Divided (7 page)

“Where is the disrupter now?” It must be small to fit in his pocket. But it doesn’t feel like a small thing. Not what we’re talking about. Not at all.

“I took it apart. The barrier returned to normal as soon as I stepped away, already charged again and back to keeping us safe. But I still didn’t want the wrong person getting ahold of it.” His eyes are unsure. “Was that wrong of me? I couldn’t think of what good it would do for anyone in Kersh. What would you have done, West?”

The Surround, coming through, wanting to destroy us all. I shiver. “I … would have done the same. And Dire would have done the same, whatever you might think of him. He might not like the Alt system, but he doesn’t want the Surround to invade, either.”

He sighs. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Dire’s heard much worse things said about him, I’m sure.”

He laughs softly. “Not for what I said about Dire. For not telling you earlier.”

“Then thank you for telling me.” And because I don’t want to think about it—the potential of what it all could lead to, the danger and temptation if in the wrong hands—I kiss him, knowing he wants to stop thinking about it, too.

Afterward, he reaches over and swipes the news screen to sleep, news file broadcast long over.

“It’s been a while since we got one of those alerts,” he says distractedly against my hair. “I can’t remember the last one.”

I have to admit the timing of it is eerie, having just spent the afternoon at the Board. It casts more of a shadow on the Operator’s warning about revealing anything.

“The last one was that lady, the eye surgeon trying to mess with the Alt codes and the assignment number software,” I say to Chord. “Remember?”

Chord shudders. “I do now, thanks. I can’t believe you remember that, West.”

“I … watching that last news file just reminded me.”

“Hey, where did you go after school today, anyway?” he asks. From his back pocket he pulls out a folded sheaf of paper. His math homework.

“Oh.”
You know, I took a trip to Leyton, went to visit the Board.
“I forgot I needed some oils for Saturday’s class, so I went to pick some up.”

“You have lots of art supplies back at my place. Maybe there’s something there you can use.”

Good. A window out. “Are you sure? I’m surprised you can find much of anything in there at all.”

We really should be living together by now, either here or at Chord’s place. It simply makes sense, considering it’s just the two of us and our houses are both too empty, quiet. But Julis argued against it, focusing on my need to get better on my own. Chord never lets me forget how much he’s looking forward to when that happens.

“As long as I can find what I need, I’m okay with messy,” Chord says to me. His hand comes up to tangle in my still-damp hair before slowing, then runs down the length of its strands. “Your hair’s nice this way.”

“Messy?”

“Long,” he says quietly. His face goes tight with memory. “And not dyed blond.”

I catch hold of his hand with mine. “I like it better this way, too.”

Chord flips my hand over and grips it with his. With a finger from his other hand, he traces my striker marks. When he does something like this, I am almost okay with what they stand for. Not with the fact that I was—
am
—a striker, but that I did what I had to do to survive.

Now they mean something else, too. What can be mine, his, ours—if I can only make myself go under again. Be numb, a striker. Not think and just … kill.

“You don’t hate them anymore, do you?” I ask on a rush of breath. Feel red-hot heat blaze across my cheeks with the suddenness of such a loaded question.

When he doesn’t say anything right away, I try to twist my hand free, but Chord won’t let go. “No, I don’t, West.”

“You did once.”

“Yeah, I did.” His voice is flat. “
Once.
Not anymore.”

“Chord, I … can I ask you a question that you might not want to answer?”

“Okay.”

“When were you finally okay with me killing people for money?”

He enfolds my wrists with one of his big hands. I wonder if it’s because he doesn’t want to see them anymore, or if they’re really as insignificant as he wants me to believe. I wonder if I’ll ever really know. Slowly he pushes me back into the counter until I can’t retreat any farther and he’s right up against me.

“I understood why you did it as soon as you were the one who lived,” he says softly. “Because if everything hadn’t happened exactly the way it did—you taking on those contracts, you not wanting me there, even Luc dying the way he did, then things might not be the way they are today.”

“Like I might be dead?”

