Page 79 of Fable for the End of the World

Melinoë still hasn’t spoken. Her eyes are trained in the middle distance, a muscle pulsing in her throat. No words can pass between us that won’t be heard by a million people in New Amsterdam, by Azrael and all of Caerus. Hopelessness pools in my stomach.

“Azrael doesn’t make idle threats,” she says at last, in a voice that’s hardly more than a whisper.

With my other hand, I finger the seam of the white dress.Wear this and he lives.

“I didn’t think he was bluffing,” I reply bleakly.

“It’s always been like this.” Finally, she meets my gaze. Her eyes are haunted. “He just takes and takes. I—we can’t stop him.”

A lump rises in my throat, because she’s right. We have nothing to bargain with. What are two girls against Caerus? They could kill us in an instant, in a spray of bullets. They already proved that, with the Dogs. Every second I’m still breathing is a mercy they’re granting us both. Another debt—one that I can repay only with my life.

“If I don’t do what he wants, he’ll turn me into an empty shell,” she whispers. “Like Keres. And marry me off to someone in Caerus upper management. It’s what he does to all of us, in the end.”

And somehow, even though I’ve never set foot in the City, even though all I’ve seen are photos, I can envision it. It’s clearer than a dream; it’s almost as real as a memory. Melinoë, strapped down to the table, syringe in her throat. A blank, glassy look in her eyes, unknowing and unknowable. Some nameless, faceless manslipping his hand around her waist, between her legs, pressing her onto the bed.

Before I can even process it, I’m on my feet. I rise so suddenly that my chair topples over and clatters to the floor. And then, with a strength born only of adrenaline and sheer rage, I flip over the table, sending all the supplies, the hunting suit and the white dress, careening into the wall. Decon-tabs scatter everywhere.

“Fuck!” I scream. “Fuck him—fuck this—fuck everything—”

Melinoë just stands back and stares as I lurch through the cabin, smashing everything I can get my hands on. I kneel down and pick up a package of bandages, just so I can tear them apart. I hurl the rusted, ancient rifle against the wall, and the stock breaks off the barrel. It doesn’t matter; it’s useless against Caerus. All of this is useless. I stomp on the meal replacement packets until they burst. By this time, I’m breathing so hard I can’t even speak, but I can still hear the pulse of the tracker, as ceaseless as my own heartbeat.

I pause, chest heaving, my gaze blurred with unshed tears. I look over at Melinoë. Somehow, impossibly, her eyes are damp, too. She told me that Caerus had removed her tear ducts. But maybe that was another one of Azrael’s lies.

Suddenly, she drops to her knees. She fishes through the supplies until she finds the knife, her knife. She holds it up for just a moment, a furrow between her brows, lips quivering. And then she brings it down, slashing through the middle of a Mylar blanket.

Her movements are not swift, not graceful, not Angel-like. They’re blundering and staggered, made clumsy by her anger. Ikneel down on the floor and join her, tearing through the remains of the Mylar blanket, throwing whatever other supplies I can get my hands on, both of us breathing hard in tandem, the air growing thick and hot with our shared fury.

At last, the rage runs through and out of us. We’re left kneeling, shaking, and struggling for breath. The tip of my nose prickles with oncoming tears, but the rest of me just feels heavy and numb.

Melinoë lets a strip of Mylar drift from her hands. Her hair is around her face and her cheeks are filled with that purple flush. Her lips are still swollen, with the memory of my kiss, and I want to grab her and kiss her again, again and again, as if the only touch she’ll ever know is mine.

Thirty

Melinoë

I’m sure the cameras loved it. Our unchecked, desperate fury.Azrael would find it very cinematic. It’s nothing anyone has ever seen before: an Angel, finally cracking her cold facade. The clips will be famous. But I’ll never get to see them. I won’t kill Inesa, and he’ll Wipe me the moment the helicopter touches down in the City.

I lift my gaze to Inesa’s face. I see every detail of it, from the constellation of freckles across her nose to the nameless green-brown color of her eyes, and think,I’ll forget this, too.I’ll forget how it feels to touch her, to be held by her.

The bile of rage rises in my throat. We both breathe heavily into the silence.

And then, suddenly, Inesa bites out, “No.”

My brow creases with an unspoken question.

“No,” she repeats, her voice trembling. “This can’t be it. This isn’t how it ends. I won’t let it.”

I feel my heart cracking with an emotion I’m not supposed to feel. But it overrides my programming. It washes over me like adark wave, but it doesn’t drown me. I’m just carried aloft in its great tide.

“There’s nothing you can do,” I whisper. “Thisishow it ends for me. How it ends for every Angel.”

“No,” she repeats stubbornly. Her hands are balled into fists.

“They’ll kill him.” My stomach feels acid with anger. “Luka.”

At that, Inesa draws in a breath. She sits back on her knees, falling into silence. I look around at the mess we’ve made, all of Azrael’s neatly packaged supplies, destroyed. It doesn’t matter. They were useless against Caerus. He only sent them to serve his narrative. So the audience could be convinced that Inesa had a fighting chance. I have to swallow to keep from screaming.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Inesa cocks her head and asks, “Have you ever heard of the Drowned County?”

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