by Terina Adams
“But he believes in division.”
“There are few who would disagree.”
“You would.”
He gave a small shake of his head.
“I doubt Holden would be as caring toward a child of mixed birth,” I added.
“Holden would never harm your mum and Ajay. He will make sure they’re safe. He has more integrity than me.”
“That, I don’t believe.”
“I wanted you dead.”
“But I’m not, thanks to you.”
“If you refused, I would’ve hunted your brother.”
I arched my head back to the ceiling, not having the strength to argue anymore. “I wish you’d stop trying to make me hate you.”
One huffed laugh, the most amusement I’d ever get out of Jax.
“Nuke and Patrick are going with you. At least as far as the fringe. Neither are registered citizens, so they’re in just as much danger. Go to Islia; he will help you. He’ll introduce you to some of the provincial merchants. They have senate clearance to travel. Some are sympathetic to those in the fringe. He’ll know the best ones. They won’t ask.”
My mind needed to catch up. “Do we go by skytrain? I know it’s a risk—”
“I doubt you’ll get beyond the first stop. Besides, none of you have a cephulet. The doors won’t open for you unless you have one, unless someone else gets off at the same stop. And you can’t guarantee that, since it’s at the end of the line. You may be the only ones on the skytrain by then. Elva will take you.”
“I doubt it. In case you haven’t noticed, Elva and I aren’t friends.”
“That means she’ll be all too happy to get rid of you. I’ll be more useful at Aris HQ. She can shift you there, so you don’t have to worry about long awkward silences or spiteful glances.”
“I thought you were worried about the senate monitoring the shift ripples or whatever.”
“Speed is more important now.”
“The senate knows, don’t they?”
“It’s likely they do.”
“This is all because of me. If only I weren’t so hopeless in controlling my factional nature.”
“We never would’ve gotten this far if you were any worse in manipulating your factional nature. It’s like you’ve been using it since you were a baby. You’re the best Persal I’ve met.”
I don’t know why I pressed my lips together as if to suppress a smile, because I sure as hell didn’t feel like smiling, but the compliment found its way in regardless. “And how do I know you’re not just saying that to cheer me up?” I wanted to shift us out of this gloom, but I sounded like I was sulking.
“I thought you trusted me by now.”
I searched his eyes when he looked at me, hoping to see something written there that would give me a hint to his inner dialogue. He allowed me to look, even returned my silent inquisition with a similar look of his own, and then, as if snapping out of a daydream, he pushed to his feet. “You need to go. Ask Islia to hide Nuke and Patrick.”
Without waiting for my reply, Jax strode for the door.
“I want to check on Alithia and Azrael,” I called out.
Jax stopped, but he didn’t turn around.
“I know she hates me, but I’m responsible for anything the senate throws their way. I want to make sure they’re all right.” I came up alongside him.
“Concentrate on what you have to do. Don’t stay in the fringe.”
Did he think I would do something else to put their lives in danger?
The door slid aside to the other three looking restless. Jax strode out of the bedroom. “Nuke, Patrick, you’re going with Sable.” He glanced to Elva. “I’ll head to HQ. It’d be good if you gave them a lift. It’s one quick shift. Then come straight to HQ.”
“Are you crazy? What if the senate is monitoring the—”
“It’s too late for us to worry about that. If they did receive the results from Sable’s hair sample….” He faded off, because there was little point emphasizing what Elva, a citizen of Califax, would already know.
She pursed her lips and pushed past him. “Fine, if only to get rid of her.”
Elva positioned herself in the center of the room. When none of us moved, she glared at us. “Well, come on.”
Nuke and Patrick launched up and headed over to her. “What do you want us to do?” Nuke asked.
Elva’s glare was enough to burn a hole through lead. She held out a hand on each side and wriggled her fingers then looked at me. “Looks like you’re on the end.”
Patrick squeezed my hand and winked.
Elva sneered. “Hold tight or we may leave some of you behind.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t let you go.” Patrick winked again. When would this stop being one big adventure to him?
Jax’s eyes were focused on his cephulet, already moving ahead to the next important task. I should’ve done the same, but as I looked across the room at him, still looking semi-recovered from going a round with a heavyweight, that leaded feeling of inevitability sank through. Even though he wasn’t moving, Jax began to recede from me as that gulf from earlier split even wider, so wide I felt there was no breaching it, no going back. I snapped my eyes away, no longer able to bare to look at him as the gulf split wide inside me. I wasn’t going to see him again. The feeling was so sudden, so sharp, so final, so devastating.
How many sacrifices would we have to make before this was over, if it was ever going to be over? I was losing everyone around me.
Mum and Ajay would not be two of the many sacrifices I had to make.
“You know how it goes. Keep a hold if you want all your insides to follow you across. On the count of three, I’m off.”
I closed my eyes, because I didn’t want to see Jax’s apartment disappear. I felt the tug inside, the usual weird feeling that lasted a spit second as I was pulled from one place in time to the next. No lingering in the in-between. If we even reached that far. I wouldn’t know, since I wasn’t a shifter. I still didn’t understand how it worked, how a mind could peel the fabric of space and time apart and move people through. But I could destroy with the simple flex of my thoughts. How could shifting be any more unbelievable?
