Something about the deep cleaner seemed off, though. The machine was not just old, it was pieced together from parts that, when put together, did not make a cohesive whole. At the first bump in the road, I would expect it to fall to pieces.
Wait a minute.
I jumped out the side door of the van, happy to get away from the chemical smell, and circled back to Riley.
“Who are you?” I asked Corey.
His old-man eyes were big globes of surprise. Big brown globes with blue contacts over the irises. His skin, powdered white, had begun to show the darkness in the cracks like canyons.
“What are you talking about?” Riley asked me.
“He’s no Outtie. Congress has all the money in the free world. They wouldn’t hire a one-man operation to clean their carpets.”
I licked my finger and made a streak across Corey’s cragged face with it. Sure enough, there was black underneath the makeup, even darker than any Addi I had ever seen.
“I’m from Denver.” When Corey spoke, his voice contained none of the aged wobble I expected. His words were clear, eloquent, and angry. “Denver Dome. The one Dr. Hayes sacrificed like a lamb in your honor.”
“You don’t understand—” Riley tried to interrupt.
“Oh, I understand.” Flecks of saliva flew from Corey’s pursed lips. “Even in Colorado, we’ve heard rumors of the girl who can turn anything she touches into morphoid, spreading that drug’s deadly disease for Dr. Hayes like a good little puppet. We’ve heard rumors of her escape. And we paid the price for it.”
“And you blame that on—”
“Let him speak,” I told Riley.
“I was on guard duty. In Denver, every clean Addi is a blessing, someone to be cherished and used. Even someone old and sick like me. I was in charge of patrolling the escape point, the only place where our people could get in and out of the dome. One minute I was standing outside the glass looking in on my fellow guards doing the same on the other side… the next, they were all gone.”
You killed them. You killed them all.
“So you came here to… kill me?”
Corey’s hollow laugh rattled around his chest. “No. I came here to blow up Congress. Then, if I survived that, maybe I would kill you.”
Riley looked like she was about to slap Corey across the face, old man or not.
“Don’t,” I said. My voice sounded dull after Corey’s fury. “He doesn’t understand.”
Carefully, I rested my hands against the rope holding Corey hostage. In a second the binding had returned to its original vine form. Corey held his wrists up in front of his face and pulled; the green strands ripped apart and fell onto the road like a pile of cut hair.
“Oh.” Corey stared down at the ground and kept repeating the word. Something had stuck in his brain, a damaged groove in his record causing it to skip. “Oh, oh, oh.”
“That’s why he wants me,” I whispered. “That’s why he destroyed the Denver dome. It’s not because I’m useful…. It’s because I’m dangerous.”
“And now we’re going to do something to Congress even a bomb can’t achieve,” Riley said triumphantly, finally able to break the news she’d been holding in during my talk. “We’re going to change their minds.”
“Oh.” The last oh was the final one, the light bulb turning on, and then Corey went silent.
“Do you want to help us?” I asked as I put my hand on Corey’s arm. Riley shook her head no in the background, but I ignored her. After everything poor Corey had been through, I owed him the revenge he sought. Plus, a man willing to die for his cause was a man I needed on my side.
“Okay,” he finally said. His mind seemed elsewhere.
“Good. You can be our driver. Do you have two extra uniforms?”
In five minutes Corey and the two new Ralph’s Rug Cleaners were on their way to the capitol.
Chapter Twenty-Four
THE INTERIOR of the capitol was all white marble, as smooth and pale as Outtie skin. Statues of former governors and congressmen lined the halls, which were covered in shaggy white carpets to which the man at the front desk directed our focus, and paintings of every city in Louisiana filled the walls. Just out of view, somewhere on the wallpaper, was the dome.
“These carpets are difficult,” the woman was saying. She too wore white, a two-piece suit with silver buttons that clung to her curves, and with her pale blonde hair, she became almost invisible as she walked farther down the hall. “Don’t vacuum the third floor while Congress is in session. Don’t speak to any congressmen—unless you want to be reported. In fact, try to make as little noise and nuisance as possible for the next eight hours. It’s an important day here, and you wouldn’t want to interrupt, would you?”
