by Posey, Jay
To emphasize the point, she walked to the head of the litter, leaving Finn standing there with his weapon.
“I’ve always been better up close anyway,” she added.
Mouse glanced at Finn, who gave a little shrug.
“Fine,” Mouse said. “But if anything feels like it’s going worse with that arm, tell me.”
“Sure,” Cass said.
“I mean it, Cass.”
“I know,” she answered. “Daylight’s burning.”
Mouse moved over to the litter and shooed her to the end with Swoop’s feet, the lighter side. He gave a quick three count and they lifted together. Pain exploded in Cass’s forearm and surged like electricity up through her shoulder, radiated out into her chest. She grit her teeth, commanding herself not to make a sound. Mouse glanced over his shoulder at her.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” she said, keeping her voice cool and flat. Her pinky and ring finger felt like she was gripping a metal rod just shy of molten.
“Sky,” Mouse said. “Take us home.”
Sky nodded and moved once more out into the street, with Mouse and Cass coming behind, and Finn keeping rear guard.
The next few hours were a white fog of pain for Cass. Every jolt or jostle, each step misplaced or out of sync with Mouse’s stride, sent shockwaves rippling out from her arm into every other part of her body. Even the scant few halts were a mixed blessing. Setting Swoop down didn’t relieve the pain, and yet taking him up again seemed to multiply it. The anesthesia had clearly worn off, but Cass refused to mention it. Any time Mouse asked how she was, her answer was the same: a wordless nod.
Sky drove a hard pace, with good reason. They were racing the sun. And Cass wasn’t entirely sure they were going to win. She didn’t want to slow anyone down or force any change in the current arrangement. It was just a matter of will at that point, and she still had plenty of that in reserve. She kept her eyes focused on Mouse’s back, and her mind on the next step.
When they stopped for another break, it took Cass a minute to realize the sun was already touching the horizon. She was about to comment that they should probably keep pushing when Sky turned around and said, “We gotta figure out what to do about him.” He nodded at Swoop.
Cass blinked through the dull ache that throbbed through her entire being. She recognized this place. The courtyard. They’d made it back to the wayhouse. She swayed on her feet, the relief almost too much to bear.
“What do you mean?” Finn said.
“He means do we take him inside with us,” Mouse answered.
“As opposed to what?” Cass said. Mouse looked at her with his steady gaze. “We didn’t carry him all this way just to leave him out here.”
“No,” Mouse said. “We didn’t.”
“So we’re taking him in,” she said.
“Not necessarily,” said Sky.
“What are we talking about here?” Finn said.
Mouse and Sky exchanged a look.
“Wait, you’re thinking about putting him down?” Finn continued. He ran a hand over his face and then back over his head, let out an exasperated sigh. “We could’ve done that about ten klicks ago, you know. Saved ourselves a lot of trouble.”
“Not properly,” Mouse said. “But we’re on our own doorstep. We’ve got time to do it right.”
“Guys, no,” Cass said. “It’s Swoop.”
“It’s not Swoop,” Sky said. “Swoop’s dead.”
“Not yet, he’s not,” Cass answered.
“That,” Sky said, pointing to the litter, “that is just a thing using his body.”
“But there’s a chance we can get him back. That’s why I didn’t kill him in the first place. And why Gamble wouldn’t either. Wren could still save him.”
“Wren’s not here,” Mouse said.
“But you could go to Greenstone. You could take Swoop to Greenstone and get Wren to bring him back.”
“That’s a long way off,” Sky said, “and we’ve got to make it through tonight first. Even bringing him this far might be inviting more trouble than we can handle.”
“Sky, Gamble could’ve done it,” Cass said. “I was right there. She had her knife out, ready to do it. And she didn’t. She chose not to. She made that decision.”
“Don’t talk to me about my wife, Cass,” he said, and the coolness in his voice was deadly. “You don’t want to talk to me about her right now.”
Cass turned to Mouse.
