4. Chace
Ubel Badden yanked my arm. “Are you listening to me, boy?”
Not really. I wrenched free of his hold. And I haven’t been a boy in years.
Ubel’s mouth hadn’t stopped moving since he’d set eyes on me, so…I’d done the logical thing and tuned out the patriarchal beatdown immediately upon our arrival at the train station.
I still couldn’t believe I’d found them (my so-called parents) waiting for me…in my private flat…when I’d left the lecture hall and gone home to grab my stuff, before heading to the train station. Ubel and Bacia Badden had attached themselves to my side ever since.
“Your mother and I have utter faith in your ability and superiority,” Ubel had said. “And so, we Baddens shall arrive early with our confidence firmly in place.”
Early, and with confidence. Right.
No sooner had we slipped into the transport for the ride and early arrival at the station than Ubel Badden had continued with the unwanted assessment. “This is highly unorthodox, but we shall turn the situation to our advantage.”
Turn the situation to our advantage?
Once he spoke those words, I’d lost interest in further conversation, as well as respect for my so-called elder. Not that any respect I’d once felt for the male hadn’t already corroded, the eroded remnants weighing in my gut like an oversized, acidic raisin, eating away at my insides.
I had hoped moving out from under their roof would help put some distance between us, but nope. Three years of living on my own, and the Baddens still constantly showed up to check on me.
Turning my back to my DNA contributors, and squinting against the too-bright sun, I surveyed the platform.
The cloying scent of exhaust and unnamed chemicals hung heavily in the atmosphere.
Two stationary rails occupied the tracks on either side of us.
One clearly automated and could run without a conductor, and the other required an operator but appeared currently without.
Twenty to thirty feet away, the conductor―one of the few individuals present at the station―exchanged a heated argument with an official-looking character. Word was, the conductor refused to take my reaper team to our intended destination, the Royal Citadel of Veritas.
I didn’t blame the guy. If everything the sperm donor had said held true, the citadel was as close as one could get to a city of the dead without visiting the underworld. A state that likely made our destination a nightmare to most.
Unlike the conductor, my parents weren’t merely accepting of my new assignment but appeared, to some degree, intrigued. Eager to somehow flip the situation to their benefit.
“Chace?”
Ignoring the male at my side, I closed my eyes, my mind whirling back to an hour earlier. To when I had stepped into my flat and found them inside waiting for me. They had my bags already packed, the transport running, and a list of recommendations hot on Ubel’s tongue.
Bacia Badden had clapped her hands together. “Finally. His first true test.”
First true test of what?
Neither Badden willingly elaborated.
Surely not a test of my reaper abilities, because those had been tested time and time again.
In any case, they had known about the reaping task before I even had the chance to tell them. Ubel had actually called me with the knowledge of my assignment and my destination mere moments after I’d received the crow-delivered transit ticket at the lecture hall.
No doubt, I had Uncle Mortifier to thank for keeping them so well informed. Likely had him to thank for the assignment, as well.
Yeah, everything about the situation disconcerted me.
Why the rush? The required reaping already held severe delinquent status, so why not allow us more time to prepare?
When asked, Ubel had brushed the tips of his fingernails along his lapel, glanced over me, and said, “I suspect the powers that be are expediting your departure in order to hinder any attempt by Scorpeo Gunn to find his daughter a way out of the task.”
Raven was a born reaper, so like it or not, the task came with the job—or life mission. If Mr. Gunn wanted to excuse his daughter from the reap, what did that say about the task? Or about Raven? Was Mr. Gunn trying to protect her? And if he felt she needed protection from the awaiting citadel…
Did my relations not hold the same concerns, fears, or cares about me?
No. I suppose our relationship over the past few years revealed more than enough to answer that unspoken question.
And…if the powers that be cut the timeline short for the reason Ubel proposed, then that would suggest an utter lack of randomness in Raven’s assignment to the task. The same could likely be said about my involvement.
