Chapter Thirteen: The Beginning of the End
Before I even saw the Skyway, Foot was upon me.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were with Ollie?” Foot asked immediately, without even a “hello.”
He was very accusatory, but I felt no sympathy or sorrow for him.
“What are you talking about?” I asked impatiently.
“Ollie? That new man? Why didn’t you tell me you were with him?”
His tone was both guarded and jealous, and I decided to play along, if only to torture him in that way. He’d been avoiding me, a thing which annoyed me, so I felt nothing annoying him for a while.
“Why would it matter to you?” I asked cautiously.
“He’s a murderer, Myth.” Foot took my arm gently, whispering, “He’s out to get us – you especially. He’s bad.”
Foot was the best person I knew to read someone, to really catch them before they struck. I couldn’t tell if it was jealousy or just blind rage that made him guess something so ludicrous as to say that Ollie was, in fact, a murderer. I had, of course, considered the idea myself – but he hadn’t done anything since I had found them all, so I assumed he was safe enough for me. It had been awhile since their coming, and I’d even offered them what they called their “sidearms.”
None of them wanted to pounce at me like Foot suggested.
“And how the hell do you know?” I decided to ask.
“His hands move, Myth. Fast and quick.”
“My hands are fast and quick too.”
“His eyes tell a different story than yours, Myth. He is older than you. He wants…different things. Things you might not understand. He’s…a man.”
I felt a blush creep up my neck. He knew of my experience, experience he’d gained with Iris and that I was still in wanting of, but I didn’t need him to talk about it. My experience was no longer any of his business.
So I said,
“Oh. And you know this how?”
“Any man would know that look anywhere.”
“You’re wrong,” I said quickly.
“No,” he said, pulling me to face him by my elbow. “I’m not. Something is sinister about him. You’ve seen him – he’s always watching you. Looking at you…wrong.”
“Is this a problem?” I asked, yielding to his grip and facing him head on.
He sputtered out only noises in surprise.
“What if I want him to watch me?”
A flash in his eyes revealed everything to me.
I was victorious over Iris after all. Ollie was right.
And yet it made me sad. I pulled away and walked on. Almost nothing could bring me happiness now. With the coming of the Outlanders and no one to share it with, Chess having the gall to kiss me when I was so angry, and Foot avoiding me for strange, unknown, and hurtful reasons (up until that moment, that is,) I felt alone indeed. Skate’s absence was never worse felt than in the time when he was just nearly back.
“What I do with my time is no longer any of your business,” I decided to say.
And, by God, I felt brave saying it because it took all my courage to do so.
“He wants you dead, Myth,” Foot said firmly.
He stopped me again. I turned to him only to see genuine concern. I felt a squirm of unease.
“He doesn’t like you, Fisher.”
“I thought you said he wanted me!”
“He can want you and not like it, Fisher! So many men do!”
I missed only a short beat.
“Be that as it may,” I managed. “I don’t think he wants to kill me!”
“You don’t see him!” Foot said, shaking his head.
I decided to pretend to think. I wanted to tell him some of what Ollie and I had discussed, our fights, our discussions, but much of it did feel somewhat…private.
“Do they look at you like this?” I asked, pondering.
“No, I’m not you,” he said quietly.
I shoved this away from me as fast as I could and said,
“Well, they’re different. They’re not from here, so they’re bound to act differently. They do not like any of us.”
“Why?”
I opened my mouth but again felt the desire to respect their privacy.
“I cannot say,” I finally said. “Ask them if it is of your concern.”
This angered him.
“Okay, what do they say about themselves then?” Foot asked loudly. “What was their profession in their lands?”
“They’re professional scientists,” I said uncertainly.
“You see? Science! The forbidden arts! How can you trust any of them?”
“I don’t,” I said immediately.
I blushed again as Foot glowered beside me.
“I don’t like this anger, Foot,” I said honestly.
“Why not?” he asked sourly.
“With Skate gone, there’s so little for me to be happy about,” was my reply.
This did not deter Foot from his questions.
“And so you run to the first warm body you can find?”
“You know nothing of him!” I said harshly. “About as much as I do. To judge him prematurely is the greatest disrespect, and I will not allow you to say that if you don’t have any proof.”
“His eyes are all I need for proof.”
“They hate me, fine, but Ollie cannot kill me. Not now.”
“How do you know?”
“I think in their lands they have a loyalty scheme that makes him obligated to protect me until such a time that his debt is repaid,” I said back plainly. “Or so it would seem, seeing as his disdain for me is quite obvious.”
“So you recognize the danger?”
“It is obvious that he’s killed,” I said back, shrugging, despite the flare of unease that bloomed in me at the thought. “But he seems sad to think of it, to talk of his past. I believe he may regret what he’s done. Maybe that was his profession. Being a soldier, like in the older times.”
