Chaos (28 page)

He
tsk
ed as I once again tried to shake him off, but his touch was gentle as he rubbed my back. “No, it’s all right. I know it must hurt.” He smoothed my curls and tucked me against his chest. It destroyed me. Even though part of me knew I should fight, the rest of me was so tired. Worn all the way through. Needing to be held close.

“I remember the first time I saw you,” he said, his voice a caress. “A ghost like so many others—abandoned, alone, damaged. But so fierce.
Not
like the others. You wouldn’t let me touch you, and every time you told me to get away, I wanted you more. Even now, every time I see you—”

I pushed against him, needing distance, but he wouldn’t give it to me. It was like he knew his body was the drug that could keep me still. Like I was the fly, and the spider’s fangs had sunk deep. No escape.

“Malachi and I are not so different,” he murmured. “When it comes to you, at least. So here we are again. You have been abandoned so many times, Lela. By your mother, by your friend, and no
w . . .
by him.”

“Stop,” I whispered.

“I can be Malachi for you. You can pretend. Just let yourself believe.”

My fingers curled into his shirt. My body felt heavy and loose. I didn’t want to struggle anymore. All I wanted was comfort.

Juri’s breath tickled my ear as he spoke words that shattered me. “I love you, Lela. I’d sacrifice my own soul to save you. I’d give up my freedom to be with you. I’d kill a million times to protect you.”

Tears streaked down my cheeks, wetting his shirt. My arms skimmed around his waist, and I gave in. The illusion crashed over me like a wave.

“In all my years of dreaming,” Juri continued, speaking with my love’s voice, “I dreamed of you, even before I knew you were real. In all my years of wishing, I wished for you. The moment I saw you, I felt it. My whole world shifted. My whole existence grew brighter.”

I turned my face and pressed my forehead to his throat. Malachi was all around me, the only thing I craved. His pulse pounded against my skin. His warmth spread through me, flowing through my veins.

“I’ll never leave you, Lela. I’ll never abandon you.”

I let out a sob as he said what I most wanted to hear. There was the slightest tremble in his hands as he ran them down my spine, the barest shake in his voice as he spoke.
This isn’t real, Lela. Wake up,
a voice in my head screamed. But the rest of me was lulled by the quiet, by his arms around me. Dimly, I thought of the dark tower, of the temptation I’d felt to lie down and let it have me. Like then, I could give up. Right now. I could let the illusion take me. Or I could keep fighting.

“But I don’t want to fight anymore,” I whispered.

“Of course you don’t,” he murmured. “Of course you don’t. And you shouldn’t have to. Stay with me, and I’ll take care of you.”

This isn’t real, and you’re not done yet.
This time it was Malachi’s voice whispering deep inside my mind, like it had during my darkest moments in the tower. The words pricked inside my mind, and I shrank away.

Juri held me tighter. “Nothing could keep me away from you. No one will get between us. Because I am yours. And you. Are.
Mine.
”

The deep growl rumbled in his chest, jerking me back to reality, as potent as a shot of pure adrenaline. In a flash, I’d dropped all my weight to the ground, slipping out of his grip and rolling away before I jumped to my feet again—six feet away.

“Nice try,” I panted, my knife already in my grip, my skin tingling.

He ran his knuckles along his jaw. “You seemed to be enjoying it.”

My fingers tightened over the hilt of the blade. Malachi was gone.
Gone.
He’d never said any of those things to me, and they weren’t real. He was in the Countryside, where he belonged. And here I was, playing make-believe with his worst enemy. “Don’t do that again. I’ll freaking stab you if you try.”

His eyes flashed. “No, you won’t.” He took a step toward me and licked his lips as I took an unsteady step back. “Come inside. You came here to scope the place out, didn’t you? I’m sure you told Henry you were doing reconnaissance.” He chuckled. “Don’t disappoint him.”

He beckoned to me and headed up the porch steps. I shoved my hands in my pockets. One closed around my phone, and the other around the handle of my knife. I was read
y . . .

But
so
not ready for what awaited me inside the house.

