I fell back into memories—being locked in my room for months at a time with only myself and a dirty stuffed rabbit for company, my food thrown through bars, as cold as the stone walls around me.
A huff of frustration sounded through my head, and the memory fell away, the basement flickering back into focus.
"Show me somethinguseful," the monster coaxed, almost seeming to soften as he settled big grey hands on either side of my face, dwarfing my head in his palms.
"I can't go back," I whispered, disoriented. "Don't let them take me."
I'd rather stay with the monster than go back to the keepers.
The grey monster tilted his bald head, sharp features narrowed with confusion as he stared at me. "Any more, and your mind will collapse," he said after a while, and let go of my face.
My heart ached, and I trembled all over.Don't leave me with these memories,I wanted to plead, but he stepped away and I was so relieved that he was leaving me alone that I didn't dare speak.
"I'll find food for you. Humans are fragile without food."
I didn't reply, wasn't sure why he cared enough to not let me die. Besides, he didn't know I'd learned to survive on rations and scraps. Maybe food would make everything else go away; food was magic like that, even if for only a few minutes.
"Why are you crying?" the monster asked a moment later, and I swallowed the lump in my throat to answer.
"Because I'm alone."
He tilted his head, uncanny black eyes fixed on me. "No one is alone in the void."
I wasn't sure if he meant to freak me out, but a tiny scrap of comfort unwound through my chest at his words. Tears flowed faster as he moved towards the door. But he was wrong; I'd been alone for most of my life, and now I was chained up in a monster's dungeon.
I'd never beenmorealone.
"Do not die," he said on the threshold, his brows severe over black eyes. "Do you hear me?"
I ignored him until he left.
6
"We have a visitor today, so I want to see your best behaviour, Hala," my keeper said, giving me a stern look while I kept my eyes averted and linked my hands behind my back, standing straight.
"Yes, sir," I murmured, hiding the way my breathing raced.
Visitors meant a change in routine, and more chances to make a mistake, to disappoint the keepers. To earn punishments.
"She's a very high profile visitor," the grey-haired man went on, heavy with importance as he watched me, "and she's here to see obedient, exceptional weapons."
He knelt to look me in the eyes and I fought hard to control my flinch, proud when I only wobbled a little. I had no choice but to meet his brown eyes.
"You're exceptional and obedient,aren'tyou, Hala?" he asked, either unaware of my terror or ignoring it as he tucked a strand of honey-blonde hair behind my ear.1"You're not going to give me any trouble?"
"No, keeper," I agreed hastily, my stomach cramping with nerves. "I'll be good, I promise."
He smiled, holding my gaze with something like kindness. But then he said, "You know we won't go easy on you just because you're six; if you make a mistake, you'll pay for it."
"Yes, keeper," I whispered, unable to hide the tremor in my hands this time.
He nodded and rose to his feet. "Follow me, and stay silent unless she speaks directly to you."
I knew who the visitor was; I’d heard about her. Some of the weapons shared whispered stories whenever the keepers weren't listening. We weren't the first children to live in the hutch; there'd been our parents before us, kept in the same rooms, given the same treatments and lessons and training. My mum died when I was born, but I knew some of the parents lived, and were still kept in hutches, but far away from ours. So far away we couldn’t even feel the strange resonance that existed between weapons, like we were all linked by invisible strings.
All of them, all the parents, had the same mother. We called her the Origin, though I didn't know what that word meant. I knew that was who was coming to visit today, to check on her project—us.
Outside the hutch, monsterskilledpeople, so the Origin had made our parents, and they'd madeusso we could fight them. That was why the keepers taught me where to cut on a shadowkind's body, where to slice or stab or slash to take them down.