“What have you got against the entire Upper Circle, anyway? What did we ever do to you?” I mean to tease, not provoke. But as usual, when it comes to Jared, I’ve blundered into something I don’t understand. He comes to a halt but keeps my one hand in his, his arm around my back.
His eyes glitter darkly into mine. “You ever been hungry?”
“Sure.” I shrug. “Three times a day.”
“I mean hungry. As in, a day away from dead, hungry?” I shake my head, sure I won’t like where this is headed. “I was on the streets for a few years, you know. And not in one of the gangs. The gangs don’t take True Borns. No one does.”
I’m about to protest—I don’t even know what, maybe just tell him that we’re not all bad—when Jared’s fingers fall across my lips, silencing me.
“So one day I steal from a garbage can behind this big, stately home. I’m just looking for scraps, because I know if I don’t eat soon I’m going to die, when all of a sudden there’s a gun at my head.”
Jared’s fingers come away, and I step back half an inch, as though that extra space will give me some distance from whatever horror Jared is about to reveal. “I thought they were going to kill me. So imagine my surprise when I’m taken in by the rich man of the house. He gives me clothes, a bed, a bath. He gives me all I can eat.”
He pulls me over to the couch and has me sit beside him. But for some reason he doesn’t let go of my hand and I’m glad. “His name was Peters. He offered me a job.”
Jared describes his life in the big house, the training regimen his new boss puts him through. He thought he was being trained to join the security team.
“Little did I know how men like Peters make a living. And when they brought me to the ring with that animal—”
I blink. For a moment, I think Jared has lost his mind. “What animal? What are you talking about, Jared?”
Jared rubs his jaw and grins ruefully at me. “Why am I not surprised? They trap big game animals and pair them up with True Borns who are thought to be their genetic antecedents. Then they’re forced to fight to the death. They were wrong about me. I’m no lion.”
I stare at him in shock. “You killed a lion? With your bare hands?”
“And when they run out of animals, they pit the True Borns against one another.”
I gasp. “Why didn’t you just leave?”
Jared’s laugh is ugly. “Are you really that naive?” I bristle, but say nothing as Jared continues, his tone softening as he explains. “They had guns. We didn’t. If we didn’t fight, they shot us.”
But my mind continues to rebel. “Surely that wasn’t the true Upper Circle, Jared. Upper Circlers wouldn’t do something like that.” What I mean is that those people, the people who I have grown up with and who raised me, are not capable of such horror. One look at Jared, though, and I can tell he believes my comments to be about the wealthy, as if I believe that somehow a Mercedes and a merc make a man morally superior.
Jared’s face is a bland mask as he stares back at me. “Senator Kain had a man in the ring, Lucy. I saw him there several times.”
The blood runs like ice in my veins. “It can’t be,” I say weakly, picturing the man who used to bounce me on his knee as a child. Yes, the Upper Circle has always felt fake—but never evil. “How would he not have recognized you at the party?”
“I was only fifteen,” he says, matter-of-factly. “Besides, who would have recognized the True Born killer thug wearing a well-made suit and circulating with the Uppers?”
I cover my face with my hands, more ashamed than I have words for. When I think about Jared trying to help me there, of what it must have cost him, I want to cry. All those times I’ve been angry at him for hating the Upper Circle, when by rights he should hate me, too.
“How did you get out?” I whisper.
We are interrupted by the chiming of notes, counter to the music, somewhere near the door. It’s my parents’ ring. We stare at each other as the notes sound, over and over.
Jared’s mouth is a thin line as he nods in the direction of the noise. “You’d better get that.”
I stand, shaky, and move toward the phone. As I hit the playback button my mother’s face comes on the screen, telling Margot and me to call them in the morning. A second later, Jared’s phone goes off. I watch him check his message as I let our mother’s words drift past me like smoke.
I don’t pay attention until the very end, just as my mother tells me that school is reopening.
