Divided (9 page)

He shakes his head. “No, that’s the wrong way to look at it, Grayer. Strikers don’t leave loose ends. Also, the Board would never stop hunting them because they aren’t part of the system. They’d be wild cards, and wild cards are unpredictable. Difficult to control.”

I stare at the gun, at a loss. Within the span of a few minutes, Dire’s shoved reality down my throat—that the Roark might not be the best choice. That it might not be a choice at all.

Unless I can be better than I’ve ever been before.

“Still not feeling talkative, Grayer?” Dire asks, watching me closely.

I shake my head. “Thank you for answering my questions, especially considering how much I was able to tell you.”

“Which was next to nothing.” He reaches over and picks up the gun. He slips off the case and looks at it beneath the thin lamplight over the table.

It’s exactly as I remember it from headquarters. Weird to see the same weapon in Dire’s work-roughened hands and not in Sabian’s well-manicured ones.

Dire removes something else from the case, a slim silver sleeve. He unfurls it onto the table, a lethal snake, and I lean over to look with him.

The poison. Three thin, transparent vials, each the width of a small straw, half the length of a cig stick. Inside each vial is a tiny dart of poison, as fine as a hair, as pale as gold. It’s this dart that breaks free as soon as it’s discharged from the gun, entering the body while leaving the vial behind.

“Three shots, Grayer,” Dire mutters. “That many targets, eh?”

My head snaps up. “I’m … sorry. I can’t—”

He waves away my fumbling. “What I mean is, I don’t have any extra vials lying around. Is this enough?”
Will it be enough to kill who you need to kill?
“You know what you’re doing?”

I don’t, not at all. “Yes.”

“You might not be working for me anymore, but I still don’t want to see you get into any trouble out there. And I think I’d hear from my old friend Baer if he knew you came to see me and you end up in the deep end somehow.”

Heat in my eyes at his caring. “I’ll be fine.” All I can force out.

“Don’t be so stubborn, Grayer. Or stupid. Don’t go into whatever you’re about to go into without telling at least one person what’s going on. Who knows where you might find yourself with no one to come save your butt.”

“I’ll be fine,” I say again.

“Suit yourself, Grayer,” Dire says, sounding disgruntled. I don’t blame him. I show up and demand answers for half questions and now I’m insisting on doing everything the wrong way.

“Now look,” he says. The gun looks ridiculously fragile in his hand, like a delicate bird cupped in an oversized palm. An optical illusion—I remember how heavy the thing is. “It works the same as your basic gun. Load the vial as you would a bullet. Aim. Fire. Complete. Strike done.”

“I’m not a—this isn’t a—”

“Sorry, I forgot.” He places the gun back into its case and hands it to me and gets to his feet. I stand up, too, tucking away the gun and the vials inside my school bag before slinging it over my shoulder.

“I don’t need to ask you not to flash that thing around, okay?” he asks, giving me a halfhearted scowl. “Don’t get dead, Grayer.”

He turns back to his computers. I don’t bother to say anything else before I start walking upstairs. There’s no point. Good-byes between killers seem like a funny idea, anyway. Our strikes don’t get the chance before we take them out; who says we should?

Hestor’s eyes bore a hole into my back as I leave the store, but I barely notice.

“Time,” I mutter as I push the door open and dive back into the Grid. The crowd already feels different—cover rather than company.

13:15.
Way past lunch, but I don’t feel like eating. The need to get everything done that needs to be done before I go under tonight dulls everything else. I make myself stop at a kiosk for a sandwich that I slowly eat while waiting for the inner ward train.

Since I am in the Grid, it’s not long before an active comes by. I watch her, a girl a bit older than me, as she digs through the green bin at the train stop. Her eyes are black—with hunger and the spiral of her assignment numbers. Desperation is her perfume.

I cut through passersby—all in a hurry, desensitized by time, too fearful of the Board to even think of interfering with an assignment—and hand her the rest of my food. She takes it without a word before slipping away. Which is what I expected. I remember that feeling as an active. Pride doesn’t go easily.

The train comes, and I slip into a seat near the front. I still have to explain to Baer that I won’t be around for a few days, without telling him the truth.

