Chapter Nine
Schrödinger's Sister
Aiden wasn't entirely sure what kind of social contract governed the Fish Eye, or what part of that contract allowed it to shelter a par of wanted Pilgrims. As a side note, for that matter, Aiden realized he hadn't ever thought he'd have himself sought after quite as intensely.
He didn't like it.
But here he was, wondering just where the Fish Eye drew the line and what constituted breaking their rules. Were you allowed to shout at each other? Knock someone's tooth out? Litter? Make noise past ten at night?
When Crane started walking, Aiden knew he'd rip that contract up the second he reached Waltz. Then they'd either die right then and there, or they'd die a little later, after the Fish Eye sent them down their winch. Without a counterweight, most likely.
And, yet, it took Aiden a precious second before he managed to jostle himself out of his own mind. There was a lot going on in there, after all, with musings about rules only scratching the surface. There was all that talk of monsters (in a literal sense), ones which regrew their conscience, and all those shared horrors Crane had laid out to him with a sincerity Aiden didn't yet know how to deal with.
Zofia had been right, he thought. He'd been talking to the wrong half at first. This one? This one kept going once you tapped him for a conversation.
(And, presently, he kept going for Waltz.)
By the time Aiden finally lunged after Crane and grabbed for his arm, all he caught was empty air.
"Crane!"
Nope. Still walking, with the ground he had on Aiden widening, who couldn't even fucking run after him without his chest wanting to cave in. "Shit," he muttered and fell into a careful jog, hoping that'd do.
For the second day in a row, every nearby eye in the Fish Eye turned to them — and for the second day in a row, Aiden was torn between throwing his weight behind Crane (in a theoretically way, he knew damn well there wasn't much weight he could offer right now) or listening to the voice of reason which wanted to remind him of what'd happened the last time he'd gone at Waltz.
But how the hell was he supposed to choose? How was he supposed to ignore the anger burning through him? The fire that liked to catch on the wrong done to him; a wrong which had defined every aspect of his life since.
Over by the ramp (which came closer way too quickly, meaning Aiden's decision about whether or not the Fish Eye was going to be seeing two or one mad Pilgrim today was just about due), Waltz and his escort drew to a halt in a neat formation. The antlered women in their eerie white clothes over their armour flanked him, while the Hound with a hammer meant to break down walls stayed back.
And no one wanted to be anywhere near them.
Everyone who'd managed to be awake for the impending disaster gave them space. The onlookers. The guards. They all scurried back, until the only people left were Crane headed right for Waltz, Aiden chasing him, and the woman with her crossbow, who threw the two Pilgrims (both presently still headed for mad) a warning glare.
Make up your mind, make up your mind— Aiden's hand slipped to his hip and his fingers ghosted against the hilt of his hatchet. With his heart hammering in his chest, a terrifyingly clear thought surfaced:
He wasn't going to stop.
He wanted to stop, but he wanted nothing more than to grip the damn weapon hard and make Waltz bleed.
He nearly did (try), until Hakon piled from the Fish Eye, cursed his way through the onlookers while dropping whatever breakfast he'd fetched, and got in front of Crane.
Crane kept walking. Right into Hakon with his outstretched palm.
"Woah, friend," Hakon said, his voice loud and full of cheerful confidence, even while Crane pushed him backwards, giving absolutely no indication he was going to stop. Not for one lone Frenchman, anyway.
Okay.
Okay.
One mad Pilgrim is enough, Aiden finally decided and (at the last second, most like) joined Hakon's effort in stopping what amounted to a boulder rolling downhill. A heavy boulder. And a steep hill.
Said boulder gained another inch, his weight leaning down on them.
"We aren't here to make a scene, yeah?" Hakon said, still loud enough for everyone to hear. Then, his voice dropping, he threw Aiden a stern look. "None of us," he whispered. "If we start a fight, Frank will have no choice but to kick us out. And if you tell Waltz about your sister what you think he'll do? Use it against you, that's what."
Aiden heaved out a frustrated sigh — and Crane finally stopped pushing. Which was great, since Aiden's chest had started to feel like someone had slid a knife against his ribs (which the sigh hadn't helped with one bit).
"Kyle Crane, I presume."
