Inhuman
Pain flares between my shoulder blades. The stabbing, scraping feeling works its way down my spine, landing in the small of my back.
“Fuck!” I scream out, darkness exploding around me as the pain intensifies.
“Arya, please,” the voice comes from somewhere nearby. It sounds choked, afraid even. Wrong. “Stay still.”
Fire burns into my abdomen, swirling and cutting. It rages in intensity as something jabs deeply into my ribs. The shadows weave and dip as a soft light blends into the otherwise overwhelming nothingness.
The shadows that used to cradle and comfort me at night now flare and fight back with a feral intensity. Shadows that had once been my only respite against the spirits now retaliate in violent revolution.
“Arya!” the voice cuts through again, this time sharper—but there’s fear still, too.
Percy’s fear.
With the realization, the shadows evaporate like falling mist. The room around me comes into sudden and intense clarity.
My living room—lit up from end to end. Not a single shadow in sight.
“Oh my god,” I yelp out, hissing as my back spasms and shocks.
A face appears over me. My mind screams with the desire to run. To fight.
“Percy?” I ask softly, my voice hoarse.
“You took three siphoning-class bullets to the back,” her voice sounds hollow as she hovers over me. Her eyes look tired, definitively red around the rims. “You should be dead.”
My feet shock with pain as my back twinges. Something isn’t exactly right in my spine. Probably the three rounds Triggerman dumped into me.
“Disappointed?” I choke out.
I should probably care about the hurt that flashes across Percy’s face, but I’m over it.
I’m done.
I’ve had enough.
Percy works her jaw like she might say something.
“Thank you for getting me home,” I say, staring back off down the hallway to my room. Percy sits on the coffee table, her back to my television. “I’ll heal in an hour or so.”
“That’s it?” she asks, sounding a little incredulous.
“What do you want from me Percy?” I ask, finally looking back at her. “You want me to beg for your forgiveness?”
“I want to understand why you never told me.” She sounds on the verge of tears as she clenches her jaw shut again.
I bathe the room in darkness, the twinge of pain a good reminder to take it slow—even with my accelerated healing.
“And say what?” I ask, knowing she can’t see me as I shadow-jump to the kitchen. My hand comes to rest on the countertop.
The darkness recedes and she startles, standing quickly. She begins to check under the seat cushion before turning towards the sound the faucet.
“Anything!” she almost screams out. “You could have fucking said anything!”
The glass in my hand shatters, sending fragments into the farthest corners of my living room. Shadows lick at the ceiling as my rage boils over.
“And you’d have me killed,” I growl, pointing my bloodied finger at her. The cuts mend almost immediately, but not before a droplet of blood splashes against the sink. “You’d have me Contained. I know how you think, De Luca.”
Percy flinches again, her own fists clenching and unclenching.
“They’ll kill me,” I feel my own anxiety ratchet up a notch. “I’m already dead.”
I place both hands against the counter and lean my throbbing head over the sink.
“Who’s they?” Percy’s voice is quiet, and the sudden shift in tone almost derails my anger.
“Who fucking knows, Percy,” I spit, squeezing my eyes tightly as the pain throbs. The spirits vibrate behind my eyes—their anger rivaling my own. “RISE, the NCPD, the Guild. They’ll know who I am, now.”
The creak of the wooden floor pulls my attention back up. She’s closer now—her body language that of someone approaching a wild animal.
“Don’t,” I say, glaring at her. “I know what you think of me. I know what you called me.”
She freezes, face paling perceptibly. “I—”
“Oh, fucking save it,” I grunt, dropping my head again. “I don’t need apologies. I don’t want your reasoning.”
She’s silent for several long seconds.
“Are you going to let me go?”
The words take a few moments to register.
Let her go?
“You really think I’d attack you?” I whisper, staring back at her. “After everything, you think I’m some freak, don’t you?”
Stupid, hated tears sting at the corners of my eyes. All of these years. All of the murders solved. The criminals caught. The victims avenged.
And she still thinks I’m a feral beast to be put down.
“Leave,” I grit out. “Get the fuck out.”
Percy’s eyes don’t well with tears. Her gaze doesn’t drop. Instead, she takes another step closer. The shadows shiver and undulate. Their screaming only heard by me, their voices matching my pitch in anxiety.
