Bone Driven

by Hailey Edwards

  Uncle Harold stood behind Wu with one hand clamped on his shoulder. I couldn’t get a clear read on the other, but the tension stringing Wu taut led me to believe a weapon had been jammed into his spine. Besides the utter stillness with which Wu held himself, he appeared otherwise unimpressed with his current situation. That made one of us.

  A smile crinkled Uncle Harold’s eyes, but his gaze was… soulless. “Cat got your tongue, pumpkin?”

  “Get out of him.” The demand cost every ounce of strength left in me. “Get out now.”

  “You don’t want that,” what remained of my uncle tsked. “I’m all that’s keeping him alive.”

  The pulsing organ in my chest shriveled to the size of a raisin. “What do you want?”

  “For you to get your head in the game.” A slight movement on his end left Wu gasping. Blood had been drawn. Even with a human sense of smell, the iron-rich scent was one I recognized. “You can’t keep playing human.” The careful application of pressure sent Wu crashing to his knees, his head hanging loose on his neck. “We need you.”

  Lacy ice fractals threatened to encase me, to numb my fingers where they gripped the shotgun I had all but forgotten and dull the wailing voice sobbing in my head. But those emotions were fuel to burn, and I had so much kindling. Unable to check the urge, I glanced back at Dad, who hadn’t blinked at the uproar. “What have you done?”

  “Nothing permanent.” His shrug pressed the blade into Wu’s pale skin. “I figured you’d want this to go down without an audience.” His cackle distorted my uncle’s familiar laugh. “Humans, am I right? Can’t live with them, can’t – Actually I could live without them. Happily.”

  The elephant stomping on my chest when I contemplated what nothing permanent meant to a creature like this made it hard to focus on the threat in front of me when all I wanted was to palm my cell and punch in the three digits guaranteed to bring help screaming up the drive, lights flashing. “Tell War —”

  “We had a falling out.” He raised his hand and licked a smudge of Wu’s blood from his thumb. “If you want to play intermediary, knock yourself out. Maybe you’ll have better luck than Sariah.”

  Sariah as peacekeeper —? Later. I couldn’t afford the distraction now. Not when I thought I had her motives pegged. “What happened between you two?”

  “War is a killjoy, that’s what.” He tightened his grip on Wu’s shoulder when he began to slump forward and cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice had shot up an octave. “Don’t plant valerian on Conquest’s lawn. Don’t domesticate the ubaste. Don’t run around setting fires all willy-nilly. Don’t murder children.” His opinion of me dropped when I didn’t join in the stone-throwing. “You were much chiller before you figured out I’m a – what do you call them again? Skin suit?”

  “You’re viscarre.” Meaning his refusal to leave Uncle Harold might mean that he was… No. Not going there. I couldn’t and still hold on. “How long have you been wearing my uncle?”

  “Since the night War failed in binding you to her.”

  “You handed my dad over to her.”

  “I let her borrow him, yes.”

  Borrow him, as though he were a toy to be passed between them.

  “You know how much your dad loves watching Discovery Channel?” His bloodied fingers acted as gel while he styled Wu’s hair. “It’s like the only thing the man watches other than football, which at least has spandex to recommend it. Anyway, I had an epiphany a few days ago while he was watching a documentary on brood parasites.”

  Brood parasites were birds who laid their eggs in the nests of other birds, leaving the unwitting parents to raise their young. Often, their victims’ own hatchlings got evicted in the process and died from starvation, exposure, or predation.

  “Consider me your baby bird.” He tipped back his head and gaped his mouth open. “Chirp, chirp.”

  “I have allergies to dander.” And homicidal maniacs.

  “Look, I went through a lot of trouble shoving this guy out of his own nest, well, his own body, so you would bond with me.” He looked at me expectantly. “That’s what sisters do here, right?”

  A shockwave blasted through me, shattering the comforting ice. “You’re Famine?”

  “Hi-hi.” Famine blew me a kiss. “I’d invite you out for a girls’ night on the town, reminisce over some good old-fashioned raping and pillaging, but you’ve gone straight.”

  Wu gurgled, a wet bubbling noise, as he slumped forward onto his palms.

  “You didn’t want this back, did you?” He – no, she – kicked Wu in the side. “I liked your old one better. Where is the archduke, anyhow? Now he could take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’, am I right?” Wetting her lips, she appeared to like the idea and clamped down with dull, human teeth on the trapezius muscle running between Wu’s neck and shoulder. “Hmm. Tastes like chicken.” After planting a foot between his shoulder blades, she shoved him face-first to the floor. “This one is too lean, smells weird too.”

  “What did you do to him?” There was no way Wu would have willingly played chew toy.

  “I might have poisoned him a little. No worries. I’m immune. The worst that snack will do is give me indigestion.” Famine flashed the ornate blade in her hand, bloody teeth glistening. “Pretty sweet, right?”

  Gone. There was nothing of Uncle Harold left in there, no spark of the man who’d helped raise me. She had burned him out, reduced him to a costume she wore.

