C. Redwine - Deception

Four beds line the walls, two on each side. I’m sitting on a bed with a comfortable mattress beneath me and thick white blankets covering me. Directly across from me, Quinn sleeps on a similar bed. The other two beds are empty.

“We’re in Lankenshire,” Logan says. “They’ve offered us temporary asylum while our injured heal. I’m hoping I can convince them to make the asylum permanent once they hear my case against both Rowansmark and the Commander.”

“But the killer . . .” Familiar eyes. Cruel laughter. “He had me.”

“Pain is such a useful thing. Don’t you feel alive?”

“Rachel, I’m sorry,” Logan says, and the raw grief in his voice scrapes against the silence within me. I flinch and look down at my bandaged arm. What will I find when I peel back those layers? Ruined flesh? Destroyed muscle? An arm that will refuse to hold another weapon?

“Are you listening?” Logan asks. I jerk my gaze up toward him and then let it skitter away before he can see that I don’t know what to do with his apologies or his grief.

“Of course I am,” I say, and hope he doesn’t ask me to repeat anything he’s just said.

“Quinn found you. The killer had you by the arm . . .” He swallows. “Quinn found you—and the others in the western quadrant—by following your screams.”

Fury, sharp and lethal, lives beneath his regret. I used to understand that. Respond to that. I used to be that. Now I can’t find my regret. I can’t work up any anger. I can’t do anything but stare at the boy lying in the bed across from me and wonder if he’ll die, too. If I’ll have to add his face to the list of those who tear my throat raw every night while I scream the things I no longer allow myself to think about during the day.

The silence between me and Logan has gone on for too long. I feel the prickle of his unease even before I see it in his face. I should be saying something. Offering something. Acting like the horror, rage, and pain he feels are mirrored inside me as well.

“I’m okay,” I say, though we both know that can’t possibly be true. I look back at Quinn, at the rise and fall of his chest, and wish he would wake up.

Logan follows my gaze and says quietly, “He saved your life. You were already unconscious when he reached you. He crawled across the entire field with you on his back.”

When I don’t say anything, Logan turns my face toward his. “Rachel, something’s wrong. What is it?”

I try to dredge up concern. Fear. Anything that will make it look like I still know how to feel something when I should.

The effort exhausts me.

“Are you worried about the killer?” he asks. “Grieving Sylph? Upset that Quinn is taking a while to recover?”

I nod. Yes. All of those. And none of them. Not really. A girl who isn’t quite real anymore can’t worry or grieve or feel upset.

“I can’t make losing Sylph any easier on you, though I wish I could.” His fingers gently run through my hair. “And Quinn breathed in a lot of smoke, just like you, but he’s gaining strength quickly. As for the killer, we’ll catch him. Even if we don’t know what he looks like.”

What he looks like. I raise my face and stare into Logan’s dark blue eyes. “His eyes reminded me of you,” I say.

A little line digs in between his brows. “Is there anyone in camp whose eyes have reminded you of me before the fires?”

I scroll through a mental list of the Baalboden survivors and shake my head. “I don’t think so. But maybe that’s because on the night of the fire, all I could see were his eyes. Maybe if the rest of his face is visible, the resemblance disappears. Or maybe I was delirious from pain, and we should throw out everything I just said.”

“I don’t think we should discount anything. Even in a crisis, you know how to keep your head and pay attention to details. We’ll discuss it more when you feel stronger. For now, I’m just grateful that you’re getting better. I don’t ever want to come so close to losing you again.” He holds my gaze for a moment, and I can see the uncertainty growing in his eyes as I fail to respond.

I can’t bear to tell him that a part of me wishes I wasn’t going to get better. That I could join Sylph, Oliver, and Dad and find peace.

“Rachel? Is something—”

“I’m tired.” My voice sounds too abrupt, and I make an attempt to soften it. To smile a little, because he needs it. “I’ll be okay. I’m just so tired.”

He leans forward and kisses me gently. “I need to make the rounds now and check on some things. Nola and a few of the others are working our medical rooms in shifts, but the woman you just met is Elim. She’s the Lankenshire nurse in charge of this wing of the hospital. If you need something, just call out. Someone will hear you.”

I nod.

“I love you,” he says as he leaves. His voice is distant, as if a host of worst case scenarios are begging for his attention and somehow one of those makes him wonder if loving me is still worth it.

I can’t blame him. I’m broken in ways I have no strength to fix, and even though he doesn’t know the cause, he feels the results. The cost of my choice to push my pain away from me lies between us like a mountain neither of us knows how to climb.

“Pain. It teaches us that we’re alive. Don’t you feel alive?”

The killer’s voice echoes inside my head as I slowly pull my right arm onto my lap. I don’t feel alive. I feel like a shell walking around with something else beneath my skin. I can’t access the pain that sliced my heart to ribbons, but maybe I don’t need to. Maybe any pain will give me relief from the terrible void that lives within me.

Slowly, I unwind the bandage that covers my burned arm until the final, sticky layer peels away. I stare at the jagged line of blackened, split flesh that stretches from my inner elbow nearly to my wrist. The damaged skin is several layers deep, and beneath it, where fresh skin is trying to grow, thin pearls of blood glisten.

Maybe the killer told the truth. Maybe pain, any pain, makes us feel alive.

I grit my teeth and reach forward with my left hand until my fingers find the broken seam along my forearm. And then I press down, as hard as I can, and do my best to prove the killer right.

Ilean against the wall outside Rachel’s room for a long moment, eyes closed, my body vibrating with the need to fix it . Fix whatever is eating at Rachel that keeps her from letting me in. Fix the fact that we’ve been in Lankenshire for three days, and I’m no closer to figuring out which of my people is working with Rowansmark.

I can’t fix either problem without more information, and I have no way of getting that at the moment. I can, however, keep working on backup plans in case the triumvirate turns down my petition for an alliance.

One backup plan involves making sure I no longer have the Rowansmark tech on my body, and that it’s hidden where no one, not even the traitor in our midst, will think to look. To accomplish that, I need help.

I find Willow on the roof of the hospital, crouched beside the slim silver rail that circles the building. She slowly scans the glittering city streets below, and I close the door softly behind me before joining her.

“No trouble walking across this rooftop?” she asks as I approach.

“Why would I have trouble?”

She laughs. “Last time you were on a rooftop, I thought we’d have to pry your hands off the railing with the point of a sword and carry you back to safety.”

I make an effort to sound as dignified as possible. “That building was clearly an unsafe height. Not to mention that it had been abandoned for fifty years. And the kudzu covering it could’ve compromised the stability of the structure.”