Storm of Locusts

Chapter 20

Clive, Mósí, and I walk back to the infirmary in silence. Whatever Caleb says is going to decide what the Goodacres do next, and from Clive’s grim face, it seems like it might not be anything I want to hear.

Clive opens the door and I walk through first. Caleb is propped up on a cot, white sheets and a rough wool blanket tucked around his thin frame. His freckles are stark against his light brown skin, and his deep auburn curls are slicked back from a gaunt face. He looks up at me, smiles. I smile back. And then his eyes widen in warning just as I see movement to my right. Disbelief slows my response time, and I forget to move as Rissa’s fist comes flying toward my face.

I take the hit directly on the cheek. Stumble back a few steps, shocked. But then my clan powers flare, and I’ve got a knife in my hand faster than I can think. I lunge forward, instinct driving me. I have a blade at her neck in seconds.

My hands are trembling. K’aahanáanii is singing so loudly in my head to do it, to kill her, to spill her blood for her transgression, that I can’t even hear my own stuttered breath. The only thing keeping her alive right now is that her hands are empty. Her chin is raised in stubborn defiance, head thrown back like a dare. But she’s not trying to fight me, and even I know, through the haze of clan power blood lust, that killing her for punching me in the face is excessive. But I’m still raging.

“What the fuck?!” I scream at her from inches away, my knife still raised between us. “I could have killed you!”

Clive hustles in behind me, shouting at his sister. He pushes her away from me with a rough shove. “What are you doing, Clarissa?”

“She deserved it!” Rissa screams. “She brought him to us. If Kai hadn’t come, none of this would have happened! Caleb wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

I’m still panting, fighting to get my clan powers under control. K’aahanáanii is still demanding that I kill Rissa, that she’s a threat, but I take a few deep breaths to tamp down the adrenaline. Remind myself that I’m trying not to kill people these days.

I run my tongue around my mouth, feeling for a loose tooth. I bit the shit out of my cheek, but no teeth feel out of place. I turn my head and spit a mouthful of blood on the dirt floor, making a note that Rissa packs a hell of a right hook.

“Are you okay?” Clive asks me, hand still braced against his sister’s shoulder. Although I don’t think he’s holding her back as much as he’s keeping her away from me. Like he’s more worried about what I might do to her than what she could do to me.

“Do you really want to do this right now, Rissa?” My Böker is still bare in my hand, my voice tinged with some kind of awful anticipation. “You’ve been promising to kill me since Black Mesa. Maybe it’s time we step out and settle this.”

Her eyes narrow to slits of green and her fists clench. I grin, show teeth still stained red. And let K’aahanáanii croon a little song, something written in Rissa’s blood. It flows from my lips as a tuneless melody, a promise of violence. And, God, it feels good.

“Stop it!” It’s Caleb, his voice a hoarse shout that slices through the tension like a cleaver. “Just stop it!”

Rissa blanches, turns worried eyes to her brother in bed. “I’m sorry, Caleb,” she says, sounding abashed. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” She throws Clive’s hands off and rushes over to sit next to her little brother. She takes his hand in hers, squeezing his fingers in reassurance.

“Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to Maggie.”

She shoots me a glance that says, Not in a million years, before turning back to her brother. Whatever. I’m fully aware that even if Rissa managed to mouth an apology my way, she wouldn’t mean it.

“Are you okay?” she asks him, running a hand over his forehead. “Do you need more water? Another blanket? Clive, bring Caleb a blanket.”

“I’m fine,” her little brother says, heat in his voice. “Stop fussing over me.”

I come up on the other side of Caleb’s bed. “You’re alive,” I greet him. Maybe not the most diplomatic thing I could say, but I believe in cutting to the chase.

“Yeah,” he says.

“You wanted to tell me something?”

He hesitates. “It’s why Rissa’s mad, but she doesn’t understand.”

“Ca—” she starts, but he silences his older sister with a look.

“It’s about my wings. How it happened.”

I shift a little closer. “How did it happen?”

“Kai did it.”

I stare stupidly. It takes me a moment to register what he said. Mósí giggles somewhere behind me. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

“Not the wings themselves. Gideon made them. Well, grew them, maybe? I’m not sure. But he’s amazing. He can make anything out of metal. They’re metal, but you can’t tell. They look real, don’t they?”

I’m tempted to reach out and touch the wings, but I stay my hand.

“Gideon did the surgery,” Caleb’s rushes on, “but Kai helped with the healing time. It used to take weeks, and some people rejected the implants. But Kai helped me so there weren’t any problems.” His eyes are bright with wonder, not the horror I expected, and his breath is short with excitement.

