by Logan Keys
“No,” he says and pulls away. “I believe you, you don’t have to---”
I tug him back to me. And I kiss him anyway.
This time, I relish in the man that he is. I let my mind’s eye wander back to the shower, but while that was hot and human, Shade is cold and unyielding.
Neither dampens my interest.
Shade is, as himself, thrilling to me even now as a shadow. He tastes like the night. It’s like lapping up black patches between the stars.
And when Shade does the chivalrous thing and lifts me up in his arms, pausing to ask, I nod my head. I clutch his neck and let him carry me to his place on the other side of the wall.
His rooms.
Where of course he doesn’t turn on the lights. We are part of the darkness. It wraps us both in its arms.
It offers us healing.
And if Shade is the night… oh how I let the night love me. I let the night’s embrace fill me with light.
Chapter 31
Dallas
“I think she’s falling in love with me.”
Joelle glances at Shade who is standing beside me. We are here to meet with her about Bradford.
I try not to smile, or kick him, but instead… we find out through experimentation… vampires do indeed blush.
“Who? Dallas?” Joelle asks. She shrugs. “She falls in love with everyone.”
And she goes back to reading whatever she’d been looking at.
I think it’s her own diary.
I shoot a look under my lashes at Shade and put my hands in my pockets.
She’s not wrong.
Joelle sighs and closes her book. “Have you been in Bradford’s dreams yet?”
“You know I haven’t.”
She doesn’t ask why, she sees the distraction in my head. Maybe that’s why Joelle asks, to make me see that I’m failing this very important thing we need to do. Every time I go to another dream it’s Shade’s. She’s seen it
Joelle stands and watches me momentarily, a dark eyebrow raised.
“What’s this?” Shade asks. “What’s going on?”
“I… have been properly chastised,” I say with a sigh. “Come on, Shade. Let’s go meet your leader.”
His dark head turns to Joelle and back again. He doesn’t understand the communication but figures out we’d spoken and agreed.
What he doesn’t know is that Joelle sent me information, leagues of it. It’s time we make our move, before her mother does something stupid. The fate of the world rests in the hands of a thirteen-year-old vampire.
Great.
“You ready for this?” Shade asks, as we make our way.
I nod and stretch my neck side to side. “If someone’s gonna get hurt, it’s not going to be me.”
Those white teeth again. “I like the confidence.”
Chapter 32
Crystal
“Good morning,” I say to myself in the mirrors that line the wall of the small gym. It’s a set up for faculty on the island. “How does that rope feel around your neck, today?”
No one’s here yet. It’s only four a.m. I snuck into this side of the compound to stretch my legs.
“Perfect,” I say pulling at the skin underneath my eyes. In truth, I look like absolute hell. I could do with a shower, but instead I’m in a sweater, zipped up, ready to drip until I drop.
I’ll shower when I’m dead.
The type of treadmill they have is where you go as fast as you want. The tread stays with your feet.
I hop on and press the button. “Would you like music?” the monitor offers.
“Sure.”
I start right into a jog. The tread is easy to push. I’m not even feeling any resistance, it just keeps up with me.
I start to run.
The music is good, moody, but fast in beat. Something I don’t recognize. Every once in a while, the Authority pops on to give us a commercial. “Life. Liberty. Authority.” Each word lands on my shoulders like I’m weight lifting instead of running.
I push myself after the first mile.
Mile two blurs by.
The music is bringing unwanted memories of me in my youth. And the streets. Running through them as shadows chased me faster and faster while I pretended there were monsters in them---until I was old enough to have the Authority on my heels. The actual monsters.
So many firsts.
My first ski mask.
My first weapon.
The first man I shot. Not a man. A thing. An Authority guard; a puppet.
A smart ass little girl turned hoodlum. Way too young to be holding cold metal, finger on the trigger.
I run faster. Push for more. The tread is making a whir at this speed.
The machine is reading my heart rate every so often, I notice. She’s talking here and there, feeding me information.
“Your speed is ten miles per hour.”
“Your heart rate is one hundred beats per minute.”
“Your speed is fifteen miles per hour.”
“Your speed is twenty miles per hour.”
“Your speed is… error… error.”
“Your heart rate is sixty beats per minute.”
Damn.
I push harder, and the machine strains. The tread is flying underneath my feet.
I wish I was back there. Running from the Authority again. Out of breath until my chest felt it would explode. Pushing past what thought I was capable of.
I miss struggling with a body that seemed… real. Those nights I’d lay in bed after pretending I was asleep during my parent’s midnight check, heart jackhammering so hard it shook the bed a little under my chest.
Hiding guns.
Hiding spray paint.
Hiding myself.
Being another person. Ready to take on the world.
I want to be tired again.
I run even faster
“Your speed is error.”
“Your heart-rate is sixty beats per minute.”
I push for more, cursing the machine.
I’m alive! I scream inside. I’m alive!
“I’m alive,” I whisper, as my legs heat up my track suit.
“Your speed is error.”
“Your heart-rate is sixty beats per minute.”
I punch the console and the thing cracks into pieces. I punch it again without stopping and the console breaks off completely.
