by Lydia Kang
“Stop.”
Micah holds his arm aloft in the air, startled. I turn around to face the person who’s saved us with a single word.
I don’t understand.
It’s SunAj.
CHAPTER 32
“MICAH, STEP BACK,” SUN SAYS WITH A disaffected lilt. He waves a gnarled hand, ushering him away from us. Micah obeys reluctantly. Sun leans over his cane, his flannel shirt slightly rumpled. Aj squirms in his cheek, the tiny limbs kicking Sun’s cheek with impatience.
“I cannot see, my dear. Please turn.”
Sun turns his head. Aj sees me on the floor, what used to be a girl. Now I’m blistered, raw, half dressed, and wholly exhausted.
She turns away and her limbs relax, bobbling in the air. This is no longer exciting for her.
“I don’t understand,” Micah says. “I was just . . . You told me . . .”
“There is another player at the table.” He points his cane at me and Dyl. “Come with me.”
I don’t waste a moment. I go to Dyl and I wrap my arms around her, though the pain shoots white hot from my fried, oozing skin. Micah seems afraid to touch us now. As Dyl and I start to walk toward SunAj, Micah tentatively follows us.
SunAj waves his cane. “No, Micah. Just the girls.”
Dyl and I take a final look at Micah. He stands there, unmoving, eyes on us as the distance between us thankfully grows. His expression is carved out and spare, like he’s lost something he knows he can’t get back.
The door closes on him. In the dark passageway, we walk toward a dim light. SunAj shuffles slowly. He has a bum foot and drags it slightly askew as he walks. Argent’s pulsing music throbs around us.
Finally, SunAj pushes open a door to the right. It’s a spacious office, complete with walls of virtual holo file cabinets and a gigantic desk in burnished mahogany. Someone is standing in the corner. He turns to us as we walk through the door.
I must be hallucinating.
It’s Cy, pale-faced and grim. He’s dressed in the usual depressing garb I so adore. I’m sure it’s my tortured mind giving me solace. He can’t possibly be here. It can’t be real.
“Zel.” Cy’s jaw muscles clench and he puts his hands behind his back. From the roping of his forearms, I can tell he’s hiding balled-up fists.
“Have a seat.” Sun waves his hand to all of us. Dyl and I continue to clutch at each other as we sit on a long embroidered bench by a wall. We’re both bleeding onto the fabric. I’m hoping this doesn’t get us in trouble, when Sun lifts his chin and offers, “Tea?”
A small door opens near the desk and a silver tea service slides onto it. He’s got to be kidding. Insanely, an imaginary advertisement for Aureus pops into my head.
Welcome to Aureus, land of illegal freaks. Have some torture and tea while you’re here.
“No? Well, then. Let’s get to it. I don’t like to give out contradictory orders to my people, so this intrusion had best be worth our time.” He gently wiggles Aj’s foot, and she awakens with a yawn.
“Wot? Is it done? Are we all in order now?” Aj croaks in a sleepy voice.
“No, my dear. New negotiations.” He turns so Aj can see Cy. We’re all staring at him now.
Dyl whispers to me, “Who is that?”
“He’s . . . he’s . . .” I can’t finish the sentence. Boyfriend is too limited a term for what Cy has become to me. Water? Oxygen? That might do.
“From my standpoint,” Sun begins, but he twitches when Aj kicks his chin. “From our standpoint, you have little to bargain with. I don’t need her”—he points at Dyl—“and you’ve just walked into my house. Might as well keep you both in cold storage. It would be rather easier for me, anyway.” He sips his tea slowly. “Young people can be so irritatingly dramatic.”
“True,” Cy agrees. “But what would a year’s jump on research cost you? Or earn you, rather?” Cy steps forward and places a tiny black chip on his desk.
“What’s this?” Sun picks it up and hands it to Aj, who studies it with her tiny paddle-like hands.
“I have four working elixirs for skin, bone, muscle, and hair. Complete. In your hands is ninety percent of the protocol to make them.”
“And the other ten percent?”
Cy taps his temple. “Here. It’ll take you at least a year to figure out what parts I left out. With my cooperation, these products would be shelf-ready within weeks.” He lets SunAj chew on that for a while, then continues. “You have what, twelve products on the market?”