I frantically began to count. There were five people in the kitchen—no, six—which was filled with large canisters and pots and what looked like an oversized chemistry set. Evan Crociere stood near the stove with his arm around a girl I recognized. She was in my pre-calculus class. The stench wafting out of that room burned the inside of my nose and throat.

The dank living room was lined with couches and chairs, which held over a dozen people, a few of them with little glass pipes at their lips. Others were watching them, eyes vacant, and others were entertaining themselves in ways that made my stomach roil. Sweat and vomit mixed with the chemical fumes, making my head pound. Doorways at the other side of the living room opened onto what were probably bedrooms. I was betting there were people in there, too.

More than eleven. The place was packed.

Juri chuckled as he traced his finger down my cheek, making me stagger to the side and nearly step on a dude who’d passed out against the wall. “If you’re wondering,” he said softly, “not all of them are Mazikin. And not all my Mazikin are here.”

I inched backward toward the door as Evan eyed me warily from the kitchen. Juri threw his arm around my shoulder. “It’s awful not knowing who the enemy is, isn’t it?”

“No,” I whispered as the girl from my pre-calc class sauntered out of the kitchen with eyes only for Juri. Had she been possessed? Or was she still herself, just really captivated by the guy she thought was Malachi?

Juri gave her a gentle shove toward one of the bedrooms. “I’ll be right there.”

My head spun as I ran through my options. I could call the police—I had no doubt they’d be very interested in this place, judging by the telltale smell. But Juri and his Mazikin would scatter, and I still had no idea who they were. I needed them together and thinking they were safe. Thinking they had us, that their threats and their cleverness had neutralized the Guards. If Juri thought he had won, he’d stay put. And I could find a way to destroy them.

But I couldn’t destroy
all
of them. Not everyone in this house was Mazikin. And some of them, judging by the Warwick High T-shirt on one of the drugged-out guys on the couch and the WHS Quahogs cap lying on the floor next to a chair, were my classmates. They might have been possesse
d . . .
or they might have just been looking for a high. That didn’t mean they deserved to die.

Juri’s arm coiled around my waist, and he pulled me back against him, so hard that I gasped. “What are you going to do, my love?”

“Let me go.” I hated the weakness in my voice.

His hands stroked my waist. “You can’t win, Lela. Not if you want the already decimated senior class of Warwick High to make it to graduation with all its remaining members. I have a few already, and I could kill a lot more before you could stop us. And I chose carefully. You won’t be able to tell who’s who. They’re at your school. You sat in class with them this morning. They’re out tonight, at parties, on Facebook. They were at Ian’s baseball practice today. They watched you get in the car with the angel after school. How will you fight us?”

My heart nearly stopped. I didn’t know who to fight. I didn’t know what to do.

He played with the hem of my shirt, his fingertips brushing the bare skin above my jeans. “I’ll hold back. For you. As long as you give me what I want.”

I clenched my teeth. “And that is?”

He spread his fingers across my side, stroking my ribs. “I want what he wanted. I want you to give yourself to me. And I think you want to do exactly that.”

“You’re wrong. You’re an evil fucking psycho—”

“Shhh. You know who I am. And who I can be, if you let yourself believe it. Really, what loyalty do you have to the Judge? She’s hurt you, just like she hurt my family. And at her bidding, you destroyed them all. For what? Only to be sent back to do more killing. She’s using you, Lela.”

He spun me in his arms and tilted my head up. “You said you didn’t want to fight, and you don’t have to.”

My phone interrupted and chimed with a text. Juri let me go and stepped back as I pulled it out.

If you don’t reply in the next sixty seconds, I’m on my way.

Juri gave me a half smile. “Maybe we’re done here tonight.”

Never taking my eyes off him, I backed to the door and spun toward the porch, skipping the steps and jumping onto the lawn. My vision was blurred with tears, and my thoughts were blurred with the craziness of everything. I jogged to my car and got in as Juri’s lean silhouette darkened the doorway to the house.

I punched in a text telling Henry I was on my way, and then drove away from the new Mazikin nest. I’d been through a lot in my life, and I’d faced plenty of enemies. I’d survived over and over again. I’d never surrendered. I’d believed I never would. But as I sped down the gravelly road toward Warwick, it felt a little like I already had.

