Chapter One
Cave
Red. He shouldn’t be that red.
No, no, no. His blood is pooling on the ground.
I grab my head—no, no, no.
Cipher is bleeding.
Valli is screaming, but it doesn’t sound right. It’s all wrong. I know that sound; I heard it when I was eight.
Don’t focus on the blood or think about her. Don’t let memories swarm up of her small hands, of how much blood there was, or of her little lifeless body.
This is how the Scarecrow came to be.
He is alive in me; I can feel it, feel him rise to the surface. The part of me that is not human—the fragment of me that saves people, protects them.
“Cipher!” Valli screams, and he focuses on that. “Cipher, stay with me.”
I can’t move as my mind shifts somewhere dark, somewhere death cannot reach me. A place where there is no screaming, and a voice tells me he will fix this.
Someone shouts for an ambulance.
More people have entered my cornfield. I need to get them out; they cannot be in here. This is mine.
When Rowan moves, my brain shatters like glass hitting the hard ground, and the darkest part of me steps out.
I don’t remember crossing the space, but suddenly I’m in front of Rowan, my hands fixed around his throat. His chokes and gasps swim beneath my palms, feeding my need to see the fight leave his body.
Noa is shouting something, but it’s merely noise.
“Cave, no! We need him alive.”
Do we really?
Valli is the only other person who can talk to the darkness inside me. But not this time. We must eliminate the threat—I won’t let anyone take them from me.
I could crush his windpipe right now; it would take seconds. The Scarecrow always knows what needs to be done. He has helped me since I was eight and couldn’t save my sister. We became one and the same until Valli. She helped separate the two, and look where that got us.
The face of my enemy is purple, eyes bulging, and there is something satisfying about the way his body convulses.
Don’t kill him. We can use him to eliminate every threat.
I release him; I need him alive. He gasps, clawing at his throat.
Behind me, Valli is screaming Cipher’s name, and the sirens are getting closer. The world still moves, even though everything has ended for me.
I don’t wait for the ambulance to arrive; instead, I grab Rowan by his shirt and pull him like a rag doll toward the parking lot. He tries to fight me, but I feel nothing—no pain, no remorse. Nothing.
“Cave, what are you doing?” Noa shouts behind me.
I point back toward the cornfield, and he must listen because he doesn’t follow us. None of them need to see what I’m about to do.
Rowan screams and struggles as I drag him along the gravel path, creating a body-shaped trail as I walk, and when I finally reach the parking lot, there is a figure leaning against a truck, waiting.
White face paint, red lips. It’s the fucking Jester.
“Well,” the Jester says, in a voice that’s almost musical yet wrong to my ears. “This is interesting.”
I don’t stop as I drag Rowan past the truck, but the Jester steps into my path. “You look like you’re about to commit murder. I love that energy.”
I growl, and the Jester’s smile gets wider.
“Do you need help inflicting pain? I can drive, plus I have a strong appreciation for torture and the melody of violence. The way their screams echo, and the pitch they reach when they realize they’re about to die.
And don’t get me started on the sound of bones crunching.
It’s different depending on what bone. Femurs sound different to ribs, but skulls are the most musical. ”
I assess whether it is worth taking the Jester with me. Its voice is too musical, too floaty, but I’m intrigued by its love of death, so I nod sharply.
At my gesture of assent, the Jester opens the truck door.
“Get in,” it tells Rowan, its voice changing to poisoned honey—now this version I like. “You, too, Scarecrow. Let’s go make some art.”
I throw Rowan into the truck, and he lands hard against the opposite door, gasping and bleeding all over the seats. The Jester climbs nimbly into the driver’s seat, as I slide into the back next to Rowan, and then the truck starts to move before I can even get my door closed.
“So,” the Jester says, pulling out onto the bridge. “Where are we going? And more importantly, who did Cipher piss off enough to get shot?”
The reminder of what Rowan did surges through me, and I grab his neck again.
“Oh, so you’re the one who did this? How delicious.” The Jester looks in the rearview mirror while making a sound of delight. “You look terrified. Do you even know what’s about to happen to you?”
“Please . . .” Rowan begs. “I was just—”
Rowan cuts himself off and his eyes go wide as I remove my corn sword. If I have to end him now, I will.
“W-what the fuck?!” Rowan shrieks when I bring the handle down against his leg. It’s a warning that I’m not afraid to use it but would prefer not to spill blood inside the truck.
“Ah, the infamous corn sword,” the Jester muses.
“Do you know how satisfying it is to hear bones crunching? It’s like music.
The human body is so fragile, with all those bones just waiting to break under the right pressure and blood waiting to spill.
It’s beautiful. The highest form of art is suffering, but I prefer others to suffer for it. ”
“You’re fucking insane,” Rowan whispers, his entire body shaking.
“Yes,” the Jester agrees happily. “Completely and certifiably insane, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Now, tell me everything. What does the Scarecrow want from you?
Speak quickly, or we might need to break some bones before our destination.
