Divided (14 page)

No.
No.

How can I hurt this Alternate who is also partially my brother? To wipe away the last parts of Luc left on this earth?

Everything else in the station fades, like static from a dead broadcast. His eyes are wide and stunned and far too familiar.

“Who are you?” he blurts out. Luc’s voice, but not. His gun is no longer aimed at the wooden targets but at me.

I’m unable to move, even as his gaze falls to the gun on the ground. I can’t miss his surprise as he stares at the weapon on the ground between us, the dawning realization that it’s not a regular gun. When he looks up at me, confusion comes off him in waves.

“Who are you?” he asks again, demand clear in his voice despite the question. “Why were you pointing
that
gun at me?”

Still frozen.

He reaches for the Roark with his free hand.

I lunge for it, my fingers scratching at the concrete as they grab hold of the gun. My lungs are on fire from not daring to breathe, and now my breath escapes from me in a rush as I point the gun at him again, aiming for his eye. No denying that the gun’s barrel is wavering now.

Luc’s eyes.

The barrel shakes hard. The gun feels hot against my skin, fighting me.

Too late.

I back away. One step. Two. From outside the station’s walls are the sounds of chatter, muffled thumps and booms as training goes on as usual. It’s only in here where things aren’t going according to plan.

“Hey! Stop!” Luc—
Auden
—moves closer, and anger’s replaced his confusion. His gun is still absolutely steady in his grip, and the dark, deadly tunnel of its barrel does not move from my head.
“Who are you, and what do you want?”

I run.

Out past the entrance and back onto the main floor, toward the side of the arena where I left my bag. Never fully stopping, I dig it out from the pile with my free hand and stuff the gun into my jacket pocket with the other. Curious voices chase me out of the arena and into the waiting area. Judging me, deciding someone who obviously can’t handle training will stand no chance against a real Alt.

The front attendant watches me rush past him, his expression so surprised it’s no wonder he can’t think of anything to say. Am I really the only person to leave this place running?

I shove the door open, my heart pounding, my blood a furious roar. I don’t know where I’m going, who to be—

And I come to full dead stop at the chaos in front of me. A completion taking place right around the corner from the training arena, and I’ve run into it blindly. Not even time to do an FDFO.

Two Alts, girls no older than I am. One’s on the ground in front of me, just a few feet away, downed and gasping. Blood drips from an exit wound in the back of her thigh. As ugly as the wound is, it’s nothing compared to the one right below her left shoulder blade. Still gushing with each pump of her heart, a coursing river of blood. Lying on her side, she lifts her gun by shaky degrees. It’s much too little, much too late. In this war of Alternates, she is not the one. She is not worthy.

A thin crack in the air as her Alt shoots from down the street. The first shot misses and I swear I can hear the whistle of the bullet as it flies past me. The second makes its mark, and the Alt in front of me collapses fully.

A hand on my arm drags me back into the mouth of an alley just off to the side. Two thoughts rocket into my brain, one barreling over the other within a fraction of a second.

One: That at any other time, I would have seen this alley on my own. That I wouldn’t have been so slow to get out of the way and let myself be so vulnerable.

Two:
Sabian.
He knows I’ve failed, has found me already, a warden sniffing out an escaped prisoner, fast even for a Level 1.

But it’s Auden, half out of breath from chasing me down the street and just as angry as I left him back in the arena. His face is livid, barely tempered by the confusion that’s starting to creep back, the questions that must be running wild in his head. His bag in his one hand and his gun still in the other. No longer pointed at me, but out nonetheless, and for a second my own confusion has me unsure of what to do next. Go for the gun in my pocket or tell him how much I’ve missed him. But I sense no real threat from him, so I do nothing, just stare at him and feel completely at a loss.

At my silence and the obvious fact that I’m not going for my weapon, Auden slowly drops his gun, his arm lowering to his side.

“Where did you get your gun?” he asks. Auden’s voice is smoother than Luc’s, more refined, though his mouth has a harder set to it, his eyes sharper. Even at his angriest with me, it was impossible for Luc to be truly cold. I cling to this difference between them.

