This Savage Song (17 page)

She met his gaze. “The more you know,” she said casually, grabbing a drink before retreating to her room. Once inside, she locked the door, and considered the phone.

She could give her father this, the identity of the third Sunai . . . or she could give him something better. She could give him Freddie Gallagher.

Show him that she was a Harker to the core.

Sloan's words sang through her mind.

You will always be our little Katherine.

Kate held down the
delete
key and watched the photos vanish, one by one by one.

Not anymore.

August wanted to crawl out of his skin.

They walked back to the compound in silence . . . well,
he
walked back to the compound in silence. Leo was preaching. That's how August thought of it, when his brother gave one of his sermons about the natural order of the world. As if there was anything natural about them. About what they'd just done. He could feel the man's blood drying on his fingers. Could feel the man's soul swimming in his head.

“Your problem, August, is that you resist the current. You fight against the tide instead of letting it carry you. . . .” Leo's black eyes were rimmed with light and bright with zeal. But at least when he got like this, he wasn't forcing August to answer questions about his hunger, his thoughts, his need to feel human. “Just as you fight against your inner fire. You could burn so brightly, little brother.”

August shivered, cold to his bones. “I don't . . . want to . . . ,” he said, teeth chattering. This was the opposite of hunger. This was worse.

“Stop being selfish,” said Leo. “We were not made for
want
. It has no place in us.”

It has no place in you
, August wanted to say,
because you burned it out
.

They reached the compound, passed the guards, and stepped into the elevator. He clenched his teeth as it rose, afraid that if he opened his mouth, something would escape. Maybe a sob, or a scream. The man's life was buzzing inside of him like bees.

What have you done to me?

What have you made me do?

The moment the elevator doors opened, he stormed out, carving a line toward his room.

“Where have you two been?” asked Henry.

“Is that blood?” added Emily.

August didn't stop.

“Leo?”

“I was giving him a lesson.”

“What—”

“Don't worry, Henry. He'll be fine. . . .”

August closed the door, and slumped back against the wood. There was no lock, so he stayed there until he was sure no one would follow, then let out a shuddering
breath and tore off the FTF jacket. He left the lights off and collapsed onto the bed. His fingers dug into his ribs, trying to stop the buzzing, but it didn't work, and as soon as he closed his eyes, the buzzing rose to screams. He fumbled in the crumpled sheets until he found the music player and shoved the buds into his ears.

Something landed on the bed, and he rolled over to see Allegro padding toward him, but the cat paused just out of reach, bright eyes narrowing with suspicion, and when he went to pet him, the cat recoiled and darted away.

They can tell the difference, you know, between good and bad
.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered into the dark. “I had no choice.”

The words left a sick taste in his mouth. How many times had someone said those things to him? It never made a difference. A confession didn't undo the crime, nothing could, so August folded in on himself and turned the music up until it drowned out everything.

It was the middle of the night, but he couldn't sleep.

The buzzing had finally stopped, but his nerves were frayed, and he padded out into the kitchen, and poured himself a glass of water. He wasn't thirsty, but something about the gesture calmed him, made him feel normal.

His attention wandered over a stack of folders on the
counter, and he was about to reach for them when he heard something scratching in the dark. August set the glass aside untouched, and found Allegro pacing back and forth in front of Ilsa's door.

He knocked, but the door wasn't pulled all the way shut, and it fell open under his touch. Inside, the lights were off, and the first thing he saw were the stars. Every surface of Ilsa's room was covered in them, tiny dots of fiber-optic light splashed across the ceiling and walls and floors. His sister stood in front of the window, her strawberry hair loose but strangely weightless, twining through the air around her face. Her fingers were splayed across the window glass, and in her sleeveless shirt, her own tiny black stars trailed across her shoulders and down her arms.

Two thousand one hundred and sixty-three.

August couldn't reconcile the Ilsa in front of him, gentle and kind, with the monster whose true voice somehow leveled a piece of the world and everyone in it.

Our sister, the Angel of Death.

He wanted to ask her about that day. Wanted to know what happened, what it felt like, to live with so much death. He wanted to, but he wouldn't.

Allegro padded toward the bed, and August was about to retreat when his sister spoke, so softly he almost didn't hear.

