Dualed (16 page)

Except I can’t sleep.

I get up from the bed, already knowing what’s gnawing at me, what won’t go quiet until it’s done. I grab my bag with one hand and open the bedroom door with the other.

The door to the other bedroom’s shut, so I knock on it.

A shuffle of sound from inside and then the boy’s standing in the doorway, looking up at me. From the stiff set of his shoulders, I can tell he’s still a bit scared of me, and the guilt I tried to ignore enough to fall asleep is back in full force.

“You shouldn’t have opened the door,” I tell him, trying my best to keep my voice light.

He blinks. “Huh?”

“You should’ve said I could enter and then waited for me to come in. Let me be the one to not know what to expect.”

“Oh, I guess.” The boy reaches up, scratches his head. Smiles timidly at me. “I’ll remember for next time?”

Ehm would have said the same, I bet. But whether she actually would have done so, I’m not sure. Just like I’m not sure if this boy is going to actually remember.

Awkwardly, I hold up my bag. “Up for some throwing practice?”

“Uh, what do you mean?”

“Your blades?” I give my bag a shake. “In your bag?”

“Well, I only have one. But I guess I could—”

“You’re kidding me, right?” I ask him.
Don’t freak him out, West. Don’t make it sound like a big deal
.

But it is. Blades, especially—they get snapped, bent, lost. You don’t want to be caught without a backup, ever. Even two are bare bones, the minimum. Back up your backup, if at all possible. I feel naked with less than three.

“I’ve got a gun,” he says. Not defensively, not smugly, just stating a fact. That he thinks it’ll be enough.

“Is that your weapon of choice, then?” I ask him.

He shrugs.
Yeah, of course
.

“I didn’t see you holding it earlier when I surprised you.”

Now he does look defensive, and he shrugs again. Scowls. “I didn’t get a chance to take it out of my bag before you came in. Otherwise, I would have been.”

It’s really not very fair of me to judge him so harshly. He’s not old enough to be in the Alt Skills program yet, so whatever
he does know, whatever skills he does have, at least it’s better than the nothing it could have been.

But like it or not, he’s an active. And his Alt would be more than happy to catch him off guard again.

I shake my head and try for a smile, a real one this time. He managed to do so for me, in spite of his fear. And he’s just a kid, nearly as young as they come, and without even a fraction of whatever experience I have.

“C’mon,” I say to him. “Let’s go downstairs and find something we can destroy. And I have a couple of extra switchblades you can borrow.”

“I … okay, sure.”

“But take off that armor vest, will you? It doesn’t fit, which means it’ll hurt you before it’ll help you.”

“No, you’re putting too much of your arm into it,” I tell him. “You’re going to pull something.”

“But last time you said I was letting go of the blade too
early
, West.”

“You were.” Sitting on the floor of the front room, I look over the switchblades laid out between us, trying to decide which one I want for my next turn. Because the power supply’s been cut, only the streetlamps from outside let us see what we’re doing. I’m relieved there’s little light, though. I don’t want Dess to see the striker marks on my wrists.

Dess sighs. “I’m never going to get the hang of this,” he moans. He walks up to the wall, yanks his blades free. He missed the bull’s-eye—an impromptu one drawn on the wall with a thick black marker we found in the junk drawer in the
kitchen—by a little more than a hand span with each of his three throws. But on his previous round, he was off by a much larger margin, closer to three hand spans with each throw. Not bad for a newbie … but not great for an active with an assignment nearly a week old. He needs to keep practicing.

And so do I. Because his aim isn’t much worse than my own, even though I’ve got years of practice on Dess.

A very familiar dread starts to collect itself in my stomach, the kind that never fails to appear whenever I’m faced with the possibility that I might never get any better. That I’ve reached my maximum potential with my aim, that this is as much as I’m ever going to know of this special relationship between arm and wrist, eye and blade. I remember how very good Aave was, how his ability to connect blade with target seemed nearly supernatural. The marked difference between him and me—and even Luc, though not to the same extent—made it clear he must have inherited that talent from his other parents. The ones he shared with his Alt, not the ones he shared with me or Luc or Ehm.

