Blood for Honor

The wagon trundles up to the side door of the Market. I cannot overcome the creeping and constricting anxiety that has had my foot tapping the entire ride here. My father has not said anything, but the sour look on his face and his tense jaw tell me it is driving him crazy. Jai stays silent next to me, and I try to ignore the concerned look on his face.

I hop down from the wagon before it comes to a complete stop, but I halt in my tracks at the sight of a checkpoint at the entrance door. Jai mutters something to my father as he helps him out of the wagon, but I’m too preoccupied with my thoughts to hear his words.

Today you cannot get inside the Market without a pat-down—a weapon-free zone. I have an issue with the entire thing, which I voiced to my father when he told me about it. He then reprimanded me, telling me to trust him, which I do, but he is not the problem. My trust issues are with everyone else.

A blonde-haired woman in black stands guard at the checkpoint and motions for me to stop as we approach. My heart rate increases as she begins to pat me down.

Don’t look in my boot. Please don’t look in my boot.

The small knife I keep in my boot weighs heavy on my conscience. Despite my father’s warning, it felt wrong to go without it. My trust only goes so far. I couldn’t bring myself to enter the unknown without some form of protection.

The thought of using it on Carnegie when I have the chance still dances around in my mind. We can have peace without him—even more so if you ask me.

I sigh with relief as the woman finishes her search, allowing me through without inspecting my boots. For a moment, I felt regret at undermining my father’s orders, but now that I am inside the Market, the feeling fades away.

Today, the Market barely resembles the old dirty warehouse that it is. Bright lights have been strung along the walls, giving the place a more welcome feeling than the torches have ever achieved. Tables full of finger food and drinks sit on one side of the room, and black curtains hang along another wall as a backdrop for a group of musicians. They play a twangy upbeat song on beautifully crafted instruments, the likes of which I have never seen before.

I glance around the room to find X-marked Charon talking civilly to tear-drop-marked Blackthorn for the first time. Something like this has not happened in years, if not decades, and the people somehow manage to put their differences aside and act cordially with one another. This is what the people want. The Market may be neutral ground, but each clan usually tries to avoid the other on a day-to-day basis. To witness anyone conversing amicably like this is beyond strange to me.

We are purposefully brought together, but the hope that it brings cannot squelch the anxiety mounting within me. It grew stronger the closer we got to the Market, and now it has me biting my nails, which are quickly becoming nubs. I will draw blood soon if I don’t stop, but something is brewing under the surface of the civility around me. I cannot explain how I know it, but it’s there.

Leaving my father and Jai to converse with a man at the door, I creep to the closest food table, trying to avoid human interaction. Glasses of a bubbly pink liquid catch my attention, and I head for the table they sit on.

I pick up a glass and inspect its contents. Brow furrowed in curiosity, I bring the glass to my nose and sniff—my nose wrinkles at the overly sweet smell of flowers and some vaguely familiar fruit.

“It’s champagne,” a voice says from behind me.

I turn in haste, trying my best to keep the surprise off my face as memories flood my mind from nearly six years ago—back to the first day I met Danny and the man standing before me.

“Are we gonna gut this bitch or not?” the lanky black-haired teen asks. His voice is almost as dark as his almond-shaped eyes.

“No,” the honey-haired teen next to him says, voice low. His amber eyes glow with a light the first is missing as we stare at each other.

I am arrested in the grip of a rather large woman pinning my arms none too gently behind my back. Something about the man freezes me, rooting me to the spot. The spark in his eyes captivates me, warming something inside of me that I have never felt before.

“What?” the dark-eyed teen asks, bewildered.

Amber-eyes shakes his head slowly. “I said no.” His voice is languid, silky.

The dark-haired teen darts his eyes between us, eyebrow raised in question. “So you want to keep her?”

His amber eyes never leave mine. “I didn’t say that. You know how I feel about slavery, Max.” He speaks as if they could get away with keeping me as a pet.

Over my dead body.

“Well then, what do you want to do with her?” Max asks.

“Let her go.”

“Let her go? Have you lost your mind, Danny?”

Danny turns his eyes from mine to glare at Max. “Did I stutter?”

The woman behind me remains quiet, the two of us watching the duo arguing in silence. However, I do not miss her fingers tightening around my wrists. My captor waits for instructions, and I wait for an opportunity.

