The hummingbird killer, p.23
The Hummingbird Killer, page 23
Isabel pauses. ‘Why?’ she asks.
‘Because your mother is alive,’ says Daragh simply. ‘Because you came home yesterday covered in other people’s blood. Because no matter how good a front you’re putting up, there’s a part of you that’s not okay with either of those things.’
Isabel doesn’t know how to deal with that. ‘He could come and talk to me himself,’ she points out.
‘He doesn’t think his advice is what you need right now.’
‘And yours is?’
Daragh sighs. ‘If I were allowed to give it. Ronan’s forbidden me from interfering.’
‘With what?’ says Isabel. ‘Oh, wait, don’t tell me. His complete control over my life, financial situation, and assignments. He wants me to have no choice at all.’
‘You know him well,’ notes Daragh drily.
Isabel’s knife hurtles towards the target and sinks deep into the wood. ‘You know who he wants me to kill next?’ she says. ‘A twelve-year-old girl.’
‘I…’ Daragh begins. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Hummingbird are training her, so maybe she’s a threat, the way I was a threat, but he—’ She throws the last knife, barely bothering to aim, and it lands so close to the previous one that the sound of metal hitting metal resounds like a bell. ‘I don’t think he wants her dead as much as he wants me to kill her.’
Every monstrous act isolates her more, pushes normality further out of her reach. An Isabel who will do this is an Isabel Ronan knows he can control.
‘You don’t have to do it.’
‘If I don’t, he’ll tell the world I’m the Moth and watch them line up to dismember me.’
Daragh’s silence proves he has no comforting assurances to counteract that bleak picture. She didn’t expect him to. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says at last.
‘Don’t be. It’s not your fault.’
‘If I could help you, I would, but…’
‘Daragh,’ she says. ‘I know you’re the only decent person in this entire guild full of bastards, and I still don’t understand why you haven’t left and taken your lack of bastardness to people who actually deserve it. But you can’t help me. Beating yourself up about that won’t fix anything, so don’t bother. You’re not responsible for me.’
‘But I care about—’
‘Don’t,’ she says. ‘I’m not worth it. Absolve yourself of any culpability for anything I do from now on, because it started bad and it’s getting worse, and it’ll be easier if you stop caring now.’
Soft, broken, endlessly compassionate: ‘I can’t do that.’
‘Try,’ she suggests, wrenching the knives out of the target and shoving them back into their case. ‘I don’t deserve anything from you. I’m supposed to kill a prepubescent girl, and I don’t know how to refuse because I’m too fucking scared to die. That doesn’t deserve sympathy. You’re not allowed to like me. I don’t want you to like me, because that makes you the kind of person who is okay with this, and nobody should be okay with this.’
‘I never said I liked you. I said I cared about you and what happens to you.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t.’ She climbs onto one of the cross trainers. Daragh says nothing as she begins to move, waiting for her to elaborate. ‘You know, there was – there was a girl, at the library, the same age. Twelve. And I thought, if it came down to her or me, I would actually hesitate. But now…’ She can’t look at him. ‘I want to live, Daragh.’
She wants to live even though all she gets is this, over and over again: this bloody nightmare of survival, these constant compromises, until there’s nothing left in her she doesn’t loathe. She’d do anything, just to keep drawing breath, and for what? So that she can watch herself become a monster?
Or so that she can face the fact she already is one?
‘I won’t condemn you for the things you do when your back’s up against the wall,’ he says. ‘Goodness knows I’ve done things I’m not proud of.’
It’s not the same, though, is it? He’s a doctor. He still saves lives, even if they’re the lives of killers.
‘Why are you so fucking forgiving?’ she demands.
‘Because somebody’s got to do it.’ Daragh moves so that he’s in her line of sight, solid and unavoidable. ‘You’re never going to forgive yourself.’
Isabel slows down, letting the machine’s sensors take her pulse. It flashes across the screen: 92, 85, 81. ‘Forgiveness is earned,’ she says. ‘Redemption takes work. But all I ever do is hurt people.’
‘There is more to you than that,’ he says.
