The world spun around me, and I swayed on my feet. Was this how my life was always going to be? Full of dead bodies and slaps in the face? Could I really have just gotten back my Mother and my sister, just to lose them both within a matter of hours? Slowly, I began to realize that this was exactly what had happened. My Mother was dead. My sister was missing. And more than likely her hands were painted an ugly red. Along with everything else that I’d just learned, these things seemed to be the straw that broke my back, or rather my mind, as it couldn’t seem to be able to wrap itself around a single thing. Now I didn’t feel empty. I just felt
broken.
What are we going to do now, Warrior?
“I’m open to suggestions, Monster. All I feel like doing is crawling into a hole and dying.”
Well, now that wouldn’t be very productive. We’ve got the King’s hunting party on our heels, two bodies in the back of our van, and a sister who has gone bat-shit crazy.
“Thank you for that helpful rundown.”
No one seemed able to move. As I watched the tears rolling down Queen Camillia’s face, saw the faraway heartsick shock in Patterson’s eyes, remembering that once upon a time he and my Mother had dated, a stab of guilt went through me. I should be crying, too. I’d just lost my Mother. And yet my eyes were wide and dry, my mind in too much shock to process anything concrete, as if waiting to wake-up from some terrible nightmare.
When Kayden spoke, we all jumped a little in surprise. “Tommy, go back into the station and buy some blankets and as many wet wipes as you can find. Make sure to get a plastic bag. Go.”
Tommy cast a nervous glance toward me before loping off. Kayden turned to Soraya and Catherine. “You two go to the Mercedes. Camillia, Patterson, go with them and start the car. We need to get out of here. Gavin, you drive the van. The rest of us will have to…clean up on the road.”
Listening to Kayden’s orders seemed to snap me back to reality, and my stomach twisted when I saw everyone move to do as they were told. “Wait,” I said, shaking my head. “We can’t leave. I have to find Nelly. She’s got to be around here somewhere. We have to find her.”
Kayden regarded me carefully. “Alexa, we have to…we can’t stay here. The police could be on their way already with the way you were tearing around screaming your sister’s name.”
My fist flew out on its own and slammed into Kayden’s chest. He skidded backward several feet and would have fallen to the pavement if Gavin hadn’t caught him. I strode up to face him as he righted himself, hardly aware of what I was doing, and my voice came out in a growl. I gripped him by his shirtfront, and pain flared again in my wrists. I ignored it. Kayden stared down at me, his hand spread out over the spot where I had hit him on his wide chest, his golden eyes unreadable.
“I am
not
leaving here without my sister,” I said. “Go, if you want to. I won’t leave Nelly.” Some part of me knew that I was taking out my anger and hurt on the wrong person, but I couldn’t seem to care. All I knew was that I was upset, and that meant I was looking for a fight. It didn’t matter who it was with.
Tommy returned with the things he’d been sent to get, but stopped when he saw me. “I’ll stay with you and look for her, Alexa,” he said, earning a glare from Kayden, which he ignored.
I nodded once, still seeing red around the edges of my vision. At least someone here was seeing reason. I shot a look at Kayden that I hoped conveyed how betrayed I felt. He knew better than anyone what Nelly meant to me. How could he expect me to leave her?
Because he’s right, Warrior. We can’t stay here.
“When I want your advice, I’ll ask for it. And I didn’t ask, so shut the hell up already!”
For once, my Monster listened.
“Warrior,” Kayden said, his deep voice tight. “Can I talk to you?”
No,
I thought, but my steam was running out, and now I felt like crying again. I seemed to be swinging from emotion to emotion like a monkey in a tree. I nodded curtly at Kayden, and stalked off around the other side of the van. I heard Kayden give the others orders to get into the van and start cleaning, to use the wet wipes to clear the blood, the blankets to cover the bodies, and my stomach lurched. I bent forward, bile spewing from my mouth and making my eyes water. When I had wretched it all out, I leaned against the side of the van and rubbed my eyes dry on my forearm. I had to pull it together.
Kayden stood watching me for what seemed to be a long time, saying nothing. I surprised us both by speaking first. “I’m sorry,” I said, suddenly too embarrassed to look at him. “I shouldn’t have hit you. I’m sorry.” My voice was small, defeated.
Kayden came forward, but stopped short before touching me. I heard him sigh, watched his wide chest rise and fall, and saw that he was tired, too. He had taken a bullet back at Dangeon, and had not been allowed to heal. Now a little bit of blood bloomed through the gray of his t-shirt where I’d punched him. I’d forgotten about his injury. Now I felt even worse.
“Oh, Kayden,” I whispered, tears filling my eyes and spilling over. Now he opened his strong arms to me, and I fell into them. “I’m sorry. I forgot you were hurt. I’m so sorry.”
I felt Kayden’s shoulders rise in a shrug. “Don’t be,” he whispered, and it was so unexpected that I looked up at him, taking in the perfect lines of his face. His golden gaze was gentle. “You owed me one anyway,” he continued. “Besides, I’m a big boy, built for wear and tear. I can take whatever you can dish out, Warrior.”
