Chapter 25
1690 Words
25
Scout’s head felt like it was full of sand, and the back of her neck was objecting to the extra weight pulling at it as her head dangled against her chest. Her wrists and ankles itched like mad.
Her hearing was fuzzy at first as she struggled to full wakefulness, but then her ears popped open as if she had just suddenly changed elevation. The murky underwater sounds in her ear were split by high-pitched voices chatting, one shrieking in giggles every few sentences. Scout rolled her head back and forced one eye open, then the other.
Warrior’s lens was gone from her eye.
The lights were still on.
But she was far from alone.
Clementine was sitting cross-legged on top of the island in the kitchen, a slight smile to her lips as she looked down at the two other girls leaning against the counter and chatting up at her and with each other. They looked no older than Clementine. The taller of the two had short, spiky red hair. Not ginger, red like candy. She wore skintight shorts of bright pink and a loose-fitting short-sleeved shirt with such a riot of clashing colors Scout had to look away.
The other girl was smiling and talking as well, but her voice was gentle, almost pleasant. Her long black hair was neatly parted down the middle and plaited into two braids that extended past her shoulders, ending in demure white bows. She was wearing a pleated skirt and a round-collared blouse with a little black bow tie. She looked very clean, all save her white sneakers, which looked like she had competed in a hundred track-and-field events in them. They were worn familiarly around her feet, the leather scuffed and scarred, but the laces bright white and new.
“She’s awake,” the dark-haired girl said, noticing Scout gazing up at the three of them from beneath her brows. She couldn’t quite bring her head up straight, not yet. Had they drugged her?
Clementine looked up at her and smiled.
The redhead turned to look as well. She might have been pretty if dressed and groomed more like the others. If the deep cut that curled up from under her chin to nearly the corner of her mouth hadn’t left a scar. She walked up to stand an arm’s length away from Scout, as if worried she was going to lunge at her. Scout tried to move her hands but then discovered the source of the itching sensation.
They had taken more of the cuffs from the pouch on Warrior’s belt and tied her to one of the chairs. She had been unconscious, surely not struggling, but the cuffs were so tight her hands were turning blue. There was no way she could reach out to try to hurt this girl.
The girl seemed to know it. She grinned as Scout looked down at her own hands and then back up at the girl. She was standing there to make Scout aware of just how powerless she was.
“Clementine tells us you’re Scout,” the girl said. “I’m Beatrice, and that’s Felicity. We’re Clementine’s oldest friends.”
“She told you I’m Scout,” Scout said. Her throat felt raw.
“In her own way, yes,” Beatrice said, tipping her head to look at Scout from a different angle. Scout looked past her to Clementine, still perched on the counter. She could see the hilt of Warrior’s pistol from where the girl had stuck it through her own belt. Warrior’s belt was nowhere to be seen.
Neither were the dogs.
“My dogs,” Scout said, rousting more fully awake. “Shadow, Girl. Where are they?”
Beatrice pulled a completely unconvincing look of sympathy. “I’m sorry. Venting the oxygen from this room was too much for them. I guess you’re on your own now.”
“I can take the blame for that,” Felicity said. She was smearing peanut butter onto cracker rounds but raised a hand as if solemnly swearing she spoke true. “The bit with the oxygen was my idea. You did have the gun, you know.”
“Where are they? Can I see them?”
Beatrice grinned and leaned in to speak directly into Scout’s face. “They’re right behind you. So no, I guess you can’t.”
Scout grasped the arms of the chair in her hands and started hopping madly up and down. The chair pivoted a bit, but not much. She saw Girl’s black hindquarters, her white-tipped tail laying inert on the floor. Then Beatrice put her hands down on the arms of the chair, leaning her full weight in to stop Scout from moving.
Scout gasped. She should be able to shift a girl of this size, but she was incredibly heavy. Like Warrior had been.
“You have body modifications. All three of you?”
Beatrice laughed and turned her back on Scout to walk back to the others. Felicity shrugged as she licked peanut butter from her fingertips. Clementine just smiled.
“You can talk. And so can she,” Scout said, pointing her chin at Felicity. “So why doesn’t Clementine talk?”
“Who knows? She just never does,” Beatrice said, facing Scout once more as she leaned back against the counter. She took one of Felicity’s peanut butter–covered crackers and bit off half.
“Clementine hasn’t spoken for as long as we’ve known her,” Felicity said. “And we’ve known her longer than anyone.”
“But don’t judge her,” Beatrice said. “She’s the best of us. No one takes a mark out like Clementine.”
“Well, she’s also been training longer,” Felicity said. “She got a head start.”
“She’ll always be the best,” Beatrice said.
Clementine didn’t seem to be paying attention to their compliments at all.
“Just how long has she been killing people?” Scout asked.
Beatrice looked up at Clementine. “How long, Clementine? Since you were five?” Clementine nodded. “Since she was five,” Beatrice said to Scout.