‘Maybe there is,’ she acknowledges. ‘But that’s the part of me I know how to use. That’s the part of me I act on. You and Leo and Mortimer – you’re so concerned with this hypothetical goodness left in me, but what the fuck is that worth, when all I ever put into the world is violence? I’m a killer, Daragh, and it doesn’t matter if I could have been anything else, because those possibilities aren’t me.’
Maybe there’s a part of Isabel Ryans that’s capable of goodness, but it’ll never make up for the harm the Moth has done. Is still doing, with every file Ronan puts in her hand.
Daragh says, ‘You didn’t choose this.’
‘So what?’ She steps off the cross trainer. ‘It doesn’t make anyone less dead. My trauma doesn’t make this okay.’
‘Isabel…’
‘I’m tired of you pretending what I do doesn’t have consequences. I know what I am. But you – you’re in denial, and if the person you’re trying to save is the fake good version of me that lives in your head, then you might as well not bother, because she’s not real.’ Daragh’s face is doing something she can’t comprehend, his emotions a mystery to her, and she’s so tired of trying to understand everyone around her, like it matters when she’ll never be one of them. ‘Get it? She’s not. Fucking. Real.’
‘She’s you,’ says Daragh, and his voice cracks. ‘She’s always been you.’
‘No, she’s not.’ Isabel doesn’t want to see him like this, emotional and desperate. It’s demeaning for both of them. It threatens to undo her. ‘You should go. This isn’t helping anyone.’
‘But—’
‘It’ll be over soon anyway,’ she says, cutting him off. ‘Walk away now, and it’ll be easier for you when Ronan decides I’m not useful enough to keep alive after all.’
‘Don’t you dare think for one minute it would be easy to watch you die.’ For the first time, Daragh sounds angry. ‘I watched you drag yourself back from the brink when you were seventeen, and the fact that you survived is the biggest victory I ever won.’
She remembers him holding her after Emma died. Arguing with Ronan to buy her more time. Trying to give her a path outside of going to the guild in the first place. She remembers the betrayal of letting him be the reason she got dragged back in.
‘You care too much,’ she tells him. ‘You’re better off saving it for someone who’s worth the effort.’
‘You’re worth the effort,’ he says, but he doesn’t look her in the eye as he says it. ‘I thought you’d die when you first came to me at Sunny’s, but you didn’t. I thought you’d self-destruct after Emma died, but you didn’t. Everything the world’s thrown at you, you’ve overcome. I never thought you’d get the chance to grow up, and now here you are.’
‘Here I am, killing for a living.’
‘Here I am, caring for murderers for mine.’ Daragh meets her gaze now, but she can’t bear the weight of it and has to look away. ‘You need help, Isabel, and I’m not the one to give it to you. I know that. But maybe I can convince you that you deserve to be helped.’
‘I don’t deserve anything.’
‘You deserve a whole lot more than this.’ He looks up at the clock. ‘I’ve got to go. And you should head home, get some rest. I daresay Ronan will work you into the ground tomorrow.’
‘I’m sure he intends to try.’ Isabel shrugs off the grey T-shirt and pulls her own clothes on. Daragh averts his eyes, though he’s seen her scars more times than anyone else. ‘That doesn’t mean I’ll do as he says.’
‘Be careful,’ says Daragh, like that’s possible now. She thinks what he’s really saying is: Be kind to yourself. But it’s way too fucking late for that.
Isabel takes the long way home, buying chips on the way so she doesn’t have to cook when she gets in. She sits on a bench in the cemetery to eat them. The night is drawing in, the scent of the plants and flowers heavy in the spring air, and the place is all but empty. Just Isabel and the graves and the shadows stretching long and dark.
When she’s done, she shoves the crumpled paper into a bin and walks, reading the headstones, looking at the dates, trying not to think about the ones that are too close together.
Twelve.
It could have been her. It should have been her. But it wasn’t, and she’s grateful, and she hates that about herself.
She’s meant to have the flat to herself tonight, but when she gets home, Laura’s in her usual armchair in the living room.
‘I thought you were working,’ says Isabel, tone unintentionally hard.
‘Small fire at the restaurant,’ says Laura, and now Isabel sees that she’s still in her work clothes. ‘Nobody was hurt, but they sent us all home. Are you okay? Where have you been?’
