Page 117 of Love, Nemesis
“There’s this girl that works in the State capital. She’s a farmer, but like, a clean one.”
“A clean one?”
“She does her hair and stuff. The Numbers will always go and buy stuff from her even when they don’t need it.”
“By Numbers, you mean yourself?” Lethe raised an eyebrow.
“I’m going to talk to her when I get back.”
“Talk to her?” Lethe snorted. “Give her a good talkin’ to then.”
“I will.”
“Good. Do it.”
“No one can stop me.”
“I’m sure.”
Cal’s eyes were open now; he was clearly more awake than Lethe was.
“I think Ana is really pretty,” Cal said. “People are usually soft, but they try and act tough.” He propped his chin up on his palm. “But she’s tough but tries to be a nice person. I always thought she was nice, but I was always afraid to talk to her. I’ve really liked traveling with all of you…” He continued talking for several minutes, running off of nervous energy.
Lethe’s eyes were trained on the fire. At last, he lay down beside it, clenching and unclenching his left hand before zoning back in on Cal. This time, he paid great attention to the boy’s words as he spoke about their adventures, summarizing them, rehashing his experience of Lethe’s fight with the Strike.
“You know, Ivan Rowe was one of the weaker Strike,” Lethe cut in at one point. “That smoke he started off with…it’s functional fear,” he said, speaking of things he hadn’t spoken of in years. “They borrow the forms and mechanics of things both in nature and that have been invented to create their own, frightening attacks.”
“Really? Yeah, that bear machine thing was pretty scary.”
“Yeah.” Lethe chuckled. “You have to keep running into the smoke. Lean into the fear. It will take new forms to protect itself, but it reflects how much power a Strike is capable of harnessing all at once. If you manage to beat through the monsters, you can land a killing blow. It has to be with a cherry knife, though. You need fire,” he explained. And from that point, he shared more that he knew of the Strike than he ever had.
Feeling the coolness in his own fingertips, he shared all of the ways to kill them.
Chapter 30: Trapped
THE HORSE’S HOOVES clacked over the stone of the great bridge, separating the outer farmland from the initial ring of buildings in the State capital.
“This isn’t right,” Cal said.
“Hmm.” Lethe stopped his horse, eyes narrowing as he peered into the distance.
“The city is too quiet,” Cal said, voicing a thought that had passed through Lethe’s mind a mile or so ago. He’d picked up on the silence but was unable to voice it without having to also explain to Cal the nature of the virus that continued to proliferate in his blood in addition to the heightened senses it gave him.
“Ares won,” Cal said, audibly distraught. “He must have.”
“Let’s go,” Lethe said, proceeding forward.
Cal fell in behind him. “We just survived one mass killing. I think we should turn back. Get news from someone else.”
Lethe lifted his chin to the sky. His eyes eased closed as he breathed in the air. He couldn’t smell blood.
He did smell shock.
“Cal,” Lethe scolded him, relaxed. “Turn back, but you’re doing it on your own.”
Cal didn’t reply.
They proceeded forward. Lethe scanned the area before he stopped with a view of the main street. Complete silence. He’d been apprehensive about coming back initially. He had been tempted to take a detour to En Sanctus to get more Snake Bite, but he’d sensed something awry in the State capital’s direction and changed course. Cal hadn’t known enough about his original plan to notice the shift in it.
