Chapter 56: Psycho Gods: Part 3 – Chapter 55

Lacuna (noun): a blank space or a missing part.

“Wake up.” I slapped Sadie on the cheek, then leaned over and repeated the action on Jinx.

I’d opened my eyes about an hour ago and found myself in a room filled with dead bodies.

Sadie and Jinx were passed out among the carnage.

After retracting my wings, I’d stumbled over to Jinx and picked her up gingerly. Then, I’d carried her over to where Sadie was slumped over.

The first issue was Jinx’s dislocated shoulders and fingers; one by one, I’d set them back into place. I couldn’t do anything about her bruises or potentially broken bones, so I’d braided her messy hair to get it off her face. I’d wiped the dirt from her eyes.

I’d turned to Sadie.

Spitting on a scrap I’d torn from my ruined shirt, I’d wiped the crusted blood away from her nose, eyes, and mouth as best I could. After she looked better, I’d torn off more strips and wrapped them around a couple of the deepest cuts on her arms and legs.

Then, I’d worked on my leg.

Half my thigh had been cleaved off.

I’d started to wrap my shirt around it, then I’d realized the missing skin would regrow in the material. I’d quickly ripped the fabric away.

Head spinning and vision tunneling, I’d started to pass out, so I’d lain flat on the floor and tried not to think about the wound. It burned horribly and sent stabbing streaks of pain down my leg. Ignoring it was easier said than done.

That was the last of my healing efforts.

Now I lay on the floor between Sadie and Jinx, my leg propped up against the wall with the half-missing part of my thigh out of harm’s way.

“Wake uuuuuup,” I said morosely as I reached my tired arms out and slapped at their sleeping faces.

I knew they needed rest to recover. However, I also knew that we were trapped in a room full of dead bodies, and I was scared.

I had not gone through hell for them to just sleep it off while I suffered.

“Wake up!” I shouted and clapped my hands, going for the surprise effect. Sadie startled, and I turned my head with excitement.

She snored.

A stray eyeball rolled across the floor.

I gagged.

“You’re losing friendship points right now,” I groaned as I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I was on a breezy beach somewhere, drinking and smoking.

The problem was my leg throbbed and I was in agony.

Also, the room reeked.

Sharp rocks bit into my back uncomfortably, and it was oppressively warm.

This beach sucks.

My heart skipped a beat as I realized the worst thing yet—I was missing my pipe.

Patting around the gushy floor with my eyes closed, I desperately searched. Please sun god, I prayed. Since you literally didn’t save me at all, at least save my pipe. It’s the least you can do.

My fingers trailed through something fleshy, and I pretended it was a rock covered in wet sand (I was 100 percent aware that it was someone’s detached spine).

I couldn’t find my pipe.

Despair settled in my bones that all was lost.

“No,” I whispered dejectedly into the darkness.

There was only so much a woman could take before she broke.

I touched my face—my pipe was still in my mouth.

I breathed in enchanted smoke greedily.

I held both Sadie’s and Jinx’s limp hands in mine, and my chuckle turned into a broken plea. “Please wake up.”

I waited in silence.

It felt like an eternity passed.

Hope was fading.

Sadie suddenly woke up with a scream. She lunged forward and wrapped her hands around my neck. “Who took my bread roll?” she bellowed groggily.

It was too much.

I burst into tears and wrapped my arms around her in an awkward hug as she choked me.

“Aran?” she asked with confusion as he stopped choking me. “What happened?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it as I thought about what exactly had happened.

In all my melancholic despair, I’d forgotten to plan an explanation for how the handle of my sword had slammed into her forehead and knocked her unconscious.

“Wait a second,” she growled, and her fists pummeled against me. “Arabella Alis Egan, how dare you!”

I squealed and protected my fleshy bits.

“It isn’t what you’re thinking,” I yelled in defense.

She stopped punching me. “So you didn’t knock me out because I wasn’t listening to you?”

I pursed my lips. “It’s exactly what you’re thinking.”

She whacked me across the top of the head, but the blow was glancing and filled with love.

“What’s going on?” Jinx asked groggily, and I froze midwrestle.

