Into the Abyss

by Stefanie Gaither

  And more importantly, strong enough to stop most clones with relative ease, even in spite of their genetically enhanced bodies and organs.

  My neck tingles where the poison’s seeped in, itches just out of reach beneath my skin. It takes only a few seconds for my vision to start to fade. For the roof to start spinning. The space around me seems to collapse, the entire group around me falling into one blurry shape of hatred. I fight to stay on my feet as that shape breaks apart and allows a single piece to step forward. Josh, I realize—but only once he is mere inches from my face. There is blood dotting his skinned cheek. Not much, though, and being slammed into that wall doesn’t seem to have shaken his confidence much either. His smug grin is still there as he leans in close, whispers words that I am just barely still lucid enough to understand: “I’ll tell Catelyn good-bye for you, don’t worry.”

  My wrist feels oddly heavy as my attention shifts to it, dimly recognizing the device resting there. Communicator. Full of messages from Catelyn that I never answered. My eyes close, and I can somehow still picture her much more clearly than I can see anything that is happening now. And I can picture Josh talking to her, wearing that same awful smile as he tells her what he’s done.

  That burning, that itching along my neck grows more intense, spreads down through my whole body.

  I know what should come next. I am waiting for it: that flash of black, the violent shock of my mind unhinging, releasing its grip on the strength it usually makes me hold back. I am hoping for that darkness, almost. Because it likely would end this, and I wouldn’t have to think about what I was doing, or even remember it.

  But that darkness doesn’t come.

  The tranquilizer is to blame, maybe. The way it seems to be dulling my world, softening the sharp edges of my furious thoughts along with everything else.

  Josh’s hands grab my arms and shove me against the wall. The edge of it digs into my lower back, and my feet fly up, and suddenly I’m flat against the top of it, my head and shoulders hanging out over emptiness. My eyes dart open to wide sky above, interrupted a second later by Josh peering down at me as his right hand moves to my throat.

  I’m not sure where the strength to do it comes from, but I grab that hand and I twist, pulling him off his feet and crushing him down against my body. I’m not strong enough to hold him, though, and the two of us roll over and over along the perilously uneven wall, breaking and shifting even more of the cracked bits of concrete as we go. I can’t shove him off me—I don’t have enough control left in my muscles to manage it. And I am losing what little bit of strength I managed to muster; bit by bit he keeps shoving me farther out over the edge, and I can’t fight my way back.

  I am tired of fighting.

  Now I am just hoping to scramble enough power and momentum together to bring him over the edge with me.

  The group behind us has gotten louder. Or maybe my hearing is getting stronger, to make up for my vision and everything else that continues to fade. What I originally thought was that group jeering and cheering Josh on sounds more frenzied and frustrated now—more like the sound of scuffling. As if they can’t be still, can’t help fighting among themselves since Josh is taking care of me alone.

  My attention is ripped brutally from whatever they’re doing, though, as my now mostly numb body is spun over and thrown against a particularly run-down bit of the wall. There isn’t enough concrete left to support me here, and the entire upper half of my body slides down along the crumbling slope. My legs make a feeble attempt to close over something—anything.

  But all it takes is one last shove from Josh, and then I am falling.

  CHAPTER NINE

  There is no sensation of being crushed toward the ground like I expected. There is only a careening, out-of-control weightlessness. And I should be terrified of it, I suppose, but the only thought in my mind is: Josh is still up above.

  I wanted to drag him down into this weightless abyss with me, but I’ve failed.

  My hands stretch out, as if I still had some hope of snatching him. They hit something else instead. Even in my numb, drugged state, I feel the pain of impact strike up through my arms—such an unbelievable amount of pain that it’s all I am aware of for several moments. Then my eyes flutter open much like my hands reached out—on their own, with me only distantly aware that I once had the full power to control them.

  It takes what feels like hours to make sense of what I’m seeing.

  A dark level of the parking garage unfolds to my left. Both my arms are lying out in front of me, and underneath me, from my stomach upward, I feel solidness. Only my legs are dangling in open air now; the rest of me is safe on that solidness underneath—on the narrow top of one of the giant, faded signs affixed to the side of the garage. That is the only thing I can think of that it might be, and I can’t seem to get my body to cooperate, to move so I can see if I’m right.

  All I remember are my hands hitting, and that pain. . . . I don’t remember pulling myself up. Yet here I am. Alive. And once again, I don’t understand how or why I am breathing. But maybe now isn’t the time to question it.

  What I do wonder, though, is how much worse that impact against this sign was. How much of it I didn’t feel. If I don’t remember moving and pulling myself up here, what else is my brain blacking out? Why can’t I make myself move? Is it still the tranquilizer at work, or something worse?

  How broken and bruised am I, really?

  The thought is fuzzy at first, but it repeats itself enough that soon it becomes clear—the only clarity I have. Everything else feels scrambled, rimmed in darkness along with my vision.

  And very soon I grow tired of caring even about my injuries. About not being able to move. Why do I need to move? I am fading into that darkness, the edges of it expanding and engulfing. It feels warm. Comfortable. I don’t need to make sense of the noises above or below me.

