15 #2
“So you do have some measure of self-preservation,” he says, this time without any bite. “Good. You’re going to need it. Speaking of which, how do you feel about enlisting some help?”
“Negatively.” I’m baffled he would even propose the idea.
“I have a contact in the Outskirts who owes me a favor. An old friend. He knows far more about the Reaches than I do.”
“You’ll forgive me if I’m not inclined to trust anyone else with our plan to commit literal treason.”
The Warden rolls his eyes, drumming his fingers against the countertop. “The friend in question would never turn us in. He’s a diabolist.”
That brings me up short. My jaw slackens, and it takes a concerted effort to snap my teeth back together. “There are more of you?”
“I may be one of a kind, but not in every sense. We are rare though, and most of us are smart enough to stay in hiding.”
I shouldn’t be as shocked as I am. If Gabriel lied about the Warden being dead, it follows that he would lie about him being the last of his kind. “How many other diabolists do you know?”
“I’ve only encountered a handful of others,” the Warden says, “and at least one of them is dead.”
“I thought you couldn’t die.”
“Oh, we can die. We’re just very difficult to kill.”
“How…?” I trail off, trying to determine the best way to phrase my question.
The Warden traps my gaze again. This time, he doesn’t relinquish it. “My body can heal so long as it has something to work with. Cut my head off, though, or throw me on a pyre, and I’m dead. I can’t regrow a severed limb either.”
“You can’t?”
“I’m not a fucking lizard.”
“So you need to be dismembered, or else entirely engulfed.” I consider this. “What about acid?”
“If you had enough of it, I’d wager.”
“Drowning?”
“I’ve never tried that particular method.” He may as well be telling me he’s never sampled a certain food.
“And you’ve tried the others?”
That wall slams back down. He’s distant again. Coldly bemused in the way that I’m coming to learn means he doesn’t want to give anything away. “As you can see, I’ve still got a head.”
Despite the nonanswer, I catch his meaning. He may not have experience with every method, but he’s definitely experienced some of them. Did someone else do those things to him? Is that how he got the scars on his back? I can’t bring myself to ask. “Where exactly do we find this friend of yours?”
I’m not sure why I give him the reprieve of changing the subject. I shouldn’t care. I don’t care.
The Warden’s attention is on the trees outside the window, face pale where the mottled light touches his skin. “Like I said, he lives in the Outskirts. Three hours by train, give or take.”
“And he’ll be willing to help?”
A shrug.
“For someone near indestructible, you sure act like it would kill you to give a straight answer,” I snap.
Ignoring that, he swipes my plate from the counter, depositing it in the sink across from where I sit. I watch as he turns on the tap, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the water. “I thought I’d made it clear you were going to have to follow my lead.”
I bristle. “Because you’re the Warden?”
“No.” He completes his methodical washing-up before elaborating. “Because I have considerable experience in the realm of not dying.”
“Do I look dead to you?”
“You look easy to kill.”
“You say that a lot for a man who can’t bring himself to do it.
” I round the counter, positioning myself an arm’s length away from where he stands.
My pulse quickens—I hate that our verbal sparring makes my adrenaline spike like a high I’m desperate to maintain.
“All you seem to talk about is how terrible you are. How easily you could end my life. It’s getting rather tiring, so if you’re going to kill me, just fucking do it. ”
The Warden turns off the tap and pivots slowly. The angles of his face might have been carved from stone. I feel the blood drain from my cheeks, but I cross my arms and lift my chin.
“Do you know why I don’t do it?” He speaks softly as he closes the space between us.
We’re chest to chest now, my back pressing against the sharp edge of the counter.
He braces his hands atop it, one on either side of my waist, caging me in.
Goose bumps break out across my skin as he exhales beside my ear.
“Do you know why I continue to warn you, yet keep you alive?”
“Sheer sadism, I expect.”
“It’s because you—” He cuts himself off and pulls back, jaw flexing. Unmistakable frustration twists his features as his gaze drops to my sternum. To the very place where the Markovich crest rested only two short days ago.
“Tell me,” I demand, but it comes out sounding like a plea for mercy. A perverted, wrong thing in my mouth.
He must resolve his internal conundrum, because all at once the Warden’s face hardens and twists. Not in anger, but in a grim sort of satisfaction. Like he was searching for the weak link in my armor and has finally identified it.
“You’re not dead yet, little sinner, because you’re already dying.
” Grip unforgiving, he snatches one of my hands and yanks the glove clean off.
I cringe away from the sight of my own fingers, my entire body going rigid.
I can’t move. Can’t look him in the eye.
I’m simply frozen, as if he’s transferred his stony exterior to me.
“Do you think I didn’t suspect it? You’re far, far further along in the stages of the Bloodrot than anyone your age ought to be.
” The Warden’s voice becomes a hiss. “You’ve got, what, months left?
A year at most? Your body has already started to die, and your mind will follow.
It becomes a race to see whether someone disposes of you, or you dispose of yourself.
” His lip curls, and suddenly he looks every inch the monster people claim he is: cold, cruel, and completely untouchable.
“The death you’re facing will be far more terrible than anything I can deliver.
If I possessed any of the mercy you want to believe I do, you’d already be dead. ”
He drops my arm. I let it hang limply at my side, still refusing to look at my blackened fingertips.
How the discoloration narrows into skeins of onyx over the back of my hands.
Nothing I can say will express the sheer intensity of my hatred for him in this moment.
Control is slipping out of reach. I know that if I speak, if I move, I won’t get it back.
My very core seems to have hollowed out.
A sick feeling replaces it, forming a vise around my windpipe.
I want to see him hurt. I want to see that perfect face contorted in pain. Not the kind that quickly subsides as his impossibly fast healing takes over, but the kind that burns and burns and burns—
“I’m not sure you understand the situation.” The Warden leans back in as he echoes my words from earlier. “But you will.”
Then he’s gone, the whole room seeming to tremble in his wake.
It takes me far too long to realize it’s just me.