The Shattered Dark (22 page)

“You’re alive in this city,” Aren says.

“What?” I ask, turning. I was walking beside Shane, but I must have slowed down to
take everything in. Aren’s beside me now. Trev and Shane are a few paces ahead.

“You’re more mesmerized by this place than by any place I’ve seen you in the Realm.”

“That’s because no one’s trying to kill me here,” I say.

No one’s trying to kill me here
yet
. I’m surprised Aren doesn’t point that out, but he just smiles as he watches me,
and my stomach does a little flip. It’s as if seeing me here like this makes him happy,
and just for a moment, I let myself think about what it would be like to walk down
this street with Aren without any worries about the remnants or Paige. That’s what
we need, time to be together without all the pressures of the war.

“That’s the address,” Shane says, pointing to a section of a
brick building about thirty feet in front of us. We pass a tiny convenience store
and an even tinier restaurant serving lamb and chicken kabobs. A long line of people
blocks its entrance, but they’re not waiting to order anything. They’re waiting to
get into the white-walled building just ahead. By the way the humans are dressed,
it has to be a club or a rock concert. I really don’t get the girls’ clothing choices.
It’s
cold
out here, and they’re all dressed in short skirts and skimpy tops.

Shane stops before we reach the front of the line, staring down at his phone before
looking back up again. A metal door is set into the plain brick wall. It’s dented
and has orange rust stains at the top and a streak of something black and sticky-looking
in the middle. It’s the kind of door you don’t touch because you’re afraid of what
you’ll find on the other side.

I look up at the second story. The four evenly spaced windows are dark. The building
is probably deserted—
completely
deserted. If the remnants were here, they’d have a light of some sort, either a candle
burning or a magically lit glass orb. We’ve come this far, though, and I need to be
certain Paige isn’t on the other side of the door.

When I step forward, Aren stops me with a hand on my arm.

“Behind me,” he says.

I was going first just so I could get us through the line of humans, but he parts
the crowd with his shoulder. He’s careful not to let his skin touch anyone else’s.
A few girls protest, thinking that we’re cutting in line, but Aren flashes them a
smile, and says, “Just passing through.”

Of course, they don’t protest then. One of them even returns his smile. She reaches
for his arm and says in a heavy British accent, “No need to hurry off.”

He barely manages to dodge her touch. I’m beside him the next instant, and the girl’s
expression turns sour. My action was more to keep them separate than to claim him
as mine, but I don’t mind if that’s the way she’s seeing this.

Her gaze shifts to Trev, but before I have to rescue the other fae, the line moves.
She forgets about us the second she turns away.

We reach the door, and Aren looks down at me. “Are you sure you want to go inside?”

I could let Aren go in without me. He could do a quick search and be out here in no
time. But if I’m wrong and the remnants are actually here and one of them happens
to be an illusionist, Aren and Trev won’t see an attack coming. I won’t let them be
vulnerable like that.

“Yeah,” I tell him. “I’m sure.”

His jaw clenches, but he discreetly takes out a dagger from under his shirt.

“Shane, wait out here,” he says. “Warn us if you see fae.”

He reaches for the door but doesn’t turn the handle. He looks back at me. “Tell me
you’re armed.”

I’m so, so close to saying I’m not just to see how he’ll react, but it’s not the time
to kid around. I reach behind my back and take my dagger out, keeping it concealed
beneath my coat.

He nods once, then twists the handle.

I don’t expect it to move. I expect us to have to break in somehow, but the door swings
open without a sound, a fact that creeps the hell out of me. The door looks old and
heavy; it shouldn’t glide open like a well-oiled hinge.

I have to force myself to step inside the dark, musty-smelling room. When I do, I’m
immediately on edge. This place doesn’t feel right. The air is dense. It tastes like
a warning, and the way the door clicks shut behind Trev triggers a memory. That’s
how the door to the girls’ locker room sounded ten years ago when I entered it. Volleyball
practice was over. I’d forgotten my gym bag and had to borrow the key from the janitor.
I couldn’t find the light switch, so I blindly felt my way along the lockers, counting
them off until I reached the sixth one. It took only a second to grab my bag, but
when I turned around, I wasn’t alone.

That wasn’t the first time I had seen Thrain, but it was the first time he knew I
saw him. Even though I didn’t know anything about him then, when he smiled in the
dark, the way the
edarratae
flashed across his sunken eyes and the hollows of his face made him look menacing.

“McKenzie?” A whisper from Aren. He’s stopped just in
front of me. Chaos lusters flash across his face, and I squeeze my eyes shut to block
out the remainder of the memory, reminding myself that this isn’t my high-school locker
room. It’s an empty foyer to what must be a bankrupt hotel or apartment building.
I think we came in the back entrance because a glass door is on the opposite side
of the room. The glass is painted black. A few scratches in the paint let in a miniscule
amount of light. Now that my eyes are adjusting, though, that light is enough for
me to see what might have once been the check-in counter a few paces to the right
of the door.

“Upstairs?” I whisper back to Aren, nodding toward a narrow staircase on the left
side of the room. A tiny elevator with a gated door that you manually open and close
is next to it, but even if tech didn’t bother fae, I wouldn’t want to use it. It doesn’t
look extremely dependable.

Aren studies me. I try to force the tension out of my shoulders and to relax my grip
on my dagger, but I’m sure he notices how stiff I am. He looks relaxed, but alert,
and by the slight tilt of his head, I can tell he hears every creak and groan of the
building despite the rumbling bass from the club next door.

Trev walks past us and climbs the stairs. I give Aren a tight-lipped smile and follow,
feeling the beat of the music on my skin as I step into a long hallway. This hotel
must extend over more than one shop. A slant of street-light comes in through a boarded-up
window, providing just enough illumination to see a dozen closed doors lining both
sides of the hall.

