True Born

by L. E. Sterling

  “Who?” Margot halts midway while pulling on a stocking, looking back at me through the mirror. Her excitement zings through my veins like soda pop. I inhale sharply, hoping my distraction over the stranger doesn’t show.

  “You know.”

  “Father? He won’t even notice I’m gone.”

  “Not Father.” I exhale in relief, promptly changing the subject. “Though Shane is going to tattle on you if you keep this up, and you heard what Father said. I reckon we’ll have to suck up to his mysterious business partner. I mean him.”

  Margot laughs and the sound—deep, pealing bells—is almost enough for me to shake off my feeling of dread. She hooks a tag of her hair behind a perfect, shell-like ear, showing off the diamond stud earrings she’s wearing. A very Big Deal Date, then. Margot’s mouth flattens into a hard line as disapproval drips from her voice. “We don’t even know this Nolan Storm guy. I think he’s just taking Father’s money and isn’t going to do a thing.”

  “You didn’t feel it?”

  Margot shrugs and shimmies into a tight black dress that ends mid-thigh. “Feel what?”

  Lately it’s as though Margot has built a wall between herself and all the things that make us special: our extra sense, how we touch each other’s minds with ease. It’s still there, but now Margot wants to fill it with boy intrigue, late-night getaways. Secrets she keeps from me, her other half, while I go about playing the dutiful diplomat’s daughter.

  She finishes strapping on her shoes and comes over to me. In her heels she towers over me, so her arms are too high when she hugs me. We don’t fit anymore.

  “Margot, please.”

  “It’s okay, little sister,” she whispers. Little sister. The name she calls me only when she’s going to get us both in a world of trouble.

  “No, it’s not.” I tug on her arm and force her to look at me. “Didn’t you feel it? Storm’s not… He’s not a Splicer, Margot.”

  It’s as though I’m wrestling with the bundle of impressions that have been haunting me for days, ever since I met the blond merc on the stairs. It’s the only thing that makes sense. How is it they were able to route an entire scale attack on Grayguard and survive? How is it that we never catch glimpses of them?

  Margot shrugs again. “So he’s a True Born. So?”

  “Margot, why would Father hire True Borns to protect us?”

  This gives Margot pause, but only long enough to grab a wrap and make a face. “Because he’s our father. He’s got to make an impression. I’d bet you my allowance he wrote the rule against True Borns and made everyone follow just so he could be the first to break it.”

  She has a point. Sometimes people like to gossip with us about our father’s exploits. The Ambassador of France once told us that in Europe they call our father “the Hunter,” because his instincts for getting what he wants are—how do you say?—uncanny.

  But as Margot heads down to the kitchen where she will slip out into the night with its zealots and crazies and Lasters bent on insurrection, I can’t help but think that our father would never accept help from a True Born, not even the paid kind. Lukas Fox hates True Borns with a passion he reserves for those who have more power and money than him. Secretly I think True Borns are the only thing our father is actually afraid of, something too far outside his control.

  That is, unless there is something to be very, very concerned about.

  And as Margot disappears with a silent whoosh of the door, I have this crazy feeling I can’t shake: that somehow my sister and I are at the root of a vast secret that blooms and blooms under the cover of night.

  Chapter Four

  The grandfather clock in the hall chimes ten o’clock. It’s a lousy day, gray and raining on and off. The house is silent. I sit at the large wooden table by myself and eat half a grapefruit, a delicacy of the rich. Mother and Father are gone without any word, and without any word on when they’ll be back. “On business,” Shane tells me, twisting his hands anxiously. I mentally translate: something bad is happening, and we’re not supposed to know.

  Margot is also not at home. Shane has the sneaking suspicion that she wasn’t at home all last night. He’d be right. Every few minutes I hug myself and stare at my plate, and wonder what has happened to my sister.

  The night had been one long erotic dream, images and sensations tugging at me as I tangled with my sheets. I felt sick over them, wanted to shut my body down against the treacherous feelings, so it wasn’t until almost morning that I finally dropped off into a deep, dark sleep.

