Chapter 20

Corrin

She sees us— two shocked kids in the van. “What are we going to do?” I squeeze out. Will’s eyes narrow as she connects the dots in her mind and she breaks into a menacing stride toward my side. My heart stops. She understands why I’m here and she knows what I’ve done.

“Wait, Corrin—” the slam of my door cuts off Sevina’s voice. I jump out, brandishing my gun.

“I cannot believe this!” Will forces herself to stop ten feet away. Her hands move to her weapon under her black jacket but halt when I point my gun at her belly. She cocks her head to the van, addled. “Macelaw! What are you doing? You bloody idiot?”

My hands tremble at the familiarity of the situation; a black gun pointed at a person. In moment’s notice she’ll leap at me and I’ll defend myself with a pull of a trigger.

That’s all it took back then…

Sevina darts from around the van. “Will, let me explain—”

“And you!” Will blazes toward me. “You are involved in this you piece of shit!” She takes a determined step and my finger instinctively slides the safety off.

Corrin, you did it… you caused all this.

“You killed them, didn’t you?” Her words are ominously silent. I keep the gun straight, now pointed at her head. Sevina doesn’t dare to step in, standing next to Will with her hands thrown out in calming gestures and trying to defuse the situation. I catch a glimpse of something black in her hand.

My pulse thunders in my head, blurring my vision with red. The rundown alley, the smog-filled sky, the noise— everything around Will’s fierce face grows distant.

Will pushes Sevina aside and lunges forward. I’m rooted to the spot, somewhere far survival instincts screeching and clawing. To no avail.

A sharp buzz jolts the air and Will topples on the ground in front of me. Behind her Sevina straightens, a taser in her hands. “Corrin?” She turns it off and hides it in her pants pocket. “Look at me.” Her gentle touch against my shoulder and composed voice pulls me back into the present. She carefully pries the weapon out of my stiff fingers.

“You-you tazed her,” I stammer.

Sevina glances over her shoulder. “I did, I guess.”

“Sorry. I couldn’t control myself. I…”

“Don’t apologize.” She surveys the street, her words dry. A few passerby’s pivot and disappear from where they came. “We have to get her to the hideout. The best way to convince Terrel and her to help.” Sevina twists my gun in her palm and hands it to me.

“We could just ask her about Dan, couldn’t we?”

“We can’t. I know her. She’s scared. She won’t support us or even understand us. Not unless there’s a bigger picture involved and we have more people on our side.”

Struggling with Will’s limbs we lay her into the back of the van.

“What about leaving her somewhere?” I close the doors behind us.

“And risk her coming into the hideout with more mobsters?” My silence is my agreement. “Think we should tie her up?” I shake my head, but logic screams otherwise. Once she wakes she’ll attempt to assault me in a heartbeat.

“She’ll come after me either way.” From the weapons crate by the bench I grab a roll of duct tape.

Sevina checks Will’s red cheek, where she flopped on the ground. “She will. But I’ll try to talk sense into her. I’ll look.”

“Talk sense?” I tape Will’s hands behind her back. “Will and I have nothing to do with you. Even if you could produce a reason she should forgive me for, it won’t work.”

“You’d rather have her kill you?”

“I…ugh, no.” I move onto Will’s ankles. “But nevertheless, it was my fault and I—”

“Stop it, Corrin. We’re past this. You and Will both lived with your own reasons, it got you where you are. What’s done is done. Past can’t be changed, future can.”

As much as it pains to admit it to myself her point is veracious. “Right.”

“How long do you think till she wakes?”

“No idea. What was set on the taser?”

Sevina shrugs. “Don’t know. Strong enough to knock her out.”

As if on command Will jolts awake and squirms, perceiving the bindings on her limbs. Hefty ambiance settles in the van before she flares her nostrils at me. “I don’t even know what I’m going to do to you.” Her bindings don’t make it easier to be a foot away from her.

Sevina kneels in front of her, blocking her view of me. “Listen to me, Will.”

Willow snaps to Sevina and explodes. “Are you out of your mind, Sevs? Do you want to end up in a ditch? Bloody God!”

“I know, please, let me explain things—”

“Explain? Are you—”

“I did it for you, Will!” I shudder on the bench at Sevina’s resolute voice, exploding from the depth of her lungs and overpowering Will’s. Will expels a breath, shocked like me.

