Page 1

Part 1

BroKeN

Chapter

One

Consciousness should be optional.

It’s not so much to ask, to be sent into oblivion when the world is unpleasant, to slip away into the kind of darkness where even nightmares can’t get me, but that’s not how it works. Consciousness is forced upon me.

It’s a flaw, a fatal flaw.

But whose? I don’t believe in the gods. No creator could be so cruel as to forgo a back door to the mind. Or maybe it’s only mine that holds me captive and solidifies every horror into memory.Such brilliance.

I’d let all the memories go if I could.

If the gods were real, if an immaterial force capable of creating life and writing the laws of nature lurked among us, thedecent thing to do when their creations are abducted would be to grant them unconsciousness, or at least drug them.

Decency is hard to come by, so I’m still conscious, stuffed in a full-body sack, trailing along the root-laced forest floor in a pull cart that jostles my insides.

It’s not good.

I wait for the panic to set in, to take over. The tightness in my chest, the emotional itch. I should be terrified, even hysterical.

But I’m not.

I’m too busy puzzling over that little boy. I’ve never seen anyone this deep in my forest. I bring his dirt-smudged face, almost lost under the shaggy mess of golden hair, back to mind. My ears rang when I saw him with his toothy grin. The air got so heavy I thought it might fold me in half, then the sack slipped over my head, and he disappeared with everything else, leaving only a memory for me to stow away.

But I’m no fool.

The panic will come. It always does.

“Kelt?” I whisper into his stubble.

My sight is narrowed to the daylit space within the confines of the sack and the view through its tiny square windows, but that’s enough to confirm we’re heading away from all we know. Even though I can see right into Kelter’s pores, and the heat of his breath clouds around us, I need to know he’s really inside this sack with me, that I’m not imagining his warmth. That I’m not alone.

No answer.

His silence is too loud, thundering through my head. I turn my face toward the sky and drift back to nature, something I can trust. The late afternoon air is warm and sticky, enough to taste the pine, and through the thick weave of the sack, the tops of trees skip through the cloudless sky to the rhythm of our captor’s footsteps.

“Answer me.”

Nothing.

Maybe he’s dead. Maybe the up and down of his chest is really mine. Maybe I’m pressed up against my friend’s corpse, and the warmth and softness will fade to cold death and rigid limbs that trap me in their grasp. Maybe those gods I don’t believe in let him off easy with a torture-free death, a swift blow to the head that I missed in the chaos of the moment.

Is it wrong to be jealous of someone else’s death? And pissed? I’d lose what’s left of my mind if he took the easy way out and left me alone in the hands of a madman.

Past our tangled legs and beyond the tight tie of the sack at our feet, two black-gloved hands belonging to two black-sleeved arms clutch the handle. The cart weaves around boulders, the mountain peaks on either side rising up and up and up, farther than I’ve ever ventured. I lose track of the turns, direction becoming a concept of the past, home so far, far away.

When my body is numb from the vibrations of the cart, dusk falls into place in shades of ripe orange. The bumping and swerving ends, and we’re motionless except for the breath I draw, barely there. Running water trickles in the distance.

Something about the encroaching darkness and the ominous thud of footsteps in the still night strips away my cloak of denial. The panic I was waiting for sets in, choking the air right out of me.

Then finally,finallyKelter’s corpse speaks to me, oh so alive and well that I could kill him for making me think otherwise. Or hug him, because I can’t even fathom taking a life.

He sighs, a warm caress on my cheek. “Ever? Are you hurt?”