Tormented (29 page)

I felt my knees lose the last of their strength, and I caved to them, barely noticing the pain.

My heartbeat thundered in my ears, the drum sound of doom, fear, horror.

Z …

I whipped my eyes around to Brant and saw him clearly, now, with the clarity that had been missing before.

Brant …

I spun my head to look at Sarah, already knowing what I’d find, and horrified when she was there, looking down on me, just the same as she had countless times in my life, with that look of utter contempt and coldness.

Brant was Breandan Duffy, my friend.

Z … was Zack Davis, my first love.

And Sarah was Sierra Nealon … my mother.

“You can’t kill what is already dead, daughter mine,” Sierra said, pitiless, looking down on me like the scum I always suspected she thought I was, “and you killed every single one of us long, long ago.”

I was on my knees in stark horror, surrounded by people I’d loved and failed, people I’d killed and seen die, who’d died because of me or for me, and I felt sick in a way that my body did not currently possess the ability to express.

“Ohmyshit,” I whispered, staring from Zack to Breandan to Sierra to Winter.

“Your shit?” my mother asked. “I think you’re losing it.”

“Lost it already,” I muttered, looking up sullenly at Breandan, “thanks to you.”

“I do what I can,” he said in that lilting Irish accent of his. It had been trying to burst through in the way Brant spoke all along, and I’d never caught it.

“I did what I could, too,” I said, looking straight at him. “I tried to save your life.”

“Oh, yeah,” he nodded, “and hers too, I’m sure.” I looked where he pointed and saw Apollonia, the clerk from my cabin rental place, appear out of the shadows. Her face distorted like theirs had, and I blinked in surprise. It was Athena, a girl I’d tried to save from London before the extinction. “But she died just the same as I did, when your enemies came charging in with guns a blazin’. Even you, with a few guns of your own to blaze, couldn’t protect us.” He stepped closer to me and knelt down to look me in the eyes. His were bereft of the warmth they’d possessed in life. “You got us killed. As good as murdered us yourself.”

“I didn’t kill you,” I whispered.

“But you did,” Sierra said, stepping in and kneeling like Breandan had. “You killed him, and you killed me.”

“You died to save me,” I said. “You gave your life for me—”

“Maybe I wouldn’t have,” she said, “if I’d known what a miserable, worthless failure you’d turn out to be.”

“Then you’d just have died when Sovereign came for you,” I served back at her. Hey, she was my mom, and vision or not, I had more experience being a smartass to her than anyone else.

“You always did enjoy a good argument,” Zack said, kneeling down with the other two. Winter hovered in the background, a pillar next to their shorter figures. “But try and argue that you didn’t kill me.”

“Maybe literally,” I said, looking right at him. “But you know I wouldn’t have made that choice.”

“Choices?” Zack smiled. “Your choices led to death even when you didn’t want them to. That either makes you incompetent or a hell of a butcher.”

“Jury’s out,” I said, muttering. “Apparently not literally, though, because I appear to have been judged already here.”

“We know the truth of your guilt,” Breandan said and stood. He towered above me as he had in life.

“We don’t need a trial,” my mother said, standing, judging me from above—also, like she had in life.

“Zack,” I said, looking right at him, “if it’s really you … you know I didn’t kill you.”

A shadow fell over his eyes before he answered. “But I’m dead, aren’t I? Just as cold and dead as if you’d put your hands on me yourself, with your own will.”

Before I could muster an answer to that, Breandan closed in on me, looking at me with those piercing, dead eyes. “You’re a murderer. Killer. Destroyer. Everything you touch dies, and I’m not speaking figuratively. You carry death in your very skin, even when you’re not spreading it with guns and fire. You’re an aberration. An abomination. And you don’t belong anywhere.” He grinned, and his smile was frozen in a too-wide rictus, like he’d been hit with Joker gas. “Why, you told me so yourself.”

“Everyone hates you,” Sierra said, seizing me by the face. Her hands were so strong, and I was so weak, I felt powerless to resist. “And why shouldn’t they? You are death. Death incarnate.”

The world around me started to shake, and I couldn’t tell whether it was some symptom of the fear or the sickness, clawing at me to get out, to make itself manifest in the world, until the voice rang out through the surreal, sunlit office.

“RESIST.”