God have fucking mercy, had Aiden not needed to hear Waltz's voice again. It carried itself across the hush that'd settled nearby, where it slithered around Aiden, familiar, steady, taunting. Aiden's spine twinged with an icy shiver, but he refused to turn and look, keeping his eyes fixed on Crane instead, whose lips were peeled back in a snarl and whose throat bobbed quietly as he choked down a growl.
"He wants you to snap," Hakon warned, still at a whisper.
"I know," Crane muttered back, followed by a barely audible Fuck. Far as summaries to the situation at hand went, that one single word came a long way.
"It's been, what, nineteen years?" Waltz went on. "You've held up well."
Crane practically growled. "Yeah? Wanna find out just how well? Ditch your groupies and lets—"
Hakon gave Crane's arm a quick, decisive squeeze. The wounded one, no less. Crane's words tripped over a startled grunt.
"Yes? You were saying?"
Finally convinced he couldn't keep his back turned forever, Aiden moved aside and faced Waltz. Which was harder than it should have been, because Aiden wanted to look at him about as much as Crane wanted to stand back and let himself be taunted. Looking meant he felt those ghosts knock around in his head again; ghosts stitched together from incomplete pictures, voices long out of tune, and pain racing through his veins.
And while Aiden endured his ghosts and Crane bristled, Waltz smiled. A collected, small, polite, smile. It creeped him out. Almost as much as the pale stare of the two antlered women, their masks accenting their unnatural eyes.
"Get your hands off me, alright?" Crane snapped to Hakon, before he turned that snap over to Waltz. "Where is she?"
"In good hands, I assure you. Though I can't say for how long the Church's generosity will extend. That will be entirely up to you."
"Kay. I'm not allowed to beat the shit out of you, so what do you want? Me? The key? I give you both, you let her go?"
Aiden's eyes widened at the suggestion. He wouldn't, would he?
. . .
Yes, he would.
And maybe that'd been what he'd been aiming for? To get himself thrown out and picked up by the Church so they'd bring him right to her?
Waltz scoffed. "You are massively overestimating your personal value, Crane. I don't need you. You are a nuisance, if anything. An unwelcome guest to my beautiful city. As for the key—" Waltz glanced to the side. He extended a hand towards the woman at his right, who pulled a red plastic envelope out of the slim messenger bag hanging at her thigh. Waltz took it. "—I have a proposition to make."
Brandishing the envelope, Waltz began to walk. Step by step he left his escort behind, widening the bubble that'd formed around him as the onlookers shuffled back — and with every step, Aiden feared Crane might meet him halfway, maybe to push the envelope down his throat.
He didn't.
"In here, you'll find the plans and detailed blueprints to Villedor's old Dynamo factory," Waltz said. "The GRE and army seized it during the Fall and converted the entire property into a solar farm. A controversial decision back then, but they had the right idea. Once France's nuclear plants began to shut down and the grid started failing, Villedor could keep the lights on."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah— Villedor 's got its own little history booklet, we get it," went Crane. "What do you want, Waltz?"
Waltz arched a gnarled brow at Crane. Though rather than answer, his eyes took a detour, first cutting to Hakon and then, finally, settling on Aiden. And Aiden sure as hell didn't need that sort of attention. It pressed down into him and stirred up more of those ghosts he had flitting through his mind.
Mia. Her hand in his. Her fingers are small, like his. And she's faceless, just as Aiden is, a child who can't remember his own self. They're bolting down a hall. There's a door in front of them. It's tall. So tall, he barely reaches the handle. They scream. They always scream and Aiden knows he's behind them. He can't catch them though. He can't— he can't— he mustn't.
He always does.
"You're pitching this to me. Not the kid."
Waltz's eyes cut back up to Crane. Aiden's ghosts settled.
"Not a man of patience, are we?"
Crane responded with an opinionated grunt.
With a nod, Waltz pointed the envelope into the general direction of the skyscrapers and canyons for streets that laid beyond the Fish Eye. "The plant was shut down ten years ago. Consequently, Villedor went dark. You—" The folder snapped back to wag at Crane. "—will go there and you will get it running again."
