by JA Huss
My chest hitches as the tears build. “No, you don’t. You’re going to leave me.”
He stays silent and this is when it all becomes real for me. He’s leaving. I’m not sure where he’s going or how it will happen, but he’s leaving. He’s not staying, there’s no happy ending for me.
“Junco, listen—”
“No,” I say back quickly. “I’m tired of listening to all the bad things people want to tell me. I’m done listening. I wish I’d never come out of the Pillar. I wish I was dead. I wish someone would slice me into little bits and make it all go away. I wish my parents had killed me as a child. I wish I’d just let Matthew do it on the sniper range. I wish—”
“I wish I could stay, Junco.”
I say nothing. It’s the final straw for me. To have Tier admit that he’s leaving and there’s no way to stop him is the end of my sanity. I pull away from him and slide over to the wall.
“When I was a boy I lived in the clutch with Ashur.”
My interest picks up with this sentence.
“It was a small clutch, just us.” His chest shakes a little with a small laugh. “We’re twins, did ya know that?”
“I could sorta tell. You know, since you actually look almost identical.”
“Yeah, but not enough to be mistaken for one another, though, right? Not twins like that. We’re twins in that we’re Lucan’s made sons.”
“What’s that mean?” I ask with a sniffle to try to get my nose under control.
“We were engineered by Gib. One of many warriors who are made special. But I was the one picked out of the womb. Me. Ashur was chosen for something else, I’m not sure what. He has no idea what I’m doing here, I have no idea what he’s doing. Lucan makes it that way on purpose, just in case the High Order comes and tries to see our minds.”
He stops to let me think about this for a few seconds.
“But I’ve always known, Junco. I was never lied to, or forced, or asked to give more than I was willing. I’ve always been willing. This is my one true purpose, to save Lucan’s life, to end his punishment cycle, and to give this world a second chance once it’s all said and done. And I never knew that you’d be so… so… well, lovable. I’ve had”—he stops to think of a word—“girls. I’ve had that, but I’ve never had anything like you. I never even knew these feelings were possible. I love my brothers, and I miss Braun so much it hurts me inside to think about him. So I suppose that’s the closest I’ve come. But when you walked away from me out there in the mountains, I thought I died, Junco. That’s how much it hurt to watch you disappear. And then I had this little spark of hope, for the briefest of moments when Arel said you dissipated Inanna. I thought, She’s coming back, it’ll be OK.”
I swallow and then turn to face him. His eyes are a little bit watery and his mouth is just one long frown. I reach out and touch his lips and then lift my eyes to meet his. “I’m sorry,” I whisper softly.
“I know how you feel, Junco. Because that’s how I felt when you left. I understand that it hurts so much you just want to lie down and die.” He stops again and his eyes dart back and forth between mine. “But you just have to trust that Lucan knows what’s best.”
I turn away angry. “Fuck Lucan. He’s only out for himself. He used me, he’s using you!” I turn back. “He’s using us, Tier.”
Tier nods. “Yes, Junco. He is.”
I whimper a little as the tears build up so fast they are rolling down my cheeks before I can stop them. “Then why are we doing this?”
“Because I gave him permission, Junco. He’s planned for this day for thousands of years. He’s got an end beyond the ending in mind and you just have to have faith.”
“But that end beyond doesn’t include you?”
Tier shakes his head. “No, darlin’. It doesn’t.”
“Why?” I whine. “Why do you do it then?”
“Because Junco, there are more important things in this universe than me.”
“No,” I say forcefully. “No, not to me there aren’t. There’s just you.” He stays silent and it hurts me that he doesn’t feel the same way.
“I do feel the same way, Junco. I do. But yer not listening. Faith, darlin’. You have no faith in him.”
“No, I don’t! How can I trust anyone? I still have no idea what I’m supposed to do! You guys are still hiding things.”
His mouth grimaces for just the smallest of moments and that’s when I know for sure. “I’m not gonna do it, Tier. I’m not gonna take that final order.”
