by A. B. Bloom
She shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s…It’s…” She hesitated and my eyes searched for our parents just as she said. “It’s Dad. He got rushed to sick bay.”
I reared away from her. “What do you mean? Why did no one call me?”
She frowned in confusion. “We tried, Delly, believe me I’ve tried hundreds of times, your comms isn’t working.”
I held in an internal groan. It was working, it just wasn’t switched on. I’d shut it off when Chase and I had gone for our meander through the prohibited areas. I grabbed for Anya’s arm. “Come on let’s go. What’s wrong with him, is it that headache again?”
I pulled her toward the door but she resisted my hold and shook her head. “No, Delly, you don’t understand.” Her face crumpled and I wondered what the hell she was blathering about. “He’s dead.”
I stared at her not comprehending the words that had tumbled from her lips.
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “What’s going on?”
Her head shook like she couldn’t control it, and then I noticed that all her body was shaking, her lips tinged blue and under her eyes a smudged purple. “He’s dead. Delly. Just dead.”
Nothing happened from that point on.
Nothing.
Frankie and Adrianna came to our suite. We sat in silence.
Mom stayed in the bedroom.
We were given a few days to consider what we wanted to do.
He was dead. My father, once so strong and commanding, then so broken by war and torture, was dead.
Dead.
It’s funny how those four insignificant letters when formed into a word could change the entire fabric of existence.
He was dead.
The bit that hurt. The bit that made me want to never look at myself in a mirror again, scared by what I would see, was that I hadn’t said goodbye. I’d been off trying to save a worthless human, one who despised me. Instead I hadn’t known that my father was going to die.
I’d always known my gift of Sight was a curse. But that moment ensured that I would never forget it.
On the fourth day Mom came out of the bedroom. She was frail, her body wasting away with neglect. Anya and I had tried to get her to eat but she wouldn’t take one mouthful of anything. Not even the strawberries that had been left outside the door following a gentle tap. I’d wanted to pulverise the berries but then I’d thought of Mom and that maybe they would tempt her. But they hadn’t.
“We need to get off the Complex,” she said. No ‘Hi girls, how are you coping? Sorry I checked out there for a while’.
“What?” I sat up straighter and took in the sight of my grieving mother. “We can’t. We need the money remember?”
She shook her head, her lips pressed into a straight line. “No, we did need the money, before when we had to look after your father, but now the priority has to be to get you off the Complex before your identity is found out.”
“What?” I stared at her in disbelief. “We can’t just leave. How are we going to do that? And what about…what about…” I trailed off. I knew I didn’t want to leave Adrianna and Frankie behind, but in my head, another name was circling like a whispered breeze. Chase.
I blocked the name from my thoughts. He’d tricked me. He had no place in my life especially not now. “What about the money? What’s the point in doing all this… going through all this… if we leave with nothing?
“And what are we supposed to say? That we’ve changed our minds and want an out? I don’t think they give those.”
Mom’s face closed off. “We will say we want to take your father’s body home ourselves.”
Anya crumpled into a sobbing wreck within the uncomfortable confines of the hard-backed chair.
“Mom,” I burst out and stepped to Anya’s side where I placed an arm around her shuddering shoulders, squeezing them gently in my grasp.
Once her sobs had diminished to sniffles, I dragged my mom into the sleeping area. I knew she was hurting, grieving, but weren’t we all?
Our dad had just died.
“I don’t think we should leave, that money could assure us a comfortable future.” I didn’t tell her about the fluttering worry in my stomach that if I left that rude human who I despised he may get slain, and whilst I resented him I didn’t want his blood on my conscience.
Mom shook her head, her lips downturned but her eyes hardened with anguish and pain. “No, I have to keep you safe. If they find out about you, they would take you away from me as well.”
Relaxing my posture, I held my hands to her and she took them, her fingers shaking. “Mom, no one can take me away from you. I promise.”
“Where have you been then? It’s been weeks and you’ve hardly been around.”
The knife of guilt pierced my chest and stabbed my heart through and through.
“I’ve just been studying,” I lied, my broken heart turning blacker with every passing moment. “I thought that’s what you wanted, for me to give this experiment a real shot.”
Mom’s red eyes met mine. “We’ve just missed you. He missed you.”
With her words, I was beaten by the engulfing wave of grief that swept me away. My father was gone…gone. And I hadn’t been able to see it coming.
Tremors overtook me and instead of falling into Mom’s arms I pushed away, rushing for the door. The dark guilt I felt turned my insides into something ugly that I didn’t recognise.
I rushed to the communal area and placed my hand onto the door pad. It whooshed open with my touch and I sped outside right into the arms of a waiting human. “Get away from me.” I squirmed away from his touch, his fingers violating as they tried to hold me still.
“Delphine.” His tone was low and hard. “Please, you need to listen.”
Somehow, I found the strength to break out of his hold, and I windmilled my arms to break the contact. “Stay away from me.”
I knew the only reason he was there was because he wanted to find out if his future was still on the same path. I focused my inner eye on his future. “You’re still going to die, Chase. It’s still going to happen, now leave me alone, please.” My voice wavered on please and I cursed to myself.
