by Logan Keys
I stand, too. “No,” I say.
He knows in my head now Phillip is someone I value. Someone I owe. And he loves this idea now to make us enemies.
“Do it,” Cory snaps. “Or else,” he adds like a petulant child.
Phillip meets my gaze. “He can’t control me, I’ve been purged,” he says.
I frown at them both in question.
“True,” Cory confirms, folding his arms. “Somehow that messes up the connection.”
“But you gave me blood. Was it after you were purged?”
Phillip smiles at Cory, realizing why I ask. “Yes. I had been purged. Maybe she will figure out how to fight off your control.”
Cory touches his chin in thought. “Nah. I don’t think so.” He points at me then back at Phillip. “Fight him.”
My hands fist and I look down at them like they are traitors.
“See,” Cory says to Phillip. “Now, hit him. Right in his smug wolf-face.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say but then my throat closes, keeping me from talking anymore.
Cory moves aside, and I approach Phillip who watches me with anger. Not at me, but at Cory.
I strike out at him, but he moves in time to avoid being backhanded.
“Keep going,” Cory demands.
He moves to sit on the log to watch.
I switch into a fight stance, and Phillip circles away from me.
I long to beg Cory to stop it, but already I am taking another lunge at Phillip. This time, I catch him with a feint left, while my foot sweeps his legs.
He goes down. Though I struggle with Cory inwardly, outwardly I’m leaping into the air, using my full weight to bring a knee down, in an attempt to land on his throat to crush his windpipe.
At the last second, Phillip rolls away.
I stalk him but he holds his hands up. “I won’t fight her,” he says to Cory.
Cory shrugs and tosses a knife between us. “Liza, cut his head off.”
“How will you get into Anthem?” Phillip challenges.
I grab the knife, fear coiling around my middle, and I raise it ready to attack the only ally I have left in the world aside from Crystal.
“Kill him!” Cory demands, and I leap, landing in a heap on top of Phillip, who is so caught by surprise, he goes down beneath me.
Knife at his throat, I close my eyes, prepared to cut.
Chapter 41
Liza
My arm shakes and I struggle with everything in me, but it’s no use, my knife slides across his throat. First with a thin cut, then a second time it moves to saw more deeply---
The girl from before, the one with the briefcase comes out of the foliage, case still in hand. She sets it down, and drops to her knees. Without looking at us, she snaps it open and turns it to face Cory. Hand poised, she stares at him, deeply trying to convey something.
“Fine. Stop,” Cory says and my arm drops.
The knife clatters to the street. I collapse, panting.
Cory strides over and stares down at Phillip, who’s got his hands to his neck to stem the flow.
“Will it heal? Will you be okay?” I ask frantically.
“It’s not that deep, Liza, I’ll be fine,” Phillip tries to reassure me.
Cory says, “If you try anything again, anything, I’ll have her finish the job.”
With that, he leaves us be.
I turn, but the case is closed, and the woman is already lifting it and moving back into the woods. Phillip nods at her backward glance, his hand coming away with blood, but it’s already slowed to a trickle.
“That’s going to leave a nasty scar,” I say, voice quivering with remorse. “I’m so sorry.”
Phillip shakes his head, and rips a piece of his shirt away, pressing it to the wound. “It wasn’t you, it was him. Don’t worry, I’ve had worse.”
“The purge, you mean?”
“Yeah,” he says, distantly.
I put a hand to Phillip’s shoulder. “Jeremy didn’t talk about it much, but… I saw them. It was horrific.”
“I’d only ever endured the purge. I never saw it from the outside except for one time.”
We move to our place on the log again. I’m wary now, Cory could return at any moment, put me back into my mental prison.
“Except for one time?” I ask.
“How’s it look?”
I gasp. His neck is almost healed, except an angry red line. “Wow. That was fast.”
