The Separation Trilogy Box Set: Books 1 -3

by Felisha Antonette

  Chapter Twelve

  Luke and I enter the training room. The chatter is loud, like transport vehicles rushing down an interstate. When the doors whine closed behind us, a hush falls over the room. Everyone’s attention is eagerly drawn to us. Their faces are relaxed, mirroring the perfect lack of emotions expected in Creations.

  Luke’s voice booms through the quiet as he says, “You all are done for the day. You can stay here until you are finished with your lunch.” He looks at his watch. “Lunch will be delivered here at thirteen hundred hours. Do not leave here and bombard the Creations that were once here with your questions. If anyone wants to discuss what happened, they will offer the information and should not be questioned about it.”

  He turns to leave, and I follow him, heading to Jord’s office.

  Luke’s had this impassive demeanor for a while now. Maybe it’s his additional workload weighing on him too. Or maybe we’re being watched even more closely, and not by just the Guidance or the Trade, but by others around our camp. Like Seits so subtly mentioned the other day she and I visited the hole.

  She showed a great interest in my relationship with Cory, and warned I should be careful around him. She said Cory is being watched. That he knows the implants of the invaders and will reveal who they are without tipping off the individual but will notify Seits and Jord. And although Cory and I appeared to have a close friendship prior to his exposure, and even while she and Jord are doubtful that I’m an invader implant, others may not be. Seits thinks Cory’s closeness may be interpreted as a telling, and she warned me to keep my distance.

  It was in that moment something occurred to me that has skated by since the night Cory revealed what he was doing in Jord’s office. Jord has already known who the implants are… Cory was stealing the list from him, and if Jord had the list, keeping this information from the Trade would make Jord the hoarder which is frowned upon. Cory would’ve not only taken down our commander, but himself. And if he’s picking off implanted Creations one by one by simply speaking with them, that would explain why they welcomed him back to the leaders’ group and didn’t kill him.

  He made a deal. But that doesn’t explain why Cory would need to reveal what Jord may already know. I still doubt Cory or Jord knows anything about Luke and I, but the conversation with Seits is making me reconsider Cory’s intentions.

  I look at Luke again. He keeps every step in line; the scarf pulled over his mouth, rim wet with sweat. We’ve discussed my discoveries, and this must be why he’s keeping a lid on his bottled-up emotions. He and I are the exact same, and I know he feels the pain of losing his team mates too.

  We make it to Jord’s office, climbing the couple of steps to his porch and crossing the creaking wood to the whining screen door. I close the main door behind me. I pull off my helmet and tug down my sweat drenched scarf as I turn my attention to Jord.

  He backs away from a file cabinet stuffed in a corner, saying, “We’re moving Cory to a captain position. He’ll no longer be following training orders. He is working on building his trust with us, and we are giving him the opportunity to prove himself.” Jord takes the seat behind his desk, slapping a pile of papers on its center. Seits leans against the edge of the desk, arms crossed.

  The news is far from shocking. There’s definitely something deeper going on here. I can tell Luke wants to question Jord’s decision, but he is in no position to do so. His helmet is tucked under his arm, and he’s drawn down his scarf as well. There’s the tiniest twitch to the corner of his mouth that hints at his anger, but the composed look he maintains is admirable.

  Jord continues, “Just because he’s trying to regain our trust, this does not mean he has it or that he will have it.”

  “You, the both of you, will keep an eye on him,” Seits informs, picking up a packet of paper.

  “Kylie, Cory seems to have taken a liking to you. Find out what you can if he’s willing to release information. Specifically, uncover what he meant by ‘destruction being reconstruction,’” Jord says.

  “Reconstruction?” Luke questions.

  “That was our reaction,” Jord responds. “And none of us can make sense of it. There is no reconstruction after things are destroyed. Who and what would reconstruct?”

  “What will destruct? Should be your question, Jord.” Seits corrects. She is right, and the only beings who would know the answer to that are the ones who originally said it, and maybe the implants from the Vojin.

