Temper (32 page)

“This is like back at the Pelican. You ran out after your mother, and you haven’t cared since whether you live or die.”

“That’s not true,” I say, but I can’t fill it with conviction. He doesn’t know how I fought against the Doctor’s control, the energy I needed just to keep going. I’m weary but I’m here. I’m alive.

He turns away. I don’t think this is the last I’ll hear of me taking the serum, but he’s not arguing anymore for now. He returns the vial to his pocket. His chest rises and falls in a heavy sigh. “I guess we head back to tell the others.”

I nod. “It’s time.”

But instead of moving to the bike, he sits on a patch of long grass, his chin resting on his knees. “I was so sure we’d find allies.”

“We will.”

He’s lost in thought.

I watch him. He’s so strong, despite the losses that keep trying to break him. Somehow despite everything, there remains so much of the kind boy I fell in love with years ago.

The boy Megs fell for, too.

And she was quick to remind me of the fact back at the gaming bar.

“Are you greedy or just thoughtless?” she asked softly, not that she needed to lower her voice. On the other side of the room there was no way Samuai could have heard.

“I don’t understand,” I’d replied.

As she stared at me with her eyes narrowed, I realized this orphaned girl fighting for her future was not so different than me. In another time and place we might have been friends.

“You’re screwing with him.”

“I love him.”

“Love? You have Samuai twisted around your little finger but you can’t bring yourself to let go of his brother.”

“You have it all wrong, I can’t stand Davyd.” I’d shaken my head at the ridiculousness of it all.

But the denial that came so easily didn’t ring true.

I could see her knowledge of my lie in the press of her lips and the way she’d crossed to Samuai’s side. She made sure I saw her touch his arm and her hand linger, and I got the message. As long as this thing exists between me and Davyd, then as far as she’s concerned, Samuai is fair game.

And I can’t blame her.

“What about the future?” he says now, bringing me back to the present. “What if the green robes are no better than the Company?”

I shrug. “Then we’ll deal.”

“You’re not worried?”

“Once I thought about the future in terms of a planet and a sentence.” I speak slowly, making sure he follows the movement of my lips. It’s not so hard to make allowances for someone who matters enough. “Then, I believed my life would start when my sentence was complete and I was free.” I pause to make sure he understands. “Now, I know there’s no such thing.”

He frowns. “You’re giving up?”

His eyes are glued to my mouth, waiting for a reply.

It’s hard to resist bringing my hand to my lips when they’re under such scrutiny, but I don’t, because I don’t want him to miss a word. “No, I’m not giving up. I’m choosing. Choosing this moment and the next. I’m still fighting for what will come, but I’m not waiting.”

I tug at his jacket, drawing him close, letting his warmth envelop me. Then I kiss him. Once and then again. “I’m starting the future now.”

I lose myself in his mouth. In the way his hands hold me against him, in control but not overpowering. In the possibility stretching before us. He eases me back on the grass, his hand cupping my head.

The length of him against me is hard where I am soft. Familiar but new. Everything has changed and yet we’re here. Together.

We kiss again.

He coaxes my mouth open. His tongue meets mine, and hot sweetness floods my body. I arch closer, hating there to be any gap where we’re not touching. My heart is beating so loud I can’t hear the murmur of his voice in my ear. We’re the same now. Lost in the feeling, there’s no sound but our breathing and blood pounding in our veins.

This is everything.

He pulls back, breathing hard. Watching me. His eyes are gentle and intense. Aflame with want and love and seeing me in a way he never has before. I have to stop myself from squirming because I want this. I want him to see all of me.

“I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.” The words slip out. I don’t mean to say them.

The wind has chilled as darkness hovers overhead, chasing away the last of the daylight.

Distress tightens his mouth. “You deserve to know what happened to Zed.”

“There’s more?” I search his beautiful, familiar face, so much older now than the mere months that have passed since he first left the ship. There’s hardness in the angles of his face, now framed by orange tips, to his spiky brown hair. “Tell me.”

He hesitates.

It’s bad. I know it with a sudden certainty that crushes my soul. I grip his hand so hard my nails slice into his skin.