“We heal pretty quickly, although, that’s not to say we should risk being cut up. Anyway, yeah, I went back in there one time. It was when Crystal was last purged. We took the entire warehouse over. I went into that room, all of those bodies hanging, naked, and while the Skulls pulled everyone down, our largest recruitment day, by the way, I found her. I carefully pulled her down myself, and when I realized she wasn’t going to wake up, not right then anyway, I thought she was gone. I broke down and cried.”
My eyes grow hot. I remember when Jeremy had stood there not as himself any longer. It still feels like he’s died. And I suppose he has.
That’s what Phillip had felt then, that Crystal had died. He’s pale even now remembering it.
“I wrapped her in a blanket and carried her out. We took her to the doctor, and I demanded that he fix her.”
“Did he make her like us?” I ask.
“No. He didn’t have to. He saved her life, but she fought for it every step of the way. Three times purged. It’s unheard of.”
And now I see the love shining in his face that I’d missed before. “Ah, so it’s like that then?”
He smiles. “Oh, yeah.”
“So, why come here? Why take this mission?”
“Because I had to get away. It’s like that for me, but her, not so much.”
I remember the way she’d looked at Jeremy. Phillip’s gaze is dry when he says, “It’s been too hard to feel this way one sided.”
“And so, you risked everything to get away?”
“Not all of it was for that reason. I was curious. I wanted to see what the doctor had created.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Liza,” he says, wolf-eyes glittering. “You couldn’t be further off the mark if you tried. Crystal believes in you.”
“And you?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t starting to believe, myself.”
Chapter 42
Dallas
“Your leader is dead,” I say to Shade who’s followed me to my side, before I turn on him, anger stirring. “Figure out what you’re going to do. You choose wrong and you die.”
I’m still pumped up from my kill. My body isn’t fully my own, but part she-demon. I’m pissed that he’d used me, even if I’d done the same.
“Really,” he asks with a dry drawl pulling out the word.
I nod. My threat is real.
Shade closes the distance in a blink and pushes me against the wall. He puts a hand at my throat, and I hiss at him. Even though I can’t breathe, he manages to choke me enough that I’m making god-awful sounds in a struggle.
“You think I couldn’t kill you, Dallas?” he rumbles near my ear. “I could pull your heart out if I wanted to. Isn’t that what it takes?” His thumb strokes me at my most vulnerable spot. “You think that thing lead me because I couldn’t take him out?” His voice drops to a whisper. “No one is like me. Not even you. I am part man, part hell. Even your vampire army can’t kill a shadow.”
He lets me go and I swipe a hand across his chest, leaving long claw marks that cut through his clothing. I make my own point. His chest is not a shadow, it’s there, and it bleeds.
“Why didn’t you then, huh? If you could take Bradford out, why didn’t you?” I ask.
Shade touches the wound on his chest, but shrugs. “Because after that, what? I lead? Yeah right. I don’t want the job. I don’t care about war. Or Anthem. You think some city filled with normals is gonna accept this face? Nah. None of that matters to me.”
>
He leaves off what does matter. If I had a beating heart it would stutter over wanting to know. But luckily, I’m not the old Dallas anymore. She’s dead.
I shake my head, trying to see through the haze of red. I’m so hungry. I’m starved after the battle.
“I’m going to go eat,” I say, turning to leave, but Shade latches onto my arm with an iron grip.
With fury bolstering my strength, I throw his hand away, and I launch myself at Shade in a flurry of emotion. I’ve caught him unaware, so his body gives, and we bounce off the wall and roll onto the street.
“You think you are so invincible, shadow man?” I hiss, and before I can control myself---the blood I’d brought from his chest has put me into a frenzy---I strike him like a viper. Two pin pricks blossom at his neck before I finally pull myself back and reel the hunger in.
One minute I’m on top of him, ready to eat my fill, and next, I’ve thrown myself back ten feet and I’m about to flee.
I’ve scared myself.
But not Shade.
