Page 43 of The Darkest Half

The Order certainly pulled this off. Whatever it is. They got every part right—except the part where they capture Victor. In the end, Victor Faust outsmarted them all. He had to sacrifice us to do it, but such is the way of life in a world of crime and death. What did I expect would happen?

Sometimes I wonder why they could never catch him. How could a highly sophisticated assassin organization that has existed for decades, maybe even a century, never find and kill Victor Faust? An organization not only with highly trained assassins but spies, too? Victor is one man. He may be a ghost, but in hindsight, he is still just flesh and blood; he is still a man, and it amazes me that even after being compromised by me, no one in The Order could ever touch him.

What does that say about The Order? Are they not as elite as they appeared to be? Or is it just that Victor Faust, the assassin they created, is more sophisticated and skilled than an organization full of people?

I believe it’s the latter. The son often exceeds the father; the apprentice outshines the master; the creation kills its creator. It is the way of the world.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

I clench my eyes thinking it’ll somehow shut my ears to the sound of her damn shoes, but it doesn’t.

“Hold him up,” I hear Lysandra tell the men carrying Niklas.

I open my eyes a crack and lift my head just enough that I can see Niklas’ bare feet—we took off our shoes days ago and never put them back on—and his toes are dragging the floor. He has let the men carry every ounce of his weight, and I wonder if that’s part of this secret plan that probably only exists in my delusional, hopeful mind.

Delusion or not, it seems like a good idea: don’t help them; let the men carry all our weight so they’ll tire out a bit more. I’m not sure why, but something is better than nothing. A shitty plan is better than no plan. A possibility without a projected outcome is better than no possibility at all.

I let all my weight drop, but the change makes little difference to these much bigger men carrying me—I’m like a feather in their arms.

The elevator dings, the doors part like a stage curtain, and the seven of us step off into brighter, blinding lights and a much wider hallway. I want to keep my eyes closed, but the hostage part of me keeps them cracked so I can glimpse my surroundings. The tile beneath my bare feet has changed color from speckled white to gray marble, so shiny I can see my reflection as we travel across it. Even Lysandra’s heels sound different here, more pronounced, confirming my assumption of the much wider hall.

I raise my head a little, and I can see out ahead of us a giant double door made of the same thick mahogany as the door to the room where Niklas and I had been confined. Two men in suits stand on either side of the doors, watching us approach and no doubt ready to let us pass into the mysterious room behind them.

For the first time since this all started, I feel afraid.

20

Izabel

The double doors open wide, and more bright light gushes into the hallway; I squint my eyes but resist the urge to close them completely. I can’t miss anything; I need to stay awake, focused, and alive for as long as possible.

We are dragged through the center of this enormous room with tall ceilings and bright white walls; the gleaming floor stretches out beneath me in all directions like a sea of marble. There is no furniture in this room except at the very end, out ahead of me, where seven chairs are positioned: three on each side, with a taller, more pronounced chair in their center. It and the one directly to its right are the only ones vacant. Three men and two women occupy the other five, but I cannot see their faces; I’m too far away, and starvation has severely compromised my eyesight. But I feel like I’m in a throne room and the middle chair belongs to none other than Vonnegut. The empty chair on its right probably awaits the toothpick-skinny ass of Lysandra Hollis, who has just walked past me in an arrogant whirlwind of Red-Light District perfume.

We approach closer, about twenty more feet, and then we are released onto the floor. I’m so weak that I don’t catch myself in time before I fall forward and hit the cool, hard marble beneath me. Blood springs up inside my mouth as my teeth pierce my damn tongue. I moan against the sharp, burning pain, but it’s all I can do.

I hear Niklas grunt next to me when he, too, hits the floor. The sound of his clothes shuffling goes still after a moment when he finally manages the least uncomfortable position.

With my cheek pressed against the coolness of the marble, I look across at him, and he at me. He looks terrible, as I know I must. His lips are dry and cracked and bleeding; his face is gaunt, cheekbones so pronounced he appears more skeleton than man. The whites of his eyes are gray, like plastic, but maybe it’s just the offensive light playing tricks on my mind. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve hallucinated. I’m not entirely sure that any of this is real. A part of me tells me it isn’t—it feels artificial. Like once, when I didn’t sleep for three days, my brain was so out of sequence that I felt like I was in another reality. So, maybe I’m still in the room; perhaps I’m not even in this building at all, and this entire thing has just been a figment of my imagination, a hallucination brought on by lack of sleep.

Or maybe I’m already dead.

The echo of dress shoes tapping across the floor pulls me back into the present, the one I’m still unsure is real or just a dream, and I raise my eyes, cheek still pressed to the floor. I hear Niklas moving beside me, so I assume his attention must be as piqued as mine.

Slowly, the tall, dark figure walks toward the center chair. The man is clad in the finest suit; a Rolex dons his right wrist—not that I can see it from so far away, but I do see the enormity of the object and the sparkling of the glass and can safely assume that it can only be a Rolex.

I try to adjust my eyes, and my vision is so blurry at first that all I can see is the man’s figure. I can see that the other six people sitting in the chairs now stand out of respect.

Yeah, it’s Vonnegut. I can feel the power in the room; I physically feel it on my skin in the form of goosebumps and sweat.

Taking a deep, steady breath, I try harder to focus, and slowly but surely, the faces start to come into view, like a reflection on the surface of water after it has been disturbed.

I keep my focus trained on Vonnegut, wanting to see him and only him. I couldn’t care less about his henchmen, henchwomen, or that Nazi, Lysandra Hollis—James Woodard!

There he is, sitting at the end, his sausage-like fingers curled over the end of the armrest. He’s dressed in a suit that just barely fits his round body.

I feel even more breathless suddenly and try to raise myself, but all I can lift is my head from the floor.

“James…”

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