Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Three

Anora and the Beginning of the End

I recovered from the fall through the dead person pretty quick but not fast enough, because when I come to, I’m in the back seat of a stranger’s car. There are two boys in the front seat and one sitting beside me. He holds a bloodied, balled-up shirt to his nose. When he sees I’m awake, he scoots away, leaning against the door. I reach into my pocket for my phone so I can call someone—the police, Shy, my mom—but it’s not there.

“Where’s my phone?” I ask curtly.

“Glad you’re awake, princess.” The boy in the driver’s seat, who I recognize as Jeremy, looks at me through his rearview mirror.

“I asked you a question.”

“We left it behind in the cemetery. Don’t worry. We have a picture of the gravestone where you can find it after this is over.”

“Where am I?”

“Well, we can’t exactly answer you. That would take all the fun out of it.”

“You think this is fun?” I spit the words like venom.

“Well, yeah. Nacoma Knight might have cancelled queen’s ransom, but as far as we’re concerned, it’s still on.”

“I’m not a willing participant in your pissing contest, which means you’ve kidnapped me.”

The boy in the passenger seat looks at Jeremy, and I can tell he’s worried. “Man, I don’t want to go to jail.”

“No one’s going to jail!” Jeremy says and then glares at me in the mirror. “Don’t be fucking dramatic. Savior will be along to rescue you soon, and it’ll all be over.”

Jeremy takes a sharp turn onto a gravel road, driving like he’s trying to lose someone. After a couple of miles, he turns off the dirt road and cuts through a space in the trees, coming to a hard stop. He exits the car, leaving the engine running, and walks around the front. As he does, the boy sitting beside me and the one sitting in the passenger seat turn and look at me.

The door opens, and Jeremy offers a mock bow. “We’ve arrived, princess.”

I really, really want to send my thread right though his eye, but I keep my fist clenched and exit the car cautiously. There’s another truck in the clearing. A boy stands in the headlights. He has black hair past his shoulders and skin like tanned leather. He’s pretty and statuesque. I recognize him from the memorial: Jake Harjo.

He’s staring at me like he recognizes me too. I wonder if he was paying more attention at the memorial than I thought.

“Jake,” Jeremy says as he approaches. The two exchange a bro shake. “This is Anora. You gotta watch her. She’s already broken Devon’s nose. He wants to go home.”

“Then we have something in common,” I say curtly.

Jeremy and Jake both look at me, and Jeremy says, “You can go home. As soon as your boyfriend finds you.”

Jeremy and the others drive away, and I’m left with Jake.

“I’m sorry about him,” Jake says, and I jump. I didn’t expect him to speak to me. His voice is pleasant, deep. “He’s pretty terrible.”

“Why did you agree to this if you think he’s terrible?”

Jake kicks the ground. “If I didn’t agree, he’d have someone else here waiting with you, and I…didn’t want that.”

“But…you don’t know me.”

“But I know you’re important to Shy, and Shy was important to Lily.” He takes a seat on his tailgate. “Sorry.”

I don’t say anything. I pace, hoping Shy shows up soon. It’s getting colder.

Something rattles behind me, and I turn to see Jake reaching into a cooler.

“Capri Sun?” he asks, holding a pouch.

I look at him, wary, but accept the drink. I’m thirsty.

Jake reaches behind him again and produces a blanket. “Here. I can tell you’re cold.”

“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

“Never this way,” he says. “It’s always been official. But yes.”

I put the Capri Sun down and wrap the blanket around me, taking a seat beside him on the tailgate. It creaks with my weight. We’re quiet for several moments when I say, “I saw you at Lily’s memorial.”

He nods.

“How long were you together?”

“Through the summer,” he says. “She wasn’t allowed to have a boyfriend. I was a secret, so we got creative with our hiding spots. It was exciting at first, and then one day, it wasn’t. I didn’t want to be a secret anymore. She…ended it before she…” He doesn’t finish his sentence, but I know what he was going to say—before she killed herself. So he believes that. “I didn’t know she was struggling.”

She wasn’t.

My heart aches for him, for his belief in her unhappiness and suicide, for his wish to be visible beside her. I wonder if he cares now, if he’d be her secret if it meant she were alive again. I wonder if I could do it—be someone’s secret. Isn’t that what I am now? In a different way?

“I think she was seeing someone else,” he says at last.

“What?”

“I saw her with this kid from your school,” he says. “He didn’t look so nice. Kind of severe, and he smoked.”

Thane.

“Were you following her?”

“No, they were out,” he says. “He wasn’t a secret. I know this sounds bad but…I can’t help thinking he convinced her to…to…you know, kill herself.”

I hold back the protest climbing up my throat.

“Why do you think that?”

“Because of the way he looked at her when she wasn’t looking at him. Or I guess that he never looked at her at all. He was always glancing at his phone like it was more interesting than the girl beside him.” He pauses a moment. “You know I found her at June’s the day before she died? She was sitting in the corner booth, crying her eyes out. I tried to talk to her, but she wouldn’t say a word, wouldn’t look at me. Finally, that kid—her new boyfriend or whatever—came along and told me he’d take it from here.”

