Flight (16 page)

I shake my head and laugh. "Fuck you, Moju. Fuck all of you." I fly straight up and don't look down. All I want is to go home, that's it. To see the Peak City lights, hear the crack of the suborbitals, and hide in my room with my weapons, and books, and cigars. I want to fuck my friends when we're out on the scrub, eat field rations that don't taste like alien shit, talk to my HOUSE, drive my Goat around the muddy back roads and then go home and flip on the back of my horse.

Is it too much to ask?

I fly south but when the landscape starts showing signs of radiation burn I land on the top of the hill. The sunrise illuminates the endless stretch of grassland in the east and makes the desolate south look haunted with pink and orange ghosts.

I gave up everything, for what? For what? To be asked to trust them over and over again, only to be lied to each and every fucking time?

A cool gust of wind blows in out of the south and I turn my back to it and have a moment of panic at what kind of rads it might be carrying. I withdraw the little envelope in my pocket and shake out a pill and swallow it. The aftertaste lingers on my tongue as the wind dies down and I turn back to look out over the approaching light on the faraway dead zone. I hear wing beats behind me.

"Junco?"

It's Ashur. I snort a little air. "Ash, of course. Tier can't come because he's a fucking liar. And Isten can't come because he's a fucking liar. And Moju can't come because no one trusts him. And so it's just you. The only one who's bonded with me who isn't automatically on my shit list right now. I should've figured they'd make you do the dirty work, Ashur. You know, they take advantage of you almost as much as they take advantage of me."

I whirl around and make him step back a little. I look up and the tears come out, but not the sadness, nor the sobs. Just the tears. "Why? Why do you guys hate me so much? Why do you continue to break my heart with these lies?"

He doesn't answer. Can't answer. I wipe my tired eyes with both hands, rubbing the dirt into them, making them burn and slick up with goo.

I hold up my gifted index finger, then reconsider and let it drop and take a deep breath. "How can I complete this mission? How?"

"Junco, I have nothing–" He stops and swallows, averts his eyes, then brings them back to meet mine. "No excuse. I knew as well. Since the fourth Fledge fight. Selia sent messages weekly, begging you to come back to Earth. And then the messages came from Subjack himself. Your mother piped in a few times and then" – his words drop off – "others, too."

He waits, but I have nothing for him either.

"You trusted Selia once before. And she did what you asked, and has been trying to tell you the truth for months now. Moju says she's at their camp. You could trust her, Junco."

The heat takes over my face and the silent tears spill out again. "Ya know, here's the thing, Ashur." I don't try and hide or wipe them away this time, I just let them streak down my cheeks. "I'm not a warrior, OK? I think we've established this already. I'm just someone who can shoot straight from far away and who was cursed with a very lethal weapon that does the killing for me whenever I need it to. I'm five fucking feet tall, I barely weigh a hundred twenty pounds these days, I'm female, and I'm so fucking gullible it's painful even for me."

I wait, but he doesn't respond.

"So, there's no fucking way I can compete with you guys in this arena. All right? Because I believe you when you all say you love me. I believe it, Ash. And when I say I love you, I mean it."

"Junco, we never meant to–"

"You want to hear me say you've won? There it is. You've won. I live in a man's fucking world and the men aren't playing fair. So fuck it. I quit. I'll go to Subjack, because if he is my father from before, well, maybe Lucan was right. Maybe he needs a chance to explain what the fuck is going on. And I'll go to Selia because you're right about that, too. She exceeded my expectations – which is far more than I can say about anyone else in my entire life. But I'm out of this mission."

I stop to sniff and wipe the back of my hand across my nose.

"So, good luck to ya'll. I'm not going back to the Band with a bunch of liars. I'd rather live alone in the blown-out RR eating dry rice out of mylar bags from a hole in the ground than spend the rest of my life being constantly lied to. If I could give these wings back,
I would
."

He swallows when I look up at him. "I have one more thing to tell you, Junco. And I'm sorry, but–"

I shake my head and start crying for real now.

"That Aren you killed at your house? That's not the same guy who was working with your mother in that video. The good Aren is—"

I laugh off the sobs. "The good Aren? Of course. All the bad guys are good, and all the good guys are bad. How fucking classic is that?"

Silence from Ashur.

"How many Arens are there?"

He sighs. "Many. I have no idea, hundreds? I don't know, Junco. I'd tell you if I did. All I know is he's got some very popular genetics and they use him for a lot of dirty shit."

"So who was that Aren out in Stag? The one that Tier killed when he took me? That guy who looked and talked and acted exactly like the boyfriend I had in cadets and who seemed to know an awful lot of personal things about me?"

Ashur makes a face, but it's all bad from my perspective. "Look, I wasn't made aware of the history you had with this Aren guy, OK? I wasn't, Junco. I barely know anything about him even now. And if I knew you were attached to that guy I would've never signed up for this–"

"Signed up for what, Ashur? What the fuck did you sign up for? Tell me now!" I walk over to him and push him in the chest like I did Tier. It has the same effect. Nothing. They are mountains, and I am just one small girl.

"We thought we were doing the right thing for you, Junco. We wanted you, still want you. And we need your help to get the rest of the Seven and put a goddamn end to all this shit we're in."

I take a deep breath and try to calm myself down. "If I'm so fucking important to you, Ashur, then why do you guys lie to me every chance you get?"

His green eyes glow. "Junco, we have no idea who or what you are. None. You're not just a Seven. You're not."

I just stare up at him as I try to keep my rage in check.

"You know those giant puzzles, Junco?"

"What?"

"Those puzzles that have thousands of pieces?"

I sneer at him. "So?"

