The Marked Girl (7 page)

“I've been waiting for you all day,” he said. “So tell me quick, girl, where are the rest of your little friends?”

Liv tried to control her ragged breathing, tried to curb the panic running through her limbs. “I don't know what you're talking about,” she choked out. “Please . . .”

“No need to beg,” the man continued. “Answer my questions, and I will let you go. Fight me, and I will leave your mangled body behind as a warning for the others.”

Liv struggled to suck in air as the man leaned down even closer and whispered into her ear. “Personally, I hope you choose to fight.”

He gripped her jaw with his hand, and Liv screamed.

T
eeth. Hot breath and so, so many teeth.

Liv was still screaming, but she doubted anyone would come running. The opening to the alley was too far away.

The man's lips curled back. He put his mouth against her cheek, and she felt those teeth touch her skin. Liv braced herself for the pain . . .

But it didn't come. Instead, the man jerked backward. He flew through the air and landed on the ground a few feet from Liv. Standing behind him, brandishing a shining knife the size of a forearm, was Cedric.

Cedric's eyes blazed, and he spared just one glance to Liv before advancing on the man.

Liv scrambled to her feet at the same time her attacker did. A voice in the back of her brain screamed at her to
run, run
! But she couldn't move; she was frozen solid, a statue in jeans and Chucks. And even if she could run, she didn't know which direction to go. The hulking man blocked her exit to the road.

Liv couldn't look away from the man's face. His eyes were still entirely black, reflecting zero light. He hissed at Cedric, a completely inhuman sound.

Cedric lunged at him, and for a moment, he seemed inhuman, too. His movements were so fast, so sure. His face was entirely altered from the one she'd seen in the museum tunnel. He wore the rigid expression of a seasoned boxer, calculating his opponent's next move. One second he was standing flat on the pavement, knife in hand, and the next he was at the man's throat.

The man tried to dodge Cedric. He, too, was moving fast. Much too fast. But he wasn't as fast as Cedric.

Liv tried to keep up with the tangle of limbs, heads, and legs, but she had a hard time telling Cedric apart from her attacker in the fading light. Every few moments she saw the gleaming blade whip through the air before plunging down again. She couldn't tell if it was connecting with anything.

Then she saw an arm in blue sleeves—Cedric's—reach out in a slicing motion. She heard more hissing from the black-eyed man as he leaped away. He was holding his neck, and blood was trickling through his fingers. He was no longer smiling.

“You cannot defeat me with that toy,” he growled.

Cedric actually smiled in response, the right side of his lips pulling upward. “No, but I can have a great deal of fun trying.”

The man lunged for Cedric again, but at the last second he altered his attack, sliding toward the ground and kicking out straight to knock Cedric off his feet. Cedric hit the pavement with a hollow thud, and his smile fell from his face. The man
got up and crouched over Cedric's back, pinning his neck to the ground with one hand.

“Help!” Liv screamed. She turned toward the museum, but saw no doors or windows nearby. “Please help us!”

But even as she screamed her voice raw, she knew there was no time. The black-eyed man was reaching for Cedric's right hand, the one with the blade. He pinched Cedric's wrist hard and weakened his grasp. Liv could see that it would only be a matter of seconds before the knife was ripped free.

“Cedric!” she yelled. But this time, she moved as well.

Concentrate on the weak points. The weak points. The weak points
.

The black-eyed man was focused on Cedric. He didn't see Liv approach, didn't see her kick out with all her might toward the side of his knee.

Liv's right foot connected hard, sending vibrations up her leg. The black-eyed man's leg bent inward. He let out a long, horrid cry and clutched at his knee. Liv reached into her pocket and closed her fist around her keys. She fumbled a bit with the biggest key, the one that unlocked Rita's front door, and situated it between her ring and middle fingers, pointing outward. Before the black-eyed man could get to his feet, Liv punched out with her fist, key first, toward his left eye.

He pulled away just in time, jerking backward so that the tip of the key caught the skin under his eye instead of its intended target. His lips curled and he made a noise that sounded like a cat growling. And not a small cat, either.