  And when I awoke, my sister had vanished from me.

  It was like going suddenly deaf and dumb. My hands shook as I quickly showered and dressed, then had to dress myself again as I discovered I’d put most of my clothes on backward or inside out. I kept poking at our bond, hoping to bring Margot’s awareness back. It remained tied to me like a lifeless tree branch, but nothing moved. As deserted as the house I found myself in.

  By the time I feel the first stirrings of life creep back to me it’s a little after three in the afternoon. Margot is woozy, disoriented. Bright flashes erupt behind my eyes. I feel her throat burn as she throws up again and again, her stomach sick and empty. Another hour passes before she’s somewhere back to normal, though a powerful sense of wrong still overwhelms me.

  A little before five the phone rings. I dive for it on the first ring, certain who’s on the other end.

  “Lucy?”

  “Margot, where are you?”

  “Hey, little sis. Are Mom and Dad mad?”

  I pause. “Are you all right?” Her voice doesn’t even tremble. Then again, she was always the better actress than I.

  “Hey, I’ve just been out partying with some friends. But listen, little sister. I forgot to tell you before I went out yesterday. Dad wanted us to go to the Clinic for another round of Protocols. Something about the last ones being duds. I’ll meet you there, okay?”

  “Margot, are you there now? Who’s with you? Where are you?”

  “Gotta dash, little sis. Gonna catch a few hours of sleep now. See you in a couple hours.”

  “Margot!” I yell. But it’s too late. The line is dead.

  I run up to my bedroom. The ultra slim phone is where I hid it, under the pillow. The number dials as I speed down the stairs. It picks up with a click. I know someone is there, but all they do is listen.

  “Hello?” I grab a coat and pull open the front door. For a moment I simply stand there on the threshold and wonder what has happened to the day. The air is a blinding gold white, turning the streets hazy and strange. These days, when it isn’t raining and cloudy, it’s like this, as though someone has pulled a veil over the sky.

  “Hello?” I say again. “You know who this is, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” a voice on the other end confirms. It’s a woman’s voice, deep and clear. Maybe the same woman who accompanied Storm? I don’t know as I never heard her speak.

  “My sister is in trouble. Did she call? I think someone’s holding her and been doing things to her. I need…I need...” I stumble over the words and bite my lip to hold back tears.

  The voice on the phone remains coolly professional. “Where are you?”

  “I’m leaving my house now. I’ve got to get to her.”

  “Stay where you are. We’re on our way.”

  “It will be too late,” I nearly yell into the phone as I slip through the locked door beside the wrought iron gate. “They’re expecting me at the Clinic.”

  “Lucy,” the voice is insistent, but by then I’ve pocketed the phone and am making my way through the eerie white streets.

  As I thread my way on foot to the Splicer Clinic a good twenty blocks away, I have time to gather fleeting impressions of a city gone to ruin. I reckon the rabble has been busy. On quieter side streets, cars are parked one on top of another like tin can apartment blocks. I can’t tell what holds them together, or what prevents them from collapsing from the weight, but at some corners they’re st
acked four high. Occasionally I see a head peep out from one of the car windows. Dirty hair, streaked faces. Most just kids. I wonder to myself why so many people are sleeping in cars when there are hundreds of apartments and houses unoccupied. But then I recall the gaunt, hungry look of the boy I saw the other day. And I think about our father. Would he let people squat in one of his buildings? No, he’d blow it up before he’d let that happen.

  The light begins to fade as I walk. Bleached of its gold, the sky turns the color of bones. Old Victorian row houses sit chock a block on streets lined with tree trunks. “This used to be a good neighborhood when I was a girl,” our mother told us with a derisive sigh. Most of the trees have been torn down for fires. It’s only the people who can afford to guard their trees who still have any shade. Every few buildings the windows are blown out, making the stores look curiously blind. Sometimes there is a string of hollowed-out husks, where the buildings burned and burned and there was no one to stop the fire.

  The farther I go the more people turn their hungry eyes on me. I shouldn’t have left the way I did. I should have at least left Shane a note. But as I hurry on, Margot’s fear bounces around inside of me, thickening until there’s no room for anything else.

