Elevation of the Marked (The Marked Series Book 2) (48 page)

“Nothing to be done about it now,” he said, realizing how unhelpful he sounded as the words left his mouth.
 

The two of them moved on, entering the prison proper. Ko-Jin pushed open the door and felt it hit something in resistance. He shoved, and as he did the door opened slowly, a bloodstain spread across the stone floor.
Another guard
, he thought.
 

The body sprawled face down, but the blue uniform left little doubt it was another Elevated. Ko-Jin wondered what Chisanta would cut such a bloody path. Didn’t they know that these unfortunate kids were under Quade’s influence?
 

“Who goes there?” a male voice enquired, and the light of a torch shifted, whisked in the darkness. It illuminated an unfamiliar face—a large man who looked to be in his mid-thirties, a scar running through his right eyebrow and down his cheek. He had his hair trimmed close to his head, though longer than usual for a Chiona.
 

“Malc?” Bray asked.

He tipped the torch in their direction. “Is that little Bray Marron?” he asked, fondness stealing the edge from his tone. He paced forward and grasped Bray’s forearm in greeting.

Bray released an exasperated sigh—at being called ‘little,’ Ko-Jin imagined. “Yes, of course. You didn’t kill those poor kids, did you?”

He slung an arm around her shoulder in a brotherly way. “Can’t have all the fun, can you?” His eyes flicked up to Ko-Jin and an unnamed emotion passed over his face. “Running around with a dancer, I see. I’d heard something like that, but didn’t believe it. Not Little Bray, I said—”

She rolled her eyes. “Malc, we’re here to free these prisoners, not have inane conversations.”

He shrugged and led the way around a corner. There were at least fifteen others there already, endeavoring to spring padlocks with knife tips.
 

Up and down the hallway, Ko-Jin could hear people banging on doors and plaintive shouts:

“Help!”

“Over here!”

“Let us out, please.
Please!”
 

“My ma’s in this one here,” Malc said, pointing to the cell door immediately to the right. “I’m having a time with this lock, though.”

“I’m sure you’ll get it, Malcy,” a woman answered through the bars. “A smart boy like you.”

Bray snorted and the giant man shot her a quelling look.
 

She turned to Ko-Jin. “Let’s look for Yarrow.” She pointed down the hallway. “I’ll take this side, you take the other.”

Bray darted away before he could even agree.

“Yarrow?” she shouted. “Yarrow, are you down here? It’s Bray. Yarrow?”

Ko-Jin pivoted in the other direction. The light of the torches offered limited illumination, casting the stony passage in sharp shadows. He loped up the hall. “Yar? You down here buddy? Ma?”

His shouts echoed. People—strangers—begged him for release. He felt guilty to run by. “You’ll all be freed soon,” he assured them in a hurried manner. “The danger is passed.” Then he took up his shouting again, “Yar? Ma?”

“Ko-Jin? Is that you?” a voice called in Chaskuan.

His heart swelled in his chest as he swiveled to the sound. “Ma?”

She had to push aside a few other people to be seen through the bars. To his embarrassment, he felt the burn of tears in the back of his eyes and blinked. “Thank the Spirits.”
 

She seemed smaller than he remembered, her hair streaked with silver where it had once been black. Her eyes, however, were as alert and intelligent as ever.

Ko-Jin fumbled with the keys, trying several in the keyhole before one slid into place. The hinges were rusty, and so the door required some prying on his part to swing open.
 

The other occupants fled down the corridor, shouting names and receiving no answers. Ko-Jin paid them little mind, however. He was busy trying to swallow the lump that had suddenly lodged in his throat.
 

“Ma,” he repeated in his native tongue, pulling her into a hug. “Are you alright? Were you mistreated?”

“I’m quite alright,” she said, though he knew she would hardly admit it if she weren’t. “It is good to see you, my son.”

“I’m sorry it took so long. I’m sorry you’ve had to suffer on my account.”

She stroked the back of his head, just the way she always had when he was a boy. “Well, better late than later, as my husband would have said.”

He laughed, and the knot in his abdomen finally eased.
 

26

The man discerned a female voice shouting, “Yarrow! Yarrow!” It was not until he heard the call several times before he recalled that ‘Yarrow’ was his name.
 

He opened his mouth to respond, then clicked it shut again. He bit his lip, overcome with indecision. He did not know this person—whether she was friend or foe. It was not the woman Trinna, he felt confident. This voice was deeper and a good deal more emotive—she, whoever she was, sounded desperate, but from what that desperation derived he could not say.

She moved closer to his cell, the smacking of her rapid footfall amplified.
 

“Yarrow,” she bellowed again, and then in a softer voice, “Blight it, where are you?”

He opened his mouth anew, poised to speak, but once again thought better. He had too little information to make an intelligent choice, so he’d do better to keep his promise and remain where he was. If this woman was indeed a friend of his, he would no doubt learn of it and find her again.

Besides,
he thought with a sour twist of the mouth
. I’m still not wearing a stitch.
 

The woman moved on, her calls growing distant once again. He did not relax, however, unsure whether his silence had been prudent or witless.
 

He waited in thoughtful silence for some time, hoping that Quade’s promise of clothing and food would arrive. He pulled his knees up and tucked his arms between his thighs and chest, but he still trembled with cold.
 

The countless lacerations across his flesh stung, but nowhere so much as his hand, the pain of which seemed to be the center of his being. He tried not to linger on it, unsuccessfully. It was difficult to think of anything other than his agony and his ignorance. Where could one’s mind flee when there were no memories to provide escape? He tried to imagine other places, nice places, but he knew only dark and dankness—flat, cold stone and metal bars.
 

