Twenty-Two Melinoë

Twenty-Two

Melino?

On the move again. My muscles are still twinging. Even now that the worst of the withdrawal has passed, running isn’t exactly easy, and my ribs feel like they’re going to crack. After a few moments of breathless scampering through the brush, I realize this is the first time in my life that I’ve been the one being chased. Hunted. I’ve only ever been on the other side. I’ve only ever been the thing people are running from .

I still manage to keep pace with Inesa. I would be embarrassed if I couldn’t. She surprises me by having decent stamina, if not being particularly fast. The earth seems to roll steadily under her feet, as if it’s carrying her. Meanwhile, the ground seems to sense that I’m an intruder in this world and is throwing up all its defenses against me, thrusting rocks and roots into my path.

Inesa doesn’t say anything else about it, but I do regret shooting the deer. Not just because it’s forced us to flee again, but because it was pointless. It makes me feel like I don’t have control over myself. Like I really am just a mindless killing machine.

And it makes me think of the girl. Even after so many Wipes, I can’t erase her face from my mind. And I can’t think about death without remembering her limp body in the rain.

Stop. I squeeze my eyes shut, just for a moment, to make it vanish.

When I open my eyes, all I see is Inesa, her long, dark hair streaming over her shoulders. Somehow, this is no less distracting. I find myself watching her so intently that I nearly trip over another tree root.

Over the sound of my labored breathing, I strain to hear the cameras. But there’s still no humming in the air. And, unaccountably, the knot in my stomach loosens with relief.

It appears out of the woods like a desert mirage. Slapdash and tiny, made of rain-dampened wood, it blends in perfectly with the trees and brush around it. The roof is a sheet of corrugated tin, striped with flaky orange rust. Inesa skids to a halt and darts behind a nearby tree trunk. Then she beckons me over.

It’s not a broad tree, and in order to fit myself behind it, I have to press close to her. Our bodies are almost touching. I can see the faint sheen of sweat on her face, the way her tongue darts out to lick away the salt on her lips. My heartbeat stutters. I dig my fingernails into my palm.

“Do you think anyone is in there?” I ask in a whisper.

It seems like too advanced a structure to be the work of the Wends, but it’s not exactly what I’d call civilization, either. I listen again for the cameras. Nothing.

“I don’t know,” Inesa admits. “There are some people who live out in the wilderness... to get off the grid. But I assumed they’d live together, in some sort of community. I don’t know how you’d survive alone.”

“I can’t imagine that anyone who chooses to live out here alone would be very welcoming to unexpected company.” I reach over my shoulder for my rifle.

“Probably not.”

I can’t hear anything from the vicinity of the cabin. It would be wisest to give it a wide berth and continue along, but my mind and body are buzzing with the possibility of food, sleep, and shelter. It’s a difficult siren song to resist.

Inesa must be thinking the same, because she says, “Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to just check it out.”

There’s a flicker of emotion in her eyes that I can’t quire read—hope? Fear? Maybe both. I nod.

We creep forward, slowly. I’m aware of how heavy Inesa’s footsteps are—she’s no hunter, after all. I open my mouth to tell her to stop and let me go first, but she shoots out an arm to hold me back.

“Wait,” she says.

“What is it?”

She points at her feet, where something gleams like a thin ribbon of silver.

“A trip wire,” I say in surprise. “It must wrap around the perimeter of the house.”

I’m rather impressed by this Outlier’s precautious ingenuity, and more impressed that Inesa thought to look for it. She points above my head. I look up and see rusted metal half camouflaged among the tree branches. Dented old cans, connected to the trip wire, no doubt, and rigged to alert the cabin’s owner if anyone comes too close.

“Well, there goes the theory that they’re friendly.” Inesa gets to her feet. “There could even be mines, bear traps...”

“I doubt someone who uses a trip wire rigged to tin cans has that kind of sophisticated technology.”

Inesa bites her lip. “I suppose.”

