He reaches for me, but I was expecting such an idiotic move. Half a second later, he is wheezing on the ground with my knees jabbing into his chest. He is bigger than me, physically stronger than I am, and better trained. I have the emptiness fueling me. While he sucks in breath after breath, panic looming in his eyes, I dig my thumbs into the space above his clavicle. The pain makes his eyes bulge, but I don’t let him black out just yet.
“What does the real Promise say?”
“Van,” he gasps, “I don’t…”
My fingers jam into his muscles, tearing through the fibers. An agonized groan slips from between his clenched teeth. The emptiness closes in around me, but the smallest hint of fury leaks through. Leaning forward, I deepen the pain and hover over him. “Do. Not. Lie. To. Me.” I push even harder. His near-useless arms try to catch hold of me, but the pain is too much. I lean in even closer, and say, “What does the Promise really say?”
“It doesn’t!” he finally gasps. His eyes are begging for release, but I only press down on him even more.
“It doesn’t what?”
He starts to shake his head, but the movement draws a strangled scream from him. “It doesn’t say who will be destroyed by the Gift.”
“What?” I’m too far gone into the emptiness to truly process and react to what he’s saying, but I know this is something I need to understand.
“The Promise only says… the Gift will destroy… those who have… warped the balance,” Chris gasps through the pain.
“How?”
“I don’t know!” His eyes roll back, but he stays conscious.
The sounds of running feet hit my hunger-heightened hearing. Chris, though, seems too shrouded in pain to hear much of anything. I yank my hands away from him, causing him to groan in relief, but that fragile emotion shatters a moment later thanks to my fingers closing around his skull. All it would take is one swift jerk. The vertebrae would break, nerves snap, life end. I could do it. My strength and hunger are more than enough. I want to do it—to inflict some small part of the pain I have endured at his and David’s hands back on him.
He doesn’t beg. He doesn’t do anything at all. The inevitability is right there in his eyes. I can see it. Feeling it is not as easy. Feeling anything is almost impossible.
I don’t know why I think about his family in that moment. I have never met them. For all I know, they are horrible people as well. What they look like is a mystery to me, yet I can feel their eyes on me in that moment. I can feel them staring at me, thinking I am a monster for taking away their husband and father.
This is different from the Eroi leaders.
My hands slip free of Chris as I stand. Even he can hear the footsteps now, but he doesn’t move a single centimeter. I back away from his body, trying desperately to hold onto the emptiness long enough to escape. Its protective wall is crashing down around me, just like it did last night. All I can do is run, but the doorway is about to fill with a dozen David-lemmings. My eyes flit to the only window in the room. Somewhere, in the background of emptiness shattering into a million jagged pieces of unfelt emotions that are sure to leave me forever scarred, I hear Chris’s voice.
“Run.”
It saves me. It brings the emptiness back. My feet respond. Glass shatters. Pain rockets up my shins.
I run.
Chapter Thirty: Omen
(Vanessa)
Nobody stopped me as I crashed down on the compound courtyard in the middle of a hailstorm of glass. Nobody stopped me when I ran. In the back of my mind, I wondered if it was because no one had a clue what was going on, or if they were too scared. It hardly mattered. All that mattered was running. Everyone simply stared as I ran through the compound. I reached the wall in record time and was only mildly interested to see a whole contingent of lemmings guarding the gate.
Knowing David wouldn’t let them kill me, but annoyed by the prospect of being slowed down, I swerved. It hadn’t taken up much of the energy built up from the feast my hunger consumed last night to trap Chris and get the answers I needed. The ocean that remains burns through me as I hurl myself at the wall. My foot plants against the flat surface and propels me upward.
It’s enough to reach the metal bars that are sticking out, the ones the barbed wire is strung through. Half a dozen razor-edged barbs dig into my hand as I grip the bar. Again, a distant thought whispers amazement that I just launched myself fifteen feet into the air with just one push off the wall. It fades quickly when new barbs dig into my forearms and stomach as I roll over their false protection and freefall to the ground.
Like a cat, I land on my feet, though I’m not sure how. It doesn’t matter. As soon as my feet touch the ground, I’m running again. There is only one road leading away from the compound. Following it makes me an easy target, but I have no idea where else to go. The only thought capable of breaking through the emptiness is that Ketchup said he was coming. If I wander too far, he won’t be able to find me. My sneakers slap against the pavement as my eyes sweep the compound behind me for some sign of pursuit.
The noise of engines rumbling to life, of a dozen men scrambling around, spurs me forward. I’m so focused on gaining speed and distance that I don’t see him coming until the last second. I crash into the side of the car, leaving a dent, but a second later, I’m scrabbling for the handle. It pops open on its own, and a hand grabs me from out of nowhere. I’m hauled into the car, my feet still dangling inches above the pavement when the car starts moving.
Only the emptiness keeps me calm enough to yank my feet inside and slam the door shut. Tires screech as we careen around a corner, but my eyes are drawn to Ketchup’s determined face. Just the sight of him breaks the icy hold of the emptiness. A million questions scream at me, but I can’t process a single one of them. The last few minutes come slamming back into me full force. There is no starting point. One second I’m staring at Ketchup, and the next, I am doubled over as my body collapses into uncontrollable shaking.