He gives me a crooked smile, which doesn’t go anywhere near his eyes. “Or me, don’t forget.”

I lift my other hand up, tug his mouth down so I can kiss him once, twice. No words could say it better—to tell him I could never forget how close we came to losing each other.

“So I don’t hate your marks anymore,” Chord says. His arm goes around my waist and holds me so tight that there is no space between our bodies. Nothing can get through us, separate us.

“And if I could go back and change things?
Not
become a striker before getting my assignment?”

His eyes search mine. “Would you still end up a complete? The worthy one?”

Slowly, I shake my head. “No guarantee.”

“Then no.” Suddenly his hands are on my face, nudging me to look up just enough to meet his eyes. His voice is low, raw. “I would want you to do it. Fair or not, I couldn’t watch you live through your assignment again. Each day just another chance of you dying. That’s something I wish
I
could forget.”

I can’t look away now. I owe us that much—to ask as well as I can, and decide once and for all. “Chord, what if I had to do it again?”

“To kill? Why?”

“I don’t know.” Telling him the truth—that it’s the Board, asking me to be a striker again, to make up for what I’ve done, for a child we might or might not have—is not possible. “What if it meant … saving someone,” I finally manage.

He looks at me as if I’m going crazy. And it
does
sound crazy. “You mean yourself?”

“I mean … yes, of course. Myself.” In this moment, it’s not the truth, but there is no other answer that makes sense without telling Chord everything.

“In the end, it’s what we all do it for, right?” he says. “Completing. A life with no Alt, no self-detonation switches in our brains counting down how much time we have left. Get married, have kids, die in our sleep when we’re really, really old.” Chord’s voice gentles, becomes his again.

“Chord … those kids … you already know you want them? Knowing what they’ll have to go through?”

“It’s not just up to me, you know, but … yeah, I think so. There’s a lot of good stuff in being alive here in Kersh, too.”

“You think you can handle watching them maybe becoming incompletes?”

A slow intake of breath. “No, but we’d have to find a way, wouldn’t we?”

“What if you could help them? Somehow?”

“No strikers, West. We end that here. How can you even think about that? You did what you had to do, right or wrong, however that might have weakened or strengthened Kersh. But that’s over now. You
don’t
have to do it again.”

“I don’t really mean strikers. I mean something else …” I’m floundering. Suddenly there’s no safe territory here, and that’s not supposed to happen with the two of us anymore.

“Training, fine.” Chord’s gaze is troubled now. “We’ll work our asses off and make tons of money and get them the best kind of training we can buy.”

I can’t do it. I can’t put into words what he can’t understand and what I can’t seem to turn down. He can’t offer me absolution this way.

If I’m going to be a monster, then it has to be my own choice.

“You know, I still think of Taje sometimes,” Chord says. “How I couldn’t save him, despite being his big brother and the one who was supposed to look out for him. It hurts to know that maybe he wasn’t worthy, no matter how much I might have wanted it otherwise. But if I knew for sure that he was, don’t you think I’d have done
anything
to change things?”

I nod, unable to speak past the ache in my throat.

“When it’s our future we’re talking about, the kids we might have one day … West, going along with the Board is one thing, but I’d be lying if I said I just want kids out of civic duty. And when I think about it, I hate myself for wanting them to know all the good parts about being alive, despite what they’ll have to go through, and me being helpless to stop anything bad from happening to them.”

The guilt and shame in his voice tears me up. I bring a hand to the back of his neck. As though my touch could make things better. “Chord, you shouldn’t—”

“Please tell me I’m not freaking you out with all this,” he says, a note of sheepishness in his words, coupled with a low laugh. “But you
did
ask.”

“I don’t get freaked out easily,” I say, still caught up in his words.

He leans down and presses a kiss to my neck, then my collarbone, then back up along my jaw before coming to a stop so his eyes are on mine again. Sadness lingers there, but I can tell he’s making an effort to shake it off.

