by Terina Adams
He beat me to it. “How do you propose to get him out?”
“The grafter.”
If he was surprised how I knew about the device, he never showed it, at least not what I could see in the dark.
“Dad will take Mum and Ajay somewhere safe and then he will stop Carter, and Dominus.” I tried to sound convincing, but I’d been pulled apart. I might be whole, I might not doubt my courage or strength, but I doubted those within my world and doubted my ability to be good.
“What about you?”
“That’s why I wanted to be one of the lucky ones to be able to shift.”
“You’ve already planned all of this.”
Perhaps I’d been a fool in telling him.
“Does Holden know?”
I nodded, then not sure if he saw, I said, “Yes.”
The seconds slowed, during which I questioned my sanity yet again in telling Jax. He wouldn’t tell. I had to believe he wouldn’t tell.
“I will not help you free your father.”
I tried to ignore the disappointment from his refusal. And now I’d revealed our plans, it felt imperative I began. “I have to go.”
Jax grabbed my arm before I made it to my feet. “I’ll keep your secret.”
But you won’t help. I pushed up, losing his grasp.
I turned and managed two steps, then swiveled back. “By not telling, you’re helping in a way. I’m grateful for that, but I don’t know why.”
“I don’t want to be this.”
I retraced my steps toward him.
“I don’t want to be what’s inside. Every time I become my true nature, I find it harder to come back. You’re right. I don’t believe in what I say. It gets harder and harder to believe we have any choices. What Carter is doing, what the game makes us do, is changing us, changing me. When I’m in Dominus and become my true nature, I feel powerful, unstoppable, invincible. The lure is consuming. Sometimes I don’t want to hold it in. I think how easy it would be to rid myself of these human qualities and simply exist as Aris. When out of Dominus, as I am now, here with you, I loathe that part of myself. It’s not how it should be. It’s Dominus. It’s turning me into a monster.”
His words moved into my soul, became the mirror of my own emotions.
“No, it’s Carter.”
“I don’t want to be the monster inside of me.”
“Then I will save you from being that monster.”
I would save myself.
Carter took one day to review the results and deemed the game a failure. He’d wanted all the senate taken, not two.
I reread the passage Jax had messaged me from Carter’s debrief.
The boy’s death was an unfortunate but inevitable consequence of our fight for freedom.
Carter had managed to turn the word freedom into a lethal weapon.
I have been unsuccessful in achieving the outcome needed because of a persistent fatal flaw I have as yet been unable to excise. For our success, it is imperative this weakness is eradicated.
Our humanity was the weakness, our unwillingness to kill each other.
All players will enter Dominus again for an extended duration. Level ten.
Carter wanted us to play like NPCs. Just like the digital clock in Dominus ticking down, so too did my window of opportunity to steal the grafter.
No one would enter Dominus again. That was my silent promise.
Mum had disappeared into the bathroom, saying she needed to relax in the tub after a stressful day and we weren’t to disturb her for anything. I was more than happy to follow that request and headed for her bedroom. Dad would have to remove Mum and Ajay quickly, which meant some things would need to be prepacked or they’d leave with nothing. I should be telling them the truth, but the timing sucked. Mum was a hopeless actor. Once she knew, there was no way she could pretend she didn’t. She would refuse to return to work, and I needed her there if my plan was to work. Unfortunately, Mum’s and Ajay’s ignorance assured their safety for now.
I opened the door on the small secondhand cupboard we’d picked up cheap. Not all of her clothes from her former life had made it inside. Most still remained packed in boxes and stacked along the wall. I fingered what she had, not knowing what to grab. I doubted the people of Dad’s world walked around dressed as warriors, like they did in Dominus, but what did they wear? If we were to fit in, we would need to dress exactly like them.
I dithered for valuable moments before I pulled a few things from their hangers and stuffed them into a plastic bag. Next I went through her smalls, grabbing as much as I could stuff into the bag. Those were more important than what went on the outside. There were plenty of other things in her room she would hate to see left behind, like the photo of the four of us smiling for the camera, which sat on the makeshift bedside table. I picked the photo up and stared at it. I couldn’t even remember when it had been taken. I looked about the same age I did right now, but our smiles appeared genuine, so it was before the tragedy that sent our family spiraling into the black pit of Dad’s imprisonment. I stuffed the photo in the bag with the clothes. There were, perhaps, whole photo albums of us around, or images stashed on sticks somewhere, but were they important compared to the larger picture of our reality?
Leaving Mum’s room, I headed to Ajay’s. He sat on his bed reading a comic.
“Can I come in?”
He nodded.
“Can you do something for me, Ajay?”
He put the comic down.
“I want you to go through your draws and pick out your second-favorite clothes and pack them in here. Anything you would like to take with you on a holiday and don’t mind not seeing for a while.”
He climbed off the bed. “Why?”
“Because we might be going somewhere soon. But it’s a surprise for Mum, so you can’t tell her.”
He didn’t look satisfied with my answer.
“Not another thing I have to keep secret.”
“This one is a good secret.”