Sadie gasped, “What’s Jinx doing here?”

Why had I wanted them to wake up?

“You have some explaining to do.” My voice cracked and it felt like I was falling.

The pieces were already clicking together in my mind, but I needed to hear her say it aloud.

Jinx grimaced as she stared at her mangled fingers and nodded curtly. Sadie’s eyes cast a red glow and illuminated the three of us.

We sat in uncomfortable silence.

Jinx coughed, a harsh rattle. Still staring down she said softly, “Twenty-five.”

The room was stuffy with heat and too quiet, as if the dead were holding their breath and listening.

She didn’t elaborate further.

Sadie asked, “What?”

A bead of sweat streaked down the side of Jinx’s face. “I recently turned twenty-five years old. My species goes through puberty differently because I’m not from these realms—I’m a soulmancer.”

Sadie stiffened.

Jinx continued, “On the Creature Classification Scale, the High Court labeled me a six when I was just a toddler. The scale only goes to five. They shackled me to repress my abilities.” She held up her bare wrist where I’d seen the gold cuff had glowed.

Neither of us breathed.

Jinx didn’t look up as she spoke. “When I was a baby, the High Court confiscated me from traffickers. However, my saviors,” she spat, “didn’t integrate me into society because I was deemed too dangerous. I was caged and held until my purpose could be discovered.”

She laughed without humor, and it came out as a wheeze. Something rattled in her chest.

Jinx continued speaking like she was far away, lost in some horrific distant memory. “At least the former occupant of my cage was a human monster who had the decency to not be a complete moron—they’d given him a bookshelf filled with treatises on philosophical discourse. As you can imagine, it was the only thing that kept me sane.”

“No,” Sadie rasped.

Jinx jumped and looked up like she’d forgotten we were present.

Sadie shook her head. “I can’t imagine how that kept you sane. When I was being tortured as a child, I just wanted to read fantastical romances filled with smut and depraved acts. It calmed me down.”

Jinx sniffed. “Shocking that a woman of your intellect would turn to such drivel.”

Her haughty demeanor was ruined by another coughing fit.

Sadie either missed the point, was in denial, or was purposefully trying to break the somber mood. She beamed at Jinx and offered, “When we get out of here, I’ll give you a list of book recommendations.” She winked (or twitched; it was hard to tell because she had two swollen black eyes). “Now that you’re twenty-five, I can give you the real dirty recommendations. Let me tell you, you’re going to be sweating.”

“Are you serious right now?” Jinx stared at her incredulously.

Sadie smirked. “It depends on how queasy you get at the word moist. We’ll start there.”

Jinx tried to turn her back to Sadie, but she winced in pain as and gave up by flopping back onto the rubble.

The three of us sat in silence.

It was nice.

“So?” Sadie asked. “What’s the rest of the story? I’m invested.”

“I’m not talking to you.” Jinx purposefully looked away from her.

Sadie asked in an innocuous tone, “Hm. Are you sure you’re not fourteen? You did tell everyone I was your mother.”

Jinx’s head whipped back around. “No, I did not. You did that.”

A headache throbbed behind my left eye.

My half-mutilated leg burned.

I inhaled smoke desperately. “Sadie, stop it!”

She pouted. “What did I do?”

“Jinx, tell the story.” I pointed my pipe at her. “You owe me that much.”

The youngest-looking twenty-five-year-old in history narrowed her eyes at me, but agreed with a curt nod.

Chest rattling with each shallow breath, she said, “Ten years ago, the High Court found a purpose for me.”

She stared down at her mangled hand and avoided eye contact.

My stomach twisted with knots.

Back at Elite Academy, when the Kings had unleashed their powers, Orion told Jinx her soul was irredeemable because she’d committed a heinous crime against people she loved.

I shivered.

It was all so obvious.

“I don’t know the entire story.” Jinx’s voice was barely a whisper. “I only have small tidbits from what I’ve overheard and the things I’ve pieced together. What I know for sure is there are two key leaders, and their plans involve manipulating certain individuals, whom they call players. They’ve been doing it for decades—maybe even generations.”

“Manipulate what people? Who are these players?” Sadie asked.

I dug my nail into my lower lip.