I’m going so fast the tread is heating up now. I smell smoke. I leap off just before it catches fire. And I lift it up and throw the whole thing across the room.
“I’m alive!” I scream.
I stand there breathing normal. Wanting to be panting. Craving the feeling of being soaked in sweat. But I’m not. It’s as if I never ran at all.
I go over the punching bag but I don’t feel it. I need something that punches back.
I’m just trying to deal with the pressure. The tremendous pressure of being the only one left to do this thing. Jeremy can’t help me anymore. I can’t even bounce ideas off him for fear that I’ll set him off.
I want help to cope with the damn pressure!
I rip my hoody back, and I put my head against the cold window. It’s pouring outside. Electrical storms are flaring up and lightning dances across a churning ocean. It’s the sky under pressure.
Like me.
In the mirror, I can’t meet my own eyes. Too afraid to see something else in the reflection.
“Crystal.” The doctor stands at the door.
He looks at the busted machine and I close my eyes and sag against the wall. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ll have someone clean it up.”
I push off the wall. “I can do it.”
“No. You have someone waiting.”
“Someone?”
He nods.
I pull off my sweater. “Okay.”
He leads me to the outside of the compound. We go through the place where you’d be zapped had you one of their bracelets around your arm.
Through the
rain blowing sideways, I see them all there. “What are you doing here?”
Goodman and the Skulls, most all of them by the look of it, have arrived on the tram. Goodman rises from a crouch. “We’re waiting for you.”
I can’t help it. His earnest expression makes me smile. The weight shifts off my body and lands in a heap.
What was I thinking?
I’m not alone.
We’re all getting soaked by the rain, but it’s refreshing. I needed a shower anyway.
“We want you to come home,” Goodman says, and the rest nod and shout their agreement.
My heart swells. Yea. I’m alive. If I can feel this, then I’m real. And I’d swear my heartbeat picks up, too. “All right,” I say. “I’m coming home.”
The resounding shout of excitement has me looking away embarrassed. Goodman plays it up. “Your kingdom awaits, Crystal. Your people need you.”
I can’t help it. I tear up. Good thing the rain is landing on top of the moisture, like nature’s camouflage.
“Man,” I say. “Seeing all you guys. I needed this.”
Goodman grins and looks quite pleased with himself. “We got a prize for you, too.”
“You do?”
“We hacked into a link. The radio station that everyone seems to be listening to lately, there’s only the one, anyway, we got in. We thought Jeremy would want to say something.”
He hands me a walkie talkie. “Really?” I take it from him and push the side button. “Who’s there? Craig, is that you?”
“I’ll be damned,” answers a familiar voice. “So good to hear your voice.”
The doctor comes forward, and he shakes his head when I raise a brow.
He’s saying Jeremy is away again. The fog.
My excitement falls. I look up at the sky. What else can go wrong?
“Craig,” I say into the walkie. “When can you patch me through?”
“Just say the word, girl.”
The team looks surprised.
Goodman says, “Should you and I take it inside?”
I shake my head and tell Craig I’m ready.
He count’s down, “Three. Two. One. And go.”
I press down and lift the walkie to my lips.
But I freeze.
I don’t know what to say. Goodman nods at me in encouragement. Jeremy’s always done this part. It had looked easy.
I take my finger from the button, mutter to myself. Goodman frowns. With a deep breath, I try again. “I…. uh…. I was going to use this time to say something to the people of Anthem. Er… this is Crystal. Your local rebellion leader.”
Goodman smiles and gives me a thumb up.
I go on. “Instead, I think I’d rather talk to you, Karma Cromwell. From one leader to another. Evil regime leader of Anthem that is.” I pull my hood up and play with the string. “I’m not alive anymore.”
The Skulls stare at me.
“I just ran forty miles per hour---maybe fifty. I’m barely alive, if you can call it that. After the purge who knows what I’m capable of.”
The Skulls laugh and I laugh with them
“I actually hated it before, Karma, thought maybe it made me less. But now I realize that you created the monster who’s just monster enough. Before, I was merely your foe, but now I am your nemesis.”
Nervous laughter from the team this time. “See the Skulls who’ve been purged are more powerful for your abuse.” Thunder booms, and lightning strikes, as if on cue. I laugh softly to myself. “You hear that?” I ask quietly. “It’s the sound of the storm that’s coming for you. And I swear it, Cromwell. By the end of this. I’ll sit at your table at your seat. And you will serve me and mine from your knees.”
I stand tall, meeting the gaze of my men and women. Each of them nods agreement.
It’s a pact.
A promise.
Walkie pressed to my lips I scream as loud as I can. “Then you will serve in hell!”
Chapter 33
Crystal
The doctor holds the door open to Jeremy’s cell. First thing I notice are foggy purple eyes staring at nothing, seeing nothing. He has a sleeping sickness. He sleeps while he is awake. Longer and longer it seems.
The doctor leaves us alone. I swallow and approach him. Though, it’s not really him anymore.
Not like this.
This is almost harder than my haphazard speech.
“Jeremy,” I say. “I dunno if you can hear me, but I’m going away. Just for a while. I’ll try to be back before… you know… you are back… Okay?”
