“Luke.”
“Josephine.”
Then she says, “I love you, I adore you, I need you.”
And I know the dream from reality. Because beyond the dream realm she will never again say such things to me: I’m not sure how I’ll ever deserve them.
*
October 28th, 2065
Josephine
It is Sunday. The day of my first tournament. I wake with fingers tracing my name and my head full of ravens. All of these people are waiting to see me fail. See me beaten to within an inch of my life. It’ll amuse them, because they know how weak I am. I have to ready myself for humiliation. And pain.
After showering and dressing, I head for the hospital to sit with Luke. No one else is up yet, so I enjoy the quiet with him. His breathing is very slow, skin pale. The bruising on his abdomen is bad.
Stroking his fingers, I hum a song under my breath, my lips close to his ear.
“The world will be very sad to lose you,” I whisper.
I have the sense that with him gone I will cease to be known. No one else has ever understood the truth of me. Anthony knew pieces, but he’s gone. Now Luke is the only other person who knows me.
But it’s more than that. It’s bigger. It is the waste that hurts so much. Because the truth is that I don’t want him to wake for me, to be with me. I am still too bruised by all the things that lie in our past. I want him to wake for the world, to be in it once more, I want for life to recognize the unforgivable waste of a man who is brave and skilled and funny and complicated. How could such a person be stolen when there is so little beauty left?
“Wake up,” I order.
Then, “You were meant to do great things. Magnificent things. You were always supposed to outlive me and change the world, Luke Townsend.”
*
At the tournament, I get ready with dull numbness. Everything has vanished from me. Any sense of shame or fear or anger. I’m an empty shell. Let them beat me. Let them humiliate me. What do I care about shame or agony? I can barely imagine it touching me in this state.
Pace says something to me but I can’t hear her. I’m herded into the ring of sand, surrounded by people in silent frenzied movement around me. Distantly, I realize I’m facing Raven. I’m not supposed to be, so she’s obviously requested the fight. She dances on the balls of her feet and looks like a glorious angel as she eyes me coldly.
I raise my hands to the position Pace showed me, but there are ravens circling me, flying all around my head, making it impossible to see the fist that collides with my cheek. I hit the ground, vision black. It seems an odd coincidence that I should be plagued by imaginary ravens and faced with a real one. When I force my eyes open there are thousands of black, feathered wings flapping against my skin, around my face, screeching and attacking me in a way that is a million times worse than anything Raven can do to me. I gasp and try to shield myself, but they don’t abate, and then I feel a boot slam into my ribs, smashing pain up through my middle.
This is hell, I think suddenly. A hell I have earned. This is where I have been brought by Anthony Harwood. And by every other innocent person I have murdered. I’m a monster, and this is what I deserve, for all of eternity.
She keeps kicking me, and the crows keep screeching and flapping and scraping. I curl into a ball, squeezing my eyes shut and willing it all away.
Darkness overwhelms me and abruptly it’s all gone. I’m alone within a world of shadow.
Until I see him, my Doc. He looks like he always did, medium height, on the thin side, prematurely graying at the temples. He peers at me with a reproachful gaze and simply says, “You’re so strong. So resilient. You changed my life.”
Words he said to me on that last night before he died. What a joke.
“I’m not,” I tell him. “I’m the weakest person in this whole place.”
“You’re also an excellent liar,” he snaps. “You’ve never once been a coward, Josephine Luquet, and I didn’t die so you could become one. Stand up and fight.”
And it hits me. The truth. If Luke won’t be here to change the world, then I’ll have to do it for him.
Reality collides with me, snapping me awake in a flurry of pain and noise and light and movement. My mouth tastes of blood and my ribs are broken, but I understand what the ravens are here for – not to attack me, but to help me rise.
On trembling legs, I drag myself up and gaze around. No one in the crowd is screaming anymore, they’re all just watching with pity. I glimpse Pace yelling at Quinn, but he’s ignoring her, and then I don’t have time for anything else, because Raven is attacking me again.
I jerk my hands up but still take the punch. She hits me again and again, and each time I fall down I force myself back up. I think I’ve swallowed about a pint of blood, and my vision is blurry, but I demand myself to remain standing. I must be the most pathetic sight they have ever seen, but I don’t care, because this is a deal I have made inside my own soul. A deal with myself to be better.
A high kick lances into my shoulder, dislocating it from its socket. My arm hangs limply to my side as I groan through the pain and sway on my feet. This chick is one nasty bitch.
“Submit!” Pace screeches from the sideline. “For pity’s sake, Dual, submit!”
Never, I think, spitting blood from my mouth and moving forward into the oncoming punch. It hits me in the chest, sucking the air from me, and I swing wildly in the same moment. Raven dances backward with ease, and I swing a few more times until she sinks a fist into my guts.
I bend over in agony, wheezing. She takes the moment to smash her elbow into my spine, and I fall to my knees. That’s it. This woman is going to pay for this, one way or another. I have never in my life submitted willingly, and I’m not about to start now. Lachlan’s brand on my hip is evidence of that. I rise slowly.
