by Terina Adams
From her rooftop, the fringe looked peaceful in the twilight. The soft yellow glow that flickered through open windows was like a signal of survival. From the chaos and violence, to this, where not even the wind disturbed the quiet. The night became a glow of fireflies.
I pulled my legs to my chest and rested my chin on my knees as I stared out over the roofline. Due to the heat, in the warm months, a lot of living was done on the rooftop, but in a place like the fringe, a worn rug and a few tattered cushions were the only comfort you would find. Was this the reason for Jax’s rooftop room back in my world?
The high-rise apartments in central Califax did not look like the sorts of places people would gather on the roof, but the fringe was like another world, and I could only wonder how close Jax had been to this way of life. It didn’t make sense. His apartment screamed wealth. His family was obviously connected with the senate—or else why had Dad targeted them—and that could only mean money. Yet this family seemed to know him intimately, plus he moved around the fringe like it was his second home.
I glanced over to the fire burning in a large bowl in the center of the rug. I stared into the dancing flames, remembering the conversation Jax and I had on his rooftop. I remembered the glow of the firelight on his face, softening the hard edges, which had etched permanent lines on his brow, making him handsome yet unreachable. I remembered the haunting of his eyes as he told me Dad was not human, not earth human anyhow, and that he was a part of this whole elaborate and deadly design to get us all killed.
Alithia returned to the roof, carrying a tray with two mugs. She said little to me since her return, staying long enough in the escape room to check on Jax and gain Azrael’s assurance she would remain in there with us until she gave the all-clear to come up top. It was only after the sweepers departed that she’d given me a terse and abbreviated account of what she learned and saw. I couldn’t fault her attitude. This was her home, and this was what Jax and I had done by being here.
I took the hot drink from Alithia and cradled it in my hands, using that to push away the memory of Jax’s tortured confession. This was only the beginning. What world of pain and regret would we face before we reached the end? Who would we be when we got there?
“It’s so peaceful at night,” I said, but I didn’t expect an answer from her.
She sat beside me on the edge of the small brick wall and looked down on the street below. I followed her gaze to see a figure shuffle silently down the alley. In the moon shadow cast by the buildings, his slow, hobbled gait made me think he was wounded or old, someone lucky to be alive.
“Triptophia is full tonight. In another hour, a third moon, Iridiaus, will rise sunder. Though it is only small.”
“You have three moons.”
“Four. Eurodus is the closest and largest. It is the moon that follows the sun. It would light the night as day, but it is the day moon. The smallest, Iridiaus, is the last to rise and is still there first thing in the morning, although you barely see it with the naked eye. The fourth, Riddean, also a giant, only comes into view at night every couple months. It is usually in the sky during the day but hidden by Eurodus. In fact, it should soon be seen in the night sky.”
I’d given up the pretense I was from this world. Alithia accepted the quiet revelation with equal amounts of silence. Perhaps there were ungrafted people in the fringe who’d experienced shifting. Maybe she was ungrafted herself, though she wore a tattoo on her wrist.
“Why do the sweepers come?”
“It is the senate’s attempt to control the outer fringe with terror. Their power is limited in its reach this far out. The only way they can maintain their authority is to keep us living in fear.”
“They come and terrorize the people and leave?”
“No. They come looking for children. Early on, it became apparent those living in the fringe did not uphold the same prejudice as the rest of Califax. Living so close together, relying on each other to survive, the factions mingled, and many fell in love and had children. To prevent mixed births, all baby boys were marked for forced sterilization at puberty. Soon, many parents refused to register their child’s birth. And with the constant flow of illegal immigration, the senate soon realized the problem had stretched beyond their simple means of control. That is when the sterilization clinics stopped and the sweepers arrived. It is a crude, brutal threat to our continual defiance.”
I could’ve asked why anyone in the fringe bothered to risk so much by defying the senate and having children, but I was too young to appreciate the biological drive, and I didn’t want to offend her. A subject change was best. “How many of you are grafted?”
“Most, but not through choice. I was born in a more respectable sector, where all the people are grafted and tattooed upon birth. I dishonored my family by chasing my heart. My parents disowned me, because the young man was from another faction. They feared punishment and so reported me to the senate. They took him away.” Her voice remained flat, because the past could no longer affect her, or she’d cried too many tears to shed anymore. “His parents blamed me, but not as much as I blamed myself.” Her gaze rested on the fire. The golden glow rewound the years on her face, but her tone was anything but young. “I never saw him again. My parents were driven from their comfortable life, ostracized for the part they did not play in the ruin of his family. They claimed they no longer had a daughter.”
“That must have hurt.”
“It was a mercy. Had they remained by my side, the senate would have likely executed me. Since I was not pregnant and now abandoned by my family, they miraculously let me go. I was a great example. This is what happens to those who disobey the senate.”
So he was not Azrael’s father. And young man meant this happened long ago.
“You haven’t bothered to have Azrael tattooed.”
“There is no point. They would take her regardless. They do not trust the tattoos out here.”
