An Outcast and an Ally

by Caitlin Lochner

  “Hey, that was once, and it was a mistake anyone could’ve made,” I say.

  “Pretty sure you’re the only one who’s caught the food on fire, though,” Al mutters.

  “Learning curve.”

  She rolls her eyes.

  Erik goes to the single mattress, pretty much signaling the end of the night’s conversation. “I’m going for a walk in the morning. I’ll pick up food on the way.”

  “Be careful,” Jay says.

  Erik waves a hand vaguely over his shoulder in response. He’s already lying facedown on the mattress. His thoughts are preoccupied with a multitude of things, and I don’t know whether or not I should say something to him. It feels like I should, but I have no idea what I could say.

  Not that it matters. In another few moments, he’s out. He used his gift so much tonight, it’s little wonder he’s exhausted. I’ll have to think of something before he comes back from his walk in the morning and then try talking to him. I don’t like this feeling of growing distance.

  I feel Jay’s eyes on me again, but I can’t bring myself to look at him. You can’t avoid this forever, Lai. Putting it off is only hurting us. I’m sorry.

  Again, I don’t reply to Jay’s thoughts. I know he’s right. I know I need to do something. And the longer I put off telling Al and Erik about the Order, the angrier they’ll be when I finally do. But when I think about actually sitting them down and telling them everything, and then taking them to the Order, I can’t help but feel a little sick. Paul’s face flashes before my eyes—when we go back, I’ll have to face Regail Hall without his presence. His death is going to be so much more real.

  I push down a threatening wave of grief and guilt—and anger. If Al hadn’t separated from us during that ambush to chase after her brother, we could’ve escaped. Paul would still be alive. And I can’t forgive her for that yet.

  How am I supposed to share the most important thing in my life, something I would die for in a heartbeat, with someone who’s barely here mentally and someone whose actions led to the death of one of my oldest friends?

  2

  ERIK

  BETWEEN BEING STUCK with people who’re driving me up the wall and annoying thoughts about the rebels, I don’t know which is gonna cave my head in first. Gods, what I wouldn’t give to go somewhere quiet and be alone. Just for a while.

  Go where? a voice scoffs in the back of my head. You’re a wanted criminal, idiot.

  A criminal even though I stuck around. A criminal even though I turned down the chance to join the rebels and find out more about the past I have no memories of. A criminal for choosing the “right” thing.

  Screw this.

  I stride through the streets like I’m any other normal Etiole and no one looks at me twice. So much for being wanted. So long as I don’t act guilty, no one’ll think I am. But I make the mistake of looking down a side alley and seeing some kid getting beaten up by a few middle-aged guys. From the ground, his arms make a weak shield as the men shower him with kicks. I wonder if he’s actually a Nyte or if the men just think he is. Not like it matters.

  I flick my fingers and the men go flying back through the air. The kid blinks at them. Then he runs for it. I don’t go after him to ask if he’s okay. Being the hero isn’t really my thing. But after that, I keep my hat—found in this mystery apartment we’ve been staying in—drawn lower over my eyes.

  This is why I hate going out into the city. At least in the military Nytes were left alone. Not treated as equals, but not beaten up. Not only because the army knew the gifted were saving their asses, but because anyone who tried to gang up on a trained gifted soldier was just going to end up in the infirmary. But out here in the city, the sector’s attitude toward Nytes has just gotten worse thanks to the rebel gifted.

  The streets are quiet. After the rebels attacked the sector and declared war, it’s like people finally realized they were an actual threat. Took them long enough. Groups stand in doorways and talk quietly. Forced laughs mix with the shouts of the vendors going about their business. Eyes shift back and forth, searching. Everyone under the age of twenty keeps their head down. I guess even the ungifted kids have something to fear, since there are no obvious physical differences between Nytes and Etioles. It must be so hard for them, having to be afraid they’ll be accused of being gifted. I try not to think of the kid I saw taking all those kicks.