“West? You want to take a turn, or should I go again?”

I hastily pick three blades and get to my feet. “No, I’ll go. My arm’s looser now, so I shouldn’t be so off this time.” If I say it out loud, it’ll make it true. Not something so hard to beat, after all.

“Yeah, maybe,” Dess says, sitting down to watch me with eager eyes, ready to soak up whatever advice I can give him, whatever trick I can show him. “I hope so. I bet you’re really good most of the time.” There’s a note of pure admiration in his voice, and it makes me feel both embarrassed and ashamed.
Who am I to let him believe a bit of practice can make someone invincible? Can create an Alt who’s too skilled to die, too worthy to waste?

When each of my throws goes even wider than any from my previous rounds, his disappointment is obvious. But it’s nothing compared to my own distress. I almost feel like I’m going backward. Becoming less every day. The memory of my first strike vivid in my head, a sore that keeps flaring up.

“Well, that’s okay,” Dess says, clearly trying to make me not feel bad, “just go again. That was just bad luck.”

It wasn’t. “How about we quit for the night? It’s nearly eleven and I’m getting tired. I swear we’ve been throwing for hours.”

“It doesn’t feel like it. A little longer?”

“No, sorry.” I know when to stop pushing what can’t be pushed.

“Aw, really? That’s it? That sucks.” His expression turns so depressed it’s almost comical.

It’s probably the idea of being alone again. It’s hard enough for older actives to go a month with almost no company. I can’t imagine what it’s like for someone Dess’s age. So much less time to prepare all around, in all aspects.

“Hold on, Dess. One more thing. Pass me the switchblades.”

He separates his own from the two he borrowed from my knife roll. Hands them to me. “Here you go.”

Sitting down again, I lay them out on the floor in front of him. Place next to them the three I just finished using, as well as the remaining two from the roll. I take a second to snap the blades open. “You can’t go around any longer with just one switchblade, okay, Dess? So take two of mine.”

His eyes go wide, and he looks much too young to be here, learning how to kill. “Really?”

I nod. “Yeah, I’m serious. It’s okay, I’ll still have enough.”

“Wow, okay, thanks!” Dess stares down at the blades, taking their measure as well as he can, considering he’s only used them for a little bit. Blades are funny that way. They almost seem to develop personalities of their own, the longer you use them. How one might tend to veer one way, another works best with a certain kind of hold.

“Um, this one … and … this one?” He holds the two in question out to me, making sure I’m not going to change my mind or anything.

“They’re yours. Remember to practice as much as you can, all right?”

“For sure. Thanks, West!” He drags his bag over and places them inside, and I know this time that he’s not going to forget to keep them safe, and close.

I get to my feet. “Help me put the painting back up.”

We each grab a side of the heavy framed canvas, lift it off the floor where it was resting this whole while, and hang it back on the hook on the wall. The painting of the couple dancing covers up the slashes and dents perfectly.

“Okay, we really should crash,” I say to Dess, both of us walking upstairs to our rooms. “I don’t want to leave too late tomorrow.”

Standing outside his door, Dess can’t hide the fact that he’s not looking forward to me saying good-bye. Another scowl on his face, this one to keep him from crying. His eyes are way too
shiny. “Okay, I guess. I have to go, too. My Alt … he lives over in Gaslight, so I should head over there. Scope out some places where he might be.”

Dess mentioning his Alt brings me back to reality. And reality is not us flinging knives at a wall in an empty house in Jethro. It’s the fact that Dess might very well not live for much longer.

I nearly say the words out loud—offer to kill his Alt for him—but I catch myself just in time. I don’t want Dess to see me as more than just another active. To know that strikers really do exist, that we do break the rules—for him to maybe protest that we don’t really help Alts, we only help Alts
cheat
.

Because there’s something new about him, too. Most of it’s realizing he’s not as helpless as he might have thought, and while some of it might be my giving him those blades, there’s a sharpened drive to complete now, to
want
to prove he’s the one.

“Hey, Dess, where’s your cell?” I ask.