Aren stops beside the first door, puts a finger to his lips, then slowly reaches for
the handle.

It gives the softest click as it turns.

I hold my breath. I don’t know if it’s better for him to throw the door open or to
open it slowly, hoping that if someone
is
on the other side, they won’t hear him enter.

He opts for the second method. The door silently moves, inch by inch, until the whole
dank, empty room is revealed. A single bed occupies more than half of the space inside.
It’s made, but the flowered comforter is faded and moth-eaten. At the foot of the
bed, a sliding door leads to a bathroom
barely big enough for a sink, toilet, and stand-up shower. It’s obvious no one’s here.
No one’s been here for months, maybe years.

“Check the other rooms,” Aren whispers to Trev.

Trev moves to the door opposite us and turns the handle. Just like the first one—and
just like the metal door we entered through—it turns without the least bit of resistance.
Goose bumps prickle across my skin because that’s
wrong
. Even if the owner deserted this place at the last minute, he or she would have locked
up. There should be some sign of a break-in. Honestly, there should be some sign of
life. This is definitely not a Hilton, but if I had no place to live, I’d stay here.
London is a big city; there should be squatters in an abandoned building like this.

Aren moves to the next door. Once again, it opens and, once again, the room is empty
save for a bed. Trev’s second room is the same, but it’s not until they’re both opening
their fourth doors that I breathe a little easier. If the remnants were here, they
would have made an appearance by now. I don’t know if I’m more frustrated or relieved.
I want to find Paige, but I’m glad we’re not going to start a fight in the middle
of this city.

I walk to the other end of the hall. A second staircase occupies the space where Aren’s
last door is. It’s steep and narrow, and I think it leads directly outside. Maybe
an emergency exit or something.

I slide my dagger back into its scabbard. Aren is still opening his doors quietly,
but Trev has given up caution. He holds his dagger ready in his left hand as he pushes
his last door open with his right.

No remnants leap out, but Trev just stands there in the doorway.

I move to his side.

I stare inside the room.

It takes a millennium for me to process what I see.

“Oh, God,” I choke out.

M
Y HAND COVERS
my mouth. I stare at the four blood-soaked bodies just long enough to know they’re
all human, then I have to turn away.

I hold on to the doorframe, digging my fingernails into the painted wood. The smell…It’s
sour and stagnant and sickening, and suddenly, the air feels too hot. Too humid. It’s
like the spilled blood has moistened everything. I look at my arms, expecting to see
my skin misted red.

“McKenzie?”

I barely register Aren’s voice. It sounds distant, cavernous. I can’t respond; I just
turn back to the tiny hotel room without saying a word. I focus on the body nearest
me because I can’t look at the one that’s sprawled across the bed, the one that’s
missing its skin. The cuts on the body near my feet aren’t straight lines. They’re
small and jagged, like tiny bolts of red lightning. I’ve seen death before—fae who
were beheaded before entering the ether, humans who were caught in the cross fire
of the Realm’s war—but I’ve only seen this kind of twisted torture once. It was in
Lyechaban, a city on the eastern coast of the Realm. The fae there loathe humans,
and when I was in the city with Kyol nearly seven years ago, two humans were tied
up on a dais. The Lyechabans tried to
cut the lightning from their skin. I thought they were dead until one of them twitched
and…

With horror, I force myself to focus on the person on the bed. Please,
please
let him be dead.

“What’s wrong?” Aren freezes beside me. He’s close, but I don’t feel the warmth of
his body, just a bone-chilling dread that makes my stomach churn. Is the guy’s chest
moving?

“Sidhe,”
Aren whispers.

I think it might be moving, but the way the light from the room’s single window slants
across his chest, it could be my imagination.

Aren takes my arm. “We’re leaving. Now.”

Did a lip twitch? I hold on to the doorframe, refusing to move.

“Aren,” I say softly. “Make sure they’re dead. Please.”

“They are.” He urges me to move again; I stand my ground. Two of the bodies are female.
One has hair bleached the same shade of blond as Paige’s. She’s propped up against
the foot of the bed, but her face is turned away. I can’t tell if it’s her.

Aren squeezes my arm. “Okay.” He kisses my temple. “Okay.”

He steps into the room. The soles of his shoes leave tracks on the blood-drenched
floor. He’s wearing casual, high-ankled fae boots. I didn’t notice them before, but
they look odd paired with his jeans and shirt. Foreign. Atroth didn’t include shoes
in his stash of clothing. I should tell Lena to add footwear to the collection.

Why the hell am I thinking about shoes?

I shake my head, attempting to reboot my mind so I can focus. Aren is squatting by
a body. He touches a wrist, checking for a pulse. Jaw visibly clenching and unclenching,
he rises then moves to the next body. When he squats beside that one, I swear I see
movement from the next, the blond girl who looks like Paige.

I take a step toward her. I
know
I saw movement, but she’s in the same position as she was before. I don’t know what…

Oh. Her hair. A lock of it flutters, caught by the draft
coming in from the window. The window’s lower portion is pushed out, allowing air
in. Allowing air out, too. How is it possible the people on the street can’t smell
this death? How could they not hear the screams? The humans had to have screamed.
None of these deaths were quick. They were slow, painful.

“Look at me, McKenzie,” Aren says. He’s standing in front of me. He cups my face between
his palms, and
edarratae
tickle down my neck. “We have to get out of here. You can’t panic right now. Do you
understand?”

I feel a crease wrinkle my forehead. I don’t think I’m panicking.

“These are the missing humans,” he says. “The ones who worked with Atroth.”