Chapter 3 Stranger #3
Keir called out after her retreating form, "I guess I’ll see you later?"
"Of course," she replied without looking back. She wouldn’t die on her first day. There was plenty of time for that later.
Rin’s watch beeped softly on her wrist as she arrived at the coordinates.
It was minutes until midnight, and she was itching to get started.
She hopped off her bike, removing her helmet and tucking it on the seat. As she shook out her hair, she tugged down the hem of her cropped black shirt.
"It’s so cold," she grumbled lowly.
Nova Zone 21 was located on the outskirts of Solar City, with little to see except dense woods.
Once a tiny neighborhood next to a nature preserve, it was now barricaded with dilapidated tin borders, which hosted Nova Zone 21.
Not much to keep the Rogues out. And not at all like the strongholds that keep the Nova Zones in the inner city and populated areas secure.
The forest was dark, and the sky was clear; the moon shone down bright and full as it illuminated her path. An old sign was hammered to the rusted tin of the barrier:
Keep out. Danger.
And under that, graffitied in bold, ominous letters:
Have fun. Don’t die!
It seemed like more Hunter trainees than just her had been out here.
She saw no way in. Guess she’d have to scale it. She rubbed her hands on her pants, grateful for the fingerless gloves that would keep her palms safe from whatever rust or germs riddled the old tin.
Gripping a piece of metal that jutted out, she hoisted herself up, throwing her foot over the top, and then hopped down, her boots silent as she landed lithely on her feet.
The other side of the wall was much the same. Trees… and more trees.
She didn’t know what she had been expecting—a Rogue to jump out as soon as she landed?
Rin sighed, realizing she would have to go deeper.
She unholstered her Echogun—a small pistol with swirls etched in the deep blue grips. It had been a gift from Kit. And the same one he had used to teach her how to shoot years ago.
It was like he was with her, in a way.
Her steps grew bolder the deeper she ventured without stumbling across a Rogue, but she was on guard. She wouldn’t grow complacent. That was how you died.
The trees opened up into a small clearing, and just before she breached it, her watch beeped in warning.
Rin paused, back pressed against the rough bark of a tree as she peered down at the dim watch face in the darkness.
A Nova alert. Levels were high in this area.
A Rogue was nearby.
Her heart hammered in her chest, and she prayed that it wouldn’t act up. Not here, not now. Not when she had so much to prove.
A skittering noise made her breath halt.
She peeked around the tree carefully, cursing her white hair—it was like a beacon in the dark.
The grass in the clearing was scorched, and blue tendrils crackled on the ground, having burned away all traces of life.
Her eyes narrowed as she peered into the darkness, searching between trees for the source of that sound.
A creature made entirely of black rock bent over something in the dark, ripping and tearing sounds that made the hair on the back of Rin’s neck stand on end.
A baying noise made her jolt, pressing her back against the tree to hide herself.
The Rogue’s howls pierced the night.
It was alerting others to come.
Rin had to kill it. And now.
She took a deep breath, staring up at the dark trees above her, and then, before she could think it through, she jumped into action.
Her grip on the Echogun was steady as she held it in front of her. One hand cupped under the butt of the gun, with her other hand firm on the grip. Her finger hovered over the trigger, ready to fire.
The Rogue’s head was tipped up toward the sky as it howled, blood streaked across the Nova-infested ground behind it. A dead deer lay behind, its guts ripped out and strewn on the ground.
It was gruesome.
And she—
Remembered.
The haunting calls and trills of the Rogues as they had broken into her house, the screams of her parents, the gurgling cries that haunted her.
She had hidden in her closet until a lowlevel Rogue had broken down the door and dragged her onto her carpet.
Her heart clenched in memory of claws ripping through her stomach.
Rin blinked.
And the Rogue was charging right for her.
"F-fuck!" she stammered, raising her Echogun—she hadn’t even been aware that she had dropped her aim. She squeezed her eyes shut and fired.
Pop, pop, pop.
The recoil jarred her, but she held on, eyes opening as she stared down the Rogue.
