Shield

by Rachael Craw

  I stop before him and say, “It’s not your fault. Knox and everything.”

  Jamie rises from the rowing machine, athletic grace, power in his legs. His gaze flicks self-consciously to the others who maintain the “appearance” of activity though we both know they’re watching.

  “It is my fault.”

  I take a defiant step into his personal space, slide my arms around his waist and bury my face in his neck. Who knew spite could make me so comfortable with PDA? I hope Helena and Davis are taking it all in.

  Jamie catches his breath, hesitates, a war of indecision in his signal and finally his arms come gently around me. He whispers into my hair, “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing. I just want you to know it wasn’t your fault. Someone tipped off Knox. My only regret is that I can’t remember much of what we did.”

  “Everton.” He fills my name with soft warning.

  “It’s okay.” I lift my head and open my signal to his, reckless and river-wide, a flood of intimate KMT – I’ve got other memories to comfort me.

  He grunts and shifts so his face is shielded from view. Stop that, he mouths, but his pupils expand and his hands grip my waist.

  “Is this for my benefit?” Helena says, no longer pedalling. “You wish to put me in my place? Mark your territory?”

  Jamie sighs and releases his hold of me. I step out from the cover of his body, grimly satisfied. “Jamie isn’t real estate, Helena. He’s a person with feelings and rights that the Affinity Project doesn’t actually own.”

  She slips off the bike and takes a couple of steps towards me. “You’re acting like a child.”

  “We’re having a private conversation.”

  “So were we, last night,” she says, using her aggravatingly calm grown-up’s voice. “Is this supposed to be payback?”

  “What?” Jamie turns slowly.

  “That was an accident.” I can’t fight the heat in my cheeks. “I didn’t know you were planning a make-out session.”

  “A make-out …” Jamie begins, colour draining from his face. He quickly moves between us, his hands up before me. “Evie, it wasn’t … I wasn’t – don’t hurt her.”

  “You’re protecting me, Jamie?” Helena asks.

  He turns his head. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

  “You wish to attack me, Evangeline?”

  “If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done it last night when you were forcing your tongue into my Synergist’s mouth.”

  A long low whistle. Lane drops from the rope to the floor. Davis lands next to him alert for trouble.

  Jamie makes a choking noise. “She didn’t.”

  “I have nothing to apologise for,” Helena says, without inflection.

  Davis steps beside her, murmuring, “Don’t drop your defence.”

  The zip-zap in my spine grows fierce.

  “What is this,” Davis snaps, “the schoolyard?”

  Lane moves in on the other side of Helena, looking perplexed and wary.

  I fix my gaze on Helena. “So, you told Knox.”

  “I certainly did not.”

  I probe at her signal in the bandwidth and consider attempting a Harvest. The question isn’t could I but should I? What would violating the mind of Ethan’s adopted daughter mean for my relationship with him?

  Davis steps in front of Helena, hands on his hips. “Rein it in, Slytherin, or pick on someone your own size.”

  A surge in electricity and I step towards him, my throat tight. Why does the truth about Davis upset me so much – make me feel so ashamed and pathetic? No. There’s no way I’m going to cry in front of him or Helena. They’re probably in it together. Scheming. Lying. Manipulating. “Fine.”

  His scowl falters as he reads the challenge in my eyes.

  “You said I had to earn my breakfast? Make me work for it.” It’s bravado, falsely cultivated by the vat of toxic rage poisoning my judgement. Davis may be my height but his muscle mass is nothing to sniff at. He’s older than me, stronger and properly trained. More than that, he’s full-time AP for a reason – he could snap me like a twig. My self-preservation switch has been ripped from the circuit board. If I can’t beat the crap out of Helena, I might find some satisfaction putting some dents in Davis’s square jaw – even if it costs me bruised ribs or a chipped tooth.

  “No,” Jamie shifts to face Davis. “Not like this.”

  “We were planning sparring practice this morning.” Lane narrows his gaze, like he’s keen to see what I’m made of. “Let her get it out of her system. Davis won’t hurt her.”

  “She could hurt herself trying to hurt him,” Jamie says.

  “Thanks very much,” I mutter.

  “You’re angry and you’re not thinking clearly.”

