Chapter 5 #2
Thinking of it hurt. Thinking of our friendship hurt.
My blood frothed and tried to devour it all, so I shoved it back into the locked room and didn’t think about the stories Justice had told Griff and me about our cabin in the woods, or about the illusion pictures he’d paint, or about him telling me he loved me.
Justice dodged a punched. He shifted, jabbed right, and left himself exposed. His chest was open and waiting for my knife.
He’d done that the entire fight.
Even as a whirlwind, he’d held back. A punch that should’ve broken ribs only bruised them. A hit that should’ve knocked me out only stunned me. A kick that should’ve snapped my leg only made me stumble. Justice made a fight look vicious, when in reality, he was being gentle.
While we circled each other and snapped and thrust, the creatures screamed with glee. None of them could tell that Justice was being careful with me.
This was Justice’s gift, and his gifts were always kind.
He fought like a wild beast, cornered, wounded, but also one who didn’t want to hurt when he snapped his jaws. He knew this was an execution. He knew Jagger had nailed a clock on his coffin and his minutes were ticking down.
So what was he doing?
He was fighting with me, just like Jagger had ordered.
But the fight was a dance. It was a silent conversation.
A thrust. Thank you.
A lunge. For being there.
A kick. For being my best friend.
A punch. I’m sorry.
A shallow cut. It turned out this way.
A stab. It’ll be okay. It’s okay.
Then, when Justice left himself open to me, his heart exposed to my knife, it was, I love you.
My vision dimmed, red and black wings flapping at the edges of my eyes. Coal-black heat licked at me, and my blood roared in my ears. Kill, it said. Kill.
I kicked Justice, slamming my foot into his right leg. He dropped to his knees. I shoved him to his back and landed on top of him, locking him in place.
He stared at me with clear gray eyes, and in them I saw our dream of the Catskills. The evergreen scent, the cool, loamy forests, a stream of sunlight drifting over a log cabin and painting it gold, with two kittens swatting at a white butterfly. Justice’s lips curled into a soft smile.
“I wish we’d had those two minutes,” he’d said.
I’d wanted those two minutes too. I’d wanted them desperately.
“Go ahead,” he whispered. “It’s all right. You have to be ruthless, Mari.”
Yes. I did.
I put Jagger’s blade to his throat. The heat of his skin scalded my fingers, and the blood and sweat made them slick. Justice swallowed, bobbing the blade, but kept his eyes on me.
This wasn’t the first time he’d died. He knew what to expect. It’s just, this being his final death, he didn’t know what to expect after.
I smiled at him. I knew, from the guttering, dying light in his eyes, it was my new, cold smile. In it, there wasn’t any warmth or any love.
“I would like very much to kill you,” I said, loud enough for everyone to hear.
A wild roar went up. Then, just as quickly, the hall quieted, as if the hunger for blood was so great that it had consumed all sound.
Then came Jagger’s slow, pleased chuckle.
Justice didn’t cry—he never cried—but as he watched Jagger’s rocklike hate spread through my veins, a slow tear leaked from his right eye.
No.
Under the black handle of the knife, I tapped a butterfly wing soft beat against Justice’s neck. Tap tap. Tap tap.
“I find I like revenge,” I said.
Tap tap. Tap tap.
“I love the taste of it.”
Tap tap. Tap tap.
The nearly banked light in Justice’s eyes flared to life. The flicker was a brighter flame. He held motionless, only the hard thrust of his heart under my knee betraying his hope.
Do you remember? When Griff was little, he loved secret codes.
He made up languages and passwords and all sorts of cyphers.
One day, one of his codes got him into trouble, and Jagger raged, demanding Griff never use a code again.
This small, rhythmic tap was the only remainder.
It was a code that meant, It’s me. I’m here.
I was telling Justice in the only way I could that I was still me, and I was still there.
“I want you . . .” I said, leaning close, drawing on the bloodlust in my veins and soaking the hall with the feel of it, “to die.”
Quick as a viper, I slammed the hilt of the dagger into Justice’s skull. His eyes rolled back in his head, and the tension in his body leaked out like sand from a broken hourglass. He lay prone and vulnerable beneath me.
This was the hard part.
This was the part that decided whether I lived or died.
Scalding heat burned through me, and the will to kill rooted itself inside. The creatures pressed closer, staring greedily at the blood soaking through Justice’s clothing. A bruise spread over his forehead, already swelling and discoloring. A spot of blood ran from the small cut at the center.
