Page 18 of Love, Nemesis (Ocean to Ashes #2)

NEITHER ANA NOR Jasper spoke until they were close to the bullpen.

“I don’t like this,” Jasper said. “Evira can’t be trusted, Cal has no experience, and Lethe is a loose cannon.”

“I’m not even sure I know what this is. It all happened too quickly,” Ana replied as they made their way up the stairs and into the main room.

They purchased rooms, and two workers took care of their horses. After dropping their things off, they settled in for the night, sharing drinks as they speculated over the events at the circus. No discussion ended with any comforting resolutions.

“I’m going to try and get some sleep.” Ana finished her tea, the remnants cool by now.

Her fingertips felt sore on the mug. She’d scrubbed them raw, her hands red as she’d worked tirelessly to get the oil off.

A few minor cuts were a small price to pay for her peace of mind.

She hated that dark, En Sanctan oil and was disappointed to find that scrubbing it off had done little to put her at ease.

The events of the evening had disturbed her and irritated an already precarious situation.

Jasper stared into the fireplace, face tense as he shuffled a series of playing cards in his hand.

“Goodnight,” she said, and he glanced up as if just noticing that she’d stood.

“Good luck,” Jasper said with a huff.

Ana dropped her mug off by the bar and retired to her room. She lay in bed, listening to the town and festival grow quieter as the minutes passed. Before long, there was no sound but her breath and the crickets outside. Generally, she’d find the sound comforting. Tonight, it was intolerable.

Evira, a former Strike priestess, and Jackson, a former ROSE.

She might as well be traveling with a poisonous snake and a hungry lion.

Not to mention Jasper and Cal, both seemingly well meaning and optimistic, were bleating lambs by comparison.

The later two had no concept of some of the things Evira and Jackson were capable of.

She’d tried to get Jasper out from Hailey’s thumb to keep him safe.

Now, it would likely be safer to push him off the nearby cliffs and hope he swims somewhere else.

She rubbed her forehead with a groan as she sat up. After changing into loose clothes and her utility belt, she started to leave the bullpen. All of the rooms were quiet and dark as she walked through the halls. The fire was nothing but coals.

Ana wandered out into the night, thinking through the discussion with Evira. As she walked, she noticed a light on in the circus tents. Wandering closer, she heard a low laugh and then a murmur from one of the smaller tents.

She stopped within earshot.

“I didn’t know you’d survived the Burning,” Evira said. “If the Strike could only see me now, feet away from the infamous Lethe Shepherd.”

Ana’s eyes widened. She crouched down near the back of the tent. Evira and Lethe? Alone. Together. Civil?

“You’re lucky they want you alive so badly,” Lethe muttered back.

“Like that’s of any real consequence to you,” Evira laughed.

“Maybe not…but you do know where Ivan Rowe is,” Lethe replied.

“You don’t need to hate us so much. You know, it’s been said a few times how similar the Strike were to the Riders of Saint East. You became what you defined as monsters to kill what you saw as monsters.”

Evira crossed the room, her shadow flashing across the tent. She didn’t speak for a moment. “It didn’t end well for anyone. The end of an era of exploration.”

“The end of a tyranny,” Lethe replied.

Ana marveled at the strangeness of their interaction. Why would Lethe stay and talk with Evira if he wanted to kill her? Why would Evira engage Lethe in such a relaxed way, knowing what he wanted?

Was she so comfortable with her power in the situation?

“You never saw the beauty in it,” Evira replied.

“I once presented two souls to the Strike as an offering, you know. They were in two tubes of glass side by side. They would fight endlessly to connect, the energies writhing. It was beautiful to watch forces so powerful and infinite, split by the thinnest layer of glass. We finally had a chance to learn more about what we could become. We as humans had a chance to evolve. The Strike wanted to save us.”

A chill touched Ana’s skin. She knew she shouldn’t be here, but she couldn’t urge herself to move.

