by Meli Raine
Lucky you, I think.
“But my fellow classmate hated me. I had skills he lacked. One night, he picked a fight. I killed him with my bare hands. Svetnu happened to see it. No one stopped us. No one broke us up. I realized I had complete power in that moment. That it was a true test. My classmate died because he let jealousy get the better of him. His emotions made him impulsive. And Svetnu developed The Test in later years.” He gives us a closed-mouth smile. “And now we have a class of twenty-four.”
How many of us came here as children and not newborns? The thought rips through me like a bullet, the entrance point my brain, the exit point my heart.
“You both, like me, come from families of abusers and neglecters. People unworthy of raising children. You were taken, like me, and given a better life. Now your job is to go out into the world and free the rest of the people just like us.”
Glen nods. I just blink.
“Our leaders have spent nearly two decades preparing for this moment. As we speak, more and more of us are being seated in positions of responsibility and power. We run for school boards and sit on planning committees, act as church directors and run museum education programs. We have attorneys general and people in the House of Representatives. A few in the Senate. One Supreme Court justice and more in the pipeline. The presidency is next.”
Dr. Svetnu looks like he's bored.
“Celebrities are the hardest to infiltrate, but we are making inroads. The masses are unpredictable in what appeals to them, but we are working to understand. Seeds lead to plants that bear fruit and produce more seeds. You are those seeds.”
Kina is going to hate me if I leave.
When. When I leave.
“Let me be clear,” Dr. Svetnu says, interrupting Romeo. “You are both at the beginning. It feels like an end, but I assure you, it is not. We have operatives in place, from the drug trafficker El Brujo in Mexico and California to Senator Nolan Corning in Washington to Senator Harwell Bosworth in California. The web is widening. You, my dears, are the new silk threads.”
A thrill runs through me at his words, a streak of excitement covered in shame.
Glen begins to chew on a fingernail on her right hand, her tongue poking out of her mouth, the movement quick and done. It occurs to me that she just licked Judi’s dried blood.
My stomach twists.
I stay completely stone faced.
“And like new silk, you are fragile. Strong when woven together with other threads, but when wet and new, you can break so easily. The wind can pull you away into the abyss.”
“Never, sir,” Glen swears.
“Prove 'never' to me, my dear,” he says with a sad grin. “You're not the first graduate to say it to me, and you will not be the last. We are playing a long game. Collapsing a society from within takes time. You and Callum are dynamite, strategically placed. We need not bomb a building to bring it down. All you must do is weaken the support columns.”
We've heard this before. It takes effort not to tap my toe. “Yes, sir.”
“But you two have been chosen as high-resource assets. We're investing in you. Trusting you. At no point should you ever begin to think your life is your own. You are ours. Your will is ours. You're perfectly trained for The Mission. In your lifetime, we will succeed.”
“Yes, sir,” we say in unison.
“And with any luck, damn it, in mine as well,” he says as he stands, leaving without so much as a handshake.
“That's it?” Glen murmurs under her breath as the door closes behind him.
“What did you expect? A gold medal?”
“Actually, yes,” she says with a laugh as her eyes meet Angelica's. Something about the two of them is similar. Glen and Kina may be identical twins, but Angelica is her soul twin.
“We get a university education and a lifetime planned out for us,” I say, fighting the misery in my voice. “That's more than enough.”
“Only for us, though,” Glen says with a half grin. It pleases her to be so special.
But it pleases her more that others are denied what she gets.
Most of all, her own sister.
Chapter 13
Kina
* * *
“I don't understand,” I tell Glen as she packs her meager belongings in a small backpack, her long braid slung over her left shoulder like she's trying to keep it away from me. As if I'd turn it into a lifeline.
As if I'd tether her to me with it.
“I'm so, so sorry, Kina. It wasn't my decision.” Glen came back from a meeting with Callum and the leaders, her face flushed with pride, eyes gleaming with excitement. It wasn't the kind of look I expected, and certainly not one I could share.
If I wasn't included in that meeting, it means I won't be assigned to their same track.
“But we're twins! Identical twins. You're in me, Glen. I'm in you! As operatives, we would have double the power. All of the instructors said so.” I hold the ice pack against the back of my skull, the wound from Jason’s blow already as cold as the arctic. The chill is making my nerves ache. The pain is better than what's going on in my chest, though.
My heart might as well be a cryogenic experiment.
She shakes her head sadly but says nothing, finishing her packing as if in a hurry.
“Why the rush? You have until morning. The car doesn't come until seven tomorrow, right?”
“I've asked to be taken now. It's easier this way.”
“Now?” Immediately, I think of Callum. Is he gone already? Did I miss my last chance to see him? He said it was urgent to talk to me. We've been kept busy by our instructors, though. Nothing is going as I'd imagined. We're not supposed to be attached to outcomes, but I was.
I am.
Last night I was nearly murdered, and had to watch my twin sister kill my best friend, all because of a contest that led to this.
The departure of my twin sister and the man I–
I what?
