Torn

by Avery Hastings

  “I can’t even tell what’s real anymore.” Vera’s voice was now almost a whisper, frantic. “The pain feels like a nightmare. It makes me light-headed. Sometimes, in the mirror, I look the same as always. Then sometimes I look like a different person—gaunt and pale, with sallow skin and bags under my eyes. I don’t know if the pain is even real. I cut myself, just to see—”

  “You did this to yourself?” Cole interrupted, recoiling.

  “I couldn’t tell if I was awake or not.” She wept now, her tears washing some of the dirt from her cheeks. “I had to know if it was real. I don’t know what to do. Thomas is out, and I took one of the cars from the parking garage. It still had its keys in the ignition. I remembered what he told you about finding Braddock. I followed you two here.” She looked up at Mari, then, her brown eyes bright. “Who are you?” she asked. “Cole, what’s going on here? Why are you even at this house?”

  Mari looked to Cole.

  “She’s just training me,” Cole told Vera. “This is Mari, Braddock’s daughter. Can I trust you, Vera?” Sometimes, the best way to gain someone’s trust was to show you trusted them back. He met Mari’s eyes to find her looking hurt. She’s just training me, he’d said. He wished he could take it back now. Mari was trying to help, despite years of hating Priors—despite all the feelings and beliefs that had stemmed from her mother’s death at their hands. As misguided as she’d been, what she was doing now took bravery. He had to respect that. “Mari’s helped me a lot,” he amended, watching Mari’s eyes flicker in surprise. “I’m going to be competing in the Olympiads. If I win, I’ll have enough money to go to Davis at TOR-N.” He watched Vera, waiting for her reaction, knowing how much he was risking.

  “You’re competing in the Olympiads. For Davis,” she repeated, her eyes wide. “You’d do that all for Davis?”

  Cole nodded. “And for my family,” he said. “I just want a better life for us. But Vera, I’m glad you found us. Thomas is the only one who can help you. You need to trust us.”

  “I can’t go back,” she moaned, burying her face in Cole’s shoulder. “You should see him, Cole. He wanted to inject the baby with some sort of solution today—he wouldn’t even tell me what it was—to see how she’d react. I screamed and threatened to reveal the location of his lab if he went along with it, and finally he backed out. But I don’t know how long I can do this.”

  “He’ll keep her safe,” Cole assured her. “I promise you. He’s doing the best he can for both of you.” But even as he said it, he felt a niggling qualm. Was Worsley doing all he could do? Vera looked less healthy than when he’d seen her last—and less cared for. Beyond her dirt- and tear-streaked face, her hair was lank and her nails had grown long. She looked thinner, too; her cheekbones protruded in a way he hadn’t noticed before. He hoped desperately that he was reading too much into it, that the physical changes were happenstance.

  Anyway, there was no choice. He had to get her back to the lab. “You can’t go to a Prior hospital,” he told her. “Not after your parents threw you out. They’ll just send you away to one of those research facilities, maybe wherever Davis is. Who knows what they do over there.” He winced at his own words, hoping to God Davis was safe. “You might not even make the journey. You need help now. We’ll take you back.” Vera nodded, looking defeated.

  “I’ll stay with you for a while,” Cole told her. “I’ll make sure Worsley’s doing everything in his power to keep you and your baby safe. Here, help me,” he said to Mari, lifting Vera gently. Vera wrapped slender arms around his shoulders and rested her face against his neck. He felt her warm breath on his skin. She felt human. Healthy. Alive. Not like someone with Narxis. He prayed she would stay strong.

  Cole carried her to the car, Mari running ahead to open the door to the backseat. Once there, he placed Vera gently inside.

  “I’m sorry, Cole,” she said to him, her voice faint. “I’m sorry for not trusting you from the beginning.”

  “Don’t be,” he said, trying his best to smile at her, to hide his worry. “Just stay strong.” Mari slid in afterward, and shifted Vera’s head so it lay in her lap. Cole looked at Mari gratefully—she hadn’t needed any explanation. “Thank you,” he mouthed at her.

  She smiled in return.

