Page 47 of Love, Nemesis (Ocean to Ashes #2)

DARKNESS. LONG LENGTHS of darkness.

Stabbing pain. Flashing memories.

Darkness again.

At last, there was a loud, bothersome clinking in his ears.

Lethe groaned as his eyes opened to the trees above him. He squinted, trying to remember where he was.

The clinking grew louder. He winced, groaning again.

“You up?” a voice said.

He inhaled, opening his eyes as he rolled his eyes in the direction of the racket.

Cal was crouching with a large bag in front of him, blood on his sleeves, cheeks and hair. He had two black eyes and a swollen nose.

Lethe tried to focus.

“What—?”

“What happened?” Cal finished the question for him and then sat back in the grass under the trees, pushing his feet out. “You,” he said, pointing. “You happened.”

Lethe wracked his brain. He sat up slowly, searching the area. His utility belt lay near a tree. The horses were tied up near the forest’s edge. The city walls could be seen just beyond the clearing. It was early morning.

Lethe returned his gaze to Cal, who was still watching him with a stern expression.

“We beat him,” Cal said, but he didn’t seem happy about it.

Lethe kept watching, thinking Cal might elaborate.

“I had some time to get excited about it,” Cal said, “After watching that bloodbath, I thought you were dead. You were gross—you still are.”

Lethe sat up and inspected the blood all over his clothes. His chest had healed.

“I tried to drag you out. You told me to leave you to die a few times and then you started having some kind of attack. You were completely out of control. It just looked like you were in pain.”

That explained it.

“Ah,” Lethe said, searching for his flask.

“After you shouted ‘Snake Bite’ at me about fifty times, I managed to wrestle it off you and I had to force you to drink that stuff.” He pointed at his nose.

“You did this,” he said. “The place was on fire—I had to drag you out by your arms, down several hallways, a few flights of stairs, terrified the guards were going to attack me. I dragged you through the streets to here. It was too dark to do anything by the time I got the horses.” He crossed his arms. “You should really tell people about those attacks you have. You’re out of Snake Bite.

If you start acting like that again, I’m riding off. ”

“So, we killed Ivan.”

“Yeah. I did. You are not welcome.”

Lethe laughed. “Yes, you did.” He looked back at the bag near Cal. “What’s that?”

Cal looked at the bag as if he’d forgotten it. He shrank away slightly.

“What is it?” Lethe asked again, now more curious.

Cal scratched his head, avoiding Lethe’s eyes. “Gold.”

“What?” Lethe leaned over, pulling on the bag. Gold trinkets, plates, and cups spilled out. “You looted the place?”

“They aren’t going to use it.”

Lethe looked between the gold and Cal. “You’re an interesting kid,” he said with an eyebrow lifted.

“I’m a good person,” Cal replied, shuffling back up to his feet.

Lethe wasn’t sure if Cal was defending himself or throwing a backward insult at Lethe. The bot grabbed his saddle and started saddling up his horse. He was shaking slightly. He rubbed his forehead and adjusted the saddle multiple times on the horse before petting the animal, repeatedly in one spot.

“Cal,” Lethe said. “Why don’t you let me take care of the horses?”

“No,” Cal said sharply. “You fought the Strike.” He paused as his hands gripped the mane.

“You fought all of them. And what they can do—what they all did, what this one did.” He huffed and rubbed his face, wiping his hands on the horse now before adjusting the saddle.

“All those empty people… I’ve only seen a few dead people.

Maybe six dead people my whole life, and all those people—there were some my age in there, you know—in the mix.

Maybe not completely dead, but just that look in their eyes. There was nothing there.”

He eased down beside the horse, nervously close to the hooves before sitting down. He stared at the ground, and for a few moments, neither of them said anything.

Cal shook his head again and sighed. “Does it get in like that? Is this what happened to you?”

Lethe didn’t reply for a long time. “You won’t end up like me, Cal,” he finally said. “I can promise you that.”

“Can you?” Cal said, looking up at him. “You’re insane.”

Lethe rubbed his face. “I never asked to be anyone’s role model, but you kids don’t always have to rub it in. You have more options than I did.”

“I’m not a kid anymore, and do I really have more options? Because in there, it didn’t feel like that.”

“I made choices, all right? I didn’t end up the way I am now by accident, and you won’t either. Understand?” Lethe replied. His head was killing him, and this didn’t feel like the time for a philosophical argument.

“How could you?” Cal said, raising his voice. “Burn an entire city down with all of those people locked inside?” He stood back up to his feet.

