by M. D. Waters
“I’m beyond accusations. I’ve moved right into sentencing.”
“There’s no proof.”
I don’t need proof. I’m intelligent enough to know he’s beyond penalization in a court of law. But I can do to him what nobody else can. “You, me, the company . . . We’re done. I’m out. If I could disown you, I would. Or divorce you. There’s a term you understand.”
For the first time in months, I know without a shadow of doubt what path to take. And I have him to thank for that. He reminded me what’s wrong with the world we live in. How close I came to following in his footsteps. Now I understand the emotion that drove Updike into joining the resistance, where before it was just a myth. A notion I couldn’t fully grasp.
Half his mouth curls up. “If you think I’ll let you sell out—”
“If you try to stop me”—I lean forward and press a finger into the tabletop—“I’ll murder your public image.”
He laughs. “You couldn’t.”
“With Gabe and Aaron behind me? I’ll never get Carter to stand against you, but make no mistake; I’m capable of just about anything at this point.”
His eyes narrow, and red splotches his cheeks. “Leave the others out of this.”
“Buy me out.” I shove a palm tablet across the table. “I’ve already done the hard part. The offer’s a little high, but you can afford it. All it needs is your digital signature. I won’t ask you for a single thing as long as I live.”
He leans over the table, palms pressed on either side of the tablet. He reads the offer he’s made to buy my shares, frowns, and heaves a sigh. “You don’t have to do this.”
“For the sake of everyone involved, I most definitely do.”
He meets my eyes. “This accusation of yours never leaves this room. Ever.”
“Not even a bedside whisper will pass my lips.”
He nods once and lifts the device.
• • •
I exist in a vortex. Twisted and spun and sucked deep by blurred lines they call days. Hours. Minutes. Every second is difficult to latch on to. Occasionally, I’m spit out, blinking, shattered by reality. Blinded by the truth of my situation. Feeling the pain of loss all over again. Before I know it, I’m lost in the whirlwind again. I long to be out, but then I am, and I long to go back in.
The truth is, I would rather not exist at all. I gave up so much, and for what? I lost Hannah, my father, my brothers. I’m about to say good-bye to my sisters for God only knows how long. I face isolation for the first time in my life and I have no idea how to handle it.
I remind myself repeatedly that I will never be alone. Not while I spend three meals a day with hundreds of my peers, eating food from the same scraped metal plates. Not while I wear the identical black uniform complete with a mandatory com in my ear and two HK plasma pistols on my hips. But that doesn’t change the fact that I am alone. That I left my brothers with a father who is capable of unspeakable things. With every day that passes, I wonder if I made the right decision. The boys need someone other than our father to look up to. I can only hope Gabe is the man for the job. He proved to be more than I expected in the last four months.
“What do you mean you aren’t coming back?” Gabe yells to me now.
I hold the phone away from my ear. Two men I pass in the hub’s square, concrete hall hear his raised tone and glance over. “Gabe—”
“Dad said he bought you out at your request. I’m just as pissed at him over this Hannah situation as you are, but did you have to give up everything?”
“I can’t get into this with you now,” I say, ducking into a quiet corridor. The crowds of enlisted men grow thick as they prepare to leave for tonight’s raid. “Just suffice it to say that I couldn’t in good conscience follow Dad so blindly anymore. I’m hoping you won’t either.”
“I’m not asking Dad to buy me out, if that’s what you’re asking me to do.”
“No, of course not. I want you to take over the company after he retires. Turn it into something great. I’ve seen your recent reading material, so I know you’ve got ideas brewing. You’ll take it in a better direction.”
He’s silent for a moment. “I might have some thoughts.”
Warmth unfurls across my chest. I knew he could do this. “I’m so damn proud of you, little brother. You’re capable of some really great things.”
“You think so?”
His voice sounds small, and we’re suddenly six and four again. He’s at the top of a hill with his hover trike, tears brimming, doubting he can make it to the bottom in one piece. “You can do it,” I told him. “You’re the bravest kid I know.” And because I said it, he believed it. Believed, and succeeded.
“I know it,” I tell him. “Do what Dad can’t. Or won’t.”
He sighs. “You aren’t really disappearing, though, are you?”
“No,” I tell him, though I have yet to figure out how to make this true. But damn it, I will figure it out. I can’t just let all that money sit in my account. “Just for the time being. I’ll check in. Promise.”
• • •
The raid begins an hour past full dark. Hundreds of men, and the occasional woman, stand some distance away from the WTC, hidden in shadow, quietly waiting for the word to proceed.
My team stands in the back. My team. That still sounds strange. Updike promoted me within a day of my moving into the hub. I don’t quite understand what I did to move so quickly through the ranks in the two years I’ve spent straddling a wall of indecision, but he seems confident in my ability to lead. I just hope I don’t let him down.
Aircraft, which come from the west, soar in, and moments later, explosions erupt a safe distance away from the compound. The barrier opens, allowing us to pour in with plasma rifles. Our face masks are down to protect our identities. Some choose to go without, not caring to hide who they are from the cameras.