  He only hoped that, by telling Vera the truth, he’d done the right thing.

  “Oh thank God,” Thomas said, rushing to greet them when Cole slid the car into a spot near the lab and killed the engine. Cole breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t wanted to drive; it was too easy for him to be spotted. But Mari didn’t know how, and even though Vera did, she was in no condition. He’d taken one-way back roads and put his hood up to conceal his identity, but every time another car passed, his blood had run cold.

  Worsley flung the back door open and reached for Vera, ignoring Mari entirely. “Vera! Where did you run off to? You could have been hurt! Oh, God,” he continued. “You are hurt. Is it the baby?”

  “It’s her leg, Tom,” said Cole. “It’s just a deep scratch. You’ll need to disinfect it. This is Mari, Braddock’s daughter,” he said, motioning to Mari. Worsley nodded distractedly in her direction but didn’t say hello. Cole gritted his teeth. It was as though Worsley didn’t care anything about the baby—only the testing, Cole realized.

  “Wait,” he told Worsley, after they’d carried Vera inside and Tom reached for his medical supplies. “First I need to talk to you.” He settled Vera on her cot, and Mari rushed to the sink to pour her water. Cole felt another unexpected flash of warmth toward the girl.

  “I’ll take care of her,” she told him. “You go.”

  Nodding, Cole grabbed Worsley’s arm and pulled him back outside.

  “She’s having a hell of a time,” he hissed. “Hallucinations or something. She’s out of her mind. What are you doing to her? It’s time to end this, Tom. It’s not worth it. Something’s obviously not right!”

  Worsley ran a hand over his face, his eyebrows furrowing. “I’d end it if I could,” he whispered. “I expected this. But not to this extent. Believe me, there’s nothing I want more than for this baby to be born in peace. But it’s too late for that.”

  “What do you mean?” Cole’s heart sank. If Davis came back and found that Cole had let her down—had let something awful happen to her best friend, when it could have been prevented—he’d never forgive himself.

  “It’s not too late for her,” Worsley corrected. “She could be—she will be—fine, if I monitor her closely. It’s just too late to go back. She’s already entered phase two. I’ve injected the baby with Narxis.”

  Cole stepped back, stunned.

  “What?” he uttered. “You didn’t even run it by me.”

  “And why should I?” Worsley argued, his eyes hard. “I know what I’m doing, Cole. You’d only get in the way.”

  “So is that what shipping me off to Braddock was all about?” Cole raised his voice, and Worsley placed a hand on his shoulder. Cole shrugged it off, stepping back. “No,” he said, furious. “This isn’t okay. What’s happened to you?”

  “Cole! Stop shouting. You’re only going to scare her.”

  Cole gritted his teeth, fighting to stay calm.

  “You need to trust me. Or if not me, trust science. I’m on the cusp of a breakthrough! If we just stick this out, think of all the lives we’ll save.”

  Cole stared at Worsley. His last sentence had seemed canned, as if uttered from a script. Worsley’s eyes glittered as he spoke. He believed in what he was saying, Cole realized. But was his excitement for the cure, or for some sort of fame he was hoping to achieve?

  “You’re not who you used to be,” Cole said, moving back toward the lab. “I just hope you’re right.”

  Worsley wasn’t the same kind, meek doctor he’d been only months back. His eyes darkened at Cole’s words. For a second—a second in which Cole fervently hoped he was wrong—they seemed crossed by a shadow of doubt.

  11

  DAVIS

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nbsp; Her lungs burned and her muscles felt weak. She stumbled over rocks and sticks, exhausted, hearing the panting of the dogs not far in her wake. When her foot hit a root, she flew forward, landing face-first in the dirt ahead of her. She fought to catch her breath. Her right arm burned, and when she pushed herself up to a kneeling position and wiped the dirt from her face, her fingers brought back blood. She coughed, and it was long and racking. She heard the dogs drawing closer, but it was muted, as if in a dream. A ringing noise filling her eardrums. She wasn’t used to feeling weak, but the disease and weeks away from supplements and exercise had turned her into a shell of her former self. She wondered if this was what it felt like to be a Gen.