  I’m so lost in thought that at first I don’t notice the heavy pair of boots treading behind me. Thud-clack. Thud-clack. I pick up the pace and turn onto a busier street, one where the buildings are more intact. Even here I see signs of the rabble. Evolve or Die. It’s written everywhere: sidewalks, bus stops, shelters. Abandoned windows. Store fronts that still have businesses—and people to run them. Heart in my throat, I turn again.

  A figure appears from behind a corner. I recognize the skinny boy, the preacher’s boy. Bones jut from his collar and face like all the fat has been sucked out from under his skin.

  He glares at me as I pass, then falls in behind me, his steps light as a bird’s and mixing in with the heavier tread. Panicking, I dart across the street and head for a store that I think is open. I don’t notice until it’s too late that just past the slightly ajar door shelves and boxes have been thrown all over the place. I turn another corner and end up in a small alley. I can’t see anyone behind me and am about to hide when both of my followers appear. The boy says something to the heavyset man beside him. I get my first real glimpse of the other: a short man but thick as a house. His neck bulges from under a torn and dirty orange vest. They see I’m alone and advance on me. I scream and run as fast as I can toward the end of the alley as the two rush me. I’m nearly at the end, and nearly in their grasp, when a black van pulls up in front of me.

  A side door opens and out slides a tall, thin woman with a black Mohawk. She’s in a sort of skintight suit, something that looks like the texture of skin under a microscope, patterned in white, black, beige, and gray. Her face is all angles, eyes tilted strangely in her striking brown face. I skid to a halt. As do the men behind me.

  “Hey, there you are,” she chirrups in a friendly voice. She spares only the slightest glance for me before turning hard eyes toward the men in the alley. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” she says mildly.

  The boy stays where he is, but the man with the bulging neck pushes on, sucking at a crooked row of discolored teeth. “I like ’em small enough to use for toothpicks.”

  “That’s fortunate.” She bares her teeth at the bruiser, perfect rows of fangs, and a minute later I see a tail, long and ending in wisps of hair, swish angrily from her backside. Her eyes are dark pits of rage as she stalks forward and pushes me behind her.

  A hand clamps over my shoulder. I scream and a second hand comes over my mouth, stifling it. The hands hook me back until I’m looking up into a pair of perfect indigo blue eyes.

  My heart stutters and skips. He looks leaner in this light, as though he’s hungry. A predatory light fills his eyes. He doesn’t say anything, just looks me over as though thoroughly assessing me. Removing his hand from my shoulder, where it burns like a brand, he puts a finger to his lips. I nod, and he lowers his hand, only to drag me into the back seat of the vehicle.

  “She’s not happy unless she’s showing off.” He nods toward the woman before closing the sliding door and locking it.

  I peel my eyes away from Storm’s man to watch through the tinted windows as the woman’s lithe form stalks the bruiser. I’m glad when I see the boy slink off into the emptying dark of the alleyway. At least one of them is smart enough to know when the game is over.

  Mohawk kicks, her roundhouse so fast it’s a blur of color as it connects with Bruiser’s face and staggers him back. Just one punch, then she lunges at his neck. Bruiser screams, a high-pitched whine that fades as his jugular rips.

  The woman leaps away as the big man crumples. Blood splatters across her face and drips from her chin. She cracks her neck and walks back to the vehicle like she hasn’t a care in the world, although I think I catch her studying every shadow in the alleyway.

  Somehow they found me. Found me, rescued me. Even killed for me.

  “That’s twice now I’ve saved you.”

  I stare at the blond smiling smugly in the darkness of the back seat. Anger buzzes through me. “Seems to me that she saved me.” I nod to the woman who climbs into the driver’s seat and flicks the ignition. “And the first time we met you nearly killed me,” I toss back breezily, telegraphing to the blond man that I am not pleased about his behavior at Grayguard. He could have identified himself. Why did he let me embarrass myself, going on as if he was common rabble, when he was in essence spying on us?

