by Laura Lam
I laugh, though it sounds hollow and weak. “I did it.” My sister is safe. Safe. I fall back against the pillow. It hurts. “What’s my prognosis?”
“The doctor will fill you in on the jargon and everything, but I can tell you what I know. You were shot in the chest. It didn’t penetrate the Kalar suit much, but the impact of the bullet against your metal sternum messed with your heart and broke the skin. They had to repair and restart it. You flatlined. You’ll have another scar, unless you want to erase it.”
He snuck it in there, among the other stuff. You flatlined. I died. My fingertips graze the bandages. “Can I unwrap it?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Probably not yet.”
“When can I go home?” I want to go home and sleep. I want it to be tomorrow, when my sister is free.
“Soon, I expect. Let me call for the doctor.”
“Wait. One thing first.”
“What?”
“Tell them to send down the waxworker. Get them to give me back my face.”
* * *
We’re silent as the hovercar takes us to my apartment. Not the safe house. My real, actual apartment, where I haven’t been since they asked me to become my sister. My fingers trace my features. My nose is back to its usual shape, my cheekbones a little lower, my cheeks a little fuller. My hair is still short, but it’s curly again and no longer blue. Even my old face in the mirror doesn’t look familiar anymore.
I look out the window at San Francisco. It’s foggy today, making everything look soft and dreamy. The algae tinges the gray with green. It reminds me of the world in Ensi’s head, and I look away.
Nazarin helps me up to the flat. He seems to have recovered much quicker than I have, though he wasn’t shot in the chest, so I suppose that makes sense.
I collapse on my sofa. It feels like I haven’t been here in so long. A different person has come home than the one who left. It’s going to take a long time for me to make sense of what happened in my head. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to fully trust my own mind again.
“Give me some SynthGin, will you? It’s in the cupboard to the left of the fridge.”
He dutifully pours two glasses and comes to sit next to me on the sofa.
“Fill me in,” I say.
Nazarin’s voice is soothing. I take a long gulp of gin and close my eyes, listening. Ensi’s body is still alive, but he’s brain-dead. The government plans to put his body into stasis all the same. The Ratel has crumbled somewhat at the loss of its King and Queen. The government is breaking up the rest.
“They’ll find Verve,” I say.
“Yes, though Sudice is arguing that Veli Carrera began his research in their labs, and is trying to patent it. We’ve one saving grace, though: they’re not exactly sure how to re-create it. It seems only Ensi knew the recipe.”
“How?”
“It’s what the drop was. Mana-ma grew a mushroom at the Hearth. I expect it’s the same ingredient she used to dose you before Meditation. She processed it as much as she could there, and Ensi personally put the final touches on it once it arrived in the city.”
I sigh. “It’s only a matter of time before they figure out how it works.” I’m not sure if I’m talking about Sudice or the government. Does it make a difference? “Have we really helped anything?” If Verve goes to market, the violent after-urges removed, it remains a way to make people more tractable.
“It won’t be that easy for them. Someone might have leaked a medical report detailing the true effects of Verve to the entire city.”
“Kim?”
He only smiles in response.
So things are not fixed. It is not a happily ever after. We can hope the Ratel stays scattered, and there’s a glimmer of hope that Verve won’t be released to the city from another’s hands. A glimmer of hope. That’s all.
“I suppose that’s enough for now,” I manage. “What’s next for you, then, now that your undercover op is finished?”
“I’ve asked for a leave of absence.”
I manage a smile. “A well-deserved break.”
He sighs. “I don’t know if I want to go back.”
I understand. At the moment, I can’t imagine going back to engineering. I feel too shattered to be a functioning cog in society.
I drain my glass and look down at the bandages beneath the collar of my shirt.
“I haven’t seen the full extent of the damage yet,” I say.
I begin to unbutton my shirt. Nazarin stands up. “Do you want me to go?”
“No. Stay.”
