The Reformation

by Garggie Talukdar

  Kessia raised a hand, and the guard kneed the man in the stomach, effectively shutting up his blabber. But it wasn’t just blabber, because while she wasn’t January with his lie-detecting instincts, she did enough training to know that he was likely telling the truth. He was probably completely innocent, yet Stel knew that he probably wouldn’t be convicted as such.

  And that was when Kessia asked Stel the question: what do you think we should do, Crawford?

  Not for the first time (and not the last either—Stel was quite sure), Stel realized what Arleyene meant when she wrote that she didn’t trust her General. This was General Kessia playing with Arleyene, to see what she would do. Before her was a man who was most probably innocent, in fact, Stel was almost sure that he was innocent and that was precisely the reason why Kessia was playing the game she was. And if Stel didn’t do this that meant suspicion would rest on her shoulders, and that Arleyene might fall out of line with the court, and they needed this information dammit. But what was even worse, was the thought that this was the moment Kessia was waiting for to see if Arleyene was really Arleyene or not.

  But try as she might, Stel knew that there was only one solution to this, and with that realization, came a decision that was frighteningly easy to make.

  “Put a bullet through his head, I believe, General.”

  Stel vaguely watched as Kessia’s brow cocked, her head tilting ever so slightly as she shifted in her seat, crossing her leg over the other, but she didn’t care much for the General’s reaction, instead focusing on the man before her. His head was bowed, eyes wide. While he had been a blubbering mess only minutes before, vehemently denying all laid accusations against him, he looked almost peaceful with what was about to happen.

  He looked like he accepted his death.

  “Well Crawford, you wouldn’t mind doing the honours then?”

  And in that second, Stel knew that something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong with Stel, because she didn’t feel her heart stop when she heard the unsaid command in Kessia’s words. No; instead she found pounding rage coursing through her veins, her fingers twitching to hold the all-too familiar gun handle, the one that now seemed to meld into her skin so perfectly. Stel had fallen into the role of Arleyene before, but this was more than immersion.

  This was becoming Arleyene, feeling the mechanical urge of killing, knowing that this person’s life was just another rung to help her with her ascent to power. That she was nothing more than a blade, that being a blade was all she was meant to be, but she would become the most powerful weapon ever yielded.

  Stel couldn’t do any more than watch as her body betrayed her, and she stood stoic-faced while all of her inner-turmoil was suppressed into a tighter and tighter wound up ball, and she felt her mouth open of its own accord, her voice foreign to her as she said, “I’d be honoured to.”

  Kessia’s mouth was now turned up in a feral grin, and she motioned for Stel to pull out her gun.

  Stel was in the back seat now, watching in wide-eyed horror as her own hands pulled out Arleyene’s gun, cocked and poised to take the life of the man in front of her.

  His eyes were open, fearful but accepting all the same, but for the life of her, Stel couldn’t see the human in them. She didn’t think about the fact that she didn’t know this man’s name, or if he had a family, or a life beyond being just another pawn in the Immortales’ game of power. “Shoot,” Kessia instructed and the finger of Stel Hathaway pressed on the trigger.

  One. Stel watched at the man's eyes grew, the ring of green eclipsed by his dilated pupils.

  Two. She could hear the shot, loud and jarring.

  Three. She watched as the bullet flew through the man's skull, killing him immediately and she knew that this kill was Stel Hathaway’s, not Arleyene Crawford’s.

  This was her kill.

  She just killed an innocent person.

  She was a murderer.

  But Stel was a passenger in her body, watching through eyes that weren’t hers as Kessia smiled, gesturing to some servants on the side to clean up the bloody mess in front of her as if there weren’t a dead body there. The worst part was that Stel couldn’t feel much either.

  “Perfect, Arleyene. My, being on NNR increased your ruthlessness; I was expecting more benign behaviour.”

  “From whom? Me? I’m afraid not, General.”

