by Lan Chan
Yuri gets the door of the supply room for me as we leave, and I notice something slipping from his pocket. I bend to pick up the Micah’s Rose seedpod, which Yuri promptly snatches from me.
“None of your business,” he says.
“The hell it isn’t,” I say. I know he knows the petals are the only non-poisonous part of the plant. His tests revealed that right away. But Yuri will no longer speak to me, and I become the recipient of the rancour he usually reserves for his assistants. There’s only one purpose he could be using the seedpod for, and I hope he has enough sense to be careful with it. Creating a cure is one thing, but I bet his expertise won’t save him if the Chief Warden discovers him making poison.
My mood turns even darker when I arrive back at the hotel to another enormous white box tied in silver ribbon. Shocking magenta froth and feathers burst from within the layers of tissue paper when I open the box. Clearly, Harlan is making sure I’ll be the centre of attention, because no one can miss me in this gaudy dress. The layered chiffon skirt skims my thigh in just the right spot. I imagine the feathers are another little reminder of my affinity with flying. The dress comes with matching crystal-encrusted magenta shoes and a necklace of chandelier diamonds that catch the light and throw it back in a dozen different beams.
No matter how much time goes by, I can’t get used to the girl I see in the mirror. The skin on my face is too smooth, and my straw-yellow hair seems entirely at odds with my tanned colouring. So much so it almost washes me out and makes me seem sickly.
There’s a knock at the door. “It’s open,” I call out. I plaster on a smile and exit my bedroom as quickly as I can in these heels. The last thing I want is to be caught in an intimate surrounding with Harlan. When it’s Aiden who enters, I let the façade drop.
“You’re not dressed,” I say, eyeing his muddy boots.
“I’ve been demoted from guest to security,” he says, though his attention is scattered as he appreciates my appearance. My mouth goes dry as I take in his imposing posture and all his small details. He cuts an impressive figure in his guard uniform, and when he tilts his head down to get a better look at me, his expression becomes intense. A slow blush creeps up my neck and I straighten my back to gain some stature, only to be confronted with his sneaky smile. “You look nice,” he says.
I catch myself wondering what it would be like if Aiden kissed me. Our eyes meet and the air between us becomes charged. The hairs on the nape of my neck stand on end as a shiver runs down my spine. Aiden takes a step forward, and I know I should retreat, but instead, I close the distance between us. Calm settles over me, and I get that feeling of joyous anticipation when I sense the coming of a storm. He reaches out and traces the outline of a diamond on my collarbone. Then I swallow and the necklace shifts, casting lights right into his eye. The tension dissipates as he turns his head away.
I step back and let out a silent breath. It’s probably for the best anyway. I have no business thinking of Aiden that way when not too long ago I would have wanted to punch him in the face if he got so close. I tell myself that over and over as Aiden takes my hand and places a small box into my palm. He closes my fingers over the box with his own. I never want him to let go, but of course he does a moment later.
“Happy birthday, Rory,” he says.
My heart aches at the tragedy he injects into those few words that I haven’t heard from him in six years. As though he’s lamenting the lost time as much as I have. Then I open up the box and my heart shatters completely. Inside is a pair of acorns encased in what appears to be amber. Delicate white gold has been moulded to each of the acorn’s cupules, turning them into charms that hang from a white gold chain.
“Yuri kept them for me. He assures me they’re still viable inside the amber,” he says. “I stole them from the Dempsey’s garden just before—” He stops. There’s no need for him to continue. I remember the reception the Dempseys held for the circus folk just before I left the Citadel for the final time. I’ve come all the way to the Citadel fuelled by my hatred of him, and Aiden has given me viable seeds. “Rory?”
I don’t answer. Instead, I reach around and yank the diamond chain off my neck. I cast the expensive bauble aside and replace it with Aiden’s gift. “That’s probably not a good idea,” he says, but even he can’t help the mischievous smile that tugs at his lips. I want to thank him, but I don’t know how, and I can’t breathe because he’s looking at me so intently again.