“I’m glad you enjoyed turning the essence of two human beings into a science project for someone’s bedside table.”

“It’s so much more than that,” she said with a deep breath, and Ana imagined her gazing off into something of great beauty. “Why, Lethe, it was love. The Strike were completely enamored with humans, you only had to meet one to understand.”

“Oh, I met my share. You—”

“No, no, not like that,” she interrupted.

“You don’t understand because you were always so keen on killing them.

I remember my first real introduction. I was seen.

I was experienced. The words just don’t do it ju—” She groaned in frustration.

Her speech became pressured. “I was completely experienced, like a glass of wine at the lips of its maker, a rose blooming into the sun, fire at its torch. The Strike were completely obsessed with us, you see. They wanted everything we were, everything we had to offer. We say we worshiped them, but the truth all along was that they worshiped us. Some people were just too blind to see it. The Strike strived to fill their senses with us. To become a Strike is to fall in love with being human. It is the fulfillment of who we are as people.”

The lines drifted into the night like poetry and demanded a moment of silence. The ice crackled in someone’s glass. Ana knelt in the grass in anticipation.

“Why are you so afraid?” Evira asked the words with such a gentle insight, Ana had to remind herself that Evira did not know she was there.

Evira kept talking as if catering to a child.

“It’s not a bad experience, Lethe. In fact, I’d say little compares to feeling Madness rush into your blood.

The power and the knowledge, suddenly nothing is beyond reach.

It’s a high you never have to come down from.

We served the Strike for years hoping that being near them might grant us such an honor. ”

“I consider losing my humanity a pretty bad experience.” He spoke mechanically, seemingly unaffected by the spell of the words.

“It’s just like dying, but instead you have to live through it, and then live with it for the rest of existence.

Every sane person who came into contact with the Strike has the same fear, that maybe they’ll wake up one day with those frostbitten fingers. ”

Evira scoffed. “You Riders and your rules and toy morals and all of that air. You might be the only one I think really believed in them other than Robert and Pascal.”

“That’s my old life,” Lethe said. “I’m not sure I believe anything anymore.”

Silence settled, full of implications.

“I’m surprised to see you so well,” Evira said after a long while.

The silence lingered longer.

“Maybe the Strike went too far, broke me beyond any real, useful sentiment.” He laughed.

“I can’t say I didn’t feel experienced .

No one but the Strike have seen the inside of my ribs.

We’ll always have that.” He mocked Evira’s romanticized description, but his next words were drained of humor.

“Maybe there’s not much of a difference between a torturer and a lover after all. ”

“You certainly had both in Emma.”

“We don’t discuss Emma,” Lethe replied sharply.

There was a pause as if Evira was measuring the threat in his voice. She changed the subject.

“Did any of the other Riders survive the Burning?” she asked.

“No. If my body would’ve just let me die, I wouldn’t have survived either.”

She sighed. “You have to admit, it’s nice not being at one another’s throats for once.

We have more in common than you would’ve thought.

We’re the last of our kind, in a way. All of the Strike’s other followers that weren’t at the Burning ran off to the Mystics when the Strike were killed. They’ve all grown old and died by now.”

“I’ve thought that before,” Lethe said. “That’s why once you’re dead, and Ivan Rowe is too, I can disappear.”

“Then the war will be over?” she asked.

“Then it will finally be over.”

The figures started to shift inside, and Ana sensed that one would be leaving soon, so she backed away from the tent. She eased into the shadows of the trees, waiting as she saw Lethe step out and make his way down the path to town.

She gave him several minutes and then followed, scanning the area as she headed back to the bullpen. She walked through the darkness of the path, scanning the trees around her until she was certain she was alone. As the seconds passed, she looked for Lethe’s form ahead on the path.

She stopped short when she caught sight of him standing against a tree to her left.

He was leaning against it in the dark, arms crossed like he’d been waiting for her. She caught his eyes, and neither of them said anything for a moment.

“Nice night for a walk,” he said.