TWENTY-NINE

I
DROVE TO THE
Guard house, hoping we’d have a training room in the basement where I could spend a few hours punching the hell out of cloth dummies. Every moment and every mile brought replays of what had just happened. Juri had sounded exactly like Malachi. He’d touched me like Malachi had. And I’d let him. I’d clung to an illusion and let it flow through my veins like a drug.

I shook my head, trying to clear it. The lights in the Guard house were on, but there was no car in the driveway. When I walked in, though, Henry was sitting at the white wooden table. His dust-colored stare was heavy as I trudged over and sat down across from him. “Everybody’s locked up tight for the night,” he said, crossing his arms over his bony chest. “And Diane won’t be home for several hours.”

“Good. I got a look at some of the Mazikin. Sort of.”

His eyebrows rose.

“They’re cooking meth—”

“What’s ‘meth’?”

“They’ve got a house out in the woods, and they’re making drugs and selling them. The owners of the house are definitely Mazikin. But he’s got other people out there, too.” I put my head down on the table, resting it on my folded arms. “Honestly, I don’t know how many of them were Mazikin and how many were human.”

“Did you try to find out?”

“I’ll go back tomorrow night,” I said quietly. I didn’t know what else to do. And a small but terrible part of me wanted to feel those hands on my skin. Wanted to hear his voice in my ear. Wanted another hit, something that would numb the pain for a few minutes.

“You got inside the house. They didn’t try to stop you?”

I shook my head. “I think Juri wanted me to see what he’d done.”

“And he didn’t try to capture you or kill you?”

I peered up at Henry. “Got something on your mind?”

He let out a hollow, dry bark of a laugh. “Plenty. What did he say, Captain? What’s his angle?”

I shrugged and looked away.

“What’s
your
angle, then?” he asked, his voice taking on an edge. “How many nights are you going to play this game?”

“I’m doing my best, Henry. Sorry I’m not making things happen fast enough for you.”

Henry’s eyes flitted over me. “Did he try to act like Malachi? That would be a mighty hard lure to resist.”

I ran my tongue over my teeth. “He can’t fool me.”

“It’s not him I’m worried about.”

“I better get home.” I sat back in my chair.

Henry leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “It feels good, doesn’t it? Makes you want to forget everything. Forget who you are and what you’re supposed to do. I know what that’s like.” He scratched at a spot on his stubbly cheek. “It’s what got me killed in the first place.”

I’d had my palms braced on the table, ready to run back to Diane’s and hide for a few hours, but his words froze me in place. Henry had never talked about himself, not much, at least. “What do you mean?”

“I’d been taking people out for years. All contract work. For the mob, mostly, but a few independent gigs. I was always alone. Didn’t have any friends. Couldn’t afford to let anyone close.” He looked at a spot on the wall while he talked, like all the memories were right there in front of him. “I was in Chicago for a job. Some midlevel associate who was ratting to the feds. I spent the weekend stalking the guy.” He chuckled. “Didn’t realize someone was stalking me.”

I took my palms off the table and placed them in my lap. Waiting.

“In those days, men like m
e . . .
we couldn’t exactly be ourselves. But there were places we could go. I needed that sometimes, you know? Just needed to touch another person and have that person touch me. Made me feel real. Less like a ghost.” The color rose in his cheeks as he met my eyes, then he looked away, clearing his throat. “Anyway, I found one of those places that night, right near the main drag where my target was staying with his mistress. I figured a few hours wouldn’t make a difference. And as I walked up to the place, a man stepped out of the shadows and offered me a cigarette. Marvin Riccio.” Henry shook his head as his lips shaped themselves around the name. “He was like me. A killer, through and through. And we’d been together before. Love and hate could be wrapped so tightly around each othe
r . . .
That’s how I felt about him. There he was, right when I needed someone, and even though I knew it wasn’t quite right—I mean, why was he there?
Right
there, when I was in town for a job?—I knew what I wanted. He made me weak.”

“You let him get close to you.”

