Ilyan Read online

  For weeks I stared at the blood-drenched wall, at the streaks of red that cut into the black until I fell asleep, until the dreams that I really wanted took its place.

  Until I saw her in the only promise that my memories still existed, even if they were locked inside of me.

  Sparks of my life filled my dreams, the color distorted as she danced with me under a million twinkling lights, the sound broken as she laughed in my ear. Even with the crackle of static, the sound of her laugh was still intoxicating. It breathed into me, lingering as the image shifted to the two of us walking down a beach, the sun hot against my skin.

  The warmth was so real, the color of sand and sun so vivid, that I stepped back, the frantic motion causing the beach to dissolve into light and air. Particles of light faded to black, the sound of my heart growing into an echo before it too shattered, leaving me with the shadow of her laying on a messy bed, her dark curls spread around her like a halo.

  She was beautiful.

  Although I had learned nothing of her, one thing was clear.

  I loved her and she loved me.

  Her silver eyes filled with a spark of joy before they were cast in shadow, the dream shifting to flashes of light and explosions that I could not place.

  The flashes of memory, the spark of explosions, they came so fast that I wished they would slow down, that I could simply press pause and linger on the memory of a kiss. Of the way she felt in my arms.

  But I couldn’t control them. As fast as they came, they slipped away into nothing, trapped in the forgotten abyss of my mind.

  Her head on my shoulder.

  Her tears on my fingers.

  Her laugh over canned sausages.

  Her blood covered fingers on my face.

  Her scream as she ran.

  Her smile as she died.

  My heart jumped. My breathing caught. Although I kept my eyes shut tight I knew that sleep had been taken from me, the memory of that blood-streaked face pulling me from the taunting flashes of my memory and right back into reality.

  A reality filled with cold handcuffs, hard pillows, and the escalated beeping of machines and monitors. Mostly, it was a reality filled with the painful knowledge of her death.

  I still did not know if I had killed her or not, I had no way of knowing. What I did know, was that she had a mark and if all the reports on the news are correct, she died because of it.

  Laying still, I tried to pull the joy I had felt in the dream back into me, I tried to prompt it to fill me, to bring those memories back.

  But nothing came; only the blood against the stone, against her face. Tears rolled over my nose as I lay still, desperate for the dream to last forever.

  I didn't want to return to a reality of monsters and war; where a guard stood outside my door for fear of a bite or worse. The low mumble of the news was a plague in the background, the sound broken up by a nurse who was speaking to my guard about her rounds.

  I let it all wash over me, they didn't have any new information from what I could tell. I already knew that asking would get me nowhere, the detective only demanded information about a city I had never been to, and a war I didn’t understand.

  A war I didn’t care about. To me, she was all that mattered anyway.

  While they were focused on cities, and bites, and wars, and some photo I had yet to see; I was only focused on her.

  On remembering her.

  On remembering me, my real identity, not the misnomer I had been tagged on my new hospital records.

  Jan Kowalski.

  My new name. A placeholder until the day I remembered my own.

  "I know you are awake."

  The perpetual beeping accelerated as a voice whispered from somewhere to my left. The quiet little hiss was obviously younger and distinctly feminine. She was so quiet I knew she had to be close.

  "Your breathing changed a few minutes ago. Not that I am judging, it's probably the only way you get any information about your case, huh? By lying still and listening..."

  The voice faded off, the girl obviously doing the same thing. Listening.

  I didn't dare move. This voice was new, and the presence of it was sending the angry ripple up my spine that was becoming familiar.

  Fight. Protect.

  I felt my hands heat, that same shudder of electricity moving through my skin as the emotion did. I pushed it away, the memory of whatever had happened with the metal bed rail still strong.

  "You don't have to pretend," the girl continued, the tone softer even though the volume was louder, she was obviously leaning into me. "They aren't in the room anyway. I am the only one here... Well, and you. But, it's not like you are going anywhere."

  Heart still thundering, I opened my eyes slowly, everything on alert. A girl sat in one of the hard plastic chairs that the police had brought in. She was leaning so close to me that all I saw was her nut-brown eyes, the fringe of her dark curls barely noticeable.

  "Wow. You do have blue eyes." She gasped, leaning back a bit and sending the ends of her curls swaying against her shoulders. "My mother said you did, but I didn't think they would be that... Blue."

  I didn't know what to say to that so I just stared at her, pressing my lips into a tight line.

  "I'm Katenka. Everyone calls me Kaye. I have been waiting for you to wake up... or at least stop pretending to be asleep for hours. And that dumb cop won't let me change the TV. As interesting as what happened in Prague is...." She prattled on, obviously uninterested in waiting for me to introduce myself, but with the way she was talking I had a feeling she already knew who I was. Or at least who they thought I was. "They say you were there... were you?"

  She finally stopped, leaning in until all I could see was her eyes, the eager orbs wide atop a bed of freckles. She was eager, her eyes sparkling, but it was nothing compared to the beauty I had seen in my dreams.

  "Who are you?" I asked, finally getting out the question I had been holding in since she first whispered to me.

