Fallen, p.10
Fallen, page 10
She brought her knee up squarely between the man’s legs. He’d parted them, to get a better grip on her. He gasped, his eyes bulging, and she did it again.
She remembered describing how she’d defend herself, in a conversation that seemed like eons ago.
The man stumbled back, but she wasn’t fool enough to think he’d given up. He was just angry, now. Angry that his dinner was fighting back. “Bitch!” he snarled. “Just for that I’m going to—”
She lunged at him, grabbing his ears. With an incoherent howl of rage, she extended her thumbs and began pressing them into his eyes.
“Crazy cunt!”
She gasped at the ringing blow to the side of her head. Blood filled her mouth, as her vision blurred and grayed. But she didn’t let go. She refused to let go.
He hit her again.
This time she had no choice; she dropped to the floor.
He kicked her in the soft meat just below the ribs, and she curled up.
“Now, I’m going to break your neck. But first….”
He reached down, grabbing a handful of her shirt to rip it off.
Her own hand shot up, grabbing at the gun tucked so casually into his waistband. The gun he’d either forgotten about, or forgotten that she could see. She pulled it free, amazed as she did so that she even could. She’d never fired a gun before, never even seen one fired except in films. But they, at least, had given her the idea. She didn’t know if the gun had a safety or not, didn’t know how to recognize a safety if there was one or what to do with it, but she understood at least about the trigger. She slipped her finger, which was slick with sweat and trembling, to the right spot.
And then she pulled.
She’d been so afraid that she’d hear an empty click, or that nothing would happen at all.
But the man, who still had no name, toppled forward onto her.
She screamed. This wasn’t her howl of earlier but a raw, shrill noise that she didn’t even recognize as coming from a human being. Let alone from herself. She’d shot him and he was dead, she’d shot him and he was dead, oh dear God in heaven she’d shot him and he was dead.
He’d almost—
But now he was dead.
She threw the gun away, across the room. She tried to ease herself out from under him, but she couldn’t at first. Her legs had gone to sleep. So she turned over, as much as she could, onto her stomach and wormed. Broken glass scored her skin, drawing beads of blood. They looked like strings of hideous, too bright pearls. The wing of the cherub she’d been playing with earlier ripped off a patch of skin the size of a quarter guilder.
Then, blessedly, she was free.
No one had come in response to the noise: to rescue her, or to join in the fun. Which meant that the house truly was deserted. Whoever these people were, they’d gotten what they’d come for and left.
Using what had once been her aunt’s prized couch she pulled herself, shakily, to her feet.
The tingling in her legs became agony as the blood rushed back into them. But at least that distracted her from the hundred other wounds her body had suffered. She touched her breast, and winced.
Part of her, the part of her that could still think, told her that she had to get out of this place. This place that was no longer a home. It wasn’t safe; the walls, the floor, the roof might collapse at any minute, sealing her inside more efficiently than any tomb. She’d come so far; she had to go just a little farther.
And she had to find Daniel.
She’d promised. She’d promised. That she’d look after him, that she’d keep him safe.
Had he—had he met a man like she had?
No. No. She couldn’t, wouldn’t complete the thought.
She took one hesitant step forward, and then another, over the body of the man and further into the living room.
The man she’d killed.
I killed someone.
Oh, God.
Past the ruin of the coffee table, she saw someone else.
Someone else whose eyes stared sightlessly at nothing.
Eyes, she saw, that were already glazing over.
It was her uncle.
He’d been shot, twice, in the forehead. Once directly between those eyes, a second time a little higher up. He’d also been shot in the stomach. Knowing what she did of the monsters who’d attacked them, that shot had come first. As a punishment, for making things difficult on them. Although they’d undoubtedly enjoyed every moment. Her heart ached for the pain he must’ve suffered, the fear, even though none of that mattered anymore.
He was gone.
He’d never hug her, never tell her he was proud of her, never crack stupid jokes that made her eyes roll in response to her questions. She’d never show him another painting. He’d never laugh.
Never, any of it, again.
She forced back a sob. She had to get out of here. Before the walls caved in, before the roof imploded, before someone came back. But she—she couldn’t just leave him like this.
Except she had to. She had to. She couldn’t carry him and—carry him to where?
Neither of them had anywhere to go.
And he…he was gone.
It wouldn’t matter to him, where he lay.
But it would matter to him, whether she survived.
I’m coming back for you, came her silent promise.
Somehow.
Her aunt, though…had she escaped?
And—
The ground beneath her shifted.
She darted for the stairs just as the house’s central chimney column fell forward with a crash.
“Daniel!” she screamed. “Daniel, where are you?”
It felt like an earthquake had struck; she felt herself flung against the wall as something deep within the house groaned. She had to make it outside but what—what if Daniel was in the kitchen? What if he’d gone down into the basement, where they had their well room and stored their extra food?
