Afterlife (Second Eden #1) (39 page)

A pillow damp with her sticky drool clung to her cheek. She peeled her cheek from its rough fibers and swallowed the cottony lump in her throat. Her hands disobeyed her mind’s commands, and her feet wouldn’t move no matter how hard she tried.
 

Leather bands secured her wrists to a metal bedframe. When she finally managed to move an arm, it budged barely an inch before the chain went taut. Memories slowly seeped back into her molasses mind. Her mother. Her brother. Ms. Flannery and Ms. Tinsley. A doctor named Hunter, and a prick in the neck.

Drugged
. Amber choked down a sob. She reached into her mind, pulling upon the power of her curse, and though she felt that raging force swirling just beneath the surface, she couldn’t reach it. Her mind was unfocused, lost within the murk of medicines swamping her world.

A door groaned open at the end of the room. Her mother walked inside, red-eyed and tear-stained, hands clasped tightly before her. She sat at the foot of the bed and gripped Amber’s ankle. “Honey. It’s for your own good. You know I love you. I’ll always love you, but I can’t lose you. I won’t lose you. We’ll get through this together. I promise.”

Amber tried to speak, but her tongue simply slapped the roof of her mouth and stuck there. A tear slipped from her eye and dripped onto the pillow.
 

Her mother wiped her eyes, and when her arm fell away, they had become glowing scarlet orbs. “Oh, Amber, your pain is just beginning.”

Amber’s eyes rolled back, and darkness took her.

Amber woke again, but where her mother once sat now her brother waited. His eyes shot wide when he noticed her stir, and he leaned forward, grabbing her leg. “You’re up! They really knocked you out, didn’t they?”
 

She tried to speak, but her tongue was a lead weight glued to her mouth.

He flashed a chilly smile, shaking his head as he looked to the wall. “Amber, you really screwed things up this time.” His grin flattened, his steady gaze fixing on her. “You couldn’t just let Toby go, could you? He didn’t die because of you. He drowned himself. It was suicide, Amber, and if it didn’t happen then, it would’ve happened some other time. Now everyone thinks you tried to kill yourself too. You know that right? You know how much that fucking hurt Mom?”

Chris pitched from the bed and turned his back to her. “You’re just like Dad. Too afraid. Always wanting to run away.”

Amber wept, her tears streaming down her cheeks. Her heart burned as the knife of his words twisted in it.
I didn’t run, Chris. I didn’t
.

The words were there. They struggled on her tongue. But her tongue just wouldn’t move.

“You’re different than Toby and Dad at least,” he said. “They both got away. You couldn’t even do that.”

He glanced behind him, his eyes simmering orbs of hateful red. “You’ll always be a failure, Amber. You’re nothing. Just give up. Kill yourself. Stop fighting. Maybe then you could go back to them. Go back to
him
.”

In that single, terrifying moment, that little shard of Amber that struggled to remain awake knew the man before her was not her brother. It wore his face. It spoke in his voice. But this was not her brother.

Chris started laughing. Amber slipped into the pool of black, and the oppressive sleep of medication took her.

“Amber?”

Her eyes peeled apart. Jason’s familiar, beaming face appeared. She cried again, but this time they were tears of joy. Finally, someone who would understand, someone who would help. She glanced at her bound wrists. His eyes followed hers. He sighed, cupping her jaw. “Amber, what have you done?”

Help me
, she begged, her stomach turning at the poison in his voice.

“Did you think you could control her? Did you think you could just use her curses without a cost? She let you have her power. She. Let. You. But she’s ready now. It’s time for her to take her rightful place.
 
Don’t wake up next time. No one wants you to. Just close your eyes and let the black take you. You can be with Toby again. Remember how much fun that was?”

The tears came again. She tried lifting her hand, but it just wouldn’t obey.
Why are you doing this?

Jason’s eyes simmered like the coils of a hot stove. “You’re a failure, Amber, and that’s all you’ll ever be. Let her out. It’s time to let go. Do everyone a favor, and don’t wake up. For once in your pathetic life, just don’t wake up.”

He straightened, flashing an acid smile. “God, things are going to be so much better without you. Goodbye, Amber.”

Jason stood, smoothing out his shirt as he did. He strolled to the door and opened it wide. His laughter echoed in the room as the black pulled her into it. Darkness swelled around her, and her mind sunk into the void.
 