  Tears dampened my lashes, blurred my vision, made the room a hazy mess as I brought up the shotgun. But I didn’t need clear eyes to hit the target. Uncle Harold, what was left of him, was less than five feet away from me, and I couldn’t have missed if I tried.

  I pulled the trigger.

  An explosion of noise and light filled the living room.

  The impact sent Famine stumbling against the far wall, where she gaped and clutched her gut, shock that I had raised a hand against her evident in her features. “War said you… wouldn’t hurt me.” Blood spilled from between her fingers. “She… told me… I was safe.”

  “War lied.”

  “I’m… your sister.” Eyes rounding, her pupils swallowed her eyes. “We’re… family. She said… she said…”

  “The man you killed was my uncle.” The delivery fell flat, the words dull. “He was my family.”

  “I don’t… understand.” Her brow creased in familiar lines, borrowing my uncle’s expression. “We’re —”

  “No,” I snarled, stalking over and clamping a hand around her throat. Her protest choked off under my palm. “We’re not.” I leaned in close. “Why did War plant you in this house?”

  “Protection,” she wheezed. “Hiding… in plain sight.”

  “We must not have played much hide and seek as kids.” I eased off on my grip before she lost consciousness. “Frankly, you suck at it.”

  “I tried… to follow orders.” Writhing under my hand, her whine pierced my ears. “But this… host… and his life…” The throat in my grasp swallowed reflexively. “Such a good man… an honorable man…” Her lip curled at the corner. “Protecting humans… serving them…” Hatred sparkled in the depths of her eyes. “I had to… act. I had to… find release.”

  “War was cleaning up after you. That’s why there were two origins with the Culberson fire.” The others too, I bet. “Why didn’t she extract you after you compromised yourself?”

  “I was… trapped.” Crimson frothed at her lips. “This death too… hard… to conceal from you.”

  There would have been no sweeping this murder under the rug, that much was for certain. Uncle Harold’s disappearance would have blown Famine’s cover. War must have decided the risk of continuing her recon was worth the potential reward, even with Famine crumbling under the pressure of her infiltration.

  “This body made… tracking you… easy.” She flashed pink teeth. “All I had to do… was sit back… and wait for you… to call with updates.”

  No wonder we
hadn’t brushed up against War. I had been feeding Famine my location this whole time.

  “How did you select your targets?” We had yet to discover a link between all three sites.

  “War,” she gasped. “Coterie.”

  “You chose locations War had already secured.” Making me wonder why she had selected those targets in the first place, unless she really had chosen locations frequented by my family and friends. Or perhaps War’s infiltration of this town was so thorough Famine could act out where she pleased without fear of reprisal. “You left her to clean up your mess.”

  A shuddering spasm rocked her limbs, and her eyes rolled back in her head. I let her hit the ground, unable to stand the contact a moment longer.

  Watching the blood darken a shirt my uncle had worn a million times flipped a switch in my head, and the cold place swirled around me, offering the chill kiss of relief from the throbbing ache building behind my breastbone.

  An execution might be what Famine deserved, but I wasn’t in a merciful mood, and revenge came in as many flavors as there were stars in the heavens. Fingers stiff from the cold, I watched my hands take out my cell and shoot Kapoor a text. The NSB enjoyed using charun as lab mice; well, I had caged him a big, fat rat.

  I examined Wu, whose labored breathing concerned me, and Dad, who appeared to be sleeping peacefully, before circling back to stand between them and Famine with the shotgun aimed at her ravaged midsection.

  Famine was waiting for me.

  “You’ve grown soft, sister,” she panted, blood dribbling from the corner of her mouth. Braced on all fours, she swayed with the effort to stay upright. “These humans have made you weak.”

  In a move faster than I could track, Famine jerked upright and snapped out her arm, yanking the gun from my hands.

  Quick reflexes must run in the family.

  Drawing on Uncle Harold’s years of experience, she handled the weapon with expert ease and had me in its sights in the span of a heartbeat.

  I didn’t think. I didn’t have to. That was the beauty of the cold place. As long as I operated in that headspace, my body was on autopilot. Going boneless, I flowed out of the path of the slug she fired at me.

  There were vulnerable targets behind me who could become casualties of our two-woman skirmish if I let them. But I couldn’t think about that right now. Concern for them was a distant drum too far away to hear.

  The wound on Famine’s side had healed enough to hold in her intestines, but she was too weak to stand or give chase. She was trapped on her knees. That was something. It still might not be enough.

  I had loaded five shells in the chamber. Minus the slug in her gut, she had four shots when she only needed one to end my whole world.

  The look on her face confirmed she was thinking the same thing. “Apply enough pressure in the right spots, and it will break you.”

  “That’s what they keep telling me.” I bounced on the balls of my feet, unsure what my next move would be, uncertain if my hindbrain would guide me or if it would rather show me. “I’m a cop, remember? I work best under pressure.”

  “No.” Her eyes narrowed to thin slits, an expression Uncle Harold had never worn a day in his life. “You’re not.”

  The reminder I wasn’t one of Canton’s finest hurt worse than if her shot had hit me.

  “No,” Wu groaned, lost to his fever dreams. “Mercy, Father.”