He pulls it out from his pants pocket. “Right here, why?”

I take it from him and input the data with a flurry of taps of my finger. “I just gave you my cell number. I want you to call me when you complete your assignment, all right?” Probably a bad idea to not just say good-bye right now—definitely a bad idea, actually. But the need to know that he’s completed suddenly trumps all that.

He takes the cell back. “What if I don’t—”

“Just think when, not if.”

His eyes are outright wet now. “But what about you, West? How am I ever going to know? Will you call me?”

Slowly, I shake my head. “The only way you’ll know is when
you complete. Because when you call, either I’ll be there—or I won’t be.”

“Hey, that’s not fair!”

“I know.” I can’t tell him why. That I don’t think I could handle calling his number and reaching a dead line. Better to always wonder if he just forgot, or couldn’t be bothered. If that makes me a coward, then it does. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, I guess. I know you’re only trying to help.”

In the childish openness of his face, I swear I see much of Ehm, traces of Luc, hints of Aave, and I blink fast, trying not to tear up, too. “Go to sleep, Dess.”

He only nods.

“And stop keeping your gun in your bag, all right? That’s what pockets are for.”

He nods again, kicks at the floor with his foot.

So that’s it. Two actives saying good-bye, good luck, be the one, be worthy.

Back in my bedroom, surrounded by a stranger’s life, I finally sleep … but not really. Too many dreams, where everything in my head is always louder than I allow it to be during the day, coming out of hiding when I’m most vulnerable. Memories of my family. Chord. The need to stay ahead of my Alt, always.

I crash into wakefulness, my eyes springing open, my heart already racing, my mouth dry. My stiff fingers fall from the gun that I haven’t let go of all night, and automatically I reach for my bag next to the pillow. Still there.

It’s my cell, a new text coming in. The specs for a new strike, mine if I want it. I accept it nearly without thinking, let relief surface and lap over. A new focus, keeping me busy calculating how I’m going to do it, how I’m going to attack—

Cell still in hand, I sit up, remembering Dess and his own assignment, how he’s going to track down his Alt on his own. Then Chord’s words running through my head:
It’s you now, so stop running!

I tuck my cell away. It’s done. Contract accepted.

And it’s dawn. Gray light filters in through the thin cloth drapes, and I’m freezing despite the blankets I’ve pulled on top of myself. Winter is finally here.

I have eight days left.

Shower first. Then it’s time to leave. It’s one of the few rules I don’t allow myself to break, ever: Never sleep in the same place twice, no matter how much easier it is, how practical it might be. The comfort wouldn’t be worth hearing the footsteps of your Alt finally close in on you because you got too lazy to keep moving.

Even before I open my bedroom door, I can tell Dess has already left. The air in the house is too flat and still for someone else to be here.

Sadness creeps in along with satisfaction as I leave the room. Good. He’s learned he needs to keep moving. That keeping still is begging to become one more incomplete.
Go, Dess
.

There’s a piece of paper stuck onto his bedroom door, a note for me. I yank it down, unable to keep from smiling at the wad of gum he used for tape.

Right below his name is his number, written in large, clear print. Easy enough to toss the note and simply stay in the dark. Instead I carefully fold it up and go to tuck it into my bag.

I’m still shivering from my cold shower by the time I’m back in the kitchen. I stab at the microwave again, just because I can. Thinking of the ever-shrinking pile of Chord’s cash, I eat a row of a package of cookies. Even half-stale they beat any idle-branded ones, hands down. More canned fruit, this time peaches. I toss back another fistful of vitamins. It’s too much, but I’m not worried about being killed that way.

I replace the vases on the mantel. After straightening the painting over the marked-up wall just the slightest, I hang the white tag back on the outside of the door on my way out. I’d lock up if I could, to do what I can to return an empty to how it was—undisturbed and whole, not overly violated. I need to believe it’s possible to keep going the way I am and not change too much, not leave too much of myself behind.

I’ve just finished my strike, and am slithering from the second-floor bathroom window of a bookstore back down to the ground, when I get my first glimpse of her.