His earpiece crackles and I jump a mile. Aiden sighs at an order I can’t hear. “Come on,” he says, ushering me out of the apartment. “You’re dangerously late. I only swung by because your friend Gage told me you needed something.”
That’s when I remember the note Gage gave me.
“Give me a sec.” I race back inside and retrieve the envelope. Inside is a simple handwritten note that says:
Stay away as long as you can. You were right. I’m sorry. Good-bye.
Terrible dread seizes me. In the lounge, the television screen blares the signal of an incoming call and connects without my authorisation. Harlan’s image materialises on screen. He’s out of breath and out of sorts. Behind him is his conservatory, which means he’s walking towards my hotel through the skyroad.
“There’s fashionably late and then there’s just plain rude,” he says. His anger is only barely masked.
I’m about to apologize when a figure appears in the distance behind him. I recognise Gage instantly. He raises something in his hand.
“No!” I scream, and then a deafening explosion rocks the apartment. There’s time to view a cloud of smoke that engulfs Gage and watch Harlan turn his head backwards before the image on the screen cuts out.
Thirty-Seven
As the electricity dies, Aiden yanks me into his arms and moves us under the doorframe. Pressure builds around me, making my ears pop. I feel Aiden tense as an aftershock hits us. Inside the apartment, the ceiling creaks and then glass shatters, and I know the chandelier has fallen. My body slackens as I try to process what’s happening.
I’ve no idea how long we stay pressed up against the doorjamb. I bury my head in Aiden’s shoulder, trying to convince myself it’s a coincidence and Gage can’t have anything to do with the explosion. But it’s impossible to believe the lie. Especially with Gage’s note to me still crumpled in my hand. I know without asking that Gage is gone. No one can have survived an explosion of that magnitude.
One of Aiden’s arms is around my waist. His other hand holds my head in place as his fingers gently massage the base of my neck. I’m in such shock that it takes me a while to realise what he’s doing. That he’s comforting me for the inevitable news. He must be receiving emergency messages through his earpiece.
It’s as though a switch has been flicked inside me. One moment I’m as limp as a ragdoll, and the next I’m supercharged. I level my palms against Aiden’s chest and wrench myself free. He tries to hold me in place, but I slip beneath his arms and start running for the stairwell because the lifts have gone into lockdown. I remove my heels and throw my legs over the hip-high handrail and free-fall half a dozen flights of stairs, catching onto another rail to break my descent. I’m alerted to Aiden’s pursuit by the heavy stamping of his feet.
When I throw open the fire door to the floor marked with a red thirty, I’m met with utter chaos. The sky road on my left has been ripped in half and dangles on wires like tendons on a severed limb. Uniformed guards rush past in either direction, shouting orders to each other or to curious residents brave enough to converge in the far right of the hallway. One of the guards, a stocky man with a heavy brow, says something to me, but his words are eaten up by a gust of wind. Then another guard catches his attention and I’m forgotten.
I step towards the gaping hole in the sky road. Bits of glass slice into the rough pads of my feet. The pain registers but is tempered by equal measures of shock and adrenaline. I focus on the broken body lying facedown on the precipice of the sky road. A pair of guards
stand ready in the juncture just before the building gives way and the road stands alone. The one closest to me calls out Harlan’s name as though that amounts to an attempted rescue effort. Neither guard is willing to walk the road for fear of it collapsing altogether. I wish they would. I want so much for the whole thing to come crashing down and take Harlan with it.
Just as the thought leaves me, a biting wind shakes the road. For a moment, wild hope spikes in me, and then it fades as the sound of a propeller cuts through the mayhem. A helicopter descends on the sky road, and I turn away, unable to watch as all attempts are made to save Harlan, while in the husk of the adjoined building, Gage has more than likely turned to ash.
***
“How do you think Mr. Casseldon got hold of the explosives?” a scrambled voice says through the overhead speakers. The white noise cracking over the open channel and the time lapse between each transmission tells me this technology is outdated. A relic of a civilization long since destroyed.
