Chapter 7

Serena’s POV

“You came,” said Natalie. “I really didn’t think you would.”

I opened my eyes.

Cold. Damp. A smell of rust and wet stone. A rough rope around my wrists, another around my ankles, and my back pressed against the cold metal of a chair bolted to the floor. A single bulb hung from a wire above me, swinging in a draught.

The last thing I remembered was rain and a black car park and my sister opening her arms.

She’d hugged me. She had smelled of jasmine. She’d whispered, “I’m so sorry,” in my ear, and I had believed her, right up until the hands closed on my arms from behind and a cloth pressed over my mouth.

Now she stood in front of me in a wet raincoat, hugging herself, her face white and small and streaked with mascara.

“Where are we?” I whispered.

“An old quarry. Off Upper Bukit Timah. Nobody’s used it in twenty years.” Her voice wobbled. “They keep the office. There’s a generator.”

“Nat.”

“I know.”

“You said you wanted to make it right.”

“I know what I said.”

“You lied.”

She didn’t answer. She just looked at me, and her mouth trembled, and for one wild moment I thought she was going to cry.

A door banged.

Heavy boots came across the concrete. A tall man walked into the light in a black leather jacket and a baseball cap, with a cigarette between his fingers and a long, jagged scar running down the left side of his face, from temple to jaw. He smiled. It made the scar pull tight.

“Ah,” said Jason Ho. “The wrong sister.”

“Leave her alone,” Natalie said.

“I’m not touching her. Look, no hands.” He wagged the cigarette. “Miss Lim. Serena. Lovely to meet you at last. I’ve heard so much.”

I said nothing.

“You’re the one who drew me. At the gate.” His eyes crinkled. “Natalie told me. She was very upset. She said you’d seen us. She said you had a little sketchbook, and a little pen, and a very big mouth.” He crouched in front of me, face level with mine. He smelled of smoke and stale beer. “I don’t mind, darling. It’s a good likeness. Very flattering.”

“What do you want?”

“Your Alpha’s ring.” He said it lightly, like a man ordering coffee. “And his pack, and his land, and his very nice clinic in Woodlands. But we’ll start with the ring.” He stood. “He’ll be here at dawn. He’ll hand it over, because he’s a good boy, and then we’ll see.”

“He won’t.”

“He will. I’ve watched him for years.” He drew on the cigarette. “Men like that always do. They can’t bear to see a woman hurt.”

He turned to Natalie.

“Keep watch. Two hours. Then bring her out.”

“Jason...”

“Two hours, baby.”

He kissed her forehead, a light, proprietary brush of the lips, and walked out. The door banged again. The dark closed in.

For a long time, neither of us said a word.

Natalie sat down on an upturned crate a few feet away and put her face in her hands.

“He said nobody would get hurt,” she said, to the floor.

“Nat.”

“He said he loved me. He said we’d go to Kuala Lumpur. He said he’d only ask for one small thing.” Her shoulders shook. “And then it was the gate. And then it was the ring. And I didn’t know how to stop.”

“You could have told someone.”

“Who?” She laughed. It broke in the middle. “Mum? She’d have said I’d ruined the family. Dad? He can’t stand up to a dog. The elders?” She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “You know what it’s like, Serena. Being me. Everybody loves you until you’re not perfect. I’ve been perfect since I was four. I don’t know what I am underneath.”

“I don’t either.”

“You do.” She looked up. Her eyes were huge and red. “You’re the only person I’ve ever known who doesn’t perform. You just sit there and draw and let people think you’re nothing. And it’s like a, like a magic trick. Nobody sees you. And you see everything.”

“That’s not a trick.”

“I know.”

“I was invisible because nobody looked.”

“I know.” Her voice cracked. “I know that too.”

The bulb creaked overhead.

“I stood outside the hall,” Natalie whispered. “During the silent hour. I went out to meet him, and I came back, and I stood at the door. And I heard Marcus say, There you are.” She swallowed. “I’ve known him twenty years. He’s never once said anything to me in that voice. Not once. I thought, that’s supposed to be mine. That’s what I was raised for. And he said it to you.”

“Natalie.”

“I hated you,” she said. “I really did. For about an hour. I hated you more than I’ve ever hated anyone.” She shook her head. “And then I got scared. Because I realized it wasn’t your fault. It was mine. I’d given you the veil. I’d put you in that line.”

She stood. She came across the concrete and knelt in front of me.

“I can’t undo it,” she said. “I can’t. But I can do this.”

She reached into her coat. Metal glinted in her hand. A folding knife, the blade no longer than my finger. She set it against the rope at my wrists.

“Nat. What are you...”

“Shh.”

The rope parted.

“There’s a door at the back,” she whispered fiercely, hacking at the second rope. “Through the storeroom. It leads to the old crusher. There’s a path down the side of the quarry wall. Follow it. Don’t stop. Don’t look back. There’s a fence at the bottom. You can slip under it.” She yanked the last knot. “Go. Now. Go.”

“You come with me.”

“I can’t.”

“He’ll kill you.”

“He might.” Her smile was small and terrible. “But if I leave, he’ll go after Mum. I know him.”

“Natalie. Please.”

“You were always good at being invisible,” she said softly. “Go be brave.”

She pushed me. I stumbled to my feet, my wrists raw, my ankles numb, and ran.

~

The storeroom was a black maze of crates and rusted tools. I burst through the back door into rain, into wind, into an enormous open dark that took my breath.

The quarry.

A great granite bowl, half a kilometer across, with sheer walls dropping into black water a hundred feet below. A narrow path clung to the cliff like a scar. The rain hit my face like needles. Somewhere behind me, a shout went up.

“She’s gone! The girl’s gone!”

I ran.

The path was slick. The stone was crumbling. My wet shoes slid on the gravel and my breath tore in and out of my lungs. Boots pounded behind me. A gunshot cracked the night and the wall beside me exploded in dust.

I didn’t scream. I don’t know why. I just ran.

Then the path ended.

A great wedge of rock had fallen across it. A sheer wall on my left. A hundred-foot drop on my right. A skinny ledge, barely wide enough for one foot, curling away round the corner into darkness.

Behind me, men.

Ahead, nothing.

I pressed my back against the wall and stood there, my chest heaving, and watched five black shapes come down the path with torches. They were smiling. One of them held a rifle.

“That’s far enough, love,” said a voice.

I looked down.

Below, black water. Far off, a small pale moon of foam where the rain hit the surface.

I thought of Marcus. I thought of a boy on a hillside with a bag of oranges. I thought of the small black book, the tape on its spine.

I thought of my mother, and of a knot in my wrist.

And in the dark behind my ribs, a presence I had never once felt in twenty-two years turned over, slow and huge and old, like a great animal waking from a long, long sleep.

Finally, said a voice.