by Jack Alden
I smack my finger against a few random options and a steaming hot rain shoots from the showerhead. I yelp and jump out of the spray, almost falling in the process, and as I catch myself on the wall, a loud laugh bursts from my lips. It feels foreign on my tongue but good, so good. I stick out a hand and let my skin adjust to the heat then shift fully under the spray. A sigh slips free. One by one, the thin silver spouts squirt different types of soaps into my hands so that I can massage them into my hair and skin. Each one smells better than the last.
When I’m finished, I step out of the shower and the water instantly shuts off. Soft white towels hang from a rack near the door, and I use one to dry off. I don’t know what to do with my dirty clothes, so I leave them in a pile on the bathroom floor. I’ll ask someone later. The Viper settles into my hand again like a familiar weight, something comforting, and a spot on the back of my neck tingles. I know it’s the place where Tempest embedded the microchip, the tiny link connecting me to the legendary dagger in my fist. Already it feels like a part of me, as if it has been there all my life.
A closet the size of my house makes up one wall of my sleeping quarters and is packed with clothing for all occasions. It’s too much to absorb in a glance. I’ve never owned more than two pairs of pants at a time, no more than three shirts, most too big or worn out. Nothing expensive, nothing new. I run my fingers over the materials, then cross to the bed. It’s even bigger up close, stretching both long and wide, and the first thought that springs to mind is that at least my feet won’t hang off the end the way they do at home.
Home.
It strikes again, just as hard, just as painful. I grab the wall to steady myself. The towel I’ve wrapped around myself drops to the floor. The room sways and, for a minute, I think I might be sick. How can I be here like this? Amazed by things my family could never afford, never experience? Laughing. Wondering. Teetering on the edge of excited. That I let myself get carried away by it, even for only a moment or two, makes my heart race, and I want to run. Run home. Because here, there may be technology and luxury and wonder, but there’s no warmth. No familiarity. No Tempest tackling me to the floor and tickling me to tears. No tiny Beck curled in a ball in the corner. This isn’t home. Tears prick at my eyes. Shame trickles in until my chest feels heavy, my heart drowning.
I crawl into the bed, tuck the Viper under my pillow, and stare into the lit room. The sheets are cold against my damp skin, and I hate the feeling. I hate this place. I hate myself. I’ve never felt so alone in my life.
Sleep comes fast, exhaustion curling around me like a curtain. I welcome the feeling. Anything to carry me off, away. Gone. As I start to slip away, I think of Tempest. I wonder if he’s okay, if he’s scared, if he’s looking for me. I think of Beck, curled up in my bed, too upset to sleep alone. I think of my mother, of how she betrayed us, of how she saved Beck, and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to trust her the way I did before, or if I’ll even have the chance. I think of home, and imagine I’ll wake up to find myself there again. I imagine this is a dream.
I imagine everything is going to be okay.
4
A pounding on the door jolts me. I jerk up in bed, eyelids still partially glued shut and head throbbing. Who the hell is beating the door down and why isn’t my mother having a fit over it? I rub my eyes and glance over to check on Beck. Then the details of the room define. Reality hits like a hammer to the heart. Beck isn’t here. Mom isn’t going to answer the door. This isn’t home. I’m not home. I have to take a breath.
The pounding sounds again, louder this time. My head aches with each knock. My eyes are raw, cheeks tight. I must have cried myself to sleep. It takes a few more breaths before I feel like I won’t start all over again now.
“I’m coming!” I shout, frustrated. I throw aside the blankets with a shiver, slam my feet to the floor, and march into the other room. Just as I’m about to open the door, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the steel and nearly scream my lungs raw. My frustration gives way to humiliation as fast as my cheeks turn red. I’m naked!
I choke the scream down and cover myself with my hands. I’m alone in the room, but I can feel the presence on the other side of the door. It’s like laser eyes burning holes through the metal, seeing every inch. X-ray vision isn’t a thing in the Dome, is it?
“Uh, hold on,” I say through the door and dart back to my new bedroom.
