A few groan, tired of the work.
Jord demanded we double our training, and I’m tired too. But that means nothing. We are not complainers. We are Creations. We have no feelings and feel no pain. At least, we’re not supposed to.
They jump one by one or two by two, flipping and landing. A gun fires before I jump, calling it a day.
I jump off, flipping on my landing so my balance isn’t out of place. “Okay,” I say when I rise. “Until tomorrow.”
We disperse in our own directions. Private’s homes and halls are on the other end of the base from ours. I walk to my designated house, first going to my room to grab my clothes so I can get in the shower. Today was a long day, and finally, I get to stop and focus on myself. Try to figure out why that serum affected me the way it did.
Freezing cold water spits from the sprayer. I jump back, waiting for it to warm. Each time it’s cold, and each time, it catches me off guard. I stare at my face in the mirror in the shower stall, not recognizing the eyes looking back at me. They’re the same cold blue that looked at me from Luke’s face. They have a soft shine to them, a freezing blue. They don’t look natural. Not like Cory’s. Cory’s eyes have always been green even when we were kids. With him being a Creation too, I wonder what sets him apart from the rest of us born with black, instead of colored irises.
“Ky, that you?”
“Yes, Collins.” I’m not up for conversing. I’m exhausted, ready to lie down.
“What happened to you today?” The water comes on in the stall next to mine.
What does she mean by that? “Nothing happened to me.”
“This morning, it did. You are usually so alert and attentive. But you seemed distracted and hesitated when going against Marc.”
Oh. That’s what she means. “I wasn’t distracted, only remembered the fight between him and Luke back home.”
“Yes, Marc is pretty awesome.”
Yes, he is. The way he makes me feel… I’d also catalog as awesome. I can’t say why or how. It’s problematic. I wash and rinse, quickly getting out of the shower to avoid wherever this conversation will lead. Marc’s an engaging topic, yes, but I shouldn’t show or express interest. “See you tomorrow, Collins.”
“Yep,” she sings.
I leave the stalls and creep across the hall that passes the living room. Cory sits on the couch, talking to Feiney. He’s going to want to talk to me if he sees me. But I’m not in the mood for his playful flirting tonight. Cory’s nice, always has been, and he always says the right thing or smiles the right way and winks with the right eye. Or he does all three at the same time, making himself appealing. But I know there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed, and I’m not nearly ready to cross them.
I walk as quietly as I can, creeping around the wall toward the stairs so he doesn’t hear or see me. I escape right into Luke.
“What are—”
I throw my hand over his mouth, cutting him off. “Shh.”
He moves my hand and lowers his voice. “What are you doing? Sneaking?”
“I’m not sneaking. Just walking quietly so I won’t draw attention to myself.”
He turns and walks with me. “Where are you going?”
“To my room to put away my clothes.” I steal a look at the dirty clothes I have balled up under my arm. “Why?”
We head upstairs where the rooms are lined side by side in a long hall. The girl Luke was staring at earlier is descending the stairs, smiling. She says hello to me perkily and winks at Luke. As we pass her, she reaches for Luke’s hand, and he moves it, shaking his head. Her smile fades, and she stops between us.
The stairs are narrow. We have moved aside so she could walk past. With her stopped between us, it’s cramped. I move up a couple of steps, surveying them.
“What does that,” she mocks Luke’s action, “mean?”
Luke reddens in frustration. He grabs the side of her head and pulls her to where he can whisper in her ear. Her eyes flash with fury as her lips pull tightly together, turning white with pink edges. He gently pushes her away from him and says, “Okay?”
“No, it’s not okay. She’s just your sister.” She thrusts a pointed finger in my direction. “Why are you being an asshole?”
I step by Luke’s side, suppressing my own anger. “What’s the problem?” I ask Luke, ready to knock this girl down the stairs. He doesn’t want to be bothered, and she will not let him be.
