She ran from Mercer, allowing the tears to spill over only when she was outside the gates of the complex. She’d never felt more alone than in that moment. She had nowhere to go, no friends in Durham. She ran blindly through the streets, trying to make sense of all the emotions that whirled about within her. She took a right turn and found herself stumbling along a brightly lit street that was teeming with people spilling out from nearby buildings. She looked up to see a marquee heralding a theatrical performance, right next to her, and across the street was similar advertising for another show. The sky was crisscrossed with bright beacons of light streaming from the buildings. Davis sobbed aloud, overwhelmed, and ducked her face as more than a few theatergoers gave her quizzical looks. She was still wearing her gown from the party, but her face was almost surely smudged with makeup, from her tears. She was afraid of standing out among the perfection around her. She had to find somewhere to go to calm down and clean up and figure out what to do next.
Davis scanned the street, distracted momentarily by the projected figure of a lithe, graceful woman dancing through the air. She took a closer look—it was a ballerina clad in a black leotard and a tutu that glittered as she turned, emitting hologram sparks through the night air with each pirouette. She was breathtaking. At the next whirl, she faced the streets, dropping into a dramatic curtsy. When the ballerina raised her head, Davis gasped.
It was a mirror image of Davis herself. A slightly older, more mature version of Davis’s green eyes, high cheekbones, and chestnut hair. They had the same lips, the same delicately shaped nostrils and wide-set eyebrows. The only thing that set them apart was the gap in this ballerina’s front teeth, which lent her face a playful charm as she smiled. Davis had grown up looking at photos of that same smile.
The ballerina looked just like her mother.
Davis couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Racquelle Eide had told her that her mother was still alive. But it had never crossed Davis’s mind that she might find her; half of her had thought Racquelle had been lying. And now … but it couldn’t be. Could it?
Davis felt her legs moving woodenly toward the entrance to the theater. There was a door in the back, a nondescript metal one that seemed to lead into the building, away from the crowds—the kind of door that only opened from the inside, or from the outside with a key. Davis waited until someone slipped out of the door—it was a workman carrying a stack of large boxes—before she slipped in after him, navigating the hallways backstage. She passed a curtain and peered through it. The stage was empty and the crowds were just beginning to disperse; the performance must have recently ended. Tinny strains of music were just winding down as sound technicians messed with the equipment, but Davis could identify Mahler’s Third Symphony, one of her favorite pieces to dance to. She felt a surge of hope well up within her.
She turned from the stage, moving toward an adjacent hallway lined with various doors covered in photos of the ballerinas’ smiling faces. She scanned the photos until she found pictures of her mother, and before she could give it more thought, she knocked gently and pushed into the room.
The ballerina’s back was to her. Her shoulders framed a strong, sculpted torso. She was blotting her face with makeup remover, and when she lifted the cloth from her cheeks, Davis could see her reflection full-on in the mirror. The ballerina met her eyes. It was her mother; Davis knew it beyond a shred of doubt. The look the woman gave her in the mirror said it all. Her body stiffened, and she lowered the washcloth to her vanity.
At the same time, a stage manager rushed the room.
“I’m so sorry,” he told the dancer. “I’m not sure how this girl got in here.”
“I’m her daughter,” Davis said quickly.
“I don’t have a daughter,” her woman snapped, and Davis felt pain shoot through her chest. Was it just her, or did she see a brief flash of regret in the dancer’s eyes? “It’s okay, you can let us be,” the woman told the stage manager, recovering.
The manager gave Davis a skeptical look but backed from the room, shutting the door behind him.
“How did you find me?” her mother asked, turning to her. Her face was stony—any emotion Davis thought she’d seen had disappeared entirely, leaving her mother cold and impassive. “How did you even get in here? Neithers aren’t allowed in Durham.”
Davis wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but this chilly reception wasn’t it. She fought back tears, struggling to formulate a worthy response. “I have friends who let me in,” she said. Then, “So you did know.”
“Of course I knew.” Her mother turned back to the mirror and began removing her false eyelashes with careful, rapid movements. Her face was beautiful, but her expression was so devoid of warmth that it bordered on grotesque. She pursed her lips, but Davis saw the tendons in her neck pulse, and her jaw clenched subtly. She was rattled. Still, her eyes remained empty. Davis was filled with mounting dread; still, she moved closer to her mother. She’d been searching for her in one way or another her entire life—and now that she’d found her, she couldn’t pull herself away, no matter how much darker the world looked, the closer she moved toward her. No matter how much she wanted to flee and hide somewhere safer, away from her mother’s orbit and its oppressive lack of love.
“So you came from Columbus, then.” Her mother’s voice was confident; Davis didn’t bother to correct her. “Now there’s a city I don’t miss.”
“What do you mean?” Davis stood near the door. Her mother’s voice was absentminded, almost as if she barely realized Davis was still there. Davis was afraid to move, afraid to jolt something within her mother that might cause her to dismiss her like she’d done so many years ago.
