The Madness Project (The Madness Method) (72 page)

“Kantian’s been talking to folks at the palace,” I
whispered.  “I’ve seen him.  Seen him talking to this bald fellow.”

I’d never actually seen
that
, but it seemed close
enough to the truth.  Maybe that’s all I needed.

“Bald fellow?” Branigan echoed.  “Tall, darkish skin?” 

I nodded. 

“Are you certain?”

I swallowed.  “And I think he doesn’t get on too good with
Rivano.”

“Well,” he spat.  “Everyone knows
that
.  I didn’t
think he’d go so far as that, though…”

As what?
I wondered.

“But it does seem to fit what Shade was saying, about the
scientist,” he said, looking at his men.

“I saw him talking to a scientist too,” I said, desperate.

Branigan studied me, frowning.  “What’d he look like?”

I closed my eyes, trying to remember the Kalethelia
celebration.  All I’d seen was the spectacles, though.  Grobbing useless, that.

He had a pocket watch
, the crow said
.  Or, the
device that looks like a watch.  The heavy brass one, remember?  Look, look
closely…I saw all of it.  See my memory.  We know him.  We remember him.

The image in my mind clarified all sudden-like, throwing
every detail in the plaza into sharp focus.  I saw the ribbons in a dancing
lady’s hair, the laugh on a young lad’s face, a copper I’d never even noticed
scowling straight at me.  And there, standing with Kantian, was a tall, thin
man, grey-haired, spectacled, with a thick blue jumper and fine, elegant
hands. 

Dr. Kippler
.

Kantian had been talking to Dr. Kippler.

But why?  The scientists hate us, and we hate them.  What
would Kantian possibly have wanted with him?

“His name is Dr. Kippler,” I whispered, and described him
best I could.  “I’ve seen him before.”

“I wager you have,” Branigan said.  He straightened up, blue
eyes shifting over the crates as he thought.  “That’s a good bit juice.  Well
done, girl.  I’ll keep my word, and forget about Shade.  Won’t bother him
again.”  I started to draw a breath of relief, but he turned and jerked his
head at one of the toughs, just as he released my arms.  “Kill her.”

I saw the gun flash up and screamed, and my voice melted
into the crow’s.

Chapter 5 — Tarik

Someone was crying.  That was the first thing I became aware
of, followed by the realization that I had a pillow under my head.  My thoughts
spun, muddy with pain.  Somehow I had a sense of fleeing, as though I could see
all that was me rushing away toward the horizon…rushing, rushing mad, but never
reaching. 

I squeezed my eyelids together.  Every sense in my body
burned.  Searing pain shot through my nerves, a fire raged behind my eyes.  I
could barely taste or smell or hear anything…only the sound of crying and the
pulse of my blood at my temples.

Finally I managed to push open my eyes.  The room tilted
crazily above me, everything bobbing and shrinking in sinuous syncopation.  I
retreated into the darkness in my thoughts.  I was starting to remember…it was
always the worst part of waking up. 

“Is he awake?” someone asked, close by my head.

It sounded like Coins…

Stars.  How’d I get back to the Hole?  Did they find me…?

I tried to focus my memory on the last few moments before
I’d gone dark, but everything was muddled.  Branigan.  I could remember
Branigan, so furious.  They’d tried to drug me again.  Or had I gone begging to
them, a coward, a failure?  I couldn’t recall.  All I knew was that they’d
tried to use it to get me to talk…again.

Had I said anything?  Had I told them? 

I remembered…a gun.  A shout.

A shout.

I sat bolt upright, the world reeling until I thought I’d be
sick, but I gritted my teeth and pushed the sensation away.

“Bugs!” I called. 

Someone was standing close beside me, reaching out toward
me, but I shoved his hand away and staggered to my feet.

“Shade, sit down before you conk!”

That’d be Jig, his voice coming from my other side, close by
my elbow.  I drove my hand out and pushed hard as I could, and heard him topple
back onto the cot.

“Wait, Shade!” Coins said.  “Hang on a minute, right?  We
gotta talk to you.”

