An Outcast and an Ally

by Caitlin Lochner

  I pull my eyes from him as Peter begins the usual rundown. “Afternoon, all. My name’s Peter, and this is Jay.” I nod in greeting to everyone and he goes on. “As you heard last time, we’re going to do some simple checks on everyone today using our gifts to confirm you’re here for genuine reasons and not to hurt the Order.” He gestures to the four chairs separate from where everyone currently sits, two on each side of the room. “You need to get approval from both of us in order to pass. One at a time, in whatever order you like. We’ll just be asking some easy questions, so no need to be nervous.”

  I survey the candidates, forcing Father out of my focus, and check their presences on my grid. Everyone’s uneasy, but not suspiciously so. No. Wait. There’s one light-haired boy in the back who’s more unsettled than the others, though he doesn’t show it visibly.

  When I look at him, he meets my gaze almost defiantly. My fingers tap against my clipboard. Something’s wrong. However, he isn’t doing anything suspicious for the moment, and if anything’s off, Peter or I will catch it. Everything will be fine.

  “Any questions?” Peter asks. “No? None? Then let’s get started.”

  We split off to our separate chairs and wait. At first, no one steps up to either of us. No one ever wants to be the first. However, soon enough, a middle-aged woman comes to sit in the seat across from me, and a young boy goes to Peter. I keep an eye on the light-haired boy, but he sticks to his seat and speaks to no one. Father doesn’t so much as look at me. Why in the gods’ names is he here?

  Focus, focus. I smile at the nervous woman in front of me. “Good afternoon,” I say. “Are you doing well?”

  “What? Oh. Oh, yes.” She seems thrown off by my casual question—or perhaps it’s because of my wanted criminal status—so I attempt to make my posture more relaxed to appear less threatening. It’s difficult with Father sitting not so far away.

  “You don’t need to worry,” I say. “I’m just going to ask you a few questions.”

  “Of course. Please, go ahead.”

  “Why do you wish to join the Amaryllis Order?”

  “Well, I…” The woman hesitates. Then she straightens and meets my gaze. Her presence beats anxiously but with sincerity when she says, “I just don’t think it’s right, the way Nytes are treated. I know the rumors about how the military’s abusing Nytes—and I’ve seen it myself on the streets. Something’s got to change, and if there’s anything I can do to help, then I want to do it.”

  There’s no itch behind my eyes to indicate she’s lying. I smile. “Thank you. I truly appreciate hearing that.”

  She hesitates once more. “You’re the same, aren’t you? Everyone knows about the attempted peace meeting and your team’s arrest. People saw it happen from their windows. I—I’m sorry.”

  That, I wasn’t expecting. The people we screen often recognize me. However, they don’t typically comment on my bad record with the sector. We always act as if that doesn’t exist, as though I’m any other regular person. Her words give me warmth.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I say. “But thank you. Really.”

  Her presence relaxes a little, and I feel already that she’ll be fine to join us. But I continue with the questions, and once we’ve finished and she comes up clear, I let her know and ask for the next person.

  The potential recruits trickle through. Father approaches neither me nor Peter initially, but as more and more people finish, he eventually goes to Peter. I try not to let it bother me. I attempt to ignore him as I screen the others, and surprisingly, it isn’t that difficult. His being here doesn’t change anything. I have a job to do, and I’m going to do it.

  And then Father comes to me. There are still a few people left, including the light-haired boy I got a strange feeling from earlier, but I wonder if Father decides it’d be better to get talking to me over with, because he sits himself down before me with all the self-purpose I remember him possessing.

  Pretend he’s just like everyone else. Merely a stranger I’m screening. “Good afternoon.” I look straight at him. “I’m going to ask you a few simple questions. Please answer as truthfully as possible in order to avoid any confusion.”

  “You mean, or else your demonic power will activate.” He says the statement with no true malice, which nearly makes it worse.

  “I’ll now begin. Why do you wish to join the Amaryllis Order?”

  “Are we truly going to play this game?”

  “You will answer my questions or I will be unable to clear you. If you do not wish to cooperate, you may leave at any time.” I keep my voice calm, nonthreatening. I don’t want him to think that anything he says has an effect on me.

  He leans forward so his elbows rest on his knees and lowers his voice so no one else in the small room will hear. “I came because I thought you might be here.”

  I blink at him over the rims of my glasses. He’s not lying. He was looking for me? “That seems an insufficient reason to join our organization,” I say reflexively. “This is a commitment, not a lost and found. We’re serious in our efforts for peace.”

  He leans back again, inscrutable as I remember. However, there’s something in his expression that I can’t place, even when I check his presence on my grid. The fact that I can’t tell what he’s feeling, something I often know intuitively about someone even without relying on my gift, is disconcerting.

  “If you were to join, in what capacities would you be willing and able to assist the Order?” I ask.

  Father doesn’t say anything for an extended period of time. He merely watches me, a game of his I remember all too well. In the past, I would generally avoid his gaze or say whatever it was I knew he wanted to hear. Now, I return his stare, refusing to back down.