He sighs, but his gaze never wavers from me. “Then you will end this world, Junco. You will kill all these humans who might otherwise live. You will hurt Lucan beyond comprehension, you will—”
“But why is he more important than us?”
“He’s not, we’re all equally important, but some of us have jobs to do, Junco. And yer one of them. I’m one of them. We’re the saviors, and yes, it sucks. But yer gonna live, yer gonna move past this, and I promise you, I will leave you with something to make up for me being gone.”
“No!” I lose it then. The sobs rack my chest, the tears stream down my face, I’m twisting away from him as he holds me tight and close to his chest. “No! I’m not gonna do it! I’ll ruin everything, Tier. I will!”
“Shhhh, now. Listen. I’m giving you a gift before I go.”
“Oh God! No!”
He gets up out of the bed and pulls me up with him, holding me upright as I will my legs to buckle under me and try to sink to the floor. Tier won’t permit it, and he lifts me up like a child and holds me to his chest.
“I can’t do it, Tier. Not again. No more! Every time I get you back I lose you again, it’s not fair!”
He walks out of my room, still clutching me tight, and carries me into the big room.
“Juncs!” Annun says, and then everyone I heard earlier is crowded around me, touching me, smiling, and talking to me. Tier keeps walking over to the far corner and I get a wave of revulsion in my stomach as I realize where he’s taking me. I whirl around in his arms, but he holds me tight.
The vivarium is lit up with soft light. The baby crib in the corner has bedding on it. Pink bedding. And through the slats I can see something, but it’s not until I look up at the monitor that I fully realize what it is.
The green-eyed baby from the Vegas lab is staring right up at the camera, but before I can feel anything about this turn of events, the baby’s eyes burn a bright red, the wings burst from her back and she cries out in rage or pain. After that the motion of her movements is a blur as she hurls herself at the glass and lands in a heap on the floor, stunned from the impact. Her chest is rising and falling in a quick, sharp manner, as she recovers and begins to turn on her side.
The whole room erupts in chaos as Wyrd is screaming at my parents to pump the gas into the chamber.
And that’s when I lose it. My knives come out, my fangs grow long, and I am fully demonized, slashing out at Tier and my mother when she comes too close. I rake my claws across her chest, opening up her clothes and skin at the same time. Ashur appears and pulls her back, covering her with his wings, as Tier is forced to let me go so I don’t mutilate him.
I spin and kick, take out Gideon with a heel hook to the jaw, barrel over Annun with my demon wings flapping in his face, and my SEAR comes out, blazing a bright yellow, as I land at the door to the cage I am so very, very familiar with.
I look down at the baby as the thick gas subdues it and makes it tumble over, face-first. And then I look over my shoulder at Tier. “What the fuck is wrong with you people?”
“Junco, I’m—”
I spin and take Tessen out with one foot slap across her throat before she can finish her sentence. Annun and Pike rush to her, lifting her up and carrying her away as Tier and Gideon approach me with their hands up, like they’re trying to lure me into believing they’re either innocent or not dangerous.
I laugh. Because these are about as guilty and dangerous as they come. �
�Don’t, Tier.” I look over at Gideon. “Back off, Gideon, or I swear I’ll hurt you.” I let the red take over my eyes and the light flashes on his face.
“Junco, just listen,” Tier says calmly, but I’m just shaking my head.
“No, you people will listen to me for once, OK?” I stare at each of them. My mother and father, huddled on the floor with Ashur as her wounds are closed. Tier and Gideon as they try to get close and calm me. Moju, who is actually nearest to me at the moment, but he’s facing them, not me. So he’s on my side, not theirs. And Ashur and Selia, who stand off to the side, staying one hundred percent out of it. “Who knew about this baby?” I turn my gaze to Tier. “You? You knew this baby was alive back in Vegas?”
He shakes his head slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. “I didn’t, Junco. I gave the order for Annun to search the Stag on the chance that what that technician in Vegas said was true. A couple days later, after you left me at the Pillar”—I grunt at that. I left him? Fuck him—“after all that shit with HOUSE in the Sagitta Building”—I let out a deep breath here because once again, I’m fucking clueless—“Annun reported back confirming the baby was found in the Stag tunnels. Tessen moved her here and Wyrd has kept her gassed. That’s it, that’s all there is to this. No one here was keeping her, Junco. It was Inanna.”
