Chapter 46 Dark-Shaped Wounds
Dark-Shaped Wounds
Of course, Sascia takes his hand.
She takes his hand because it was a damn good speech, and because she can see it now, see herself through Tae’s eyes, and the eyes of the people she loves most gathered in this room to pull her out of her own misery.
She thinks of Professor Carr saying I believe you.
Of her father saying All this studying, all this work.
Don’t think I haven’t noticed. Of Nugau saying Your Mooch and the thrill she felt to be chosen by the itka, to be made into magic by proximity to it.
She thinks of coming out of the Labyrinth the first time, awash in the glow of her victory, an army of aesin thumping their approval.
Every step of her life she has fought for that approval, for validation—from her parents, Carr, the aesin, Nugau, even Mooch and the Dark itself.
But she never truly needed it, did she? Her story is one of perseverance.
She has failed, spectacularly, desperately, but each time, she has gotten back up and tried again. She will always try.
So now she stands and folds her fingers into Tae’s, and asks him, “How?”
“Let’s start with getting you into a room with Chapter XI,” Tae replies, and there’s barely a half-second pause before the rest of the room springs into action—as if they all believed in her in the first place and were just waiting for her to catch on.
“I’ll use my contacts to arrange a meeting,” Andres offers, pulling out his phone.
“And I’ll put all our evidence together in a nice PowerPoint,” Shivani adds.
Danny says, “I’ll see if the Chapter goons in that van can help—”
“They’re gone,” her mother blurts from the sofa.
The room stares at her, causing a deep red to creep up her cheeks. “I went out with, um, their usual lunch order three days ago,” she explains in a hurry, “and they were just gone. They haven’t been back since.”
As one, the cohort rushes to the windows. The street across from the apartment building is empty, no beige van in sight. Confused glances ping-pong around the room. Three months of surveillance and suddenly Sascia’s security detail just packs things up and disappears?
“Crow?” Danny calls out urgently.
“On it!” Crow’s voice chirps from the laptop. “I see there’s a security camera on your restaurant’s entrance…”
Sascia’s father answers fast. “Go for it.”
They wait in silence, listening to the clickity-clack of Crow’s keyboard.
“Oh shit—” Crow gasps. “Sending over the footage now.”
Nine bodies squeeze together for a clear view of Danny’s laptop.
The footage shows the steps of Athena’s Yard in the night, the neighborhood cars parked in front of it, and on the other side of the street, the front half of the beige van.
The night is quiet, perfectly still, until some disturbance shakes the sides of the van.
Agents pour out, half a dozen of them, disappearing from the frame.
They return minutes later and shove what looks like a sack of shadows into the van—Sascia can’t tell exactly what it is, because the back of the van is out of the camera’s range.
The driver rushes ahead to hop into his seat, swatting at the dark shadows buzzing around his head.
In moments, the engine is revved up, the lights are turned on, and the van is speeding away.
Only the shadows remain, tiny dots of black swirling in the current created by the car’s frenzied getaway.
As the shadows steady themselves on the breeze, a couple fly closer to the camera. Sascia recognizes their shape: small bodies, short wings, bright neon blues and purples and whites. Her heart steadies into thundering resolve. Darkmoths. That’s what the Chapter agents were carrying away.
“Shivani,” she says, glancing at where the girl stands closest to the wall. “Turn off the lights.”
When darkness falls, it feels like a welcoming.
“This is far too many moths,” Sascia’s father complains from the front seat.
He is not wrong.
About a hundred moths are plastered on every surface inside her dad’s old Toyota.
Most perch on or around Sascia, like worker bees around their queen, but others line the top of the car, the dashboard, the windows.
The moment Shivani switched the lights off, Mooch popped out, battering Sascia’s face with what could be interpreted as either kisses or slaps.
Mooch, alive—Sascia laughed and sobbed and just burst with emotion.
Three months of keeping herself away from her moths had been so damn lonely.
When it was sated, the itka zoomed across the apartment, driving its body into every light switch and plunging them into deeper darkness.
Within seconds, the place was abuzz with the beating of wings.
To their credit, none of the passengers in the car seem the least bit concerned by tiny Darkcreatures crawling over them.
Her father is driving, her mother is in the passenger seat, and Ksenya, Sascia, and Andres are crammed in the back.
Danny is driving his own car, just a stone’s throw behind them, bringing Aunt Rania, Shivani, and Tae.
They refused to let her go alone, even though she has zero clue where exactly Mooch is taking them.
The moths had just poured out of the apartment, almost carrying Sascia on their velvet wings, and would have continued dragging her along if she hadn’t put up her hands and cried, Enough, enough!