I’m afraid to ask, but I want to know. “Does Kai have wings too?”

He shakes his head. “He told Gideon it would be better if he didn’t, and Gideon agreed. He said Kai was special and he had another purpose.”

“Another purpose? What kind of purpose?”

“You hear that, Monsterslayer?” Rissa says, cutting in, her voice sharp with accusation. “Without your boy helping, Caleb wouldn’t even be like this.”

“No. He said without Kai, it might have been worse.” I turn back to Caleb, picking my words carefully. “You make it sound like he was helping this . . . Gideon? But we saw the tape, Caleb. You were kidnapped. That was your blood on the wall, wasn’t it?”

Caleb flushes. “I was being stupid, you know? I didn’t understand what Gideon wanted. So I fought him. Ziona hit me. That’s what that blood was in the guardhouse. He yelled at her for it. Made her stay behind at their old camp as punishment. It was my fault.”

“So Gideon is the one who took you? He’s the White Locust?”

And that explains who our archer was and why she was left behind. If I had to guess, I’d bet that Gideon knew exactly what would happen to anyone he left behind. He wanted her dead for some reason, and he came damn close to getting exactly what he wanted.

“Sounds like Kai isn’t the Boy Scout you keep trying to convince yourself he is,” Rissa says, picking up where she left off.

“Why would he hurt Caleb?” I ask. “He went out of his way to never hurt anyone.” Except you, Maggie, a voice inside me whispers. He hurt you.

“Hurt me?” Caleb says. “He didn’t hurt me.”

“Then how did you end up with wings, child?” Mósí says somewhere behind me.

Caleb’s eyes search her out, and his smile is beatific. “I volunteered. Just like I volunteered to stay behind. To be the messenger.”

“The messenger for what?” I ask sharply, a chill rolling down my spine.

His head turns to me. His eyes are too big, the whites too white. He looks crazed, and I fight an urge to get away from him. My monster instincts are dinging. Hard. I remind myself that this is just Freckles. Not a monster, even with those wings and that terrible look on his face.

“The message is for you.”

The place on my cheek where Rissa hit me throbs.

“What is the message?” I ask.

“Tell the Godslayer to come to Amangiri.”

The four of us leave Caleb to sleep. Step outside into the cooling evening, the empty town.

“What do you think?” I ask no one in particular.

Clive sighs, rubs a hand over his face and through his hair. “I think Caleb’s only fifteen and he’s been through some traumatic stuff and maybe he’s not thinking straight.”

“He said he volunteered.”

“I don’t know what that means,” he admits. “In his mind, I mean. You said this White Locust is a cult leader of some kind. Maybe he talked him into it and Caleb doesn’t even realize it.”

“Maybe he has a clan power like Kai’s,” Rissa says. “What is his called? Talks-in-Blanket? Maybe he can talk people into doing stupid shit. Hell, maybe Kai talked him into it himself.”

“Kai didn’t make Caleb volunteer for some kind of wing-implant surgery. He definitely can’t make him climb up there to be nailed to a wall. His powers don’t work that way.”

“Why not? You frame it the right way—”

“Perhaps,” Mósí interrupts. “Perhaps the why of the thing doesn’t matter.”

“Easy for you to say,” Rissa fires back. “That wasn’t your brother pinned to a fucking wall like an insect.” She gasps. “Oh my God. With wings even. Jesus . . .” She lets loose a string of curses under her breath.

I rub my forehead. I’m getting a headache.

“Who do you think is the ‘Godslayer’?” Clive asks.

I realize he didn’t hear what the locust man back at Grace’s trailer said to me, and Ben isn’t here to tell him what the archer on the mountain said either. But it doesn’t matter. Rissa gets it.

“Oh, seriously, Clive? You don’t know?” She looks at me pointedly.

“I did not kill a god,” I protest.

“Whatever you call him,” she says, exasperated. “Hero. God. It’s semantics.”

“It’s definitely not semantics, whatever that means.”

“Well, he’s dead, isn’t he? Who else could it be?”

I stare, dumbstruck. “He’s not dead,” I finally manage, but it even sounds weak to my ears.

Rissa just snorts and folds her hands across her chest, unimpressed.

“So, what now?” I ask, changing the conversation to a subject that doesn’t send me to the dark, unforgiving places in my head. “You’ve got your brother back. You clearly hate Kai—and me, for that matter. Does that mean you and Clive are bailing?”

“Why shouldn’t we?” she says before Clive can answer.