“Soldiers kill people,” Foot reminded me.
I sneered.
“I’ve killed people, too,” I snapped harshly. “Am I demon now? Some things cannot be undone, and, regardless, the past cannot be helped.”
Soldiers killed people without hope for personal gain. They were tools for greater minds. And he was, as I was learning, nothing but a soldier. It was not so terrible.
“He runs from his past,” I said quietly, “as do we all who know death.”
But part of it was a lie. There had been moments of rage, flashes of such intense animosity that he no longer appeared familiar.
He could kill me outright, without a blink or a pause. I was sure of this. And yet, something stayed his rage. I thought it was loyalty. He owed me his life because I had saved his. That was his way. I knew it wouldn’t be difficult for him to run me through and leave me where I was to die. I could see that he thought about it. But until that day when he no longer owed me, he would fester with the thought that his revenge was long coming.
I stopped walking as I realized this. It wasn’t that I had doubted that Ollie would kill me – no, that wasn’t it at all. I only doubted that Ollie would do it the way Foot purported it to be. If Ollie killed me, he would not do it from a shadow, no. He would drag me in front of everyone, beat me until I could no longer see, and then he would break me. Ollie drew satisfaction out of that – not the killing. He liked watching things fall. He liked watching me falter in my cautiousness because, in his own way, he was breaking me down and winning. It took my breath from me as I realized how cruel it was. He only wanted to win. He didn’t want to stab me from behind. There was no victory from such things.
I didn’t doubt Ollie’s capacity to commit such a crime. In fact, I realized, I knew he was going to try. It was only a matter of when. The worst part was – I didn’t even care. A worm of such extreme discomfort squirmed within me as I realized that I was too uncomfortable to even think about it to myself.
I continued
to walk, shoving this disturbing thought away.
After a silence, I asked,
“What makes you say I’m…with him anyway?”
“Oh, come on, Fisher!”
He scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably.
“I see the way you look at him – the way he looks at you.”
His voice was glowing, or I made it to be.
“Didn’t you just say he wanted to kill me?” I asked him.
“That doesn’t mean he has to like it, Fisher! Just look at him! The way he wants you…you want him, don’t you?”
He didn’t, maybe couldn’t wait for an answer. I was glad. I couldn’t give one.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
Genuine anger came out of his voice.
“Are you really going to interrogate me about this now, Foot? Because you’re being a little more pious than usual today, and it’s really starting to piss me off.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked aggressively.
“You were with Iris, Foot, so I must have thought that you were just too busy lying around with her to notice anything about me!”
He was silent for a moment. I glanced at him and saw that he was in pain.
“Fisher, I –”
“Oh, and you know how Iris just loves me, don’t you, Foot?” It was common knowledge that Iris couldn’t even find it in herself to be civil to me because of her jealousy of Foot and I. “But don’t worry about it! I was only friends with you, for what? Seventeen years before you even knew she existed? But really, please, don’t bother to take interest until it pleases you! By all means, let her twist you around her little finger until I’m nothing but a distant memory!”
We’d stopped, and I was shouting at him. The silence afterwards was excruciating. He shook, but his anger was gone. What I saw was replaced with shadows of the way he used to look at me.
“Look, Myth, I –”
“No, just forget it!” I shouted. “I don’t have to explain myself! Not to you! Not here! Not about this! Not anymore!”
What part of him I’d held warm seemed to have died inside, if a little. He was not mine. How could I expect to share things with him if he was not so?
He stood closer and closer to me, and his mouth was close. He was making to kiss me.
“Where is this coming from?” he whispered to me. “What is Ollie saying to you?”
I opened my mouth to tell him that it was not thoughts of Ollie but instead of Chess, but I could not speak.
“You don’t like that I’m with Iris?” Foot asked breathlessly.
I shook my head “no.”
“You want to have me instead?”
I hesitated, and for some reason, despite what I’d told myself for about a year, I didn’t. Not nearly as much as I used to. I thought of Chess now, of his lips, of the way he spoke to me.
He’d kissed me.
The thought grounded me to reality.
“You’re still with Iris, Foot,” I said, a silent reprimand. I stepped back. “I don’t want to do this.”
“Why not?” he asked desperately
“Because…” I asked myself the same question. “As much as I hate Iris, I cannot find it in myself to disrespect her in this way. It would be a violation of…decency among women, I think. It is not to be borne. I am…better…than this.”
Foot was silent.
Besides, I found myself thinking, it wasn’t healthy for me to allow Foot access to my heart as he did. It wasn’t his to have. I would never get his. Dwelling was one thing actively tried not to do, but I found that with Foot it was exactly what I was doing. And I didn’t want to anymore. I had to stop it then.
But it was difficult. I didn’t want to stop feeling special. It was pathetic, in a way, so I decided right then that I would stop, no matter how difficult or painful it was, so that I would no longer be pathetic.