  Jord changes the topic. “Things have gotten out of control in some of the states of the America. Some of the Creations will be gone longer than others, and with over fifty Creations gone to other countries, our numbers here are minimal. We cannot afford to lose any more like we did today. The humans are not ready to fight, but we need to push them to get ready,” he says, index finger pressing against the table. “Those Zombies don’t stop, and I don’t know if you all noticed, maybe you didn’t have the time to, but—” he points toward the window. “—it is daytime.”

  The sun’s slicing through the vertical blinds, casting lines of sun rays on the floor. I lift my wrist, as if the sun wasn’t proof enough, to check the time. “Twelve thirteen PM.” We now have day-walking Zombies. “Why is that?” I ask.

  “There was an accident with an experiment. A Creation’s blood was mixed with a vaccination that was administered to a few Zombies. They thought they were testing a cure. Things went haywire.” Jord looks away from us. He turns the papers on his desk face down as he soberly admits, “We wouldn’t have been able to fight our way out if they had come after us. There had been too many of them.” He shrugs. “We left the old and new Zombies, the doctors, and the scientists.”

  I nod, looking away from him. This is getting good. We are Creations designed to manage and maintain order in the America, fight in the wars, and some of us are to train and control the citizens. But now, this battle against Zombies is trying to take over everything. Like Chicago. Without us, the Zombies would have taken over their entire city.

  “Is there anything else?” I ask, ready to leave. Luke and I have plenty to discuss.

  “No, you two are done for the day. Luke, check in with me in three hours.”

  “Yes, sir,” Luke responds as we leave the office. It’s easy to ignore the scorch with my anger still raising my temperature. We march across the vacant roads to the houses and enter our silent home. We’re the only two here. “You want to lie in the den and watch a movie?” Luke asks.

  “Sure. Was it Jord’s idea to leave the people there with the Zombies?”

  “Harold’s.” Luke snatches off his vest and plops down on the couch. “He can’t be a Creation. Creations would have fought our way out even knowing we were outnumbered, but he said it would be better for us to leave than try to kill all of them.”

  “What’d Jord say?”

  Kicking off his boots and propping his feet on the table, Luke says, “Nothing. I was surprised by that.”

  “If you go off and become Captain―”

  “You are captain too, and either way, we wouldn’t have gone to Citizen Management.” Throwing up his hands, he gripes, “I already know where you’re going with this.”

  “How do you know I was going to say that?”

  “You are always complaining about something, Kylie.”

  I roll my eyes. “I’m going to change.” I run upstairs and go to my room. As soon as I enter, I hear a scraping sound coming from my dresser. I rip open the top drawer to find the marbles loose, rolling around. They request us, but we won’t answer. I grab a few pairs of socks and stuff the marbles into one sock, tie the top into a knot and stuff that packed sock into another. Just in case they want to continue rolling around, they won’t be heard.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I lie on the sofa, resting my head on Luke’s legs and propping my feet on the arm of the sofa. He speaks before I can. “Did you make sure we were the only ones here?”

  “Yes. If the door has not opened, it’s ju
st us.” I use the remote to hit play on a movie Luke paused for me. It starts, suspenseful music welcoming a dark, creepy building into view. “If this movie has kissing and the words ‘I love you’ I’m taking it out.” I crack open a bag of baked chips and rest it on my stomach. Cramming a couple in my mouth, I grumble.

  “Ky. If you’re going to miss Marc and keep me from watching a movie when there is nothing to do here but talk to you, I’m going to someone else’s house.”

  “Booo,” I sing, throwing a chip at him.

  He catches it in his mouth. “Get over it.”

  “You can be so heartless sometimes, Luke.” I eat another chip and hand him the bag.

  He snorts. “Don’t point the finger at me, Ky. If anything, you would be the one who is heartless. We were created heartless, not to love. And do not comment on that.”