“Murdering people at five? Sounds traumatic. Scarring. No wonder she doesn’t speak,” Scout said.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Beatrice said, looking to Felicity. “I’ve been killing people since I was seven—”
“Seven as well,” Felicity said with a nod.
“—and I don’t have any scars. Not psychological ones, anyway,” she added, touching the wound on her face.
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Scout said under her breath.
“She’s good at her job. Whether she can talk or not doesn’t really bear into that,” Beatrice said and reached for another cracker. “Liv told you all about Clementine, but she never mentioned us.”
“Did she know about you?”
“Did she know about us,” Beatrice scoffed, looking to Felicity, then to Clementine. “We grew up together, we three. We were smuggled down here together and into Liv’s care. We didn’t split up until Liv put us in separate houses for the assassin work. Yes, it’s fair to say Liv knew us—what we were, what we did. I guess she wanted one last secret.”
Scout lifted her buttocks off the chair. She shifted to a more comfortable position, but also she felt for the telltale lump of the two data disks in her pocket digging into her thigh as she moved. They were still safe, for now.
“Liv was afraid of us,” Felicity said.
“Yes, right there at the end, she was. Felicity and I had both finished our assignments, but when we went to return home, Liv was gone. Disappeared. Even we with our sizable skills at finding people couldn’t track her down. Not until Clementine just stumbled upon her all the way out here.”
“And she called us,” Felicity said. “And we came, because she’s our sister.”
“We’ve been helping ever since,” Beatrice said. “Not with Ruth, of course, that was Clementine’s particular task, but with the others.”
“How?” Scout asked. “We searched everywhere and never saw any sign of you.”
“We’re very good,” Felicity said.
Beatrice just pointed up at the ceiling.
Scout stared up past the light for some time before she saw what Beatrice was pointing at. The faintest of outlines. A hatch in the ceiling.
“Every room?” Scout asked.
Beatrice nodded. “Every room.”
“No cameras up there,” Scout said. “No motion sensors.”
“Nothing,” Beatrice agreed. “It’s not easy to crawl about up there, true. It’s cramped even for the likes of us. But we had full access to the whole compound and the rest of you never knew. Not even the marshal who thought she was so clever.”
“We had a good laugh about her, didn’t we?” Felicity said.
“Did we ever,” Beatrice said.
“So now what?” Scout asked, heartsick. “Why didn’t you just let me die with my dogs? Why did you open the door?”
“The air thing was my idea,” Felicity said.
“Yeah, you mentioned,” Scout said.
“Clementine didn’t want you to die that way,” Beatrice said. “She really likes you.”
“I’m touched,” Scout said from between gritted teeth.
“We do love her. She’s our favorite sister, isn’t she, Felicity?”
“She is indeed, Beatrice.”
“So now what?” Scout asked again. “Are you going to cut me free? Give me a weapon? A fighting chance?”
Beatrice laughed long and loud, as if this was the funniest thing she’d heard in ages. “You think even with every weapon in this place and us with our bare hands you would have a fighting chance?” Her laughter died as suddenly as it had started. “You wouldn’t.”
“So you're just going to kill me here in the chair?” Scout asked, tears of frustration making her vision swim. She twisted her hands in their bonds. The cuffs tightened, biting into her skin. Blood dripped to the floor. “Just do it then!”
Beatrice looked over at Felicity, who gave another bored shrug. They walked up to Scout still squirming in the chair, step by deliberate step. Then they stopped an arm’s length away, as if still worried she would somehow break free. Scout bit back a whimper of pain. She’d have to sacrifice a hand, and it still might not be enough.
“Rochambeau?” Felicity asked.
“Seriously?”
“Why should she be your kill?”
“Clementine says she wasn’t yours.”
“That’s because she didn’t like the oxygen deprivation thing. You got to kill the last one tied to a chair. I just got to poison the chubby one’s tea. How is that any fun?”
“Oxygen deprivation isn’t fun either.”
“I know, that’s why this one should be mine—”
Scout froze as Clementine appeared behind the two arguing girls, that smile of hers appearing over their overlapping shoulders like some demented sun. She raised her left hand, clutching Ottilie’s little knife, and drove it straight into Beatrice’s ear, promptly releasing it as Beatrice’s knees buckled and she sprawled at Scout’s feet. Then Clementine reached for Felicity, a hand gliding over her cheek as if she were about to draw her in for a kiss. Felicity seemed like she too wasn't sure if Clementine was about to kiss her or not, but when Clementine’s hand tightened on the back of her neck and drew her in, the other hand sprawled across her face, twisting in the opposite direction.
Felicity made one last squeak of surprise. Then she too was sprawled at Scout’s feet. Scout drew her toes back as far as she could, not wanting either of them or even one of Felicity’s long braids to touch her.
Clementine stepped closer, bending to retrieve the knife from Beatrice’s ear. Then she folded her arms, beaming down on Scout.
Scout had never been so terrified to have a friend.
- Writer