Curses begin spilling out of Ketchup’s mouth. He tries to reach for me, but the car jerks a moment later, and he puts both hands back on the steering wheel. All I can do is fold in on myself and let the emptiness be filled with everything I should have felt. Anger at David for his lies seizes my chest painfully, squeezing until breathing becomes almost impossible. Fury at the Promise for trying to fit me into some predesigned pigeonhole tears a scream from me that makes the car jerk again. Hopelessness at Chris’s betrayal, his weak apology, his admittance of the truth that had to be dragged from him by force, all of it closes in around me, threatening to suck the very life from me.
I can’t breathe. Desperation pulls me up to sitting so fast my head swims. I try to pull air into my lungs, to force it into my body, even though it feels as thick and sticky as jam. Panic cinches around my throat. One hand snaps around Ketchup’s shirt. I can’t stop from tugging on him, begging for help, though I know it’s only putting us in danger. I’m on the verge of passing out when Ketchup peels my hand off his shirt, curls his fingers around mine, and nearly yanks me out of my seat before kissing me fiercely. He practically throws me back into the seat with a command to, “Calm down!”
I really don’t know how long we drove, or how long I sat there staring at him. Even figuring out whether or not the Godlings are chasing us is completely beyond me. The second I move from this exact position, I know I’ll lose it all over again. So, I sit very still, staring, focusing on keeping the hurricane of emotions at bay. The sudden, jarring stop to the continuous motions of driving nearly shatters the spell. I might have if not for Ketchup dragging me against his chest.
“Van, what the hell just happened? I’m on the verge of having a total emotional breakdown right now.”
“Join the club,” I mumble against his shirt.
Ketchup pushes me back roughly. “I’m serious. What. Just. Happened?”
“How did you get here so fast?” I demand, holding off the inevitable.
Frustration nearly ha
s Ketchup jumping out of his seat, but he indulges me as if he knows not doing so might break me into a zillion pieces. “I’ve been hanging around outside the compound since yesterday afternoon. As soon as I called Zander and realized he had no idea what was going on, I told my mom you were feeling sick again and that I’d be staying at your house all weekend. She had a date last night, so she practically packed a bag for me.”
“Your mom had a date?”
Scowling at me, Ketchups says, “Really? That’s what you’re worried about?”
“Who did she have a date with?”
Maybe he hears the desperation in my voice, because he sighs. “A guy from work. He’s an accountant.”
“Have you met him?”
“Yeah.” His white-knuckled fists flatten against his thighs. “He seems pretty nice, actually.”
Smiling for the first time since David woke me up yesterday morning, I reach for Ketchup’s hand. “Well, I’m happy for her.”
Ketchup shakes his head. “Can we talk about you now? Why did I just spend the last hour trying to ditch a whole platoon of Godling goons?”
Suddenly, my fingernails are digging into Ketchup’s skin. “Are they gone? Did you lose them? Are we safe?” The words tumble in a waterfall of barely coherent syllables.
Dragging his hands down his face, Ketchups says, “Yes, to all three.”
“Where are we?”
“Some rundown farmhouse I found while I was driving around planning escape routes yesterday.”
For a minute, I almost think he’s joking. One look out the windows at the ramshackle, wooden boards surrounding us on three sides sets me straight. Before I can say or do anything else, Ketchup fishes my phone out of my pocket and slips the battery out of the device. He dumps it into the cup holder next to what I realize is his cell battery. It’s scary how much he knows what he’s doing when it comes to dealing with psychos.
Ketchup reaches for his door handle, and I nearly jump on top of him. His mask of concern drops away for a moment as he pulls me into a chaste kiss. His lips barely leave mine as he says, “As much as I love to have you all over me, I need to close the barn doors, so we don’t attract attention. I’ll be right back.”
I let him slip away from me even though I am terrified of being alone right now. He’s gone barely more than half a minute, but I am trembling by the time he slips back into the seat next to me. The second he sees me, he grabs my hand, but he doesn’t say anything right away. I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay again. All I know is that I stop shaking after a while, and the words begin tumbling out of my mouth.
“Chris took me on a mission last night, David’s orders, and I thought I was just going to watch, but then there were these cave-ins in the tunnel and I thought they were just from the rain but they weren’t because David had set it all up, so Chris would get stuck and I’d have to go on without him and kill the Eroi leaders, and I did, and they were Noah’s leaders, and I killed all three of them, and I didn’t even feel bad because of the emptiness and I took their papers, but when I got back to the compound, I had a meltdown and forgot about them until this morning when I finally read them and realized they were planning this huge attack, but that was confusing because I couldn’t figure out who’s really the bad guys, so I kinda broke into David’s office to find out more, but I didn’t, except that he wants me to kill a bunch of Eroi and turn Zander into a bomb, and then Chris found me and I almost killed him to make him tell me about the Promise, and he said I was marked, but I couldn’t kill him because I knew he had a family, and then people starting running toward the office and Chris told me to run, so I did. And then you found me and saved me from the emptiness and lemmings.”