Lethe didn’t reply for a moment. “At the time, it seemed like the only way. Looking back, it still does. That doesn’t mean I don’t regret it.”

That only seemed to make Cal angrier.

“Why should anything mean that much?” he asked, pointing to the city.

“Why does that happen? Why do the Strike even exist? Where did they come from? Did we—” He choked for a moment, holding his breath as he steadied his breathing.

“How can they come from us?” He walked over to a nearby tree and leaned against it, staring forward.

He turned his forehead into the tree. “I don’t want to go home. ”

“You don’t have a choice,” Lethe said, standing up.

“I feel disgusting.”

“We’ll get you cleaned up,” Lethe said, picking up his saddle. He started preparing his horse.

“On the inside,” Cal said.

Lethe paused when he set the saddle on the horse. He looked down at it for a moment before glancing back over at Cal, who was now sitting by the tree. His eyes were closed.

Lethe continued to saddle up the horses, kneeling in front of Cal when he was done.

“Hey,” Lethe said.

“Hmm,” Cal replied with a quiet grunt.

“I need you to watch the horses.”

Cal looked up at him.

“I need to go get my flask. Can you watch things?” Lethe asked, setting a hand on his shoulder.

Cal nodded. “There’s none left.”

“Even a few drops helps. I’ll be back,” Lethe said, setting off for the city.

“I don’t know what kind of alcoholic you are, but you need to get that problem checked out, big time,” Cal called after him.

“It’s under control,” Lethe said, waving back. He wandered back through the streets. Bodies lay everywhere in heaps, not yet dead, but not alive without Ivan’s manipulations.

He moved back through the castle to the throne room, reimagining the memories Ivan had reacquainted him with as he did.

He eventually found his flask in the throne room and was disappointed to discover that any remaining liquid had evaporated in the heat.

He cursed, pocketing it as he approached Ivan’s burned body.

Watching the corpse, he marveled at their victory, and felt unsettled by a persistent question he’d asked, but perhaps not cared enough about before. Ivan had not been the strongest or the most clever of the Strike. How had he survived the Burning of the Strike in the first place?

Lethe started toward the door and down the hallway, checking through several rooms on his way. It was unlikely that the Mystics produced anything similar to Snake Bite. It was the product of a specific type of mutated plant, but his options were limited.

His fight with Ivan had nearly killed him, and the Strike had fought back in protest. Strike weren’t fond of the concept of death. It wasn’t a part of their natural life cycle as far as Lethe knew.

He headed back out into the streets, making his way back to the city gate after a fruitless search. He contemplated what strategy would suit him best. Ideally, he’d have enough time to make it back to En Sanctus.

An attack, like a sharp twisting in his chest, seized him.

He threw himself against the nearest wall, shrinking down against it as he felt a flash of cold emanating from his chest. His heart pounded erratically, a searing pain sinking into his left arm. He buried his forehead into the ground.

He pressed his body tight against a nearby wall as everything around him began to shake. Cracks started to crawl over the stone beneath his hand. A house nearby caved in. A wagon down the street snapped in half.

Suddenly, it stopped and he was able to exhale.

He lifted his head, ripping off his left glove in just enough time to see darkness spread like bruises on his fingertips. Like the tide withdrawing, it then started to recede.

He rolled onto his back as the pain faded, staring up at the sky.

He looked for that red balloon, soaring adrift in the skies, subject to the winds. There was only a thin line separating the air inside from the vast world around it, vulnerable to the slightest prick of a needle.

Out of some foreign place, he heard Emma’s voice in his head.

You joke you don’t have a soul and… The rest of the sentence was lost, her words light with humor.

“The joke is on me, isn’t it?” Lethe whispered. “Emma…” He closed his eyes. “How do I do this?” he asked, running a hand through his hair.

His hand rested over his face.

He could almost hear her words, Emma laughing as she said them.

Lethe , she’d said a thousand times, You have to believe there’s another way.

“You always said that,” he argued back, mumbling. “About everything.”

The Strike are obsessed with human beings. Maybe deep down, they’re looking for a way back.

“And look what they did to you.”

There must be a way back.

“Always the optimist.”

We can have these big family-style get-togethers. Make new holidays.

“I missed you so much,” he whispered, and with his eyes closed, he could see her again, clearly, for the first time in years. She sat at a wooden bench, a frustrated expression on her face as she tried to wrap an old cloth ribbon around an animal she’d made out of wood.