Dispersion

  I shrug. “I’ve never put much thought into it. I was raised differently.”

  “Hmmm…don’t let anyone else hear you say that,” she says as she stares me down. “You don’t look any different or like someone they warned us against—one of Satan’s agents sent here to seduce me into sin.”

  She playfully nudges my side, smirking up at me.

  “Can I ask you something, Leah?”

  She smiles even wider. “Of course. What’s up?”

  “Who’s Satan?”

  Part Three

  Chapter Thirteen

  The routine of Acroisia—or, rather, Veritas as they call themselves—is surprisingly easy to fall into. Every morning begins the same: a quick shower before heading to breakfast. From there, the daily worship takes place. I’ve learned how to…not exactly fit in during those meetings, but at least not stick out anymore. Dominic sits by me every meal and during worship, but besides that, I hardly ever see him. He doesn’t ask me about anything going on in my life, and I don’t care to ask him about his.

  My birthday came and went without any major fuss. It’s not right to celebrate when so many I’ve cared about aren’t here with me.

  Everyone here has accepted us, displaying a compassion and charitable nature that was not present in the territories. With so many names, it’s been a challenge to keep up with everyone in their bright colors and refreshingly diverse faces.

  Outside of the brief times I see Jess when I stop by every day to watch Josie, I only ever catch sight of her in passing. Allison, while she’s always happy to see me, is a subdued version of her old self, always busy juggling her new work schedule and being a single parent.

  While I was so dependent on them before we got here, we all drift apart, as anyone would when introduced into a much larger body of people. It’s sad whenever I stop and think about it, but I’ve been busy myself with work—though it doesn’t require much skill—and trying to make new friends and build a life here.

  About a month following our arrival, I knock on the door to Allison and Jess’s suite to trade off Josie-watching duty after work. It immediately opens.

  Jess is wearing a navy, shapeless shirt with matching pants. It looks oddly similar to what our outfits were like in the territories though not as sturdy. She’s wearing dark scrubs, as Leah called them when I asked. None of us have felt comfortable wearing any of the bright, vivid colors.

  “Sorry I’m late. I was—” I hesitate as I don’t know what to tell her. I can’t admit that I lost track of time because I was with Leah. She’d get the wrong idea if I did.

  Josie, lying on a blanket on the floor, cries out and lets me avoid giving an excuse. Jess instinctively turns, but Josie calms herself down without needing help and starts cooing into the air.

  Callie, for once in the room during the day and not outside wandering the surrounding forest, pops her head up to observe the disturbance.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jess says. “Allison should be back soon.”

  She leaves the room in a hurry without saying anything else.

  If she didn’t have anywhere to go, she probably would have come up with some excuse to leave. Despite all we’ve been through, she still can’t stand my company. She blames me for what someone else did. But I guess in a way, it was my fault.

  Josie moans again, so I pick her up and she quiets down. She’s probably one of the most spoiled babies. Allison, who has been fiercely protective of her, hardly lets her out of her arms. When she does, it’s typically only with Jess or me. She still won’t let her go to daycare, which is all right by me. I enjoy my afternoons with her.

  Josie relaxes in my arms and closes her eyes. Carefully, I sit down on the couch. Callie, with a small moan, walks over to lie companionably next to me on the floor. With Josie peacefully sleeping on my chest, I lay my head back. After a few moments of us not moving, the motion sensor lights turn off and put the room in comfortable darkness.

  -----

  The lights come back on again and I startle awake, trying to remember where I am. Josie protests at my movement, and Allison calls out, “Everything okay?”

  Careful not to disturb her even more with my movements, I sit up and rub my face with my free hand.

  “We were taking a nap,” I call back as I adjust to the light.

  Allison walks over, wearing the blue jeans, as Leah told me they were called, and a plain black T-shirt. She looks tired.

  Callie jumps up with excitement and licks her hand in greeting.

  “How was your day?” I ask as I hand Josie to her outstretched arms.

  She smiles down at her daughter and sits on the cushioned chair in the corner of the room. “It was pretty hectic. Kids are exhausting.”

  I chuckle. Kids on the public transportation or at the territory meetings were always obnoxious.

  “I bet,” I say.

  Allison’s shoulders are slumped, making her appear even smaller than usual. She has dark circles around her eyes.

  “How are you, Allison?”

  She yawns. “I’m fine—just tired.”

  I don’t want to play around with what I’m asking, so I bring up the topic I want to talk about.

  “I miss Matt,” I say. “When I’m here watching Josie, I feel guilty that I’m able to spend time with her when he’s not.”

  Allison drops her attention to their daughter. “It still doesn’t feel fair.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” I say and hold off, waiting to see if she’s going to open up.

  “Sometimes, I forget that he’s dead—never for long—but enough where the darkness lifts and everything’s possible again,” she says at last. “Then I remember and crash back down.”

  She continues to stare down at Josie, her eyes darting around her small face. “It helps when Josie is with me because I can look down at her and see him. She’s proof that what we had was real and existed. The life we had together is so far gone from what it’s like now. The problems I thought we had back then were meaningless.”