Chapter Seventeen
They’ve told us not to call while they’re away. It’s a rule our father dreamed up one day when he was in France on a big deal, our mother was in France on a big shopping spree, and Margot wanted permission to go on a weekend trip with some of the kids from school.
Now we are expected simply to wait: to make no decisions for ourselves, to behave ourselves, but at all costs, we are not to bother them. The perfect diplomat’s daughters.
It’s a different thing altogether when we’ve been summoned to call.
“Lucy?” Our mother’s grainy image appears on the tiny screen until I unfold it to its larger, 4x5 dimensions. “Lucy!”
“Mother,” I call out and watch with fascination as the frown on Antonia Fox’s perfect face deepens. “Where are you and Father?”
“We’re away on business,” she snaps, reaching up to clasp her pearls. “I understand you’re staying at that True Born’s house. Honestly, what’s gotten into you both?”
“Mother, I can’t explain over the phone. But please, just trust me.”
Our mother cocks a hand to her hip. “You get you and your sister home, Lucinda, and I mean today. When your father gets home… Where is your sister? I want to speak with her.” She looks behind me, searching for a glimpse of my twin.
I sigh. Our mother has always considered Margot to be the better sister, owing to her popularity, her outgoing nature, and ability to get along with just about anyone. Maybe it’s because she’s a normal teenager who likes to go out and have fun. Unlike me. “Margot can’t talk right now, Mother.” Right now, Margot is somewhere in Storm’s keep taking one of her daily hour-long showers. I feel her distress as she scrubs her skin away in the scalding hot water. My skin itches sympathetically.
Our mother’s frown deepens. “What do you mean she can’t talk?”
“She’s in the shower.”
“Well. Since you’re here, the academy reopened. They called last night,” she ambles.
“Yes, I understand,” I cut her off quickly. “Tomorrow?” And when she nods I ask, “Where’s Father?”
“He’s around here somewhere.” She waves her arm. In the background I catch glimpses of rich red oriental carpet stretching like a sea to a doorway framed by dark wood paneling. A hotel dining room, five-star, I think as I size up the decor, recalling the number of conversations we’ve had while one or another of our parents sat in one of these.
“Are you planning to come home anytime soon?”
“Your father was hoping to wait until the troubles die down,” she replies airily.
“I don’t think you can afford to wait that long.”
A glint forms in our mother’s eye. “Mitch told your father the same thing just yesterday. I must say, I could hardly believe half the things he was telling Lukas. Didn’t your father warn you to be on your very best behavior?” She leans closer to the screen, as though afraid of being overheard. “We’ll be bringing your father’s business partner home soon. There had better be no more gossip floating around, Lucinda.”
“Mother,” I start. I want to ask about the Splicer Clinic, but she looks off to the right, a smile lighting her flawless skin, a twinkle in her eye for someone off screen. Someone not our father. She turns back only for a second to tell me, “Got to go now, kisses!” Then she’s gone, leaving me with a dead screen and an ache in my chest.
...
Twenty minutes later Margot hangs back while I stand before Storm. He looks calm enough as
he sits at his desk and regards us. But the fine lines above his head waver in and out with sharp blue electric sparks.
“I take it you’ve heard?”
Storm leans back in his chair and nods, an air of defeat settling around his shoulders. I don’t believe it for a second. “Of course,” he replies. “Your father was quite explicit, shall we say, with his directions last night.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, biting my lip in mortification.
Storm stands and pushes away from his desk. He has never looked larger. Or more impressive. He comes around and puts a hand on each of our shoulders. “This is not your fault, Lucy. Nor yours,” he tells Margot. “This is a difference in opinion as to the proper handling of a security detail.”
Margot twists her hands in her lap, vividly uncomfortable. “What are we going to do?”
Storm holds out his finger and whips out his phone. He presses a button. Alma’s voice fills the room.
“Yes?”
“Tell Torch and Jared to pack.”
“Certainly.”
My guts twist. “Where are Torch and Jared going?” I ask uneasily. But somehow I already know.
“I can’t let you go home without a security team. Your own guys are fine, but I want extra insurance.”
