Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-One

Shy and the Abomination

I know the moment Anora steps on the field because the thread connecting us makes my chest ache. I have to clench my fists just to have something else to focus on. I could solve this easily if I’d just go stand by her, but I’m still angry about earlier—even angrier when I glance in her direction and see she’s standing with Thane. Why does she keep hanging out with him? He gave her answers, but I did too, and without putting her in danger.

She trusts him more than me.

If Chase were still alive, I might kill him myself for making the Eurydice afraid of the only people who can protect her.

But it’s not just Chase. It’s Lennon too.

She’d given Anora that story about her mom being killed by the Order. I still can’t find any evidence that it’s true, though I’m more willing to believe something like that considering Lennon’s an abomination and I’m not ignorant. I know the Order does some shady stuff. They’re a government.

But Anora blamed me.

She called me a murderer.

And after all the ways I’ve tried to protect her, that sucked. Bad.

Something’s wrong.

The feeling slices through me, clean and sharp like a new blade. My gaze snaps to the space where Anora stood a few moments ago, but she’s not there, and neither is Thane. I start to cut through the crowd looking for her, unable to ignore the urgency of this pull.

“Shy?” Natalie calls, but the longer I go without seeing Anora, the more frantic I become. People step in front of me and attempt to offer their condolences. I interact with the first few, but then there are too many, and I push through them. I’m at the edge of the field when Natalie catches up to me.

“Shy!”

I twist toward her. “Where’s Anora?”

Then I notice the set of her jaw, the burn of her eyes.

“I just did a scan. Lily’s phone is on,” she says.

“For how long?”

“Ten minutes.”

I scan the crowd again, but I know in my heart Anora’s not here. I turn back to Natalie.

“Will you track it?” I ask.

She seems surprised that I asked. “Don’t you—”

“Once you get a trace, notify Elite Cain,” I instruct. “Don’t go alone, Nat.”

“But…where are you going?”

I’m not paying attention to her anymore. I’ve found Lennon in the crowd, and she smiles at me. I’ve always had an aversion to her, but now I understand it—that smile is evil. Whatever she’s done—and it has to be bad—she’s excited about it.

Then she bolts, and I do too.

“Track that phone, Nat!” I call as I take off, rounding the corner of the stadium to find Lennon. She twists toward me, smiles, then wings sprout from her back, and she jumps, shifting into a raven, and is gone.

I shift and chase after her.

Lennon navigates the night like she’s done this for years, and I bet she has, right under the nose of the Order. She twists and turns, dipping below trees and zipping between branches. It’s almost like she’s toying with me. When she goes down, it’s in an alleyway off Main Street. I recognize it because I know there’s an entrance to the Underworld used by death-speakers.

I shift and land, but Lennon is nowhere in sight. I draw my blades and start down the alley. There’s little light from the streetlamps near the road, but it’s enough that I catch shadows squirming on the walls. This place is infested with occulates—they stain the walls with their shadows. I shove my blades into them, and their screams sound around me, their tar-like bodies oozing into pools at my feet. I’ve never seen so many darklings saturate one area. They’ve been placed like wards. Occulates not only act as spies but alarm systems, and they are sending signals in every direction that I’m here.

The air changes, and I twist to find Lennon standing behind me.

“Boo,” she says and swings a long, jagged blade toward me. I block her attack. The blow is harsh. It makes my arms throb. In that moment, I understand two things about her: she moves to kill, and she is strong.

“Good,” she says, critiquing my counterattack, as if she’s my instructor and I’m the student. We stare at each other over our blades. Neither of us move to disengage.

“Where’d you get the blade?” I ask.

“A death-speaker made it for me. You like?”

“I didn’t know you were so connected to the death-speaker Underworld.”

“I have a feeling you don’t know much about me.”

I have a feeling she’s right.

She steps back, disengaging her blade carefully, gingerly, as if it might disintegrate if she moves too fast. It is both a graceful and deceiving move. The jagged parts of that blade can catch on mine at any moment and rip it from my hands.

“How did you find out what I am?” she asks.

“It wasn’t that hard,” I say. “It’s well known why your father is incarcerated at the Compound.”

“So you must know the Order is aware of my existence too.”

I stumble. I did wonder, but I can’t believe my parents wouldn’t have told me the truth.

“Interesting. It must be more of a need-to-know thing when it comes to what they tell trainees about abominations.” She narrows her eyes a fraction. “I’m surprised you haven’t changed your mind about us, given how you feel about Anora.”

Sometimes how I feel about Anora doesn’t feel like a choice.

“Us?” I ask. It’s strange hearing that word describe a group of people I haven’t assigned a number to. I’ve never really thought much about abominations, but clearly that was my first mistake. It is true that after Anora arrived, I’ve been reminding myself on a daily basis why humans and Valryn can’t be together, but all the reasons I come up with for why it is bad disappear when I’m near her.

And Anora is right—I have never been presented with any sort of proof that what the Order refers to as abominations are bad.

Although as Lennon paces around me, her dark blade drawn, I’m beginning to wonder about what they’ve been hiding and why.

Her laugh escapes like a bark. “What do you think? I’m the only one in existence? The Last Samurai?”

I don’t respond, mostly because that’s what I had assumed.

“But you’ve been working alone?”

“Not alone.”

“Right. Thane,” I say.

That’s how she knew about Anora’s background. Anora trusted him and he betrayed her.

