The Iron Thorn - Caitlin Kittredge [149]
Cal hacked and trembled, and reached for me. His claws put furrows in my wrist. “I had to. I had to. He came down and he found me and he told me that if I didn’t follow you, he’d burn us out of our home.”
“What?” I said. “Someone made you spy on me and pretend to be my friend?”
“Aoife, you should get away from him now,” Dean said. “If he’s changing, that means he’s going to feed.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” I shouted at Dean. “I want to know why my best friend in the world’s been lying to me!”
“It was Draven,” Cal croaked. “He found me two years ago. The Proctors would have burned me out, but I had something he wanted. I can take human skin, and he said … he said if I went to the Academy, watched you … I had to keep you under my eye.”
“Cal, why?” I gripped his shoulders, shaking him. I could feel bone and gristle, the foreign physiognomy of a ghoul instead of Cal’s skinny frame, and it made my skin crawl. I held on, anger overriding disgust. “Why did you pretend to be my friend?” I whispered.
“Because of what you are,” Cal said. His voice wasn’t Cal’s voice anymore. It was guttural, a growl of hunger rather than the person I knew speaking. “Draven told me that if you ever found out who you really are … what you can do … it would be … a disaster.”
“You’ve been bird-dogging us,” Dean said. “The ravens on the bridge. Alouette calling in the Proctors on the airship. Every bit of bad luck since we met.” He curled a fist, flexed it like you’d pull back the hammer of a gun. “I should smash your ugly face in. Do you realize what you’ve done? It’s your thrice-damned fault we’re in here.”
“No more.” Cal’s breathing was shallow and rapid, his limbs jittering and twitching of their own accord as his nerves played their last notes. “You found your Weird, Aoife. In the crypt, when my brothers tried to stop you. I played dumb because I hoped I could still salvage this and make you go home, but I failed. Two years watching you, pushing you away from the truth, two years being the most horrid, intolerant, party-line-spouting excuse for a human being I could be to keep you in check, and I failed.” He let out a shuddering gasp, a wheeze bubbling from his lungs that sounded dire. “Draven put me in here to kill you, I expect, when he gets what he wants from your pop. And then rot away from hunger myself.”
I sat back on my heels. My only friend, the gawkish boy who loved The Inexplicables and Gunsmoke, who helped me with engineering assignments tirelessly, was a monster.
In my chest, a cold ball of iron formed and expanded and turned into resolve. I would pay Grey Draven back for what he’d done to me. If I had to die to do it, I was going to expose the Bureau of Heresy’s lie.
“I won’t hurt you,” Cal managed. “I … won’t. You don’t deserve this.”
“You’re damn right I don’t,” I said. Cal shied away from my voice.
“Understand,” he begged. “It was this, or watch my nest burn alive. My whole family. You, with Conrad … you’d do the same, wouldn’t you?”
“There’s a difference.” I hadn’t known my voice could hold so many ice crystals. “I wouldn’t have betrayed you over Conrad, Cal.”
“Doesn’t matter, anyway,” he said. “They’ll use you to bring your father out of hiding, and interrogate both of you until you forget all about me. And I’ll die, and the world will go on.”
“Star and stone, Cal,” I said. The anger trickled out, replaced by the solid ingot of defeat. “You’re just giving up. The Cal Daulton I knew wouldn’t give up.”
“The Cal you knew is fiction,” Dean said. “Just like his trashy magazines.”
“He’s not.” I kept my eyes on Cal. “He was my friend, my best friend, and he wouldn’t just curl up and die. He’d help me, because he’d know we aren’t getting out of here any other way.”
Cal let out a long, shuddering sigh. “You changed my mind about humans, Aoife. You showed me they’re not all roaches. But we’re not getting out of here.”
“You’d better hope we are,” I said. “Because Draven needs me alive for now. He gave the order to beat you senseless himself. You’re expendable.” I scooted closer