Thorne nods in silence. I reach out my hand to him, and he takes it, squeezes it, and drops it.
“How long have you been one of these Chainers? How long have you been out here?” Thorne asks.
The soft hum of the engine fills the small space. We bump along over some rocky road, on toward wherever Asher is taking us.
“What do you know about me and Dad?” Asher asks.
Thorne shifts in his seat, clears his throat. “He was chosen by the Elders to go to the North. Mom was pregnant with me, and Kai was three. You wanted to go with him, and the director let you. You died there a couple months later when the Compound was infiltrated by rebels.”
Asher smiles weakly. “That’s not quite how it happened, but the Elders always spin things in ways that make them look good.” He looks at me again through the mirror. “It’s true that they wanted Dad for the trip, but it wasn’t to the North. It was to the Middle, in the old region near the Great Lakes.”
“There’s a Compound there?” Thorne asks.
“Not anymore-it’s fallen. But seventeen years ago, Father agreed to go. Lucian Ambrose asked for Dad’s help, said the Elders wanted him to go, but he didn’t want to leave his wife-and Lucian’s father, the director, refused to let him go. Amelia Ambrose’s pregnancy had been rough, and even at six months she was having difficulties. The Healers feared an early and complicated delivery, and the director refused to have his son and daughter-in-law anywhere but the South.”
He eyes me through the mirror. “I remember your mom. She always brought me lollipops, and I never understood where she got them. She would wink at me and tell me not to share my secret.”
I swallow and try to nod, but it all gets stuck in my throat. My head doesn’t respond to anything, only focuses on not crying. Thorne’s hand finds mine. This is his brother, who he’s found out is alive after seventeen years, and he’s comforting me. I don’t deserve him.
“The orders were only for two months,” Asher continues. “Dad would go to the Compound and help the director there restore order. Apparently, there was an uproar over some escapees in the North, and those in the Middle were attempting to overthrow the Elders. Our dad was one of those people who had influence among the Elders, so they agreed he could go. They assured Dad he’d be back before Mom had the babies.”
“Mom’s never mentioned that Dad was held in high regard,” Thorne says.
“With him gone, she’d have no protection. I’m sure you’ve realized that Mom knows things that others don’t. I was six the last time I saw her, but I knew that even then.”
I know the truth of that statement as soon as he says it. Sara has always pushed the boundaries, challenged my father with a glance, told us things in her own secret way. She talked in code and lived in code and not much surprised her.
“So Dad was to go. I remember the day he told Kai and me. I wanted to go with him, that part is true, but they all told me it wasn’t going to happen. It was no place for children. I was mad about it. I loved our parents, but Mom had Kai and the babies coming and Dad had no one.” Asher pauses. In the silence around us, he takes a deep breath. “I snuck out that night, followed him, and put myself in the cargo unit of a trucker. I fell asleep there and woke up in MWC5. Let’s just say Dad wasn’t very happy to see me.” Asher smiles to himself at the memory and then cringes. “I spent most of my time locked away in a bedroom. Sometimes I’d talk with other children. There was a lot of fighting, arguing, and discourse until they rebelled completely, and then it was chaos.”
“My father sent your dad into a rebellion?” I ask.
“I really don’t think he knew what it was.” Asher shrugs. “Your grandfather wanted Lucian to go, but Dad went instead. They were friends. They grew up together more like brothers.”
The van slows to a stop. Asher sighs and opens his door. Ours follow just after. It’s good to stretch my feet, even if we don’t walk anywhere. Asher watches me as I turn and bend to stretch, and then his eyes widen slightly. He looks away. He’s just noticed my branding.
“It was almost three months later when Troopers stormed the Compound,” he adds.
“The Elders sent Troopers to take down their own Compound? Why?”
“The rebellion,” Asher says. “The Elders’ fear has always been losing control, so they eliminated the threat. The Troopers killed everyone who put up a fight and hauled the others away, while the Mavericks saved everyone they could. The last time I saw Dad, he pushed me in a hole under a building and told me not to leave until he returned.”
“He’s dead,” Thorne says.
Asher nods, quietly looking around. The way he likes to avoid whatever he doesn’t want to feel or see or explain is so much like me that I completely understand how hard this conversation is for him to relive. It’s hard to let people in when all you want to do is forget and move on. “I tried to find him, but by the time I came out of hiding, everyone was gone or dead. I can still remember the sound of that Compound blowing up and disintegrating.”
“What did you do?” I ask.
“I walked. I didn’t get very far when I met a woman,” he says. “She was with the Mavericks, helping the escapees find refuge and new life. She led me to a family who had a son near my age, and they let me travel with them. Most of the survivors came here, but others spread out along the way. Some even found freedom in San Francisco. Others never made it that far.”
“Why stay here when it’s dangerous?”
“I’ve been waiting.”
“For what?”
