The Retribution of Mara Dyer (7 page)

It was my final night at sea, and I was too restless to spend it belowdecks. I hardly ever spent time in my quarters, preferring to watch as sailors strung the ropes from the masts into a giant web, to watch the sails breathe with wind. On past nights, when my presence had been noticed and I was chased below by a man with spectacles like Mr. Barbary’s and shiny gold buttons on his coat, I would creep along the corridors, sneak behind doors, listen to conversations no one guessed I could understand.

But that morning I watched as dawn broke, crisp and clear over the horizon, before a dark cloud enveloped us as the sea narrowed into a river. Iron smoke swallowed every scrap of blue sky, and when the ship docked, I was jostled aside as it crawled with people the way the waters below it teemed with fish.

The river was clotted with other ships, the banks crowded by docks, and buildings with domes and arches and spires that scraped the sky. Pipes spit black smoke into the air, and my ears filled with the sounds of the city, with shouting and whistling and chiming and creaking and other sounds so foreign I could not even name them.

I went back to my quarters to fetch my things, only to find that someone was waiting for me.

The man wore black clothing to match his dark eyes, which crinkled at the corners. His face was kind, his voice rich and deep. “I am Mr. Grimsby,” the man said. “I believe we have a mutual connection through Mr. Barbary?”

I did not answer.

“He sent word to my mistress that I should escort you to the London home. Are you ready, miss?”

I was.

He lifted my trunk from the ground, and I stiffened. He noticed. “May I take your things?”

No,
I wanted to say. I nodded instead.

I followed Mr. Grimsby off the ship, watching the way my trunk bobbed with his steps. From the sounds of hooves and wheels and canes and feet, I picked out the
clop
,
clop
of my new shoes on the stone street. I counted my steps to calm myself.

The air clawed at my too-thin dress, and I huddled into it as Mr. Grimsby wound his way to a grand carriage that awaited us. The ink-black horse shied at my approach.

“Whoa, girl,” the driver said, patting her neck.

I took a cautious step forward, and the horse snorted and stamped. I didn’t understand. I had a way with animals; my mind was filled with hazy memories of feeding monkeys from the palm of my hand, of riding an elephant with Sister as it swam across a river.

The horse seemed to shriek, and it strained at the straps that bound its head and body to the carriage.

The driver apologized to Mr. Grimsby. “Don’t know what’s gotten into ’er, sir.”

I reached out my hand to calm her.

Just then she reared. Her liquid black eyes rolled up into her head, showing the whites, and then without warning she bolted.

Mr. Grimsby looked in disbelief after the carriage now tearing down the crowded street, drawing shouts and screams in its wake. We heard the crash before we saw it.

Mr. Grimsby nearly forgot me and took off at a run. I was as close on his heels as my legs would allow, but then I wished I hadn’t been.

The carriage had turned over, and its wheels were spinning in the air. The horse had tried to jump an iron gate tipped with spikes.

She hadn’t made it.

My throat tightened with an ache that threatened to become a scream. I never cried. Not when Uncle had been burned, not when Sister had been stoned. But when I saw the once-perfect black body of the horse now mangled, her coat slick with blood, and I heard the gunshot that ended her pain and misery, my eyes stung as they filled with tears. I wiped them away before anyone could see.

11

M
Y EYES FLUTTERED OPEN. IT
felt like I was being rocked, like I was swaying in the air.

“I am so, so sorry, Mara.” The voice was muffled, distorted. It came from a creature with huge, dark, empty eyes and a hole-punched snout. It
whuffed
as it leaned over me, pried open my mouth. I wanted to scream, but my lips and teeth were numb.

When I opened my eyes again, the world was white and the creature was gone. My nostrils stung, invaded by chemical smells, and the ground beneath me was hard and unyielding.

Because it wasn’t the ground, I realized as the room came
into view. It was a table. A gurney. I was cold, so cold, and I couldn’t feel my limbs.

“I wish we could have avoided this.” The voice belonged to Dr. Kells, and she appeared out of the corner of my vision. I’d never seen her without makeup before. She looked startlingly young, except for the deep lines that bracketed her mouth. Wisps of hair escaped from a loose bun at the nape of her neck. She smelled like sweat and bleach.

“I wanted to fix you. I thought I could
save
you.” She shook her head, like she couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid. “I thought, given regular infusions of Anemosyne and Amylethe, we would eventually be able to release you back to your family. I actually thought you might be able to go back to school!” She laughed then, the sound thin and panicked. She wasn’t looking at me—I wasn’t sure if she was even
talking
to me. And—was she
crying
?

“I’m sorry I made you believe Noah was alive. I am sorry for that. I know how difficult it must have been, hearing recordings of his voice. But Jude gave me no choice, you understand? He’s . . . not well. I had no idea he would take things as far as he did at the Tamerlane. No idea. Sometimes even I can’t predict him.” She laughed again. “Claire was the only one who could. And no one can bring her back.”

Kells swiped at her red-rimmed eyes with the back of her hand. “When he let you out and you . . . What happened in the examination room, with Wayne? My God, Mara. What if
something like that happened again? I know you must think I’m the villain here. No doubt you’ve killed me a thousand times in your head since you’ve been conscious, and who knows how many times while you were unconscious. But think about what you’ve done today. Think about what you’ve done before. The people you’ve hurt? The lives you’ve ended?” She stared at nothing, her eyes wide and afraid. “I tried so hard, but you’re just not safe.”

Then she moved over to a row of steel cabinets and removed something from them. I heard the click of plastic as she fitted a cap onto a syringe.

“I’m going to give you an injection that will stop your heart. I promise you, Mara, you won’t feel a thing.”

