UNBREATHABLE (4 page)

“Cunning,” he whispered. He looked at me, but his eyes were elsewhere. “They’re cunning and beautiful. Every one of them is breathtaking so it’s easier to lure you in.”

He stirred the water faster and faster. It sloshed in circles, drowning him in its depths. I reached out and stopped. There were times when Father got lost in a dark world I never wanted to see. I dropped my hand in my lap. Restless, I undid my hair and ran my fingers through the tangled brown strands. Chocolate, Father called it. They had chocolate on Earth, he said. It was bitter and sweet at once. Impossible, I would say. He would shrug, because he had never tasted it, only read about it.

But on Earth, anything is possible.

I wanted to ask Father more. But if I’ve learned anything, it’s silence. Silence brings out all. Father would speak when he was ready.

The fire crackled. On Jutaire, without oxygen, the fire is different. Fed by different air. Maybe it wishes it were orange, for it sputters and reaches up to the sky with angry fists of blue and purple. It still doesn’t know we can't all get what we want.

Father spoke. “Never listen to what they say. Some are good, of course, but most are not. Everything they do is for their benefit.”

“Which is why you don’t want to stay on Jutaire,” I said, silently urging him to continue. I tied off my braid and tossed it behind me.

“Yes,” he said. “And no. I don’t want to stay because of many things. But that is one reason. They aren’t letting us stay on Jutaire out of hospitality, Lissa. That isn’t how they are. We are here for something else.”

His eyes looked past me, into the distance where the Jute lived. Jutaire is empty save for our settlement and theirs, though I’ve never seen it. We haven’t seen a Jute in human territory in years. And while many took it as a good sign, Father did not.

His eyes were blank, glinting in the blue firelight. He was lost in his thoughts again, in the swirl of oblivion plaguing his mind.

Just as we are lost in a dark world.

I open my eyes to that darkness and part my lips. But if I scream, no one will come. There’s something about being the daughter of a dead criminal that makes people ignore me.

I don’t even know where I am.

I sit up and scramble back against something cool and hard. A wall. My shuffling shatters the silence and light blinds my vision.

Light like the sun, not the candlelight I’ve lived with for years. I glance up and immediately look away from its unnatural brightness. It has to be the solar energy I’ve read of in the books Father owned. The books I now own. Light must be another privilege given to the soldiers.

“You’re awake.”

The soldier’s voice is softer than I expect, almost gentle. He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor across from me, barely five feet away. I stare at him, unblinking because if I so much as breathe, fear will take over me.

I expect a grin. A glint in his eyes that says he has won. But his eyes are wary. His mouth is one flat line, like the ground beneath me. He studies me, as if he can read my mind by looking at me right.

He’s strangely handsome, with an edge to his features than can only come with age. His unnerving pale gray eyes barely reflect the starkness of his black uniform. I've never seen eyes so light.

“Lissa,” he says finally. My name sounds strangled as it falls from his lips.

I don’t understand. I don’t understand how he knows my name, how saying the name of the daughter of a man you murdered could be so hard.

“You killed him.” My voice is choked and breathless. Like his, I realize. He shakes his head.

“You don’t understand, Liss-”

“Don’t,” I say in a rush of surprising anger. I bite the words. “Don’t say my name.”

Something dangerously close to remorse flickers in his eyes and a muscle twitches in his jaw.

“What do you want with me?” I ask.

“He wasn’t your father,” he says hesitantly. Our eyes lock.

“Galileo, Gage, he wasn’t your father,” he says, more urgently this time.

“You’re in no position to tell me who my father is. You’re a murderer. A soldier,” I say. The words feel foul in my mouth.

“I might be a soldier, but he wasn’t your father.”

I scoff. “He was my father. Until you killed him.”

“No, Lissa,” he says, ignoring my glare. “He never had a child. You knew him. He was too engrossed in his work—in science—to want a child.”

That was the truth. And I remember Father’s words.
You are not my daughter
. The weakest edge of my steel-hard belief crumbles.

“And you know,” I say with a pause, “who my father is?”

A strangled sound escapes his lips. “Yes.”

He knows I don’t believe him. That no matter what he says I won’t believe him.

“I know you can breathe the toxic air,” he says instead. “And I know you’re not Jute.”

I stiffen. Of course he’d know I can breathe Jutaire’s air—he was in the Chamber when my mask was in my hand and not on my face. But how would he know if I’m Jute or not?

The soldier sighs. My pulse pounds.

“My name is Slate. Gage was my brother,” he says flatly.

Brother. Father had a brother. And a name other than Galileo that he never told me of.

Why didn’t he tell me? Why couldn’t he trust me with something so simple? What else did he keep from me?

The soldier, Slate, looks at me like he wants to say something else but decides against it with a defeated shake of his head.

“There’s something I want to show you.”

“You’re not going to explain?” I ask without moving.

“Would you believe me? No. So no, I’m not going to explain. Not yet.”

I consider sitting still, but if he can drug me and bring me here, wherever we are, then fighting him won’t make a difference. More than anything else, I can learn something from him. Something about Father, who might not even
be
my father.

I slowly unfold my legs and stand.

He releases a deep breath and opens the door. I follow him down a long hall. Compared to the room, it’s dim, but still lit with something other than a candle. I can tell we’re in a house, but when I try to imagine it on the outside, I can’t remember anything as long.

He stops at the end of the hall, in front of a sliding door.

“I can't give you back Gage,” he says. His eyes are sad. “But I will give you what I can.”

He speaks as if he knows me. In truth, he does. But he speaks like he has known me all my life as a friend, maybe more. But I've only known him for days as an enemy.

I stare at him, until the resolve to hate him crumbles inside me.