Liv's mind raced to think of her next move. The man swung
out with alarming speed and grabbed for Liv's arm, getting a grip on her jacket sleeve. She pulled backward, maneuvering herself out of her jacket and pulling her arm free. The momentum sent her spinning, and she crashed to the ground, landing hard on her forearms. The chilly night air blew across her neck and back, exposed in just a tank top.

Liv twisted her head around to face the black-eyed man. But he stood still, his mouth hanging partially open. He was staring at Liv with wide, rounded eyes that now seemed more human than feral. He almost looked surprised. Liv's torn jacket dangled limply in his hands before falling to the ground.

Before either the black-eyed man or Liv could make another move, Cedric leaped out of the darkness. He brought his blade down hard into the man's back and pulled it out again. The man let out a ferocious scream that bounced off the walls of the alley. He cast one last glance to Liv before turning on his heels and sprinting away.

“How do you like that for a toy?” Cedric yelled to the man's retreating form. He turned to Liv as she slowly stood up. Her eyes were fixed on his bloody blade, which he quickly slipped into his pocket.

“It is gone now,” Cedric said.

It took a moment for his words to register. “It?”

Liv realized she was struggling to breathe, and saw dots begin to circle in front of her eyes. The shapes in front of her—the building, the recycling bin, Cedric—all started to get a little hazy around the edges.

Cedric stopped a few feet away from Liv. “Sorry, I misspoke.
I meant
he
. He was trying to hurt you and—”

“No,” Liv said, her voice coming out firmer than expected. “There was something really wrong with him. His mouth, his eyes . . .”

Cedric's eyes widened. “You could see that? You saw his true face?”

“Of course I saw his face. It was totally jacked, like he was on some crazy kind of drugs or something. But why did he attack me? And, and . . . how did you get to me so fast? And that knife? You moved so quick—”

Cedric reached a tentative hand out to Liv. “You are injured.”

“I just hit my head, I think.”

Cedric shook his own head a little, and gently lifted up her hand. Liv looked down, and at first all she noticed was a patch of red. The skin of her left hand, reaching from the fleshy area beneath her thumb down to her wrist, had been partially peeled away. She hadn't even felt it until just now.

“Whoa,” she whispered.

“And yes, your head,” Cedric added. He reached up and moved a lock of her hair to get a better view of the side of her face. He moved slowly, gently, brushing Liv's temple with his thumb. When she lifted her hand to her head a moment later, to the place where his fingers had just been, she felt something warm and sticky. Blood.

“Oh,” she said, and her voice sounded shaky to her own ears. “I don't do so well with . . .”

Liv pitched forward a little, and Cedric caught her, one hand on her arm and another circling around her back. He held
her steady and slightly away from his body, but Liv was still close enough to feel the heat coming off him, his breath as it ruffled her hair. She righted herself quickly.

“It's okay, I'm okay. It's only my own blood that brings on the embarrassing dizziness.”

“There is not too much of it,” Cedric said. “I can retrieve some clean cloths and bandages. If you wait here, I'll be right back—”

“Are you kidding? There's no way I'm staying alone in this alley.”

Cedric considered this, then nodded.

“All right, come with me, but stay quiet. It would be best if the others did not see you.”

“The others. That's what the man, the—whoever, that's what he said. That he was going to leave me for ‘the others' to find.”

A look of concern passed over Cedric's face, but he said nothing. He picked up her discarded jacket and handed it to Liv. She threw it over her shoulders and followed him back down the alley.

“You don't seem really surprised by that,” Liv said. “Do you know who he was? Why he . . . what he wanted?”

Cedric hesitated before answering. “Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?” Liv fought to keep her voice calm, but could hear hysteria edging in. She breathed in deep. “What
exactly
is it? Drugs? Gang stuff?”

“It is . . . difficult to explain. And trust me, you really do not want me to.”

“Trust you. You want me to trust you. You know how crazy
that sounds? We were just attacked. We have to report it.”

“Report it to whom?” Cedric said, looking genuinely confused.

“Uh, the police?”

They'd reached the grate in the wall of the museum. Cedric turned to face her, and his expression was difficult to read in the darkness.

“You mean the men in blue. With the lights that flash.” He made a circular motion in the air with his hand, as if he was trying to demonstrate police lights. Liv's eyebrows shot up, sending a spark of pain across her hairline. She winced.

