Tainted Plans

by Jenn Vakey

  “Get it together,” I told myself. “This isn't real.”

  And it wasn't. It was the bite. I had to keep going, hope that it would either end on its own or the people I was meeting would have something to fix it. If I didn't, Lillith was as good as dead.

  The woods filled with voices. I tried to ignore them as I moved, but it was so hard. Part of me thought they were real, people out there just watching me. Trying to call me off of the path. But Harun said I had to stay on it. I knew he was real. Wasn't he?

  The numbness in my arm and leg started to burn. It felt like my skin was on fire. I was too afraid to even look at the bites I knew were causing it, fearing that was what I would see. That I wouldn't know if it was real or not. The more time that passed, the harder it became to convince myself that it wasn't. That it all wasn't.

  Then I wasn't alone.

  A man stumbled into the path, blood running down the side of his face and a weapon in his hand. A gun, but a primitive one. It was too big to be anything that was made in Eden.

  The man didn't appear to notice me. He just looked out into the trees in the direction he had come from. He wasn't even getting any closer as I continued to walk forward. Then there was another.

  This one’s face was covered in hair. My heart clenched. An original Tainted.

  He picked up the first man and threw him like he was nothing more than a doll. As his body slammed into a tree, two more men arrived. They were wearing green and black like the one who now lay crumbled on the ground at the base of the tree. They both charged at the hairy man. He flung one aside, but the other was too fast. He pulled something out. A knife. Then he sank it into the side of the man's throat. I screamed, but they still didn't acknowledge me.

  “You're not real,” I said, closing my eyes and pushing forward. “You're not real.”

  Terror filled me as I moved ahead, sure one of them was going to attack me when I wasn't looking. But they didn't. I just kept walking until I felt my legs brush against the side of the path. I opened them just enough to correct my heading, then closed them again.

  Time as I had known it didn’t exist. Each step felt like it took an hour. Even if the sun hadn't been moving around every time I looked at it, I wouldn't let myself turn around to try to determine its location behind me for fear that I would get turned around and start walking in the wrong direction.

  All I could tell was that it was starting to grow darker. I wasn't sure if it was real, though. What if something in that bite caused me to lose my vision? Caused the temperature around me to become colder. Was I dying? Was this what that felt like?

  All I was certain of was that I couldn't stop. I had to keep going so I could get my sister back.

  She's already dead, a voice in the back of my mind said. It's all a trick.

  “Shut up!” I yelled, bringing my hands up over my ears. I couldn't think that. Not for a second. Not my Lillith.

  So I walked and walked. Even as the sun finally did go down and I had nothing more than the light of the moon to guide me. My body burning hot, pain surging through it with each step. Still, I walked.

  Then I saw it. A giant stone doorway, arched at the top. The walls around it had crumbled, leaving only the border made of stone where they had originally been. I wasn't even sure if it was real, but I had to believe it was. I couldn't go on anymore. My legs had started to buckle under my weight, barely having the strength to even keep me up. And then they weren't. I was still a few feet away from the archway when they finally gave out on me and I fell. But I couldn't even bring myself to care. The world just kept spinning and spinning. The stars in the sky moving so quickly that they seemed to blur together. The ground beneath me felt like it moved, but I didn't even have the strength to see why. I didn't even have enough to keep my eyes open. Then everything went black.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I felt my body moving, twisting over onto my side. I wasn't doing it. Or at least I didn't think I was. No, it wasn't me, because the shoulder of my shirt pulled down. Someone was there.

  The effort it took to even crack my eyes open was more than I thought I could muster. I only managed it when I heard a voice. It sounded both close and far away.

  “Are you alone?” it asked. He asked. I think.

  I moved my head slowly up and down, trying to see where the voice was coming from.

  Then I saw a face just above mine. Long hair moving down around it, almost blocking it from my sight. Blonde hair. Eyes so green that they looked like the leaves on the trees. I knew him. Why did I know him?