Ubel shook my arm, yanking me back to the moment. “Stop daydreaming and answer me.”
I dragged a calming breath through my chest, glared at the point of our contact, and then slowly raised my gaze to meet his stare, my eyes narrowing. “Tell me something, Dad. If I somehow fail to return from this reap, will you be all torn up inside?”
Ubel’s eyes burst wide. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, but no words sprang forth. The old reaper’s lack of verbal response spoke volumes.
I flashed my wicked elder a knowing smirk, even as Bacia Badden extracted my arm from her husband’s hold and dragged me into her embrace. At the contact, my back and shoulders stiffened.
When was the last time she hugged me? My age had still been in the single digits.
“Don’t ever pose such foolish questions.” She pulled back and cupped my face in her hands. “You come back to us in one healthy piece. You understand me?”
The candor in her delivery fell short. I fought the desire to pull free from her hold and instead frowned while giving her a confirming nod. The affection she showered upon me now, however uncomfortable, was more than she’d shown in years. Ever since…
Ubel patted me on the back. “I will find out from Mortifier what is behind this unconventional task. The Johnsons should be dealing with this issue, not my heir.”
His words dripped with insincerity. Had the guy not wanted me to attend the task, he wouldn’t have let himself into my flat and had my bags packed and ready to go so damn quickly.
Rolling my eyes and biting my tongue, I withdrew from their attention.
Other big players in the reaping world found Ubel Badden untrustworthy. They were right to believe so. The guy kept too many secrets, even from his own family.
Mr. Aldine stepped onto the platform from the adjacent parking lot and waved at us. “I see you managed to adjust for the time change. Good. Good. Very good.”
Ubel failed to twitch even the tiniest of smiles in return.
Under his breath, he said, “That reaper is a fool and has a great deal to answer for. Too bad he never shall.”
“Now, dear.” Bacia ran a soothing hand across his back.
I pinched my brow. “What do you mean by that? Answer for what?”
With arms folded into my pits to hide my clenched fists, I stared at Ubel, waiting.
He tipped his head. “Old history that I would think shouldn’t be of concern to you during your impending task. Keep your focus, boy. Our family has a reputation to uphold, and a great many secrets dwell within the citadel. Take the opportunity to develop and thrive.”
What an odd choice of words…develop and thrive. But seriously, I’m twenty-four years old. Well above the boy range.
I ground my teeth, teetering on the edge of vocalizing my thoughts, but the clickety-clack of shoes spun my attention elsewhere. I whirled away from the irritating male and toward the sound.
Raven…
No, not Raven.
Her mother, Freyja Gunn, strode across the train platform in a halo of red-tinted black fire.
With a gasp, I lurched forward, instinctually wanting to help. “Mrs. Gunn.”
She paused and glanced my way, appearing every bit unbothered by the flames entombing her form.
“What are you doing?” Ubel grabbed my elbow, hauling me back and holding me in place.
Once again, I wasted no time extracting myself from the male’s grip. How many times must I remove myself from his damn grip before he understands?
Raven’s mother granted us a hint of a smile, then she turned and continued to the farthest bench from our location.
“I’m sorry. It’s just… I thought I saw…”
I slammed my mouth shut. Why the bleeding hell did I bother explaining anything to them?
Shaking my head, I shifted my gaze to my parents and then swallowed my next intended words.
Like Mrs. Gunn, Ubel and Bacia also bore a halo of color.
They radiated a thin layer of green mist and ash. Much like the fire surrounding Raven’s mother licking at the air around her, so did the mist and ash, rising as if from the recently scorched earth. Or, in this case, my so-called parents.
My brows slammed down as I withdrew a step.
If fire danced around Mrs. Gunn and green mist and ash around the Baddens…
I swung my attention to Mr. Aldine, blinked, then tightened my gaze.