“So don’t get me wrong, West. Talking about the impossible might depress the hell out of me, but there it is. If there’s anything I could do to make sure our kids would be safe, to know for sure that their completing is
right
and not just for our sake, you know I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

And with that, I make my decision. I’m split in two again. Striker—and the real me.

But not for long, I swear. I wish I could tell him this. For a second I’m terrified of what I’ve chosen. To go for everything and risk being left with nothing.

The doorbell rings.

“Dinner.” Chord starts to move away to get the door.

My hand reaches for him. Holding him there, with me.

The doorbell rings again, held down longer this time. It’s the sound of impatience and momentum, telling me that life keeps moving, whether I like it or not.

“West? We should get that before they take off with the food.” Chord kisses me fast and quick, and I can feel the smile on his lips. The warmth of it against mine, fighting the chill already settling through me.

So I let him go.

I lock the front door after Chord leaves. The click of it is undeniably … final. A barricade between us, like Kersh in miniature. Except whether I’m the city or the Surround, I don’t know. But it has to be this way. Once I engage in a contract, I won’t let myself come back until it’s done—the idea of Chord seeing me kill again is something I can’t let happen.

I move over to sit down on the couch in the front room and turn my hands palm-up on my lap. Stare at the thin ribbons of dark gray that are nearly elegant against the light gold undertones of my skin. When I run a finger over them, no bump gives away the tracking chips embedded in there. They healed well, I know.

Chord’s able to look at them now and think
West
and not
striker.

I see
striker.
I
feel
it sometimes still, no matter how much I want to pretend otherwise. When I’m in weaponry class showing a student how to properly brace for recoil or how to line up a target with a blade like they’re threading the eye of a needle. Most of that’s just me, just Baer’s assistant, but not all. There’s the ghost of someone else, a part of West I left behind. I needed her so badly at one point, that hardened part of me who could and did defeat my Alt. I used her and discarded her and hoped to leave her behind.

The terrible truth is this: what drives me now is not the guilt of jeopardizing Kersh with those Alts I killed or even the desire for kids without Alts, as much as I wish this could be true.

It’s something much more selfish, and much uglier.

It’s my desire to start over. Be clean again. Begin again.

On my lap, my striker marks glare up at me like an accusation. Smooth and unbroken and meant to be permanent.

If anyone in Kersh has the power to erase them, it’s the Board.

From my jeans pocket I tug out the small, white disk the Operator gave me. Holding my cell in my other hand, I scan the bar code.

“Yes.” His voice is as I remember it, gliding into my head with its too-polished smoothness.

It takes me two tries to speak past the nerves in my throat. “It’s me.”

A second of silence, then a cautious yet warm, “Hello, West.”

“If I do this, I need to meet with you again,” I say to him.

“Fine. I can send a car to your house as early as tomorrow morning.”

I shake my head, then realize that he can’t see me. “The morning is fine, but, no, not another car. And not at headquarters. I don’t want any other Operators near me. Somewhere neutral.”

“Where would you prefer?”

I don’t even know, because I’ve moved too fast again. Didn’t think things through. Still rusty. I quickly name a café in the Grid—more my turf than neutral, but he doesn’t need to know that. And maybe too close for comfort for me … but he doesn’t need to know that, either.

He agrees, says good-bye, but I’m not done just yet.

“If I do this, there’s two more things I need,” I say.

“We’re already offering more than enough.”

I don’t answer, letting the quiet speak for me. Seconds drag nearly into a minute before he finally speaks. Cooler now. “What is it, West?”

“First, I want to use a Roark gun to do this.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am. I want to do this as quickly and painlessly as possible, and you yourself said it was instantaneous.”

“
If
used properly.”

“I know how to use a gun.”

“The recoil and chance of explosion—”

“I’m willing to take that risk.” I deserve to take that
risk.

“Someone finding a dead striker with a weapon that would directly trace back to the Board is not something—”

“That’s not my problem. You are asking me to kill innocent idles. So I will only do this with that gun. And you’ll have to bring it with you for our meeting. I’m not going back to headquarters to get it.”