Villain (Gone 8)

Cruz disappeared. Completely.

The first thing she focused on was a dead body.

Since being swept up in the madness, Cruz had seen more violence and death than she had in her previous seventeen years of life, by a factor of a thousand times. But she was not inured. The body was a middle-aged woman. Her clothing was twisted, her blouse exposing white belly. Her mouth was twisted into a look of horror and pain. Someone had stabbed her in both eyes, then left the knife sticking from the side of her neck.

Cruz stepped around her. Down the long driveway past other dead. Past wounded who still crawled and snapped at the air, still trying to obey the Charmer, even as blood loss and now thirst and hunger dragged them to the arms of the Grim Reaper.

It was a long walk to the Triunfo. Cruz stuck to the sidewalk. A man bumped into her, spun, blinked, and seeing nothing, shrugged it off.

People are all about vision. They will dismiss touch, smell, scent, hearing unless their sight confirms.

She walked quickly when she focused, slowed when she did not. Once or twice she broke into a trot, but her limbs were leaden with dread and she couldn’t keep it up.

And the oppressive attention of the Dark Watchers was on her. She had dealt with them during her protracted time at the hospital, but it had made her less, not more, immune to them. It felt wrong, unjust, for them to be watching from safety. It felt somehow sacrilegious that they enjoyed slaughter and pain and fear, and Cruz was convinced that’s what they were doing: enjoying.

She considered calling her mother. Talking to her. Telling her . . . what, exactly? That Cruz loved her? She did, but love was only a part of what she felt. That generous emotion was mixed with feelings of betrayal, of resentment.

Hi, Mom, I’m probably about to die, but I love you. Just one thing: Why did you never defend me from Dad?

Explain that, Mom. You knew how scared I was. You knew how vulnerable I was. And you watched him bully and sneer and belittle, and you said nothing.

When she considered calling her father, she quickly dismissed the notion. He would be glad she was gone. He might not want her dead, but gone? Gone would be just fine with him.

And that, she realized, was the whole list of people she cared anything about, aside from Shade. And Malik. And increasingly, Dekka.

And Armo, though that was in a slightly different category.

She laughed silently at her own absurd nascent crush on him. Yes, he was gorgeous. And, despite what Cruz had seen of him in the heat of battle, in calmer times he was . . . well, kind of sweet. Centered. Funny, sometimes. But he was also a white, cis-male, presumably hetero dude who would be horrified by the notion of anything more than friendship. He would think she was creepy. A freak of nature. Delusional.

Behind her back he might laugh at her. Call her a tranny. Cruz forced herself to see that, to recognize her own foolishness.

People like me don’t get happy endings.

Once, long ago . . . well, not so long ago really, it only felt that way . . . Once Shade had said that hope was the best form of torture.

Maybe. But how the hell could you live without it?

She knew deep down in her soul that her life would not somehow end with her happily with someone like Armo. Not that there could possibly be anyone like Armo; he was . . . unique. More an ideal than a real boy, Cruz told herself. A fantasy, not a reality. A fantasy even if it had been smart, beautiful, confident Shade setting her sights on him.

Let alone me.

Cruz heard gunfire and flinched. Invisibility did not make her invulnerable. She was still a body, she was just an invisible one.

She slowly rounded a curve in the Strip and saw the Triunfo rising behind the mall. The casinos to her right were still bright by normal standards, but muted for Las Vegas. The Triunfo still blazed gold.

She wished she’d brought water. She was finding it hard to swallow.

The army column had finally, after the delay in dealing with Vincent Vu, made its way back to the Strip. They’d been too late to cut off Dillon’s voice slaves. The army column was coming up slowly, cautiously behind her now, and for the life of her Cruz couldn’t tell whether that was a good thing or bad.

A crazed man burst from the Nieman Marcus store at the mall and ran screaming toward her. Cruz recoiled before realizing he could not see her. He ran on into the street.

The air stank of the burning Venetian and Treasure Island.

A left. It was here she had to turn. And here she saw the mob in front of the Triunfo. She crossed herself and wished she had a rosary. This was a mob completely under control of Dillon Poe. A mob that could be turned into howling murderers with a few words from the Charmer.

A mob ahead; a column of tanks coming up behind.

Cruz raised her phone, still connected to Shade, who had her phone on mute in case a sound gave Cruz away. Everyone in the group was in morph lest they overhear some command of Dillon’s. Cruz whispered, “I’m here.”