by Frankie Rose
“What are you doing?” James mutters.
I don’t reply. I sit on the very edge of the cot and touch the blade of my knife to the red veils swathed around Olivia. It’s a crimson tomb in fabric form. It’s got to go. The sheer material splits apart at the first sign of pressure from the sharp steel, ripping so easily. I unravel what I can, only to find more layers underneath. James steps backward, and over my shoulder I hear him whisper, “Time to leave, people. Go and man the watchtowers. Take the new rifles. Scott, find Foster and Lettin. Set up supply dumps in the highest buildings. Tell them to prepare.”
The red just keeps coming, and I want to rip every last scrap of it away but I can’t. I have to be careful. Olivia is so torn up, every small jolt is likely to cause huge amounts of pain, and so I’m gentle. More gentle than I’ve ever been with a blade in my hand before. I take my time, but before long my hands start to shake so badly I’m danger of nicking her. My skin is stained ruby red up to my wrists—the material is drenched in blood but the colour hides it all too well. Caius places a hand over mine.
“Stop.”
I shrug him off. I can’t stop. This is important. The fact that James, Callum, Caius and Melody are all in the room doesn’t stop me from continuing with my work. Olivia was never shy about her body, but that’s not even a concern right now. I just need to see the extent of the damage. There is so much blood. I don’t think for a second it’s all coming from the painfully deep slices across Olivia’s cheeks. I draw away yet another layer of material. There has to be other wounds that—
The final folds of the cloth slips free from my hands.
“Gods!” Melody’s breathless exhalation seems to ring like a struck bell in my ears.
“What the…” Caius can’t even seem to get words out.
I drop hold of my knife, and my body pitches sideways. Thankfully the wall catches me, preventing me from falling to the floor. Olivia’s skin, every last square inch of her, is a ruin. Deep lacerations slash and cross-hatch across her body, an ugly map of pain and suffering. Some of the wounds are so bad I can see what lies beneath—bone and tissue that should never see the light of day openly on display. I look away because I can’t bear it any longer, and there are tears streaking down Callum’s face.
“They cast her out.”
“But…I didn’t think they could do that?” I can barely speak through my swollen throat. My voice comes out cracked and thick.
“They can’t cast a priestess out,” James says softly. “She has to choose…”
“Choose what?”
James just shakes his head, like he can’t believe what he’s looking at. He turns his back and it’s up to Callum to explain. “A hundred cuts. The fee owed to the Gods. That’s the price a woman must pay to leave the Keep for good.”
My mind goes blank. “So Olivia, she picked this over…” I can’t control it any more. I stagger to my feet and lurch toward the door, hoping I make it outside in time. I do, but barely. Sour, bitter, burning fluid rises up from my stomach and splatters onto the dusty concrete. I collapse to all fours just as Luke arrives with Penny in tow. I’m crying too hard to feel Luke’s hand rubbing up and down my back.
I left her there. I left her there. She needed me, and I left her there. It’s all I can think. Penny makes a guttural noise at the back of her throat, hovering by the open doorway.
“Get in here,” James snaps. She goes inside and I hear them arguing, but the words don’t make any sense. I pull in a deep breath, my stomach muscles twitching and complaining that there is nothing left inside me to bring up. When I heave myself backward, Melody is rocking backward and forward with a stunned expression on her face. Penny is shaking her head, and James is burning holes of fury into her skin. To her credit, Penny doesn’t flinch.
“No. I won’t do it.”
James breaks his furious gaze and instead casts it over Olivia, still openly bleeding on the cot. “Fine. Then I will.” He storms from the room and charges past me, his boots echoing off the corridor walls. He speeds up halfway to the stairwell, and he’s flat-out running by the time he reaches the stairs.
I count the seconds until he returns. Two hundred and thirteen of them, heavy and laden, pass before he comes running back up the stairs and down the corridor. With a halo in his hands.
“Don’t even think about fighting me on this, Kit,” he snaps when he sees the look on my face. I’m not going to fight him on it, though. I shake my head, shuffling out of the way so he can get back into the room. Penny scowls when she sees the shining silver circle of metal in James’ hand.
