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“What’s he—” But I don’t have to finish my question because as my eyes adjust to the darkness I see that Jost is not alone.
“Shhh!” Erik warns, and that’s when I hear the voices. One is calm and reassuring, but the other comes in fits of words punctuated by giggles and wails.
I move closer to Jost but the woman he’s speaking to startles and scuttles farther down the alley.
“Don’t come any closer,” Jost warns.
He calls out to the woman, but she only scrambles farther away from us in fits and jerks.
“What’s going on?” Dante asks, and then he flashes the handlight in our direction. The woman screams as the light hits her and I realize she’s not a woman. She’s a girl not much older than me.
But everything about her is wrong. In the light her pupils are wide and black, and that’s not even the most frightening thing. The whites of her eyes have gone red and her skin droops into giant jowls from her jawline. Some of it has detached entirely and something under the surface ripples. No, crawls. She hisses and wails and laughs as she scratches her fingers across the brick walls. It’s as though she’s decaying while she’s still alive.
“Jost,” I say, loud enough that he can hear. “We should go.”
I take a careful step forward and touch his shoulder.
“She needs help,” he says, flashing me a disappointed look.
“We can’t help her,” I say.
“Dante can help her,” Jost corrects me, “and Erik.”
So Erik has finally admitted to his brother that he’s a Tailor.
“Then let’s talk to them.” I pull Jost’s arm, urging him back to the others.
When we reach them, Dante and Erik are discussing something in grim voices. Valery hugs her arms to her chest and I place a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t look up, and Dante’s expression is grave.
“That girl needs your help,” Jost says. “I know you can patch.”
“Jost.” Erik places a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I have basic patching skills. I don’t think I can do anything about that much … damage.”
“I alter by feel,” Dante says apologetically. “I don’t have the medic training or equipment for such a severe case of…”
“So that’s it?” I ask, frustrated by how unfeeling they both sound. Beside me Jost straightens a little in response to my indignation, as though he’s physically backing up my moral stance.
“It’s not only that.” Erik pauses. “I’ve never seen damage like this before.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t fix it,” I say firmly.
Behind us the girl bellows out a groan that grows strangled as she gasps for air. Jost takes a step toward her, but Erik grabs him, holding him back from helping her.
The girl’s skin sags as she lifts her hands out to us, her flesh falling in sickening lumps to the ground. H
er cry grows weaker, echoing from some pit deep inside her, until she is silent and still.
I can’t tear my eyes from her body. I did nothing to help her. I only watched her die.
We stand in mute shock as we try to process what we’ve witnessed.
“Didn’t she remind you of anything?” Erik asks us finally.
I don’t have to think hard. The frenetic speech pattern, the animal-like responses, and most of all, her strange appearance.
“A Remnant,” I say. “But Remnants are more controlled than she was, and her skin wasn’t scarred.”
“I don’t think she was altered,” Erik says. He speaks in slow, measured words. “This is something else entirely.”