Amber woke again, this time in a dark room and covered in a chill sweat. She stood in a column of silvery light, surrounded by impenetrable shadows. She remembered this place from the night she received the curse of five curses, and she knew someone shared the room with her.
 

The serpent’s scales slid across the stone floor. The beast encircled her, gliding just beyond the dim light’s borders. Amber swallowed. She clasped her hands tight upon her chest and searched the shadows. “Who are you?”

“You know who I am, Amber. You’ve known for a long while.”

“Marina called you the Mother of Curses. Wilhelmina said you were Eve. Are you really her?”

Light laughter filled the darkness. “It has been so long since I’ve heard one of my children speak my name. So long. The sound is beautiful.”

Sweat beaded on Amber’s brow. She licked her lips, and forced the lump down her thick throat. “I didn’t even think you were real.”

“Stories as old as mine never stay quite right through the generations.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I want to be reborn. I want Afterlife reborn. I want Earth reborn. We will fix things, make things better, the way they were before sin came.”
 

“But what’s the cost?” Amber trembled with rage. “How many innocent people have to die so you can get your stupid Second Eden?”

“As many as it takes,” Eve stated. “I told you we would do wondrous things, you and I. Now lie down and rest your eyes, my child. You’ve done so much, come so far, now let your true mother finish this long and lonely journey. They have rejected you, in Afterlife and on Earth. Your family has turned their backs. Your friends? You have none. There is nothing for you. Surrender. Let sleep take you, my child, and I promise it will be filled with dreams as sweet as honey.”

Amber squeezed her hands tighter against her chest. “Do you know what happened to Toby?”

Eve sighed, long and low. “Forget your brother, Amber. It’s time we moved on from him. You’re not in Afterlife any longer. He is dust. I’m the only one you need now.”

Amber sunk to her knees. “He needed me. I ran away, right when things got bad. I … I just
ran
. Why did I run?”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s dust. Rest. Close your eyes.”

Amber laid on her back and stared into the dimming point of light. “I told him I wouldn’t leave him. I broke my promise. Toby needed me, and I left him.”

Two eyes of shimmering scarlet appeared in the darkness. “We can’t all keep our promises. Sleep with me in the calm quiet of the night, and tomorrow you’ll feel so much better. Close your eyes now, my sweet, sweet girl.”

Amber closed her eyes. The memory of that day glimmered in her thoughts, of her stepping into the chill pond. The warm breeze shifting through her hair, sun kissing her cheeks.
 

Toby’s body floated in the pond. She could almost reach him. He didn’t move. No matter how many times she called his name, he wouldn’t move. “I’m sorry, Toby. Come back. Please come back!”

But his body didn’t move, no matter how hard she screamed his name. She wiped the snot dripping from her nose. “Just come back,” she whimpered. “I promise I’ll never leave you again if you just come back.”

Amber’s eyes snapped open. She lurched to her feet, the angry beats of her heart smashing against her ribs. “No! I won’t give up on him. You can’t have me. Not yet!”

The glowing eyes flared, and a poisonous hiss pierced the darkness. “You can’t fight me forever, child. Eden will rise again, and I will be its queen!”

“I am
not
your child!”

The room of darkness shattered like black glass. Amber lurched violently in her bed, the sheets soaked with her own sweat. Each breath came hot and heavy. The grey and pale blue hospital room crystallized. She weakly fought against her restraints, thankful that at least now her body moved when her mind commanded it.

Amber took a second to relax and stare at the ceiling. She needed a way out of this prison. She had to get back to Toby.
 

It was in those quiet seconds that she heard the scratching on the door.

Faye’s brass knuckles glimmered in the dim bulb’s light. Dino spit dust from the fiery blaze of his jaw. He smirked at her, right eye swollen shut from the beating.

She came in for another hit, and his vision flashed as the metal smashed against his temple. He groaned, slapping his palms on the floor. “Damn. That one smarted.”

“I’ve just gotten started,” she said, pulling out a chair and sitting on it backward. She admired the knuckles with a tight smile. She glanced at the scarab hanging on the door, the relic used to keep his body from dissipating into fine mist. “The Deep certainly does provide. When I bought that one in the market, I knew one day I’d use it on you.”

