Lotus and Thorn (34 page)

I stood among them, an island untouched. Then I dodged through the panicked mob. Sprinting through the streets. Until finally, I stumbled up the stairs to own my house.

I burst in the front door. “The Citizens! They’re tearing the place apart!”

Dozens of faces turned to look at me, but no one spoke. Silent Kisaengs were crammed into the hallway and kitchen. The house was a vigil, listening to Oksun’s voice as it crackled across the radio.

“Looks like someone bombed the tunnels around the wards before anyone could be evacuated. The Indignos are still managing to get our people out, but it’s slow going. Good news is Ada and the Mothers made it to the main computer in the Genetics Lab and they’ve started sending flys down into the tunnels to help clear the way.”

The crowd of Kisaengs parted for me as I followed the sound of Oksun’s voice, squeezing my way into the kitchen. Riya was sitting on the edge of the counter holding a handheld radio mic. She gave me a relieved smile. “I have good news too. Leica just showed.”

“Thank God,” Oksun said, and the relief was obvious in her voice. “Put her on.”

I took the mic from Riya. “The Citizens are already inside the
Dome and Sarika has them bent on destroying the place in the name of redemption.”

But it was Ada’s voice that answered me. “I know. About a half hour ago, the computer registered a magfly leaving through the main tunnels. It had to be Edison. That’s how the mob got in, somehow managing to jam the door mechanism as he left. I sent the flys in when I saw you show up, but it’s not going to stop them for . . . hold on—”

There was the faint sound of urgent voices and the radio was handed back to Oksun. “You have to send Kisaengs out to protect vital areas. We need to save as much of the Dome as we can, for our own sake as well as the Mothers’.”

Riya was already counting out teams, sending them to defend their home. That was all well and good, but I had a horrible feeling that none of this would matter if we didn’t figure out what Edison was up to. The radio signals. The magfly. Earth. “Oksun, can you ask Ada if she’s been picking up any more outside transmissions? Jenner said something about—”

An enormous squeal blasted through the radio. The lights flickered and the whole house went dark.

One of the girls ran out onto the porch, reporting back, “It’s just this street. The others still have power.”

“Oksun?” I tried the radio again, but there was nothing. Not even static.

Riya lit a candle and we made our way to the front porch to see for ourselves. The whole street was dead, though we could still see a little in the glow of the streets behind ours.

I expected my own terror to be reflected in Riya’s eyes. But hers were calm and steely. “Well, we already knew Edison was
watching
you. Now we know that he’s listening to you too. If you go after him, he’ll be waiting.”

“Listening to me,”
I repeated. Wherever Edison was going, he’d want a strong signal, and if he
was
talking to Earth or whoever, he’d need power for the radio. Something clicked in my mind. “I think I know where he’s heading. Get to the Genetics Lab and tell—”

But I broke off as someone in a white isolation suit came barreling down the street—a swarm of flys following him. He veered toward us and staggered up the porch steps, clutching a limp body in his arms.

“NIK!” I COULDN’T BELIEVE
he was here. My heart lifted for a second; then my eyes drifted to the girl he was carrying.

Taschen.

Her skin was a horrible grey, eyes bloodshot, chest barely moving. A swarm of flys buzzed around them.

“The tunnels are barely passable.” Nik’s eyes were frenzied, blazing violently. “I wasn’t sure where to go . . . wasn’t sure where you were. Then the flys came and made a path for us.”

I silently thanked Ada again, tearing my eyes from my sister. Pushing down the wail that was surging up inside of me, I said, “Go around back. I’ll meet you in two minutes.”

Nik nodded and disappeared into the dark. Without looking at me, Riya went inside and addressed the remaining Kisaengs.

“Listen up. You all heard the situation over the radio . . . we’re under attack. I’ve given you your assignments. I know they’re our people, but if we don’t find a way to stop the Citizens from destroying our power generators and food supplies, it’s gonna be a rough, hungry year.” She was magnificent. Learning to fight had just been the first step—tonight had transformed Riya into
someone new. I just hoped that tomorrow morning something of the old Riya still remained intact.

I hugged her. “Thank you.”

“Go take care of your sister. Then send him to hell . . . just make sure you don’t follow.” Riya handed me the candle. She looked at the room of frozen Kisaengs and said, “Let’s move, folks!”

The room burst into activity, Kisaengs spilling out the front door and into the night.

Then I was alone in the house. Taking a deep breath, I tried to find my center as I walked through the now-empty kitchen, but there was only the liquid ache of grief seeping into me. I opened the back door and there was Nik—an illuminated face in the dense darkness.

“Upstairs.” I could barely get the words out. “Put her in my bed.”

Nik took the stairs two at a time, bounding up into my bedroom. I followed, slower—my mind pleading with every step: No. No. No. Not Tasch.