  “So much has changed,” I say, pausing again.

  “I’m Unplanned. As such, I grew up constantly discriminated against and told I couldn’t do the things I wanted or love who I loved…” She wipes an escaped tear from her cheek. “But whenever I was with Matt, it didn’t matter. He made everything okay. We were together. We hadn’t figured out what we were going to do about my pregnancy with his parents’ high-levels at Robur, but it would have worked itself out. He could always calm me down and make sure I wasn’t taking anything too seriously.” She tries to smile at the memory, but her face falls again. “Now he’s gone and has left me in a whole new world.”

  “Did it make it better or worse that Dominic brought him back for such a short amount of time?”

  “Elliot,” she starts and pauses to collect her thoughts. “No matter what else Dominic has done, I’ll forever be indebted to him for letting Matt meet his daughter. And for…” She takes a deep breath. This time, she allows the tears to fall down her delicate features. “I got to say goodbye.” Her voice breaks.

  I stare down at my hands to avoid eye contact. I only knew Matt for a couple of months, but it felt like it had been so much longer than that. I risked everything to bring him back, and we’re still struggling with the consequences of that action, but Allison is right. We got to say goodbye.

  “It’s not fair that it happened to him,” I say to repeat her earlier statement. “He was such a kind person.”

  “Matt should be here for this,” she says and sniffs, her face already getting red and blotchy. “He would have been such a great father.”

  “He absolutely would have.”

  “That’s the only thing keeping me going these days. Matt would be so mad at me if I gave up. I have to be strong for Josie. I’ll have to get through it somehow.”

  “I wish there was more I could do to help,” I say.

  She brings the baby closer to her chest. Josie moans at the movement.

&nb
sp; “Talking about it is almost a relief. Besides Jess and your brother, no one else knows exactly what happened. Sometimes, I want to talk about Matt to make it seem like he was here and I’m not going crazy with the memories we shared together.”

  I look into Allison’s eyes again. Her face is painted with grief, and she lets out another deep breath and stands up straighter.

  “I don’t know what I would do without having you all here…if I were truly alone. Jess and I have been able to lean on each other. Thank goodness we’re sharing this suite together, so she’s forced to interact with me.” Allison wipes her tears away and attempts to laugh. It comes out as a choked noise and she immediately cuts it off.

  It hangs in the air, along with what she gave away about Jess. She’s still struggling.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Jess is better,” she says.

  It wouldn’t take much for Allison to say she was doing better. I think back to Jess, naked and vulnerable in the shower, the cold water trailing down on her broken body.

  Better doesn’t mean she’s doing well.

  “Do you think…” I start and stop as I struggle to complete my thought in a way that doesn’t sound pathetic. When I can’t come up with a good way to express it, I bluntly ask, “Do you think we’ll ever get back together?”

  Allison coos at Josie to quiet her fresh cries. Over the noise, she says, “I don’t know, Elliot.” She transfers Josie to her other arm to calm her down. “She still needs more time to heal and remember who she is.”

  I shake my head and clench my jaw. “I’m not the one who hurt her. Why is she punishing me for something I didn’t do?” I spit it out, shocking even myself at this sudden anger.

  Allison mutters, “Elliot…”

  I throw my hands in the air and continue. “She shouldn’t be treating me like this. I thought I meant more to her.”

  “This isn’t about you,” she states.

  I close my mouth at her expression. She looks so disappointed. I drop my head in shame, thankful Jess wasn’t here to witness my outburst.

  “I know, I’m sorry.”

  Allison shifts Josie as she cries out again.

  Speaking quietly with the irrational belief that if I say it too loud, it may become true, I whisper, “Should I have any hope?”

  Her eyes break away before returning to my face. “She’s going to have to eventually find a way to let you back in.”

  “Are you only telling me that to make me feel better?” I ask.

  Allison opens her mouth to respond, but Josie’s cry cuts her off.

  “Thanks for watching her. I don’t mean to be rude, but she’s probably hungry now.” She stares at me meaningfully.

  “Right.” I stand up, disappointed that she didn’t answer. “I’ll see you down at dinner?”

  “I’ll meet you there in about an hour or so. Does that work?”

  “Sounds good,” I say and leave their suite.

  My unanswered question lingers in the air.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I let out a sigh of relief as I drop the heavy box of canned fruit on the shelf. When Leah packed it, she must not have been thinking about how heavy it would make it for me. Or, she didn’t care. Probably the latter.

  “Next time you do these, please remember I don’t have superhuman strength. I can only lift so much,” I call out to Leah, who is singing to herself as she packs another box.

  She pauses her song. “Did you manage to get it done?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” she asks through light laughter. “Sure, being mutated comes with the risk of turning into a monster, but what’s that compared to a little extra strength at a time like this?”

  She’s lighthearted about it now, but what if she found out about Dominic…and maybe Jess?

