True Born

by L. E. Sterling

  It’s not that simple, I want to scream at him. I’d be giving up my life. My family. My friends. The entire Upper Circle. Yet, as my pulse jumps and I stare at the gore-covered True Born before me, I suddenly understand that old life was already gone. Whatever deal our father has made with Resnikov, it doesn’t include us continuing our cozy life in Dominion City.

  More than that: as the rain and smoke flatten my pretty dress and wash over the hot bruises on my face, for the first time in my life it occurs to me that I no longer want to be dictated by duty. I want to forge my own life. And if I had a choice? a quiet voice inside me asks. What life would I choose? Who and what would I choose to be?

  And then I don’t hesitate. I place my fingers, slim and slight, in Jared’s large, rain-washed hand. I expect him to lead me away, but instead he pulls me up into his arms. I feel his chest vibrate with the long, deep breath he takes, as though he’s been starved of oxygen. He holds me tighter, arms drawing me close, mouth hovering over my skin, before murmuring in my ear, “Hang on.”

  We follow Storm out the gate. Jared snarls with long canines every few seconds. The Lasters pull back, forming a corridor, suddenly quiet. I wait for a bomb or whatever it is they’ll pull next, but nothing happens. Nothing happens. Even if I wasn’t tipped off by the hopeful glances they throw my way, I can feel it, an air of satisfaction swirling through their ragged ranks. Guests are still flying into their cars. I take a last look back at the window that was my bedroom. A tendril of green pokes its way through the gap, aiming for the sky.

  My parents and sister have vanished, along with the mysterious Resnikov. At least Margot is alive. Wherever she is she has access to her hands—she pinches her thigh, hard enough to draw blood then rubs it, a silent goodbye. I can’t reach my leg to pat the stinging flesh. Wouldn’t want to. The cord between us stretches, golden and fragile, until it becomes a thin, silent string.

  My eyes glaze over until I spy the witch—no, the witch’s daughter, I remind myself—pull herself out from behind a line of cars reflecting red light in the gloom. She sets out at a stroll, a smile tugging at her lips. A commotion to my left catches my eye, and I watch as a massive man covered head to toe in marmalade fur tosses Lasters aside like they’re garbage bags. He’s a spitting angry, man-sized cat, ears flattened against his head under a black bolo hat. Cat man has paired his hat with a white undershirt, black leather pants, and rounds of ammo lacing his shoulders and torso. His feet, marmalade paws ending in four-inch claws, are bare.

  “There you are,” he says in a whisky voice to the witch’s daughter. Cat man pulls out a cigar and sticks it between two sharpened cat teeth. His fingers rummage through pockets.

  “Don’t smoke those here, Carl,” the blond woman returns in a tired voice. “They’ve gone and set off bombs.”

  Cat man grumbles but shoves the cigar back behind his ear as he follows her thin figure through the parted crowds. Father Wes is nowhere to be seen, although I suspect he’s too smart to have been shot.

  Storm must be thinking the same thing. He stops in the middle of the crowd, which has formed a healthy gap around him. Dirty, dark-streaked, and hungry faces stretch as far as the eye can see. How many are here now? Hundreds, maybe thousands. Storm stamps one foot. The ground shimmies and booms. His antlers angle sideways as he glares at the crowd.

  “Where is he?” his voice shakes the air. Pin quiet settles through the rabble until, far in the distance, the wail of a siren rises over the city. Our father has gone and called in the fire department. It will cost him a fortune. “Where is he?” Storm booms again. The Lasters shift uneasily but no one says a word. “Fine,” he spits. “Tell him Nolan Storm has just taken Dominion for his own. Tell him,” he says with a feral grin, “I’m coming for the man who would steal little girls.”

  The Lasters shrink back even more, happy looks wiped from their faces, and we walk off into the deepening gloom of twilight. No one looks particularly bothered about Father Wes’s morality. The Lasters stretch all the way to Mercy, two streets away. There hasn’t been a congregation so large since the Plague first started eating through our ranks. Whatever else can be said about the man who’d steal little girls, Father Wes inspires devotion in his followers.

  We keep walking, though, a tribe of dark angels amidst the ruined people. No one bothers us. And we don’t bother them as they shuffle closer to my parents’ wrecked house.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The air steams with rain as we head toward the rendezvous point. “What happened to Richardson?” I croak in Jared’s ear.

  “I killed him.”

  I punch Jared’s shoulder, but it’s a weak and pathetic attempt, even for me. “You shouldn’t have done that. We needed him for information.” It should concern me, how quickly I have become immune to Jared’s violence. How quickly I have become a plotter in this giant game. I wonder what a lifetime of exposure would do to a person, what they turn into.

  “I know.” He looks down at me, a trace of regret in his eyes. But behind the nugget of remorse lies something else: he’s happy he got to be the one to do it. “I’m glad I got to kill the other guy, too,” he says as though he’s read my mind. His smile doesn’t last long as he takes in the rapid swelling of my eye. Soon I reckon I won’t be able to open it. Soon, I reckon, I won’t care.