The bullets ripped right through its flesh, blue blood splattering the ground as it gave a low warble, and finally fell over.
Rin sagged. "Oh my god," she whispered. She was better than this—better than slipping up. It almost cost her life. Her hands were shaking. She didn’t holster her gun; she kept it raised as she slowly inched toward the fallen Rogue.
It didn’t move.
The deer’s blood was coated around its maw, fur and bits of intestines stuck in its jagged teeth.
Safe for now, she knelt, using the butt of her gun to prod at its side. It was large. This was no lowlevel Rogue. This had to be a midlevel.
Why would the Academy send her here?
A twig snapped behind her.
Rin whirled, gun raised as she stood, facing the treeline.
The gleam of a silver blade was the first thing she saw.
Then a face, shrouded in shadows.
Not a Rogue.
"Who’s there?" Rin called.
From between the trees, a person emerged.
Rin’s eyes trailed up from the tip of brown boots, coated in mud, tracking over white pants, a white shirt, and a white hood, pulled up over a face. The person’s frame was tall, shoulders wide—a man.
Rin pointed her Echogun right at the stranger’s head. "Who are you?" Her tone was hard.
In one gloved hand, the man held the base of a long, beautiful scythe. His grip was loose and non-threatening.
Rin couldn’t see under his hood. Just because he had a scythe didn’t mean…
"Show yourself," she demanded.
At the sound of her voice, the man’s scythe fell to the ground. Before she could blink, he was before her.
A low, masculine noise tore from the pit of his chest as he stood before her, hands reaching for her shoulders.
Dazed by his quick movements—unnaturally quick—her reaction time was delayed.
Rin jabbed her elbow into the man’s stomach, and as he doubled over, she used that brief moment of distraction to tangle her fingers in the back of his cloak. She ripped the hood away from his head, revealing messy, soft blonde hair and wide blue eyes.
She raised her gun, pressing the muzzle right into his forehead.
"Let me go now," Rin warned. The stranger’s grip on her shoulders released. He went to raise a hand, his blue eyes wide and filled with flickers of heavy emotion. She jabbed the muzzle harder against his temple. "Don’t move."
His lips parted. He obeyed.
Without his hood keeping him shrouded in shadows, she studied him.
God. He was… beautiful.
Porcelain skin, bright blue eyes like the sky on a cloudless summer day, and light blonde hair that fell over his forehead in soft, messy waves.
But what made her pause was the tiniest mark on his cheekbone, right under his left eye.
A small Star with five perfect points was inked into the skin underneath his eye.
A Soul Searcher.
The scythe, his beauty… She should have known.
"You’re a Soul Searcher," Rin breathed. "Why are you here?"
The stranger opened his mouth, and then he spoke.
Auren Neris was going to lie to her.
He knew before he even opened his mouth that what would spill out would only be lies.
The first time he had ever lied to her. And it tasted sour on his tongue.
He had centuries—so many years that they blurred together, broken up only by the appearance of her—to hone his intelligence. That was why the immortal Soul Searcher knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Vesperin Vox did not know him in this life.
The muzzle of her gun was cold on his forehead, and her eyes did not well up with tears at the sight of him, nor did she feel the ache of remembrance that brought her to her knees—the same one that nearly crippled him.
Auren knew. He had never forgotten her. Not for a second. Cursed to watch her tremble in each life as wave after wave of memory crested over her upon their first meeting. But not this life.
This life—the first time Auren had seen her in a few hundred years—and she looked at him like he was a mere stranger. Parts of her looked strange to him, too; though, she was undeniably the woman he had loved for centuries.
But something about the utter strangeness of it all made him lie:
"I was called to this place by a Soul in waiting, tasked with returning it to the Stars." Auren swallowed as the muzzle let up, unable to blink, lest she disappear. "I did not know I would meet you." The words had more meaning than the surface level.
"This Zone is Hunter property. Soul Searcher or not, you’re trespassing and infringing on a Hunter-ordained mission." Her voice. He had missed it.
