10. Susurration
CHAPTER TEN
SUSURRATION
Saya Claymore
I fall flat on my back with a gasp of shock. The butterflies I have from falling through the airshaft tingle sickeningly in my gut. Exhaling, I look over to the door, my hands gripping the sheets below me.
I’m back in the private room. Back in the fucking feeding ground I had finally escaped. Only this time, I’m here to see the friends I didn’t have time to mourn.
After another breath to steady my nerves, I shuffle off the bed and cross the cool tiles. With every step, I struggle to ignore my imagination bleeding through, forming nightmares.
The image of the nightwalker who sexually assaulted me comes into focus. His head cuts away from his shoulders, and his shocked expression melts down into ash as I walk past the macabre vision and reach the door.
Whatever light Darkovish had is gone. Slipping out into the hallway, darkness drenches the walls and floors.
A foul perfume like rotten fruit lingers, but the corridor is clean—untouched.
No one must have been caught down here. Or the creatures cared little and focused on the Feeders congregated at the mess doors.
“So, you met your consort in his room, yes?” Reyes’ voice cuts through the quiet, and when I look behind me, I find Serun slouching by the doorframe.
An unnerving sensation creeps across my skin at the way he watches me.
From inside the room, Reyes continues to ramble.
“Did anything happen here? The way she leans into you seems as if something has already bloomed.”
The fucking sun scorches across my cheeks. Even in the dark, I know Serun can see it.
As I try to escape this awkward conversation, Serun shoves his hands into his pockets and walks beside me. “Did you try to kill me earlier?”
“No. I was merely warning you that if you don’t hold your liar’s tongue around me, I won’t hesitate.”
“Hmm…”
My eyes adjust to the darkness as we make our way around the corner. A wall of stench hits us and burns the hairs in my nostrils. My hand snaps out, grabbing Serun’s arm to prevent me from collapsing.
Horror splatters across the walls, and the fleshy, bloody smell of death scorches my throat like dry heat. Rats scurry across lumps of torn limbs, and streaks of red stain the tiles that lead up the staircase ahead. Flesh lies scattered across the steps, cracking the cage encasing my heart. Dan.
“Should we burn this place down?” Reyes says.
Serun and I make our way to the mangled body. I let go of his arm and crouch by the bloody mess that was once Dan. Mum’s words return: “No matter how horrid the smell is, breathe through your nose. Accept the stench instead of poisoning your lungs.”
I breathe through my nose. Small inhales and exhales. Eyes already prickling, I bend my ears back as I try to stop tears from falling.
While the brothers talk, their voices muffled as if I’m underwater, I reach for Dan’s remains. I want to bury the dead, but he is slop. How the fuck am I supposed to pick up the pieces of him?
“…and alert the other feeding grounds in the states?” Serun drawls, sound returning. “If we do that, others may fear we are purging and panic, disrupting shipments to the Undercity. No. Let the slayers deal with this mess.”
“They might blame us…”
I stand clutching a lock of Dan’s hair that fell easily from his head. Serun watches me pocket it, then looks at me with a silent question in his eyes. “I want a memory of my friends. While we get something with my brother’s scent on it, I want a memory of Manni as well.”
Serun holds his hand out to me. My fingers curl into fists, hesitant at first, only to remember his tender affection. I take hold, hoping the nightwalker I met in Darkovish is more than the Lord of the Undercity and the man who caged me.
My fingers dig into his skin, and with every new step, dried blood flakes beneath the soles of my boots. They had me dress properly for this, but I’ve never worn shoes before. It feels strange that my feet aren’t grazing the ground.
Avianna and Reyes follow close behind. “So, brother? Any thoughts on what I said earlier?”
“Leon’s group won’t do anything. We’re the only reason their settlement has food and water. Without us, their supplies would be completely cut off. No food, water, or electricity. The humans won’t blame us. They will blame someone they can see.”
My eyes turn into half-slits, and my hand tightens on Serun’s.
Reyes huffs a laugh.
There are no traces of blood on the first floor. The knot in my stomach unties, and I breathe easier, walking faster without Serun’s aid. Most of the stench congregates downstairs and near the mess. I suppose all the food is rotting in there as well.
My stomach grumbles at the thought I haven’t eaten since my capture. I’m surprised I haven’t passed out yet.
Serun stops halfway to my room, and I do the same, curious. He looks to his brother. “Could you find fresh human food while my consort and I gather items with her brother’s scent?”
Reyes tilts his head, a wave of blond hair falling out from behind his ear. “Should she not drink blood?”
“Nyun nyun bi,” Serun says, and even though I don’t know what it means, his dismissive tone makes it clear he won’t be questioned.
Serun turns, and we make our way towards my old room. My ear flicks at what sounds like padding paws, but when I crane my neck behind me, Reyes and Avianna are gone. There’s only more looming darkness creeping up from the stairway.
“What did you say to him?” I ask as we draw closer to my room, my erratically beating heart stuttering in panic.
“I told him to be on his way. Otherwise, Reyes would stay and ask why we are being so human.”
We reach my old room, and my focus settles on the evacuation diagram on the wall outside, rather than the foul stench rising from within. “Am I human? I’m a vegodian and nightwalker. I don’t know enough about being vegodian to know if there is anything human about me at all.”
