by Axie Oh
I’m already in trouble, but neither of them seems to know that. News of the demonstration must not have been broadcast to the general public.
“Jaewon-ah,” Bora asks, always perceptive, “did something happen?”
I shake my head and look back at Alex.
“There’s nothing you can do,” Minwoo says. “You’ll only make it worse. They say Alex disobeyed a direct order from his father — ”
“What do you mean?”
Minwoo hesitates before answering. “I don’t know. His father arrived at the school with soldiers and they searched the place. They found Alex with a girl. Apparently his father had warned him not to meet with her. I don’t know why. Maybe she’s an heiress or — ”
A high voice, full of anguish, screams from behind the guards. “Alex!”
I watch as Ama sprints from the school building.
Hearing Ama’s voice, Alex tenses, his eyes darting back and forth in panic. He braces his feet and jams his shoulder into the right guard, throwing him to the ground. The left guard grabs him around the waist, pinning his arms. Alex struggles, trying to shake the guard off, but his shackled wrists make it difficult.
I curse under my breath and rush forward. I pull the left guard off Alex, punching him in the neck before throwing him into the crowd of students. He doesn’t reappear, and I’m guessing I either knocked him out, or Minwoo finished the job.
I turn to see Ama rush over to Alex, placing her hands over his shackled fists. I’m relieved to see that she hasn’t suffered as Alex has — her face, arms, and legs are clear of cuts and bruises. Something’s off, though, when I look closer at her. Even though she isn’t showing signs of a physical fight, her hair is a tangled nest, as if she’s just woken up from a fitful sleep, and her yellow dress — the one she purchased at the mall that day — is inside out.
“Why are they doing this? Why did they hurt you? I’ll — I’ll hurt them!” She looks wildly at the crowd and then up at the double doors of the school building.
The Director has appeared at the entrance, flanked by six NSK guards. Alex’s father’s shadowed eyes watch the couple.
Alex doesn’t even spare his father a glance. Slowly he lowers his fists, forcing Ama to drop her hands.
“Alex . . . ,” she whispers, confused.
“Ama.” His voice is muffled by the bruising on his mouth. I can only make out what he’s saying because of how close I stand. “We — I broke protocol.”
“What do you mean? No, you didn’t.” She takes a step toward him, reaching out, but he takes half a step back. “You’ve taken care of me,” she says, her voice faltering. “You’ve protected me. You’re — you’re everything to me.”
He shakes his head.
“You loved me.”
At these last words, Alex looks away, as if in pain, as if these last words hurt him more than the bruises and broken bones.
I can see the warring expressions playing across his features — confusion, frustration, and anger. I can tell the exact moment when his resolve takes over. He straightens his back, a shadow briefly falling across his face, and I know he’s shut his emotions down under an unyielding shield.
He’s made a decision, and he won’t stray from it.
I get ready to take Ama away from him.
“I have . . . loved you,” he says. “It wasn’t right of me. I took advantage of you. It shouldn’t have happened. I won’t ask you for your forgiveness because I don’t deserve it. Just know I regret everything.”
“What are you saying?” she whispers. She doesn’t believe him. I can see her eyes reading his, her mind seeking his. Whatever she sees in the dark depths of his thoughts causes her to break away from him in shock. She stumbles backward into my arms. She’s so much smaller than me, smaller than Tera. I can feel her tears through my shirt as she turns, bunching her fists into my coat.
Alex meets my eyes over her head, his expression remote, giving away nothing of his thoughts. “Take her away.”
I nod, ignorant of the specifics of the situation, but knowing that anywhere is a better place for Ama than here. She looks shell-shocked, unable to process what’s happening. I think of safe places I could take her, but it’s a useless endeavor. NSK soldiers are already approaching us.
I raise my hands in surrender. No use fighting when we’ve already lost.
Four guards break away from the group to lead us over to the school’s main building. I pass the Director, keeping my eyes down. I swallow a curse when I see the blood on his knuckles from the beating Alex took inside the building.
We’ve made it up the stairs and through the sliding doors of the school before we hear the first bone-splitting punch, metal against flesh. Ama stumbles into me with a cry, as if she herself has taken the hit.
And maybe she has, if she’s reading his mind.
Accompanied by our guards, we leave the main lobby of the academy and enter an elevator. I wonder how public the events of the demonstration are, or if news of Oh Kangto’s impending attack on the Tower have taken over any and all feeds. Minwoo and Bora didn’t seem to have known about the demonstration. The guards, although sticking close by, haven’t arrested me.
At the roof of the school, we wait for a military transport carrier to arrive. I board it behind Ama, taking the seat by the window to block her from the view below. As we fly over the school’s courtyard toward the Tower, the public punishment continues. Even through the noise-barred windows, it’s as if I can hear the thick, wet thud of every punch. If Alex stopped picking his wretched body off the ground, I wonder if his father would end this. He takes each hit on his knees with a bitter solemnity. With every punch, his head pitches to the side, only for him to doggedly bring it back to its original position, his eyes meeting his father’s as the Director’s fist comes down again and again. It’s a public punishment to show the city that disobeying the Director cannot go unpunished, not even for the Director’s own flesh and blood.
