Keeper of Crows (Keeper of Crows #1)(13)

“You’re full of questions, girl,” Gus answered.

“You would be, too.”

His brows kissed one another. “Suppose I would. It is a risk to leave, but if we catch a floater, it’s more than worth it.”

“Did you just call us floaters?”

Gus smirked. “Ironic, eh? Just like shit in a bowl, you are.”

“Fuck you, Gus.” I kept walking behind him. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a dick?”

He shot a nasty look my way, or maybe that was his happy face. I couldn’t tell.

Pamela wept. She lamented over the people she left behind, pleading with Gus and Chester to release her, to let her go back home.

“Please, I have two little boys. They need me. Their father works nights. I need to help my elderly mother. My family depends on me. I have to go back. Please!”

I kept quiet for once, letting her work the pity angle. I didn’t have anyone to go back to. No one cared if I was here, or in the hospital bed fighting for every breath. No one cared if I lived or died. But I wasn’t above lying and creating a worse sob story if it worked for her. Even though I doubted it would. I had a feeling that Chester and Gus didn’t care about the sad lives of ‘floaters.’



*

The streetlights were busted out, chunks of plastic and glass lying beneath them on the asphalt. It wouldn’t have mattered if they were lit. Nothing could brighten the dull in this place. Except the graffiti—which was everywhere, and it, too, was comprised of gray pigments, though the words themselves were colorful and mostly consisted of four letters. Pamela gasped when she read a few of them.

“What kind of place is this?” She began hiccupping in earnest.

Gus just laughed. “This is the bad part of town.”

“I haven’t seen a good part yet,” I smarted off.

Chester smiled and quickly tugged my leash tight. The lightning burned the back of my neck with a sickening fizzing sound. “I’m starting to think you don’t like me, Chester—a fact that hurts my feelings.”

He stopped and tilted his head. “You’re the strangest floater I’ve ever seen. Most are like her.” He jutted his chin toward Pam, who swiped the snot on her face with the heel of her palm.

“You’d prefer a hot mess over joyfully complacent?”

His nose wrinkled. “No, I guess not. Come on. We ain’t got all day.”

There was no sun. Maybe it was already night in this place. How would you be able to tell? Did time even matter? A minute could have passed on Earth, or maybe a week, a year.

Chester stiffened. “Crossing the boundary with two will be interesting.”

“I’ve never done it,” said Gus, his tone serious.

“Me either,” replied Chester.

“I thought you said you’d caught two floaters before, but it had been a while?” The men shrugged at me in turn. Liars. Lying bastards. They’d never caught two at once. Not that this was real…but, still. How hard could passing a boundary be? Don’t mind us, we’re just out for a stroll across the boundary.

“So, you gonna tell us what the boundary is and how it’ll affect us?”

Pamela made a high-pitched shrieking noise from her throat. “Are we going to die?” she wailed.

I snorted. “Pretty sure we’re already mostly dead.”

“I died in a car wreck! It wasn’t even my fault. You? You’re some psycho. You look like you’ve been in a horror movie. What did you do? Slit your wrists? Take a hand full of pills?”

Checking my wrists to make sure, I saw there were no marks. I narrowed my eyes at her, grinding to a stop, which made Gus stop. Chester and Pam did, too. “I’m the only one here on your side, lady,” I retorted. “I may be handling this situation differently than you, but I’m waist deep in this shit regardless.”

She inhaled some more hiccups. “Y-you act like this is a joke, but this is really happening! It’s not a dream.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve pinched myself. I have real tears. I can’t get relief from this heavy stone of dread that’s crushing my chest. Don’t you feel it? Don’t you feel the gray, the evil, seeping into your soul?”

“Is that what we are?” I snapped. “Because souls don’t cry! Souls don’t have hair or skin that burns! They’re like ghosts, and, though they may float, they don’t get dragged with lightning leashes!”

She shook her head, stumbling over a manhole cover. “I didn’t think so either, but it’s like we changed somehow. We were in the hospital, in our bodies, and then we weren’t, and then we were taken and brought here...”

Pam prattled on in nonsensical rabbit trails, earning a few sharp tugs from Chester. I pretended to listen. This nightmare had to be close to over.

Caws echoed between the abandoned buildings as a murder of crows swirled overhead. “Where did all of those come from?” I said to myself.

“They won’t hurt ya, but this complicates things. The Keeper’s near,” Gus muttered. “If we hurry, we can rush through the gates.”

“The Keeper?”

“Yeah. The Keeper of Crows.”

That explained everything. Not.

Chester and Gus slowed their steps and reeled us in close as they looked around at the rooftops and in the alleys. Their eyes scanned the windows of the apartment complexes, darting from one place to the next. Pamela was shaking all over.