Page 45 of Fable for the End of the World

More silence. Inesa’s eyes are damp as she looks at me from beneath her lashes.

“Who’s Azrael?”

I’m taken aback by the question. It’s something I assumed the Outliers knew. Isn’t he as famous among them as we Angels are?

“He’s our handler,” I say. There’s a catch in my throat. “He invented the Angel program. He trains us, decides who to send on which Gauntlet. He decides how we’re supposed to look and act. And he fixes thing when they go wrong.”

The pitifully hopeful part of me is still waiting to hear the faint buzz of the cameras. To hear his voice in my ear. I would even take his anger, his disappointment, if it meant he would save me.

“When things go wrong,” Inesa repeats. “You mean, like when an Angel fails to kill her mark?”

My teeth come together with an audibleclick. Inesa watches me intently.

“I’ve never failed before,” I say. My tone is flat and cold—the way it should have been this whole time.

Inesa’s fingers tense around the handle of the knife.

Maybe I should just kill her and be done with it. But I know it wouldn’t be over, not really. A Gauntlet that isn’t live streamed is just a murder. Quotidian and forgettable. I’m a performer justas much as I am a killer. And I can’t perform without an audience.

It’s not exactly a novel realization, but in this moment, it hurts. It hurts to know that I’m nothing without Caerus. I’m the creature they made me and nothing more. Just a cold body in a hunting suit.

Another realization, equally painful: I need Caerus, but right now—I need the Lamb, too. Inesa. This is her world. She knows about the Wends and the mutations, how to survive in this drowning, irradiated wasteland. I won’t make it without her.

And she needs me, too. She’s useless with a gun, and until she finds her way back to her brother, she’s easy prey for anything in these woods. I can see the exhaustion that’s gouged black circles under her eyes and the thirst that has turned her lips white, cracked and dry.

We need each other, as much as the thought turns my stomach. And I think she knows it, too.

I reach over, slowly, and unzip the compartment of my suit that contains the meal replacement packets. There are four left. I remove one and hold it out to her. My hand trembles as it breaches the space between us.

“Here,” I say. “You must be starving.”

Nineteen

Inesa

I never thought any food that came in a vacuum-sealed plasticpackage could look so appetizing. But the Angel is right, of course. My stomach is so empty that it’s gnawing on itself, like a dog chewing on the same old bone.

Still, I hesitate. I would be stupid not to consider that she’s offering me poison. But that would make for an anticlimactic ending to what has surely been one of the most exciting Gauntlets in years. I remember what she said about her handler—Azrael—making sure the Gauntlets are gripping, dramatic. If she were planning to kill me, she would try harder to make a spectacle of it.

Besides, I haven’t heard the cameras in hours. A sense of wrongness pricks at me. I don’t think any of this is going according to Caerus’s plan.

Slowly, I reach forward and take the packet. It crinkles in my fingers. Melinoë looks relieved. She almost smiles, but catches herself and thins her lips into a line.

I tear open the packet with my teeth while keeping one handbraced on the knife. It’s nutrient paste, the same kind Luka and I sometimes eat when things are really dire. It has a queasy, jellylike consistency that normally makes my stomach turn. Not this time, though. I suck it all down in a matter of seconds, not caring how feral I look to her.

I crumple the empty packet and squeeze it in my fist. Glancing back at Melinoë, I say, “Thank you.”

She nods.

A moment passes. Then she says, “I only have three left.”

My stomach drops. Even if we ration ourselves as strictly as possible, it’s not enough to last us more than a few days. But maybe that’s all I need to find my way back to Luka.

And maybe that’s all she needs to kill me.

“What about Azrael?” I ask. “He’ll pull you out, if he thinks you’re in real danger. Won’t he?”

Instantly, her gaze shutters. This whole time, she’s barely taken her eyes off me—because she doesn’t want to give me a chance with the knife, I’m sure—but now she glances away, to the darkened half of the cave, and says, “Not exactly.”

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