  When rough hands wrapped around her waist from behind, she tried to resist. But the man—she could tell without turning it was a man, by the breadth of his palms—wasn’t even forced to shift his grasp. She turned and caught sight of the trademark navy uniform of TOR-N security. They must have tracked them somehow, or anticipated the direction they’d be heading.

  “This is a mistake! You’ve got the wrong girl!” she shouted as they hauled her toward a cluster of waiting quarantine vehicles. Her words sounded hollow, even to her. The vehicles’ chrome exteriors shone so brightly she was forced to squint; for a second, the ludicrous thought crossed her mind that they were taunting her. Davis relaxed into the security guard’s grip, resigning herself. After all this, she was going to be thrown back into quarantine.

  Then, just as suddenly, the security guard lost his grip, dropping her into the mud. He uttered a loud groan and stumbled backward, losing his footing.

  “What the—” Davis turned to see him clutch his head, then crumple to the ground. Before she could process what was going on she saw several figures spring from the brush around the vehicles. And Mercer. He threw a punch at one of the other three guards, incapacitating him. From behind him, two other guys wielding long metal rods ran at them. The guards drew their Tasers, but not in time; their faces registered fear and confusion. These men hadn’t expected to be met with resistance.

  Within seconds, all four TOR-N guards were lying on the ground in a crumpled heap, and Mercer and his friends had seized their weapons.

  His friends. Who were these guys?

  “Come on!” Mercer grabbed Davis’s arm, pulling her after them. Two of the guys—a blond one and a dark-skinned one with longer hair, were already making decent ground.

  “Wait.” Davis stopped, pulling her hand from Mercer’s. “Are they okay? Mercer, what did you do?”

  “They’re fine. Just knocked out. We need to get out of here, now, before they wake up.”

  She nodded uncertainly. If the guards were seriously injured, the manhunt for both of them would grow to epic proportions.

  “Come on,” he said again, urging her forward into the woods. She realized as she ran that she could be running after anyone. Despite her questions, Davis charged after him into the forest.

  She ran until her lungs burned. Mercer reached for her, offering to hold her up, but she pulled away each time. He’d left her—left her vulnerable to getting caught. He’d saved her, too, though. Beneath the terror of getting caught, she was shaken and frustrated. They’d touched land too soon; they’d almost been caught—she might have been caught—because Mercer had left her alone.

  And he had said on many occasions that he’d never been outside of Durham before TOR-N, yet suddenly he’d made allies here. Which could mean nothing, but it still bothered her.

  So she stumbled along, refusing assistance, until she could barely breathe, for what seemed like hours. And then the trees broke, and before her lay a valley with tents pitched at intervals and people walking throughout. It was some sort of settlement or camp. Davis wondered if all Gens in this territory lived like this, on the fringes, or if this was something she was seeing that was entirely unique.

  “Come on,” Mercer said, waving for her to follow him down the hill.

  She slowed to a walk as Mercer and the other two guys bounded downhill toward the other people, who were milling about the camp. People were scattered everywhere, gathering firewood, sewing clothing, mixing stews, planting flowers. Some of them had built a bonfire and were hovering near it. Mercer entered a tent and let it flap shut behind him without even waiting for her.

  She shivered, even though she was sweating. Who were these people? She’d been uprooted so many times that the feeling of being a stranger had ceased to feel strange. But among the community were people who were clearly Priors—taller, stronger, more lovely than she—and she didn’t know what to make of it. They walked among Imps without reservation, without maintaining the distance that was customary in downtown Columbus. Children held Priors’ hands and toddled about happily; they were more flawed than their parents, Davis realized. Some had gap teeth or a bit of baby pudge—even blotchy coloring—but all were smiling, as though these physical imperfections weren’t an issue at all. Prior babies were more beautiful: uniformly pudgy, with symmetrical features and full heads of hair from day one. But other than the children of her father and Terri’s friends, she hadn’t been around many—out of doors, they were concealed, tucked into strollers that contained bacteria-resistant shields. These Gen babies interacted with their environment freely, laughing and pointing at the crickets that hopped above the grass.