I would love that a lot, and I’m sure the Scarecrow would too. Simply look at his hands.”
Rowan looks at my hands, then my sword, and then back at the Jester.
“I owe money to Steedy, and he wants my sister as payment.”
The Jester nods. “And where might we find this Steedy?”
“He has a warehouse down near the old pharmaceutical place. That’s where he runs his operation,” Rowan rushes out.
“How many men?”
“I don’t know, ten, maybe. I don’t go in—I only know where to go.”
“Because he has forced you there.”
Rowan nods, and the Jester cackles. “Well, you better lead us there, as I have a feeling the Scarecrow isn’t happy about someone wanting his woman.”
“He will kill me,” Rowan protests.
The manic laughter from the Jester echoes around the truck. “The big, scary Scarecrow to your right is going to kill you quicker, and if he doesn’t, I have not had blood on my hands in too long. It’s calling to me like the lullaby your mom sang to put you to sleep at night.”
The drive takes forever, and during that time our self-appointed chauffeur rambles enthusiastically about the sound of screaming, and how each scream is different depending on the levels of fear, increasing in pitch when there is pain involved.
We also hear all about the harmonious contrast of the silence after the body has given up.
“The beauty of violence is that it doesn’t lie,” explains the Jester. “A man can lie with his words, but when you break him, he becomes truthful. It’s magical to behold.”
The warehouse comes into view ahead. It’s old, a good place for bodies to never be found, where screams will not be heard.
Three men gather outside, armed with handguns, staring suspiciously as the Jester pulls the truck up to the entrance.
“Here we are,” it says.
As I get out of the truck, the men look at me, their attention turning to the Jester as it slides out the other side. Yet when I pull Rowan from the truck, they seem to relax a little, but not fully—especially when two of the three of us arrive dressed in a way no one expects.
“Rowan?” one of them says. “What the fuck . . .”
I move with no rage or emotion; this is simply a means to an end. Before he even realizes what is going on, the first man is on the ground, his arm broken and a scream piercing the air.
The Jester watches in delight before pulling a knife from the inside of its pant leg as it reaches us; the blade goes in cleanly, then it steps back to admire its work.
Though the second man reaches for his gun, the Jester is faster, throwing its knife and hitting the side of the man’s neck. The Jester quickly bounces over and removes it as the guard drops, blood spilling onto the ground.
In the chaos, the third man has run inside, but the Jester and I simply exchange a glance. Its smile is ecstatic; it’s having a grand old time. “I love my life,” the Jester gushes.
I shake my head, and we walk inside, dragging Rowan with us. The warehouse is dimly lit, but it’s still light enough that we can see multiple pallets of boxes, a forklift, and shelving stacked with boxes. There are also a few men in here who reach for their guns when they see us enter.
I shove Rowan behind one of the pallets, forcing him down against the metal shelving.
He tries to pull away the second I let go, so I grab the back of his shirt and drag him straight back.
The Jester appears, holding out a zip tie from his pocket with a smile.
I take it and loop it around one of his wrists and the frame, then tighten it until he can’t go anywhere.
His eyes widen as he yanks on it. I point at him and then at the floor, hoping he understands I mean stay.
He stops fighting, so he either does understand or he is too scared to argue.
The Jester has vanished, so I move through the shadows, keeping myself hidden.
Brandishing my corn-handled sword, I sneak up behind one of the men.
My sword’s blade slides between his ribs like butter, and the man screams. The Jester drops from above and slashes its knife at a second man.
The third turns and aims his gun, but the Jester drops to the ground and rolls, slashing at the man’s ankles.
Its manic laughter suggests it is having the time of its life.
A man swings at me, and I catch his arm, then twist until I hear the bone crunch. His screams echo through the warehouse.
Another tries to run, but the Jester throws its knife. The blade catches the back of his leg, causing him to fall. The Jester skips over and collects its knife, then leans down and runs the blade along the man’s throat.
“Thank you,” it says to the dying man. “That was beautiful.”
Rowan is frozen where I left him, his back pressed against the metal frame, his wrist still secured, and he stares at us in terror as I slice the zip tie open. There are no more men standing, or they have run. The Jester wipes the blood from the blade as he hums.
A man steps out from behind a row of shelves, gun in hand. “Well, this is not what I expected.”
Rowan tries to run, but I catch him before he takes two steps. I drive my fist into the side of his head, and he drops like a fucking puppet with cut strings, thudding onto the concrete.
“Efficient. I like it,” the Jester says, as we stand side by side and turn our attention back to the man, his aimed gun wavering slightly.
I know this is Steedy; Ares showed me his picture. So I take a step toward the man who wanted to take what’s mine.
“I protect by destroying, I love by consuming, I keep what’s mine by making sure nothing else can have it. What am I?”
The gun shakes more, and Steedy’s face goes white.
“A scarecrow, motherfucker,” the Jester says, and then moves.
The gun goes off, and white-hot pain slices through me as I move forward.