  I don’t need to do anything about that figure crossing the parking garage, moving toward me. They can’t want anything to do with me—nothing in this world has anything to do with me anymore.

  So I close my eyes again, and I keep falling.

  • • •

  Strange voices.

  “She’s lucky. Bit deeper and this cut probably would’ve caused some serious hardware issues.”

  “But it hasn’t, right?”

  “Chip’s a bit banged up now; probably why she seemed so scrambled. But everything on it should still be intact—just needs cleaning, and then we can let the healing program work its magic and cover things back up, safe and sound like.”

  Strange smells.

  Industrial smells, mostly—metal and rust and oil—but with an overlay of something that doesn’t seem to belong. Vanilla? Or honey, maybe? I’ve only had honey once, but when I swallow to try to clear the dryness in my mouth, I can taste its sticky bitter-tinged sweetness all over again.

  “It looks like she might be waking up.”

  I don’t remember falling asleep.

  “Violet? Can you hear me?”

  Why does this strange voice know my name?

  “Can you move anything?”

  Maybe I can, but I don’t rush to prove it. This voice, these people looming over me, waiting and watching my every move . . . I feel vulnerable—like they already know too much more than I do. I don’t like it. I don’t know what I will see when I open my eyes, how surrounded I might be, and I just want to be still for a few more moments until my mind and my senses have gathered as much as they can with my eyes still closed.

  But then I hear a more familiar voice.

  “I know there’s no way you’d let those assholes kill you.”

  Seth.

  “Language,” the other voice scolds with a light tsk of her teeth.

  Seth ignores her. “You’re fine, Violet,” he says. “It’s been almost two days. Stop milking this and open your eyes already.”

  I stubbornly keep them closed. There is a rustling sound to my left, and then the w
oman speaks again: “Don’t rush things, Seth,” she says. “Just keep a watch on her for a moment. I’ll be right back.” I listen to her footsteps fade as she leaves the room.

  “You look like a corpse just lying there, you know. It’s sort of freaking me out.”

  Maybe the familiarity of his voice should be a comfort to me. But it only makes my muscles tense more, because it sends a deeper flood of uncertainty washing over me. I refused to follow him earlier. I didn’t meet him like he asked me to on the phone, and I had more or less made up my mind that the best way to win this so-called impossible game we’re playing would be for me to keep avoiding him.

  So how did I end up here alone with him?

  And more important is that ever-persistent, ever-annoying question: Why? Again, I’m not sure I want to know; whatever his motives, good or bad, my life so far has only proven more complicated with every person I have tried to get close enough to understand.

  But I can’t keep my eyes shut forever. So I open them, and I find Seth more than a little too close, crouched down beside me with his gaze leveled into mine.

  I fight the cornered-animal instinct to strike that ridiculous smile off his face.

  “You’re alive,” he declares. “Awesome.” He’s either unaware or indifferent to the way my body is bristled, possibly prepared to attack, because his grin doesn’t so much as twitch.

  “I’m a miracle of life,” I deadpan, and then quickly roll over so I can stare at the ceiling instead of him. It soars high above me, exposed beams and ductwork crisscrossing through the wide-open space. Three small windows near the top let in a minuscule amount of daylight through grimy glass, but most of the space is lit by the warm glow of mismatched lamps strewn throughout the room, perched haphazardly on tables here and chairs there, and most of them connected by extension cords and power strips that look far from fire safe. And there are plenty of tables and chairs to perch them on too, more tables and chairs than I think any one room could ever possibly need, and all of them overflowing with more than just those lamps and electrical cords. There are books on some of them—dangerously teetering towers of books—computer parts on others, along with random tools, colorful piles of scarves, and even half-empty bottles of paint beside stiff, unwashed brushes. None of it seems to follow any sort of organizational pattern. It is simply a trove, a hoard of anything and everything in a space that doesn’t make any more sense than its contents; because while the exposed ceiling and ancient windows clearly make this feel like a dusty old factory or warehouse of some sort, the lamps warm walls that—even though they’re braced with metal poles and piping—are splashed with soft shades of brown and ivory, and floors that are covered in mismatched rugs that look like they belong in a model-family living room.

  It is the strangest place I’ve ever been in.

  The more time I spend taking it all in, though, the more I find its lack of order oddly appealing. Comforting, almost. But that still doesn’t change the uncomfortable fact that I have no idea how or why I ended up here.

  I sit up, and realize that I have been lying on yet another table, but one that has been turned into a makeshift bed, piled with foam cushioning and flannel blankets. “How did I get here?”

  “I carried you,” Seth says, plopping back into a nearby chair and—finally—giving me more space. “And got strange looks from every person on the street who I didn’t manage to avoid, because apparently a strapping young lad like myself carrying a half-unconscious girl through the city is actually more creepy than chivalrous.”

  “Carried me?” I try to hide the mortification in my voice.

  “I didn’t have much choice. It was that or leave you hanging like ten stories off the ground, until you’d either unconsciously rolled off the edge of that sign yourself or until some other CCA creep came and finished the job.”

