Page 43 of Love, Nemesis (Ocean to Ashes #2)

LETHE STOPPED IN front of the cottage door, Cal waiting beside him.

The boy was nervous and dazed all at once. Lethe couldn’t blame him. Not that he much liked the idea himself, but the Burning of the Strike had been a victory at the greatest cost, and visiting it would likely leave Cal with more than just nightmares.

“We aren’t going there yet,” Lethe warned. Cal looked up at him, almost startled by the sound of his voice. “I need to get someone’s help first,” he said. “And the clearest memory I have where I can find her…it’s not my favorite, but it’s not dangerous.”

Cal nodded.

Lethe turned to the door, took one last breath of the fresh air, and walked through it.

In the next moment, he was standing in a room with a stone floor and a single door behind him. It was dark, but not dark enough to hide the naked body lying splayed out in front of them.

Lethe didn’t hesitate. He removed his coat, laying it over the woman before turning her over and mechanically pulling her into his arms. She shifted as he drew her into his lap, his long jacket like a short dress around her body, wrapped tight with his belt.

A large bruise was spread over one of her eyes.

He grazed it with his fingertips before pushing a strand of tangled blonde hair from her face.

For a moment, he said nothing, holding her in his arms as Cal watched them both. The room was dark aside from a single slit of light filtering in from a skylight. The stone floor was covered with mud, spots of blood, footprints, and strands of her hair.

“Emma,” Lethe whispered after a few minutes. He ran his thumb across her cheek. “Emma,” he repeated. “They won’t be back for a while.”

Emma Shepherd’s eyes opened slowly, her lips forming the subtlest smile when she saw Lethe’s face.

Her hand lifted up to his face, grazing his jaw. “Am I dead?” she whispered and then seemed to search the room, her eyes settling on Cal. “That boy. You see that boy?”

“Yes.”

She started to hoist herself up, wincing as she fell back against Lethe and pulled one of her hands to her chest. Lethe examined the hand. Two of her fingers were broken.

He removed his handkerchief. Emma lifted up the thick sleeve of Lethe’s jacket before biting down on a folded piece of the fabric.

She held onto Lethe with her other hand as he took her fingers, cracking them back into place.

She shouted, pushing her body into his as he wrapped them together in the handkerchief.

“I need you,” Lethe said, voice firm, expression vacant. “I need to get into the Bleeding Grin.”

She released the fabric from her mouth, starting to stand before Lethe hoisted her up. She balanced against him, eyes closed. She exhaled. “This is a memory?”

“Yes,” he said.

Her eyes opened, peering over at Cal. “Who’s that little guy?” she said and turned her chin up toward Lethe. “Is he ours?”

“No, Emma,” Lethe replied. “How are you feeling?”

She pushed off of him slightly, testing her balance. “I’m sorry I got caught,” she said. “I was hoping they’d kill me fast so you wouldn’t have to hear it all.” She looked over at him. “But they don’t, do they?” she asked, examining his reaction.

“Focus. You can walk okay?” he asked, ignoring her question as she put one foot in front of the other and moved toward Cal. She stopped in front of him, reaching a hand out to touch his shirt as if the fabric seemed foreign to her.

She looked back at Lethe, biting her lip as tears started to form in her eyes.

“Hey, hey, hold on,” Lethe said, drawing close to her. “Everything turns out all right. We beat them. The Strike. I just need your help to finish off the last one.”

She wiped her face. “I’ll get you in,” she said, extending her right hand, exposing the series of names on her right arm. “Your knife.”

Lethe handed the cherry knife to her, and she collected her hair behind her head and cut it. She wiped her face and handed the knife back to him. “They pulled my hair,” she said. “They pulled it a lot.”

“Keep the knife,” Lethe said. “You might need it.”

Emma didn’t need his knife. She was a memory, but at least for now he had to indulge himself, put some of his own feelings to rest.

She slipped the knife through the belt on his jacket and then looked at him. It was a look he knew, one that asked questions silently and with great patience. He knew that some part of her had already put the pieces together, pieces gathered from his cold discomfort.

She had death in her future, after hours of torture and a painful transformation. To some extent, she had to know that, but she kept watching him with those quiet, questioning eyes, asking him to share the burden of his answers. He knew she wasn’t ready for them.

She’d never be ready.

He started walking toward the door as Emma looped her arm through Cal’s, moving some hair from his face. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Cal,” he replied timidly.