Lennon laughs again. It’s like a chime—pretty, soft. She even throws back her head, and all I can think is that’s a good way to get your throat slashed. My hand tightens on my blade.

“He’s an easy puppet. So malleable.”

“What’s your plan?” I ask. “Because you don’t have much time to execute it. The Order will be here soon.”

“You expect me to believe you’ve learned there’s power in numbers?” she asks. “You work alone; for some reason, you think it’s best. It’s like you’re trying to prove yourself or something.”

Those words sting.

She’s a little right, of course, but she discounts my friendship with Natalie, and Natalie believes in teams and the power of the Order, and she’ll find me.

“So the plan,” I say. “What do you want with Anora?”

“She’s not really good for anything but her power.”

I flinch at the words. How could Anora ever have assumed this person was her friend? But I know the answer…Lennon deceived her, and it makes me angry.

“If I control the Eurydice, I control everything.”

How can she possibly think she can control Anora?

She laughs then, her smile wide. “Can you imagine? The Order having to bow to me? An abomination?”

Her bone-like shoulders shake with laughter.

“The Order doesn’t bow.”

She finally stops circling me and says, “They will. To me.”

And then I’m under attack, but not by her—by the occulates that were scurrying across the walls. They circle me like sharks. When they erupt from their shadow forms, they stick to me like tar. They’re smart too, because the first thing they cover is the scythe at my thigh—the only blade that has any effect on their bodies.

“Dammit!” I curse.

I can hold them off with my double blades, but there are so many darklings, I won’t be able to do it for long. Not to mention the ones on my leg are squeezing tighter and tighter. Soon they’ll cut off my circulation. I hack at them as they rise from the floor, conscious that Lennon stands near like a wraith, her skeletal body draped in black, her strange blade at her side. I catch a glimpse of her, eyes narrow and focused. She’s controlling the occulates…but how?

I’ll figure that out later. Until then, I grip the hilt of my blade like a spear and aim. It lodges right in her shoulder. She’s jarred from her concentration, and the occulates release their hold enough for me to withdraw my scythe. They scream as I pierce them, and once I’m free, my wings unfurl, and I rise off the ground.

Lennon removes my blade from her shoulder, and it clatters to the ground. She rises with me.

“Who taught you to fly?” I ask.

We’d been lucky in the Compound. They pushed us off a cliff and said fly. At least we’d landed on something soft at the bottom.

“It took a while,” she says with a savage smirk. “But I find I can make my body do just about anything if I’m scared enough.”

I admire her. She trained herself under the radar all these years.

She attacks, giving weight to her blow by letting herself drop and pushing off the hard floor. I counter, letting her deliver the blows, letting her think she has the strength and the advantage. She relents and puts distance between us.

“Come on, Savior!” she says. She’s out of breath. “I’ve been waiting for this moment.”

“I don’t want to fight you.”

She laughs, throwing back her head. “Don’t give me that bullshit.”

“I don’t,” I say. “I just want Anora.”

“Oh, we know already,” she says, irritated. “You’ve wanted her from the moment she stepped into your space. She’s all you can think about, all you can feel.” She lifts her blade. “But what makes you think you can have a happy ending? My father doesn’t get to live in a world where he knows his love is alive, and that means you don’t get to either!”

She attacks again, and I block. Then her blade latches on to mine, and I’m jerked forward. I swing at her with my scythe, and she jumps back, disengaging our weapons. She tries the same move again, but I’m ready, and as her sword hooks into mine, I twist my blade. Her black knife comes free from her hands and falls to the ground. She’s quick to retrieve it. I stay in the air, hovering.

“Where’s Anora?”

Her answer is to withdraw a gun. I shift into raven form in an attempt to move faster, but she fires, and the bullet goes straight through my wing, and I am blown backward. I land hard on the ground, shifting into my Valryn form. My wing droops, and blood drips on the floor.

“You’ve had that the whole time?” I ask, getting to my feet. Blood covers my hand as I try to put pressure on my wound. “Why the hell did you fight me with a blade?”

“I just wanted to spar.” She pauses, looking at her weapon. “Guns are so much better.”

A pain I’ve never experienced before hits me square in the chest. It takes the breath out of me and burns at the same time. It’s nothing compared to the pain in my wing. I could stand before, but this drives me to my knees. I have no experience resisting it—this is Anora’s pain.

“No!” Lennon screams. “No, no, no!” She grabs a fist full of my hair. “What’s happening?” she demands. “Tell me what’s happening!”

The pain in my chest restricts my words. Lennon lifts her gun to shoot.

But something barrels into her. She pulls the trigger, and as she goes flying, her bullet lands in my shoulder.

Damn, this is the worst.

We hit the ground at the same time, groaning, and stare up at Roth DuPont.

“What are you doing here?” I manage between painful breaths.

“I thought it was obvious. Saving your life,” he says, reaching down to give me a hand.

“I was fine without you,” I say as he drags me to my feet.

“There was a gun to your head, Savior.”

“I was handling it,” I say, and as we both look in Lennon’s direction, she’s reclaimed her gun and aims it at us.

“Down!” Roth commands, and we hit the floor as she fires at us and flees. “You were handling it, huh?” Roth asks as we scramble after her.

“Why are you even here?”

It takes him a moment to answer, but when he does, it’s enough to make me glad for his help. “I know what it’s like to lose something important.”