by Natalie Reid
Tom shifted closer to her, and his hand reached for her face. She couldn’t move as his fingertips gently brushed the skin under her eye.
“Please tell me what happened to you,” he begged.
Her heart stammered in her ears. She didn’t know if she had the strength to refuse him anything.
“Kurt said that you had gone to that fight club to die,” he whispered.
He shook his head, and she could see that he didn’t understand. No one would understand unless they saw the things she did. She turned back to the flames.
“I’m turning into a monster, Tom. Would you have me stay with the innocent?”
He placed a hand on her arm. “I would have you stay with me!”
“In the whole world, you were the last person I wanted there,” she admitted. She didn’t know why those words sounded so hurtful when they came out. If he really thought about it, he would know it was a compliment. Yet they hadn’t sounded good.
Tom took his hand away from her arm and made for the hallway. Jessie buried her face in her knees. No matter how much she told herself that she needed to push Tom away, she always felt like breaking every time he took one more step further.
* * *
Wind through the open window crept into the small bedroom and woke up the woman inside. The air was rigid cold. The window was supposed to be closed, but it always managed to let the winter air in anyway.
The woman turned over in bed to look at the window. A silent tremor of terror ran through her body as she realized she wasn’t alone in the room. A figure stood in the shadows, watching her, blaming her for everything that she did. Her arms and legs stiffened. She didn’t pull the blanket more warmly around her, didn’t get up to close the window. She deserved this, she told herself.
Then something moved across the dark, and she recognized the young face of a girl, though it looked scarred in places that it had not been before.
“You’re back,” Katherine said.
She sat up in bed, and in a flash the girl was gone. Though the pilot had vanished, the figure was still there. She could still feel it as she lay in bed, counting down the hours of the night. It had been there long before the girl. It would never leave her alone, never let her sleep or live in peace so long as she still breathed.
Chapter 7
Indoor Decorations
For the next couple of weeks at the military camp, nearly every waking minute was spent working on their plan to get up to The Fulcrum and infiltrate the Bank of Social Numbers. Carver managed to fly a military ship down to them that they could use to get up to The Fulcrum. Harper and Griffin left during the day to steal parts to use from the junk-yard, and Jessie and Denneck worked with the new pieces to meld their military ship into a government look-a-like. Ritter, meanwhile, worked on grabbing the uniforms needed in order to sneak inside the Bank undetected. With his wanted status, this was easier said than done.
Because of his betrayal, Task Force wanted to find him twice as much as they wanted to find Jessie. Though they wouldn’t divulge his treason to anyone outside the force, everyone inside of it hated him more than any military pilot or fugitive Bandit. It was all the more worse because he was once part of them. He was once their leader, yet all that time he was partnering up with one of their biggest enemies. That was a crime that exceeded any Bandit’s.
During the day, Ritter became frustrated by his slow progress and constant threat of discovery. At night his frustrations only grew as it was clearer and clearer that Nel did not want her father back.
The only one of the group that was as discouraged as Ritter was Jessie. The joy she felt at being so close to seeing her mom again was constantly outweighed by the fact that she could not remember the codes to the Bank of Social Numbers. On top of that, the shadows would not leave her alone. Every time she tried to sit quietly and dredge up her memory from the day of her evolution, the shadows would invade her sight as if they were purposefully trying to sabotage her. As a soldier, she tried not to be afraid, to ignore the visions and horrifying faces. For the most part she was able to keep it together, to trick the others into forgetting about the problems she was dealing with. Yet, try as she might, there was always one thing that would leave her cold and shaking no matter how many times she saw it.
On the barrack wall, a few feet to the right of the doorway, stood a long, thin mirror. It was visible from every bed, every corner, every inch of that room. Jessie tried not to stare, but she found her eyes inevitably drawn to it. Without fail, that face would appear, eyes black and shining like two smooth marbles, grinning with anticipation. It was the piece of the Bandit that had been set aside specifically for her. Even worse, it had been inside her once before, in the few moments preceding her death. She knew she wasn’t imagining it. The way it smiled at her, like it was trying to get her to remember what it had been like.
One morning, just after breakfast, she found herself glued to the spot, standing in front of that mirror. Her reflection was lost to it, and all she could see was the shadow figure, unnaturally tall and thin so that it mimicked the size of the mirror. She could smell its scent through the pane of glass, and she wondered if it really wasn’t behind the mirror at all, that if she reached out, she would be in danger of touching it.
As this thought came into her head, the figure raised its fingers, like spindly branches of a tree. The tips poked through the reflective pool as easily as going through water. Sulfur filled the room. Her nose was heavy with it. Shadows spread out from the mirror. There were so many, branching out to the rest of the cabin. It was her fault they were there. She was letting the darkness in. The shadowy hand was inches from her face now. A shrill sound filled her ears. Somehow she knew, if she let it touch her, there would be no way to get it off. The sound grew higher and higher, boiling her ears with pressure so that her head felt liable to burst.