“I mean it has a way to go in terms of progression,” her mother elaborated. “Your father’s notions of a forward-thinking society are so backward. They always have been. Sure, I fell for him—back when I was young and idealistic and would have drunk up anything he said. But ultimately he’s never been strong enough in his convictions. That’s why we never could have worked out. Columbus will never rise to greatness when it still allows Imps within its walls. Durham is so much better; it allows us to flourish without the hindrances of imperfection.”
Davis absorbed her mother’s words, which had been spoken without a hint of irony, and as she did, her stomach dropped. Her mother was almost merciless. She knew Davis was a Neither, and yet her words were designed to cut deep. She was without any empathy at all.
Davis took a breath, fighting to steady herself. Tears threatened her vision, but she squared her shoulders and blinked them back. She wouldn’t let this hurt topple her. She was strong now, much stronger than she used to be. Her mother’s memory had chased her for years, but she wouldn’t let the disappointing reality of it crush her as it once would have.
“Did you ever remarry?” Davis asked. “Do I have any brothers or sisters?”
Her mother paused, and her mouth turned up in a smirk. “No,” her mother said, as though it were obvious. “I’ve never wanted to. Children only would have held me back. Look at me,” she said, gesturing around the small dressing room, until her gaze came to rest again on the face in the mirror. “I’m achieving my dreams. Did you see those people out there? They’re there for me. Another pregnancy would ruin me for good. A marriage … well. Marriage isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. It’s better you learn that now. Compromise means giving up your dreams. And frankly, there’s no one worth it. I refuse to settle. After what happened with you, especially. I’m not going through the horror of that scenario again.”
“The horror of having an imperfect baby,” Davis echoed. She gripped the side of the vanity, needing to steady herself. She’d dreamed a thousand times of having the chance to meet her mother, somehow. Now she felt as though she’d been hollowed with a knife. She squeezed the side of the chair, balancing her weight atop it. Her knuckles turned white.
“Well, you’re hardly an Imp,” her mother said. “But yes. The fact that you weren’t a f
ull Prior was devastating. It took me a long time to recover from the shock, get back on my feet. I can’t allow for that kind of personal derailment again.”
Her mother was a monster. Davis felt it—a total void where love should have been. Her heart shattered. Even if she could put it back together, there would be nothing left to fill it with. Acknowledging the double loss of Cole and now her mother—whom she’d once thought was the answer to everything—left her trembling.
She couldn’t stop herself from feeling devastated. But she could get answers.
“What happened to Leslie Eide?” she asked, afraid of the answer even as she uttered the question. “Why did she have to die?”
“Leslie was a waste,” her mother said, her voice hard. “I did Columbus a favor. Leslie was making babies imperfect on purpose.”
“What? You mean I would have been born a Prior?” Davis reeled. Leslie was responsible for this?
“If Leslie hadn’t interfered, yes. She purposefully neglected giving you your prenatal procedures because she thought they would make you susceptible to a deadly virus.”
The implications were terrifying, and Davis sank into the chair that had been supporting her weight. Her legs felt cold and leaden. Leslie Eide had both ruined her life and saved it.
“Narxis,” Davis whispered. If she’d been a full Prior, she’d be dead.
Her mother met her eyes for the first time, looking amused. She reached for her water bottle on the vanity and took a long sip before answering, as though it were any other casual, leisurely talk. To Davis, who now rested her head in her hands, it was earth-shattering. So much of her life had been left to chance.
“Yes,” she said, “If it actually exists. Half of me thinks it’s just a product of the revolutionary imagination. Fodder for riots. Propaganda. God,” she laughed, waving a hand dismissively, “every time I think of the trouble that goes on over there, I’m thrilled I defected to Durham. You couldn’t pay me to go back to that sullied city. Even if Narxis is a real thing, it would be better to die perfect than live imperfectly, wouldn’t you agree? From the look of things, these years haven’t been kind to you, have they?”
Davis froze. “Are you asking me if I’d rather be dead?” Her mother’s question was unfathomable.
“Wouldn’t you? Look at the way you’ve suffered, you poor thing. What Leslie did was a crime. She deserved to die. You’ll make your own decision. When you realize how ugly this world is when it’s tainted with imperfection, you’ll see how little your own life matters. Now fill my water bottle, would you? There’s a filter in the hall. I’m parched.”
Davis rose with effort, repulsed. There was something else there, though, something she couldn’t quite identify.
Davis nodded, giving her mother one last look. Without emotion, her mother was a lovely shell. But her hateful words made her something worse, more sinister. Davis realized how lucky she’d been to grow up without her mother. And then she put her finger on the feeling that had begun to germinate when her mother spoke of death: pity. Her mother was the emptiest person Davis had ever met.
She thought of her father and Fia, who were truly loving, and something inside of her shut down—the parts of her that had felt incomplete without her mother. The parts that had idolized her mother and had striven to be just like her one day. All of it was gone, wiped out, as though it had never existed, hadn’t propelled her through every single challenge for years. What would make her happy, now that she wasn’t searching for her mother?
Love and kindness and the true connections she had left. That’s what would get her through this.
“I’ll be right back with your water,” Davis said to her mother, leaving the room and shutting the door resolutely behind her. Instead of stopping at the filter station, though, she kept going through the hall and left the theater altogether, letting the metal door slam shut behind her, never once looking back.