  “As I can see. I’m impressed, and your inflexible resolve has been noted. Now onto my plans for our new project. Mirozome plated armour will be impermeable. Can you make sure Parks gets that information? Make sure to stress the importance; I’ve noticed how slippery his hands have been with his information recently.”

  “Of course, General. Anything else?”

  “No, that will be all,” Stel gave a little nod, starting to walk out of the Grand Hall, her boots almost noiseless against the reflective material of the ground when the General called her back. “Crawford? I truly am impressed with what you demonstrated today. I want to promote you to the next level of security. I need a loyal executioner in my close ranks,” Kessia said, a wicked gleam in her smile, before she turned back to her own devices, leaving Stel to walk back to her lodgings, murderer, murderer, murderer the only words she heard as her footsteps echoed in the Citadel.

  …

  Stel collapsed against her door, locking it quickly as her breaths grew quicker in succession. She fumbled with the zipper on her top, chucking the garment to the side so she was clad in a thin camisole, the air ice against her flushed skin. She couldn’t breathe.

  She had made it halfway back to her lodging without much problem, until she found her inability to breathe continuing to grow. Then, she started to put less thought into her silent footsteps and more thought into composing herself so she wasn’t gasping for breath in the middle of Elix.

  Call into Home Base. Let them know what happened in chronological order. You have a meeting. An innocent man was accused of a crime. You were instructed to kill said man. You shot-

  Stel fell over onto her knees and hands, rocking herself on her palms as she tried to regain her thought process from the memory of a bullet flying and blood everywhere. Weakly, she pulled herself to where she stowed her suitcase, pulling her comm and the wires from their carefully hidden position without any of the care that she should have used. Just call Home Base. Everything will be fine.

  She groped for the right wires, haphazardly plugging them together more out of muscle memory than an ability to do anything, and she found her voice choked with unshed tears as she tried to contact the Palace. “Anyone, please. Please answer.”

  “Stel?” She nearly sobbed in relief, never expecting to sound so pleased to hear January’s voice, skeptical and questioning.

  “Jan. Please, help me,” she managed, struggling to properly breathe. “I can’t- I can’t bre- please, help me.”

  “Okay, hold on, Hathaway,” he said into his comm, and there was some shuffling until his voice came on again, his voice concerned. “You need to take in a deep breath for me.”

  “I can’t-”

  “You can,” he pressed, taking a breath in as if to demonstrate. “Come on, in on one, out on two. That simple. You can do that, can’t you, Hathaway?”

  There was a challenge in his voice, and Stel was actually thankful that January was on shift right now, because of course he would know the best way to get her to do something would be to bait her with challenge.

  And with minimal words and coddling and maximum effort, Stel found herself able to maintain a steady breathing pattern, even though the perfectly kept temperature on Elix felt too cold and too hot all at once against her fevered skin.

  “Now can you tell me what happened, Hathaway?” Jan asked, as soon as he could hear her breathing evening out.

  “Oh, shut it, Mister-Allegeric-To-Oranges. Are you okay, Stel?” Fey asked, her voice crackly thought the comm’s quality, but Stel was relieved to hear the familiarly accented voice anyway.

  “I did somethin
g horrible,” Stel whispered, not wanting to lie about this anymore. Not to herself and not to others, because she already almost convinced herself that killing that man was justified and not a bad thing.

  “You can tell us,” Fey coaxed.

  “Downcley’s right,” Jan agreed, his voice somewhat gentle. “Whatever you’ve done, I can guarantee you we’ve done worse.”

  “That doesn’t excuse what I’ve done though,” Stel argued, whispering harshly, afraid that she might start crying if she spoke any louder. “I just killed an innocent man.”

  There was a silence. “Well, shit,” Jan offered, and Stel could just see their horrified expressions; wide-eyes as they realized this mission was a mistake, because the Arleyene Crawford doppelgänger was psychopathic and could murder someone in cold blood.

  “Your first kill,” Fey concluded.

  “What’s happening?” A new voice asked, and Stel could identify it as a concerned Z. “What’s wrong with Stel?”