“Yes. Now.” Glen is so cold. So distant. I watch her and see myself. I always have. Where is the person whose DNA I share? I'm inside her and she is inside me, strands of genetic material so tightly woven, one of us would die without the other. Synergy comes in so many mysterious patterns, but ours is simple. Elegant.
Obvious.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what? I'm following orders.”
“You know what I mean.”
She stops, hands planted on her hips, a nasty expression twisting her face. “No, Kina. I don't know what you mean. Spell it out.”
“You're leaving. We're supposed to leave together. Why am I being left behind?”
“It wasn't my choice.”
“But you tried, right? You asked them to let me come, or go to a different university and follow the same training path. We would be so powerful for The Mission, Glen. Separate but together.”
“So many people tried to tell Dr. Svetnu, Kina. But he decided this fate. The leadership knows better than us what is right for The Mission.”
“I'm stuck here? You're leaving! Judi is dead and–”
“Judi is dead because she was the weakest out there last night,” Glen snaps.
“I didn't mean anything by that. I wasn't implying...” My voice winds down as she looks at me with eyes I do not recognize.
“I never thought you were.”
Silence hangs between us like a poison cloud.
An image of Judi's body in my arms last night, still warm, the arrow in her eye, takes over my brain. I'm looking at Glen, who looks like me, and seeing Judi's face, the arrow snapped in half, the end clenched in Glen's fist, my heart clenched in agony as the life forces drained out of Judi.
Then my own pathetic relief sinking in, the alarm sounding, ending The Test. How Callum just stared at Glen with raging disgust, as if what I saw had been real.
But it couldn't have been. There is no scenario in the world where my twin sister, my flesh and blood, would cold-bloodedly try to kill Call
um. Not when Callum was standing between me and Jason. Glen told me the truth, her explanation quick and rushed in my ear, how Judi tried so hard to save me from Jason, how he'd overpowered Callum and taken one of his arrows and used it to shoot out her eye.
Clean-up teams were dispatched so quickly. I couldn't ask questions after.
I have so many questions.
Callum will answer them, I'm sure.
I plan to ask him tonight, before he leaves.
Leaves.
Callum is leaving. We've spent all these years together, and in one quick snap of the fingers, he and Glen will be gone.
My entire life has been built in their presence.
How do I define my life now? Who am I without them here?
A truly well-trained Stateless operative wouldn't think that way. Maybe what they say about me is true. Perhaps I am weak. Perhaps this is what I deserve.
To be separated from Glen.
And Callum.
“Did they tell you my assignment?” I ask. “Maybe I get some other formal training. Community college? Or a trade?”
She shrugs. “They didn't say.”
I know she's lying. I also know nothing will convince her to tell me what she knows.
“Glen.” Fear makes my throat close. “You know I shouldn't be kept here.”
“Maybe if you'd performed better in The Test, you wouldn't be here.”
“I killed Jason!”
“It's better to let everyone think Callum did.”
“Of course.” I'm still not sure why, though.
Tapping her fingernail against her front teeth, she starts to speak, then stops. “Never mind,” she says.
“What?”
“I was just wondering why Callum wants everyone to think he's the one who killed Jason.”
The words are like nails in a gun, pinning the perimeter of my heart to my bones. “What?”
“You should have the glory.”
“I don't want it! And besides, you just said–”
“Maybe if the leaders knew it was you, you could be at university with me and Callum.”
“Did he–why would he–did he say anything in your meeting?”
“I tried to convince them, Kina. I almost told them the truth about Jason. That you killed him with the cyanide. But Callum just bragged about killing him and saving you. He tried to take credit for killing Judi.”
Tears fill my eyes at the mention of her. “You did that.”
“To save you! She was part of Jason's ambush!”
“I know.”
“What has Callum told you?”
“I haven't been able to talk to him. It's been too much of a flurry.”
Her face relaxes. “You mean he's avoiding you.”
“Huh?”
"Are you really that naïve, Kina? He's avoiding you."
Her derisive huff feels like all of the air in my lungs has been pulled out of me, distilled into that single, violent exhale from my twin.
“He's avoiding you. You met his purpose. You're a tool. We're all tools. That's all we are to each other,” she adds.
No.
With Glen I can be myself. With Glen I can show emotion. She doesn't. She's well trained.
But I'm weak, remember, and with Glen, I don't hold back.
"He's not avoiding me. He's just busy. The Test made everything more complicated. Now you're graduating and you're leaving. You're leaving."
Glen slams her suitcase shut. She turns around, legs wide in a stance of power. Her hands go behind her back, forcing her spine up, her shoulders straight.
I'm still sitting slumped in my chair, my abs curled in. I feel like a pill bug trying to form a tight ball with my body, my organs protected.
Most of all, my heart.
"First of all, this is why you didn't get chosen," she says, her mouth moving, the rest of her face completely still, framed by the long blonde hair I have, too. "Too much emotion. You're soft." She says the words as if she's angry with me.
Apparently, Glen can let her emotions out around me, too. This fact gives me hope. Feelings surge in my chest. They're not all negative.
