Wait for me, I beg the world. I need you there to come home to.
Of course, I could be here for years. Do I really expect him to wait that long? Is it fair on me to want him to? I wouldn't want him to mourn forever, although the smallest part of me finds the idea a little romantic.
I close my eyes for a moment, and imagine his face upon my return.
The door opens and Adam waltzes inside, paying me no heed. I turn the page; I must make it look like I am reading.
Adam plucks a book from the shelf, leans against it casually, and begins to flick through. I try to count the pattering and ignore his eyes on me. I turn another page, listen, turn, listen–
“You're listening to the rain,” says Adam. “You like it.”
“You may be vastly inferior to me in almost every respect, but I will credit your powers of observation.”
Adam grins. “There's the Eve I remember.”
“The confident one?”
“The funny one.”
“I was attempting to be insulting, not humorous.” I turn again. “How... how do you know I'm not really reading?”
“Your eyes aren't skimming the words, the turning is too rhythmic, and your head is slightly angled towards the ceiling.”
It's a fine deduction, unsettling though it is. I don't like it when he can see right through me. I never minded when it was Gabe, who always knew, and I never minded when it was Nick, who also always knew but in a different way. Adam... Adam's observations are intrusive. I feel like I've lost something in the process.
“I've said something that unnerves you. Do you not like how I pick up on your little ways?”
“You know I don't.”
“You never mind when it's Gabe.”
“He's my partner. Or was.”
“I could be your partner. Wouldn’t that make sense? We are the strongest after all.”
“Gabe won in the tournament. Why don’t you ask him if he wants to buddy up with you?”
“You and I both know you lost on purpose. Come on, Eve. You know it makes sense. Don’t you think we belong together?”
“I don't want you for a partner.” I slam my book closed and jam it back into the shelf behind him, crossing the room to await release.
“You're pining for someone, aren't you? I thought it was your unit at first, but now... now I think it's someone a little more romantic. I think you found someone else on the outside. Someone human.”
Don't let him see any more.
“Whatever happened to me outside does not matter now. I am here where I'm supposed to be. I will serve however I am ordered.”
“And what if they ordered you to kill that person? What if they asked you to walk back into that little rebellion of yours, and set it ablaze?”
This is a test. Stay strong.
“I will do as I am ordered.”
Adam laughs. “Almost convincing. Not quite. I'm happy to give you lessons, if you like. If you want to be the perfect soldier, you should be keen to learn.”
“Well, when I find an effective teacher, maybe I will be.”
The door clicks open, and a guard waits to escort me back to my room.
Chapter 14
I want Gabe. I want to speak to him. Or just be close enough to feel him. To feel anything real. The desire is breaking me apart. I pace around my room, not caring if they're watching. I press myself up against every crevice, hoping to get close enough to feel him wherever he is.
There's a few, flickering moments, where it almost works. But not quite. Eventually I tire myself out, fall into an uneasy sleep, and dream of Nick. It hurts to wake.
I finally get a moment to talk to Gabe in the yard after breakfast.
“What's wrong?” he asks. “Last night, I thought I felt–”
I want to get out of here. Adam's onto me. I'm going mad. I don't know what they want with me. I miss home. I miss Nick.
Nick, Nick, Nick...
“Whoa,” Gabe holds up his hands, “slow down!”
“I... I didn't say anything.”
“Breathe. You're overthinking. You don't want to have a panic attack.”
He's right. I don't know what they'd do with me, but I'd probably have to spend a week in psych. More lie detectors. More probing.
I breathe. “What does the Director want me to do?” I ask him. “I'm so confused.”
“I think he wants you to be the Eve you were before. A rebel and a leader.”
“He wants me to rebel?”
“I think he just wants you to think for yourself.”
“I don't know how to do that and do what's expected of me.”
Gabe shrugs. “You'll figure it out. You always do.”
Not alone.
Gabe is possibly romanticising the past, because I rarely figured things out alone. I relied on him, Mi and Abi. Especially Abi. Who wouldn't rely on a human computer if they had it?
Before I can lose myself too much in missing my sister, Eva jostles past me. She flashes me a strange look, somewhere between a scowl and a grin.
“She's a character,” I remark.
“That she is.”
“Adam calls her Eva. I think she's like an updated version of me.”
“Would make sense. She looks a lot like you. And the fire–”
“She's a master.”
“She's been trained.”
I wonder what I could do with my powers, if I was trained. Could I melt through metal? Learn how to fly? I joked about that once with Nick, but the truth is, I have no idea what I'm capable of. This is not something I've felt for a long time.
Gabe smiles. “You've got a plan.”
“I've got something.”
I march over to the nearest guard, who turns his weapon on me the second I approach. I recognise him, at least in part. His face is a bit of a blur, but there are burn marks on his wrists. We've met before under less pleasant circumstances.
“Fear not,” I say, holding up my arms and flashing my dampeners, “I shall not attack, and apologise for lashing out before.” Thing is, I am sorry about that. I didn't really want to hurt anyone. I just wasn't thinking. In that moment, I would have torn him apart if I'd had the opportunity. That isn't me.