He took the bag and opened his wooden draws, which were also secondhand and stiff to open. I helped him when they got stuck halfway.
“You can only take a few things, okay? And make sure you leave some room to take some of your favorite toys. But they can’t be heavy, or it will make the bag hard to carry.”
“You’re weird.”
I ruffled his hair. “Thanks, buddy. When you’ve finished, leave the bag under your bed. Remember it’s a surprise, so don’t tell Mum.”
“What’s in that bag?”
“Some clothes of Mum’s.”
“Has this got anything to do with Dad?”
I inhaled deeply. “Why do you say that?”
“’Cause you say it’s a surprise, and I can’t think of anything that would be as surprising as going somewhere with Dad.”
“You know that surprises can’t be mentioned or they lose their specialness, so—” I mimicked zipping my lips.
Ajay was unimpressed. He rolled his eyes with slumped shoulders, like I’d asked him to repeat his homework three times, and picked through his clothes.
I left him to it and headed for my room. There was so much I wanted to take, mementos of a life I thought I had left behind when Dad went to jail, but now meant so much to me. This wasn’t like leaving for another town. It wasn’t even like moving to another country. How were we supposed to pack for leaving for another world?
I collapsed onto my bed and sunk my head to my chest. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want this reality. I didn’t want to be a killer. But I was. I could never, never take that back. His sightless eyes would be the memory I carried until my death.
The desolation that welled in my stomach made my body feel heavy, my limbs useless. If only I could will myself away. I felt caged and desperate for breath. The compression on my chest made me gasp. Then the tears came. One long, silent stream absent when Dad was led away from the courtroom, when we stood aside for the vultures to pick over our possessions, when
we moved into this beat-up rental, when I learned how to kill someone with my factional nature. But now they came, a wave so great it felt like my insides were emptying out. With the tears came all the pain of the last couple of months and all the pain of what was to come and all the pain of who I was and all the pain of what I was yet to do. I drowned and drowned, then sawed in horrible hacking breaths, then did it all over again and again until the bedcover was wet and inside of me felt dried out.
In the silence that followed my great outflow, I sat up and wiped the wet from my cheeks. Just like in Dominus, the clock was counting down. I had no time left to feel sorry for myself.
Chapter 36
“You sure you want to do this?”
“I have no choice.”
“Once you take the grafter, there’s no going back. You know that, don’t you? Carter will hunt you down. He won’t stop until he finds you and your family.”
“Dad will protect Mum and Ajay.”
Was Holden’s sudden quiet a lack of faith in Dad succeeding or a lack of faith in me?
Rather than be consumed in his solid stare, I ran my eyes up the face of the Amex to where the windows turned from imposing to small squares as they disappeared up into the sky.
I didn’t want to live life looking over my shoulder, fearing Carter’s reprisals. More so, I didn’t want Carter to win. I wasn’t about to let him curse both our worlds into a living game of Dominus, curse me into being a soldier. Turning away now meant he’d won. “I’m going up.”
“I can’t come with you.”
“I know. Just make sure you’re here when I come down. I’ll give you a ring when I’ve succeeded, so make sure you’re ready. Once I get Mum and the grafter, we go get Ajay and Dad.”
“Good luck. If you get in any trouble, call. I’ll come and get you.” His voice was strong, his words solid, but neither matched his grim smile.
He leaned down, angling his head close to mine, close enough I saw the radial patterning in his eyes, a lighter blue toward the center, deepening as it moved out. Motionless I stayed as he pressed his lips to mine, light, inquiring. A few seconds more and I pulled away. What was the intent behind that?
“Remember, call me if you need me.”
He squeezed my hand as I pulled away farther. Why did I feel like we were parting for the last time?
Much like the Adolphy Tower, the interior of the Amex was extravagant and sleek. I skirted around cappuccino drinkers, their tables spilling across the smooth tiled floor, assailed by high-volume chatter and the addictive aroma of freshly brewed coffee, to the lifts. A double checked the shiny silver placard next to the lifts and confirmed I would find Hampton and Bougher on the fortieth floor.
I rode the lift alone, staring at the silver door, breathing deep into my stomach, then hitched my breath as the lift slowed to a stop. The doors slid open to a man waiting to enter. His eyes perused over me, halting at my face as eyebrows wandered up his forehead. Wearing denims, T-shirt, and trainers, I didn’t look like I belonged here. He stood aside, giving me room to exit, while tracking me with his stare. Bot or human? God, did I just think that?
For a second, I flicked a glance to the left of my vision, curious about my power status bar, but, of course, there was nothing there. Nothing in my vision because that was particular to Dominus, but my factional nature was all me, and it stirred beneath the surface, the nudge running below the skirting of my skin. I turned my back on the guy who’d passed me into the lift and looked down my arms, expecting to see the skin ripple or glow, some visible manifestation of the surge I felt roiling below the surface. Was this what it meant to become your factional nature, to have the energy invade every part of your body?
At the end of a long, wide corridor with slate-gray carpet, smelling freshly laid, I found a small Asian lady tapping away on a keyboard and speaking into her black wireless headset. After a brief smile to let me know she wouldn’t be long, she turned her head side on and dropped her voice. A high ponytail revealed bare skin unadorned of tattoos behind her right ear. Of course there would be nothing. Jesus, stupid. Real world, Sable.