  “I killed someone, Z. Someone who did nothing, because I was afraid of what would happen to me if I didn’t follow through Kessia orders.”

  There was a pause, until Stel could hear shuffling in the background, filling the heavy seconds that weighed down in her soul.

  “Hey,” Z finally coaxed after what seemed like too long. “That isn’t on you. Do you hear me? You made that kill to protect your people and country, not just to save your own hind. And while that doesn’t necessarily make it right, it does not put you in the wrong. We all have our own ghosts.”

  January, this time, spoke up. “Hopefully, it’s your only one. But as cruel as it sounds; this is war, Stel. Some lives need to be sacrificed.”

  And it sounded terrible. Or at least, it should have sounded terrible, because Stel wasn’t a murderer. She was a thief, a liar, a spy, but she never was one for killing. But this kill, this death by gunshot, was so easy. It was so easy to push someone in front of a train, and offer some excuse, when really, Stel was just selfish. She was just a monster, and everyone around her suffered because of it.

  “I know. But that doesn’t make it any better. And that’s not the reason why I found it so easy,” she confessed, glancing down at her shaking hands, the same ones that were now forever stained with the blood of someone who didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve her friends’ empathy; she didn’t deserve them. “I got to go; I’ll report later tomorrow,” she lied, disconnecting before they could say anything more, because Stel wasn’t sure if she could handle it.

  She couldn’t let herself get help for something like this, so she put everything away as quickly as she could, flopping down on her bed with the intent of sleeping. But sleep was hard for the weary, and she found herself staring at her fingertips, sure that they actually were stained crimson from that deadly gun she held in her grasp and fired so effortlessly.

  She was so angry at herself for not being able to cry. So angry that she couldn’t even show her remorse, but did her remorse even exist? Or did she just make that up?

  And what on earth would Fallon think when she knew her older sister, her hero, was actually a murderer? When she found out that Stel was actually a monster?

  Stel fell asleep before she could find an answer that she could live with.

  …

  It truly was surprisingly easy to be Arleyene Crawford.

  (at least, Stel told herself that it was Arleyene who made those second and third kills.)

  Fifty-One

  CELINE was bored out of her mind.

  So far, Stel was executing her mission flawlessly, and that left Celine without a job, seeing as both Fey and Z had the coded files covered.

  Despite being the Head Strategist, Celine Hollingsworth had literally nothing to do, rendering her useless.

  Celine Hollingsworth did not like being useless.

  And then Jaxcon Gallagher came walking into the room, and Celine cursed the universe for listening to her pleas for something to do for once and so quickly. Useless, suddenly sounded great.

  Celine had thought that she and Jax were fine lately, but that had only been because they were both so swamped with work. She trusted Jax; he would keep her thoughts and secrets hidden if she wanted him to. But Celine had witnessed her king at what she suspected was his most vulnerable in front of somebody. And now that they weren’t frantically scrambling to ensure that Stel was properly trained, or off getting detained and tortured in a foreign rebel base, reality caught up to them and left Celine wondering where they stood.

  Were they supposed to pretend that the night of June 21st never happened? Were they supposed to talk things over? Or were they supposed to skirt over the entire topic awkwardly until they had to confront the situation?

  Because if it was the last option, they were acing it.

  “What’s up with Stel?” he asked, slumping into his chair.

  “You look exhausted. And she’s having lunch with Kessia,”

  His face was impassive, immediately firing back answers to her rapid responses, in order, without blinking. “I am, and isn’t it late for lunch?”

  “I was going to ask why but then thought better of it, and I never have understood the way of the Immortales. Maybe it’s a cross between lunch and dinner? Whatever that’s called.”

  “Good call with that, and neither have I. Maybe linner?” Celine raised an eyebrow at that, and his lip quirked upwards in what she knew to be his way of laughing at her. He straightened up, however, seeming to be a little more serious. “The files?”

  “Progressing faster than expected,” she said, twirling her purple pen around her fingertips. “The messages are still cryptic, even after decoding them.”

  She hesitated for a moment, before shaking off her worry to re-examine the document she was currently (and not successfully) working on.