Not long after Harlan was airlifted to the hospital, a cadre of guards arrived at my doorstep. I was blindfolded and bundled into a vehicle. They’ve taken me to what I assume is a cell under the barracks. The eggshell paint on the walls is peeling off in flakes, and there’s a spot in the corner of the one-way mirror I’m facing where the reflective film is beginning to wear away.
I stare past my own muted image in the mirror. I haven’t uttered a word since the explosion. I’m afraid if I do, I’ll start to wail, and once I start, I don’t know if I’ll stop. The muscles at my throat are stretched taut with anxiety, and throbbing tension builds at the base of my skull.
Scraps of my memories of Gage knit together into an uneven tapestry, and I feel the prickle of tears when I realise how little I knew him. How much I’ll miss him and selfishly, how truly alone I am now.
Countless hours have passed. I know this because the clock on the wall behind me is the only other embellishment in the room besides the hard plastic chair I’m sitting on. The voice in the speaker ceases as it has every other time I’ve failed to answer a question. I should be afraid, but I’ve had almost no contact with Gage since we arrived, and there’s nothing they can pin on me. They can try, of course, but what do have I left to lose?
Static thumps as though a microphone is being passed between hands, and then it goes dead. The airlock on the door hisses. Sheila Dempsey steps into the room with a pair of guards flanking her. I scry her lined face for a sign of emotion, something that will let me gauge if Harlan’s dead or alive, but she gives nothing away. There is a grey-green pallor to her skin and a slick of sweat running down her neck. If I didn’t know better, I would think she’s sick. Her jaw sets as she comes to stand before me, the guards bringing up the rear so they block my view of the mirror. That Sheila is here instead of at Harlan’s bedside says more than if she was crying, but even that doesn’t dampen my fervent hope that Harlan dies a painful death.
Sheila holds up an electronic pad in front of my face. She presses a triangular button, and the screen lights up and condenses into a video of Gage and Ace entering my penthouse suite. “Would you like to explain why he visited you yesterday morning?” Sheila says.
Yesterday morning. Was it really only yesterday? It feels like an age has passed.
I shrug half-heartedly. “He came to wish me happy birthday,” I say. If they have hidden surveillance inside my room, that’s all they would have seen. There’s no doubt in my mind the penthouse has been ransacked top to bottom. Everything I now own has been given to me while inside the Citadel. They can’t possibly be suspicious of those trinkets. The acorn necklace Aiden gave me still hangs around my neck, but no one has paid it any notice. I never imagined when the Seeders finally arrested me, I would actually be innocent. Somehow this doesn’t fill me with relief, but with vicious anger. It means I’ve wasted my time in the Citadel and achieved nothing.
Then the guard on Sheila’s left pulls out a limp piece of material from within his cloak. It’s the glider suit Ace made me.
“How do you explain this?” Sheila says. There’s triumph in her voice.
Again I shrug. I’m too tired and my brain is too sluggish to come up with a viable excuse. Whatever I say won’t be enough. Everything I’ve done up until now hasn’t been enough. I’m so tired and heartsick that I unconsciously slide from the chair. Rivulets of pain from the cuts on my feet shoot up my calf, and I slither down with my cheek pressed against the cold stone floor.
Sheila and the guards back up as though taken by surprise. I close my eyes and hear the shallowness of my own breath like gusts of wind in my ear. For untold moments, it’s so quiet you could hear a seed drop, and then the speaker comes to life.
“I asked Acacia Stirling to make her the suit as a birthday present,” Tom’s voice says. My eyes fly open, but I don’t move. “An updated costume for her next performance.” Why is he doing this? The only explanation is his need for my aerialist ability far exceeds what I thought. This one lie of Tom’s is worth a thousand of mine, and suddenly, a curtain draws down over Sheila’s eyes, and for a fraction of a second, I can see the woman behind the Warden. For all else that she is, it’s obvious she loves her brother.
“Take her back,” Sheila orders the guards. Then she turns around and disappears out the door.
I turn my head so if Tom is watching through the mirror, he can’t see my expression. It must have cost his health dearly for him to come all this way. I should be grateful, but I’m not. I don’t want to be saved by a Seeder, especially not one with his ulterior motives. Most of all, I don’t want him to see this time, the Seeders may have finally broken me.
