by Sara Kincaid
I hope that they will abandon the project for the sake of those poor people. This seems a cruel trick of nature, to gift you with such power, but to undermine you in such a way that your abilities bring about premature death. Must the Curare pay for us all to regain the life our ancestors destroyed? I fear that the CPA and the City will not care about the price, as long as they get what they desire.
Aster
Chapter 15
Returning to the holding cell for the Curare, nothing could have prepared me for the gaunt figures and blanket exhaustion I saw. Though they had been provided with rations, their faces were pinched and new lines appeared around their mouths and eyes. New streaks of gray crystallized in their hair. The price for wielding their abilities was immediate and undeniable.
Self-consciously, I made my way to my bunk and slid into the shadows. There would be no denying my differences now, for the affects of my abilities could not be discovered in my face or anywhere upon my body. I had shielded Nita and Micah from the harshest consequences of using their element and now they, too, were in danger. People were going to notice that something was different.
Trayvor was one of the last to return to our holding area and he stumbled numbly across the metal floor to his bunk. After the last Curare returned, the lights in our prison dimmed and sounds of fitful sleep echoed off the stark metal walls. I lay in my own bunk pretending to sleep, waiting as long as possible before rising from my back. I knew the cameras would see me move across the floor and I argued with myself about what I was about to do. It would give away my secret. But I couldn’t leave Trayvor alone to suffer as he did. Besides, I reasoned, perhaps if the guards sniffed something suspicious, they would take me to Kade sooner and I could act out my revenge more quickly and put an end to this misery.
Unfamiliar with the capabilities of technology in the City and the CPA stronghold, I crept from bunk to bunk, trying in earnest to keep to the shadows. Creaks from the ropes strung between the posts of each bed alerted me to the movements of the sleeping Curare around me. As I passed them, I tried not to look at their drawn faces, to avoid dipping into the void and hearing the dissonance that I knew would be there. I didn’t have enough energy to heal all of them. Perhaps if I had access to the clean energy in one of the farms I could bring each of them relief. I knew that I needed to conserve as much of my energy as possible for the battle I yearned for and knew to be ahead. At the end of that battle, the Curare would be free and they would never again be slave to another.
When I reached Trayvor’s bunk, I slowly sat down beside him. His eyes fluttered open and he looked past me, unable to focus or completely awaken from his dream. “Who,” his lips mouthed.
I took his hand in my own and leaned down to whisper in his ear. “It’s Vea, Trayvor. Don’t worry.” His face seemed to relax at the sound of my voice. I kept hold of his hand and reached down within myself, calling forth some of the energy I had taken in while out in No Man’s Land. I sent that energy to Trayvor, willing it to ease his pain and reverse some of the damage wielding his abilities had caused. The pinch left his face and his body softened further into sleep as I willed the energy to work in his veins.
The energy used to heal Trayvor was not extravagant, but I certainly felt the effects of relinquishing some of my precious reserves. I was tired, but satisfied, knowing that I had brought aid to another, particularly one who, so many years ago, I had abandoned. After all the energy I had stolen throughout my seventeen years, after all the livestock that had collapsed, stricken beneath my touch, I somehow felt that I was finally repaying my debt.
It didn’t take long for word to spread about the Igni Curare who returned to the CPA facility without fresh burns on their hands. A few days removed from our journeys out into No Man’s Land, and Trayvor and the other Curare with whom I was housed had barely begun to stir. Sitting on Trayvor’s bunk, we had been whispering quietly, keeping to safe topics though I knew what Trayvor wished to ask. How had I healed him? Instead, he prattled on about his latest assignment. “I was paired with a Terrae, a man from West Farm.” He stopped to catch his breath and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Oh and another Aquae Curare. I think you might know her.” Despite his exhaustion, a sparkle came to his eyes. “Annel Algana?”
In spite of myself, I grasped Trayvor’s hand tightly. “What? She’s alive? After all this time?”
