“Uh…” Ava tried not to gasp as they jogged. She’d thought she was in shape. She was wrong. “I didn’t really… play sports in… school.”
More signs tossed into the air from Mala.
“She says you’re in good shape for someone who doesn’t play sports.”
“Sure doesn’t feel that way right now.”
Brook laughed. “You’ll get used to it. You’re keeping up and she’s not going easy on us. Mala’s the hardest trainer here.”
“I hike a lot with my job,” Ava said. “Go to remote places like this. And usually I’m carrying a lot of equipment. So it’s probably from that.”
“High altitudes?”
The question had come from Brooke, not Mala, which caused Ava to blink and look over at the girl. “What?”
“Did you hike a lot at high altitudes? That probably helps. Even though there are mountains here, we’re actually not that high up, so the air is thicker.”
“Oh… okay.”
“What places did you go?” The girl’s eyes were alive with curiosity.
Ava managed a weak smile. “Almost everywhere. I’ve been to every continent on earth.”
“Even Antarctica?”
“Yep, even Antarctica.”
That drew a surprised look from Mala, who turned briefly with curious eyes.
Ava continued. “I’d been through most of Europe by the time I was sixteen. School trips. My mom took me places, too. Then, when I got to college, I traveled in South America for a few semesters. I minored in Spanish, so…” She paused to catch her breath. “I took some pictures in Venezuela one summer and my mom showed a friend of hers. She was an editor at a travel magazine, and… she asked to see more.”
“That’s so cool,” Brooke said, her own breath coming harder the longer they jogged. “So you started working for a magazine?”
“I did what you could call freelance work in college. Just for my mom’s friend. Any time I traveled for school, I let her know where I was going, and she’d let me know if she wanted pictures. After I graduated, I was on staff for a while there, then I started doing freelance work again, only this time I got paid more and I got to pick what jobs I wanted.”
Brooke’s blue eyes were wide. “So, are you really rich?”
Ava snorted, wiping the sweat from her forehead. Mala might have been glowing, but Ava was dripping. “Not from my photography work. I make enough to get by on that, but not by much. I have money, but it’s from my father. He’s really rich and he set up a trust fund for me when I was a baby. I got control of it when I was twenty-three. So I can kind of go wherever I want as long as I don’t get too crazy.”
The girl grinned. “Nice.”
Ava attempted a shrug. “I think I’d rather have had my dad than the money. But what are you gonna do?”
“Nothing,” she said flatly. “There’s nothing to do.” Before Ava could question her, Brooke continued. “I don’t have a dad, either.”
Ava remembered Malachi telling her how precious children were to the Irin. “Where is he?”
“I was born in Virginia. My mom and dad… they lived on their own. The closest scribe house was in Arlington, but we never went there. They would have made my dad patrol and fight, and he didn’t want to leave my mom and me. My mom was really paranoid. She lost all her family in the Rending. So we were just living with the humans, trying to blend in.”
“What happened?”
Brooke shrugged. “We don’t know. Not really. You can want to be left alone, but that doesn’t mean it will happen. One night, my dad just didn’t come home. Didn’t call. My mom was frantic. Then later that night, she started crying.” Brooke drifted off, and Ava could see the haunted grief in her eyes. “I was only eight, and I’ve never heard anything like it.”
Mala’s eyes caught Ava’s as they ran, and Ava nodded in silent understanding. Brook’s father had been killed, and her mother only knew when she felt their connection snap. As Ava had known when the knife struck Malachi’s neck. She didn’t want to hear any more, but Brook kept talking.
“My mom woke me up the next morning, and her face was just… wrong. I knew he was dead. We were gone before lunch. We left everything there but some clothes and pictures. We came here.”
“And you never left?”
“We’re safe here.”
“With Sari.”
“Yes,” Brooke said. “Sari makes everyone safe.”
She saw Mala glance at the girl. Grief had joined the fire in her gaze, but she didn’t pause or slow down their run.
Ava had finally reached the endorphin high of running. Her legs felt looser and longer. Her heart pounded. The air was clear and biting, and the breeze felt liquid against her skin. She lifted her head and ran along the path with the two women, one old, the other painfully young, and suddenly she didn’t see their differences. Not a single one. The three ran together, bound by something far beyond the external.
“Hey, Damien.” She pushed the damp hair from her forehead as she walked into the cottage. Damien was sitting in the kitchen area, reading something and taking notes in a big notebook. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you doing scribe stuff.”
He blinked and looked up. “Hmm?”
“You know, scribe stuff. Book stuff? Not like the others.” She pointed to the books and notebook on the table.
“What are you talking about?”
“In Istanbul, it seemed like you were always on the phone or talking with one of the guys in a very solemn voice. Or ordering people around. You did a lot of that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you doing any scribe kind of work.”
His face cleared of confusion, and he shrugged. “When I am a watcher, I have more pressing concerns. I don’t have time to spend with texts. Bringing you here, having this time when I’m not on guard, it’s probably good for me. It’s easy to forget what’s important.”
“Books?”
She saw him run both hands down his forearms. “Yes. Books. Stories. Our families. Our history.” Then his fingers ran over the dagger he wore at his waist. “Those are the reasons for living.”
“And fighting?”
“Yes, and fighting.”
Her sweat was beginning to dry, and the northern air was starting to chill her, so Ava started toward the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“Sari has you training with Mala.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yep. She’s… well, so far we’ve just run a lot.”
He nodded, frowning in concentration. “Mala is a fierce fighter. Before the Rending, she often accompanied her mate into battle. She’ll be an excellent physical trainer.”
Ava hesitated but asked anyway. “What happened to her?”
“Her scar?”
“Yes.”