The hands clutching at me were like withered claws digging into my skin, ripping at my flesh by slowly sinking through it. It was painful, and my eyes were wide and grew wider at the sound of the voice. I looked around, trying to figure out if my visions could hear what was being said, but they gave no reaction.

“… and you’ll continue to bring death to everyone,” Sierra said, “and you’ll die alone in thousands of years, in the middle of a dead planet, all by yourself like Sovereign would have—”

“Get … help!”
the voice rumbled again, deep and familiar, heavy like a weight on the ceiling of the world, trying to break through the facade of the sky.

“What help?” I cried out, and my mother clutched me harder.

“There is no help for you,” she said, “you’ve killed everyone.”

“Everyone,” Breandan and Zack chorused, with a measure of baritone Winter thrown in.

I blinked back the tears. “Not everyone. Not Scott—”

“Oh, him?” My mother turned her head to look at something, and I followed with my eyes. In the corner of the office, sitting placidly in a chair, was Scott Byerly.

“Scott!” I called out, rushing headlong into the hope the voice gave me. If he was here, maybe he could help; he certainly wasn’t dead. “Scott!” I called again.

He did not move, he did not speak, did not turn his head at my call. Instead, he stared straight ahead, eyes blank as though death had claimed him alive, and his body had yet to react to it.

“Scott!” I called again. “Please. Please … help me.”

There was a hint of movement in his neck, and my heart leapt within me. He was turning his head to look, to look at me—

And then I saw the first crack run through his neck like cement breaking under pressure.

The next one appeared in his head, running down from his hairline, spider webs lacing over his ruddy skin from out of his sandy blond hair. My relief turned to ash as I watched him crack and crumble like a broken vase fallen to the hard ground. He dissolved into pieces in the chair, taking my faint hope and dashing it, along with his body.

“He’s nothing but a hollow shell,” Breandan crowed, “like someone scooped him out and left him empty inside. So fragile, he breaks with nothing but the slightest pressure applied.” His eyes seized mine again. “Maybe you didn’t kill him, but he’s not whole. He’s missing things, and sooner or later, your mark of death’ll hit home, and he’ll die as sure as if you’d had your way with him without a condom.”

“You’re death, sweet daughter,” my mother said, eyes boring into mine like she was performing some sort of mental brain surgery on me just by looking into my soul. “You’ve known it all along, and you’ve done everything you could to carry that philosophy out into the world, from Wolfe to M-Squad to Crow Vincent to however many nameless flunkies you’ve slaughtered over the years. You’ve killed enough hired guns to put a fifty percent premium on the worldwide mercenary market.”

“You’re making that up,” I said.

“Don’t you read the intelligence briefings?” my mother asked with sadistic glee. “Or is that another of your failings, along with the touch of death?”

“I haven’t killed everyone—” I said.

“Everyone.” Winter led the chorus this time, and I looked back at the tall man, saw the snows rising outside the office window like an ice age had settled in.

“Not … Reed,” I said, and thoughts of my brother flooded in. I pictured him through the pain, the thought of him smiling. It had been so long since I’d genuinely seen him smile at me. Now he was stiff upper lip Reed, so serious all the time, so judgmental.

I didn’t even care. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I’ve let myself get too quick to anger, too quick to kill. Maybe I was …

… was …

… maybe I was a cold-hearted murderer.

… was death.

Reed was right. They all were. And part of me wanted to tell him so right then, to look in his eyes and tell him he was right so that maybe I could at least see him smile one last time before—

“Sienna?” My brother’s voice filled my ears as the world distorted around me.

“What are you doing here?” Sierra asked, her voice a high-pitched shriek.

I opened my eyes to see Reed standing there, in his suit, beard in full bushy bloom and his hair back in a ponytail. “Reed,” I breathed, a silent whisper of thanks. “You were right … about me,” I choked out, barely able to form the words.

He looked around, his eyes widening. “Sienna, where are we? Where are you?”

“Bayscape Island,” I said. “It’s …” I glanced at my mother, whose hands were still anchored on my cheeks. I could feel the blood dripping down my face. “… I’m here.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Breandan hissed at Reed.

“
I
shouldn’t be here?” Reed asked, more than a little offended. “You’re fricking dead, man, I think you should be in the great beyond, not hanging out on Lake Superior’s scenic coastal islands.”

