“I told you there would be problems, Lu.” His words are oddly shaky as he hands me the letter. It hangs there, suspended between our fingers as a wound opens that maybe we can’t solve right now. Because Jared and I both know what is likely to be inside the pages of this letter. As my mother always said, young men don’t write letters to ladies they don’t admire.
3
Alastair of no particular last name found me in an alley one morning. I’d run away from Storm and his True Born keep in search of Margot. My plan had not gone as expected. Instead of being helped by the kid gang I’d come across, I’d been five seconds from being pummeled to death and robbed. Ali had done a fairly good impression of being a handy merc and secured us passage across the waters, to where my sister was being held.
Though we traveled together from Dominion all the way through the heart of Russia, I learned very little about my new friend. I know he’s smart. I know that when he looks at you with his soulful eyes, he sees far more than he’ll ever let on. Sometimes when he thinks no one is paying attention, he lets the smart aleck fall away and he’s more like a smart little boy with a lot of tricks up his sleeves. I like him best then, when there’s nothing between us but the real Ali, the mischievous young man who doesn’t want anyone to know he’s kind.
Still, there is a lot more I’d need to learn about him before I could call him a true friend. Ali’s secrets are nearly as vast and deep as our own. It was his friends who helped us in Russia—friends with mysterious mantelpieces praying to unknown gods. Friends who knew things they shouldn’t. And then there is Ali himself. I’ve learned not to ask too many questions, but I’d like to know how it is that sometimes I’ve seen him throw his little pet rock in ways that counter nature. I’d like to know how it hovers there, just above the skin of his palm.
What kind of True Born gift would that be?
All these questions just mount as I stare at the True Born before me.
“He helped us, Jared. Saved our skins.”
Jared grabs hold of one end of the letter again, though this time he makes no move to tear it from my grasp. “To what end, Lu? What does he want for his help, eh? What kind of bargain will he collect for all of his ‘help’?”
My voice shakes with anger. “You have no right to imply—”
Jared’s mouth flattens into a tight, angry line. “No. I don’t. I’m doing it anyway. You can’t let him take advantage of you. Not again.”
“Who says I am?” I let go an explosive, incredulous laugh. I know he’s just being protective. I know how much it grates on him, the thought that I’ll be used. But I’m nobody’s fool. I can look after myself, and I deserve to be treated like I can. “All that has happened is that I’ve gotten a letter, Jared. A letter I haven’t even opened yet.”
“You’re vulnerable, Lu.” Jared’s eyes are mesmerizing fires. I could be drawn in if I’m not careful. Then burn for an eternity afterward. “You don’t know who this guy is, who he’s connected to. You don’t know what he wants.”
I pull my head back to regard the True Born coolly. He’s coiled tight as a snake and twice as deadly. One of my eyebrows ticks up as I stare at him with disdain, channeling my mother’s best frost.
“Vulnerable? I reckon you’ve momentarily lost your wits and forgotten who I am.” My lips begin to quiver, so I speak more quickly. “Don’t you remember all those things that make you hate the Upper Circle? The liars, the cheats, the power brokers? Those are the people who made me, Jared True Born. I reckon”—and my words dip low so I won’t cry—“I reckon I’m far safer with Ali than I am with you.”
I don’t wait for Jared to reply, though I see by his eyes the punch hits home. I turn on my heel and rush for my bedroom, where I slam the door and lock it. But for a long time after, I still feel it on my skin, the heat of Jared’s body stamped against my own.
And the burning pain that tells me we can never be.
…
The paper feels slippery, silky in my hands as I unwrap the fragile, creased envelope. When I pull out the letter from its sheath I’m swept by a subtle fragrance, something flowery and loamy. Wherever did Ali even get paper? It’s one of the most expensive commodities, something the uppermost of the Upper Circle use to prove their vast and superior wealth.
And when I open the page and begin to read the scrawling loops, I’m taken in by a nostalgia I hadn’t expected. This man was more than a friend to me—he was an ally.