This only made me cry harder. I had never felt so shitty about myself.
“Shh,” Kayden said. “Man-up, remember. I promise you we will find your sister. But you know that we have to go now, Warrior.”
“But I can’t leave her. What if she gets hurt? What if the Lamias find her? Or worse, what if the King does?”
It was my Monster who answered me, coming forward and stepping up to the plate with a little reason when I myself was obviously too messed up to manage.
Nelly isn’t the one you should be worried about, Warrior. It’s everyone else who is in danger now. Our little sister will have no trouble looking after herself. The same way you and I have no trouble looking after ourselves.
“Alexa, are you listening?” Kayden asked.
I pulled back from him, nodded. “Yes,” I said, sniffing up the last of my tears. “We can go.”
He walked me over to the other side of the van, and I hoped that the others had covered up my Mother’s body, because I wasn’t sure if I could bear to look at it. Not because of obvious reasons, but because it was hard proof for what my Monster had just voiced, for the thought that I had refused to let permeate my head. Now that it had, it was as clear as day, as ugly as malformation. All signs pointed one way, and there was no way to deny it.
Nelly had murdered Bethany, which I couldn’t care less about. The girl had been a snitch; chances were I would have killed her myself if given the opportunity. But, Nelly had also killed our Mother, and that was just unfathomable.
True monsters use no discretion, Warrior. Perhaps you ought to think about renaming me.
I offered no response to the voice in my head. There was too much else weighing down my mind at the moment. Somehow, in one dark morning, I had gone from trying to save my sister from the world, to trying to save the world from my sister.
And it was a task I wasn’t sure I could handle, a mountain I wasn’t sure I could climb.
Nelly
It was too bright. I could feel the light of the day burning my eyes, so I closed them, still moving very quickly, almost as if I were flying. And it was wonderful, like children’s giggles and cozy places and Thanksgiving dinner. I felt stronger than I could ever remember feeling. And I ran and ran. Some distant, barely existent voice inside of me begged me to take pause and remember what I was running from, but I couldn’t find the mind to listen to it. There was too much going on around me. I was passing by and smelling and seeing so many souls all at once, and it was like jogging past a buffet line filled with an endless assortment of food, skimming my fingers along the edges of the endless table.
But, it was still too damn bright.
Instinctively, like looking for the nearest restroom when you feel the urge to go, I began scanning the land all around me for someplace to escape that dreadful light. I could feel it beaming down on me in waves, suffocating me, touching my skin unpleasantly, as if I were sitting too near a high-powered heater. I saw my destination in the distance, or
felt
it, rather, and I knew where I needed to go.
Wrong,
that faraway voice whispered.
I didn’t slow my speed, but I wondered what that meant. What was wrong? As far as I could see, everything was
right
, just as it should be. Despite the fact that my eyes were closed, it was as if a blindfold had been removed from my inner eye, and now I could truly see things the way they were meant to be seen. I got the
meaning
of it all. Yeah.
And I was
hungry.
But I had reached my destination, faster than was humanly possible, and this also made the tiny shadow of doubt about things, whatever those things were, pop up in my head. Something was off in the scheme of things, maybe. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I had room only for the sight of the souls and the hunger in my belly. And a dark place. A nice dark place.
I came to a smooth stop. I looked down. Sparse green grass breathed beneath my feet. Trees, pines and ferns mostly, stole energy from the hateful sun above and grew all around me, home to countless creatures from tiny to large. In front of me, a small mountain, gray rock and jutting cliffs. And in between these rocks, about fifty feet up, my dark place, where I knew something waited for me. I just didn’t know
what
that something was.
I placed my hands against the sharp rocks, and began to pull myself up. I crawled as might a four-legged spider, scaling the mountain’s side in coordinated, fluid movements. I could feel the air growing thinner, though it didn’t seem to be having any negative effects on me. My breathing stayed even and steady. A moment later, I climbed onto a cliff and stood. In front me were two large oval-shaped boulders, supporting each other tip to tip. And beyond those boulders, that dark place beckoned me.
I crouched down and began to crawl, feeling a little like a cockroach skittering someplace beneath the floorboards. The light behind me shrank and shrank, until the darkness swallowed me whole. This seemed to comfort me, like crawling into a clean, warm bed at the end of a long day. The blackness was as heavy as ink, and the tunnel I crawled through twisted and turned and slowly declined. My eyes were wide open now, and I could see everything just fine. Perfect even, though not in the way that one sees with the assistance of light, but rather in some alien,
other
way.
Eventually, I came to a large cavern and climbed to my feet. I rolled my shoulders, stretched my arms and legs. Then I heard something hiss. Actually, I heard
multiple
somethings hiss. My back went rigid, my head titled back, my eyes piercing the darkness. Above me, hundreds of Lamias hung suspended from the ceiling, clawed feet gripping the rock like human-sized bats, long flowing hair reaching toward the floor.