“Later,” I said, my voice coming out in a growl.  “Where’s
Bugs?”

I blinked a few times, and slowly my vision cleared enough
that I could make out the details of the room around me.  I couldn’t see who
was crying, and I couldn’t quite tell if they still were, but somehow the sound
of sobs lingered in the corners of my mind like they should have been mine.

Feeling a little less dizzy, I pushed past Coins’ failed
barricade, and headed out of the barracks.  I could hear the lads rushing after
me, but I didn’t slow down, and when Jig tried to grab my arm, I drove my elbow
back against his chest.  They didn’t understand.  Maybe they couldn’t
understand.

“Stay
away
from me,” I said.  “Where’s Bugs?  I saw
him…I’m sure I saw him…”

I burst out of the Hole into the enclosure, and stopped
dead.  Just in front of me stood Hayli, her eyes red and swollen, her hair
blowing across her face.  She seemed perfectly calm, but she had the coldest,
stillest look in her eyes that sliced the distance between us.  For one
agonizing moment, my heart froze in my chest.

“Hayli?”

“It’s all your doing,” she said.

“What is?” I asked, suffocating.  My gaze drifted past her,
down, down to the wet pavement shining in the sun, down to the boy who lay
there, pale as starlight.  I staggered back, the ground tilting beneath me. 
“No. 
No
.”

“
You did that!
” she shouted, and all her muscles
coiled like a spring, but suddenly Anuk was there beside her, pulling her back,
holding her close.  She fought against him viciously, crying, “It’s your fault,
Shade!”

I just stared at her, stricken, my heart shattering.  I
couldn’t even think.  That boy lying on the ground, that couldn’t be Bugs.  It
was impossible.  A trick.  A cruel joke.

I took a step closer to him, then another.  But I couldn’t
see him at all now.  I dropped to my knees and reached out, but my hand shook,
and the world shattered, and I couldn’t close the distance between us.  I
couldn’t touch him.

“He died trying to save your life!” Hayli cried, still
trying to pull free from Anuk.  “If only he’d known what a sick, selfish,
cowardly
traitor
he was saving!”

Anuk tightened his grip on her.  “Hayli!”

“Traitor?” I echoed, numb.

Hayli stopped fighting against Anuk, but she hadn’t calmed
down at all.  She looked angrier than ever, worse for being so still.  “You
told him about me, Shade?” she asked.  “What’d you tell him?  What’d you tell
him about me?”

“What?” My thoughts careened crazily; I had no notion what
she was talking about.  Why would I tell Branigan about Hayli?

“Dan’ pretend you dan’ remember.”

“Hayli,” Anuk murmured, shifting his grip on her.  “Hayli,
let it be a minute.”

I couldn’t tear my gaze from Bugs’ face, but all I saw were
memories.  I was choking, while all the world disappeared around me. 

“Oh, God.”  I turned to face Hayli.  For a split second the
blaze of fury in her eyes dimmed.  I swallowed, hard, but couldn’t swallow the
burn in my throat.  I said, “It should have been me.”

The worst part of waking up was the remembering.

*  *  *  *

Coins found me an hour or so later, sitting on the roof of
South Brinmark Station.  I hadn’t expected anyone to come; I couldn’t imagine
that any of them would want anything to do with me now.  So when Coins called
my name, warning me that he was coming behind me, I wasn’t sure what I felt. 
Two parts relieved to three parts ashamed—or maybe angry.  Maybe they were the
same thing.

“What do you want, Coins?” I asked, staring down at the
people straggling across the street below.  “Come to give me a lecture?”

“Come to get your help,” he said. 

He stopped beside me, arms crossed, and the way he didn’t
sit down I knew something had to have gone wrong.  I gave him a vicious kind of
smile that didn’t seem to faze him at all.

“You want my help?  Have you noticed anything about how
things tend to go these days when I get involved?  Stay away from me, if you
know what’s good for you.”

“Right, whatever.  Hayli needs you.”