  “I’m bored and I could use the exercise, baby.”

  He gives me a sharp look.

  Baby? I’ve never called him that in my life. It’s petty goading on my part – let Helena and Davis hear me giving Jamie pet names. I’m not going to be happy until everyone is as furious as me.

  Davis stalks towards the mat and Jamie holds up his hand.

  “What?” Davis snaps. “You’ll kick my ass if I hurt her?”

  “I think you know.”

  Davis curls his lip, disgust and dismissal masking his reluctance. This isn’t the Davis who came at me with a glowing baton in the men’s mess hall so many weeks ago. He wants the situation contained and defused. He wants to sit me down and ask me what the hell is going on. Reading all this in the subtle nuances of his face reinforces how things have changed between us, how familiar I’ve become with his non-verbal communication, and makes me angrier still. I trusted him. I liked him. Was any of it real?

  With a shrug that indicates a preference for getting things over with sooner rather than later, he comes at me on the mat. He intends to force me backwards, trip me, send me sprawling. I see it coming from a mile off. When he hits, I twist and ram his shoulder so hard my teeth rattle. The force of it sends him back a couple of staggering steps – now he knows I’m not messing around.

  The second strike is faster and I barely have my block in place. There’s a combination arm-knee-shoulder-foot attack that makes my head spin. I barely hold my ground – barely manage to gather a breath let alone a tactic for offence. But I can tell he’s surprised that I can block him at all. He straightens up, rests his hands on his hips, the hard frustration in his face set like a question: is that enough? You want more? What the hell is your problem?

  He can’t guess? It hasn’t occurred to him that I found out his “nice-guy” campaign is full of shit? I trusted Davis, relied on him, let him see my weakness, my grief, my need. I think of the relief that would settle on me whenever he visited me on the psych ward. I think of how I looked forward to the sound of the van rumbling up the driveway at home. How I could rely on him to counteract my introspection and self-pity with just the right amount of snark. I wanted that to be real?

  His eyes drill mine, a glimmer in the cool blue that hints at confusion and hurt. I lunge across the mat. It’s a sloppy move; I’m all arms and legs and undisciplined flailing. He blocks me but doesn’t retaliate. He lets me come at him, biding his time. My heat builds and I swing hard. His intent wanes in the bandwidth and I realise he isn’t planning another attack. He’s content to let me wear myself out, like I’m a stroppy kid throwing a tantrum. So I cheat.

  Something I’ve never tried before – I reach into his signal and grab the first kinetic memory I find. It’s a simple cognitive impression, a short-term memory imprint, his hands on the ropes from only minutes ago. An easy Harvest, like picking an unprotected pocket. I shove the image back at Davis in the bandwidth. I feel his shock and the stumble in his footing. He isn’t ready for the twist of my body, the arc of my arm or the impact of my elbow collecting his jaw.

  His head whips to the side and with my weight bearing down on him he falls with a cry of surprise, landing with a grunt. I pin his thro
at with my forearm and his eyes bulge. “Was it you?”

  “What?” he chokes.

  “Did you tell Knox?”

  Davis shakes his head, red from effort and loss of oxygen. “No! What are you talking about?”

  “I thought you were my friend.”

  The fight goes out of him. He releases my arm, my shoulder, a glimmer of dawning realisation smoothing his brow.

  “Ethan told me.”

  “It’s not like you think.”

  “That it’s all been an act?”

  “Listen–”

  “You thought I was your ticket out.”

  “No.”

  “You wanted to hurry things along? Get Jamie safely out of the way? Did you plan it together? You and Helena? Coolers co-op.”

  “What?” Jamie snaps.

  Lane whistles another long low note.

  “It’s not like you think.” Davis squirms, an anxious glance to locate Jamie. “Evie. Listen to me. I didn’t tell Knox. I wouldn’t–”

  Jamie lifts me like I weigh nothing, the aggression in his signal at odds with the gentleness of how he sets me on my feet. Davis blanches and scrambles to get up but Jamie has him by the shirtfront lifting him so quickly Davis makes a small whooping noise.

  “Jamie!” Helena jolts forwards. “No!”

  Ethan and Juno appear in the doorway to the cell block.