I slide the dress off of my shoulders. I suck in a breath, looking at the fractal marks from being struck by phantom lightning in the dream world. The red has already faded to white, stark against the brown of my skin. It shouldn’t be there, but it is. My mind thought it was hit by lightning, and the body obliged.
“They can erase it,” Nazarin says.
“I don’t want them to.” It’s beautiful, in its own way. And it’ll always remind me that I was strong when I needed to be.
He stands again, moving closer. He raises a finger, hovers it over my skin. I meet his eyes and his fingers rest, lightly, on the fractal marks. He traces the swirling branches of the scars.
“It’s like trees. Or blood vessels. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I don’t reply. His touch makes me feel grounded and alive. It cuts through the dregs of the pain medicine. My whole body tingles.
I start to unwind the bandages across my chest. I’m afraid to see what’s underneath. The last of the bandages fall away. Nazarin and I both look down. Between my bare breasts is a new scar, just to the left of the one that bisects me from collarbone to navel. It’s healed cleanly. It looks a little like a star.
Nazarin presses the scar gently with his fingertip. “Will you keep this, too?”
“Yes.”
I look up at him. His eyes are soft.
I want to ask him, but I’m not sure how. “Is Tila—?”
“No. Only you.”
We stop speaking after that. I’ve wanted to have him again since our ill-considered night, and now there are no barriers. He pulls me to him, and my body presses against his. I melt into him, and he melts into me. We kiss, my fingertips running along the short buzz of his hair. He wraps his hands around my waist and lifts me off the ground. I wrap my legs around him.
We fall into the sofa, tasting each other. After we came out of Ensi’s mind, my senses were confused, and Nazarin was the only thing that made sense. It’s the same again. His skin, warm and firm, giving beneath my touch. The feel of his breath on my neck. The flicker of a tongue along the pulse of my throat.
My fingers unbutton his shirt, sliding it off of him. I run my hands along the firm muscles of his back, over the fading bruises. He’s kept all his scars. His skin shows a life lived with danger—a shallow slash along the ribs, little nicks along his arms. I kiss each one.
I nip his skin with my teeth, and he pulls me up and crushes my mouth to his, holding my tongue between his teeth, just hard enough to hurt. I run my fingernails along his upper arms and he gasps against my mouth.
We shed the last of our clothes to mingle on the floor. I still feel weak, but Nazarin holds me. He moves into me, and I draw him closer, as if our flesh could blend. The only sounds are the soft gasps of our breathing, the sound of our skin sliding against the fabric of the sofa. We move together. I roll on top of him. I kiss him as we move, faster and faster. We are the closest two people can be without being conjoined.
I shudder against him, my eyes shut tight, focused on that point deep within. I keep my mouth against his as we finish, loving the sound of his moan of release thrumming through me.
I lie on top of him, our limbs entangled, his heartbeat racing against the skin of my chest. My limbs grow lax and tingling with the ebb of desire. All thought has left me, and for the first time since this all began, I feel at peace.
Later, when we are in bed, I breathe in, long and deep, restin
g my lips against the top of Nazarin’s skull. My fingers toy idly with the sheet. There’s something about someone asleep next to you, vulnerable and breathing softly, that’s so comforting.
It’s not long until dawn. In a few hours, I’ll see my sister again. I set out to free her, and I did.
I’m terrified. She’s the person I know better than anyone else possibly could. All these people I see every day, they couldn’t understand my relationship with Tila. How for so many years we were two people, yet we were the same. We couldn’t hide from each other. All our strengths, all our weaknesses. We knew it all.
She kept all this from me. If she hadn’t been caught, if Vuk hadn’t attacked her, would she ever have told me?
She would never have been able to keep those secrets from me if we were still connected. Perhaps we should have fought the doctors harder. Claimed religious reasons—they wouldn’t have been able to argue with that. But we didn’t know that then. We were so young. So very innocent, compared to how we are now.
I want to let go of the anger, but I can’t. Tila killed someone. She killed him to protect herself, and to protect me. I can’t blame her for that. I don’t think I ever did.
