Chapter 9 Saskia
Is that how you speak to all your friends?
His voice cuts through me like a heated blade. This time, though, I’m prepared.
I curl up in my chair in the corner of my room, feet under me, blanket draped over my body. I’ve pulled it off my bed to cover me up in case Malcolm can hear me if I accidentally talk out loud to myself.
Friends? I scoff, anger lashing off my tongue in ways it never has before. Not that I’m even using my actual tongue, but still—my emotions seem so much more honed inside my head. Hardly. Not until I know your name.
What will that tell you?
I can’t help but grind my teeth because I can hear his smirk in my head. Lots, I insist.
But will it? A name is nothing of consequence. No matter what he tells me, it wouldn’t change anything. Unless I already know him, but there’s no way that I do. I’d remember that voice, the way it dips so low and rattles deeply in my core.
Instead, I need to study him.
And what if you aren’t happy with what you learn? he prods. Will you still be my friend then?
We’re strangers, and nothing more, I reply. Feel free to change that.
He clicks his tongue. I feel like you shouldn’t need reminding that you also refuse to tell me your name. Which reminds me, did you find a mirror today?
No, I don’t trust you, I say, and I’m taking a big risk even talking to you. Maybe they took Diggory in simply because he possessed this necklace.
A flicker of pleasure passes from him to me. So, you have been asking questions. The last time we talked, you didn’t seem to have “necklace” in your vocabulary.
I shake off the sudden satisfaction that melts my insides, at first unsure if it’s his or my own. I’m afraid he’s already picked up on it, but there’s no way I’d feel so pleased that he’s pleased. Even if he is a Guardian, he’s a startlingly rude one.
It didn’t get me very far. I’ve only learned the name for a piece of jewelry. But for every answer I receive from you, I’ll return the favor. So, who are you?
I half-expect him to say I don’t have the authority to speak to him that way. It’s what a sentry would do, and a Guardian would probably just smite me for even daring to make any kind of bargain.
Surprise flickers through me, therefore, when the voice pauses and then says, I’ll answer when you earn it, but so far, you’re not working for it.
I ignore the skip of my pulse.
Then I have no other choice but to hand over this annoying piece of jewelry to the Guardians.
He growls an almost inhuman sound, and the snarl twists tightly around the doubt forming in my head—a Guardian wouldn’t react like this.
I’m not risking my life to talk to a stranger, I continue, eager to keep stoking his emotions. Maybe doing so will get me somewhere. A pretty necklace isn’t worth being thrown over the Wall.
That same growl slowly morphs into a low laugh. Thrown over the Wall? he parrots me skeptically.
My eyes drift out the window to trace those spikes jutting up against the dark sky, my imagination nowhere near as bright and happy as Odette’s as I visualize myself being pushed through them—my clothes tearing, my skin chilled, the blood moon’s light casting across my face, and then the free-fall, right into the Monster’s waiting arms. If it even has arms.
His humored tone sinks into me like quicksand. Pretty sure the Monster has arms. Besides, even if you do turn the necklace in, I’m sure they’ll be happy to punish you anyway—without asking questions.
I know without a doubt he’s right. I’ve already hung on to it too long.
Anyone would be suspicious, and rightfully so.
Where would I have gotten it from? It’s entirely possible that the Guardians are already looking for it, knowing now that Diggory no longer has it.
I know for a fact he didn’t want the sentries finding it, or else he wouldn’t have torn it off his neck like that.
The second I walked home with the thing he discarded, I chose this fate. If I try to do the right thing by turning it in now, it could cost me my life.
There’s a shift between the current that connects the voice and me, almost like we’ve arrived at the conclusion together, and his arrogance becomes palpable.
That’s right, little nightmare. You’re dead either now or later.
May as well choose later. Assuage your curiosity.
Ask me more questions—but maybe make them a little more specific than “Who are you?”
Fine, then, I state emphatically to cover up the fear creeping back in. Clinging to my anger is best, easiest. I haven’t felt this type of emotion since I was a child, when the Cardinal List of Rules stifled every one of them that wasn’t polite or pleasant, but it feels good to let it out.
Even if I sound insane.
Are you stuck inside this necklace?
No, he says. But maybe it would be better if I was.
