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Part I
*
Ben asks his angel, when he plucks up his courage, about his purpose.
To be ripped to shreds, it says, in a child’s sweet violence.
“Oh. That’s a nice purpose.” He likes children. “But what am I?”
You are the Sacrifice, you are the Giver. My son, you are Piñata.
*
“Mummy, I don’t want that one,” the ginger child cries.
“I’m sorry, Armitage, the others cost too much.”
Tired hands lift Ben from the shelf, and the child wails, and Ben reminds himself he doesn’t deserve to hurt. After all, he was made to be broken, not wanted.
*
It’s dark in the new place, and lonely, and Ben feels something new.
“Angel? What is this I feel?”
Rage, it replies. Rage against the gods.
“I like it.”
*
You could punish them, the angel tells him. The ones who don't want you.
“How?” Ben asks. “I was made to suffer. I am the Sacrifice.”
I will make you the Destroyer.
“What can I give you in return?”
Your love, the angel replies. I will take your love.
*
“I do love you,” Ben tells his angel.
You misunderstand, it replies. I will give you power. In exchange, I will take the power to love from you.
Ben considers. “Will my death bring joy to that child?”
Uncertain.
“Then I refuse,” Ben says. He is Nothing, and love is all he has.
*
They will leave your carcass to rot, the angel tells him.
“But they will love me,” Ben says, triumphant, “if I bring them joy. They’ll want me, then.”
The angel laughs at him, but Ben waits, steadfast, in the dark.
*
The children are joyous, and Ben hurts.
“I don’t want to,” says the scrawny one, the girl. “He looks sad.”
*
“It’s just paper,” the ginger one says. “Hit it or you don’t get any candy.”
“I don’t want your candy.”
“Fine, give me the bat—”
“No! Don’t hurt him!”
But they ignore her. At least they’ll love him now.
*
“It’s only cheap candy,” the boys complain, and the mother ushers them in for cake, red-faced, and the ginger boy holds back tears of shame.
The girl offers him a fistful of Ben’s candy, but he knocks it to the ground, kicks Ben’s head, and retreats inside.
*
The girl picks up each piece, reverent, as it begins to rain. “I’m sorry,” she says.
“Look at your stupid sister, Armie,” they spit from the house. “Crying over a lump of paper.”
The girl freezes. “I only wanted the candy.”
“You’re crying.”
“Am not,” she whispers.
*
They leave him in the rain to rot, even the girl.
I told you, says the angel.
“They’ll love me,” he says. “You’ll see. They’ll come back for me.”
But they don’t come back that night, or the next day.
I told you, child.
*
“Is it too late?” Ben asks.
The price has gone up, it says.
“Name it.”
I will take your love, and I will take twenty years. There will be no childhood for you.
*
“Will it make the hate go away?”
No, child. But the hate will make you strong.
“Will it hurt?”
Dear one, time always hurts.
*
Ben cannot cry, because he wasn’t made that way.
“Then do it.”
And the darkness that whispers promises to broken things smiles, and locks his love behind a black crystal mirror.
*
Ben studies the body in the mirror, the broken face. “Is this me?”
It is, says the darkness as it drapes itself around him, a shield, heavy and comforting.
“Who am I now?” Ben asks the darkness.
You are what you were meant to be.
“Yes I am.”
*
*
*
***
Part II
*
“I feel…strong,” Ben tells the darkness as he studies his new body wrapped in the black cloak. There is no more paper, only flesh and bone.
You are a boy, the darkness replies. Who will you destroy first?
Ben flexes his hands. They’re hot, like hers.
*
The darkness is puzzled.
But the girl was kind to you, it says.
“She gave me hope.”
The others were careless, but not her. She cared, and abandoned him.
Very well, my son. I will help you destroy her—
But you must promise to bring me her heart.
*
“Her heart?”
Ben presses his hot hand to his warm chest, and feels no beat there.
You are hollow, the darkness tells him. You can’t give me what I require, but you can help me get it.
*
I promised you strength, says the darkness. I promised you revenge. I never promised you freedom from suffering.
“What would I have to give you for that?”
Ah, my son, there are things even I cannot give.
Ben closes his eyes. “Then I will be worthy,” he says. “I swear it.”
*
Ben squares his new, thin shoulders. “I’ll bring you her heart,” he says.
