24. Luke

TWENTY-FOUR

Luke

E mber’s place again, her smoking body on the ground.

“Did you enjoy your dip?” I quipped, annoyed at finding myself here again.

She didn’t move, splayed out like a starfish. “I didn’t ask for this.”

Not the expected response. “What do you mean?”

“This, Luke. Every torturous moment that brought me here.”

A whimper contributed to the unexpectedness. For a moment, my hate became sympathy again. As weak as tissue against a waterfall, but still there.

“I don’t understand,” I said, sitting down. “Why are we like this?”

She sniffled. “Because we were made this way.”

“Cryptic much?”

“I’m not an oracle, Luke. I’m playing my part as much as you are. All I wanted was to be loved, not this. But this is where the cards fell. And I have what I need to take you down. In time.”

Goodbye sympathy, hello loathing. I was ready to toss her back into the lake. “Digging into my memories was a crappy move.”

No answer.

She didn’t ask for this. Likewise. At least we had confusion in common. None of this made sense.

Made to hate each other? By who? Where was the puppet master?

We stayed silent for a while, her on her back, me sitting cross-legged. The more the minutes ticked by, the more I replayed destroying those monsters and humans at the motorway café.

God, all those people. The burning, the stink of death, the chaos.

I didn’t pray, didn’t believe in any god. But I sent prayers after those souls, wishing them the best in their afterlives.

“I didn’t ask for this either.” I broke the silence.

“I know.”

We were trapped on a rollercoaster, the brakes failing, miles of loops ahead of us.

Can I get off now?

I rubbed the back of my neck, my hand coming back sticky from sweat. “Is there something we can do to not hate each other?”

“No.”

A firm answer. “Why?”

“Dig deep, find the answer yourself. I have no desire to be your friend.”

“I never asked you to be.”

“I want to destroy you,” she added.

My muscles clenched in agreement. “And you’re happy with that goal?”

“It’s destiny. I think.”

“You think? It’s not enough to go on.”

“Stop talking.”

I got to my knees, exasperated at the notion of being destiny’s pawn. “No. I?—”

“My head hurts.”

Amazingly, mine didn’t after her attack. “We can be better than?—”

“This?”

“Yes.” Was I getting through? Would we join forces, form a resistance against whatever manipulated our lives?

“Shut up.”

Pfft.

I did a little internal digging for answers, finding nothing but rancid hate. While she lived, I languished in her shadow. She was a stain on existence, me the remover.

A malicious sentence fell out of my mouth. “When we meet, I’ll take your power and end you in the most painful way.” I found myself smirking, my hands trembling.

She laughed. “There you go. Much better.”

Hot air sucked me from the cavern, dumping me back inside my aching body somewhere in the dark.

A red light blinked to my left, my body heavy from exhaustion and a few…extras.

What the hell?

Movement, the shuffling of fabric.

With a throat as dry as sand, my senses murky, I tried speaking.

“Hello?” God, it hurt to talk.

The shuffling responded, a soft sigh following.

The scent of almonds broiled my guts.

Oh. Crap. Not him. Please don’t let me be trapped in the dark with him.

“You’re awake,” Seth said, the tip of his joint glowing, igniting parts of his face.

I gulped, afraid of him again. He had the upper hand, my powers offline. I reached out to them, but they were fully locked away. Deeper than before, swaddled in layers upon layer of suppressant.

Too far. Way too far.

“What… What have you done to me?”

“Hush, Luke. Don’t strain yourself.”

I tried moving, my limbs bound by heavy shackles, a collar around my neck. Panic landed, prompting my flight response. I struggled, but their hold barely gave me room to twitch.

“Oh, God. Oh, God.” The harder I resisted, the heavier the binds became.

My head filled with dizziness, bringing on heart palpitations.

“Let me out. Let me out.” The darkness pressed in on me, no room for hope to break the crushing cocoon.

I’m trapped. I’m trapped. I’m trapped.

“I can’t be here…”

“There’s no need to be afraid, Luke.”

Stress heat enveloped me, reason leaving the building. I knew I should stop, calm down, but I’d already fallen into the swamp. Disorientated, whimpering, begging.

Please…

“Please let me out of here…” Every word hurt my throat. “Please… Please…”

“I can’t, I’m afraid.” His voice. His damn voice.