She smacks her lips and rolls her eyes as she looks away from me back to Luke. She glares at him with wide eyes, awaiting a response.
I don’t understand her animosity toward me. “What is your problem?” I ask, placing my clothes down on the stairs. She’s in full combat attire, indicating she doesn’t live here and must be leaving. “My brother doesn’t want to be bothered, so I suggest you continue on your route.”
Her face falls. “Yes, it would seem that way.” Flipping her dark hair over her shoulder, she throws her hands on her hips. “Completely different outlook twenty minutes ago.”
“I would watch the next thing that comes out of your mouth if I were you,” he tells her, giving her a look of warning, with piercing eyes and lips pursed in a thin line. The corner of his mouth hints a twitch before he adds more softly, “Wouldn’t want you to say something you might regret.”
She stares at him with pleading eyes. “So, I’m wrong?” The outer corners of her eyes twitch rapidly.
“You are about to be. Do not go there. Not right now.” There’s more to the two of them than he’s letting on. He’s trying to hide something or keep her from a reveal, and it’s only making me more curious.
“Luke,” I intervene. “What’s going on?”
“Ky, go put your clothes away, I’ll meet you in a minute.”
The girl takes another step toward him, leaving Luke no breathing room as she grabs his arm resting on the stair rail.
“Back off,” I say protectively. Her moves are intimate, and Luke says we shouldn’t involve ourselves in intimate actions. “Where are you coming from?” I ask her, now realizing only bedrooms are upstairs.
“Where you are on your way to,” she answers, suave and confident, proud to tell me that.
Wide-eyed and dismayed, I look at Luke and blurt, “She just left your room? Why?”
He pushes her away, she yanks him to her, and I punch her in the face. Right before I punch his face. She stumbles down the stairs, and he leaves his head turned away from me.
Grumbling, I grab my clothes from the floor, unable to believe his double standard.
Swinging the door to my room open, I barge in and slam it closed. Luke goes through hell and high water to keep me from talking to boys. Telling me it’s not right, and we shouldn’t explore our intimate feelings because relationships and companionship is something we can’t have. Telling me it’s not what I’m here for, and I know my purpose. And here he is, having girls in his room.
My door whips open. I jump from the bed, ready to punch Luke again. “Kylie, chill.”
“You are a hypocrite, Luke.” I charge at him, fist drawn. He grabs it before it connects with his face and shoves me. I stumble backward. “You lied to me,” I accuse angrily, regaining my footing.
“Ky, let me explain something.” He pushes the door closed.
I stand back, my arms folded across my chest, awaiting his explanation. “It’s not the same for me as it is for you.”
“You were with her, in your room. I’ve never come that close. And from what it looks like, I’ve never even thought about doing what you two may have been doing.” That’s not the truth, I’ve thought about it. But I’ve never had someone I was interested in actually pursuing that line of thinking with. I’ve always kept myself at a distance.
He sits on the bed and says, “Sit down, Ky.” I do. “No feelings are involved in this. It’s not the same for you. You will develop feelings and emotions. I do not. I won’t.”
I frown. “What makes you different from me? Why do you g
et to explore your interests and I don’t?”
He chuckles, rubbing his neck. “You better never explore your interests the way I do.”
“Why lie?” That’s the root of my anger. “You’ve never lied to me. You put forth a load of effort trying to keep Cory away from me, to keep us from talking, or show so much concern with boys and me, and here you are doing things I’ve never even considered doing.”
“You act like I don’t know, Ky. But I noticed how Marc distracted you today. Multiple times, you could have had him. Maybe not have beaten him, but you could have caused some serious damage. You slacked off. Girls, they look good, they feel good. But I do not allow them to distract me. Our point on this planet is bigger than us even being here at Separation. And we cannot afford for you to be distracted.” He stands, walking to the door. Opening it, he looks around outside before he closes it again and crosses the floor back to my bed. “Our plan is bigger than protecting our country.” He sits beside me. “For us, this is domination of our kind. We are obligated to ensure that’s followed through. I’m in full control of my host and can handle relations without gaining feelings this body wants to give in to. And even if you could, I couldn’t stand by and watch a guy just use you.”