“Is it finished?” Ama asks softly. She’s looking down at her hands, curled in her lap. She means the public punishment.
I hesitate before answering. It’s impossible to lie to a girl who can read my thoughts.
“It’s finished,” I say.
She nods, accepting the lie.
I could ask her how she got out of the Tower and met up with Alex — the last I’d seen him, he’d been leaving the hospital after we visited Sela — but it feels wrong to question Ama, especially when tears begin streaming down her face.
Is she crying because of what the Director has done, is doing, to Alex, or is she crying because of what Alex has done to her? The extent of his punishment suggests he probably slept with her, which was somehow made known to the Director. Why Alex and Ama were on school property, I have no idea. I’m guessing whoever discovered them identified Alex and informed the Director. To someone like the Director, Ama wouldn’t be a girl but a weapon. An object created for him to command.
Maybe he’d forbidden Alex to meet with her. Whatever the case may be, it made him angry, and I don’t think the Director even needs anger to justify beating Alex.
Ama stares down at her lap. Her curled hands unfold, revealing the open bud of a yellow rose at the center of her left palm. It’s wilted, broken by the weight of her hand crushing it.
She brushes a petal with her thumb. “Roses shouldn’t smell like smoke,” she says.
I’m reminded of Alex’s words back in the Tower. I don’t see the use of flowers. And yet I recognize the rose she holds.
“Roses are your favorite flower,” I say softly. “Yellow is your favorite color.”
She nods, her lips trembling. She’s quiet for a moment before she speaks. “When nothing is mine, why is it that I have to keep this feeling inside me? Why is this the only thing I’m left with?”
Her words are thoughts spoken aloud, and they
’re not for me. Even so, I wish I were someone who could offer her comfort, lessen some of the pain she must be feeling. Because even if we’re not an intimate part of each other’s lives, we share someone who always will be.
Ama’s breath catches. “You’re right,” she says, raising her eyes to meet mine. “I have something more. I have someone more.”
I don’t have to read minds to know we’re both thinking of the same person.
Tera.
Ama nods.
I remember my promise to Tera that I’d come back for her. I look at Ama and hold her gaze. I’m going to help Tera escape the Tower. We’re going to flee the city together.
Ama lets out a small gasp. She brings her fist to her mouth, coughing to cover her surprise. Her gaze darts to the guards sitting directly across from us. She reaches out and takes my wrist, and for a second I think she’s trying to seek comfort from me or give comfort to me, but then she squeezes, gently, and a series of images flash through my mind.
An aerial view of the Tower. The Skybridge. The inside of the hangar. And lastly, the image of Tera handcuffed in the room where the Extension had been held, glaring defiantly up at her captors.
Ama’s voice is a light my mind. When you find her, tell her I love her, that I will always love her.
I’m dropped abruptly out of the visions and blink back a throbbing headache. The transport ship docks at the Tower. Ama still holds my wrist. As the doors open, she squeezes, putting pressure against my skin. They’re always watching you. Be careful. She lets go.
I walk out and stand on the docking platform, where guards are waiting for me. They must know who I am and what I’ve done, because they roughly take me by the arm. Behind me, the transport doors shut before Ama can alight. The ship then glides away from the platform in a westward direction. There’s nothing more I can do for her now. Where they’re taking her, I have no idea.
But I do know this: even though she’s breaking, she’s not broken.
35
Last Good-bye
I’m escorted by a different pair of guards to a holding room right off the docking port. A guard spits the word “traitor” as they leave. I hear the familiar click of a lock engaging, and when I press my wrist to the scanner, the doors fail to open.
Dead-ended before I’ve even begun.
I pace the room, opening and closing my hands in frustration. At least Ama’s left me with an image of where they’re keeping Tera in the hangar. If I could just reach Tera and release her from the cuffs, then we could figure out a way to escape together. But first I have to get out of this room.
I sit on the bench and wait. Hours pass. What time is it? Oh Kangto plans to destroy the Tower at 0400 hours. I take out my phone, but it’s nothing but static. The UKL must have shut down communications in the city.
The suffocating silence of the room is interrupted by voices in the hall. I press my ear against the door. When the voices grow louder, I step to the side, curling my hand into a fist.
The doors open. Alex stumbles in, falling to the floor. He’s torn up, wrecked. The doors close behind him — my one chance of getting out — but it doesn’t matter. I can’t leave Alex, not like this. I crouch beside him.
“Don’t. Let me be.” His hands come up, aggravating his inflamed, open wounds. He sucks in a sharp breath at each prod of his fingers, as if purposefully prolonging his pain. I reach out to stop him. Like a whip, he grabs my wrist, forcing it to the floor. He opens his eyes to slits. “I said, let me be.”
He lets go, and I don’t move, frowning at the way his hand has left white pressure points on my skin.
The marks are already fading, but I’m reminded of Ama, the way she’d deliberately put pressure on my wrist so I’d take notice. Her words: They’re always watching you. Be careful. I brush my fingers against the bump in my wrist. “Our scanners are tracked,” I say, thinking aloud.
