From the coughing and spluttering, it’s clear I don’t have a dead body on my hands, so there’s no need for CPR.Still, I hold her upright, resting her body against my knees, allowing her to catch her breath.
An anchor drops in my stomach as I realise who I’ve just pulled out of the pool: Hayami Devall, Barrett’s only child and heir to his empire.
Hayami is a Japanese name, presumably chosen by her mother, Junko, Devall’s third wife.It means “rare beauty.”But how could they have possibly known?How does anyone see the beauty of a woman in a babe in arms?But I see it now.Even in her bedraggled state, her beauty seeps from her pores.Her skin is drenched, but it doesn’t dull the pale glow, the luminosity that seems to radiate from her.
And yet there’s something else.
An eerie darkness clings to her, but doesn’t quite touch.It hovers over the surface of her skin like a shadow waiting for permission.Waiting to take hold.
I should be shocked by this, but I’m not.It’s something I’ve been able to see for the past fourteen years.I’ve never told anyone.How could I?Where would I even begin?Because this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this shadow.I’ve seen it more times than I can count—on strangers in the street, fellow soldiers in my squad, even on myself.
I knew what it was the first time I glimpsed it in the mirror.It was months after the incident, when I finally dared to look—really look—at the reflection of my new face.The shadow shimmered around my periphery, as if it wanted to introduce itself.As if it knew the time wasn’t quite right… but almost.
There’s no doubt what that dark mark is: the shadow of death.The whisper of its breath.
It only haunts people like me, who have been on the brink of dying and somehow survived.We’re now coated in this darkness, stalked by its obscurity, reminded of where we would be had fate not intervened.
This is why I’m under no illusion as to what Hayami was trying to do, where she was about to be taken.
Because I’ve been there myself and lived to tell the tale.
And now, so will she.
Clad in a tiny swimsuit, she feels impossibly delicate in my roughened hands—like porcelain.I almost drop her, overcome by the fear that I shouldn’t be touching something so beautiful, so exquisite.
“Willa, we need you in the pool room, now,” Markus speaks into his cuff, then adjusts the earpiece that I imagine is permanently attached.
Hayami coughs up some more water.Instinctively, I rub her back, then stop when I remember who she is, where I am, and who’s watching.It’s when the coughing ceases and she clears the water from her eyes that she finally looks at me.
Beautiful.Fucking beautiful, but I don’t have time to appreciate them as her eyes widen, her pupils dilate, and her mouth drops open.Her reaction tells me exactly what she’s thinking.
Horror.Revulsion.Fear.
Same old, same old.
She claws her way from my grasp, and I don’t blame her.
“What the fuck?”she splutters.
“Princess.”Barrett nears, Markus joining him but keeping a respectable distance.“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”She shakes her head as Markus grabs a towel from the lounger and tosses it to her.“I was just floating in the water, and then this goddamn monster pulled me out and nearly drowned me.”
Six pairs of eyes regard me as Hayami wraps the towel around her shoulders.
“She was facedown in the water.I thought….”I don’t finish because there’s no point.They all know what I thought, what anyone would think if they saw a person like that.
“You were floating on your front?”the gang lord asks Hayami.
“Yes,” she replies.“I always float this way.It’s relaxing—until some fucking ogre drags me from the water.Who the hell even is this beast?”
“It’s not important, my princess.”He dismisses her question.
I am not important.
“Yeah, well, he needs firing, right now.”
“Leave things to me, Princess.”He looks up, his eyes narrowing as a Black woman arrives in full security uniform—white shirt, black trousers, a Taser strapped to her belt.
