The Radical (Unity Vol.1) (24 page)

I laughed out loud. I smiled
so broadly. It had to be a joke! But when I looked between them, and realized it wasn’t, I went into shock and felt sure blood had just drained from my body as easily as it had been pumping around only seconds before.

My head swam and all I felt was
let down. I brought my knees up again and twisted away from him. I hid my eyes from them both.

A female voice reverberated,
‘Perhaps you should spend the rest of the flight in the cargo hold Ryken.’
In the cargo hold, in the cargo hold
…

Ryken

Mara returned to the cockpit to give us some time alone and as I stared down on Seraph, I feared the worst. She wasn’t angry. Her eyes had darkened with betrayal, while her fiery spirit retreated. This was worse than any show of aggression.

‘Seraph, I was going to tell you.’

She stood to begin pacing the floor and shook herself away from me when I tried to pull her into my arms.

‘Don’t touch me.’

‘I-I… was trying to protect you.’

I felt weak and afraid, limp and lifeless. I was nothing without her, not now, not having had a taste of what life with her could be like. Every day a redheaded goddess to hold and kiss, every hour a reminder of how worthy she made me feel, each moment a time to treasure the possibilities that lay before us. I felt I could almost touch our new life together. Nights spent making love and days spent in harmony, somewhere new and unpolluted.

Her vitriolic rant began, ‘I knew there was something about you, right from the start, something untrustworthy, and yet I trusted you, probably more than I’ve ever trusted anyone. I should have listened to my instincts. How could you lie to me all this time? After everything I’ve been through this week, I didn’t think it could get any worse!’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘If you don’t get out of my sight, I
will
break your neck. Get in the cargo hold before I do something I probably won’t regret. You may as well have killed Ulrich yourself!’

She ki
cked one of the chairs and punched the air, screaming through clenched teeth. Finally, some passion, some uproar. It kicked me into action.

I fell to my knees behind her and held my
hands around her legs, begging for forgiveness. ‘You don’t mean that, please let me explain. I can’t bear this, Seraph.’ I wanted to weep with despair.

She
swiveled around and swung an arm out towards me but I caught it quickly. I pulled her down to the floor with me and held her wrists. While her eyes burned with fury, I tried to authenticate my emotion.

‘I love you, I lov
ed you from the moment we met. I’ll never leave you. I’d never hurt you.’

I was deeply in love with her. I would pine forever if it meant one more kiss from her. I tried to pull her into my
arms but she suddenly jolted herself free, swinging her flat palm out toward me.

The sound of the c
ollision shook us both to the core. She was boiling inside, she couldn’t control it. I knew about needing aggression and passion to fuel a pursuit. She had yet to realize that she and I were so much the same person.

She sat back down in her seat
and held her chin in her hand, seemingly lost in her own thoughts.

‘We
’re done,’ she insisted.

I walked away knowing she needed time.

Seraph

I sat alone
looking out of the window at the clouds rushing by, so furious with myself, so unbelievably disappointed at being taken in so easily by Ryken. All I felt was hatred, disappointment and heartbreak.
How could he do this?
I went into the bathroom and locked the door. I sat on the toilet lid and tried to gather myself but my emotions were spiraling out of control. I kicked the door, stood up and shook the sink. I punched a crack in the mirror and shouted, ‘Bastard!’

I
was so incandescent but when I caught sight of myself looking manic in the mirror, I stopped to look into my own eyes. I began bawling. I didn’t stop until I was bone dry.

T
he familiar skyline of New York in the distance gave me such a rush of relief. It was early afternoon when we left London but we were heading back to New York with a flourish of morning at our tails. How strange and wondrous everything looked, even the smog clouds. I felt much better after a fight with the onboard facilities and a damn good cry.

I started belting up when Mara announced our imminent landing and I heard someone behind me do the same, no doubt Ryken
. I didn’t grace him with a glance and he kept his distance, knowing full well I wasn’t to be messed with in my current state. Too many revelations hurt my brain.

Parents were
part of UNITY, which my aunt headed up – a dressmaker no less! New boyfriend/lover/accomplice – an emissary! Mara and Lucius – actual living relatives!

We landed and turned into a private hangar, giving me some time to speak to Mara in the cockpit.

‘Why didn’t anyone tell me about him?’

‘We needed to test his loyalty,’ she insisted, giving me a matriarchal glare like that I was familiar with getting from Eve.

‘Is there nobody capable of telling me the
goddam truth? I am goin’ out of my mind here. What am I gonna do?’