“Let her go,” Danny says again, and the woman’s grip disappears from my arms.

I stand silently, still frozen in place. “Run,” Danny says, leaning toward me slightly. “Don’t stop until you get home.”

So I run, knowing deep inside that it is not the last time I will see those amber eyes. I cannot help the smile that pulls at my lips.

“You good?” Max Parker’s voice breaks me out of my memories.

I stare at the dark-haired and well-muscled man, caught like a deer in headlights with the shock of seeing him again. The gangly teenager is nothing but a memory to me now. He has grown into his own, that’s for sure. But regardless of his cordial smile, he is not someone I care to act peacefully with.

That can happen when a person wants to kill you for the fun of it.

I restrain the urge to blow everything and draw the knife in my boot meant for Carnegie, but it is not worth it. Killing Max where he stands would bring on a world of trouble no one needs, so I take a wildly different route from the scene playing out in my mind’s eye.

I force a smile across my face. It comes out more like a grimace, but my voice is more in line with my act. “Champagne? Never heard of it,” I reply conversationally. I take a small sip while praying it isn’t poisoned. I smack my lips at the sweetness of the drink. “It tastes almost like—”

“Rose and blackberry,” Max says, smoothly cutting me off. “Or so he says.”

“He?” I ask, annoyed with his interruption.

“Luther Cain. He is Vesper’s Chief, but they call him Commander or something. He supplied all the food and drinks as gifts of hospitality. Even brought solar panels for the lights—big ones,” he says, eyes flashing as he grins. “And that isn’t all they got,” he continues, taking a step toward me.

Every part of me wants to lean away from Max, but I hold my ground as he speaks softly. “This meeting could be very beneficial to all of us. Wouldn’t you say?” he asks, tilting his head quizzically. “I can put our differences aside. Can you?”

Max extends a hand in peace, bridging the short distance between us. It takes everything I have to force my hand out to shake his. Turning him down would not bode well for the image my father is trying to portray, but that does not make my skin crawl any less as our hands grasp each other in a tense handshake. His skin is cool and calloused.

“Well, that was nice of them,” I say with a more grateful tone than I thought I could manage. I jerk my hand back too quickly, and Max smirks.

“Very much so,” Max says, downing a glass of champagne in two gulps. He discards the glass on the table and takes another step forward, lowering his voice as he speaks in my ear. “Meet Carnegie on the rooftop in five minutes.”

My heart drops, and nausea swells in my belly. I cannot come face-to-face with Carnegie. I am afraid of what he may make me do. I did bring the dagger to kill him with, but my plan never got further than that.

Don’t even think of running. Carnegie’s voice is soft, a mere whisper in my mind, but he means business.

I glance around, surveying the area. Dotted around the room are pairs of eyes watching me—waiting for me to make a move. Someone will drag me to stand before him if he cannot compel me through our connection.

That thought is terrifying, to say the least.

Maybe it will be easier to meet him without causing a ruckus or forcing his hand to reveal if he can indeed control me at a distance—easier on my mental health, anyway. I could end up dead.

Max steps away with a subtle grin on his face. He turns and walks away without another word. I stare after him in a daze. It takes a few moments to gather myself before I can move my feet. I finally take the first step, and my feet take over. They lead me to the dilapidated staircase on the other side of the room like they already know where to go.

The second floor creates the ceiling for half of the first, and the balcony opens the way to the cathedral-style roof over the central area of the warehouse. Unused storage rooms line the wall across from the balcony, only interrupted by a small hallway at the end.

I head for the hallway, my feet guiding me until I stop in front of the last door on the left. Roof Access is neatly hand-painted on a sign nailed to the door. I reach out, slowly turning the rusting knob as my heart thunders away in my chest.

I shouldn’t be doing this.

The door creaks open, and I step into an empty, sunlit room with a narrow set of metal stairs on the opposite side. I cross the room, my footsteps echoing off the walls, the sound pounding in my ears like drums.

I place a foot on the first stair, testing it. Not even a creak of metal as I carefully put all my weight on it. The stairs are sturdy despite the rusting edges, but I take them one breath at a time. My sweating palms leave the railing damp. I take deep breaths that shudder past my lips on release and reach for the doorknob with my bottom lip held painfully captive between my teeth. It takes a little effort to get open, but it swings on quiet hinges with some persuasion and cursing under my breath.