“Let me go first.”

“Wait.” Inesa reaches out and grasps my wrist.

The warm, soft pressure of her fingers stops me instantly. She kneels down and combs through the leaves until she comes up with a fist-size rock. Before I can say a word, she chucks it in the direction of the cabin.

My eyes go wide. We wait in silence. Inesa is still holding on to my arm.

After a few moments, she shrugs and says, “Just testing for land mines.”

“You’ve ruined my stealthy approach.”

The corner of her mouth quivers upward. “Sorry. But better than being blown to pieces, right?”

The fact that no one has come bursting out of the cabin door, guns cocked and knives drawn, is encouraging. I take hesitant, prowling paces toward the house, balancing my rifle against my shoulder. When it’s within reach—and when I’m satisfied I won’t step on any bear traps—I press myself against the outer wall and test the door handle.

Locked, though that’s not enough to deter me. I can tell by the way the handle rattles that it’s a latch lock, flimsy. I jam the end of my rifle beneath the handle in one brisk, powerful thrust.

There’s a clattering sound, and the door creaks open.

Inside is a yawning darkness, heavy and silent. I step over the threshold, rifle aloft, finger hovering over the trigger. The night vision in my prosthetic clicks on, and the interior of the cabin glows in its eerie green light.

Inesa has joined me at the door, but I raise an arm to hold her back.

Casting my gaze around, I see mostly ordinary things: A small bed with a tattered cover. A cast-iron, wood-burning stove. A table and two very wobbly looking chairs. My vision flickers briefly with bands of static—I wonder if Luka’s blow damaged my prosthetic after all.

When the static fades, I notice something draped over one of the chairs. At first I think it’s just a heap of clothes. But as I zoom in with the prosthetic, I make out the limp, slumped body of a man.

The shock is fleeting. There’s no heat signature, so I know instantly that he’s dead. Still holding Inesa back, I take another step into the cabin. Except for the corpse in the chair and a few other battered pieces of homemade furniture, it’s empty.

I press a finger to the man’s neck and check for a pulse—just in case. His skin is cold and there’s no give to his flesh. Rigor mortis, the stiffening of the flesh before rot. That explains why the Wends haven’t found him yet. No blood, no smell of decay.

After a few moments of fumbling, I find a half-melted candle and a box of matches. I light the candle and hold it out, washing the cabin in a pale, waxy yellow glow.

From the doorway, Inesa lets out a squeak and claps a hand over her mouth. “Is that—”

“He’s dead,” I say.

She steps cautiously into the cabin. The wooden floor groans under her feet. By the time she joins me at the table, her face is white, almost sickly.

“Are you sure?” she asks in a whisper.

I wave the candle over his body, illuminating the grayish cast to his skin. His empty, glassy eyes. I nod.

A swallow ticks in her throat. She leans over—close enough to feel the man’s breath on her cheek, if he were breathing. Then she recoils, looking equal parts repulsed and relieved.

“Who was he, do you think?”

“Some Outlier.”

It sounds too callous. Inesa’s face falls.

I try to soften my voice. “Someone who lived and died off the grid, I suppose.”

Inesa examines the man again, this time from a distance. Her eyes are damp and gleaming. Then she looks up at me and says, “We have to bury him.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a human being,” she replies. “Someone’s father or brother or son.”

I open my mouth to argue. Why should I spend hours digging a grave for some nameless Outlier just because we happened to stumble across his cabin? But Inesa’s jaw is set. I can tell that no matter what I say, she’ll do it herself.

“Fine,” I say, letting out a breath. “He’ll be less likely to attract the Wends that way.”

We find several small oil lamps around the cabin and light them. We also find a treasure trove of supplies: canned food, carving knives, a small rusted axe, a bristly coil of rope, wire saws and carabiners and half a dozen flashlights with dead batteries. There’s gauze and tweezers, alcohol pads and tourniquets. There’s a half-crumpled paper map, yellowed with age. I set it all aside to look through later. There’s an ancient bolt-action rifle, like the one Luka uses. I’m dying to reach for it, but Inesa’s warning gaze stops me.

