“He’s fine,” Jaxen says shortly. “He knows the drill when it comes to these people better than all of us put together. He can handle himself.”
Gavin pushes the button for the elevator, and a minute later, we all get in. Silence fills the empty space around us, and I’m glad for it. I feel like I can actually breathe in it.
When the doors slide open, we each go our separate way. Jaxen stops outside my door, his hand pressed against the frame just over my head. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks, running his other hand down the side of my face.
My eyes are pinned on the door across from my room as so many words tumble through my head. I squeeze my eyes shut, swearing my silence even though I want to say to him, No, I’m not okay. I don’t think I’ll ever be okay again. I don’t think the world will ever look quite as bright now that I know. Now that a price has been set on your head… and that price is my obedience. My compliance. My conformity.
But I don’t utter a single word, because I can’t.
So I nod, and this time it’s easier to lie. It’s easier when I can see the imprint Clara left so clearly on my mind. The red dot on the back of his head. The blood spilling from his smile.
He sighs, and then leans in for a kiss, and in that brief, rare moment, I feel like there isn’t a single thing in the world that could take this away. That could remove this happiness from my heart. Jaxen is safe. My friends are safe. Clara thinks she has me under control, and though it must stay that way until I can be free from her, it isn’t permanent.
Because this has to be a temporary situation, right?
IDON’T KNOW WHO I am anymore.
Two weeks pass by, and in that time, I manage to lose the person I used to be in a crowd of paralyzing demands. I manage to forget how to laugh. How to have hope and faith in the people around me, like it’s some kind of skill that if not practiced daily, it’ll simply be forgotten.
Gone forever.
And now… now Jaxen’s words haunt my every thought. “Sometimes, hate is all you have to hold on to, Faye. Sometimes, it’s the only thing that can keep a person going when everyone and everything else has let you down time and time again.”
He’s right—so devastatingly, heartbreakingly right.
Day in and day out, I’m forced to face Clara with a fake smile. Forced to pretend like I’m not withering away on the inside, rotting into someone whose every waking thought revolves around plots to kill. Loopholes I can slip through. I’m forced to act like everything is fine and all I want to do is please Clara. Forced to lie to my friends.
To Jaxen.
All for the sake of keeping them alive and by my side.
Because, really, I’m going to die anyway. Eventually. The curse will sneak up on me, take me away when I least expect it, and I’ll go willingly because I’ll know the love I had in that short amount of time is something most people only ever dream about. I’ll know I was loved by the impossible. By the lost soul who never had a hope.
I just hope he’ll survive.
It’s been two weeks since Clara cornered me, and it’s been two days since I’ve seen any of my friends. Jaxen’s tried to corner me often. I’ve caught him following after me, trying to track me down, but dodging has become my specialty. As for the rest, they think it’s because of an intense training regimen Clara has me on, but it isn’t.
It’s because I’m running out of excuses, out of more lies that they’ll believe. I just… I can’t bring myself to look at them. To stare them in the eyes and tell them everything is fine. I don’t like the faith I see in their gazes when I tell them everything is okay. That Clara and I are making great progress, and that the bruises on my skin and the circles under my eyes are just from lack of sleep and serious defense training.
Because the truth is, I haven’t slept in days, and I’m kicked around every time I make a mistake.
Fighting back isn’t an option. Not when the faces of the ones I love are used against me. In the beginning, after Clara made her true intentions known to me, I tried to resist subtly. I tried to find a tiny out. However, as the days passed on, her noose tightened around my neck and, somewhere in the middle of it all, I became her lap dog.
Simulation after simulation, she’s stuck me in. Fight after fight, I’ve fought in front of her. Still, none of it’s working. And I’m afraid if I don’t do something impressive soon, she’ll take it out on someone I love.
I’m not so sure I could stop myself from killing her if she does.
