Chapter Three
When he heard the knock, he sat back quickly, his cheeks heating, as though he’d been caught doing something wrong. Raphael stepped into the room. “Bilal told me you wished to see me,” he said as he took in the scene in front of him.
“I want you to heal this girl,” Malachi replied.
Raphael’s gaze skimmed over the girl’s body, lingering on the marks on her collarbone and neck. “She’s fairly far gone.”
Something knotted in Malachi’s gut. “I know. Can you save her?”
Raphael let out a quiet huff of laughter. “Are you certain that’s what I would be doing?”
I’ve never been less certain about anything. “I want to question her.”
“Very well.” Raphael knelt next to her. His pale fingers traveled to the buttons of her shirt, and he began to undo them, peeling the bloody garment away and revealing the horrible bruising across her ribs. Malachi nearly gasped as Raphael carefully removed the girl’s shirt, allowing him to see the mottled, broken skin and the misshapen, hollowed-yet-swollen spot at her side where Amid had either kneed or punched her hard enough to cave in her rib cage. Malachi closed his eyes and bowed his head, forcing himself to stay absolutely still. Amid’s life depended on it right now.
“Do you really want to stay, Malachi?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t want to explain to Raphael, of all people, that if he wasn’t here, he’d be somewhere else…killing someone. He knew Raphael was the Judge’s eyes and ears, and he didn’t think that would go over very well.
Keeping his gaze away from the girl on the cot, Malachi stepped backward, lowering himself into the chair in the corner of the room. He watched as the girl’s clothes formed a stained pile of rags on the floor, listened as Raphael’s melodic chanting filled the room. He let it siphon his rage, drawing it out of him like the poison it was. In the past few years, it had become a little easier. He hadn’t been consumed by his anger for a long time. It had mostly been replaced by resignation, acceptance of his role. Acceptance of this sentence.
Acceptance of the staggering loneliness that came with it.
The loneliness had been the hardest. For years, he’d lain in his cot at night, listening to Takeshi and Ana through the wall that divided his quarters from his Captain’s. He’d been happy for Takeshi, really, because the man had burned for Ana for over a decade before she’d stopped pounding on him long enough to notice. And Ana…she’d needed Takeshi. He had reached her in a way that Malachi didn’t understand and frankly hadn’t been that interested in. He cared about Ana, but not like that. He admired her edge; she’d become an incredibly fierce warrior over the years, but she was so hard, so sharp…except when she looked at Takeshi. Only when she looked at him. It had been easy to be around them, since he cared about them both and wanted them to have the joy they’d found in each other. That didn’t mean it was easy to lie awake, hearing exactly how much joy they’d found.
It had been worse when Takeshi died, though. Because then he’d lain awake, listening to Ana sobbing alone in Takeshi’s bed. Her cries had made his chest ache so badly he’d eventually moved his quarters to the other side of the Station, just to get away from her. He couldn’t survive her loneliness and grief on top of his. Now they’d lapsed into a casual professionalism, never confiding, never crossing that line into friendship. He couldn’t bear to lose her, too, and he suspected she felt the same way, though he also knew they’d never talk about it.
He’d never ask for more from her, but sometimes he wished…Malachi rubbed a hand over his face. He had no right to wish for anything.
“I’m finished,” Raphael said quietly. “She’ll sleep it off and be good as new.”
Malachi raised his head, and his breath caught in his throat. The healthy color had returned to the girl’s skin, no longer ashen, now the color of a caramel; no longer bruised, now smooth and unbroken. Her full lips were slightly parted. Her chest rose and fell with every breath…her chest…Malachi swallowed hard and leaned over, pulling the sheet up from her waist to her shoulders.
Raphael chuckled. “How gentlemanly of you. By the way, I brought something from Bilal. He wanted you to see it.”
Malachi pulled his gaze from the girl, suddenly aware of how unsteady his breathing had become. “What?”
Raphael held out a knife. “This is what she used to stab Amid when he tried to arrest her.”
Malachi took the blade from Raphael and turned it over in his palm. It was one of their hunting knives, the kind each of them carried in an ankle sheath. He examined the hilt. An elaborate J had been carved into its base. “This is Jasim’s?”
It was Jasim’s. He knew for sure, and shouldn’t have phrased it as a question. But…Jasim was a Gate Guard. He was posted at the Gates of the city, there to usher all the souls inside and to prevent anyone from trying to escape. Malachi looked up at Raphael, who was watching him with an amused expression. “Is Jasim accounted for?”