“Please…” I let the messy tears flow in front of the worst man on the planet. Begging him to make it stop, hating every second under his control.

Always there. An unkillable virus.

Too afraid to be furious, I kept pleading, my head spinning until the place of ice plucked me into its freezing nightmare.

“Not here.” Cold. So cold. Poison. Poison. Poison.

Smash the glass, release the snakes.

The shadow whispered over there in the dark. “Never leave you alone. Never. Never. Never.”

I wept, walking forward, the body of a dead snake squelching under my bare feet. “Please… I can’t be here.”

“The shadow of you. The shadow of him. Looming. Looming. Never leave you alone. Can never ever do it.”

“But I flow,” I responded, the cold like frozen teeth against my skin. “I have to flow. I am… I am… I am…”

“Here and there,” the shadow answered. “There and here. Not here, over there.”

I returned to the room with Seth, a weak light flickering to life. My eyes quickly adjusted, tears smearing my vision. Snot ran over my lips, every part of me limp and weak and afraid.

“Please…”

Seth’s stood beneath an arched lamp, bathed in the anemic light. I squirmed, a worm on his hook. Desperate to get away from this evil fisherman.

“Poor, Luke. So terrified.”

Wouldn’t you be? “Please…”

“Here.” He placed an ice cube in my mouth. I sucked on it greedily, my hoarse throat welcoming the moisture.

“Better?”

“Please let me go,” I said around the ice, the words not as painful now.

He narrowed his unfeeling eyes. “Stop begging. It’s unbecoming.”

A flicker of anger stopped me squirming.

“Things have changed for you,” he said, his breath thick with almonds. “We must all do better moving forward. Clearly, taking you to the facility was a mistake. You’re what humans call a loose cannon. A weapon without discipline. How we move forward is key. While we figure it out, you must stay here. Your body is filled with potion. There is also a collar around your neck, along with a set of shackles fixed to your wrists and ankles. They act as the bracelet did.”

The unfairness of being trapped like a wild animal helped restore some of my courage. “You can’t keep me here.” I swallowed the rest of the ice cube.

“I can. And I will until we can control you.” Was that a kindly look he just offered me? “While I appreciate your interventions earlier, you’re still a risk.”

“I’m not.”

Gravel, earth.

“I—”

A twinge of pain from the ring.

“I—”

Earthy gravel.

“What—”

Both sensations vanished.

What the hell was this gravel crap?

“But you are a risk,” Seth countered.

I licked my lips, pleading my case. “I was fine without the bracelet and the potion. I only attacked the monsters and the gas mask humans. I’m not as dangerous as you think. As I think. I can handle this.”

Two halves, one me. Dark and light and ready to be free.

He leaned in closer. “Until you can’t.”

“How can you?—”

“This isn’t up for debate.” He cut me off. “You follow my orders, you serve the greater good. I won’t pander to your human weaknesses.”

Oh. Interesting. “Meaning you want to condition me to be your puppet?” How much braver I sounded now.

“Yes.”

“At least you’re honest.”

He cocked a grin. “I think I prefer you without this cockiness.”

I’d prefer you in a different room.

“What happens next?” I asked. “Can I have more ice?”

He fetched me another cube from a source out of my eyeline. “Here.” He popped it in my mouth. “In answer to your question, I don’t know. Be patient. I’d rather not see you tied up like this. But we must be careful.”

Okay. Okay. Okay. What the hell? One moment he’s full of threats, the next he’s trying to be the friendly gargoyle weaver.

Uh-huh. Call me suspicious as fuck.

“Where’s Asher?” I spoke around the ice.

“In your suite.”

Pangs of longing splintered my voice. “Is he okay?”

He didn’t answer, dipping his head.

Fine. “What about the incident?”

“Twenty dead. Eight severely injured. The motorway is closed for the time being.”

I wanted to puke. “Those poor people.”

If I’d been allowed to be myself, maybe I could’ve prevented more death.

“Indeed,” Seth said indifferently. “Our priority now is finding a gas mask human to question. Though they have an irritating habit of killing themselves before we can. As you’ve seen for yourself.”

Yes, after an attack on my lighthouse, two men took their lives with a cyanide compound.

How funny cyanide smelled like bitter almonds, Seth’s joints only a little sweeter.

A symbol of his toxicity, perhaps?