Thane never mentioned being with Lily the day before she died.

“What time were you there?” I ask.

Jake looks confused for a moment. “I don’t know…late. Toward closing time.”

The Capri Sun sours on my tongue.

I can’t imagine Thane taking me to Samael, helping me search the train yard for clues, or spending time with the Valryn if he were involved in Lily’s death. After all, it makes sense he would be with her. They were best friends. Still, was he the last person to see Lily as Lily?

We are silent for a few moments, and then I say, “His name is Thane. She wasn’t dating him.”

And when we’re quiet again, I notice the world has gone quiet too. The hair on the back of my neck and arms stands up. Then there’s a rustle in the trees beyond.

“It’s probably your rescue party,” he says and reaches for his flashlight. “All right, you found her.”

But when he shines the light into the trees, it isn’t the face of a student staring back. It’s not even the face of a living person.

It’s a dead person.

It’s Lily.

“Oh no.”

“What the hell…” Jake can see her. He pushes off the tailgate, starting forward, but I grab his arm, and he stops. Lily hasn’t moved from the tree line. She stands as if she might implode, like a doll held up with string. Her shoulders fall forward into her chest, and her knees buckle. She peers at us through a curtain of stringy hair, face streaked with dirt and bloody tears.

And the smell—decay and something chemical that burns my nose.

Souls don’t smell.

“Is this some sort of sick joke?” Jake asks.

“Jake, get in your truck,” I say.

But he’s not listening, and he doesn’t understand what he’s looking at either.

“You aren’t funny, Jeremy! Come out of there!”

Lily moans, lifts her head, and it lolls to the side. “Jake?” she whispers. Blood spills from her mouth. “Anora? What are you doing here? Together?”

I squeeze Jake’s arm, hoping it’s enough of a signal to keep him quiet.

“It’s queen’s ransom,” I say, trying to swallow down my shock and think on my feet. “You found us.”

She doesn’t blink, and after a moment, her broken head falls forward, and she makes a gurgling sound.

“What…happened…to…me?”

I push Jake back and whisper, “Get in the truck, Jake.”

Lily looks up. The yellow light from the flashlight casts shadows on her cheeks, making her features look sharp and demon-like.

“You.”

“Lily.” I spread my feet apart, the presence of the thread at the surface of my palm.

“You!”

The wind picks up, carrying her odor, moving the grass, so I don’t notice the insects until they’re climbing on my shoes and up my jeans. I yelp and brush them off.

“What the fuck!” Jake cries and starts an odd dance, hopping onto the bed of his pickup, but the insects reach him there too. Jake picks up a shovel and starts squishing them, which only enrages Lily.

The bugs take my focus away from the thread, and Lily catapults forward like a beast, knocking me to the ground. She holds me down, and her hands shove my palms into the earth, keeping the thread smothered, like she knows what I am.

Her fingernails dig into my arms, and at the breaking of my skin, the bugs ascend, mouths attaching to my body with a jab. My screams join Lily’s shrieking.

And then Jake is over us, the shovel in hand.

“Jake! No!”

But it’s too late. The shovel makes a loud thud as it comes into contact with Lily’s head. Bones crunch, and she twists, vaulting toward Jake. He uses the shovel like a baseball bat and hits her again midflight. She goes down, but on bent legs, springing toward him again.

I scramble to my feet and brush the latched bugs off me in a fury, my body stinging. Lily launches at Jake, navigating the swing of his shovel. As soon as he hits the ground, his screams fill the air, then he is silent.

I reach for the flashlight in the grass and hold it up. Lily twists on Jake’s chest, blood and bits of skin hanging from her mouth.

She’s ready to come after me again when something lands in front of me. Crouching low, it rises, wings stretching. The moon illuminates a silver halo of hair.

Shy.

He draws both blades from the sheathes on his back.

“Lily,” he says.

Another Valryn lands behind her—Jacobi. Lily, still crouching on Jake’s chest, acts like an animal, caged. Her head bobs back and forth between the two Valryn, and her mouth pulls back into a fierce growl.

They always come back wrong.

Something grabs me from behind, and I scream, twisting to find Natalie.

“Come on!” she commands.

We rush to help Jake, but it’s pointless. Lily tore his throat out.

I turn from him, vomiting in the grass, and when there’s nothing else in my stomach, I dry heave.

“Get in the truck, Anora!” Natalie commands as she laces her arms under Jake’s and drags him toward the pickup. I take several deep breaths before I join her, helping her settle Jake in the bed of the pickup.

“Get in the truck!” Her voice is raw, thick with fear.

I scramble into the passenger side, and Natalie slides into the driver’s seat, starting the engine. The headlights flood the field, and she floors it. I fumble for my seat belt as we bounce over the pasture. Natalie makes a sharp turn, and the engine revs. She’s moving faster, on a path straight for Shy, Jacobi, and Lily, locked in battle.

“What are you doing?” I scream.

At the last minute, Shy and Jacobi zoom into the air, and there’s a bang as we hit Lily head-on.