Half tempted to drum my fingers on the desk, I resisted and instead turned away, staring back down the corridor to the lifts. There was always the chance to back out. But no one else was prepared to end Dominus.
“Can I help you?” came a friendly voice from behind me.
I spun back to face the receptionist. “I’m here to see Mrs. Cross.”
A flicker of expression flared, then vanished so fast I couldn’t attach an emotion. The instant jacked my pulse. I looked at the smooth, unmarred skin of her inner left wrist. But Holden had his tattoo removed when he first arrived in this world. Get a grip. The enemy’s one person, not everyone.
“She works for Carter,” I said because she’d not replied. And what was Carter’s last name, Hampton, Bougher, or neither? “I think she’s his personal secretary.”
“Can I have your name?”
“I’m her daughter.”
She blinked, twice, in rapid succession, which meant nothing. It couldn’t. This was my guilty mind, me in freak-out mode.
“Please take a seat.”
“Thank you.”
I crossed the wide expanse to the three hard-backed plastic seats, which looked inappropriately placed along the long corridor with no other furniture to blend them into the decor. The seats were as welcoming as they looked, like the rest of the space, austere and sterile.
The rhythm of the woman’s fingers tapping on the keyboard irritated the hell out of me, but only because my blood ran a marathon through my veins. I glanced to the lift once more then the other way, another long corridor leading farther into the devil’s lair. Did it really take that long for someone to reach the reception desk from elsewhere in the office? Destruction played a nice tune along my skin. I could pull it out and strum awhile. But I was the sum total of my choices, not the victim.
Finally Mum came, looking every bit the competent secretary in her figure-fitting dark navy skirt and dusty pink shirt finished off with suitable office shoes. I inched to standing, watching her come toward me, looking like the woman she’d been when Dad still lived with us. Carter was right about one thing, Mum was finally living. This job gave her meaning, focus, passion. With each day, she developed a new skill, discovered her competency, and found her self-esteem. My heart skipped for the woman she was becoming yet fractured because of the man who gave her this gift.
“Honey, what are you doing here? Why aren’t you in school?”
“I wanted to see you.”
I accepted her hug with more enthusiasm than she gave and found it hard to let go. If I managed to succeed, we would be together. If I failed, we may never see each other again. Soon my hug became awkward. I had to let her go.
“Is everything all right?”
“I wasn’t feeling well. The teacher sent me to the nurse’s station, but she was busy, so I thought I’d go home, but I’m feeling better, so I came to see you.”
I gave her my biggest smile so she would forget about the me-being-sick part and the weird way I’d greeted her.
“I want to see where you disappear to every day.”
“Most normal teenagers couldn’t care less where their mum went to work.”
I shrugged. “I’m not normal.” I headed the way she’d come. “Nice place.” I glanced around like I thought the decor worth noting.
“It’s great to see you, but I’m in the middle of a few things, honey. I’m not sure of the protocol for social visitors. I’m not sure if they have one.”
“Carter won’t mind. I think I should apologize for the way I acted the last time we met.”
She grabbed my elbow, gently pulling me back toward her. “You’re not going to make a scene, are you?”
“Why would I do that?”
“You’re not exactly Carter’s fan.”
“Like you said, without his help, we’d be eating off the floor.”
“Okay,
but you can’t stay long. I’m really busy.”
“Can you give me a tour?”
“Sable—”
“Just a little one. Will you introduce me to Carter? I haven’t met him properly yet.”
“He’s not here.”
“He’s not?” Fantastic luck. “When will he get back?”
“He’s due back in half an hour, but don’t think you’re hanging around until then.”
“I’ll make sure I’m gone, don’t worry.”
How many people in this office were in on Carter’s charade? How many would be fighters, armed with a special but lethal gift? Thinking like that filled me with jitters and lit a fuse under my factional nature. How many times had I been inside Dominus, four, five, and my factional nature was already tuned to fight? Of course it would be. I was destruction. You didn’t go around handing out bouquets with such a time bomb writhing inside.
We rounded a corner to imposing double doors. To the left of those, a desk with little on it but a screen and keyboard.
“This is my station.”
“It’s tidy.”
“We’re a paperless office.”
“So no messy desktops or filing cabinets.”
“Not much of anything, as you can see.”
It looked like a place to get bored real quick. My attention directed to the doors. “What’s behind the doors?”
“Out of bounds.”
“Carter’s office?” I picked up my pace, heading for the doors. Half an hour—less now—that’s all I had. I couldn’t help but flick a quick look to the right of my vision. Stop it. You’re not in Dominus. A digital countdown would be handy though.
“Out of bounds, young lady.”
“Just one peek inside.”
Having never been good at laying firm boundaries, she shadowed me to the door.
At the door, I paused, hand on the silver knob. “I bet it’s impressive.” I beamed a broad smile conjured out of nowhere because there was nothing inside of me wanting to smile. “Just one peek.”