Chapter 31
CAT
Orwell was indeed waiting for us in a little back room off the main bookshop, where an old storage room had been converted into a cosy coffee shop, I bet the teashop next door were delighted by.
Artwork covered the walls, depicting scenes from Shakespeare, Pride and Prejudice, The Canterbury Tales, and others.
Four round black tables were home to terracotta tub chairs, and it was in one of them that Orwell sat.
“Hey,” I breathed, dropping into one of the chairs with Death beside me. “It’s good to see you’re still alive. You got out of Darkmore then?”
Orwell’s mouth was in a flat line as he nodded. “The scary woman with the black bob let me hitch a ride, and I’ve been working my way here since.” He eyed me long enough for Death to glare a warning. “You got out. Last I heard, you weren’t doing so great.”
“No,” I agreed, picking at a seam of my coat. “I’m fine now.”
If you ignored the nightmares, the flashbacks, the fear that choked me whenever I saw Violence, and the feeling that I’d never be safe again.
I glanced up when a teenager—identical to the cashier except for a streak of lime green hair—arrived to take our orders.
I got a caramel latte with cream, while Death stuck to black coffee.
When the girl left, I leaned forward and said, “Why did you ask to meet? Cruelty and Violence are watching us closely.”
“Figured,” Orwell said with a sneer. “Assholes. I can’t get past the gates into Ford; something keeps knocking me back, and it hurts like a motherfucker.
I’ve tried five times. I haven’t seen anyone except the gods come out, either.
That’s why I told you to bring one of your men.
” He gave Death a wary look. “I want you to get Duncan out. Do that, and I’ll back you up when you go after those pricks. ”
“Not long ago, you were working for those pricks,” Death pointed out, resting an arm across the back of my chair. “And loyal to them.”
Orwell’s mouth twisted. “Never to them. I was loyal to Poppy.”
“Was,” I echoed, noting the bitterness in his voice and the tightness of his shoulders when he said her name. “What changed?”
He threw out an arm, anger in every line of his muscular body.
“I saw those fucking clones. She called me special, you know?” he laughed, his knuckles white on his coffee cup.
There was so much emotion in those words, a history of being unwanted, discarded, maybe even unloved.
But he just said, “And I fell for that shit. I thought I was her Stalker, singular. Turns out she made a whole fucking herd of them for Cruelty. So why should I be loyal to her? Good fucking riddance. Lying piece of shit.”
“We might not be able to get Duncan out,” I said with a sigh, taking a drink of my comfort latte when the girl set our coffees on the table, sweeping back into the stacks of the bookshop.
“I can’t promise anything. Inside Ford…” I thought of the robotic movements, the empty conversations.
“Everything is under their control. It’s creepy, like everyone’s on autopilot acting out Cruelty’s idea of a perfect academy. ”
Orwell’s expression tightened. “I saw it from a distance. People walking in single file like soldiers. She’ll control them to attack us the moment we go against them.”
I liked the we in that. It was so easy to feel isolated and alone at Ford, but knowing we had people on the outside—both the other death gods and Orwell—was a slight comfort.
“Say we get Duncan to safety,” Death mused, “and we need your help. How will we get a word to you?”
“Carrier pigeon? Fuck if I know. Send a shadow to the Florist; I’m squatting in there.”
“We can do that,” Death agreed, his fingers brushing my shoulder as he sat back, assessing Orwell. “You’d truly help us, out of spite for your creator betraying you?”
I elbowed him. “She’s not his creator. She’s not,” I insisted when Orwell began to argue. “She’s the mad scientist who experimented on you.”
“She brought me back from the dead,” he said with a shrug.
“So she could use you. You don’t owe her anything, Orwell.
I’m serious.” But I could imagine how her diatribe would be like catnip to someone who felt so alone.
She was convincingly genuine, but she was also a con woman.
No one who genuinely cared would lock up her beloved children in cells like she did Virgil.
“Fine,” he muttered, getting to his feet. “Send word when you need help, or when you’ve got Duncan out.”
He turned towards the door but paused, his jaw clenched.
“Poppy might have screwed us all over, and maybe she never gave a shit about any of us, but I do. We’re both her subjects, and so are that new army of Stalkers.
That makes us kin.” I knew he meant that, even if he was visibly furious that she’d made more than one Stalker.
“She had contingencies for Cruelty betraying her. Ways to harm her.” His eyes slid from me to Death.
“She made you, and the others, to weaken Death, but Cruelty should have realised they could be used to weaken her too. If she comes for you, bite and scratch the shit out of her.”
With that, he ducked through the low door and disappeared, leaving only an empty coffee cup behind and my mind full of thoughts.