  I weave through the thin crowds easily. Every time I turn a corner, my eyes automatically search for the easiest exit from whatever road I’m on. A side alley between two towering, ugly apartment buildings. An open gate to a shopping center. The walkways that cross back and forth overhead cast shadows down here—definitely helpful for hiding. The sky and dome beyond them are invisible through the spiderwebbing paths.

  “What are we going to do if they attack the dome?” I overhear someone whisper. “If the glass breaks, the air Outside will kill us all.”

  “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine,” someone answers. I’m a good enough liar to recognize doubt when I hear it. “It’d take more than some rebel demons to break the dome. Besides, we have the military and High Council to protect us. They’d never let anything like that happen.”

  Now there’s a good joke. I try not to laugh as I keep moving. The military and the High Council are going to protect everyone? They couldn’t protect a piece of paper if their lives depended on it.

  Why did I think it was such a good idea to stay with the military for so long? Sure, they’re the ones who found me injured Outside the sector’s gates and took me in despite my total amnesia, but I knew they were shady. After their information database couldn’t tell me anything about my past, I should’ve left. I could’ve made something work on my own. I never would’ve ended up in this situation.

  But then I never would’ve met my team. Would that’ve been a good thing or not? I want to think I’d be better off without the lot of them, but I know that’s just because we’ve been fraying since the ambush. It’s only thanks to them that I started paying attention to the present instead of just blindly chasing after my past. If I hadn’t met my teammates, how would I have felt when I found out I used to be a rebel? Would I have just been happy to have clues, a place to go back to? Would there’ve been any of this dread?

  One thing’s for sure—only clue to my past or not, I don’t want to go back to being a rebel. I’ve seen what they do to innocent people. I’m no pinnacle of morality, but even I can’t accept their violence.

  There’s nowhere I actually want to go—I just needed to finally get some space from everyone—so I let my feet lead me down a side street lined with makeshift stalls. Some beat-up sign says it’s a craft fair, this weekend only. There’re a bunch of shops selling jewelry and paintings, but some sell bigger wares like furniture, too. Spindly tables sit next to elegant wooden chairs. A wooden footrest carved in the shape of a rosebush sticks out like a gaudy sore thumb. I stop to get a better look at a chair with birds etched along the backing. When I run my fingers over the detailed carvings, an itch to create stings my hands.

  Man, I miss Central’s woodshop. Everything else about being in the military might have sucked, but at least I had that. I wonder what they did with all my stuff after we were arrested. Did they throw away the furniture I made? Sell it? Burn it? What about my sketchbooks? I don’t really care about the furniture, but I poured my soul into those drawings. Now they’re probably at the bottom of a trash can somewhere.

  Great. Just great.

  A hand on my shoulder nearly gives me a heart attack. I spin around to find a kid, maybe around fourteen years old, behind me. He’s pretty small, with bronze-colored skin, unruly black hair, and intense brown eyes staring at me from out of a small, angular face.

  Ice trickles down my spine. I know this kid. He was one of the rebel leaders at the ambush they set up to kill us.

  Do I run? Punch him in the face? That’d give me a good head start. But his hands shoot up, palms out, and he says, “I’m not here
to fight. I just want to talk.”

  “Talk.” I take a step back. “Right.” Stalls run up and down the whole street, blocking some of the alley entrances, but there was an opening a few yards back. I can cause a distraction with my gift and make a run for it.

  The kid reads me easily. “It’d be better for both of us if you don’t cause a scene. Just hear me out.”

  “That’s rich coming from one of the rebels who tried to kill me and my teammates not that long ago.” I flex my hands, reaching for my gift. But then I remember this guy probably has some kind of neutralization power crystal. I won’t be able to use my telekinesis on him. Could he stop me from using my gift at all?

  The kid grabs his elbow. It’s the same thing Jay does when he gets nervous. “I know. I know you have no reason to trust me. I know the last time you saw me, we were on opposite sides of a battle. But I had to see you again.” His eyes focus on the chair behind me. “I couldn’t just leave things like that. I wanted to talk—one last time. Please.”

