Dwindle

  Chapter Four: The Wraith in the Grey

  I knew that our party was in a very bad way, but Pierce refused to leave me, even at the urging of both Ali and myself to ditch me in some hole somewhere so they could get away.

  The sky had dimmed and turned dark minutes or hours before, I couldn’t tell, but it was too long for us not to seek any means to keep ourselves safe. But we were being pursued, and that prevented rest or shelter or anything else.

  Pain coursed through me oddly. It made me think that I had somehow contracted a disease from the dog, one that numbed the pain. I couldn’t know, really, but I assumed that if I was going to die, dying of a sickness like that could certainly be one of the ways to go about it.

  Unless it was Necrosis. And the thought chilled me, filling my stomach with dread.

  Right then I thought wistfully of a warm bed and what it might feel like – and I didn’t know why. Somewhere that I could just close my eyes and rest for a while. A real bed of my own imagining.

  The hands dragging me slowed somewhat as they began to fire over my head. I felt shells pierce my face painfully and wished, longingly, for my own gun. My hands even itched for it. Ali had it in her hands. We were running out of ammunition – fast – and the creatures that we had so underestimated continued to barrage our morale. If she gave it to me, I was sure that I could fix the problem that they had created. I was the solution to problems like that.

  “We need to get to that building!” Pierce yelled out. It sounded so far. “Which way was it?”

  I rolled my eyes. If I wasn’t so tired, I’d have a snide remark about their lazy attitude concerning shelter – and how, now, without it, we’d like all die.

  “They’re right behind us!” Paige said.

  Her voice sounded higher than usual. Her breath came in quick rasps. I found myself rolling my eyes again, but again, couldn’t summon the energy to speak.

  Someone yelled,

  “LOOK OUT!”

  There was more gunfire above me, and the deafening flashing that came from it brought on instinct and fear. I tried to stand – I couldn’t. But I wanted to help. I knew I could help. I had to. I was a legendarily ruthless assassin. I was an ex-soldier and had developed a set of skills that made it very difficult for aggressors to survive the very minute. I tried to stand again.

  “STAY DOWN, SNACKSHACK!” Pierce yelled over me.

  It normally would have bothered me, being talked to like that, but he was second in command and I was in no position to lead any type of excursion. So, with an air of a teacher observing a student, I quelled my instinct, returning to the ground.

  But after what seemed like just a moment, the hands gave up shooting and grabbed me. I held my wound again, and I resisted the impulse to cry out now, waking me up to anger and resentment at those above me. I had known my end from the beginning. I was just blessed with the knowledge as to when. It was like a game. It came, and I knew it.

  And these interlopers were trying to put it off because they pretended like they cared for me.

  I was suddenly flying, moving much, much faster, and my wound stretched painfully. Their urgency was contagious, despite my dark half telling them to give me up, and I found it difficult to breathe for the blood pouring from me.

  I was going to die. I nearly willed it. I almost wished though, for them, that they would drop me to save themselves. They weren’t the ones who really needed to die. They weren’t like me. They didn’t deserve it.

  The quickness slowed after an eternity. I saw that we were under the thick, stone wall. An equally stone table and chair sat off to one side beside another rock surface in the ground with odd looking knobs on it. It was unusual to see any kind of solid wall like the one before us, especially not a tall one. I realized that we had finally reached the structure from the daylight hours. We had expected shelter, but none seemed to be had there.

  “There’s nowhere to run, Pierce,” Paige said quietly. I heard her flip around above me. “There’s nowhere to go – Pierce! Why is there nowhere to go? We’re here! It’s still not safe!”

  He began to answer her, but his voice wasn’t frantic. If anything, it was appeasing, comforting. He was like me, but a lot kinder. I suddenly wished in a moment that I could get a chance to reach his age and be able to comfort someone who loved me the way he was right then.

  I was just too tired, too injured, too blatantly exhausted to think of anything useful. I felt almost betrayed at the acceptance of the soldiers above me. I wanted them to defend Paige. I wanted them to fend off these wild animals so that she could walk free.

  I bet the only reason she was even here was because she’d insisted to die with her husband.

  I felt a pinching inside of me. The situation had deteriorated quicker than I would have liked.

  I fumbled around for a gun, finding none, but I suddenly knew we were out of bullets so it didn’t really matter anyway. I was powerless, and all I remember now besides the pain is that I wanted Paige to live. Her fear was real. The panicky, inexperienced kind that made me feel sick to listen to. I laid my head back to the ground and breathed slowly, or as steadily as I could, and my eyes rolled back into my head as I fought to remain conscious. My end was finally coming. It had taken so long to arrive.

  But it was sour now knowing that it would come with the others I’d only hours before considered scum. Regret floated around in the haze of my bleeding, so my eyes were closed when the shots were fired.

  It took me only a moment to open them again. It wasn’t our gunfire. We had nothing to shoot with. Something was shooting at us. Paige and Pierce above me ducked slightly while Ali flipped her head around to find the source.

  A blackened blur flew over my head, over my vision, and landed on the other side of the street. The figure bent over the dogs somewhat, and as my eyes adjusted I saw that it was not a figure, not a wraith, but a girl. A human. A live human. In the Dead Zone.

  I sat up a little bit further, intrigued and – abruptly – distraught. It was impossible. There were no people or animals or beasts or creatures besides those who thrived off of the chaos. There were dogs, yes, and Necros. There was even the occasional crow here and there. But there were not – could not be people. And if she wasn’t a person…

  I shuddered at the alternative. That would mean that she was a Deviant.