“It happened so fast. One minute I was lighting up, and the next, we were in the alley, and he had his hands on me, and I never wanted anything so bad. Never felt so wanted, either. Always felt that way when I was with him.” He stopped there, still staring at the wall. “It felt good to be wanted,” he said, so quietly that it was hard to hear him. “It felt good, in those seconds, to think he couldn’t stay away from me.”

“Seconds.”

He nodded. “I was on the ground with a knife in my gut after that. And you know what he said to me as I lay there dying? He said, ‘It was never real.’ ”

I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry, Henry.”

“That wasn’t the worst part, Captain. What made it burn was that I already knew. I’d known it all along. I’d just chosen to pretend. So I died knowing that I’d done it to myself. And when I got to the Wasteland, I knew I belonged there. I didn’t even fight it.”

I backed my chair away from the table, nearly falling over backward because I was so eager to get away from him. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Henry. I have to go.” I felt for my keys in my pocket as I strode toward the door.

“It’s not real, Captain,” he called after me. “Pretending will only get us all killed. Sometimes all you can do is face what’s in front of you and see it for what it is—and what it’s not.”

The door slammed hard behind me, and I ran for my car. I drove past the turnoff for Diane’s and got on the highway as Henry’s words rang in my head. My head felt like a time bomb as I went over the bridges to Newport and drove all the way to the spot that always drew me at times like this. I followed the rocky trail of the Cliff Walk through the dark, listening to the ocean licking at the shore several yards below me.

I sat down on the boulder where I’d stood months ago, demanding to know if Nadia was all right, shouting at the sky to tell me where she’d gone. One gust of wind was all it had taken to push me over the edge.

One gust of wind was all it would take now.

I couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t strong enough, not anymore. Everything had been taken away, and Henry was right: my mistakes were not only going to get me killed—they were going to be the death of others as well. I was a liability.

It was never real.
That’s what Henry’s lover—his killer—had said to him. Shivering as the wind blew my hair around my face, I had to wonder if any of this was real. What made something real? I’d been in a city where people could grow whatever they wanted out of nothing—were those things real? I’d been in a hell world where existing meant endless horror, but love could heal with a touch. Was that real? Now that I was here, in the land of the living, what I’d always assumed was reality didn’t feel like it anymore. I didn’t feel connected to any of it.

I put my hand out, looking for the edges of my reality, wondering if I could pierce it like a soap bubble. What would happen if I got up and started walking, right over the edge? Or what if I simply lay down and didn’t get up?

“I’ve had enough,” I said to the sky, addressing the Judge, wherever she was. “I give up.”

The quiet hiss of waves was the only reply.

I rose to my feet and held out my arms. “I give up,” I shouted. “Do you hear me? I can’t do this!”

I threw back my head, waiting for the wind to carry me over, not caring where it took me as long as I didn’t have to feel this miserable loneliness anymore. “Come on,” I screamed at the Judge. “What are you waiting for?” I swayed in place, the toes of my boots right at the edge of the rocks. “Please,” I whispered. “I’m done.”

I’m in love with your strength,
Malachi whispered back, an echo in my memory.
I’m in love with your determination, the way you never
ever
give up.

The sob forced its way from my throat before I knew I was crying. I stumbled over a rock, landing hard on the gravel trail. I rolled to my back and looked up at the moon. “You’d be so disappointed if you could see me now,” I mumbled, though I knew full well Malachi couldn’t hear me.

These people need those things from you now.

I let out another shuddering sob. He’d said that to me at the gates of the Mazikin city, trusting me to do everything I could to usher all those human souls to safety. I’d thought I had, but there were more people in danger right now.
Right now.

While I was here, wishing. Pretending. Doing exactly what all the people in the dark city did—instead of going in search of what I needed, instead of facing reality and dealing with it, no matter how painful, I’d grown myself a shabby imitation of what I most wanted, and then buried myself in false comfort. And in doing so, I’d turned away from everything I thought I was and everyone I cared about.

Ian. Tegan. Diane. Henry. So many others who could still be saved—unless pretending was more important to me than their lives. Unless my desire for a few minutes of illusion was worth more than their safety. Unless my craving for escape outweighed my sense of duty.