  And the more I look at him, the more I wonder why I was ever so overwhelmed by him. He’s nowhere near as intimidating as Al when she wants to be, nor as resolute, devoted, and hardworking as Lai, nor even as single-mindedly decisive about going after what he wants as Erik. He could never kill me like the many rebels I’ve faced in battle, and there’s nothing he could possibly take from me anymore.

  I can’t believe this man once appeared so huge to me. At one time, he was the biggest problem in my life. Now, I worry about my friends dying, losing my own life, doing something that could put the Order in jeopardy. In comparison to all the life-ending fears I grapple with on a daily basis, any sort of worry to do with my father is nothing.

  When I realize this, it feels as though a chain I hadn’t known was locked around my chest suddenly snaps clean off. There’s nothing this man can do to me anymore. There’s no reason for me to be concerned about him. I no longer want his approval when he has so little for me to even respect about him, and that was the last thing he had over me. With that gone, I’m free.

  Free.

  I smile. The sudden gesture clearly takes Father by surprise. His lips purse together, and I can nearly see the gears turning behind his eyes. Finally, he says, “I would be able to supply food and funds. I heard from one of the other members that the Order is searching for those who can assist in such regards.”

  “That is correct,” I say. “I take it you would not be participating in battle, nor would you have a need to live in the Order’s home base?”

  He smiles wryly. “No to both.”

  “Do you mean any harm to the Order?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any reason to betray the Order in the future?”

  “No.”

  Still no lies. And that was the last of my questions. Besides, if Peter already cleared him, he’s likely fine. “That’s all,” I say. “You have my clearance. I still think you might want to reconsider your reason for being interested in the Order, but other than that, there are no problems. Thank you for your time. You may return to your seat. We will discuss the next steps from here once everyone has been screened.”

  He doesn’t move. “That’s it?”

  “That is all of my questions, yes.”r />
  He stares at me with the expression of one who doesn’t recognize the person he’s looking at. “You don’t have anything to say to me?”

  “As I said, I have finished my questions—”

  “Not the questions,” he hisses.

  It’s unusual for him to lose his composure. I watch him calmly. I won’t let him decide the pace.

  He realizes his slip and smooths down his shirt, taking a moment to regain himself.

  “I don’t know what you want from me,” I say. “We have nothing more to discuss. We haven’t had anything to discuss in years.”

  “You left and decided that was the end of things on your own.”

  “I don’t recall you trying to stop me.”

  “So this is my fault now?”

  “It was never anyone’s fault.” As the words leave my mouth, I realize I mean it. “Things were only going to get worse the longer we stayed near each other. You couldn’t stand me. I couldn’t stand living in a place I knew I wasn’t wanted. It was for the best—for both of us.”

  He continues to look at me as though he has no idea who I am. “You can’t be serious. After everything I’ve done for you—you wouldn’t have anything without me.” I hold his gaze without flinching. “I could’ve abandoned you when I discovered you were a Nyte, but I raised you. I gave you the best education, raised you to inherit the company I’ve worked my entire life for—but you threw it all away. And now that I’ve finally found you, you have nothing to say to me?”

  Despite myself, despite knowing that staying calm would be the bigger victory here, I say, “If you truly wanted me around, then why did you never once try to contact me in the military? It would have been easy for you, but you never did, even though I sent you letters every year. Even when I was put on a frontline team, you remained silent.”

  He doesn’t appear to have an answer for that.

  My voice lowers. “I know you blame me for Mother’s death.” His head snaps up, but I keep going. “I understand why. But I can’t live with someone who would rather I didn’t exist.”

  I think of how much happier I’ve been since knowing my team. Getting to know them, their strengths and their flaws, becoming friends with them—it’s made me feel more real than I can ever recall. I feel like I finally have a reason to live. Not for those people, but because of them. They taught me what it means to be true to myself and what I want. And I’ve come to realize that anything or anyone that makes me feel unhappy or unfulfilled is not something I want. I deserve better than that.

  “There are still others I need to screen,” I say. “Please return to your seat.”

  He stands, reluctantly, and I think he’ll say something, but he merely rejoins the rest of the group. I wait until he’s seated once more before I turn my attention to the light-haired boy from earlier. He’s sitting very still with his eyes staring straight ahead and his chin slightly lifted, as though he’s trying to portray confidence in having nothing to hide. However, people with nothing to hide are never that stiff or nervous.

  “You,” I say, and hold out a hand toward him. I attempt to sound oblivious. “We haven’t spoken yet, have we? Please, come.”

  He walks over to me with a physical self-assuredness that his presence on my grid doesn’t reflect.

  When he sits across from me, I smile. “Nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

  “Alex Holt.”

  An itch behind my eyes. I flip through the pages on my clipboard until I get to his profile, using the motion to discreetly check the throwing knife tucked inside my sleeve. “Ah, here we are. Then I’ll begin the questions. Why do you wish to join the Order?”

  “I want to create a better world for the gifted.”

  That’s not a lie, but it does make me think this boy is likely with the rebels. Ringing fills my ears. I want to alert Peter, but there’s nothing I can do without signaling to “Holt” that I’ve caught on to him.