I’ve never heard Sevina shout, but she calms as rapidly as she erupted, holding her palms out in a soothing manner. “Let me talk. Okay?”

Will grinds her teeth. “Go ahead.”

I gape, ready to protest, but clamp my mouth shut. Sevina’s more accustomed to dealing with Will, but I doubt it’ll somehow help me escape her wrath.

Sevina talks. She reveals how we met, my goal to return back into my family and find Dan and that she agreed to help to prevent murders. She skips the most vital reason—her eyes— and tells Will about the gang that sheltered us and right to this moment of meeting her.

Will surveys Sevina for a while. “You indeed are a bloody idiot. It’s not the field for kids, Sevs!” Banter ensues again.

“Don’t lecture me!” Sevina’s voice bursts with ascendancy and I tighten on the bench again. “You’re not my mother or sister. If you wish to cower for the rest of your life, go ahead! Don’t pretend you care! People who do, don’t cower, no matter how helpless they think they are!”

Will shifts in her place. “What do you know about it!”

“I know everything!” Sevina’s shoulders slump, devastated. She gapes, closes her mouth and sighs. “I can see people’s lives.”

Willow pulls her head back. “What?” Sevina lowers to her knees beside Will, her cheeks flushing. She must’ve looked at her a couple of times just now. And after all those men I’m certain it’s difficult for her to keep Will’s fury in check and that’s the reason for her shouting.

I scoot closer.

“Get away from her, you murderer,” Will hisses, wrinkles gathering on her face. I don’t flinch, but nor do I return her brazen glare as Sevina describes her abilities. However, Sevina excludes her life prior to foster care. Will listens vacantly with her eyes on me, and when Sevina finishes she lets out a short. “Huh.” Did she even hear it?

“You’re not surprised?” Sevina asks.

“No,” Will barks, eyes glued on me. “All sorts of shit happen behind the hidden federal doors.”

We fall silent, weariness catching up to the intensity of the conversation and Sevina decides to scramble outside. I follow, closing the door behind. An alleyway is gray with soft evening undertones, transparent veils of gas billowing from the busy street and making me want to dive between the buildings and never return.

Murderer… I clamp the torment shut with the kite memory, but it doesn’t make me a right person…I am a killer.

Sevina hugs herself, blinking out the exertion. “I need a break.”

“No, what you need is rest,” I tell her. “How many times did you look while we talked?”

“Three?” She murmurs. “I have to finish talking to—” she cringes and sways to the side. With a stride I bring myself closer, steadying her by the shoulders. Her insensitivity toward her own needs is beyond frustrating. I recall us arriving at the hideout, almost three months ago, when she hid behind me and pushed me forward as an expendable shield. I recall her kicks, reverberating through the wall as I tried to fall asleep. What happened to that selfishness?

“No, you’re going to the front seat. We’ll bring Willow to the hideout and talk to Terrel.”

“Don’t order me around!” She snaps but catches herself. “Sorry, it’s hard for me… after so many lives.”

“It’s all right. Front?”

“Fine,” she pauses, “man, we just kidnapped a mobster.”

“I thought Will was a detective.”

“Not anymore. She lost her job and apartment. She’s one of few hundred thugs who work for your family now.”

…

Most of central Havason peninsula is ridden with pitch-black underground installments; from subway repair stations and clandestine underground roads to the buildings with additional levels down into the basement and the streets to access them. People call them the understreets. And surprisingly they’re empty of homeless.

Diverging from the route to the hideout, I knowingly pull into the empty and grimy under-street. Now when I look at it the emptiness makes sense. Most of the homeless cluster where the gangs are, providing cover for scraps.

I gas the engine and fixate on a dim white light, hanging from the pipe-clustered ceiling and swaying from the rattle of passing cars on the street above. Further away a couple of scruffy people holster their stuff and dissolve into the blackness.

I understand it now. If they want to survive they have nowhere to go but rely on gangs or on a handful of good people like Rovy and his mother were…

Would this be a point of my trial if I were still performing it? Did Father want to see whether Dan and I can reach our family from the very bottom of this scheme? Whether we could rise in this hierarchy? Either way… I can’t continue with Willow as vindictive as she is, and not with the burden I bear.