When I make my way to the simulation room, Clara is standing across the room in her usual white attire with her hands crossed in front of her. Prim and proper, ready to dish out commands. She’s one of the only in this city who wear white, and I’ve come to think it’s only to make herself seem more angelic. More trustworthy. Like she was a cloud drifting close to the heavens, sent straight down to Ethryeal City to save this Coven from the Darkyns.
And only I know the truth.
“Today we’ll see some progress, yes?” she asks, her lips pinched together and her firm gaze striking over me. Her shiny black hair is perfectly straight and angled to frame her face. Her lavender eyes are wide and open, digesting every inch of my body language.
I stand a little straighter. “Yes, Clara,” I say, sounding more tired than I’ve ever been in my life.
“And today you’ll show me something new. Anything that proves you’re the Everlasting, right? Because so far, all I’ve seen is a poor excuse for a Night Watchman. Nothing more. No special, hidden abilities. No strength. Nothing that could possibly be the saving grace of this Coven like our late Divine Cecilia predicted you to be.”
“I’ll do my best, Clara,” I say, running strictly on the little fumes of sleep I have left in me.
She crosses the room, heels clinking against the tiled floors, and stops in front of me. My stomach churns at the awful, florally scent of the pale powder on her face, but I don’t give it away. I hold my breath, praying that whatever it is she has to say, it’ll be quick.
“You’re a pathetic excuse for a Watchman, Faye Middleton,” she says low enough for only us to hear. She eyes me over, her lip curled out. “Had your parents not suffered the fate they did, they would indeed be disappointed.” She spits the insult in my face, and then leaves me standing there, feeling fractured and ready to crumble into a million pieces at any moment.
I’m nothing but skin, bones, and a barely beating heart.
I’m sure I’ve forgotten what happiness feels like. How warm her embrace felt. I think she’s had enough of me and moved on to someone else, somewhere else, far away from this hell Weldon warned me about, because there’s no room for happiness when fear and anger have moved into my heart. Stalking my thoughts like shadows. Taking over every inch of every bit of me when I’m not looking.
Clara’s voice cuts through the speakers. “Move to the center of the room, Faye Middleton.” I do as she says, watching my warped reflection in the walls change as if I were staring into a circus mirror. That’s how disjointed I feel. How disconnected from reality I really I am. I hope whatever she has planned for me isn’t as bad as it was yesterday. Pray I don’t have to watch Jaxen, Weldon, and everyone I care about die repeatedly just to be sure that I can turn the other cheek and complete the mission. Just to prove that Clara meant it when she said she had a strong reach. Strong enough to rip the heart right out from me.
Strong enough to mold me into a monster.
I stop on the small X laid out for me to stand on, moving my eyes to the camera.
“The day of your Culling, when your powers were awoken, you drained the entire auditorium of power. Do you remember that?” Clara asks. I stare straight ahead, wondering where she is. Which wall she’s hiding behind, wishing I could barge through it and rip her head clean off.
“No,” I admit as calmly as I can. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“Well, you disarmed every Night Watchman and Primeval in that room of their powers.”
I look up i
nto the camera, sure that she’s lost her mind. “I-what are you talking about?”
“Do you remember what our scientists told you after sampling your DNA? The theories they came up with about what you can do? Well, the power you harness inside you is so strong that you’re able to pull from other living beings. You’re able to take the very essence that allows them to breathe. You’re able to take life.”
I can almost see the madness in her eyes. The lust for power. The greed to be the one on top as she tumbles out word after word, making me into something I don’t want to be. Forcing me to become a weapon in her private arsenal.
“That’s what you must hone.” The finality in her tone is unwavering.
My hands begin to sweat, trembling at my sides. “I-I don’t know how to do it, Clara. Honestly,” I say. I’m too tired to be angry anymore. Just barely hanging on.
“Do I need to remind you?” her voice rings out.
