Huntsman by Cambria Hebert
33
Earth
The doorto the Rotten Apple was ajar.
From half a block up the street, I could see it bouncing against the frame every time the wind blew. At first, I thought maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me, but then I heard the jingling of the bell tied to the handle.
We definitely raced out last night without a backward glance, but Beau would have locked up when he came home.
Something is wrong.I broke into a jog.
Yes, the sun was out.
Yes, it was early in the day.
It didn’t matter.
Most people thought crimes and horrible deeds only happened beneath the veil of night, that villains only stepped out under the protection of shadows.
No.
Villains walked in the sunlight beside the regulars, the heroes, and even amongst their own kind.
I knew because many of the kills I’d committed had been underneath a bright blue sky and sparkling sun. In fact, those things made the best accomplice. After all, sunlight concealed darkness very well.
The frame of the door was bent, a hole big enough for a hand cut right through the glass. Shattering the entire door would have drawn too much attention. In my mind’s eye, I visualized someone scoring the thick glass and knocking in the perfectly cut circle so they could reach inside and let themselves in.
As if to prove I was right, the little bit of shattered glass crunched beneath my boots as I stepped into my bar, but I barely heard the sound because everything else completely owned my attention.
The place was ransacked. Ripped apart. Disrespected.
Fury lit up inside me, scorching my veins and boiling my tainted blood as I gazed at the overturned tables, broken barstools, and shattered glass. One of the neon signs on the wall was ripped clean off, the tubing shattered across an askew table. The graffiti Neo custom painted across the brick wall was defaced with blood-red paint. It dripped like someone tossed an entire can at the wall, and when it splashed, it splattered everywhere, then bled down the wall like it was an open wound.
Beau!
“Shibal!” Fuck, I spat, not even realizing I’d spoken Korean.
Boots pounding over the broken beer bottles, sloshing through the wasted alcohol, and leaping over scattered busted furniture, I ran out of the bar and lunged up the stairs toward our place.
“Beau!” I roared, adrenaline pumping straight to my heart. Jesus, he was alone here last night! What if they came upstairs too?
“Beau!” I shouted, beating on the thick wooden door leading into the apartment. The door was locked.
I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or if it was keeping me from helping him.
“Beau!”
Somewhere in the apartment, Snort barked, and fear stabbed my heart. Reaching behind me, I yanked the knife out of the holster and backed up, preparing to throw myself against the door.
Wielding the blade, I backed up and lunged. Just before I collided, it opened, and Beau’s green eyes blew wide. I tried to stop, but the momentum and adrenaline had a strong hold. I barreled inside, clipping my brother on the shoulder as he was trying to jump back.
Colliding, we both bounced backward, flying apart to land on the floor. The second I hit, I leaped back up, chest heaving, looking for a threat.
Beau was sprawled on his back on the floor, and I rushed over to stand over his body. “Beau! Jesus, are you hurt? Who did this to you?”
A man never put down his weapon, so I held on to it as I began patting down my brother, looking for injury.
I felt him recoil and look down. “What the hell is that?”
“Protection,” I growled, still searching his body.
His hand closed around my wrist, his hold surprisingly strong. “Earth, I’m not hurt.”
I paused. “Then why are you on the floor?”
“Because you mowed me down when you burst in here!” He glanced at the blade. “With a knife!”
I practically sagged in relief. “You aren’t hurt?”
He seemed confused. The beanie on his head had fallen off, and the headphones usually glued to his ears were also on the ground. “Why would I be?”
“Shit,” I spat, pushing away from him. “Snort!”
The dog barreled from around the couch, breathing heavily and, of course, snorting.
His front paws slapped on my legs when he jumped up at me, and I leaned down to scratch behind his ear. “Good boy,” I murmured, willing my heart rate to return to normal.
“Everything is okay up here?” I asked, glancing around at Beau who was still on the floor, bewildered.
“What’s going on?”
“The bar is trashed. I thought they got you too.”
“Who?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you.”
“Why would I know anything?” he stuttered, pulling himself to his feet.
“You mean to tell me you didn’t hear any of that? The place is completely ransacked.”
A guilty look crossed Beau’s face, and he glanced down at his headphones.
“Fuck!” I spat.
“I’m sorry, Earth. I—”
“It’s fine.” I cut him off. “It’s better that you didn’t hear and go down there. There was definitely more than one guy, considering the mess.”
“That bad?”
I grunted. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
My mind was racing. Now that I knew Beau wasn’t lying in here dead, thoughts spiraled to other places. To other people.
“Hey, E?”
I swung around. “What?”
“You know you have keys for those locks, right?”
It took a minute to understand what he was saying. I did have keys. But I’d been in the process of busting down the door. “Not for the chain lock.”
“Well, it would have been easier to bust through just that one rather than all of them,” he pointed out.
“Fuck you.”
He laughed.
I was not amused. “See if I rush up here to save your ass next time.”
His eyes strayed to the knife I still clutched. His throat cleared. “You, ah, always carry that?”
I sheathed it back in the holster at my back without replying. “You really didn’t hear anything at all?”
“Is it really that bad down there?” he asked.
I motioned for him to followed me down to the bar. His low whistle said it all when we stopped in the doorway leading inside. Snort was dancing around behind me, and I paused to tell him to stay. He sat obediently, tongue lolling out from between his crooked teeth.
“Jesus,” Beau swore, stepping over the mess to gaze around. “I’m sorry. I should have heard. I should have been more alert.”
“Don’t,” I told him. “I’m glad you didn’t get involved. This bar isn’t worth your life.”
“Spending the night with V made you soft, E.” Beau pressed a hand to his T-shirt-covered chest. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
I grunted. “Fuck off.”