‘Training.’ At least she doesn’t have to lie about that any more.
‘You look tense.’ Laura gestures for her to come and sit down in front of the armchair. ‘Come on. I’ll give you a massage. You need it, if you’ve been working out all afternoon.’
Isabel hesitates. ‘I’m…’
‘It’ll be good for you. Come on.’
She doesn’t deserve relief, or Laura’s comforting hands, but martyring herself doesn’t fix anything either, so fuck guilt and fuck depriving herself of a small comfort amidst the pile of shit she’s facing. ‘Let me shower first,’ she says. ‘I’m gross and sweaty from training.’
When she comes back, Laura’s made tea – camomile, Isabel guesses, based on the colour and the smell. The radio is on in the corner, soft piano music drifting through the air. ‘Feeling better?’ asks her flatmate.
‘Less sweaty,’ Isabel agrees, and sits down in front of her, letting Laura’s skilful hands unravel the knots in her neck and shoulders. She feels like she’s made of tension, her body tightened up beyond where it was ever supposed to go, and any minute now she’ll snap – but something about Laura’s fingers, firm but kind, breaks the spirals of her thoughts.
After a minute or two, Laura says, ‘Bad day?’
Her neck must be a mess, if Laura can see her angst in the tangle of muscles. ‘Not great.’
‘Want to tell me about it?’
Despite everything, Isabel feels herself relaxing. The living room is dimly lit by a couple of lamps, and the curtains have already been drawn, making it feel later than it actually is. ‘Don’t think I can. It’s complicated, and it sucks.’
Laura hums sympathetically, hooking her feet round Isabel’s waist to pull her back towards the chair and gently massaging her scalp. ‘Are you training for a job or because it makes you feel better?’
Nothing about today made her feel better. ‘Mandatory assessment session,’ she says, which is half the truth. ‘My boss is being a total knob, and is making me jump through a bunch of hoops.’
‘And your mum?’ Laura’s thumbs find a tight spot in Isabel’s neck and knead it until something gives way and she groans in relief. ‘What’s going on with her?’
‘I don’t know.’ That’s honesty, at least; she’s capable of it occasionally. ‘I don’t want to know. Comma have her, and I’m staying as far away as I can.’ Just the thought of Judith has her shoulders tightening again, fear stiffening her muscles. ‘Can we… not talk about her? It’s not a topic of conversation I find relaxing.’
‘It might help,’ says Laura. ‘Talking about it in a place where you feel safe.’
She doesn’t feel safe anywhere any more. ‘There’s nothing to talk about. She abused me for years. I thought she was dead, but she isn’t.’
And Isabel shot her. She stares into her tea, the memory as vivid as if it were projected on the steam: her bullet, her mother’s shattered kneecap, the way she screamed. If she were the good person Daragh wants to believe she’s capable of being, she wouldn’t find so much vicious satisfaction in that. But she’s not, and she does.
She was owed this. Vengeance doesn’t fix anything, but it sure feels good while it’s happening, like reclaiming power over a life her mother tried to dictate for her.
And yet no matter how far she ran from her parents, she still wound up in the guild, with a blue cardboard file in her bag detailing the target Ronan wants her to eliminate.
‘I can’t talk about this,’ she says finally. ‘It’s not – if I were going to talk about it with anyone, it would be you. But not now. Not yet.’
Maybe Laura gets it; maybe she doesn’t. But she says, ‘Okay,’ and grabs her cup of tea from the coffee table, taking a sip before returning it to its coaster. ‘Massage only. No talking about unexpectedly resurrected mothers.’
Isabel sips her own, the warmth flooding through her. Then she surrenders gratefully to her flatmate’s clever hands, feeling her thumbs press into the sore muscles of her back, tracing the lines of tension and unravelling them one by one. So rarely does anyone touch her that it’s a sensory revelation, almost overwhelming.
‘That cut on your neck,’ says Laura, as her hands move down Isabel’s spine, working out the knots that keep her hunched in on herself. ‘Is that another thing you don’t want to talk about?’
