Poison Princess

41

Arthur is inching up the stairs, wheezing, still threatening me at intervals, baring his bloody teeth.

Had I ever imagined it could come to this?

I arrived here an emotional mess, fresh from sobbing for two days. Little wonder. I’ve never been alone like that before, friendless and without family. I’d never felt the stab of betrayal from a boy.

Yes, I came here seeking answers from Arthur, but I was also yearning for more—a sympathetic hug, a pat on the back, any scrap of kindness.

And worse, I still expected it.

I’ve been good to people in the past, and even after the Flash—after all the times I’ve been wronged—I still nurtured this naïve belief that people wanted to be good to me too.

When I first gazed at Arthur with his aw-shucks modesty, I thought: New friend.

As simple as that.

God, how badly I needed a friend. Instead, I found a psychopath.

Even now those three girls are upstairs shrieking for help, unable to get out of this lair. I hear the youngest one bawling, begging for her mother. I can only guess how long he’s been torturing them.

Tonight Arthur has changed me forever. He’s pushed me over the edge, forcing me to become what had once been my worst nightmare.

I am altered. Before Arthur. And after. There’s no going back.

I hate him for that.

As we reach the top of the steps, he weakly lunges across the threshold, landing on his lacerated belly with a grunt. Then he begins to scrabble crablike across the floor, half looking at me, half looking at the front door he’s keen to reach.

When he nears the entrance, the girls scream and bolt into a corner.

At the door, he drags himself to his knees, stretching for a doorknob that isn’t there.

“Caught by your own trap? You creepy, filthy fiend.”

Darting glances over his shoulder at me, he reaches into the back pocket of his pants, snagging a pair of pliers.

I continue stalking closer, which makes him more and more agitated. This power is heady. No wonder the red witch laughs so much. I’m beginning to see the appeal. “I followed you around town before I came here—but you knew that, didn’t you? What you didn’t know is that we were both getting ready for this meeting.”

Matthew warned me of lures; the Alchemist used several to coax me into his lair, and I was wary.

The bright lantern on his house—a light in darkness. The stew I’d smelled—a feast when I was starving. But while he’d been stoking his fire in anticipation, he’d left me plenty of time to call for my special kind of backup.

Just as I’d seen the red witch do.

With my blood, I revived dead plants—and it felt delicious to bring them back to life. Then I’d practiced with them.

Arsenal.

Now roses, vines, and oaks await just outside, ready to storm the Alchemist’s hold. A tornado of thorns swirls above. “You thought I was so pale and weak,” I tell him. “Yet I was only recuperating from blood loss. Thank you for giving me the TO.”

At that, he bobbles his pliers up . . . up; they land several feet away. In a panic, he grips the metal rod—all that remains of the inner half of the doorknob—twisting with all his might. Blood begins to drip from his palm.

“Ask yourself, Alchemist, do you really want to make it out that door?”

Over his shoulder, he sneers, “You are an aberration, a freak! That’s why your precious Jackson chose another, because he could sense how wrong you are! He spurned you.”

I don’t deny that. Fair’s fair. Hell, it could be true—what do I know? Apparently, nothing about boys.

Even after seeing Jackson kiss Selena, I still miss him. I wonder how long that ache will last—

Arthur begins to rise, lumbering to his feet. This is . . . surprising. I’d heard him drinking stuff downstairs, but I didn’t figure he could counteract my poison.

When he stands, I realize his torso is healing with a speed matching my own regeneration.

“I’m not without talents, Evie.” Before my eyes, his muscles are growing, straining against his clothing.

He casts me such a triumphant smirk that I wonder if he can outgun me and mine.

“You couldn’t guess how strong I’d be.” With a bellow, he plucks the door from its frame like a piece of lint.

He hurls it overhead at me; I scream when it connects with my shoulder, slamming me into a wall.

As my vision wavers, I imagine that I hear Jackson’s echoing voice in the distance. “Evangeline!”

I breathe through the pain, grappling with the weight of the door, frantically squirming to get out from under it. I’m still so weak in body, a scrawny little girl!