Raphael nodded. “I made sure to ask. Jasim is alive and well. He’s rather embarrassed that someone was able to steal his knife without him noticing, though.”
“How did she…did he leave his post today?”
Raphael shook his head.
“And he had this with him this morning?”
Raphael smiled. “He did.”
“She must have stolen it off him on her way into the city.” Malachi shook his head in disbelief. “Have you ever heard of something like this?”
Raphael’s smile grew, lighting up his face, becoming so bright that Malachi had to look away. “As far as I know, this is a first.”
“She’s very tough. Did you see what she did to Amid?”
“I’ve just come from his quarters. Second time today I had to heal him.”
Malachi handed the knife back to Raphael. “Give this back to Jasim. And tell him to pay more attention.”
Raphael accepted the knife. “Anything else?”
Malachi was already staring at the girl again. “No, that will be all, thank you,” he murmured.
He barely registered the sound of the door shutting as Raphael made his exit. Slowly, he sank to the floor next to the cot, close enough that he could smell the sea breeze coming off the girl’s skin — a fresh, bright scent that crawled inside of him and hollowed him out, leaving him hungry in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. She smelled alive. But not in a tame, gentle kind of way. This girl made him think of an ocean that might rise up and crush him beneath its waves, one that could drag him under and drown him if he wasn’t careful.
He should be careful.
He should be very, very careful.
Malachi stood up and unbuckled his vest. He stripped the leather bracers from his forearms and the greaves from his shins. He removed all the weapons from his belt, leaving himself with only the knife sheathed at the base of his spine, one that could be drawn quickly if needed, but couldn’t easily be reached by others. He went to the door and called down the hall, summoning one of the Guards to take his armor to his quarters. “Also, get me a set of clothes,” he instructed. “One large enough to fit a grown man. And when you come back, I want you to lock this door from the outside, and don’t open it until you hear me pound twice.”
The Guard nodded and lumbered off down the hall. Malachi closed the door and stood there for a few moments with his palm on the doorframe, wondering if he was crazy. He spun around and faced the cot, leaning back against the solid wooden door. “She’s just a girl,” he whispered to himself.
That was one of his problems, of course. She was a girl. Not the prettiest he’d ever seen, but there was something about her that made him want to stare for hours. Something mysterious and challenging. Something unbreakable and defiant. In the curve of her mouth, in the slope of her jaw, in the flex of her limbs as she stirred quietly in her sleep. When she did, a dark mark on her forearm caught his eye. He lifted her arm to see a tattoo of another girl’s face. A sister, maybe? No. The coloring was so different. A friend, perhaps, or a lover. Or a target, an intended victim. To have a face like this inked on her skin must mean that the person meant a lot to her, in one way or another. The blonde girl in the tattoo seemed vaguely familiar, though Malachi couldn’t recall ever seeing her. He laid the girl’s arm back at her side, wishing he could ignore the warmth of her skin, the soft feel of it under his fingers. She tensed under his grasp and weakly pulled away, whimpering and shifting restlessly. He looked at her face; her eyes were closed, but her expression was tight, laced with fear. He let her go, and she relaxed again, becoming still and loose.
Even deeply asleep, seemingly helpless, she…wasn’t. That promise was still there — the promise of war. She would defend herself. She would not be easily intimidated. He backtracked to his chair in the corner again, needing to get some distance from her. He rested his elbows on his knees and breathed deeply, still able to detect her scent in the air.
Looking at her, he couldn’t help but think of the forest again, of the longing that consumed him every time he went to the roof, the soaring feeling as he imagined himself flying over that wall, over the trees, free. Here it was, the same tug at his heart, the same swooping feeling in his gut. But like the forest, this girl was not his to touch. He could watch from a distance, but he couldn’t reach it…or her. To his horror, he realized he wanted to.
He growled and hung his head. “She is your enemy until she proves herself otherwise. She is nothing to you but a prisoner. One who might have information.”
But as he raised his head to look at her again, he knew. No matter what happened now, no matter who she turned out to be, something had shifted inside of him. He could feel it in the uncertain rhythm of his heart, the unfamiliar heat in his blood, the snap of tension in his muscles, the strange clutter in his normally ordered thoughts.
Nothing would ever be the same.