I have no idea what she is talking about, but I can’t ask questions even if I were able to think of one—my panic shuts my throat tight.
“Open your eyes,” she orders again. I squeeze them tighter, my face spasming from the effort.
Her voice is sharp against my lips. “Open your eyes, or I gut the boy.”
“Char, don’t,” Dean calls out. His voice falters, and I know he is biting back pain. I know Richtor has probably pressed the knife into his skin.
“You’ll let him go if I do?” I whisper.
Her laugh tickles my face. “Of course not. But I won’t spill his intestines on this imported Italian tile and make you watch as he slowly chokes on his own vomit.”
Bile spikes up the back of my throat, and fear slides through my veins.
I know Dean is shouting, but I shut it out.
He would do the same.
I open my eyes, but can’t bring myself to look at her gaze. I focus on her bright mouth. This close, and I still don’t know if it’s from lipstick or blood.
“I remember there was a time when I would have lamented snuffing out bravery like this,” she whispers. Her words are laced with the memory of sadness, like she is recalling sadness as one would recall the temperature of any given day. There is no emotion attached to it. I don’t know if it’s what happens to every Vessel, or if they have to kill off their human side in order to feed the way they do.
She opens her mouth, and a glow lifts from the back of her throat, like she is lit from within.
I don’t know how this part will work. I just know that I’ll do it to save him, and then Dean will have to do what he’s promised.
I wonder if it will hurt, and I wonder if wondering that, in the scheme of things, makes me a coward.
But God, I hope it won’t hurt.
Chapter 3
THE DAY THE CRIMSON FINALLY TOUCHED US, WE were at Santa Monica High School for one of Vanessa’s gymnastic meets. I remember the day like I remember a nightmare. The reel is cut in odd places, and I know there were memories left on the cutting room floor. I don’t care, though. I know that there are things that I don’t ever need to see again.
When the research ship, the Magdelena, went missing, no one really cared. It was one of those “well, this is odd slash tragic” news stories that ran at the end of the hour before they started back up with the important political news and lottery numbers. “Pirate Queen” was even trending on Twitter. It was something for the conspiracy theory YouTube channels and Reddit threads. The footage from the researcher on board was creepy, sure. But probably a hoax.
There were checkpoints on the off-ramp of the 10 Freeway that day, but no one told us why. Maybe the police manning it didn’t even know themselves yet. Maybe they did, and they didn’t believe it.
The reel in my mind cuts to the gym meet. To the smell of sweat and chalk, and the hardwood bleachers. The instrumental version of “The Bird and the Worm” playing over the mounted speakers as I watched Vanessa.
Vanessa, with glitter gel holding even her smallest flyaways in a tight bun. Her velvet and sequined leotard, and the way she looked at me as I sat on the floor next to the mat, as I always did. She sprayed her grips with a water bottle and ran the leather strap along the inside of the chalk bin. She grinned at me, and I nodded. She walked over.
Help? she asked, holding a hand out. She needed me to tighten the Velcro straps of her grips. I pulled them with a rrrrip and rewrapped them.
Good? I asked. She nodded. I looked up at my family. Harlow sat in the bleachers, her back against the railing as she read a book.
You got this, Van! my mom called from next to her, blond hair catching the stadium lights.
That was the last moment when things were okay. I wish I had memorized it. I wish I’d had the weird sixth sense that told me to keep it close, to burn it into my memory. But even now, the recollection is bleached and faded. I remember the next part, though. How my father clenched his jaw and lowered his phone. He whispered something to my mother.
What? I saw Harlow ask.
But my mom never answered. Vanessa jumped onto the springboard. She swung from the lower bar, bringing her legs up to leverage herself up and over.
Flawless. That’s what she was. A force to be reckoned with.
She was in the middle of a handstand on the high bar when the first scream rang out. It was bloodcurdling. For half a second, I thought it was an injury. Someone dismounted sideways or under-rotated on their tumbling pass.
People started running toward the door, but Vanessa had no clue. She never let anything distract her while she was doing a routine. She swung around the bar, executing a release move.
I glanced up at my family. They were standing, my mom’s eyes wide as she focused on the door.
Harlow looked down at me then, not waiting for my parents to act.
Get her! she screamed. Something in her voice told me not to ask questions. It was full of something I wasn’t used to from Harlow: terror, pure and unfiltered.
I moved, jumping up onto the platform and racing for the bars. And then I saw it.
People, streaming into the stadium. People. But . . . not.
It was the first time I ever saw a Vessel.
Their eyes were red, their steps even and smooth. They poured through the door, grabbing people and pulling them to the ground, their open mouths glowing as they tore into flesh.
For a second, I froze. Just a second. Whatever survival instinct I had clicked in that moment, just as Vanessa reversed her momentum and swung back around the high bar, readying herself for her dismount.
A female Vessel walked slowly toward her, those bloodred eyes fixed on Vanessa.
I don’t know how we survived, knowing now how we were always one glance away from death. My mom would’ve said it was divine intervention, had she made it through the night.
VANESSA! I screamed, launching myself forward. I grabbed her around the waist as she came around, sending both of us careening into the metal-and-wire cable that kept the bars secure to the gym floor. We rolled, and Vanessa landed on top of me.
Something warm and sticky soaked my shirt, and I turned in time to see a Vessel, leaning over one of the coaches, his fingers digging into the man’s throat. He looked up at the bleachers beyond, his eyes glassy with intoxication as he smiled and bore down. The man stopped moving as the Vessel squeezed tighter and more blood pooled, inching across the wood floor.
What the hell? Vanessa said as I scrambled to my feet, slipping once in the blood, and pulled her with me.
Run was all I said, my eyes locked on the female Vessel still slowly walking toward us.
Vanessa, breathing hard, grabbed my hand as we ran, getting lost in the shrieks and shouts as everyone pushed to the exit.
I don’t know how we found my parents. Maybe they found us.
Somehow, we got to the parking lot. Somehow, we got to our car. I got in the back, my hands sticky with chalk and blood. I didn’t move. I could hear the words my parents were speaking, but I couldn’t give them meaning.
He was dead. That coach was dead.
Those things killed him.
They were going to try to kill us. My father weaved in and out of traffic, but when we got to the highway, it was dead stopped. We were trapped. My father whipped the car around. Even in my foggy state, even in the shock, I recognized the streets as he navigated through stopped cars. We were heading to the marina.