18
COLE
Olympiads registration was at eight a.m. The shuttle ride over had been strange; the city had changed since the Imps had gone on strike. It was grimier—a film of dust covered almost all of the buildings, and trash was strewn about the streets. It also felt eerily empty—Narxis had taken so many victims that a number of the buildings were practically vacant.
Cole hadn’t known how big the Gen turnout would be, but there were only five of them. He recognized one of the guys from FEUDS when they boarded, and he kept his face down and sat on the back to avoid being recognized himself. The others—a muscular girl about his age wearing athletic shorts and a tank top, and three other, younger guys he didn’t recognize, all in sweats—chatted among themselves, seeming to know each other. Cole had shaved his head and grown out his facial hair in an attempt to alter his appearance. As always, he kept his hood up and his head down.
He was relieved when the bus pulled up in front of the arena, so he could disappear into a crowd of Priors. He was more likely to go unnoticed among Priors; they didn’t know him, and they likely didn’t care too much about tracking down an Imp fugitive whom everyone presumed was dead.
There were guards, though, at every corner. The arena was intimidating in scope, encompassing an entire city block, a behemoth structure of concrete and chrome with a domed ceiling made of metallic sheets that appeared to be partially retracted to allow the morning sun to filter in. He recognized it from when Davis had pointed it out—it was where she’d done her Qualifiers—but he’d never been inside it before.
Cole queued up at 7:45, scoping out the competition from under the protective disguise of his hood. The Priors, he noted, all had flawless facial features and sculpted figures. They were all wearing brand-name athletic apparel: patterned Lycra and colorful sports bras, the signature striped shorts of a fitness label. He guessed they were sponsored, and wave of hot anxiety flashed through him. This would be the stiffest competition he’d ever faced. Still, he’d trained hard with Mari. He had what no one else had: a knowledge of both sides.
When he approached the registration desk, his chest seized. All the dates they’d stumbled over the night before mixed into one indecipherable medley, and he prayed he’d know how to answer any questions thrown his way. Having to face a Prior head-on—and communicate with her, even look her in the eye—made him feel cornered. Being out in the open was terrifying, like being fully exposed for the first time. For so long, he’d been hiding. This was the first time he’d been forced to show his face in public, and it felt unnatural, like he was naked.
“Brent Kayson,” he told the person managing sign-in. The name rolled uncomfortably off his tongue. She pushed the ID monitor his way.
“Pointer finger, please,” she told him, and he pressed the altered finger—mangled and swollen—onto the monitor. A light flashed and the laser scanned his index finger. Time seemed to stand still. The process was painless, but for all the terror he was feeling, it may as well have been a high-risk surgical procedure. The staff member didn’t seem to notice the state his finger was in, and after what seemed like a catastrophic moment in which Cole feared everything was about to end, the machine lit green to indicate that his name matched his print. Cole breathed a long sigh of relief.
“Just a few questions before you go in,” the woman said. He flexed his palms a few times, trying hard to relax his facial features so he didn’t appear tense. Under his white hoodie, his T-shirt was drenched in sweat.
“Birth date.”
“October tenth,” he said, praying he was remembering correctly.
“Street address?”
“One Halsey,” he said, and the woman jerked upward, examining his face.
“Imperfect,” she stated.
Cole froze. For a second, he thought she meant his answer was incorrect. Then he realized she was just identifying him, and adrenaline rushed through him, causing a curious mixture of relief and indignation. “Is that part of the verification, or are you just curious?” Cole’s voice was hard. The woman rolled her eyes and motioned him
into the other room.
“You’re clear. Just go in.”
Cole nodded and accepted a towel from the woman’s assistant. The woman had already turned to the next contestant, eager to be rid of Cole.
“Thanks,” he said to the girl with the towel, pushing past the waiting crowds, which stood four or five people deep, into the prep room.
“Good luck,” she called after him. He nodded in thanks. He would need it. It was official: he was in.
Cole stripped down to athletic shorts and had just begun to tape his wrists, his hands shaking more than a little bit, when a burly Prior approached him. The guy was wearing a name tag identifying him as one of the judges, and for a second Cole’s heart stopped. He was sure he’d be caught, and he tensed, ready to bolt.
“Relax,” the guy said, reading his expression. “You’ve still got prep time. Just wanted to let you know you have a visitor.”
“Prep time,” Cole said. “Right.”
The guy raised an eyebrow. “So, can I show her in?”
“Yeah.” Cole’s voice caught, his relief threatening his composure. For a brief second he found himself hoping wildly, irrationally, that the “her” in question would be Davis.
Instead, Mari walked in, and Cole tried not to feel disappointed. It was brave of her to come; the journey, crossing in from the Slants, was treacherous for Cole, who’d done it a million times by now, but for someone who had never done it and didn’t have clearance … it could be disastrous.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, standing. He looked over his shoulder to see if anyone else noticed, but the other competitors in the room were consumed by preparations for the games.
“Is that any way to greet a lady?” she asked, offering him a small grin. “Anyway, they think I’m competing. Imps are allowed to compete, remember? Or are you having another identity crisis?”
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