Thirty-Four Melinoë
Thirty-Four
Melino?
All the color leaves Inesa’s face.
We both stand rooted to the ground in shock. The whirring of the helicopter blades is so loud and so familiar that it turns my skin to ice. Familiar, but impossible. Impossible, but real.
I want to shout run . I want to tear back through the trees, into the forest, dragging Inesa behind me. Yet I’m frozen with horror, and it’s too late. The belly of the helicopter lowers over us, parting the branches, snapping them against its metal hull. There’s an even larger breach in the tree canopy now, baring the entirety of the gray-white sky.
Wind blows back my hair, nearly tearing it from my scalp. Leaves and dirt and hard, sharp bits of frost are kicked up from the earth. I raise my arm to shield Inesa, pulling her against me. Her body is stiff, her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide. She hardly even seems to register my actions.
The helicopter is sleek and jet-black, with Caerus’s familiar logo painted on the door. The six-sided white gemstone. Or maybe it’s a die. Wealth and fortune, or luck and chance? I’ve never known. No one has ever told me.
The helicopter doesn’t land, just hovers about twenty feet in the air. The door slides open. Standing in the threshold, tall and leather-clad, is Azrael.
It’s not surprise that floods me—how many times have I seen him in the same helicopter, coming to collect me after a Gauntlet? Instead, I’m filled with a fierce and burning rush of rage. Because ghosts are flowering up in front of my eyes. Keres, with his gun pressed to her temple. His huge body, arcing on top of mine.
“It’s over!” I cry, though the deafening beat of the helicopter blades means it’s unlikely he can hear me. “You’re not getting your perfect ending! I’m finished!”
In spite of everything, he does hear. Anger whips across his cold, artificially youthful face.
“You promised, Melino?,” he shouts back. “You swore that she would die.”
At the beginning of the Gauntlet, in the belly of this very same helicopter. The Lamb has to die , he’d mouthed to me, and I’d mouthed back, She will. It feels like a lifetime has passed since then. A lifetime in which I’ve become so much more than the creature he made me.
“I don’t care!” The debris flying up into my face makes my eye sting, and water gathers along my lash line, trying to flush the foreign matter out. “I’m done! I’m not your Angel anymore!”
There’s another flash of fury on Azrael’s face. And then, rather than reply, he steps to the side. Two Masks appear in the open doorway. They’re hefting a body between them, and the body is Luka’s.
“ No! ” Inesa screams, tearing away from me. I reach out and catch her around the waist, before she can trip forward and fall.
But Luka stirs. He’s not dead. Not yet. The Masks heft him onto his knees.
Azrael removes his gun from the holster at his hip. The same sleek, silver pistol that Keres once held. In one fluid motion, Azrael cocks the gun and presses the muzzle to the back of Luka’s head.
“It’s a pity,” Azrael calls out, “that your brother’s earnest entreaty wasn’t enough to convince you to at least try to fight for your life. I thought the script I wrote for him was very moving.”
“ Please! ” Tears streak down Inesa’s cheeks. “Please just let him go. Please don’t hurt him.”
Luka’s face is angled downward, half obscured in shadow. But I can see that his left eye is swollen and there’s a gash across his forehead. I can see tears washing his cheeks, too—silent tears that turn his skin almost iridescent in the meager gray light. I remember Inesa telling me she hadn’t seen him cry since they were children.
But he is a child, really. Younger than Inesa. Younger than me. And I’m sure the wounds are worse than just what shows on his face.
Over the brutal whirring of the helicopter blades, Azrael says, “I’ll give you one more chance to make this right.”
He never turned off the cameras. I know that now. While Inesa and I planned our escape, he was planning his own climax. This confrontation. What better way for Caerus to eradicate all hope than to let the audience watch us try and fail?
My rifle suddenly feels heavy on my back, its ridged edges pressing into my shoulder blades. It’s not only Caerus’s instrument now; it’s mine. I can end this on my own terms.
Inesa just stares up at Luka, agony in her eyes. He lifts his head and stares back. Something unspoken passes between them, something I’ll never be able to understand.