“I wish to pass on a message to the Director. If he sees fit, I should like to learn how to control my powers, using whatever restrictions he deems necessary.”
The guard scoffs. “He's not going to allow that.”
I grit my teeth. “Forgive me,” I say, as softly as I can manage, “I only mean to serve.”
I'm not sure that particular guard will pass on my message, but I'm unperturbed. I'll mention it to another tonight, and then another tomorrow morning... one of them will pass it on. If the Director wants to see some kind of progress, he'll have to loosen my leash a little.
And when he lets it off entirely... I'll bite off his hand. I'll burn this place to the ground. I'll escape for good. I'll take Gabe with me. We'll go home together.
Home, home, home.
“You're excited about something,” Gabe says when I return, “yet it didn't seem to go well.”
“It will,” I tell him. “Just wait.”
Chapter 15
For a few more days, I spread my message around the guards. I try not to sound too desperate, to keep my words polite and direct. My patience almost fails me one afternoon when I ask one of the dinner time guards and he simply sneers and turns away. It takes everything I have not to punch him.
Finally, almost a week after I asked the first guard, the Director summons me to his office.
“Eve!” he says, getting up from his desk. He spreads his arms out, almost as if he expects a hug. His smile is sickening. “I’ve heard you have a request for me.”
You must know what it is, if you’ve summoned me. Don’t make me repeat myself. Do I look like a parrot?
“Yes, sir,” I say, trying to fold away my frustration, “I wish to start learning how to use my powers, if you deem it appropriate.”
>
“Well, it is good to see you taking charge…” He surveys me carefully. “Why now?”
“I saw how well one of the Beta group controlled her powers during the incident last week. I am not sure we could have defeated the robot without her. I wish to be useful; I wish to serve. I need to train to the best of my abilities.”
“I am glad to hear you say that. But the last time you were without your armbands–”
“I was reckless. I know. I was a danger to myself and others. I see that now. You were perfectly correct to shackle me. But if I’m to be useful to you–”
“You are already useful, Eve.”
“I can do more, sir. I know I can. Just give me the chance. I will submit to any and all precautions. Please. Let me…” The next words are a struggle. “...Let me prove myself to you. Let me make you proud.”
The faint flicker of a smile twitches in the corner of his mouth. He sits back down at his desk, folding his hands in his lap. He leans back in his chair, slowly, carefully. “Very well, Eve. I will have something set up. I can’t deny I’m curious to see what you can do…”
◆◆◆
Two days later, right after breakfast, I’m taken to one of the lower levels. There’s a room there, similar to the one I trained in back at Phoenix. White and bare and covered in sprinklers. There’s hoses attached too, and a platform where two scientists are observing from a distance. The Director isn’t here yet, thankfully. I don’t want to perform for him.
The one thing I wasn’t expecting was the addition of another person. Eva is standing in the centre of the room.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, a little more rudely than an obedient soldier should.
Eva scowls. “Training you, obviously.”
One of the scientists speaks into a microphone. “Eve, Beta-6 is here to train you. She’s the only other firestarter we have, and is most proficient.”
“Yeah!” she adds, punching the air. She reminds me, just in that moment, of Ben. I want nothing more in the world than to have him in my arms. “So you’ve got to listen to me!”
The moment is quickly over.
One of the guards who escorted me comes forward to remove my armbands, while his partner keeps his weapon trained firmly on me. They both scuttle away to a safe distance as soon as they’re off.
The flesh underneath the metal is rubbed raw. I heal quickly, generally speaking, but not if the damage is constant. The skin has never had the chance to scab over.
“Come on!” says Eva, not caring at all for my injuries. “Do something!”
One of the scientists speaks up again. “Make some fire when you’re ready, Eve. Show Beta-6 what you can do.”
Starting a flame is easy. I’d mastered this one with Phoenix, as well as turning it off. Any actual control other than that –any trying to make the flames bigger, or move them– tended to result in me setting myself or my surroundings on fire. I’d just figured out that I needed to think the flames rather than just feel them when… when I returned to the Institute and blew it up. That was almost four months ago. I am out of practise.
I will a flame into my palm. Eva sniffs.
“Bigger,” she says, summoning her own. “Hotter.” The flames turn blue.
“I… I don’t know how.”
She fixes me with an incredulous stare. “But you’re so old.”
I’m eighteen, by my count, but of course that seems ancient to a child, even one that looks like a teen. “My powers only activated a few months ago.”
“How did they activate, Eve?” asks one of the scientists.
“I… I accidentally set fire to a building,” I tell them. “It was already filled with gas. Someone was about to shoot. I tried to stop them, but…”
They turn to one another, muting the microphone. I can see them discussing something. Finally, they turn it back on. “Defense then, is your trigger,” they decide. I could have told them that. One of them gestures to Eva.
“All right,” she says cheerfully, hurling a fireball at me.