“Evie! Answer me, damn it!” Jackson is here? How has he located this town? “Where are you?” I can’t process the anguish in his booming voice, his desperation to reach me. Why would he come? He was finished with me.

Then he yells to someone, “Tell me exactly where she is, boy! Or I’ll gut you, I swear to Christ!”

Matthew’s here too?

Arthur rushes from the doorway across the room. Instead of escaping, he’s pressing his advantage. I watch in disbelief as he vaults clear over a table, skidding to a stop before a china cabinet. By the time I get free and make it to my feet, he has snagged stoppered vials?

He lobs them at me. They shatter, splashing their contents across my skin.

Acid.

The pain. Paralyzing. Mind-numbing.

I shriek. The skin on my upper arm, one thigh, one calf—dissolving. I drop to my knees. Consciousness dims.

“Evangeline!” Jackson’s agonized roar is like a beacon, focusing me.

Arthur stalks closer, vowing, “I will melt you inch by inch, will make you beg, just as I did Father.”

I struggle to rise, to ignore my hissing, burning flesh as it begins to heal.

When the Alchemist sees my skin regenerating, he mutters, “Not possible.”

I gasp out, “You keep saying that . . . about things that are . . . already occurring.” He hasn’t witnessed even a fraction of my powers. The idea makes me proud, smug. I stagger to my feet.

Ready to end this, I call on my soldiers, loosing them into the fray. Battering-ram limbs beat down doors and windows so that vines can snake inside, overrunning every room.

Just as Matthew said, there is a heat in battle, and I feel it pumping inside me. Glorious! I yell from it and my soldiers respond violently.

Thorny stalks drape the front of the house. Behind me, a wall of green roils, a twining mass. As we creep forward, Arthur freezes, gaze blank with horror.

Just before we reach him, he whirls around, sprinting for the exit. He doesn’t get two steps outside before a limb shoots in front of him, blocking his way. Ivy flies at him from the sides of the porch, coiling around his torso, the tips boring into his skin.

“Nooo! Stop this, you freak!”

A rose stalk creeps along the ceiling like beading water. Descending with vicious stealth, it slithers around his neck.

When it locks tight, I murmur, “Your new collar, Arthur.”

More stalks bind his legs, ascending to his arms as if he were a trellis, wringing a high-pitched scream from his lungs. Tightening like barbed wire, they dig their thorny fangs deeper, deeper, until his lungs can’t expand enough for a second scream.

He peers back at me over his shoulder, his eyes pleading.

How many girls have begged him not to hurt them? How many has he poured acid on?

How many has he maimed?

He’d been planning on doing it to me—

Suddenly he thrashes, freeing one arm with that insane strength. From his pocket, he snatches one last vial of acid.

Before he can strike, I wave my hand: the order for execution.

The vines holding his body slingshot in different directions, ripping him in half.

In a spray of arcing blood and splintering bone, the Alchemist is no more.

Two separate halves. Deposited on opposite ends of the porch. A puddle of crimson in the middle.

I’ve won the day, but the victory has taken its toll on me. When I totter on my feet, my soldiers press against my back, steadying me like a bookend. As I’d seen the red witch do, I stab my claws into one rose stalk, siphoning the life I’d given it back into my body, speeding my healing.

“Evangeline!” Jackson nears.

Why have you come here? Why, why? Fleeing from him is no longer an option. I won’t hide what I am anymore.

“Bébé, answer me! Please . . .”

I spy him sprinting down the street, Matthew close behind. They’re not alone. Selena and Finn follow.

When the four slow in front of the house, the web of briars parts to reveal me standing at the head of the steps. Half of my bloody T-shirt and the legs of my jeans have dissolved, baring my regenerating skin and glowing glyphs. My red hair whips from the tornado of thorns above.

A vine curls about my neck affectionately. I rub my cheek against it, petting it, my poisonous claws glinting.

Behind me, the thorny barbed wire, the vise of vines, and the battering-­ram oaks all await my command. They choke every opening of the Alchemist’s lair, until the shape of the house is unrecognizable.

I gaze down at the other Arcana. Matthew is proud. Selena is lethal, icy. And not surprised at all. Just as I’d suspected, she knows all about us. About me.