The words may not have meant much to Aiden (or Crane, for that matter), but they had an immediate effect on the woman with her crossbow (whose name Aiden could not for the life of him remember). She'd been idling nearby, just at the edge of Aiden's vision, and she'd mostly looked annoyed until now. As if this was a circus and she'd prefer it gone. But now? Now her chin went up, her shoulders tightened, and she squinted from Crane to Waltz with obvious curiosity.
"I will," Crane echoed, his tone loaded down with enough sarcasm and mockery he didn't need to bother turning it into a question.
"Yes. If you at all want to see her again, you will. And you'll do so without complaint. In fact, you'll do whatever Lady Séraphine and her Church needs, and you'll do it with a smile. The alternative?" His lips pursing, Waltz gave his head an almost regretful kind of shake. "Let me put it this way: your partner is in good hands now. I can change that, Crane. Easily. I don't need her comfortable to get what I want. As a matter of fact, I don't even need her whole. Pieces will do."
Heavy silence fell between Crane and Waltz.
Though not the kind of silence you got because of an absence of sound. No. This was the thick, deep silence that mattered only because it threatened to break at any second. Like back when Aiden had watched two dogs meeting out in the territories. They'd been grizzled creatures, given shape by a hostile life they'd somehow mastered; and they'd met on a muddy path to nowhere at all, where they'd locked eyes and had bristled, silently, both no more than one wrong twitch away from tearing into the other.
And when Crane's biomarker startled the whole scene back into life with an agitated Bre-ep, Aiden half expected it to straight up start a brawl.
Waltz's eyes dropped to Crane's wrist. "Hm. Let me give you a piece of advise, Crane. Put a leash on your temper. If you keep this up, you'll give the fine folk of the Fish Eye the wrong idea and that's the last thing you want to do. Trust me. They aren't anywhere near as tolerant of freaks like you as we are."
Crane's good arm shot forward. But rather than snatch Waltz by the throat, he grabbed the envelope and yanked it out of his grip.
"Good," Waltz said. "Very good. You'll hear from me when the lights are back on." His polite smile returned. "Do try not to let her down."
With that, Waltz turned and left, pausing only to regard the crossbow woman with a brief and terribly friendly, "Lawan."
She glared at him — and kept glaring until Waltz's whole group had cleared out.
Soon as they were gone, Hakon breathed in through a quiet, shaky, laugh. "This— this went well? Except for the not so insignificant part where he sends you off on a suicide mission."
"I'm going to kill him," Crane said, his voice flat.
"Yes, of course. But how about one impossible goal after the other? Hm?"
Crane scowled at Hakon, who raised his hands in mock surrender.
"Fine. Do as you want. Me? I am going to get drunk."
"No. You're going to come with me and you're going to tell me everything you know about—" Crane squeezed the envelope into a tube and smacked it against Hakon's shoulder. "—this."
And Aiden?
Aiden was forgotten. A rock dropped from a shoe once more, if you will, left behind soon as Crane turned on his heels and made a steady line back to their shed, a grumbling Hakon at his side. But Aiden did not particularly mind being forgotten. Not right now. Not with his head overheating while he tried (and failed) to process today. First, the conversation Waltz had interrupted; then, Waltz himself; and eventually Aiden who had (somehow) managed not to scream about Mia.
Because Hakon had been right. Waltz would have used Mia as leverage as much as he'd used Zofia.
Or maybe you just jumped at the first excuse not to say a fucking thing because you were too afraid to find out what he'd say?
Aiden winced.
"You know this isn't a bargain, right, Crane?" Hakon said, which not only got Aiden's mind to stop wandering places it shouldn't be wandering into (namely: an honest inspection of how he feared what he'd find at the end of all this) but which also unstuck his feet. He'd go help Crane and Hakon. That was better than standing around like an idiot. "This is bait, just like him coming here was. A trap. One he doesn't need to lift a goddamn finger to set because, guess what, Villedor did all that work for him already."
But Aiden didn't get far. He'd barely turned around when a hand clamped around his elbow, wrenching him back hard enough to squeeze a startled breath out of him. Which, in turn, made his ribs grow spikes. Wheezing, Aiden shot a look at the fingers digging into his skin.
It was the crossbow woman. Lawan.
"What the fuck was that all about? Why does Waltz think you can get to the car factory? Let alone turn the plant back on?"
