14. Chace
Awake indeed. Aoes had no idea how much I was waking from.
And remembering? I probably shouldn’t have spoken those words out loud because, out of everything that had recently transpired, those were the words that Aoes had latched on to.
But I was remembering bits and pieces. Fitting together the edges of the puzzle of who and what I was, inside and out.
I might be Chace, as that was what I felt at my core.
But I was more than the Chace Badden whose father took him on an adventure to the Citadel of Veritas as a young boy.
More than the youth who had trembled before a trapped flying monster or spoken with the dying being several cages over.
More than the guy who aggravated Raven Gunn in reaper training or got on the train bringing our team here.
And definitely more than the guy who diligently took his daily medication.
Fuck that medication.
It had kept me from accessing all of my true self. I bet Ubel and Bacia Badden had been fully aware of the effects the damn stuff had on my memories and self-awareness, too.
The Killian was right to crush the tablets beneath his boot.
I was once a caged and dying creature who struck an accord for the vessel of a brave, smart boy. Only, that creature and the boy had become so profoundly fused, I could no longer distinguish one from the other. A singular Chace was all that was left…whatever that was. Or turned out to be.
“What kind of things have you remembered?” Aoes asked…again. “Do you remember seeing anyone beside the ones you already mentioned when you were held in that underground prison?”
I held my tongue from pointing out that technically the drunkard’s cell was an underground prison. But that was not the prison to which he was referring, and I knew that. The pub manager asked about the time, mere days ago, when I was trapped and tortured.
With the number of times he’d asked about who I had seen, Aoes had tipped his hand.
The male was clearly searching for someone while attempting to avoid full disclosure.
He was doing a piss-poor job at hiding that fact.
He was emotionally invested, his interest clearly far too heavy.
The lack of stealth went against his usual composure.
I dipped a washcloth under the water in the bathroom sink and shook my head in response. I had no desire to share the depth of what my words meant—awakening, remembering. Plus, I was far from trusting Aoes with the sensitive details I suspected surrounded my world.
With one long swipe of the cloth, I washed the shaving cream from my skin, revealing a clean face once more. At least I no longer looked the part of the beast I’d recently felt like.
The edges of Aoes’s lips tipped down as he leaned against the bathroom doorframe.
Standing in front of the sink in the tight space, I dampened the cloth once more and wiped any remaining sweat, grime, and foam from my face and neck.
A spark of a memory, a place, a street, something inside of the citadel had begun nagging at me, and I would set out shortly to investigate, hopefully unlock the yet-to-reveal-themselves details.
Tossing the washrag to the side, I shoved past Aoes and stalked to the small kitchenette and a tall glass of water.
I hadn’t been able to quench my thirst since I’d risen out of the depths of my transformation…
or blending…or whatever it was. I couldn’t rightly recall, but I didn’t think my hunter side had ever gone through such a thing before.
Had never before needed to abandon one vessel for another.
Only I no longer thought of this body I inhabited as a vessel, or something that temporarily belonged to me. Through the blending with the boy, my other half, the flesh I wore had become a part of who I was. My home. I could no longer fathom forsaking my current skin for another.
Aoes waved his hand, indicating my body. “Your signature is―”
I slammed my hand into the space between us. I didn’t need to be told my energy had changed. Shifted deeper into the hunter I was created to be. I knew. Had suffered through the process.
I poured myself a full, to-the-rim glass of water and gulped it down in one long swallow.
Unlike the communal bathroom on the second floor, the kitchen and bathroom in the underground bunker…spy room…or whatever Aoes wanted to call the place…had running water. According to Aoes, the pipes to the second level were in need of repair and, at present, no longer worked.
Had my reaper team been aware of that fact when we had arrived at the citadel, we might have chosen to lodge at a different location.
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. Released the breath slowly. Two words in that last thought sent a fissure of pain through my being. Aldine was no longer with the team, and I was not really a reaper, now, was I?
At least, not 100 percent reaper.
The boy, my other half, had been born a reaper, trained as one. But my hunter side…
I snapped my head to the side, as if hearing a call or being slapped on the cheek by the wind. Only nothing was there. No stirring of air, no sound other than the slight shuffle of Aoes’s movements.
Curious.
I swept my gaze over the room and snagged on an item resting on the table. The article had not been there before I’d succumbed to the remembering process.
The detox, as the Killian had called it.
“What is that?” I twisted a pointed finger to the piece in question.
“Oh, that.” Aoes’s back straightened, and he moved to the table and picked up the glove.
“Found that under the bed in the room where Raven cured Winter. Figured it was something that belonged to one of you, and since you were so diligently collecting everything that wasn’t clothing, I figured you might want this too. ”
He wiggled his hand, and the glove flopped back and forth in his grip.
I stared at the reaper contraband item, of which I knew nothing about. Was the glove the manner in which Raven had managed to heal the afflicted woman?
I shook my head. No. I’d been with her that day in the citadel when she had been rushed, knocked down. She wore no glove at the time.
But had she used it on Winter? My brow arched with that thoughtful consideration.
“Where’s the other one?” I asked, then I jerked taut.
“There was only one,” Aoes replied.
I barely heard him amongst the rush of thoughts swimming in my head.
Yes, gloves almost always came in pairs, but that was not the reason I had asked the question.
No, not at all. Some part of me recognized the glove and instinctively knew it should have a mate.
But from where did I remember this fact?