  Mercer popped back out of a tent, holding a canteen, which turned out to be full of water. It was warm but still a relief as it washed down her throat. He led her to a part of the hill that was slightly secluded from the camp and she sat down, not wanting to look at him, not wanting to remember how they’d kissed and then he’d disappeared just when the TOR-N officers were nearby. It was midAfternoon, but it was a little chilly in this shaded part of the woods, and she realized she was shaking.

  “Why did you leave me this morning?” she asked finally, her voice hoarse.

  “I didn’t,” he told her. “Not for long, anyway. I’d heard about this commune and I wanted to be sure things were safe before I led you in here. I didn’t want to bring you anywhere risky. Here,” he told her, handing her a warm mug. “You need to rest.”

  “But you said we weren’t going to stop.”

  “We needed supplies, Davis.”

  She knew that. She couldn’t pinpoint why she felt so thrown off. Maybe it was just the heat, the adrenaline, the stress. “But,” she persisted anyway, “you said you’d never been outside of Durham before. And now you seem so confident, so…”

  He wrapped his arms around her and she took in the smell of his sweat, and something else, too—a little smoky. She liked his smell. “Davis, I’m just trying to get us safely to Durham like we’ve talked about.”

  She pulled back and stared at him, conflicted. “I want to believe you,” she said finally. “But I can’t shake this feeling that there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  Mercer paused, and Davis saw a flash of guilt cross his eyes.

  Her pulse leapt. “There is something,” she whispered.

  He looked away, avoiding her gaze. “There is.”

  “What is it?” She felt light-headed. The whole experience on the commune was surreal, and now, without anyone she could trust, it felt as though she weren’t tethered to reality.

  “I never told you how I got Narxis,” Mercer reminded her. Davis wrinkled her brow in confusion. “Didn’t you wonder how I could be a Neither and live in Durham?”

  “Not really.” Davis shook her head. “I just assumed your story was something like mine. It was an accident. Some sort of mistake at birth.”

  Mercer laughed hollowly. “I wish it were that simple,” he told her. “When I was eighteen and applying to universities, my dad told me I couldn’t. He said it was impossible. That was the first time he told me I was a Neither. He’d been keeping it secret my whole life.”

  Davis’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, even though the same thing had happened to her. Hearing someone else talk about it only brought back h
er own horror and shock.

  Mercer shook his head to himself. “He thought he was being kind—thought it would be worse for me if I knew. We—my parents—have enough money. They were going to independently support me, but spin some sort of story for their friends. Say I was an entrepreneur. Basically force me to live a lie. He had a whole faux business model set up for my fake company. The company that would cover my identity.”

  “It sounds like they love you,” Davis said carefully.

  “The thing is, my dad’s a Neither, but he’d been passing as a Prior for my whole life and for most of his. My mom’s a Prior. My dad knew firsthand how hard it was to be a Neither. They tried to get me the operations necessary to be a Prior, but they couldn’t. I know he thought he was doing the right thing, but he could have talked to me about it. It would have helped if he’d been honest. It could have been something we shared. I know my dad loves me, but I can’t help hating him for this. He ruined my life. He left me with no options but the path he’d chosen for me. When he told me, I thought my life was over. So I ran away.”

  So that was it. He had been outside of Durham before. “You left on purpose,” Davis confirmed. Her heart went out to him. He must have been distraught to leave the only home he’d ever known. In exchange for what? Where had he thought he was going? “Oh, Mercer.” She leaned into him, feeling his body vibrating with emotion. He focused on a spot behind her, his eyes fixated on nothing.

  “I was furious. I ran outside of Durham, where it wasn’t as safe. There weren’t the same security or sanitization measures on the outskirts. And I got Narxis there. From Suen—a woman who … who took me in. Nothing romantic, I swear. Just horribly bad luck.” He shook his head. “That’s pretty much it. But it’s embarrassing, and I was too ashamed to tell you before. If I hadn’t been so stubborn and so angry, maybe I wouldn’t have left, and maybe this never would have happened.” He stopped and looked at her. “But then, I never would have met you.”