“That thing’s pure evil. There are people here whose loved ones have died so they can be free of them, and now you’re planning on clamping that thing around the girl’s neck? You make me sick. You can’t do it.” She steps in between James and the cot, and every single muscle in James’ body tenses. I’m on my feet before he can do anything, shoving her aside. I pin her to the wall by her neck, my hand clamped around her windpipe.
I see Caius shifting out of the corner of my eye, but I don’t let Penny go. “Kit,” he says carefully. “Back off. She doesn’t understand.”
“You’re right. I don’t understand,” Penny spits. She looks like she wants to claw my eyes out, but she clearly has more sense than I’ve given her credit for. Either that or she’s biding her time. She locks her limbs until they’re rigid and stares me down, eyes filled with hate. James makes a sound of frustration and steps around me to get to Olivia. He starts working over her, and Penny’s eyes flicker to the halo in his hand. Caius approaches slowly, as though I’m a cornered wild animal, liable to lash out at any sharp movement. Maybe I will.
“Penny, the girl’s badly injured. She needs to be healed,” he says.
“Let her heal naturally. Anything’s better than that!” She writhes against the wall, trying to get out of my grip.
“She’s dying,” I growl. “A halo saved your brother,” I hiss. “A halo saved my brother. If you even think about trying to stop one from saving my best friend, you’re going to have to come through me.”
“Easy,” Caius says. He reaches out slowly and places a hand on my arm—the one holding Penny to the wall. “Let me get her out of her, Kit. I’ll just take her away.”
I pull in a sharp breath through my nose, not taking my eyes off the girl. I blink and then let my arm go slack, releasing my hold. Penny reacts quickly, lunging for the halo James is painstakingly trying to thread around Olivia’s neck without actually touching her skin. In the movement, Penny knocks James and OIivia’s eyes snap open, wild and filled with pain.
“RYKA!” she screams. Her body bows from the bed, and she flails her arms, screaming again when the cuts pull across her body. “Oh, Gods! Ryka! Please! Make it stop!” she sobs.
Penny freezes in place, suddenly not so sure of her actions. James roars, leaping up and grabbing hold of the red-headed girl. With two hands he launches her out of the open doorway and she smashes into the wall, back first, shattering the already decaying plasterwork. James spins to Caius and jabs an index finger into his chest.
“Get her out of my sight. Take her to one of the watchtowers and leave her there. I don’t want to see her face inside this building again. You hear me?” The blood has drained from Caius’ face, although I can see the emotions churning below his carefully maintained surface—anger, concern, regret. “Do. You. Understand. Me?” James demands.
“I understand,” Caius replies, his voice flat. He gives me a torn look and then rushes out of the room, bending to pick Penny up off the floor as he goes. I go to close the door, but a fragile hand grasps hold of my wrist, stopping me. It’s Olivia.
“Don’t…don’t leave me,” she croaks. I wipe away the tears that are blinding her with the heel of my hand and bend down as James goes about finishing what he started.
“I won’t. I’m not going anywhere,” I tell her. Olivia’s pained brown eyes widen as she realises what James is doing, and I squeeze her hand ligh
tly. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay, don’t worry. We’ll take it off as soon as you’re better.”
“Don’t…” she rasps. I think she’s trying to tell me not to leave her again, so I give her a sad smile. It vanishes when she says, “Don’t take it off. Don’t ever take it off…” She passes out with fear and panic on her face, leaving James and I sharing uneasy glances.
The burning pain in my stomach blossoms like a flower, spreading outwards and radiating through me. Blood marks my hands. I didn’t make it to the woman in white. She stands over me still glowing, backlit with a pleasant golden light, and then she’s gone again. Ryka’s charging forward, his weapons in his hands, eyes wide, calling out my name.
Kit! Look out!