I drop my gaze to the hardwood floor and scrape my toe across a circular crack in one of the planks. Cautiously, I say, “Not everyone is like you, Luke.”
“Everyone knows, like we know, that we are not supposed to engage in relationships. As Creations, our first, main, and only priority should be our twin and their safety. If we happen to gain feelings for another, that could jeopardize the objective. That’s why it’s restricted. It’s why Creations were supposed to be stripped from those feelings of affection.”
“Even if I could gain feelings for another, I would never pick him over you.”
“How do you know that? You could acquire a love stronger for him over me.”
“I don’t know the feeling, so I cannot say exactly. But I know there’s no way I’d ever decide to save anyone else’s life over yours. And I’m certain he wouldn’t save me over his twin.”
“Being in love with someone is different than feeling love for someone.” We scoot back on the bed and rest against the wall. “You feel love for me because I’m your brother. I’m basically your lifeline. You’ve known me your entire life, and because I’ve protected you, saved you, cared for you, and provided for you, you love me and respect me and my position. But to be in love…” He looks down at his scabby hands. “That person takes a piece of you, and you give it to them willingly. The feeling of their touch would be different from mine. You would feel different in the way they look at you. You would see them differently from the way you see others, and still feel the need to protect, save, care, and provide for them.” He quiets for a minute and sighs long. “And what makes it so bad is that you will risk it all for that one person although you know them for less time than you know your own sister.”
I adjust against the wall, feeling uncomfortable with the amount of knowledge he has on the topic. “You know?”
“I knew,” he replies quietly.
I meet his gaze. “That’s impossible. How?” I stare, slack-jawed, unable to move.
“That’s been a burning question for years. I don’t know. But I’ve felt it.”
“Who is she, and why have I never met her?” He’s never told me this before. Besides, we can’t love. Can we?
“She was someone I cared about, and because I would have picked her over you, I killed her.”
I sit forward, craning my neck to look back at him, taken off guard by his news. “You would have chosen her over me?”
“My love for her was deep, Ky. She held a piece of me.”
“Was she a Creation?”
“No, she was a Normal. Totally human.”
“You killed her?” I ask, wide-eyed, unable to shake my shock.
“And broke my heart.” His voice falters as his head falls back against the wall. He clears his throat after a long silence. “But that was a while ago. A year ago.”
“You never told me any of this,” I say sympathetically. Sympathy: feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune.
“I didn’t need to.”
“You tell me everything.”
“No, you tell me everything. She was a secret because of my feelings for her, because I cared for her so much, she wasn’t good for me. When I started caring for her more than I cared about you…” He closes his eyes. “I couldn’t just walk away. I couldn’t just tell her I no longer wanted to be with her. The temptation would have stayed. The desire would have still been there.”
“So you killed her so she wouldn’t be a distraction from our domination and to meet the Vojin’s requirement to have both twins at their point of action.”
His brows knit. “When she died, her body engulfed with a blinding beam of light and…pop, she burst. Maybe from the bullet I used or maybe because I killed the light of my life.” Shrugging, he rubs his eyes. “I don’t know.” He nods and looks at me. “Sorry I lied to you,” he says in a small voice with hurt in his eyes.
“How were you able to love?” I pinch my nose, seeing the pained look on his face. “It looks like it hurts.”
“That could be another reason why it’s restricted. It does hurt. And it makes you feel weird. I don’t know how, but it happened. I didn’t like it.” He lets go of a deep inhale. “It’s not that we physically don’t or can’t have these feelings. We’re just not supposed to. We’re supposed to be strong enough to fight them, wise enough to not fall victim to them.” He clears his throat. “I think the Guidance knows we possess feelings, but they conditioned us to be numb to them, though they gave us the ability to understand them so we can relate to the Normals’ emotional states.”