Aiden pulled his elbow out of her grip and decided he'd try for secrecy again. Shaky as it may have been. "I have no idea."
"Bullshit," she snapped. "The PK say you've stolen something from the Church. Is it that key he mentioned? What is it? What does it have to do with the factory?"
. . .
Aiden hated being put on the spot on his best of days, though at least out in the territories the solution was always simple: walk way. Wasn't like anyone'd chase him out of their settlement. But here, and today, with his head filled with warm fog, Aiden was hopelessly overwhelmed.
So he resorted to pointing at Crane's back. "It's Waltz who took something from him, not the other way around. He kidnapped his wife, okay? And so maybe he thinks that's enough motivation, what do I know?"
Lawan didn't buy his fumbling redirect. If anything, her glancing over to Crane (and, in effect, Hakon) only got her hackles up more. She tsked loudly. "Doesn't fucking matter how motivated he is. He isn't setting foot into that factory, especially not with Hakon. That coward will bail on him the second he needs to show some real spine."
Aiden straightened his shoulders, and before he'd turned the words over in his fogged up mind to inspect them, he said: "Well, good thing I'm going too then."
Lawan's eyes slid back to him. She squinted. "I know Pilgrims are a special kind of crazy, but you're something else entirely."
Hey, that's mean.
"Yeah? Know many Pilgrims, do you? Up here, in your fancy rooftop bars and behind your huge-ass wall?"
"Sure, from before we sealed the city." The stare she fixed on him was sharp. "I got to know my fair share, especially with how you Pilgrims like you girls young and pretty. Right?"
Aiden's face went fittingly blank. Nope. He wasn't in the mood to fight. He wasn't, in fact, in the mood for much of anything. He was exhausted (and it wasn't even noon yet), confused, and ready to leave. Again.
She disagreed.
Again.
Could someone please give him a damn break?
"Wait—" Uninvited and insistent, Lawan snatched his hands, throwing Aiden into a full-body flight over fight response, all while something youthful snuck into her eyes; something far north from the scowls and the hard looks she'd worn ever since he'd first met her.
Which, granted, had been less of a day ago and he'd barely paid attention, but—
"What are these?" Lawan twisted Aiden's palms up, exposing the pockmarked scars on the inside of his arms. "You're one of his kids! Waltz's. One of his lab rats."
Heat flared, snaring Aiden's throat. But before he had a chance to lie and tell her he had no idea what she was talking about, Lawan released one of his hands and shoved her own arm under his nose.
"Just like me."
The heat disappeared as quick as it'd come, replaced by a dizzying, floating sensation that sent Aiden's mind back to reeling. Yes. She had matching marks to his. There were fewer of them and they weren't anywhere near as prominent as his, but there was no mistake. They matched.
Aiden's tongue grew heavy.
"Holy shit. Is that why he's so sure you're gonna pull this off? Damn, and here I thought you'd all either died or ran off with the Church."
Aiden's tongue remained unhelpfully weighty.
"Pilgrim?" Lawan released him and peered at him with what might have been concern. "You're not about to drop again, are you?"
With.
The Church?
He must have heard wrong.
"No," Aiden hurried to say. "I'm— I'm fine. What— what do you mean 'with the Church'?"
"Okay, you really aren't from around here. I mean exactly that: they're all a part of Waltz's freak squad. Or, technically, they're the Lady's, her Hands. They're the bastards with the antlers." Lawan mimed a set of them against the side of her head.
No.
No way.
He'd heard wrong.
He'd. Heard. Wrong.
This wasn't happening. Of all the damned turns today could have taken... No. This wasn't about to be it.
"I don't remember you," he said, which weren't the words he'd at first intended to speak. But working up the courage to ask her exactly what was flying through his mind right now required an effort equivalent to scaling a vertical rock wall in a sleet storm.
"Yeah, no shit. It's been a lifetime since. Besides, I busted out of there like two weeks in. No point making friends when you're not sticking around, you know? I'm Lawan, by the way. I mean, shit, you already know that."
"Aiden," he said, still scrambling up that wall in his head while Lawan's mood seemed to have turned an unfitting kind of cheerful. He did manage, though. Eventually. "Do you know if one of them is called Mia?"