“No, ma’am,” Corey answered. Good thing, because I had already bitten my tongue to keep myself from talking back to her. “We’ll just start at the top and work our way down. The third floor we’ll do after hours.”
“Excellent.”
She left us, her white pumps getting caught in the shag carpet and pulling away from her feet like clicking tongues. Why they hadn’t just made the floor white marble was beyond me; maybe they wanted to stifle the sounds. And it worked too; in a few seconds, the entire building was silent again.
“We need to get to the third floor before Congress arrives,” Riley whispered softly. “If we can find a hiding spot to put Jayla, then Corey and I can wait in the wings in case something goes wrong.”
“What, you want me to serve boiled peanuts from the sidelines?” Corey asked. “‘Excuse me, sir, don’t mind the old-man rug cleaner as he listens in on government business. Please, take a handful?’ They’ll never notice me.”
Apparently Corey had decided to unleash his old-man sarcasm at exactly the wrong moment. Riley glared at him, but honestly, he was right. The minute a congressman spotted either of them, we were screwed.
I tried to remember what I had read about Louisiana State Congress, as well as what the rebels had told me. I knew that the Senate, the only house of Congress left, consisted of thirty-nine members. Each one had a chair in the room, as well as a name tag marking his or her name and district. The House had been abolished fairly recently—some speculated that no Outties wanted to serve in the “lower house,” while still others claimed the House was more balanced and therefore less easy to persuade in matters like the Dome Deconstruction Act—so the Senate was the only rule-making and governing body besides the governor, who was always a former senator with exactly the same agenda.
Of course the judicial system still worked—as much as it ever had—but with the Addis in the dome, there was no one to charge. Only rarely would an Outtie accuse another Outtie of foul play, and these cases were mostly settled out of court. So many jails had closed that apparently they’d converted most of them into malls filled with high-end boutiques and pastry shops.
“I can hide here.” I pointed to a temporary table that had been installed to hold what looked like a model of the dome. Next to it was another model that showed a development comprised of white houses and white picket fences. The table had a white tablecloth that went down to the floor—the perfect hiding place.
“And where should we go?”
We found a closet in the very back of the room filled with office supplies where Riley and Corey would fit along with their rug-cleaning equipment. The closet was large enough that they could hide all the way back behind the shelves, and even if a staff member came to look for a stapler, they wouldn’t be seen.
“Good luck,” Riley whispered as I closed the door behind me.
“You too.”
Then I took my place under the table and waited. The clock had said 8:00 a.m., and according to one of the plaques in the hallway, Congress began at 9:00 a.m. Of course some senators came early, and a few minutes after I slid into my hiding spot, I heard talking and laughing.
Then I heard him.
“Now I’ve got them right where they started.” Dr. Hayes
chuckled. “Her entire posse, all imprisoned and powerless. It’s pathetic, really, how useless they are without their precious leader to direct them.”
“And you’re confident you’ll be able to find the girl?” a woman’s voice asked. She sounded worried.
“Of course. I made that girl, and I can destroy her just as easily. Trust me, Senator Marksman, Jayla will not get in our way.”
Eventually, the room filled. The air grew hot and stuffy, and then silent as Dr. Hayes, apparently the leader of the Senate now, brought order with his gavel.
“We’re here today to make the final plans for the Dome Deconstruction Act,” he began in a droning voice. “Now that the decision has been made, we will vote on future use of the dome land in New Orleans, as well as plans for future Addis discovered among us now that there’s no dome to house them.”
He continued, but I blocked out his voice and focused on the minds around me. When I closed my eyes, I could feel them there, the way someone might claim to feel ghosts or a storm coming when it’s still miles away. Just vague presences, floating out of reach.
Come on, Jayla, I urged. Focus harder.
