by Sacha Black
I give her a silent nod and pray she gets out of my face. There's an explosion of navy smoke that makes me cough and splutter, but it dissipates quickly and when it does, she's gone.
“Are you okay?” Trey asks, tugging me around to face him.
“I’m fine,” I say, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me. “Honestly. Shall we go?”
"If you're sure," he says, and leads me to the lift, which we take to the thirteenth floor. The metal lift clatters and shakes inside the cage housing it. When we reach the thirteenth floor, I pull the metal cage doors open, and they rattle and click as they slide back. Victor is directly opposite us. We walk around the circular floor, the inmates jeering and hissing as we pass them. One inmate runs at the crystal wall-door separating him from us. He throws his body at it so hard it makes a loud crack and startles me. The Keeper behind the door is flat against it; he's dirty, covered in black stains, and wearing rags. He peels his face back from the door and head-butts it. Over, and over, and over again until the skin on his forehead splits, and blood smears the crystal door. I cover my mouth to stop myself gagging. I hurry past him, giving him one final look; he's still head-butting the crystal, and I realize the black stains aren't dirt but blood. I reach for Trey's arm.
As we reach Victor's cell, I see Bo's hand pressed flat against the glass door. Victor's hand is mirroring hers, on the other side, their foreheads leaning against the glass.
As we come to a stop behind her, she cocks her head to the side then stands straighter. “I should go,” she says, “I’ll tell Mom and Dad everything you said.”
She lingers there, staring up at her brother, him staring down at her, their hands pressed against the crystal in silence, as if they're sharing something we're not party to. The sight of them makes my chest tight. Victor's eyes pinch, and his brow furrows as Bo's knuckles bend up like she's trying to grip his hand through the crystal.
“We can give you a moment if…” I start, my voice as small as it was when we fought. But Bo cuts me off.
"Goodbye, brother," she says, putting two fingers on her lips and pushing them against his heart on the glass. Then she walks away without so much as a backward glance. My breathing is heavy, and it takes me a minute to compose myself enough to speak.
Victor's wearing slim fitting leather trousers, a maroon red top, and a leather jacket over the top.
"Victor," I say, when I've calmed myself down.
Victor whistles, long, slow, and irritatingly loud, “Boy, you reaaaally pissed her off.”
I glare at him.
“Oooh,” he says, shaking himself, “I can just feel the tension. Super awkward.” He practically sings the last word.
“I see you took your asshole pills.”
He shrugs and juts his chin out as if he's proud of the fact.
“And to think you wanted my help.”
At that, his face falls, and he holds out his hand. “Ah, well, yes,” he says, “I mean, I was only joking of course.”
“So you do still want my help?”
“Believe me when I tell you, it would be better for all of us if you did help me.”
“Where’s Nyx?”
“About that…”
“VICTOR.”
“Fine, fine,” he says, putting both his hands up in defense. “She’s safe, I promise.”
Trey moves from behind me, “How safe?”
“Safe. Swearzees.”
Trey looks over the guardrail down to the ground floor, "We don't have long alone with you, so if you want something you had better spit it out and tell us exactly where Nyx is."
“I want you to get Karva out of Obex and into Trutinor,” he says, giving me an intense expression.
My eyes narrow. “How are you able to talk openly now?” I say, glancing at the vein on his temple. It’s still there, still maroon, still full of the Last Fallon’s magic, but now it’s unnaturally still.
“Because, moron, these are Faraday cages – even Rozalyn’s magic can’t penetrate them.”
“Why would we bring Karva back when she’s been dead for thousands of years?” Trey asks, frowning at Victor.
“I’m sorry, would you rather Rozalyn came back for a spot of Trutinor-shaped redecoration?” he says, with a single eyebrow raised.
“Answer the question,” I snap.
“Because if you want to stand any chance of taking the First Fallon out, then you’re going to need Karva.”
"Karva?" Trey says, his frown deepening.
“But the First Fallon is Karva’s mother. Why would she help us defeat her own flesh and blood?”
Victor places both hands on the crystal wall leaning so close his pointed nose touches the crystal.
“What kind of mother has the power to save her child and yet chooses to leave her in hell?”
At this, both Trey and I fall silent. There’s an intensity to Victor’s eyes, a raging darkness. I know that look; he stared at me with the same hatred before we fought, and it makes me wonder why he feels so strongly. It’s not like he’s ever cared about me or the prophecy or defeating the First Fallon.
“What’s Karva to you?” I ask, “why are you helping her?”
He hesitates, just long enough to confirm my suspicion. He stands straight, moving a step back into his cell, and when he talks, his eyes look everywhere but at me.
"She says she can bring me back to life. If she's in Trutinor, she has access to particular magics that can give me my life back."
“No,” I say, “no, that’s not it. You have feelings for her, don’t you?”
His jawline flexes, just once. Bingo. I've hit a nerve.
"That's irrelevant."
"Aww, Victor's in love,” I say, “if it weren't necrophilia it would almost be sweet."
He glares at me, “Are you going to help or not?”
“Not,” I say, folding my arms.
But Trey says, “Let’s hear the guy out. What exactly do we have to do?”