  “They still took my sister,” I whisper.

  Jared’s arms tighten around me as we near the big black car. “I know,” he tells me with real sadness.

  Those few words are all it takes to make it real. I hold in a sob as Jared places me carefully in the back seat and slides in beside me. Just like old times, I hear myself think. Except it isn’t. There’s no rescued Margot beside me when Jared pulls me close to his body. His hand riffles through my hair, and I hear his indrawn breath as he methodically recounts the events of the night.

  Did I make the right choice?

  The front door opens, and Mohawk slides into the driver’s seat.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Jared growls.

  Mohawk snorts. “You’re welcome, Grumpy. I love driving your snippy ass around.”

  “Where’s Storm?” I don’t ask about the witch’s daughter or the cat man. I simply don’t have the energy.

  Mohawk turns to give me a saucy smile. “Antlers and cars don’t mix.”

  For the rest of the drive back to Storm’s, we’re silent. The rest of Dominion is empty, as though someone had opened some doors and every citizen fled. A body slumps against a tired building, but that’s it: no mercs or bodyguards, no fancy Oldworld cars riding around, not a single living Laster. But on the walls are the markings they have left behind: two circles, joined in the center. And the bloody red letters accompanying their hieroglyphics.

  Evolve or die.

  ...

  Jared carries me into the bedroom I’m beginning to think of as mine. He gently strips off my high-heeled shoes and pulls one of his oversized shirts over my head before unbuttoning me from my ruined dress. He pulls the pins from my hair, raking his fingers through it, and warms up a washcloth for me to wipe my face. By then he’s slung me into the bed and has changed into a pair of sweats and a faded blue shirt. I’m too tired to fight it when he slides in next to me and curls me in close.

  We sleep through the night and half the day before Jared’s whiskers scratch my skin where he rubs against my cheek. His breath tickles strands of hair framing my cheek.

  “We need to get some ice for that eye of yours.” His voice is gravelly and deep. I try to look at him but one of my eyes isn’t quite cooperating. I push back an inch.

  “I reckon I look like hell warmed over.” His answering chuckle confirms my suspicions, but I still don’t move. Even as he gently brushes strands of hair away from my face. “What do I do?” I whisper. I’m not certain what it is I’m even asking about. Am I asking about Storm, or Margot? Or am I asking about something deeper, more mysterious—like the thing scratching between myself and the wild man beside me
?

  Jared’s fingers freeze on my face as though I’ve uttered magic words. I think he’s about to roll out of bed and tell me we’ll speak with Storm. But he surprises me. He takes my chin in his hand and stares deeply into my eyes.

  “I don’t know,” he confesses. His fingers trail over my ears, down the back of my neck where he tangles with my hair. “I’m like an addict,” he says without humor. “All it took was one look, one scent, and you were hardwired into me.”

  “You don’t even know me,” I say. At least half the time I am convinced he hates my guts. And the other half? I suspect I hate his.

  His smile is rueful. “I guess not in the traditional sense. But”—his fingers trail down my shoulder, rousing my skin as he brushes my back—“scents don’t lie. Not like people do. Not that it matters.” He sighs. His heat curls up inside me.

  “Why?”

  “It’s my job to protect you.” His face is bathed in shadows and stubble as he cracks a serious blue eye at me.

  Against the sinking pool of disappointment in my belly I return, “I don’t know what that means.”

  He shrugs, but I can see shadows creep into his eyes. “You come first. You’ll always be first,” he tells me fervently.

  I want to unravel every thread he’s just laid bare, but everything beats urgently inside me. And I need answers. I need a plan.

  “Jared.” My hand splays across his chest. I can feel his heart beating wildly under my hand, pulsing under the muscles of his chest. “Jared,” I say again, wetting my cracked lips. “The woman with the white eyes said my blood is different. She didn’t say it exactly, but she made it seem like it can do something to the Plague. But Dorian told me my blood was different from Margot’s—our blood is different.” My mind leaps in horror from one realization to the next. “They were going to kidnap me, too. I think whatever they wanted us for, they needed me, too. I need to get her back.”

  His warm, calloused hand closes over mine. “I told you I’d help you.”

  And in that moment I know everything I need to know.

  ...

  “Good, you’re up.” Storm breezes into the kitchen where I’m busy sucking up a bowl of cereal while watching the NewsFeed. I look up. He looks rested, younger than before, if possible.

  “Senator and Mary Kain are still missing,” I tell him. The headlines all scream about the missing Senator and his wife. The strangeness surrounding their unexpected departure. Were they killed during the bombing or were they ripped apart by the Lasters?

  My own family does not appear in the NewsFeed. Nor do the thousands of Lasters who stormed the gate, the dozens that were killed. They have simply vanished like the genetic sequences that burn their lives away. And my own parents? Have they gone away with Margot and Resnikov? Will they watch over her? Whatever their plans are, I reckon they’ve just begun to hatch.