It’s too late, though. I’m already shot. I’m already dying. I can’t ever seem to stop that from happening. My vision is playing tricks on me, turning everything red as I lie on the ground, bleeding out. I know I should get up, but the effort involved just seems like a colossal waste. I have so little time left. Why should I spend it—
A claxon jolts me from sleep. It’s a sound I haven’t heard since I left the Sanctuary, and the noise instils instant fear. Where the hell is it even coming from? I’m already on the floor—I vowed I wouldn’t leave Olivia’s side until Ryka gets back—so I haul myself up, pulling on boots and knife belt in a hurry. The door flies open and Luke is silhouetted against the bleakly lit corridor beyond, the lighting dimming and strengthening with the oscillating wail of the siren.
“Sanctuary,” is all he says. He’s trying to breathe but the effort is killing him, I can see.
“Get in here. Close the door.” I stand and grab him by the arm, yanking him inside. “I need you to stay here, okay?”
“I can’t, Kit! I have to protect the Det!”
“Olivia needs protecting, too,” I say firmly. “Ryka will be so mad if he finds out I didn’t leave her with someone capable.” The hurt in Luke’s face dissolves a little at this poorly veiled compliment. I’m a terrible person for manipulating him, but he looks like he’s on the brink of another one of his episodes and I can’t have him panicking if we’re being attacked. That would be bad news for everyone.
“Okay. I can watch her,” he says. He takes a knife out of his belt and goes to stand by the window where I join him. The night is still too dark to make much out, but an angry orange glow throbs at the horizon, reminding me that there was smoke earlier when Caius spotted Olivia. At any other time, that would have raised alarm bells, but with what happened afterwards it kind of slipped my mind.
“I’ll be back,” I tell him, giving his shoulder a quick squeeze, and then I’m running. The corridors are filled with confusion—a confusion of panic, shouting and bodies. I shove through without apology, too determined to get down to red nine, the lower level where Ryka has set up what could loosely be termed as a command centre. Reaching the lower levels is problematic, because everyone seems to be heading the other way.
“They’re in!” a voice hollers, panicked, up the stairwell, and the pushing and shoving becomes more frantic. I have seven flights of stairs to descend before I have any hope of reaching someone calm enough, controlled enough to know what the hell is going on. At this rate, it will take forever. I pull out a knife and growl at the men and women, civilians and servants from Freetown and the Sanctuary both, and they know I’m not messing around. A narrow pathway forms for me whenever eyes catch on the sharp silver I hold clenched in my fist, and I finally make it down to the floor I’m looking for. Inside, I find Opa and Caius, both of them toting the rifles we liberated.
“Where have you been?” Caius demands, shoving an electric flashlight out to me. I snatch it from him, trying not to let his tone rankle me.
“I’ve been trying to push my way past three thousand people,” I tell him, shaking my head. “If you hadn’t noticed, everyone’s kind of losing it!”
Opa tuts. “Where are Freetown’s other fighters?”
“Mostly with Ryka. The others are in shifts out at the watchtowers. Five other fighters were on the roof here, keeping watch, but they’re probably struggling to get down. Didn’t the signals go up?”
Caius nods. “Yeah, but it’s weird. The closest buildings lit first. The others lit one by one afterwards, from the centre of the city outwards. It’s like the guards came out of nowhere. We barricaded the lower staircases, but that won’t hold them for long.”
As if to highlight that fact, a bloodcurdling scream echoes up the stairway from below, resonating around the hollow rooms on this floor. I shiver and try to focus. “Where’s James?”
“He’s down there, trying to hold them off,” Opa says. He rubs his fingers through his thinning, wiry hair. “We need to surrender. There’s no way out. We have to try and keep the death count to a minimum.”
Like hell that’s happening. Caius looks like he wants to argue with the old man—I wait for him to do it—but he doesn’t. He opens his mouth, but at Opa’s stern look, he closes it.
“Jeez, Cai,” I snap. “Just give me the damn rifle.”
“Kit, you’re not going down—”
“Give it to me or I’m going down there with these.” I draw my blades and Caius’ face turns green. He hands over the rifle, even though I can see he thinks it’s a terrible idea.
“I’ll come with you,” he announces, eyeing Opa. The old man shakes his head.
“We need someone to guard the stairs. I can’t find Foster anywhere so it has to be one of you two. Both of you, ideally.”