Lucy,
You once asked me who I am. I don’t think I gave you a straight answer, and I don’t think I will here, either. There are things about me, about where I’m from, that I think could help you now, though. So I’m ready to spill some of those deep dark secrets you’ve been scratching at.
Some of my more interesting friends tell me that there is some stuff about to go down, stuff your guy Storm should know about. Feel free to bring him along, if you’ve got to, but really, we need to talk, you and Margot and me.
I’m making it sound all business, but it isn’t. Sure, I want to get to know your sister a little better. I also want to visit you just for the hell of it, but that’s a story for a different letter.
I’ll be seeing you soon.
Yours in darkness and light,
Alastair
The words swim before my eyes as I read them over again and again, but Ali is as skillful as an Upper Circle matron at obscuring the view. The paper crumples between my fingers as I ponder the various strands of meaning. Something is happening, something Storm and Margot and I need to know about.
It had always struck me as odd that Ali had been so quick to help me when he’d encountered me in that alleyway. Most Lasters would have sold me on the black market. Ali, though, booked me passage on a first-class cruise ship and came along for the ride, putting himself in peril the whole way. It wasn’t just a lark for him.
And Alastair isn’t just a Laster. Is he?
I know I need to get up and tell Storm, but I just sit there, my legs weak and shaky, my breath coming in hot bursts, and listen to the clock tick, tick, tick on the nearby nightstand.
And not for the first time I wonder: Could Ali have a piece of what Margot and I are looking for—the truth of what we are? It’s this thought that finally has me rise, like an unsteady toddler, from the corner of the bed. I shake, then shake harder, and have to sit down again to get my balance as the room spins.
It happens again. My legs wobble and I feel sick in the pit of my stomach.
A convulsive boom shakes the furniture seconds before light blooms outside my window. Jared rushes into the room, a feral nightmare ready to rip the world in two. It’s only then I realize—it wasn’t just me.
Someone has gone and detonated bombs right outside Storm’s keep.
4
“Get down,” Jared mutters through stretched lips. He takes a moment to peer out at the pink and orange tendrils licking the sky.
Another explosion rocks the building. The glass in the window rattles and shakes. Jared pulls the bedspread off the bed and throws it around his body like a sail. Then he envelops me, pulling me down beneath him, until we’re suffocating.
“Is this strictly necessary?” I ask through ragged breaths.
Jared isn’t listening to me. The way he tilts his head, I can tell intel is being wired into his implant. “Uh-huh,” he now says softly, “she’s fine.” A scant breath from me, his gaze rakes my face and, though he’s heavy, I can’t help but tingle from head to toe.
“Sorry,” he says to me.
He doesn’t sound sorry. Wicked hands capped with the three-inch nails of a panther sweep gently through my hair, looking for anything amiss. “You all right?”
I nod, gulping past the twin knots of fear and longing that have mushroomed in my throat. We stay that way for a long time, so close I can study the tiny scar near Jared’s lips, the high hollows of his cheekbones. His nose quivers in that familiar way. The hunter in him is scenting the air, reading the situation in ways
I can’t even fathom. One of my hands catches at his neck. I pluck at the collar of his T-shirt. The other is trapped against the hard planes of his stomach. When I try to break it free, his body jolts.
“Lu.” He whispers my name, so low if I’d been breathing I would have missed it.
“I’ve got to get to Margot,” I whisper, and begin the futile attempt to push him off me.
“She’s fine. Sorry.” The apology is so unexpected I stop squirming. “I-I should have thought to mention right off. Storm is with her.”
I’d known this, of course. I’ve fallen out of the habit of checking the bond between us, of feeling my sister like a phantom limb. But I still receive it unconsciously: her pain, her joy. Her…dread?
“What’s going on, Jared?”
The moment stretches out before he answers. “What do you mean?”
“Come on. Tell me. I deserve to know.” My hand, I suddenly realize, has curled around his shirt collar. I release the thin fabric, only to watch in horror as my hands spread themselves across Jared’s sharp collarbone.
If he’s noticed my brazen hands, he doesn’t show it. He licks his lips, elongated with half-change. His words come out slow and thick, his tongue catching on the teeth that have sharpened into killing tools. “Watchers are on the move. Some sort of armed revolt.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” I slide out from under him, but he clamps me down with an arm that might as well be steel.