“Why were you trying to shoot me?” This time his voice is edged with agitation, unable to stay so perfectly level.

Much more like Luc’s.

Without letting myself think too much about it, I take an aggressive step toward him, a move I used to pull on Luc to get him to back off. It works. Auden steps back with a scowl. That scowl is the exact replica of how Luc would look at me when I got in his face about something, and instead of feeling the rage that I want to feel at my brother not being the one alive, I’m crushed. None of this seems possible. None of this is bearable.

“It’s my gun—most Alts have one.” I don’t yet know how to answer his second question. And it’s hard enough to say even that—how to talk to a stranger who isn’t exactly a stranger?

He shakes his head, watching me very closely. “I’ve never seen an Alt use that kind of gun before.”

“It’s just a normal gun,” I lie. If I don’t show it again, he’ll have to believe me. What he saw of it in the arena was so fleeting, he might not be sure of what he saw, or thought he saw.

His eyes narrow, full of blatant mistrust. “You and I both know it’s not. It shoots poison, not bullets.”

How did—

“Only the Board has access to them, and only for testing,” Auden continues. “They’re not ready to be used for completing.”

He is no ordinary Alt.

“Who are you?” I blurt out. Nothing makes sense. Why would Sabian want me to kill a complete?

A short and harsh laugh, completely devoid of humor. “Who are
you
?” Auden says. “And you still haven’t answered my question: Why were you trying to shoot me?”

Think, fast.
“I was just getting my gun into position for the targets. My mistake for drawing too early.”

“I know how to use a gun, and it’s obvious you do, too. You were aiming at
me.
Why?”

I have as many questions as he does, and we’re not going to get anywhere unless we quit dancing around the truth. It should be more difficult to trust Luc’s Alt, who I’d hate under any other circumstance. But it’s not, and I don’t know what that says about me.

“You’re Auden Parrish.” I recite the words tonelessly. “A seventeen-year-old idle from Leyton Ward whose Alternate has been declared the one—worthy. My name is West Grayer and I’ve been hired to make you an incomplete.”

He goes absolutely still, and to his credit, does not turn and run. “That’s my name, but I’m already a complete.” His eyes automatically drop to my wrists, though my marks are hidden beneath my bandages and the sleeves of my rain jacket. Standing on a street in the middle of Leyton, it’s best they stay that way, too. “I thought strikers never made mistakes.”

“We don’t. Not like this. And I doubt Sabian makes—” I stop. I’ve said too much.

“Sabian?” Auden looks at me, renewed confusion on his face. “You mean Sabian from the Board?”

“How do you know him?” I ask. Only those within headquarters would know Level 1 Operators by sight, and even fewer by name.

“My father’s a Level Two Operator. He and Sabian work together.”

Thoughts shift and slide in my head, trying to find some kind of explanation for why Sabian would want to assassinate the child of another high-ranking Operator. And without my ever finding out.

And another realization, this one thick and painful. Luc never had much of a chance after all. Not compared to a Board-trained Alt. It’s a devastating blow, and I hurt for him, this brother who was never meant to live for long.

“Why were you even at that public training center?” I ask Auden. “You’re a Board Alt. You’ve got all the facilities you need at headquarters. I know because I’ve seen them.”

“Level Two trainees were told the training facilities were being cleaned for a few days. Sabian assigned each of us to different ones here in downtown Leyton.”

I nod. Of course. Auden wasn’t training for an assignment to beat his Alt, but to become a full-fledged Board member. “Not only did Sabian need to find a believable excuse for you to leave headquarters so I could get close enough to you, but he also needed to keep you apart from the others. Less chance of someone noticing anything.”

“So why didn’t you do it?” Auden asks. He pulls a jacket from his bag and puts it on, stuffing his gun into one of the side pockets. The fact that someone other than his Alt would ever want him dead has made his face pale. “Why didn’t you kill me back there, when you had the chance?”

I decide to tell the truth. “Because your Alt was my brother. And killing you would be too much like killing him again. And I can’t do that, striker or not.”

