Creators (17 page)

I was to do whatever the Harper men commanded of me. If I disobeyed, my punishment would fall to them. They had bought me, and in the eyes of the council, I didn’t own myself. But, then again, to them I didn’t deserve to. According to their doctrine, I was weak. Filled with such reckless wantonness that I could only corrupt, never lead. So, while the council abandoned the naturals stationed in compounds, we were forced to be the servants of the men left in the headquarters.

If only they knew the person responsible for their continued power was a woman. Was that why she did it? Some cosmically sick joke? The supreme creator a woman. It was wild.

Or did she really do it because she thought the world, and everyone in it, too dark and twisted to save? She had told me the code for the fail-safe. Whispered it into my ear gleefully. I still had no idea what any of it meant. And while the older members of the council had to know Abrams was female, these pissants had no idea.

It was no secret that soon their bloodlines would die out. That one day, the chosen ones would be the only ones left—a perfect species to carry out our civilization, a civilization molded and created by the council itself. That would be their legacy. So, these younger children, boys not smart enough to carry out their father’s work, sons of man-made Gods, pranced and lived in the headquarters with no purpose.

Lives of frivolity that went unchecked.

The first time I was locked in the closet was on the third day of my servitude. I was punished because Richard had accused me of spitting in Terrance’s tea when he wasn’t looking. I had stood there, holding the tea tray while the boys lazily sat around the table, and watched as Richard spat into the cup. After Terrance drank from it, Richard nearly fell from the chair laughing. When the boy, who couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen, raised his eyebrows at me and whispered mischievously to his brother, I never would have dreamt he would accuse me of such a ridiculous action.

This petty act left me dumbfounded. I was used to seeing people who thought they were better than me take for granted the lavish lives they were given, but this overwhelming sense of mean-spirited silliness wasn’t something I had ever truly experienced before.

These boys, villains who enjoyed terrorizing Regan and me, weren’t so different than the naturals who lived in the compounds. Neither set of people had any true purpose guiding them through life. But I wasn’t sure what made these boys so hateful. They appeared to have everything just within their reach. Thinking back on the people who shared their lives with me within the walls of the compound and the Isolationists who struggled to find freedom, I began to hate the Harpers.

Knowing full well I wouldn’t be stupid enough to let his younger brother see me spit in his tea, Terrance yanked me by the hair and threw me into the closet. Once I was inside, I realized all of the shelves had been removed, and there was a deadbolt on the outside.

This space had never been used for storage.

The second time I had been locked in the closet was because I had failed to guess that Terrance had wanted me to set out his light blue silk shirt instead of the white one. I was supposed to read his mind.

The unfairness of it was enough to drive me insane. But somehow, I kept my mouth shut.
James. James. James
. It became my daily mantra. I waited for my father’s man on the inside to reach me. Any time an errand sent me outside of the Harper family quarters, I held my head up, hoping someone would recognize me. But the days turned into a week and I had no sign of my father’s man.

The third time I was forced into the closet was because Terrance was bored. He called me into the family study and demanded that I entertain him. “You must have some sort of talent. Show me,” he chirped, chucking the book he was reading across the room. Had I not served time at Templeton, the sight of the book would have shocked me. The council had long ago outlawed them, but the council often picked and chose what rules they followed.

I looked Terrance up and down. There was a part of me that was slowly becoming infected by the nastiness that spewed from these boys. I wanted to tease him, laugh at his ugliness. God, or whoever created him, had certainly given no attention to the construction of his face. Comically wide, Terrance’s teenage face was covered in acne. It was too plump for the rest of his body. His head looked as if someone got confused and switched it with a much bigger man’s by mistake. Bushy eyebrows and gapped teeth.

I wondered why his father, one of the world’s most gifted scientists and leader of the council, didn’t fix him. Perhaps Harper didn’t worry too much about his sons; I barely saw him around the living quarters.

Behind the greasy elder son stood a beautiful gleaming piano. There was a talent I could show him, but it wasn’t one I was willing to part with. Playing it for him would feel like I was giving him all the moments connected to it—the moments when I’d still looked up to my father and the moments when I’d fallen for James.

“Stupid, useless girl. What did we even get you for?” he screamed at me.