When I opened my eyes again, I was standing in an alley of the fringe. Ahead, the alley opened up to one of those market spaces, still eerily quiet. From here, I could see the chaotic mess left by the sweepers as they scoured through the fringe. Everyone remained in hiding. The senate had yet to do their worst.
“Looks like earth is not the only place with slums,” Nuke said, running his gaze up and down the alley then over the walls of the buildings hemming us in.
“The smell’s no different either,” Patrick added, making a point of scrunching his nose.
“I’ve fulfilled my obligation.” Elva stepped away from us. “I suggest you get yourselves off the streets.”
“What are we supposed to do?” Nuke asked.
“Stay hidden for now. It’s going to get ugly. It’s better you keep clear of central. The senate will target the fringe, but Islia will know how to hide you better than we could hope to do.”
“Where is this Islia?” Patrick questioned.
“I know,” I said, nodding toward his door. “This is his home.” I’d ran through enough alleys in the fringe to know most looked like all the others, but I recognized the mark on Islia’s door.
“I have to get back.” Elva distanced herself from us a few steps more.
We were fragmenting, which was always going to be the case, only not as fast as I thought. “Hang on.”
Elva gave a frustrated flick of her head before she leveled a deadpan stare my way.
I turned to Nuke and Patrick. “Can you give us a minute?”
The two exchanged a look between each other then between Elva and me. “Um… I guess,” Patrick said, backing away.
“This won’t take long, so don’t go far,” Elva said.
I watched Nuke and Patrick back away. Then on
ce I thought they were far enough, I turned to Elva.
“This better be good.”
“Why do you hate me so much?”
“You’re not important enough for me to hate.”
“I don’t get it. I don’t get you. I’ve done nothing to make you treat me like this.”
“No, you haven’t.” She looked away. A small frown creased her porcelain brow as she thought.
“If I’ve done nothing, then why?”
She stared down at me. “Even in our world, Jax has stuck by you.”
“You’re jealous of Jax?”
She groaned a sigh then looked down at me with her usual scorn. “Not Jax, idiot.” And with that, she was gone, leaving only a small disturbance of dust where she’d stood.
Holden abandoned Elva, and yet Jax was still willing to help the daughter of the enemy, the man who killed his family. Was she jealous of me?
Chapter 19
“Where are we?” Patrick spun in a circle, eyeing the crudely erected buildings.
“We’re on the outskirts of Califax. This is the fringe and home to many like us ungrafted people. We’ll find shelter here if the sweepers come looking. None of these people are friends of the senate.” I pointed to Islia’s door. “The guy who lives here is called Islia. He’s the one who did my tattoos. He’s a friend of Jax’s, and Elva’s too it would seem. He will hide you.”
“You’re not coming?” Patrick asked.
“I will, but not just yet. I have to see someone.” Jax didn’t want me visiting Alithia and Azrael, but I couldn’t ignore them. I was responsible for the suffering they had experienced the last twenty-four hours and the great wave to come. They needed to be warned.
“Who could you possibly know on this planet that you need to go and see?”
“Just… go knock on the door. Islia is bald, about this high”—I measured my hand against my chest—“and full of tattoos. Tell him Jax sent you and that I’m coming. I won’t take long. And warn him about what is to come.”
Nuke grabbed my arm. “What do you think you’re doing? We don’t know what’s going on with the senate. According to Jax and Elva, things are going to get ugly. You need to listen.”
I pulled my arm from his grasp. “If you’d stop holding me up, I’d be back already.”
“You’ve already gotten yourself in trouble here. Perhaps we should go with you,” Patrick said.
“And get me in more trouble? Go knock on the door.” With that, I took off down the alley at a sprint, disappearing around the corner before they could yell out. They were unlikely to follow, as the fringe would be nothing more than a dirty sprawling maze to them. It was little more to me, but I had some vague memories of the lefts and rights we’d made once we passed the market space close to Islia’s home.
Patrick and Nuke were right. This was madness, but if I left without giving them a warning, and if something happened to either of them, I would spend the rest of my days knowing I could’ve done something to help. I had to lessen the fallout of what I started.
I veered down alleys that looked the same and passed empty market squares smelling rancid because no one had dared return to clean the mess. And the more I ran, the worse I felt. Every empty market space was a slash across my heart. Carter had weaponized us all. This was the outcome. Many innocents would die, because the innocent always suffered the worst.
But the fringe was a labyrinth, a confusing contortion of similar scenes blending into one. Feet pounding, my pace increased alongside my mind, scrambling with panic. I recognized none of this. Every turn looked the same, every market space a squalor of upturned debris abandoned like haunted remnants of fringe life. Where was I heading? And how did I find my way back?
A cry choked my throat. I swallowed it down with the spittle and gasped another breath. Another market space, another alley, and no one around to show me the way. Spidery tickles creeped along my shoulder blades. How much time had I wasted? The sweepers would find me in the open, with no chance of warning Alithia.