“I killed him,” I said to Reed, because he needed to know he was right and I was wrong, “I killed him. I’ve killed everyone.”

“Sienna, what the hell is going on here?” Reed asked, and he moved forward to push my mother aside. She hit the ground with a scream and rolled back to her feet, hissing at him like a snake all the while. He shoved Breandan and Zack away as well, prompting similar responses. “Get off her, you wraiths!” He shook me, and looked into my eyes. “Sienna, I don’t think you’re on Bayscape. Is this a dreamwalk?”

I blinked, looking around. Everything was surreal, otherworldly. I had passed out, hadn’t I? Was I hallucinating? “I … maybe?”

“Sienna, I need you to tell me where you are,” Reed said. “I need to find you in order to help you.”

“I was on Bayscape,” I said. “I was there on the island, and there were these people, but they were really …” I gestured out to Breandan, to my mother, to … Zack. “They were … them.”

“You met your mother, your ex-lover, and your dead Irish friend on Bayscape Island?” he asked. I wasn’t far enough gone to miss the skepticism.

“Well, when you put it like that …” I said, feeling weak again, like the blood was draining out of my hand. I held it up, and yep, it was still bleeding. “This won’t heal. I can’t reach my souls.”

“You have no soul of your own,” my mother hissed, “so you have to take those of others—”

“You’re a fucking ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” Reed said, and my mother recoiled. “Sienna, tell me exactly what happened from the moment you left the agency.”

“I drove …” I said, “… up to Bayscape. Took the ferry. Met Jake.” He looked at me like he wanted to ask who Jake was, but he held it in as I went on. “Met Sarah … Sierra,” I gestured to dear old mom, “Brant … Breandan, and Zebulon …”

“Dumb name,” Reed said.

“Screw you,” Zack said. “I never liked you anyway.”

“Well, you were never good enough for her anyway, dick,” Reed replied without missing a beat. “Also, your mini-fauxhawk was always stupid.”

“This from a man who's one plaid shirt away from being a lumbersexual,” Zack shot back.

“I met them all,” I said, ignoring all the asides flying around. “And then the weather … the blizzard started.” I giggled, and looked at Erich Winter. “Winter is coming … he’s here!”

“Blizzard?” Reed asked. “What blizzard?”

“It swept over the island,” I said, my voice taking on a singsong quality, “shut down the ferry. Trapped us all there. I got caught out and couldn’t find my way,” I said. “Then they threw me in jail and started tearing me apart inch by inch—”

“Sienna, it’s September,” Reed said. “There are no blizzards in September. It’s fall.”

“It’s Minnesnowta,” I said.

“Wisconsin, actually,” Reed said, “but it’s not Hoth, is my point. There’s no snow on the ground right now.”

I blinked at him. “No, there is. I saw it.” My head tilted, and I looked at Winter. “I saw the snow, saw the blizzard. Saw it with my own eyes and—”

Something shifted in the world, and I felt that gut-wrenching sense of things shrinking around me, like the sun had gone down long ago and I was trapped in the woods, all alone, in the middle of the night.

I stared at the place where Reed had stood only a moment earlier. “Reed?” I asked, and my voice cracked.

“He’s gone,” my mother said, inches from my face. I could smell her breath, her sweat, and it reminded me of the times beyond counting that she’d dragged me physically, screaming all the way, into the dark and heaved me into a metal box. “Now … you’re all ours again.” Her voice brightened, but it did nothing to assuage the choking, gripping fear that was suffocating me in its hand. “You should feel right at home, because this … is where you belong.”

I awoke in a sweat. I hadn’t even thought I’d get to sleep, let alone thought I’d be dreaming lucid, surreal dreams about Sienna being tortured by the people closest to her who had died. My skin was covered in a sheen of perspiration, and my smooth cotton sheets clung to my body as I sat up, gulping in breaths like I’d just emerged from a dive into the darkest depths of the ocean and hadn’t had a bit of oxygen in months.

My fingers came up and found the wetness on my brow, the soaked edge of my hair, which I’d loosed for sleep. It was drenched an inch out from the scalp thanks to my nightmare, and my breaths were still coming in hard gasps, like I was seconds away from being submerged back into the icy cold water again to struggle under the surface of the nightmare.

“What is it?” Isabella asked, awake. She clicked on the lamp next to our bed and sat up, her red slip falling loose on her shoulders.