Nik was tucking the blanket around Taschen when I came in. He turned to me, a deep sadness on his face. “I tried, Leica. I tried to save her, but her organs were too badly damaged. She’s too weak.”

I sat on the bed, smoothing the hair away from Taschen’s burning forehead. It was creased with pain and I ached for her as I wiped a trickle of blood from her mouth. She didn’t open her eyes. They didn’t even flutter.

“I’m so sorry. I thought you should at least be able to say good-bye.” Nik sat across from me, on the other edge of the bed.

“Thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say. My mind was filled with a collapsing dream. Edges tearing off. Sand eating away at the foundations. Me, Taschen, and Lotus together again. A home.

“Lotus?” I forced myself to ask the question. “Did you find her down in the wards too?”

Nik nodded. “But Edison didn’t get a chance to do much to her. Lotus is
strong
and the thing is . . .” And Nik grabbed my hand, his voice tense with excitement. “I think I found something . . . something that might help her . . . help all of us. I wouldn’t have even thought about it except for what you said about my hand.” And he opened his palm. “No scar.”

I couldn’t follow what Nik was saying. My mind filled with smoke and the whispers of hungry flames. My rage screaming like vultures, calling for death.

Edison had taken it from me. He’d taken my home—the only thing I’d wanted.

And suddenly, I understood something, the pieces clicking into place. Nik was still talking, but I interrupted him. “What does Edison want? More than anything?”

Nik simply stared at me, confused.

“Answer me! What does Edison want more than anything else in the world?” I thought of the hundreds of Citizens sacrificed on the altar of his singular objective.

Nik’s voice was quiet as he said, “To leave the Dome . . . for good.”

“I think he’s found a way.” I was nodding to myself. And my voice was calm, silencing the shrieking in my head as I thought of Edison’s room in the Genetics Lab—cluttered not just with radio parts, but with pieces of the shuttle. “But not
just
a way to get out of the Dome, but off of Gabriel . . . maybe even to get to Earth. And now he’s headed out to Tierra Muerta. That’s why he let us have our rebellion . . . he wanted us to clear out the Indigno camp for him.”

“Why?”

“Think about it.” And I could hear the impatience in my voice. I could feel it prickling across my skin. “It’s got power for the radio. Tools, supplies, clean water. And most of all, no one to stop him.”

Nik was on his feet. “I’ll go after him—”

“No! This is for me to do,” I said. Nik started to argue, but I cut him off. “You don’t even know where the camp
is
.”

Now that I understood what Edison was doing—understood what I’d have to do to stop him—I realized I had to get Nik to leave. I had to say all the right things. Whatever it took.

Because I knew what came next and I couldn’t have Nik here, trying to stop me. “You said you found something that might help Lotus. If you can do anything for her . . . for the people in the wards . . .” And I let some of the hurt pooling in my chest escape, tears tripping down my cheek.

“I will. I promise.” His eyes met mine—embers of yellow glimmering in the orange. “Will you be okay?”

He touched the glove of his isolation suit to my face. And I leaned into it. Letting myself have that one tiny moment.

“I’ll be fine,” I lied.

I followed him down the stairs, locking the doors behind him. Then, from my balcony window, I watched the beam of his headlamp get smaller and smaller. Until I was sure he was gone.

“Tasch?” I knelt by the bed, taking her hand, but she just lay there. Limp. Even the lines of pain had faded. Only the faintest pulse in her wrist told me she was still hanging on. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what I was going to do that day. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you and Lotus. And I’m sorry I couldn’t save you this time either.”

Indigno.
A sob caught in my throat as that single word ricocheted through my mind, the chorus of it threatening to destroy everything in its path.

Sarika is right. The Abuelos are right. God is punishing me.

No. I looked down at my strong hands, twelve wonderful fingers curling into fists. If there was a God, then he would not hate a thing he so carefully made. And he would not punish my beautiful sister for my mistakes.
Those
are the games of humans.

I kissed Tasch’s forehead, my tears mixing with her blood, and said, “I love you. I know you know that, but I’m gonna say it anyway. I would take your place if I could. But I can’t. The thing I
can
do—what I’m good at—is fight. I’ll make Edison pay for what he’s done to Pleiades and the Kisaengs and the Mothers.
Then
I’ll make him pay for doing this to you.”

I’d lost my first dagger in the mob, so I ripped the second one from my bodice and got the candle. Then I walked over to the wall of mirrors and stripped off my costume, carefully laying it at the end of the bed, alongside my mask. My cheeks were smeared with Tasch’s blood from where I’d dried my eyes. I stood there for a moment, staring at my naked, wrong-handed body. I could see myself at every angle—my large breasts, round hips, extra fingers, stubborn face. This powerful, mutated, lovely place I’d inhabited for almost eighteen years.