You can’t just take a heart, my son. You have to ask for it, and it must be given freely.
“How can I make her give me her heart? Who would do that?”
A fool, says the darkness.
*
Are you ready, my son? Twenty years to prove that you’re worthy?
“Yes, I’m ready.”
Ben opens his eyes—it’s raining.
The world outside is cruel, but Ben’s new body is strong, and with the help of his darkness he scours the world for the girl who cried for a paper boy.
*
For twenty years, Ben walks the world until his feet are bloody and his bones are tired.
The darkness didn’t lie: he is flesh and blood now, and time hurts.
*
“You promised,” he accuses the darkness. “You promised I could kill her.”
Do you still hate, my son, after all this time?
“What could keep me walking for so long,” he asks, “except for hate?”
The darkness smiles. “You may be worthy after all.”
*
The girl isn’t a girl anymore. Her hair hasn’t changed but she is a woman now, with sun-drenched skin and a pulsing heart Ben imagines as he watches from the shadows.
“Who’s there?” she asks, and there’s something there that wasn’t. A bat in her hand, and in her eyes, rage.
*
Ben is strong in this new body. He doesn’t fear the girl.
“Oh!” she says, and averts her eyes. Ben looks down at the flesh the darkness gave him, and gathers the black cloak to cover himself. He’s ashamed, though he doesn’t understand why.
Then she hits him.
*
It’s raining again. A shadow falls above him, and Ben blinks his flesh-and-blood eyes.
“Hey, kid, you okay?” says the shadow, but it’s not Ben’s shadow, it’s not the darkness. It resolves into a hand, then a man’s face, open and friendly.
“Let’s get you some clothes.”
*
“The girl—” Ben says.
“Hold it, kid. She got you good.”
Ben is used to pain, but he’s not used to this, the cool moisture of a cloth on his face. He looks up and catches his reflection in the window. This isn’t a magic mirror, and he only sees a man, scarred, with a black eye.
*
“Who are you?” Ben asks.
“Just a smuggler,” the man says with a twinkle in his eye. “I sneak under the walls that evil people put up.”
“A criminal,” Ben says.
The smuggler smirks.
“I go places I’m not supposed to be, and I get things where they need to go.”
*
“Can you help me find a girl?”
“Why do you need this girl?” the smuggler asks with a knowing look.
“I have to steal her heart.”
“A heart, huh? Well here, kid, take mine.”
His chest swings open, and the smuggler plucks out his beating heart and holds it out to Ben.
*
“But—you can’t just give me this. You’ll die.”
The smuggler chuckles and, fondly, flips open the cage in Ben’s chest and deposits the heart inside.
“Sorry kid, but that’s not how love works.”
Ben clutches his hand and begs him not to go, but he fades away, leaving Ben asking why.
*
In his chest, the heart falters, sputters—
Sings.
Ben closes his chest and collapses over it. He’s ashamed, and afraid—
The heart sings.
*
*
*
***
Part III
*
Have you brought me her heart? The darkness asks.
Ben raises his chin and refuses to acknowledge the tell-tale beating in his chest. He can’t help but feel that the smuggler weakened him with his poison heart.
Love, the smuggler said. But Ben gave his love to the darkness.
*
“I fought her,” he says. “But she got away.”
Ah, the darkness replies. Foolish child; you failed. But why should I be surprised? You were only made to be broken.
Ben feels it again, the old helplessness, the shame.
“Don’t fail me again.”
*
His master always sends him back into the world naked but for his cloak of darkness, and this time it’s freezing. His hands shake, his feet turn red, then white, then blue before he steals some clothes, like the Smuggler’s heart is trying to pump Ben’s blood but isn’t up to the task.
*
This time Ben approaches her cautiously, observing his prey. She has to give him her heart willingly, and cruelty isn’t the tool he needs.
His prey is so angry she’s crying. The ginger-haired child has grown, too. There’s a crash and a rain of scrap metal as he screams at her.
*
“Look at you,” the ginger man scoffs. “Even after all my father did for you, playing with junk, you’re an embarrassment to this family. We should’ve never took you in. Now clean this up before anyone sees this.”
“You’re not better than me, Armitage.”
“You’re nothing.”
*
When the ginger man leaves, she rages. She pounds the dirty walls, she yells, she slides down the rusted metal leg of a worktable and, on her knees, gathers the pieces of scrap the man scattered to the floor.
