by Jenn Vakey
Things were still fairly tight, six people and a dog in the single living area. I wasn’t going to complain. It still felt safer than if we had taken different rooms. Especially when I started to hear the sounds of the animals outside.
I set up my mat and sat down. Kip wasted no time before dropping down in front of me, his head resting on my lap. Rhydian looked down at the animal and shook his head before rolling his mat out next to mine. I didn’t smile, although it was difficult. This was starting to become a thing with us, sleeping next to each other. I liked the closeness, even if it wasn’t exactly what I wanted.
“We’ll leave for the Maker camp in the morning,” Rhydian said as he sat himself. He pulled his pack in front of him and took out his food ration. Everyone else followed suit. “In addition to getting supplies, we also have to tell them what we’ve learned about the Tainted in the city. Orson thought it best to do it in person. Some of them can be eccentric. The last thing we need is for them to decide to set out on a rescue mission of their own.”
“What are we getting?” I asked. I took a bite of the dried meat, then gave some to Kip. He practically sucked it out of my fingers, then made quick work of licking them clean. Again, Rhydian just shook his head.
“They’ve been working on designs for weapons for us,” he answered. “They tend to not give specifics over the Haller. Like I said, eccentric. Whatever it is, Orson said they sounded excited about it.”
The conversation was light after that as everyone ate and settled in. People were joking, exchanging funny stories. Like back in Alkwin, Rhydian just sat back and took most of it in. I, on the other hand, was starting to feel a little antsy. It wasn’t being here. Not really. It was because, for the first time in weeks, I hadn’t gotten any training in all day. My body almost itched for it, craving it in a way that I didn’t even know was possible.
So, to distract myself, I glanced out the window behind us and watched as the last rays of sunlight disappeared from the sky. Thankfully there was a full moon and not a cloud in sight, so I was actually still able to see a little. There were also some lights on throughout the city. When I looked closer, they appeared to be street lamps similar to those in Eden. Solar powered.
And, like Rhydian had said, the animals were starting to emerge. It was hard to make them out with how far up we were and the minimal lighting. They were mainly just large shadows moving around, accompanied by deep roars.
Scary as it was, it was actually pretty exciting. Well, since I was safely away from them. In just over a month I had gone from never seeing any animal aside from the ones raised in Eden for food to this. Wild animals roaming free. Lions, tigers. Who knew what else was out there.
Watching the shadows move around, my thoughts turned to my sister. She had always been fascinated with animals when we were kids. Whenever we were given options in grade school about what we wanted to do a report on she would pick an animal. Then she would read absolutely everything she could about them. I might have held a healthy fear when it came to them, but Lillith would have loved this.
I wished she could be here with me to see it.
As I thought about her, there was a pulling feeling in my head and the world around me changed. The dimness of the room vanished and was replaced by a light that was almost too bright. And the room… It wasn’t the time worn room I was sitting in. No, this looked more like the rooms at the hospital in Eden.
I gasped, whipping my head back around toward the others. Nothing changed. I was still staring back at a clinically clean room.
“Leeya?” Rhydian’s voice came through. I turned toward him, but what I saw didn’t move at all. Nothing more than small, jerky motions from side to side. “Leeya, what’s wrong?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t talk. I didn’t understand anything that was going on. All I could manage to do was reach out quickly, thankful when I actually found his hand. He squeezed it, and I squeezed back.
“Leeya?”
My heart jumped up into my throat. That time it hadn’t come from Rhydian. It hadn’t even come from the room I was sure I was still sitting in. Instead, it sounded like it had come from my head. Even more shocking than that was that I knew that voice. Better than I knew anyone else’s in the world.
“Lillith?” I asked, my voice actually cracking. “Lil, can you hear me?”
The room around me started shaking rapidly side to side. “No, no,” she said, then gasped herself. Unlike the shock that had been in mine, she sounded terrified. “I’m going crazy. They’re making me go crazy. You aren’t here. It’s just in my head.” She laughed, which actually did come out sounding a little crazy. Nothing like how she had been in Eden. Lighthearted and sweet. “I’m seeing things. Seeing people. Only crazy people see things.”
My hand clasped down around Rhydian’s even tighter, my heart starting to race now. She was seeing things, just like I was. Was it possible? A month ago I would have agreed that she was losing it. That we both were. But the world was so different now.
“Calm down,” I said, trying to sound calm myself. “You aren’t going crazy. I can see a room with a bed. Everything’s so clean and white. What do you see?”
She laughed, shaking her head again. “Going crazy. People. So many people and they’re looking at me like I’m going crazy. They can tell.” I tilted my head down, eliciting a strange sound from her. “Animals. Animals aren’t real. Not like that.”
“She can see what I see,” I breathed out, shaking my own head in disbelief. “Move me to the window. Let her see out.”
There were the sounds of movements around me, then Rhydian pulled me up by the hold he still had on my hand. Then I felt myself being turned, his hands moving to my shoulders as he nudged me to move forward. I didn’t like that I couldn’t see where I was going, but I trusted him not to let me fall.