He laughed under his breath. “That’s more like it.”
Stalking over behind the bar, I stared down at the cash register, which had been forced open. It was empty.
The coolers under the bar were all left wide open, the sound of them running to try and stay cold despite the warm temp of the room was loud. Cussing, I slammed them all shut. What was left of the beer inside them rattled like they were ready to break.
“Who’d you piss off?” Beau asked, picking up a barstool.
My head whipped up. “What?”
“Well, clearly, this was personal. If they wanted cash, they’d have taken it and gone, but they completely trashed the place too. You don’t stick around for that unless you have an ax to grind.”
The image of the “tattoo” on the dead body in the river flashed behind my eyes. “Who the fuck knows? I piss everyone off.”
Beau made a sound. “True, but usually, you scare everyone too.”
They’re like you.
The words on the other end of that phone call last night haunted me. It was becoming harder and harder not to believe the far-fetched thoughts in my mind. Beau was right. Everyone here knew not to mess with me. So even if they did want to exact some kind of revenge on me, they wouldn’t. I wasn’t just talk. I’d proved that time and again. And in much more violent ways than even they knew. But they sense it. They know the violence of a sleeping tiger.
That meant that whoever did this wasn’t from around here.
And really, that could only mean one thing.
“I’m gonna check the office,” I spat, stomping off toward the back before Beau could even reply.
Snort followed along behind me but didn’t rush into the small office space when I shoved open the door. The sound of the handle knocking into the drywall was loud as I took stock of the small space.
The stuff I dumped out from the desk drawer still littered the floor. The chair was shoved back away from the desk, and the drawer I’d put back into place was slightly crooked.
Just the way I left it.
Why would those thugs trash the place but leave my personal space untouched?
It didn’t make sense.
Until it did.
My eyes latched on to the paperwork haphazardly scattered on the desk. It wasn’t the paperwork I saw but what lay on top of it.
Carefully placed, directly in the center of my workspace, was a single long-stemmed rose. It was black.
The Black Rose.
Assaulted, I rocked back on the combat boots strapped on my feet, nearly doubling over from the strength of the sucker punch that was my past.
No longer was Earth standing in this cramped, shitty office. No longer did the scent of warm beer and cigarette smoke blemish the air. The sound of Snort’s heavy breathing was silenced along with the faint sounds of Beau cleaning up out in the bar.
Instead, a fifteen-year-old boy named Mal-Chin stood trembling in a narrow, dark alley.
The great puffs of white steam constantly pouring out of the vents in the buildings wafted ominously like fog, coiling around everything it touched like it was malnourished and looking for a meal. The scent of frying meat and fermented cabbage was its weapon, choking the breath out of you in hopes of making it easier to swallow you whole. Up near the main street, shouts in Korean filled the night as men in dark suits followed orders to find and destroy.
Feet slapping against pavement grew closer, and I prayed the smoke would hurry and swallow me whole because being eaten alive in this filthy alleyway would be better than being taken alive.
Sinking deeper into the alley, hiding between smoke and shadows, my shoulder blades scraped sharply against the rough brick of the building, the stinging sensation causing me to bite my lip.
I don’t want this. But I have no choice.
I didn’t know how long I hid, but when the footsteps faded away and they called to check the next alley over, I was finally able to let out the breath I’d been holding in.
“Dangsin-eul balgyeon.” I found you.
The words were accompanied by a snakelike hand materializing through the fog to shackle itself around my wrist.
I was dragged out of the steam and into the middle of the alley where four men in dark suits stood waiting.
Because I still had my pride, I struggled even though it was pointless. Sweat dripped down my back, causing the metal tucked into the waistband of my black pants to slip a little lower.
“He’s been found,” the man holding my wrists announced.
The four men standing before us parted like a pair of curtains, and the woman who commanded them all came forward.
“Fighting against who you are is a waste of time,” she said, eyes flat and serious. “I admire a man with a sense of persistence, but enough is enough. You will be punished this time.”
“I’m not coming with you.”
Her whole body stilled. Long, silent moments passed through the alley as more steam rose from around our feet. She turned back, almost robotic, her high heels clicking concisely over the pavement as she stepped closer.
“Oh, Mal-Chin, when will you learn that Mother knows best?”
Almost as if the man were hypnotized, the hands binding my wrists slackened. Seizing the moment, I burst backward, knocking him down and, at the same time, pulling out the gun, which was slick with my own sweat.
Mother paused, glancing between me and the gun with veiled interest and not an ounce of fear.
Oh, I hated that. She thought because she made me, she didn’t have to fear me.
The sound of the gun cocking reverberated through the alley. “If Mother really knew best, she wouldn’t have followed me here.”
The cold look in her eyes that I knew so very well finally surrendered to fear. Her lips parted to speak, but whatever she would say was silenced by the explosion of a gun.
“Earth!” Beau’s shout snapped me back, and I spun, heart pounding.
“Beau?”
His messy red head poked into the hallway. “Everything okay back there?”
He’s okay.
“Why the hell wouldn’t I be?” I snapped, still straddling the line between past and present.
“Just checking,” he said, disappearing back out into the bar.
My eyes returned to the black rose on my desk. The thorns were sharp, pricking into my flesh when my hand clenched around the stem. One of the petals came loose to flutter onto the floor.
I stared at it amongst the mess, feeling sick because of how well it fit with the mess I’d dumped there last night.
“Hey! Where are you going?” Beau called out when I was already halfway through the broken door.
“Out,” I called over my shoulder, exiting onto the sidewalk, feeling blood smear the stem of the rose I still carried.
Yes, all of this could only mean one thing.
They’d found me.