He glances down at the red marks before looking back at me. “I would never have …” His voice catches, and he has to start again. “You have to understand that when I realized Zed followed me I wanted to send him back inside, but Maston decided he’d seen too much. He should never have followed me. The last thing I remember before they made me Blank was seeing Zed next to me on the operating table.”

“What did they do?”

His throat works. “For a while I thought I simply woke as Blank, but there was more. My memories came back in fragments. I thought they were nightmares at first. Memories of a time when I slipped between Blank and Samuai.” He rubs a hand down his face. “One of those times I woke, Zed was there. Only he wasn’t himself. He was insane. He came at me, murder in his face. I tried to get away.” He’s imploring my understanding. “I did everything I could. But he wouldn’t stop. I had to defend myself.”

“What did you do?”

He gulps. “I pushed him. Hard.”

My heart turns to ice in my chest. The cold spreads through my veins. Numbs everything in its path.

Not Zed.

The hum in my ears is coming from my throat. A moan of pure confusion. I shiver. “Did you …?” I can’t finish. Can’t force the words out. Can’t look at the face I kissed a moment ago.

This cannot be happening.

I stagger away from the one person I’ve trusted completely. This stranger calling himself Samuai but saying things my Samuai never would.

I fall to the ground and curl up. The static in my brain drowns the painful thud of my heart against my ribs. My arms wrap around knees that feel like they belong to someone else. Another girl far away. She was happy I think. But for the life of me I can’t recall why, or what happiness feels like. I lift my head and search the sky with stinging eyes for something that will mean this is all some kind of messed up dream. A hallucination from the Doctor’s torture. A reaction to the drugs Davyd gave me.

Anything.

But then I look down again and the tall oaks standing sentinel around the clearing are blocked by Samuai’s body, and he’s on his knees in front of me and I’m not sure, but I think he’s crying or maybe it’s the hot stinging of my eyes making me feel that way. That and the sadness making his face droop and blur like a drop of oil from the bike swirling into a puddle.

“He was mad,” says this boy who looks like Samuai. “An animal.”

“He was my brother.” I scream the words, uncaring of the fine drops of spit spraying this stranger’s face. “He was my brother,” I whisper. The brother who made me laugh and whose smile I can see any time I close my eyes. And then comes the question I can’t avoid a second longer. I owe it to Zed to say the words. Because this Samuai stranger might be telling me a story, but I already know how it ends. It ends with my brother dead in a pond. His life taken, mine shattered, my mother driven crazy with grief. “Did you kill him?”

Silence. It stretches, warps between us like a thousand miles of chasm too big to ever cross. His head bows. “I don’t know.”

“You must.” I shove him backwards. So hard he hits the ground. “Charley gave you back your memories. You said so. If she hadn’t, you would never have found us again.”

I don’t know if he hears every word but he gets the gist. His hands grip his skull. “Not all of them.”

“Tell. Me.”

“I don’t know,” he says again. But there’s guilt in his eyes.

“You kissed me.” I know it makes no sense but it’s all I can think of. “You killed my brother and you kissed me like it meant nothing and worse than that, you let me kiss you back.”

Even now my whole body sways on an edge. Some part of me begging him to undo everything he’s said. To tell me he was playing Davyd or something. Say anything to make this all not be true.

He doesn’t deny it.

A primal scream rips from inside me. I’m on my feet and I’m running.

Away. I have to get away. From him and the truth and the guilt. I welcome the burn in my leg. It’s the anchor that keeps my mind from spinning off into the ever darkening sky. I run and run. I hear him cry my name but I don’t look back.

I can’t.

Because I taste the rage of vengeance and if he comes near I will not be able to stop myself. He will pay. With blood. And as much as that might assuage the anger inside me, I’m not sure if ‘I don’t know’ should be a death sentence.

I run until my legs give way and all I can do is crawl in the dirt. But I don’t stop. I can’t stop. The thorny bushes scratch and rip at my skin. Gravel scatters ahead down the rocky slope. And I crawl until I can’t move, and I’m wheezing and spots dance like stars before my eyes.

I’m dry. I’ve left tears behind. But I sob anyway. Great heaving things that wrack my body. I’m losing Zed all over again.