Then she gasped, and I saw her hands move up to her face, covering her mouth for a few moments before falling back down.
“Lillith, you aren’t going crazy,” I assured her. “I think it’s just the abilities. Or maybe it’s a twin thing. All I know is that it’s real, Lil.”
She was silent for a moment, and I actually thought that I’d convinced her. But she just laughed again, her hands out in front of her as she started to carefully walk forward. When she reached the bed, she sat down and pulled her knees up, curling her body around them. When she spoke again, her voice was smaller. Sadder.
“No, you’re not Leeya. My Leeya isn’t Tainted. Just me. Unlucky me.”
I felt so helpless. I wanted nothing more than to reach out and hold her. To make her feel safe and happy again. I might have been there with her, but I was still so far away. Too far to help her.
And it broke my heart.
“Lilypad,” I said softly. I put my hands down on the window frame and closed my eyes. It was a struggle to keep from breaking down, but that wouldn’t do either of us any good. “We should have listened to Pax that day. Waited for another night to try to get out of Eden. Then maybe the Sentry wouldn’t have been out the way they were. Maybe I could have stopped them from taking you.”
She started to rock, but she didn’t speak. I didn’t know what else to do, so I just kept talking.
“I’ve never been that scared in my life. You fought so hard, Lil. I just felt helpless. But you were wrong, Lillith. We both were. We thought it was just you who was Tainted, but mine actually started before yours did. That’s how I always knew when people were lying. Then the other one started after. Just like yours.”
Lillith shook her head.
“It did, Lillith,” I told her. “There was an attack, and it just started.”
My sister still wouldn’t speak, but I heard another voice. Rhydian’s.
“Move her to the mirror,” he said, then I felt him steering me again. I still couldn’t see anything around me, but the moment I stopped Lillith’s head jumped up.
“What did you do to your hair?” she asked, a lot of that panic missing this time.
I smiled. It was a Lillith question. My Lillith was still in there. I reached up absentmindedly and tugged at the ends of it. “Do you like it?”
“That still doesn’t mean that you’re real,” she argued. At least she sounded a little calmer now.
I sighed. “She thinks she’s going crazy,” I told the room around me. “How do I convince her that this is real?”
Again, it was Rhydian who answered. If I had to guess, I’d say the others really did think this was crazy. He might not understand it, but he knew me better than any of them did. If anyone would believe it, it would be him.
“Try telling her something she doesn’t know,” he said. “Something she could still see the truth in.”
It was like a puzzle. There were tons of things I could tell her, but she would just think that it was a part of her delusion. Her imagination just telling her whatever it wanted to.
There had to be something…
“Paxton has been in love with you for years,” I blurted out, then slapped my hand over my mouth. I had been desperate, but I couldn’t believe I’d actually gone there. Sure, Lillith might have been the only person who didn’t know. That didn’t mean that it didn’t feel like I was betraying Pax by telling her.
As bad as I felt, I could tell even without seeing her face that it had gotten to her. “No he’s not,” she said, although she didn’t sound very sure. Like she was analyzing all of the years we had spent with him. The way he was with her. The differences with how he was with me.
“Please, Lil,” I responded, relaxing a little. “It was completely obvious. Did you really think it was just a coincidence that he chose grower right after you made a comment about liking how strong they looked? Especially with as much trouble his dad gave him about it?”
Thankfully, she actually calmed down after that. She sat back and let her legs fall down, crossing them in front of her. She was at least listening now. I must not have been the only one to realize that would work, because I felt myself being turned again.
“Lillith, can you hear me?” Rhydian asked.
She nodded, so I did the same.
“We know the council isn’t killing the Tainted,” he said soothingly. “They’re keeping everyone alive to use them for something. What can you tell me about where you are?”
Lillith sighed and shook her head. Her eyes moved to the door, but it didn’t give anything away. It was a white door, like the rest of the room, with a small window on it. The only thing that made it different from ordinary doors was that it lacked a handle on this side. That would make it impossible to open from the inside.
“I don’t know,” she said softly. “Are you real, pretty boy?”
I almost laughed, despite how serious this entire situation was. I couldn’t really argue with her. He was awfully pretty.
“Yes, he’s real,” I told her. “You don’t know anything about where you are?”
She took a breath and laid back on the bed, her eyes turning to the ceiling above. Surprise, surprise. It was also white.
“There are so many rooms,” she said, her voice cracking as it came out. “People are always screaming, begging. They do test after test on us. I don’t want to be here, Leeya.”
I repeated what she said, my own voice faltering as it came out. It had been one thing for Adler to say it, but it was somehow so much worse coming from her. I couldn’t try to convince myself that it really wasn’t as bad as I was imagining.
“We’re going to get you out, Lillith,” Rhydian said. He was calm and so confident that she started nodding along with him. Convinced he really could do all he was saying. “It’s important that you don’t tell anyone about this. That you can hear or see through Leeya. They can’t know we’re coming.”
“Crazy, crazy,” Lillith responded.
