18
“Should they in fact exist, their numbers are unknown: It appears they are born, not made. How, then, could such an abomination be a product of nature? What role are they to play in a symbiotic environment where predator eats prey and animal instincts are a product of divine will? Are they individual creatures—a lone hunter near extinction, accustomed to hiding—or do they move in groups beneath our very noses, donning a veneer of humanity?”
I struggle to reorder my thoughts. I can’t quite process the fact that Darva is dead and I’m not. Adrenaline pulses through my veins with enough force to make me dizzy, and though I’m relieved to be alive, I’m definitely not happy to see the Warden again.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
He wipes his hands on his jacket, frowning at Darva’s body with some measure of dismay. I can’t tear my eyes from his tattooed fingers. He snapped a grown woman’s neck with shockingly little effort. I knew he was lethal, but seeing irrefutable evidence of that fact is something else entirely.
He let you escape, Gabriel warned me two nights ago. The Warden is the devil’s man.
I’d tried to argue. To claim I’d escaped of my own volition and that was why I remained alive. It seems like the foolish belief of a child now.
“You really can’t seem to keep out of trouble, can you?” the Warden says, toeing Darva’s body. Her eyes are open, vestiges of that horrible smile still playing around her mouth.
Comprehension catches up to me. He murdered one of his own people to save my life. Broke her neck like it was nothing, and right after she’d finished proclaiming her loyalty to him. Darva would have killed me for presenting a threat to the Warden, and in return he slaughtered her.
“Why did you do that?” I stumble to my feet. The left side of my face smarts as I bend to retrieve my gun, and the pulsing ache feels like it must surely be visible to his discerning scrutiny.
“I believe the correct words here are thank you.”
“She worked for you.”
“Yes, and I’ll find someone else.” The Warden looks almost bored. “Truth be told, she brought me little information I didn’t already know. That, and her obsession with pleasing me had become a bit much.”
I don’t know how to respond. Somehow, knowing he chose to save my life only increases my unease. I don’t like how unpredictable he is.
“Where exactly did you think you were going?” the Warden asks now, procuring a pack of cigarettes. His expression is half shrouded in shadows.
“Nowhere,” I mutter. I return my gun to my waistband. “Did you tell Darva to follow me?”
“Answer my question first.”
“Can you put that thing out?” I snarl, waving the air in front of my face with more vigor than necessary. “I’m not interested in breathing your secondhand smoke.”
“I’ll put it out once you answer me.”
“You’re going to suffocate me into talking?”
“You’re not suffocating.” He grins around the cigarette, teeth holding it in place.
That, certainly, is a lie. His very presence is suffocating.
Scowling, I meet his gaze. His eyes are lined lightly in black. It makes them look strikingly, unsettlingly blue. “I was only planning to go fetch some things from my apartment, seeing as I’ve been wearing your bodily fluids since yesterday.”
The Warden glances at my shirt, to the black streaks of his blood still visible against the fabric. “You should have waited until I returned.”
“I didn’t know if you would return.” Indignation sharpens my tone. “I assumed you’d left for the Reaches without me.”
“Now, why would I do that?”
“Because I gave you the information you needed. And because we both know you wouldn’t hesitate to betray me.”
“Felix Astor needs a sinner,” he reminds me. “You can rest assured I’m not going anywhere without you.”
The sincerity in his voice is baffling. I speak through my teeth. “You left for the entire day without telling me. What was I supposed to think?”
“Feeling abandoned, were we?” A lopsided grin splits his lips. “I was merely giving you space. You seemed a little upset.”
I don’t return the smile. “You ripped my glove off.”
“Hiding from the Bloodrot isn’t going to make it go away.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“Really? Because it seems to me you’re acting like a child, covering your eyes to pretend the scary thing isn’t there.”
I can’t help myself—I hit him. Not hard, but with a stinging backhand that knocks the cigarette from between his teeth. “Fuck you.”
The Warden doesn’t bend to pick up the cigarette. Rather, he takes out a new one, clicking his lighter as he continues to watch me, now with something akin to disappointment. Like he’d thought I might be better than this.
I don’t know why it stings.
“Tell me why you had Darva following me,” I say furiously.
He glances skyward, his irritation palpable. “I didn’t. Her decision to track you down was hers alone.”
“And you just happened to arrive in time, did you?”