I understood the reason for her leveled gaze. My first instinct was to look away rather than at her penetrating glare. Jax already made me feel inches tall for my choice. I didn’t need a stranger reducing me more than I already was. Too late, my throat constricted up with the choke I felt when people made me believe something about myself was wrong, and I always feared they were right, no matter how much I told myself otherwise.
Rather than look away, I focused on the flames, but the silence thinned the air between us until it felt like we’d be snapped together, bashing heads on the recoil. How dare she judge me? I should just leave rather than put up with her silent inquisition. But I couldn’t make myself move. She’d become an enigma in the confusing paradox that was Jax. No, that was too simple an explanation for what drew the confession up my throat. Alithia faced fear with courage and survived through tenacity. She was a mother. The hardship of her life did not diminish her desire to love.
“As a Persal, I would be alone in this world.” Jesus, that sounded so pathetic.
Finally, she dropped her gaze to the fire. With that small gesture, which was no movement at all, she pushed me aside. Alithia followed her heart, damn the consequences. She forged a life here, because she believed it had meaning. And I caved, because I was afraid.
“Not out here you wouldn’t.”
The welling in my chest made me feel like a child having just received praise. She had not pushed me aside.
“But I have to find my mum and brother, and I need to be in central Califax to do that. That’s where I’ll find the information I need to locate them.”
She took a slow sip of her hot drink, not bothering to reply or ask questions about me, like who I was, where I came from, or why I was here. Maybe fringe dwellers knew not to ask questions, or maybe she already knew, which seemed plausible, given how much Azrael seemed to care for Jax.
The silence became awkward. “If you don’t mind me asking, where is Azrael’s father?”
“Buried.” The word spoken like a sledgehammer struck on stone.
&
nbsp; “What is her factional nature?”
Her gaze sliced to me. For a moment, I felt sure she wouldn’t answer me.
“I am Perun. Her father was Aris.”
A cross-breed, a child born with different factional natures. And that is why the senate sent the sweepers to round up the children. And I couldn’t help but admire her more.
“How many children like Azrael are there?”
“A few. The senate have taken most, and the sweeper attacks grow more frequent with each year. The escape room is our only protection. They would like to see us eradicated. Removing our children is a start, but enough people from the inner sectors fall on hard times and find themselves out here. And although the senate control immigration from the outer provinces, enough slip through undetected and end up in the fringe as illegal citizens. Our numbers swell despite the senate’s regime.”
“What will the senate do now that a sweeper has been killed?”
Killed. Jax had killed someone. Remembering this, I couldn’t stop the echoes of his despair, the plea that I understand why he did it, that I forgive him. In truth, he wasn’t searching for my forgiveness, but he didn’t realize that yet. He was searching for his own. I should know.
No, don’t feel this. I ached for Jax, but those sorts of feelings only made destruction restless. I wasn’t allowed to feel the gentler emotions, and taking on Jax’s pain made destruction want to lash out.
“We cannot hide the fact that a sweeper has been killed.” Alithia’s response gave me something to concentrate on, allowing me to claw myself out of the deep well destruction would pull me into. “But we can hide the truth of how. And that is the most important thing. He could have died in a skirmish in which he became outnumbered. It is a possibility. It is important the senate do not know he was killed by an ungrafted Aris. That alone would bring the force of the senate’s army into the fringe, something we could not protect ourselves against. Everyone in the fringe knows the importance of this secret. They will protect it.” She placed her mug down on the brick wall and edged herself around to face me. “I can give you one warning. The most important warning you will ever hear. Never let them know you can fight. More importantly, never let them know you are not Aris.”
The tone of her voice had altered little, but the force of her declaration washed through me, firing destruction to life. I buried my head in my knees as if that would hold the wall of my factional nature back. Think of something else. How much did she know of Carter and Dad’s plan? No good, Carter’s name reverberating through my head was enough to weaken my hold over my factional nature. “What about the crack along the ground in the alley?” I burst out like that was my salvation from the turmoil within me.
“It has been taken care of.”
As if dismissing me, she shuffled around to face the fire. Could it be my being Persal made her uncomfortable, or more importantly, an ungrafted Persal? But no, she fell in love with a man of another faction. Surely that was enough to prove she didn’t care about who someone was within.
“My mum and Ajay are on this world somewhere. I need to find them. There is a possibility they’ve been taken to a village called Uradra in the Persal province.”
“I do not know that area.”
“My mum has no ability. She’s stuck in this nightmare because of her marriage to my dad.”
“Who is your father?”
I’d learned little about who he was as a man in this world, but the few things I gleaned weren’t good, so it was with hesitancy I told her. “He was one of the senate, Nixon.”
An ice wall descended between us so sudden yet so forceful I felt hypothermic in seconds. Along with the glacial shift, a twitch in her jaw and the rigidity of her shoulders revealed her anger. Feeling the force puncture through me, destruction rallied in defense. God, it’s not an attack. But the swift change in her demeanor, coupled with the topic of our previous conversation, and I had little defense against my factional nature.