***

I don’t think I sleep but when my eyes open again it’s deep night and someone is calling my name. Samuai?

I scramble upright, drawing thorns from my cheek. “Go away. I’m warning you.”

“Wrong brother.”

I look down at my wrist and the communication device I’d forgotten about. Relief mixes with disappointment. Part of me wanted Samuai to have come. I sigh. “Davyd. I’m not in the mood.”

“You were for a while. It was so romantic at first. The soft light of the twilight sky. The heavy breathing as you got more into it. How I love those little happy sounds you made.” One side of his mouth kicks up. “Then Lost Boy had to ruin everything.”

“Enough,” I growl.

Davyd goes on, oblivious to or uncaring of the threat in my tone. “Here I was, quite enjoying the show, despite Samuai’s part in it, when he wimped out and spilled his guts. And on that subject, you have to remember I did warn you about him.”

“You watched the whole thing?”

He shrugs. “Well, there are only so many angles and your sleeve got in the way once or twice …”

Disgust uncurls in my belly and slithers along my spine. This is one too many violations. I can’t do anything about Samuai right now, can’t stand to think of what he told me, but I can do something about this.

I pull the knife from my pack and hold it with a steady hand. The sky has cleared and I use the moonlight as my guide. The tip of the knife rests alongside the black wristband.

Davyd’s cocky grin falters. “You’re crazy.”

I ignore Davyd, and the cramp of my heart at his words. That’s what Samuai said about Zed. Part of me registers the annoyance on Davyd’s face. He’s trying to talk me out of it but I don’t have to listen. That’s the thing he doesn’t understand. He’s no longer my master.

Only pressing as deep as I need to, I cut. The knife is so sharp the pain is more the sting of a needle than the slice of a blade. Slowly I draw it along the edge. Blood blooms in fine drops, and I have to use the hem of my singlet to wipe it clean so I can keep going. Soon I’ve done one side. Hot, sharp pain registers but as though it’s happening to someone else. Pain I can control isn’t so bad at all.

The other side is more difficult. Blood drips into the dirt below. Dark spots that make my head spin and vision blur. I press on. Passing out before I finish isn’t an option. I force myself to stay in the moment. Picture Zed, my mother, my father. I can do this for them.

I can do this for me.

Like nature is on my side, drops of rain begin to fall. The heavy fall helping to wash the blood away so I can see to keep cutting.

Davyd long since disappeared from the blood-soaked screen and I wonder if I’ve cut enough to disable the thing. But only on an abstract level because stopping its function isn’t the point.

I won’t stop until it’s gone. Gone forever.

Cutting this out is my world. I can’t—I won’t—think beyond it.

By the time I sever the last piece of skin, I’m working blind. All the rain and the wiping can’t compete with the blood flowing from my wrist. I feel the moment it comes free. Hear the faint sucking as the fine internal wires suck free.

There’s no pain.

Only a rush that bows my head and stops my breath. I drag it off and throw it. It bounces away a few feet. Out of sight in the dark and the rain.

With my back against a tree I try to think. My singlet sticks to my skin. I can’t remember taking off my jacket but I must have. I’m soaked through, my jeans damp with blood and rain. My head is light. Am I floating? I blink and everything comes back into focus.

But only for a moment.

Colors and sounds run together in my brain. Twisting, spinning. Wind turns to laughter and becomes a scream I think I can taste. Maybe I’ve lost too much blood. When did I last eat? Is this shock?

There was something … Before the wristband. Something …

Zed
.

The tears come. The blood loss and pain that let me forget for a moment is no longer enough. Already the flow of blood is no more than a trickle. Like my body’s soaked in liquid from the rain, fresh tears join the rain on my cheeks.

In my head, I replay every moment I’ve had with Samuai since he returned to the Pelican. He’s had so many chances to tell me. I imagine the scene as he described, see his hands come out and push my brother. I see surprise on Zed’s face. His innocent, beautiful face.

I should head back to camp. Move. Do something. But as the rain falls, I sit against the tree and cry. Not just for Zed but my mother, my father. Kaih, imprisoned by green robes.