Chapter 15
EVER
I’ve seen a lot of Eli’s faces by now. I’ve seen fury and threat, fear and pain. But the look on his face at this moment, the tension pushing the boundaries of his features with tiny convulsions, the affliction bleeding through his detached eyes—it’s unlike any before.
The veins in his arms rise. He holds in a heaving breath, possibly a scream or a full-on breakdown. Rage without direction, without escape.
My own hurt over yet another secret Kelter has kept from me is smothered by a forceful rush of compassion and currents of confusion.
I don’t know how they could possibly be brothers, but I want to stroke those curls and kiss him until the golden specks return to his eyes. I want to take away the pain.
But he snaps his gaze to me, now surging with panic. My heart dislodges. I grab my chest, gasping. It’s squashed from every side with bruising force.
Can a heart bruise? Can it take a blow so hard that blood escapes its confines and leaks through the skin of my chest? A tenderness out in the open? I believe so.
Then the softness is gone, the way I felt toward Eli—vanished. I stumble backward, my world unstable, unsure, my heart still aching.
Milo swoops to my rescue, wrapping an arm around my ribs and holding me upright—then screeching at his mistake. He tears himself away and falls to the carpet with a desperate look up at Eli.
“Milo…” I stammer. I’m so sorry.
But Eli’s eyes are still fixed on mine. “You. Come with me.”
I don’t dare say no.
Eli snatches up his come-stained shirt then grabs his knife and ammo-loaded suspenders from the carpet and stomps out the door.
“Shit. I need clothes.” I reach up the back of my shirt and tie my bra with no lack of awkwardness then retrieve my pants from the corner.
I pull them on while hopping across the room.
I don’t know why I follow so readily. Maybe because of that fleeting feeling in my heart before my sensible side kicked in.
I stuff my feet into my boots and barrel down the stairs after him.
Double the thump of steps echoes behind me. “Milo?” I turn around, holding the railing on either side. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure you’re safe. He’s almost out of sight already.”
“He won’t leave me.” And trusts that I’ll follow.
Milo squints, his blue eyes fierce. “Neither will I.”
My lips part, every intention of turning down his company, but… I don’t want to. It’s painful to accept, foreign. I squeeze the padded railing. “Thanks.”
Milo grins so wide my own cheeks hurt.
Sypher emerges behind him, a paper box in hand, mouth greasy and full. “It’s still okay to eat, right?”
Kaleida pushes past him with an affectionate pinch of his belly on her way by. She slides in next to Milo, plopping a hand on his shoulder and another on her curvy hip as she looks down the steps at me. “I won’t leave you either, at least not until Eli sends us away.”
I offer her a gracious nod then walk fast, familiar with the obstacles on the sidewalk, the newspaper boxes and street lamps, bike racks and trash cans. A violent beat clatters in my chest, and I wonder if Eli’s heart really does match mine, if he feels my urgency, can sense me approaching.
“So Kelter’s crazy?” Milo asks, a forced nonchalance lacing his tone.
I look his way. “How so?”
Milo glances over at me as we zoom past the storefronts. “He attacked Eli—a Vaile—and called him brother.”
“I have no idea about the brother thing, but Kelter’s a Vaile too.”
“What?” Kaleida gasps.
I pick up my pace, wondering how I’ll ever catch up to Eli. “I thought you knew. That’s why he’s not impacted by the elixir like the rest of the Calderans. Didn’t you notice? He was born in Sonnet and sent away when he was eight.”
“Wait. Why aren’t you affected by the elixir?” Sypher asks. “You’re a Hollow.”
“She’s not a damn Hollow, Sypher.” Milo rubs his fist in Sypher’s short hair. “She took the Centress’ magic and zaps people with pain. Hollows can’t do that.”
“Nobody tells me anything.” Sypher ducks out of reach and pushes Milo. “Then what is she? She hasn’t linked so she can’t have a gift.”
Milo sidles up next to me again, that smile too much to handle. “She’s one of a kind.”
“Hurry up,” I say, unsure how to respond.
“That’s impossible,” Kaleida says distantly.
“Well, she’s not a Hollow,” Milo argues.
“That’s not what I meant.” She shakes her head, tossing tight curls back and forth. “No one is sent away from Sonnet. Plenty disappear. Killed, I’m sure, but not kids.”
Milo’s face is paler than usual. His cheeks sink deeper. “There was that one kid.”
“No,” Sypher whispers, dodging a fire hydrant, his eyes popping. “It couldn’t be. He killed that girl, Allora. And his name wasn’t Kelter.”
My stomach plunges past my knees. “Who killed a girl?”
“Cramp! Cramp!” Sypher stops and grabs his belly, huffing loudly. “A boy named Emerson. He killed Allora then disappeared. We all figured the Centress killed him.”
“What was he like?” Kaleida asks Sypher while speeding back up to my jogging pace to explain. “I didn’t join their school until after the fire in Lirica. I never met this Emerson kid.”
“Golden hair. A few freckles,” Milo says. “Like a little Kelter, I guess.”
Reality shifts around me, as if I were falling and falling and never hitting bottom. That can’t be right. Kelter’s gentle. Innocent. Or I thought he was—until he sliced Eli’s throat.
We dash around the corner, and Eli is up ahead, his large figure and black clothes easy to spot amongst the bright colors of Caldera, even at night.
His shirt is on again, the outline of suspenders down his back.
I swap my jog for a run, then a full-on sprint when he walks into the street beneath the green glow of traffic lights.