Aj coughs, a tiny, wheezy noise. “Yes.” She sounds distinctly miffed that Cy knows this number.
“But none of them save lives, do they? Imagine Aureus in possession of a product that could heal the wounds of countless children, fix broken bones in an afternoon? Among other things, of course.”
Sun narrows his eyes, considering the political leverage of such contributions to society. No wonder they’ve been after Cy for so long. And no wonder he was so afraid of Aureus. He truly is a priceless commodity. Sun’s eyes actually sparkle with interest. “Go on.”
“And to guarantee that Zelia and Dyl are released unharmed—” At this, I gasp. I understand what he’s doing, and I shake my head. Cy silences me with a splayed-out hand behind him. “We can add one more thing.”
Cy approaches one of the holo boards on the wall. He touches it, does a quick search, and brings up Tegg’s product on the market, the one we’ve seen on billboards. SkinGuard. The police forces in several States have reportedly purchased them in bulk.
“How long does it take for SkinGuard to work?” Cy asks.
Sun frowns. “Four weeks to grow full armor, more or less. About as long as it takes for skin to turn over.”
“We can beat that by three weeks, six days.”
“Bio-accelerants are illegal,” Sun says smugly.
“As if illegality has ever stopped you before.”
Aj sighs. “That particular information has never been accessible by us. We’ve tried.”
Cy lowers his eyes to me. I’m either with him, or I’m not. Dyl’s hand is growing colder in mine. I know what I must do for Dyl, but it’s killing me. I can already feel Cy being torn away from me, forever. His eyes beg me wordlessly.
Please.
I finally stand up. “It’s been accessible to me,” I say. “I’ve made it and used it, and it works.”
“Indeed?” Sun’s eyebrow raise. “The way your elixir worked on the pig?”
I step forward, letting go of Dyl’s hand. “Have you seen Ren and Caliga?”
Sun rolls his eyes. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“Twenty eyelids! We’ll have to find a black market surgeon for that one,” Aj snaps.
“Well, there’s your proof that the bio-accelerant works. Normally, those changes would have taken weeks. Months, even.”
Sun perks up. “And the formula is . . .”
“At Carus,” I say. “I didn’t bring it with me.”
“And neither did I,” Cy says. “The data files will be delivered after you’ve released Zelia and her sister.”
Dyl listens to all of us, bewildered. She starts shivering, so I sit and wrap my arm around her. The embroidered couch underneath her shows a spreading black patch of blood. I have to get her out of here soon, and yet I’m on the cusp of losing Cy too.
Sun remains quiet for a long time. For a time, his eyes stare at the wall, unfocused. I wonder if he and Aj are having an internal conversation. Finally, the spell is broken when Aj jerks suddenly, and Sun looks up.
“Very well. We accept.” He stands up, leaning heavily on his cane.
Aj murmurs quietly, more to Sun than to us, “Micah did well bringing Dylia to us. We knew it would be fruitful, one way or another.”
I shrink at her words. All this insanity over getting Dyl back was to reel in a larger catch in the end. My eyes go to Cy, whose face is sad but determined.
“Did you know?” I whisper.
“I guessed. It doesn’t matter, though,�
� he says from across the room.
SunAj heads for the door. “You have five minutes.”
Cy doesn’t wait. He’s by my side in half a second, holding me so tightly, I don’t mind the pain. I kiss him and cling to his shoulders, not wanting to let go. He gently starts to pry me away.
“It’s time to go home. Marka’s waiting outside. It’s all arranged.”
“It’s true? We can leave?” Dyl says, watching us both.
At first I nod, but then I turn back to Cy. “How did Marka let you do this?”
“It’s my choice. I’m eighteen.”
“I never should have left,” I say. “I should have stayed.”
“That wouldn’t have happened. You knew what you had to do. Like I knew this time. Like I knew with Ana, but I was too busy being afraid.” He breaks his eye contact with me to lower his eyes, but the sadness has evaporated. He looks more at peace than I’ve ever seen him. “You’re so brave. You never stopped trying to get your sister, and it took way too long for me to learn the same lesson.”