But Foot made it hard. He took my hand and pulled me towards him. I averted my eyes. He sighed a little and looked down, then back up at me. I leaned back, struggling to remain strong. He put a hand on my face and whispered,
“I want you…safe, Myth. I want you happy, and all I do is hurt you. I want that to go away.”
“Foot…”
I pushed away from him. I felt empty after his hands released me.
“We – you’re with Iris now,” I bumbled ungracefully.
I took a larger step back to clear my head.
“But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t…die inside if something happened to you,” Foot whispered beside me. “I don’t want you dead.”
Something about this finally hardened me.
“Why not?” I asked bitterly, looking him squarely in the eye. “You left me for it as soon as Iris blew in.”
With that, I turned away, feeling tears that I knew he saw, and I kept walking towards our home. I saw the Skyway ahead of me now. There was a murmur of life about it that wasn’t often there. I felt curiosity seep through my step as it quickened in pace, eager to escape Foot. I glanced at him beside me. He was flustered. I felt proud. This was the first time I had resisted him. It hurt but made in me another, strong anger that fed my strength.
I was beginning to think that I did not like that he had come to meet me. It was a new feeling, but the fact that I received it with such intensity was satisfying. It was like this thought led into another door, one that was much wider. And I saw. Foot was a hassle, and I finally knew it.
“Look, Foot, if there’s nothing else, you should probably just go home.”
“Myth –”
“No, just forget it! I’m tired of hearing this from you.”
I had hoped that would be that, but he continued to talk on. It pained me.
“And what about Chess?” Foot asked.
Jealously spoke for him, without his permission, and I grimaced, all thoughts of strength coming into question in only an instant.
“What about Chess?” I asked tightly.
“Why were you with him the night you found the Outlanders?”
“Why were you with Iris?” I asked belligerently. “Same answer.”
His face turned to one of surprise and then blind rage. It took me a moment to understand why and another to feel squished on the inside. I looked away, feeling swollen and stiff and exhausted. How he glowered at the thought…
“You mean Chess is the first to gain the knowledge of you?” Foot asked aggressively, taking my wrist.
“No, Foot! Dammit!”
“He was with you that night? You can’t deny that.”
“Of course he was. But I haven’t spoken to him much since he gave me out to Rhyme. He’s very good at playing innocent, you know.”
“Well, maybe he’s better at actually being innocent.”
I flipped on him, feeling sore inside. I couldn’t stop seeing him and her, her and him, and I didn’t want to see or hear it anymore. I wanted him, really and wholly for the first time in my life, to leave me alone.
But this was too suspicious, and I asked,
“What do you mean?”
“Well…I was the one that…you know…” Foot began, and it took me but a moment to piece together the rest from the guilt in his eyes.
“You told Rhyme?” I asked in disgust. “Chess told you and then you turned around and told my uncle?”
“Look, I was angry, alright?” Foot said loudly. “You’d been with Chess all night, and it…I don’t know. It got in my head, and he –”
“You’re lucky my uncle didn’t beat me!” I shouted angrily. “And if he had, I’d have turned that beating over to you if I knew!”
“But he didn’t!” Foot said indignantly. “And I was just so…angry!”
“No, you were jealous, you idiot!” I shouted. “And you let Chess take the fall for it! How dare you! Chess and I are great friends, and he has been nothing but kind. And now I’ve treated him with distance and disdain.”
I felt a more intense squirm inside
, a deeper, sinking, whooping feeling. He’d made me cry, and for all the wrong reasons. Seeing memories with fresh eyes now, his kiss seemed sweet. And I felt so guilty for having shut him down so hard. He’d been the one to avoid me since then.
“He deserved better than that,” I said softly.
Foot stood in front of me, and I maneuvered around him. He parried me again. The sinking hadn’t left. It had only gotten worse.
“Look,” I said. “I’m tired. I do not wish to speak with you. Move.”
He didn’t move. I glanced over his shoulder. A few people were watching us. I was mortified, suddenly. The implications of his leaving had always troubled me, made me fear for their judgments of me.
“Foot!” I shouted. “If you insist on staying out here with me, then you get to do the things I don’t want to! Here’s my gun…and my bag…” I handed him both. “Go put those away. Then, maybe after that we can talk. Alright?”
He disappeared in seconds. I ran my hands through my hair a little and proceeded in through the Skyway, peering down at a gathering of people near the bottom of the clearing. Making my way down, sun at my back, my eyes found Ollie. He looked much better than he had, standing at least, and I nodded to him, as he did to me. He looked angry about something – something more, something always more to be angry about. Perhaps he had seen Foot and I. I was embarrassed.
But someone grabbed me and I was torn away from his hate.
“Myth – Myth!”
The person was breathless.