The closet is yet another technological hell-scape I have to learn how to navigate. This one, thankfully, is a bit more obvious than the shower. An electronic monitor controls rotating racks of clothing and automated drawers. I can scan through each available item by image and select exactly what I want. There are so many options. Exploring them all is tempting, but I know I don’t have time. I jab at the first options that catch my eye. Black shirt, black pants, black shoes. Predictable.
I grab my selections as they present themselves and check the sizes—all exactly right. How the hell does the president know what size I wear? My hair is still slightly damp, so I run my fingers through it and pull it into my usual low ponytail. I don’t even bother checking myself in the mirror. I’m sure I look tangled and messy and I’m probably still blushing. I grab the Viper from under my pillow and jam it down into my boot before racing back to the door. When I open it, Lieutenant Warren waits on the other side in full uniform, stone-faced and statuesque as ever.
“I’m here to escort you to the infirmary, ma’am,” she says as if the words have been programmed into her. Automated. Soft but mostly lifeless. “This way.” She takes off without another word, and I have to scramble to catch up. The Viper, once again sheathed, rubs against my leg with every step.
We walk in silence down the length of one hallway and are turning onto another when Warren says, “I was beginning to think you had escaped.”
For a minute, I don’t even know what to say. I just look at her, her face still solemn as ever, and roll my eyes. “Oh yeah,” I say, the words popping out without thought, “your face is practically screaming concerned right now.”
Her lips purse, just a tick of movement that makes me think she might actually be trying to contain a laugh, and I’m shocked. Something loosens inside me.
“Are you trying not to laugh right now?” I ask her, and I feel my own lips start to pull. It feels so good I don’t even try to stop it. Just a moment of relief. A joke. A laugh. I don’t care. I need it. “Do you actually feel things? I was starting to think you were a robot.”
Her lips purse again. I feel my smile widen. A laugh jumps free. I fight the urge to clamp my hand over my mouth to stop it, because I don’t want to stop it. It’s the first bit of good I’ve felt, and I’m afraid if I don’t let myself feel it, I might never feel good again.
“I’d poke you to make sure, but my mother raised me not to be rude,” I tell her. “Just obsessively hygienic.” I tilt my head. “Well, just obsessive in general.”
“I would prefer you not poke me, ma’am,” Warren says.
Another laugh breaks through. “Will do,” I tell her. “Or won’t do, I guess I should say. But only if you agree never to call me ma’am again.”
“What would you prefer?”
“My name is probably a good choice,” I say. “That’s what names are for after all.”
We step into the elevator and Warren presses the number six. It lights up and the elevator starts its descent. “Very well,” she says. “Prudence.”
If cringing came with a sound, it would echo through the walls. “No, no,” I say, following her out when the doors separate again. “Not Prudence. It’s Dagger. I, uh…. Whoa.”
Stepping onto the sixth floor is like walking into a blinding maze. Everything is white, so white it’s almost shiny. Corridors branch out in all directions from the central point of the elevator, signs labeling each hall with numbers and letters that mean nothing to me. Is this what a hospital looks like? I’ve never been in a functioning one before. Everything is so bright and clean.
“President Dogan referred to you as Prudence.”
I blink. “Huh?”
Warren glances at me without turning her head. “Your name,” she says.
“Oh, yeah,” I say. “Well, technically, yes, my first name is Prudence, but really only my mother calls me that. Everyone else calls me Dagger. It’s my middle name.”
“Is that what you prefer?”
“Yes,” I say. “What about you?” I glance to her name tag again. “What’s the C stand for?”
She comes to an abrupt halt outside a large set of solid-metal double doors. I stumble over my own feet, distracted by her short-lived almost-smile. “Lieutenant is fine,” she says.
I can feel my cheeks heating up, embarrassed as I collect myself and nod. I don’t know why I thought we could carry on any kind of casual conversation. “Right,” I say, avoiding her eyes. Reality smacks me in the gut again. This girl isn’t my friend. She isn’t anything to me, just another soldier. And this isn’t my new home. It isn’t a place to get comfortable. It’s a prison.
