Page 145 of Fallacies

I was sixteen, and I was scared—farther out than I should have been, and I blame Delia for that. She’d pushed me too hard that day, going on and on about my duty to our people and how much time I didn’t have left.

I was sixteen.

I’d crossed the border into Streatham, and I found the Rogue scavenging through an old building. An old trinket shop I used to visit as a boy. I remembered meeting the owner once—another poor soul who didn’t make it out that night. And now there was this foul, yellow-eyed Rogue going through things that used to belong to us. To our people.

I lunged before I could think twice about it, and my knife pierced his chest, sliding straight through his heart. Dark blood spilled out over the shop floor, and I watched his miserable life drain from his body.

That’s all it took. A few seconds were all it took to rid the world of his kind, and I decided that if I had to dedicate my life and all its seconds to that cause, I would.

I decided it would be worth it.

And I was never the same after that.

Blood leaks through my fingers. My blood, unfortunately. Devon is somewhere by the door, simultaneously keeping watch and trying to convince me to get the fuck out of here. I’ve killed three, but I saw a fourth scramble down the row of broken pews. He isn’t the one who ripped open the skin at my side—his friend is somewhere behind me, likely still bleeding out, his face beaten beyond recognition.

“Callan,” Devon snarls.

I ignore him, trudging forward, my right leg growing sluggish. I hear a clatter behind the altar, and I increase my pace.

The darkening night provides low visibility. All I have is the moonlight streaming in from the shattered stained-glass windows—hence why Devon wants us to leave so badly. He hasn’t even seen my wound yet. He’ll drag me out of here by my shirt when he does.

When I round the altar, the Rogue behind it jumps back, yellow eyes flaring as he reaches for his magic. But mine rips through the air before he gets a chance, hurling his body against the back wall. He slides down it, falling to the ground hard, then he lies there a moment before attempting to crawl out of the way.

I’m there in a few easy steps. My boot comes down on his wrist, and his fingers flatten out at the pressure. He lets out a strangled scream, his other hand coming up in defense, but I grab it quickly, slamming it to the ground beside him. With both his hands restrained, I dip into his mind, pain flaring in my chest at the resistance I’m met with.

Messing with Rogue memories is nearly impossible. Whatever their brain is composed of is like poison to that fraction of my power, but I push through the pain anyway and dig as deep as I’m able.

There’s a memory of him winning a round of poker, sitting around a table of six in a dark, dimly lit room. Then I see him attending a party, hosted in the grand ballroom of the Estate. Our Estate. But the memory is too hazy for me to make out any of the faces he sees, so I try for one more, a throbbing pain starting up at the top of my spinal cord.

This one is clearer—more recent.

He’s laughing with a group of men, the group that lay dead behind me, and two of them are holding an emaciated woman, her head hung too low for me to see her face. Without hesitation, they toss her onto what looks like a pile of bodies in different stages of decomposition. When her head rolls back, there’s no life in her face, but her eyes are distinctly Solian—staring up blankly at the sky.

The group laughs some more, then one of them warns the others, “Keep your masks up. She’s still fresh.”

The set of eyes I’m watching through turns, exposing the rest of the crumbling building.

Ripping out of his memory, I fight for my next breath, tightening my grip on the Rouge’s wrists.

That building…it was the same one Iris had stumbled out of. She must have been tossed onto the same pile of deceased. Alive.

“What are you doing to them?” I snarl in his ear.

Fighting against my hold, his words are muffled against the ground, “Nothing!”

I slam his head into the floor, and his nose crunches against the hardwood. “Lie to me again, and it will be the last thing you do.”

“Nothing,” he gasps. “I swear, we didn’t⁠—”

I roll him on his back, pin his arms down with my knees, and wrap my hands around his neck. As I squeeze, blood rushes to my ears. I press harder, spurred on by the flare of his golden irises, but all I see is red. It takes over my body and all my senses.

Gold. Red. Black.

Death, capture, and more death.

Smoke and flames and families being ripped apart. Homes being destroyed. A once vibrant city being extinguished, smothered, and forgotten.

By him. By his kind.