They are soaked in blood.
Both of them, eyes shut but sleepless, still as still can be.
Despite what most would think, I’m not familiar with blood. I can wield a Nightjade syringe like a pencil, but when my assignments are exterminated, they never bleed. I know the color of blood, its makeup, the way it flows through the body—but not its persistence. I’ve never had the chance to realize that, when there’s so much of it all at once, you can almost taste it.
Not until I find the Voclains.
Only five fleeting minutes ago, I made my way toward the scene like a lamb to a slaughter that wasn’t mine. Rain was falling in whispering curtains that covered my white uniform in little glass beads. I readied my fist to knock on the door as my partner and I walked up the front steps, clenching my fingers and unfurling them over and over again. I fidgeted to the rhythm of the downpour, hoping it would soothe the nerves I’d been dizzy with all evening.
It did not.
The house was dreadfully silent as we entered in search of our target. There was not a person in sight, but instincts and Chaser protocol urged us to search in caution, just in case our target was hiding nearby. I expected to hear the shuffle of evading sneakers, but the only audible sounds were the slow drum of our boots and the eerie percussion of rain. The same rain we carelessly tracked inside the house as though it belonged to strangers, and not a family I once knew so well.
The foyer showcased no evidence of the violence we would eventually find. Well-loved shoes line the walls, all cloaked in the same thick coat of mud. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve believed they still had a purpose. My partner didn’t pay any attention to the shoes as we walked inside, but to me, each one was a bleak symbol of a life once lived.
I couldn’t bring myself to look my partner in the eye, but I could tell how unaffected he seemed. His apathy allowed him to be separate because it was a Chaser’s job to be just that. Succumbing to the guilt was just as easy as breathing. You couldn’t complete an assignment if guilt became an object of your dependence.
But he never knew the Voclains like I did.
The kitchen was cleaner, but it still displayed bits and pieces of the people the Voclains once were. A vague grocery list was scribbled on the back of a receipt left on the counter. Report cards and faded photographs of school athletic teams decorated the fridge like paintings. Grimy dishes were piled too high in the sink, a forgotten chore that no Voclain would ever be able to complete again.
I did not see their bodies until I entered the living room and found myself stepping in a thick pool of blood. Mr. and Mrs. Voclain marinated in vein leakage, but they were not the ones bleeding, and they were not alone.
The Voclains were lucky. They got the syringe. But the two dead Chasers were the ones to suffer from knife wounds.
And now I stand here, looming over their still-warm bodies while I mentally replay the horrors that took place. There is so much blood. Its flavor rests on my tongue, sour and metallic, the seasoning of death. I wonder if its taste will ever leave.
I stare at the corpses, at the mutilated necks of the white-armored Officers, lifeless at my feet. I can tell they’d been punctured again and again by a hand that could have only belonged to our target. Who else could have done this but Eddie—the sole survivor of this occurrence?
She loves her family more than anything. She would have fought back, right?
My eyes flicker back to Eddie’s parents. Mr. and Mrs. Voclain look so peaceful, so hollow. I assume her father, Mateo, was the first to go. Adele’s body hovers over her husband’s lifeless shell, somehow tending to him as she strokes his dark hair from beyond the grave.
I stare at Eddie’s dead mother, whose eyes are still pried open. I watch her belly, waiting for it to rise and fall, waiting for some sign of life that never comes. She really is dead.
Dead because of people like me.
I reach out to close her eyes—but I can’t.
The Voclains would still be breathing if it weren’t for the system I devoted my life to when I became a Chaser, despite everything—everyone—it has taken away from me.
The same system Eddie cheated when she Ran away.
But of course she Ran. She couldn’t have let this happen on purpose—I know Eddie better than that. After killing the Chasers for what they did to her parents, she must have fled.
My partner crouches down, running a finger through the blood of our fallen Officers. He inspects the crimson liquid that stains the gloves of his armor, studying it as though in some backwards way, it amuses him. “I know what happened.”
My body trembles and I want to scream. How can he know what happened? But I can’t open my mouth to say the words, nor can I peel my eyes away from the blood.
“It’s written all over the scene.” He stands up, wiping his finger on the back of the couch. “The Chasers came knocking, looking for Eddie, and when she tried to Run, they killed her family. Runner’s penalty.”
The Runner’s penalty. It keeps us obedient, eager to accept our fates, and let death come, because we all know the consequences of Running away. A Runner causes far more bloodshed than their own.
“Eddie didn’t Run.” I shake my head. My skull is filled with denial’s cotton, my vision hazy. The frame of my sight lightens like someone has set the edges on fire. “She would never do that.”
“It’s the only explanation. They wouldn’t have killed her parents for any other reason.” He lets out a deep, frustrated sigh. “I don’t care if you two had a history. She’s your assignment now, and the evidence is all here.”
He takes a few steps closer, walking over the dead Voclains without a second thought. He places a hand on my armored shoulder, his gaze hollow. “You need to face the facts.”
Face the facts.
Face the facts?
I can never face the facts, because these are not facts.
Something doesn’t add up here. No one knows our target like I do. Although I can’t verbalize my doubts without appearing disloyal to the Corps, I know that Eddie can’t be at fault.
I need to find her. I need to save her, to figure out what really happened.
Even though I’m expected to kill her.
My partner urges us to move forward and continue to look for our target. His words are like the call of some faraway train, distant and meaningless. I know I should cry, but grief is a luxury I can no longer afford. I sold that privilege for a white uniform.
Instead, I rise to my feet, remove my gloves, and wash the Voclain’s dishes until the last plate is fully clean. But I can’t stop. I keep scrubbing until the ceramic shatters under the pressure of my grip. I hold the shards as tightly as I can until more blood drips to the floor, staining the kitchen tile red.
But the sound of the drops is swallowed by the rain, and I can’t bring myself to clean the mess. I fall to my knees and stare at the crimson dots until I can no longer keep my eyes open.
Before I know it, I am sobbing, and the sound of my cries is swallowed up too.
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