Smoke rises against the farthest metal wall. An image of Jaxen forms within the smoke, under the control of one of the Witches Clara uses during my simulations. I want to look away. I want to squeeze my eyes shut to keep from watching his neck being snapped, but I’m frozen in horror. His limp, lifeless body falls to the ground, and then the smoke vanishes in a swirl.
“Now,” Clara says coldly, “are you ready to begin?”
“Yes,” I mutter out, my lips trembling against my will.
“Good. Send in the test subject.”
The door opens up, and an Elite walks in with a beagle on a leash. He tells the dog to heel. The dog looks up at him lovingly, waiting for his treat.
I’m going to throw up.
“Let’s start with something small,” Clara says, her voice swimming around the room. “I imagine the energy of a living being is quite different from the generic energy harnessed by a machine. You need to learn and understand the difference between the two so that you may control your volation when under extreme amounts of stress. Come forward,” she says.
I don’t move. I keep looking at this little dog, thinking how he and I are not that different. Both obeying their masters. Both forced to do things against their true nature just to gain the acceptance of their master. If I could just steal him away, then—
“Did you hear me, Faye? Move forward.”
I bite down on my cheek so hard I taste the salty, metallic tang of my own blood.
I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this.
One foot steps in front of the other. I keep the image of Jaxen in the forefront of my mind, using his face to center me. The dog stares at me with his head tilted to the side. I want to scoop him up and run. Tuck him away from the horrors of this world. But then Clara barks out more orders, and it’s all I can do not to let the heat pressing behind my eyes release.
The Elite tells the dog to stay, and then exits the room. We’re left staring at one another. The quiet in the room is so overwhelming, so overpowering, that I think I might have gone deaf.
“Begin.”
The word I dread. The word that sentences this poor dog to God knows what. Slowly, I raise my hands out and squeeze my eyes shut. I open my senses to the energy around me and, without even trying, I absorb some of the electricity in the room. I have no problem controlling that. No issue with pulling only enough to sustain, but not darken, the room.
I know I can’t do what she asks of me, I don’t have it in me, but I have to make it look real. I have to make her believe I’m trying, because if I don’t, then I’m afraid her threat will no longer be a threat, but an actuality.
And I can’t let that happen.
I feel the dog’s energy. It’s this warmth that calls to me, like early morning light peeking in from a window. If I could just step outside… feel the warmth on my face… feel it kiss my soul, then I’d know happiness once more. Like lovers reunited. Something shifts a little inside of me… opens up, and I’m tempted to just try it… just a little bit… just to see what it would feel like. What holding that special kind of warmth inside of me would do for me.
Unfathomable strength spreads through me. It’s a rush unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. My muscles expand with an energy that sizzles, my spine goes rigid, and my fists grow tight. Power pulses beneath my skin, within my tendons, inside my veins, seeking release. Searching for a target.
The feeling… it’s so overwhelming, so intense and intoxicating, that I don’t even realize I’ve already drained the dog to the point that it’s laying on its side, panting heavily, eyes rolled back in its head.
Not until it yelps loudly.
Liquid ice pours through my veins, freezing my heart on the spot. Disgust crushes my lungs, squeezing the breath right out of me. I shut my eyes and find myself standing in front of my biggest fear, in front of a mirror that reflects myself, only I’m not myself. I’m a murderer. One who enjoys taking from others.
I want to run to the animal and cradle him in my arms, but I can’t move in his direction. Not a single inch.
“No… no… no,” I mutter over and over until I’m tucked into the furthest corner with my arms wrapped around my legs, and the dog laying feet away from me. I can’t catch my breath. Tremors wrack my entire body. I want to look away. I should look away, but I can’t unglue my eyes from the whimpering animal.
I can’t deny just how dangerous I truly am. Not anymore.
“Get up,” Clara says sharply. “You’re making a fool of yourself.”
“The dog… he’s hurt,” I say, horrified I did that. But not just that I did, but that it felt good when I pulled from him.
