I’m moving before I can think, a blur of motion through the tunnels, a predator guided by pure instinct. I’m not just running, I’m hunting. I move until all the voices hit me, like a fucking tidal wave of sound in my head. A woman sobbing. “Please… I didn’t mean to—” A man’s drunken laugh. “Another round, come on—” Glass shattering. A kid screaming for his mom. A mean slurring threat. “You owe me, you hear me? You owe—” I’m hearing the whole city. Every dirty secret, every whispered prayer, every last dying breath.It’s all here, in the city’s soul, and it’s a cesspool.
My hands slam against the tunnel wall, the stone groaning under the pressure as the noise threatens to tear my skull apart.
“Stop,” I rasp, but it’s useless, they just get louder. I hear a woman screaming, a man begging, someone puking in an alley… Tar City is screaming through me, and I’m about to fucking explode.
I sift through the chaos, a shark in a churning sea of misery, looking for one vibration. One frequency. Slowly, every other voice fades, pushed down by a will I didn’t know I had, and I hear her.
“Please,” Sisk’s voice trembles through the darkness.
The sound of her crying, the pure, unadulterated fear in her voice, makes me lock down, hard as stone. The rage that replaces the chaos is cold and precise.
Another voice answers. “Oh no, no, no… you don’t understand,” the voice says, the words tumbling over eachother. There’s a high-pitched laugh, almost like a giggle. “This is exactly how it’s supposed to happen.”
The strange voice keeps going, skipping words and changing speed. “It told me! It said. I had to wait. I did it. Years, so many years.” The voice breaks for a wet, nasty laugh. “Down here with me. Whispering. Always whispering.”
No.
That voice?—
That’s not possible.
“You see,” the voice continues, turning into a whisper like it’s telling a secret, “we were always going to end up together.” A burst of laughter echoes through the tunnel. “I… I just had to be the one who listened.”
“Please,” Sisk’s voice shakes. “You don’t understand.”
“I do,” the voice says quickly. “You don’t understand. None of you did. Not them. Not you. Not my father. It talks.”
Sisk coughs.
“It talks and talks and talks,” he continues, words tumbling over each other. “All this time, it has been teaching me. Showing me.”
“You have to let me go, Ivan,” Sisk says softly. “Please. I’m pregnant.”
For a moment there’s nothing.
“I know you’re carrying it. Took long but it’s here. When we dispose of it… we’ll be free.”
Another giggle escapes him. “The voices will stop. They promised. They promised they would stop.”
“Ivan,” Sisk says quickly, forcing strength into her voice. “You’re hurting me.”
The laughter cuts off abruptly.
“Ivan,” she says again, quieter now.
“Ivan…” he repeats slowly. “No one’s called me that in a long time. It calls me the Protector.”
A manic whisper spills out. “Yes. Yes. The Protector. It says the reward is close.” His breathing grows faster. “Now I know why. You’re here.” Another laugh. “My reward.” A sudden possessive edge enters his voice. “Mine. Mine. Sisk and Ivan forever. Remember.”
“You can’t listen to it, Ivan,” Sisk pleads. “You have to listen to me. Look at me. It won’t let us go. It will kill us all.” Her voice cracks. “You have to stop it. You can stop it.”
Pain explodes through my body, driving me to my knees. The tar inside me fucking riots with a violent rejection.
STOP.
My vision whites out and the pressure inside my body tightens. My lungs burn, my ribs creak, my heart feels like it’s being squeezed in a fist. The tar is trying to cut me off, it’s trying to shut me down and take over.
My hands slam against the tunnel ground, and I scream, a primal sound of pure defiance. “Nooooo,” I growl through my teeth, the word tearing at my throat. “You don’t get to have her.”