“Yes. She is strong in spite of her great age, as far as Curare are concerned.”
“And they still make her go out into the fields?”
He turned his eyes to the ground, embarrassed, though her fate was no fault of his own. “Of course. Kade has no compassion.” I nodded, though my heart constricted at the thought of my aunt being enslaved for all these years. “Yes,” he said, answering the question I could not ask. “I told her that you were here.”
Our eyes met in the dim light and I bit my lip. “My mother was pregnant with me when she was taken away.” For a moment, I allowed my thoughts to return to my home on South Farm, to my mother’s warm embrace and the beautiful, clean earth I walked away from so many months ago. “Will she know me?”
“You look like your mother. Of course she’ll recognize you,” he assured me.
Commotion at the entrance to our holding chamber drew my attention away from Trayvor. Two guards argued with the one man on duty. The guard assigned to us poked at his keyboard and the gate unlocked. As the two guards entered, the Curare around us huddled and tried to hide their heads beneath their hands, fearful of being dragged out for interrogation or punishment for not completing their duties in the field properly. The two guards loomed ominously in the crowded room. The guards drew closer, surrounding the bunk where Trayvor lay and upon which I sat. I stood, prepared to protect the still weakened Curare at my side and around me. “Vea Algana? Please come with us.” The guard who spoke had a gruff voice and a wide stance. His pointed chin jutted out from his angular face. The other guard, a man who stood a head shorter reached out to take me by the shoulder. “Don’t touch her!” he barked. “Remember what happened to Maric? She did that.” The other guard’s eyes widened and he quickly drew his hand away. “Nice and easy, miss. Come with us and there’ll be no trouble.”
Reckless though it might have been to heal my friends, I knew it would bring Kade out from his lair and give me the chance to destroy him. I rose slowly from the bed so as not to alert the jumpy soldiers. “Vea!” Trayvor called hoarsely from the bed. I raised my hand and urged him silently to say nothing.
As the guards marched me down the hallway, I tried to avoid thinking of my aunt and the fact that I would never get to see her face.
Kade’s sanctuary was cold and dark when we arrived. Fear gripped me, but I forced it down, preparing for the encounter I knew would come. Instead, I focused on the losses of my life. My family. My childhood. Leo. Adem and more. I found the anger lurking in that gloom and pulled it to the surface, raw and unkempt. I squared my shoulders.
Even the two soldiers who led me into the office were on edge. There was a smell of death that lingered in this place. In their hurry to leave, the soldiers forced me roughly into the room and across the slick, metal floor with the butts of their air guns. They left me seated in and tethered to a metal chair under a bright light.
When the door closed behind them, I closed my eyes and breathed deeply before opening them once more and taking in my surroundings. The large desk was still there along with a shelf of tools near a hospital bed similar to the one I had been strapped to for the Pop test. The walls appeared solid on all sides.
I knew that Kade would come in person this time. My abilities had intrigued him enough that he was willing to show himself. Desperately, I reached down into myself and into the void, hoping to find some tendril of energy to ground me so that I could exact my revenge. I didn’t need energy to steal away his life as I planned, but I needed enough energy to propel myself through the fight t
hat was sure to ensue and to escape my bonds. The metal around us was thick and virtually impenetrable and there was no hint of the sleeping earth below me. I gave a frustrated sigh.
Kade entered the room through a hidden door behind his desk, his eagerness to study me apparent on his face. “Well, then. We meet at last, little Curare. You’ve given my soldiers quite the chase these many years. But you’re a wily one, aren’t you?” He gave a little wink and stepped into the room. His skin was bathed in the white light, leaving him looking wan, his beard scruffy and unkempt. There was a wildness about his eyes that gave me pause. I did not speak, but looked up at him when he entered. I wanted to truly see my enemy before I destroyed him.