“Your brother is in the fourth room to your left through these doors,” Warren says, and my heart jumps into my throat. Tempest. My brother is just on the other side of these doors. “I’m told he is now awake and able to speak. You have one hour to visit with him, at the end of which, I will come to retrieve you. You may go.”
I bolt through the doors without hesitation. All I want is my family. My brother. My life back. Since I can’t have that, this visit is the next best thing. It’s the only thing. I try not to think about what I’ll find behind the fourth door on the left. I try not to picture Tempest mangled and bloody and broken, but the image leaks into my mind anyway. I can still smell the heat of the cannon blast, still hear the life ebbing out of his voice. I stop outside his door and close my eyes. I take a deep breath. Please, let him be okay.
When I open the door, I almost instantly regret it. I hadn’t expected the guilt. It hits me like a wave at the sight of him. It gnaws at my gut. All of this is my fault. If I hadn’t been so afraid, we might have both made it out of the Gutter unharmed. I put him here, in the state he most hates to be in—weakness.
Tempest lies on a bed in the center of the room. It’s angled so he’s partially sitting up, and I can see his face. His eyes aren’t open, but his cheeks are pale and scrunched. He must be in pain. There is a thick layer of sheeting covering his injured side, and a machine beside the bed with tubing that disappears under the sheet. I can’t see through it, can’t see the place where Tempest’s arm used to be. I don’t know what they did for him, what they could do, and I can’t even begin to imagine what’s in store for him now, but part of me is thankful for the covering. I don’t want to see. I don’t want to know how bad it is.
Tempest’s brow furrows. He grits his teeth, and I feel a ripple of fury roll through me. There’s a glass window next to his bed that I bang on with my fist. A woman on the other side turns toward the sound. “Hey,” I shout through the glass. “Why haven’t you given him enough medicine to make his pain go away? Look at his face!”
The woman barely contains a roll of her eyes before stepping into the room. She looks at a monitor beside Tempest’s bed, then to me, and says, “His pain should dull shortly.”
“Why isn’t it already dull?”
She smiles, though it’s more placating than genuine. “Unfortunately, we’ve yet to invent a medicine that works instantly,” she says. “But they do work very fast, so there’s no need to yell.”
“Unfortunately, she can’t help herself.” The laughter that follows sounds groggy and pained but strong nonetheless. Tempest’s tired gray eyes open a moment later and my heart soars. He looks to the woman. “Sorry about my sister.”
She smiles, genuine this time.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
She nods. “I’ll be back shortly to check on you.”
Once she leaves the room, I move to Tempest’s bedside and slide my hand into my brother’s. Instantly, my eyes begin to sting. I hate the feeling. I blow a breath up toward them and squeeze my brother’s hand. He squeezes back, but it’s delicate, as if all his strength has suddenly vanished. My stomach rolls at the thought.
“Happy birthday,” he says, and a hard, empty laugh jumps up my throat.
“And we thought the Draft was the worst that could happen.”
He smiles and rubs his thumb over the back of my hand. “You know none of this is your fault, D,” he says, as if he can read my mind, and the tears come too fast for me to stop them. I close my eyes.
“Don’t.”
“It’s not your fault,” he says again. “I’m serious, Dagger. I don’t blame you for this. We did what we had to do, right? We all make sacrifices, and since I’m lying in this bed instead of in the ground, I’m guessing you made the biggest one of all.”
His voice cracks around the last words, and I open my eyes again. His face is etched with pain, but this time, I know it isn’t physical. I don’t know what to say to him. Maybe there’s nothing that can be said. Nothing can change what’s already done. So, I just look at him and he looks back, and I think I’d be content to spend our entire last hour together this way, because it’s easier than talking. It’s easier than acknowledging, and it’s easier, most of all, than saying goodbye. But Tempest breaks the silence.