Neither fire nor mist and ash hovered around the old reaper, but a simpler greenish haze smeared itself across his form, as if a giant highlighter had scribbled over the guy’s essence.
Similar yet different from what Ubel and Bacia possessed.
Color, check. Consistency and behavior, not so much.
“What the…” I squeezed my forehead in the pinch of my right hand.
“Chace, darling. You look a tad peaky.” Bacia’s voice sounded soft and laced with concern. “Are you all right? Have you been taking your daily pills?”
“What?” The question snapped me back to the conversation, and the elemental hallucinations surrounding the others on the platform vanished.
The scene before me once again became as boringly normal as one would expect.
“Your pills. Have you been taking them as you should? Never skipping a dose?” she repeated, rubbing the length of my arm.
Before her touch caused my skin to crawl any further, I flinched free and focused on her question…or the possible motive behind her question.
Pills. Had I taken them? I couldn’t recall.
Without Bacia showing up to my place and shoving them down my throat each morning, which she (thankfully) hadn’t done in a long while, my regiment had become rather lax.
A real hit and miss. Maybe I needed to work on that.
Or not. I hadn’t felt worse off for the days I’d missed.
Except, maybe, whatever I’d experienced a moment ago.
And earlier that morning. Hadn’t I noticed something flickering around Raven’s form? Part of the reason I’d been driven to her side, to attempt conversation.
Nevertheless, I lifted my shoulders. “One missed day won’t kill me.”
I’d likely missed more than a single day, but she didn’t need to know that.
With a slight nod of unspoken direction from Ubel, Bacia produced a pill container from her purse. Reaping gods, would she ever start treating me like the adult that I’d become?
She placed two tiny tablets into my palm. “Take them right now. I also packed a two-month supply in your bag. Make sure you take them every morning.”
“Two months?” A crushing pressure squeezed my chest. “You expect this task to take two months?”
“It’s just a precaution.” She grabbed my hand, her touch cold against my skin, and fiddled with my electronic wristband. “And now your timer is set to remind you to take your pills each morning.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, not feeling the emotion behind the word. “You do know I am no longer a child, right?”
Her eyes crinkled with anguish. For the now, for the memories of what once was, I didn’t know. She hadn’t been much of a mother to me since…
“I know, dear,” she continued. “You’re so grown up. I used to worry—”
She sucked back a harsh breath.
She used to worry I would never see a year past five. I’d heard about my condition countless times through the years, and she still had difficulty talking about my poor health and subsequent recovery. I remembered little from that time.
Ubel placed his hand on my shoulder, the weight and clench feeling every bit like a bear trap. “We expect you, with your superior skill, to finish the task in half that time.”
A full month, then?
I glanced from them to the awaiting rail and Aldine lingering near the train entrance.
Never had I been more acutely aware of the endless secrets my family kept. Secrets I now suspected involved my intended destination. And secrets that might lead me straight into the underworld or save me from the reaping hell known as the Citadel of Veritas.
My sperm donor resumed talking again. More useless drivel about the Gunn family. All the while, Bacia shoved a journal and a bundle of additional pills into my hold, murmuring words about self-care.
I held my face calm, as if listening intently, but in truth, I internally hummed a tune to drown out all the surrounding, unwanted clamor. Mainly, my father―a term I used loosely.
The male might consider himself a clever reaping genius, but I was (unfortunately) my father’s son with a bonus.
In addition to Ubel’s many aspects, I had Bacia’s gifts as well.
I would not be blinded by arrogance, and somehow—some reaping how—I would uncover the truths Ubel had kept buried for far too long.
Starting with whatever secrets involved the upcoming hellish task.
Several feet away, the train conductor bellowed and shoved his verbal sparing partner. My attention snapped to the scene as everyone on the train platform stilled and stared. Face flushed and words heated, the conductor threw something to the ground.
“I won’t do it,” he said, his words seething with irritation. “You can’t make me go anywhere near that place. I’ll quit before I do so.”