Most of the times Terrance or Richard put me in the closet, they would let me out after a few hours. They would remind me of how I had misbehaved, and then made me promise never to make those same mistakes again.

This time felt different. As the minutes turned into hours and the hours into a whole afternoon, I wondered if they had forgotten about me. I brushed the hair out of my face, which had been matted with sweat. I felt my eyelids droop, and I knew there wasn’t a lot of time before the darkness came for me again. I couldn’t help but think of The Void. I was trapped once again. I reached a sluggish hand up and began to trace slash marks against the back of my hand.

Sharon.

Eric.

Louisa.

Emma.

James.

Myself.

Henry.

Stephanie.

I forced my eyes open and managed to get myself to my knees. If I had to, I would use whatever strength I had left to kick down the door. I wouldn’t go out like this; I would make some sort of stand for the people I loved. With a grunt, I felt around the black void for something to help pull me up.

And then there was the brightness. It was so strong that I fell backward, knocking my head against the wall. My eyes slammed shut, trying to protect themselves from the new light battling the darkness that had successfully lulled them into submission.

In front of me stood the last person I had ever expected to come and rescue me—George.

The chosen one who had nearly ruined my life crouched in front of me and held out his arms to help me up. I gathered every bit of strength that hid within my muscles, balled up my fist, and let it fly straight for his face. My punch didn’t seem to do any damage to the chosen one in front of me, but it caused me to fall straight back on my ass.

“I wouldn’t suggest you do that again,” George said, reprimanding me like I was a naughty little girl in the schoolroom.

I punched him again.

And when that still didn’t make me feel better, I pulled back my fist once more. This time, George caught it in his hand before the hit landed. “I said stop,” he growled.

“Actually you didn’t,” I panted. “You suggested I didn’t do it again.”

“See, that’s the kind of attitude that gets you locked in a closet,” he said. “Now, would you like me to let you out or not?”

“Why the hell would you help me?”

“Oh, Tessie. Don’t you remember our fun little meeting in the woods? I whispered that I couldn’t wait for you to join me. That you’d help me. And here you are.” He grinned.

I had always hated that damn grin.

“Now, how can you help me stuck in here?” he continued.

“I have no intention of helping you,” I said. “I remember everything about our little meeting in the woods. I remember how you killed McNair. I remember how you returned my sister to me pregnant. I remember how you took James from me.”

George placed a hand over his chest. “Are you implying I treated you unfairly? I killed that grizzly man because he was about to attack me. And if there is one thing I know you understand about this world, it’s kill or be killed. In regards to your sister, I returned her, didn’t I? It’s not my fault she couldn’t keep her hands off me.”

I opened my mouth to scream every obscenity I knew at the creature in front of me, but George clamped his hand over my mouth. “And as for James? I needed him here, too.”

“Where is he?”

“Closer than you think, actually. I can bring him to you. I bet you won’t mind my help out of this mess now, will you?” he asked, reaching his hand down for me again.

When he touched me, his eyes widened. It was only for a second, but a shudder ran through my body. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much he still unnerved me. Once I was out of the closet, I sucked in as much oxygen as I could possibly get. The rush of air through my lungs caused me to feel a bit dizzy.

Once I had gained my composure, I looked up at George. “You know, Terrance wouldn’t like it that you let me out of here.”

“Terrance is the one who called me here, my dear,” he whispered in my ear. “Seems he doesn’t like the merchandise. Wants to return you. Considering that would mean your death, and the fact that you are exactly where I need you, I figured it was about time I stepped in.”

“Why would Terrance call you?”

“I’m the one they call when there is something wrong with the girls. I’ve been assigned to finance. Sort of helpful to have a man around who can read every secret ever hidden, especially when it comes to money.”

I had forgotten about George’s gift. I pulled my hand from his grasp. With a simple touch, he would know everything I kept hidden inside of myself. George chuckled beside me and ushered me into the study where Terrance sat on the couch, pouting.

“This isn’t going to work. You have to play the part,” he leaned in and whispered to me.

I wanted to wipe the floor with the petulant ass.

“I believe this man has asked you to entertain him,” George said. “I’d advise you, girl, to fulfill your duty. You must have some talent you can show him?” His eyes darted to the piano.