  I force myself to smile once more. “I can understand that. In what capacities would you be willing and able to assist the Order?”

  “I can fight,” he says. “I’ll fight with the Order against the rebels until we reach peace.”

  Another lie. “You’re against the rebels, then?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you’ve never been part of their organization?”

  “Never.”

  Lies, lies, lies. There’s no point keeping up this charade any longer. I ready the blade up my sleeve before I murmur, “You’re not a very good liar, are you? Tell me, are you here to spy on the Order for the rebels?”

  He stares at me dumbly for half a heartbeat. Then he lunges at me.

  I duck underneath his outstretched arms and roll off my chair, landing in a crouch on my feet. He follows, thrusting a dagger toward my chest. Someone shouts. I dodge behind him and swing my leg at the backs of his knees. He isn’t fast enough to react. He falls.

  Before he has the chance to recover, I grab his arm and shove him face-first onto the floor, twisting the arm behind him and shoving my knee into his back to keep him down. As soon as he’s incapacitated, I grab his other arm so he can’t try anything. The dagger clatters out of his grip.

  “You’re slow,” I say. A lot slower than Lai and Al, who I’ve been practicing with for the past several months. I didn’t even need my knife. “Peter?”

  “Already on it; he can’t use his gift,” Peter says as he walks toward us. He holds up a wrist, the bracelet strung with power crystals on it in clear display—including the neutralization crystal he received from Gabriel. A story Lai was sad to tell.

  The potential recruits are talking, but I don’t take the time to distinguish what’s being said.

  “It’s the first time we’ve caught a rebel spy,” Peter says.

  “What should we do with him?” I ask.

  “Let me go,” the boy snarls. He struggles to get loose beneath me. I tighten my grip.

  “Not a bad idea,” Peter says thoughtfully.

  I raise my eyebrows at him.

  “Why don’t you go back and report your failure to Ellis?” Peter asks the boy. He crouches by his head so they can see each other clearly. “Tell her we aren’t going to let you or anyone else slip through our ranks. She can try as much as she wants, but she’s going to fail. Consider this a warning. We’ll let you live, but the next person isn’t going to be so lucky.” Peter’s eyes narrow. “And if you try anything funny on your way out, this isn’t going to end so well for you. We have a deal?”

  The boy doesn’t say anything. Despite his bravado, I can sense his fear on my grid. He doesn’t want to die. Finally, he nods.

  I reluctantly release my grip on him and get up so he can stand.

  He does, hesitantly. He looks back at me and Peter, and for a heartbeat, I think he’s going to attempt attacking again after all. However, he turns and races out the apartment door. I track his presence on my grid as he runs and runs, never once pausing. I keep an eye on him just in case he doubles back to attempt following us later.

  Peter turns to our still-muttering assembly. They fall quiet when he speaks. “Sorry for the interruption, folks. But I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that we’re in the middle of a war—one that the Order is actively participating in. One that you will soon be participating in if you decide to join us, however directly or indirectly. If you’re afraid, you’re free to leave.”

  When I look back at our small group, it’s to see Father half-standing from his chair. At first, I think it’s because he’s preparing to leave. Then I realize from his posture that he’s been standing and that his presence is a bright red-orange of alarm. Was he frightened by the spy? No, it’s not quite fear he’s feeling. Was he … worried about me?

  He sits back down as I continue to watch him. He won’t meet my eyes.

  “All right, we’re going to need to speed things up,” Peter says with a clap of his hands. “Gotta finish up before any reinforcements can come. It’s a
shame, but we won’t be able to use this place again. Okay, who’s next?”

  17

  ERIK

  IT WAS ELLIS’S idea to have a sparring contest while we wait for Cal’s team to return from the latest raid. We were comparing scouts’ reports on the military’s patrol schedule in her office, but when none of us could focus, Ellis said we’d have a competition. See who was the strongest of the rebel leaders.

  It sounded like a pain. I tried to get out of it, but since Ellis made Gabriel the ref, that left Ellis, Joan, Devin, and me; and Ellis insisted we needed an even number to make it a real contest. Of course Devin was all in. Joan wasn’t excited about it, but she agreed. And since no one else was complaining, I pretty much had to join.

  Ellis beat me easily in the first round, even with our no-gift rule, and after a long, grueling fight, Joan took down Devin. Her disgust for him was obvious as she sent him to the floor. Great. That means I have to fight the maniac next.

  We’re all taking a break now, though. I sit next to Gabriel by the wall while I take a huge pull of water. Luckily, that’s one thing we’ve got plenty of, since there’s an underground lake.

  “I can’t believe we’re actually doing this right now.” I wipe an arm across my forehead to get rid of the sweat. “Man, you’re lucky. I call ref next.”

  Gabriel cracks a small smile. My heart stumbles. “I’m not envious of you. But you are doing well, you know.”

  “Please. It took Ellis all of, what, two minutes to take me down? That girl’s a Feral.”

  “Really, Erik, give yourself a little more credit. It had to have been two and a half minutes at least.”