Dispersion

by Robin Berkstresser

  With her hand shaking, Allison places her hand where Jess’s is. When Jess lets go, a small spill of blood leaks through my shirt.

  “Harder, Allison,” Jess’s steady voice instructs, and the two of them quickly walk down the hallway without another thought.

  Allison adjusts her pressure, and the bleeding slows down again.

  Dominic walks toward Adam and kicks him in the side. “Is there anyone else trying to ambush us?”

  Sobbing through his pain, Adam shakes his head.

  “Follow them and make sure they get there okay. I’ll deal with this mess,” Dominic tells me.

  With the adrenaline leaving my system, I look down. Nathan is dead. His eyes bulge, staring into nothingness. I did that. I killed him.

  “Dominic—” I start. I’m horrified at myself.

  He puts his hands on my shoulders and waits for me to look up at him. “It had to be done.”

  Even though I don’t agree with him, I nod. He lets go of my shoulders, and I run down the hallway, escaping the horror I committed.

  Chapter Nineteen

  With her daughter’s blood on her hands, Allison walks out of the patient room. They didn’t let Jess treat her as she was deemed too close to the situation and therefore, emotionally unstable.

  “She’s going to be okay,” she announces.

  Jess and I breathe a huge, simultaneous sigh of relief.

  “What did they say?” I ask.

  “They’re putting in eight stitches and are going to give her an antibiotic shot to help prevent infection.”

  Jess asks, “They will release her soon then, right?”

  Allison nods and, suddenly, bursts out crying. I instinctively pull her in for a hug. Her body shakes as the emotion floods her system.

  “I thought I was going to lose her,” she says through her tears. “She’s all I have left of Matt.”

  Jess tentatively places a hand on her back. “She’s going to be fine.”

  Allison takes a deep breath. “I’m going to go back to be with her. I wanted to give you a quick update.”

  “We’ll be right here,” Jess says.

  Without another word, Allison pushes through the double doors to rejoin Josie.

  Jess takes a seat on one of the waiting room chairs. Leaving an open seat between us, I sit down with her.

  I put my head in my hands and rub my forehead.

  I killed a man. Not one of the Letum, but a healthy, young man who still had years of potential to do good. The worst part is I did it without a second thought—it happened instinctively. The knife slid so easily into the weak skin at his neck.

  What would my mother say if she saw what I’ve become? Back when we first left Potentia, two men tried to steal our vehicle and possibly harm us. My brother, acting now on what I realize was impulse, killed both of them without a second thought. My mother was horrified and disgusted with him.

  “It had to be done,” his voice echoes through my memory.

  I now understand why he killed those two men. Does that mean I’m turning into the one person I swore I’d never be?

  Jess’s voice breaks through my thoughts. “What do you think Silas is going to do? He already doesn’t want us here.”

  I shrug. “There’s no telling. We have to trust that Dominic will somehow be able to talk us out of this one.”

  “Because trusting Dominic has worked out so well for us…” Jess mutters.

  “What choice do we have?” I ask and stare back down at my hands—the hands that murdered.

  Who am I becoming? Suddenly, I can’t stay in this room anymore. I need to get away.

  I stand up quickly, and Jess eyes me in surprise.

  “I’ll be back,” I mutter as I escape the confinement of the small room.

  I don’t wait for her to respond and push through the door. When I get out of the room, my thoughts follow me, so I start jogging. I pass a lot of alarmed expressions, but not one person stops me.

  Of course they should look at me that way. I’m a killer now.

  When I pass the next corner, I break into a sprint. Unsure of where I’m going, I only know I need to get away.

  “Eli, wait up,” Leah calls out to me.

  I stop, putting my hands over my head to regain my breath.

  “What happened to your shirt?” she asks once she gets closer.

  Her question takes me by surprise. I can’t believe I forgot I’ve been shirtless this entire time. There was a time in my life where I took giant pains to hide the scar my brother gave me on my chest after our father left us. Now, it doesn’t even matter.

  I turn to face her with some of Nathan’s blood on my chest.

  “What happened?” she breathes.

  She’s the one who was the catalyst for all of this. Without her, none of this would have happened and our futures wouldn’t be, yet again, threatened needlessly.

  I’m not sure what she sees in my eyes—the eyes of a murderer. She takes a step back and looks at me in fear…the way people have looked at my brother.

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Even though it’s easy to blame her, it’s not all her fault. When I reopen my eyes, I soften my gaze.

  “We were attacked by the group at the lunch table next to us,” I say.

  Her eyes widen even further. “By Nathan and his friends?”

  Too exhausted to elaborate, I nod.

  “Is everyone okay?” Leah asks, not accepting my simple answer.

  I chuckle bitterly. How could everyone be okay right now? Josie’s right arm has eight stitches running down it, Dominic and Jess could turn at any time, and I’ve become a monster.

  Instead of saying this, I respond, “Josie got injured, but she’ll be fine. Nathan didn’t survive the fight.” I can’t bring myself to admit what I did…who I’ve become.

  I take another deep breath and continue my walk down the hallway. I want to take a shower and get his blood off of me.