“Care to tell me about where you’ve been hiding for so long?” When I didn’t answer, he approached me but did not touch me. “I know that part of your time was spent with the Undergrounds. The man you were first arrested with was one of their leaders.” I tried not to wince at the mention of Leo, but he picked up on my reaction. “So you know what I’m talking about?” Again I remained silent. He drummed his fingers on the desk. “If you aren’t going to cooperate, we could just begin phase two now?” He smiled wickedly.
I didn’t want to know what phase two meant. “I have nothing to say.”
“Really? Even if I told you that you look a lot like your aunt when she first arrived here?”
My heart plummeted at the mention of Annel. I licked my lips. “My aunt?”
“Yes. She has been a great boon to our cause over her lifetime. You are quite the shining jewel around here yourself, Vea. Two Curare in one bloodline has so far been unheard of. Not to mention your strange powers.” He reached forward, a hairsbreadth out of my range. “I know that you stole the life of that Underground upstart somehow and two of our Igni Curare are looking quite well in spite of having just returned from the field. I will figure out the key to your abilities and we will breed more of you. You are the answer to my problems.”
“Curare can’t procreate. We all know this,” I flaunted the lie, flicking it out to knock him from his pedestal.
He smiled grimly. “We shall see.” He cleared his throat and began to pace. In spite of his great age, his steps were uncommonly sure and unshakable. He was confident in himself and his position. Having ruled over the Curare and his soldiers for so long, he didn’t anticipate that anything could bring about his demise.
Eventually, my curiosity won out over my better sense and I reached out, hoping to reveal something about my enemy in the void. His blood did not sing as a Curare’s, but his energy was strong. “You could make this easy on yourself. Show me your abilities now and I won’t have to force them out of you. We’ve already received a glimpse of what you can do. The episode brought on by the dose of Pop was rather telling.” He almost purred as he talked, retreating to his desk and perching on the edge.
“I am just like the others,” I shrugged. I needed to preserve my energy as long as possible and denial seemed the best route.
Kade laughed, throwing his head backward as the sound burst from his chest and echoed around the otherwise silent room. “You are much more than the others. I know this already. Why do you think I had Alors gift you with a special mark? Birds are as rare as jewels and glimpses of the sky.” I pulled my sleeve farther over my mark. “We share something in common, though.” Eagerly, he stepped forward and rolled up his sleeve, revealing his own bird. The craftsmanship surely belonged to Alors, though the bird was not the same species as the one on my arm. The sharp beak and large wingspan bespoke an animal I had never known. With vicious talons gripping a brown orb, I read the threat that Alors had drawn between the arcing lines and plume of feathers and I began to wonder what other messages he had hidden in the masterpieces he etched on the arms of the Curare. “You see? We are twins. We have much in common.”
I stared blankly at the mark on his arm. He dared to mark himself in the way that his slaves had been forced to be identified. “We have nothing in common. You have enslaved the Curare. Nature did not intend us to be slaves.” My lip curled in disgust.
“Nature is not a being and therefore has no intentions,” he sneered. “How the farm lives on in you,” he mused. “No matter. Curare do the work that was their birthright. And you have been shirking your duties for quite some time.” He shook his finger at me.
“And what are your duties?” I ventured.
He smiled again. “Now I see why they’ve kept you chained up. You fight against your inner pacifist. Perhaps all that time in hiding has gone to your head. We’ll soon help you remember who you are. As for my duties, they are to ensure that the earth is cleansed.” He paused. “But, if I were to develop my own abilities,” he crooned, reaching his hand forward before remembering that touching me would be a bad idea. His face fell briefly. “Then perhaps I would be inclined to lend a hand.” Instead he turned and walked to a metal table near the hospital bed.
Kade desired to be a Curare. He coveted the power we wielded, while in the same breath condemning us and committing us to a lifetime of servitude and misery and then, upon our deaths, tossing us away like trash. I thought wistfully of Trina, who had fled fearing that Kade would discover a way to use her eggs to create more Curare or give himself her abilities. My hatred of him multiplied. I watched him grab something from the table and walk toward me again. As he approached, he held the object tightly in his grasp, obscuring it from view. “Why don’t you show me how your abilities work, Vea?”