Alex squints. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
I stand, looking around the room for something sharp.
My gaze falls on a plant in the corner and the bench, the only two objects in the room. This would be funny if it weren’t so damn frustrating.
Alex curses, rolls to his stomach, and pushes himself up off the floor. Reaching into his coat pocket, he pulls out a short knife.
I must look surprised, because Alex laughs. “You’re probably wondering how I managed to keep a weapon on me. They did search me back at the academy, before the beating. The mistake they made was not searching me after.” Alex chuckles, clearly amused. “My father keeps knives in his boots. One fell out and I grabbed it. It wasn’t strategic. I just happened to see the knife. My father always says to think on your feet. Or on your knees, in my case.” Alex spits blood onto the floor.
I grimace. “You shouldn’t talk. Your jaw might be broken.”
“Whatever.”
He holds the knife out to me, and I take it.
Gritting my teeth, I make a clean slit along the inside of my wrist, then reach into the flesh to extract the scanner. I drop the bloody device onto the floor, kicking it to the corner. I cut a piece of cloth from the bottom of my undershirt and begin winding it around the wound. I’ll need someone to stich it up later, but for now, this will have to hold. Hopefully I didn’t open any veins.
Other than the sound of my awkward movements, silence fills the space.
Alex closes his eyes, resting his head against the wall behind him. His face appears calm, relaxed. It’s the opposite of the look on Ama’s face right after she left Alex — it held an unmistakable grief, a terrible loneliness.
I tighten and knot the makeshift bandage. “Was it worth it?”
He opens his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Was what you did worth it?”
“You mean,” Alex says slowly, his eyes narrowing, “was sleeping with her worth it?”
I hold his stare. He knows what I mean. With one mistake — one choice — he’s abandoned all his goals. I wouldn’t call them dreams. Alex doesn’t hope for things, live or die for things. But they were endeavors — to be at the top of his class, to be one of the few who’d earned a placement at the Tower. His next goal was probably as ambitious and as unattainable for anyone but him. Now they’re all moot. By sleeping with Ama, he’s lost the respect of his father and likely the admiration of the public.
Alex looks down at his hands, stretching his fingers. “I don’t know what’s worth anything anymore. All my life, my path seemed straightforward. One step leads to another. If I want something, I can have it. Nothing is out of my reach. My life is so structured. I wake up, I do what I have to do. What I want to do. I go to bed. I have no enemies. Not even Tsuko counts as an enemy, even if he is an asshole. Not even my father.”
“You have no one you love.” The words come out before I can stop them.
He closes his eyes, but not before I see his expression, of pain, of aching loss. “I wish I had someone who I’d be forced to love — a sibling, a parent. Someone who loves me. Ama, she’s so innocent. I didn’t mean to do it. God, I’m the worst kind of person.”
He groans, curling over, his torn-up face in his bruised hands.
What must it be like for him to know the people who are supposed to love him couldn’t care less that he was born? Even at my lowest, I knew my father loved me. Even at his bitterest, Young knows his father would rather he were alive than dead.
Alex can’t say the same of his father. Love is absent in a prideful father.
Abruptly, Alex lifts his head. “Give me the knife.”
There’s a beat of silence.
“I’m not going to kill you,” he drawls.
When I don’t give him the knife, he scowls. “I’m not going to kill myself, either.” He snatches the knife from me, turning it and pressing it to his wrist. He makes a deep cut.
“Shit, Alex!” He did
n’t have to go that far.
He pulls his tracking chip out of his wrist, shouting, “Ha, that was easy! You made it look painful.” He pockets the bloody chip, then walks over to the corner, picking up the one I dropped. “They’re readying me a transport ship heading to the war front,” he says. “I’m to be stationed there as a foot soldier. A new beginning, as my father likes to think of it. Even if it is a death trap.” He turns to face me. “If I get on the transport ship with your tracking chip, they might think you’re with me. Hopefully this will steal you some time. If you leave now, you can still get to her.”
I blink, startled. “How did you know?”
“I’m not a fool,” he says dryly.
I get to my feet. “Alex — ”
He shakes his head. “If you’re waiting for a poignant good-bye, you’re not going to get it.”
“I was going to tell you to take care of yourself.”
Alex sighs. “That’s the same thing.” He raises his fist against the door. “I’ll cause a distraction. When they come in, make a break for it.”
“That’s not going to work. They’re — ”
Alex bangs his fist hard against the metal. The switch on the panel turns from red to blue, and the doors open.
I don’t realize until it’s too late that Alex still holds the knife. He raises it high, then brings it down to stab himself in the gut, crumpling to the floor.
In the panic that ensues — guards rushing toward Alex to stop the flow of blood, others rushing away to find a medic — none of them notice one more body fleeing the scene.
I’d worry more about Alex, but I have feeling he’d resent that. He’s given me a chance, one I’d be a fool not to take.
Hurrying down a crowded, chaotic hall minutes later — the Tower in full evacuation mode for the UKL attack — a realization hits me: on this day, both Ama and Alex have helped me, each risking their lives to secure Tera’s and mine. Theirs is a debt I hope to repay one day.
36
Park Taesung