He shrugs.
I wipe my palms on my pants, awed by the man sitting next to me. “You could’ve told me all of this, and I would have understood. I still think it’s not fair you don’t like me even conversing with boys. But I would’ve understood why you don’t want me talking to Cory.”
“Cory’s good at convincing you to do things,” he says pensively. “He’ll be talking to you one moment and kissing you the next. That could lead to something else.” He scratches the back of his head. “Girls get attached. Maybe not Creations, but you must consider, we are made differently. Though you don’t have any affection for him, attraction is just as bad. You don’t need to feed into that. Talk to him, fine. But do not take it past that.”
“We came pretty close to kissing once.”
Disappointment steals Luke’s peaceful expression. “See, that’s what I mean. And you like him. What else?” he questions, disapproval thick in his tone.
“I don’t know,” I say, sitting back against the wall. “Nothing happened.”
“Cut him loose, Ky. Because you don’t know, that’s why you need to leave him alone. Who knows what he could be trying to convince you into doing? Stop talking to him,” he orders.
“Stop doing what you’re doing,” I shoot at him. How can he say what I can and can’t do? “You are doing things way worse than I am. I’m sure the Guidance and the Vojin will be against the lengths you have gone to.”
“I’m sure they do not care about my lengths. They know what I’m willing to risk to stay.”
“What do you mean?”
“Most are separated from their families: no agency, no government, or any other form of being. We are kept apart from those we may fall for, to make sure our twin is our only priority. I’ve proven there is no risk to them, with my feelings of attraction or love,” he whispers the word. Rolling his eyes, he stands. “I’ve shown them that even at my weakest moment, for the things I care for the most, for the ones…” His voice lowers, and it shakes as he says, “For her…” He stretches his hands over his head, looking off at nothing. “I’ll eliminate them, whoever and whatever they are, for us and for our purpose.” He relaxes his knitted brows but the pain
doesn’t leave his narrowed eyes. “I will tolerate no distractions, no inconveniences, and no disturbances. So what I do is not their concern. They know I’ll stay firm, no matter the costs―for our purpose with them and the purpose of being a Creation.” He cracks his neck as he stretches his back. “As long as they do not threaten or hurt you.”
“Same here, Luke.” I can’t believe there was a girl he loved. I can’t even explain what love is, and here he is, describing it to me like he still feels it. “Do you still love her?”
“Yes…” His voice trails off as if he wants to add something but doesn’t. Instead, he follows with, “You sleeping in your own room tonight?”
I knit my brows as I say, “No.” He must be joking.
He laughs, lightening the mood. “How could you have a relationship anyway? How would you explain sleeping with your brother?”
“He would have to understand,” I say, laughing as I get up from the bed. “Hey sweetheart, I’m an eighteen-year-old girl who sleeps with her brother. When’s our next date?” I crinkle the side of my face, shaking my head. “No, that doesn’t sound right.”
“It wouldn’t be like that anyway. The only things you would do together are train and fight. On our cool-off days, you and him could sit next to each other in the mess hall, but that would be it. No special evenings like we used to see back home or on television.”
“I didn’t think about it like that.”
As we leave from my room into the hall, he says, “Well, Ky, that would be the future of a relationship living in Separation.”
“There are no relationships living in Separation,” I think aloud. “If we were meant to have relationships, we would’ve been born Breeders and not created killers.” I finish my thought out loud, wanting Luke to respond, but as we conclude the short walk to his room, he stays silent.
Luke opens the door. “Luke, I’ve been waiting for you.” A girl lies across his bed, completely naked. Noticing he’s not alone, she quickly grabs pillows and blankets to cover her exposed body.
“Another one, Luke?” I say in disgust, pointing at her.
The Separation Trilogy Box Set: Books 1 -3 Page 9
