Chapter 22 #2
Maria construes my silence correctly, somehow in tune with my emotions for once. ‘I know this is tough for you because your mom was the leader before she was killed in the last leadership task—’
‘My parents died in an accident.’ Something about what Maria said sticks to me like a bur. ‘What leadership task?’
‘Um.’ Maria hangs up.
I stab the call button again. ‘Maria, what the fuck do you mean, “leadership task”? You mean they were training a leader before me?’
‘Harper . . .’ Almost a whisper. ‘Look, Ah Ma let it slip that the Elders trained a leader and gave her an assignment, but she failed and killed your parents . . . and the Elders chose you instead.’
A wind picks up, slicing through my thin pyjamas, but I can’t move to cover myself. I barely find it in me to breathe. ‘Why are you telling me this now?’
‘I found out a few months ago and didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to hurt you, but I think you deserve to know. I know it’s before your big day and . . . God, sorry. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said it. It’s going to mess you up—’
The air thins out around me, and I start towards the lift lobby. ‘No, keep going. Who were they training?’ Who killed my parents?
‘I don’t know, babe. I’m sorry. I can come over if you want me to.’
I choke back a laugh that feels like an aborted sob. ‘Please don’t.’ I hang up before she can respond, and my finger hovers over the lift button for the penthouse. I feel like I’m burning up in the atmosphere – lost, breathless, abandoned – and there’s only one person I want to hold me down.
But my fingers find the button for the basement, and suddenly I’m starting a motorcycle up, pulling my Raven mask on, and tearing through empty roads with my mind fixed on someone completely different, my face whipped cold from wind and tears.
Before I know it, I’m jamming my fists through Ah Ma’s steel gate to bang on her water-swollen wood door.
The door swings open to reveal a dishevelled frown.
‘What is i—’
‘Did a probational leader kill my parents?’ I blurt. I’m panting – I ran from the car park, sprinted up the stairs. ‘Were my parents killed by a Fox?’
Ah Ma clears her throat and straightens, her expression sombre. ‘Raven, it was an accident.’ Ah Ma says it so quietly. She says it innocently. There is no blame in the word accident.
‘But someone caused it, right?’ It hits me all at once. I don’t know when my fingers grew numb, when my nose soured and my knees buckled, but suddenly I’m heaving, crying at Ah Ma’s doorway.
‘Raven. Raven, I need you to calm down.’ Warm hands on my shoulder, tugging me past the threshold of the flat. ‘Harper. Your parents were passionate Foxes, and they knew the danger of the life they’d chosen. They also love you very much and entrusted you to us. You need to make them proud.’
‘I—’ My God, I can barely breathe. The last time I cried this much in front of Ah Ma was probably at the funeral. ‘Ah Ma—’
‘It’s okay.’ She pulls me into a hug, large and encompassing, like she used to do when I was little. She tugs my mask down so I can cry freely, guiding my head to her chest, a hand rubbing a soothing pattern into my spine. ‘It’s going to be okay.’
‘I really miss them,’ I admit into Ah Ma’s nightgown, every word broken. I haven’t said that out loud to anyone in over a year.
The night is quiet, save for my crying, save for Ah Ma’s stable heartbeat in my ear.
‘Be the leader your mother was.’ Ah Ma pulls away and cups my neck to meet her gaze. ‘I see her in you, and she was one of our best. I want you to succeed so you can make them proud.’
I cannot. I don’t know if Ah Ma sees it on my face. I’m wrung dry from crying, and it takes everything to keep my face neutral.
‘I’ve been sensing that something has been stopping you.’ For a second, Ah Ma shifts from grandmother to ex-clan leader, her gaze piercing. ‘Whatever it is, remember that we’re your family. Family is most important, because we’ll be here for you always.’
Before I can respond, Ah Ma pulls me in for another hug.
‘Go sleep,’ she whispers. ‘You’ll need rest for your assignment. The Nagas and the Foxes are both waiting.’
It hurts because the Foxes are the family I was always supposed to have. My leadership was supposed to make me feel as if I was home in a way that I hadn’t felt since my parents died, as if I belonged.
But my parents are gone. They’re not coming back.
Family is most important.
That’s why I sprint across rooftops to get back to Lain. My mother used to say there’s no medicine like the night sky, and I never believed her like I do now, when the fresh wind is the only reason I can breathe.
And then I’m gripping the windowsill and pulling myself into the faint scent of lemongrass air freshener, four distinctly different mugs lining the dish-drying rack and waiting for use in the morning, my feet dodging the sofa by habit even when the world swims in my tear-blurred vision, because this is home too – isn’t it?