  I chew on my bottom lip. I’m not a child, I know the things we aren’t supposed to discuss or think about, but Luke knows we’re different. He knows the things that make us different, and emotions and these feelings matter to me. He may just be trying to persuade himself more than to convince me. “Well,” I sigh, “I used to think the most I wanted out of life was to go off to Separation and get away from our aunt. Maybe even fight for our purpose and become the highest-ranking female here. But it’s deeper than that now.” I lower my voice and continue, “And it’s been being here at Separation and the Zombies that have shown me this. I still want the fight. But I want to fight for life, for growth, for the freedom to feel and revel in those feelings without worrying about consequences.” I lift my gaze to Luke, and he keeps his attention tuned into the movie.

  He flicks his gaze down at me for a sliver of a second. I encourage him to say something with a quick rise to my brows. He takes in a sharp breath. “I’ve recently had the urge to want to fight harder to survive after finding out about the Vojin’s Zombie threat too. I want to have the opportunity to murder those glow in the dark turds.” Cracking his neck, he sniffs, and I watch the anger fade from his eyes and be replaced by uncertainty. “Being among the secrets and yet still being in the dark has made me even more uncomfortable. There’s definitely something going on with our general, maybe even the entire camp. I don’t know who to trust anymore.”

  Maybe we shouldn’t trust anyone. “Seits said Cory is signaling to whoever is watching him who the implants are by constantly talking to them and being around them.”

  Luke adjusts, sitting up from being slouched. “Think about this, Ky. Cory had the list when he was coming out of that office.”

  “Right.”

  “He had the list going back into that office too.”

  “Right…”

  Luke cocks his head left, and whispers, “They have seen the list and also know whose names are on it. So who are these people who are watching him? And if they want to know the names, why don’t they just go to Jord, the general, the head of our division, and ask? Since he’s the one who had the list first.”

  I lick my lips and nod. “I was thinking that earlier.”

  “Unless their names are on the list.” Luke leans back on the sofa and starts back in the bag of chips, shoving a handful in his mouth. “And that would explain why Cory is still here and moving back up. Bullshit they don’t trust him, but they are moving him back to captain.”

  I think his words over. “Cory may be blackmailing them. But why wouldn’t they just kill him?”

  “I think it’s because Cory isn’t the only person who knows. And this third party knows Cory’s and their names are on there.”

  “How long have you been contemplating this?”

  “Since Cory came here and talked to you that night. We don’t leave traitors alive. And even us doing so raises suspicions. If we’re ever questioned about it, we can’t admit we knew what they were doing.”

  Jord and Seits’s names being on that list would change everything. “Which conversation with the Vojin do you take as the truth?”

  In a monotone, Luke says, “All of them.”

  “Hmm. Because everyone can lie and be lied to?”

  “And because… One,” he throws up his index finger, “the way your neck looked that day you came home, it was a threat.” He lifts his middle finger, “Two. Because they killed our parents for trying to stop them, likely because they wanted to destroy this planet. And three,” he throws up the third finger, “because this wasn’t the way when it was first introduced to us, and people seemed happy about peace. I believe the story about them stopping the destruction. Now, to keep the mixed Creations on their side, they’re covering up the real truth with all these stories.”

  He passes me the bag of chips back. “They cover up the truth with the story of us being here to implement peace, but we have to know that’s the major lie. What are we supposed to do?”

  “Sit back and watch it unfold, let the mixed Creations present themselves to us, even if that means monitoring―” Luke stops talking mid-sentence. I eat a few chips, watching the movie, waiting for him to continue. When he gets an idea while he’s talking, he’ll just stop, leaving me hanging. When we were younger, I used to shake him until he snapped out of his thoughtful trance. Now I’m used to it.

  “Seits wants you to stay away from Cory because the people he’s signaling to, whoever they are, expect him to reveal the implants. Jord wants us to keep an eye on Cory as he reveals the implants. He also wants us to see who the implants are.” Luke jolts forward, jumping to his feet, and I nearly topple off the sofa. “Has Cory told you yet if our names were on there?”