Once, back during our days at Templeton, George had stalked me in the piano room. He had tainted James and my sacred space. Now, it seemed like he was trying to take it from me again. I pressed my lips together, then looked down at the back of my hand, and I remembered the slash marks I had drawn over and over again while entrapped in the room of darkness.

If George had been telling the truth, then James was near. Which meant that if I wanted to see him, I had to survive, and if I wanted to survive, I had to play that piano. I had to bend to the pest of a boy’s every whim. I had to bide my time and team up with one of the vilest men in all of existence.

James was worth it.

I hesitantly moved to the piano and took a seat. My hands trembled as I brought them to the keys. I took a deep breath and began to play. I played my mother’s song because if I was going to be forced to share this secret side of myself, then I would play what I wanted to play.

There was a part, a small part of me, that came to life as my hands danced across the keys. It had been so long since I had touched one. I thought of my first moments alone with James, and I closed my eyes. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe I could lose myself in these memories when I played the piano for Terrance, fool him into thinking the music belonged to him.

The sound of clapping broke my trance. When I opened my eyes, Terrance look amused. George continued to clap. No doubt, he was happy that I was playing my part.

“Did my father send you for me?” Terrance asked, looking over my head to the entrance.

I turned around and he was there.

James.

At the sight of him, my face flushed. It was like the lighthouse that beckoned the ships home. I pressed a hand against my burning cheek, hoping that it wouldn’t give me away. James was much better at hiding his recognition of me. In fact, he only but glanced my way.

“Yes, your father would like a word with you and your brother. He believes you took something that was not yours. He would like you to bring it with you,” James said. It read as a request, but his voice carried an edge—a warning.

“I…it wasn’t me. I didn’t take anything. I s-swear it,” Terrance stuttered. His skin looked clammy as he shot up out of his seat.

Terrance seemed scared out of his wits. Either he was deathly afraid of his father or what he took was of some worth. Inwardly, I kicked myself. If Terrance or Richard had taken something important from their father, something that could have been laying around unguarded in one of the rooms I was cleaning, and I had missed it, I would never forgive myself. I was there to spy, and I hadn’t discovered a single thing yet.

“It really is none of my concern. I am merely here to collect you and your brother,” James replied dully.

I bolted out of my seat, nearly knocking over the piano bench in the process. “I’ll go fetch Richard.” George, confidant that neither James nor Terrance could see him, raised an eyebrow at my impertinence. I had not been given permission to leave the room. I cleared my throat. “If that is all right with you, Terrance?” I bowed my head.

Terrance opened his mouth to object, but James cut him off. “I think that is a good plan. If things are as you say, Terrance, your girl here can instruct your brother to bring along the stolen map.” Terrance nodded, a layer of sweat forming on his brow. I didn’t wait to be told twice. I gave a small curtsey before beelining it out of the suddenly cramped and tense study. I knew I didn’t have long before they would expect me back. I would have to look and look fast.

A map. My father had told me that I would be assigned to the family of a creator. Once in their service, I would need to find a map. The map would lead me to every secret room and lab in the council’s headquarters. It would lead me to the fail-safe.

It all seemed too easy, but my father was no idiot; he would make sure I was placed with the creator most likely to have the map in his possession. Could this stolen map be the same one he spoke of?

Beneath the anxiousness of searching for the map lay another emotion. I tried to force down the butterflies that fluttered happily inside my stomach as I almost ran to Terrance’s room. James was here. He had seen me. I knew he would be altered by the terrible things the council did to him, but he was with me, and I knew we could overcome anything that stood between us. He wouldn’t let them destroy us. Not completely. I just needed to find a way to get him alone. For now, it was enough to know he was still alive.

I knocked on the door to Terrance’s room to make sure Richard wasn’t in there before I barged in and began my search. The little pest enjoyed going into his brother’s room and messing up the work that Regan or I did only to call us incompetent later. Satisfied that I was alone, I quickly opened and then closed the door behind me.

Terrance’s skittish behavior when questioned by James proved to me that the stolen map had to have been in his room. He, no doubt, took it just because he thought he could. That was the only reason he ever seemed to do anything. But maybe it was something else, some pathetic attempt at trying to get his father’s attention. I had been assigned to the Harper family for more than a week, and I had only ever seen his father during the bidding.