Among the supplies, we also find a shovel.

“With all of this stuff,” she murmurs, “I wonder how he died.”

“Heart attack. Brain aneurysm. Maybe starvation, if he couldn’t find any edible meat or potable water.” So far we haven’t turned up any decon-tabs.

Inesa presses her lips together. “I guess it doesn’t matter, in the end.”

We drag his body outside. He’s not a large man, but corpses are heavy. We’re both panting. Rather unceremoniously, we drop his body a few yards from the back of the house. I want to suggest that we bury him farther away, but it’s already growing dark, which makes us easy prey for whatever else is lurking in the woods.

With only one shovel, it’s slow going. Inesa does all the digging and doesn’t complain, doesn’t ask for help; even when I offer, she just shakes her head. Determination has furrowed her brow. When she’s dug up to her shoulders, she tries to climb out. I kneel down and offer a hand to haul her up, and when she takes it, I feel the raw, angry blisters forming on her palm.

“Stop,” I say. “Let me do the rest. Go inside.”

She frowns. “No. I’m fine.”

“It’s going to be full dark soon. You won’t be able to see. I’ll finish.”

Inesa’s gaze drops. I can tell by the way she clenches her fingers around her palms that the blisters hurt, badly. After a moment’s hesitation, she nods, then heads back into the cabin.

There’s not much digging left to do. I shovel out a few more inches of dirt and then start to push the Outlier’s body into the open grave. I don’t have the strength or the proper equipment to lower him down delicately and somberly, so he just flops over the edge of the hole and lands face down. I wonder if this counts as desecration of a corpse. That’s against the rules of the Gauntlet. We’re supposed to let the Lambs’ families recover their bodies in as intact a state as possible.

But this man wasn’t a Lamb. I don’t know who he was, and I never will. If he does have family, they won’t find him now. If they’re even looking.

I cover the body as best I can. The sun sets behind the trees, and the night vision in my prosthetic clicks on, casting the world in that ghoulish green. When I’m finished, I tamp the soil flat, disguising any trace of the body buried beneath it.

I brush the dirt from my hands and turn to go inside. But before I reach the cabin, I stop. There’s a strange, hollow feeling in my chest, one that seems to have the centripetal force of a black hole. Possessed by some odd and unnameable sensation, I search through the leaves until I find a rock. It’s a perfectly ordinary rock, flat and about as long as my arm from elbow to wrist.

I drive it into the ground so that it juts up from the earth. A makeshift gravestone. I wonder what Azrael would say about it, if he were watching. What messages would be pinging through the chat. I’m not even sure what I feel. I just turn away and head back into the cabin, my palms prickling.

Inesa is standing by the table, utterly still. She’s found and lit several more oil lamps, and it’s light enough that I don’t need the night vision in my prosthetic anymore. My gloves are filthy from digging, so I slip them off and set them down on the table.

“It’s done,” I say. “He’s buried.”

“Thank you.”

Her voice is low. She steps closer to the table and puts her hands on the back of the chair, then lifts them up abruptly, as if she’s just remembered a dead man had been sitting there. I’m gripped by the sudden worry that he died of an illness and we’re infecting ourselves by being here, but if that’s true, it’s probably too late already. I’m exhausted, and the fear just falls through me like water through a sieve.

Water. “I should fill up something from the stream.”

“Later,” Inesa says. “It’s dark now.”

“I can see in the dark, you know. It’s fine. I’ll go.” I turn and head for the door again.

“No!” The urgency in her voice stops me dead. “Wait. I don’t—”

I turn back, frowning. “What?”

Her eyes skim the floor. “I don’t want to be alone.”