And Chord … I’ll have to be careful to avoid running into him. I’m not ready to see him yet. Not when I know I’ll have to leave him afterward, and why.

I arrive right after the bell rings. I have ten minutes before last period starts. It’s a Tuesday, so I should be heading toward math, but instead I head for Baer’s classroom.

Standing in the doorway is not a good idea. Chord’s locker is just outside—if he comes by to get anything or drop something off, he’ll notice me. I already texted him that I won’t be around after school, that I’ll meet him at home later, so he won’t think of looking for me.

Inside the classroom, students shuffle past me, in a hurry to get to their next classes. A few say hello, and I smile back without seeing them.

Baer’s not inside. But I recognize his jacket draped over the back of his chair. He’s around somewhere.

I’m bumped as someone rushes past. One of the last students to leave, the one assigned to collect the throwing blades from the stations on the way out.

“Sorry, Grayer,” he calls out as he sets the bag down on Baer’s desk before taking off.

Restless and anxious, knowing the classroom is going to start filling soon and it’ll only get harder for me to tell him my news, I drag the bag of blades toward me.

Flicking one open, I check the release for catches. Run my finger down the edge. I set the blade aside on the desk and move on to the next, then the next, a mindless chore that’s still not mindless enough to help my nerves.

Where is Baer?

When I come across a familiar blade, I stop. It’s one of Aave’s. My oldest brother’s. I took it after his incompletion. With my assignment over, and working for Baer at the school, I guess it was a slow, natural migration for my weapons to end up here.

Aave. Memories of him showing us how to hold a blade properly, how to let the weight of the weapon carry out its own momentum instead of relying too much on the force of our throws. It’s not the only way I remember him, but they’re the strongest images I have of him now. Softened and faded by time.

I set aside Aave’s blade and dig through the bag until I find the one I’m looking for. The knife I took from my Alt’s boyfriend when I had to kill him. The knife that I used to kill my Alt.

So much hurt, all by my hand. I flick the knife open, slide the blade against my finger. Her blood’s long gone. The immediate aftermath of that day is blurry, something I’ll probably never remember all that well. Like the afterimage after your eyes have been singed with a flash of bright light.

A hiss escapes from between my teeth. I’ve pressed too hard. A thin line of blood stains the blade. The sight is unnerving—it’s been a long time since I’ve seen red on steel, and I wonder if I’m as ready as I need to be. I wipe the blood off on my jacket and drop the knife next to Aave’s blade on the desktop. Together, they are the bookends of my life up to this point.

I put the first blade back in the bag and shove the whole thing onto its shelf in the cabinet.

We’re supposed to be starting target practice next, knives. My heart sinks. I should be here for that, to teach what I know.

“Better late than never, Grayer?”

I turn around to see Baer—and the first of the next class’s students filing in behind him.

“Where were you this morning?” he asks, frowning. His gaze falls to his desk.

Crap. The blades. And I was supposed to be here this morning.

“I’m sorry, I forgot.” Stumbling, already swearing silently at myself. The worst time to break routine and get Baer wondering. In all the months I’ve been his classroom assistant, I’ve never missed a class without giving warning. “Really,” I add lamely.

“Well, what are you doing here now? You’re not sched—”

“I won’t be able to help for a few days,” I say in a rush, conscious of the steadily filling classroom. “I have to … There’s something I need to do.”

Baer’s frown gets bigger and his pale eyes narrow. “Does the school admin know?”

“I was going to tell them on the way out.”

He turns around, watches as more students start to settle in. Only a minute or two before the second bell rings. Baer takes another look at the blades I’ve left out on his desk.

“Dire?” he asks quietly.

“
No.
Not him.” My face is stiff. I want to think it’s like a wall rather than glass, without signs blazing everywhere revealing what I’m getting ready to do.

Baer moves closer and picks up the two blades from his desk and holds them out to me. His eyes are worried, tired, older. The same as any parent of an active. There’s no way he can guess it all, the whos, whys, whens, but he’s guessed enough.

“You’ll want these, I think,” he says. “For whatever it is you’re doing.”

I clutch the blades to my chest. “I—”

“Go, Grayer.” With that he steps away and calls the students to attention. Starts the class.