Finneas appears stunned—and guilty? He mutters, “Never thought you’d walk in.”

Off to the side, lips parted and eyes wide, is Jackson.

Walk in . . . ? Just then, the three girls begin fighting their way past the vines in the front doorway. With another wave of my hand, I allow them passage. They run out of Arthur’s house past me, screaming for their lives.

Then something draws my attention down. A new marking appears on my hand, not one of my glyphs, but a small tattooed illustration. It’s the Alchemist’s symbol, a glowing lantern—his lure.

So odd to see it on my skin, yet familiar in a way. Just as Matthew told me, the battles must be fought, the markings earned.

Make a kill; earn a tattoo trophy. I swallow, going light-headed as a memory bombards me. At last, I recall the answer to that chilling question.

The doctor asked, “Do you understand why you must reject your grandmother’s teachings?”

I nodded, slurring my words: “Because she wants me to do bad things to other kids.”

The rest of that car ride with Gran blossoms in my consciousness, the scene as fresh as the day it was created:

Just as the cops blared their sirens behind us, she told me, “Every few centuries, a new life-or-death game begins. You must trump the twenty-one other Arcana, Evie. Only one can live.”

“What does that mean, Gran?” I asked, panicked.

“At the end of the game, your hands will be covered with their symbols.” After pulling over to the side of the road, she gently cupped my chin, meeting my gaze with grandmotherly affection in her twinkling brown eyes. “Because you’re going to kill them all. . . .”

Kill them all.

This is what I am. Deep down, hadn’t I known I might have to murder Arthur? It was the Alchemist who’d been doomed the moment he’d “trapped” me.

I now wear his symbol, will forever. I have entered the game, whether I wanted to or not.

No wonder Matthew asked me if I was going to kill him. And what of Selena? Has she kept us around, planning to murder us in our sleep?

Maybe she waits for us to attract more Arcana, like Finn. I wonder if the Archer finds it challenging not to kill us until the time is right.

I turn to Jackson, meeting his stunned gray gaze. This is what I truly am. . . .

I notice a blood-soaked bandage wrapped tightly around his hand. He’s injured himself? I look closer. Not a bandage. Clutched in his grasp is . . . my poppy-red ribbon.

The ribbon he’s saved since before the Flash.

He’s not standing near Selena, and he’s come here for me. Do I believe what is right before me—or my memory of them kissing? What if I’d misinterpreted things?

Oh, God. Finn.

Had I walked in on Selena and the Magician—disguising himself as Jackson?

Am I grasping at straws because I still want Jackson so much? It’s possible that he never touched her, right?

For a dizzy moment, I wonder if Jackson and I still have a future. I ache for it. He can bring me back from this.

He can save me—

The house groans beneath the weight of my vines and limbs, the frame snapping. The foundation quakes. Though I’d practiced with my new powers, they are not yet completely under control. My weakness makes me clumsy with them.

I begin to withdraw my soldiers in a churning, snakelike retreat, but before they can fall back, dormant once more, they’ve ruptured the entire house wide, like a broken egg.

Jackson’s jaw slackens. His gaze darts from one half of the house to the other; then he squints at something off to the side.

Oh. Part of the Alchemist. The little doll’s got teeth, Cajun.

What will he say? Do?

I nervously rub my thumb over my claws until blood drips anew. He told me we could get through anything. Can I trust that?

Save me, Jack. . . .

He stumbles back, making the sign of the cross. Just as I once predicted.

With that one gesture, he has broken my heart utterly.

—And yet I could not be prouder, Empress— seductive Death whispers in my mind.

I hear him so clearly; he must be close. I now have nothing to lose, no reason to live in fear of him. Watch your six, Reaper, I’m on the hunt.

A rasping chuckle. —Your Death awaits.—

I start laughing, and I can’t stop.

Jackson pales even more. I hope he deserts me now and takes the other three with him, out of my reach.

Because otherwise, the Empress might just kill them all—

Moisture tracks down my face. A tear?

Rain.

As Jackson and I stare at each other, drops fall between us. . . .