Within These Walls

Life After Dark: 23 (WTW Sequel)

(I love and appreciate every single one of you that's still reading this).

Six and a Half Months Ago

We rented a yacht after our second encounter with human Blanks and took it out on Lake Erie. It was Willow's first time compelling someone not just to look the other way, but to actively participate in our mission. Not that it mattered at that moment. We were all beyond caring about the nuances between survival and morality. Finding yourself deep in a shootout with relentless blank-eyed killers would do that to just about anyone.

"I should've known," Marcus said for the fifth time since we left the harbor. His hands gripped the railing so tightly I was worried he'd snap it in half. "We saw what happened when we tracked down Dreamer. His own parents tried to take him out. The only reason they were the only Blanks around is because they lived on a farm with no neighbors for miles. I should've known what would happen in a goddamn city like Detroit."

It was just the two of us at the back of the boat, watching the disturbed water in our wake as every meter took us farther away from Phyllis Birnbaum, the second flipper we'd managed to track down. Unfortunately we weren't able to get to this one in time. We barely made our way inside her apartment to discover her blood-drenched body before a dozen Blanks started coming out of the woodwork. We lost two inactive kids before we reached the harbor and dragged the Lady Maiden and her frazzled captain into our mess.

Marcus's jaw moved hard and fast, and I was sure his brain was working just as furiously to make sense of what happened. His anger was a heavy mist around his body, so opaque and stifling he wouldn't be able to see through it. I knew that from experience. I'd seen him struggle with it numerous times before. We all had our ghosts to work with and this was his. But it was more than that this time. His anger was matched by crushing guilt, and as unrealistic as it was to me, I knew he was blaming himself for how everything went down.

I pulled on his wrist until he let go of the railing, and then threaded my fingers through his. It was late summer, but his hand was cold and clammy. I leaned into him, as much for his comfort as mine. "It's not your fault. You know it wasn't. We didn't know what to expect."

"Pablo warned us the odds didn't look good. Twenty percent, remember?"

"The odds of retrieving Phyllis," I corrected him gently. "He didn't specify why it would be so hard. For all we knew, it meant she'd run away soon as we came near her. Or she'd get hit by a bus. There was no way to predict all those Blanks would be waiting for us."

"No. It's not that simple." He punched the railing with his other hand, and for a moment I held my breath, expecting his power to blast half of the boat into pieces. "I knew something was wrong. I felt it in my gut."

"Well, I didn't feel anything, so that probably means I failed us a lot more than you did. Look, you got eight people out of what was literally a warzone. Because of you, we'll all live to see another day. We should be thanking you."

"I don't want your thanks."

I didn't take offense to his brusque reply. "You might not want it, but I'm giving it to you anyway."

"I don't deserve it."

There it was, the heart of his angst. I knew it ran deeper than just this unfortunate incident. "Why not?"

"I'm . . ." Marcus's low raspy voice trailed off. "You know why."

"Because of what happened at the facility you grew up in?" I guessed. Marcus had shared painful details of the brainwashing that Jonathan Blaine had put him through. To prepare him for a situation exactly like this one, when people like us got into the real world and started blanking everywhere we went. None of us had ever counted of normal humans blanking, too. I didn't even know how that could be possible.