“Where are you going, Princess?”
I roll my eyes. “Where do you think? Come on, it’s been a whole five minutes without a bomb being lobbed at us. I think it’s safe.”
Once I’m freed of his heavy limbs, accompanied by a hollow sense of loss that I can’t quite let go of, I stall at the bedroom door to wait for him. Jared crawls out from the bedspread like a languid jungle cat, sinewy and deceptively slow.
“Well then, let’s go,” he prompts, his eyes glittering with a promise I don’t understand.
I look down and realize why. My hand has found his arm again. “I-I just wanted to say thank you. For taking care of me after…” I trail off.
“Don’t mention it, Princess,” he whistles as he breezes by me. “Just doing my job.”
Outside my room, the scene is eerily normal. I don’t know what I’d expected. People scurrying through the hallways, maybe, or acting sentry along the windows. Not this. I pass an open door and spy Torch, calm as you please, staring at a few screens rolling feeds.
“Why are they acting like this attack is no big deal?” I murmur.
Jared replies with a careless shrug. “People who panic don’t live long.”
I barely knock on the door of my sister’s room before letting myself in. She sits on the bed, fully dressed. She is composed but I can feel her restlessness, her worry. Storm paces beside her, speaking into his mysterious earpiece, I reckon. Above his head, his crown of thorny bone crackles with icy fire.
I lock eyes on Margot. I tap my wrist, one, two times. She subtly brushes her cheek, flipping a strand of auburn hair back. Her eyes roll over to Storm, then back again to me before she lays her index finger on her thigh. I nod, small enough to not be noticed.
We need to talk.
Margot stretches and stands. “Come, Lu.” She takes my hand and leads me into the en suite bathroom, locking the door behind her.
When we are alone, still quiet as only we can be, I let it out. “What now?”
Margot pulls at the ends of her hair. “He thinks they’re after the tree.” He is Storm, of course, and the tree is the giant tree growing in Heaven Square. They are still a bit of a mystery at this point, but I reckon Margot must be talking about the Watchers, led by the mad preacher man, Father Wes.
Evolve or die, as the saying goes. Spray-painted everywhere, the enigmatic catchphrase is almost always accompanied by a drawing of two red circles, overlapping in the middle. The fervent Watchers believe in a prophecy that says some sort of blood-borne, DNA-based cure can end the Plague. Father Wes thinks the prophecy is about us, twin girls born into a world without hope. Two girls, two circles.
But the Prayer Tree, inexplicably sprung from whatever nanotechnology was crammed into what we’ve nicknamed magic bombs, is another story. “Why the tree?”
Margot shrugs. “Why do the Watchers do anything?” She rolls her eyes again, communicating her belief that the Watchers are crazy.
They may just be, at that. But Margot and I have been learning the hard way not to discount the absurd. The Lasters have been hanging plague prayers on the tree in Heaven Square. More and more appear every day: the Lasters steal up under cover of night and tie ribbons to the branches, their prayers for survival, along with bells and forks and spoons, lanterns and scarves.
I was never much one for prayers. Then again, Margot and I were raised in a big house with plenty of food and taken to the Splicer Clinic for protocols more often than either of us would have liked. We had no need for prayers. We had science—and the money to pay for it.
The Lasters, on the other hand, have next to nothing. They have a tree. And what would happen if that tree is obliterated?
Heavy steps sound outside the door. A knock. Storm’s gruff voice carries in. “Margot? Lucy?” I crack open the door. A grim Storm leans his forearm against the doorframe. “I’m fairly certain that was an isolated incident but I’m going to do a little digging. Torch will stay here with you while we’re gone.”
“Storm, wait.” I pop my head out the door. “We’re coming with you. Please?”
Storm contemplates the stubborn tilt to our chins and sighs. “Fine. It should be safe enough, judging from the number of people I see on the streets. But you follow my instructions to the letter at all times. Is that clear?”