Jared? Staying in my home? My stomach lurches. “Why?”
In the blink of an eye, Storm’s horns lengthen and thicken. “Because I need to keep you safe. It’s what I do,” he says, clearly frustrated. But I’m now fairly certain that the “role” he’s referring to has nothing to do with our father’s paycheck. Nolan Storm has his own agenda.
I stare out the window, avoiding his gaze. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Lu,” Margot says. Panic rises within her like high tide.
“Margot,” I reply stubbornly.
Storm folds his fingers together. “This isn’t a negotiation, Lucy. You either go with Jared and Torch or you both stay here where I can keep you safe.”
They both stare at me, waiting. I bite the inside of my cheek, feeling blood rise to the surface. “Fine. But—just—tell them to behave. Our parents are not going to like this,” I say in frustration as I shoot over to the door.
Storm chuckles, though I don’t know what he finds so funny. “I’ll tell them. One more thing.” His voice stops us in our tracks. “I’m going to have Dorian visit you with your test results. You should expect a call in the next couple of days.”
I guess that means we’re going to get those blood tests after all.
...
Hours later I sit on the edge of my canopy bed and try my parents’ number for the fifth time. No answer, just like the first four times. I leave a message. “Mother, it’s Lucy. We’re at home now, and we’ll be heading to school tomorrow. When are you and Father coming home?” I’ve gotten just the last word out when the recording cuts me off and the line goes dead.
I stare around me, holding back what I think are childish tears. The room no longer feels like it’s mine, nor does the house. It feels like strangers live here, strangers that bear no relation to the sudden twists and turns our lives have been taking. The painting on the wall of the black cat toying with a red string; the lovely antique china doll on the display shelf; the tiny glass globe hanging from the ceiling, an exact match to the one hanging in Margot’s room: were these ever truly mine? The photo on my bedside table of my twin and me is the only thing I recognize, and even that seems wrong. In the picture, Margot wraps an arm around my neck. Her smile is bright, beautiful, confident. Free of shadows. My own smile is smaller, more uncertain, my eyes shadowed by doubts.
I keep hoping things—me—will snap back into place once we’re a bit more settled, but I have the sneaking suspicion they never will. Even if we find out what we are, we’ve already learned we’re not the same as everyone else.
I get up to find Jared, who I discover in the opulent living room with its tall mahogany grandfather clock presiding over the wide chintz couch covered in bright sprigs of poppies and wingback chairs meant to relax kings and presidents. Jared doesn’t look very relaxed, although he’s in his typical uniform: loose, worn blue trousers, a bright red and white plaid button-up over a white shirt with a 3-D dinosaur mouth roaring at anyone who walks by. His tousled hair looks like he hasn’t owned a comb since before the Plague.
Jared breaks off what looks like an earnest conversation with Fritz as I walk in. “Well?” he asks in a clipped military voice. I shake my head. “You’re kidding, right?”
I trade understanding glances with Fritz. “Well,” Fritz adds gruffly. “I’m sure zey are very busy. I haff got to get back to ze gate tower. Thanks for the tips, Jared.” He says this with such sincerity, I can’t help wonder what tips Jared could give an ex-merc with over twenty years of combat experience. As Fritz’s flattop disappears through the wide arch separating the living room from the main entrance, I busy myself examining the figurines in our mother’s display cabinet.
There is nothing innocent in the frozen, painted figurines. If anything, they remind me of my family: so arranged and superficial, so brittle, they’ll crack with a glance. A little shepherd sits on a bench playing a flute; a shepherdess in a pink frock and a crook with an oversized pink bow leads home a tiny ceramic lamb. Our mother inherited these from her great-grandmother, she’s fond of telling us. And one day they will belong to us, a legacy to pass down to our daughters. Unless, that is, I have launched each of their pretty, painted faces at Jared’s head.
I have tuned out Jared so successfully I don’t hear a word he says. “Are you listening to me?”
“Pardon?”
“I said, did you speak to your father?”
“No, he wasn’t there.”