I knelt down, in case I fainted. In the mirror, I could see the
thrum-thrum-thrum
of my pulse racing just below the skin at my throat. Breathing deep, I tried to calm down, trying to slow my heart rate so I didn’t make things worse.

Then I reached back, so the point of the knife rested just above my right shoulder blade. I meant to kill Edison. Wherever he was.
Whatever he was planning. And I couldn’t do that if he saw me coming.

I shifted the blade up a bit, so it was digging into the skin just under the ropy muscle that ran across my shoulders—estimating where Edison had injected the tracker. Then I made the incision.

The pain was a blanking-out, dizzying sharpness that eviscerated all my other thoughts. I fought against it with everything I had. Pushing the hurt from my mind.

I’d only get one shot at this.

Still, when I stuck my fingers into the wound, I almost passed out. I forced myself to focus on the multitudes of mirrors, but there was so much blood: leaking down my neck, over my breasts, dripping onto the floor.

My fingers were slippery as they dug around inside my own skin. The edges of my vision lit up with stars, a whole sky of them—the darkness kindly offering to swallow me whole. And I wanted it to.

Edison had put the chip in too deep. There was already too much blood. But I kept digging anyway—even as I knew it was too late. I couldn’t hold myself together long enough to staunch the flow.

Then, among the stringy muscles and pain, my fingers hit something. Something hard and thin. The tracker.

Fighting against the dizziness . . . trying to stay conscious . . . I grabbed onto it and pulled. Then I gave in to the stars.

DARKNESS.

I closed my eyes and opened them again. Still dark. But I heard voices. Faint ones. And screaming. Somewhere in the distance.

Then a pale rectangular glow on the floor. Light coming in through the curtain.

I tried to sit up, but my body was too heavy. I lifted a finger. Then another. The tracker was still clutched in my fist. I willed my hand to open and it slid out, dropping into a pool of blood.

It’d worked. And I was alive. How?

I flexed my whole hand, but it didn’t hurt. I shifted my arm—there was no sharp twinge of pain. Not even a dull one.

I rolled over. The floor was sticky and the room stunk of death and sickness.

I touched my shoulder. It was crusted with blood, but there was no gaping wound. I couldn’t even feel a scar. And suddenly, what Nik said came back to me.

I found something . . . something that might help her . . . help all of us. I wouldn’t have even thought about it except for what you said about my hand. No scar.

And I remembered how quickly he’d healed after he cut himself on the glass. I’d assumed it’d just been part of what made him special. But maybe not. And a small hope flared inside me.

“Get up,” I ordered myself, and my voice came out in a croak. I sat up, using the bed to pull myself into a crouch. I fumbled for the candle on the floor next to me, searching for matches with shaky hands. When I finally managed to get it relit, the dim glow cast shadows over Tasch’s frozen face. Her mouth was slightly agape, her eyes open. I shut them and kissed her forehead.

“‘Wait here and I will return for you.’”
My voice shook as I repeated the words of the fairy tale.
“She kissed her sisters’ cheeks and locked them inside the forbidden room.”

“When the sorcerer returned, he said to the middle sister, ‘Give me the egg so I know it is safe.’

“And he was surprised to see the shell was white as snow, without a drop of blood to mark it.

“‘You have proven yourself worthy. You shall be my bride.’ And as he uttered those words, his power over her was lost.”

A streak of light flashed by my windows and from downstairs there came the sound of someone rattling the locked doors. Careful to stay hidden, I eased myself off the bed and crawled over to the balcony door—pushing back the curtains a few centimeters to look.

Outside, four Curadores wearing isolation suits stood in the street. The Dome was dark except for the beams of their flashlights scanning past the house. I cracked the porch door open and listened.

“Nope . . . doors are locked. Tracker says she’s in there, but we haven’t seen any movement. Not out back either. Decontamination must have gotten her.”

Pause. Static.

“On foot. The magfly tracks are a wreck.”

Pause.

Static. Then a squeal of feedback.

“Repeat that last part, Edison.”

Short pause.

“Of course . . . I’ll report back if there’s movement anywhere on the street.”

I eased the door shut again. At least I knew that Edison was still close enough to make contact with the Curadores and I didn’t intend to let him get any farther. More importantly, I knew Edison was afraid I was coming after him. And he was right to be.

But first I had to find a way to get out of this house. I was too drained to fight my way through Edison’s Curadores, and even if I could, Edison would hear about it. It would defeat the whole point of removing the tracker.

There was another problem too. Everyone had seen me in my Dia de los Muertos outfit. And I would be easy to pick out in the streets of the Dome if I had no costume at all. That had been the whole point of the Festival—the ability to hide in plain sight.

