.

  Could that be possible?

  Could everything that’d happened—the fighting for ownership and contract amendments all be for him?

  Had he asked her to do that?

  To protect me.

  “You weren’t going to hurt me…were you?” I whispered, darting down yet another labyrinth of corridors. No lights lit our way, and the security cameras above didn’t blink. No red beacon hinted that our midnight run was recorded and ready to tattle.

  I didn’t know how she turned them off. I didn’t know how she knew Jethro was alive. I didn’t know anything.

  I’m blind.