“Nice to meet you, Cal,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder. “You take good care of Lethe. All right? He likes you, I can tell.”

Lethe stopped at the door, looking back at them both. Emma smiled at him, clearly weak, clearly tired.

She’s just a memory ,Lethe reminded himself.

He faced forward again, opening the door.

Next, they were on the streets of the Strike’s empire.

A golden-eyed Strike was delivering a speech in the distance.

Lethe stood like the devil in an ocean of worshippers.

Their hands reached like the waves, grabbing up toward the air only to be pulled down again.

They were a hungry, boiling mass of shoulders and heads, waiting for their noon meal to come down from the sky.

The Strike had eaten everything out of them, their fears, their minds, their memories until hunger was the truest desire that remained.

Reduced to children, the mob could only clamor to have their simplest needs met.

They didn’t notice him.

They were grown men and women with their mouths agape and eyes wide like nursing children. They spoke in inarticulate groans, wails and crying.

They didn’t notice the oil running through the gutters of their perfectly measured cottages or along their perfectly cobbled streets.

Lethe removed the cigarette from his lips, turning before nodding to another Rider in the crowd. He started walking away, reaching his horse. He reached for his saddle, stopping when fingers landed on his arm.

He looked through his helmet to see a boy standing near him, a boy he hadn’t seen before.

The boy was wearing clothes that at first he didn’t recognize.

“Lethe,” the young man said, and there was a familiarity to it.

All at once, Lethe remembered, backing away from his horse and scanning the area.

“You’re Cal,” he reminded himself, eyes centering back on the boy. He removed his helmet.

“Lethe,” Cal said. “Snap out of it.”

Lethe looked past Cal to see Emma Shepherd standing near the horse in his jacket.

He shook his head, looking down at his clothes and the helmet he’d just been wearing. “That’s not good.”

“Did you forget about us?” Cal said. “Where did you get that helmet from?”

Lethe cursed. “Let’s finish this up fast before my memories get the best of me. I have a hard enough time grappling with reality as it is.”

Cal looked back at Emma, who glanced between them both, concerned. “If you forget you’re in them, someone else has to break you out,” Emma said.

“Lethe,” someone said his name.

He turned when one of the Riders came up to him. “The gutters are ready, gates are blocked. Everyone is in position.”

“Send the signal,” Lethe replied as if by reflex and then jolted when Cal grabbed him again.

“Lethe!” Cal said. “I’m not getting stuck at the Burning of the Strike! This wasn’t what I meant when I said I wanted to be a part of history.”

They looked toward the town center, the Bleeding Grin peeking over the houses in the distance.

“It’s all so close,” Lethe said, glancing up at the clouded skies. The drought would end soon. He could only hope the rain would hold off a bit longer—it had.

The rain had.

This was the past.

The city had burned. The gutters of oil, the stockpiles of hay and wood, brought in over several weeks’ time, had all burned. They’d turned the entire city into kinder and it had burned fast.

Lethe cursed, shaking his head as if it might center him back into the facts of what had already happened.

All of this had already happened.

“Cal, hop on,” Lethe said, gesturing to a horse nearby. “Emma, come here. Do you remember the plan?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Good,” he whispered, “because I’m not sure I do.”

Cal glanced back, hearing the words and stopping. He walked back up near Lethe and Emma.

“Lethe,” Cal said his name warily. “This better be quick.”

“We just have to let the fight go on for a while,” Lethe replied.

“You don’t have a while, by the looks of it,” Emma objected, catching Cal’s attention.

“Remember something closer,” Cal demanded. “Remember the fighting closer!” He gestured to a door. “Take us closer. Can you?”

Lethe removed his helmet a second time as it reappeared on his head. He didn’t have much of a choice. “Hang on,” he said, gritting his teeth.

Emma grabbed his sleeve and then Cal’s hand as Lethe headed for the door of a nearby house. He walked through it.

They pushed into a scene full of fire.

This, Lethe remembered vividly.

Cal gagged at the stench of burning flesh as the Bleeding Grin towered above them again. This time, torches lined its base. The houses, the towers, and the city were all aflame and roaring.

Cal and Emma stood beside him, observing as ROSE worked in the thick of the chaos to hoist bodies up to burn. They lit the first body and then the second, all covered in oil. The last body went up in flames, illuminating the vast fields of carnage.

Lightning cracked across the sky. Thunder boomed. A light sprinkle of rain transformed into a torrent.