“Look!”
I looked. The attention was centered on another man that I did not recognize at first but then knew well. I shouted when I saw him, both in greeting and in happiness. It was Skate. He was lying alone and seemingly exhausted, breathing heavily, like he’d sprinted into the clearing and collapsed. He was huddled in his own arms, obscuring what I knew, vividly, to be his face. I felt so happy, thrill like nothing I’d ever felt before. The hope in me, the salvation. It was so real.
My own cousin was back with me. He would understand my qualms with Ollie. He always could. He was always my very best friend, and I could always rely on him for everything. I felt satisfied that I was finally getting my other half back. I had been numb. I knew it as I felt an explosion of emotions just at the sight of him. Skate had always been like that.
“Skate!” I finally articulated, unable to hide the smile that pierced my cheekbones.
But I stopped as I approached, and a smell I knew well slammed into my brain. I heard Ollie somewhere come up behind me. I heard him try to see what it was the others saw, see what it was that stole me from his glare.
“Skate?” I whispered, more accusatory now.
Skate turned to look up. His eyes were pale and sunken in – a switch of green and yellow and gray, as with Evergreen. It peeled. His face was damp with grease and sweat from fever. A thick clot of blood bubbled in one of his eyes. He was nearly unrecognizable.
I leaned over and put my hand on my mouth. My stomach swished around. I couldn’t breathe for the pain in me. I moaned.
“Myth, what’s the matter?” Foot asked, trying to peer around me.
He put a hand on my shoulder, but it felt cold there. I felt fear for all those around me. So much that I felt like I was going to vomit. Suddenly, there was nothing. Nothing but tears and pain. No colors. No objects. No people. Just sadness. I saw it. With the knowledge of what would come, I saw what was there.
And then, in a way that was unusual for me, I began to panic. The sight of his blood made me feel faint, and it was pumping out of him fast, a vast, dark hole open obscenely from his stomach. His eyes were full of tears and his face was soaked with sweat and stale blood.
His wound was fresh.
“What did you do?” my mouth asked of its own accord.
He recognized my voice in the crowd.
“Myth?” he shouted. When I didn’t say anything, he shouted, “I need Myth! Myth!” He screamed it louder, begged for me, shrieking like he was suddenly aware of the agony I knew he was surely in. “WHERE IS MYTH! WHERE IS SHE?”
He began to twitch. His hands jerked and he hit his own face.
That explained the clot in his eye.
“You’re Tainted,” I whispered to myself as he continued to shout. I shook my head emphatically. “You were tested. I – I saw you get the – you did the test with me. You’re not sick. That’s not – that’s impossible, you…”
I laughed and looked around. There was still nothing.
“He’s Tainted!” I tried to explain.
To something. To anyone.
Life stood still in the impossibility of the end, and I knew for that that I had only begun to scrape the edges of a beginning more terrible than I could ever have imagined.
“MYTH!” he shouted over and over again. “WHERE IS SHE? PLEASE, SOMEBODY FIND HER!”
“That’s impossible,” I said, turning away. “You’re not sick. This isn't happening.”
Someone put a hand on my shoulder. Those who couldn’t see didn’t know the truth. Those who saw didn’t understand it.
“What’s –?”
Skate suddenly tried to move forward. It was as if something lurched within him, as if something evil were trying to escape. I knew what it was. He sobbed in pain.
“I NEED MYTH! PLEASE!”
I had to act. And it killed me not to allow myself a moment of mourning, but I had to act, or they would all die.
“Get inside!” I shouted.
No one had ever heard me use that voice, as I had never had a need to use it. I was that strange girl from that strange family. I was Rhyme’s punching bag. I was not a leader. But I had to be. For the first time, being the only Cartographer meant something, and I realized I would hate the responsibility for all eternity.
“Get inside!” I shouted again, standing tall. “INSIDE NOW!”
I looked back at Skate, breathing heavily but unable to breathe.
“Myth?” he asked, reaching forward.
He began to weep, and it shattered my resolve.
“Where are you?” Skate asked. “I don’t – I don’t see you…I – Myth…”
He screamed out in pain once more.
“I’m here,” I whispered, collapsing onto my knees in front of him.
I put a hand in his hair. It felt stiff and cold, like it was dying quickly.
“Skate, I’m – I’m…oh, no…”
I looked around again. I waited for Evergreen to emerge. I waited and waited. But Evergreen was dead.
There were still some stragglers behind me. I heard Ali was among them. She was speaking heatedly to the others. I couldn’t look at them. I noticed how different her tone was when she needed me. She was afraid.
“He’s not...” she began, but couldn’t finish. “He can’t be…”
“If you wish to become Undead, remain where you stand!”
I did not address Ali. I suddenly hated her too much.
