by Teri Terry
And I’m furious—so angry—at this situation, at myself. I told him the one thing he needed to know, but he’s never going to let us go, is he? He lied.
Was any of the rest of it the truth? If so, how much?
I shake my head. He said survivors are monsters. Alex I can believe. But the others? Changes in their DNA: what does that even mean?
It just doesn’t make any sense. Until they got sick, they were normal, ordinary people.
And what about Callie? My sister. If that wasn’t Callie with us as a ghost all along, then who was it, and where is Callie?
Shay said it wasn’t her. I should have believed her, but would it have made any difference? Would she still have left with Alex?
At the edges of my awareness, I can feel Freja calling me to talk, but I don’t let her in, not yet. I need to hold in the pain.
CHAPTER 9
FREJA
I’M PANICKING: WHY WON’T KAI ANSWER? I can sense him; he’s alone in a room down the other side of the building. He seems to be okay but doesn’t respond when I call him with my mind. I’m about to give up when he finally lets me in.
Sorry I didn’t answer, Freja. I had to do some thinking.
What’s happened?
I’ve been an idiot.
I mean what’s happened lately.
Gee, thanks. Okay. The lieutenant wanted to know whatever I could tell him about Alex. And I thought I did all right, getting info out of him—and suggested a trade of what I know to let us go.
And?
I told him what I know, and he’s not letting us go.
Kai replays the whole conversation in his memory for me, lets me watch, and shock vibrates through my system. Changes in our DNA? Monsters? Survivors are to be eradicated for the sake of the human gene pool?
Because the human race is so perfect and pure as it is, isn’t it? Nice.
And now Kai knows Callie may still be alive. I’m uneasy. Will he guess what I didn’t tell him?
Focus his attention elsewhere.
Lefty is a slippery character. He picked up from what I told him that you and Alex don’t like each other and played you with that.
Lefty? Perfect name. Yes, thanks for pointing that out.
So the doctor comes tomorrow, and she can somehow tell if I’m a survivor. Then they’ll study my DNA and that’s it for me. And I’m not like everybody else—I’m dangerous.
I always knew that.
Huh. This guy must be completely crazy. Right?
Now Kai is uneasy. DNA and tests and science—what does it even mean? I catch an echo of his thought that he quickly hides: he wants to know what Shay would have made of all of this.
I shove down the hurt to focus on the problem. Whatever it all means, there is one thing that I do know for sure: somehow, we’ve got to get out of here. Tonight, before the doctor arrives.
I think I could break my door down if there weren’t an armed guard on the other side of it.
I might have a plan to distract him.
Freja, don’t do anything crazy. Tell me what it is.
No can do, still thinking. Why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll wake you up if anything happens.
I wait until Kai drifts off to sleep, until it is later, quieter. There is just one guard outside Kai’s locked door. Potential monsters are obviously considered to be more dangerous, as I’ve still got two: one inside my room and one outside my door—Jack.
Lefty is a good long way away from us in another house across the road, asleep. Two other soldiers, also asleep, are at the other end of this house. I visit the sleeping soldiers in this house first, lightly touch their minds—making their sleep deepen until almost nothing could wake them. I hesitate, then do the same to Lefty. I think I’m safe from him noticing anything odd from my presence while he’s asleep.
And now it’s time for Jack.
What do I do? I’m sure he’s the only one who’ll go against what he’s told. I need him to open this door. I need to get out.
I can’t do anything too direct. I’m guessing that if he actually thought I was a witch, as they see us, he’d remember his orders.
I send images of myself to Jack: first just looking at him. But not here, not anywhere in the house; this time I’m getting into the back of the jeep, beckoning him to follow. I make him think it’s all his fantasy, one that can come true, even as the thought makes me sick.
Finally he knocks on the door, then unlocks it. The soldier in my room goes to the door. I stay where I am, lying down on the sofa, pretending to be asleep.
“The lieutenant wants to interview the girl,” Jack says. “He told me to bring her.”
“At this hour?”
“Ours is not to reason why.” He shrugs casually, too casually, and I’m thinking this guy will never buy it.
But he does.
“Lieutenant also said you’re to go on a perimeter patrol.”
The soldier sighs and trudges outside.
“You, get up,” Jack says to me, and I yawn and stretch slowly, like a cat, one just woken, and he’s nearly drooling. Pig.
I stand and start to walk for the door, but he pushes it closed.
“I thought the lieutenant wanted me?”
“And I thought you were asleep.” He grins and shakes his head. “Let’s just say I was hoping you and me would get along.”
“Maybe…” I say, and smile up at him.
He smiles back, and it’s all I can do not to be sick on him.
“Maybe I’ve got a fantasy—a soldier,” I say. “Like you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“A big, strong soldier…but not here. In the back of an army jeep.”
His eyes widen. I’m ready to soothe his aura if my fantasy and his being so much the same raises his suspicions—but there are none there. He must really think he is irresistible.
