Shadows (Ashes Trilogy 2)

Liar. She dodged through a tangle of whippy alders, let them slap her face. You can’t because you won’t. You’re scared of dying because then there’s nothing—no more anything and no God either.

She vaulted toward the break, that glimmer of yellow-white which was the sun trying to struggle above the horizon, coming fast and very soon. Maybe that would kill her, like in a movie or book. Poof ! Nothing left but ash and a scorched shadow, just like Hiroshima and that nameless Japanese person: painted black on a stretch of ruined concrete in a skeletal cityscape of twisted iron, pulverized stone, and naked steel. God, how could she remember that and have trouble with her own name?

I’m Lena, I am Lena, you can’t take that. She bulleted through the snow, tearing her way through brambles and scruff. I won’t let you, I won’t—

She pulled up with a sudden, hard gasp and came to a dead stop.

In the nacreous and feeble light of the coming day, she saw only four clearly, but she sensed many more to the right and left. They faced her as the first fingers of pale light leaked into slate sky, so that they were, each and every one, crowned with glimmering halos, like dark angels fallen from grace.

Even the boy with her green scarf twined around his neck.

Her heart thrashed in her chest, and she was trembling both from fear and her mad flight. It came to her then—what that arch and symbol painted on the deadfall represented. They formed a Devil’s door. A trick. The arch was an illusion, the star symbol cut in half not by a wood sash but deliberately painted to give the appearance of something whole cut in two. There was no door, and the Devil would only bang his head if he tried to enter.

Unless the Devil was clever and very, very patient and found another way.

“No. P-please,” she choked as the Changed began to move, their shadows eeling over the snow, reaching for her in black fingers. “I’m me, I’m Lena. I’m n-not—”

They closed in.

The chirping ceased. Most had buzzed by too quickly for him to decipher through his fog of exhaustion and starvation, but Peter got some of it.

Rule. Finn and his people would march on Rule, and there was nothing he could do for them, or himself.

He sprawled in his cell, back to the iron bars. His clothes were in tatters, no more than dirty rags held together with bits of string. His body wasn’t much better: a patchwork of half-healed wounds, open sores, new bites; a bag of bones in a sack of torn skin.

But he was the only one left. These last few days, Finn seemed content with simple attrition. No Changed to the right. No Changed to the left. Empty cells with just the stink as a reminder, a smell seeped into stone like blood. Only time erased that.

No Davey either, although Peter hadn’t killed him. Davey had grown quick and very sure. A fast learner. Finn took Davey away . . . day before yesterday? He thought that was right. Days meant virtually nothing now. There was only living through the next fight for that half cup of water, a mouthful of bread.

Saving Davey for the end, like the cherry from a sundae.

Could he fight? He cradled his left arm, his right palm clamped to the place where the girl had bitten and ripped clean through to the bone. He didn’t remember much—it had all gone so fast— but she was one of the feral Changed: all teeth and mad eyes and weird energy. Quick on her feet, too. Probably because she’d just eaten. She nearly had him.

But he could also learn. His eyes rolled to the body. The lake of blood pooling out of the crater he’d torn from her neck was so high the overflow wormed to cold concrete. All that time with the Changed paid off after all; he’d taken his cue from them and ripped her throat out. And, God, that blood was so tantalizing. It was liquid. It was wet.

Thirsty. So thirsty.

The next time they opened that cell door and Davey came through? It would be the very last. Oh, he would try, but unless he was extremely lucky, Davey would kill him, and slowly, too. Davey seemed to favor strangulation. Finn let the Changed boy practice on other Changed. Five, ten, fifteen minutes sometimes before Davey got tired and finally squeezed hard and long enough to end it. The very first time, Davey had kept poking the dead kid’s eyes. Like he couldn’t understand why the kid he’d just murdered wouldn’t get up and play.

God, just make it quick. He felt the sob trying to work its way up his throat but swallowed it back. Maybe this is punishment, but I only did what I thought was right, what I had to do.

“R-Rule.” His mouth was thick and sticky with gore. “Whwhat . . . are you g-going to d-do?”

“In Rule?” Finn clipped the radio onto his belt. “Oh, a little shock, a little awe. You know, the all-American stuff we’re so good at.”

“Why?” Peter swallowed, grimaced against the taste of dead girl. He worked up enough saliva to spit, but he had no strength and the foamy gobbet drooled onto his chin. “What have th-they done?”

“Peter.” Finn did him the favor of not smiling. “Of all people, you really have to ask? But don’t worry. I wouldn’t dream of leaving you behind. You’re coming with us, boy-o. I want your people to take a good, hard look. First, though, let’s get that nasty bite taken care of. Clean you up, get you fed, put some meat on those bones. Make you right as rain. New day, new dawn, new Earth.” Looping his hand through the carry handle of a knapsack, Finn dug around in a cargo trouser pocket and withdrew a set of jingling keys. He socked one into the lock. “I have a lot of respect for you. You’ve been through quite a trial, a journey to the dark center of the soul.”

Okay, yes, this guy was nuts. Peter tensed as the cell door opened on a scream of metal hinges. Mincing around the blood, the old man squatted on his haunches until they were eye to eye and just a few feet apart.

“They say every man has his breaking point. But I haven’t found yours, Peter—not yet,” Finn said. “You’re like the Ever-Ready Bunny that way. You just won’t quit. That’s admirable, boy-o. But maybe there’s a difference between what you do to yourself versus what is done to you. Maybe my hypothesis has been all wrong.”

“What . . .” Peter had to work up enough moisture to keep going. “What the hell are you t-talking about?”

“Well, I was thinking,” Finn said. His hand dipped into his knapsack and came up with a clear plastic bottle filled with water. The bottle must’ve been put in the snow to keep cold, because beads of condensation shuddered and then obeyed gravity, rolling down the plastic to drip over Finn’s fingers. “There is pressure from without—torture and environment and so on—and then there is the pressure that comes from within.”