"One of the Hands?"
Aiden nodded.
She shook her head. "No one actually knows them. Shit, I don't even know if there's anything left to know, since all they ever do is stand around like the creepy freaks they are while scaring the piss out of everyone." Her brows pinched. "Who's Mia?"
"My sister."
Lawan let out a quiet, but sharp whistle. "Well," she said, "isn't that a kick in the balls."
Aiden couldn't tell if the rest of the day passed at a crawl or way too quickly. On one hand, the sun kept rising, unfazed by how he stood under it with everything he knew in shambles; on the other, the shadows cast by it grew at a snail's pace.
He'd not bothered going with Lawan when she'd invited him inside. He should see the bar, she'd said. She'd get him a drink and he could tell her how he'd found his way out of Villedor and back again. And maybe he'd make better friends. Ones who weren't called Hakon.
No.
No, thank you.
No, I need to go.
He'd wandered off (into the wrong direction), while pale eyes stared at him from the corners of his own mind, underlined by disfigured lips that stretched against black wire. This is your fault, the lips whispered.
He'd abandoned Mia, hadn't he?
He'd left her behind, condemned her to— this.
Dead, Lawan had said. They were all either dead, or they were with Waltz. His freaks. And Dylan? Dylan had said Mia was alive. He'd promised and Aiden had thought that promise meant they still stood a chance.
He got sick.
Then he got sick again.
By the time Crane found him (down one level from where he was supposed to be, slumped over a colourful railing and an apathetic street below), Aiden's stomach ached like a twisting, living thing. His chest wasn't off much better, flaring with pain at almost every breath.
"Put a leash on my temper my ass. At this rate I'll need one for you," Crane said as he tugged Aiden off the railing. "Yeah, Hakon, I found him," he added, loud enough to make Aiden flinch. "You can stop clucking."
At one point, somewhere between the railing and the steps to their Pilgrim's nest, Aiden told Crane about what he'd learned; about the Hands, who they were. Who they used to be.
How one of them was Mia.
No, no, no. Might be. Might be Mia.
She might be dead, too.
Crane didn't offer any words in return. No encouragement. No quips. Not even a Sorry. None of that. He just splayed a hand out between Aiden's shoulder blades, the pressure warm and steady, and guided him through the door.
The jitters came soon after. Aiden endured them sitting on his cot, and felt about as useful as a candle might underwater. It was frustrating. Wanting to help, but finding he couldn't. Watching Crane and Hakon drag a table into their nest, its legs scraping noisily over the wood. Watching them lay out the papers Waltz had given them. Watching Crane fire question after question at Hakon, and not liking most of the answers he got.
Watching as night eventually fell.
Hakon passed out first, though not before he'd lamented loudly how he hadn't been given a chance to get drunk. Aiden drifted off next—for a second, a minute, however long—until the creak of the door yanked him back to the world of the unkindly awake while a UV light buzzed near his head.
Hakon was snoring.
Crane's cot was empty.
His shadow moved beyond the door, where a thin slice of UV light snuck through the gap at its base.
Aiden got up and followed him.
Why?
He wasn't sure.
Maybe he wanted to— what? Pick up one of the godawful threads today had left him with? Talk? About what? There wasn't anything left to say.
No, the truth was: Aiden was fucking drifting, unable to steer himself, his life, his future. And so he drifted. Out through the door and onto the UV lit porch.
A short distance away, the Fish Eye rose against the night sky, still ringed in light and with a handful of windows shedding a warm and welcoming glow. Noise pressed outwards from it. Voices. Music. All in contrast to the whispers of a haunted city being carried up from the Villedor streets.
"Oh no, you wanna go back inside," Crane said, his voice tight and scratched up around the edges. He stood by the porch's corner and ran his eyes up the wall there, tracing a wire feeding into the light fixture over his head. "Get your eight hours in. Heal up. Etc. It's good for you." He hooked a finger around the wire and regarded Aiden with a sideways look.
"Shouldn't be both—" Aiden folded his arms. "Heal up? Etc?"
"Mhmm," Crane hummed, his lips slanting into a mirthless smile. "That's the plan."
He yanked on the wire and darkness dropped around them.