Unawakened

by Trillian Anderson

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “I know it, you know it, and just about everyone else who knows anything about his attack on the college knows it, but there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s not a priority right now. So, if we want anything done, we’ll have to do it ourselves—without getting caught. The government wants him, and they’ll react positively if they find his body in a dark alley somewhere.”

  I sighed, wondering if I’d ever get the chance to get back at Arthur Hasling for what he had done. “Which leaves us with Kenneth and the dean to deal with.”

  “Exactly. We’ll figure something out. My top priority is to make sure Kenneth stays away from you. Then we ruin him, dispose of him, and move on. The dean will be a more challenging target, and if we can make Kenneth work for us while we’re working against him, even better.” The way Rob smiled chilled me to the bone, and my eyes widened as I stared at him, my mouth open although I couldn’t force out a single word.

  I often forgot how dangerous Rob was until he reminded me, and all I saw in the dae’s expression was a promise of death.

  “Why are you going so far?” I whispered, afraid of the answer but compelled to ask the question all the same.

  “Those women deserve justice, and so do you.”

  Before I could say another word, Rob rolled on top of me, pinning me beneath him while pressing his lips to mine. I recognized his ploy to avoid further discussion, but decided I didn’t care and met his desire with my own.

  His answer had been enough.

  Chapter Three

  Fourteen hours after Kenneth and his dae drugged me, I crashed and burned. Pleasure twisted to pain, and while I could function, all I wanted was for the misery to end.

  Rob worked while I paced, hissing at the way my clothes scratched my skin and left me raw. Sitting still only worked for so long before a blend of relentless itching and restless energy drove me back to my feet.

  I needed something—anything—to do.

  Logically, I recognized what the drugs were doing to me, but I craved the euphoria of the high. The need for another hit seared through me, and I shuddered, biting my lower lip so I wouldn’t beg Rob for what I knew he didn’t have.

  He had taken away the sample of Terry Moore’s drug months ago to study it.

  The only person who could give me what I needed was Kenneth Smith. My breaths came hard and fast. For a brief moment, I considered pleading for another hit. Balling my hands into fists sent stabbing pain up my arms.

  “I’m not giving you anything, so don’t ask.” Rob’s gaze was fixed on his laptop screen. “I know it hurts, but if I tried to sedate you, I have no idea how the drugs will interact. I could do a lot more harm than good.”

  “I know.”

  So many from the fringe had lost their lives over the years due to overdosing on drugs. I had almost numbered among them. I wanted to scream, rant, and rave over the injustice of it all.

  I thought I had won the war, but the cravings were back and stronger than ever. Slumping on the couch beside Rob, I stifled a groan and bent forward, burying my face in my hands.

  It hurt.

  “You might claim it’s the perfect drug—if you’re the dealer,” Rob said, leaning back from his work with a heavy sigh. “Twelve hour duration, invisible to current tests, and invisible side effects. You’re in pain, but you’re able to function. If you had another dose, you’d just be back to hunting down another round to bring back the high.”

  “Shut up,” I hissed.

  “It explains Kenneth’s decision to come visit. Not only was he going to have his way with you, he’d be able to manipulate you with the promise of another hit. It’s a brilliant tactic, really. Too bad he didn’t count on me being here.”

  Yelling at Rob wouldn’t help anything. It wasn’t his fault I had been stupid. It wasn’t his fault he was right, either.

  If Kenneth Smith walked through the door, I would beg for more of the drug, and I knew it. Worse, I’d be willing to do anything to get it. I took a deep breath and held it until my lungs burned. When I exhaled, it was slow and long.

  Even the gentle flow of air slipping between my lips hurt.

  It wasn’t Rob’s fault. I reminded myself of that fact until the urge to snap at him faded. “No sane man of your rank would stay in a dive like this.”

  “My advantage. Mr. Smith doesn’t know how to be anything other than an elite. I, on the other hand, prefer having a varied set of skills. However, I think it’s time you had a change of scenery. I have an apartment not too far away, and it’s far easier to secure than this place. While he’ll probably be able to find you, getting to you will be a challenge. It would benefit my other plans, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mr. Smith and I have overlapping goals. We both want information on the dean. We have the advantage in that neither Mr. Smith nor Mr. Lewis are aware we know the nature of the invoices, and Mr. Lewis doesn’t know we are aware the invoices and videos exist. While Mr. Smith knows about the invoices, it’s a useless lead for him without the murder videos.” Rob propped his feet up on the coffee table and stretched. “Unless I’m mistaken, Mr. Smith will want to keep his history with Terry Moore a secret.”

  Forcing my attention to the problem of the drugs and murders helped distract me from the withdrawal, and I scowled as I considered Rob’s words. While drug abusers would often concoct elaborate schemes to avoid paying Kenneth, most of them weren’t really bad people. Like the women in Terry Moore’s videos, they were victims of a system designed to drive reasonable people to the edge and push them over.