They scattered like mice. Fear erupted into the crowd and the clearing of crumbling houses was suddenly empty. I heard a baby’s wail. Then, there was silence. I saw a figure I knew to be Chess move towards me. He was in the tower, making his way down the stairs. The loudness of his step was a sacrilege to the silence of Skate’s death. I felt a new fondness for him because I had judged him so poorly earlier. I didn’t want him to be devoured by Skate’s incredible sin.
He would have to witness my rite.
“Don’t move, Chess!”
My voice was broken. No one anywhere had ever heard me cry like that. Chess stopped midstride at my voice, nearly stumbling off the stairs completely. He opened his mouth and yelled,
“I have to get Rhyme! He went out to look in the afternoon like he always does.”
“Rhyme went for a walk!” someone cried.
It was Ollie. His voice sounded different to me. I could tell by his tone that he was stopped by my voice in the same way Chess was.
“Is that you…Myt
h?”
Skate’s hands fumbled for me. His lower lip quivered.
“Please be you…please be…”
I turned back to him, sobbing silently. Skate was my cousin. I had known him since he was alive. He was born eighteen years ago – with me. Only a month apart – I was a little older. His shot was excellent. He could make any soul laugh and cry with his antics. He was the most stubborn man I had ever met. He was my best friend, in life and happiness. Life was our game. It was our joke. It had always been our joke.
I had never felt more serious in my life.
“Skate…” I whispered in despair. “Oh, Skate, look at you…”
It was not my life. It was our life. It was not my happiness. It was ours. He was my other half. That he was back again only meant he would rip himself out completely, tearing with him half of my soul.
Skate’s skin pulsed blood. I dropped him and sprinted to my back room to grab the medicine kit, past the Outlanders, who stood stoically still, and sprinted back to the only person who loved me. Cloth of all kinds piled at the center of the kit, and I began my work. I tore at them with my teeth to make them useable, but my mouth was weak. His breath waned. Dark blood seeped out fast and slow all at the same time. It filled me with panic, as if it were my own blood. The only thing I heard was my own whimpering.
“Is it that…bad?”
He laughed and his hands finally found my face.
“Oh my – you…Skate…”
I pressed the clothes back to his wound. It was a purple color. Tears blinded me. I desperately needed Skate to wake from his reverie and laugh about it with me. He always did that when I cried. It was his job.
“What hap – you – Skate…”
I couldn’t talk, suddenly. I looked around for another Cartographer, seeing none. I almost called for Evergreen, but I had killed her. I was so stupid!
“I…uh…I don’t know…argh!”
He writhed in agony beneath me, and my hands were covered in blood. They were absolutely drenched in every drop of his blood that had ever pulsed through his body. His blood was coming because of me – because I was too slow to fix it. To come home. To reach the Skyway and see his Undeath. I was too preoccupied with Foot. I was the only one left who could save him. I had to save him. Evergreen would have saved him.
But, the thought of saving him suddenly caused me to fumble. Part of me knew it was impossible. Part of me knew I was just trying to make the end less painful, trying to ease his way out of our world. The rags and the medicine really didn’t mean anything.
No matter what I did, Skate was already on his way out.
“I was…Myth…” He groaned. “It hurts, Myth…”
He sort of gurgled blood. I felt the tips of my shins begin to soak in the puddle of his blood. I shifted to get closer. It stained my hands, pants, and all parts of my clothing. I dove into it, willing to cover myself with his blood if that was what it took to keep him alive.
“It hurts, Myth! Myth!”
He needed me more than I could give. I prayed that a miracle would give me what he needed.
But I knew the truth.
“Myth!” he sobbed. “It hurts, Myth, please!”
His tears weren’t just out of pain. Lament of a different kind pierced through the silence. I had never heard a grown man cry, but it wasn’t as scary as I had expected. It was the saddest thing I had ever heard.
“Please, Myth!” he sobbed. “Stop it! Please, stop it!”
“I know, I know, Skate. Come on, sh. I – I know.”
“I’m afraid, Myth!” he muttered to me. “Help me not be.”
“I know, Skate,” I said over and over again. “I know this hurts, but we can do this. I’m here. I am here with you. Do you feel my hands?”
He nodded. It did seem to help him.
“I will be here every step of the way. I will be here for you. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Promise?” he sputtered.
“Yes, I promise.”
He shrieked in pain, squeezing my hands with now bony fingers.
Later, they would be used to tear flesh from my skin.
I shuddered, and he squeezed my hands in time with his pulse, as if every rotation of blood was unbearably painful.
“I know! I know!” I said back.
But I didn’t know. I put a bloody hand to his face for a brief moment. I would never know, I was beginning to find, even if everything I loved did know the pain of dying. He leaned over and kissed my hand lovingly, brotherly. He cried into that hand and held onto it harder than I could have ever expected. I didn’t want to let go.