What if—
She felt herself hurled down the staircase.
Something behind her crashed.
She turned, wincing. The entrance to the kitchen had been blocked, by part of the staircase and the floor above. Wherever Daniel was she had to hope—and pray, and hope again—that he wasn’t in there. That he’d managed, somehow, to escape the house. That maybe he and her aunt had, together.
She crawled toward the front door.
On the other side, there was nothing but fire.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Man in the Fountain
She somehow got to her feet, again, and limped into hell.
Her knee didn’t work right; something, she thought disjointedly, had happened to her knee. She looked around. She should’ve been cold but, of course, she wasn’t. This was the underworld. Her shoulders, covered with only a thin layer of cotton because she’d lost her sweater, felt like they sometimes did when she’d been at the beach too long. The first few buttons of her shirt had been ripped off, exposing her neck and the top of her chest. It, too, was absorbing the baking heat. Dry, foul smelling heat that seemed to flow toward her in waves.
The only other thing she had on, save her underwear, was a pair of pants. When the attack came, she hadn’t been wearing shoes. She wished she’d kept the gun, but what use was a gun against demons?
One of them ran by her, screaming. He was waving a cricket bat that looked like it had been studded, somehow. He didn’t so much as glance in her direction, for which she was profoundly grateful. Nor did he, or anyone else cavorting in the middle of the street, seem to notice—or care—that the house behind her had just collapsed into nothing.
She made her way down the steps. Slabs of granite, placed one atop another, they’d survived things just fine. She turned her head first in one direction, and then the next. The heat was coming from the flames, and the flames were coming from the line of cars parked along the opposite side of the street. Some of them had been left there by owners too stupid to imagine the consequences or too blithe to care, but most of them had been stolen and moved.
To what end?
Some fool buzzed by on a sort of motorized bicycle he’d very clearly invented. He was far too proud of it, and it was far too shoddy looking, for it to have been the work of a professional. Or, indeed, a rational human being. Picking up speed, he launched it—and himself—over the roof of one of the cars. His tires caught fire. His coattails did, too. Neither he, nor anyone else, seemed to care.
She looked right, and looked left. Daniel was out here, somewhere, if he was alive. And he was alive.
She descended into the street.
The crazy man was laughing as his coattails burned. One of his equally crazy friends tried to douse the fire with a bottle of gin. Ani ignored them both. She hoped they both died.
“Daniel?” she called. “Daniel, are you out here?”
She’d try first one end of the street and then the other, and then she’d widen out her search to include the block.
She studied the shadows in the alleys between houses; there was a man using drugs in one, and two people making inventive use of a rope in another. These pockets of comparative calm seemed strange to her; mere feet away, chaos reigned. At one point, a group of men challenged her but the look she gave them must’ve been so terrifying that they changed their minds.
What was that old saw her uncle had liked to quote? Something about how God protected the touched? Well she was touched. More than touched. She’d completely lost her grip on reality.
Probably because there was no more reality to grip.
It was back there, behind her, in the rubble.
“Daniel?”
“I can be Daniel,” said a voice.
Ani bent down, picked up a tire iron that someone had dropped, stood, and turned. The man who’d spoken was tall, like the man she’d killed. The man who’d tried to rape her. He had the same rough features, too. His hair was cut short, and over it he was wearing a tam. He looked like a longshoreman who’d dressed up for church.
Her eyes held his. “Show me,” she said.
He gestured to the tire iron. “You planning on using that?”
“Yes,” she said. Her voice never wavered, and neither did her gaze.
He looked her up and down, and, as he did, his expression faltered. Changed. As it occurred to him that maybe, just maybe, that all the blood might not be hers. Ani hadn’t seen herself in a mirror, and didn’t want to, but she could imagine. She tapped the tire iron lightly in her palm, as she waited.
“What—what are you?”
“I’m a pacifist,” she said.
He turned and ran.
She continued her search.
She felt more secure with the tire iron, but she wasn’t really thinking of herself at all. She was trying to imagine where she might’ve gone, if she were an eleven year old boy. There were places to hide, even now, but so far her brother hadn’t been in any of them. She didn’t encounter any more trouble, though, at least not for awhile. Most of the other people she saw were occupied with their own adventures. Most of them were young, too; some looked like they were too young to drive.
She did pass one man, who appeared to be about forty. He was sitting on a cooler he’d hauled over from somewhere, peacefully enjoying a bottle of beer. A small, satisfied smile played over the corners of his lips. Ani recognized the brand; it wasn’t an expensive one, but it was popular. The cooler, presumably, contained the rest of the man’s stash. As well as some actual food, she hoped, for his sake. Otherwise he’d have one hell of a headache come morning.
“Hello,” he said. He’d dressed like he was going fishing, and he spoke to her using the same calm, pleasant tone that one vacationer might use to another. Indeed, he might as well have been out in his dinghy on some lake. It was only because he was sitting almost directly under a street lamp that Ani saw he was covered in blood.