The rifle is slippery in my trembling hands, but I manage to get it aloft on my shoulder. Peering through the scope, I aim it right at Azrael’s heart. Then I reassess. He’s probably wearing Kevlar. I tilt the barrel upward, aiming it right between his eyes. Instant death, if I pull the trigger.
Azrael doesn’t even flinch. And he doesn’t speak, but his voice echoes in my mind anyway. You are my perfect creation.
Anger is what steadies my aim, what makes my finger brush the trigger. Then you should never have put a weapon in my hand. I’m furious at his arrogance, at his lack of fear. He could never believe that his own creature would turn her gun on him. As much as he wanted me to be strong, he’s always known he was stronger.
Not anymore. I feel the warmth of Inesa’s body, pulsing beside me, and I start to pull the trigger.
But in the millisecond before my bullet flies, Azrael shifts away. Closer to Luka and to the Masks, to make room for another figure to emerge in the doorway. A slim, petite, white-clad body, auburn hair laced in its customary crown of braids.
Lethe.
The shock of seeing her there unbalances me; the rifle slides down my arm. Lethe leaps down from the helicopter in one clean, perfect arc. She lands in front of me, one hand on the ground to take the pressure off her knees. Then she stands. The top of her head barely reaches my chin—this was always her archetype, the tiny spitfire. Her hunting suit is identical to mine, only white. Azrael must have thought about the staging of it all. The cinematic qualities. The contrast of our height, our clothes, even our personas. I’m the ice to her fire.
Not anymore.
But I’ve never stared her down like this before. Like an enemy. It’s one of Azrael’s rules, that we never fight each other, not even to practice. I realize now that this is why. It’s because he always wanted to have this trump card; he always wanted to be able to use us against each other.
Lethe’s prosthetic gleams black; her real eye is a tiger-striped, synthetic amber.
“I knew you were weak,” she says, lips stretched into a wide, crowing smile. “Azrael should have sent me instead.”
My first shot is wasted. I’m still clumsy with shock, and the bullet sails over her shoulder.
She lunges forward, grabbing me around the middle. It knocks the breath from my lungs and I barely manage to stay standing. She lands one decisive blow to my forehead and my vision flickers with stars. Half-blind, I claw back at her, but Lethe grasps me by my hair and pain sears through my scalp.
As I’m bent over like that, she knees me hard in the stomach. Once. Twice. I cough, blood spurting from my mouth onto the frost. My body is as floppy as a rag doll’s. With almost impossible dexterity, Lethe turns me over and pins me to the ground. Her expression is resplendent with pride.
I don’t know why she doesn’t just shoot me. One bullet to the temple and it will all be over. But the rifle is my weapon. Lethe prefers a more intimate form of violence.
And, besides, this is still a show. Azrael wants the most dramatic finale possible.
Pressing down on my throat with one hand, Lethe removes a knife from her belt. Its handle is sleek, white-gold, and well worn in the shape of her fingers. She has killed a dozen Lambs with this very blade.
She drives the knife downward but I catch her wrist, holding it back. The blade hovers a mere inch from my face, close enough that one slip would slice me between the eyes. Lethe’s brow furrows, her gaze wild and glassy with rage.
Blood is still pooling in my mouth, almost choking me. I spit it into her face.
Howling furiously, she slackens her grip. With all the strength I can muster, I knee her in the stomach. Lethe falls over, clutching her middle.
“Fuck you,” she snarls. Half of her unnaturally lovely face is caked in mud. “You always thought you were so much better than the rest of us.”
I snatch my rifle from the ground and stand. Adrenaline is coursing through my veins, chasing away any pain, but my limbs are shaking as I raise the gun and point the barrel at her forehead.
“Yield,” I say.
I do think I’m better than her, but not for the reason she imagines. Not for the reason I once believed, too. I’m better because I’m free now, alive with both hope and fear, guilt and fury, love and loathing. Kindness and mercy demand strength. Feeling nothing is true cowardice.