“It's falling apart,” she whispered. Her fingers twitched on the glass. August padded forward carefully, quietly. “Crumbling,” continued Ilsa. “Not ashes to ashes and dust to dust, like things should go, but wrong, like when a crack starts deep inside a stone and then spreads and spreads and spreads, and you don't know until the day it . . .” She pressed against the window, and hairline fractures began to web out across the glass.

August brought his hand to rest over his sister's.

“I can feel the cracks. But I can't tell . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut, and then opened them wide. “I can't tell if the cracks are out there or inside of me or both. Is it selfish, to hope they're out there, August?”

“No,” he said gently.

They stood for a while in silence. When she spoke again, her voice was steadier. “Thirteen. Twenty-six. Two hundred and seventeen.”

August frowned. “What's that?”

“Thirteen Malchai. Twenty-six Corsai. Two hundred and seventeen humans. That's how many died in Lyle Square.” He stiffened, didn't realize he was still holding her hand until she let it fall from the glass. “That was its name, before
the Barren
. They were holding a rally; that's why there were so many people there. I didn't mean to do it, August. But I had to do something. Leo wasn't there, and the rally was turning, and . . . I just wanted
to help. I'd never gone dark before. I didn't know what would happen. Leo makes it look so simple, I thought we all burned the same way, but our brother burns like a torch, and . . .”

And Ilsa burned like a wildfire.

And August?

You could burn so brightly
, that's what Leo told him.
If you let yourself
.

“It was night,” whispered Ilsa, “but they all left shadows.” When she met his gaze, her eyes were haunted, dark. “I don't want to burn again, August, but if the truce breaks, I'll have to, and more people will die.” She shuddered. “I don't want them to die because of me.”

“I know,” he whispered, drawing her away from the splintered window. “We'll find another way.”

If it came to war, thought August, how many would he kill to spare her the task? How brightly
could
he burn? He thought of the knife, of the life lurching through him, the sickness, and Leo's promise it would get better. Get easier.

Ilsa sank onto the bed. Allegro hopped up, and nestled against her. She didn't notice. “I'll stay with you,” said August. “Until you fall asleep.”

She curled up on her side, and he sat down on the floor, his head back against her bed. Her fingers wove absently through his hair.

“I can feel the cracks,” she whispered.

“It's okay,” he whispered back. Allegro bounded down, considered him with his green eyes, then curled up in his lap. His chest loosened with relief.

“Everything breaks. . . ,” murmured his sister.

“Hush, Ilsa,” he said, looking up at the stars across her ceiling.

“. . . breaks apart . . .”

“Hush . . .”

He fell asleep like that, surrounded by Ilsa's voice and Allegro's purr and hundreds of stars.

Kate spread her tools on the bed.

Duct tape (the utility of which really couldn't be overestimated), half a dozen copper-threaded zip ties, and a set of iron spikes the length of her forearm (at the very least, they might slow him down). She considered the meager selection, feeling like she was going into battle with a toothpick, then packed the tools into her backpack and headed out.

She was halfway through the kitchen, shrugging on her Colton jacket, when she noticed Callum Harker sitting on the couch.

She'd barely seen her father since the trials in the basement, but there he was, arms stretched along the back of the sleek leather sofa. A step toward the couch, and she realized he wasn't alone—Sloan was kneeling at his side, head bowed and stiff as a statue, or a corpse. Harker was speaking softly to the Malchai—Kate couldn't hear the
words—and she hesitated, feeling like an intruder. But this was
her
house, too. She fetched a mug and poured herself a cup of coffee, making no effort to be quiet. Harker clearly heard. He made a short motion with his hand, and Sloan withdrew and went to stand by the window. Morning light streamed in against his blue-white skin, and seemed to go straight through it.

“Good morning, Katherine,” said her father, lifting his voice.

Kate took a long sip of coffee, ignoring the way it burned her throat. “Morning.”

She imagined him asking her how she was settling in, imagined telling him that she didn't need Sloan keeping tabs. Maybe he would ask her about school, and she could tell him that she'd met a boy and planned to bring him home. But of course, he didn't ask her any of those things, so she couldn't answer. Instead she said, “You're up early.”