Jared runs a frustrated hand through his hair. It stands at attention as he glowers at me. The second he’d set foot in my home Jared had been in the foulest of moods. Gone was the boy who comforted me, danced with me. Now he treats me like the enemy. “Did you even speak with your mother?”
“I told you I didn’t.”
“Well pardon me for not being sure we speak the same language, Princess.”
It’s just this small slight that makes me snap. I pull myself up and in my haughtiest, diplomat’s daughter voice look down my nose at him. “I may be a lot of things, Jared, but one thing I’m not is a liar.”
“Okay. Fine. So we’ll just—”
“No, not fine.” I poke my finger at his chest, all the pent-up frustration and anger and fear tumbling out at once. “I will not be disparaged any further, Jared True Born. If you don’t have anything nice to say to me, stop talking.”
He pauses for a long second before looking at me from beneath his eyelashes. A slight smile ghosts his mouth. “Jared True Born, huh?”
“Well.” I step back. “No one has seen to proprieties and given me your last name.”
The air between us crackles with tension as he continues to look down at me, and I glare at his chest. “I guess it hasn’t really mattered since we’re just the hired guns.”
“Do not start—”
“All right, fine. Sorry.” I can see how much it hurts for him to say the word. “We’ll have to go to Plan B.”
I raise an eyebrow. “And that is?”
“Same as Plan A. You’re stuck with us until they get back.”
“Fantastic,” I grumble, throwing my hands up in the air. My fingers itch for a figurine.
“Disparaged, huh?” He just about chuckles the word, so softly I think I’ve imagined it.
“Pardon?”
“Nothing, Princess,” he says, moving toward me. I back up a step, but I’m far too slow for his True Born reflexes. He’s already leaning down to my ear, murmuring, “It’s Price,” before wheeling around and walking out the door.
Chapter Eighteen
The night before the school reopens I don’t sleep for dreams: long, rolling seas of dreams that leave me shivering in fear. Through the decaying streets of Dominion sweeps
a tidal wave. It leaves a crimson wake littered with body parts. Preacher man perches on top of a car, laughing at me. I stand fixed inside the gates of my home, flagged by Jared on one side, Nolan Storm on the other. Jared Price, my subconscious adds. Margot is alone again, framed inside her window like a ghost who can’t come out to play. I shiver and stare at her hand, trapped and fluttering against the glass like a pale moth.
A woman with large, milky white eyes, coated with the cataracts of the old and sick, walks up to the gate. She’s young, I reckon, only a few years older than me. Ash blond tresses flutter down to her waist. The pale skin of her cheeks ends in a pointed, pixie-like chin. She’s slender to the point of skinny; curveless like a boy, accented by a skin-tight black catsuit. Her sightless eyes are intent, watchful, as she raises one hand and reaches for the locked gate. It falls open at her touch. Her voice flows through my head. I see the threads. She reaches for something as she steps through and slowly, calmly walks toward us. No, not a thing – a who.
...
Something has changed. The school pretends it’s the same: the same dented steel lockers, the same slick marbled floors, the same classroom smells of old wood and burning dust. Still, something is off.
You can’t tell there was an attack. They do too good a job of vacuuming over the violence. But it’s there, like a stain in the air. Some of the classrooms are locked, their doors battered and scarred. The shattered glass has been replaced and all traces of the explosions, the bullet holes, have been swept and washed away.
Still, the school feels haunted. It’s been an academy for over two hundred years, standing for well over four, but this is the first time I have felt its ghost.
Margot sends me a heated stare from the desk beside mine. She pinches her thigh and I rub, nodding slightly. When the bell rings, Margot lingers at the door while I approach Mr. Hobart, our Genomics instructor. Laugh lines crease his face as he turns to me. “What can I do for you, Lucy?”
This is the next important step in my plan. I’ve been practicing my question for the past hour, but now it rushes out in a tangled mess. “Is it even possible—I mean, how could a genetic sequence jump so far back into its history that it practically evolves? I mean—that makes no sense, does it?”
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