Silence washes over the cabin. I’m not sure where to look. A lump forms in my throat. Then I hear the sound of something dripping, very faintly. It takes me a few moments to locate the source. It’s Inesa’s blood, falling from her clenched fists and splattering the floor.

“You’re bleeding,” I say, in a voice that seems too distant to be my own.

She blinks, as if roused from sleep, then uncurls her fingers and looks down at her palms. “Oh.”

I feel frozen, stuck fast to the floor. And then, like before, I’m possessed by some strange force that carries my body across the room. Makes me dig through the supplies until I find the alcohol pads and gauze bandages. Makes me bring them over to Inesa, my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

“Let me see,” I say.

“No.” She folds up her fingers. “It was stupid of me, to dig a whole grave.”

I just watch her, clutching the gauze, feeling like I’m standing at the edge of a cliff. Height pulses in the soles of my feet.

At last, slowly, she holds her hands out to me.

The sight is more gruesome than I expected. There are twin gashes across her palms, blood welling up bright and ruby-red. The pads of her fingers are swollen and pink, giving the skin a taut, painful look. My own hands sting in sympathy.

I’ve bandaged my own wounds before, but it’s different, dressing someone else’s. I dab gently at the cuts with the alcohol pad, and Inesa sucks in a sharp breath.

“Sorry,” I say. It comes out in a whisper.

“It’s okay.”

The alcohol pads turn rosy with Inesa’s blood. When I’m satisfied that I’ve done enough to prevent infection, I try to wrap the gauze. This involves taking one of Inesa’s hands in both of mine. Cradling it. It feels almost impossibly fragile, like a creature just hatched and entirely new to the world.

My fingers are trembling as I wind the gauze around her palm once, twice. I try to tear the strip off the roll once I finish, but it holds tight. My nails aren’t sharp enough to pierce it, so I have to lift our joined hands to my mouth and bite through the bandage.

When I do, my lips brush her finger. My teeth graze her knuckle. We both freeze.

Heat rises to my cheeks. I snap the bandage free from the roll and step back. A flush is painting Inesa’s face, too.

A few moments pass, light flickering in the long chimneys of the oil lamps. At first, I think Inesa is going to pull away from me. But instead, hesitantly, she holds out her other hand.

I bandage it in silence, my fingers trembling slightly. Inesa’s throat bobs. She doesn’t say a word until I’ve finished, until I let go of her hand. Then—

“Thank you,” she says quietly.

I just nod. I swallow and try to ignore the fact that my lips are burning, like I’ve kissed an open flame.

We decide that I’ll take first watch. Since I’m the one who can see in the dark, it seems only fair. Plus, Inesa has completely exhausted herself from digging. She climbs into the bed and pulls the tattered blanket up to her chin.

I go around the cabin and extinguish the lamps. I don’t need them to see, and they’ll only draw more attention to us. We might as well conserve the oil, too. I make a clumsy effort to bar the door by jamming one of the chairs against the handle, which won’t hold against much, but will at least give us some warning. Luckily the trip wire and the tin cans are still in place.

Inesa faces outward, her hair spilling across the pillow. I sit on the floor, my back against the wall, a few paces from the bed. The coldness of the wood seeps through my suit. I consider trying to light the cast-iron stove, but I’m not convinced I won’t burn down the cabin in the process. I’m sure Inesa knows how. Maybe in the morning.

My night vision clicks on. Inesa is the only warm, bright thing I can see. I’m aware of every aching moment that passes, the twin hums of her tracker and my heart, her eyes remaining open all the while.

“Can I tell you something?” she asks softly.

I nod. Then I remember she can’t see my face, so I reply, “Yes.”

“When we first found this cabin, I thought it might be my dad’s. The trip wire and all the survival stuff... it seemed exactly like him. It’s what he always wanted to do, living off the grid.” She pauses. In the eerie green light, I see her run her fingers along the edge of the blanket. “And when we saw the body inside... I was almost sure it was him.”

I open my mouth to reply, but there’s a lump in my throat.

