Chapter 3
She Got Away
RAVEN/HARPER
‘Does it ever occur to you,’ I say to my ex-girlfriend, who’s driving with an elbow resting lazily on the armrest between the seats, ‘that you’re a horrible person?’
‘Usually only before breakfast.’ Maria twists round to the backseat with a grin and peers at me over heart-shaped sunglasses. ‘Didn’t fancy the ride, sweetheart?’
Sirens wail over the drone of our van’s engine. Maria had swerved into the pick-up spot approximately three minutes later than planned, which is the sort of mistake that could get me killed or, worse, caught. I’m half certain she did it deliberately as a shitty Valentine’s gift.
‘Keep your eyes on the road,’ I snap. I tear my enchanted mask off, taking my troublemaker persona with it, and baring my true identity to the night:
1. Harper Leong, nineteen years old
2. Mechanics intern of Lain Co., a scientific research and development company for descendant magic
3. A normal, magic-less, Fox-descended teenager
Okay, that’s two truths and a lie.
The government of Singapore tracks our lineage with surgical precision, predicting magic strength based on how closely we’re directly descended from a Fox deity.
Since both my parents are Foxes, my lineage had flagged my magic strength mass-destruction high.
But before the Descendant Department could slap a damning ‘OVERPOWERED’ stamp on my birth certificate, the clan Elders pulled strings (committed fraud) to alter my birth certificate.
Now, like other fighter Foxes, I get to perform tasks for the Fox clan under the deception of powerlessness to throw the Sentinels off our tail. As far as the public or my internship employers at Lain Co. know, I barely have enough magic to create mild hallucinations.
The van shoots onto a highway. Maria pushes her sunglasses up to perch on her head. Turns in her seat to face me. ‘Where are the blueprints, babe?’
I throw my head back against the headrest, picking my blood-sticky top away from my body and wrinkling my nose at the sharp stench of copper.
Always so business-focused. If Maria isn’t out leading a heist, she’s the one micromanaging it in the shadows, and I used to admire it. Now?
‘This is why I broke up with you.’ I toss the roll of laminated paper at Maria, and it thwacks her forehead.
‘Ow!’
I ignore her, stretching across the seats to peel off my skin-tight uniform.
Red and blue police lights spill over my skin, casting a haunting shadowplay over the pale, faded scars of stab wounds, rendering the mottled bruises from last week’s fights a shade darker.
‘Mari, just get the police off our tail with an illusion. The lights are giving me a migraine.’
‘Of course, my leader,’ Maria says mockingly. A wave of her hand and colours swirl off her fingertips, forming an illusion of our van on the road beside the patrol cars while darkness swallows our actual van. Maria sends the illusion down a forested route, and the police peel after it.
She’s stronger. The thought pops suddenly into my mind, driven by the desire to be a good, involved leader, and the admittedly spiteful attention one has when observing an ex.
Maria’s parents are both only half-Foxes, and the ability to cast such a large illusion and keep it going into the distance is a bigger display of power than usual.
Whatever. What my ex-girlfriend does in her free time isn’t my business any more. We’re just colleagues with inconvenient history.
I roll my eyes. ‘Don’t remind me that I’m not the leader yet. Do you know how long I’ve been stuck on probation?’ I’m aware of how irritable I sound, but I’ve worked half my life to become a leader and fulfil a promise that—
Warm hands over mine, kiss on my forehead, a soft plea.
In the cover of darkness, I swallow, struck by emotion so vast and encompassing that I forget to breathe.
It’s always the same memory, same ghosts, same wounds. It claws my chest, vulnerable and raw – two things I cannot afford.
Enough.
‘About that,’ Maria says, shaking me free of phantoms. In the rear-view mirror, her dark eyes meet mine. ‘Ah Ma told me what it is. Your leadership assignment.’
Fear and anticipation bear the same symptoms of sweaty hands and a cold stone in my gut, and I’m not sure which makes me lean forward. ‘What is it?’
A call interrupts me from the depths of the car’s back seat, and I lean over to find a familiar caller ID.
The name shoves me violently back into my other life, and I take a deep breath to compose myself. You’re just Harper Leong. Not a girl drenched in shadow and tearing down the highway, but an engineering intern with pitiful punctuality and a gala to get to.
I pick up.
‘Harper, where are you? The gala’s starting in half an hour, and all interns need to be present for the talk on moonstones. There’s a dress waiting for you, but I need you to be here to wear it.’ The voice on the other end is unusually high-strung, and I sigh.