It’s easy to take a life. We’re such delicate creatures. Nazarin slumbers on, and my thoughts continue to circle. Thoughts of death, and blood, and wondering what will happen tomorrow, when I see my sister for the first time since they dragged her away from me.
Part of me wonders if I still want to see her.
THIRTY-TWO
TILA
I’ve been moved back from the prison in the Sierras (or wherever it was) to a holding cell in San Francisco. The guards told me I’m getting out in a few hours. So this will be the end of my testimony, which is good, I guess, because the notebook is almost full anyway. I still can’t believe it, though I should know better than to ever underestimate Taema.
I’ve tried to tidy myself up a bit, but the girl in the mirror still looks like shit. Circles under my eyes, and my hair frizzy thanks to the cheap prison shampoo. Now I’m sitting here on the uncomfortable bed, alternately writing in here and looking out through that tiny window at the blue sky.
I’m scared to see Taema, after all this. Will she blame me? Will she be hurt at all I kept from her, even if it was to try and protect her? I don’t know.
I’ve decided to spend my last moments in jail writing out what really happened. I’m taking this notebook out with me, and nobody else will read what I write in here now except my sister.
T:
I’ve made mistakes. I thought I’d be protecting you by not involving you, but now … I know that you were shot. You’re going to be OK, but still. You were shot because of me. I put you in danger because I didn’t want you to realize what I’d be willing to do to find out the truth. If I’d told you from the start, if we’d done this together, it would have worked out so differently.
How are we going to move on from this?
This is what happened. Here are your answers, T.
I first stumbled onto the whole Ratel business by accident. Mia met Adam in a Zealot lounge. He recognized her, but she didn’t know who he was. They met up a few times. He tried to get her off the drugs, and they bonded enough that he told her who he really was. She ran, moved house, changed as much as she could, terrified that he was sent from Mana-ma to kill her. Remember when she upped and moved halfway across the city and took a few trips to the flesh parlors? That’s when it was. Maybe he really was after her, too. I don’t know.
She didn’t tell me eveything at once. I was curious from the start. Someone from the Hearth who had changed their face? Who? When she told me it was Adam, that he was alive and working for the Ratel, then I knew I couldn’t walk away. I tried to, but it burned at me.
It didn’t take long for me to figure out that Vuk was a hitman for the Ratel, so that to even look into this meant capital-D Danger. I still couldn’t leave it alone, though, especially when he walked into Zenith. I watched him for months, whenever he came in, though I didn’t get too close. He didn’t recognize me because I’d waxworked myself (that’s why I did it, T: for your protection, not because I didn’t want us to look the same any-more). I had blue hair, and you don’t expect to see one half of a pair of conjoined twins from your former cult in an exclusive club in San Francisco.
That’s what I thought at first, anyway. Until I realized the Ratel had changed him. Overwritten his personality with what they wanted. Someone who could kill in cold blood, to order.
He fell in love with Leylani while I watched. When I saw that, I thought: if he can still fall in love, maybe they haven’t made him disappear completely. Maybe there’s still a little bit of Adam in there. I asked Mia, but all she told me in her Zeal-addled state was, “He is the red one, the fair one, the handsome one. He came from the Earth and now he returns. The faces keep changing.” She said it over and over, until it freaked me out enough that I left her in her Zealot hovel.
It wouldn’t surprise me if she did sell me out in the end for more Verve, but I can’t prove it. Never will, now that she’s gone.
I knew it was risky to speak to Vuk, so I didn’t, at first. I kept my ear to the ground, and I heard that the Ratel were looking for lucid dreamers. It seemed too good to be true. No matter how much I tried, though, I didn’t know how to get the Ratel’s attention.
So I spoke to Vuk.
I didn’t tell him I knew who he was. I told him only that I was the best lucid dreamer in the city, and his boss should speak to me at his earliest convenience. He said nothing and left the club early. I thought maybe he’d come back and kill me, and there would go that plan before it had even begun.