  Famine cut her eyes toward him, the gun wavering in her hand, and I charged. I hit her in the throat with my shoulder, sandwiching the weapon between our bodies, and rode her down to the floor. I landed straddling her upper stomach and locked one hand around the barrel of the shotgun, pinning it against Famine’s chest with my weight, then swung my other fist in a brutal arc aimed at her jaw.

  Contact snapped her head back and left my knuckles singing, but the blow loosened her hold enough I could pry the gun from her spasming fingers. I hurled the weapon across the room, tightening my thighs to keep her trapped beneath me, and cocked my arm to land another blow.

  Famine brought up her forearms and took the hit. Rocking forward, she got under my guard. Blood gushed from her wounds as they reopened, but the move allowed Famine to lock her arms around me and yank me flush against her chest. She hauled me over her, hooked her right leg over my foot and her right arm over my shoulder. Famine kicked out her left leg as her left arm hit me hard across my ribs, and we flipped in a messy tangle, leaving her smiling down atop me.

  “I’m going to rip this shell apart with my bare hands,” she panted, clamping down on both of my wrists to hold me steady while I bucked my hips to unseat her. I managed a minor success and forced her to kneel between my thighs rather than straddling my hips. That would have to be enough. “I will show you your true face before you die.”

  “That sounds painful.” I brought one of our joined hands toward my face while tugging the other across my body until my fingers closed over her wrist. Bringing up my left knee, I sank it into Famine’s gut, in the soft spot where her wound had yet to heal, then kicked off her hip with my other leg. The motion sent me sliding back and broke her hold. It gave me precious inches to crabwalk away until I could get my feet under me again. “I’m going to have to pass.”

  Famine, gasping from the impact to her tender middle, collapsed forward on all fours to catch her breath.

  I didn’t give her a chance. I soccer kicked her in the mouth, snapping her head to one side. Her elbows buckled then gave, and her face hit the hardwood, followed by the rest of her.

  Once I was certain she was down, I backed away to retrieve the gun and held it trained on Famine from a safe distance. About the time my arms started trembling, men and women dressed in FBI tees and black fatigues swarmed the living room. Weapons trained on me, the only threat left standing, they barked orders I couldn’t hear over the pounding of my heart.

  The shotgun was pried from my grip with such force I suspected the crack I heard was the pinky on my right hand breaking. A swift kick to my knees took out my legs, and the floor rose up to meet me, impact with the hardwood a slap in the face. I didn’t fight as my arms were wrenched behind me or when I was cuffed at the spine. I understood the NSB agents were panicky over being crammed into the same room with two of their legendary boogeywomen. At least with my head angled this way, I saw Wu and not…

  I swallowed hard and tasted bile as the cold place shattered around me, slicing me up on the inside as its slivers migrated through my bloodstream. Hot spikes of emotion simmered in my veins, thawing me enough to register the horrors of the room anew.

  Uncle Harold was gone. Gone.

  I had… No. What I had done, I had done to Famine. Not him.

  Paramedics barreled in and carried Dad and then Wu out of the house.

  A woman knelt beside my head, her lips moving, but the dull roar in my head deafened me.

  Hours or years or maybe minutes later, the warmth of a wide palm cradling my cheek melted the remaining frost crystalizing my vision.

  “Cole,” I rasped. “You’re here.”

  “Of course I am.” He traced the curve of my jaw with his scarred knuckle. “Where else would I be?”

  Straining, I lifted my head. “Is everyone else —?”

  “Sir,” a young man’s voice broke when addressing Cole. “You need to step away from her. She’s not to be released until Special Agent Kapoor arrives.”

  A prehistoric growl rumbled across the room to vibrate the agent in his boots. Or maybe that was just his knees knocking.

  “Apologies, sir,” he squeaked. “I don’t have clearance to release her.”

  “I do,” Cole snarled in a bass voice that rang through my bones. Leaning over me, he snapped the chain at my spine then popped the cuffs from my wrists before rubbing them until the circulation returned. “Now, leave us alone.”

  With a panicked nod, the agent vanished into the bowels of the house.

  I willed my eyebrows higher to draw Cole’s attention back to me, away from that po
or guy just doing his job, and to get my answers.

  “Rixton is fine. Sherry and Nettie are too.” He supported my elbows, easing me upright. “Look at me, Luce.” His voice held such tenderness, I ached as he murmured a soft warning. “I’m going to hold you now.”

  There was no fight left in me when he sat on the floor, none when he hauled me onto his lap, or when he wound his arms around me in a protective cage that insulated me from what I had done.

  Thom prowled in sometime later and settled beside us on his haunches. “Your father is stable.”

  Lifting my head required help from Cole’s shoulder. “His heart?”

  “Strong and steady,” Thom assured me. “He’s resting comfortably.”

  “Mrs. Trudeau is secure.” Santiago took position behind Cole, his eyes going cold when he noticed the twisted metal they had used to secure me. “She’s at the church.” My blank stare must have told him I wasn’t tracking. “She had choir practice tonight.” He gathered what remained of the handcuffs. “There’s no safer place for her now.”