Thirty-Eight
The penthouse appears untouched, but I know better than to trust what my eyes alone can show me. If someone’s been here, it’s likely they’ve found nothing; otherwise, I would have been detained longer. All I can do is crawl into bed and wait for sleep. I take another four sleeping pills, and I’m so numb it doesn’t take long for sleep to come. When I finally wake, it’s still dark outside. My head pounds and my eyes are dry and swollen, as if I’ve been crying in my sleep but was too exhausted to be woken by it.
There are bandages around my feet, which means Gloria must have come while I was asleep. I yawn and my lips crack painfully. I haven’t had anything to eat or drink in too long. Though I’m not hungry, I go into the bathroom and take small sips of water from the hand basin, using my palms as makeshift cups. No sooner does the water slide down my throat than it comes straight back up again. I dry retch and bile coats my tongue. This makes me cough and splutter even more. My jaw locks into an open position and blood pulses at my temple. I clutch my chest and heave, desperately trying to quell the feeling of my lungs being compressed. The room spins and I pitch forward.
All I can think is that I need air. My feet move of their own accord across the tiled bathroom floor, through the penthouse, and out onto the balcony. Once there, I collapse against the marble balcony and tuck my knees under my chin. The night air engulfs me in its cold embrace and steals away some of my panic. I force myself to inhale and exhale. A strangled cry passes my lips, and I mash them against my kneecap to stifle the wail.
I stay there crouched and shivering until at last my breathing draws out and becomes even. Until I no longer want to jump out of my own skin. I can’t stop replaying my last interaction with Gage over and over again. In hindsight, his intention seems plain as day. Was the additional bulk I’d thought he put on just explosives strapped to his chest? How could he have even contemplated such a thing? He must have felt so trapped and helpless.
It frightens me that I can’t remember what he looks like anymore. When I close my eyes and try to picture his face, all that manifests is a head-shaped blotch. I should have sought him out earlier after our arrival. There was so much more I could have done to help him. This makes me think of his father, who died trying to stop Jonah from mutilating me. I think of his mother, whose life I forfeited when I chose the Landing to be destro
yed. One way or another I’ve had my hand in all their deaths.
The words Gage spoke in anger in the forest come back to me like a sledgehammer. I want you to feel what it’s like not to be handed everything and treated like you’re better than the rest of us, he’d said. This time I can’t deny the truth in those words. By rights, he and I were the same when we arrived in the Citadel. It’s only my past as the Wind Dancer that’s saved me from the same fate.
I begin to see Gage’s sacrifice in an entirely new light. It makes me question which of the two of us has been more active in our private rebellion. His was a brutal, violent act but an act all the same. Here I’ve been skulking around afraid of my own shadow, ensuring I’m too important to dispose of. Gage has actually done something. Do I agree with his methods? I know the answer should be no, but there’s a maniacal part of me that can’t help feeling as though Gage has gotten the ultimate revenge.
Yet knowing this doesn’t dull the ache of his passing. How in the world did Gage get hold of explosives? I can only think of one source: Acacia Stirling. I know she’s alive because it was the first thing Aiden checked after he dragged me back to my apartment. Suddenly, I’m so unreasonably angry that my panic attack is forgotten.
I re-enter the living room and turn on the television. The weathergirl points to the industrial sector of the Citadel and announces they should expect rain. Then the coverage flips back to the newsroom, and a swarthy male anchor with shiny black hair and a toothy grin recaps the aftershock of the bombing. Across the bottom of the screen, white text scrolls past on a dark-blue background, feeding more updates from other live sources.
They’ve taken it a step further by claiming Gage was part of a secret underground rebel group intent on destroying life in the Citadel. While the anchor talks, a mini-screen appears above his left shoulder, and images of black-clad figures not unlike the Reapers are displayed. All terrorists were, of course, apprehended and would be dealt with swiftly. A number flashes past, and citizens are asked to call if they suspect anyone. Something tells me this isn’t the first time someone has dished out this kind of revenge.