Jinx didn’t look up.

I ripped off a chunk of skin and inhaled smoke until my lungs ached. Copper flooded my mouth.

Jinx continued like Sadie hadn’t spoken, “Over the years, I overheard them worrying that one of the most important players that they’d planted, wasn’t cunning enough to wield the power they’d given them. Their methods of fixing the problem didn’t seem to be yielding results. They were getting frustrated and desperate.”

The knots in my stomach turned to razors.

Sadie’s eyes widened.

“Then, ten years ago, they said they’d found a perfect solution. I was fifteen at the time,” Jinx said slowly, then fell silent.

I did the math.

The numbers added up horribly.

I looked around the room, barely seeing the dismembered corpses as my thoughts blanked.

Dread stretched among the three of us.

“Just say it,” Sadie broke the silence with a whispery rasp.

I shivered as I wiped sweat off my forehead with a trembling hand. I wanted to tell Jinx not to speak, but I couldn’t find the strength to say the words aloud.

Jinx looked up, and her too wide dark eyes held mine. “There was a side player, a fourteen-year-old, who’d just received record high scores on an analytics test. She was rumored to be brilliant. But that wasn’t the best part.” She kept eye contact. “She was the daughter of a woman who was infamous for her cruelty. As a result, they theorized that the player’s brilliance was likely dangerous—it was exactly what the leaders needed.”

I didn’t breathe.

In my periphery, Sadie looked back and forth between our locked gazes with horror.

Jinx’s lips moved.

I heard her speak as if she was talking from far away, down a long tunnel.

“The High Court took me to the fae palace in chains.”

Her voice warped.

“They removed my shackle and ordered me to take a piece of the brilliant player’s soul while she slept.”

My vision narrowed.

“They RJE’d me immediately to the shifter realm and ordered me to give the piece to the idiot player while she slept.”

Her words echoed from every direction.

“The two leaders were so impressed with the results that they elevated the brilliant player’s position in their plans. One leader vouched for her, and the other vouched for the improved idiot player.”

I gasped for air.

I just wanted her to stop talking.

Jinx continued, “A new plan was created to bring the two players together and use them to achieve the objective, which is still not clear to me. Secret, highly illegal enchantments were done on the idiot player to identify her fated mates. I was ordered to ingratiate myself into the family of one of those mates, and four discarded players were used to make my adoption seem legitimate.”

Sadie heaved beside me.

“I was ordered to build a relationship with the brilliant player. There were—” Jinx paused like she was searching for the correct word. “—checkpoints over the years to update me on my role.”

A bead of sweat dripped down my spine.

My hair stuck uncomfortably to my clammy skin, but I didn’t brush it off. I was too numb to move.

“From what I gathered, both leaders had some type of ability to communicate mentally with the players. However, the brilliant player was damaged by the soulmancy, and a connection could not be established. Even the Angel Consciousness could not forge a link.”

A wave of nausea rose up my sternum.

I swayed as a tunnel narrowed around me.

“I was the only one who could form a connection. I was ordered to be her guardian and help her eventually establish a link to the Angel Consciousness so she could earn her wings. Soulmancy is not an exact science, and there is much that I still don’t know.”

My hearing cut out, and the world went stuffy with static.

Jinx continued mercilessly, “I spent years trying to connect with the soul I’d mutilated. I was inside the player’s brain so often she was convinced she had a monster in her head. There were even some shared physical manifestations—when she was enraged, her eyes turned black like mine.”

I collapsed onto my side, pressed my cheek to the sticky, floor, and gasped.

“Aran—Aran—Aran!” Sadie shouted as she shook me, sounds resuming as she jostled my shoulder.

I groaned.

“I took a piece of your soul and gave it to Sadie.” Jinx moaned like she was in pain. “I mutilated you both—and the worst part is you think of me as family.”

Sadie trembled as she gripped my shoulder. “You’re the numb,” she whispered, “but I heard the moon goddess say she was the—”

Jinx cut her off, “The leaders have mental connections with their players. You were dying, and they told you what you needed to hear so they wouldn’t lose their investment.”

“Why does it need time to recharge?” Sadie asked with confusion.

