gave up my best friend to keep you safe, and I m ay have screwed over the entire human race in the process.
She tried to stop her tears, but she couldn’t. They flowed fast down her cheeks.
That’s on you, she told herself. Cole didn’t do that. You did. And now you have to fix it.
Cole held her in her arms. Danica hadn’t even realized she’d come close until she felt Lara’s hair on her face, so familiar, so soft. She wanted to hate Lara for not loving her anymore, wanted to scream and shout at her, but she knew she wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
“Are you, uh…you girls okay?”
Gath was an Islander. He had dark skin and hair, a thin goatee, and large and expressive eyes. His cloak was soiled brown and black with prison filth, and he had a n almost rat-like quality about him, with his darting eyes and an expression and stance that made it look like he was always ready to run for cover. His fingers were long and spindly and covered in old rings. He wore leather bracers and dog-tags, but he certainly didn’t come across as Southern Claw. Likely he’d scrounged them somewhere.
“We’re fine, Gath,” Danica said.
He gave them bowls of white-grey gruel from the feeding bins and a large clay bowl filled with water, which he s loshed around so they could hear that it was full.
“So…what are we doing?” he smiled.
“I’m going to puke if I don’t drink some thing in the next te n seconds,” Danica said. “That’ll be sexy, won’t it?”
Gath sighed and handed her the bowl. Lara chuckle d beside her.
“Well, we need to do this thing soon,” Gath said. “ I’m horny as hell.”
“That’s terrific, Gath,” Lara said. “ Not now.”
Gath pursed his lips in frustration and fiddled with some pebbles on the ground.
“We may not have much time,” he said off-handedly.
Danica took a bite of the gruel. It tasted surprisingly good, like cheese and meat, even if it did slide down her throat like a wad of mucus.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I heard something…” Gath said.
“Heard… what?” Cole insisted.
“I’ll tell you…for a kiss,” Gath smiled.
Black set down the b owl, took a breath, and as quick as a snake hooked her fingers around Gath ’s head and rammed it against the floor. Blood spurted from his nose and lip. No one even noticed — the violence in the middle of the room had died down, but inmates still linger ed there, laughing and mocking each other. N o one seemed to care about one skinny man getting beat up in the dark corner.
“Dani…” Lara said, but Black ignored her.
“Talk, you little shit,” she hissed as she ground Gath ’s face against the steel. “What did you hear? ”
“Okay,” he breathed through a mouth ful of blood. Danica eased up enough for him to sit up and talk.
“God, you bitch,” he started, and Danica moved to grab him again. “Okay, okay…Jesus…”
“Talk,” she said. “Now.”
“They’re taking you away, all right?” he said.
“Which one of us?” Cole asked.
Gath glared at Danica.
“ You,” Gath grinned. “They’re sending you to t he Gauntlet. ”
Danica felt her heart sink.
Shit.
FOURTEEN
He walks through a city of the dead.
Black corpses stand in rows to either side of the wide road that runs through the necropolis. Bloody r unes cover their skin, and the bone blades used to carve those markings lay at their feet.
The b uildings are vague and dark, just shadows and edges in the smoking fog. The height of the buildings reminds him of Kalakkaii, the place where he grew up.
He recognizes the bodies. They ’ re people he used to know. He has trouble putting names to faces, but he knows their statures, their shapes.
His body goes cold as he walks down the lane. I ce ash fall s on his shoulders. Frigid wind blows in from the blue horizon. The sky is a pulsing slate of frost. The gelid sun hangs like a stain.
Bones are piled high in the streets. S ome devastating event has lanced its way through his hometown and turned it to a smoking graveyard.
His b ones ache from walking for so long. Kalakkaii i s n ot this big, and yet he feels like he’ s walked for hours down the same lane, always passing the same rows of the dead. He ’ ll never reach the end of that road.
Kane woke up coughing. He lay on a crude bed. The walls were green steel bolted together with rivets. The clang of furnaces and industrial equipment shook bits of sediment loose from the ceiling.
He sat up. His back was twisted with pain, and sleepy muck covered his eyes. His was shirtless, and his tattooed arms were both hooked to IVs connected to two different movable mechanical carts loaded with vials, bags and whirring engines.
Kane could barely keep his eyes open. He’d never felt so tired. He coughed again. He knew he should have been dead.
“Good morning,” Jade said from the doorway.
She’d changed out of her traveling armor and now wore a loose gray and brown shirt that was far too bulky for her thin frame. Her cargo pants ended just below the knee, and she wore long sandals wrapped around her well-manicured feet. Kane supposed he’d never realized just how lovely she really was.
“Good morning,” he groaned. “So I guess I’m not a vampire?”
“It seems that way,” she smiled. “But only barely.”
“Swell.”
Burke stepped into the doorway behind her. Kane stiffened.
Stanislas Burke was a Warden of Black Scar, one of the only Wardens, besides Danica, who Kane had ever been forced to interact with on a fairly regular basis during his time in prison. Burke had been the head of the hellish cell block where Kane and Ekko were held. A surprisingly personable individual, Burke nevertheless had a cruel streak a mile long. He also had a fresh scar run n ing down one side of his face that hadn’t been there when Kane had last seen him in side the prison.
“Good to see you’re alive, Kane,” Burke said in his thick British accent.
“I’d say it’s good to see you, too, Mr. Firth, but I’d be lying. ” Kane cough ed again. “Pretty scar you’ve g ot there. Did o ne of your pets get out?”
Burke smiled grimly.
“I’m afraid ‘my pets’ are no longer mine,” he said.
“Huh?”
“Get dressed, Kane. We have a lot to discuss.”
“Yeah, like why I shouldn’t stand up and beat the shit out of you,” Kane growled.
“Kane…t hat’s not going to do anyone any good,” Jade said quietly.
“Listen to your lady friend,” Burke smiled. “What’s done is done. Any differences you and I have will need to wait until after we resolve our mutual problem.”
Burke turned to leave. Jade lingered a moment, and then follow ed. Kane saw his clothes on a small stand next to the door.
“Wait!” he called out. His throat was raw and sore. “What ‘mutual problem’?”