“You know how I lost my arm?” Percy finally asks, voice solid despite the darkness shifting around her.
“Omen,” I say, ice in my tone.
“There was nothing I could do to stop them,” Percy’s voice finally chokes. “No weapons or tactics. Nothing could put a dent in their armor. Nothing could counteract their powers.”
I feel my fingers digging into the sink. They’re going to leave a mark that’ll be difficult to explain to my renter.
“And I never felt so fucking helpless in my life,” her voice drops to something unbelievably soft. “That’s not something you’d understand.”
I blink, almost scoffing at her presumptuousness.
“You’ll never understand what it’s like to see something happening and never be able to stop it,” she gestures at her bionic arm, “and then losing so badly.”
“Never understand?” I ask, feeling my veins blaze with anger I didn’t know I had left in me. “I see ghosts every fucking moment of my life. Even with the lights on, they’re in the reflection in the mirror. They’re in the windows. They’re behind my goddamned eyelids!”
The sink’s stainless-steel splits between my fingers.
“Power isn’t worth this,” the room shudders with the twisting darkness. “Go home to your boyfriend.”
I don’t look up as the door shuts softly behind her.
The lights shatter. Glass sprinkles to the floor as the room falls back into darkness.
Fuck.
Bodies multiply by the instant. Voices begin like the chittering of a thousand bugs. Their overlapping, overwhelming noises make the worst headache feel like a gentle massage.
They’d waited until I was at my limit. At my lowest.
Bastards.
I fall forward, my face narrowly missing the countertop by a fraction. My dinner threatens to make a reappearance as I try to crawl towards where I think my room is. The ache in my back is nothing compared to the knives lobotomizing my every thought.
“It would be easier to just end it,” a voice hisses from somewhere in the room. “Quit fighting the thoughts.”
“What’s the point?” another voice whispers. “You’re going to be alone no matter what.”
The taunting is new. Wonderfully, horrifically new.
My fingers grip onto something solid. An item. It scrapes along the tile of the kitchen, metal grating against the linoleum.
The knife.
Tears fall in earnest, my choked sobs swallowed by the shadows. Swallowed by their screams and jeering. I rock to my knees, sitting back on my heels.
The knife is weighty in my palm.
“Just do it,” someone whispers.
“Just do it,” another whispers.
“Just end it,” Mara’s voice echoes.
“If you don’t do it, someone else will,” Malachi’s voice reverberates.
The darkness suffocating everything but the ragged breathing tearing at my chest.
“You’re just a freak,” the voice is directly in my ear now, “no one’s going to miss you.”
“You’ll only end up being a burden to everyone else,” this time the voice almost sounds like Percy’s. “You only ever cause problems.”
The knife feels cool against my neck. The saline tears coat my tongue.
“Kill yourself,” is the command. The echo. The onslaught.
The knife cuts shallow at first, a shock of cold stirs my adrenaline. I cup one hand over the other and pull back to plunge deeper.
“No,” her accented voice whispers. Like she’s in the room. Like she’s right in front of me.
My hands shake, the blade pricking at my skin again. My eyes blink against the saturated darkness. And, at first, I see nothing. Slowly, though, I raise my head and see them.
Her eyes. Blazing orange in the pitch night. In the self-inflicted darkness.
“I have to,” I whisper back, not sure why I’m talking to the figment. Why I’d acknowledge her. This one isn’t even dead. This one is just the nightmare. Different, but still her. And, for whatever reason, she’s kneeling in front of me.
Not trying to choke me out this time.
“Why?” she asks, voice soft, but demanding an answer.
“Why shouldn’t I just—” I begin to draw the knife across my throat, but something stops me. Not her, and not the shadows either.
The shadows aren’t fighting for me, this time. They’re not trying to save me.
“Please give me the knife.”
The moment of hesitation turns into two, then three. And, finally, I let it clatter to the ground.
A hand runs through my unbound hair; trimmed fingernails massage at my scalp.
"Why?" I whisper, staring into the beautiful orange irises.
“Because we need you,” she inhales sharply. “I need you.”
Soft lips press to my forehead and my senses darken into nothingness.