La Dispute - All Our Bruised Bodies and the Whole Heart Shrinks

When we found the first Skia it was wonderful. It was exactly what I needed. I killed four before I learned the details of what they were and that death wasn't necessary to rob them of their bartered power. I had never believed they really existed, only in books and old ghost stories, but soon it was almost easy to find them. The city was crawling with the soulless men, and women. They were the worst for me. Probably another trait of my brother's that had rubbed off on me over the years.

It was more difficult than I could have ever imagined without him, trying to keep myself in check, keep my nature beneath my humanity, especially with how angry I was. Even if I wouldn't consciously admit it, even if I wouldn't acknowledge the rage outright, I knew it was there, burning me more each day, charring more of me away. Maybe it wouldn't be so hard to control myself if my circumstances were different, but all I knew was it was near impossible to not tear apart every breathing creature that crossed my path.

Despite my desire, I rarely killed once I knew how to strip the Skias of their powers. I was afraid of what would happen if I got into the habit of killing again, on my own. I was afraid I would go back to how I had been, murdering anyone I wanted, anyone on the street who angered me, who frightened me, who challenged me. I didn't want to become something I hated. I didn't want to let my nature control me. Sometimes I wondered if it was controlling James yet, Jordan yet, but those thoughts only made me feel even sicker than I usually did. I told myself they were better than their natures, that they could fight it just like they must have been doing for years. I convinced myself that my brother at least could keep his darkness in check even if he was alone, that he was strong enough.

James, I corrected, not my brother, Gabriel even, but not my brother. My brother would have trusted me, told me. It stung to know he hadn't, to know he had never trusted me, not really. He wasn't my brother. He was just James, or Gabriel. It hurt to think about him like that, so I didn't, as often as I could catch myself I pushed all thoughts of him from my mind. And Jordan, I tried not to think of her either. I had loved James as much as family, Hell, he had been my only family for years, but I didn't know how to feel about him anymore. I had to constantly correct myself when I thought of him as my family. It was torture. I tried not to think of it, of that night, but I knew he would have wanted me to kill him, and maybe I should have, but I couldn't, not in a million years, not even if he turned out to be as terrible as his nature suggested.

And Jordan, my heart ached thinking of her, the shock on her face, the desperate look in her eyes, like she wanted nothing more than for James to deny what Juda had said, to call him a liar. She looked like an animal that had been kicked by the one it trusted, the one it loved. In many ways I suppose that was true. I shouldn't have left her, but I had to, I couldn't be there when she went dark, I couldn't be the one to kill her, just like I couldn't be the one to kill James. I wasn't strong enough, and I was glad.

Even if I had wanted to stay by her side, I had to choose; Nevaeh or Jordan, and in that moment I had chosen my sister. I loved Jordan but I couldn't let Nevaeh be alone, not again, with everyone she held close gone from her. I had to make a decision and I had chosen the weaker one, the one who needed me more. Now I wasn't so sure I made the right choice. I left because I didn't want to see what would happen to Jordan, couldn't bear it, but Nevaeh was just as bad. It was cruel what the world had done to us, all of us. She made a hiccupping noise from her bed, but I didn't look over.

I tried to close my eyes, but then I just saw my old friends' faces. I was plagued by thoughts of them daily and I often wondered if they were safe, if Jordan was even alive. What if she had killed herself? What if her body was still in that cemetery? I tried not to think of that, to not think of her frozen remains being covered by snow, her sad eyes staring out, not to be found until spring. It made me sick just to think of it, so I didn't. I told myself she was still alive, though then my thoughts just wandered to even darker fates for her; capture, torture, insanity. I wished I didn't care, wished I could think of them as monsters, like Nevaeh did. It would make my life so much easier if I could accept that they were Halflings, if I could convince myself that everything had been a lie and they were truly the awful creatures their blood said they were. But I had watched Jordan grow, seen how hard she tried, how good she seemed to be...and I knew my brother more than anyone else. It was impossible for me to think of either of them as demons, as the horror of what Halflings were.

If I was honest, truly honest, I knew I should have been able to figure out what they were without Juda's help. James was stronger than anyone I had ever met, darker yet more controlled, more distant, more everything. How could I have possibly thought he was just a man? Just a Darkling? He was the closest to a god I had ever known, yet I had just thought he was James. Just a man with a difficult past he didn't like to talk about. Just a man who had been trained impeccably. And then Jordan, learning so quickly, such perfect instincts, paralleling James in just months of training. How had I not seen what they were?

Now I knew why James had tried to kill her, he must have found out what they were to each other, and with that revelation known that she was a Half like him. Occasionally I'd entertain the thought that maybe she had known, that he had told her, or that she had guessed, but then I'd remember the look on her face, her heart breaking in her big grey eyes, her betrayal laid out as if she didn't care who saw. She never let her emotions be so blatant. No, she hadn't known, and for that I felt terrible.

I shouldn't have left her, but I had to. Nevaeh wouldn't have let her come with us, and I don't know if I could have handled it, if I could have looked at her the same, though I knew she was. I knew she was still the same, or at least I hoped she was. But two months alone was a long time, two months of knowing what she was...I couldn't even imagine how I would react if I was in her position. Had she given up? Had she let her nature take her over? An old psych professor's lesson on self-fulfilling prophecies swirled in my mind.

I heard of the murders back in the city we'd left almost immediately, Mors they were calling him. At first I wondered if it was James, driven to madness in his pain and guilt, but the meticulousness with which the killer worked didn't seem like how he would choose to kill. Mors killed without leaving a trace, without leaving witnesses at a single scene, like he wanted to be kept a secret, but he didn't seem to enjoy his work. Many accounts I had heard said it might even just be a bounty hunter, a sniper who got his kills by trickery or luck or planning since there never seemed to be evidence of close-range combat. There was never fire either, so I dismissed it as surely not James. Close-range and fire were his signatures.

A little later I heard of the next killer, plaguing a city that had already seen three serial murderers in the past year. This one I was sure was mad, and my sources whole-heartedly agreed. A Fallen, they whispered, someone so far gone, so dark and disgusting he was only spoken of in hushed murmurs, as if speaking outright would call him to you. The vilest of the vile didn't want to claim the actions of this Fallen for fear of who would then come for them.

I wondered if it was James' father, come to the city looking for his son. I hoped Jordan was out of the city, somewhere safe, somewhere far away, like what Nev and I had done. I figured James was long gone, surely he had secondary homes to go to, favors he could call in, surely he wouldn't wait for his father to come for him.

I swore at the pillow I had pressed over my face as I realized tonight would be the kind of night where I couldn't keep thoughts of my family from my mind. It killed to know that everything was ruined. And it was only worse knowing everything was going to fall apart even more, I could feel it. The sick feeling, the world's warning, hadn't left me since it woke me up the night we went to the cemetery. Nev had called it carsickness dismissively, over and over again, but it always stayed with me, even after settling into her and my new hotel 'home', it still persisted. Something terrible was going to happen, something even worse than what had already come to be, and that terrified me. What could be worse that the last two months? What could possibly be worse than losing everything?