A car stops inches in front of him. The driver, a young man with an oddly youthful face, sits behind the wheel, groggy and unaffected by the near-collision. Eli slams his fist down onto the hood of the car before rounding the front bumper and banging on the driver’s side door. “Get out!”
The man stares blankly ahead. In a smooth and practiced motion, Eli pulls out his slingshot, loads it with a marble from his ammo strap and aims it at the guy’s face through the open window.
Damn him. Not the time for toys, Eli.
“Move!” he yells. The dazed man finally obeys, shifting the car into park and slowly stepping out of the vehicle as if he were sleepwalking, not even taking note of the slew of knives or bloody clothes, his battered face.
Eli stows his slingshot and climbs into the driver’s seat as I reach the passenger side.
I fling open the door. “What are you doing? You can’t drive!” He ignores me while messing with the shifter and every handle and button he can find. “Give him back his car and come talk to me.”
I watch his knees rise and fall as he pounds one pedal after the other, trying to figure out what they do.
He flips the air vents open and close. The horn goes off when he smacks the steering wheel in frustration, making him jump.
So he punches the radio and yanks on the turn signal knob until it cracks in half.
“Tell me how this godsdamn thing works!”
Stubborn man. “Get out!”
“How do I make it move?” he lashes out, banging the shifter with his palm.
“Stop, stop.” I hold my hands up, as if that would convince him. “Find the button then pull!”
He follows my instructions with no success. “It’s fucking broken.”
“The brake. You have to brake first.” Why am I even telling him?
“Break what?” he yells, landing both fists on the steering wheel and setting the horn off again.
“No, use your foot. The right pedal. No, left! Left pedal!” I yell, grabbing my head. I don’t even know how to drive.
He hits the brake and shoves the car into gear. When it doesn’t go anywhere, he swaps his feet. The car lurches forward with a roar of the engine. I block the door from shutting on me when he slams on the brakes.
“You’re crazy. Get out,” I beg.
He plays with the pedals a few more times, driving forward and stopping short repeatedly. I follow along beside the open door, trying not to get knocked to the street when he discovers reverse gear and flies backward after getting stuck in neutral.
I crouch down next to the passenger seat so I can see him better. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
He stares straight ahead. “Get in.”
“Wait! I brought teva,” Milo says, holding the door open. “Come on, Eli. Let’s go back.”
Even his calming drug of choice doesn’t sway him. “No. Get in the car, Never.”
I groan and jump inside, pulling the door from Milo’s clutch. “These things are lethal.”
“Good. Let’s find Kelter.” Eli hammers the pedal, learning to steer as he goes and accelerating with no regard for staying alive whatsoever. I suppose that’s not a concern for him.
I cling to the car, one hand with a death grip on the armrest, the other clutching the door as if it might swing open. “You’re supposed to stop for the red lights!” I scream. He nearly collides with a gray truck, swerving at the last second and almost taking down a street sign. “Eli! Stop the car!”
“Tell me where he lives.” He grips the steering wheel. “He’s blocking me.”
“Blocking you? How? I doubt he went home. He hates that place. That’s why he was always with me.”
A spiteful laugh erupts from his chest. “Sure it was. Where?” He turns the wheel in fast motion, hand over hand as if he’d done it a million times before. We spin through the middle of an intersection.
“Back that way! Blue house. Slow down!”
“I can’t!” he yells, emotion slipping past his cold front.
“Car! Car!” I holler as he drifts out of his lane and speeds toward the oncoming traffic.
A vision replaces the scene around me.
He swerves, but it’s too late. We slide sideways into another car.
The door crunches inward. Metal bends. The sound—it’s deafening.
Glass rains over us. I don’t scream, not even as we roll.
Once. Twice. And a half. Not even when I notice the piece of steel frame through my stomach, the endless gush of red.
Eli takes me in his arms as death cradles me close, and I’m not sure if his cries are from the pain I cause him… or because it’s the very last touch.
I return to his maniacal laugh and the sharp turn of the car, but the look on his face matches the anguish I felt.
My senses are on fire. The scent of burning rubber stings my nose, now unreasonably strong, the streetlights overly bright.
My head bangs against the window at my side from the momentum.
“What are you doing? You’re going to kill us! ”
He brakes hard, screeching to a halt in the middle of the road. I plant both hands on the dashboard, hysteric breaths clobbering my lungs.
He assesses me, the angles of his face knifelike. “I would never risk your life like that. My reaction time and control are beyond what you can imagine.”
“You’re insane.” The intensity catches up with me, tears spilling down my cheeks. “Move before we’re hit!”
He stomps the gas and swerves again in time to avoid being rear-ended.
“Pull over!”
“Don’t you want to find Kelter?”
“No!”
“You don’t?” His body loosens, the car briefly slowing with the lightness of his foot.
“He knows his way around Caldera. Let him have his tantrum and talk to him after.”
Eli takes another tight corner and darts between lanes, passing everyone at four times the speed limit.
“Then… now what?” he asks, his quiet question at odds with the power of the vehicle he commands.
“Stop the car up there.” I point wildly. “I’m nauseous. And I want to show you something.”
He spins out and slides the car between two others in front of the building, a perfect parallel park.
How in the fuck? I don’t even care. I can finally breathe again.
“It’s dark,” he says, revving the engine.
“It’s closed.” I rest my head back against the seat. “It’s the middle of the night. I’ll show you through the window.”
He grunts and pounds the pedal while twisting the steering wheel. The tires squeal, and we’re up the curb. Across the sidewalk. And straight through the windows that form the front of the store. Glass shatters for the millionth time tonight, raining over the car like a crystal storm.