"Second," she adds, "Callum used you. I used Callum. Callum used me. We all used each other last night. That's how this works, Kina. We detach ourselves from everything and everyone so that we can stay attached to The Mission. That's all that matters. You're here worried about your emotions. What about mine?"
"But you just said you don't have any," I sputter.
She leans in. I can't tell if the look on her face is cold calculation or genuine emotion. I have to let myself think that it's the latter.
Glen is my twin. We share DNA. We shared a life. We've shared everything until the moment she leaves and then, we share nothing.
"I have feelings, too," she claims.
I'm not convinced she's telling the truth, but I'm not convinced she's not.
"You think it's not going to be hard to leave you here? Do you think that I enjoy leaving you behind?" She grabs my arm. Her grip is tight, but not painful. "I wish you had listened to me all these years. I wish you had kept up. I wish that your devotion to The Mission had been stronger."
"It is strong," I counter, wrenching my arm out of her grasp. "I killed Jason."
"And you're letting Callum take credit."
"But he's the one who saved me."
"Did it ever occur to you that he and Jason were in on it together?"
"What? Then why would he kill him?"
"To establish dominance, Kina. To be able to kill off his competitor." She leans in. "To win."
Fury and determination shine in her eyes. "That's what this is about. That's what the last eighteen years of our existence have been about. It's all toward this pinnacle. I'm sorry you didn't measure up. I'm sorry you can't see what's plainly in front of you."
"What's plainly in front of me is that you guys are assigned in The Field and I'm not."
"No, Kina. No." Her touch is gentle now, her fingers stroking the ends of my loose hair, so much like hers. "What's evident is that you didn't listen. You're being left behind because of you, not because of anyone else." She reaches for me, her touch so tender, the kiss pressed against my cheek, generating a deep longing inside me.
When we were small, we shared the same bed. It wasn't allowed, and twice we were physically punished for it. But in the cold dormitories, I would wake up with the dreams and Glen was my only solace. She's been cold and distant these last few years, but that's because we're trained to be this way.
I took it as a sign of her success. I took it as a sign of her survival. If we both survive, we both have hope out there in that dangerous world she's about to enter.
"Let it all go, Kina. Stop overthinking everything. Stop being paralyzed by your own stupidity and naïveté. I hate leaving you behind. I did everything possible to get you out of here. But you have a mission now, too. You're here. They say you're good with the babies." Her voice goes up and down as if she can't believe that's possibly true, or maybe because she doesn't think it's an important job. "You have that. I'm sure they'll find other roles for you, too."
Her eyes comb over me, from toes to the crown of my head. She must be memorizing me. We're about to part for the first time. Maybe one reason she’s so angry is that she's sad on the inside, just like me.
"But let me leave you with this. Don't trust him," she adds.
"Who?"
"Callum. Don't ever trust him."
"Why not?"
"Don't trust anyone."
"By those standards, Glen, I shouldn't trust you."
Her throat spasms as she swallows. She looks away, lips pressed hard together. She's fighting tears.
Or is she fighting a smile?
No, that can't possibly be.
Right?
It takes her a few seconds to compose herself before she turns and looks at me.
"Kina," she says, wistful and contemplative, "you really don't understand what we're doing."
"Of course I do. The Mission says that our first responsibility is–"
Her hand goes over my mouth, the fingers tight. Her knuckles curl as if she wants to claw me. My own sister wouldn't do that. Why would she hurt me on purpose?
I move back, just enough so that contact is broken.
"You don't need to recite the letter of The Mission. I'm talking about here." She touches my heart. "And here." She touches my forehead. "Kina, until you grasp what The Mission is, you're never leaving this place."
“Then what am I going to do? What's my role?”
Glen shrugs. “I don't know. Angelica or Sally will tell you soon. But you do have a mission. You do have a purpose. Here, though. At the compound.”
“Soon? How soon? Wait.” I narrow my eyes. “You know something.”
“I don't.”
She's lying.
Before I can say another word, headlights flash outside.
“They're coming for us.”
“Us?” Panic makes my voice go high. “Callum, too?”
“Oh, Kina. Don't be pathetic.”
And with that, she leaves.
Those are the last words my sister says to me.
Those are the words ringing in my head as I start crying until I can't hear anything else.
Everyone's right.
The tears prove I really am weak.
Chapter 14
Callum
* * *
“I didn't kill Jason.”
The office is perfectly clean. The desk is black granite and steel, the floors grey wood, stained the color of a wolf's fur.
“Of course you did. We have it on camera. Glen and Kina confirmed it. You claimed the kill yourself,” Romeo says, not bothering to look up from the clipboard of paperwork he holds in his hands. It’s the only paper in sight. Two thin silver laptops sit on the desk in front of him. His desk chair is black, with thick mesh and leather. He's freshly shaven, even this late at night, and his eyes dance across the page he's reading.
“And I'm retracting that statement.”
“Why?” This finally makes him look up.
“Because I didn't kill him.”