I smiled. “That’s right, sister. Just make them think you’re going crazy and talking to yourself. I don’t know how this happened, how I made the connection. I was just thinking about you. Wishing you could be here to see this city.”
“Thinking, thinking.”
Hopefully it was that easy. “If they take you out of the room, try to think about me then and see if it works. I might be able to see something important. Something to help us find you. Just know that I haven’t stopped doing everything I can to get you out of there. And Dallin’s safe. I love you so much.”
“Love, love, love.”
“I love you too, Lillith.”
I didn’t know what to do from there, so I just focused on myself the same way I had her. I thought about where I was and wanted to be there again. I hated leaving her, but I needed to get this figured out. Just like before, her room faded and I was back in Denver with everyone standing around staring at me.
“What the hell just happened?” Jaythan asked when I made eye contact with him.
I shrugged. “I could see through her eyes. She could see through mine.”
Thinking back over the entire encounter, I really hoped that she was just shocked and wasn’t really going crazy there. More than that, I hoped that it had actually been real and I wasn’t the one going out of my mind.
Looking from face to face, I wasn’t sure that I hadn’t. Everyone sure looked at me like I might have. Joury was studying me in quiet contemplation. Zaydan, who was at my other side, stared at me in shock, like he was ready to catch me if I were to collapse.
But not Rhydian. The consternation on his face told me that I wasn’t the one he was worried about. Like me, he was worried for Lillith. Or maybe what I would end up seeing if she did reach out to me when they were doing things to her.
“Did you say twin? As in identical?” Verity asked. I looked at her and nodded. “What are the sources of your abilities?”
Rhydian answered for me, although his eyes never left my face. “Succubus and siren that we know of.”
Verity nodded herself. “It’s the siren. It has to be. It makes some people read minds. Maybe with twins with the same abilities it lets them connect to each other. Create a stronger link between the minds that isn’t limited by proximity.”
While everyone still looked stunned by what had happened, at least no one was brazen enough to actually ask if I was losing it. Verity’s explanation seemed to appease them. It had been enough to let myself relax and think about what this actually meant.
“She’s alive,” I said, meeting Rhydian’s eyes again. And, oh, it was like a weight had been taken off of my shoulders. Lillith was alive, and I now had a way of always knowing that she was. Of being with her even when I couldn’t actually be there.
“And we just got eyes on the inside,” Rhydian added.
After the evening’s excitement, everyone settled in for the night. I had a feeling that, like me, they were trying to process it. Not just that they had seen something that was unheard of as far as any of us knew, but that we really did just gain a big advantage when it came to our move into the city.
Before going to sleep, a watch schedule was made for the night. The night was divided into hour and a half sections, and everyone would take a shift. While no one showed any outward concerns about our safety, someone would always be on guard duty.
I was about fifteen minutes into my shift when I let myself focus on Lillith again. I had taken the first watch, so there was a chance that she could still be awake. Even while I tried, though, there was still that lingering fear that I couldn’t make it happen again. But, like before, the darkened room around me brightened and was replaced with hers.
The sound of her crying filled my head when the connection clicked. It didn’t last long. As soon as she realized what was going on, she stopped and let out a shaky breath.
“Try thinking instead of talking out loud,” I whispered. It had been something I’d been wondering about since I left her. Not only would it let me talk to her now without waking anyone up, but it would make the entire exchange safer.
“Can you hear me?” her timid voice asked. It didn’t sound any differe
nt to me, but it still made me smile. She wouldn’t be asking if she hadn’t been attempting it.
“It works,” I thought back, making an effort to push my thoughts to her. I knew that nothing else I had been thinking had been reaching her before, so it must have actually needed that drive, the will to share the thought. Whatever it was, it just made this entire thing better. “I’m on guard duty, so tell me if you see anything of concern.”
“I thought I was just imagining it,” Lillith admitted. “That it was just the result of something they’d done to me.”
“I know,” I sighed. “I hate that you’re there. I promise we’re coming soon. For all of you. We’ve been working on it since the moment Adler told us that they were keeping you all alive.”
Lillith nodded and laid back on her bed, tucking her blanket up under her arms. With as late as it was, I was surprised that the light was still on. I wondered to myself if it wasn’t just another way of torturing them. Keeping them from ever being completely well rested. I wasn’t going to ask.
“Tell me about Alkwin,” Lillith said. “Is that where you are now?”
I shook my head. “We’re in a pre-war city named Denver about a day away. We’re here to get supplies we need. Alkwin’s much smaller than this. Safer.” I sighed, wondering how much I should tell her. I wanted to give her something to hold on to, something she could look forward to when this was all over. At the same time, I didn’t want it to seem like I’d been living the dream while she was stuck there in that hell. “I had always pictured a bunch of tents or shacks set up with people our age just trying to survive. But it’s like a little town filled with people of all ages. Some are Tainted, others aren’t.
“There are magic wards set up to prevent anyone unwelcome from getting in. Not that they don’t try. Everyone works like in Eden, but it’s not the same. I can spend the morning watching over the children, do my shift in the garden before lunch, then the afternoon working as a Healer. You’ll be happy there, Lil.”