  The elite benefited from a society of addicts, as long as the addictions didn’t impair the workers’ ability to do their jobs. To buy drugs, the addicts needed money. To get money, they needed to work. In turn, the elite didn’t have to police the population as much; many in the fringe were too busy chasing after the next best high to cause trouble.

  The new drug could keep workers high without affecting their jobs. Until a test was developed to detect the drug, anyone from any caste could use it without fear of consequence.

  I sat back and stared at my hands. They stung and burned, but there was no visible sign of the drug’s influence. My pain was in my head, strong enough to make me want another hit, but not so strong I couldn’t work through it.

  Kenneth Smith had found the perfect drug, and with one unwilling dose of it, I desired another. The memory of the way it made my body sing with the lightest caress against my skin haunted me.

  “I’m not going to let you get hooked.”

  Why was speaking the truth so hard? I already was, and there was nothing he could do about it. I sighed and shook my head. “It’s not your fault.”

  I hated myself for my inability to confess how much I wanted to get high again and spend it with him. I had talked the talk so much, but it had only taken one hit to destroy all of my hard work.

  “I’m up for an energetic argument about who is to blame for what Kenneth Smith did to you. That said, there’s a difference between craving something and choosing to satisfy your craving. You’re not hooked unless you take it again. Maybe right now you want it, but unless you actually go to Mr. Smith, get the drug, and take it, you’re clean as far as I’m concerned. You getting hooked again is a choice, and it’s one I have no intention of letting you make. If I have to stay by your side for days until those urges fade, so be it.”

  The crash lasted as long as the high. When it finally wore off, exhaustion weighed me down, but I was wide awake. Without the pain distracting me, my determination to get a healthy dose of revenge and free myself from Kenneth Smith surged. My personal laptop was at least as old as I was, but it did what I needed when I couldn’t risk using my newer tablet or the college’s laptop.

  I booted it up, cracking my knuckles one by one.

  If sleep was going to evade me, I’d make the most of the time.

  “If you go to sleep, that means I can go to sleep,” Rob grumb
led. I glanced at him. He was sprawled over the other half of the couch, as he had been for hours. “Do you have an off switch?”

  Despite everything, he made me laugh. “Maybe.”

  “What are you doing that can’t wait until after we’ve gotten some sleep?”

  “This is bothering me.”

  Rob lurched upright and stretched with a groan. “What’s bothering you?”

  While waiting for my antique computer to boot, I drummed my fingers on the coffee table. “I’m talking about the relationship between Kenneth Smith, Dean Lewis, and Terry Moore. Terry Moore was a key player, but I don’t understand the relationship between Kenneth and the dean. Kenneth wants me to sniff out information on the dean. Why would he do that to one of his partners? When I saw them together in the dean’s office, it was pretty obvious they had arrangements for working together.”

  Rob leaned forward and turned on his laptop, which was ready for his use in a couple of seconds. “They’re elite. Most of the elite have some form of relationship with each other, Alexa. It’s how the system works. They may not like each other, but they work together to prevent the lower castes from overthrowing the system. If the lower castes manage to coordinate themselves in a rebellion, they’ll win by numbers alone.”

  The thought had already crossed my mind, and I had spent many a sleepless night wondering why the lower castes didn’t turn against the elite and take back the rights they had allowed the government to take away from them.

  Then again, many people weren’t aware of America’s history and the rights they had lost. Those who did kept quiet in fear of disappearing one night, never to be seen or heard from again.

  “I know. Do you think Kenneth knows the dean was paying Terry Moore to kill women?”

  “I am of the opinion even if Smith knows, he simply doesn’t care. They’re the same breed. So long as their wealth, power, and rank grow, they don’t care.”

  “What makes you different, then? Why do you care?”

  The question had been bothering me for weeks. What made Rob so different? If it wasn’t for his suit, his contacts, and the way other elite tiptoed around him, I wouldn’t have believed he was an elite.

  If it wasn’t for the way the other dae cowered from him when he scowled, I wouldn’t have believed him a dae, either. I knew he fed from me, basking in the strength of my emotions for his sustenance, which was the only real difference between us.

  In all other ways, Rob wasn’t so different from me, an unawakened human. I really wanted to know what set Rob apart as a dae, but I didn’t have the courage to ask.

  For a long time, Rob stared at me, his eyes narrowing. The subtle way his gaze unfocused warned me he was lost in thought, probably trying to find a way to explain the unexplainable.

  “Do I need a reason to care?”

  I straightened, and my puzzlement turned into dismay.

  I had spent so long fighting for survival and climbing the social ladder for a better life. All my focus had been on advancing myself. Did anyone need a reason to help someone?

  Maybe Rob was a dae, but he was also a far better human than me.

  Rob slept beside me on the couch while I worked. I was relieved the dae wasn’t watching me. His ability to sense my emotions was limited when he slept, else he’d be getting a heavy dose of self-loathing and disgust served with a helping of guilt.

  Everything had been so much easier when I hadn’t put much thought into the consequences of the things I did. I stared at my hands for a long time, remembering how I had pulled the trigger of my gun, ending Lily’s life to protect my own.