‘Yes,’ says Isabel, and then, almost as fast, ‘No.’ Maybe if she tells someone, she won’t feel so alone in this pit of her own bad decisions. ‘That was from my boss threatening me.’
‘Your boss?’ says Laura, so outraged that her hands still.
‘Yeah. You know how you asked if I was in a union? Not getting paid is the least of my problems right now.’ She lets out a deep sigh, trying to let go of the tension in her body. ‘This is why I’ve tried to keep you far, far away from that side of my life. Because it’s shit, and it’s dangerous, and I don’t want you to get hurt.’
Laura resumes her massage, working her way back up towards Isabel’s shoulders. ‘I kind of guessed it was dangerous, given the scars.’
She hasn’t even seen half of them, hidden under Isabel’s clothes, reclaimed beneath tattoos or left as a testament to the cruelty of the people who should have cared for her. ‘Even the fact that you know I’m Comma puts you at risk.’
For once, Laura doesn’t laugh it off. ‘I thought being guild was meant to protect you,’ she says. ‘But you’re more scared than any of the civilians I know, so I guess it doesn’t work like that.’
Not when you’re Isabel, and intent on firebombing your own life. ‘No,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t.’ She leans away from Laura’s touch momentarily, reaching to put her mug down, and is startled when the piano music on the radio gives way to voices.
‘Welcome to the nine o’clock news,’ says a newsreader, crisp and efficient in that radio-friendly way. ‘Our top story today—’
Laura makes a noise of disgust and begins to get up. ‘I’ll turn it off,’ she says. ‘Can’t stand talk radio, it’s—’ But she freezes halfway across the room as the report continues.
‘A source from within Hummingbird has confirmed that a violent attack on one of their administrative buildings yesterday left twenty-one dead.’ Shit. No. Ice seeps through Isabel’s stomach, chasing away the warmth of the tea. She thought they’d cover it up. She thought she’d have more time. ‘The attack is being attributed to the Comma operative known as the Moth. In an exclusive statement, Margaret Strange, the Director of Hummingbird, confirmed that Hummingbird and Comma would be meeting to discuss the incident, and that consequences are “likely”. The names of the deceased have yet to be released.’
Laura reaches the radio at last, and switches it off.
Isabel knows her flatmate is looking at her. Knows that questions are coming, inevitable and deadly, and that she should confess now and get it over with. But she can’t. She doesn’t remember how to speak, paralysed by shame and fear.
‘Twenty-one people,’ says Laura at last. Her voice is very quiet. ‘An attack attributed to the Moth.’
Still she doesn’t know how to answer, how to account for what she’s done.
Laura’s mouth works, but no sound comes out. Finally, she says, ‘Isabel, what did you do?’
29 TIMEGI (TO DREAD)
If Isabel lets herself express a hint of emotion right now, she’ll fall apart. The horror and dismay on Laura’s face shouldn’t come as a surprise, because it’s what Isabel expected all along – but it’s so much worse in reality than it was in her head, and it hurts.
‘I broke into Hummingbird,’ she says, robotic and mechanical, the only way she can keep her voice steady. ‘I needed intel. My mother was there. She raised the alarm. I had to fight my way out.’
The bare facts of the case, stripped of everything except what matters.
‘You killed twenty-one people,’ says Laura. ‘You – you broke into Hummingbird, and you killed twenty-one people, I can’t—’ She breaks off, running her hands through her hair. The movement sends the curls springing in all directions, as wild as her movements. ‘Why? Why would you do that?’
‘I needed intel,’ Isabel says again. ‘It was the price of getting my friend out of the city, and I owed him.’ She adds, ‘I told you I was in trouble. This is what I meant.’
‘Fuck!’ Laura turns away, looking back at the radio like it’ll have answers, but it’s silent and unhelpful. She shoves it aside and spins back to face Isabel. ‘This?’ she says. ‘This is what you were doing yesterday?’
Isabel hunches in on herself, knees up to her chest and arms around her legs, making herself a smaller target. Laura’s anger and hurt is unfamiliar, hard to swallow, making something violent of the angles of her body. ‘It wasn’t planned.’
‘Oh, so I suppose that means it’s not your fault.’