She didn’t know when she had moved, but suddenly she found herself stumbling backwards and hitting the ground. Her palms stung where they dug into the floor, and her lungs were gasping for breath. A movement at the door caught her eye, and she was afraid it might have been the shadow-figure, escaped from its prison. Jerking her head in that direction, she found Nel standing in the doorway, staring at her. She wondered how long she had been there and what exactly she had seen.
Her eyes were wide as she looked from the mirror to where Jessie was sprawled on the floor. Before Jessie could catch her breath and try to put her at ease, she came away from the doorway, scampering off to the main part of the cabin.
Jessie was afraid that Nel would try to avoid her from then on. At the very least, she would try to forget what she had seen. So it came as a surprise at lunchtime that day when she willingly brought it up.
“That mirror in the bedroom scares me,” she announced to the table, looking between Griffin and Tom as if hoping they would do something about it. “Do you think we could take it down?”
“I think it’s bolted into the wall pretty solid,” Griffin said, wincing in apology.
“And we can’t destroy it, otherwise the military will wonder what happened,” Tom added.
“Why don’t we just hang a blanket over it, sweetheart?” Ritter asked gently.
Nel ignored him as she exclaimed excitedly, “How about a tree?!”
The rest of the table looked at each other quizzically.
“A tree?” Harper asked.
“A beautiful, pretty pine tree,” Nel continued. “We can get one from outside and put it in front of the mirror! That way we don’t have to see it!”
“I think there are easier ways—” Griffin started to say, when Ritter cut him off.
“A pine tree’s a great idea. Why don’t we all go outside and you can pick one out.”
After everyone finished lunch, they all put on their coats and followed Nel outside. Though most days were spent on the plan to get into the Fulcrum, they all agreed that they could take one afternoon off, and that the break might do them some good.
&
nbsp; Luckily the sky was clear that day as they headed out into the deeper parts of the forest. Ritter had grabbed the axe from the woodpile and slung it over his shoulder as they walked. Though the whole venture sounded absurd—chopping down a tree so they could use it to hide a mirror—no one was going to argue when Ritter held an axe in his hands.
As Nel went up to each tree, seizing it up for its potential, Ritter stood waiting, ready to make the first blow upon her command. Nel did her best to try and ignore his constant following. Every time she walked away from a tree, she would address the others with some excuse or another on why it wasn’t worthy. It didn’t have the right smell. One of its branches was dying. There was a bird’s nest up at the top.
Finally Nel stopped in front of one standing off on its own, and pointed back to it with a smile. “Here!”
The pine tree was shorter than all the others, not even as tall as Jessie. Its branches looked fuzzy with needles, and the little clumps of snow fell from its dwarfed branches as Ritter began to chop at its slender trunk. When the tree had been severed from its roots, Ritter and Griffin hoisted it above their shoulders and walked it back to the cabin like a pair of soldiers might carry in a wounded comrade.
Inside, Ritter tried to prop the tree against the wall with the mirror, but no matter how much he slanted it, it would not stay up. At first they tried swaddling the trunk in blankets, hoping it would offer the tree enough support, yet this too failed, and left them with blankets covered in needles. It wasn’t until Jessie pointed out that the tree would need water in order to survive, that they stumbled on a method of keeping it upright.
Inside the shed near the back of the cabin, they found a sturdy bucket. Lowering the trunk of the tree inside, they placed stones around the base and filled it with water. Though they ended up spilling a large puddle on the floor, the pine tree finally stood upright. Although, it was leaning a little to the left, but everyone agreed to ignore it.
Standing a ways back from her tree, Nel admired it and then proclaimed, “It needs color.”
Griffin groaned, having thought they were done with the tree, but Ritter punched him in the arm, instantly turning around his mood.
“My thoughts exactly,” Griffin agreed. “How about we wrap a nice red, uh…shirt around it?”
Nel scrunched her mouth and looked up at him like he was being silly. “Trees don’t wear shirts.”
“Yeah Griff,” Harper teased. “Good going!”
“How was I supposed to know?”
“Everyone knows that,” Ritter interjected, though not one of them knew if he was dead serious or not.
“Hang on,” Griffin said, rushing for the hallway. “I think I know just the thing!”
In the back of the cabin there was a room that Griffin and Harper had set aside as their work station. Earlier in the week, the two of them had managed to sneak inside their old apartment and his old work station, and make off with a few essentials that they thought would come in handy. One of them was a set of the expandable wire balls that Griffin had used to break into the building on Sprocket Street. They were each painted a different color, and would be just the accent the tree needed.
Rushing back into the barracks, he laid the small balls on the floor like a child might show off his stash of marbles. One by one he opened them to full size, just a little bigger than a closed fist, and Nel stooped down to inspect them. Giving them the okay, she encouraged each one of them to put up their own ball on the tree, weaving the branches between the wires so that they dangled in place.
Denneck and Carver came back just as they were finishing, and Nel happily bounded up to them, giving Denneck the last ball to place on the tree. Jessie studied Ritter’s expression as she handed Denneck the ornament. She knew very well that Ritter was the only one of them that Nel had not handed a wire ball to. Though Ritter had been the one to make the tree a reality, Nel still acted as if he was merely an invisible presence in the room.