“Your little relic make you feel good? You think you’ve got some strength, just because you have a shiny little object that can let you hit me?”

Faye laughed, lowering her brass-weighted hand. “Oh no, the relic doesn’t make me feel good. Beating the hell out of you makes me feel good, Dino Cardona. I’ve wanted to wipe that smug, self-entitled smile off of you for so very, very long.”

He struggled to sit upright. While the scarab hung in the room, his curse lay dormant, and so she cuffed his hands behind him so she could wail on him for hours without fear of a punch back. She had played this brutal little game with him, day in, day out, since Amber fled the city.

“Savor it while it lasts,” he said, “because I’m going to get you for what you did.”

Faye sighed and stood, polishing the brass against her breast. “Such melodrama. The girl was nothing but trouble for me. Ever since you dragged her into my city, she’s thrown off the careful balance of my plan. The archduke’s dusted all but a fraction of my fools no thanks to his fervor in finding her. The Spider’s hatching some kind of plan—God knows how many innocents are going to get wrapped up in it—and she was using Amber to do it. I wanted to kill her, you know, but she pulled that stunt in Bentley’s warehouse. I suspect she’s in the Deep now, slowly going insane as the call pulls her in.”

Dino held his tongue. He doubted Amber fled to the Deep. Why would she? She was smart. Faced with losing all her allies in Afterlife, she would flee to someplace familiar, and she would use a mirror to do it.

“And then there’s you,” Faye said.

He looked up and smiled. “And then there’s me.”

Faye spun and kicked, the toe of her boot slamming into his stomach. Dino doubled over gasping as the pain flowered through his belly. She spat at his feet and cracked her knuckles. “You always thought you were smarter than me. It all started when you convinced Zoe to go with you instead of me. Ever since that day, you’ve thought you were the cat and I the mouse.”

“Convinced?” Dino cackled, throwing his chin back. “Convinced! You’re twisted. There’s only one kind of fool in here, and I’m not talking about the type in the Errand. Zoe saw you for who you really were: a spoiled, conniving, entitled idiot on a wild goose chase to bring the past back when it should’ve stayed buried! You can hit me as many times as you want, Faye, but nothing’s going to change the fact that
she
chose
me
. Dust me. It won’t change things. I’ll always be the winner.”

Faye’s eyes darkened in a glare of cold rage. She slammed her brass-capped fist into his face. The bridge of his nose cracked, and he collapsed onto his side in a torrent of pain.
 

“Dust you?” Faye pouted at Dino like he was a puppy in a store window. “Why, Dino, I’m not going to dust you. It may come as a surprise, but you are still of some use to me.”

She bent over and reached into his pocket. He blinked, his eyes unfocused in his spinning head. Her fingers found their mark, and out she yanked the key that would open the lockbox in her office. “I think I’d like this back now.”

Dino’s stomach dropped. “No….”

“Yes!” She giggled, dropping the key between her breasts. “You thought I didn’t notice that tramp of a waitress pickpocket me? Please, Dino, you insult me. I’ve had eyes on you since the first day you stepped foot in that sooty shithole they call the Deep Diamond. I know more about Melanie Alvarez than you ever will. Especially now.”

Dino’s chest tightened. He lurched upright, shaking his head. “Leave her out of this! She’s done nothing to you. Her husband was a fool, Faye! He fought on your side. She had no idea what she was taking. It was a favor. Please, just don’t hurt her.”

“Look at you, groveling like some pathetic soul begging for a few coins in Little Persia.” Faye squatted until their eyes met. “You never cared about Melanie. She was just another in an ever-growing line of women you screwed and screwed over. I’m the leader of the Fool’s Errand. You think I can let some casino trash violate me, steal from me and not pay a price? Be happy for Melanie. She’s with her husband now, dust on the wind.”

“Faye,
goddammit
!” Dino pitched forward and smashed his head against her brow. She shrieked, stumbling backward.
 

The rage swirling through his blood numbed his pain. He kicked back, sliding until he rested against the cold wall. “She had nothing to do with this. She wasn’t an enemy! You’re blind. Blinded by your hatred of me. Blinded by your hatred of the archduke. You don’t even want the Soul Assembly back in power, do you? You’d rather be the queen of fools than actually end your pathetic war. That’d mean giving up the little piece of power you actually have, and you’d never do that, would you?”