  “I’m so sorry, Eli. I wasn’t thinking and opened my big mouth again,” she whispers behind me, not moving to keep up with me.

  The ugly part of me is thankful she feels so guilty. She should. I have to force that part down. The guilt she’s feeling can be appeased; mine can’t. If I can take some of hers away, I need to. I wish someone could do it for me.

  I backtrack so I can make easy eye contact with her. Her eyes are tearing up, making her face blotchy. She’s so young.

  “Leah, you had a right to be scared earlier. For your entire life, you were brainwashed to believe that the Planned are dangerous.”

  I pause as I consider what to say. My whole life I was told the complete opposite.

  Tears fall down her face. She’s begging me to forgive her, to make her feel better. I try my best to offer that comfort.

  “With recent events, it’s understandable why you reacted that way.”

  With the sleeve of her shirt, she wipes her face, confusion overriding her guilt. “Do you not think they’re dangerous?”

  I’ve seen my Planned brother murder people, and now I’ve done that, too. According to my education, the territories were attacked and their people killed by the outside groups that didn’t agree with the genetic engineering. However, if you ask the people here, they’ve grown up with the understanding the territories went on the offensive and attacked them. There’s probably a ring of truth in both.

  I’ve always imagined there had to be a place that would be better, where I could truly be happy. I thought there would be a place where people could be decent to one another. Now, I’m not even sure a place like that can exist.

  I place my right hand on her shoulder and gently squeeze.

  “Leah, it doesn’t matter if you’re Planned or Unplanned. The violent nature is in all of us, waiting to come out.”

  I remove my hand and try, once again, to get away from everyone. I hold my breath, hoping she doesn’t call out again.

  When I turn the corner, I let that breath out and quicken my strid
e. I need to get away from everyone.

  Not knowing anywhere else to go, I retreat to my living suite and lock the door behind me without turning the lights on.

  Trying to escape the haunting thoughts, I lie on my bed and fight my way into an uneasy sleep, not caring about the blood spreading onto my sheets.

  In my dreams, Nathan’s bulging eyes stare at me in accusation as he dies. Unable to speak due to his ruined throat, his mouth gapes as fresh blood pours down his neck.

  A knock brings me back to consciousness. Disoriented from sleep, I panic, thinking it’s Nathan here to punish me for what I’ve done.

  The second time the person knocks, it’s more impatient. I toss my legs over the bed. Of course it’s not Nathan; he’s dead. I made sure he’ll never be able to knock on anyone’s door again.

  A quick look at the clock tells me it’s only 2 a.m.

  Even louder than the last, the person knocks for a third time. There’s no use in delaying the inevitable. There’s nowhere I can go at any rate.

  I walk to the door and unlock the dead bolt. Dominic pushes the door open and lets himself in, giving me a small sense of relief that it’s not anyone else.

  “It’s late. What—” I start, voice still slurred from sleep.

  He sits down on the floor, leaning against the wall. “I need to talk to you.”

  “It can’t wait?” I ask.

  I want to be alone. No one should be near me after what I’ve done, after who I’ve become.

  He studies my expression. “I don’t think it should, Elliot.”

  Still not used to hearing him use my actual name instead of the cruel nickname I grew up with, the hairs on the back of my neck rise. What terrible news does he have for me?

  “What happened? What did Silas say?” I ask, fearing the worst.

  He shrugs. “It took a lot of convincing to assure him that we were under attack, but in the end, he believed me enough to view the video footage. They have an old system in place that only captures black-and-white grainy footage—not even any sound—but it was obvious even to them that they attacked us.”

  “What are they going to do?”

  He lets out a deep breath. He’s clearly exhausted. If this is all good news, why does he feel the need to share it with me now?

  “Peter, Adam, and Abe will be exiled tomorrow morning in front of the whole population here—even the children.”

  “Abe ran. He didn’t do any harm,” I say.

  “Those are their rules, Elliot. If he lets one exception through, the whole compound will fall. There must be order here…now more than ever.”

  In my mind, I hear Jonah’s voice reciting the laws of Veritas when we first got here. I didn’t realize that they weren’t more than lip service.

  “What about us? We fought back. We responded to their violence with even more violence. And I…” I taper off, letting the words hang in the air. I can’t even admit it out loud to my brother—a person who has killed five people that I know of and probably others through the genetic testing he conducted back at Potentia.

  “It was self-defense. Plain and simple. We did not initiate anything. They came to us with the intention to kill every single one of us, even Josie. They deserve everything coming to them.”

  I’m not sure if I agree with that statement. They acted out in fear of something they didn’t understand. They should be punished for what they did, but there has to be another option besides banishing them. How long can they survive on their own?

  I stare down at my hands—the hands that thrust the knife into a man’s throat.

  “Out of everyone, your face has always been the easiest for me to read, little brother,” Dominic starts, interrupting me from my thoughts.

  If someone had told me yesterday before lunch that I would kill a man and have my brother look at me with concern, not pity, I’m not sure which one I would have believed less.

  I bark a humorless laugh. “And what’s my face telling you right now?”

  “That I was right to come talk to you now instead of in the morning,” Dominic whispers back. He breaks eye contact and stares across at the opposite wall.