Natalie brakes, throwing me painfully against the seat belt. She backs up, and the truck jolts as we roll over Lily’s body again. Then we sit. The only sound is our breathing. I can’t take my eyes off Lily’s motionless body, heaped in the headlights of Jake’s truck.

And then my passenger side door opens, and I scream.

“Shh!” Shy says, grabbing my wrists and holding them to his chest. I throw my arms around his neck, and he holds me close. He’s sweaty and breathing hard, but his nearness comforts me. How did all this happen? How did we get here? Minutes ago, Jake was sitting beside me on the bed of his pickup, sharing his blanket and Capri Sun. Now he is dead in the back of his own pickup, and Lily lies on the ground in front of it.

I’m close to breaking. My chest shudders with unshed tears, and the only thing holding me together is Shy’s embrace.

“Shy,” Natalie says. “We have a problem.”

We look up to find six pairs of eyes in the darkness, followed by a chorus of howls.

My hellhounds have found me.

Then Lily’s corpse twitches.

“Dammit.” Shy looks at me. “Stay.”

When he shuts the door, Lily is on her feet again, and the hounds have come into the ring of light.

“W-why won’t she die?”

“Because she’s already dead,” Natalie says. “Her soul’s just been resurrected, which gives her the ability to fight but none of her humanity.”

Lily’s murderer has struck again.

“Why does he keep fighting her? If he can’t kill her?”

“Because all we can do is subdue her until the Order arrives.”

“But—” As much as I want this to end, I can’t be here when the Order arrives.

“Stay,” Natalie says and gets out of the cab. She joins Shy and Jacobi, creating a triangle around Lily.

All that talk about why resurrection is illegal makes sense to me now. Surely Thane wouldn’t want his mother back like this? This isn’t even a shell of what Lily used to be. This is something different, a monster, more animalistic than my hellhounds.

Lily bares her teeth and lashes out. All three Valryn jump back and rise off the ground, their wings spread wide. That’s when my hounds descend upon Lily. The sounds filling the air are horrific—a mix of growls and howls and whining. Their teeth clash and snap, biting down on Lily’s limbs, tearing into her dead flesh, and yet she gives as much as she takes, clawing at my hounds and biting into their flesh.

Then Lily jumps, moving above the hounds’ heads. She grabs onto one of Jacobi’s wings and jerks him to the ground. He lands headfirst and is still. I’m out of the car in an instant, running toward Jacobi. He can’t end up like Jake. I won’t let that happen. I have to end this.

“Jacobi!”

I grab the shovel, discarded in the grass, and run for them. Lily twists toward me, and I hit her with the shovel. She doesn’t budge but prepares to leap at me, so I call the only defense I have—the thread.

Shy calls after me. “Anora! No!”

The thread cuts through the air toward Lily. She dodges it, and I reel it back in as she charges for me. Her weight knocks the breath out of me, but my palm faces her chest as we go down, and the thread breaks through her back. As it consumes, I expect her soul to transform into a coin and land on my chest.

But something different happens as I capture this soul. As the thread wraps in and out of her body, it begins to break apart, and gold flecks fall into my eyes, mouth, and hair. It’s pieces of the coin that are supposed to contain her soul.

When it’s over, Lily lies on top of me, dead weight and decay. I scream, pushing against her until I free myself of her bulk and scramble away. Then I sit, shaking, staring at her corpse. What have I done to her soul? Why did the thread refuse to create a coin? What does that mean for Lily?

My skin crawls, covered in bug bites and bits of coin dust. I brush at myself frantically, wanting to remove all traces of this night.

“If you don’t want the Order to find her, you had better get her out of here,” Natalie says. Shy hesitates, going for Jacobi, but Natalie shoos him away. “Don’t worry. I’ll check on Jacobi.”

“Come on,” Shy says, gathering me into his arms and launching into the air.

I can’t breathe right, and I keep shivering and passing my hands over my face and arms, like I walked through a spiderweb and can still feel the phantom of their silk on my skin.

“Stop moving,” Shy warns, and I freeze, mostly at the tone of his voice. There’s an edge to it. Part of it inspired by this night, part of it directed at me. Then he adds softly, “I don’t want to drop you.”

He doesn’t look at me as he speaks, and the only thing I see from this angle is his jaw and sharp cheekbones.

“I’m sorry I didn’t find you in time,” he says and then looks over his shoulder.

He descends, landing in another field, setting me on my feet. What did he see that made him stop? I start to turn my head to the sky, but he prevents me, placing his hands on either side of my face.

“Anora, this is important. You are going to be taken by the Order. I am sorry I can’t keep you from them, but I won’t be far away.”

He leans forward and kisses my forehead. The move is intimate and steals my breath.

Then he’s torn from me, pulled away by a very tall and very angry shadow knight who looks just like him—his father.

“No!” Shy struggles but is held back by the larger version of himself, and there’s a prick in my neck and a gush of liquid that feels like fire rushing into my veins. I sway and am caught, held in the arms of an angel haloed in black wings.