Where do you want me to go? The little scoundrels didn’t answer, of course, but they did pour into the car when her dad threw the door open, and they did calm down after he started driving according to the directions Mooch tapped onto Sascia’s skin.
So they’re going…somewhere. In the security footage, it looked like the Chapter agents were abducting the moths, so Mooch must be leading Sascia to them.
But why? The others are regular Darkmoths, but Mooch is an itka; it could just tear open the world and get the moths out, or drop Sascia exactly where she needs to be. So why this?
On Sascia’s left, Ksenya is a fidgety ball of nerves, a panic attack waiting to happen, but her jaw is squared and her fingers clasped tight around Sascia’s.
It’s still hard for Sascia to wrap her head around how much her little sister sees her, how well she understands her.
It was just a foolish thing our fool of a dad said in a moment of worry.
It is not who you are. These simple lines soothe a deep ache in Sascia’s core.
Someone knows her, someone believes her, understands her, a sister with the same bright-colored memories, the same Dark-shaped wounds.
“It looks like there might be a structure up ahead,” Crow says from the phone. “I’d suggest killing the lights and finding a hidden place to park, Mr. Petrou.”
When they went off the interstate and into upstate New York, Crow had pulled up a map and started analyzing potential destinations, but even the mighty hacker had guessed wrong. Now, after nearly an hour on an inconspicuous dirt road, all bets are off.
“Well, damn,” Sascia’s father mumbles from the front seat as he pulls the car to a stop and kills the lights.
Nestled amid oaks and birches, the sprawling compound consists of concrete smokestacks surrounded by high-security fencing.
Bold military signs indicate restricted access and warn against trespassing, while guards in dark-colored camouflage patrol the grounds, carrying heavy military-grade nova-weapons.
“Where are we?” Ksenya whispers.
From the speakerphone, Crow chirps, “Former power plant. Discontinued in 1994, acquired by a private company in 1997. Records about it have been erased and satellite map images are blurred, which makes me think it’s a top-secret facility. Army, perhaps.”
A silence follows, during which they all stare at Sascia, who in turn stares at Mooch, resting on her shoulder. “Little guy, why are we here?”
A shiver starts at its body. In a wave, its form shifts from its head to the tips of its wings, velvet giving way to hard onyx. On the windows and the dashboard, the rest of the Darkmoths follow suit, as though Mooch is a general raising a war banner. The moths are preparing to fight.
“You want us to get in?” Sascia asks.
Yes, Mooch taps.
“Is this where the Chapter agents brought the other moths?”
Mooch taps three times. In the Labyrinth, that meant not right, not left, but straight. Here, with the binary of yes and no, it means—what? Not applicable?
Sascia glances up at Andres, at her family. “I don’t know what is in there, but Mooch wants me to go, so I’ll go. I think it’s best if you guys stay here—”
“Andres,” Crow says from the phone. “Tell her to shut up.”
“Shut up, Sascia,” Andres says dutifully.
“Tae,” Crow goes on, “have you got one of my remote hacking ports on you?”
“Of course I do,” Tae says on the group call, sounding almost offended.
“Danny, Andres, between some pollen and some Darkmold, could you create something that causes a micro allergic reaction?”
“Yup,” Andres says at the same time that Danny blurts:
“Sure—ow! Mom! It’s not going to be deadly!”
“And, Shiv,” Crow asks, “how would you feel, from an ethical point of view, about enraging a swarm of Darkrats, then unleashing them on the patrols?”
“Not great,” Shiv mumbles. “But a girl’s gotta do what she’s gotta do.”
“Then,” Crow concludes, “I think I can get us in.”
“Kids,” Sascia’s mom says from the front seat, where she’s gone a particularly alarming shade of pale. “This sounds a little drastic. Should you really be planning a heist on a private facility patrolled by armed forces?”
“I don’t like it either,” Aunt Rania pipes up from the other car.
“You don’t have to be a part of this,” Sascia says. “You’ve done so much already, you can turn around and—”
“Sascia,” her father interrupts. He’s looking at her through the rearview mirror, like he used to do on long drives when they were children.
She braces herself for one of his earth-leveling looks, but when she meets his gaze in the mirror it is gentle, full of warmth.
“We’re not leaving you kids alone. If this is the only way, then whatever your hacker friend needs, we’ll do it. ”
“Hell yeah, Mr. Petrou!” Andres sings.
Cackles of nervous laughter break from every mouth.
“Well,” Crow says in a wicked voice, like a supervillain rubbing their hands together, “if we’re all on board, the hacker friend has a plan.”