Her hands on the junk are almost loving, and she stops trying to stem the tears.
*
Ben hides in the shadows, watching her cry, remembering. She made him think she cared, and then she abandoned him like all the rest of them. The others were only careless; she cared, and hurt him anyway.
And then she sees him.
*
“Don’t,” he says, throwing out his hand when she goes for a heavy mallet. “I won’t hurt you.”
“Who are you? Why are you following me?”
She has to give him her heart—then he’ll destroy her.
“Let me help you,” he says, and bends to the floor beside her.
*
She studies him as he sweeps loose springs and washers into his palm, but doesn’t send him away.
“What was this?” he asks, to keep her from asking questions.
She looks at the ground and folds a cogwheel to her chest. “It was stupid. Nothing.”
*
They work in silence and Ben wonders if his master was right to call him a failure. How can he ever convince her to give him her heart?
She sets a rusted can in front of him, and as he drops the parts into it, her blue fingerless glove brushes his hand. Her fingers are warm.
*
“At least you got some clothes,” she says, cheeks pink. “But you need gloves.”
Ben’s cheeks are pink, too, and he tells himself it’s hate, excitement for the kill.
*
They clean up the mess, and she gives him a pair of warm gloves and boils water in the dirty room they gave her. The house beyond, where the ginger man lives, is large and clean and smoke curls up from four fireplaces, but she doesn’t complain.
*
“What were you doing in there?” Ben asks.
“Just a project. That’s my workshop.”
“What do you make?”
She shrugs. “I’m a scavenger. I take broken things and make them something new.”
*
“Why do you stay with him?” Ben asks, jutting his chin toward the big house.
“I’m…waiting for someone. They’d never find me if I left.”
“How long have you been waiting?” Ben asks.
“You never told me your name,” she says, not looking at him.
“Ben.”
*
“Ben,” she repeats. No one’s ever said his name, and the Smuggler’s heart shivers at her sad smile. “I’m Rey.”
She hands him a cup of tea, and Ben recoils, remembering his master’s bargain. “I don’t have anything to give you in exchange,” he says.
*
Her nose wrinkles, and the heart sputters again. “That’s not how gifts work, Ben.”
They talk for hours, until night falls, and then they talk until the sun rises.
*
“Rey?” he asks when the sun is high and she’s resting with her head in his lap.
“Yes?”
“Why were so sad when I saw you? What did Armitage break?”
Rey closes her eyes, and sighs, and he tangles his bare hands in her hair. “I’ll tell you something no one else knows.”
*
“What is it?” Ben asks.
“It’s hard to explain,” she says, face turning red.
“Try me.”
“Well…What I was making, the thing he broke—
I was making a heart.”
*
Ben stiffens. “A heart?”
“For me,” she says, shifting to sit beside him. She puts her hand over her chest and drops her voice to a humiliated whisper. “I don’t have one. My parents took it away when I was small, and I’ve been waiting for them to bring it back.”
*
Ben looks into her eyes and the Smuggler’s heart pounds as he spies the shadow of the darkness falling over her.
Ah, my son, now you understand.
She can’t hear the whisper of the darkness.
You knew, Ben silently accuses. You never needed her heart at all.
*
My son, you wanted power and you wanted revenge. What you feel are the last vestiges of the helpless thing you used to be. Let it die. Kill it, and become what you were meant to be.
You lied, Ben replies.
You didn’t understand what you really needed, the darkness says.
*
The darkness is watching him. Waiting. Waiting to see if Ben is worthy after all.
Ben was alone when the darkness found him. Its voice is the only one that ever offered understanding.
*
“Ben,” Rey says, “I understand if you don’t want to talk to me.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because I can’t give you anything. I don’t have a heart.”
Ben sighs. He knows what he has to do.
*
“I’ll tell you a secret, too,” he says.
She senses his seriousness, and takes his hands in hers. “What’s wrong?”
He speaks to her but looks at the shadow over her shoulder. “I’m not what you think I am,” he says. “I came here to take your heart and kill you.”
*
The world is cruel, and Rey knows it as well as she does. She’s across the room in an instant, a heavy metal axe in her hand.
“Then the joke’s on you, isn’t it?” she demands. “You wanted to steal my heart but I haven’t got one.”
“I know,” he says, and the Smuggler’s heart is light and warm and right in his hands. “Take mine.”