Shade doesn’t care about my inner struggle or the warnings, he follows me--stalks me, and grabs hold. Shade lifts me into his arms, but I fight him, shoving him back. He pushes me too, and we slam into the brick wall again, that cracks after so many hits.
His cold lips find my throat, and he bites me hard enough to draw blood. He nips at my chin, uncaring of the blood-crave drawing up inside of me, turning my thoughts into chaos. I try to drive him back, but Shade only continues, now hovering over my lips, his own wicked tongue tasting mine.
My teeth cut him, but he doesn’t care as he dives in anyway, again and again, forcing himself past my sharp boundaries, bleeding like a human and not a shadow.
Even in the recesses of his hot mouth, he tastes like the blanket of snow on a dark winter night, frigid, but clean and crisp, and somehow that heats me to a boiling point. This is the first human blood I’ve tasted, and it makes my bones ache with need.
I pry his hands away roughly and I punch his chest so hard he finally lets me go.
“Not until I’ve eaten.”
He laughs, backing away, hands up.
“Go,” he says. “Go, before I lose my own self. All of me. Just… leave.”
And I’m gone.
Chapter 43
Dallas
I’m so confused the next morning, that I open my door in the sunlight burning myself twice. After the fight with Shade, I’m discombobulated. The second time I open the door, I scream in fury at being unable to just leave whenever I want.
My limitations grip me. They make me feel weak. I growl in frustration and pick up a chair and throw it across the room. Crashing to my knees, I let tears flow over the loss of being able to do the simplest of things while being utterly invincible in ways.
The reason: Because Shade doesn’t deserve a crazy bloodsucker, and I don’t deserve to fall for a man without a face.
Energy spent, I grow groggy and finally give in to my day of rest. The burns are painful, so my dreams hit hard. My dreamscape is the same, it always is, but I start in a different place.
I’m at the pond.
“Do you think we’d be married, Dai?”
I jolt and turn to find Tommy sitting there next to me.
“What?” I rub my eyes. “Huh?”
“We’re eighteen now. If everything hadn’t happened, we’d be married, right?”
I smile at him, and launch myself across the space between us. I want this to be real so badly that I won’t let him go.
He chuckles, catching me, and we sit like that for a while.
Finally, I sit back to look him over.
“No,” I say. “So much has passed. We’d probably be too different.”
And he is different. This Tommy isn’t sixteen, the age I last saw him, he’s grown up. He’s a man.
Tommy smiles. Even if he will turn into a zombie or dead, I don’t care. Brown eyes, brown hair, and that Tommy grin. The saddest parts of me, they need this.
I know without checking I look like the other me too.
“Look at you!” Tommy says, with a laugh.
I glance down and frown. I’m not the normal me. I’m me-me. The leather clad, vampire me.
I cover my mouth, embarrassed.
“Nothing will ever pass enough to change this, Daisy.” Tommy motions between us.
“I miss you,” I say, voice wobbling, tears threatening.
“Me too,” he says, and he sighs, glancing over at the pond, at the setting sun. “I missed this, too.”
“Yeah.”
Tommy grabs my hand, his strong fingers linking with mine. “I never thought I’d see it again. Or you.”
“Me, either,” I confess. Which is why I dream it.
As if hearing my thoughts, he asks, “Is this a dream?”
I nod. “Mine,” I reply, and the reality settles in.
The pain threatens to wake me, but I shake it off. “I’m sorry, Tommy. I’m sorry I wasn’t there---here, and I could have been. If I had known you were in LA, that the Underground had returned, I could have done something.”
He frowns. “You think I didn’t feel regret over finding your bloody boot on that hill? I’ve lived thinking you were dead and felt responsible. If only I had been there.”
“Dallas!” a voice calls, shaking the dream existence like an earthquake. “Wake up!”
I open my eyes. Joelle’s standing over me. She’s angry, and her hair is messy from sleep.
“Stop it,” she bites out. “Don’t dream about him if you have to broadcast it. Just make it stop.”