“I’m glad you asked,” he says, a wry smile peeling across his yellow teeth. He comes right up to the crystal wall, his eyes glinting, “First, you break me out of here.”
Twenty-Nine
‘All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.’
Sun Tzu - Chinese General, Strategist, Human
“Is that a joke?” I say, turning to Trey, “he’s joking, right?”
Trey looks from Victor to me and gives me a grimace. Dammit.
“Are you out of your fucking mind, Victor? I’m not breaking you out of prison. This is Datch, not Keepers School. How the hell do you expect us to get you off the island?”
“I’ll worry about getting us off the island. You just need to break me out of the cell.”
"What, so the Last Fallon can own your ass again? Yeah, I don't think so."
He rolls his eyes at me, walks to the back of the cell and returns holding a pair of Faraday handcuffs, “I’ll wear these. She won’t be able to touch me.”
"And then what? I just let you roam around Trutinor, all dead and lovesick?"
Trey pulls me closer, lifts my arm up from the elbow, and says, “I think you need to calm down.”
My fist is engulfed in white-hot flames. I shake my hand until the flames extinguish.
Victor folds his arms, his expression hard and serious, "The way I see it, you have two choices: break me out and give yourself the opportunity to form an alliance with someone who is strong enough to take the First Fallon down. Or, you can leave me in here, walk away now, and let your family pet starve to death."
I see red. My fist balls, electricity pulses around my hand, and I punch the crystal wall smack where Victor’s head is. He doesn’t even flinch. He just smiles. Knowing he’s already won. I scream a stream of profanities at him in my head before pulling my fist off the crysta
l and gritting my teeth.
"Fine," I spit. "But I hope you have a damn good plan."
“You’re so dramatic, Eden,” Victor says, “I told you, just get me out of the cell, and I’ll do the rest.”
“And how exactly do you propose I get you out of the cell?”
Trey whips out his CogTracker. “I have an idea,” he says, and dials out. It takes four rings before the caller picks up, and when their face appears on screen, a grin appears on mine.
"Let me guess," Kato says, "you got yourself arrested, and now you need me to break you out of jail."
“How did you guess?” I say, my face now devoid of emotion.
“What? I was joking. What’s going on?” Kato asks, his voice rising.
“It’s not us you need to break out,” Trey says, and then moves to the side so he can point the CogTracker screen at the cell door.
Victor waves. “Cooey,” he says, and winks. Dick.
“You’re joking?” Kato says.
“Not even slightly,” I say.
“Let me get this straight,” Kato says, shaking his blond mop. “You want me to break out the guy we L.I.T.E.R.A.L.L.Y just put in there?”
I nod.
Kato’s eyes skirt down to the bottom of the screen and a message pops up. From him.
Be careful, I traced the network hacks of both the FF and Victor. It originated from the same place. What if he’s playing you?
I type back quick.
We don’t have a choice. He has Nyx. This is the price to get her back.
“Okay, so you want me to illegally hack into one of the most secure systems in Trutinor? Which, might I add, no one has successfully done yet, isolate a single cell door in amongst…oooh, at least three hundred, and then override the locking mechanism to release the door?”
Trey shrugs, “Basically.”
“Next time lead with that. You know I can’t resist a challenge. Give me a few minutes.”
“A few? I thought you said no one had successfully hacked it yet,” I say.
“I did. But those hackers are nothing more than rookie idiots, and I’m a genius. Your words, not mine. What cell is he in?”
“13G,” Trey says.
“Consider it done,” he says, winking, and the CogTracker goes black.
“Cuffs on,” Trey says to Victor, as he puts his CogTracker away. Victor obliges.
“If you so much as sneeze the wrong way, I’m going to soul death you faster than you can shift into a puppy.”
“Oh please,” he sneers, “you have neither the skill nor the balls to soul death me.”
I give him a sharp stare, “Wanna test that theory out?”
His teeth clamp shut, and instead of giving me a snarky quip, he says, “Not today.”
He must have serious feelings for Karva if he's not going to argue with me. A couple of minutes later, Trey's CogTracker rings. He flips open the screen, and Kato's face appears. His expression is tight, the arrogance from earlier gone.
“There’s good news and bad news,” he says.
“Good first,” Trey says.
“I can unlock the cell door.”
“And the bad?”
“Out of curiosity, I looked at the schematics for the Datch alarm systems. I’m glad I did. I realize now why no one else has successfully broken anyone out. The doors are rigged. You have to be in the onsite control room to release a cell door; otherwise, it triggers an alarm.”
“Can you override it?” Trey asks.
“Not without planting a virus, and if I do that, it will override the whole door system, and rather than opening one door, it will open them all.”
“How long do we have?” Victor says.
"The first ten seconds is a silent alarm. After that, it will ring through the prison. At most you'll have thirty seconds before a guard is on you."
“Thirty seconds?” I say. “Great. That’s just fantastic. How does thirty seconds fit with your grand plan, Victor?”
“Now, now, Eden, dial down the sarcasm.”
“Can you do it or not?”
“More or less.”
“You’re going to need to elaborate on the detail.”