  “Funny, Leah,” I say, trying to keep my tone light. “You know none of us were actually genetically engineered. So take it easy on how heavy you make the boxes.”

  She rolls her eyes, though her face is still lit up in amusement. “Don’t be so serious all the time, Eli. I’m making a joke.”

  It’s hard to be mad at her for anything. She’s too playful to ever take seriously.

  “One of these days, I’m going to drop something on my foot and you’re going to feel badly about it,” I say.

  She looks up from her box and bites her lip in an attempt to hide her smile. “Eli, if you ever drop one of those boxes on your foot, I’m pretty sure you’re going to be the one who feels bad.”

  I shake my head, fighting back my amusement. “You know what I’m trying to say.”

  “I’ll tell you what. I’ll put one less can in the next one. Sound good?” she asks as she continues to place the cans inside her next box.

  “It’s a start.” I walk over to grab another box to place on the shelf.

  “I aim to please,” she says.

  “Umph,” I mutter as I pick up the box. “This is even heavier than the last one.”

  Leah looks at her watch. “Oh, look at the time. Our shift is over. Looks like that’s the next person’s problem.”

  She stands up, her box only partially packed, and stretches her arms.

  The clock on the wall says we still have over an hour before our shift is up. “Not so fast.”

  Leah throws her hands up in the air. “Oh come on, Eli. Don’t be lame. No one will know.” She sticks her lips out in an exaggerated pout.

  I can’t help but laugh. “At least help me move this box back to where it’s supposed to be. It will only take a minute.”

  She lets out a dramatic sigh as she walks over and picks up the other side of the box. “You’re such a martyr. It’s disgusting.”

  She’s too much to handle sometimes—in the best way possible.

  “What can I say? I aim to please.” I repeat her earlier phrase, and she rewards me with another burst of laughter.

  When we get the box to its rightful place, I stretch back from the long day of moving everything around while she sat and packed up for me.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow then,” I say.

  She waves as she brushes her hair out of her face. I turn and walk out of the room, looking forward to resting before dinner. Hopefully Josie will be tired and willing to nap with me while we wait for Allison to get back.

  “Hey, wait up,” Leah calls out as I’m about to turn down the hallway.

  I lean against the wall. “Yes?”

  “What are you doing for the rest of the afternoon?” she asks.

  I thought she already knew this. “I’m going to watch Josie for Allison, so Jess can get to work.”

  She rolls her eyes and closes the door behind her to lock up. “I mean after that, silly.” She catches up, and the two of us walk together down the hall.

  “Oh.” I shrug. I usually don’t do anything after that but go back to my room and wait for dinner. “I don’t have anything planned.”

  Her wide grin highlights her one dimple. “Perfect. A group of us are going to play football. You should join us.”

  “Play what?” I ask.

  Her laughter bounces off the walls of the narrow hallway. “It’s a sport. It’s a lot of fun, and it’ll be a good chance for you to meet some people.”

  I guess it would be nice to make some friends who don’t remind me of all the terrible things that have happened.

  “How do you play?”

  “There are two teams, and you’re either trying to score or trying to keep the other team from scoring. You basically throw this oval ball back and forth and try to get in the end zone to score.”

  I tilt my head. “You throw it?”

  “Mmmhmm.”

  “Then why is it called football?”

  She bites her lip to hold back another snicker. “I guess it doesn’t make much sense. It’s another one of those names that we’ve always used but never thought much about it. Did you not play any sports in the territories?”

&nbs
p; Not wanting to admit that I had been taken out of my physical education classes because it was deemed no longer important for my future, I dip around the question.

  “We didn’t spend much time doing activities only for fun. Everything had to serve a purpose,” I say.

  “That’s boring. How did you last so long there before you left?”

  I rub my forehead. Now that I’ve seen life outside of Potentia, there are so many things that sound bizarre that I accepted without question. In the territories, I had no control over how my life would be. It was predestined from the moment my mom decided to have an Unplanned child—without letting my father know.

  I smile at the thought of my mother. She had a bit of a rebellious nature in her as well. I wish I would have recognized that in her sooner. What would she think about how much everything has changed?

  “Eli?” she asks. “Anyone home?”

  I blink a couple of times and reestablish eye contact with Leah, reminding me of her earlier question.

  “I didn’t know anything different,” I say. “That’s how things were.”

  “The territories sound horrible. I would have left way sooner,” she states.

  She’s so naïve about how things are. She’s spent her whole life sheltered, and most of her views stem from her upbringing.

  Then again, so was I.

  Looking at the rebellious glint, she’s not entirely a product of Veritas. There’s something else there.

  We pass the Mess Hall to the left of the hallway. Pots and pans are clanging against each other as the kitchen staff prepares for tonight’s meal.

  “So will you come play with us? I promise you’ll have fun,” Leah says. “We’ll be in the field to the west of the compound until it gets too dark.”

  “How do you get past the walls?”

  She shrugs. “Joseph is working security and he doesn’t care as long as we come in before it gets dark.” She smiles again. “What do you think? You in?”