But I had to as I continued to shush him, coo him as slowly as I could into an impending sleep that he would never wake from. I hated myself as I calmed his pain, as I numbed even the sharpest of his agonies, because I was, in every sense, letting him die. There was no fight to be had. I could fight and die for his wounds to heal, but I knew that I would lose. I whimpered again and began to shake even more.
“What happened, buddy?” I asked. “What happened to you?”
My hands had reached the point of no return, slipping in blood, worked too hard, too quickly, and I knew too soon that they wouldn’t work at all. I cried for that, for him, for what I would soon be unable to do. And for what I knew I would have to do.
“I was stuck…Peak. Myth…”
He said my name desperately. He heard me and felt me and smelled me and could even taste my tears as they fell to his face. He knew I was there. He just needed to see me.
“Myth – they – they…It hurts!”
“I know, I know. It’ll be okay. I know. It’ll be over soon.”
The last part was a new part of my chant and he began to sob even harder. As did I.
“It – It’ll all be over soon.”
“They left me, Myth. They ambushed us! Why did they do that? What did we do? We were helping…you…Evergreen and me…why?”
“Evergreen was with you?”
I was too distracted to piece together how strange that was.
“She told me not to tell…I could not tell…but she saw Outlanders and we knew…they were for you…”
He spoke the same nonsense she did and another sob racked through me.
“She told me…the plan to the Great Gate…with your parents…and we were going to go…”
“Me and you?” I asked breathlessly.
He nodded.
“And…we were going to…argh!”
I wanted to shush him, but I wanted to know.
“Evergreen told us…got the group together…”
“What group?”
“They know, Myth,” he whispered. “They know about…the Bad People. They told me…Peak showed me so many things…”
“Why did you go there?” I asked louder.
“I was going to explain, but…my father…told them you were bad. So they…left us. They left us…”
I sobbed, and he did too.
“Why is this happening?” he asked.
I felt sick because I didn’t know.
“This isn't – isn't what I thought it would…feel like.”
He grunted, trying to make me laugh. But I couldn’t. Not even for him. He was leaving me behind with the living, and he was never going to come back.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Skate. I should have…”
“They weren’t coming, were they Myth? The other…Cartographers? They wanted me to…die…for you. Evergreen and…me…so you wouldn’t know. My father…because he hated you…because he hated what you are…”
I was blind to what I was doing, but I had just enough sense left to ask,
“What do you mean me – what does that –?”
He finally tilted his head back and screamed.
“Please, Myth! Make it stop! Please make…make it go away…”
“I’m trying, Skate, I’m trying!”
“Why…did they do it?” he asked me abruptly.
&nb
sp; Some people wanted to watch the world suffer. But I couldn’t say it to him. I had never been able to say things that were that serious. I had never wanted to. It brought too much pain into a world that was already so broken. I didn’t want to mar it any further with my cynicism. So I stayed my tongue, literally biting it.
He continued to speak, and I loved him for it.
“I went…by myself…Evergreen was bitten…Mom was…lost…at Peak. She wanted you…to know…even if my father…” He made that sickening gurgling noise again. I shoved the cloth to his wound with all my might.
“MYTH!” he shouted in pain.
“I know – I know, Skate, I know!”
I shook my head, not knowing. He writhed beneath me, from the pain that I was causing him, and he struggled to fight his urge to get away.
“Please, stop…Come on, Skate…Stay here. Please, stay here.”
I put my body and soul into saving him, into forcing him to stay.
“Please, stay…” I whispered over and over again. “I need you. Don’t leave me alone here.”
The bleeding wasn’t stopping. It was getting worse. I began to hit his shoulder weakly. I felt so angry, so furious, so selfishly livid that I couldn’t not hit him.
“Stay!” I whispered louder. “Why are you leaving me?”
I felt unexplainable rage and hate. Why he had gone to Peak alone with Evergreen and Gabby, I didn’t know. Why the other Cartographers had planned to meet there, I didn’t know. Why they wanted to retrieve something there, I didn’t know. Why the plan was for Skate and I to finally make it through the Great Gate, I didn’t know.
But what I did know was that he was an idiot. He should have asked me and I could have gone with him. I knew that he would have, had he the choice. I didn’t know the circumstances as to why he would do something so unintelligent. But I would never learn. I would never get the chance.
He leaned back to rest.
“No…NO!”
I ripped off another piece of clothing from the pile and shoved it hard onto his gaping stomach.
“Dammit, Skate! Stop it!”
I looked about. Evergreen wouldn’t come. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t come.
“Stay with me now – come on!”
“I was…at Peak…”
He sobbed a little, breathless and finally running out of his reserve energy.
“I…set a bomb…don’t go there, Myth…”
He grabbed my hand.
“Did…they tell you yet?”
He actually laughed and reached for my face.