  We hadn’t liked each other, but I wondered. Was my life really worth more than hers? I doubted I’d ever know.

  All I could do was try to make my life worth something more than just another fringe rat scrambling for the scraps offered by the upper castes.

  My first step was to untangle the mess created by Terry Moore, Dean Lewis, and Kenneth Smith.

  I didn’t want to watch the murder videos again, but if I wanted to find the invisible ties binding Terry Moore and Dean Lewis together, I needed to know who the women were and why the dean had paid so much for them to be drugged, raped, and killed.

  I had put off the uncomfortable task for far too long.

  With the Dawn of Dae, the government’s information structure had crumbled. The police no longer had an updated list of missing people, which hampered my efforts to get a positive ID on the women. So many people from all castes had disappeared in such a short period of time it would probably take months to untangle the mess.

  I browsed the law enforcement websites open to the public, wondering how I’d be able to sniff out information on anyone with the government in such a state of chaos. Even the government acknowledged the problem.

  For the first time in my memory, the police were recruiting from the general public, and even those from the fringe could apply for admission into training. The list of open positions was staggering, ranging from paper shufflers and secretaries to supervisors.

  They’d even accept the unawakened among them, although the positions were limited to internal roles within law enforcement.

  Infiltrating the police had been something Kenneth had considered time and time again, but ultimately decided against as too risky—or too far out of reach. Fringe rats like me couldn’t apply; no matter how far I climbed, my history was a black mark against me.

  The police couldn’t trust someone from the lower castes to protect and serve those of the upper castes.

  Before the Dawn of Dae, information had been easier to acquire. I considered my employer, wondering how far he would go to ruin the dean of my college.

  If his thirst for revenge ran deep enough, I could see him approaching me with an offer to slip among the police. I had always refused to even associate with the police, unwilling to risk my education and further entomb myself in Kenneth’s work.

  With so many changes in society, I wondered if my tactic of avoiding relationships with those in the police had been a mistake. During the interviewing process at the college, most of the police had treated me well enough.

  Either my caste didn’t bother them as much as I thought it would, or my acceptance into Bach studies had been enough to counter my upbringing.

  Could taking advantage of the police’s open application period give me everything I needed to finally free myself from Kenneth?

  With Rob and Colby around, the burning need to escape my caste didn’t consume me quite as much. As long as I remained eligible to continue my Bach studies, I could build a comfortable life—one with them in it.

  I turned the volume down on my laptop, pressed play on the first of the videos, and studied the woman’s face. Watching the video reminded me what Kenneth had meant to do to me—would have done if Rob hadn’t been present to protect me. No matter how much I loathed the idea of having sex with Kenneth, he would have gotten exactly what he wanted from me with the drug’s help.

  I wondered how many of the women had wanted to sleep with Terry Moore before he took them to his bed and killed them.

  Kenneth Smith and Dean Lewis were bound together. If I ruined one, I would ruin the other. First, I had to provide irrevocable proof Kenneth had supplied Terry Moore with the red drug. Second, I had to prove Dean Lewis had signed a contract with Terry Moore to have the women raped and murdered.

  The waters ran deep and cold, and I’d swim in them, as much of a predator as the elite who sought to rule the world. Maybe Rob was right in his belief the elite would work together to remain in power, but he was wrong about one critical thing.

  The elite could be played against each other. If I did everything just right, I could work with both Kenneth Smith and Dean Lewis without either one of them believing I was doing anything other than the work they ordered me to do.

  I was good at what I did. Even if they believed I intended to betray them, I would profess my innocence until the moment I turned on them, baring my fangs and biting
them until they bled.

  I had started as Kenneth Smith’s hound of war, but he had forged me too well. I had become something else entirely. To destroy Kenneth’s empire and disgrace Dean Lewis, I would be a wolf eager for the hunt.

  I’d be a little more human, too. Rob had it right. He didn’t need a reason to care about the victims left behind in the games the elite played, and neither did I.

  All they needed was justice, and we would get it for them somehow.

  My determination to find justice for the raped and murdered women kept me awake long after I should have collapsed in an exhausted stupor. I dug out and booted the college’s laptop, pulling up the database I had created for the registration of the dae.

  It took me most of the day to manually recreate the database on my laptop. My attempts to wake Rob and move him to the bedroom had ended with his sleepy complaints and refusal to move.

  I had no idea how he could sleep for so long sprawled on the couch, but I liked having him close while I worked. Turning my attention back to my laptop, I considered my options. While I could disconnect the system from the internet and temporarily disable the government-installed spyware, there was still a chance someone might figure out what I had done.

  There was no official reason for me to need a copy of the dae registration database, and the last thing I needed was unwanted attention.

  When I finally finished, I logged into the college’s network.

  Others had picked up where I had left off, although none of them had been as thorough. Judging from the collection of files and emails, at least twenty people had tried to fill my shoes, and none of them had lasted two days before they had been removed from the job.

  The fact Dean Lewis hadn’t revoked my access to the files filled me with hope. I had been given strict orders to stay off the network and focus on recovering, but I no longer had any excuses to dodge my work.