…
The skyline over Dominion is a wash of orange and pink, rising to gray before fading to black. How many bombs had the Watchers lobbed? Margot’s hand crushes my own, her heart beating like a panicked bird’s inside me. I take a long haul of dirty Dominion air, washing out my sister’s anxiety as well as my own as we skirt our way through the rubble of downtown.
Here and there the corners of buildings have come tumbling down like a set of children’s blocks. We pass a boarded-up store whose brightly striped awning has caved in, along with the glass doors that have been reduced to tiny shards littering the ground like a bed of pebbles. On the sidewalk outside sits one lonely head of lettuce. Such a waste when so many Laster families, living in their car hotels, go hungry. A body drapes across a sidewalk as though the person has stretched out and gone to sleep. Was it the bombing or the Plague? I wonder, though I’m not brave enough to look.
Fanned out on all sides of us, Storm’s team combs the street while Storm strides alongside Margot and me like a god of yore. His footsteps thump the ground as he strides purposefully in the direction of downtown, toward Heaven Square.
I tap Margot’s wrist, catch her eye. She quivers all over, then hugs her body with her other arm, not letting go of my hand. But it isn’t until we turn the corner and arrive at the massive tree that I understand why he’s pointed us there.
A person occupies every square inch of space not taken up by the giant trunk and tree limbs. People around us make way, but everyone’s attention is locked on a tall, skinny figure, elevated by some sort of stage set up at the base of the tree. His thin arms are bare where the gaping sleeves of his robe pull away. His face is gaunt, made more so by the closely shaved head. Black cosmetics band his eyes, causing the already piercing brown to stand out like coals against the lantern-lit square.
But it’s the tattoo on his face that I can’t look away from. Two circles in red, conjoined in the middle.
Evolve or die.
It’s the same mark we see everywhere on the walls and buildings of Dominion, only now the Watchers are wearing it. I squeeze the life from Margot’s arm, and she stops and stares, gape-mouthed, at the man. He gesticulates wildly, whipping the crowd into a frenzy.
“They�
��re not your friends, people. The Upper Circle line their pockets with your suffering. They sleep on the bed of your bones. They’ll burn your tree down. And then they’ll grow fat and rich off your suffering while they survive the Great Plague.” My cheeks heat as he talks, the crowds murmuring, sometimes shouting, their agreement.
It’s not strictly true, of course. Nobody is immune to the Plague save the True Borns. Sure, some of the Splicers are lucky enough to survive with the help of a little technology. Others aren’t so lucky. It was only a few months ago that I watched one of the richest men in the world pass away in front of me. He’d been headed to Russia, too, looking for some secret miracle cure.
He hadn’t made it to shore. And Leo Resnikov’s factory, which we think likely manufactured this miracle cure, went up in flames.
In a fire that we set.
Fist pumping the air, the preacher man continues. “We can take it from them, you and I. They have the cure. We know they have the cure. And once we’ve taken it, we can take back the city for ourselves.”
I look around, my attention landing here and there on faces in the crowd. This isn’t the first preacher man to incite the rabble with a tall tale. A few years back, the police would have hauled this seditious preacher man away. Times have grown bleaker, though. There aren’t enough rovers to collect the dead from the streets, let alone police to keep order.
But was the preacher man telling the truth?
“What do you think would happen if the preachers and the rabble were to rule the city, eh, girls?” he’d quizzed us. “Ask any economist; ask any of those teachers at that fancy school of yours. The rabble doesn’t have the wherewithal to rule. And the preachers? Ha!” he’d scoffed. “This would be an easy power grab for them. They could make the world over with their brand of zealous chaos. Wouldn’t that be a picture?”
Our father was right. I turn as a red-faced Laster beside me yells out, “That’ll teach ’em, preacher man! Death to the Upper Circle!”
Storm stomps his feet, his spectral bones tossing in the night sky like a nightmare come to life. His eyes have gone liquid metal, all humanity leeched from them. “You.” Storm points to the preacher man. His voice echoes like a cannon across the square. The crowd around us shrinks and drops dead silent, until all you can hear is the tinkling of the prayer bells tied to the branches of the tree and the hammering of frightened hearts.
True Storm Page 4