Page 8 of A Touch of Gold and Madness (Celestials of Arcadia #1)
Chapter 7
Griffin
“ B e ready.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I drawled, taking in the deserted cityscape around us where lichen climbed the buildings. We stood between decaying skyscrapers, shielded by the shade from the setting sun. Both of our hoods were pulled far over our faces, blocking us from anyone’s view.
The man next to me snorted. “She’s gonna breeze right by here, completely oblivious to her surroundings. She’ll be sporadic, so watch out,” he said as if he knew her, as if he’d trained with the princess in the past.
I knew I should’ve remembered him—trusted him, even. I understood he was important to the plan, and I was aware of what his current role was, but trying to place him from the past and his significance to the part he played today was like trying to grasp air as more memories faded.
I’d received a message that morning indicating a rendezvous point in the alley between the former banking and telecommunications buildings. The madness nearly pulled me under as I had wracked my brain for hours trying to recognize the sender of the message. It seemed like the harder I tried to place him in my memories, the more my mind threatened to fracture for good. The sharp pain slicing through my skull was enough to bring me to my knees, my palms grasping my head .
As I stood next to him now, one thing was for sure: the familiar stranger was a Kinetic.
“Valik wanted me to assure you to have patience. Once everything…”
“What are you talking about?” Valik? I kept my focus straight ahead, staring at the deserted street with weeds growing up through the cracks. A worn shoe lay discarded a few feet away from a hunk of metal on the sidewalk.
“You know…” the man said, apprehension lacing his tone, “with your situation…”
No. I had no idea. “Be more specific,” I snapped.
“Shit. Never mind, man,” he said as if this was information I should know. Was he talking about my affliction? No one knew about that, so I doubted that was the case. Another surge of frustration heated my chest at the loss of memories. Deciding not to push the issue, he added, “Just hurry. I’ll do what I can to help speed things along and get her out here sooner.”
I nodded. “Yeah, do that. I’m ready to go home.” Damn, I missed the serenity of the Hollow. It eased my suffering just enough to be able to hide my spiraling from everyone.
“Just stay out of sight and do what you gotta do. Everything’s at stake.”
With only a nod, I kicked off the wall I had been leaning against and strode away to lie in wait for the princess.
Several hours passed as I hid in an abandoned hookah shop nestled within the city six blocks from the King’s Palace. The blue couch was stiff, dusty, and ridden with bullet holes—pretty sure that was dried blood to my left, too. I leaned forward on the splintered wooden table. It offered enough of a flat surface to get the job done.
After swiping off the dust and debris, I lined up the white powder along the blade of a knife with unsteady hands. I took the wooden straw I’d kept from the Hollow—made by some of the earth wielders who specialized in wood—and snorted a third line within a five-minute span. A numbness swelled in my chest, face, and mind as relief then adrenaline flooded me, pushing the affliction aside. My only thoughts consisted of getting the princess and going home—and killing the king. It seemed the only reprieve I could get from my spiraling state was resorting to extreme measures.
The voice was still there, chattering away in the background, but for now, a barrier blocked him from my central focus, acting as a temporary band-aid. The powder clouded the unwanted thoughts while defining the notions I needed to sort through.
Taking a deep breath, I hummed on the exhalation, savoring the brief euphoria that warmed my chest. I sank back into the couch, relaxing my muscles and slumping low into the stiff cushion. A low chuckle rumbled from my diaphragm. It built and built, rising to hit the peak of hysterical laughter. I gripped my stomach from the cramp, but it only fueled me to laugh harder.
On the outside, my cackling made no sense. I probably seemed fucking insane in all honesty. But I understood it. All the restraint I had been clinging onto for the past few weeks dissipated with the rush of the powder as it swam in my veins.
After several minutes of unprovoked laughter, my breaths finally began to slow and some of the weight lifted from my chest and shoulders. I licked my lips. Good. They were numb; I needed all the parts of me that mattered to remain that way.
Aside from the buzzing in my head, the echoes of quietude caressed the inner recesses of my mind. Taunts from the darkness were effectively shut out, and I couldn’t help but be grateful for the powder. I had never been one to indulge in drugs in the past, but it helped numb my mind and deathly urges, allowing me the chance to think. To form a plan. Slow down. Prepare.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d need to wait for the princess to flee, but I knew eventually she would. The king wouldn’t tolerate her failure to kill me. Too many Kinetics waited for the moment she lapsed—to the point that her life was no longer worthwhile. The Kinetics were cold with their own people in that way.
A wave of instinctual anger boiled to the surface. I had no reason to feel any sense of protectiveness toward the woman, but yet, the thought of others harming her pissed me the fuck off. I clenched my fists and jaw, angling my head from side to side, cracks popping down my neck from the action.
I hadn’t thought much about that moment I had with her on the train. The one where a potential lost memory surfaced by the contact of her skin, that was. Could that even be called a moment when she was unconscious and unaware of my presence? The memory was probably something fabricated by the voice to control me, to fuck with my head even more in order to push me over the edge at long last.
Glass crunched near the front door, eradicating the silence in the deserted hookah shop. I stilled, waiting for the intruder to approach me. Adjusting the grip on the knife in my fist, a slow grin began to pull up at the edges of my mouth, feeling my inner predator rise.
“There you are.” The teenage boy rounded the corner, and upon seeing me, his eyes went wide in response to the feral grin on my face. “Uh…why do you look excited to murder me?”
“Didn’t know it was you,” I said, shoulders dropping and turning toward the table again. “Now I’m sad.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Dash said, sighing as he moved to take a seat beside me on the couch. “Hogan sent me with the radio so you can monitor her movements.”
With a nod, I straightened and focused on the teen boy next to me who’d far surpassed anybody’s expectations of him amongst the human rebels. Like most humans, he’d lost a lot, including his youth and innocence at a young age. Now, he was the best shot in Hogan’s crew. “You come to keep me company, kid?”
His small, unruly afro bounced with the overdramatic snort he released. “Please, Griffin.” Crossing his arms, he leaned back into the couch and met my gaze with a deadpanned stare. His huge brown eyes were magnified by thick-rimmed glasses as he said, “As much of a stud as you are, I prefer company of the feminine variety.”
I rolled my eyes. “Do you even know how to be around females?”
Affronted, Dash scoffed. “Of course! They love a man with confidence. Flattery goes a long way, ya know. Like, you pick one of their features and just basically smother them with how much it turns your dick hard. You don’t leave any room for them to question whether they like you or not.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. Gods, I felt bad for women these days. With the dwindling population, men were becoming desperate—even more so than they had been before Devolution Day. “Dash, you’re about to become my prime source of entertainment.” My voice was muffled in my hands as I cradled my face with a shake of my head.
Thankfully, I had no desire to procreate and bring a child into this fucked-up world, while simultaneously damning them to share in my genetics. And I had no intention to burden a woman to love a man as monstrous as myself. I mean, there’d have to be something seriously twisted within her if I was what she wanted.
I hadn’t always been this way. In fact, I had worked my ass off healing myself from my past, but this affliction had muddied my mind and emotions to the point I didn’t know what was real or not half the time—and that was the scary part. I could turn on my loved ones any day because the demon convinced me they were a threat.
“Take notes, Griff-Daddy,” Dash said, pulling me from my inner thoughts, “Watch and learn. This is a new era, old man. Chivalry died with half the population on D-Day.”
Oh, how well I knew that to be true. “Yeah, you have no idea, kid.”