“Did…she give it to you? Evergreen…?”
I nodded but was no longer able to speak. She gave me the book, the trash that was apparently worth dying for.
“We…went there…for you…”
He laughed.
“Did they tell you?”
“Tell me what, buddy?”
I squeezed his hand in my face. I couldn’t control my own tears. I couldn’t control anything anymore. I felt sore from shaking and tired from being awake.
“You’re a Deviant, Shorty,” he whispered, using his pet name.
But it sounded like gibberish to me at the time.
“You…you will win…” He told me. “You’re better…The book?” He looked around for it. “Did they –?”
“I have the book.”
Tears poured out of his eyes. But they were grey.
“Did they tell you –?”
“Just, please, sh – quiet now. Hold on…”
“Great Deviant, Shorty,” he said again. “Did they tell you?”
I took him to be delirious.
“Skate – stop now…come on –”
“You’re different…you…”
He gurgled and stopped, breathing heavily. He was so obviously exhausted by his words.
“You’re the best of them all. Alpha…and Omega. The Aio.”
Pain shot through me in waves. Evergreen had said it. And the rest of it was still stuck in my head too. My lips quivering just as much as his were, I finished,
“The beginning and the end.”
And every time I took a breath, every time my pulse moved my own blood through my body, it only became worse. I wanted that pain to stop. All I had to do was stop breathing…
He cried out again.
“Why are you leaving?” I whispered to him. “I need you here.”
But I pulled out a needle anyway, an emergency needle, a science needle, a needle of death. It held a clear liquid that Evergreen had once told me was called morphine. It made the dying blissful. I had administered it only three times, two times to myself and once to Ollie. When I pulled it out, his lips began to shake a little. He heard it in my hands…and he knew. That was the worst part. He knew.
“I’m sorry, Myth…”
“I know, Skate…”
I was still trying to stop the blood, but his head fell back. I shook my head.
“It’ll – it’ll…it’ll be…oh…”
I opened my mouth, feeling like I was going to gag.
“You’re going to be – going to be fine. Fine…”
“Can you…get my mother? Bring her body…back…if you can…”
His breathing became more labored than I had ever heard out of anyone.
“She’s at Peak…just…follow my blood…”
I thrust my fingers to the needle, tore off the white cap, and thrust it into his arm.
He struggled for a few moments more, then looked up at me. His eyes were back. He could see me. In that moment, we understood each other perfectly in ways that are impossible to explain. And I knew – I knew – he loved me more than anyone could ever hope to try to love me again. He was my brother, my sibling, and my very best friend. And he was going to die.
I looked into his eyes, shaking my head. They were turning, morphing. The whites had paled alarmingly fast. His fingers – long past transformed into a monster’s hands – wrapped around my own. I was repelled, and I was ashamed for it. They were long, long fingers. They were fingers that I had long feared since the days of my first youth. I hurt myself to hide it from him, but I wasn’t sure if I did.
His head fell back but he wouldn’t have it. He fought harder than I had ever seen anyone fight. He put his fingers to my face again. I took them in my hands and kissed their bloodied masses. It disgusted me, but I knew it was something I needed to do.
“I love you, Skate.”
I couldn’t close my eyes, but I wanted to. He cried out again, lurched from within himself once more. His pain made me wince and cry out under my breath. He squeezed my hands.
“It’s almost over,” I whispered. “You’re going to sleep now. It’s almost over. It’ll be over soon.”
“Goodbye…”
His hand slid from my grasp. There was silence. And I knew.
I put a hand to my mouth as it began to open. A painful ball formed in the back of my throat and at the tip of my tongue. I couldn’t close it, hoping that air would pass through my closed throat to my lungs. I was screaming. I knew that I was – loud, broken screams. But there was no noise in my heart or in my ears. I heard ringing.
And then noise faded back in.
“No!” I shouted, clutching him to my chest. “NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! THIS ISN’T FAIR! YOU CAN’T LEAVE ME!”
His head moved forward slowly again. He shook it a little with the bewilderment of a stunned animal. I knew what it meant. Only one thing could save a dying man.
The anger left, replaced by fear. I threw his body away from me.
“CHESS!” I shouted.
I looked up at the tower. Chess watched me, immobile, mute. He didn’t see me.
“Give me the gun! Give me the gun – come on, Chess!”
My voice became more urgent as I began to crawl away, desperately clambering from my best friend and my greatest fear.
Chess didn’t move.
“Chess! Right now! I need the gun
now! Hurry up!”
Chess finally threw it, far too close to him and far too far from me.
I fumbled along on the ground for it, crawling desperately, but Skate was on top of me before I could even get close. I yelled out but forced my back legs to kick him off. He screamed, a guttural, unearthly wail. Chills covered me. I could still hear his voice in there. He was still the same man. He was in there somewhere.