A series of thumps and heavy footfalls thundered across the ceiling from the pub above. Aoes darted to the many rudimentary observation controls and pressed an eye to one of the looking glasses, opening several sound tubes.
“Out. Out.” Earl’s voice came booming through the open channel.
Followed by more thumps and bangs…and the croak of a crow. I startled.
“Stupid bird,” Aoes mumbled. “Keeps trying to fly into the pub. We don’t need that kind of crap, but don’t worry. Earl’s gotten real good at scaring it away.”
A crow had been trying to get into the pub?
I pivoted and marched toward the outer hall, where the drunkard cell waited. If a crow kept trying to fly into the pub, then it was likely trying to get to me. Which meant the bird probably carried a reply from Raven.
“Where are you going?” Aoes called after me, but I didn’t bother with a response.
I stalked straight out the door to the tunnel system, climbed the stairs to the pub, and strode through the storage room into the public space beyond.
Earl stood near the door, rubbing the top of his head with one hand and holding a broom in the other. No crow remained in sight.
“Where’s the bird?” I asked.
Earl pointed toward the street beyond the pub entrance. I darted outside but caught no hint of feathers.
Reaping hell.
I turned back to the pub’s entrance, and Aoes’s awaiting stare.
The pub manager crossed his arms and frowned. “What was that all about?”
I huffed a laugh. As if I would tell him.
I strode past Aoes back into the establishment. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do next, but I knew I’d find the answers I sought somewhere else within the citadel walls. I was going to track down some of those answers.
Flashes of places and faces danced through my thoughts as I made my way through the streets of the citadel. If I happened upon one of the locations plaguing my thoughts, then maybe the attached memories would fully take form.
One of the faces my mind appeared hellbent on recalling looked devilishly similar to the individual who had held me captive a mere few days ago.
The idea was plausible that the jerk who had taken, kidnapped, and tortured me was involved or even responsible for my previous form’s capture and near death so many years ago.
But the glove? How did that figure into everything?
I shoved my unruly bangs from my face, my forward motion coming to a standstill as my gaze lifted to the building at my side. Now boarded up and appearing every bit abandoned, I held a vague recollection of the place bright with colorful paint and illumination.
I had been here before.
Pinching my brow, I sifted through the fuzzy memories.
I had been here with others. A female and two males. But why? And who were they?
At a full six stories, the structure stood taller than the buildings on either side.
I studied the distance to the roof and the various architectural features that offered advantages.
As the reaper I was a few days ago, finding my way to the top would have entailed ripping boards free from the building’s face, breaking inside, and seeking a flight of stairs that led the way.
Now…remembering…transforming…I suspected I’d find my path to the top through easier and far quicker means.
A tiny waver in my gut doubted, but a stronger sensation urged me forward.
With three steps back and a dash forward, I leaped and clung and scurried up the building like a gargoyle lizard.
Until I wasn’t.
Midway across the face of the third floor, something gave—my ability to lift myself with practically no holds…or possibly my confidence. I wasn’t sure. But whatever it was that left me without, it didn’t matter. I fell and slammed onto the stone street.
And the landing hurt. A lot.
With a groan, I lay there, unmoving, allowing all my still-healing muscles and wounds to protest adamantly.
Could be I’d granted too much faith to the swell of certainty that had ballooned in my chest.
Breaking in and climbing the stairs it would have to be.
Releasing a grunt and a moan, I pushed to my feet, wiped the dirt and dust from my reaper leathers, and stalked back to the building. A yank and tear later, I stepped through an exposed broken window, forged through the empty building, and climbed the stairs to the rooftop.
A strong kick against the last door blocking my path and access to the roof was granted.
I took a stride forward and paused. I’d been here before.
Felt that truth tingling along my nerves and coiling in my muscles.
I’d not been here to reap but for another reason.
A reason I couldn’t quite remember. The reason I’d given the boy sounded rather unlikely—to save a goddess.
Gods and goddesses didn’t need saving by creatures such as myself. But I was meant to do something important. And since I’d not been recalled to the Underworld, that something still needed to be done.
Drawn by the view of the surrounding citadel, I shifted to the edge and peered at the distant palace.
Raven was there, somewhere, roaming the rooms and halls of the monstrous structure.
My gaze flickered to a tower set apart from the others, and I could have sworn I heard the faintest of whispers. Had something otherworldly beckoned me?
A light shimmered in one of the highest windows, and surrounding that window, a shifting shadow of onyx. A shiver rolled over me. I needed to go there. I needed—
A scream pierced the early morning, snapping my attention away from the palace. The sound was near. So near, in fact…
I leaped onto the roof of the next building. Ran the length and jumped to the next, and the next. I repeated the process several times until I screeched to a halt at the very edge of a terracotta-tiled crown.
My feet stopped working, and my limbs froze.
A large black bird dove for me. Dropped a note and gonked, then it flew into the distance without verifying I’d received the delivered message.
But it was not the crow deposit that held my motion.
It was the sea of black birds circling in the sky above and, more specifically, the fury-driven female in the small court below.
My lips parted, freeing a short breath, as my gaze transfixed.
Raven was screaming. A wrenching combination of anger, sadness, and fear. But it wasn’t her screaming alone that held my movements hostage. It was the fierce way she was attacking the Killian.
“Hellfire,” I mumbled with an internal groan.
Without giving the crow-delivered message a glance, I snatched it from the ground, shoved it in one of my side pockets, and then leaped from the roof…right into the middle of a violent, reaper-fueled confrontation.