‘I’m, uh . . .’ I glance over at Maria. ‘On a date, but I’ll be there in ten.’
Maria snorts. I kick the back of her seat.
‘Aw, a date.’ Even through the phone, I hear the teasing lilt in their voice and imagine them with their usual half-grin, the meddling glint in their wide, dark eyes. ‘Share your location. I don’t trust people online.’
‘Oh my God, it’s okay.’ I run a hand through my hair.
There’s no telling when or why they decided they could take care of me, but I wasn’t made to be coddled.
I was born into sleepless nights of fighting and training, an aching body wrecked by recklessness and a mind comforted with the constant of sleep deprivation. ‘Look, I have to go now. See you!’
I hang up before they protest, and meet Maria’s judging gaze in the rear-view mirror.
‘What?’ I snap.
‘You look like shit.’ Maria finally surrenders to traffic law and the van rolls to a halt at a stop light. ‘How are you still covered in bruises?’
‘Fought the Sentinels last week over a bunch of moonstones.’ I count it off on a finger.
‘Fought my way out of the back of a police vehicle after we destroyed that corporate building last Thursday.’ Another finger down.
‘And I still have the huge bruise in my gut from when you punched me at the last training session.’
‘If it’s any consolation, I still have yours too,’ Maria says wryly. With her free hand, she tugs the collar of her shirt down to reveal a rippling bruise from when I’d thrown her into a wall.
For a moment, both our injuries bared to each other in the darkness of the van, we’re two halves of a broken whole again. The red stop light floods through the van’s windows like spilled blood, weaving history through the space until the light turns green and Maria’s smile becomes bitter.
She twists back to face the road, and I pull on a wrinkled white shirt to fend off the chill of the air-con.
Maria turns into Lain Co.’s car park, and a hubbub of journalists and media trucks draw into view. She takes a sharp turn to avoid them. ‘That’s so many people,’ she murmurs.
Through the window, I watch the milling crowd of CEOs and guests, and refocus on my reflection, half of Harper Leong illuminated by streetlight, the other half of Raven wreathed in darkness.
I hook a finger on the chain round my neck, toying with the medallion that appoints me future clan leader. Passed down through generations, the medallion signifies unity amongst Foxes – shows that even if a Fox disagrees with the clan leader, they must concede to the power of the medallion.
But even with it hanging round my neck, the Elders have been quiet about my final leadership mission. When I asked last week, Ah Ma passed me a bowl of oranges and distracted me with the heavy case file for today’s heist.
The van judders to a halt in a narrow vein of road behind Lain Co.
I sling my duffel bag with my uniform over my shoulder and grab the back of Maria’s seat as she cuts the engine. ‘What’s the mission?’
Maria twists around with a grin. ‘Oh shit, take a picture. Harper Leong is anxious.’
‘Don’t make me beg.’
‘Fine.’ With a smirk, she gestures for me to lean in. Her breath tickles the shell of my ear. ‘You know how Lune’s really been pissing the clan off?’
I feel Maria smile. We haven’t been this close since we broke up, and I know she’s doing this on purpose. ‘You mean they want—?’
‘They want you to kill Tia Njauw.’
TIA
I know exactly who to expect when I hear the lift doors open, but there isn’t enough time to brace for the impact.
Harper Leong steps into the living room, her gait lazy, dark bob messy, pink lips twisting as her mouth works over gum.
An oversized white tee ripples across her muscled thighs, and, oh, I hate it.
I’m a daughter of honour, trained for professional courtesy and high-society niceties.
That should be qualification enough to assure anyone that when I do my very best to describe Harper, fellow intern at Lain Co.
, it’s with the most esteemed and polite words that nineteen years of performative elegance can muster:
Harper is the very definition of the word scum.
Defined as a noun, generally an abbreviation for unapologetic, aggravating and charming (derogatory). Synonyms include eyes glinting with mischief and a black hole rolled into five-feet of bad decisions and stringy muscle.
There is no shelter from Harper’s sharp lines, every jagged bit of personality, every shard of insult, every lean cut of muscle.
There are only five metres between us, each metre tenser than the last as Harper stalks closer, winding our distance down to naught.
‘Hope you had fun on your date while we were working,’ I say, before I can stop myself.
Harper stops to fist-bump Niko, then turns to me with a gaze flat and unimpressed. Leans in close enough for me to taste the mint on her breath. ‘Hope you had fun getting your ass kicked.’
‘You don’t know that.’