A clearing truck turns on its siren as it heads in this direction. Which means Operators of the Board won’t be far behind. Level 3 or not, I don’t want to be seen. The warning sound jars me back into the moment.

To have killed idles who had no warning is bad enough; the same—and, admittedly, maybe even worse—goes for making them into non-Alts, destined for a life hiding from the Board. But at least I can tell myself they were doomed to be incompletes. But to have come so close to killing a complete, someone who’s survived the Alt system and properly declared himself worthy, is another thing altogether.

I need to get as far away from Leyton and Board headquarters as possible. And take Auden with me, too. It’s too dangerous to let Auden walk back into headquarters and act as if things are normal while waiting for me to come up with a plan to save him. We’d risk having Sabian finding out before the deadline that I have no intention of completing the assignment, and then he might send someone else to finish the job. Not just to kill Auden but to kill me, too. I’m a loose end. I’ve seen and heard and done too much to go back and beg for mercy. The Board doesn’t know the word.

I rip off my paper vest and ball it up in my hands. “Follow me,” I say.

He stays behind me as I walk out onto the sidewalk and toss the vest into a green can sitting on the edge of the curb. I slip my bag on and tighten the straps and look over at him.

His face is still dazed, perplexed, and my irrational anger disappears. It’s not right that he has to go through this when he’s already a complete. The look on his face … is this how Luc would have looked at getting his notice of assignment?

I have to stop thinking this way. Luc’s gone, and this is all that’s left of him. I can’t kill him or make him a non-Alt. I can’t go through that again. It’s a terrible, awkward thing—knowing that to kill him would give me everything, and in letting him live, I’m letting it all go.

“We need to get out of here,” I say to Auden, looking around for signs of Operators, signs of Sabian. Here on the sidewalk, we’re just two people among many. But I feel uneasy and on edge, something I haven’t felt about Leyton since I started my internship at the art gallery, with my weekly trips slowly buffering smooth the raw memory of killing my Alt’s boyfriend here.

“And go where?” Auden asks harshly. “These are Level One guys you’re talking about. We can’t run forever—they
made
this freaking city.”

I know where. Though it’s known to the Board, it’s the best place I can think of. At least until Sabian figures out what’s going on. But time is time and we need to take what we can.

“Underground” is all I say to Auden.

“Underground.” He says the word as though he’s never heard it before.

I eye his vest. “You might want to get rid of that first, though. The number on the back isn’t exactly subtle.”

I need to see you.

My words float on my cell screen, waiting patiently for a reply. Though I’m not patient inside. I’m wired and jumpy and desperate to see him again, and if will alone could make the train move faster, we’d be there by now.

That is,
if
he’ll see me.

Seconds pass, driving me crazy. I’m about to text him again when Chord’s reply comes through with a buzz.

Where are you?

Three simple words and something aches inside my chest, squeezes hard. I’ve messed up, and badly, and I don’t know if I can fix it.

The sudden surge of my own selfishness is bitter in my mouth. How I push him, then pull him without ever letting go of him. Through their coverings, my marks simmer like the flush of a mild fever, a persistent rash. I couldn’t even get rid of these, I think dully. Or give him that future I was so close to making possible. Because I couldn’t kill the Alt of his dead best friend.

Can you meet me at Dire’s? In an hour?
I press
send
.

Nearly a minute later. Not the
Why?
I was dreading but a simple
If you’re sure
and I breathe out a sigh of relief at his understanding. Because I know he’s never been there, the place where I first became a striker. Like asking a person in pain if it’s okay to keep ripping off the fresh scab.
Yes, I’ll explain everything later,
I tap in.

I’ll wait outside for you.

I won’t be long.

I’ll be there.

His text forgives too much, and now self-disgust joins selfishness. That infinite patience he has for me will be his undoing one day if I’m not careful. I tuck my cell back into my pocket, wishing even harder for the miles to pass quickly.

“He never said why I’m supposed to die?” Auden’s question is blunt and matter-of-fact beneath the harsh interior lights of the outer ward train.