Sevina’s asleep with her arm bent on the window frame for a pillow and pulled up knees. Quietly, though it’s hard to wake her anyway, I slip into the back.

“Hoping to get your forgiveness.” Wrath in Will’s voice has divaricated deeper. I squat, my knife out, and cut the duct tape on her legs. Peace and a rational talk with Terrel are impossible as long as there’s no settlement between Willow and I. She’ll lose her mind trying to punish me.

“I just want to tell you something.” Grabbing her elbow I lead her outside through the back doors. She comes.

The surroundings are similar to the under-street I was sentenced to die in; the rancid smell of trash soaks the damp air, dumpsters line the walls and tech buzz reverberates through the walls and concrete bases. If blood is going to be spilled no screams will travel far. Sevina and I met a couple of contacts here. One more reason mob might want to keep the under-streets empty. Exactly for a variety of bad deeds to occur.

Will leans against the van with her back, her chin tilted, lips tight. Her hair is braided in a neat cornrow fashion to the back of her head, revealing tense muscles in her neck. Standing close under observation chills my blood, but I compel myself to speak.

“Sevina told you that I…we want to bring down the…” Even if she’s tied up I feel like a suspect, having to explain myself. Which, I am and I do, especially when she keeps silent.

“I know that already, boy,” she says. “Better tell me something new before I cut your throat.”

I gulp, shrinking at the calmness of the threat. “I know nothing will change what I did. But Willow, I am sorry. If I weren’t being a moron. It was my fault.”

She doesn’t answer. Oh… because it wasn’t only my fault. “You feel guilty too,” I utter. We’ve finally found something relatable.

She ignores me. “You think you can redeem yourself by getting Sevina into this? Using her for her powers? That’s beyond low.”

“How can I redeem myself?” I throw my arms wide, my voice breaking. “Besides going back and stopping the man who made me kill in the first place. Wouldn’t you do that, if you had a… the chance?”

But fury clouds her judgment. “Redeem yourself by jumping off of a roof for me.”

A short snap reaches my ears and her hands come undone. I leap back as she slashes, knife in her hand. The tip of her knife catches the flesh of my throat, followed by the sharp pain. “Will, stop, please!” When I led her outside I thought I would stop her if I had to, but my morals overpower my instincts. I won’t fight. I can’t.

She dashes to the side, fast, faster than Dan, and grasps my wrist. With a sequence of practiced moves she knocks me off my feet, sending me hard on my back with a paralyzing thud.

She leaps on me, a small switchblade in her hand. We took her gun but no one frisked her. Her fingers wrap around my neck and the blade presses hard against my already bleeding throat. I gasp, my instincts intercepting the control of my body, and seize her hands in an effort to tear them away. Grunting, she pins one of my wrists against the ground with her boot.

“Told you.” Her face is blank. I clutch her wrist with my free hand, trying to pry it off of my throat, but she leans in on me with crushing strength.

“Will…forgive—” The air in my lungs runs out. She’s really going for it.

Let her do it. Do not fight.

But what about Sevina? We made a deal… I can’t leave her.

Will has the right to end me, but not now, not yet.

With my free hand I hit her twice into the elbow joint, hoping it’ll be enough to bend. It isn’t and soon enough the knife vanishes and her ten fingers lock around my throat. I reach for her head, but she recoils and being taller than me I can’t reach her eyes.

Think, Corrin!

Her face above me blurs and fear overwhelms me. What if it’s the end?

Her crushing grasp vanishes. I inhale furiously, coughing, grasping for my neck. Blood stains my fingers and I feel for a wet cut run below my Adam’s apple.

Will sits on me, fingering the edge of the knife. “We’ll do in your father first.” Her brown eyes gleam at me, unsympathetic. Not knowing how to respond I just lie on the ground. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, you bitch.” Panting, I face her until she’s done savoring the moment. “Don’t misunderstand, you are on the list. But every injury Sevina receives will make your death slower.” She wipes the knife into my shirt in a baleful manner. “Clear?”

It’s surprising I manage to squeeze out a nearly deaf, “Yes.”

Will stands, climbs into the van and flings the doors close. Sevina must’ve been really fatigued, not being woken by the slam.