Once, Lethe was like me: a scared little girl dragged away from her parents and pinned down to a cold metal operating table. She’s been jabbed with syringes, cut open with scalpels. She had knives thrust into her hands before she even learned how to tie her shoes. She only knows how to kill and how to hate. She’s never been taught how to believe or how to dream. If she has ever been held without being hurt, she doesn’t remember it now. Azrael has stolen away all her soft and fragile pieces.
Lethe’s gaze is relentless and cold as she stares at me. The clouds overhead gather into a thick gray knot. Rain begins to patter through the branches. I keep my rifle trained on her forehead.
With a sudden, agile twist of her body, she sweeps my legs out from under me. I tip forward, and I have to let go of my rifle to catch myself on my hands and knees. Lethe charges me, pinning me down to the frost-encrusted earth once more.
“You don’t have to do this,” I tell her, gasping to get the words out. “I know you think you don’t have a choice, but you do. Lethe—”
She strikes me across the face, so hard that my cheek bristles with pain.
“Shut up,” she snarls. “Just shut up!”
The rain is falling more furiously now, the blades of the helicopter spraying it in all directions. Cold rivulets stream down Lethe’s face, dripping onto mine.
“Azrael can’t win if you stop playing his game,” I managed. As she reaches for her knife, I put an arm up to block her, and she screeches in frustration. “You’re more than what he made you. You’re not just a tool. You’re a person. A human being.”
She tries to drive her knife down, but I hold her back, and she howls again. Between the rain and the beating of the helicopter blades, her screams are almost silent now.
Even through the wet strands of Lethe’s hair, through the broken black tree branches, I can glimpse Azrael’s face. It’s blurry, like a water-stained page, but the twist of his mouth is familiar enough that I could recognize it anywhere. All the times he watched me falter in the shooting range, paralyzed by memories that couldn’t be erased, even after so many Wipes. I’m disappointing him now. Lethe is disappointing him. This isn’t the climax he wants.
With another furious scream, Lethe drops the knife, and instead reaches for my throat. Rain beats down, making her skin slippery as I try to pry her arm away.
“You’re just pathetic and weak,” she sneers. “And now the whole world knows it. They’ve seen you bend to that Lamb. They’re all cheering for me to kill you. But maybe I’ll keep you alive just long enough to watch me gut your little lover.”
Darkness is creeping into the corners of my vision. Beneath her crushing grip, only the faintest, wheezing breaths can slip in and out of my throat.
“Stop,” I manage hoarsely. “Lethe, please—”
But there’s nothing in her eyes except empty, vicious rage.
My vision narrows, winnowing away, until I see only black. Dying feels like going under. I can almost sense the prick of the needle against my throat.
And then, all of a sudden, the pressure stops. I gasp, sucking in air as if I’ve just been pulled from the water. As my vision returns in shuddery increments, I see Lethe topple over. I push myself up onto my elbows and watch as she gutters out a noise of shock, clutching her shoulder.
Inesa stands over her, frozen. The handle of my knife sticks out of Lethe’s back.
Woozy, still trying desperately to catch my breath, I clamber to my feet. White-hot pinpricks of pain shoot through my temple and behind my eyes. Every breath scrapes and grinds my raw throat.
Lethe is doubled over, wheezing. When she looks up at me, she smiles, blood in the crevices between her shining white teeth.
“Too late,” she whispers.
As quick as a strike of lightning, her fingers find her sleek, white-gold knife. And with her very last breath, she hurls it forward. Even on the brink of death, her aim is perfect. The rifle is my weapon, but the knife is hers. I have no time to react. I can only watch as she gives one last, ghostly grin and then slumps over, unmoving. I can only watch as Inesa runs toward me, hair streaming out behind her, the hem of her white dress damp with melted frost.
“No,” she’s saying, over and over again, “no, no, no—”
I look down. Lethe’s knife is buried in my stomach. A stain spreads slowly over my hunting suit, turning the fabric an even darker black.
Shock keeps the pain at bay. I feel almost nothing at all as I touch my abdomen, even as my palms come away bloody. A deep-red color, drawn up from far, far below the surface. The blade must have punctured some internal organ.
