I’ll take real pleasure in watching you die, Sarah. I’ll make whirligigs with your bones. I’ll skin you alive and have your daughter wear you as a coat. You like ancient customs? I’ll give you the tub. I’ll have you stand in a vat up to your neck in water, then I’ll pour milk and honey on your face. The flies will come first, then the maggots. In a day or two, you’ll be swimming in your own shit and piss. I’ll feed you, of course. I’ll feed you over and over so you can shit some more and watch yourself rot. I’ll make it last for months.
My head is spinning but I need to be strong. Every minute he spends with me is one he is not hunting Mia. I can keep her safe if I stay strong.
—You can torture me all you want. I will live on.
—How? Do you think you’re a god or something? Oh, your daughter! You think she’s safe? I have some bad news for you, dear, she’s not. My brother has her by now. If you don’t give me what I want, trust me, she will. When we’re done cutting things off, we’ll let you see each other. I’ll remove your eyelids and have you stare at one another while we take your whole faces off.
He is lying, trying to confuse me. There were two of them but his brother was in the front yard. Mia is smart. She is fast.
—Is that why you have been hunting us? To get to that… device?
—Hunting you? You’re the one running. We’re chasing you because you’re a fucking traitor!
—I have betrayed no one. You have murdered hundreds.
—YOU LET YOUR OWN FUCKING KIND DIE! Billions of people! Don’t you dare compare yourself to me.
—My kind? What are you talking about?
—You don’t know anything, do you? How the hell do you even stay alive? We—the two of us—we came together to this place. We came to find a new home before ours ends in a fiery hell. Only you chose to fuck it up and hide the one thing we need to call home.
Is that how it happened? Is that the choice we made? I see no reason for him to lie, but I have no reason to believe him either.
—I think you take pleasure in hunting us. I think you do it for the thrill. Is there some sort of prize for killing one of us?
—You think I’m doing this for a reward? Do you know what our people will make of us when they get here? Weird versions of each other, all of us born to a lesser species. They’ll think we’re an abomination. They’ll put us down like stray dogs. That’s my reward. I get to die. I get to leave this… sty. It’s the stench. I have to be born in that smell over and over again, to have one of them as a mother and fff—I get nauseous just thinking about it—and feed off her stinking breasts. It wasn’t supposed to be like that, you know. We were supposed to mate together, not with them.
—You disgust me.
—I didn’t mean you and me me. You’re older than my mother. I meant—you know perfectly well what I meant. Aren’t you tired of being someone else? I am. I want to be me, not my father and his father. I want this to end but I need that device first so you’re going to give it to me before I cut you into a thousand pieces.
—…
—Why are you smiling? Did you hear what I just said? I’m going to slice you up like a ham. What the hell are you smiling at, you crazy witch?
58
Walk—Don’t Run
Run from the Tracker. Keep running. Don’t look back.
Over the fence. Through the alley. My legs are heavy as dumbbells, my lungs are burning. I’m getting a headache. That’s my body running out of fuel, but I need to keep going. Run. Survive at all costs. Remember the rules. That’s what Mother would want.
I wonder if she’s still alive. She’s all alone if she is. He’ll kill her for sure, but she would want me to run. No second thoughts, no regrets. I understand. If my daughter were alive, I would want her to live. Run. Never stop.
I wouldn’t want my life, and my mother’s life, to mean nothing. I wouldn’t want my daughter to be the end of us, for all the knowledge to be lost on a whim. I wouldn’t be afraid of dying, because I know I would live on through her. We are the Kibsu. I am the mother, the daughter. I am many, and so would my daughter be. I wouldn’t want her to be selfish….
I wouldn’t want her to think of the lives she’d taken. Throats slit, hearts stabbed. Bodies convulsing on the floor. I would not want her to see Didi’s face and wonder if the wrong person died that night. I wouldn’t want her to doubt. To slow down. To catch her breath.
…
I wouldn’t want my daughter to think of what she’s lost. Leaving her life behind time and time again. Never saying goodbye. Waking in a strange place, not knowing her name or what language she speaks. I wouldn’t want her to relive it. A woman she loved and will never see again. Words never spoken. Kisses never kissed. The utter vastness of an empty bed. No. I wouldn’t want her to go through that. An empty womb. Breasts aching, gorged to feed a life that isn’t. A promise broken before it was ever made. I wouldn’t want my daughter to relive that loss. I wouldn’t want her to imagine losing me, because I know what it would do to her. I wouldn’t want her to be stubborn, to draw the line and say: “Fuck no. I’m not losing any more.”
I wouldn’t want her to turn around and head back the way she came—that would be foolish—to take one step, then another. Faster. Her feet beating the ground like a war drum, waking the animal inside her.
It starts with a tingling, hair standing on end. Heightened senses. Everything becomes clearer, crisper.
I wouldn’t want her to welcome the beast. To let herself become what she fears the most. I wouldn’t do that to her. I’d be afraid she’d lose herself for good. I’d be afraid she’d like it.
I sure as hell wouldn’t want her rummaging through the shed looking for a weapon. She wouldn’t do that. I know she wouldn’t be stupid enough to think a tiki torch was a good idea.
No. I’d tell my daughter to run and to keep running, just like Mother would tell me. Think of all that came before you. Three thousand years of sacrifice on the line. Ninety-nine lives spent making sure you survive. Don’t blow it. When I die, you will be the last of us.
Well, fuck all that. I don’t have a daughter and Mother’s not dead yet.
Last chance to turn around. My heart wants to burst out of my chest.
The back door’s still open. Slowly. Don’t make a sound. They’re in the kitchen. I can see him, one of him. The other must be looking for me.
Mother. What the fuck did he do to her? Her face is all swelled up. She’s bleeding all over herself.
Slowly.
I feel the warmth taking hold. I feel the monster waking.
Slowly.
Her eyes are swelled shut but she can see me. He doesn’t know what she’s looking at as I raise the spike high above his head.
—Why are you smiling? Did you hear what I just said? I’m going to slice you up like a ham. What the hell are you smiling at, you crazy witch?
Let the animal loose, Mia. Let her rage.
59
At Last
—You should not have come back, Mia. I am grateful for what you did but it—
—You’re welcome, Mother. Can we do this another time? He was right on our tail a second ago.
I saw him, too. Ford Fairlane, Corinthian white. The Tracker stayed three cars behind the whole way, but I am certain he knows we spotted him.
—Are you sure it is a good idea to stop here? We could keep driving.
—We’ll be safe down here. There are soldiers everywhere. Now will you please get inside the elevator?