I needed to make something new. And quick.

I rummaged through my closet, picking up the fairy tale again—trying to steady myself.

“The middle sister agreed to marry the sorcerer. But she said, ‘Give me a day, for I must make myself beautiful for the wedding.’

“And she sent him away to invite all his friends and relations to the celebration.”

I grabbed the first thing I found with pockets, a short blue dress. Then I pulled the bottom drawer out of the dresser. Grimm’s feathers lay inside it, catching the candlelight. Leaning against the bed, I
sewed Grimm’s feathers onto the fabric—tacking them down with quick stitches on either side of the shaft. Every so often I heard a distant explosion and my fingers worked faster and faster. Until the skirt was covered with them.

Then the mask. I covered the eyes, the cheeks, the chin with smaller feathers—hiding Riya’s designs. Tall plumes fanned out around the top, concealing the crown of flowers.

Finally, I removed one of the pouches of explosives from my old dress and sewed it into the hem of my new one. Leaving the other for Tasch.

I picked up the tracker from the floor. Rolling Tasch onto her side on the bed, I made a small cut above her shoulder blade. I knew she was dead, but I still flinched as a trickle of blood leaked from the wound. Carefully, I slipped the tracker under the skin.

My cheeks were wet and my throat tightened against my voice. But I forced the words of the story out, as if they could take away the horror.

“As soon as the sorcerer had gone, the middle sister crept into the gruesome basement to free her sisters. She sent them home and promised to follow soon after. Then she pulled a skull from the basin of blood and took it with her.”

I pulled the blankets off of Taschen and slit her gown with my knife—letting the ragged fabric fall away. Her body was covered with sores and bruises, and a whimper rose up inside me.

“This isn’t her,” I reminded myself. “This is only a body.”

Carefully, I fit Taschen into my corseted dress and arranged her in a chair facing the porch door—her now-pale face stark and terrible against the bright marigolds.

“She decorated the skull with flowers and a wedding veil and carried it to her bedroom. Then carefully, she placed it on the windowsill.

“One by one, guests began to arrive at the house for the wedding. They waved to the grinning bride sitting by the upstairs window. Even the sorcerer was fooled when he returned home. Looking up, he delighted in his bride’s wide smile and blew her a kiss.”

Stripping the bed, I balled up the sheets and pulled down the gauzy canopy, piling them on the mattress. Then I slipped on the feathered dress and tied the mask. One knife in my pocket. One in my boot. Almost ready now.

“Finally, the sister sliced open the feather bed. She covered herself in honey and rolled in the white feathers. When she was done she looked, not a bit like herself, but like a magnificent bird.”

Below the window, there were more Curadores now—their isolation suits standing out against the dark street. The perfect audience.

“Taschen . . .” I looked at the girl propped up and decorated in the chair—that was not my sister. Taschen had finally been given leave from this world and I was not going to keep her here any longer. I kissed the top of her head. “Thank you for . . .”

But how do you thank someone for being a piece of your soul? So I said, “I’ll look after Lotus for you. I promise.”

I pulled Lotus’s necklace from the drawer and hung it around my neck. Then tucked the scope with the glass lenses in my pocket. There were still two sisters left.

I was ready now. Standing off to the side of the balcony window, I yanked down the curtains and added them to the bundle on the bed. Finally, I nested the candle in the middle of it—wax and flames spilling across the cloth.

The fire caught immediately, flaring up behind Taschen, bright and dramatic. Shouts came from outside. I imagined what Tasch
must look like in that gorgeous gown. She would be perfectly framed by the door, the room ablaze around her. Illuminating her in the black night.

As I fled down the stairs, I heard someone pounding on the front door. “Leica? Are you in there? Quick! Sagan, help me get this door open!”

Panicked shouting rose up from the front of the house and then they were trying to force their way through the door and the rhythm of their blows matched my heart.
Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!

I raced through the kitchen to the back door. How long till the flames reached Taschen? Minutes? Seconds?

Like I’d hoped, the back of the house was empty. Any Curadores who’d been standing guard had run to the front at the first cries of alarm.

I made it out the back door, just as Curadores rushed in the front. I sprinted around the house and into the street—trying to get clear as fast as I could. In the chaos, no one noticed me as I ran.

As the sorcerer came into the house, he walked passed the middle sister without even recognizing her.

“Little Bird,” he said. “Won’t you stay for my wedding?”

“I cannot,” the sister said. “It is time for me to fly away.”

When I got to the end of the street, I glanced back. Just for a fraction of a second, I saw her. Taschen’s body blazing white hot. A silhouette of flame.

Then she erupted into ball of fire and the vast explosion shattered the air. Glass shards and splinters rained down into the night—the house consumed by a magnificent burst of light.