“Why?” I spit. “Why the hell is she doing this? It makes no fucking sense! Why is she doing this to me? She’s ruined me! Everything good that comes to me, she takes away. She mutilated me!”
He comes close but I back into the glass and then I whirl around and look at the body on the ground inside the cage. Her wings are gone now, the gas keeping her unconscious and sleeping. Her skin is bright red and blotchy, like she’s got a heat rash, and her dark hair is plastered to her head with sweat. Tier grasps my shoulders lightly, and from behind me I make out people settling down. My mother telling someone she’s OK. My father murmuring things about me from across the room. Not nice things, either, but I tune that out. Annun and the Fledge team taking care of Tessen. “How?” I ask.
No one answers me but everything goes quiet.
“How the fuck do you people live with yourselves?” I turn, my voice calm but my eyes still red and the knives growing from my hands. I look over at my mother and father. “Do you think you’re going to do it again? Take this… thing and teach it piano? Make it ride horses and play with dolls? Try to convince it that it’s human only to turn it into some… some… I don’t even know what I am. A killer? A soldier? A daughter? An athlete? What? What the fuck am I? A machine? An alien? A god? A demon?” I would laugh if it wasn’t so fucking sad.
I turn back to the baby and watch her stick her thumb in her mouth and then say it very clearly so there’s no misunderstanding. “Well, you’re not.” I whirl around and Tier steps back to avoid me pushing him. “You’re not.” I look at my mother first, then my father. “I won’t let you do it again. I’ll kill it myself before I let you monsters morph this thing into a child like you did me. She’s not a child!” I scream. “She’s a fucking demon, mutant, fucking alien. I don’t know what she is but she’s not your pet! Your project! I won’t let you do it again, I won’t.”
I walk to the cage door. Gideon’s in front of me before I can press my palm to the biometrics. I’ve been coded for this cage for as long as I could remember because this is where I took my nourishment when I lived here at the Stag. Once inside I can’t leave until someone lets me out, but I’ve always been able to get in. They made sure I could lock myself up when the changes were coming.
“No, Junco,” Gideon says. “You’re gonna leave her in there for now.”
“Fuck. You. Gideon.” I stare him in the eyes. “This is my child, not yours.” And then I look over at Tier. “Or yours. Mine.”
“Junco,” Tier says with a huff. “I’m not even gonna respond to that because it’s bullshit. She’s mine too, so stop. You’re not killing her, you’re not taking her out, and you’re not opening the door. She’s gonna wait here until all this is over and then you can decide what you want to do with her.”
His words hurt me so bad my breath hitches as my heart skips. “I’ll decide. Not we’ll decide. Not us. Just me. Like always. It’s just me, right? I hate you.” Tier doesn’t even blink. He must be used to hearing it by now. I look at Gideon next. “I hate you, too.” And then I look at Moju who has been silently standing next to me this whole time. “Please, Moju, please!”
“Junco,” he sighs. “What can I do?” He throws up his hands a little. “Just tell me how to help. ’Cause I don’t know what to do. I’m not gonna kill that baby. I’m not gonna stop you if you do because it’s not my place.” He looks over at Tier for this. “And beyond those two things, I’m not even sure I understand what we’re talking about.”
“I want to die, Moju.”
His mouth opens as my words echo in my head.
“But I can’t. I’m stuck. If I can give her that gift before they change her into all these awful things they made me, then for God’s sake, let me.” I turn back to my parents. “Because if she lives and she is normal, then sooner or later someone will come around and corrupt her. Morph her into an avian.” I look at Tier for this. “Or a soldier.” And my gaze tracks to my father. “Or something else, some new thing that no one’s thought of yet. And it’s not worth it.”
I use the time displacement to move past Gideon and press my palm to the door and throw it open, but Tier is right next to me, traveling with me in my shift. I slip past him as “No,” comes out of his mouth in a slow exaggerated manner.