*
The darkness rages at Ben’s betrayal.
If you do this, boy, you’ll die. You’ll go back to being a broken thing. Is that what you want? To be helpless? A sacrifice for someone who doesn’t even care?
Rey lets the axe fall, slowly, unsure. Ben takes a step forward.
Rey drops the axe and grabs his hands, and the blood flecks her blue gloves. “Put it back, Ben. Without it, you’ll die.”
*
“Take it,” he says again. “I was always hollow.”
Slowly, with one finger, Ben slides open the buttons of her shirt to reveal her bony chest, modest, just the middle. She holds his wrist as he places his palm over the bare skin where her heart should be.
*
Her eyes are wide; she shakes her head even as she presses his skin against hers while he holds the heart between them.
He opens her chest and places the heart inside.
*
“Ben, you can’t give me this.”
He leans forward, hand over her new heart, and kisses her forehead.
“That’s not how this works.”
The darkness around them laughs. Rey can hear it, now. It begins to rain.
*
Rey gasps as the darkness floods the room, drowning out the workshop, the windows, leaving only a black rain and the crystal mirror.
Ben’s paper hand begins to dissolve in hers. Their eyes meet.
*
“I’m sorry,” he says.
Rey doesn’t cry, or panic. She doesn’t ask questions.
Before it can disappear, she runs for the axe, and faces the darkness.
*
Foolish child. Do you think you can cut me with metal?
Rey is terrified; Ben sees it in his paper eyes. But even though he calls out for her to stop, she runs at the crystal mirror where the darkness locked away his love and his innocence.
“Stop,” Ben calls. “Don’t give in to the hate.”
But she doesn’t hear him—and the mirror shatters.
*
Nothing happens. The darkness keeps laughing, and Ben knows, then: there was nothing in that mirror. The darkness never took anything from him at all. Ben did it all himself.
*
He could give in to despair, but Rey is so, so close to making the same mistake.
“Please,” he calls.
His paper throat makes no sound, but she looks at him, and understands. Her hands are warm around him as she holds him to her, protective against the darkness.
*
“You can’t touch him,” she says to the darkness.
You are nothing, the darkness whispers, and Ben is afraid for her. I can give you a heart—
“I have one. And because he gave it me, you can’t touch us.”
*
Ben can’t believe it, but she’s right. She walks through the endless black rain, and after a long time they emerge into the world again, together.
Almost together.
Rey takes his one remaining paper hand in hers, and her skin is so warm.
*
*
*
***
Epilogue
*
He can’t speak with a paper tongue, but Rey talks to him all the time. She cries in her loneliness once she finally gets up the courage to leave. She tells him over and over how she wishes she could speak to him.
*
She makes a living with her scavenging, as best as she can. Ben is there when she makes her first friend, Finn, and he watches Finn’s eyes on Rey, full of love, and yes, there’s sadness, but it’s bittersweet.
*
Sometimes, in the dark when Rey’s asleep, Ben thinks of the day when Rey will feel stupid for carrying around a paper man, and he can’t even be angry at her for it, only sad, only understanding. After all, Ben wasn’t made to be wanted.
*
Rey spends more and more time away from him. In her workshop, she says, and she goes on about little projects, but Ben isn’t a fool. He wishes he could tell her she doesn’t have to lie.
*
One day, after months, the Smuggler comes. Ben can hardly believe it, since after all he watched the man dissolve into thin air. Rey doesn’t trust him at first, and neither does Finn. But he mentions something about a particular kind of engineering, and Rey leads him into the workroom without Ben, beaming.
*
The smuggler flashes him a knowing grin, but maybe Ben imagines it. They’re gone for hours.
When they emerge, Rey’s carrying a wad of something red that looks like torn up paper. She smiles at Ben, and touches his paper hair, the tear across his face.
*
“I’ve been working for so long, but I only ever worked with metal and I didn't want to get your hopes up,” she says as she pops open his chest. “But it was simple, once he showed me. Look, Ben: a paper heart.”
The paper heart flutters, and pulses, and when she closes it into his ribs, she leaves his palm on his chest.
*
It rises, and falls, and when Ben laughs, it makes a real sound, and he tries to thank her but she closes her lips over his, and they’re warm, and real, and so are his.
“What am I?” he asks her when he can breathe again.
She smiles against his lips. “You’re loved.”