  I readjust myself to sitting beside him as I say, “No, and I don’t think they are. He would have said something, or at least used his knowledge to get to you.”

  He aggressively rubs his hand over his short hair. “You have a point.” His blazing ambition sizzles out. He sits back down, brows drawing in tightly, as he thinks. “Who are the people watching Cory?”

  “Maybe the Trade. Remember, they never got the list.”

  “And Jord likely wouldn’t tell them because their names are on it.”

  “That’s what Cory said that one night, remember.”

  “I can’t figure out why we would need to keep an eye on Cory. The only thing I’m getting is to show us who the implants are. But why would they want us to know unless they wanted us to do something about it?”

  “Why would Jord care if Cory is an implant if he is too?” I lie back down.

  “Unless he’s trying to throw us off. He may only be doing this to make us think Cory still shouldn’t be trusted and make it seem like he’s only using Cory to get information. A misdirect.”

  I nod. “Now that makes sense.”

  “Seriously, Ky, think about it. Seits told you to stay away from Cory not five days ago. Now, they want us to keep an eye on him. Putting you around him.” Luke bumps his fist against his thigh. “Maybe it’s a setup.”

  “Like you said, no one can be trusted.” Everyone has their own game plan. “Hold on, Luke.” I sit up and look at him dead on. “What if the generals don’t trust us, and they are trying to see if we are the implants? What if they are using Cory to lead them to us and that is why they are telling us now to keep an eye on him? Jord and Seits have both been telling me to keep my distance. What if it’s a test for us, not him?”

  “Shit, Ky, you may be on to something. If that’s true, Cory is setting you up.”

  Shaking my head, I say, “I won’t leave myself open to be set up.”

  “Stay away from him. Every twin for themselves. If we all turn on each other, I want to come out on top.”

  “Me too.” I ball up the empty bag of chips and toss it in the trash ben near the doorway. It goes right in. “If sports were still a big thing, I could be a football player. Did you see that shot?”

  Luke’s silent for a second. “Yeah, and I don’t think the name of that sport was football. Football was the one with the eye-shaped ball. They still play sports in a lot of places. Like a pastime.”

>   Shrugging, I say, “I know, but before the first destruction, they played it in the movies. When they made movies like these. They said those people used to be big like the Premier.”

  “That was a long time ago. Go get us another bag of chips and bring a can of soda.”

  I get up and go to the small fridge in the corner of the den. “Okay.” Grabbing his drink from the small fridge and a bag of chips from the top of it, I say, “Fein thanked me today.”

  “How did you respond?”

  I hand him the can and open the chips before handing them to him too. “I told her she was welcome.”

  “Fein is nice, but like I said, no one can be trusted.” He drinks from the can and finishes with a refreshing hiss. “You unscramble that letter yet?”

  Pursing my lips, I shake my head. “Looking at that letter makes my head hurt. I think it’s saying Mom and Dad were implants to the Vojin from the Trade.”

  “Then what? The Vojin implanted them in Separation…to kill them?” he asks.

  “The Vojin found out they were implants from the Trade, and that’s why they killed them?” I question back.

  I watch the wheels spin in his head as he stares at me. “What would have been the Trade’s reason for inserting Creation Breeders or even a Creation into the Vojin’s plan? Did they intend for their implants to be placed into Separation as mixed Creations? And why wouldn’t they inform their children?”

  I think on that: a spy in a spy’s court. “Okay, Luke, if I followed you correctly, it would be to keep it from happening again?” I shrug, throwing my arms out at my sides.

  “We only have one mission. We are dedicated to one thing.” He’s said this our entire life, but he knows he’s wrong. Especially now.

  “That’s not one hundred percent true, Luke.” He knows our mission is beyond Vojin and beyond Creation.