“Cy, this isn’t about lessons, or bravery, or—”
He shakes his head, not listening. “I’ve been selfish my whole life. In practice, though not in principle. And it’s time for me to even things up.”
“This isn’t the way it’s supposed to happen.” I clutch at his hands so hard, I know I’m hurting him. But he doesn’t fight it, just absorbs the energy I throw his way, as if saving it up for later.
“Nothing is. Look at us. We’re not destined for anything remotely normal. But you’re the one who got me to live again. Argent was the first time, and running after you in the junkyards . . . you forced me to go after what I knew what was right. Well . . .” He lifts my raw hand to his face, kissing my bloody knuckles. A tiny drop of red stains his lip. “This is what I want.”
The door opens. The stocky boy enters, carrying pen-sized infusers in his hand. Cy extends his hand.
“Let me, please.” Cy takes one pen and walks to Dyl, crouching by her side. “They don’t want you to be awake when you leave.”
“As long as I wake up anywhere but here,” she says to him, her eyes huge.
“I promise.”
My sister nods, and he pushes the tip of the pen lightly against her arm. A hover chair is pushed in from the corridor and Dyl slumps into it, already drowsy. She’s getting pale, and now the front of her skirt is also dark with blood.
“Your turn.” Cy walks over to me.
I grab his wrist. “Please, wait . . .”
“This is the way it has to be. You’ve got Dyl back. And there’s Ana. You’ve got two sisters who need you now.”
He’s right. My life isn’t mine to toss here and there anymore. For a sliver of a second, my heart softens toward my dad. His life, though filled with deceit and the incessant need to control who I was and what I was to become, was never fully his. The ownership of responsibility for lives beyond his own, how he ran from Aureus with his neck on the line to save us—I almost understand it.
Almost.
But that’s the responsible part of me. The selfish part, which wants to keep Cy permanently glued to my side, isn’t having it.
“Wait—”
Something round and cold pushes against the nape of my neck. At first, I think Cy is pinching me into submission, but I hear the tiniest pfft and the drug hits my bloodstream immediately. My legs go wobbly and ignore my internal command to stand up. Cy catches me as my knees buckle, and lays me on the floor.
“I love you, Zel. Even though you drugged me. And lied. And were a general pain in the ass.” He smiles tenderly and reaches for his pocket. It’s my necklace. He drapes it over my neck and my lungs jerk to attention, expanding and shrinking in clock-like tics. The drug pulls my eyelids down and every muscle in my body is a slave to gravity, magnified by ten.
Cy bends down to kiss me. It’s a strange thing to be kissed and not be able to kiss back. I want to scream, to hit him, to make him stay with me. My vision blurs as he hovers over me. He stares for one long moment, emptying his soul into mine, letting me collect what I can.
Cy plucks my lifeless hand off the floor with his warm hand, holding it to his chest. I put all my effort into one last plea. Tears stream out of my eyes and trickle down into my scalp.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“You have the only part of me that’s important,” he whispers. “Keep it safe, Zel.”
Cy’s dark eyes, confident and steady, find mine. My eyelids finally fall, as sure as a dropped stone returns to the earth.
EPILOGUE
“DON’T YOU WANT TO PUT ON YOUR NECKLACE?”
Dyl sits with a book in her lap, legs crossed, in the sub-basement with me.
“I’m fine,” I say, but her nagging makes me smile. Just like old times. Yet her comment is on target. When I get this involved with my repairs, I sometimes hold my breath for way too long. Dyl bangs on the hood of the char, and the noise makes me jump.
“Hey!” I protest. “This is a very old char.”
“C’mon. Let’s get some lunch.” She tugs my sleeve, careful not to pull on the bandages covering my arms. The burns Micah inflicted a month ago are still raw in some places. Since I’d used up all of Cy’s brew in Aureus, I’ve been healing the old-fashioned way.
“Marka said I’ve got a new shipment of books,” she says casually, but I can sense her excitement. Since she’s been in Carus, we’ve all worked to transform Wilbert’s room into a real library. Ana and Dyl are the librarians-in-chief. They practically bark at you if you don’t treat their books like fragile glass.