Instead, he came back a few nights later, and told me I had to prove it. We plugged into the Zeal Chairs. He’d swapped the drug with Verve without telling me. I followed all his instructions, moving through the dream world, making it do what I wanted. I liked that feeling of power, but I was also terrified of ending up like Mia.
Vuk was the one who got me into the Ratel. I started working for them, and it didn’t take me long to become a dreamsifter in the Verve lounge. I met Ensi. One thing led to another. The closer I kept to him, the sooner I could learn secrets. How had the Ratel found Adam? How was Mana-ma linked to it all?
Eventually, I realized the best way to find out would be to speak to Vuk himself. I was going to get out of the Ratel after I did. Never go back. Go with you to China. Yeah, I knew you had that job before you told me. Saw the letter on the wallscreen at your place while you were in the bathroom. I peeked. Sorry. If I went, I thought I’d change my name, change my face again. I thought it’d be enough. I don’t think it would have been, really. I can be so damn dim sometimes.
So I went to Zenith that night as usual. I’d met Leylani for coffee the day before and given her something that would make her a bit sick. Nothing to harm the baby or anything (I figured out she was pregnant, with all the running to the bathroom she did), but enough that she wouldn’t be able to come in to work. I cozied up to Sal, saying I’d cover for Leylani that night. And I did. Vuk was in with a group of people. He didn’t notice me any more than usual. He knew I worked for the Ratel, but otherwise we didn’t interact. He was sad, wishing Leylani was there.
Eventually, most of the other partiers left, going to the main bar, and I managed to catch him.
“Adam.”
He flinched. “Come again?”
“Adam, it’s me. Tila. From the Hearth. I know I look a little different, but it’s me.”
He shook his head, as though batting away flies. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I moved closer. “You do. Some part of you remembers. Taema and Tila. T-and-T. We came to visit you. We brought green grapes.”
His face twitched. His body shook. It was like he was having a war with himself. I stayed close, keeping my eyes on him.
He fell down on his knees, his hands rising to his temples. His mouth opened in a horrible, silent screa
m. I went to him and clasped my hands on his wrists.
“Adam,” I said again.
At that, his entire body went rigid and he started convulsing, like he was having some sort of fit. Then he went completely limp. I thought he was dead. I wondered what would happen if someone opened the door in Zenith right then and saw him dead—they’d blame me.
Funny I worried about that then. Considering.
I pressed my fingers to his throat and he was still alive. I sat with him, holding his hand. It was his metallic one, though it felt just like cooling human flesh. I kept looking down at his face, trying to find the skinny boy I’d had a crush on in that blocky body, those different features. It really drove home how completely someone can change.
After a while he started groaning. I waited for him to wake up, and when he did and saw my face, he started crying. “Tila,” he said. “I remember you.”
“Hi, Adam,” I said.
He really looked at me and his eyes popped. “Where’s your sister?”
“They separated us.”
I started to say something else, but his body devolved into spasms again. “Adam?” I asked, scared.
Spittle began flying from his mouth, and I really thought he was going to die.
When he could speak again, he clasped my hand. “I’m going to lose it, to go back to who I am now. I’ll want to kill you. I’ll think you’re a threat.” He clutched me closer. “When I go back, I’ll have to tell him everything. About you, about your sister. I won’t be able to stop it.” Another shudder. “It’s who he made me to be.”
His eyes rolled up in his head. His eyes focused on me. Sharpened. “You’re a threat.”
I scrambled back, knocking over a bunch of the glasses and breaking them. Adam-turned-Vuk stood up and started coming for me. He took out a knife from his inner jacket pocket. I picked up a broken shard of glass but I knew, I knew it wouldn’t do a damn thing.
Adam-turned-Vuk’s face was twisted with pain. “I don’t want to do this, Tila. I don’t want to. I’m tired. I don’t want to go back to the man who made me into this.” Every word was a struggle.