“I know you’re not going to believe me, but yes.
Had you ended up anywhere else tonight, I’d probably be pulling your corpse from the darker parts of an alley.
Speaking of which…” He stoops to grab Darva’s limp arm, dragging her body out of the light with enviable ease.
Then, straightening, he takes a drag from the cigarette and blows smoke in my general direction.
“You still haven’t thanked me, by the way. ”
That startles a laugh out of me. “Thanked you? Should I be grateful you saved my life just to ensure I die in a more terrible way? That’s what you’re waiting for, isn’t it?”
A gust of wind ruffles the Warden’s silvery hair. He smooths a hand over it, rings glinting in the moonlight. “Gabriel’s unshakable little sinner, scared of nothing save the Bloodrot in her veins.”
“Do you want me to hit you again?”
A derisive arch of his brow. “I wouldn’t be against it.”
Ugh. “I hope you’ll forgive me for not relishing the idea of a slow, undignified death.”
“Ah, yes. I nearly forgot—nobody, in the history of time, has ever been as hard done by as you.”
“You have no idea,” I say, my voice cracking.
“You don’t know what it’s like to watch your own body become a ticking clock counting down to your death.
There’s no forgetting about it. No escape.
You can’t show anyone else, because they’ll look at you like you’re a monster.
And you”—I jab him in the chest with a finger, stopping him in his tracks as he approaches—“you act like it’s some kind of joke.
” I trail off, breathing heavily. My hand against his chest has balled into a fist. I feel like I’m slipping off the edge of a precipice, grasping for control that keeps shifting out of reach.
“I have no idea?” the Warden echoes. His lashes cast delicate shadows across his cheeks; they’re a stark contrast to his stormy expression.
“You think I have no idea how it feels to be trapped in your own skin? That I have no idea how it feels to be perceived as a monster?” He laughs, the sound hollow and caustic.
“Fuck, Talin. I didn’t think I needed to ask permission to leave my own house.
You’re a grown woman—I assumed you would be fine to take care of yourself.
But since it bothered you so much, you might be interested to know that I found Felix Astor. ”
My harsh reply withers on my tongue. “That’s what you were doing? Looking for Astor?”
“Yes. I had someone track him down. Turns out he frequents a temple only a couple of hours from here.”
“So you went to see him?”
“You could put it that way.”
“You killed him,” I surmise.
The Warden’s gaze is unreadable. “You were right—he does look like me.”
Perhaps I should feel bad for the unknown chaplain, but my capacity for such things waned years ago. Instead I feel only a dull sort of acceptance. “You could have told me that’s what you were planning. You could have brought me.”
“I could have,” he agrees. “The next train should be here any minute, by the way. We’ll go by your apartment, then carry on to the Outskirts.”
“Now?”
“Is there any reason why not?”
It’s not like I want to stay at his house a moment longer—I just hadn’t mentally prepared to depart so soon. That, and I find myself balking at the idea of being trapped on a train with the Warden. “You don’t have any luggage with you.”
“I don’t need luggage.”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to wear—”
He cuts me off. “I used to live with the friend we’re going to see. Many of my belongings are still there, assuming he didn’t trash them. Though it’s nice to know you care about my hygiene.”
“I care for me, not for you.”
His shrug is blasé. “If the train shows up, don’t let the conductor close the doors. I’m going to get rid of the body.”
“How—”
But he’s already striding away. I grind my teeth as I watch him heave Darva’s dead weight over his shoulder. Despite her unwavering loyalty, he disposed of her so easily, so remorselessly.
I try not to think about what that might mean for me.
* * *
We sit on a train traveling north as the hours inch closer to midnight.
A bag of clothes and other necessities sits between my legs.
True to his word, the Warden allowed for a stop at my apartment, and I hadn’t lingered.
There was no reason to. As I shoved a few changes of clothes into a bag, I glanced around only once.
Dull orange light from the hallway spilled across the threshold.
The clacking of a typewriter was audible from the room next door.
I’d spent years existing in that tiny space, and yet it still looked like a relic of someone else’s life.
Home, my mother had said when we were first settling in to the Apostles’ community, is wherever you feel the presence of the Savior.
I’d thought then that perhaps I’d never felt at home anywhere. I’d tried to feel the Savior, but all that existed within me was the ceaseless echo of my own heartbeat. The awareness of my skin and the weight of my bones.