  My spoon clatters in the bowl as Jared glides into the kitchen, looking cool and relaxed and showing too much skin in his boxer shorts and shirt.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “You know?” My attention diverts back to Storm. “What happened to them?”

  “I suspect Resnikov happened.”

  My brain short-circuits. “What does that mean? Were they in on everything—the protocols? Did they—”

  Storm’s hands smack down on the counter like hammers. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Why don’t you come and speak to me in my office when you’re through here?”

  “I’m coming, too.” Jared gives Storm and me his biggest killer cat grin.

  “I see,” Storm says thoughtfully as he starts out the opposite door toward his office.

  “Storm, wait,” I say, getting clumsily to my feet. He turns and waits for me, patience stamped into every feature. “Did you—do you know about us? About Margot and me?”

  His head tilts to the side, studying me. There’s no apology in his gray eyes, no sense of remorse as he tells me, “I’ve had suspicions.”

  “Suspicions.”

  “There are a lot of players on the board, a lot of people who seem to want to get their hands on your blood. As you know, big money runs the Splicer Clinics. I’ve suspected for a while that there’s something different about you girls. But do I know exactly what you are? What your blood is capable of?” Storm shakes a fiery head. “Not in the least.”

  “Did you know our father was going to sell us?”

  “No.” The words are just that: flat, emotionless.

  “Is she—I mean, the witch’s daughter. Is she coming back? I’d like to talk to her.”

  He nods, a spark lighting his eyes. “As a matter of fact, she and Carl will be here in about”—he consults his wristwatch—“half an hour.”

  I nod back, glad there will be some lead, however fragile, to help me repair the stretched cord between my sister and me. There are too many things to repair, I realize as Jared tugs me back to the breakfast bar. My father and mother, wherever they might be. But first, Margot.

  When I had finally crawled out of bed that morning, it had been from a dream where the witch’s daughter watched with her sightless eyes while I sobbed and sobbed from above the city. As I cried, my tears became rain, watering the dark brown patches of urban darkness. Everywhere my tears fell tiny lights blossomed.

  When I opened my eyes, I was sure I felt Margot, tugging at me like a fish on a line. Not scared, exactly. Not angry. But some gray zone in between. Someone was stroking Margot’s arm. Softly enough, but she felt menace. In the next moment it was gone—like someone had shut off a tap.

  Like a lock and key that didn’t fit together anymore.

  I turn a hard, dazzling smile on a stunned-looking Jared. Despite everything that has happened, everything I’ve lost, I’ve good reason to smile. I have an ally, someone I can trust. Maybe more than one. And I’ve got a plan: come hell or Plague fire, I’m going to get to Russia. And once I’m there, I’m going to find out what Resnikov knows, what my parents obviously want to keep secret. And I’m going to get my sister back.

  A wash of bright green floats across Jared’s eyes as he tugs me over the threshold of the kitchen and into the hall. I have one more reason to smile, I muse as I pause.

  Today is my eighteenth birthday. And my own future has yet to be Revealed.

  About the Author

  L.E. Sterling had an early obsession with sci-fi, fantasy and romance to which she remained faithful even through an M.A. in Creative Writing and a PhD in English Literature - where she completed a thesis on magical representation. She is the author of two previous novels, the cult hit Y/A novel The Originals (under pen name L.E. Vollick), dubbed “the Catcher in the Rye of a new generation” by one reviewer, and the urban fantasy Pluto’s Gate. Originally hailing from Parry Sound, Ontario, L.E. spent most of her summers roaming across Canada in a van with her father, a hippie musician, her brothers and an occasional stray mutt - inspiring her writing career. She currently lives in Toronto, Ontario.

  Acknowledgments

  Books are universes that coalesce into beautiful worlds. I have many stars orbiting through mine. Thanks to Monica Curtis for being my perpetual first reader, Erin Churchill and Taras Grescoe for the writer’s retreat, Irwin Adam for sharing nuggets of Russian with me. I also want to thank everyone at Entangled: I owe a huge thanks to Liz Pelletier, editor extraordinaire, from whom I have learned so much. Thanks also to Melissa Montovani and Heather Riccio, the Art Department for the stunning cover, and finally, Madison Pelletier and Stacy Abrams for being such great readers. Thanks also to Raincoast Books and Fernanda Viveiros for all the support in Canada. I owe a special debt to my agent, Robert Lecker for making all this stuff happen and being a true champion. I also want to send a shout out to Melanie Windle of Glamazon Productions, whose enthusiasm and insights into these characters has helped me grow.

  But here’s where I also need to thank the legion universe of Wattpad readers for their encouragement and unflagging enthusiasm for True Born. There is absolutely
nothing better for a writer than an army of avid readers who tell you they love your characters, your world and they want more. I adore you, people. From the bottom of my heart, thank you—your passion for this story inspired me to turn what was supposed to be a novella into a trilogy and has kept me going over the bumpy parts.

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