He unlocks and opens the door, gestures for me to go in front of him. He slides his hand down my back, and I want to slap him, but I don’t. The soldier outside Kai’s door is too close. He’ll hear.
We walk quietly in the dark down the hall, and the whole time I’m checking where everyone is and watching Jack’s aura—where he is strong, where he is weak. I hadn’t thought properly beyond getting him to unlock the door, and now I’m cold with fear. We go out the back door.
The jeep is there in the dark, and I’m trying to think, to work out what to do now, but my mind is circling too quickly. I’m scared.
He grabs at my waist and I flinch, pull away, and his eyes narrow. Before I can figure out what to do, Jack puts his hands on my shoulders and turns me so we’re facing each other. He pushes my shoulders hard and slams me into the jeep. My head snaps back and hits the bar, and I’m almost seeing stars. Then he’s opening the door and pushing me roughly through it, and this isn’t going how I planned, not at all.
This is the moment.
The one I find there is a time and a place where I can hurt somebody. I slam my mind hard into his aura. Not to kill, just to hurt, but aimed to hurt him the most. He pulls away, screams. Falls to the ground outside the jeep in the dirt, curling into the fetal position. Then there are footsteps in the house—the soldier guarding Kai has heard something; he’s coming—
Kai! Help me! All my panic is in the thought I send to him.
Kai is awake in an instant, and I can feel him battering against the locked door, kicking it again and again, and at the same time, I reach out to the aura of the soldier who is coming here, making it so he can’t hear Kai.
He is here now, and his gun is drawn as he sees me, sees Jack keeled over in the dirt, just as Kai’s finally broken through his door.
“Did she kick you where the sun don’t shine? Probably deserved it.” He leans over to help Jack up just as Kai bursts out the door and slams into him from behind, knocking h
im from his feet. The gun falls from his hands, and I scrabble on the ground and grab it, then stand up.
Kai is grappling with the other soldier still, leaving Jack to me. I point the gun at Jack, but my hands are shaking.
“Bitch. What did you do to me?” Jack says, and gets up, staggering, and starts to come at me.
And there is no thought, no decision—only reflex. I pull the trigger.
The sound—so loud.
The gun’s kickback slams my elbow painfully into the side of the jeep.
Blood: it’s flooding over Jack’s chest. There’s a surprised look on his thick face as he falls to the ground.
Kai has dealt with the other soldier; he’s lying on the ground now too, not moving. Kai stands, looks at me.
“Freja?” he says. I’m shaking, still holding the gun tight. He pries it out of my hand.
There are sounds in the distance—feet—someone is coming. Either the guard sent to the perimeter by Jack, or one or more of the others have woken up.
Kai uses the gun to shoot out the tires of the truck parked next to the jeep, then pushes me into the front of the jeep, and I want to scream at being pushed inside it again even though it is Kai.
He starts it. The tires squeal as we take off up the road even as someone appears in the distance. There are gunshots.
“Get down!” Kai says, and as I do, the back window is shot out.
Glass flies through the air; some hits me in the back, and there is another sharp pain—welcome pain, as it stops me from thinking about what happened. What I’ve done.
We accelerate and leave them behind.
CHAPTER 10
KAI
I DON’T DARE STOP, not until some serious miles are behind us. They’ll be trying to follow, of that there is no doubt.
But Freja: she won’t, or can’t, talk to me about what happened—either out loud or silently. She killed that soldier; she must have—she shot him, point blank. She’s hurt physically—not seriously, at least I don’t think so—but that isn’t the problem. She’s shut down.
We’re racing through small villages, towns. All look deserted; cleared by the epidemic? I find one with an auto shop, cars for sale, and park behind it so the jeep is out of sight of the road. I force a door open, find a cabinet with all the keys in it, and pick a car I can get out that has gas in it.
I pull in behind the shop. Freja is still sitting in the front seat of the jeep where I left her, face expressionless, blank. I get out of the car and open the jeep’s door, then hold out my hand. She takes it, lets me help her out of the jeep and into the other car.
We race on into the night until the gas is almost gone.
Still she is silent. There are no signs of anyone behind us—at least, not yet.
I find a farm, a barn I can hide the car in.
There’s a granny flat behind the farmhouse. I break into it, checking that there are no occupants, alive or dead. Then I draw Freja in to sit down on a sofa next to me.
She’s shaking. I hold her hand gently, touch the side of her head. There’s bruising there, and some blood on her back, and she winces. That’s when I see that her top is ripped. I touch the collar, and she flinches.
“Freja? Are you all right?”
She shakes her head, looks down.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?”
“No. Tomorrow; I’ll talk tomorrow,” she whispers, at last—breaking her silence.
“Okay. Should we get some sleep now?”
“No. I mean, not yet,” she says, her voice quiet and small. She looks up, and her eyes are full of emotions that I can’t read. She reaches a hand toward me. I take it; she leans against my shoulder. I put my arms around her, and she moves closer, buries her face in my chest. I stroke her hair, and she stays still in my arms for so long that I think she must have fallen asleep. But then she pulls away a little, touches the side of my face, and kisses me.