  My heart felt like it stopped.

  It was him. The murderer.

  I pushed my arm up, trying to move him away. He just caught it, twisting it around and looking down. Why was he looking at it? Then I saw the blood. I remembered. That creature, the one that bit me.

  My arm was shaking in his grasp. I hadn't even noticed it until I saw it. Then I realized it wasn't just my arm. It was my whole body. I felt how cold it was despite the sun being up.

  The fever that had taken me over.

  “Is this the only bite?” he asked.

  I shook my head, but it was all I could do. I could feel my body shutting down. The lack of control I had over it. The pain that was worse than anything I'd ever felt before. I didn't want to feel it. I just wanted it to stop.

  “Let me die,” I said, then felt the world slipping into darkness again.

  Things were fragmented after that. Just a few seconds of memory, things that didn't make any sense.

  My body being jerked around like I was being tugged at by a wild animal. Something burning. The smell of it. Maybe my skin really was on fire. I couldn't even bring myself to care. Maybe it would kill me and I wouldn't have to feel this anymore.

  Then I was flying, the sound of drums in my ear. This was it. I knew it was. I was slipping away, the angels carrying me out of this life. It would all be over soon. I was okay with that.

  * * *

  “Why did you bring her here?” a voice said, stirring me from sleep.

  Was it sleep? Yes, it had to have been. The pain was still there, but it had lessened significantly. Even my head seemed clearer. I didn't know where I was, other than the fact I was warmer and the ground felt much more comfortable than it had been before. No, not the ground. A bed.

  “She has the mark,” another voice answered. I knew this one. I heard it in the woods. The man who had found me. The one I had been sent here to locate.

  “And no sponsor,” the first voice said. This one was a woman, older if I had to guess. It was still too muffled, like it wasn't coming from the room with me. I tried to look, but I couldn't make my eyes open. It took everything I had not to give into the darkness that was trying to call me back. But I needed to hear. I needed to know what they were going to do with me.

  “She was burning up and wasn't coherent. I had to bring her back so we could get her to where she could talk. For all we know, her sponsor is out there in the woods in the same shape,” the guy responded, sounding more than a little annoyed. “What was I supposed to do, leave her out there?”

  “It wouldn't have been the worst thing you've ever done,” someone else said. Not the same woman as before. This one was younger.

  “She could be a spy,” the older woman stated. Even hearing it made my insides burn with guilt. She was right. I was a spy.

  “Usually spies don't beg us to just let them die,” the guy said. I did that? I remember feeling it, but I didn't remember actually saying it. What else did I say while I was out? Obviously nothing to reveal the reason I was here. Or at least I really hoped not. “Until we have answers, she can't be allowed to roam free. Someone has to watch her.”

  “You're the one that found her,” the younger girl said cheerfully.

  “I'm not a baby sitter,” he growled. “I did you a favor taking your retrieval duty. I'm out.”

  I tried to listen more, but my body revolted, thrusting me unwillingly into the embrace of the darkness.


  My head felt much clearer when I awoke again. In fact, I felt almost normal. Even the pain in my body had subsided to tolerable levels.

  I was able to open my eyes this time. When I looked around, I saw that I was, indeed, in a bed. The room around me was small, with only a chair and cabinet in it, other than the bed I was in. And I wasn't alone.

  “How long have I been here?” I asked, pushing myself up. When I did, that question quickly vanished from my mind. “Where are my clothes?”

  I couldn't hide my panic with that one as I realized I was wearing only my undergarments. I grabbed at the sheet, pulling it up to cover myself. I tried to remember, but it wasn't there. Very little was.

  “Long enough that even the ashes from your clothes have cooled,” the young girl said from the chair near the door. She was even younger than I had pictured. No older than fourteen or fifteen. Just a child. She was pretty, though. Fiery red hair that was pulled back. So many freckles on her round cheeks that I couldn't even attempt to count them. Light brown eyes that looked to be studying me, a healthy amount of mistrust in them. “It's standard procedure. Clothes are always removed at the archway. We can't risk any trackers that could lead people right to us.”