Instinctively, I drop down to the ground, throwing up my own flame to meet hers. It is expunged as quickly as a droplet of water… but it left my hand.
My first fireball. Nick would be pleased.
Eva stops her assault briefly to clap her hands together, and then fires a barrage of shots at me. It’s all I can do to deflect and roll away. I’m not sure of the point of this, and I’m concerned about the gleeful expression in her eyes.
“What’s the purpose of this exercise?” I ask between shots.
“Practise! Can you deflect each one?”
“I seem to be!”
“All right,” Eva stops. She readies another flame, larger, hotter and brighter than the first. “Deflect this one!”
The sphere is about the size of my head, and appears to increase in size as it hurtles towards me. I hold up both arms, bracing for impact, and am blown against the wall. My flesh burns, but I am not on fire. That’s a new one.
“Hmm,” Eva shrugs. “Better.” She skips towards me and knocks on my head. “Less thinking. More doing.”
“I thought… I thought I was supposed to think? Not feel?”
“Think, sure,” she concludes, “but don’t like… think-think. Just sort of… do.”
“That’s fabulously helpful, thank you.”
She blinks at me, her face breaking into a wide smile. “You’re welcome!”
I guess she doesn’t understand sarcasm?
◆◆◆
We spend another hour or so in there, going over some straight-forward exercises, formations I’ve done a thousand times before. Eva extends hers by adding fire to her punches. It seems as natural to her as breathing. How could she have mastered it so perfectly at such a young age? How long will it take me to meet her? My one advantage is that I am a better fighter; I have years on her in this regard, but this will mean nothing if I can’t get close to her because she’s on fire.
It’s almost a relief when we are told to stop, but then the manacles come back on and the pain seems more intense from the brief break. I try not to let them see my discomfort as I’m escorted back to lessons, but I itch at my wrists under the desk. It’s something boring about the Shift, the period of time preceding the end of the old world, a story we must have heard a hundred times already. It doesn’t take my mind off it.
At lunch, Gabe sits beside me. This is not allowed –he is an Alpha, after all– and he’s bound to get in trouble–
“What are you–”
“What’s wrong? I could feel you all morning–”
“It’s nothing. Just my wrists. They’re sore after the training. Did you know they sent Eva there as well?”
“I guessed as much when you were both absent. Here.”
He reaches under the table with a water bottle and splashes my arms. It’s a simple thing, a small action, but it’s remarkably soothing.
“Better?” he asks.
I nod gratefully. His fingers hover over mine, his flesh warm. Suddenly, before another second can pass, he closes the gap and seizes them. His hands are so much larger than they once were. We were children, the last time we were this close.
Nick.
Gabe frowns, no doubt reading the stirring of a dozen different feelings inside me. I need to tell him, I need to tell him–
“Gabe, I–”
A guard’s shadow cuts across us. “Alpha-1, return to your designated table,” he booms. “You are not to fraternise with the Omegas.”
Gabe’s jaw tightens, and I can hear the unuttered growl press against my mind. He does not let loose a retort, but snatches up his tray and heads back to his own table. He leaves the water bottle behind.
It still seems strange to me to hear them call him by my old designation, strange to have him in my head again, but strangest of all is to have him hold my hand, and me to feel so conscious of its shape. It does not fit in mine like it used to. It should be the most natural thing in the world. But all it do
es is remind me of the hand that isn’t there.
When I finally get to bed, I stuff my hands under the pillows and link my fingers together. I imagine someone else holding them back.
Chapter 16
Nick
April 24th
Today was a terrible day.
It started off merely mediocre. Woke up at seven-thirty, breakfast at eight followed by my scheduled hour of moping in the gym. I’m getting very good at that.
Yes, I can still be funny and heartbroken. You were.
I had a few errands in the morning, a couple of supply runs in the slums, nothing major. Everything was going very smoothly until I got back to base. Everyone was all a-twitter, nervous and gossipy. Apparently, they’d been reports of a pax patient let loose from the city. No big raid this time. Just something subtle. It was almost worse, waiting for the panic, not knowing anything about this person.
◆◆◆
I go straight to Harris. He's scouring through his live footage of the slums. It’s pretty minimal, only covering key areas: the marketplace, the old road, our entrances, the gate to Luca…
“Any truth to these rumours?”
Harris doesn’t even look up from his screens. “Unfortunately, yes. I’ve caught sight of him in a couple of locations. I’m trying to narrow it down…”
Abi's here too, mulling over a map. Her eyes seem to flash when she’s working something out, like they move as fast as her mind. She’s already highlighted one area and is trying to shorten it down.
“We’ve got another problem,” Harris points back to the screen. A group of people are massing, shouldering weapons. A few have guns. They're going to hunt him down before he has time to infect anyone.
Mi appears in the doorway, white-faced and out of breath. “Has anyone seen Ben?”
“He was here just a few minutes ago,” says Abi. “Why?”
“Blue said she thought she saw him slipping out, but wasn’t sure. What… what’s going on?”
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