‘
Go home and wait.’

‘And what after that? Am I meant to forget everything I’ve been through with that man?’

When Mara didn’t react to anything I said, I became even more frustrated.

‘How can you be so cool? How can you people live like this, lying and deceiving and pretending everything is alright when it’s clearly not? I mean, you couldn’t even attend your own mom’s funeral!’
             

With those words, she snapped an index finger out towards me.
Mara remained steadfast and spoke coolly, ‘What is the good of mourning those who are dead and free from pain? Especially when so many living are still in agony, slaves to those bastards. I know it’s hard Seraph, but this is what we have to do. We have been doing it for a very long time, long before you were even born and began upsetting the status quo. None of us who survived the flu have ever known any different.’

I huffed and puffed, grabbed her index finger and squeezed
it. She didn’t flinch. We stared each other out and I couldn’t help but smirk.

‘You really were taught by
Camille?’

‘Yes,
’ she smiled, and held my hand in hers. ‘What did you think of her?’

‘
The woman is… somethin’ else.’

Mara
’s chest rose and fell heavily at the mention of Camille and I sensed something innate between the pair. Never seen together, but bound by their tutelage no doubt. A partnership that existed outside of physical bonds.

‘She is quite someone, you are absolutely right. Now, l
isten, you may need him yet. He can help our cause. Maybe you should hear him out? I don’t think he would have stuck with you if they’d managed to turn him.’

‘I
want to kill him Mara, I do. He lied to me. He hurt me so badly. We already made love and… I regret it so much.’

‘You did?
’ her eyes widened. She licked her lips.

‘Yeah,
’ I boasted. How could I regret Ryken? Really? I knew we were made for one another. It scared me shitless.

‘He is enormous, no?
’

‘There isn
’t a word for it,’ I teased her. We laughed like sisters.

Something sharp and painful hit me, knocking the wind out of me.

‘What is it?’ she asked, frightened.

‘For one moment just there, I really felt like she was here with us. Because you, you, are just so much like her. So much in fact… it hurts. She would have asked the exact same questions you just did.
’

I fought my emotions yet again. Mara sensed it and held out her arms, and I
took them. While she comforted me, she instructed, ‘Seraph, angel, we’ve organized a car to take you and Ryken back to your respective apartments. You need to go home and wait. We’ll be in touch. That is all for now, darling.’

‘I
can’t go back in a car with him,’ I pulled away, shaking my head.

‘You really have no say in the matter. There is so much more at stake than just your pride.’

Mara’s words pushed me out of the cockpit and back into the cabin, where Ryken was waiting shiftily.

‘Ryken, you and Seraph are getting
back to the city in that hoversine out there, okay? Go back to your apartments and stay there until further notice, both of you.’

Ryken nodded, grabbing his stuff in readiness.

Lucius pushed the aircraft door open and Mara bade farewell to me with another hug. ‘See you again sometime my love, I’m sure of it.’

We
didn’t know how Mara had managed to wing it so that we could evade U-Card control, as well as the dozens of other security checks necessary to get back in the country, but we weren’t about to ask any questions.

I got in the hover
sine first and sat as far away from Ryken as possible, immediately pouring myself a double whiskey from the mini-bar. I never
really
drank spirits. I knew I would be hammered within minutes, just like I needed to be. Numb and dulled. The vehicle pulled away and we remained in silence, avoiding each other’s glances or even the fact that any other person was in the vehicle. However, when the driver asked for both our addresses, it brought reality back.

Ryken ventured bravely, starting to explain, ‘After Suranna died, I spotted an opportunity to finish this once and for all and I got myself a new job, as an
emissary. I was trying to do the same thing you’ve spent your life doing, only I had to sacrifice a lot more of myself, believe me.’

I
slugged the liquor, unimpressed and indifferent to his attempt at an explanation. ‘Go to hell.’

‘It doesn’t matter what you say or do, I’m past the point of no return. We both are. The only reason you’re so angry is because you
realize that you and I are the same. We’ve both had to adopt personas that aren’t us to achieve what we needed to.’

I battled my
urge to start shouting at him again. Instead I said calmly, ‘I don’t deal with people like you. I don’t even bother pissing on people like you when they’re on fire. Do you know what I do with them?’

I waited
to see if he could make a comeback.

‘What do you do with people like me then, Seraph?’

‘I erase them from my life and never see them again. I can cut you off as easily as look at you.’