Our eyes meet and I see reluctant admiration, and something much darker. “Just submit,” she tells me.
“You’ll have to kill me first,” I say, and mean it.
“Fine,” she retorts, and comes at me again.
“Enough!” a loud voice slices into the melee. Quinn strides to take both our hands. He’s practically the only thing holding me up at this point. He raises Raven’s arm into the air and there’s a very reluctant smattering of applause.
Through blurry eyes I see that she’s furious at the interruption.
Suddenly everyone is moving, and I’m surprised to feel many sets of hands supporting me – Pace and Hal and Will are here, but there are others too. A whole bunch of people trying to help me. It’s the last thought I have, and a smile, before I finally lose consciousness.
*
Raven
I hate to even think it – and I mean hate – but the kid is made of harder stuff than I thought. I beat her to a bloody pulp, and she didn’t land one single hit, but damn. She kept coming back for more.
And though it pains me deeply to acknowledge, there’s a part of me that can’t help but respect her. Indeed, everyone in the whole bloody crowd now respects her for the undeniable strength of will. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
*
November 27th, 2065
Josephine
I watch Luke as the needles pierce my back. The feeling is certainly not as bad as I was expecting. But I have hours more of this before it’s done. Hal is bent over my bare back, tongue poking out the corner of his mouth as he wields the tattoo gun. Pace and Will are draped over other hospital beds, lazily watching the process.
“How bad is it?” Will asks at one point when I wince.
I shrug, which makes Hal whack me over the back of the head. “Stay still!”
“Alright – Jesus,” I mutter, holding still.
“I don’t get it,” Pace drawls. “Why this?”
“Long story.”
“Got nothin’ but time.”
I can’t say it aloud, not yet, and probably not ever. My shame and my love, both of which I’ll now wear on my body for
ever.
“Why do you always stare at him?” Pace asks next, noticing the way my eyes rest inevitably on Luke.
“I owe him.”
She runs her tongue over her teeth. From here, the metal in her face glints and she’s had her head shaved again so I can see her skull. “You’ve been telling everyone you barely know him, but I reckon it’s bullshit. I saw the way you were touching him on the train.”
I meet her purplish eyes. “Shock. Fear.”
Pace shakes her head slowly. “You don’t trust us.”
“I do,” I start. But I don’t. I’ll never trust anyone again.
“No. Not if you keep lying.”
“Leave her be, Pace,” Hal tells her from behind me.
Pace stalks out, shooting me a look of disgust. It makes me feel like shit, but if Quinn and Raven were to find out who I am, I have a feeling in my gut that it would be a very bad day for me. Which means keeping it a secret from everyone here. I’m the outsider; they’re the family. I know where loyalties lie.
“You’re in for it now,” Will announces as he does a handstand on one of the beds. It’s quite a feat.
Hours later, when the sun has disappeared and the room has gone cool with night, Hal finally sits back. I don’t know where he learned to wield the tattoo gun, but apparently he does all the inking for the resistance.
“Done?” I ask.
He grunts. Grabs a hand mirror so I can see the fresh tattoos. A flock of black crows circle my back, wings stretched in a graceful twist up my spine. The sight makes my eyes prickle and fills a dark hole inside me.
“Thank you. They’re perfect.”
Anthony’s birds, the birds he drew and saw and dreamed of for his dead daughter, Marley. The ones I promised him I would get tattooed on my body, as a way to remember that he is the reason I’m no longer a servant to the blood moon.
*
Back at our house I find Pace lying on her bed, twirling a knife. She looks at me with a surly glare.
“What’s going on?” I ask, perched in the doorway. “Why are you so mad?”
“You’re a liar.”
True. But it gets under my skin that she knows it. “We’re all liars,” I snap.
“I’m not.”
“Well good for you.” I turn to leave.
“I know you love him.”
Pausing, I can’t quite bring myself to face her. “Who?”
“Oh please.”
“I don’t even know him, Pace. How do you love someone you don’t know?”
“The same way you love someone you do know.”
I turn and look at her, surprised by the insight. “Is this about Hal?” The look on her face is so murderous I’m instantly afraid for my life. “Alright, alright, it’s not!”
“Do me the damn courtesy of answering me one single question truthfully,” she says.
“What’s the question?”
“Is he your person?”
I frown. “What does that mean?”
“Is he your person?”
I chew on my lip, drumming up the courage to find her a response. I barely understand the question, except that I guess I sort of do. “Luke’s even more of a liar than I am.”
“So what?”
I shake my head. “He hurt me.”
“I thought you were past being a coward.”
“Ha!”
“Where’s the girl from the tournament? The toughest person I’ve ever seen? You know everyone’s been calling you the Iron Queen?”
“That’s dumb. And it’s different.”
“It’s not.”
“Fine. You want the truth? He doesn’t love me and he never did. That’s the fact of it.” As soon as the words escape I want to die of shame.
Pace considers. Eventually she says, “Well that’s a different story then.”
I watch her continue to twirl the knife. “I really need you to stay quiet about Luke and me. Seriously – ”
“What do you think I am?” she snarls. “Some kind of back-stabbing scumbag?”