Damien looked hesitant for a moment, but finally he said, “Mala and her mate never had any children, so during the Grigori attacks prior to the Rending, they both fought in the area around Lagos. The humans there…” He shook his head. “Mala and Alexander were fighting, and he was killed in battle. They were overwhelmed.”
Ava’s heart had clenched in her chest. “They killed her mate?”
“Yes. And she killed them, over ten Grigori, according to Zander’s brothers, but not before they clawed out her throat.” He lifted a hand to his throat, curling his fingers like claws as he scraped from his jaw down. “That’s what the Grigori do to Irina in battle. If they take their voice, they can’t work magic. If you silence an Irina, she’s far easier to kill.”
Ava shivered, but it wasn’t from the cold anymore. “And then she came here.”
“Sari and Mala had been friends a long time. I imagine Sari had to convince Mala to come, otherwise, she’d still be out there, hunting. But she’s very protective of her friends. If Sari asked Mala to come and help protect this haven, she’d do it.”
And that was the woman who was going to be her trainer. Fire-eyed Mala with the scarred throat and the battle-hardened muscles. Ava only hoped she didn’t die of exhaustion. Or embarrassment.
“Take your shower.” Damien motioned toward the door. “Astrid asked if you would have lunch with her after you got back. I imagine she’s in the medical clinic I saw near the road.”
“Yes, sir, Captain Watcher, sir.” She mock-saluted and scurried to the bathroom.
“Ha-ha.”
Ava shut the door and pulled off her sweaty shirt, turning to toss it in a small hamper before she froze.
Grief struck at the oddest times. Like a cat, it waited to pounce. She could go about her day, even talk about Malachi, ignoring the black hole that lived inside, then something little would swallow her up.
It was nothing, really. Just a man’s shirt hanging on the towel rod. A shirt like the ones he’d worn. The ones she’d teased him about not putting in the hamper. He left them draped on the clean towels or tossed on the ground. She’d found it irritating.
She pulled it off the towel rack and put it to her face, but it smelled wrong.
Ava buckled as if she’d been punched in the stomach, sliding down to the floor as her back scraped along the counter. A wretched sob tore from her throat, and she heard footsteps pounding.
“Ava?”
She shook her head, gripping Damien’s shirt that smelled wrong. His voice sounded wrong. And his arms felt wrong. She couldn’t stop another sob. Or the next. Or the next.
Damien opened the door. “Oh, sister…”
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
As kind as Damien was, he wasn’t who she wanted to see.
She threw his shirt at him shouted, “It’s not fair!”
“I know,” he whispered, sitting next to her and gathering her in his arms. “I know it’s not.”
“We didn’t have time.” Her body shook with rage and grief. “We should have had time.”
“I know.”
“No, you
don’t
know. Sari may hate you, but she’s still here.” Tears were hot on her face and she hit his shoulders with clenched fists, even as he held her closer. “I just found him. I finally found him. And then he was gone.”
“I’m sorry, Ava.” He held her close. “I miss him too.”
“Everything is wrong. Everything hurts more.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I thought it would be better if I left. If I left Turkey, I thought he’d stay there. But he didn’t.”
“Of course he didn’t.”
“I see him everywhere. He’s everywhere. And he always will be.”
“Ava—”
“And I
hate
him for that. For leaving me,” she choked out. “And for
not
leaving me.”
Damien didn’t say anything for a while; he just let her cry. And when the worst of it had passed, Ava whispered, “I know that doesn’t make sense.”
“Yes, it does.” He held her close, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. “He would have moved heaven and earth to stay with you, Ava. You know that.”
“But he didn’t, Damien. Of all the things he could do, he couldn’t do that.”
Damien ignored his lunch that was growing cold on the counter. Ava ignored her growling stomach. She sat on the floor of the maple-paneled bathroom with Malachi’s brother and allowed herself to feel more than she had in months. Until finally grief slipped away to hide its face until the next time.
Hours later, Ava finally heeded the call of her rumbling stomach and went to look for Astrid. There was a road leading into the isolated valley, but a visitor clearly needed to know where they were going to find it. Ava had seen a few cars come and go, along with a truck that delivered boxes of supplies on Wednesday morning and took some of the milk and vegetables the haven produced.
In addition to the Irina, there were also a few Irin families. They seemed to keep to themselves, but Ava had seen a few men hanging at the edge of the compound and even a small child. The families lived in a group of cottages half a kilometer or so deeper into the valley and away from the main house and the road. Clearly, protecting them was a priority since Ava had only caught glimpses.
To any visitor driving in, the compound would seem like a commune of sorts, with animals and greenhouses to grow food. Low buildings housed workshops and storage units and a small clinic that Damien said was open to any emergency since Astrid was the only trained doctor for miles around. What the average visitor wouldn’t see was the interior of the brightly painted barn where women fought and parried with sticks, staffs, and knives. The archery range was hidden behind innocuous greenhouse fronts. Ava doubted many would see the cameras so expertly hidden among the buildings or understand them if they did.
Ava saw everything. And far from just being a haven for wounded Irina, she could also see what the Irin scribes hadn’t known.
This was a training center, and it might have been isolated, but it was far from idle.
She knocked on the door marked with a bright red cross. She heard shuffling, then the door opened.
“Welcome,” Astrid said with a smile. “Come in, come in.”
“Thanks.”
If Astrid caught Ava’s swollen eyes, she said nothing.
Astrid’s clinic looked just like a small cottage with a sitting area and kitchen in the main room, then three doors leading off a small hall in the back. Her desk was in a corner of the living area, and a kettle was on the stove. Ava wandered around the room, which was decorated with pictures of women, children, and families.