“Would you like a bottle?”
“No,” she said. She glanced at the man to his right. “Who’s that?”
The man, or what was left of him, had been suspended from the crossbars of the street lamp pole. A framing nail had been driven between his eyes, affixing a note. Pedophile, the note read. She was glad that it obscured the lower half of his face. One of his eyeballs was lying on the pavement.
“Is this…?”
“This is—was—my brother in law. Raped children, took pictures and even made films of it, sold them.” He spat. “Including his own. All of which I discovered last week.” He finished his beer, and placed the bottle carefully on the pavement. Near the eyeball. Then he gestured at her tire iron. He seemed to recognize, in her own detached attitude, a fellow traveler. “You?”
“A rapist.”
He nodded.
“I’m looking for my brother.”
“Oh?”
“He’s eleven. He’s missing.”
The man didn’t ask where her parents were. “What does he look like?”
“He’s tall, for his age. Thin. Dark hair like mine.”
“His name?”
“Daniel.”
“If I see him….”
She nodded. She understood. She liked her new friend, too; she could’ve easily sat here all night. And maybe Daniel might’ve even shown up. They said, when you were lost, that you should stay in one place. Maybe that same principle applied, when someone else was lost. But she couldn’t chance it. She had to keep looking. And keep looking, and keep looking. No matter what.
“I hope you find him,” the man said.
Ani moved on.
The next street over opened out onto a small square, with a fountain at the center. Someone was floating face down in the basin at its foot. All she cared about, though, at this point, was that that person wasn’t Daniel. It wasn’t her aunt, either; where was her aunt, and how come Ani hadn’t heard her cry out? How come she hadn’t done more to protect Daniel?
She must be dead, that was the only explanation.
Except then…where was her body?
She tried to summon sympathy for the man in the fountain. And it was a man, she saw, getting closer. Or had been. Sympathy that, she knew, would overwhelm her later. But, somehow, despite the horror all around her, she couldn’t feel anything at all. Not and continue to fight, to survive.
Then she saw something else, and froze.
A group of men in suits.
Her mind went blank and she almost bolted. But then she thought Daniel and then she realized that no, these weren’t the same men who’d attacked them. These suits all had a certain sameness about them, because they were all extremely well-tailored. But they didn’t match. A couple were gray—dark gray and light—but she also spotted tan, and blue. The men in them were all holding weapons, some slung casually over their shoulders, and laughing.
They appeared to be waiting for something.
They were also on the other side of her from the fountain so she crouched down, using it for cover. She might’ve been able to scare off one lone fool with her tire iron, but she wasn’t so far gone as to think she could take on something like this. Plenty of people went out on Purge night, just looking for trouble. But some—she now knew all too well—had a plan.
She swallowed, and studied them, and tried to come up with a plan of her own.
So intent was she on what was in front of her that, once again, she failed to notice what was creeping up behind.
Without warning, a hand clamped down on her shoulder.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
In the Dark
She whirled around, biting her lip, somehow not screaming as she brought the tire iron up. It was pitiful as a shield, but it was all she had. Her heart pounded in her ribcage, and she could barely breathe.
Facing her was Dane.
There wasn’t much light in the square, but there was more than enough to recognize him. He was dressed like the group he’d obviously been about to rejoin: sharply, like he was going out on a date. And maybe he was. She shrank back from him, clutching her one weapon so hard that her fingers hurt. All she could think, at that moment, was here’s part of the problem.
“My God, Antoinette.”
“What were you about to do to me?” she challenged. “Before you knew it was me?”
And what would he do to her, now that he knew it was?
He dropped down, crouching, facing her on her level. “I thought it was you,” he said. His voice was quiet, measured. “Although I knew, at the same time, that that was insane. You’d never, your family would never…my God,” he said again, taking in the scene in front of him. “I saw this girl, in the distance, but even then I could tell she was covered in blood. I wanted to—”
“Attack her.” Ani glared.
Dane frowned. “No. Get her to a hospital. I might be a monster, but I’m not that kind of monster.”
Then, understanding, his eyes widened.
“They’re all gone,” she said.
“What?” He could, obviously, scarcely believe what she was telling him.
“People I’ve—I’ve never seen before came to the house and now the house is gone. Too,” she modified.
“They—”
“They killed my uncle.” She stared at him, wide eyed, unable to do anything else. “Daniel is missing. And so is my aunt. I have to find them. I promised…I promised….” But she couldn’t complete the sentence. Instead, she found that she was sobbing. Sobbing, like she’d never be able to stop.
When Dane pulled her to him, she didn’t fight.
There was nothing sexual about the embrace. It was just one creature comforting another, in the dark. He stroked her hair, and said nothing. She pressed her face into the wool of his jacket, which absorbed her tears. She didn’t know how long they were like that, and she didn’t care.