I shake the visual of this man actually nestled against my chest, touching me, somewhere even Malcolm hasn’t bothered to. Maybe he has a necklace as well, picking it up like I am to sweep my fingertips over the deep red vial.
Then do you have a matching one that connects our thoughts?
Wrong again.
I sigh and focus out the window. This man could be in any of the housing units, maybe one step ahead and watching me every time I leave my complex.
I slink back against my chair, away from that clear pane of glass, and curse myself for not turning off the lamp across the room.
Play with me, he taunts, and take another guess. This is the most fun I’ve had in years.
You consider this fun? Guardians, you must be a miserable human. This isn’t actually fun at all.
Don’t lie. That laugh of his, it’s certainly not doing boring things to my stomach as it twists into a knot that pulses behind my belly button. And I’m not really human, now am I?
Not a human? Wouldn’t that be impossible? Aside from the Holy Guardians who need blood to survive, we’re all…
No.
I hear the lullaby play in my head, like a carousel of words that spins around and around and around until I’m dizzy with a horrible possibility, an impossible realization.
Round and round the Monster prowls,
Starved for meat and bone.
Beware its eyes, resist its howl,
Stay within the stone.
Every night, the Monster howls. I’ve become used to that sound, used to the way it raises chills on every inch of my body. It’s as constant as the moon, as the stars, as the Wall itself.
But there is no howling now. I even tug my blanket down to make sure, to strain for a sound that, for once, is not bleeding through the night and scraping down my skin.
There’s only the sound of my own heartbeat, and…
No, I say again, a new type of fear hammering in my bones. There is no howling because the thing that usually howls is preoccupied—with me. You’re the M… Even my internal thoughts seem to stumble over the word.
Go on, he encourages, sounding much too amused. Say the word.
I want to resist, but my mind lets it slip out. Monster.
His amusement only grows. That’s not what I would call myself, but for the sake of your vocabulary, I’ll make an exception for now.
It’s a confession, loud and clear, but still… my brain isn’t catching up to the reality of it. It can’t be. Someone from another housing unit must be breaking every single Cardinal Rule by playing an elaborate prank on me.
His voice drops to a low, teasing octave. I play by my own set of rules. And they aren’t Cardinal.
Prove it.
I told you this was fun, he laughs. Tell me when to stop.
Stop wha—
A howl splits through the air, reverberating against my eardrums, and doesn’t stop.
Not when I think it should. Not when it feels natural.
Like a tuning fork, it keeps going with no end in sight, and just as you think it must need to run its course by now, it still rings out.
The sound lengthens desperately, and I can feel it all the way down to my toes.
Stop! I cry.
The wailing cuts itself off so abruptly, it feels like whatever made that sound had its head chopped off.
But I know it didn’t. Because I still feel his presence.
Regardless of what he calls himself, he is what prowls beyond the Wall, waiting with snapping teeth and sharpened claws and—
I can retract the claws, and as for my teeth… trust me, little nightmare, I can do much better things with them than inflict pain.
An inhale snags in my lungs, and I clutch my throat. Guardians, I’m going to be sick.
Your precious Guardians can’t really help you in this situation, can they? he replies cheerfully. You’ve been fraternizing with me for a whole day now, which technically makes you a traitor.
My hands do something peculiar in response to those words. They curl into themselves, forming fists that I imagine pummeling into his face. Whatever his face even looks like.
You’re not just a Monster. You’re a… you’re a…
I search for a word, but nothing comes close to the insult I want to throw at him for tricking me like this, for luring me in with a pretty piece of jewelry and capturing my mind so thoroughly.
I’d always thought of the Monster as something savage and beastly and inhuman, not…
intelligent. Not cunning and manipulative, and there has to be a word for what I want to call him right now.
Asshole would probably fit, he muses. But I prefer my actual name, and I’d say you’ve earned it.
The Monster has a name. A name? Impossible. I refuse to believe that’s truly who he is, that it has a mother who named him.
But despite my disbelief, my question escapes as a whisper from its cage of frenzied thoughts. Which is?
Lucan, he says as if it’s an everyday greeting. Like he’s passing me on the main street on his way to his assigned job; as if it’s just one of those thousand ‘good mornings’ I’ve uttered in my lifetime.
Saskia, I think politely before I can stop myself. Because it’s ingrained in my psyche, like everything else, to echo a greeting no matter the circumstance.