I slump into my seat in relief as the last words slips off my lips. All Ketchup can do is stare at me with this weirdly stupefied look on his face. I fear I’ve somehow broken him until he starts shaking his head slowly. “You killed three Eroi… without backup?”
My only response is a reluctant nod.
“How?”
Slowly, I pull one of the knives from my side pocket. The dusty light in the barn glints off the edges, but it’s dull, muted. It’s as if the knife is mirroring the exact way my soul feels right now.
“How long did it take you?”
My eyes snap up to his, half expecting barely held back excitement. Instead, all I see is calculated determination. “Thirty, forty seconds, maybe. I’m not sure.”
Ketchup nods slowly. “And Chris? How did you almost kill him? You must have had to incapacitate him in some way, right?”
Confused by his reaction to all of this, I stumble through my answer. “He was, uh, scared of me, I think. Kept him off balance. He tried to grab me. I was… empty, it took over, and I… when he grabbed me, I… I’m not even sure what I did. He ended up on the ground, pinned, and I, uh, used what he taught me. Pressure points.”
It’s almost maddening that he nods again. “David won’t be caught off guard or surprised when you go after him. He’ll be expecting it. I don’t doubt your skill or speed, but David will be ready and waiting for you.”
The inside of Ketchup’s car is so familiar, so comforting. It’s one of the few places I feel safe enough to relax. Normally, I dread stepping out of its embrace. Today, it feels like it’s closing in on me. I grab for the door handle and all but fall out onto the musty hay and dirt. Ketchup is at my side a few seconds later, but I shove him away roughly. He looks stunned by my reaction.
“What is wrong with you?” I shout at him. His eyebrows rise, which only infuriates me even more. “How can you just sit there and talk all calm about killing David after everything I just said? How can you not react even a little? I killed three people last night! Three! Does that even matter to you? Is killing David all you care about?”
I expect remorse, shame, something that proves I’m not right. Him folding his arms across his chest with a blank look almost pushes me over the edge. My mouth pops open, shrill words ready on my lips, but Ketchup never gives me the chance.
“I heard everything you said, Van. Yes, you killed three Eroi leaders last night. Does that bother me? That fact by itself? No. They were ready to kill your entire family just to keep David from accessing your power. I don’t feel sorry for them. I don’t feel sorry for Chris, either, because that bastard is the one who delivered you right into David’s hands. I heard every word you said, including the emptiness. I don’t care about what you did—only what it did to you. I’ll stand by your side as you kill every last Eroi and Godling if that’s what you want, but I will not sit here and let you dwell on their deaths or feel guilty for protecting your family. I refuse to let their actions destroy you.
“I know I act like things don’t affect me,” Ketchup says, “but I know more about the emptiness I heard in your voice this morning than you realize, because I felt it the night my dad left, the night we met David and he threatened to take you away from me, and yesterday when I thought you had disappeared for good. I feel it every time I think about losing you. It’s nearly broken me more than once, but I won’t let it break you. So no, no, I didn’t sit next to you and let you dwell on everything you just went through, because if I did, not only would it just hurt you, it would infuriate me to the point that I’d go after David myself, most likely getting killed in the process. So, unless you really want me to dredge up everything that will bring the emptiness back, I suggest we put it behind us and move on to planning how to make David pay.”
Stunned into silence, I can only stare at him. It takes a minute for his words to sink in. I was so angry with him for brushing off what I did, but realization slowly settles over me. He’s right. This boy, who so rarely takes life as seriously as he should, who spends his free time learning skills that will likely land him in jail, he is the one person who knows me better than I know myself and still loves me despite of that fact.
“What do we do now?” I ask.
Taking in a deep breath and releasing it slowly, Ketchup runs a han
d through his hair. “First, you tell me what Chris said about the Promise.”
“All he could tell me was the real Promise wasn’t for either group. There was no guarantee for the Eroi or Godlings, just a promise that whoever had warped the balance would be destroyed by the Gift.”
“So, by you.”
I nod, though it makes me sick to think about such a thing.
“Well, that’s good news, right?”
Shrugging, I say, “How do you figure that?”
“It means neither one of them has a claim on you. Not really.” He steps toward me, reaching out and pressing me to his chest as soon as I make the slightest movement. “As far as I can tell, they’ve both done a hell of a job warping everything about this situation. It’s so twisted that I don’t think a single person involved really knows what’s going on.”
I tighten my hold on Ketchup. He feels more solid than anything I have come in contact with in the last two days, and I dread the thought of letting him go. “Where does that leave us?” I ask.
“It leaves us in desperate need of a plan, and with a very short list of allies.”
“We need to get back to Zander and Annabelle,” I say in agreement.
To my surprise, Ketchup shakes his head. “I tried. I called him right after you called me, but he didn’t answer. Annabelle either. I don’t know where they are, but David will be watching them anyway. We need someone he won’t expect us to turn to.”
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