I’m faster than him. I feel a fraction of satisfaction in that knowledge as I scoop up the baby and move back through the door. Tier follows behind, his steps just slow enough to let me get a few paces ahead, just enough to allow me to get away with the child in my arms. I walk across the big room, past all the people who are standing still like statues, throw open the door to the outside, hold one hand over my eyes to shade myself from the late afternoon sun, and walk right past the guard at the door. When I look back Tier is right there. His hand clutches my shirt and pulls, but I keep going, dragging him with me.
The three of us exit the shift in the old shooting range. I’m completely out of breath, my lungs gasping for air like I’ve never needed it before this moment, and my whole body is on fire. Tier’s arm wraps around me and pulls me to his chest.
“No, Tier. I’m not gonna let them ruin another life. I’m not. You have no idea what it was like to be insane. I’m still insane, Tier. You just don’t know.”
He pulls me over to the bank of earth that used to be the downrange target where Gid and I would practice shooting. “Come here, Junco. Sit with me, OK, darlin’? Just sit with me for a moment. Talk to me.”
He slides down the dirt wall and sits down, then holds his hands out. “Give me the baby, Junco. Sit.” Just the sight of him asking for our child is enough to bring the tears. “I haven’t held her yet, Junco. Give her ta me.”
I lean down and slip her limp and unconscious body in his arms. His smile as he pulls her to his chest and looks down on her little mouth puckering around a thumb melts me. It whisks away all the anger in an instant. I collapse next to him and then he adjusts the baby so she’s on one side and he’s got his arm around me on the other.
“I told the Fledge team to kill her but Tessen said no. She said it was yer choice to make, not mine. And I said OK. So I will let it be yer choice, Junco. But just enjoy her, enjoy me, enjoy us for a few moments. Because ya can’t live in the past and ya can’t wait for the future. This is our now, so let’s enjoy each other for a minute. Can ya do that, Juncs?”
I lean into him and close my eyes. “I’m so tired, Tier.”
“I know,” he sighs. “I know.”
“And I love this. You have no idea how much I love this. Being with you and her, even if we’re all evil and demonic. This is all I ever wanted. Ever. I never wanted to be a soldier. Never.” The tears burst forth and stream down my che
eks. My breathing becomes short and quick, and my head is pounding so bad it might explode.
“Calm down, Junco.”
“How can I calm down when this perfect moment is a lie? Huh? Because soon—probably very soon, hours maybe—you’ll be dead and if you’re dead, none of this matters. Nothing, Tier. I’ve done everything they’ve ever told me. Every single thing. I did it and this is what I get in the end? Nothing? My reward is spending eternity as a single mother to a demonic child? Really?”
“Junco, listen—”
“No! No! You listen! I want you to choose me for once. Me, Tier.”
“I already chose ya, Juncs. The day I took ya off Earth and brought you home. I chose you that day.”
“No!” My tears became sobs now and my breathing is ragged and out of control. “That’s not good enough! I want you to choose to live for me, Tier! Not die for Lucan.”
“Ya know I can’t do that. I can’t.”
“You can!” I scream. And then I lose it, the ability to breathe is taken away and I start to gasp for air, my whole body shaking with the effort to draw in oxygen.
“Shhh,” Tier says into my ear as he pulls me closer. “Shhh,” he says again as the baby stirs next to me.
My body does not respond. All I see is death, and fear, and loneliness. Eternal loneliness that will make the monster in me so much stronger than it is right now. I’ll lose myself and never find my way back, ever…
“One,” Tier says softly into my ear as his chest rises and falls. “Two,” he says again, taking another deep breath. “Let’s count, Junco. Count with me.”
A shiver runs through my whole body and I want to die of sadness so bad, that’s how much this touches my heart.
“Three,” he keeps going.
“Four,” we say together as we breathe in and out. “Five… in, out, six… in, out, seven…”
I sink into him a little so I can hear the beats that go with the numbers. I close my eyes and my cheek rests against the soft chubby thigh of the little green-eyed baby.