“You can keep him under, can’t you?”
“For a while,” Mouse answered. “But I don’t know what that does for us, Cass, not really. Keeps him from carving us up, sure, but I don’t know how they work. How they track each other. We might’ve just brought them all right to our doorstep. But doorstep is better than inside the house.”
Cass couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. After all Gamble had done to get Swoop out, after all they had done to get him back to the wayhouse, to give up on him now was beyond her comprehension. But as much as she hated to admit it, she couldn’t truly argue the logic. To them, the important thing was to put Swoop out of the Weir’s reach forever. They’d already buried him in their hearts; the idea of his potential resurrection was too remote, too implausible compared to the likelihood that his presence was a threat to all of them.
“What about you?” Mouse said to Cass, a curious look in his eye.
“What about me?”
“Could you wake him?”
“Me?” Cass said. The thought had never even occurred to her before, and she couldn’t understand why it would have occurred to anyone else, either.
“Could you try it?” he said.
“Try it?” she said. “I’m not... No, I’ve never done anything like that before. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
Mouse nodded. He’d obviously expected the response, but even so, Cass saw the ember of hope die in his eyes.
“Then I’m with Sky,” he said. “We already lost one today. I’m not going to risk everyone else on a wish.”
“What about Wick and Able?” Finn said. “Shouldn’t they get a say?”
“Sure,” said Mouse. “Let’s go talk to ’em. You want to let ’em know we’re here?”
Finn nodded, and then opened the channel. “Wick, it’s me, bud. We’re outside.”
Wick let out something between a whistle and a sigh of relief. “About time. You guys are cutting it nice and close, huh?” he responded. His voice sounded thin, and not just because of the compression on the channel. “Surprised G let you stay out so late.”
“Yeah,” Finn said, but he let it go at that. Better to deliver the news face-to-face. “Pop the hatch.”
“Able’s on it,” Wick answered. And sure enough, a few moments later, Able emerged from between the buildings where the entrance to the wayhouse was hidden.
His eyes swept their small party; Mouse, Finn, Cass, Sky, Swoop... back to Sky. And then he lowered himself to the ground, a controlled fall as the weight of understanding bore him down. Mouse motioned to Finn, and they took up the litter before Cass had any say. They all crossed the courtyard together. When they reached Able he recovered himself enough to stand and catch Sky up in an embrace. At first, Sky accepted it without returning it, but as Able continued to hold him, he started to pull away, attempting to shrug it off. Still Able clung to him.
“Get off me, Able,” Sky said, and he tried to push free. He got loud. “Able, get off me! Get off ME!”
But Able wouldn’t release him. And just when Cass was certain Sky was going to break free and take a swing, all that struggling seemed to take the last of whatever energy he’d been using to keep himself in check. His legs buckled, and he let out an utterly inhuman cry of rage and anguish. No, not inhuman. The rawest, most deeply human wail Cass had ever heard; one that told of a fathomless emotion too powerful, too vast to be bound or captured in words.
Finn and Mouse set Swoop down just outside the entry
way, and Mouse wrapped his giant arms around both Able and Sky, lending his strength. Finn put a hand on the top of Sky’s head and stood there for a few moments, then headed down into the wayhouse, no doubt to fill his brother in. The three other men there, holding one another, sharing their grief, stepping in to bear some portion of their companion’s crushing agony, were a sight terrible to behold; terrible and brutally beautiful. And though on the way to Morningside Cass had felt very much like one of the team, here, now, she knew she was still an outsider, and always would be.
She went and sat down next to Swoop, alone in her sorrow. She wept then, wept with soul-deep tears for the loss of the woman she’d come to think of as a sister. And for her son, and for Morningside, and for all that had gone so completely wrong with the world.
Some time later, a hand came gently to her shoulder, and she turned to find Mouse crouched beside her. How long they’d given to their grief, she didn’t know. Long enough for the sun to sink low and stripe the sky in orange and pale purple. The others had gone.
