Clementine felt them all—felt their eyes watching, felt their mouths opening and closing, hungrily wet with saliva that dripped from their jowls. She heard them swallow. She heard them rasp and breathe and choke on the stars they consumed. They crept closer, darted away into the dark, grazed her skin and recoiled, licked her hair and vomited into her lap. And not once did she spare the Elder Gods and their slaves so much as a second of her attention. They don’t deserve it. They hardly deserve to hear their name inside of her skull. For all their power, for all their domain over all realms physical and imagined, they just didn’t have the balls to look her in the eyes and tear her apart themselves. So they sent their slaves, the souls they chained to their thrones, and told them to shatter her mind. Ha. She’d find that amusing if it wasn’t so insulting. Come now, she thought, prying open a single eye, slowly glancing over her shoulder, finding a beast—malformed, ugly, twisting mounds of flesh covered in snapping, saliva-filled mouths—so close to her body she could just about feel the icy chill coming off its heavy black tongue. It froze. She shut her eyes again. The creature vanished with a shrieking wail, bounding back into the darkness it had come from.

  You can stop with your nightmares now, she said, through her mind, voice echoing into the darkness. Hecca’s son was somewhere out there, hiding from her, too—angry that he’d been sealed away. Petulant. Childish, She could hear him panting and running and feel when he threw one wave of slaves at her and then the next. The boy was talented. Strong. Also clinically insane. She should’ve killed him years ago, but the Gods didn’t want him dead yet. Clementine didn’t quite care what they wanted, though. If this is the vessel they’ve chosen, then fine, by all means—send the boy to war and watch him get ripped apart with the same hands that had wiped out the House of One. Telepaths were easy to kill. Aneurysms. Strokes. A shattered skull always does wonders in stopping them.

  “You think I’m afraid of you?” Thirteen shouted. His voice echoed, quiet, strained. The boy must be so, so tired. Poor thing. She’ll get him soon. The longer he stayed here, the less there was of him to feel exhausted, too. Clementine considered this a good thing. She was doing him a service. “I’m the heir to the House of One. I’m the son of Hecca. My blood binds the fates. My mind—” He screamed. Collapsed. The thud of his body collapsing onto the floor cut a smile across her lips. Keep running, little boy. Faster. Faster! Don’t let the shadows get you.

  Do you know what your father once said to me? Silence. He was playing hard to get now. Witchling didn’t mind. The Elder Gods were watching, still sending their servants, still whispering and hissing and yet, still too afraid to grab her heart and rip it from her chest on their own. For all his bravery, Hecca told me that I should’ve withered away into nothing, just like my mother did in the same gutters she was raped in. Another scream. Another bout of silence. Then, quietly, gasping, running—all of it staggered and pained. And yet they gave him peace awards. They named him Man of the Year dozens of times over. For all his accolades, he couldn’t run from me.

  “Go to hell,” Thirteen snarled.

  Clementine smiled. She was sitting on the floor, legs folded, hair hanging loosely over her face. Oh, come now. Don’t threaten me with such a good time. I’ve been called hellspawn so often, I once took a trip to hell for the summer, just to see what all the fuss was about. I was…displeased. She rolled her hand through the air, the shadows so thick around her fingers it felt like a liquid of its own, dripping from the pores of the beast prowling around her. Sulfur. Death. Dead bodies. Nothing as tremendous or exciting as you might think it to be. It was terribly boring.

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  Yes, yes, I’m sure you will.

  Haggard, raw—an animal speaking from its gut, he said, “You’d be nothing without my family.”

  And to that, Clementine paused, listened to her heart slowly beating against her chest, felt the blood drifting through her body. Nothing without your family? The air quaked. The shadows hissed and stretched and fled, just like the beasts haunched around her, malformed, ugly things wanting her blood. Your family was a blight. Your family were slaves of beings that have done nothing except tear apart this world and strip it of its hope. And why was that? Because of your father’s hubris? Because of your mother’s sacrifice in giving birth to you? The House of One deserved what it got, and just like you, child, you’ll be made into something useful. For the first time in your family’s ghastly history, one of you is actually going to do some good with their lives. Aren’t you proud?

  “Your mother was a whore. You’re just the same, on your hands and knees, begging the Gods for—”

  A scream. No, a shriek.

  And then Thirteen was suddenly silent.