Out of one alley, I veered left into another and smacked into someone small, driving them down to the dirt as I tumbled over. My knee bit the ground first, followed by my hip, but the small child suffered the rest of my weight.
“Jesus, what—”
“Sable,” Azrael squealed and threw herself into me.
I peeled her to arm’s-distance. “Azrael.” Then I dragged her close to me for a fierce hug. Floodgates opened; it felt like everything inside me gushed out. “I need to see your mum.”
Released from my grasp, she scrambled to her feet. “Where’s Jax?”
Was it my statement or her question that drew down the darkness? I stood. “He stayed in central Califax,” I said as I climbed to my feet. “I don’t have a lot of time. What’re you doing wandering the alleys?”
She rolled her eyes at the accusation in my tone.
I gave her a gentle shake and lowered to her level, a tactic I had often used with Ajay to emphasize the seriousness of what I was about to say. “Azrael, you have to listen to me. Because you don’t seem to be listening to your mum. Things are going to get bad around here.”
She stepped back, telling me she wanted me to let her go. “Things are always bad around here.”
“It’s likely the senate know about me.”
She frowned.
“What do you know about me?” Maybe I was saying things I shouldn’t. I forgot for a moment she was a little girl, younger than Ajay—easily done, because childhood seemed nonexistent in the fringe.
“You’re Jax’s friend and that you need our help.”
“That’s true. But I’m your friend too, remember?”
“Why did Jax stay behind?”
“He had to deal with a few things. I came here to speak to your mum.”
“I don’t want you to speak to Mummy.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause then she’s going to lock me in the safe room again.”
“It won’t be forever.”
She screwed up her face. “You’re not my friend if you say that.”
I reached for her as she turned to stomped away. “Hey.” She shook my hand off her shoulder, but I had years of dealing with Ajay to know a thing or two about children. I jogged around to jump in front of her. When she tried to duck around me, I grabbed her around the waist and tickled her. At first, she grunted angrily, but that lasted a full few seconds before she was giggling. When I’d gotten through to her, I stopped and let her go. “You know what?”
She shook her head.
“Adults do stupid things sometimes. They make everything more complicated than it needs to be, and they’re silly enough to think they’re making it easier. I’m talking about people like the senate. Problem is, when they do those stupid things, people like your mum and everyone here in the fringe can’t do anything about it. And they get scared, because they’re faced with something they can’t control. The first thing they do is want to protect everyone they love.
“Every time your mum locks you in the safe room, it’s a demonstration of how much she loves you. Yeah, strange, huh? Normally, you give people you love something delicious to eat, or—” I tried to search for something that would have meaning here, because there would be no such thing as lollipops or teddy bears. “—or a big hug, which I’m sure your mum gives you all the time, but when you live somewhere different like the fringe, then hiding people in the safe room is the biggest show of love there is.”
She looked unconvinced.
“Still not happy?”
She shrugged.
“I’ve got to see your mum. Can you take me to her? I can’t stay long, ’cause—”
“Why not? Why do you have to run away?”
“Maybe I can stay a while. But I’ve got people waiting for me.” If only I thought to bring something for her. But in this world, I didn’t know what options there were or how to get them.
I held out my hand. “Come on, let’s go together.”
She slid her small hand in mine and led me through the filth of her playground at a child’s speed. I had to stop from telling her we should pick up the pace. Why though? She’d understand, having spent her life here, but I didn’t want to ruin our short moments together and the innocent babble of conversation as she wove through the many alleys. I’d gotten myself so lost.
Azrael unlocked the door with a key she pulled from the deep pockets of dirty jeans. “Mummy!” she shouted the moment she burst through the door into the dim passage.
I shut the door behind her, making sure to hear the clunk of the lock taking before following after her.
“You haven’t been outside, have you?” I heard her mum’s warning tone as I followed behind. By the time I reached their living room, Alithia was already waiting, hands on her daughter’s shoulders, pressing her close to her body. Shock, a shadow of fear, no doubt she was trying to think why I would be here. “Jax,” was the first word she said.
“Not here, but he’s fine.” Was what I had to say something Azrael should hear? There were so many things I wouldn’t tell Ajay, but Azrael was different, her circumstances different. Perhaps in the fringe, a child who knew the truth was safer than a child kept naïve.
“Honey, can you go put the pot on? Sable may like a drink of something warm.”
Thinking she was helping me, Azrael hurried off without complaint. Once she left the room, Alithia turned to me, her eyes asking the questions. The hostility between us—all from her side—vanished, probably not from her heart, but Alithia seemed to sense it had no place at this time.
“Jax and I ran into trouble on our way back from the fringe. Another sweeper. I… incapacitated him. We were forced to steal a skycraft in order to reach Jax’s apartment.”
Alithia lowered herself onto the chair behind her, her action almost regal. I copied her, taking the chair behind me so we sat opposite each other.
“Before he was incapacitated, the sweeper managed to steal a strand of my hair.”