I have a million reasons why they shouldn’t. Because I don’t understand the White Locust’s power. Because Caleb being nailed to the Wall and then praising the man who did it to him scares the shit out of me. Because I don’t want to do this alone.

“You don’t want our help finding Kai, Maggie?” Clive asks, sounding hurt.

The words feel awkward as they leave my mouth, but I say, “Yes, I want your help!”

I turn to Rissa. She’s cradling her hand slightly, the one she hit me with. It must hurt. That cheers me up a little, but I still can’t believe I’m really going to say what I’m about to say. But . . . I am. Because I told Kai that I wanted to try something different, and maybe that something different also means admitting shit like this.

“You’re a pain in the ass,” I tell Rissa, “and I think you might have a worse attitude than me, which is saying a lot of nothing nice about you. But you’re good with a gun, and a fist”—I touch my cheek pointedly, and she has the grace to blush—“and I’m going to need help. Mósí thinks the people left Lupton under the influence of a powerful force, something that makes Kai’s Bit’ąą’nii clan power look like a polite suggestion. And we know Caleb volunteered for”—I point back toward the infirmary—“that. We’re up against something—someone—I’m not sure how to fight. I don’t know what to expect, but I know I don’t want to face him alone if I don’t have to. Because I will bring Kai back home or I will die trying. I promised Tah. And I promised myself.” And Kai said he loved me. I take a deep breath, and the words tumble out before I can second-guess myself. “I haven’t seen Kai since he came back. You both have. And it”—I exhale, not sure I want to admit this but knowing that they need to hear it—“and it’s killing me. I need to see him. Alive. I need to know I didn’t . . . I just need to find him, okay?”

Rissa gapes at me for a moment, but her surprise quickly turns to wariness. She presses her lips together, clearly considering my words, before she finally says, “One of us has to stay with Caleb.”

“I’ll stay,” Clive says. “I’m the one with the medical knowledge. I can take care of him until I can get him to Tah.”

Rissa starts to protest, but Clive stops her. “I’m the better choice and you know it. If the two of you can just rein in your bullshit for a few days and work together.”

She looks at her brother, and something passes between them, whole conversations in the raising of eyebrows and the tilt of a chin.

“Fine,” Rissa says. “I’m going back to check on Caleb, and then we’ll get the hell out of here. The sooner we finish this, the better.” And she’s gone, I assume to Caleb for her good-byes.

Clive sighs, eyes on his sister’s back.

“I can handle Rissa,” I reassure him.

“I know you can, Maggie. But I wish you wouldn’t. She didn’t mean anything. She was just worried about Caleb and needed a target to take it out on, that’s all.”

“I’m not volunteering. She sucker punched me, and you and I both know she’s lucky I didn’t kill her for it.”

He shakes his head. “Putting you two together is like sticking two cats in a bag.” He glances at Mósí, looking sheepish. “Sorry. I just hope you don’t tear each other apart before you get to Kai. She’s angry, but she knows it’s not Kai’s fault, not really.”

“Are you sure?”

He studies me for a moment. “You two are a lot alike,” he says.

I make a noise.

“No, seriously. Rissa’s fierce because she loves her family. She would do anything for us. I’m the same. I get that.”

“If you recall, I don’t have a family.”

“I remember,” he says. “And I think maybe you like it that way.”

“What?”

“Don’t take it the wrong way. I just mean that when something is part of your identity for so long, even if it’s not a good thing, it’s hard to let it go. Even if maybe you should.”

“I let Tah move in, didn’t I? And before this, I was working with the Thirsty Boys. Hell, I’m watching over Ben, wherever she is. I’m practically a goddamn auntie!”

“Maybe not quite, but it’s a start,” he admits, his mouth leaning into a smile. “I mean, for someone with your rep. Look, just remember, Rissa’s my sister, Grace’s daughter. We love her.”

“That’s your problem.”

His smile becomes a full-on grin. “I suppose it is. Just try not to stab her, okay?”

“I won’t unless she hits me again.”

He raises his hands in surrender. “That’s all I can ask. I’ll go fetch Ben. She in the mess hall?”

Once Clive is gone, Mósí and I head back to the bikes. But something’s not right. Mósí keeps making little noises, blowing her breath out in short exasperated puffs. Clearly agitated.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her, worried that there’s something bad that I’m missing.

She blinks big eyes at me, hands on her hips. “Cats in a bag!” she exclaims. “Who is putting cats in a bag?! Is this a common five-fingered activity?”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

She glares at me, trying to decide if I’m lying. Finally, she huffs out a breath and says indignantly, “I never!”