  "I told you," she sighed, obviously irritated. The whine in her voice gave her maturity away. She couldn't be any older than her mid-teens, I decided. "My name is Kaye."

  "That tells me nothing," I snarled, the anger in my voice not surprising given my frustrations.

  She had invaded my space, after all, although I had no idea how. Then again, I was the one that was handcuffed to the bed. I guess between the two of us I was the one that was least trustworthy.

  I would have to let her trepidation slide, especially if I was correct about her age. It still didn’t answer my question as to why she was here.

  "What are you doing here?" I rephrased in hopes of getting an answer.

  Her eyes narrowed as if she was gauging if she should tell me more.

  "My mother is, Yana, your nurse." She finally said, obviously giving as little information as possible. "I have school off because everything's exploding in the world and here is the safest place for me."

  "Here with a man who is handcuffed to a bed? Why might be bitten? Who may have killed someone..." The words erupted, the confusion over my situation bumping and twisting uncomfortably inside of me. Kaye, however, cared less.

  "Those things aren't in here," she clarified with a roll of her eyes. "I can't get bit. I can't explode."

  "Explode."

  It was the same wording from before, although it didn’t make any more sense now.

  "It happens when you are bit. I've only seen one. He slept for a long time... and then when he woke up he screamed that everything was hot, and then....stuff... started to fly out of him...." She shuddered at the memory, her eyes gaining a haunted quality before she looked away from me to the television. "It was like the air around him was on fire."

  The world on fire.

  I jerked as a single image smacked hard, a memory of the woman smiling at me with her silver eyes before she ran into flames - dark hair streaking behind her.

  The handcuffs pulled against the railings as I jerked again, reaching f
or the memory as it slipped away.

  Kaye shifted at the motion, her eyes wide as she glanced to the door.

  "I would try to tell you that you are safe, but I doubt you would believe me as I am currently handcuffed to a bed."

  "That could be taken many ways," She snickered, an evil look in her eyes before she smothered her mouth with her hands in an effort to stifle the giggle.

  It was then that it dawned on me what this giggly teenager was really afraid of.

  "Ahhh," I sighed, my own smile leaking through. "You aren't supposed to be in here."

  Just like that, the smile slid from her face and disappeared only to be replaced by defiant anger. "My mother knows where I am."

  Part of me wanted to believe her. Even if I didn't know her mother, I had seen her enough, heard the worry in her voice. She didn't think I was dangerous, or she did and she didn't care.

  The guards on the other hand...

  This time we both looked toward the door, her defiant sneer digging through the fogged glass and into the slightly oversized bottom of the officer who has been assigned to guard me.

  "And what would he do if he found you in here?" She stiffened at my question before shaking it off, turning toward me with a look in her eye.

  "They would probably freak out a little bit." I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could say anything she lifted her finger to silence me, smiling wickedly as she flopped back in her chair with a clunk. "But only until I told them what I heard."

  She continued to smile, and my blood turned to ice, dripping through my veins.

  "What did you hear?" I was surprised at how level my voice was, how diplomatic I felt. Even though I could feel the icy panic running through me, and my muscles were tense, taut, and ready, I was calm.

  I forced out an exhale, hoping to banish the emotions, but they stayed, heavy and powerful.

  Like they belonged there.

  Kaye's grin expanded as she leaned in again, resting her chin on the rails just inches from my hand. I tried to move away, the closeness of her proximity making me uncomfortable.

  "What did you hear?" I asked again, my voice growing strained as I forced the tension from my muscles.

  "Who is Joclyn?"

  Three words and my heart ached and thumped and bounced. Three words and everything around me froze in place.

  But I wasn't sure why.

  I wasn't sure why my chest felt like it was about to explode.

  "I don't know," I said, the pain in my chest growing simply because I knew the admission was true.

  "You don't know who she is?" She was shocked, but so was I.

  I didn't dare answer her. I didn't want to delve into it, least of all with a girl who seemed more interested in the gossip than in the mystery of my past.

  Whether Kaye recognized the threat in my eyes, however, I wasn't sure. She only smiled wider, leaning closer to me until her body was practically dangling over the railing of the hospital bed that separated us.

  "You don't have to say it," she said with a smirk. "I can tell. You either don't know who she is, or you do... and she is the one that you killed."

  "I didn't kill anyone," I growled, in a snap that ripped through the still air of the hospital.

  Kaye flinched at the loud octave of my shout, ducking down beneath the bed before the echo of my shout had left. Her chair scraped against the linoleum floor as she vanished.

  I didn't understand her reaction, she didn't seem the type to be scared. The quick footsteps behind me answered my questions.

  My glare was still in place as I lay back to face the heavy-set police officer, the look on his face a cross between irritation and fear.

  "Do you have something you want to say?" He snarled, the threat clear.

  Clenching my teeth in agitation, I shook my head once, refusing to do more in case the emotions that ruled me found a way to explode. The tightness in my jaw was something I was adopting more and more frequently. I didn't like the way my volatility made me feel.

  At least I was smart enough to know that with everything that was going on around me, it wasn't smart to let them take control.