Searching the room felt impossible, knowing I had very little time and couldn’t leave any trace of my actions. I had no training for this kind of work. I had grown up in a compound and not in my father’s army. He had seen to that. Which meant that after throwing aside the blanket to look under the bed, I had to make sure it was put back into place without a single wrinkle. Every drawer I opened had to be closed, and every book I moved off the shelf had to be put back.

And the clock was ticking.

I ran my hands through my hair, spinning around in a small circle, searching for any sign that something was out of place. And then I remembered finding
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
. It seemed like a lifetime ago that Henry and I had discovered the novel. The injured girl had hidden it under a loose floorboard. While the floors of the headquarters were made of marble tiles and not wood, I fell to my knees. I crawled around the room, running my hands over the smooth, cold surface looking for any imperfection.

After several minutes, my hand bumped against a loose tile in the corner of the room. I glance behind me to make sure I was alone, then pried the loose tile up. “Well, I’ll be damned,” I whispered.

I lifted the folded-up map from Terrance’s hiding place, then laid it across the floor and smoothed out the wrinkles. It was a map of the former United States of America, separated into East, West, and Isolationist territories. All of the compounds held by the council were marked on the map, most of them now covered in giant red x’s. These must be the compounds that had gone through The Great Reckoning.

The lightning storm inside of me flared up once more. The insatiable anger tossed and turned like the storm that separated Viola from her family in McNair’s book.

There was a wave of green on the map that stemmed from the Eastern coast and spilled almost all the way to where the council itself stood. I furrowed my brow as I ran my fingers across the color that soaked almost the entire map. What could it mean?

This was how far into our land the war had come. We were losing, and we were losing badly. There was almost nothing left of the Western sector. That was why the council had abandoned the compounds and murdered the naturals who lived in them. The council headquarters was all they had left—their stronghold. When that fell to the hordes of the Eastern army, it would all cease to exist.

We were running out of time.

The map outlined the country or, at least, what was left of it. It wasn’t the map my father wanted, but this was the map
I
desired. It would lead me to freedom.

I began to fold it up when the corner bent. There was a second map underneath the first one. I peeled back the top sheet to reveal a floor plan of the council’s headquarters. I placed the first map of the country on the floor and held the object of my father’s desire. Somewhere on this map was the fail-safe. Bringing the map closer to my face, I took it all in: meeting rooms, large banquet halls, the homes of creators, and then the places hidden to the eye—labs and control rooms located behind secret panels and camouflaged doors. How many secrets did the council have?

The doorknob to Terrance’s room began to twist. I scrambled frantically to fold the floor plan map and stick it in my pocket, but I didn’t have time to grab the U.S. map on the floor. When the door opened, my throat went dry. I looked up to find James staring down at me. All the tension that I held inside my body relaxed. A deep sigh shook me to my core.

It was only James.

James.

I was alone with James.

A smile danced across my face.

James narrowed his eyes and looked me up and down. Sizing me up. “What do you think you’re doing?” he barked. I jumped at the tone of his voice. “I asked you a question!”

I couldn’t open my mouth, couldn’t speak. I didn’t know how to react to this James. He snatched the map from the floor beside me, and his eyes burned with accusation. “Were you the one who took this?”

I fumbled around my brain for words, some way to make sense of what was happening. This was James. My James. The boy who showed me how to love. The boy I had given myself to. But it wasn’t him at the same time. I hadn’t been foolish enough to think that James wouldn’t be different, but I never expected this.

James reached down with his free hand and dragged me to my feet by the collar of my uniform. He pushed his face into mine. “Answer me,” he said coldly.

My eyes pricked with tears, and I had to look away. Otherwise, I would lose it entirely. They had won. The council had won. They made him into a monster. No matter what he had written in his letters, I never thought they would win. I didn’t think it was possible. He was the kindest soul I had ever met.

I shook my head. “I didn’t take it—I found it. I came in here to look for Richard. I didn’t take it.”

“Let her go,” said a seemingly bored George from the doorway. “Can’t you see how scared she is? She didn’t take it. Besides, you know how these two imbeciles are.”

“She was snooping,” James growled, still holding me.

“Don’t you have a creator who’s waiting on you? You think he will like that you wasted so much time on this simpleton? I highly doubt it,” George said. James shoved me away and I fell to the ground. Without a second glance or word, he walked out of the room.