“Actually,” he said, “I've been up all night.” His arms slid from the couch as he stood. “I figured I would stay up a little longer to see you off.”

Hope flickered through her, followed almost immediately by distrust. “What for?” she challenged, blowing on the coffee.

Harker crossed the room, moving with the sure steps of someone who expected the world to get out of his way.

“I'm your father,” he said, as if that were an explanation. “Besides, I wanted to give you something.” He held out his hand. “Something more fitting for a Harker.”

Kate looked down and saw a new pendant glittering in his palm. It looked like a large coin on the end of a thin chain, the
V
embossed and filled with nine garnets, each shining like a drop of blood. “The metal is silver,” he said. “More delicate than iron, but still pure.”

Kate tried to find the meaning in the gesture. The trap. “Was it my mother's?”

“No,” said her father sternly. “It was mine. And now it's yours.” He crossed behind her and swept her hair aside to unfasten her standard medal. “And one day . . . ,” he said, sliding the silver chain around her throat. “Perhaps you'll have more than my pendant.” She turned to face him, this man who'd given her his eyes, his hair, and little more, this father who'd always been a shadow at the edges of her life, more legend than real. The knight in a story, strong and stoic and always somewhere else. He was all that she had now. Was she all that he had, too?

Behind her father, Kate met Sloan's red eyes.

“I know,” she said, holding the Malchai's gaze, “that you don't want me here.”

She waited, half-expecting Harker to deny it, but he didn't. “No father wants his daughter in harm's way,” he said. “I already lost your mother, Katherine.
I don't want to lose you, too.”

You lost my mother to fear
, she wanted to say.
To her own monsters, not the ones that follow you.

“But,” continued Harker, “you deserve a chance. That's what you want, isn't it? To prove you belong here, with me?”

The Malchai's red eyes narrowed.

“I want a chance to show you,” she said, finding her father's gaze, “that I'm
your
daughter.”

Harker smiled. No teeth, just a quiet curl of his lips. “You better go,” he said. “Or you'll be late for school.”

The elevator was waiting. When the doors closed, Kate considered her reflection and brought her fingers to the silver pendant.

I have something for you, too
, she thought, clutching the medallion.

She couldn't wait to see the look on her father's face when she laid a Sunai at his feet. Then he would know—without a doubt—that she was a Harker.

“Hey, want a lift?”

The morning air was heavy and stale, and August was standing on Paris's front steps, trying to shove the Colton jacket into his bag when he looked up and saw the black sedan idling on the curb, Kate Harker leaning against it. His fingers tightened on his violin case.

“Um.” He glanced back at Paris's building. “How do you know where I live?”

She gave him a look that said
I'm a Harker
before opening the door. “Come on. Get in.”

In response, August actually took a step
back
. Not a large one—it could have been mistaken for a shuffle, a shift of weight—but he still cursed himself.

“Oh,” he shrugged, “that's okay. I don't need—”

“Don't be ridiculous,” she cut in. “We're going to the same place. Why suffer the subway when there's a perfectly good car?”

Because the perfectly good car comes with a perfectly dangerous girl
, he thought, but he managed not to say it out loud. He hesitated, unsure what to do. There could be cameras in the car. It could be a trap. It could be—

“For God's sake, Freddie. It's just a ride to school.”

She turned and climbed in without closing the door, an obvious invitation—or maybe a command—to follow.

Bad idea bad idea bad idea
thudded his heart as he approached the sedan. He hovered in the open door, then took a breath, ducked his head, and climbed in, closing the door behind him with a click that made fresh panic flutter in his chest.

You're the monster
, he thought, followed rapidly, reflexively, by
you're not a monster
, and then, in desperation,
be
calm be calm be calm,
because his thoughts were threatening to spiral out.

The car had two bench seats, one facing forward and the other back, and Kate had already claimed the rear bench, so he took the other one. Putting his back to the driver made him
almost
as nervous as putting his front to Kate, but before he could say anything, do anything, the car pulled into traffic, and moments later Paris's building vanished from sight. He could feel Kate watching him, but when he went to meet her eyes, they were leveled on his shirt.

“You're not wearing your medal,” she said.

August's pulse stuttered. He knew even before he looked down that she was right. There was no prickle of iron, no weight, because the medallion was still on his bedroom floor where he'd thrown it the night before.

