“Heard loud and clear, milord,” Liam said.
“Almost over.”
Duke’s voice was as soft as the hush of the wind in the trees, but I still flinched when his hand landed on my shoulder. I’d taken so many body blows in the last few minutes, every bit of contact felt like a strike of sorts. And they didn’t stop. Of course, they didn’t.
With a wave of his hand, the view in front of me shifted away from The Changelings and their CEO. It moved down the path and around the corner of a nearby building, where Mark and Paulie stood. His grey eyes burned in his pale white face, his mouth thinned down to a sharp line. He nodded to Paulie when the lot of them passed by, then the two of them slunk off down the other side of the building. He handed over his phone to the other man.
“You need to get this to head office right away,” Mark said in a terse whisper. “We’ve got a major situation. Tell them to activate the god protocols. You hear me?”
“Got it, boss.”
“Don’t let anything stop you. This girl is a danger to us all. She could bring down civilization as we know it. Now go.”
I guessed I wasn’t surprised to find my cheeks wet when Duke finally closed whatever portal he’d conjured. I wavered on my feet, the vision no longer there to anchor me, and his hand went to my back to stop me from falling, but I crumpled to the ground anyway.
I couldn’t stand, move, brush the tears from my cheek, or open my mouth to let the pain that was building in me out. I could do nothing. Because there was no point.
I’d read somewhere that people with anxiety and depression are often better judges of risk than mentally ‘healthy’ people are. It was because we knew deep down inside, something that everyone wanted to pretend wasn’t the case—that there was no escaping the pain. No matter what you did, said, had with another person, it would all be ripped away from you just like that.
“I don’t love you anymore.”
“We’re laying people off.”
“The stock markets changed.”
“People aren’t buying that anymore.”
Whatever we did, made, had, wanted, it was all sand in your hand, slipping through your fingers, no matter how hard you tightened your grip. But I hadn’t tightened my grip, I thought as my eyes fell closed, the matt of tears trapped in my lashes falling free in a great wash. I’d held those men in the palm of my hand, so lightly, so carefully, finding it hard to believe anything like this could actually happen, too scared to call it mine lest it be taken away.
Because you knew, my mind said. You knew you didn’t deserve this, that this wasn’t really yours.
Somehow, my words were worse than their cruel ones, stabbing into me until I found it hard to breathe. I fell forward onto the dirt, gasping, feeling the bile rise inside my stomach, feeling that horrific rush of pain and shame wash over me as a quick montage of the guys, of the sights and smells of their bodies, of the savage way they came together, of those complex webs of interconnection I’d thought I’d seen flooded my brain, pummelling me harder and harder and harder until—
I roughly shoved it to one side. The feeling of arid emptiness instead was so welcome that I grabbed onto it with both hands, my fingers digging deep into the earth. I felt it quiver under my rough embrace, as if the world itself recoiled from my pain. I wanted to break off every thought, feeling, and experience I’d had with each and every one of them like branches off a tree to leave me limbless and empty. My lips pulled back in a snarl, my teeth lengthening, my mouth filling with saliva as I hungered to fight, my enemies, my lovers.
“Who knows?” someone said. It was my vocal chords the sounds came from, but the noises were something I’d never managed before. It was the smashing of cars, metal colliding and scraping and tearing their passengers in two.
“Everyone.”
I looked up at Duke through narrowed slits, my gaze stabbing into his impassive form.
“Jen? Vervain? Marlow?”
I didn’t want to say their names. The words hurt to get out, my throat seizing up as I tried.
He just nodded.
“You?”
He nodded again.
“Why didn’t you take me? Put in to be my preceptor? Get me out of this?”
“You wouldn’t have come. They said it right. They are in you.” He leant over and his finger pressed into my breast bone. “I wasn’t bringing no Hartley snitch into my court. If I’d told you, you wouldn’t have listened. You were too invested in the idea of being with your Rutherglen friends and having the romance you’d always dreamed of. But the real reason? I ain’t here to rescue you. I told you, my strength is truth. I’m here to arm you.”
He nodded with satisfaction when I got to my feet, and somehow, he didn’t seem so tall or big anymore.
“My people survive in a system designed to break us. We endure everything. We remain strong, and we keep on rising. Girl, you’re gonna need some of that in you for what’s coming.”
“So arm me already.”
He shook his head, smiling, but it wasn’t a happy thing.
“You think getting angry is gonna be enough.”
“I don’t need words of wisdom, Yoda. Let’s do it.”
“Alright.”
His arm snapped out, snatching one of those pretty little birdies out of the air, breaking its neck before it could even react, then tearing its head off. The pitiful amount of blood inside it coated his fingers, and then he painted me.
Circle, bisecting line, feathery shapes off the main line, slash. The shape was drawn onto my chest with a bloody finger, and then he stepped back with a nod.
I turned around to find another rent in reality had appeared, showing me an idyllic field, complete with sun, grass, trees, and some animals grazing.
“It’s not time to hatch out of that chrysalis. It’s time to rise up beyond all of this.”
I didn’t get a chance to respond, as firm hands landed on my shoulders and then shoved me through.
The sun warmed my face, drying my tears to sticky trails as I rolled over, groaning. A shadow fell over my face, allowing me to open my eyes to see a familiar face leaning over me.
“Hello, my flower,” Aen said.