This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity #1)(79)
“Where are we going?” she asked in the elevator.
“Where are we going?” she asked in the garage.
“Where are we going?” she asked as the car’s engine came to life, and her mother finally answered.
“We’re going home.”
They never made it.
Kate sat up. Tears were streaming down her face, making tracks in the dust. She scrubbed her cheeks with the back of her hand.
I want to go home.
The words had been hers. Always hers. She’d said them a hundred times. When had they gotten twisted, tangled, confused?
That plea, that night, her father’s H bruised into her mother’s skin . . . what else had she forgotten?
The accident spiraled through her mind, pieces fitting into the gaps. The sudden headlights, as if they’d veered into oncoming traffic—but they hadn’t. It was the other car that swerved. And then her mother’s gasp, her sudden jerk on the wheel as she tried to get out of the way. Too late. The horrible momentum of the crash, the sound of crushed metal and broken glass, and the blinding force of her skull meeting the window. Her mother, slumped against the wheel, broken lungs fighting for air once, twice. The world suddenly so still, white noise in her ears and blood in her eyes and, beyond the broken glass, her father’s pet just standing there, his crimson gaze sharp and his mouth curled into a rictus grin.
Kate surged up off the bed, and retched on the old wood floor. She crouched there, forcing air into her lungs. How could she forget so much?
But she remembered now.
She remembered everything. And those memories didn’t belong to a different Kate. They were hers. Her life. Her loss. And one way or another, she would have Sloan’s heart.
Shaking, she got to her feet, steadied herself, and rounded the bed. She rolled the rug up with her shoe, fingers skimming the wooden floor until she found the lip of the loose board and shifted it aside. Nestled in the darkness beneath she found the metal case and lifted it free. She spun the lock, lining up the numbers until the case clicked open. Inside she found a clip of cash, a set of border papers, and a handgun. Her mother hadn’t wanted to take it, but Harker insisted, so she had put it here, with the other things she didn’t need. Kate pocketed the cash, checked the gun’s magazine—it was full of silver-tips—and slid it into her waistband, tucked against her spine, before turning to the papers. She thumbed through the stack, hesitating when she saw Alice Harker’s face staring up at her. She put her mother’s papers back in the box, folded her own, and got up.
In her mother’s chest of drawers, Kate found a dark sweater and when she held it up, she was surprised to see how close they were in size. Another reminder of how much time had passed. She set the sweater on the chest of drawers and stripped off August’s jacket and the shirt beneath, cringing at the way her stitches tugged as she pulled on the clean clothes, the silver medallion warm against her bare skin. She closed her eyes and brought the sweater cuffs to her nose, inhaling the fading scent of lavender. Her mother had tucked it into all the drawers to keep the clothes fresh.
She found a T-shirt for August and slung it over her shoulder.
The bathroom was still quiet in that heavy way, so she hung the shirt on the door and went outside, padding across the tangled grass and ruined garden toward the small garage. The sun was already starting to sink, but the light caught on something in the distance, beyond the line of trees and back in the direction of the Waste.
Kate squinted.
It looked like some kind of warehouse, or an industrial barn. It was new—at least, it hadn’t been there six years ago—but the whole thing was still, no smoke rising from the chimneys, no trucks coming and going, no perimeter. Either it had been abandoned or raided.
Inside the garage, she found the car. It had gone unused, even when they lived here, but her mom had insisted on having one, in case of emergencies. The day they returned to V-City, Harker had sent a small entourage to pick them up, so there’d been no reason to take it. She disconnected the battery from the generator and closed the hood. She tipped a gallon of gas into the tank and tried the door. It creaked, but came open, and Kate lowered herself into the driver’s seat, and found the key tucked against the visor. She slid it into the ignition, held her breath, and turned. On the first try the motor shuddered. On the second, it started.
A victorious sound escaped her throat.
And then, as she turned the car off, she heard the rumble of a second engine. A distant truck. She held her breath and reminded herself that the main road lay on the other side of an incline and beyond the line of trees. She reminded herself that no one could see the house from there, but she still stayed in the car, gripping the wheel, until all she could hear was her heart.
August knew he was losing his mind.
The worst part was he could feel it happening.
The sickness had taken over his body, infecting his thoughts, and now he was trapped inside himself, caught in the haze like a dreamer trapped at the edge of sleep. He could feel the corner of the dream but he couldn’t reach it, couldn’t pull himself out.
He couldn’t hold on to his words, either. They slid through his thoughts and out of his mouth and then they were gone before he could grasp their meaning.
The pain had faded for a while, smothered by madness and joy, but now the tallies seared across his skin again, pulsing hotly, and the gunshots rang through his head in a barrage of white noise. He pressed his burning forehead against the cold tiles, his skin hissing like doused fire as the cold fought against the fever.