People moved in the hallway; he could hear their footfalls. It sounded as though doors were being unlocked, many of them.
 

“He
has
to be here, doesn’t he?” a male voice said, not far from Yarrow’s own chamber. “We should search the rooms. He could be gagged.”

“Right,” the same woman from before said, hope blossoming in her voice. “I hadn’t thought of that. You’re right. Let’s unlock all of the doors.”

Metal jangled and the cell door next to Yarrow’s opened. “Yarrow?” the man said, his footsteps circling the adjacent room.

Yarrow’s heartbeat accelerated. He froze, muscles tensing.
 

“I swear,” the woman said in a strangled voice. “When we find him, I’ll…I’ll…” She swallowed. “I’ll just kill him for putting me through this.”
 

The other gave a snorting laugh that sounded forced. “Fine, you can kill him. But let’s find him first.”
 

The man called Yarrow frowned at the floor beneath him. Were there people in this world who
weren’t
contemplating his murder? Quade, at least, had promised friendship. And clothing.
 

His resolve hardening, he decided he had best hide. The chamber was largely empty, but he thought if he angled the chair he’d been bound to and crouched behind it he might escape detection, as long as the space was not properly lit.
 

He padded barefoot to the chair and, careful to make no noise, to not allow its feet to drag, he positioned the seat so that it was cocked diagonally from the wall. Once it was in place, he knelt and did his best to stabilize his breathing.

A key clinked in the lock and the door opened. Someone raised a torch that threw a dim pool of light in the room.

“Yarrow?” the woman asked, stepping into the cell. “Are you here?”

He held his breath, knowing that his feet were likely visible. She, whoever she was, stood not much more than an arm’s length away.
 

If she looked, she would surely see him. He saw her.
 

Her pale face was cast in sharp shadows, her mouth pressed in a grim line. The torchlight illuminated the halo of copper hair that wreathed her face. Gazing at her, something within him stirred.

She heaved a sigh, then her shoulders squared. She turned to her partner. “No sense in unlocking all these cells if they’re empty. I’ll just do a quick pass.”

There was movement—the man handing the woman his torch. The light grew brighter, and Yarrow strove to shrink into himself, to cease breathing.

Then, much to his amazement, the woman walked, not back out into the hallway, but straight through the wall of the chamber. His eyes went wide and he slumped back down to the ground. He’d seen, in his short existence, one woman who could look inside minds and another who could pass through walls. He thought again of the enigmatic parting the blond lad had given—‘
He doesn’t know who or what he is.’

What,
exactly, was he?
 

“Yarrow?” Bray cried, passing through yet another wall. She could hear the pleading note in her own voice, but didn’t care. Finding him was all that mattered—everything would be alright once they were together. Her chest ached and her eyes burned, and she cursed herself.
Stop
, she thought.
He’s not dead. He’s
not.

She was so totally consumed by her need to locate him that she forgot who else she might find in this prison. Forgot, until she walked through a cell and found herself face to face with the object of her nightmares.

At first glance, he was exactly as he had once been. He had the same thinning brown hair, the same bulbous eyes, the same jowls, the same towering height.
 

Her torch hit the floor and rolled in a half circle.
 

“Bray?” Rance Marron asked, his gravelly voice disbelieving.

She was, in an instant, a child again. Her heart palpitated in her chest, rapid but weak. Her guts formed a tight coil, even as her fists balled. He just stood there, staring at her, making no move.

Yet, she felt him on top of her, crushing all the air from her small body—as he had done. She felt him
inside
her, a violation painful and sickening and tainting, like oil spilled into fresh water. Knowing he’d made her a filthy thing—knowing it to the horrible sound of wheezing grunts and slapping flesh. Hot breath in her face, the floor molding digging into her back. A torn funeral dress, bloody petticoats.
 

He gagged, his sallow face turning a hideous shade of purple. She realized, all at once, that they were on the ground, her atop him, her hands about his throat, squeezing the life from him the slow way. He twitched beneath her, like dying things do.

She could not recall choosing to strangle him, nor enacting the plan—did not remember taking him to the ground. Horror at her own lack of control caused her to loosen her grip.

He gasped, drawing a raking breath. “Don’t,” he croaked.
 

She narrowed her eyes, and when she spoke her voice was a hiss. “Don’t
what
?”
 

“Ki-kill me,” he pleaded.

With a growing sense of revulsion, she understood the truth: he was pathetic, blubbering up at her. He was not the figure of her nightmares any longer—she perceived that he had grown flabby and gray, with great paunches under his eyes, a body that was simultaneously shriveled and bloated.
 

As this fact flashed through her mind, her hatred redoubled. How
dare
he be pathetic, when she wanted him to be evil incarnate. To have been ruined by such a sad, sorry man was infinitely worse.

Her knees dug into the cold ground, her chest heaved.

“Why shouldn’t I kill you?” she asked, the question escaping in barely a whisper. She kept her hands round his throat, but had loosened enough that his coloring shifted from puce to pink.

His eyes bulged. “Because…because…” He seemed at a loss. She tightened her grasp. “I’m…your…family,” he managed at last, each word uttered with difficulty.
 

Her mouth twisted in disgust. This creature was most certainly
not
her family. Family did not do the things he had done. No—her father had been her family, and later Peer and Adearre. Never him.

Adearre’s name echoed in her mind. She tried to shoo him away, swatted at him like a pesky fly, but his face and voice were suddenly first in her thoughts.
 

He would not kill. He would not want her to.
 

‘What good would it do, love?’
he seemed to whisper.
 

She released her uncle and scrambled away, not wanting him close. He raised a hand to massage his throat, gagging.