  “Jamie!” Ethan calls.

  Too late.

  Whomp! A fist to the stomach sends Davis flying – an impressive stretch of floor beneath him before he crumples, gasping and spitting. Lane shouts and rushes to intervene. Ethan marches out onto the mat, swearing in German, then breaks into a run as Jamie pushes past Lane for round two. Helena turns on me, lips pale, eyes glistening. “Are you satisfied?”

  “Not remotely,” I say. “Not. Even. Close.”

  She walks towards me, a groove in her brow. Her signal ripples, a peculiar wavering signature that speaks of fragility like worn threads that might break under pressure. No hint of threat or hostility. I brace when she steps deliberately into my personal space, surprised by her clear intent to touch me.

  I lean away but her eyes implore me. She reaches both hands either side of my head as though she would draw my face down for a kiss. The whole room shifts with her touch and I’m unprepared as the bandwidth cracks open. Her signal has no closed doors, no invisible film to resist me, no seam I need to push through. I don’t push, I don’t want to fall but she’s wide open and the vacuum sucks me deeply into her signal and I plunge into memory.

  Blood. The hot tang of it in my nostrils is the first thing to hit me. I crawl forwards, the rough carpet laced with broken glass to barb my palms and knees. There on the floor by the bed … his body … twisted into a wrong right angle that appals me even more than the smell. His throat a jagged red smile beneath his jaw. The weapon, a shard from the window, lies discarded by the boy’s head. The night air is humid and heavy, barely a breath through the shattered pane, no starlight, no moon to lessen the gloom.

  Too late. My muscles cramp, my skin contracts, my pulse throbs in my skull but the tug behind my navel is still there, a faint, fraying cord of life. Shame presses me to the floor, makes every inching-forwards movement an agony. I lay myself beside him and watch awareness fall away from his eyes. I touch his cheek with numb fingers. “Vergib mir. Vergib mir.”

  A lurch in my stomach as the tether gives. The sense of nothingness behind my navel. I curl my knees up around the empty space and scream.

  My eyes open on the bright gym, the air distorted around me, a burning ache in my chest. Helena flies slowly backwards, off her feet, her arms and legs flung forwards as though a battering ram has hit her stomach. She lands hard on the wooden floor skidding into the exercycles, knocking them over. At the crash of the bikes, Jamie, Davis, Lane and Ethan turn, mid-grapple. They look first at Helena sprawled on the floor among the exercise equipment then back at me where I stand, watery-kneed, clutching my stomach, the vast ceiling of the gym swooping above my head.

  Jamie or Ethan says my name … or Helena’s name.

  My mouth is wet, lip and chin. I catch blood from my nostrils on the back of my hand and blink dumbly – I thought the coppery taste was just an echo from Helena’s memory. Gingerly, I feel the bridge of my nose, testing for broken cartilage but there’s no pain beyond the fading tenderness of yesterday’s mess hall brawl. Helena didn’t punch me. Did I punch her?

  Jamie catches me by the shoulders. Was I teetering?

  “Everton.” His voice sounds hoarse through the static in my head.

  Helena struggles up from the floor, Ethan and Lane beside her. Davis watches, still clenching his fists on the mat.

  Juno approaches from the cell block, her flawless face locked in an expression of sharp wonder. “Evangeline didn’t touch her. It was a – a telekinetic pulse.”

  “What happened?” Ethan demands.

  “She needed to see it,” Helena says, wincing and holding her side. “If she is to be a part of the Initiative she needs to understand.”

  Dark comprehension fills Ethan’s eyes while the others look on confused.

  “Oh.” I break from Jamie’s hold to spit blood on the floor. “You were doing me a favour.”

  She takes a shaky step towards me, her blue eyes glistening with renewed tears. “You cannot understand what you have never lost.”

  I shake my head, my voice a low rasp, “You don’t know a single goddamn thing about what I’ve lost.”

  She falters then goes to retort but I turn my back and stalk away, my whole body trembling in the aftermath of her KMT.

  Juno murmurs, “Let her go, Ethan.”