  Removed at the archway? I racked my brain trying to remember. The archway that I had found. The face that had filled my vision. The tugging at my clothes that I had felt, thinking at the time that it had been an animal. But it wasn't. It was him.

  Even thinking about it made my cheeks heat. Not only would he have had to have taken my clothes off, but he had carried me into Alkwin without them. Members of the opposite sex weren't supposed to see each other in such a state of undress until they were married. That was one of the laws of Eden.

  “He took my clothes off?”

  The girl smirked, her eyes moving over my cheeks. There wasn't an apology there. Nothing that said it was a shock to her.

  “So you seem to remember some of what happened,” she said, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. “That's a good sign. The bite of the snox can be a bitch of an ordeal. Makes some people forget everything.”

  It wasn't a kind statement. One that said she was impressed that I had made it through it. Instead, she looked at me almost expectantly. Like she was just waiting for me to say I didn't remember anything. I questioned it, then remembered the conversation I had overheard. The distrust that these people had. Worried that I was a spy. That was something I couldn't let happen.

  So I shook my head.

  “It's bits and pieces after it attacked me,” I said honestly. “A lot of stuff that doesn't make sense. Trees melting. People fighting. Voices in the woods.”

  The girl nodded. “Well, usually people are allowed to undress and dress themselves. It wasn't really an option with the shape you were in. Not to mention that you didn't seem to actually pack clothes in your bag. Not that he would have taken the time to dig them out for you.”

  No clothes? Thinking about it made everything hit me hard and at once. The reason I didn't have my bag with clothes. The reason I was alone. Lillith.

  My eyes started to swell with tears. I couldn't stop them. I had managed to hold it together on the trip because I had a goal in mind. Now I was exhausted and everything was pushing through.

  The girl's expression softened a little. She sat back as I wiped my eyes dry. I could tell she was going to ask. I didn't want to talk about it. I had been doing what I could to keep from falling apart, but I didn't know if that would even be possible if I was forced to tell them what happened. It would make it real.

  Before she had the chance to ask, though, the door beside her opened. A woman walked through first. She was older, in her forties. Maybe early fifties. Her brown hair was cut short, much like how the guys in Eden would wear it. Though I could tell that she had a motherly sense about her that would provide comfort, it wasn't what she was showing. Like the girl, she seemed wary. Accusatory.

  Just behind her was someone else. Him. The guy from the archway. The one I had been sent here to find.

  As if on reflex, I pulled the blanket up tighter around me. Doing my best to make sure I was covered. He didn't walk all the way in. He just stopped in the doorway, folding his arms up across his chest.

  “You were supposed to get us when she woke up,” the woman said. She was looking at me, but she was directing the statement to the younger girl.

  “Relax,” the girl responded. “It's only been a couple minutes. I haven't asked her much, and I told her even less.”

  The woman nodded, but I could tell she was still displeased.

  “She was just about to explain why she doesn't have clothes or many personal belongings in her bag.”

  All eyes were on me. The older woman was waiting for me to get on with my story. The girl had softened some, but the guy just looked disinterested. Like he was bored even having to stand there.

  “Where is your sponsor?” he asked dryly. “Tell us their name.”

  There was no stopping the tears that broke through and ran down my face. Holding the blanket firmly with one hand, I brushed my fingers over my cheeks to wipe them away.

  “Her name is Lillith,” I said softly. “Lillith Harkins. We were on our way to the wall to meet Harun when we were intercepted by a group of Sentry.” I took in a deep breath to steady myself, letting it back out slowly. “We sent my stepfather away before they saw him. He must have still gone to the wall, because Harun had the bag and gave it to me when I got there.