  “The job of killing me off,” I think aloud, my eyes drifting to a half-finished painting propped on a chair in the corner. An amateur work in watercolors, depicting a parklike setting framed by dogwood trees. It looks vaguely familiar, somehow. Like one of the dozens of places that Catelyn pointed out to me on one of our trips through Haven, though I can’t remember why she thought I should know about it.

  “Yeah, I didn’t really see that part coming,” Seth says. “But I’m not entirely surprised; the clone-hate has been reaching kind of alarming levels at headquarters these past few months—more alarming than usual, I mean. I had a feeling someone was going to get hurt. Because I’m smart and observant like that, you know.”

  “And modest, clearly.”

  He nods, as though I am being perfectly serious. “And I figured that clone attack last night would send at least some of them over the edge, which is why I tried to tell you that you’d be better off leaving. But you’re like those girls that end up getting killed first in every horror movie ever—the ones who run upstairs when the ax murderer is trying to break in through the front door, instead of just going out the back door?” He leans back far enough in the chair that the front legs lift off the ground. “You probably haven’t seen any of those movies, though,” he adds thoughtfully. “So I guess you get a pass this time.”

  “I wasn’t running,” I point out. “Just getting some fresh air.”

  “The air was pretty refreshing out there on that sign,” he agrees. “I probably would have really enjoyed it if I hadn’t been so concerned about plummeting to my death as I tried to carry your unconscious deadweight back inside.”

  “How did you even find me out there?”

  The front legs of his chair crash loudly back to the floor. He suddenly looks uneasy, and his voice is noticeably quieter when he says, “I saw you fall.”

  Quiet as they are, the words seem to expand, looming large and filling the already-crowded room. “How? Where were you?”

  Hesitation, and then: “When you didn’t meet me in the city, I came back—I was waiting, just in case you changed your mind. I missed you somehow, but I saw Josh and the others come outside. And at first I let them go, but then, I dunno. . . . I had a bad feeling, so I tracked them up to the roof. I couldn’t get to you and Josh in time, though.”

  “Because the others got in your way.” The memory is suddenly surprisingly clear edged and bright. “I heard fighting behind us. That was you, wasn’t it?”

  He doesn’t deny it, but he doesn’t really answer me either.

  “There were six of them. One of you. You’re lucky they didn’t throw you over the roof right behind me.”

  Of all the ways he could reply, he laughs.

  “They were armed,” I say, annoyed by his lack of concern, and at how I suddenly feel the need to justify why I ended up being thrown off the building when he didn’t. It makes me feel weak. And I don’t know why, but I can’t stand the thought of him thinking I’m weak.

  “So was I,” he says, more to himself than me. Which is fine, because I am tired of talking to him anyway. Silence settles between us, and I go back to examining the things around me with distracted interest. In the next room over, I can hear movement, someone—that woman from earlier, I assume—rummaging through things. I get to my feet. The noise makes me anxious for some reason, desperate for movement myself. I head for the only other door in the room, the one opposite of where the woman is rummaging.

  “You can’t leave,” Seth says.

  Now it’s my turn to laugh. “Stop me. I dare you.”

  He stands as well, as if he plans on doing just that, and I want to laugh again. But I can’t. Because another memory opens suddenly in my mind: We’ve been here before, haven’t we? When I tried to run past him back at headquarters, and he caught me. Somehow, he caught me. Something about him, whether it is his distracting mind games or otherwise, slows me down. Knocks me off guard.

  “They’ll be looking for you,” he says. “And for me, too, and I’m not going to let you just waltz out of here and give away the location of this place that easily. Besides, you were messed up when I brought you here�
��you should probably take it easy for a bit until we’re sure everything is functioning like it should.”

  “And you’re staying here too?” I ask, ignoring his latter concern. “Hiding from all of the CCA? Some of them may be creeps, but you’re the son of their president.”

  “Adopted son,” he reminds me.

  “All the same—you can stay away from her? Even after everything she’s done for you? What about Jaxon? Him too?”

  “It’s not that simple. And it’s probably better for both of them if I’m not there, anyway.”

  “I don’t think Jaxon believes that.”

  “Yeah, well, he can be a little thick in the head sometimes, can’t he?”

  I don’t return the cynical smile he gives me. I can still picture how upset Jaxon was while we were in his room, trying to contact Seth. Which, of course, reminds me of the whole reason I’d been in that room to begin with: Catelyn.

  It’s then that I notice my communicator is gone.

  “Where is it?” I demand, shoving my empty wrist toward Seth.

  “I got rid of it.”

  “That was my property.”

  “It was CCA issued. It would have been way too easy for them to trace.”

  “I want it back. Now.”

  “Can’t do it,” he says. “Sorry.” But he doesn’t sound especially sorry at all. And suddenly this place feels less like a comforting living room and more like a cleverly disguised prison. I am cut off from the few familiar things I had. Confused. Cornered. And that violent hum I am becoming so familiar with lately is almost palpable as it gathers around me, surging a little stronger with every deep breath I take.

  Another blackout is threatening, and despite how Seth annoys me, I don’t really want to lose control right now.

  “I’m leaving,” I warn him. “And you need to get out of my way.”

  “There’s nowhere for you to go, Violet,” he says, and this time he does sound almost sorry, and somehow that’s worse.