I turn away, but then pause. Tears try to press through once again. I’m strung out.
Moving toward him in one big step, I’m at his side, taking his hand, and pulling his face toward mine. “Listen, Jeremy. I just need you to be yourself. And soon. I feel like since Mimi you’ve been gone more than usual so maybe this is tied to your heart or whatever. But listen. Stay. Ok. Don’t check out. Not yet. Don’t you give up on me.”
The tears drop onto our hands.
I let them come in a rush and I plead with him. “Please. Stay. For me. Don’t go. I know it’s easy, so tempting to leave us all here and go where you think she waits for you…”
I don’t say her name. “I’m not going to be okay without you. You hear me?” I gulp back a sob. “Be here when I come back. I just… just… be here. Okay?” I wipe my eyes. “The people need us. They are in trouble. I’ve gotta go.”
I let go of his hand slowly, and turn toward the door. Without glancing back, I let my head fall and my shoulders slump, defeated by the lie that has hung between us for so long. I say, “She’s still alive, Jeremy. Liza. She’s alive.”
And I leave without checking to see if he understood.
Chapter 34
Liza
Bodega is becoming a fog-filled scene of empty eyes and empty gazes. Everyone just shambles by me, not functioning on any level other dragging their feet. They act as if they’re set to repeat, and the scene is eerily lacking true humanity.
Everyone goes through their motions until eventually they all stop where they are.
I walk from one side of the island to the other, and everyone, every single person is like a mannequin, motionless, and staring at nothing.
I find Mimi near my bunk, her face slack, her eyes unseeing. “Mimi,” I say, my voice shaking with dread.
She’s hunched over, still, and unmoving. I turn to leave and her hand latches onto my arm.
Her face is unchanged, but her fingers chain my wrist, and she’s powerfully strong. “Liza,” her mouth whispers.
“Mimi…? Can you hear me?”
Nothing.
I tug on my wrist but she won't let go. I pull again, and it seems to set her off. Mimi lunges at me, snagging my smock with both hands. Her face is twisted into a venomous snarl, and her eyes are red.
She’s turned.
“No!” I scream, as she strikes, teeth biting for my throat.
“Liza!” a voice roars and the world shimmers around me.
I struggle with Mimi as she changes into a decaying zombie child.
“Liza!” the voice calls again and Bodega crumbles, the place ripping apart at the seams.
The image flickers from Mimi into someone else. The breeze that touches my skin feels fresh, real. Night appears as the day sheds like scales. I’m on a highway surrounded by chaos.
I’m awake.
I cry out as the zombie shoves me to the ground.
I’m awake.
This is real.
Phillip grabs me by my shirt and drags me out from underneath the snapping jaws, and stomps on the head until it bursts like a grape.
The Skulls and Cory are surrounded by a horde of the undead.
“Can you shoot?” Phillip asks helping me up and I shake my head.
Cory holds his gun up, his eyes wildly searching the growing crowd of the undead.
“Give her the sword!” he yells, his gaze not meeting mine.
Sw
ord…he’d brought her?
Phillip digs through a pile of things and withdraws Spirit. She’s glowing and shiny. My fingers curl.
“Here.” He tosses her to me.
I catch Spirit. I heft her weight and stare in surprise. The tingling up my arm makes my knees quake with joy. I know already the brand glows more brightly on my arm. The power after feeling so powerless for so long, brings every cell of my being to life
I lift Spirit with both hands and face the horde. The Skulls are busy shooting waves of them down, but Cory and Phillip stare at me with surprise.
I long to jab my blade straight through Cory’s heart.
“No time,” he says, finally looking me in the eye from across the road. “Kill them. Focus your energy.”
He can make me do his bidding either way. For now, I bide my time, and all of that frustration and impotence I’ve felt for so long, I turn into a weapon as strong as Spirit herself.
The first zombie lumbers toward me. I hesitate, but then his bone-like hand reaches for Spirit and it’s like a fire in my veins. I react. I swing the blade.
She should be too heavy, but she moves with ease. It should be uncomfortable to hold her, but it’s as if she’s lightened just for me, become thinner and smaller. The blade is not as wide, now it’s more slender and feminine. The handle fits more easily in my palm. It’s as if the sword grows to fit the wielder. For Tommy, she was thick and heavy. For me, she’s no bigger than a Katana.
Spirit sings in the air as I bring her down across the chest of the first zombie. It crumples onto the ground, and I spin and slice across its neck, removing the head.
This sword slides through bone and corrupted flesh like butter. Without waiting, I spin left and right and do the same to the two on either side, and then more meet their end at the edge of Sprit.
Soon, it’s a blur of fallen undead and Spirit’s glow.
The word Revenge sizzles on my skin, a good kind of burning. My arms never tire as I cut and swing and repeat. Some, three and four at once with one long arc, I lance through them. The horde is thinning beneath the bullets. I help by making large swathes of space with my blade.
I don’t have time to see if Phillip and Cory are surprised. I feel the wolf eyes pinned to my back; Phillip wondering at the amazing feat that is this magical sword, and I sense Cory in my mind, the ever present being of control over me, who is amazed. But I also sense his approval.