But there is nothing he can give me. There is nothing I expect to see on the other side that will fix anything in my ruined life. But when he opens the door, I realize there is something I’d like. The knowledge that someone didn’t die because of me.

The boy from the Chamber.

The small bed pushed against the dirty wall groans as the boy scrambles to his feet. His lean, pale arms are a stark contrast to the short sleeves of his black shirt.

There is nothing to show the pain he endured since last night, aside from a dirty bandage wrapped around his forearm, where I’m guessing glass must have cut through.

He’s breathing. He’s alive.

But I don't know how he’s here. I don't know why the soldier would protect him in a room with a bed where he can rest. The boy runs a nervous hand through his hair.

“Lissa?”

My lips part in surprise. Even 
he 
knows my name.

“I was there,” he hurries to explain. “On the day of your father's trial when Chancellor Kole called you out in front of everyone.”

I stifle the ridiculous urge to snort. On Jutaire, trial is a fancy word for dragging people to a noose and letting their bodies dangle for the world to see. Though what happened to Father was a trial, of sorts. For me.

“Lissa?” The boy says again, pulling me away from the blood dripping down Father's only white shirt.

“I didn't realize you were there,” I say.

It seemed to be Father, Chancellor Kole, and me. Everything else was in the background, fuzzy and blurry. But everyone was there, everyone knows me.

“And you are?” I trail off.

“Julian,” he replies softly.

And then: “What were you doing in the Chamber last night?”

I catch the slight undercurrent of accusation in his voice. It was my fault he was caught, though clearly he was saved. Slate steps inside before I can answer and Julian looks away.

“Did you find her?” Julian asks him. His easy tone and the way they look at each other tell me they know each other well.

“Who?” Slate raises his eyebrows.

“Your daughter,” he replies as if the answer is obvious.

Slate stiffens. ”No.”

Julian heaves an exasperated sigh. “You said you had a lead. You said you knew—”

“Stop.” Slate’s voice echoes in the room. Julian freezes, and tension rises, heavy and thick.

“When I find her, you’ll know,” Slate says softly and the tension disappears into the crevices between every little crack in the walls around us.

Julian mutters something inaudible and rakes his long fingers through his hair again. Each strand is a fine line of the night sky. I memorize this way to read him, because I know he is nervous. He catches me looking.

I look away quickly. Father taught me to control my eyes and voice. But he never told me how to stop the color from blossoming on my face.

I throw a glance up. The boy still isn’t wearing a mask. Then again, I’m sure there’s oxygen inside the house, though Slate and I still wear our masks.

But Julian wasn’t wearing a mask last night. What if he’s Jute and I mistakenly thought he was like me? But if there’s oxygen here, inside the house, then he could be like me.

I’m confused more than anything else.

If I’m not Jute or human, then what
am
I? I shiver at the question. What am I? Three simple words, one easy question. And the person with the answer is dead.

“Are you alright?” Julian asks me.

“Yes,” I lie. Because I don’t think I will ever be okay. But my answer seems to satisfy him.

“What were you doing in the Chamber last night?” He is adamant.

“I”—pause and choose words carefully—“I went there to steal metal and glass.”

He clenches his jaw and narrows his eyes. Because there’s nothing else in the Chamber. He knows I went there to steal.

He wants to know
why
.

I take a deep breath, and when I speak, I'm not here, standing in this small, small room with two strangers. I'm elsewhere, with Father, looking through his scope.

I struggle on his name. 
Gage
. But I can't say it. Nor can I say
Father
when Slate so strongly believes otherwise. So I settle for the name he chose for himself.

“Galileo… made a scope and saw the Earth.”

I nearly choke on the words I’ve never spoken aloud. But they have heard this story—everyone has. There was magic in those words before Chancellor Kole made them deadly and hated in everyone’s eyes. “And now he's dead. I need… to avenge him somehow, and the best way is to show everyone that Earth exists. That we have a reason to live. That we can do something other than wait for death. I saw it-”

“You saw it?” Two voices explode. Julian's eyes bulge out of his skull. The soldier stiffens beside me.

I want to reach out and pluck the words from their ears.

I saw the Earth, yes. I saw the colors so magnificent, so vivid, so real. It was hope so large and round, green and blue. Hope was tangible until Slate and the other soldiers came.

But only Father and I know what I saw.

“I-I,” I sputter. My heart is pounding. Pounding. Pounding.

“You can trust us.” My heart breaks at the simplicity of Julian’s words. His voice is still and penetrating. As if the world knows when he is about to speak and silences all else.

It hits me like a gust of dry Jutaire wind.

Father betrayed me. I could have handled the truth. He could have told me about his brother, he could have told me he wasn’t my father. Instead, he misused my trust and told me I’m not his daughter moments before his death. Did he denounce me? Or tell me one final truth?

“Lissa, you can trust us,” Slate says softly, and rests his hand on my shoulder. On impulse, I flinch. On impulse, he grimaces. Pain flickers across his face, disappearing before I can breathe.

But Julian noticed. I hear his sharp intake of air. My eyes widen when Slate looks at him with barely concealed fear.

“You knew, didn't you?” Julian's voice is painfully accusing. Anger flashes in his eyes. He isn't referring to Earth. “You've known for years.”

“No,” Slate says, eyes cast down. His voice is choked when he looks back up at Julian. “Not years. Days.”

“Tell her-”

But Slate isn't finished. In a heartbeat, he switches to the soldier who broke Father’s scope with a snarl. “Don’t you
dare
.”

Silence drops like the bombs that had supposedly destroyed Earth decades ago. The tension reaches up again, sinewy and long, ready to snap.

“I’m not ready yet,” Slate says, more to himself. And before Julian can respond, he leaves. I stare as he slides the door closed again.