"You're like the kittens in the middle of the puzzle, right? I can see the ears, the eyes, the whiskers. And I can take a few dozen pieces and put them together and know there's kittens in there. But the subject of the puzzle is never the hard part. It's the background. And your background is black. No shapes, no colors, no forms. Just black. It's a clusterfuck of emptiness that makes no sense." He sighs and lowers his voice as he looks me in the eyes. "And I'd be OK with that, ya know? If I thought you knew what the background was. Can you see the background, Junco?"

I stare up at him for a few seconds and then look away. "No."

"No. No one can see it, not that I know of, anyway. If Lucan sees it, he's hiding it, Junco. And I'm gonna break my security clearance right now and tell you that Lucan hides nothing from me. Nothing. I know every dirty fucking secret that guy has ever had. I might just be the number two guy to everyone else, but he doesn't trust Tier, so he tells me everything because I'm the backup. Not Tier, not Rikan.
Me
."

I look up at him again as I think about what this means. I'm just about to ask what Rikan has to do with anything when he continues.

"So if he knows what you are, he's lied to me about it. This is a problem, Junco. And when you add in the fact that we've got a lot of other secrets ourselves? Well. The shit is piling up. We keep you in the dark because one wrong move might make it all come apart."

I laugh. "You keep me in the dark because you don't trust me, Ashur. It's as simple as that."

"I trust you, Junco. Tier, Isten, Arel, Rikan, Mish, Braun, Ryse, Layla, and Lucan. We
all
trust you."

"But?"

"But you're unpredictable. Wild. Indecisive." He hesitates for a moment. "Powerful. And we've not been upfront with a lot of things, Junco." He lets out a deep breath. "We're afraid if you know the truth, Juncs, you'll leave and never come back." He shrugs. "And you might. It's a real possibility that when you figure it all out, it'll be more than you can take – send you careening down a deserted road towards the Stag again, straight into the arms of insanity. Or cutting yourself in half just to make it end. We give it to you a little at a time, so it won't overwhelm you."

"But this Aren stuff, this Subjack being my father, that isn't about you guys. So why? Am I that wild? That I cannot be reasoned with?"

He takes a step towards me but I back up and he stops. "They, Subjack and your mother, they want you too." He shakes his head and sighs. "They raised you. Kept you alive through impossible odds. They made this moment in time because without you, Junco, those six other Siblings, they're not worth anything – it only works if you have all Seven Siblings from the same clutch alive when you extract and transfect the genetics, and getting the Seventh to cooperate has always been the major issue."

"That makes no sense, Ashur. Lucan wanted me dead when you guys were here. So how the fuck were you gonna get the genetics if I'm supposed to be dead?"

"Lucan called us back because he wanted to wait for the next clutch, Junco. It was over. We wrote your entire clutch off – and Tier was sent to kill you because without the Seven, the other six don't matter. If we came back without you, Esta would've been killed on the spot. It was over, get it?
It was over.
Our decision to save you shifted everything. But like I said, your parents, they raised you. They have a better claim than us. And Earth and the humans need you as well."

I huff out a laugh that is more disgust than anything. "A better claim? I'm property now?"

"You know that's not what I meant."

My eyes are wild as I walk towards him, pointing my finger at his face. "No, Ashur, I don't know that. I know there's stuff about Lucan and you guys that I don't understand. I get it. But that has nothing to do with you hiding the truth about the people I know from Earth. If there is a good Aren, do you have any idea how much that changes things for me?"

I wait but he doesn't answer.

"He was my first, Ashur. My first fucking love, my best fucking friend from the time I was thirteen to the day he left for the MR when I was sixteen. And if that guy who went over to the MR wasn't the same guy who spent all those days and nights with me in cadet school, then this changes my whole world. Do you get that?"

He swallows and nods. "I get it, Junco."

I turn and take a deep breath to dampen down my anger a little. "I don't think you do, Ashur." I whirl back. "Because if there's a good Aren, then that means that not everything about my life has been horrible. And maybe your life has lots of good things about it that you can hold on to, but mine doesn't, OK? I need all the fucking good things I can get."

"I get it, Junco."

I look in his eyes, but I don't see the understanding I need. "Maybe you just can't relate to what it means to have nobody. What it's like to be alone. Because you've had your brothers the whole time, right? Your Fledge team is still together, you lived all your days together, and grew up together without betraying each other."

I stop and he repeats himself for a third time. "I said I fucking get it, Junco."

I shake my head at him. "No, you don't. You don't get it because you can't even imagine what it's like to never have a real friend aside from your goddamn HOUSE! So you could never understand what it means that my Aren was a real friend and I never knew it."

He comes towards me and takes my hands. "You're right. I've been lucky. We've all been lucky to have each other for so long. So, no. I can't relate to the world you live in. I'm sorry. If you want the truth about us I'll tell you–"

"Ashur, it's not about you guys. You're not hearing me. It's about me. I don't care about your stupid fucking secrets! I don't care! I just need the truth about me. What's real and what's not. Every time something new pops up I walk a little farther away from sanity."

Ashur smiles, but it's forced. "Shit, Junco, the last time you gave me the it's-not-you-it's-me speech you went and sliced your fucking chest open." He lets go of my hands and turns away. "Please tell me you're done with the death wishes? Because I can't fucking think about that shit. I might not know what it's like to be you, but I know what it's like to lose you. And I can't fucking do it again."

I can appreciate that. If I take the time to look at things objectively and choose my perspective like Lucan asked, I can see their side of things. The rational part of me can at least. They are, in some ways, simply trying to protect me. "Lying to me, Ashur, is not the way to protect me. I'm so fucked up–"

He turns around, his face sad, waiting for me to continue.

I take a deep breath. "I'm so fucked up I don't even know what's real anymore. I don't know. I'm going insane, Ashur. And you guys will be the ones to push me over the edge with these lies. If you love me, then you'll back off and let me figure it out. Just
back off
."