  I don’t respond. Instead, I fall back into my thoughts of the horror of what I did today. Killing was so easy. Getting rid of the Letum is one thing because they’re so far disconnected from being an actual person, but this is completely different.

  I wish that I hadn’t looked into Nathan’s eyes after the knife went into the delicate flesh in his throat. He was so surprised.

  So was I.

  How long did it take before his body told his mind that he was dying? Was it when he couldn’t get any breath because the blood from his slashed throat was choking him? Or, did he lose consciousness in hopes that this was all a dream? That he would be okay?

  Finally breaking the silence, Dominic’s voice is so quiet I have to strain to hear him. “I wish I had been the one to kill Nathan.”

  I scoff. “Why? So you could be the hero you’ve always imagined yourself to be?”

  “So you wouldn’t have had to.” He lets out a deep breath. “As you know, I’ve killed people before. Some deserved it, some didn’t.”

  Chris and Andrew didn’t deserve anything that happened to them. I’m surprised to hear Dominic admit it.

  “I thought you said their deaths were necessary for the good of society as a whole.”

  “I have learned how to justify all of the deaths of the people I have killed. If I had been the one to slide the knife through Nathan’s neck, I would have understood it was for protection. That man tried to kill Josie and even succeeded in leaving her with a scar that she is, thankfully, never going to remember how she got.”

  He’s finally revealed the reason why he’s here. He wanted to brag about another thing he’s better at than me: murder.

  “I’m not going to sit here and argue with you on who is the better killer,” I say. “Quite frankly, it’s late and I’m too tired to listen to you boast about yet one other area where you feel superior.”

  I stand back up and motion for him to leave. If he wants to be the better bad guy, he can win. All I want to do is forget what I’ve done.

  “Dammit, Elliot. You’re so difficult sometimes. It’s infuriating,” he says, letting anger overshadow his concern. “Stop talking and let me finish.”

  “Why should I listen to anything you have to say right now?”

  “Because you’re my brother and I’m trying to help,” he responds.

  His apparent sincerity keeps me quiet. It doesn’t sound like he’s playing a game or trying to trick me.

  Instead, I sit back down on the hard concrete next to him.

  “Until we left Potentia, I truly saw you as weak,” he says.

  “Thanks,” I mutter. He’s off to a great start.

  “Let me finish,” he says through his teeth. Taking a deep breath, he regains composure and keeps talking. “The perceived value I could add to the society was so much higher than yours. Besides the genetics we shared, you were insignificant to me. You were the reason why Father left us and Mother spent all of her time and attention away from me.”

  The fingers on his right hand twitch on his thigh. “Outside of the bubble at Potentia, our roles have been reversed. I do not think I have ever struggled with anything as much as this. My whole world and self-worth have been flipped upside down.”

  Taking another deep breath, he stills his trembling fingers. “It does not make you weak that you do not want to be violent, and you are horrified that you killed a man—even though it was in self-defense. It takes a certain amount of strength to understand the value in everyone’s life.” He pauses and considers his next words. “Not the value they can add to science, but the value they add as a person. You see people’s humanity. No matter how hard I try, I cannot always do that.”

  I remain still, trying to take in his words. I can’t even look at him. I’m too confused about what he’s saying.

  Out of the corner
of my eye, Dominic shrugs. “We are different, Elliot. That does not make you less than me—it means you have a different kind of strength.”

  “Why are you telling me all of this?” I breathe.

  “Because I do not want you to lose that about you. You see the good in every person, even when they give you no cause to believe so. Our whole lives, I have used that against you, making you believe that I would be good then using you to gain what I wanted.” He hesitates. “But now, I think that might be the best part about you. You cannot lose that.”

  “What do I do now?”

  Dominic stares at his own hands. “You learn to live with it.”

  I ache for Jess to be here with me instead. If she were, I could listen to her more than I can absorb anything coming from my brother. While fate loves forcing me to rely on him, I can’t bring myself to trust him. He’s done too much.

  “Like how you get through every day, even knowing what you did to Jess?” I spit out.

  “What do you want me to say? That I wish I could take it all back? Will that make it any better for you?” He runs his hands through his hair.

  Nothing’s going to make it better for Jess or me. It won’t take away the sharp wedge he drove between us. Even knowing that, I still need to know.

  “Do you at least feel guilty?” I ask.

  Dominic lets out a deep breath. “Every day.”

  Though I want to, I don’t believe him.

  Chapter Twenty

  The entire population of the compound has gathered in an outdoor amphitheater. Luckily, we’re located in the center of all of the buildings, so there’s no risk of the Letum getting to us. I can’t imagine the panic that would cause.

  At least it would prove to Silas that we were right.

  The tension radiating through the Mess Hall is now subdued but still here, bubbling under the surface waiting for an opportunity to come back out.

  Leah is the only person comfortable enough to stand next to us, which is ironic since she’s the reason we’re all standing here. Though space is limited, there’s a three-foot gap between our group and the next person, who is Thomas. His attention keeps darting between Leah, me, and where he is standing. We’re completely isolated from the group.