Enemies(11)

“You’re a special sort of disgusting, and I’d like you to shut up now.”

This is pathetic—

So weak, can’t even control her own mind—

Shut up—

I could use a taste of something Russian right now, maybe a French girl afterward as a chaser—

The little blond ones are the best, they’re so smooth—

Just leave her alone—

You’re all pigs—

Like Klementina—

“SHUT UP!” I screamed, pleading. “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!” The elevator dinged and I staggered down the hall, the world pitching from side to side. The dull grey walls were closing in again. The elevator had been like the box, and the hallway wasn’t any better. I heard movement behind the doors, and I hurried along, running now, watching the room numbers blur past, until I finally reached my own. I halted, slowed down, let myself breathe for a moment before I gently slid the key card in the reader and heard it beep then I forced the door open and shut it behind me. It still slammed, even though I was being gentle.

“Shut up,” I whispered. “All of you, shut up. Just shut up. All of you—”

Can’t stop us, Little Doll—

So weak—

No control—

She can’t handle it—

There was a moment of fearful blackness, and there was a voice in my head that I hadn’t actually heard in months, along with a face, one more reassuring than any other I could picture.

“Hold it together, Sienna.”

I could see him behind the fog, but just barely—Quinton Zollers, a man I hadn’t seen since he’d left me lying on the floor of his office. “Hold it together, just hold it together another minute—”

I passed out, slipping into the great dark void of nothingness, and I hoped I would be away from this chaos long enough that the others in my head would be gone when I got back.





Chapter 6




I knew her name was Adelaide when I saw her fight. It was inexplicable, but the knowledge simply appeared in my mind, just as I knew the fight I was watching was taking place several years before the time I was dreaming it. There were still ads on the walls of the train and the words carried a British accent, but everything else seemed older—or newer, as the case may be, as if it were the same trains, the same stations as they passed, but from an earlier time.

The 1980s.

The car was bobbing as the train went on, and Adelaide (how did I know her name?) had a mohawk. It wasn’t a subtle one, either, but a full-blown spiked one, divided out into six good points, as if she could drive them into the heart of her foe and put a swift end to him. She whirled in a low kick and I saw her take his legs out from under him. He caught himself on a seat and bounced back up, even though I heard the crack of his back as he did so. People were backed away from the middle of the carriage, where the fight was going on, mashing themselves up against either wall of the compartment as though they could somehow push themselves through the walls and get away.

“You’re not much of a fighter,” Adelaide said, licking her lips, keeping her distance, her dark, ragged jeans and studded leather jacket giving her more the appearance of punk rocker than any kind of fighter. “You sure you don’t want to just pack it in?” She moved fast—meta fast.

He was no slouch either, though. He was bigger than she was, well over six feet, bald, looked like he ate steroids for every meal and at snack times, too. He was in leather also but the more subtle kind, like a biker. He had an earring in one ear, and when he came at her with his hand knotted into a tight fist, he reminded me of Clary, only bigger.

She grabbed onto one of the anchor poles that was designed for passengers to hang on to, used it to whip herself around, and neatly evaded his attack while sweeping in from his own height with a brutal kick that laid open the side of his face from the force she put into it. She had a wicked grin the whole time, as if she was enjoying it. When he staggered, she followed up with a flurry of punches that pointed his nose in a new direction and made his lip over into a bloody Hitler mustache.

“I think I could do this all day,” Adelaide said, taunting the man as he staggered. To her credit, she didn’t slack off; she came at him from the side and pummeled him with a brutal strike to the back of the ear that sent him to one knee. He threw a backhand at her, but it was sloppily aimed and all it did was force her to take a step back. As soon as it was clear, she threw a roundhouse kick that snapped his head forward. He hit the wall of the train and the whole thing seemed to shake, as if it had been knocked off its tracks. I heard metal against metal, a grind as though the brakes being applied, and then the world seemed to slow down.