  The officer's eyes pinched together at my silent response, obviously having expected more. I could practically read the battle on his face, the question if he should egg me on clear.

  He seemed to decide against it, for the rotund man clicked his tongue once and turned on his heel before exiting the hospital room.

  I stared after him, watching as he settled back into his chair, the echoing sound of the television heightening in the silence. The sound filled the antiseptic air of the room like a conversation that was just too far out of reach.

  "Well, that was close," Kaye whispered from behind me, I didn't have to turn to know she had returned from wherever she had been hiding.

  Her chair scraped against the floor in a dull grinding noise that rippled against my bones. I shivered at the sound, but still, I didn't turn.

  I sat, rigid and uncomfortable against the scratchy sheets, watching the back of the officer as he took a sip of his coffee before turning to what I could only assume was a nurse, the mumble of his voice softer and kinder than it had been with me.

  When I didn't respond, Kaye turned up the television, the announcer's quick dialect barely loud enough to counteract the sounds of the war behind her.

  The distorted sounds of screams and explosions bathed the room. I listened to them, not wanting to know the truth, while desperately hoping that something would click, that some familiar sound, or noise, or word would pull me into memory.

  That I would understand why the sounds of war were familiar, and why I had felt that I could incapacitate the guard without lifting a finger. An uncomfortable heat returned at the thought, the handcuffs clanking loudly as I shook my hands in the air, desperate to alleviate the heat, to scare away whatever danger was hiding just beneath my skin.

  "Are you okay?"

  Her words were something that could have meant comfort. But the way she said them was more accusatory, and I growled, my response as unsympathetic as hers.

  "I'm fine."

  I settled back into the bed just in time to see her shrug and lean against her chair, the feet grinding against the floor in the shift of movement. Everything was so echoey here, every hard surface ricocheting every sound to twice what it would have been.

  Every noise made me jump: the sound of the screams, of the chair, of the police officer as he clicked his tongue in impatience, the clock as it thrummed away my life, the machines as they echoed the beat of my heart.

  So loud.

  I couldn't understand why this child beside me didn't seem so overwhelmed by it.

  Why she didn't seem to hear.

  Forcing the sounds out of my mind, I turned back to the girl, her focus off the television and on the yellow polish on her nails.

  She was picking at it impatiently, her bottom lip clamped under her teeth. I wasn't sure if she was ripping it off, or trying to fix it.

  It didn't matter.

  I just sat there, watching her, staring at the polish on her fingers as a flash of a dark room hit me. The memory was so quick that I couldn't make anything out. Just darkness shrouded by the hulking shapes of furniture, or people, or who knows what else.

  "Do you think it was her?" Kaye said suddenly, her voice pulling me out of the memory and I jerked, the intrusion into my past making me desperate to put as much space between her and I as I could. Which was none.

  "She is what?" I said, the hard line in my voice deep in expectation of what was coming.

  "The one you killed..."

  "I didn't kill anyone," I responded quickly, even though I wasn't too sure.

  "I don't think you killed anyone either. Least of all her... with the way, you say her name. Joclyn...." She sighed, a love-sick mockery in her eyes. "You can tell you love her. I mean... I guess it could have been a lovers quarrel - I've heard of those before. But no, not with..."

  "Stop," I command
ed, the single word taking the wind out of her sails.

  She glowered at me, affronted at the snap that had taken over me, the disgruntled look was obviously her staple.

  "I don't think you killed anyone." She repeated as she turned away, as if saying that made it official, and cops and everyone else had to believe her. “It’s not why you are chained to the bed anyway, or why they are still monitoring everything about you. Everyone is dying? You think they care about one murder?”

  “No.” I corrected, even with the swell of hope that knowing someone didn’t think I was a murderer, I knew it wasn’t that easy. “It’s the bites.”

  “No,” she scoffed, her focus still on what was now a map of Europe, a bright red blob spreading over the continent. “Bite or not, if it was that, you would already be dead.”

  The heart rate monitor sped up as my shock did. My chest tightened as I tried to shift toward her, muscles aching at the distorted movement.

  I did not know this girl. I wasn’t even sure where she had come from. Right then, she could have been a figment of my imagination, it didn’t matter.

  “How do you know this, Kaye.” I used her name in hopes of building a connection, of getting an answer.

  It worked.

  Her eyes lit up, the eagerness sparking as she glanced at me, her face still turned toward the ever-buzzing television screen

  "They think you came from Prague. They say they saw you…” She stopped abruptly, giving me a quick glance before she returned to the TV, her focus a laser on the screen. “My mom thinks you were part of one of the massacres around here, though. There have been so many."

  Everything had taken a dark turn, the perky girl that had both irritated and intrigued me for the last few minutes seemingly gone. Her lips pulled into a tight line as all the light was sucked out of her. "Those things fly in hoards. Hundreds of them moving in little black clouds through the sky. You never know when they will dive, when they will suddenly plunge toward the ground and strike. Killing, biting... The Chrlič don’t stop. They try to shoot them out of the sky but they scatter. No one can stop them. That's why she has me in here..."