“Yes. Here in . . . well, pretty much all English-speaking countries, we call those men
the police
.” Liv put a finger to her temple and rubbed, trying to ease the pain there. At this point, she wasn't sure how much of it was caused by her head cracking against the concrete and how much was caused by trying to carry on a conversation with Cedric.

“You may call the men in blue if you wish, but if you do, we will be long gone before they arrive,” Cedric said. “We have already had interactions with those men—the police—and they only tried to separate us. They threatened to send us away. Though to where, I know not.”

Liv flinched reflexively.
They only tried to separate us.
She thought of Peter and Maisy, then pushed them quickly again from her mind.

“They cannot help us,” Cedric continued. “We are alone.”

Cedric's voice wavered when he said this, and Liv felt her frustration ebb a bit. She knew what it was like to feel that
there was no one who could help. She also knew exactly how the LAPD could be when dealing with street kids. Still, she couldn't shake the physical memory of how the black-eyed man had pinned her to the ground, how he'd fought . . . something was wrong with him. Really wrong.

“Okay, I won't call the police. But only if you explain what the hell just happened. That's all I ask. Give me one straight answer.”

Cedric breathed out. “Okay, I will try,” he finally said with a short sigh. “But not out here. Let us go inside. We will clean your injuries, and I will tell you what you want to know. Though I promise you will not believe me.”

“Don't be so sure,” Liv said. “I mean, maybe it's the gaping head wound, but I'm feeling pretty open-minded.”

She smiled up at Cedric, but he shook his head, confused.

Liv dropped down to the grate. “No one ever gets my puns.”

Careful not to touch her injured hand against the concrete, Liv crawled through the grate hole and out the other side. After a moment, Cedric came through behind her.

“What is this place, anyway?” Liv asked.

Cedric's voice was hushed when he answered. “It is an old part of the museum, I believe, that has been closed off. I found the opening in the alley wall, and it led to this.” He gestured to the tunnels.

“And the other opening, to that room with the books? Did you just find that too?”

“That was originally a small hole in the wall that I . . . helped along. I needed access to—” He cut himself off.

“To what?”

“Shh, we are getting closer.”

They walked back through the wooden panel that led to the main blocked-off hallway. Wordlessly, Liv followed Cedric through the tunnel entrance, past the bookshelf, through the small room, and into the hallway beyond.

The door to the archives room was still locked, so Cedric took Liv through another series of halls before leading her to the public portion of the museum. Once there, he quickened his steps and craned his head to look around every few seconds. He only slowed down when they got to a large black door labeled with an
M
. He pushed the door open and made to go inside.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Liv hissed.

Cedric turned around, confused.

“We will need water to wash your cuts.”

“This is the men's room.”

For a moment, Cedric just blinked, uncomprehending. Then his mouth burst open with a laugh that completely transformed his face. His serious features melted away, leaving him looking almost like a different person. A different person who was still frustratingly attractive. And just plain frustrating.

Cedric clapped his own hand over his mouth, silencing the laugh. His eyes still gleamed as he walked into the room and motioned for Liv to follow.

“I apologize,” he said, still smiling as he shut and locked the door behind them. “But the girls here have the strangest sense of propriety. They walk around half-dressed in the middle of broad daylight, but refuse to share a common toilet.”

Liv looked down at her own clothes, frowning. Her outfit
was perfectly respectable—tank top, jeans, and jacket, now a little worse for wear, of course.

“I'm not half-dressed.”

Cedric shrugged. He walked over to the sink and ran the water, putting a paper towel under the stream. Liv moved cautiously toward him and tried not to get too grossed out as she passed the urinals.

Cedric reached out with the wet towel and gently pressed it against the left side of Liv's forehead. It brushed against her torn skin, causing her to wince.

“Hold still just a moment, I have to clean some of the dirt away,” Cedric said, his voice gentle. He was no longer laughing, but his face wasn't as closed off as it had been in the tunnels, either. As he moved the paper towel down the side of her head, Liv tried to sneak glances at his face. His blue eyes covered by dark—almost black—lashes, his long nose, his lips slightly parted in concentration. A spot of skin near one cheekbone seemed to be inflamed, bright purple in the middle and spreading into red as it reached his ear.