  A likely story. Gods, I go out on my own for the first time since before the ambush and a rebel leader finds me in less than twenty minutes. Just my luck.

  But … ever since I got back to Sector Eight, I’ve been dealing with the fact that I’m shit out of luck when it comes to learning more about my past. And now someone who probably knew me says he wants to talk. This could be my chance. My only chance. Even if he is a rebel.

  I’m still trying to decide what to do when the kid speaks again. His eyes stay on the chair. “Pretend we’re looking at the market together. We look too suspicious just standing here.” He heads to the next stall before I can answer.

  Ugh. This is such a pain.

  When I catch up to him, he’s pretending to admire a necklace. He holds it up to the light, runs the chain through his fingers as he talks quietly. “My name is Cal. We were best friends. You taught me how to fight and saved me more times than I can count. When you went missing, I searched everywhere for you. But when I finally found you, it was already…”

  “Let me guess,” I say, “you’re here to convince me to come back to the rebels.”

  He shakes his head, surprising me. “No. If this is the decision you’ve made, then I won’t try to force you to come back. I just wanted to talk to you again.”

  When the stall vendor comes over and starts talking to us, the kid humors her, asking about the necklace, the materials, how much time it took to make, the price, before he sets it back down on the blanket-covered display stand and keeps walking. I follow.

  “I don’t remember you,” I say.

  “I know.”

  “All I know about you is that you ambushed me and my team at that fake negotiations meeting.”

  His back is to me, but I swear I see him flinch. “I know.”

  I wait for him to justify himself, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t try to say that he never thought I’d refuse to come back to the rebels or that he’d be forced to fight me. He doesn’t make any excuses, and that makes me like him a bit more. Not that I like him at all. He’s an enemy. Not a friend.

  I sigh and make it obvious I’m not happy about any of this.

  The kid—Cal—stops at another stall, this one selling hanging chimes. Streamers tied to silver, tinkling cylinders blow gently in the wind. The vendor is nowhere in sight.

  “Fine,” I say. “What did you want to talk about?”

  I don’t think my voice has lost any of its hostility, but Cal brightens. “I thought I could tell you about your past. Or, at least, what I know of it. I could answer questions you have about your time with us.” He hesitates, then adds all in a rush, “I know you don’t remember me, but I remember you. To me, you’re still my best friend, and I want to help you.”

  His burst of sincerity catches me off guard. His eyes are shining, almost desperate, and I get the feeling he’s being honest.

  No, what if that’s just what he wants me to think? Or what if he’s using his gift to manipulate my emotions or what I’m seeing? Nytes with unknown gifts can’t be trusted, and especially not a rebel Nyte—and especially especially not a higher-up rebel Nyte. No matter how earnest he seems, it doesn’t mean anything when I don’t know him.

  “Did Ellis send you?” I ask. What if this is just a trap she set up to get to me?

  Cal hesitates. Shakes his head. “She doesn’t know I’m here. I shouldn’t be. It’s too risky now that there’s war.” He looks at me, expression caught somewhere between misery and desperation. “But I had to see you. And help you out if I could. This is the last chance I’ll get.”

  His intensity makes me hesitate. Is this really a trick? Were we actually close? I’d thought about former friends in a vague, offhand way before, but I guess I never thought that I had to have had them and that they must’ve been worried when I disappeared.

  Something in my chest twists. Damn it all.

  I flick one of the thicker wind chimes. A low, dull sound rings out. “You’ll really answer my questions?”

  “As best I can.”

  My shoulders tense. I can ask anything I want. About the people who were important to me, what I was doing with the rebels, what I’d been doing before all that. I can’t trust whatever he says. But I can’t stop my heart from pounding with excitement, either.

  I open my mouth to ask how and why I joined the rebels, but the words that come out are, “Do I have any family?”