He groaned, and leaned his head back on the seat. “My dad's going to kill me,” he muttered.

Kate shrugged. “It's okay,” she said, flashing the ghost of a smile. “But make sure you're home before dark.” He couldn't tell if she was joking.

The car cut through the streets, a blur of speed, the city tunneling behind Kate's head. Her nails, usually tapping their short, metallic beat, were curled into her palms.

If she learns the truth, you'll know.

He watched her chest rise, her lips part.

She'll tell you herself.

August braced himself, but when she spoke, all she said was, “I want to apologize.”

“For what?” asked August, and Kate gave him one of those looks that wasn't really surprise. “Oh,” he said, “you mean, for assaulting me in the hall.”

Kate nodded, opened her mouth, then closed it again. He tensed. She seemed to be struggling to find the right words. Was she trying to hold back? Could she? He watched as she fiddled with the medallion around her own throat. It was new, polished silver and bloody red stones. “Look,” she said at last, “growing up the way I have, I guess it makes a person . . .”

“Paranoid?”

Her dark eyes narrowed. “I was going to say guarded. And yes, okay, a little paranoid.” Her hand slipped from the coin. “There's not a whole lot of trust in my family. I don't expect you to understand.”

August wanted to say that he did, but he couldn't, because it wasn't true. For all their differences, Ilsa and Leo were like family, and so were the Flynns. He trusted them.

“The moment I met you,” she said. “I knew you were different.”

August dug his fingers into his knees, silently
begging her not to say more, not to confess to this.

“So am I,” she added.

He held his tongue, focused on his breathing.

“We don't fit in,” she went on. “Not just because we're new. We see the world for what it is. No one else does.”

“Or maybe they do,” he cut in, “but they're too afraid of you to say it.”

Kate gave him a withering smile, and shook her head. “I make them uncomfortable, because I'm a reminder that it's not real. That it's just this . . .” she waved her metal-tipped fingers. “
Veneer
. They'd rather close their eyes and pretend. But our eyes . . .” she trailed off, her dark blue gaze weighing him down. “Our eyes are open.”

And then she flashed a strange, private smile, and he was back in the hall again.

Whoever you are
. . .
I'm going to figure it out.

August felt dizzy. The things Kate was saying, they were the truth, they had to be, and yet it all felt like a line to reel him in. It was too clean and too messy at the same time. Was she flirting with him? Or trying to tell him she
knew
? Did she mean what she was saying, or was she saying something else? August felt himself scrambling for purchase as the car filled up again with silence.

“You're right,” he said at last, throat dry. “About us
being different . . . But I'd rather be able to see the truth than live a lie.”

“Which makes you the only bearable person at that school.” Her smile widened when she said it, shifting into that genuine, contagious grin. Watching her, it was like watching a flickering image, two versions that shifted back and forth depending on how you turned your head. He waited for her confession to spill out, but it didn't.

“I was wondering,” she said, tapping a metal nail against the pendant, “about your marks.”

August swallowed, rubbed his wrist. “What about them?”

“You said they were for sobriety, but they're permanent.”

“Yeah. So?”

She cocked her head, revealing the silvery edge of her scar. “So what if you relapse?”

He looked at her, unblinking. “Well, that would suck.”

She laughed, but her attention was still fixed on him—she wasn't going to settle for a brush-off—so he swallowed, trying to find a way to tell the truth. “If I could just wipe them off at the end of the day,” he said, “they wouldn't mean anything. They wouldn't matter. And they do. I was in a dark place, once, and I don't ever want to go back. I'd rather die than start over.” She
stared at him, a slight furrow between her brows, and he could imagine her thinking,
So this is what it looks like when he tells the truth
, and he thought,
So this is what it looks like when she believes you.

Which was almost funny, seeing as he'd never lied, but it also scared him, because it was the first time he'd seen her make that face, and the others now looked empty by comparison.

Do you know? Do you know? Do you know?

He could ask her. Force her to answer. But the question was damning, and the car was too small, and he didn't know what he was supposed to do if she said yes.

The violin case sat on the floor between his feet, and Leo was right—if he tried, he could smell the blood on the driver's hands, but not on Kate, and she didn't have a restless shadow, and—