  She looked so small, like a child.

  It was one thing to say I hated them, to rant on and on about the cause, but it was another to have to hunt and kill them again. I’d vowed never to do that.

  My first thought was that she would destroy everything. I would have to kill her, going back on that same vow. D.C. was the virus, and if there were people within it, occupying it, keeping it, I knew that we would kill them because they were the virus too. My second thought was that I had never really conceived of actually having to do it. I didn’t think I’d last that long. I found myself wondering if I could still kill without blinking anymore.

  The girl stood slowly. Her fingers moved quickly to bottles at her side, which she smashed over the bodies of our pursuers. A match was lit and the corpses of the animals before her burned. She gasped after a moment and flipped around, as if realizing the immensity of what she had just done. The moon was so bright that the vision of her was startlingly clear.

  She wasn’t a Necro. She was breathing normally and her head full of short black hair. There was no blood in her disarmingly vibrant eyes. She was short, but her frame was long and slender, curvy and appealing in all the ways that were dangerous. Her face was a tannish shade, but it might have been from dirt. It was a pleasing, worked shade from day-in, day-out, bone crushing labor, I guessed. She had long fingers and held the gun like she knew it well, which surprised me. She didn’t look a day over sixteen.

  She stared at us motionlessly, almost like she were prey that detected predators.

  Her eyes. It was her eyes that got me, maybe. Her eyes lit up the darkness, twinkling in the brightness of the moon. B
ut it was more than the silvery hue that encapsulated me. Her eyes were so bright that they were expressive, and it was a stark contrast to the evenness of her face. Her gaze was extremely direct, so direct that I felt exposed and indecent. They were powerful and commanding and cold. She was judging me. I wanted to cover myself up and show her that I would stop bleeding if she demanded it – that I would be better, if she so wished.

  She was making me feel more than I had in years, just at a glance. I drowned in unease. Her eyes had caught me, right from the first glance, and I felt stifled. So I slammed down that wall, that shield in my mind, in a desperate attempt to nip the affection in the bud.

  But I couldn’t hide my injury, and a noise escaped me. And she straightened, backing away further into the shroud of the darkness. Intense aggravation seized me as another thought dawned on me. She had interrupted my game with death. Death wouldn’t be very happy with her. As soon as it got the chance it would devour her too, unless I held that death off of her.

  She’d done it for me. I suddenly knew that I need to return the favor.

  She turned to run, but Pierce finally spoke.

  “WAIT!”

  She spun around and whispered something that wasn’t our language. When we did not reply, she approached me hesitantly. She looked down at me, tilting her head a little, and she bit her lip. The girl glanced over her shoulder again and then back at me. I shifted slightly, self-conscious for the first time in my memory.

  The girl bent down over me. She smelled of wood, I remember, and of wind. Like a soft, sweet smell that was completely natural. Her touch was painful and I cried out. But her wince was worse.

  I wanted to tell her that it was okay, tell her all the things that I knew weren’t true, that I was clean, that I was pure. She made me feel respect that I had never felt for anyone but my Master, only the difference was that I wanted to respect her. With my Master, I had no choice.

  My hands felt an itch to touch and make real the beautiful person who knelt in front of me. Mine were covered in blood, though. I was sure she’d be reviled. But the building itch grew into desire that magnified into need. Finally, when I couldn’t resist any longer, my hand flipped out and grazed the tip of hers.

  The girl winced back in fear, and it was my turn to recoil. Disgustingly, tears came. She was afraid of me, and it killed me inside. Her hands had eyes. They knew what I’d done. I wanted to touch her again to let her know that I would never do any of those things to her.

  But this was a lie, I realized in anguish. I would have to kill her. The thought struck me with torment. She had reeled me in before she had said a single word to me. Her face had moved me in a way that I normally did not allow. And I would have to kill that face.

  Abruptly, as I was taught, anger came barreling through that vulnerability. I felt security in that rage. What I felt right then was irrelevant.

  But, even then, the anguish was so strong that it would not be quelled. I knew in a moment that I couldn’t stop her death, but that I would always regret it. I begged with myself in a moment’s panic, begged myself to let her go, but I knew I couldn’t. My hands were tied.

  Or I made them to be.

  Why is this happening to me? I wondered, clenching.

  The girl flipped around, as if hearing something. She wiped her hands quickly and purposefully. They moved like mine did – they were the hands of a killer. They were, in essence, my hands only much smaller, more nimble and, by the looks of it, heavily scarred. It made me sad again.

  I was a mess of confusion and conflict.

  Suddenly, she turned around and ran. She disappeared as if she’d never been, and there was a moment of silence before those above me broke into fits of whispers so furious I couldn’t tell who said what. I just heard things like:

  “Let’s stay focused – this doesn’t change anything.”

  “Doesn’t change anything?”

  “Are you insane?”

  “How can you say that? It changes everything! This is terrible!”

  And it was. With her existence, we’d have to kill her. There would be blood and war and genocide. Then again, I was in no state to lead it, nor were we in any position to report back. Maybe, just maybe, it could wait.

  I made an angry, skeptical noise. The world breathed because Probe allowed it. I’d be punished if they found out. But, as I heard her voice in the darkness, I thought that maybe putting it off and keeping that a secret would all be sort of worth it.

  There was a man’s voice now, too – it sounded almost Slavic, maybe Italian or Greek. They materialized from the dark, and the shock of it all was too much. I passed out, too exhausted to fight anymore.