The teams break up by group and set out on their individual missions. Mine leads us to the back of the building. Updike assigned us to the dormitory housing the youngest girls so I can personally see to it that Violet and Andrea get out. Paige is in another area with the teens, but I have to trust that my comrades will keep her safe.
This isn’t my first raid, but they never get any easier. Taking lives, even from those who would take mine, stains my soul a little more every time. It doesn’t matter what the result is. I wasn’t brought up to do this. Dad raised me to sit in cozy offices and run meetings and make as much money as I could for our company. I wear a tailored suit better than I do this uniform. But I’m as apt at firing a weapon and hand-to-hand combat as I am at negotiating impossible deals.
I lose men on the way around, but I’ve seen worse, and our numbers are more than adequate when taking the rear entrance. We go in expecting more of a fight than we get, and it soon becomes obvious why. The older girls have banded together, something I’ve never seen before. They carry rifles taken from guards and lead the young children to safety. I stop in the hallway and motion for everyone to take the route we just cleared. Every tenth girl takes one of my men as an escort.
I see Andrea first. She almost runs right by me, but I lift my mask and call out to her. She spins and runs into my arms.
“Where’s your sister?” I ask.
“In the back. They wouldn’t let me wait for her,” she says with a nod toward a teenager passing by.
“Okay. Follow the men. They’ll get you somewhere safe.”
She smiles and her eyes glitter in the shadowed hallway. “You’re one of them?”
“I am.”
“You’re a hero.”
I laugh. “Go on. I’ll see you soon.”
She runs off, ponytail swinging.
The line of girls begins to thin, and I still haven’t seen Violet. I move deeper into the building. The gunfire has tapered off, and according to the coms, we’r
e in control of the facility. That doesn’t mean there won’t be any stragglers. I turn corners carefully, prepared for anything, until the end of the line comes into sight.
Violet is near the end. I recognize the frightened look on her face, and my heart clenches. No more of that after tonight. She’ll be safe and well cared for if it’s the last thing I do. The older girl taking up the rear has her back to us, her dark, low-hanging ponytail swaying. She aims her rifle into the empty corridor, watchful for guards.
Violet lets out a sob and races toward me. I swing her up in my arms, cradling her to me, running a gloved hand over the back of her head. The longer I hold her, the more she cries.
“Everything’s okay. Promise,” I tell her.
The back of my neck prickles, and when I turn, it’s Her. The girl who had been guarding the rear has turned and stands watching us with the most beautiful round eyes. I don’t know Her name, and I’m damn sure She’s too young for me—She has to be Hannah’s age—but I know. And I’m not alone in our connection. I see it in the way She refuses to take Her eyes off me.
I’m in an entirely new vortex, and this time, I don’t want to escape.
Violet sniffles in my ear, waking me from my trance. I clear my throat. “Hey,” is all I can think to say. It’s as if She’s stolen my entire range of vocabulary.
She steps forward and starts to pass me the rifle She must have stolen from a guard. “Switch with me?” She says with a nod at my sister.
I grin, realizing She must assume I would prefer a weapon over my precious cargo. “No, I’m good. You?” She looks at home with that rifle, but for all I know, She’d rather be without it.
She smiles, but it’s crooked and shy. She’s absolutely stunning. “I guess.”
No, there’s no guessing about it. She’s good, and so am I. Perfect, actually, because I know just how this story ends. One day, when She’s older and I’m braver, I’m going to kiss Her until neither of us can breathe.
“I’m Noah.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I somehow ended up with an entire team of eyes behind this one, working at the speediest of paces to help me clean these few pages. Thanks to Charissa, Jodi, Melinda, Tracy, and Christina for dropping EVERYTHING to cross my T’s and dot my lowercase J’s. I’ll never forget it!
Thank-you, Jennifer Weltz and Denise Roy, for not looking at me like I was crazy when I decided to write this at the VERY last possible second. You knew I could do it, and you knew I could do it with time to spare. And so I did. Your faith in me means everything.
Read on for an excerpt from Archetype
Chapter 1
My mind wakes, but the words essential to describe the stirring of my consciousness escape me.
I blink.
White light fills my vision, blindingly bright, darkening my peripheral to pitch. I have no words for variations, either, because while I understand shifts of color and luminescence in my surroundings, I cannot hold knowledge in my mind.
Voices articulate words—No, we don’t need her anymore; put her with the others—and I struggle to make sense of them to no avail. I know what they say is important. So important. Vital. Yet all meaning flashes through the vast darkness of my mind, fleeting streaks of lightning. Alluring, coaxing, but gone before I can decipher patterns in the chaos.
I blink.
Dust particles float in the air, a fluid, graceful contrast to the vibrating hum of the light hanging above me. The motes dance around my slim, pale fingers, escaping my grasp, frustratingly transitory, like everything else I experience.
A hand pushes aside the sterile aluminum lamp seconds before a face appears. Cold fingers pry up the lid of one of my eyes. Gray eyes stare, unblinking, between a green cap and surgical mask. A pinprick of light forces tears. I squint and jerk my head, but the strong hand catches me around the forehead, fingers snagging on attached wires, and repeats the process on my other eye. I feebly bat his hand away.