Then I found one, fished her brain out of the group like a single carp snagged and pulled onto a boat’s deck. Inside her mind, I zoomed in further, until I could see the lateral habenula. Then I pulled in energy from the surrounding environment, hoping to zap the habenula with electrical pulses that would render decision-making impossible. Later I could spend time actually rearranging synapses, but for now, I just wanted to halt the group while I worked.
But nothing happened. The electrical pulse gathered, but it could not get into the senator’s brain. Like hail against a roof, the pulse pounded at the surface of her head.
I crouched down and peered under the tablecloth at the senator closest to me. Was there something special about her? Did she have powers too, or some kind of protection from my use of them?
Then I saw the bracelet. Silver glowing red.
Dr. Hayes must have seen it at the same time, because he stopped speaking.
“She’s here,” he said. “She’s somewhere in this building.”
“Who?” someone asked, and then they noticed the bracelet too. “Oh. Of course. You’re sure she can’t break these off us?”
“Positive. Their signals come from the Authority building, and she can’t get there in time. Now is our chance to find her and kill her.”
Dr. Hayes stepped out of view, and then an alarm went off. Red flashes whirled like the Authority vans’ warning lights, and the room became a frenzy of panicked Outties.
Think. Think, think, think. But I couldn’t think. I could barely breathe. The guards would find me, and once I was caught, there was no hope for anyone else. Over and over I tried to break into the senators’ brains, but all my powers did was light up thirty-nine bracelets. Guards ran in and searched the room, and a minute later, I heard Riley scream. Through the legs of the senators I tried to find her, but there were too many people to see.
“Don’t kill her,” Dr. Hayes warned. “The girl will serve as bait. If we have this one, we have Jayla.” Then he raised his voice. “Do you hear that, Jayla? Surrender or this one dies.”
You killed them. You killed them all.
“No!” I didn’t realize I was screaming until one of the guards came over to the table and pulled me out. My voice echoed through the room, a high-pitched, panicked scream of no, no, no.
“Jayla, don’t!” Riley yelled, but then a guard punched her in the stomach and she doubled over in pain.
“Let me put a bracelet on you,” Dr. Hayes said calmly, though his eyes bounced back and forth between us, “or I’ll kill your little girlfriend. But I guess what’s one more life to the woman who sentenced an entire dome to death, right?”
I pounded my powers against the senators, hoping for a miracle. The bracelets glowed even brighter, until they became an almost blinding light, but I couldn’t get them off.
“It’s no use,” Dr. Hayes said. His voice was pleased. “Surrender or die.”
Everyone had been watching me, waiting for my next move.
They’d forgotten all about Riley.
Suddenly I could see her, could watch her punch the man who held her and then pull out my gun, which apparently she’d brought with her in all of the House commotion. With intense focus, she raised the weapon and pointed it at Dr. Hayes.
“How about a bullet?” Riley asked. “Do you have a bracelet for that, asshole?”
Two shots fired immediately.
Dr. Hayes was dead instantly. Riley’s shot had found a home in his heart, and I could no longer feel his presence.
Riley, however, was in pain. I could feel it, like the bullet the guard had shot was in my stomach instead of hers, like nothing else existed but agony. Blood stained the white marble floors as it pooled around her body.
“Move,” I ordered, and the senators and guards listened. Without Dr. Hayes, they were as aimless as Addis. Then I sunk to my knees and took Riley’s hand, which was clammy and almost lifeless as it flopped into my lap.
“Did I get him?” she whispered to me through winces.
“You got him. Right in the heart.”
“What heart?” She managed to crack a smile, but it faded away. “Promise me you won’t save me.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, already working to repair the damage to her organs. The bullet was deep, and there was so much work to be done. “Of course I’m going to save you.”
“It’s too late. I’m going to die, and even if you can bring me back to life, don’t. You’ll lose your powers.”