Griff shook his head—no, no, no—but Roumelade tugged him back. Everyone else pressed closer.
I flipped the knife and gripped the warm, sticky hilt. Everything good was tucked away again, and everything that made me a mine came to the forefront. I was soaked in blood.
My clothes for the celebration were pure white. White cotton pants. White cotton shirt. All white. I’d been the one spot of white amid a sea of gray and black. Now, the white was stained with blood. Mine and Justice’s. Innocence broken.
“I’ll kill him if it’s your will,” I said, my voice as hard and as sharp as the knife. I meant it. I had to mean it.
The knife was heavy in my hand as I stared into Jagger’s gray-black gaze.
He was measuring, poking and prodding, burning through my insides and seeking out any lingering compassion or kindness.
He wouldn’t find any. I’d hidden it. I’d locked it away. I was a Ward.
Will you? he seemed to ask.
Yes, I answered silently.
Jagger’s rocklike form filled the hall. He towered above all the other creatures.
He was taller. He was wider. But more than that, he was the cruel king they all clung to.
They were the vultures that circled the predator; the hyenas that followed the beast. He was a murderer, and slinking in his shadow gave them their taste of bone and blood.
But I wasn’t in his shadow. I was his shadow, and he was mine. I burned with the hate of it.
Jagger stalked forward, and creatures fell out of his way. They scrambled over each other and trampled those who were too slow so they wouldn’t be killed for accidentally touching him.
One of the shills stumbled. He knocked against Jagger and cringed in fear. Without breaking his stride or taking his gaze from me, Jagger reached over and crushed the shill’s windpipe. The man dropped to the floor with a gurgling, dying wheeze.
A group of growlings, who loved the sound of gurgling brooks and running water, rushed over and crouched over the shill to hear his last bloody breaths.
Jagger loomed over me. His skin was still pearly gray from the Furtig. His expression was filled with the same pleasure he always got after killing and watching others kill.
He gripped his obsidian knife beneath his long, large-knuckled fingers and slashed the blade across the side of my neck. The sting burned, and warm, wet blood dripped down my skin.
The hall was still and silent.
Jagger dragged his dull claw over my neck and collected the welling blood in the curved groove of his nail. His gray lips pulled back in a warning grin, and then he sipped my blood.
He let the taste of it linger on his tongue. He let it tell him all my secrets.
A Ward.
A lockpick.
But more . . . a mine.
This was the ritual that always took place when a nine became a mine.
There was a party, a feast, a trial, and then Jagger would taste his mine’s blood. If the nine had made the transition, they would taste “right.”
If the nine hadn’t transitioned properly, they would taste “wrong.”
Perhaps “right” tasted like a vacant house, cleared out and full of evil and wrongdoing.
Perhaps “wrong” tasted like a lived-in home, still full of furniture, photographs, and memories of love.
I don’t know. I don’t know what Jagger tasted when he decided whether to keep or kill.
I only know that after letting my blood linger on his tongue, licking his lips and tilting his head as if he were tasting an aged bottle of Furtig, Jagger smiled cruelly and said in his loud, rockslide voice, “She’s mine.”
There was a violent roaring. I don’t know if it was cheering or if it was a roaring in my ears. A sealing of a bargain struck when I was only four years old. I don’t know.
I only know Jagger nodded to Justice and said with a hint of distaste, “Kill him, if you like. It was a gift. It will make your life easier if he’s dead.”
I nodded, my blood burning, my skin ice-cold. “Perhaps.”
I kept my gaze on Jagger, although I could see Griff behind him, watching with huge, frightened eyes. Was I the boogeyman in his basement now?
Jagger smiled as if he could read my thoughts. “I think you liked hurting him.”
“I did,” I agreed, because Jagger’s blood had made it so I would.
“You’ll like killing him too.”
“I would,” I agreed again, “but . . .” I stared down at the blood covering Justice, and the angry red bruise now purpling and swelling on his head. “As you once said, why kill someone when you can use them? I think . . . I’d rather use him.”
Jagger let out a surprised avalanche laugh. While he laughed, he rifled through me and didn’t find anything but cold, hard resolve.
“He’s mine to use, Mari. Mine to give. Mine to destroy. If you don’t want my gift, I’ll take it back.”
Before I had time to react, Jagger grabbed the knife from me and slammed it into Justice’s chest. The knife struck with a loud, violent thud.
It was a battle. It was a war not to cry out. Not to have any reaction.