  She’d found him, just meters away, braver than he’d ever been in the months since she’d captured him and stopped him from trying to kill Rylee. Clementine opened her eyes and found him bent in agony, jaw locked in place, teeth grinding and organs screaming as his eyes, wild with pain and terror, spasmed and struggled to look at her face. She twisted his arms, twisted and wrung and deformed until his shoulders contorted, his legs bent and his spine finally snapped with a terribly gristly crunch. Then she let go of his body. He collapsed beside her, gasping and wheezing for air, eyes wild, wide, face bitter with pain as Clementine pulled herself off the floor and stretched her arms over her head. He grunted and wheezed. Choked on his tongue and the goblet of blood sitting fat and thick in the base of his throat. His fingers twitched, tensed and curled, carving furrows into the wooden floor as he tore his fingernails out trying to scar it and get up. She stepped over him and walked toward the door. She figured that was enough torment for the boy today. Too much, and he’d die, which wouldn’t be very useful to her. She needed his soul, and souls have a bad habit of scampering away into nothingness the second their anchor died.

  “Get back here.” She stopped walking, then glanced over her shoulder. My, my, you heal fast, she thought. Clementine turned around and folded her arms, then spread her hand, waiting for him to spit yet another threat at her. She’d stripped him naked, down to nothing except the scars the House of One had left him with. His body was covered in sweat and grime and dried blood. He’d hidden and ran and fought for months. A prisoner in a dark little room with enough power inside of him to split the cosmos, now choking on his own tongue, crapping in the corner, pissing between the floorboards, reduced to nothing except the animal the rest of his bloodline were. “You think this ends like this? You think I’m going to—” He gritted his teeth. Tried to move. She could almost hear his spine cracking and grinding as it tried to mend itself. Then he spat. It didn’t get far. It dribbled down his chin and spread across the floor. The room already stank. That would just make it worse. “I’m going to rip your guts out of your throat. I’m going to tear your spine out of your back and carve open your skull with my bare hands.” Blood rushed through the gaps between his teeth. His eyes, red, wild, beastial, glared with nothing but pure hatred. “If my father had never been kind to you, you'd have ended up just like your mother! Doing tricks for dollars and food, pathetic and filthy. You should be thankful he didn’t tear out your throat when he was taking out your tongue! You hear me! I’m going to kill you, and I’ll drink the blood that comes out of your chest and I’ll sacrifice your soul to the Gods.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Clementine unfolded her arms, then flicked her index finger at the boy.

  He slammed into the wall, flattening his skull and turning his brain into gooey gray liquid that spilled from a crack in the side of his head. Then she clenched her fist, and his head mended itself so suddenly he jerked and began screaming bloody murder at her again. She left him, back broken, arms twisted and legs wildly bent, shrieking for her to get back there, wailing about how ungrateful she was, as if she had a debt to him personally.

  She had one debt, and that was to Rylee and to her future. Nothing more, nothing less.

  And soon, just days from now, everything would be as it should be.

  She quietly shut the door behind her, then waved her hand across the wood, sealing the entrance. Evil had a nasty habit of creeping into her apartment unprovoked. Not tonight. Tonight, she needed coffee and some rest.

  For now, Clementine sleepily sank into her living room’s green couch, tilted her head back, and silently groaned as she massaged the back of her neck. She’d been working on him for hours. Every second in that room meant a page closer to completing the Book of One. The original might be gone, and its counterparts were all scattered around the globe, but that didn’t matter. The cat suddenly pounced onto her stomach, pressing the air out of her lungs. She startled and coughed as the sleek black thing angrily flicked its tail. She lifted the thing with her mind and dropped it on Ruslana’s lap instead. The girl was too absorbed circling and scribbling on a map to care.

  “Had fun torturing him?” Ruslana asked her, not taking her eyes off the large sheet of paper.

  As always, she said. What is it that you’re plotting tonight, my darling little superhero?

  “Don’t infantalize me,” Ruslana muttered.

  There’s nothing childish about being a superhero.

  “Coming from you, I don’t think that means anything.”

  Witchling smiled thinly. You speak like her, you know.

  Ruslana paused, red marker hovering over the map. She swallowed, took the cigarette out of the tin tea cup beside her, put it in her mouth, and silently continued. Nothing more to say, so that meant a night full of silence.

  Just like the countless ones they’d had now.

  Any progress looking for the clone?

  “No,” Ruslana said around the cigarette.

  Do you know where she might be?

  “You can tell me that in a heartbeat.”

  I’m preoccupied with the boy. He’s a wild soul. Powerful. The moment I leave this room…

  “I know.” She sighed smoke and rubbed her eyes. “I don’t even know why she’s so important. You didn’t even tell me that either. And I hate not knowing things, Witch. I’m not that person anymore, agreeing to anything and everything someone’s got to say to me.” She put the pen down and looked at Clementine. “What’s so important about a thing that can just get replaced by another? She’s a clone. A product. She’s nothing like Olympia, either.”