  “She tried to fight them off,” I went on. More tears fell, but I just left them this time. They would only be replaced if I swept them away. “I don't have the powers, so I couldn't really help. They… they took her.”

  “So you just decided to come without her anyway?” the woman asked.

  My breath was shaky when I let it out again, then I looked up to meet her gaze. “I didn't have another choice.”

  “Who was she to you?” the guy asked.

  I nodded, finally wiping my face dry. I knew I had to tell them everything. There was no hope of them trusting me if I didn't. It hurt so badly, though. Even pushing the words out made my heart feel like it was being ripped in half.

  “She’s my twin.”

  I could see it on all of their faces, even the guy. I didn't need to explain my decision further. Everyone knew what would have happened to me after she was captured. Even if the Sentry hadn't seen me, I was still in danger. We were blood, which meant they would have come after me next. Dallin was safe because he wasn't our birth father, but they would have killed me just for being related to a Tainted.

  “And the bag?” the woman asked, gentler now.

  “I was training as a Healer,” I explained. “When Lillith’s powers started to show, I started to smuggle out what I could. Just enough not to be noticed.”

  “You must understand that anything brought here outside of personal belongings becomes property of the community,” the woman said.

  I nodded without hesitation. “That's why I brought so much.” Which was the truth. I had collected far more than we would have ever needed. I wasn't Tainted, which meant that I wouldn’t be useful to Alkwin. I wasn’t a fighter. I could grow food, but I couldn't cook. Providing those was the one thing I could think of that would make me worth keeping around.

  “Explain to me how your twin has the abilities and you don't,” the guy said briskly.

  My eyes shot toward him, a little more annoyed than before. I had answered their questions. Told them the story I didn't even want to think about myself. I didn't like being treated like a liar. “Explain to me how anyone gets them at all,” I snapped back.

  His green eyes narrowed as he continued to look at me. He didn't trust me. I could see it there. I really didn't want to care. I knew I should, though. It was my job to get him back to Eden. I didn't even know if that was possible if he didn't trust me. Still, he rubbed me wrong.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked.

  There was that fire again, f
ueled by my annoyance. Was he threatening me? Trying to state his dominance? Or was it something else.

  I couldn't stop myself from saying what came next. I had never been good at thinking before I talked. “You're the guy who thought he had the right to take my clothes off of me.”

  Whatever guilt I had for what I had to do to him disappeared. I had known guys like him in Eden. The ones that thought they were better than everyone else. That the rest of us should cater to their every whim. It wasn’t a trait that I had ever liked. Even less so on this guy.

  His reaction to my statement wasn’t what I had expected, though. His face might have stayed neutral and expressionless, but that wasn’t what I saw in his eyes. They seemed to almost be smiling. It was confusing, contradictory to everything else I had seen from him. And as quickly as it arrived, it was gone again.

  “Keep her here until our contacts can verify her story,” he said, not taking his eyes off of me. Then he just turned and left.

  An ample amount of confusion filled me. He was the one giving the orders? He wasn’t just a member of Alkwin, if that was even where I really was. No, he appeared to be in charge. Even the thought of that was strange. He was so young. Far too young to ever have any kind of power in Eden.

  As I thought about it, it wasn’t entirely unexpected. This was the man who was wanted for killing a member of the royal family. The future king. Such an act had to have earned him a certain level of respect among these people. If he really was in charge, it also made my task much harder.

  “I will bring you in clothes to change into,” the older woman said with a curt nod. Then, like the guy, she turned and left.

  I expected the girl to follow them out, but the older woman just shut the door behind her. Instead of making a move to get up, the girl sank down deeper into her chair. Getting comfortable.

  “Is he always so personable?” I asked, trying to break the tension that now filled the room.

  She smirked, crossing her arms over her chest. “Yes.” Even I smiled at that one. “I’m Aarys. I guess there's no problem with me telling you that now. Not that you would be leaving here with that information if your story didn't check out.”