“You know, that was kinda fun,” Griffin remarked as he playfully tousled Nel’s hair. “More people should put trees in their homes.”
“This thing is going to shed its needles all over the floor,” Carver pointed out with a frown.
“Then we’ll walk on needles,” Denneck countered, grinning.
Stepping away from Griffin, Nel walked up to Jessie, wide blue eyes staring up at her. “Do you like it, Jessie?”
Jessie was deeply touched by the young girl’s actions. She had made everyone believe the tree was for herself, yet Jessie knew she had really done it for her. She saw how afraid she was of the mirror, and the first thing she did was to find a clever way to get rid of it.
“I think it is my favorite thing in the whole house,” Jessie answered, swinging Nel around and hugging her to her chest.
It felt good to hold her and to know that Nel wasn’t fearful of her. If the youngest among them wasn’t afraid of her, then she mustn’t be so far gone. Then again, Nel never seemed to hold anything against her, not when she lied to her about why she had come down into the Resistance, not when she had left right after, and not even when she had gotten into a fight with her father. With Jessie, she seemed incapable of holding a grudge. It was as if all her hatred was spent up on never forgiving the man that had once meant the world to her.
* * *
December 22nd, 3033
Ritter stared at his daughter’s peaceful face as he softly pressed down on the piano keys. At two years old, Nel was growing so big that she took up nearly half the piano bench when she stretched out. Her eyes fluttered softly as her head rested against the cushioned bench, the sound of the piano putting her to sleep. Ritter made sure to play softer and softer so he wouldn’t wake her.
He was about to lean down and kiss his daughter’s forehead, when suddenly his tablet buzzed loudly on the top of the piano. The vibrations caused the tablet to bump into a small vile of Harebells. The vile tipped and landed on the ground, the glass shattering and the blue water staining the floor. Nel started to cry at the sound, and the woman connected to her woke from her daze.
“What are you doing?” Feya demanded. “I’m sleeping.”
Ritter ignored her as he bent down and swept up the broken pieces of glass. He moved quickly so that Nel wouldn’t have time to hop down and accidentally cut herself. The tablet stopped buzzing on the piano, but a moment later the call returned. Ritter cut his finger as he hurried to grab the last of the glass and forced himself not to curse in front of his daughter. He quickly rushed to the kitchen to throw the glass away, and then returned to where Nel was curled up in a ball on the piano bench, whimpering.
“Shh, shh,” Ritter said soothingly, stroking her hair. “I’ll be right back.”
Grabbing his tablet, he stepped into his bedroom and answered the call, saying, “I’m off duty.”
“Not anymore,” Commander Vin replied severely. “We’ve got a situation.”
Ritter glanced in the other room at where his daughter was now trying to tap down on the keys of the piano.
“What kind of a situation?”
“A girl broke out of the Bank of Social Numbers. Ward’s made it very clear that he wants her found at all costs.”
“Broke out? What do you mean broke out?”
“What the rack do you think it means, Ritter?”
He ran a hand down his short hair, resting his back against the bedroom wall. “What’s this girl’s name?”
“Jessie Fifty-Fifty.”
His back came off from the wall. “Are you racking with me?”
“Does it sound like I’m racking joking?”
“Fifty-Fifty,” Ritter said with a disbelieving shake of his head. “That’s gotta make her, what, a few months old?”
“A day actually. It’s her Evolution Day.”
Ritter was quiet a moment as this information sunk in. “Alright. I’ll get out there, talk to my contacts, see if anyone’s spotted her.”
“It’ll have to wait,” Vin cut in. “I need you up
at The Fulcrum.”
“Can’t you send someone else?”
“Ritter,” Vin said flatly. “Just get the rack up there.”
Ritter cursed under his breath and hung up. Pocketing his tablet, he returned to the piano bench and crouched down so he was eye-level with Nel.
“I have to go for a little while,” he whispered to her, brushing the side of her face with his fingertips. Her bright blue eyes were wide as he leaned down and kissed her forehead. “But I swear to the skies I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
The hallways of The Fulcrum were silver, cold and reflective as Ritter walked through them. Two men stood on either side of him, escorting him to a holding cell. Inside this room he found a young lady cuffed to the wall. She had long, wavy, black hair and slender arms that looked liable to break with a single squeeze.
“The cuffs necessary?” Ritter asked the men, glancing back at them. “She’s already in a cell.”
“Ward’s being extra careful,” one of them explained.
Ritter turned and looked to the woman once more. She didn’t look all that dangerous. Then again, she was the mother of the child that had just escaped from the Bank of Social Numbers, so he figured looks could be deceiving.
Stepping inside, the men locked the door behind him and left them alone. There were no chairs or tables in this holding cell. Just him, the woman, and the metal bolting her to the wall.
“Are you aware of what is happening with your daughter right now?” he asked, staring at the lines of his hands in disinterest.
The woman did not respond.
“The longer she’s out on the streets, the greater danger she’s in.”
The woman’s eyes flicked up to his. She seemed surprised about something, almost gladdened.
Ritter shook his head. “But I’m not really here about your daughter, Sarah. I’m here because you broke a law of the government. And as it stands, only half of the perpetrators are in custody.”