Then, his thread pulses, flickering like a firefly.
I follow it for blocks and blocks, past rows of homes covered in ivy, until I fear my legs will crumble into nothing. The thread grows brighter and I know I’m getting closer until, suddenly, it disappears at the steps of a familiar brownstone.
I wait a moment for my heart and head to catch up with me. Sweat drips down my face and back. The white metal fence is smeared with blood, and the gate is ajar. I look toward the front door and see another dark smudge on the doorknob.
There’s sobbing coming from somewhere in the house.
“Maks?” I call out for him.
My heart beats against my eardrums as I inch inside. The white carpet is thick with blood, oozing with every step I take. All the walls are covered in it.
I turn and walk into the living room, at the center of which is a beautiful leather couch holding the most horrific scene I’ve ever witnessed.
An older man sits on a high chair, the skin of his face ripped to shreds. A woman’s body is laid on the couch, carefully arranged so that her head faces the ceiling, blood on her temples, as if he brushed her hair back once he was done feeding.
Both of their chests are ripped open to expose the cavities where their hearts once were. All that’s left is a mess of dangling tissue and the cracked, white bone of their rib cages.
My eyes blur and I fight the urge to vomit. I grab a picture frame from the grand fireplace mantel, hoping that the faces in the photo will be foreign to me. But instead, I find exactly what I expected to—Maks, his sister, and their parents smiling at the camera. I drop the frame when I hear footsteps upstairs. I climb the winding stairs two at a time, tracking blood and dirt.
I swing open the first door on the landing and peer inside. It’s Maks’s sister Irina’s room.
Unlike her parents downstairs, Irina isn’t dead. She’s sitting in the fetal positing at the far end of her room, a kitchen knife in her fist. Maks is down on his knees, staring at his open hands.
“Lula!” Irina cried. “What’s going on?”
At the sound of my name, Maks snaps his attention to me. His eyes are the white and red of casimuertos, and he growls at me.
I take several steps back, hitting the railing. I nearly lose my balance and fall backward, but I hold on.
“Maks?” I hate the way my voice trembles.
Maks moves swiftly, closing the distance between us and grabbing hold of my shirt in his fist. “You did this to me.”
“Maks, please don’t,” Irina cries from within her room.
“I didn’t want to hurt you, Lula. But you should’ve let me go when you had the chance.”
“If you don’t want to hurt me, then don’t. I know you, Maks. I know a part of you has to be in there somewhere.”
“Lula.” Maks shuts his eyes, holds on tighter. He grinds his teeth and his eyes phase from white to blue and then back to white as he struggles to hold on.
I need him to hold on, so I say, “I can help you.”
“That’s not what you told the shape-shifter,” Maks says, his voice unnervingly calm. He grabs my shoulders, sounding like himself again. But the red veins in his eyes darken as he inhales my scent. “What were your exact words? I’m having a hard time recalling them from the prison you were going to leave me in. Tell me, Lula. Were you going to kill me yourself or have your witch sister do it?”
I grip his arms and try to catch his gaze, hoping I can coax him into calming down. “Maks, you said you’d never hurt me. You can fight it. You did it before.”
“It’s over, Lula. Stop trying to save me!” He digs his dirty nails into my shoulders. “Do you know what it’s like to tear out your mother’s beating heart?”
As I look into Maks’s feral, white eyes, I see the last of my Maks fade away, replaced by desperate hunger. How long has the boy I loved been gone? There’s nothing left to save here, but there is back at the THA headquarters. I need to get back to my family, and fast.
I take a swing at his face, but he catches my fist with his open palm, squeezing until the bones in my hand crunch. I scream and raise my knee, driving it into his groin. He grunts and lets go of me. I cradle my hand against my chest and turn around to run.
He grabs my arms and yanks me back. I lash out with all my fury, channeling every bit of anger and insecurity I’ve felt in the last eight months into a punch that connects with his chin.
His head snaps back, but only for a second. When he rights himself, he is angrier. Meaner. He is every bit the monster I created when blood vessels thread his white eyes and a terrible cry comes from his open mouth. It makes me jump back. I hit the railing on the second landing and panic as I think about the marble floor at the drop behind me. I shut my eyes, clutching the banister as hard as I can.
“Sweet Lula,” Maks murmurs, each step cutting off my escape.
A shiver runs through my body when he’s a breath away from me, and when I look up, I see a pair of familiar blue eyes behind Maks. Irina’s eyes.
She charges us, her scream piercing as she stabs him through his shoulder and then again and again. Maks punches her back onto the floor.
He whips around and digs his fingers into my arms, lifting me off the ground.
“Don’t!” I scream. I yank on his hair, his shirt, his skin, trying to hold on to whatever I can as he pushes me over the banister. Because now more than ever, I want to live.
I want to live.
Part III
The Soul
30
La Mama’s love burned brighter than ever,
her rays too strong for anyone to touch.
—Tales of the Deos, Felipe Thomás San Justinio
This was never a love story.
I realize that as I fall.
I close my eyes, and to my surprise, my mind is completely blank. I don’t see my past. I don’t see my family. I just wait for the impact.
But instead of hitting the marble floor, something crashes into me. A body?
The force of him is like a wrecking ball pushing me to the side. We slide and slam into a wall. I’m half in his arms and half on the floor.
“You’re heavier than you look,” he says. He half smirks and half grimaces as he tries to sit up.
I blink a few times, and my heart pounds so fast I’m afraid it’ll run laps around the room on its own. Rhett’s earth-brown eyes look down at me, probably checking to see if I have any life-threatening injuries. Then I grasp what he just said to me and I manage an indignant grunt.
“I’m small but mighty,” I say.
“Right, you’re okay, then.”
I try to stand up but it’s a struggle. A wave of vertigo keeps me in his arms even though I’m trying my hardest to stand up. I scream as I accidentally place my weight on my bad hand.
“Nothing about this is okay,” I say. I look back up at him through the dark shadows at the edges of my vision. “Maks is still upstairs. His sister is alive. You have to help her!”
“Stay here.” Rhett sits me up against the wall. “I’ll go find him.”
Where would I go? I want to say. But I can’t talk anymore. I can barely move.
“No need,” Maks calls out from above, his voice a deep growl. He jumps over the railing and lands in a crouch. He pushes himself up gracefully and looks the hunter up and down. “Who the hell is this? Another monster to add to your collection?”
“I’m the last person you’re going to see.” Rhett reaches for the sword at his hip but grabs at empty space.
Maks lands a solid punch in Rhett’s face. The hunter spits out blood but swings and misses. Maks dodges him and staggers back with a cruel grin on his face. He cracks his knuckles, ready to attack again, when a shuffle draws our attention to the living room door. My heart falls when I see her.
“You dropped something,” Irina says, her voice like syrup. Her eyes are fading from blue to white, blood trickling from the knife wound at her neck. She picks up the sword lying at her feet.