“I don’t abandon my friends,” I said, my voice cracking. I slowly stood up and dusted off my pants. I was the disposable abandoned gir
l . . .
I had been, at least. But I didn’t abandon people. I didn’t turn away. And I didn’t give up. “I will
never
give up,” I whispered.

I was still exhausted. Still grieving. Still feeling like all my insides had been smashed up and stomped on. But I wouldn’t stop until I had done the job I’d been sent here to do. It wasn’t about loyalty to the Judge. Not at all.

It was about me choosing who I wanted to be.

I took deep breaths of sea air and got into my car, drove back across the bridges, and headed for Diane’s. I needed to get a few hours of sleep before I faced tomorrow. I’d have to be a lot sharper and more focused if I was going to succeed. If I was going to look at Juri and face the reality. He was just a corrupted copy of Malachi, and he could only fool me if I let him. And by allowing him close to me, I wasn’t honoring the memory of what Malachi and I had together. I was spitting on it. Malachi deserved so much more from me than that.

The only thing I could do was accept that he was gone, hold on to the memories of what we had together, and stop trying not to miss him—I would never stop missing him.

I parked my car and tromped up the steps, then swung the front door open and tossed my keys in the basket in the entryway.

Midtoss, it hit me. The door hadn’t been locked.

I pressed myself against the door. He was leaning against the wall. Only ten feet away.

“Diane keeps her spare key under the ladybug stone in the flower bed,” Juri said quietly. “It’s a bit of an obvious choice.”

I drew my knife, rage flaring inside me. “If you’ve done anything to her—”

“She’s at work, as far as I know.” He took a slow, cautious step toward me. “I couldn’t stay away, Lela.”

My fingers tightened over the grip of my knife. “Your mistake.”

His brow furrowed. “You don’t look happy to see me.”

“Oh, I’m happy. You picked the perfect time to show up.”

I lunged for him, my knife hand darting out like a viper. He raised his arms and jumped back, his eyes wide as he shook his head in disbelief. “You’re serious?”

“Deadly serious.” And even more determined because he didn’t think I’d actually do it. He thought I was weak. And he was wrong. I struck again, nearly slicing one of his fingers as he skipped to one side and put a chair between us. As I moved forward again, he tossed it at my feet, forcing me to jump to avoid getting tripped up by its legs. He caught my wrist as I flailed, but I slammed my knee into his gut.

He groaned. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said through clenched teeth as my fingers dug into his neck. His arm was wrapped around my waist, his other hand clamped over my wrist to keep me from slamming my blade between his ribs.

“I
do
want to hurt
you
,” I huffed, then slammed my forehead against his cheekbone. He dropped me abruptly, and I rolled away, getting to my feet immediately.

He let out a hoarse laugh as he touched his fingertips to his already-swollen cheek. “That was very good.”

“Shut up.” He was trying to sound like Malachi again. It wouldn’t work this time. “You’ve got balls, coming here like this. You really must have thought you had me.” I circled to the left, trying to get him into the open space of the living room, where he couldn’t toss furniture at me.

I was wary; Malachi had been a master at improvising, and Juri would know all his tricks. Which of Diane’s possessions would he use as a weapon against me? The vase on the coffee table? The metal lamp next to the couch? Juri smiled as he saw me assessing the possibilities. “Fighting here isn’t a good idea,” he said. “Diane has such a lovely home.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have broken in again.”

He frowned, and I took that moment to go for his legs. It had worked once before, on the practice mat in the basement of the old Guard house. Malachi hadn’t been expecting that kind of attack, and it was the only time I’d ever beaten him.

He let out a startled grunt and bent his knees as I plowed into him, knocking him backward over the coffee table, which collapsed with a rending crunch under our weight. He gasped with pain as I drew the knife up his calf, but the fabric of his jeans was too thick to allow me to cut deep. In an instant, his fingers were around my wrist again, squeezing so hard that I cried out. He threw himself forward, grabbing my other wrist as I put my hand out to stop him.

Then he was on top of me, the relentless weight of his body pinning me to the floor. I jerked my head up to smash it into his, but he ducked to the side and used his shoulder to hold me down.