I blink.
“You and I are blood now. I don’t narc on blood – I’d die first. You idiot.”
It’s so astonishing to me that I’m speechless. I just gape at her.
“Get going,” she orders. “Shadow’s decided he wants you for training after all.”
*
February 20th, 2065
Luke
I watch from the side of the mats as pairs wrestle and grapple with impressive severity. They really take their training seriously here. Shadow arrives at my side as I watch a young girl take a massive punch to the eye.
I wince. “Jesus.” Glance at the big man. “If it isn’t the torturer. How are we today? Come for some more blood? A pound of flesh?”
He doesn’t bother replying. He’s clearly in charge of the sparring matches, despite the fact that he rarely opens his mouth. A gaze or a gesture seems to be enough for the students to understand his orders. Sometimes he whacks them on the back of their heads and they concentrate harder.
And I have to hand it to him. He’s done a good job with them. They’re rough and they lack technique, but they’re as ferocious as any army I could hope for. I plan on getting them into shape myself, because fighting Furies is a breeze compared to fighting Bloods, but first I’ll need permission to take control of the training. Which, at a hunch, is going to be tough because it means going through the big fella beside me.
“Where’d you learn to fight?” I ask him.
There’s a long silence before he mutters, “In the wild.”
Meaning he just figured it out for himself, on the run and trying to survive.
“You’re still sore about the beating. You face me in the ring. Otherwise we leave it in that room.”
I crack my knuckles and smile. “Name the day.”
“Tournament on Sunday.”
“It’s a date.” I nod at his soldiers as I turn to leave. “They could use some real training.” Just to piss him off.
*
February 23rd 2065
Raven
He has to beat five men before he reaches Shadow. That’s the way it works here. The better you are, the fewer bouts you fight, the closer you are to the top. Luke will have to fight his way up, but it’s hard to improve your rank because the more you fight, the more wounded and weary you grow until there’s no way you can keep going.
People make bets around me. The camp’s been talking about it for days now – the agreed bout between the Blood and our very own number two. Quinn is at my side, watching cheerfully. I have never been so curious. A Blood. And not just a Blood, but a Gray. Even if the rumors are true, Luke has a very slim chance of making it to Shadow.
“Your guess?” I ask Quinn.
“Reckon he can win three. I’ll be worried for the Bloods if he can’t.”
“Three’s a lot,” I point out. Because of the savagery and the speed at which you have to move on. I remember when I was first fighting my way through the ranks. It was horrible. Took me years to reach the top. You have to be at the peak of your physical strength and fitness, or you don’t have a chance. Now I’m number one for the women, third overall. The only two people in The Inferno that I can’t take down are Shadow and Quinn. And it really gets under my skin.
The whistle’s blown and Luke’s first fight begins amid hushed excitement.
The mood shifts within moments and as we see Luke fight, there’s a kind of stunned awe – we freeze as one, fall silent as one, feel our hearts ratchet up with astonishment as one. Because we like fighters here in the west. We like strength and guts and souls made of steel.
This man is different. He’s more. We all know it, together, immediately.
His first opponent takes a hammering blow to the jaw and is dropped. Luke waits for him to get back up, then smashes him again, and this time the boy stays down. It happens like that for all five bouts. Luke’s iron fists tear flesh and smash through bone. He’s too fast and much
too strong. No one gets a single hit on him.
My soul feels like a dark place as I watch. The desire for him that has been building inside me is surprising, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep ignoring it after this, regardless of the rules.
Shadow enters the ring and by this point everyone in the entire camp has come to watch. Luke’s barely broken a sweat. He gives the taller man a salute, then begins.
Shadow’s a lot older than Luke, but the man has always been the toughest among us. He can take a lot before giving in, and that being said, the only person he’s given in to is our leader, because Quinn’s unbeatable.
Luke ducks low and takes the man’s chin in a mighty uppercut, snapping Shadow’s head back. Without waiting, he hammers the older man in the chest, sending him flying onto the sand.
Shadow gets swiftly to his feet, but Luke spins and cracks him across the head with his boot. I’m struggling to remain expressionless as I watch one, two, three quick jabs slam into Shadow’s nose. Blood sprays. As he takes a moment to wipe it away, Luke looks straight at Quinn.
And with a cool, sly smirk, he says, “I don’t want to incapacitate your best hunter too badly. You need him.”
Shadow lunges forward, taking Luke in the chest and tackling him to the ground. The older man manages to get in a few body blows before Luke’s elbow takes him in the face and he’s rolled off. Now Luke’s on top, pinning him.
“Submit yet?”
Shadow looks up at his assailant, and we all see him … smile. I blink – in all my life I have never seen Shadow smile. But he smiles now, and chuckles a little. “I submit, you cocky young shit.”
Luke grins, helping the man up and clapping him on the back. “You nearly had me there for a minute, mate.”
“Bullshit.”
The cheering erupts and that’s all it takes, really. You fight hard and you win our loyalty. He has them now; I can feel it in the air.
Everyone looks to Quinn. I stiffen, unable to predict what he’ll do. He hasn’t prepared for a fight, but …