“Can’t do that.”
“Then I can’t let you out.”
Trey steps closer to me. “Maybe we can find Nyx without him,” he says.
"Sure you're willing to take that risk?” Victor asks. “Look. You've got no reason to believe me; I get that. But you need me to help you find Nyx. And if you don't believe that I want to help you, then believe that I need you to help me escape so I can get what I want."
I falter; as much as I hate it, he has a point. The fact he's only helping us, so he gets what he wants, makes me much more comfortable that he’ll deliver.
“Eden…? Just think about it…” Trey says.
But I’ve already made my mind up.
“Do it, Kato. Release the cell door.”
"Good luck," he says. A low buzzing hum reverberates from the crystal door, then a click that sounds more like the slap of a wet hand against skin, and the door slides open.
Victor’s eyes close, and his head leans back, a smile forming on his lips. For a second I think he’s going to make a run for it. But he steps out, and his eyes lock onto mine. “Handcuffs,” he says, holding his hands up to me.
My eyebrows knit together, “Not a chance.”
“That wasn’t part of the deal,” Trey says.
“If we take them off, Rozalyn will know where you are and have total control of you.”
“Ten seconds,” Trey says.
An ear-shattering screech rings out through the tower. The piercing ring echoes around the circular tower, making me clutch my ears. In my periphery, there's a scuffle; I lean over the guardrail and spot four guards and Arden racing across the ground floor toward the stairs.
“Dammit. There’s no time to argue. Give me your hands. Trey, help me.”
Each of us takes one of Victor’s hands; we pull them up and smash the cuffs against the railing. Victor yelps and gives me a filthy stare.
“Again,” I shout.
We smash them again. Nothing. Trey’s eyes latch on mine, the same panic filling them as my chest.
“Again.”
This time the handcuffs click open and drop to the floor. A guard appears at the top of the stairs, followed by Arden. The guard looks from Victor to us and raises a baton. Victor grabs us both and pushes us against the railing.
“Oi,” the guard bellows at us. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
The guard stops at the top of the stairs; his body plummets to the ground and billows back upward as he reappears as an enormous brown buffalo. His head of curling horns dips. Then he charges.
My eyes widen as I grip Victor’s arm, “You’d better have a plan.”
“I do,” he says, “climb up, both of you.”
“Climb up? Onto the railing? Are you insane? We’ll fall.”
“Do you trust me?” Victor asks.
“No.”
“Good,” he says, as the three of us clamber up and hold onto each other. “Jump anyway.”
The buffalo’s hooves pound the floor; it sees us on the railing and makes a low grunting sound that rumbles around us.
“Eden, what are you doing?” Arden bellows from several feet behind the buffalo.
Victor, Trey, and I cling to each other. My fingers dig into Victor’s waist, and even through his clothes, he’s cold to touch. From behind him, enormous black wings unfurl. Boney spurs, sharpened to spikes, angle down toward me with an ominous point.
“Victor, hurry,” I say, panic rising in my voice.
The buffalo is thirty feet. Twenty feet. Ten feet.
“Ready?” Victor says.
“No,” Trey and I answer simultaneously.
"Excellent," he says, and we leap off the railing and plummet to the ground floor. Victor's wings wrap around us until they touch our skin, and then there's crushing darkness.
> Thirty
‘Legend says that when Karva died, Rozalyn tortured her. Not the physical torture many experience at the hands of the Imbalanced. But a darker, more twisted torture, formed from the revenge that fuels Rozalyn’s soul. It is said that she held the source of Karva’s ability in her hands. She dug her nails into Karva’s heart and squeezed. Slicing through the muscle and sinew, to feed a blackened poison into her soul, all the while whispering tales of the dead, broken, and vengeful.’
Excerpt - Myths and Legends of Trutinor
We plummet into a thick choking blackness that makes my body feel like it's being pulverized in a blender, and I wonder if this is what it's like to shapeshift. Despite the body compression, there are no other sensations. No sound, no touch, nothingness. I panic, my neck bristling. Are we dead? I imagine my body back in the prison lying broken and twisted, Victor standing over me laughing. As soon as I think it, there's a rushing sensation like the wind blowing through my hair and Trey, Victor, and I are spat out of the darkness and collapse onto cobblestones.
I lie there, my cheek pressing into the cold stone pavement, my body decompressing. Once my breathing returns to normal, I push myself up. As I pick my hands up off the cobbles, I notice they were in a wet patch; not rain, blood. Then I look up, and my anger bubbles through my body.
"You brought us to Obex?" I shout, "I thought you were taking us back to the mainland so we could make a plan."
“You know what they say about assumption,” Victor laughs, the corner of his lip curling. “It’s the mother of all f…”
I’m on my feet. I scramble over Trey and swing for Victor, punching him clean in the jaw.
He’s still laughing So I punch him again, harder. The familiar rumble of my vault cracking rattles through my head. Trey’s hand clasps my arm. “Not here,” he says, “do not let it crack down here.”
Victor spits black blood over the cobbles, then glares at me, “Are you quite finished?”
“You son of a bitch. Do those wings get us back out of here?”
“Not exactly.”