Pebbles litter the roof, crunching underfoot as I step out from under the alcove around the door. Carnegie stands near the roof’s edge with his back to me, gazing out over the meadow surrounding the Market. His long black coat billows behind him, caught in the persistent breeze.

“It’s about time you found me. I thought you were going to stand me up,” he says without looking at me. “I should have known Max would strike up a conversation, though. He talks too much.”

“I wasn’t aware we had a date,” I say, as my olive green coat-tails flap in the soft breeze wafting across the roof in almost perfect unison with Carnegie’s. I watch for a moment, caught by the peculiarity.

“It’s okay. You aren’t aware of much.” Carnegie turns to face me. I don’t miss the jab, but I remain silent. I turn my attention away from our coat-tails to be frozen again in the iciness of his gaze.

My hand itches for the blade in my boot, longing to lodge it in his eye like I failed to do with the pine branch in the woods—or I could shove him off the roof. I only have to wait for the right moment.

Carnegie speaks with a resigned smirk on his face. “Come here.”

The compulsion to comply with the quirk in his tone is too strong for me to deny. I immediately regret coming up here. I walk to stand directly in front of him, teeth clenched, but I am grateful for the opportunity to get closer to him so I can strike.

Carnegie studies me while I stand there rigidly, trying to coerce my body into shoving him, but I cannot even raise a hand to him. A horrible thought occurs to me.

He could probably make me throw myself off.

He looks me over once as he speaks. “What if a person could be changed completely on the inside but remain nearly untouched on the outside?” he asks me softly.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, not much louder, surprised I can even speak.

A sideways smirk appears on his lips. “I mean, what if everything you are could be turned off at a moment’s notice and turned into something else?” he asks, trailing a fingertip down my pointed nose.

“I still don’t understand,” I say, peeved at his games. I am growing weary with his words, unable to rid my face of his hand, much less end his life.

“Our mind connection is only the beginning.” His words bring fear like they so often do now. It grips me at my core, and I struggle to catch a breath.

Carnegie removes a glove. His hand is covered in tattoos, but I am too entranced to recognize the symbols marked on his skin. He reaches out to cup my cheek with his bare hand. I try to flinch away from his cold touch, but I still cannot move, no matter how hard I try.

My cheek starts to tingle where his fingertips touch me. “You feel it?” he asks.

“Yes,” I whisper.

Trailing his thumb over my lips, he lowers his hand to hover above the skin of my throat. Static pops at his fingertips. The sensation increases in strength, and I hiss in pain as he withdraws his hand.

With a pushing motion, he sends me stumbling back without touching me. I catch myself before I fall and bend over with my hands on my knees, groaning at the lingering effects of the shock that ripples through my body.

“As you evolve, you should be able to do the same thing, with greater effect,” he says with a friendly smile.

“Evolve?” I stand up straight, refusing to cower before him.

He ignores me. “You are one of a kind, you know that?” he asks.

“Don’t try to flatter me,” I say, anger boiling alongside horror.

What was that?

“I’m not. Only speaking the truth,” Carnegie says, walking by me calmly as he heads for the door. “The power you will be able to possess has the potential to surpass my own. Sound—”

Pulling the knife from my boot, I lunge, aiming for his neck.

He turns, quick as a whip, bringing his arm down as if to strike me. He does not touch me, but the knife is knocked out of my hand, sending it skidding over the edge of the roof. It disappears out of sight, wholly out of my reach.

“You cannot kill me, Iylara. I know you want to, but you are no match for me,” he says, disappointment in his voice. “And I thought we were making progress.”

I stare at him, speechlessly holding my hand in pain, eyes wide. As if the first time he used that trick was not shocking enough.

Carnegie does not give me a chance to ask questions before he continues, like I have not tried to kill him. ”Walk with me. We have something to attend to,” he says with a full-on grin, the quirk back in his tone.

He opens the door, motioning for me to go first. I step through and fall into step behind him against my will, like a scorned dog who tried to bite its master. We descend the stairs in silence.

Impending finality washes over me, and I cannot withhold my following words as we cross the room. “My father is willing to work toward peace. Are you going to turn that away?” I ask.

He opens the door for me again. “I am here, aren’t I?” he asks evasively.