Griff screamed. It was the wild howl of his dad. The frightening, ear-splitting shriek of the Jersey Devil. The creatures who’d been watching Jagger with hungry bloodlust went wild.
No one but me, Griff, and Rou had liked Justice. Everyone else feared him, and fear never bred like. They delighted in his death.
I kept my breathing steady. I concentrated on the acid in my veins.
I clutched the pain to me and rode on the pulse of Jagger’s hate.
I stayed there, keeping myself free of the hurricane raging in my locked room.
It beat at the doors; it screamed, pounded, and ravaged, trying to burst free.
I bolstered the door and locked it tight. I couldn’t let it out.
Jagger watched me, his hand on the knife, blood pooling around his gray fingers.
Finally, my eyes still on Jagger’s, I said, “Thanks for the come-out party. It’s been nice.”
Jagger’s rough laugh rumbled over me and through me, an uncomfortable scraping. It held a promise: Betray me, fight me, resist me, and this will happen to you. You’re mine to use. Mine to destroy.
“Oh, it’s not over. After the celebration, I’m sending you to destroy the Night Den. Burn it to the ground, Mari. Burn it to the ground.” He rose up like a vicious mountain, towering over us all, and shouted, “Let’s feast!”
Once he’d walked away, I looked down at Justice. Jagger had pulled the knife free, and blood sprouted from his wound. I didn’t react as Rou shoved me aside, but I wanted—oh, how I wanted—to smile.
The hurricane in the locked room of my heart fell silent and then subsided to a warm, relieved breeze. I wanted to weep with relief.
Jagger hadn’t stabbed Justice in the heart. He’d tricked me. He’d made it look like a death blow, when in fact, it’d been a graze. The knife had hit bone and left a shallow, bloody wound.
He’d made one final play to see if I was truly his. I know if I’d reacted at all, I would’ve been dead. I think if I’d reacted, Justice and I both would’ve been dead.
Jagger was a master of deceit, and I’d fallen for his lie. Thank goodness I was playing my own game.
I was still at Justice’s side. Rou pressed a cloth napkin to his chest. His heartbeat was pushing out blood in slow, painful gushes.
“How does it feel being a monster?” she asked, smiling. “You did good. You lived when I didn’t think you would.”
Griff stared at me as if snakes had sprouted from my head and frozen him to the spot. He looked at me as if I were all his nightmares birthed into one being.
“Don’t . . . don’t . . .” he whispered, shaking his head. “Please don’t say Mari’s a monster.”
“Not saying it doesn’t make it less true,” Rou said, glancing at Griff. “Besides, you’re a monster too.”
He looked down at himself. His hands were clenched in tight fists. His father’s form was fighting to break free. His nails were elongating, and his tendons were bulging in his forearms. His shoulders were widening in preparation for his leathery wings. His brown irises were deepening to black.
“Mari? You didn’t really want to kill Justice, right?” Griff begged me to agree. To tell him I was still me.
I couldn’t though. Griff couldn’t know. Even tapping out the code for Justice carried risks. If Jagger asked Justice if he thought I was truly a mine, Justice couldn’t lie to him. And Griff . . . he could never stand against Jagger’s rages.
I’d learned something tonight. I was a mine. Jagger had taken root and filled me with his will and his hate. But I was still me too. I was still there. So I was going to play a game.
A game of deception.
A game of misdirection.
A game where no one could trust anything I did or said.
The only thing you can trust is that in the end, everything I did, I did for the love of good. For you.
Could I keep from killing? Could I keep from violence and destruction? Could I play this game and keep my soul?
Jagger didn’t think so.
Judging by Rou’s placid expression as she soaked up Justice’s blood, and Griff’s horrified, betrayed gaze, they didn’t think so either.
I’m not going to lie to myself. There are times you put on a monster’s mask only to find the mask has become you. I know this is true.
I may lie to everyone else, but I won’t lie to myself. Why?
Because if I lie to myself, when everyone else has turned on me (and they will) and the only person I have left is myself, I want to be able to trust myself.
If I lie to myself, I won’t be able to trust myself, and then I’ll fail.
So I’ll hold my truth. Keep it bright and hidden inside. I’ll tell myself, Don’t become a monster. I’ll put on the mask but make certain that someday, I’ll be able to take it off.
I’ll be as cunning as a serpent and as gentle as a dove.
I’ll find a way out of this. I’ll save Justice. I’ll save Griff. I’ll save myself, and then I’ll come back to you.
I’ll find you in the Night Den.