A cold, vaguely sharp point pushes into my neck, almost bruising.
‘You have three sentences to explain why you’re here, Raven,’ Kiran whispers from behind me, ‘or I’ll Taser you and we can find out how much more you say when you’re locked up in a cell.’
TIA
I wake to an empty bed and insistent buzz. My hand swipes my cup, glasses, then the wire of my charger, which I follow until I find my phone.
‘Come to the living room.’ Kiran.
I frown. The bedside clock says it’s five twenty-three a.m. ‘Why?’
The line crackles. ‘It’s Raven. I’m giving you five minutes before I call Niko. If you want me to Taser her now, say it.’
I stay silent.
Kiran inhales sharply before the line clicks.
When I get to the living room, I find Kiran standing with a Taser in his hand.
At his feet, a silhouette kneels, shoulders slumped. The moon edges out silver tear tracks and quivering lips as I draw closer.
‘H— Raven.’ I nearly let it slip, and my heart hammers in my throat. But Kiran’s face is unreadable, and if he hasn’t already figured out Harper’s identity, then he’s at least realized there’s something between me and Raven. The implications are almost too much to bear.
‘What is this, Tia?’ His voice is hard, his brows knitting as he fixes me a wary look.
I slide Raven’s arm round my shoulder, coaxing her to stand. ‘Do you trust me?’
Kiran’s eyes slide between us, his eyes squinting. ‘This isn’t about trust. We have a criminal in our home, and she knows you. Am I supposed to get Niko or do you have a valid explanation for this?’
‘She won’t do anything to us, I promise,’ I say, knowing how ironic it is that I barely trusted Raven several months ago. ‘Let me speak to her.’
‘Only if it’s here, and now.’ Kiran charges his Tasers and gestures to the couch.
Damn it.
Before Kiran can react, I throw my hand out and shoot an uncalibrated blast of lunar energy across the room. Without my blasters, the energy explodes into the air in a blinding flash, and Kiran collapses to the floor.
I have curled round Raven to protect her from the blast, but I pull away to check on Kiran. He’s still breathing, and I don’t see any actual damage to his body.
‘What are we going to do?’ Raven asks, before her voice cracks into sniffling.
I rest my forehead against Raven’s and use a thumb to wipe the tears streaking down her chin. ‘We’ll say you made an illusion,’ I whisper. ‘We’ll say I tried to fight you. I’ll change ALFRED’s records.’ Anything to keep you safe, I want to say.
I hug her tight to my side, even when she shakes against my arm, and my mind lingers on Kiran’s collapsed form behind us.
The second Raven is secure behind my door, I thumb the edges of her mask. When she doesn’t stop me, I tug it off. ‘Talk to me, kit, please.’ I take her quivering hands in my own.
Harper stares at our conjoined hands. ‘My . . .’ She swallows. ‘My parents are dead.’
I always knew something was up with Harper’s parents, but I never realized . . . ‘What happened? What do you need me to do?’
‘Nothing. Not now.’ Her gaze sinks to my bedspread and stays. ‘It’s been two years. That’s why I stay with you guys.’
For a moment, I struggle to find words. Before the moment stretches, I say, ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
Harper’s grip round mine tightens. ‘That’s why I need to be the leader of the Fox clan. My mom was the last leader, and I made a promise to my parents that I’d do my best to follow. I only have one test to pass, and, if I do, I’ll solidify my status as clan leader. If I fail, I resign.’
A dark, stirring curiosity in my chest seizes at the elusiveness of the test. What could it be? ‘Okay. When?’
‘Tomorrow.’
The realization hits me. ‘That’s why you’ve been busy these last weeks?’ My hold around her hands tightens. ‘What’s happening?’
Harper’s gaze flicks away before returning to meet mine, haunted by both the shadows and something darker. ‘I have a plan, but you need to trust me. I’m going to tell you everything I know and everything I’ve prepared, and you have to listen. This is the only way I could think of.’
There’s something so sombre about her tone. It feels like we’re back to when I first found out who she was, but this feels even worse.
‘Right.’ I push down the creeping, ominous dread in my heart. ‘What’s going on?’
Don’t tell me to trust you when you’ve been lying to me from the day we met. I had said that, hadn’t I?
But here, with Harper silhouetted sharply by moonlight before me and half dissolved with tears, I feel I love you lodged in my throat and I force it down. It is not the time. We’ll have after to say it. The universe has to give us that, at least, or so I trust.
I hold Harper’s hands in mine and listen.