  No, wait. I didn’t want to ask that—it wasn’t even something I’d known I was thinking about. And it makes me sound weak in front of this rebel.

  The lines around Cal’s eyes soften. I wish I could take the words back. “I don’t really know the details—you never wanted to talk about it—but I know you and your parents didn’t … get along,” he says. “You had a younger brother, but you told me he’s dead. You never mentioned how or when.”

  “Oh.” The single exhalation is a betrayal. Don’t show anything. Definitely don’t show anything that could be taken for weakness. Maybe the real reason he’s here is to find something to hold over me by feeding me fake answers. I can’t trust him. I have to treat everything he says as a lie until I have actual proof.

  But my heart still hits the bottom of my stomach.

  I try to get rid of whatever expression is on my face. The vendor rushes over from another stall, apologizing for not noticing us sooner, and we have to fake casual small talk. I imagine hurling the chimes to the ground, the awful noise they’d make as they hit the concrete, the streamers flecked with dirt. I just want to ask my next question already.

  When we’re finally able to move on without looking suspicious, I say, “How’d I end up with the rebels? What was I trying to do with them?”

  A frown turns the corners of Cal’s mouth. “I don’t know. You and Sara founded our group, but you never told me how you guys met or decided to start it. I know you hated the Etioles, though.”

  Ellis had said something like that at the ambush, too, but the thought that I helped form the rebels still makes me sick. “Yeah? And why’d I hate the Etioles?”

  “You never told me the reason, but it was pretty obvious you did. You never showed them any mercy. You couldn’t wait to see the day we’d killed them all.”

  My stomach turns, but I keep my face neutral. What could’ve made me that hateful? Maybe it’s a good thing I never told Cal the reason. I don’t think I want to know.

  When Cal looks like he’s about to stop at another stall, I grab his shoulder and keep him walking down the street. He glances at me but doesn’t say anything.

  “You don’t actually seem to have a whole lot of answers, you know.” I drop my hand from him.

  “It’s not my fault you never talked about yourself,” Cal says. “I said I’d answer your questions the best I could. If you want someone to blame for the lack of answers, blame your past self for being so closed off.” He crosses his arms, lifts his chin. The display of backbone ups my respect for him a little.

  “Fine,” I s
ay. “Then my time with the rebels.” But I hesitate. Do I really want to know about that? It’s bad enough knowing I really did want to wipe out all the Etioles for some reason. Supposedly. What worse things could I find out?

  No. Don’t forget that I can’t trust him or anything he says. I don’t know what he’s playing at yet.

  “You said we were friends,” I say. “How’d we meet?”

  Cal ducks his head, but I still catch the edge of his smile. Is he … happy I asked about him? “You saved me,” he says. “I was being attacked by a group of Etioles in Sector Eight. If you hadn’t stepped in, they probably would’ve killed me. You even treated my injuries.”

  Now that doesn’t sound like me. My policy has always been to keep my head down. Subtly saving someone with my gift and not having to take responsibility for it is one thing. But actually showing myself? No way. Just how different was I before? Then again, that’s one thing about my past self that might’ve been better than the me now.

  Cal’s eyes fall to the ground. The murmured conversation of vendors, friends, and families hums around us as we keep walking. “You invited me to come with you, Sara, and Joan. I didn’t have anything else, so I said yes. We did everything together after that. Well—mostly. You made a lot of solo infiltration trips into Sector Eight. But other than that, anywhere one of us went, the other went, too.”

  “Except for when I disappeared?” I ask dryly.

  He looks miserable when he says, “It was just a routine raid. We’d done dozens before—that time shouldn’t have been any different. But the military knew we were coming. They were ready when our team came.”

  Now that sparks my interest. “What do you mean?”

  “The military ambushed us. They separated our team and hit hard with more soldiers than the five of us could handle. There was no choice but to run and try to regroup after. I thought—I thought for sure that you out of all of us had made it out, that you’d already retreated—if I’d known you hadn’t—that you’d—”