I hold the rifle tight to my chest, feeling the cold metal stock dig into my skin. My eyes fix on Caius, knowing already how he’s going to respond to what comes out of my mouth next—when you’ve spent your whole life growing up with someone, you know the very essence of them, regardless of whether they’re locked up tight behind a halo.
“I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t born to guard stairwells. I’m going down. You can either come with me, or you can stay here and make sure the panic doesn’t escalate.”
“This is madness, Kit. You’ll never get down there.” Cai looks over the handrail in the stairwell, frowning at the bobbing sea of heads, hands, arms, legs all writhing and tearing at one another to make their way up the stairs. He could be right.
“I’m not debating this with you. I’m going whether you like it or not, but I have to say some backup would be appreciated.” The prospect of wrestling past all these people is one I’m not relishing; it will be great to know someone I can rely on is at my back. Cai gives Opa a sorry glance.
“It’s better to stop them getting in. We won’t have a hope in hell of getting out of here if we don’t protect the building. And I know you don’t want to go back to the Sanctuary. Don’t worry, we’ll find Foster and we’ll work out what’s going on. I’ll send someone up to let you know.”
That’s all I need to hear. He’s going to come with me. I set off down the stairwell holding the rifle out in front of me, its metal warmed against my skin now. The people all pressing and shoving and crowding might not have seen my knives before but they certainly see the rifle. They react to it instantaneously, recoiling and pressing back against one another as I charge by. We burn down six flights of stairs, the wails of unhappy children ringing in our ears, and then we’ve made it onto red three. James must be around here somewhere. In the near darkness, pillars of light strobe and dance up the walls where a handful of fighters are trying to maintain order. And failing.
“Kit! Kit, over here!”
I don't know where the voice is coming from. With all of the alarm and the claxon still wailing on every single floor, it's hard to tell which direction the call came from. Cai arrives at my side, pointing over my shoulder into the melee of men dashing to and fro.
“There. Callum.” Two words and I’m charging ahead, intent on finding my friend. I locate him crouched down beneath a window, a rifle of his own butted up against the crook of his shoulder. His eyes are round, wild with adrenaline.
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“They’re down there!” He gestures with the rifle, aiming it down below to the lower levels of the building, where dark shadows emerge and then are swallowed again by the inky black night. There’s so much movement down there, it’s hard to know what’s going on. To see anything at all.
“Where the hell did they come from? Why was there no warning?”
“I—I don’t know. I was on watch on this level, I was awake the whole time, I swear. I didn’t see anything until suddenly there they were, hundreds of them, all racing toward the entrance. James told me to stay here, to man the window and shoot anybody that gets within five hundred metres of the building, but it’s not that easy. I can’t see a damn thing! I’m just wasting bullets!”
A swell of movement below us draws his attention, and Callum hefts the rifle’s sight up to his face. I place my hand on top of the weapon, forcing it down. Callum just looks up at me, anxiety clear as day in his eyes. “Don’t,” I tell him. “You’re right, this is just a waste of bullets. Keep a watch out and if they seem to be growing in numbers, come down to level six and find us, okay? Have you seen Foster anywhere?”
Callum shakes his head. “Not since this morning on the roof. It was his shift tonight.”
Damn it. Foster would be an asset right now, someone with a steady hand we could leave posted higher up in the building. But there’s no sense in worrying about that now. He’s not here, and so we have to make the best of the situation. And I have to find James. Cai paces anxiously, watching the insanity develop around us.
“I thought the people of Freetown were anxious to get their revenge?” he says. He's clearly not impressed by the hordes of people fleeing for their lives.
“They are. But when you’re putting the knife in their hands, it’s clearly a different story. Come on, let’s go.” I set off, knowing that Cai is following me. We leave the floor and hit the stairs once more, and this time there are less people. Only a couple of men run up the stairs, but they don’t look like they’re running in fear. They look like they’re running with purpose, with jobs to be done. By the time we hit the level below, the noise from below has grown to deafening levels. The loudest voice, booming over shouts and calls of assist and reload, belongs to James. He sees us immediately, stalks across the level’s open space, with a rifle slung across his back and another one gripped firmly in his hand.