I went to run away. Where I was running to I had no idea. All I knew was that I couldn’t face my sister, nor my mom and that I didn’t want to be near him either.
“Delly,” he called as I ran as fast as I could, searching for a Zipper I could board. “I’m sorry, Delly.”
A Zipper hovered close enough for me to jump on and flash my payment. I didn’t give him a backwards glance as I worked my way to the back. What he was sorry for I didn’t know.
“I’m sorry, Delly.” It was the second time in half a daylight hour I’d heard those words. This time though I knew they were meant with all the sincerity in the universe. I dropped my head and Adrianna pulled me into her tiny arms. Frankie watched us with a frown. He was lost for words. Not all Metas had the familial bond like we did and I knew he found my outpouring of grief difficult to understand. That didn’t mean he didn’t care, I could see it in the stormy blue of his eyes.
I looked up at Adrianna through my waterlogged lashes. “I just can’t believe I won’t see him again,” I uttered, mainly to myself.
Adrianna ran soothing circles on my shoulder with the palm of her hand. “Do they know what caused it?”
A flutter of bird wings in the tree above us in the Atrium startled us all. Once the beating of my heart calmed like the wings of the birds I spoke again. “Heart failure, they said.” I shook my head. “But I don’t know. I think he just gave up.”
My throat tightened again and I concentrated on breathing air into my lungs. “Mom wants us to leave, to take his body home and get out of here before someone finds out who I am.”
Adrianna’s eyes held mine and I saw the question she wanted to ask before she settled on it. “What do you think about that?”
Blowing a fistful of air out of my lips I tried to focus on all the many thoughts I ha
d swirling around my mind like ribbons caught in the wind. “Well, I think we should stay. The money is nearly ours and it will help us...”
“But?” Frankie had been quiet, staying out of our girly, grief-ridden chat. I turned my face to his.
“But Mom doesn’t know I’ve already compromised myself.” My throat thickened with tears again, but this time not tears of sorry or regret, but those of anger and disappointment. “She doesn’t know I’ve already been tricked into revealing myself to someone who hates us, hates the Metas.”
Frankie’s face froze into a solid rock of anger. “What do you mean he hates Metas? I thought he was following you around making googly eyes like a love-sick puppy.” Frankie’s eyes danced with fire and I considered the prospect of him ripping Chase’s head off with his bare hands—I’m not going to lie, the idea wasn’t all bad.
“I, I heard him.” I stuttered. “The day Dad died. He was talking to a guard laughing about how they couldn’t escape Metas.”
Adrianna’s face crumpled into a frown and she nibbled her lower lip until I thought she’d draw blood. “I don’t think so, Delly. He hasn’t moved from outside your door since that day. If he didn’t genuinely like you then why would he do that?”
It was my turn to frown. “Because he wants to know if he’s going to die or not. It’s simple really.”
“And is he?” Frankie’s words were a snarl and I wondered if he had a grasp of his young ogre energy.
I nodded. “Yes, he was waiting this morning and I caught a glimpse. “It’s still going to happen.” I was torn. My betrayal, hurt and grief made a dark part of myself want it to happen. But then I thought of his lips brushing against mine, even if their act was only in falseness, and I was no longer sure.
“Good, the humans are hating us more than ever right now. The atmosphere is volatile. Maybe one less human would balance it out.” Frankie grumbled but Adrianna elbowed him in the ribs, which probably hurt her more than it did him.
“Are you going to come to class tomorrow, Delly? It might help you take your mind off everything,” Adie asked, her hand squeezing mine.
I breathed in a lungful of air, but it didn’t help me breathe. “I don’t know. I shall see what Mom says.”
We didn’t linger in the empty Atrium long. We snuck back along, keeping ourselves away from the gathering mixed crowds who all wove through the hallways and passageways without acknowledging each other.
I must have been foolish to think that a human could like me for what I was. It wasn’t possible in a place like this or a world like ours.
Mom was packing, still intent on leaving the Complex with father’s body, when the door knocked. Mother flicked a gaze at me but I didn’t move from my seat to open the door. With a sigh, she wandered in that direction and swiped her hand across the control panel.
“Yes?” Mom sounded nervous and I sat up a little straighter, ready to go to her side if she needed me. “How can I help?”
My stomach dove as I heard a voice I recognised but wish I didn’t. “Good evening. I’m sorry to disturb you in this troubled time but I was hoping to speak to your daughter.”
Mom glanced into the room, her eyes flicking between Anya and I. “Anya is busy I’m afraid,” she explained. Anya wasn’t busy, but Anya didn’t want to be seen by anyone while her eyes were puffy from her continual crying.
“Not Anya, Delphine.”
Mom stepped back visibly confused as Chase entered our dire quarters. “Delphine.” He nodded at me, but I sent him stabbing daggers with my eyes in return. “I was hoping we could talk.”
I set my face into my most unwelcoming expression. “I’m busy, I’m afraid, my father has just died.” My words were hideous and I wanted to swallow them back inside me when I saw Mom reel in shock at my vicious outburst. Chase’s eyes darkened and I remembered all too late that he’d also lived through losing a parent. I didn’t want to feel sorry for him, but I did all the same.