She was right. I knew it instantly, the second she said the words—if taking the addiction out of my dad had weakened me, bringing Riley back to life might take away my powers for good. And even if it didn’t, I would be too weak to influence the Senate. What if I never had a chance like that again?
She was right, but I didn’t care.
“The bracelets are not….” Her words faded in and out. “They’re not… red anymore. The others… they must have…. Change them, Jayla. Change their minds.”
“But—”
“Promise me.”
“But I love you.” The words felt foreign in my mouth, and I realized I had never said them.
“I know. I love you too. That’s why you have to promise me.”
I stared down at her hand, then squeezed. “I can’t.”
Riley closed her eyes, but when she spoke again, she almost sounded like herself. “Remember the people in the dome. Remember how they died. I cannot be responsible for that happening again, and neither can you. Promise me.”
The glass. The hand. The starfish fingers.
“Okay.” Tears, which I’d been holding back until then, fell like rain in the puddle of blood. “I promise.”
As if my words had set her free, Riley shut down. When I felt around in her brain, everything looked dim. Then, like a light turned off in a very dark room, there was only blackness.
Epilogue—Remains
I WISH I could say that Congress changed their minds after that day. I wish I could say that Riley’s death inspired them to change their ways, to tell the other Outties and congresses across the United States that the domes were wrong, to release the Addis before it was too late.
But that’s not how it happened.
Instead, I changed their minds for them. One by one, my crew snuck into congressional meetings and held off the guards while I played in people’s brains, shocked lateral habenulas, moved synapses. One by one, the domes fell like snow globes and shattered into pieces that the New Orleans Resistance helped them pick up and put back together again.
Even when the pieces are reassembled, life is still hard. Outties and Addis still live separate lives, have separate governing bodies, have different views about nearly everything. There is still frustration and anger and resentment.
But there are bright moments too. Like Tree and Arla’s wedding,
or Jo’s new position as head of the first Addi college, or Tiny and Turf’s work in the rehabilitation centers. Or my afternoons in Riley Park, where every month I plant a new live oak that future generations of Addis will sit under as they study for tests or fall in love.
These are the moments we live for, the achievements that only Addis can appreciate, because we know how hard we’ve worked to get them.
After all, we’re still Addis on the inside.
More from Annabelle Jay
The Sun Dragon: Book One
Dragons once roamed the skies, as common as our modern-day airplanes but much more beautiful in their gliding, soaring thermal choreography. Until King Roland and his gold-greedy men defeated them.
Years later King Roland reveals that not only did he let the dragons live, but he turned them into humans so that they could enter the population and breed him an army. Allanah, a sophomore in high school, saves her know-it-all friend Victoria from exactly this fate with magical powers she never knew she had. Allanah’s first high school crush, Jason, reveals that he’s been sent by a secret society of wizards to bring Allanah and Victoria to the Council to have their magical abilities tested by The Egg. Everyone, including Allanah, is shocked by what she produces: the world’s first light dragon.
Allanah must save her best friend and all of the rest of the dragons from Roland’s evil plan, but when she meets the beautiful Dena, a member of the native forest-dwelling Igreefee camp, she must wrestle between her feelings for her new wizard crush, Cormac, and her attraction to Dena.
The Sun Dragon: Book Two
Half-human, half-dragon Mani hatched from an egg and was adopted by Allanah, a human woman who discovered him after the death of his dragon mother. He possesses abilities he’s only beginning to understand, and every night he takes the form of a blue dragon.
When Mani’s secret is revealed, he takes refuge at the wizard Mansion. There, he encounters the Animal Guard, a group of people who share his affliction. But the members of the Animal Guard are under a curse by the sorceresses, and they need Mani’s aid to break the spell and resume their human forms. Growing romantic feelings for the wolf-boy Lup convince Mani to offer his help, but Mani’s own developing powers might destroy any chance at a relationship. The world of magic is changing, and as Mani and his friends fight to stop the evil sorceresses from using the deadly North Star, they must figure out what places they will hold when the battle is over.
Addis on the Inside Page 12