  Don’t faint. Jelly legs up the stairs. I make it out of sight of the others and let my tears come. In the bathroom, I lock myself in a shower stall, and jerk the faucet open. The water jets hot and hard and I slump against the wall, sliding to the rough concrete floor. I draw my knees in, prop my elbows, hold my face up to the water, let blood and salt wash from my skin. I block the sound of my sobbing with my soaking shirt. All I see is the broken boy bleeding on the floor, all I feel is the empty space of a lost tether, all I hear is vergib mir.

  COURAGE

  “There is really only one difference between Supply Protection protocol and what we are about to attempt in this Initiative – beyond not killing the Stray once he has been identified,” Ethan says.

  “Or she,” Helena adds softly.

  “That’s statistically unlikely,” Lane says.

  Davis shrugs. “Not unheard of.”

  We sit around the barracks dining table, acting like nothing has happened – no fights, no secrets spilled, no agendas forced into the open. Jamie and I sit on one side, Helena, Lane and Davis on the other. Juno sits at the end and Ethan stands at the head: like the parents of a deadly, dysfunctional family.

  Juno was the one who came to find me in the bathroom, not that I needed to be found. It’s not like I could escape up the elevator without the pass code and even if I could, the last thing I want is to run into Knox in the upper floors of the Affinity Project. She brought me a towel and a change of standard-issue clothes. Remarkably, she said nothing about what she’d witnessed in the gym, just basic inquiries about my wellbeing. Are you hurt? Do you need to see a medic? Have you eaten? No speeches. No reprimands. A parting heads-up that we would gather to discuss protocol in an hour.

  Thankfully, the others remained below, either because Ethan had told them to give me space or because none of them could stand to look at me. I ate breakfast in peace and even had a half-hour to lie on one of the spare barracks beds. I didn’t attempt sleep. I didn’t even close my eyes, not wanting to invite Helena’s memory to replay in my mind. Somewhere between the shower and the dining table there had been a tectonic shift inside me.

  Helena was right.

  The loss of a Spark is incomprehensible. Not the heart-rending pain I felt watching Aiden die, though my powerlessness had almost destroyed me. Tha
t was an ongoing grief, anchored in reason. I battled denial, prayed for a loophole, dreamed nightly that he was alive in the ReProg room with that devastating rush of joy. This was different. Even though I’d barely tasted Helena’s loss, the break in the tether was an incontrovertible truth – there was no denial to wrap myself in, no hope of a dream to come. It was a visceral tearing. Loss of self. I think of Miriam and Jamie’s veiled references in the past, about Shields losing their minds. I wonder how many losses Helena has lived through. No wonder she’s desperate. Can I really blame her if she did tell Knox? If I were in her place wouldn’t I fight for what Jamie could give me, whether he loved someone else or not?

  “The main difference is the agreement between operatives,” Ethan says, bringing me back into the moment. “We must accept that our teammates will actively intervene to keep us from killing the Stray. This means we agree to place ourselves in violation of the Fixation Effect.”

  Lane pipes up. “What about the drugs?”

  Ethan taps a tray of preloaded mini syringes on the table in front of him. “The blocker is the best hope we have to avoid loss of life.”

  Fine hairs rise on my arms. His concern for the team isn’t death by Stray but friendly fire.

  “It will allow the triggered Shield to maintain reason even in the face of a violation. A brief window of opportunity to secure the Stray’s ID.”

  “One of us Sparks, the other three mark the active Shield,” Davis recites. “Zero chance of success over a prolonged assignment.”

  “Zero?” I say, breaking my vow of silence.

  Davis looks at me directly for the first time since we sat down, his face a careful blank, his voice flat. “If the blocker wears off before we have an ID the active Shield will go dark, probably cut their tracker and leave us blind.”

  Ethan nods. “A twenty-four-hour assignment is the best-case scenario.”

  “But not likely,” Lane says.

  I want to ask why but keep my mouth shut.

  “It comes down to strength of ETR and Active Frequency Sensitivity,” Ethan says, and I know he’s explaining for my benefit because all the proper Shields get it already. “Best-case scenario, I respond to the Spark as I have the most mature signal and therefore the strongest sensitivity. This increases the likelihood of swift identification. Davis would be the next best option as he is only a year away from threshold. Lane and Jamie will be least effective.”