“Hey,” he said softly. There was kindness in his touch and in his tear-stung eyes. “We’re headed down to talk about Swoop. You want to join us?”
Cass wiped her eyes and nose on her sleeve. Did she want to join them? Yes. Yes she did. She wanted to be a part of that family, to belong to something that stood so strong and wonderful even in its darkest moments. But it was not her place, no matter how desperately she desired it.
“No,” she said. “No. Thank you, Mouse, but I’ve said my part. You go on.”
“It’s all right, Cass,” he said. “You’re one of us now. You can come down.” And he said it so earnestly, Cass thought that she might be able to let herself believe it. But somehow in her heart, she knew it wasn’t right. She placed her hand on top of his and squeezed.
“I’ll keep watch,” she said. “And keep him company.”
Mouse opened his mouth to say something more, but changed his mind and closed it again. He squeezed her shoulder and nodded, and then rose and headed to the wayhouse. Cass watched him go with a quiet sadness in her heart. Mouse was a good man. He deserved better than life had given him.
Once he’d gone, she turned her eyes back to the courtyard, and then upwards to the purpling sky above. As she sat staring, a faint point of light timidly revealed itself to her, a softer scar of paleness against a pale sky; the first evening star. And Cass felt a melancholy descend. She was that star. A lone, faded light drifting amidst a sea of emptiness. No connections, no belonging, no significance to anything else around her. Mother to an angel and a demon, neither of whom she could touch or speak to or even likely see ever again.
She was lost. Entirely lost. And somewhere, something deep within her spoke an insight that seemed beyond her own capability to perceive, some wisdom gifted her by the universe in her moment of utter depletion. Of course she felt lost. She was, at last, alone with herself. All else had been stripped away.
Her entire life, from as far back as she could remember to that very point in time, she had always been something to someone else. Been something through someone else. Zenith, Underdown, RushRuin, Asher, Wren. Three. Always defined by her relationship to others. Who was she when everything else was gone? She had no idea. And now, everything else was gone.
As she sat there, the sun slipped lower, and the pale sky deepened to dusk. And the insignificant star that had so fearfully shone its meager light first in the heavens grew bold against the darkness. Brighter, yes, but more than that; sharper, defiant. Fierce. And though it remained alone and stood no chance at turning back the night, still it shone unconquerable.
She laughed at herself then. Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe the grief. Cass had never been much of a romantic. But that didn’t steal away the fact that that little star felt an awful lot like a small kindness from the universe, reminding Cass of her individuality, dignifying her suffering.
She looked down at Swoop. Yes, she’d never done anything like it before. Yes, she didn’t even know where to start. But yes, she could at very least try.
TWENTY
Wren lay on his narrow bed covered by a thin blanket, staring up at the slender ray of orange light that cleanly divided the gloom that clung to the ceiling. The day before, he’d quickly discovered that regardless of the time, switching off the lights in his room plunged him into an immediate and total darkness. There were no windows, no devices with status lights, not even cracks around the door. It made everything feel too close, reminded him too much of times past that had terrified him, and still maintained the power to do so. He’d settled on leaving the bathroom light on with the door cracked, though it made him feel supremely childish. He knew there were no monsters under the bed. But he knew too there were demons in his mind, and that sliver of light seemed to keep some of them at bay.
He’d slept fitfully, the deep exhaustion of the many days demanding its due yet warring against the stress and anxiety that plagued his every thought. It’d created the same sensation that a high fever would; body demanding sleep, but gaining no rest from it. For now, he was floating in a wired equilibrium. Tired, but not sleepy. Restless, but too weary to move. He checked the time; still an hour and a half before sunrise.
Naturally his thoughts turned towards his mother, as they often did. Despite having heard nothing from her in over a week, he felt more confident now that she was out there somewhere, alive. Mama was a survivor. He’d seen it for himself firsthand. And having witnessed how practiced she’d been in it, he knew she always had been, even before he’d been born. But today, he tried to drive his thoughts elsewhere. That life was behind him now, at least for the duration of his training.