“Asher will be part of the hunt,” he added.

Asher…

You leave my Asher alone.

“Why did you bring Billy here?” I couldn’t help asking, seeing as he was in such an open mood.

Ah, the sweet satisfaction of his furrowed brow. “None of your business.”

Bastard. “Okay.”

Toxic man to be undone…

“I’ll get you some food soon.”

A rancid pong assaulted my nostrils. “And a shower, please. I stink.”

“You’re still in the same clothes.”

“I thought my crotch felt tight.”

He laughed. “You still look stunning.”

Creep. A thousand ants marched across my skin, landing a few bites along the way. “Can I at least sit up?”

“No.”

“Why?”

He approached the bed, backlit by the lamp. “I have something I need to tell you.”

Can you not loom like that? “Okay.”

He offered a sorrowful expression, which didn’t suit him.

“That night with Finn…” He sighed. “I’m sorry, Luke.”

Here he went with never getting to the damn point.

Until he did. “You took his gargoyle protection, leaving him exposed to the monster. The potion in your system has been suppressing this memory as a safety measure. But I can’t hide it from you anymore. I hate lying to you about this, regardless of how you feel about me.”

A ball of worms wrestled in my belly. I couldn’t muster a reply or even take in the revelation, a different heaviness pressing down on me beyond these binds, wrapped in slimy horror.

I took… I took… No. I’d never do that to my brother.

“Asher knew about this, too,” he added. “I asked him to keep it a secret.”

Asher knew?

“I’m so sorry, Luke.”

His voice faded away as I closed my eyes, sinking into a numb pocket away from here. No raging, no fighting these restraints on my power. Detached while also confused. Things didn’t line up yet made sense. Finn wouldn’t give up his protection willingly. We were in the middle of an argument, sure. But my brother wasn’t a fool.

What about me? What drove me to steal it? Was it an accident or a brief lapse in reason?

I would never hurt you.

“Why can’t I remember?” I bit out.

Where was the devastation to unchain my wrath?

I would never hurt you.

Hardly a simmer, trapped in numbing jelly.

I would never hurt you.

“The potion?—”

I cut Seth off. “I don’t remember. Why can’t I recall it?”

“If you let me finish, I was going to say the potion has caused some memory loss we need to fix.”

Great. Just what I wanted to hear.

Asher knew…

I did this to my brother…

A double whammy of grief and betrayal hit, both wagging mocking fingers like a pair of vicious kids.

But where was my rage? Had the changes inside me pushed it out of the nest? No. Tiny flickers remained, overwhelmed by this unresponsiveness.

Asher knew…

Seth knew…

Hmmm. Was this a test, Seth sticking the knife in? Oh, yes. He wanted to be the first to tell me, to turn me against Asher. I saw right through this.

“I’m telling you the truth,” the weaver spoke.

I knew he was. Deep in my bones, I knew I’d done this to Finn. More distant hints, tiny lights in the holes of my mind.

I did this. I did this. I did this.

Screw Seth’s games. I’d show him my control, my levelheadedness. Make it known that nothing would touch me, that I was evolving minute by minute. A greater weapon than he could imagine, so much better than he gave me credit for.

My heart broke like a vase on a marble floor. Again. It’d already shattered on the rocks.

No screaming. No tears. Only the constant bite of grief but with slightly sharper teeth.

I would never hurt you on purpose.

Losing my mind didn’t help my brother. Wielding my new powers properly did, granting me resistance against grief’s wild currents. I clung harder to hope, ready to face the world.

I’ll make it right.

“How are you feeling? Your stats are stable.”

My stats? Was there a monitor in here?

Asher knew…

“Did you hear me, Luke?”

Fuck off. “I heard you.”

“Well?”

“I’m feeling like I don’t want to blow up the tower.”

He sighed. “Don’t make jokes.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Well? How are you feeling?”

“Numb.”

“Indeed. Because of the suppressant.”

“Maybe.”

If I’d been hit with this news while fully active, things might have taken a deadlier turn. But I didn’t buy it.

Two halves united.

“When do I get to leave this room?” I asked, knowing he’d be vague.

Asher knew…

Seth’s phone buzzed. “Yes? Excuse me?” The confident timbre in his voice wobbled. “I’ll be right there.”

“What’s going on?”

He left the room.

Great. Welcome to painful silence, I guess.