I uncurled and turned, dropping my legs to the floor, fists clenched tight so my skin could feel the sharp pain of my nails. Pain brought me back from the edge.
Alithia stood, her movement so swift destruction reared beneath my skin. Jesus, cool it.
“What’s wrong?” My voice quivered through the strain of holding destruction back.
“I shall check on Jax.” She turned her back on me, and I was on my feet before I realized I had any intention of doing it. “Alithia.” I did not mean to sound harsh.
She did not turn around. “Right now, Jax is more important.”
“Why are you shutting me out?” Not you, please.
She spun around. Destruction reacted so quick I could only catch the end, slamming down on the leak with such force it felt like I dropped a thousand feet. Too late, the bowl of fire shot skyward and exploded into a dazzling display of fireworks.
Alithia staggered backward with a gasp. I palmed my mouth as horror brought a sting into my eyes. “Jesus. I’m sorry.”
“What are you doing with him?” She took two strides toward me. Not my sudden and violent release of destruction, nor the embers falling to the rooftop, diminished her.
“I don’t understand.” Faced with her venting fury, I took a step back.
“How can you be so selfish?”
She didn’t wait for my reply, striding away from me across the roof and down the stairs.
Feeling weak, I stumbled backward to the wall. She knew. But it wasn’t my factional nature that made her hate me. It was my dad. I slumped down but missed the brick wall and instead slid down the face to land heavy on my ass. Cradling my calves, I buried my face away. If only I could bury myself away.
Chapter 15
In the dull light of the trylite rock, Jax appeared better than when he first staggered through Alithia’s door. A constant diet of tablets and sleep through the night created miraculous results.
I slept rough on the bed next to him, waking regularly to check on him, then wasting precious sleep time as I sunk into the swelling hatred of myself, which had no place in the fringe, in this world, in my heart, while I struggled to stay undetected and alive. Now was not the time to beat myself up for every decision I made.
Forever prowling below the surface, destruction loathed my pity party; I should loathe it too. At least I had an internal alarm bell for every time I focused more on myself than on what was important, and it was about time I paid attention. I had to stop feeling like this. Get smart, get tough, because that’s how people survived.
“You’re quiet.”
I jerked at Jax’s voice filtering through the silence.
I shuffled across my bed and sat gently on his, not wanting to disturb him in case he was still sore from the fight. The tablets had done wonders, but they weren’t a total miracle cure that had him back to normal in one night. “I’m glad you’re alive.”
“Only just,” he replied. I wouldn’t be able to tell if he smiled, because his face still resembled a boxing glove, puffed and raw, but the bleeding had stopped. In the dull of the light, I couldn’t see if any of the wounds already knitted back together.
I finally managed to dig out a smile. “You look terrible.”
“I feel better than when I first arrived. How long has it been?”
“Not sure exactly. Maybe twenty-four hours.”
Jax suddenly rolled to the side then froze mid-roll. “Ouch, that hurt.”
“Fool, why did you do it?”
“Elva will be worried.”
“True, but you need to be worried about yourself first. You can’t help anyone until you’re strong.”
He inched himself onto his back. “We should get going. We risk being confined to the fringe the longer we stay here. It could already be too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“After what I did….” Jax swallowed, his eyes fixated on the ceiling.
“Don’t worry. Alithia told me it was taken care of. The senate will never know the truth.”
/> “But they will know one of their own is dead. They each wear tracking monitors, which means they were alerted the moment he died. He would’ve disappeared from their grid.”
“But as long as they don’t know how he died….”
Jax shook his head then clutched at his temples. After a few calming breaths, he said, “That’s not enough. They will suspect that someone used their factional nature. It’s how the senate works. They will increase patrols at the exit points from the fringe. The fringe itself will be under constant surveillance.”
“Isn’t it always?”
“Not as much as it will be now. They will not let this pass without severe punishment. It’s how they work. Retribution.”
“I really hate to admit this, but I’m starting to understand why Carter and Dad did what they did. If this was my world. I’d want to fight.”
Jax eased his head to the side. Because of the dull light, his eyes, visible now that the swelling of his cheeks had subsided somewhat, lacked the penetrating glare he usually arrowed at me. “You don’t mean that.”
“How about what happened to Alithia? Her parents disowned her, because everyone was scared. That’s what the senate has done. They’ve built a culture based on fear, so that parents can be turned against their children, neighbors against each other.”
“And you’d be willing to do what it takes to change that?”
“Weren’t you? Isn’t that why you became a part of Dominus?”
Jax slowly turned his head away to the ceiling. “I don’t know why anymore. I just know I can’t live like this. But now I know what it really means to fight.”
I should drop the topic. He probably didn’t want to think about it so soon after what happened.
“It’s what Carter and Nixon trained me to do. They trained us to succeed. Both knew how the sweepers were taught, so they did things differently with us. We were given Dominus, which gave us the edge. It’s the only way I could’ve won against that sweeper. It’s only now I truly understand what I’ve been trained to do,” he said.