His training. He wondered what lay ahead of him under the old man’s instruction. The old man. Foe. Maybe he’d meant it as a joke, but Wren couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it. It seemed too true, too likely that it really did capture the old man’s intentions. To train Wren not as a patient friend, but rather as a determined enemy.
A sliding sound from the door interrupted his thoughts, the well-oiled mechanicals shifting as someone opened it. The door swung slowly open, cutting the narrow beam of light from the bathroom. It was dark in the hall beyond, so Wren couldn’t make out who it was entering his room, but the possibilities were pretty limited. After the door closed, a figure glided silently forward, likewise tripping the orange ray, and Wren saw his features in a rapid series of slivers.
“Hi, Haiku,” Wren said. The man stopped moving, apparently surprised by Wren’s voice.
“Hello, Wren,” Haiku said quietly. “Did you sleep?”
“A little.”
“Anxious?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s understandable. You’ll sleep well tonight, though,” Haiku said, and Wren could hear the smile in his words. “Assuming you’re still intent on going forward.”
“I am,” Wren said.
“Then Father’s waiting for you.”
“Oh. Already?”
“Yes. The days are going to be long, Wren. Very early mornings, very late nights. You’ll probably feel like you want to die for the first little while. But...” Haiku said, and then trailed off.
“I’ll adjust?”
“Well,” Haiku said. “I was going to say you won’t die.”
They were both silent for a moment, and then Wren asked, “Should we go now?”
“Yes,” Haiku said. “But do whatever you need to beforehand to get ready.”
Wren slipped out of bed, grabbed the clothes he’d worn the day before, and padded barefoot to the washroom. The light blazed when he opened the door and made his eyes water. He went to the bathroom and washed his hands and face, got dressed. Looked at himself in the small metal mirror. The image that stared back looked small and scared.
“You can do it,” Wren told himself. “You have to.” The reflection didn’t look convinced.
He opened the washroom door and found Haiku standing by the entrance to his room with the li
ghts on. Wren went to him and Haiku knelt.
“I want to tell you one thing before your training begins, Wren,” he said, and his face was grave. “This is important, and you must believe me. This is going to be hard on you. Harder than you can imagine. At times, Father’s lessons might even seem cruel to you. But you must understand, you must trust, that Father will never harm you. Everything he does, every lesson however small, is meant to shape you and mold you, never to destroy you. If you will submit yourself to it, if you will let your spirit rest in that knowledge, then the lessons will be easier to withstand.”
Wren blinked at Haiku. He wanted to believe the man, but it was a lot to take in all at once. And it didn’t seem to match his initial experience with Foe.
“I guess he wasn’t that concerned about me before he agreed to train me?” Wren asked.
“What do you mean?”
“When he made me spend the night outside, by myself. He didn’t seem worried about me not getting hurt then.”
“Oh,” Haiku said. “You will hurt, Wren. Pain can be a useful instructor when it is directed with purpose, and Father is a master of its art. But you must believe me that though his lessons may bring hurt, Father will never, ever harm you.”
“There’s a difference?” Wren said.
“Yes,” Haiku said, as he rose to his feet. “And you’ll learn it for yourself better than I can explain it.” He stood there by the door and stared down at Wren. Then added, “And you are mistaken. You didn’t spend the night outside by yourself.”
“Well... I didn’t think the Weir counted.”
Haiku chuckled at that. “You were never alone out there, Wren,” he said. “Father was watching over you the whole time, from the first moment you left the tower.”
At first Wren assumed that meant Foe had been using some kind of tracerun to keep track of his location. But then he remembered seeing the old man that morning, waiting outside and coated in dust. Had he really been out there the entire night?
“Come,” Haiku said, opening the door. “He’s waiting.”