But I
could
feel something. I could feel my fingers, and the way the stiff fabric of the hospital gown settled and stretched over my chest. I should have been more frightened than I was. I should have been terrified. But I just felt like I was watching all of this happen to someone else.

“I’ll let your parents know, after, about what you did to Phoebe.”

But I hadn’t done anything to Phoebe.

“And Tara.”

I hadn’t done anything to Tara, either.

“You have a well-established history of violence under sedation,” she said, her cheeks wet, her nose running. “And a documented diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. It will be
extremely difficult for your family to come to terms with the loss, but with time they’ll come to accept it. They’ll have to accept it.” She placed the syringe on a metal table by the gurney. I looked down and saw a drain in the floor. I looked back up, at the strange-looking metal cabinets behind her. It took me a few seconds to realize what they were, and where I was.

The room was a morgue.

“I’ve done nothing but spend years of my life trying to help teenagers like you, and you in particular. But I can’t kid myself anymore.” Her voice broke on the words. “You can’t be fixed. You can’t be saved.” She rolled the sleeve of my stained gown up to my shoulder. I felt her fingers brush my skin. A wave of sensation trailed in their wake.

My body had been numb before, but the wave crested and left my arms, my hands, and parts of my back tingling. Still nothing in my legs or feet.

I felt the scalpel, tucked into the elastic waistband of my underwear, the metal warm from my body. Either Dr. Kells didn’t know about it or she’d forgotten about it, because she was very surprised when I stabbed her in the neck.

I swung my arm with so much force that I fell off the table and crashed to the floor, knocking over the metal table with the syringes. Dr. Kells hadn’t strapped me down. Why bother if I was paralyzed? Pain speared my left shoulder, and I fought the instinct to grab it—I needed to keep the scalpel in my right hand. Kells backed up against the wall, then sank to the
floor. She held her neck with both hands, her eyes wide, blood flowing freely through her fingers.

I told my legs to move, but they wouldn’t. I’d have to crawl. I glanced at the door to the morgue. I could probably reach the handle, but the door itself looked heavy. I might not be able to push it open.

Mara.

I looked up when I heard his voice, Noah’s voice. And then I saw his face. Fine-boned and elegant and pale, with the sarcastic tilt to his mouth that I loved so much, and a shadow of stubble on his jaw. It was him. Just the way I remembered.

But then a gash appeared in his throat, as if someone had cut into it with a serrated knife. There was no blood, no sound as the wound formed a jagged smile at the base of his neck.

It wasn’t real. I knew it wasn’t real. But I was seeing it for a reason.

I rounded on Dr. Kells. She was pale but still conscious, still able to move, and she edged away from the wall. The floor was slick with her blood.

“Where’s Noah?” I said. My voice was thick and flat.

“Dead,” she whispered. She bunched up the corner of her lab coat, trying to use it to stanch her bleeding.

“You’re lying.”

“You killed him.”

“Jude told me he’s alive.”

“Jude is
sick
,” she said hoarsely.

I believed that. But I also believed that Noah was alive. I would feel it if he weren’t, and I didn’t feel anything.

“Tell me where he is,” I said, my tongue heavy in my mouth. I tried to think what I could say or do to make her tell me,
force
her to tell me, then remembered what she had said to Jude.

She had told him I could bring Claire back. Jude had believed it. Maybe he’d been right to.

“Tell me where he is so I can bring him back.”

“He’s never coming back.”

“You told Jude—Claire—”

“I lied.”

Even I thought that was cruel. I was about to say so when I caught her reaching for the syringe. Rage threw me forward, and I managed to swat it away with my hand. Then I pushed myself up.

Dr. Kells was right. I had killed her a thousand times in my head, but she was still here. Whatever drugs she’d given me were working, making it impossible to kill her with my mind. But I could kill her with my hands.

She had dropped her coat, and the blood flowing from her neck had slowed to a trickle.

She’s going to die anyway, part of me whispered.

“But she could kill you before she does.”

I swung my head in the direction of my voice. I stared at
my reflection in one of the steel drawers. She—I—shrugged my shoulders as if to say,
What can you do?

My arms trembled with the effort to hold myself up, but I would not let go until I had an answer. “How do I find Noah?” I asked.

Kells was scrabbling away from the door, away from me, but kept slipping on her own blood. I pulled at her legs, and her skin seemed to come off in my hand. No. Not her skin, her stockings. “What did you do to him? Tell me.”

She didn’t answer. She stared at me and then, without warning, dove for the syringe again.

I slid with her, and in a burst of strength pulled myself on top of her and pushed down on her chest, on her neck. She gasped for air as I wrestled the syringe from her curled fist.

I couldn’t leave her alive. Not after everything. I couldn’t take that chance. But as I held the syringe, I realized I could make death painless for her, just like she’d said she would do for me.

But was what she’d done to me painless? She’d hurt me before tonight, before today. She had tortured me. She’d said she had her reasons, but then, didn’t everyone? Did reasons matter?

She was mouthing something—praying, maybe? I hadn’t seen that coming.

When I’d thought about death before, it had been so abstract. I’d thought things but I’d never
felt
them. But this, this was real. My face was just inches from hers. I could hear
her heart beating weakly in her chest with the effort to pump what blood still remained in her body. I could smell the sweat on her skin and almost taste her blood in my mouth, hot and metallic.

The truth was, I had known since the second I’d woken up in Horizons, since the second she’d confessed what she’d done to me, since she’d showed me the list, that if given the chance, I would kill her.

“Don’t worry,” I said to Dr. Kells. “This will only hurt a little.”

12

I
HALF-STUMBLED, HALF-CRAWLED ALONG THE
metal walkway as the feeling returned to my legs. My hands were scored from pulling myself up the grated catwalk. When I reached a fork in the walkway, I looked left, then right, and saw Jamie and Stella standing maybe a hundred feet away.