Page 20 of Odder Still
“If it’s already embedded, then—”
“We will remove it.” Raghnaid cuts them off, sounding so much like Tavish’s diamond-edged voice that it makes me search the room for him, as though he’ll materialize through the blue silk curtains or the sea-covered skylight just to echo her. “By whatever means necessary.”
A buzz of panic rattles my spine, and I can’t tell if it’s mine or the parasite’s. Both, probably. I sharpen my smile, wishing I had something to flick between my hands to distract from the fear leaching into my organs. “I’m offering you this aurora on the basis that I live through its removal, Mrs. Findlay. If you’ve no guarantee of that—”
She doesn’t take her eyes off me as she picks up the sleek, black wall phone and speaks into it, “Join us in the boardroom, immediately. Bring your strongest bindings.”
The panic grows. I search for something to say, but all my best lines flee from my grasp like butterflies into the fog. I could mention my connection to Tavish, but will it make things better or worse? With his distance from the family business and his certainty he means so little to it, what kind of action would his name spur?
A room member in a sheer wrapping dress drifts forward from her place near the back, her strawberry blonde ringlets bobbing as she walks. “Mother, don’t you see? It’s latching to him.” She pauses beside Raghnaid, towering over her by a full head. While her frame is willowy and long, she has the voice of a Findlay, and it does what a Findlay voice seems made for: it cuts. “If we destroy him for the aurora, then we throw away the chance to study a living human host. We may never have another.”
“And if we refuse to take full advantage of this rare opportunity to add to our collection?” Raghnaid snaps in return. “You should not even be here. You are clearly still in mourning.”
As though speaking them made the words true, I notice the deep circles beneath the younger Findlay’s eyes, the red tinge to her whites. She takes a step back. “We shouldn’t spit on the chance to better our company. All our current technology and knowledge didn’t stop Alasdair’s murder, did it?”
Raghnaid’s abyss eyes catch flame. “Ailsa! Your whimsical opinions are unneeded here. Go find somewhere you’re useful.”
Every onlooker flinches, starting with me.
“Aye, Mother.” Ailsa’s full height seems to collapse inward. She vanishes through a door in the far end of the room, not with dramatics or defiance, but as though she’s simply floated herself out of existence.
My one advocate and she’s as viable as the Murk mists. I make a sound that’s meant to be something bigger and stronger—a bitter laugh or a dismissive snort perhaps—but it falls flat. “You’ve never seen this before, have you?” I wave to the parasite with a delicate swoop of my hand. The fuzzed and broken strings of my fishnet gloves look shabby in the harsh light. “You’ve seen auroras. You’ve studied them, but never one latched to a human. You’relackingin that.” I hope she reads into the comment: in all this wealth, you’re still missing something. I don’t know how to feel about that something she’s missing being me, though. Neither, it seems, does she.
Her lips part, but they linger there, her tongue pressed forward. Instead of speaking, her expression twists. The double doors spring open.
A slew of people in pristine workers’ uniforms sweep in, creating a perfect arc around two more black-clothed bodyguards. One hands a pair of thick manacles to Malloch. Their lips tighten, but their worry doesn’t seem aimed in my defense.
Raghnaid steps forward, and I cringe back, the parasite shrinking even as I hold my shoulders straight. She may be shorter, but she never seems to need to look up at me. “Your aurora comes from the South—where you’re from, too—is that not correct? One of those little colonies along the Manduka River, perhaps? Do your people have more of them?”
With weak knees, I lean toward her. “Work with me instead of against me, and maybe I’ll tell you.” I sound like a steamship and feel like driftwood. Half my mind throws up flares while the other half searches desperately for an escape route. Too many workers block the entrance for me to dodge all of them, but the doors behind the silk curtains might be reachable if I move quickly enough. I prepare to spring.
Raghnaid motions to the bodyguards. “Take him directly to the head of research’s external offices—notto the Trench laboratory itself. They will see he gets there.”
At that, the parasite finally blazes to life. Terror suctions up my limbs. This time the emotion comes with no push to fight or run, just a crushing debilitation. I struggle against it, but the devastating panic holds fast like the roots of an ancient mangrove. The parasite’s connection to me grows with every defeat, turning its fear into my own.
Malloch grabs my wrists. I stop breathing. Stop existing. Some part of me hangs in the air, weightless and useless, numbly drowning but still far too much alive. Whether I see it with my eyes or feel it in my skin or sense it with the strangled leftovers of my being, I know the parasite has dug itself deeper.
Breathe, breathe, breathe. I need to move my lungs. I need to still be me.
From across the room, the slam of the door rattles the parasite loose from my brain. I come back to the sight of Tavish, a stack of papers in his arms and an expression on his face like a man going to war.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A Collision of Findlays
The stars are going out, one by one by a hundred.
How do you still see me through this deconstruction?
If I am already lost to the shadows within,
where do I end and the darkness begins?
TAVISH LOOKS READY TO wage war. His silver-trimmed suit lies perfectly beneath his draped sky-blue scarf, its ends tucked into his deep-grey vest. He leads his attack with nothing but the sophisticated rap of his cane and the air of a king coming home.
“Board members. Mother. Ailsa mentioned your predicament.” No one can speak over him. No one can look away. “In the wake of Alasdair’s death, haste isn’t a virtue. I’m glad to see you’re deliberating on this with such care.” He may not be able to see the haste, but Tavish Findlay knows it’s there, the coattails of his words creating a layered condemnation.
His mother’s lips part, but his own move faster.