I scowl at him as I walk through the door. “My father is willing to forgive you for what you have done and let you live—even after you killed his son. You wouldn’t try and do anything to hurt that, would you? You know how easily we can take you out,” I passively threaten while prodding for confirmation of my gut feeling.

Carnegie chuckles but otherwise remains silent. I follow him to the balcony overlooking the mass of bodies below us before he finally speaks. “Some things have to happen for others to come to pass,” he says, stopping to look at me, his hands casually gripping the railing in front of us.

“What things?” I do not miss the fact that he has failed to answer my question.

“Just watch. Don’t move. Don’t speak,” Carnegie compels me.

I grit my teeth, my eyes skimming across the mass of bodies carrying on with their business. They are all oblivious to the two of us standing above them in the shadows.

I find my father standing by the food table I stopped at earlier, talking to a rather large Charon man with a bald head completely covered in tattoos. He stands at almost six and a half feet tall. Even my father has to look up to speak to him.

Jai appears, pushing his way through the crowd opposite the room of another Charon man who makes a beeline for the food table. As the man gets closer, he pulls a pistol out from under his jacket. I try to scream out, to alert someone, but I am compelled to follow orders of silence. Jai calls out something unintelligible, and my father glances around.

The bald Charon man grabs Jai in a headlock, keeping him from pouncing on the gunman. Jai says something else as he struggles against him, but I cannot read his lips. My father turns as the other man stops within feet of him, gun raised. The man’s lips move as he speaks to my father, who stands his ground with a dignified look. He stares down the barrel of the gun without flinching.

The people nearby look around, confused for a moment before a blast reverberates off the metal walls of the building. The crack of the gun cuts off the band and shuts down the idle chatter bouncing around the room. My father’s head snaps backward. Jai looks on in shock, limp in his arrestor’s grasp, with my father’s blood splattered across his face.

Leeland Vance crumples at his killer’s feet, eyes staring up at me in death, where I stand next to Carnegie on the balcony. A scream sticks in my throat as blood trickles from a hole in the middle of his forehead. His eyes are accusing.

“Go do what you must,” Carnegie says, releasing me from his hold. The smugness is gone from his voice, but the quirk is back.

Shaking like a leaf, I rush for the staircase as the room erupts into chaos with gunfire. At the foot of the stairs, the crowd swallows me. Panicked bodies toss me to and fro, jostling me back toward the door, away from my father’s body. I cannot bear the thought of leaving him, so I push against the crowd.

Gunfire rips through the air with an endless ammo supply, and unarmed civilians scurry for the exit. I stand my ground for a second before the wave of bodies is too much for me, urging me to the door. Bullets miss me as people fall dead all around me, unable to escape quickly enough through the checkpoint barricade.

Guns have appeared in the hands of Charon that they smuggled in somehow, and they are making easy work of the helpless Blackthorn inside the warehouse who followed the rules of the meeting. Charon begins to fall as Vesper joins in a firefight against them. The echoing dissonance of gunfire pierces my ears painfully. I have never heard such noise. Charon somehow managed to get a hold of bullets, lots of bullets.

And Vesper, for all of their ‘no fighting’ nonsense, has the bullets to match them, despite their no-weapons rule.

Jai appears out of the crowd with a snarl on his bloody face as he grabs my arm, steering me toward the door. A sharp gun blast distinguishes itself, louder than the rest, and Jai stumbles. He regains his footing with a groan and forces me out of the warehouse, staying close behind me.

I glance over my shoulder, catching sight of Carnegie on the balcony. He lowers a large revolver in our direction with a fiery look. Jai drags me outside, pulling me none too gently to our wagon. The people who make it through the door scatter in all directions, running across the field, unable to fight back against the barrage of bullets.

“We gotta go.” Jai’s words come out strained. He roughly pushes me onto the wagon bench with a grunt of pain.

I am in shock. “But my father!” I cry out desperately, about to hop down from my perch. “I can’t leave him!”

Stricken with grief, tears pour down my face as Jai shakes his head, grabbing my shoulder. “We can’t help him. I have to get you out of here. We can’t lose you too,” he pleads with me.

Unable to deny his urgency, I nod my head. Jai pulls himself roughly onto the seat next to me. He grabs the reigns, awkwardly holding his left arm, and pushes the horses to follow the path toward home.

My eyes do not leave the warehouse until we take a sharp curve, and it disappears behind the trees.