I shot him a dark look.  “Don’t vutting lie to me.”

Coins groaned, tugging at his hair.  “I know what you’re
feeling, right?  Don’t tell me I don’t, because you really don’t know a thing
about me, do you?”

I studied him, holding my tongue.  He was right; Coins knew
everything about everyone, but no one really knew anything about him.  And the
shadow in his eyes made me think twice about arguing with him.

“You think Bugs would be happy to see you like this?” he
asked.

“Shut up,” I snapped, launching myself to my feet and
spinning to face him.  “Don’t you dare.”  A sick ache pulled on my heart. 
“Bugs would’ve hated me if he actually knew what I was doing.”

“So?  Stop.  Do it for him.”

I choked on a faint laugh.  Coins had no idea.  It wasn’t
just Branigan and the way he’d helped me make my own prison, it was everything
that made me crave that prison.  Everything that made me want to forget.

“You don’t know me at all, either,” I hissed.

“What, like the fact you’ve been sneaking off to the palace
ever since you got here?”

The blood drained from my face.

“Don’t say anything, right?” he said.  “Don’t lie, don’t
argue, just don’t talk.  I know you’re not what you say you are.  Haven’t quite
figured it out yet, but.  The man’s got secrets.  Don’t we all.”

“What if my secrets could kill every last one of you?” I
asked, voice hoarse, drowning in the wind.

“Good luck with that.  Don’t think you could off this lot even
if you wanted to, right?”

I rubbed a hand over my mouth.  “Have you told anyone?  I
know you can’t keep that gab of yours shut.”

“Sometimes I can,” he said, and smiled.  “Look.  I don’t
give half a damn about what you do.  I don’t believe you’re a traitor.  I think
you’ve got things you do that people shouldn’t know about, but that ain’t the
same thing.”

I stared at the ground below.  Everything inside me wished I
could just disillusion him, once and for all, and make him see what a traitor I
really was.  How everything I’d done so far had resulted only in chaos and
hatred and death.  But I couldn’t speak.  Not a word.

“Shade!” Coins said, planting a hand on my shoulder. 
“Listen to me!  I mean it.  Hayli needs you.  Stars, I wouldn’t have come after
you right now if it wasn’t serious.  I know you need time, but you’ll have to
take it later, right?  Please.  He’d kill her and not think twice.”

That snapped me from my brooding.  I turned and frowned at
him.  “What?  Who?”

“Kantian.  Somehow he’s got to thinking that Hayli’s been
feeding information to Branigan about the Hole.  He thinks she’s a traitor.”

My breath hissed out. 
Branigan
.

“What’s he going to do to her?”

“Give her the lash for starters.  Not sure what he’ll do
after that, if she’s still alive.”

My blood scalded through me like rage.  I must have got some
kind of look on my face, because Coins backed a few steps away from me.

“You think I can stop him?”

“I think you’re the only one who can,” Coins said.  “Derrin
would, but he’s gone missing.  The kids are a bit wild that he might have
gotten turned out, too.”

“
What?
” 

That didn’t make any kind of sense.  I could always tell
that Kantian was terrified of Derrin, but I couldn’t imagine that would give
him the guts to expel him from the Hole.

“Anyway, Kantian kind of hated Derrin, but he’s absolutely
scared white by you.”  I frowned, skeptical, but Coins just grabbed my arm and
gave it a firm shake.  “He knows he can’t control you.  You muck up his plans.”

“You know more than you’re saying,” I said, voice low. 
“What aren’t you telling me?”

Coins just shook his head.  “I’ll tell you, but there’s no
time right now.  Please.  Kantian’s half mad.  He won’t stop with punishing
Hayli.  I don’t know what he’s planning, but he wants war, and he won’t stop till
he gets it.  And if that means pushing the King into retaliation, he’ll do it.”

“Never figured you for a loyalist, Coins.”

“I’m loyal to the Hole.  I don’t want to see these kids pay
the price for Kantian’s ambition.”  He gripped my arm tighter.  “Hayli won’t be
the last.”