“Why don’t you come a little closer and I’ll show you?” I spat, struggling against the handcuffs that bound me to the chair.
A hiss of a laugh escaped from Kade’s smooth lips. “I see how this will be. Have it your way.” He stepped nimbly and grabbed my right arm. Instinctively, I tried to pull his energy away instead of attempting to escape his grasp. My concentration was quickly broken as he plunged a scalpel deep into the flesh of my arm and dragged it down the limb and through the muscle across my forearm. I cried out in pain and lost my connection to him. I reached for my arm with my other hand, but could not grab it due to my restraints. Kade waved the bloody instrument in the air and sauntered over to his desk. He pressed a button and two guards entered. “Move her to the table, please.” The shackles that bound me to the chair were unlocked and thick hands grabbed me under my arms and dragged me to the operating table. Their hands were covered in thick gloves, though they hesitated a moment before touching me. Perhaps fear of Kade trumped their fear of me.
After hoisting me onto the cold slab, my limbs were tied again. Blood ran freely down my arm in dark rivulets and my body shuddered with my tears. Unable to shield myself from the harsh light, I curled my chin into my shoulder and shut my eyes. The urge to heal myself was strong, but I refused to show my abilities. Roughly, he gripped my chin and turned my face to him. “Heal yourself and this will all be over. Show me what I want to see.” But still I refused. I tried to focus my energy while he was in contact with me, but failed once more. After a moment, he released me and walked away. “I’ll give you some time to think about it. But don’t take too long.”
When he was gone, I opened my eyes and watched the blood trickle from the gash. The pain was brutal and my arm throbbed. I could feel my energy swirling inside of me and I itched to heal the wound. I knew the loss of blood would weaken me if I wasn’t careful. I shivered, the cold, metal table beneath me sapping any natural warmth I had.
Instead of healing myself, I tried to block out the pain. Sometime later, either having successfully overcome the pain or having passed out from it, I was startled awake by Kade’s return. The gash in my arm was deep and my fingers tingled uncomfortably. “So are you feeling a little more amenable this morning?” He glanced at my wound. “I see you haven’t taken care of our little accident from yesterday. You don’t want cuts like that to fester. You might lose a limb.” He wiggled his eyebrows humorously.
I experimented with my hand,
gripping my fingers into a fist and then relaxing them once more. Pain raced through my arm but I ignored it and looked up at him expectantly. I shifted uncomfortably in my bonds, trying to relieve my sore hips and shoulders from their long night against the unforgiving table. The light was white hot against my skin and even when I closed my eyes I could see the spot on my lids.
“This isn’t how I wanted this to be. You’re the one bringing this on yourself.” Kade stepped forward into the light. His white hair was oiled back from his face and his thick brows were knit with mock concern. “I think we misunderstand each other, Vea. I want nothing more than what is best for the earth. Don’t you want to see the land made whole?” When I didn’t respond, he continued, a paternal smile spreading slowly across his face. “Of course you do. We all want the same thing.” When I ignored him again he cupped his chin between his thumb and fingers. “But it seems you turned out to be pretty selfish. I guess we’re just going to have to break you of that.” I shuddered inside at the glee I saw manifest in his eyes as he spoke those words. “Worry not. Before long, we’ll have you in line with everyone else. And who knows, we might learn a thing or two.”
In a blink he was next to me once again and he plunged the scalpel deep into my thigh before dragging it slowly through my tender flesh. I screeched and struggled in vain against my bonds.
Each time he drew the blade across my skin, he’d pause and ask me if I was ready to heal myself yet and at each refusal, he would exact his vicious punishment upon me once more. On all of my limbs, except for my left forearm that bore my Curare mark, he drew dizzying patterns with razor-like exactitude, though none as deep as those first gash in my arm and thigh, until I was drenched in my own blood.