  Mohawk twists in her seat and utters a strange, braying laugh. “Can’t help but like this one,” she says. “Hold on, chickies, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

  The beautiful blond man’s eyes narrow at me. He leans over and scoops the seat belt over my chest as I try to fend off his hands. He’s too close, too close. My brain misfires as his hair brushes my face.

  “I can do it myself,” I argue.

  But the man just raises his face, inches away, so close I can see a tiny scar by his mouth. Smiles wickedly. “I’m sure you can. But like you say, your safety is of the utmost importance, your Highness.”

  Mohawk puts the vehicle in gear and roars the engine, then peels out of the alleyway as though it’s on fire. The van lurches sickeningly as we roll over the thick body of the man who’d chased me, and my stomach lurches along with it.

  But it seems I’m not the only one who takes issue. “Did you have to do that?” argues the merc beside me.

  Mohawk barely spares us a glance as she cheerfully replies, “Yep.”

  Chapter Five

  “We need to get my sister!” I argue with the rumpled blond slouching against the wall. If I weren’t two seconds from hysterical, I’d probably still be drooling over him. Half bathed in shadow, his face looks like a sculpture. Besides the worn pants that fit his slim body like a second skin, he’s got on an old moss-green shirt with “Girls are fun” scribbled on the front in neon pink.

  Jared. On the drive over the Mohawk woman had called him Jared. Now I have a name. For a second I can’t help but stare. He stares back. “You need to calm down. You know where she is, right?” I nod. “Then no problem, right?” The cold of the room, decorated with metal benches and equipment, doesn’t seem to bother my captor in the least. “Hey now. It’s Lucy, right?” A blond curl flips over one eye, and he tosses it back. Storm’s man saunters over to me, thumbs hooked into the loops of his pants. If I weren’t spitting mad and sulking, I might be swooning, although his personality has all the charm of the rabble. Which is to say, none at all. “Storm’s on it. You really do need to get a grip.”

  I turn on him. “It’s Jared, right?” His small smile tells me he doesn’t get the sarcasm. “Well, Jared, why don’t I let you in on a secret. I’m not some little girl you can park in your…science lab or whatever this is.” I wave my arms at the gleaming benches. “And my sister is in real trouble. So if you aren’t going to produce Mr. Storm r
ight now, I’m going to walk out that door. Right after I throw you through it.”

  His head tips back as he laughs, knees bending like he can’t stand up. I’m still glaring at his esophagus and wishing I had a knife when Mr. Storm himself breezes through the steel door.

  “Lucy, sorry to have kept you waiting.” He moves stealthily, every step measured and sure. I try to size him up but find I can’t. It’s as though he cast a net around himself and ties up all the air so you can’t really see him. But then he smiles, a genuine smile, warm and gentle at the same time. “Come with me,” he tells me, nodding only slightly at Jared as he pivots and marches out of the room. I follow, Jared’s presence behind me poking me into a hot ball of nerves.

  Storm leads me through winding hallways, some lit by lights I can’t see, others long and broad and filled with hazy light coming in through floor-to-ceiling glass windows. I’m lost after the first turn, and by the time we enter an office with a living room set, I’m ready to sit down. My way in was much easier: Jared had simply slipped a knotted handkerchief over my eyes, right before he picked me up and carried me out of the car, whispering in my ear, “No peeking.” I can still feel the hot band of his hands beneath my knees and back as he carried me into the cold metal room and dumped me on my feet.

  Storm gestures for me to sit on the long, cream leather sofa, the soft kind that aren’t made anymore. A woman with thick-framed black glasses in an olive green business suit brings in a tray with a pitcher of water and a coffee urn. Her hair is caught up in a tight, smooth bun, but I recognize the glimmer in her eyes. She’s only pretending to be a secretary, I think to myself. She doesn’t look at me, not even once, and I wonder what she’s doing for Storm.

  “Thank you, Alma,” he dismisses her and sits. Even on the extra-large couch he’s too big. He seems to gobble up all the air. And yet, I can’t help but be electrifyingly aware of the blond slouching against the wall.