Once he was gone, George shut the door behind him. With the outside world locked away, I could no longer control the emotions that flowed through me. A sob broke free from where my soul, despite the world’s many attempts to destroy it, still managed to live. I pressed the palms of my hands against my eyes. I couldn’t stop the tears that spilled from me, but that didn’t mean I had to look at George while I was doing it.

The first time James had disappeared from my life, I had attempted to give him up. I made peace, albeit a flimsy one, with the fact that I would never see him again. But then I did. He had come back into my life to save me, and even after George took him from me, I always expected him to come back. Somehow. Some way. I knew it wasn’t the end of our story. I lived with that hope, even if I never spoke it aloud, every day.

I lived to find a world where we could be together.

But he had changed. James had always told me that I kept the darkness from him. The truth was we had both done that for each other. Like Jane and Mr. Rochester, the couple from the first book we had ever read in secret together. There was nothing James feared more in the world, except for maybe my own demise, than losing himself to the council.

And they had finally succeeded in taking him from me.

“You done?” George asked. I looked up to see him leaning against the door. He offered no words of comfort or sympathy, and I was thankful for it. It wouldn’t have helped. Not from him. Words of kindness from the man I hated would only make the malice that oozed from James even more unbearable.

“There’s something I want to show you,” George said, not waiting for my answer.

“What about Terrance and Richard?” I asked, my voice strained.

“I have a feeling they’ll be busy getting read the riot act for a while. But that doesn’t mean we should sit around and waste time. Get up.”

I pulled myself to my feet and followed behind George. That was my place after all. Creators. Chosen ones. Naturals. That was the order of things. “I saw the map,” I mumbled.

George stopped dead in his tracks. “And what map was that?” he asked casually—much too casually.

I had to decide which map to give up—the one that outlined my possible freedom or the one that would give him every secret he couldn’t take for himself. I didn’t bring up the map by accident. I knew how George worked. He would find some way to touch me and discover what Terrance and Richard had hidden. He would never even mention it, but he would take the information all the same. This way I would bring it up. I would decide what he got to know, and I would do everything in my power to make sure he didn’t place a hand on me.

But what information to give him?

I didn’t trust George. Not a bit. Which meant I knew what I had to do.

I cleared my throat. “There’s a map that shows the damage of the war on the land. Every battle. Every destroyed compound. Every loss and every win. All the things about the war the council doesn’t bother to share with us.”

“Did you understand it?” he asked as he began walking again, a note of disappointment seeping through his words.

“The war. It’s here.”

“It’s not just about the war. It’s about something bigger.”

“Something bigger?”

“Yes, Tessie. It’s about the end of days.”

…

George took me down to the basement. I had to force my legs to continue moving as we delved deeper and deeper into the belly of the beast. My time spent roaming around basements had never ended well. It didn’t help that I was traveling to one with the most maniacal man I had ever come across.

The enemy of my enemy—wasn’t that how the saying went? Except I still wasn’t sure why George hated the council. All I knew was that he seemed hell-bent on taking it down.

As we walked through the halls of the headquarters, no one even looked up at us. I understood the frenzy of the men who zoomed past us now; they were trying to stop the destruction of the world they worked so hard to create. They didn’t care that a chosen one was escorting me through the halls. They had stopped caring about my kind. I was simply a toy bought to amuse those too weak to be of any use in the coming final battle. Little did they know, I was planning on fighting, too.

Much like Templeton, as we voyaged down below the surface of the headquarters, the marble and finery of the world above gave way to cold grays and violent silvers. I wrapped my arms around myself to stop the shivering.

“They have to keep it near freezing down here. Helps preserve the specimens till they are ready,” George said.

“Specimens? You know I have no idea what you’re talking about, right?” I snarked. I was growing tired of his relentless word games. He enjoyed flaunting my lack of knowledge in my face.

George rolled his eyes as he slid a card though an access panel. “Soon, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about,” he said, a glint of enjoyment in his eyes.

Standing before me in a room constructed of cement and steel stood dozens and dozens of incubation stations. They were the containers that housed the chosen ones until they reached maturity, their holding cells till they had been formed into the perfect solider—their minds filled with endless propaganda and subliminal messages while they slept.