Ana looked back up the path. She could see the light of the bullpen in the distance. “Sure.”

He stepped away from the tree, walking back onto the road. “I’ll join you.”

They started walking together.

She was distinctly aware of his arm beside her, moving back and forth in natural pace as he walked. He had a knife in his belt. He would be able to draw it before she could activate her Atlas. She’d have to be quick to create space, otherwise—

“I used to walk on my own like this to clear my head,” he said. “Sometimes I’d have some kind of revelation…learn something new. Anything like that tonight?”

“No,” she said, trying to get a sense of him.

The image of him hunting Evira flashed through her mind. No real anger or sentiment—just a mission, just raw force. The more time passed, the more potent the image became.

She looked at him to find any outward indication of brashness or aggression, and he met her eyes with that same collectedness.

He had to know she’d been listening to him and Evira.

Did he see her like he saw Evira? If the impulse came, what would he try and do to her?

She couldn’t help but sense that despite his apparent impulsiveness, he was calculated—a jumbled mix of contradictions that she didn’t know how to sort.

When he leaned toward her, she veered away, inspecting him as he suddenly stepped away from his side of the road. Noticing that he seemed to be moving away from something, she glanced behind him to see a small bunch of flowers blooming near the side of the road.

“What are you doing?” she asked as they kept walking.

Looking forward still, Lethe replied, “Didn’t want to step on them.”

Her brow furrowed. “They’re just flowers.”

He shrugged. “Why kill something if you can help it?” he replied simply, surprising her.

Yes. Why? she asked, almost glaring. People like you don’t care about things like that. Somehow, she disliked him even more now.

He stopped and she followed suit. Lethe glanced behind her before she realized they were standing in front of the bullpen.

She hadn’t realized how long she’d been silent, trapped in her own head, and he’d done nothing to draw her out. Most were uncomfortable with her silence and used that space to talk. She didn’t often find herself wrestling with the silence of another.

He searched her face slowly, and for a moment, she thought he might reach out and touch her.

“Goodnight Ana,” he said, and there was more to his words than the aggression, playfulness, or sensuality he seemed to enjoy using.

He’d put the pieces of his game aside for a moment, the board all played out.

For a moment, she only watched him, waiting for him to say something else.

She couldn’t trace the feeling inside her.

There was a familiarity in his eyes, in his brashness, in the fear he aroused.

Standing there in the dark, he lingered with the permanence of her past, a lifeless, powerful thing, prepared at any moment to pull her under as if the new life she’d made for herself was only ever a film on the water’s surface.

She could almost feel the heat of her slave brand—burning questions from a past she’d wanted to forget.

She sensed no hatred from him; rather, something worse. In that moment, he looked at her like he knew her. To her horror, she realized that the silence was doing what silence often did. It was giving rise to some pressing truth inside her.

Lethe had put his board and game aside because now he wasn’t playing a game. He was playing her.

She took a step back, grounding herself as she kept her eyes trained on his face. “Goodnight,” she said. She moved backward, turning in time to ascend the stairs. She opened the door, the warm light in the fireplace an invitation back to brightness and security.

Before she closed the door behind her, she glanced back to see Lethe still waiting in the street. His form was a statue under the moonlight, the planes of his face highlighted only enough to show the subtleties of his expression.

He smiled at her. For a second time, she saw the wolf in him.

The truth was, despite being a slave to the Strike, her willingness to serve them made her an enemy of the ROSE by default. In a different version of the world, Lethe would have been, and possibly still was, her natural enemy.

In the face of an order that gave everything to defeat the Strike, there were no excuses to serving them like she had, no ways to dress it up and defend it. The shame she carried like a memorial yawned from its slumber deep in the recesses of her soul.

She shut the door, backing against it as she dropped her hand by her side.

Standing there in the dark, she got the sensation that her past had come for her in the form of a man, waiting out there under the moon.

Tick.

Tick.

She adjusted her watch.

Tick.

It was about time.