Red eyes dip to my chest, then draw up to my face. “Your heart says so.”
“Aliens might have hearts that beat for all we know.” My eyes narrow on the delivery room in the diagram. “There’s so much I don’t know.”
“Focus on the now, kamai,” Serun says, his hand resting on mine. “We can learn more about you on our way to the Undercity.”
I step away from him and up to the door, only to be hit by the scent of sour fruit. Crimson stains the entire room. All over my mattress and the sheets and the ground beside the bunks.
Serun grunts irritably as I step into the room, my focus everywhere but the ceiling.
Turning away from the arm hanging from the open vent, I focus on Cole’s bed.
“Can you get a piece of Manni’s hair, please?
” I ask in a hoarse voice, my mouth already thickening with the rising bile.
“I don’t want the memory of her like this… ”
“Anything,” he whispers, his voice velvety.
While Serun floats up to the vent, I grab the pillow beside Cole’s bed and peel off the case.
Cole had a reputation for drooling while he slept.
Emily and Manni would tease him—needling each other was our form of escape on the nights when it all became too much.
Those seemingly insignificant moments made us smile and forget we were sheep in a system designed to feed the wolves.
Am I one of the wolves now?
“Saya.” A voice purrs in my ear, familiar and heart-clenching. I face the doorway, the violent thumping of my heart stinging my prickled ears. “Saya,” she says again, pleading, desperate.
“Emily?” I whisper.
“It’s not real.” Serun’s voice is gentle.
“Emily…” The pillowcase slips from my fingertips, and I take a step towards the door as shadows wrap tenderly around my wrists. I shake them away and race from the room, stumbling in panic. Emily could be alive.
Jaxton took me away too fast, and all this time, she could have been underneath a pile of fucking corpses, wounded and needing help.
I take the stairs two at a time down to the ground floor, my stomach lurching as I step on bloody organs and skid across the tiles. On my hands and knees, thick reddish-brown liquid between my fingers, I look ahead at the pile of dead bodies near the doors.
Serun appears at the top of the stairs and makes his way down gradually, but the fear that he will try to stop me has me pushing up from the muck and making my way over to where I last saw Emily.
Reyes is standing near the doors, holding a bag. His wife is nearby, and they watch without coming closer.
I search the bodies, scanning for faces. Most of them are unrecognisable, cut open by long, brutal claws.
“Emily,” I say breathlessly, stepping into the mess hall. Lifeless bodies are scattered across the tiles and out into the courtyard. In the thick mass of bodies, I spot warm brown hair.
My heart stills.
“Don’t let go, Saya…”
My ears bend back, and my heart sputters at Emily’s desperate plea spilling into my mind. Every breath sharpens like a shard of glass carving against bone.
I wanted her to be alive. Needed her to be alive. Because right now, I’m walking Kepler alone.
When I reach her, movements mechanical, I fall to my knees. My hands press into my thighs, holding myself together, to keep from breaking completely. I need something to bury. She can’t stay here in this misery.
Trembling fingers reach out to touch the back of her head, as slips of vegodian magik flow like a river across my knuckles. The memory of the mourning ceremony returns, the feeling of wanting the dead to be at peace, to melt into the earth to help it flourish.
I grab her shoulder and roll her over. My brows furrow. This isn’t Emily.
I don’t know who the fuck this is.
Hope swells, but I remind myself that I saw her lifeless eyes looking at me. Her skull…
“Kamai.” Serun’s hand rests on my shoulder, and his rippling shadows across my skin are more comforting than I want them to be. “What do you want done?”
“If we can’t bury them, we should burn this place.” I stand and scan the corpses, unable to settle on a single face. “Their souls cannot rest if they are trapped here.”
“Did you want to find your friend’s body? An echo could have—”
“No,” I blurt. “No. Seeing Manni and Dan was enough.”
Serun’s claws skim down over the gooseflesh on my arm and to my hand, but before he can slip those fingers into the bloody gaps of mine, I turn back towards the private room. I’m not ready to accept this much affection from him.
“Did you find human food?” Serun asks Reyes, clearing the tension.
His brother raises the bag and says, “We got what sounded appealing and didn’t smell of rot. Did you find something with Saya’s brother’s scent?”
Serun tosses the pillowcase at his brother, and Reyes snatches it before it hits the ground. He takes a whiff and jerks back in revulsion.
“Enough?” Serun’s shadows quiver in expectation.
“Yes,” Reyes chokes out, his eyes watering—or at least that’s what it looks like. I’m not sure if nightwalkers can shed tears. It would mean they have at least some living organs in there if they can. “More than enough.”
Serun’s eyes crinkle, and he breathes a hint of a laugh.
We head back to the private room. I’m silent. Memories of my friends burn inside my mind, sure to forever haunt my sleep.
When we enter the room, Serun steps onto the bed and pulls out the glowing white orb. It pulses with warm magik that tingles my fingertips. “Good luck on your hunt, brother. Keep us apprised and try not to get on your wife’s nerves. I’d rather not lose a sibling because of your ignorance.”
Avianna glares at Reyes as he scratches the side of his head and smiles ruefully.
Somehow, I doubt that very much.