Auren found that he had forgotten its exact cadence, eroded by years, but now faced with it, he wondered how he could have ever forgotten.
The last time he had seen her…
The sky was dark, and in Auren’s arms, Vesperin lay, dying.
Always dying. This was the third time Auren had held her through death—their third life together, cut too short, brought to an end at their meeting.
The silver blade of his scythe lit up with a soft glow, just as she took a rattling breath. Her hair was a light brown, silky strands falling in soft waves over her pale cheeks, eyes wide pools of molten brown.
"Auren." Vesperin pressed a hand to his cheek.
She was so cold. "Please. It’s okay." Her words were filled with pain as the red slashes from the dagger on her chest seeped blood.
Too fast to be healed. "You’ll find me. Take me—take me to the Stars," she gasped with pain, "and I know you’ll… see me safely on my journey h-home."
"No, Vesperin, no," Auren sobbed. "I just found you."
In a small village on Earth, the peasant girl had been attacked at night, left to die on a lonely trail in the woods. Auren had felt the call of a Soul to be reaped, which led him here. To her.
"Next time—maybe our story will be different," she breathed. Her brown eyes grew dull and cloudy, her head lolled to the side on his lap, and she stared unseeing at something unknown to even an immortal such as he.
"I love you," Auren whispered over her, but she was beyond hearing.
From her body, an amorphous light drifted, warm as it hovered before him.
Vesperin’s Soul.
He heaved with awful sobs as he gently laid her down on the trail, pressing a kiss to her brow. He felt the call, unable to be ignored. His scythe pulsed, and he reached for it, lifting it with shaking hands.
Vesperin’s Soul swayed gently, and right before he swept his scythe down, he vowed, "Never again will I find you too late, my love."
"There’s no Souls around tonight." Her voice, harsher than the soft melody of his memory, broke him from his remembrance.
She was different this time around.
"How would you know?" Auren arched a brow. "I see no Soul Searcher mark on you."
"I am a Hunter," Vesperin affirmed.
His greatest fear—her, in danger. Celestials, she had always loved making him worry.
"What is a small thing like you doing as a Hunter?" he asked, voice calm, but inside, he was anything but.
She jabbed the muzzle harder against his temple. Her white hair fell in a shock of brightness around her shoulders, words dripping with acid. "That is none of your business. And don’t underestimate me, Soul Searcher. I’m the one with a gun at your head."
What had happened to her in this life? She looked no older than her early twenties. Had she been hurt so badly this time around, to already be jaded?
And what was the incessant buzzing sound that emitted from her? A power of which Auren had never sensed before, thrumming off her in waves.
His curiosity was going to kill him.
"I was distracted," Auren supplied.
"By your imaginary Soul waiting to be reaped?"
Auren told the truth. "By you."
Her grip grew slack on the gun, and Auren found he had wasted enough time here tonight. No Souls were waiting to be reaped, the call had dimmed, and he was faced with much more pressing concerns after finding her: discovering the truth.
With one hand, he reached for her arm that held the gun, gripping her wrist and twisting it just enough to make her gasp and drop the gun on reflex.
Then, he stepped to the side in a blur of white, reclaiming his fallen scythe as he stood behind her.
The move had only taken a few seconds, and he watched as she struggled to catch up.
Soul Searchers were gifted many talents—speed and agility, two of his favorites. And he had had centuries to hone them even greater. He had let her press her gun to his head. Now, she knew it.
Vesperin dove for her gun, turning swiftly with a speed that made his brows raise. She was nimble, too—for a human. But no match for him.
She trained the gun on him. Her shirt was molded to her skin, revealing her shape. Celestials, it had been so long since he had known her so intimately.
"You… you—" She was speechless.
Auren inclined his head, taking her in; he never wanted to forget what she looked like, even with her odd white hair and strange grey eyes. "Farewell, Hunter."
He swept his scythe in a line before him, rending the air in two. He thought of his home, and the flickering tear in the air revealed a shimmering portal to the place he desired. He stepped inside the portal with a long look back at her.
Her outraged curses followed him long after the portal was closed.