I want to cut out the ability within me. I want to break apart every single strand of DNA inside my body until I’m a Defect. Until I’m nothing. Until I don’t exist anymore, because I don’t want to be that. I don’t want to become what I think I could become. I don’t want to be anyone’s weapon… what Clara intends me to be.
“I-I didn’t… I didn’t mean to. No. I di-didn’t want to do that. He di-didn’t deserve that. I’m-I’m a monster.” The words—they won’t stop chattering from behind my teeth. They harbor every fear, every weakness inside of me, and I’m so exposed. So alone.
So deadly.
“Good, then it’s working. Now, finish. Harness the energy,” she commands. Her patience is wearing thin. Her understanding is one word from turning into mercilessness.
I bite back my lip, holding it all in. “No,” I say, shaking my head repeatedly. I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t.
Clara enters the room. Stops right in front of me. “Excuse me?” Her shock is evident, so close to turning into a rage that even I haven’t seen before.
“I can’t, Clara. No.” I’m surprised by the coolness of my tone. By the way the words so easily slip out like fluid.
She strikes me hard across the face. Slicing pain splits my lip as blood reaches the tip of my tongue.
I glare up at her.
She strikes me again, only this time, I feel the skin along my cheek split. “I will not ask you again, Faye Middleton. This is your last chance.” Fire burns within her words.
The dog slowly rises to his feet as the last of his energy is given back to him. Tears fall down my cheeks. “I won’t do it,” I say before breaking off in a small cry.
I know I’m sentencing my friends to a fate I’m unsure of, but I can’t, and I have to believe they wouldn’t want me to either. I have to believe I’m not the monster I feel scratching beneath my skin for a chance to break free.
“Fine.”
The door opens and the Elite walks in, clips the dog back on a leash, and escorts him out.
“We will take a short recess. Enough for you to get your head back in the game. That there, what you just did, that was progress.”
“I can’t do it again, Clara,” I say firmly, even though my insides feel like a sloshing bucket of sorrow.
She eyes me down. Her silence speaks loud and clear.
“Be back in this ro
om in two hours. Prepare to be here all night. We will stay as long as it takes for you to give in. Understand?”
“Do I have a choice?”
SOMEHOW, I LEAVE CLARA WITHOUT killing her.
I know I could, so easily, but I don’t. Maybe out of fear. Maybe because if I do, then that will be the end of my future, because maybe I still have a small bit of hope tucked away in the farthest corners of my soul that I’ll find a way out of this.
Maybe because fighting violence with violence isn’t always the answer.
I don’t waste any time putting distance between myself and that room of torture Clara calls “the training room.”
Inch by inch, my feet gradually pick up pace, until I’m bolting down the hallway, shoving past blurred faces, heading for the nearest exit. I’m sure the world has finally fallen off its axis, because I can’t see straight. I can’t think. All I can do is keep running. To get as far away from this prison as I can.
To outrun the monster I left back in that room.
Spotting two Elites in training waiting for the elevator, I run past them and head for the stairwell. I don’t want anyone to see me. Not like this. My composure is slipping out of the back door of my mind. My hands are shaking as I run, and my heart’s pounding harder than it ever has. I feel my own fear nipping at my heels, waiting for the moment I stop running so it can swallow me whole. Feed off what little bit of strength and dignity I have left.
I can’t let that happen.
Shoving through the door, I take the stairs two at a time, and it still doesn’t feel fast enough. I keep seeing that dog, Clara’s face, and my parents and Katie and Jaxen…
The images won’t stop. The emotions won’t go away. I try to shut them off, but the switch won’t work. It’s broken, like me, like every part of my life, and I swear I’m going to explode.
When I’m almost to the last floor, I hear the door above me burst open with heavy footsteps moving to the railing. The mark on my arm begins to heat.
“Faye!”
It’s Jaxen. He’s leaning over the railing, searching for me, panic and worry parachuting off his words toward me.