I close the hood of the char with a gentle thud, then polish the shiny round logo with my sleeve. The little blue and white circle with the letters BMW sparkles when I’m done. Marka got the parts, though they were expensive. She figured the char would help keep my mind off things. By things, she meant Cy, of course.
Dyl and I zoom up the transport. She’s gotten her color back finally, and I swear she’s grown an inch since she got here. Her face is still thin, but her eyes have a sparkle. I don’t remember seeing her look so real before everything happened. It’s like I only saw her in two dimensions all my life.
“I don’t know why you’re so into those antiques,” she says.
“I’ll give you a ride one of these days when I can fix the fuel cells. You’ll love it.”
“You and driving. Whatever.”
“You and books. Whatever,” I retort. We both smile and Dyl kicks my leg. She knows exactly where all my wounds are and aims precisely where it won’t hurt me. We both know each other’s tender spots, seen and unseen, with geographical precision. It’s a dance we have now, trying hard to boost each other up instead of down. A helium sisterhood.
Dyl fiddles with Dad’s wedding ring around her neck. This is one thing that’s still raw. The sight of his ring turns my blood to acid, but I don’t let it show.
When Dyl recovered enough from the miscarriage, I told her everything about Dad. The experiments, the truth about his job, what he did to me. To our mother. She didn’t believe me, so we went to Dad’s holoprof program. We triggered the truth with only a few words. In the middle of Dad’s apology, Dyl turned the program off, just like that.
“I can’t listen to his lies,” she’d whispered. His regret felt so untrue. Like his holo, they’re ghost apologies. We cannot forgive. Not yet. But when Dyl touches his gold ring, I know it means she hasn’t let go of him for good. Or maybe it’s the opposite—that the dead can’t let go of us.
Ana gave her the book of poetry back soon after, but she didn’t want it. Dad’s poem reads so differently now, particularly the last line.
Almost as dear as you.
Was it Dyl or the both of us that he valued below all else? I don’t know. If there’s one thing I do know, it’s this: A broken heart can break further. We’re still picking up the pieces, but every shard still draws blood.
As we walk through the hallways, Hex catches up from
behind. “The wonder twins.” He hangs two arms around me and two around Dyl.
We both snort in unison. We may not look alike, but we’ve been inseparable. Except at night. I’ve given Dyl my old bubble room, which she adores. After dark, I crawl into the cave of Cy’s room. She knows not to follow me in there.
Hex tweaks both of our heads. “Vera’s looking for you guys.”
“Why?”
“I think she wants to turn you both green this time around. You know, so you can all outnumber me in more ways than just estrogen.”
I reach up and smack his cheek. “Poor Hexy.”
“Eh, g’off me.” He wiggles his head away from my hand and wanders off before we can embarrass him more. He may be the only guy in Carus now, but he’s okay with it. After I lost Cy, he suddenly grew the resolve to go for Vera. They practically suck each other’s faces off whenever they’re in close proximity.
We dodge into the kitchen, grab a stash of baked goods and jugs of green soygrass and honey shakes, then head upstairs. Marka and Vera are sitting under the broad winter sun, enjoying the hot, still air. The clear enclosure covered the agriplane two weeks ago when winter hit, yet another onion layer to Neia, but it’s welcome. We all love the balmy greenhouse the agriplane has become. Me more than the others, perhaps.
After a few minutes of chatting, Marka takes me aside to peek under my bandages. “They’re still coming along,” she says.
“I’ll be fine.”
“There will be scars, you know. Big ones.”
I shrug. The physical stuff doesn’t bother me at all. But Marka doesn’t let go of me. I smile and touch her hand. “It’s just superficial.”
“Those aren’t the ones I’m concerned about.” Marka lifts my chin and observes my face. I can tell she’s sniffing the air around me. Even though her pills left my system long ago, I have a weird ability to sense things better. Maybe it’s my sense of smell or sharpened intuition, I don’t know. But I know with certainty that Marka is intensely worried about me. She misses Cy too. She’s as terrified for him as I am, sleep deprived from wondering if he’s frozen in the hallways of Aureus, or working to the bone, paying off a debt for who knows how long. Possibly forever.