I look back up at Inesa. Her eyes are bright with wild, frantic tears. She presses down on my wound, to stanch the blood, but it just soaks into her skin, too. All the way up the sleeves of her dress. The rainwater makes it run farther, down into the earth.
“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice thick with agony. “Just keep your eyes open. Just keep breathing.”
It’s useless. This isn’t a wound that time or pressure or bandages will mend. And she knows it.
I reach up—slowly, tremulously—and rest one arm on her shoulder. I hold her face in my blood-slicked hand.
“I love you,” I say.
Inesa gives one short, stuttering sob. And then she leans forward, pressing her forehead to mine.
“I love you,” she whispers. Her tears fall through the spaces between my fingers.
I try to focus only on that deep-green, hazel-flecked, earthy color of her eyes. Her skin feels warm, almost feverish, but I know it’s just because mine is growing colder. I feel the pulsing of her heartbeat, but it no longer keeps time with my own. And I’m vaguely aware of the helicopter lowering itself into the clearing, branches snapping off under the weight of its belly. Lashing more rainwater through the air.
Inesa turns suddenly, arms slipping around my waist to hold me upright. The helicopter hovers only a few feet above the ground now.
The Masks heave Luka to his feet and push him out the door. He lands on his hands and knees in the mud, breathing hard. His bruises are a vivid purple in the light and the wound on his forehead is still dripping blood. I feel Inesa tense with the urge to run to him, but if she lets go of me, I’ll fall.
Then the Masks step from the helicopter. One of them goes toward Lethe, to collect her body, and with unexpected urgency, Luka stirs. He stares at her, through the locks of damp hair falling over his forehead, and his gaze doesn’t leave her until her body—even smaller in death, almost pitifully so—is bundled into the Mask’s arms and lifted into the helicopter. His eyes are unreadable.
The second Mask starts toward me. Inesa’s grip tightens, and she pulls me against her chest. My vision is darkening at the corners again. The world looks gray, washed clean of its color.
Azrael isn’t far behind the Mask. He tucks the gun back into his belt, hiding it beneath his leather coat, and then reaches out for me with black-gloved hands.
Inesa doesn’t let go. She opens her mouth and speaks, but I can’t hear her words. I only see the defiant gleam in her gaze, and the current of grief running under it, making her eyes damp and shimmery.
The Mask is unperturbed. They don’t even slow their pace. Inesa is still talking, protesting, in stammering, shuddery tones. I lift my hand again and, achingly, turn her face toward me.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. Over the sluggish pounding of my heart, I can barely hear my own voice. “It’s over.”
The rainwater falls in harrowing, heavy gouts.
The Mask lifts me into their arms with perfunctory gentleness. It’s the fulfillment of duty, nothing more. I gasp, but my pain is incidental to them. Inesa keeps hold of my hand for as long as she can, until the Mask turns, and her fingers slip through mine.
They carry me into the waiting helicopter, hovering mere inches above the ground.
Even then, she runs after me, skidding in the mud and melting frost. It’s only Luka, rising to his feet at last, who stops her. He grabs her around the shoulders and pins her to his chest. She cries and thrashes against him, but he doesn’t let go.
Inside the helicopter, Azrael removes one of his gloves. He lays a bare hand across my forehead, and his skin is as cold as mine. To the Mask, he says, “Get to work on her at once.”
I twist, straining in the Mask’s arms, a sob breaking through my lips. I can just barely see Inesa, growing smaller and smaller as the helicopter takes off, blades beating the air violently. I watch her until she becomes just a streak against the frost, both dark and bright against the endless white. I watch her until she vanishes into nothing.
Azrael drives a syringe into the base of my throat. Instantly, my vision blurs and warps. The roof of the helicopter, with all its switches and blinking buttons, becomes an unknown constellation. But I can still see her. Inesa. Her memory is in my mind like the fire, keeping me awake, alive, even as the medication tries to numb me and pull me under.
I won’t forget. I won’t—
Even as I slip into my dreamless, anesthetized slumber, the world behind my eyelids explodes in color.