Chase took a step forward ignoring the bewildered gaze of my mother. “I know, Delly, that’s why I am here. I’ve been trying to catch you for days but you keep running and hiding.” His hand reached for mine and I shied away from his touch. Was he going to attempt to hold my hand in front of my mom? Was he mad? Why was he holding my hand anyway when he didn’t even like me, or my kind? He carried on speaking, even when he saw my hand drop. “I’m so sorry about your father.” He held my eyes and for a moment it felt like he was trying to tell me something else.
“Delly?” Mom stepped between us. “What’s going on?” The tone of her voice made her worry evident, but the pull of her fingers against her greying hair made my heart hurt.
I waved a hand at Chase. “This is, Chase, Mom. He’s a friend from Uni Academy.” There were so many lies in that sentence it didn’t bear thinking about.
Chase almost breathed a sigh of relief at my use of the word friend but I sent him a scowl just so he alone in the room would know that I was lying through my teeth. “Can we have a moment, Delly? Is there any chance you would speak to me in private?” This time his hand did catch my elbow and Mom’s eyes nearly stalked out on sticks.
Mom stepped up. “We are packing, we shall be accompanying my husband’s body home.”
Chase’s mouth fell open and he looked at me with such despair it hurt me a little bit despite the fact I didn’t understand it. “But you can’t.”
“Oh, but we can.” I wasn’t prone to violent behaviour but I would have quite happily smacked him in the mouth, even with my mother watching.
His features morphed into a stony mask. “Delphine, just five minutes, please.”
I had a distinct feeling he wasn’t going to leave my accommodation until I agreed to his demands, so with an elaborate sigh I lowered my head and marched past him through the doorway.
I paced down the hallway, dodging all the Metas and humans coming in the opposite direction until I found a space to stop. I whirled around, surprised to find him so close behind me. His dark eyes bore into me, scanning my face. “Delly, I’m so sorry about your dad. Why didn’t you answer my messages or my calls? I’ve been waiting to see you.”
I poked my index finger into the centre of his chest and his expression lifted into one of surprise. “I don’t want to see you, Chase, you aren’t going to be the first person I come running to when tragedy strikes.”
He caught my hand and used the strength of his body to back me into the recess of a doorway. “Why, I thought we had this thing going on.” His hand motioned between us. “Then the next thing you’ve run away from me, refusing to let me see you when I try to help.” His fingers reached for a lock of my hair but I jerked away from his touch.
“Run away? Run away? You can hardly blame me.” A burning hot lump formed itself in my chest. “You sound surprised yet you made it very clear how you feel about Metas, and while you may have been confused about the way I look, I can assure you, I am one.”
His expression cleared. “Is that what this has all been about? It’s because of what I said to that Intra officer in the strawberry fields?”
I backed away but found myself against the wall, the smooth surface pressing against my spine.
“Delly, for goodness sake! I was hardly going to announce you to one of my father’s men. Then I’d have had to answer questions about who you were, what sort of Meta you were, what you could do.” He took a deep breath and I watched his wide chest rise and fall. “Believe me my dad would want to know the ins and outs of everything.” His fingers reached for my hair again and this time I didn’t move away, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. “I know before, I said we should tell him about your vision but I don’t want him to know now.”
“Why?” the words tangled in my dry throat.
“Because I would rather die, be stabbed in a field as is my fate, than to offer you up to the powers that be in this place so they could use you for their own needs.”
My heart that had been torn into shreds the previous few days softened a li
ttle, the ragged edges smoothing and sticking back to one another. “So, it wasn’t because you were embarrassed about me?”
Chase laughed and while I hadn’t thought I’d hear laughter again now my soul was shrouded in dark grief it lifted me somewhat. “No. I’m not embarrassed at all. I’d be happy to have you by my side.”
“What about your dad?”
Chase lifted his shoulders. “I’ll protect you.”
My face clouded. “But I can’t protect you. If my mother makes me leave then I will no longer be able to see the future, but if I stay then, then…” I didn’t want to tell him that if I stayed and my feelings for him continued to grow then I also would be blind. That would be admitting to someone that you may possibly be in love with them, but you weren’t quite sure yet. I closed my eyes and focused on Chase, watching his future unfold within my mind. Already, just with his words of protection and the proximity of his body, that future was blurring, fading at the edges.
He misunderstood my sentiment. “If you stay then we will fight whatever happens.” Even as his words fell from his mouth his future dimmed a little more within my Sight. It reminded me of when the artificial daylight was faded out at the end of the day in the Complex. Just a slow ebb of light and colour.
I grasped onto the vision, submitting it to my memory. Clutching Chase’s arms I told him everything I could see. “It’s loud, there are shouts and clamours.”
I felt him shift, but kept my eyes closed. “Any music, is it a party maybe?”
It wasn't the time to be distracted by what party he knew about attending that I didn’t. I’d been grieving my father for God’s sake. I shook my head. “No, not music, it sounds angry. You have your back against something, like you are trying to hold it back, like you don’t want someone to see.”
I blinked and stared into his face. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m helping. Maybe we should tell your father and get it over and done with. He will be able to protect you.”