The man leans straight-armed onto the table and stares at me.
“Hm.”
“Hm, what?” This voice comes from a man out of my line of vision but sounds very close.
The gray-eyed man lifts his head and pulls down the mask, revealing a bulbous nose and pockmarked skin. Matching gray whiskers shade his upper lip. He glances between me and the man who has yet to show himself. “It’s too early to tell.”
“But?”
“But . . .” The gray-haired man trails off and sighs. He scans me from head to toe, eyes narrowing. “But I think we have finally done it.”
A soft chuckle sounds behind me. “You, my old friend. You have finally done it.”
This gray-haired man reaches for my face. I instinctively jerk my head away, but he only pulls colored wires off my forehead, gathering a group of them in his palm. “Only time will tell,” he says.
The moment drifts away as the words are absorbed into the vast space of my mind. By the time I think to be frustrated, it is too late. Nothing has meaning. Not time. Not words. Not the reason I am here.
I am simply tissue, blood, and bone.
New.
In the beginning of life.
• • •
The vibrant green leaves turn into shades of orange, red, and yellow. Sweltering heat becomes cool breezes through narrow slits in large, square windows.
With the passing of time comes a lasting comprehension of language, color, texture, and scents. He says I knew them all along, and what I have yet to learn, he will teach me. I think he will reward me one day if I can only get my lessons right. Except today he tells me something new, and one word I do not understand.
“You are my wife,” he tells me.
I study his lips while they frame the words. He has a lovely mouth and I reach out to touch it often, but he never lets me. He says I must focus on one thing at a time.
“I am your wife,” I say carefully, and the words sound right, so I smile.
His head falls forward and broad shoulders lift with a heavy sigh. Dark hair spills forward, hiding his expression. He is upset with me but I do not understand why. I tell him what he asks of me and only that. Is this not what he wanted?
“No, Emma.”
He lifts his head, and eyes the color of seawater stare back at me. I know this color because it is in a large photograph in my room. They tell me the photograph is of the sea before, but they do not tell me before what.
“I do not understand,” I say.
He leans back in his chair and combs hair away from his face with long, slender fingers. The dark strands slick back and hold in their usual style. “You’re repeating my words only to please me.”
He turns his head and squints into the sun shining through the windows. With an elbow propped on the chair’s arm, he raises a hand to his chin and massages his jaw.
Leaning forward, I attempt to catch his gaze with my own. “This is what you wanted,” I whisper.
Those beautiful eyes turn my way and he stops rubbing his chin, still saying nothing. He only watches me in agonizing silence.
Then, abruptly, he stands and buttons the front of his suit jacket.
It is dark blue today. I like this color on him.
Bending over me, he presses a whisper-soft kiss to my temple. “One day you will say it and believe it.”
He leaves the room and now I understand. I must learn about this word “wife.”
• • •
We spend day after endless day in this lounge, and I think I finally understand. “You are my husband, Declan Burke. I am your wife, Emma. We were married in a small ceremony with only our closest friends atop our mountain.”
His smile, after so many weeks of frowns, warms my heart and brings a flutter to my stomach. He has an amazing smile. When he smiles, his cheeks crease deeply around the corners of full lips.
This particular smile
brings a gleam to the sea in his eyes. “Yes, Emma, that’s right. You were absolutely beautiful.”
He reaches forward, carefully, and slides loose strands of my hair behind my ear. A tingle follows the trail of his fingers across my skin. I want more. Have wanted more than these fleeting touches.
“Do I frighten you?” I ask.
He chuckles and leans away, draping both arms over the top of the beige couch with red accent pillows. His fingertips dip into the beam of sun from the large windows. “No. Should you?”
I match him gaze for unblinking gaze. A smile twitches the corners of his lips and I cannot imagine why he finds this amusing. Is not a husband supposed to touch his wife? Am I not allowed to touch him in return?
I pull my feet up into my chair and twist to prop my elbow over the cushioned back. With my free hand, I pick at an imperfection of thread in the knee of my white scrub pants. “Is touching forbidden?” I ask him, casually raising my gaze to peer at him through my eyelashes.
I am learning about these rules, which they say are for my safety. Some I do not understand. Why should I not leave my room after seven each night? I want to see the stars. Need to see the stars. They pull at the core of me for reasons I cannot explain.
“I don’t want to rush you,” he says. While the amusement still tugs on his lips, he averts his eyes.
Rush me, I want to tell him, but do not. He knows what is best for me, but I believe I am ready for this step. No, I know I am.
Unfolding myself, I stand and hold out a hand. “I would like to see the gardens. And I wish for you to hold my hand while we walk.”
He watches our hands meet, his twice the size of mine and barely a shade darker. Olive toned he calls it. He says when I am in the sun more, my skin becomes golden and rich in color, but for now, my skin is dull by comparison.
We leave the lounge where we meet every day, entering a sterile white hallway. The only color comes from a wall of paintings with random splashes of color. Declan calls it art, but the canvases look as if a child was set loose with a paintbrush. On more than one occasion, the idea that I could have done far better flits through my mind.