“It wasn’t,” she says. “I mean, it’s not him. The thing is... I’m not sure if I wanted it to be. If it were him, at least I would know for sure. I wouldn’t have to wonder anymore. Because I do wonder, every time I see one of the Wends. I wonder if it’s him. Maybe he’s one that I killed.”

“I killed them,” I say. “Not you.”

“But you killed them for me.” Her voice is almost inaudible now. “I brought you the gun.”

“They would have killed us both, otherwise.”

“Yeah.” She unfolds her hands, straining to see the bandages in the dark. “But that’s the same reason pretty much anyone kills anything. So they can survive. If it’s all survival, who am I to judge what someone does? We’re all the same, deep down.”

I stare ahead, eyes unfocused.

She lets out a huff of air. “I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse. I suppose it’s easier, like you said, to not feel anything at all.”

“Yes” is all I can manage to reply.

Another moment passes in silence. There’s only my breathing, and Inesa’s, shifting through the cold and empty air.

“And now,” she says, her voice barely louder than a whisper, “I have to wonder if Luka is out there, too. If he’s become one of them. If I’ll have to kill him someday. If I’ve killed him already.”

“That seems unlikely.”

Inesa doesn’t answer. She just shifts under the covers, closing her fingers over her bandaged palms. In the dark, dense quiet, her tracker pulses in my ear like blood behind a bruise.

“How do you do it?” she whispers finally.

I don’t need to ask her to elaborate. I glance over at my rifle, propped up beside me. It’s a killing tool that feels utterly mundane to me, as uncomplicated to use as a fork or a knife. I try to think back to a time when it terrified me, to hold the power of death so casually in my hands. I’m sure I was scared, once. But all those memories have been stolen from me, scattered like leaves in the wind.

“I was eight when I was brought to Azrael,” I say. “That’s when he starts training you. Not just physically. They inject us with serums, hormones and chemicals to blunt our emotions. We don’t feel things with the intensity that other people do. And things like guilt, regret... we’re not supposed to feel them at all. Then, after a certain amount of time, living this way is all you know.”

Inesa nods slightly. Her fists are clenched under her chin.

“And,” I go on, the words rising from me almost unbidden, “it helps that I never have to worry that I’ll encounter someone I recognized on my hunts. Someone I... love.”

“I suppose that is an advantage,” Inesa says. Her voice is hollow with black humor.

“But it is like the Wends, in a way.” Some unaccountable force has pried my lips open and made me keep speaking, even though I know I shouldn’t. “The way they’re not quite human... it’s how we’re trained to see you. Outliers, I mean. And not just the Angels. Everyone in the City. So it’s not—it’s not like killing people. It’s more like...”

I trail off. I was supposed to be defending myself, but hearing my own words, a hard knot forms in my stomach. It’s something akin to nausea. Revulsion. And it’s powerful enough that a thin bile rises up my throat.

“Animals?” Inesa supplies.

Her tone is so flat as to be unreadable. Now I can’t summon up any words at all. I just nod, even though she can’t see, and let the air fill with that one unspoken syllable, the one that is running through both of our minds, as ceaseless as a beating heart.

Yes .

The silence is thick, like spoiled water.

“How unfortunate, then,” Inesa says at last, “that you have to share a cabin with one of us. That you had to touch one of us.” Her voice is veined with ice.

“No,” I say, and I’m surprised at the readiness of the word as it leaps from my tongue. “I don’t believe that. Not anymore.”

Despite how much more difficult it makes everything, some metamorphosis has happened inside me, invisible at a mere glance. I can hardly even explain it to myself. All I know is that I’ve seen the way the light reflects in her hazel eyes and illuminates the freckles on her cheeks, and I’ve felt the warmth of her touch, the way her flesh gives way under my hands.

“No,” I repeat, with more certainty this time, as Inesa just stares into the darkness. “I’m convinced that you’re human now.”

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