Jinx shrugged. “From what I can gather, it is extremely rare for a split soul to take in someone else’s body. My theory is that your body still recognizes it as foreign matter and tries to expel it after you use it, but it has nowhere to go. So it recharges and comes back.”

I covered my mouth with horror.

“But it doesn’t sound like Aran’s voice,” Sadie argued.

Jinx shook her head and looked morose. “Of course it’s not her speaking voice—it’s a piece of her soul. Although, I’ve always found it surprising that you hear it as a voice, it must be your body recognizing that it’s a pattern of thinking separate from your own. However, there must be a fundamental compatibility between you two that defies physics for it to guide you like it does. A specialized analytical piece of Aran tries to save you from the inside—it’s mind-blowing if you think about it.”

I reached over and grabbed Sadie’s hand.

We looked at each other.

We were bonded in friendship down to our very souls.

It was almost heartwarming, if horrendous soul mutilation could ever be called such a thing.

Our hands were shaking as we held each other.

“But Dick was the one who whipped me—” Sadie’s voice filled with horror. “Is he the leader?”

Jinx’s voice was monotone. “I’ve been enchanted not to disclose the names of the leaders.”

“He looked me in the eye and lied to me,” Sadie snarled. “No wonder that halo thing they gave me never did anything. It was all a ruse to make me compliant in their games.”

I shivered even though it was feverishly warm.

“What’s the point of it all?” Sadie asked.

Jinx shrugged. “Control of the realms. Politics. Power. War.” Her eyes were deadened. “The usual things.”

“My depression?” I asked, my voice exploding louder than I’d meant to speak.

“You’re missing a piece of your soul,” Jinx stated softly.

“That’s why our guardian connection is so unreliable,” I said numbly. “That’s why the soul bond with the twins only shows pain.”

“Correct,” Jinx said tiredly.

Muted colors. Empty feelings. My mind palace had gaps when I was fourteen years old. I thought I was abducted by aliens. Dick and the hooded man were always around.

So many things made sense.

I asked, “What was the voice that overtook the people and spoke in rhymes to Sadie and me?”

Jinx sighed heavily. “Members of the Angel Consciousness that worked with the High Court to guide you.”

I fired off another question. “I’ve heard a male voice speak to me when I’ve done…things.”

“The leader.” Jinx scoffed. “They couldn’t forge a mental connection, so they tried to actually speak aloud to you.”

Dick was nearby when I’d ate my mother’s heart. He was also nearby when I killed in the beast realm. Both times that I’d heard a voice.

“Did it cause the bond sickness?” I asked warily.

Jinx picked at the rubble. “I don’t think so. It seems to be a genuine effect of how the kings treated you. It was probably fixed when you bonded to the twins because your soul changed.”

That was also my deduction.

“The reason I can’t fly?” I asked. “The ice I can’t control?”

Jinx shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not omniscient.”

My head spun.

I couldn’t think of anything else to ask.

Sadie spoke up. “You said there were four discarded players used to make your adoption to Jax’s family legitimate.” Her raspy voice had an edge to it I’d never heard. “There is only Jess and Jala…who are the other two?”

Jinx didn’t answer.

The energy shifted, and suddenly the sweltering room felt freezing.

“Jen and Jan,” Jinx whispered, her voice barely audible. “They were twins.”

“What happened to them?” Sadie asked.

“Randomly, some people are immune to my—abilities. Like Warren. I don’t know why or how it happens.”

Sadie stated harshly, “They were immune. What did you do?”

Jinx’s eyes were wide like she’d seen a ghost. Her broken fingers tangled in the fabric of her ripped shirt. She said nothing.

“What happened to them?” Sadie asked, her voice hard as steel.

“The leader killed them because I couldn’t wipe their memories.” Her voice cracked. “I tried to save them.” She shuddered. “But he killed them.”

“You wiped our memories,” I whispered. “We don’t even know their names.”

Sadie covered her mouth as she made a wounded noise.

Jinx curled up like she was trying to make herself smaller and whispered, “They made me do it. And now you’ll never be able to remember.”

No one spoke another word.

This time, the silence hurt worse than the physical pain.