Cassie Alexander - Deadshifted

“Take your time!” he called after me.

It did smell like Nathaniel in here. His things, razor, toothbrush, were neatly organized, laid out on a towel. Nothing strange in here, not like the crypt-keeper vault his bedroom was. In here, if I couldn’t see the blood on my hands, I could have pretended that housekeeping was on its way soon, with fresh towels. I turned the cold water on and massaged a bar of soap single-handedly, staining it pink. Whose blood was it? Whose?

When I was mostly sure all the blood was gone, I looked up at myself in the mirror, slinged and exhausted. I’d been pushing myself for two days—there wasn’t much of me left to go. The Maraschino took another sudden turn—away from the “rescue” ship, or toward it?—and my stomach lurched again. That was good, right? It meant that things were okay in there? Or … that I was infested, like Raluca had been. One of those two. I looked at myself in the mirror, trying to see the truth.

“Let’s go,” Rory prompted, his voice farther away. I pushed back from the bathroom counter and looked back into the bedroom, where he stood at the entrance to the doorway at the far side. “I didn’t want to wait in there.”

“I don’t blame you.” The bedroom was like a cave, a shrine to one man’s insanity, the man who was currently taking the whole ship down. After this, I didn’t know if we’d be able to stop him. If I’d been able to find Asher, maybe, there would have been a chance. But not on my own, not now.

All I felt was exhaustion … and hate. Hate that I’d had to go through all of this, hate that Asher wasn’t here, and above all else hate at my helplessness. Nathaniel had all the power, all the cards, all the guns. I wanted to strike back at him, and I couldn’t. I’d burn this place if I could—and I remembered a room that Anna’d wanted to burn, what seemed like ages ago. Maybe this was how she’d felt.

I ran into the room and reached for the highest point I could and clawed my fingers down. My nails caught on staples, yanking vellum and smearing charcoal, tearing strips away.

“Edie—” Rory warned.

“No!” I shouted at him. I needed this. I didn’t care that it was a waste of time, it was a small act of rebellion, and I needed it. I raked my fingers through another stack, ripping a horrible face in two, giving it a reason to scream just as it was painted. More ink-blood stuck to my hand and I wiped it on the bedspread, like a murder scene, before starting on the next wall. My nail polished chipped off, bits of red scattering like scabs, and I didn’t stop. I would tear this place down, ruin this one thing that was his just as he’d ruined me and mine. I had had a future. For one bright moment, I’d had a husband, a child, a family, perfection. Nathaniel had taken all of that away.

I ran for the balcony window, the last wall, and found the pictures were pasted to the glass. I ripped pieces off in long tears that made it look like I was an animal, clawing to get out of a cage, one strip at a time, as much as the fingers of my one good hand could free. After I’d ruined that I would throw everything Nathaniel owned into the sea, all of it—destroying even some small part of him like he’d destroyed me. I lunged up and grabbed a fistful of his ramblings from where I’d already started a tear and ripped it sideways like I was opening up a door—when I saw a figure, tied to the railing outside.

What had been crazed became frantic. “Rory—help me!”

Arms picked me up and pulled me back. “You can’t go to the sea—”

“He’s out there!” I fought back, my shoulder burning as I moved. I twisted and found Hal holding me, looking down at me with worried eyes. “I saw him, Asher’s out there!”

Hal released me warily. “Stay here.” He leaned forward, keeping himself between me and the balcony, in case I might run for it, and peered through a tear. “There is a man out there—”

“It’s him!” I rushed forward and leapt up to grab another map away. “He’s out there!”

Rory frowned, but joined in when Hal did. We unwrapped the window like a present until we found the door’s latch. Pulling together, we managed to slide it open over the remnants of the maps, and their crinkled pieces held it there.

A gust of wet air, trapped between rain and mist, blew in and swept all the papers I’d torn aside like leaves. Asher faced out like an oceanic scarecrow. The suit I’d seen him leave in was in shreds, and he leaned over the railings like he might topple—he would have, were he not tied to the railings at both his hands and feet.

“Asher?” I reached out for him to try to pull him back. His skin was cold and clammy. I instinctively ran my hand up his throat to feel for his pulse. It was present, but slow.

“This could just be a diversion,” Rory warned.

“Give her time,” said Hal.

I pulled him back as far as I could. His wrists were raw where the ties had chafed, and there was a dressing over his left hand, some wound covered up with a bloody towel. “What did he do to you?” I tried to hold him awkwardly from the side to take the pressure off him. “Get me something that can cut him free. Hurry!”

While they searched Nathaniel’s room, I stroked wet hair back from Asher’s face. Left alone, he’d changed back into himself. “Please be okay.” I kept petting him, trying to hold him up. The Maraschino tilted again, caught by a tall wave, and he started to slip through my arms. “Please please please be okay. I can’t do all this without you. I love you. Please be okay.” I held him so tight my bad shoulder ached and my good one might pop.

Hal’s strong arms caught up Asher from me, and Rory began sawing away at the ties with a room service steak knife. Even though I was almost in the way, I wouldn’t move, I needed to be there for when he woke up, so he could see me and know that things were going to be fine. Rory made it through one wrist tie, and Asher’s arm hung limply free. “Honey, wake up. Be okay.”

He shifted. From the Asher that I and others knew to Hector, the doctor I worked with. His skin went from white to tan, and his features changed, cheekbones suddenly malleable, sliding into place.

“What the fuck?” Rory said, and Hal let him drop a few inches in surprise.

“It’s okay!” I looked to Rory. “Keep cutting. Please!”

Rory looked from me to Hal, and at an unseen signal kept going, although at a slower pace.

“Asher—it’s me. You’re safe now.”

His eyes fluttered open and he held up his injured hand weakly. “¿Dónde está?”

I knew enough Spanish by now to know he was asking where Nathaniel was. “I don’t know.”

He took in his own condition, legs still lashed, and then looked at me. “Hurry.”

I clung to him to offer him whatever protection from the weather I could. His free hand wrapped around me, bound up with dried blood. “Are you okay?” I whispered, pressed awkwardly against his chest, half hugging him and half hugging Hal.

“I will be. Are you?”

I nodded. Everything was going to be all right now. Somehow we’d all manage to get off this damn boat. He staggered backward, a foot set free, and pulled me close. I felt his lips brush against my hair. “I thought you were gone.”

“Me too.” It was raining in earnest now, which was good, because it hid my tears.

He shook his head, his chin rubbing against me. “I’ll never leave you again.” Rory finished sawing and set Asher loose. He wisely waited to change back until then, as Rory still held the knife at the ready. “I know I have a lot to explain,” Asher said, taking all of our group in.

Hal jerked a thumb toward the room behind us. “Let’s do it indoors.”