Her lips are soft, hesitant, almost childlike, and I kiss her back once, then start to move away, but her hand moves back and catches in my hair, pulling me closer, and her kiss deepens.
And all the fear, the pain, the despair—everything we’ve been through, and somehow survived—disappear.
PART 3
ORGANIC EVOLUTION
Organic life evolved from an inorganic soup; animate came from inanimate. All the things we’ve become arose from this miracle of spontaneous generation—yes, I will call it a miracle! And once our science can explain and replicate this, we will be gods ourselves.
—Xander, Multiverse Manifesto
CHAPTER 1
LARA
I’M BURNING, and I scream my name inside again and again:
Callie, Callie, Callie!
Trying to hold on to what I am, even as the flames destroy me.
But this time I’m not asleep, I’m not dreaming, and it goes on and on. And there is a girl here who says her name is Shay and that she is trying to help me, but there is nothing she can do. Then Xander is here too, and Cepta, and between the two of them, they finally break inside. They split me open like an egg, smashed on the pavement.
Calm washes through me, cools the flames and holds them at bay.
But the fire is still there. It will always be there.
CHAPTER 2
SHAY
CEPTA PUSHES ME OUT, says I must leave—that I’ve done enough damage. But I hesitate in the doorway and only go when I see for myself that Callie is finally calm, still. Cepta is at her bedside, holding her hand.
Xander follows me out of the room, closes the door behind us, draws me away.
“What did I do?” I ask him, unable to understand what has happened. She sounded like she was in such pain—her screams were agonizing—but nothing I could say or do would soothe her.
“It’s not your fault. You shouldn’t have spoken to her without being prepared, but you didn’t know.”
“Prepared?”
“It was her name you said, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Callie.”
“She can’t bear to hear her name; it’s always the same if she does. We’ve been calling her Lara instead.”
He’s in pain too—it’s raw on his face, his aura, and despite who he is, I find myself reaching out to him, putting my hand on his arm. He places his hand over mine.
“I’m to blame,” he says. “Both for not telling you and for interfering in Cepta’s treatment yesterday.” He sighs. “I thought Callie needed more freedom, but perhaps I was wrong.”
“Her treatment? What are you talking about?”
“She’s unwell, and has been for a long time,” he says. “I don’t imagine Kai has told you about this—I’d be surprised if he did, anyway. About Callie’s…mental balance. She’d been seeing psychologists from a young age, but Kai could never accept there was anything seriously wrong.”
“Why was she seeing psychologists? What was the problem?”
“There has been some debate on that. A form of dissociative identity disorder is the usual diagnosis, though she doesn’t fit all the diagnostic criteria. I took Callie to see Cepta—you wouldn’t know, but she’s foremost in this field of psychology. Callie needed her help.”
“Are you saying you kidnapped her to put her in therapy?”
“Nothing as crazy as that sounds.” But there are ripples of uncertainty now in his aura, ones he is letting me see. “Not exactly. Look, Sonja—her mother—wouldn’t let her get the help she needed. Sonja was into this completely medical approach; she didn’t understand the finer points of the balance of the mind the way Cepta does. Callie was just going to be away with Cepta for a few days, but things went, well, wrong. Her episodes got worse instead of better.”
“Why did things go wrong? Did you experiment on her in Shetland?”
“What? No, of course not. Cepta says it�
�s her age—hormones, adolescence—that this is exacerbating her condition. Where did you get an idea like that?”
“Jenna. She said they were friends, and that they were there together.”
“Jenna was a cancer patient. She was also a patient of Cepta’s—she may have met Callie through Cepta. The secondary brain cancer Jenna had made her psychotic. I told you before, that crazy stuff she said about us burning her alive in a fire? That’s just not true. You have to believe me. She died when the institute was destroyed—in fire, yes, but it was an accident.”
As I listen to Xander, I get more and more uncertain. How can the things Jenna said—things she shared with me, when we were joined together—be so wildly different from Xander’s account?
At the time I’d have staked my life on Jenna’s truthfulness. All right, she knew she was the carrier and didn’t tell me; she hid it from me somehow. She could be deceptive, manipulative too, but at the end—no. She didn’t lie to me: I know it.
But if she believed it herself, it would have been true to her.
I don’t know what to think.
“Has Callie been here all along?”
“Yes. Under Cepta’s care. And she’s much happier than she was, more stable. Unless something happens to set her off.”
“Something like me.”
“You weren’t to know. Her own name distresses her so much—if she is addressed by it or even just overhears it, she reacts like she did tonight. Cepta says she’s dissociated from herself to such an extent she can’t bear anything that draws her back to who she was—even her name.”
Xander appears so caring for Callie, and so full of uncertainty too—something I’ve never seen him show before.
“Oh my God. You’re human after all.”
“Am I?” Now he’s amused.
“Yes. You don’t know everything, do you?”