“Thank you,” he says. “If it wasn’t for you, D, what you did…you saved my life.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way, and thinking it now doesn’t settle my stomach or in any way rid me of my guilt, but it does help. Tempest’s heart is beating, and if I hadn’t made the choice I did, it wouldn’t be. That’s worth the misery, I think, just knowing I made the right choice, the choice that kept my brother alive. It’s worth a lifetime under the president’s thumb. Tempest is going to heal. He’s going to walk away from all this. He’s going to get to go home and see Beck again. He gets to live. I made the right choice.
I squeeze his hand again. “I have to tell you something,” I say. “A few things, actually.”
Tempest looks away from me and says, “This is the last time, isn’t it?”
He doesn’t have to clarify. I know what he means. This is the last time we’re going to see each other.
“Yes.”
“We don’t need to talk about that, Dagger,” he says, giving my hand another squeeze.
“I know,” I tell him. “It’s about Mom and Beck.” He looks at me, and his eyes are glossed. It’s hard to see. “Mom made a deal with the president.”
His brow wrinkles a moment, then his eyes harden.
“She offered us in exchange for a lifetime pardon from the Draft for Beck,” I say, and his mouth drops open.
“A lifetime…Dagger, are you serious?”
I nod. “He’ll be safe.”
The tension in Tempest’s body eases. I hadn’t even realized how tense he was, but it’s like watching him melt.
“I don’t know what came first,” I tell him. “The president knowing about us or Mom giving us up. I don’t think I want to know, and I don’t know if I can forgive her, Temp, I really don’t, but—”
“Beck is safe,” Tempest says. “That’s what matters.”
I swallow the lump building in my throat. “That’s what matters.”
“You’ll be okay, too,” he says then. “You will.”
A hollow laugh chokes its way up. “How do you know?”
“Because I know you,” he says. “You’re stronger than you realize, Dagger.”
I glance to th
e window, around the room, and lower my voice. “I’m scared.”
“That’s okay,” he says, reaching up to brush an errant strand of hair from my face. They’re always wiggling their way loose from my ponytail. “Everyone’s scared sometimes.”
I lay my head down on the bed on top of his hand and close my eyes. “Even you?”
“Even me.”
“I killed people,” I whisper, unable to make myself say the words any louder.
“You did what you had to do.”
“Tempest,” I say, “I want to go home.”
Before he can say anything, a knock sounds at the door. Lieutenant Warren appears in the open frame.
“Your hour is up,” she says. “I will escort you back to your quarters now.”
I grip Tempest’s hand hard, so hard it hurts, and he gives it a tug. Pulls me to him. I embrace him as much as I can without smashing the sheeting covering his injured side. He smells like chemicals and hospital, and somehow, still like home.
“I love you,” I say. They’re words I usually let live in gestures, but now, here, they feel important. Something that needs to be said aloud, needs to be heard. “Tell Beck I—”
“I’ll tell him,” he says, squeezing me as tight as he can with one arm. He kisses my temple and just before I pull away, I hear him whisper to me. “I’m coming back for you.
5
The walk back to my room is tense and silent. My stomach drags the floor with every step, and I’m certain, any minute, I’ll be sick. I wipe my cheeks when I feel a wet drop streak down my face, then glance to Warren. She doesn’t look at me or say anything, and I’m not sure why I’m surprised. It’s not like she’s the talking type. That doesn’t change when we make it back to my room. Warren nods her head and informs me that dinner will be served in the dining hall at seven if I wish to attend. I don’t. She then tells me to check my schedule for tomorrow’s activities even though I don’t know how to do that and don’t care, then she’s gone. Just like that. I watch her back disappear down the hallway and loathe the part of me that wishes she would have stayed. I don’t know why. Comfort, maybe. Having someone close, someone to sit with, might soothe this ache inside, because I can’t have my brother. I can’t have my family. I don’t have anyone anymore, and I hadn’t realized how much that would hurt. I hadn’t realized how lonely it would feel, so lonely that I’m desperate for even the company of a rigid, speak-only-when-spoken-to soldier.