  “What’s wrong?” Jax immediately asked, his insanely blue eyes boring into hers. “Something is not right, don’t even bother arguing. I know that face.”

  Celine bit the inside of her cheeks, settling her pen down gently. “It’s Fey,” she quietly confessed, reminding herself that this was for Fey’s good. “It’s been getting worse.”

  “Maybe I can make her get some rest. All of this work can’t be good for her.”

  Jax pushed his chair out, moving to the tech room where Fey was, but Celine put out a hand to stop him—despite the fact that she was too far away to touch him. He paused, looking at her hand with a raised brow before his heavy gaze lifted to her face, offering her a chance to explain herself. “I agree that Fey’s work hours are completely unhealthy. But doing this makes her feel a little better. She needs this.”

  He stared at her for a moment longer before nodding, though he got out of his chair anyway.

  Celine looked on in surprise (any thoughts of uselessness long gone from her mind), and Jax’s grin widened, holding out his palm towards her.

  “We should probably help her then, shouldn’t we?”

  Celine allowed a smile, taking his arm and leaving her work behind. “I was. Helping her, I mean. You just prevented me from-”

  “Shh,” he cut her off, his mouth quirking up amusedly. “You’ll ruin the moment.”

  “Git.”

  …

  “Jax, can you get Downcley to her room?” Z called out as soon as the king and the Head Strategist entered the room, not even pausing his rapid-fire typing.

  Said brunette glared at him in retaliation. “Screw off, Z. Downcley, is fine.”

  Jax pushed back his dark hair, looking amused. “Sorry Z, but that choice is up to her.”

  “Thank you,” she muttered, glaring at Z before she spun in her chair to grab some papers spread out on the table behind her. “I’m fine,” she echoed, still glaring.

  But Celine could see how Fey’s hands shook, or how her movement were now sluggish with pain. But Celine could also see the determined glint in the brunette’s eyes and the concentrated lock to her jaw. So Celine just snuck a look at Jax, whose eyebrows were
furrowed, but otherwise said nothing, and Celine couldn’t help but feel that she made the right call.

  “What can we do to help?” Jax finally asked, cuffing his sleeves up. “Please keep in mind that I am completely inept with technology.”

  Fey shoved a stack of papers at him, continuing to read her screen. “These are the decoded files; just highlight the ones that directly relate to the Immortality Project, Robn Syncter, and so forth. Celine, you can do whatever; you know the drill.”

  “Listening in with Stel it is,” Celine sighed, plugging in the headset into the monitor which was dedicated solely to the Arleyene mission, preparing for radio silence.

  She was not expecting to listen in to what sounded like an important conversation.

  She quickly took the headset off, yelling at everyone to shut up and listen.

  “What is it?” Fey asked, pushing away from the computer she was stationed at.

  “Stel,” Celine admitted hesitantly, knowing this new information would cause Fey to take on too much.

  “Stel? Move then, we all need to know what’s going on.”

  “No, we don’t,” Jax’s deep voice suddenly announced, his blue eyes not looking up from systemizing the files. “You can stay in the room, Downcley. But you need to sit back and let the rest of us take charge while you get some much-needed rest.”

  “Who are you to stop me?” Fey challenged, dark eyes narrowed.

  “The king of NNR,” Celine cut in, giving the girl a hard look. “We’re doing this for your health. So kindly shut up while we help you, sit at the table behind us, and let me adjust the settings so we can all hear what’s happening.”

  Fey rolled her eyes, tough she silently followed Celine’s orders. Letting out a heavy sigh, Celine pulled out the headset jack, and even without adjusting the sound, the smallest sound stood out in the stark silence of bated breath on their end of the line. And out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jax set down his papers and highlighter, looking at her appraisingly.

  “Arleyene,” a somewhat scratchy, distinctly feminine voice said on the other end. “I wanted to give you the full set of details for the next mission, seeing as you’re leaving within a few days, and I will be gone tomorrow to oversee our experimentations.”