  I know, Clementine said, shutting her eyes. I just don’t quite enjoy seeing children suffer that way.

  “She’s made a lot of people suffer.”

  Not by her choice, she said softly. Like you, she was just following orders, because she didn’t know any better. She’s young. Scared. Clinging to people who wouldn’t ever cling to her. The girl needs to be cared for and loved, lest she ends up filled with hatred and malice, fully devoid of anything human. Lower Olympus has a terrible habit of not looking after its children. She slowly opened her eyes, finding that her fingers had gone searching for a necklace she no longer owned. There’s time to change. There will always be chances. Let this be the chance the girl is granted. And besides, it would be fun having another person here. You might have a new sister.

  Ruslana scoffed. “I never took you as charitable. And no, she wouldn’t be. My real sister is dead.”

  Wouldn’t you like to be the older sister you wish you still had?

  The girl froze, then sharply looked at Clementine. “Not to a clone. Not to an abomination.”

  Clementine tilted her head to get a better look of her. Silver hair wild and loose, shoulders and stomach bare, wearing gray pants and socks, so…normal-looking, only if you ignored her biceps, her scarred back and this wild, hunted look in her eyes, like she’s still expecting a fight, expecting even Witchling, the person who feeds her, houses her, sometimes even tucks a pillow under her head and throws a blanket over her body whenever she falls asleep unknowingly on the couch, to try to kill her. It almost broke her heart, seeing her so guarded, so hungry for violence she knows she hates the taste of. Like Rylee, Ruslana hadn’t grown up how children were supposed to. In a city as twisted, as collapsed and rotted as this one, she wasn’t surprised. But still… Clementine sighed and smiled.

  That’s not fair, Clementine said. Love yourself, Ruslana. You’re worthy of love, and so is Sophie.

  Ruslana stood, making the cat leap off her lap. “I’m heading out. Maybe to look for Bianca.”

  Clementine rolled her hand. Wear something warm. The news said the weather is only going to get worse.

  She was already walking down the hallway, jaw tight, gut even tighter. Clementine flinched when the door slammed shut. She sighed and looked at the cat. For all their fighting and arguing about how grown up they are, they really are still children, aren’t they? The cat’s tail flicked. I agree. I think she’s starting to get attached to Bianca. The cat meowed loudly. Clementine waved her hand again. Yes, yes, I know you are, too. You’ll get your body back soon, but not yet. Not in the state I found it in. Do you know how hard it is putting veins and arteries and neural pathways back together again? I’m also no doctor. The last thing we want is for you not to be perfect. I’d also prefer if your body doesn’t fall apart the first chance it gets. That would traumatize the poor girl, too. The cat hissed at her and pounced onto the armchair Ruslana had been sitting on, walked in a tiny circle, and dropped down with its face tucked into its arm. Clementine sighed. Oh, don’t be like that. I’m trying my best. A tiny meow escaped its mouth. She frowned. You know I couldn’t do that. Telling Bianca the truth in the state she was in would’ve hurt her even more. And you made me promise not to say anything, not until you were back in your body.

  The cat said nothing else. Eventually, it fell asleep, its tiny body rising and falling.

  It wasn’t long before Ruslana marched out of the apartment, a heavy scarlet jacket hanging off her shoulders as she used her teeth to finish her knuckle wraps. Then, suddenly, the apartment was deathly silent. She slid her fingernails along the couch, staring at the ceiling, head pulsing, thoughts racing through her mind. She shut her eyes and sighed through her nose, then pushed her fingers through her hair and so badly wanted to get up and…

  She shook her head. Running away was what children did. She hadn’t been one in a very long time.

  Clementine still had a job to finish and a superhero to save.

  I can be tired when it’s over, she thought to herself, yawning soundlessly.

  It would be easier to rest if she knew where Rylee had suddenly vanished to. Founder had been near her, she could tell that much. His mind’s reach was far and wide, but also disgustingly intrusive. He’d sever the connection she’d had with Rylee, and amongst many other things, she hated that wrinkly old man even more.

  She decided to reserve that hatred for the coming days. Lower Olympus was destined to change soon.

  Hopefully, it would be for the better this time.

  It had to be. She was willing to kill herself to make sure of it.

  And all it would take is just one more soul.

  Maybe the devil’s would do, if Lucian wanted to play nice. Clementine would make him if she had to.