‘You can’t just blot me out after what we went through, and who knows what else lies out there awaiting us.’

‘What we went through? You mean, what you put me through? I’d rather deal with a dozen emissaries right now, than look at your ugly mug…’

‘…a
nd I would rather die than see you suffer one more moment of this, Seraph. This is childishness. Please, don’t hate me. Please hear me out.’

He slapped his knee hard while a vein
in his neck bulged with fear, panic and desperation.

I turned to him, slurring my words slightly
. ‘Don’t ever underestimate me, okay? Don’t antagonize me anymore than you already have. I can survive alone quite well. I don’t need anyone, especially you. I thought you were protecting me, and all that time I had an emissary under my very nose. I don’t know why I trusted you.’

I knew I was starting to give my
self away again, trembling with every protestation I made. He made a bold move to sit closer to me but I tried to push him away.

When I
deigned to look into his shocking black eyes, he quickly pulled my body close to his, tightening his hold when he knew I was calmer. I was in love and feared it.

‘Seraph,’ he breathed heavily, brushing his nose in my hair, seeking the return of the lover he had found in me back at the Ritz. His seeking set my heart alight once more, his scent and proximity my undoing.

After a few moments of battle, I let him kiss me. He did so, so sweetly. I almost began crying. He moved to my throat and kissed me there, worshipping and repeating, ‘I love you.’ He rocked me to my core.

I grabbed his hair and pulled his mouth tight ag
ainst mine, lashing at his lips with my tongue to gain entry. I wanted to tell him I loved him too.

We pulled back breathless and angry, the pair of us, yet h
e had succeeded in saving me from myself.

He laid us down on the wide seats and hovered above me, stroking my hair while he explained himself.
‘I know I was wrong in what I did, but not long after meeting you, I was frightened you wouldn’t like the truth, especially after you told me about your parents. I was scared I would lose you if you knew about what I’d done in the past. I was petrified that you wouldn’t want to be anywhere near me, so I kept a few things back. But I didn’t do that maliciously. I was trying to protect you. I just hope that one day you will let me explain why I did the things I did. I had just about forgotten who I really was, when I bumped into you and remembered. None of us are born evil Seraph, but some of us end up in such situations, we just get caught up. I was almost lost until you rescued me.’

The extent of what we could lose had me pushing him off me and away again.

‘I can handle the truth Ryken, as long as I know about it. You insulted my intelligence, that’s the worst of it. We may not have a lot in this world, but we can have honesty. Don’t claim you were trying to protect me, I don’t buy that. Look at you, you’re more than capable of killing a whole bunch of emissaries, but you dragged me into that sewer knowing that you’d be found out otherwise.’

‘No, you are wrong, Seraph
. They would have killed us, believe me, I know.’

‘Whatever.’

Deep down, I was fighting the urge to be with him with every atom of my being. I was so unbelievably torn inside, I couldn’t reconcile one part of myself with the other. The unforgiving side battled the newly ripened heart that Eve had blown to pieces. Slowly, Ryken was putting those pieces back in place, but I didn’t trust his love. It was all so foreign.

He snapped me from my thoughts.
‘Is your apartment safe? Do you have any security measures in place?’

‘Yes, I’m in the
gods. I have the works… and I have my backup, remember?’

‘That’s good, but be
careful.’

‘What about your apartment building?’

‘I don’t have the safety of the Dakota, but I have my climbing gear…’

‘Don’t go back there if it’s not safe.’

‘I’ll be fine as long as you are.’

Ryken

When we got to the checkpoint at Manhattan Bridge, we slipped underneath the wide seats in the hoversine, covering ourselves with the curtains hanging beneath the chairs. Laid there side by side, she turned her head away from me, while I was pensive alongside, feeling certain she was the love of my life. Thankfully, the guards seemed too pressed that day to have a good snoop around the vehicle and let our driver go on his way.

When we
stopped at Seraph’s apartment block, I looked on in awe at the rather grand exhibition of German renaissance masonry, one of the few period housing blocks left in the city. I wondered how she afforded it on her wages, then remembered her parents were probably loaded – and she had some serious connections.

She
left the vehicle quickly, saying goodbye and promising to keep in touch. I couldn’t expect anything more from her, I was lucky she was even talking to me at all. I asked the driver to drop me around the corner from my apartment block, attempting to outwit any loitering emissaries. I waited until no-one was looking and strapped on the Clever-Grips, before heading up an iron column on the glass building.