He pinned me to the ground and bit into my side, my shoulder. Blood wetted my shirt. I yelled out in pain. I heaved upwards with all my might, trying, failing, to push him off. My neck was left exposed. His mouth dove for it, and pain exploded from there, as did blood, but not much.
I thrashed then, and somehow separated the two of us. But not for long. He was a large man, strong at his weakest. I was no match for him as a human, let alone as an Undead monster. Skate lunged at me again, but I jumped sideways to dodge his attacks. I couldn’t help denying what my eyes told me was inalienably true. He could not be Undead. He was not my greatest fear. He was my friend – my kin. Not my enemy.
Skate lunged again. I dodged once more, this time able to watch him land. He fumbled ungracefully onto his head. Some part of me that still functioned used this moment to grab the gun Chess had thrown.
“You’re not Skate,” I whispered. “You’re not my cousin.”
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t think. I only tried to make myself know. I positioned the gun. My eyes closed.
“My cousin is dead,” I whispered.
I fired. It was an automatic, so he flew from me in a way that was almost comically graphic, chunks of blood and flesh marring the clearing. It smelled awful. It made me sick. He wailed on in pain. I approached him as he flailed, and another sinking thing brought deeper wells of sobs to the surface. I’d missed. He would now die in horrible agony worse than he already knew because I’d missed his head in a moment of weakness. I pressed my finger to the trigger, this time careful with my aim, and the blood flecked on my clothes then.
Skate writhed in agony for a moment more, seizing disturbingly fast, and stopped. And I hated the people of Hand more than they could ever know for requiring me to do what I had just done. Hated myself. Hated the world.
There was silence – pure, absolute silence. I threw the gun from me, unsure of what to feel or how to feel anymore. I put a hand to my forehead and leaned over, breathing heavily. I glanced up at him, but I averted my eyes quicker. He was covered in bullet-holes. I let out a sob. I heard light steps approach me. I knew who it was. Chess always tried to take care of me.
He reached out a hand, but I winced away with more than just fear for his safety. I cried out as he tried again. He couldn’t touch me. No one could.
I stared down at my hands. They were covered in Skate’s blood, a mixture of purple and reddish brown. I wiped at them and wiped at them, but the blood wouldn’t come off. The blood of my best friend was stained into my hands, and no matter how hard I cried into them, the blood would not clear off.
I immediately knew why Ollie looked at me in such a way. I was a disgusting, vile thing to be loathed by everything in existence. I didn’t deserve to live. I deserved to die for what I did that day. If he was going to put me out of their misery, then I wasn’t going to stop him. I might have even thanked him for it.
The soft steps bent down beside me.
“Myth…”
“Don’t touch me, Chess.”
He wanted to help me.
“Please, I want to. You’re my friend.”
“Don’t call me that, Chess. All my friends die.”
Maybe that was the true reason that Ollie hated me so much.
Blinded by pure fury and fear and sadness, I stumbled out of Hand – away from Chess, from Ollie, from Foot. I only wanted to run away. I knew I would arrive somewhere else, somewhere far more terrifying, but I didn’t care. If I was going to die that way, then that was the way I was going to die.
I ran into Rhyme. My face was covered in tears and blood and his immediately became grave.
“What’s happened?”
“I can’t – Skate – I can’t…”
I ran past him, out of the reach of his grip.
It took me little time to get to his mother. All I had to do was follow the trail that Skate had made. I was stupid for not seeing it, but when I was so accustomed to things Skate did, I tuned them out of my extraordinary senses. I ran until I heard howls all around me, ran until I knew I was utterly surrounded by Undead. Gabby was in plain sight. They had encircled her, trapped her, and they were clearly feeding.
I heard bullets from behind me. I whirled around to see Rhyme there with a gun raised.
I found a hole in the Undead horde, and I was next to her, taking my chance to save one good life that day.
“Myth…”
She sounded so old. Older than I had ever heard her. And her face was wilted and wrinkled from pain and agony. The disease was worse with each victim.
“Skate…?”
“He’s fine,” I lied quickly. “Safe.”
I began my ritual, but she was further along than Skate was when I found him. I shook my head with frustration. I could still get them out.
“It is time, Myth…” She laughed sadly. “I’m so sorry…for what I’ve done to you…Remember –”
“GET OUT OF THE WAY, MYTH!”
It was my uncle. He shoved me into a patch of the Undead so willing was he to throw me to the dogs. I met the ground. Engulfed with screams of an unearthly sort, I braced for the end, but it did not come. Instead, they scattered, like they were afraid of me. Like they remembered me.
I ran off about twenty feet, tripping without really feeling anything, before glancing back. I watched as their very masses engulfed my uncle, leaning over his wife. Then, not knowing what to do or where to go, I ran back to Hand and collapsed, sobbing harder than I ever remembered crying.