“I’m sorry.” I rub my temples, trying to push away the sadness. “Why are you covered in dirt?” I ask.
Joelle likes living in the houses. She actually avoids sleeping outside now if she can.
“Oh,” she says, as if just now realizing she’s dirty. “Come on, I’ll show you. The sun is low.”
Outside it’s mostly dark, I’ve overslept. We stick to the shaded spots, but move through the city without burning. At Tommy’s headstone, there’s now a small hill of soil next to the grave. “I dug him up,” Joelle says.
I search her face, horrified. “What do you mean?”
She shrugs, crosses her arms, and toes a clod of dirt. “I just don’t think he’d want to be buried here. I mean…” She swallows. “They killed---murdered him. Would you want to stay with the people who murdered you?”
I nod. I get it. But… “Where is he?”
My stomach is twisted with anxiety as I look over the edge. But the hole is empty.
“I had them put the coffin on a transport so when we leave, we can take him with us.”
Joelle’s dark hair has grown over time. It’s almost to the back of her knees now. With the strands wildly messy, it’s like a living part of her makeup now. Joelle is this girl of flowing raven hair and glittering dark eyes.
I wonder, staring at it, who am I? What makes me-me.
“Are we leaving?” I ask.
“Not yet.” Joelle turns to walk away. “Soon.”
“I took out Bradford,” I say to her back.
She stays facing away but stops walking. “I heard.”
“So, what about…”
“My mother?” She sighs mentally. “I just need time. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Chapter 44
Crystal
I’ve been in this cell so long, I’ve lost track of the days.
I slam a hand against the wall. “Just purge me already and be done, you stupid witch!”
There are cameras inside this room so, Karma knows I’m here. This will be the last purge I ever face. It’s the anticipation that’s killing me. And the fact that I know they won’t kill me---that kills me.
That would only help our cause. A martyr would end Karma’s reign, and she knows it. Turning me is her best opportunity to get all the information too. And I’ve had too much time to think, to worry, to let fear take hold. But loads of contemplation has
helped me clarify one thing: I’ve done my best. And even so, it always comes back to this: Will you give it all? Truly?
It’s in this cell that I get to see the span of my life as it truly was. Last time I’d stubbornly refused to believe the end was coming. Now, the end stubbornly refuses to let me go. It peels back the eyelids of my mind and demands that I acknowledge the abyss whispering, “Yes, girl, this is fate.”
Either way. I gave my torch to Goodman. He has it now. My only regret is that I’ll be the monster who faces the rebels. I might be used against my team to make them cower. But I’ve trained my Skulls well. We are all vessels. I’ve been tested and them seeing me fall will only further embolden their cause.
I look up into the camera.
“Hear that, Karma? My Skulls will work twice as hard against you now that you’ve got their leader!”
They know their job.
The cell door opens, and a guard throws in another prisoner. He lands in a heap of bony elbows and knees. This is the first time they’ve given me a cellmate.
They chain him up and he curses at them, struggling. “Bastards. Bastards!”
Once he’s locked in they leave. He slumps down against the wall. “I’m on their side. Don’t they know that?” He searches for a way out while I give a huff of laughter. He gestures at himself. “I’m on their side!”
“What side again?” I ask with a smirk.
He wildly spins this way and that.
“Hey, man,” I say. “There’s no way out. What day is it?”
He focuses on me a moment before his eyes go wide. “What day?”
“Yeah.”
“You aren’t… You can’t be her… Never mind, don’t tell me. I’m on their side don’t they know that!”
I sigh. “In case you haven’t figured it out, they probably don’t care.”
He mutters the date and I flinch. I’ve been in here a whole month rotting away.
He throws his head back and sobs. “I wasn’t part of it. I wasn’t part of the disobedience. Stupid kids. They were just standing there glaring at the guards. Why would they do that? I wasn’t doing it. I was watching the kids. It was so strange. One hand on the face. All of them. Same hand. Same side.”