I walk out, arms numb from holding death so tightly that none of it will fall and call further attention to myself. I am already gone, already under. The sounds of Baer’s lecture follow me out, familiar words that I’ve heard him say hundreds of times to students.

But this time it feels like they’re directed only to me:
Be careful. Use your skills. Remember that there is no bigger challenge than your Alt. You can’t lose.

There’s always something to be lost.

My gun is still in my front jacket pocket, so I shove the blades in the other. Some habits just won’t die.

I’m sitting on the curb of the outer school grounds, waiting for Marsden and Thora—I promised them last week I’d go shopping, which is impossible now, and I need to apologize in person for having to ditch them—when Dess’s text comes through on my cell.

Hey West?

For a second, I want to just ignore it. Dess is the younger brother I never had. And at the same time, a weird blend of the siblings I did have once—Aave, Luc, and Ehm. All of them rolled into this little eleven-year-old whom I’ve come to love. I can’t let him find out. And I don’t want to lie to explain why I’ll be out of reach for the next three days in case he calls. But it didn’t go so great the last time I told him a hard truth.

I remember every bit of it.

“I’ll wait here for the food,” Chord said. He gave me a pointed look. “You guys want to grab a table?”

“C’mon, West, that one by the window is free now.” Dess took off across the restaurant, weaving past crowded tables, the blue cap on his head a blur. Lunchtime meant chaos in the District Grill, his current fast-food place of choice. Who was I to argue with him when I was about to tell him I used to kill for money.

Maybe being in a public place would keep him from freaking out. Maybe. Not likely.

“Chord.” I looked up at him, feeling guilty that I asked him to come and relief that he was here. “I don’t know if I can do this,” I muttered. My hands were shoved deep into my pockets, sleeves pulled down. Safe still. “He might never have to know, ever, if I just leave it.”

“You have to, West. Dess isn’t stupid. He hangs out with you for long enough, he’ll figure it out himself.” Chord’s dark eyes go soft with sympathy. He brushed my hair—just starting to grow out—away from my face, touched my healing scar with his fingers. “Don’t you think he’ll take it better if you tell him first?”

I took a deep breath. “Right. Okay.”

Approaching an eleven-year-old kid to tell him something he won’t like is as frightening as any strike.

I wove my way through customers and tables and pulled out the chair across from Dess. Sitting down, I watched him start a collection of straw wrappers in preparation for blowing them at other customers. Or just Chord and I, more likely.

I shoved the tray out of the way.
Do it fast. Like a Band-Aid.
“Dess, I have to—”

“Man, I’m starving!” He was as excited as I’ve ever seen him, as excited as Ehm used to be when we took her out without our parents. Older siblings were cool. Finding out they were assassins, not so much. “My mom said I have to be home by six for dinner. The movie will be over by then, right?”

I nodded. “Yes, you’ll be fine.”
Please be fine.
I took my hands out of my pockets, crossed my arms in front of me. My wrists, still covered. “Dess—”

“Because she said that if I was even one minute late—”

“Dess.”

“Yeah, what?” His confusion was innocent. How much easier it would have been if there was even a little bit of suspicion there.

“There’s something … ,” I began. Shook my head, started over. My hands ached, I was squeezing them so tightly. “Do you think if you’re going to complete your assignment, it matters how you do it?” I finally ask him.

Dess went still. His own completion still fresh, just weeks ago. “What do you mean?”

“You know how there’s extra training out there for some idles, right?”

“Yeah, if you can pay for it.”

“I wasn’t one of those idles who could pay, Dess.”

“But you’re really good with blades, West. Remember how you helped me that first time we met? I thought you must have—”

“No, I didn’t. Some of it was just from practicing on my own, or with my family, but some of it … I chose another way. To learn how to beat her.” I took a deep breath.

I couldn’t miss the alarm that crossed his face. “There’s no other way.”

Say it.
“You know about strikers.” I wasn’t even asking. No point. Everyone in Kersh knew.

Dess nodded. Fresh bewilderment was written all over him, and I wondered if that was how I looked when Baer first told me about Dire: soft, impossibly young. How Ehm would have looked.
They are no urban myth,
Baer had said.