He moves toward me, his fingers touching my neck quickly. “For you.” He drops his hand and looks at Thorne. “The woman who helped me had that branding.” He points to Thorne’s neck, too. “She said to wait for the next pair to find me, so I have been waiting. She told me that they would be coming, and they would need me. I remember I asked her how she knew and she smiled, said she had dreams.”
“Deanna,” I say. Cecily’s twin. They worked with the Mavericks after they escaped.
Asher nods. “Deanna said to go as far as we could and wait for the one who would follow in her steps. I didn’t understand, but she showed me this branding. ‘The mark will be like mine; that’s how you will know.’ So I did what she said. I had nowhere else to go since I couldn’t go back. I thought she was crazy over the last few years, that I was crazy for listening, but the Mavericks took me in. Helped me find a place in this world, and I made it work. When I heard the news of the director’s daughter and her journey, I knew I had to find you.”
We’re both quiet. My brain is on the verge of exploding. Seventeen years ago, Asher knew we would come. He waited, got a job as a Chainer, and happened to save us when we needed him. Just when I think there’s no way out, there’s a moment of hope. This
world has more questions than I ever knew possible.
“Ready?” he asks, opening the door for us again.
DEADLINE: 11D, 17H, 26M
SOMEWHERE IN THE OLD WORLD
“WHY DIDN’T YOU EVER come back to the Compound?” Thorne asks from the passenger seat. I sit in the back, but I lean into the open space between their seats. How different would his life have been with Asher in it?
“I would’ve upset society. If they saw me, if I’d tried to go home, they would’ve wiped my memory or sent me to another Compound. Or worse.”
My mind flashes back to the safehouse and the torture room, but somehow, I know there must worse things in the Compound. Even if I have never seen them.
“What will you do with us?” I ask.
Asher smiles. “I have a man near San Francisco. His name is Eddie. We can be there in two days’ drive.” “Then how long is it?” Thorne asks.
“Another two days. Maybe three.”
I don’t want to smile, but I can’t help it. Five days until I’m there. I have eleven days left. I can still do this. The impossible suddenly seems a little more reachable.
DEADLINE: 11D, 15H, 26M
SOMEWHERE IN T
HE OLD WORLD
I STARE OUT THE WINDOW while we pass through the Old World. This part of it is beautiful. Where the other pieces were dead and broken, this one feels newer. It’s mostly desert sand and blue sky, but the clouds in the morning roll over each other with equal lightness, and as far as I can see, there are mountains and sand.
Thorne laughs, and I watch him with Asher. It’s almost like they have never been apart. They’ve spent the whole car ride talking, and I felt it was better to not be included. I knew the stories Thorne told Asher in great detail because I had been there. Sometimes, he’d pause and ask me if I remembered a point and I’d answer, but then I’d retreat into myself again. I don’t want to ruin this reunion for them.
“Kai’s a Healer’s aid. One of the best. He was always taking care of people, so it was a pretty easy fit for him.” Thorne pauses. “Remember the shop Dad kept in the basement?”
“The wood shop?” Asher asks.
Thorne nods. He’s relaxed around Asher; the tension in his body is gone. “Kai uses it now. He’s really good at making things. He can spend hours down there shaping, sawing, building. Made a whole set of table and chairs in three weeks.”
“Dad loved it down there,” Asher says, and both boys get quiet. Then Asher turns his head to his brother and smiles. “I remember once when Mom made dinner and Dad wouldn’t come up. We were halfway through whatever it was that she cooked when she stood up and started carrying it all downstairs. ‘We eat as a family, Richard,’ she’d said. I think we ate dinner down there every day that week.”
“I’ve never heard that one. She doesn’t talk about you and him much,” Thorne says.
Aside from the mention of them on their birthdays and sometimes when Sara was feeling some kind of nostalgia, Richard and Asher Bishop had always been a mystery that we never investigated. At least not when I was around, and I was there a lot. They were a source of sadness for Sara, a weakness that she didn’t want anyone to see. She was too strong for that.
“What about Mom? What does she do?”
Thorne pauses, and in the silence, I see Sara. A woman who is always smarter, braver, more determined than most. Never afraid to push the limits.
“When I was six, she delivered a baby for one of the neighbors,” Thorne begins. “They came for Mom. She took us with her and sat Kai and me in the living room to wait. I don’t know how long it was before we heard the baby crying. Ever since then, people want her to help. The Healers don’t like it much since she’s not one of them, but no one stops her. Not like they could anyway.”
I remember hearing about that after it happened, years later, and Kai and Thorne talked about how the sound in the room went from silence to screaming to a baby crying. Kai would poke at Thorne and say he freaked out, but Thorne would insist that was Kai. And I would sit there, listening to a story I wasn’t part of, in this family that had been mine for two years and still felt like mine, but wasn’t. Then I went home to my father. I know he tried his best, considering his job and Mom and the lie we all lived for two years, but he has never been family in the same way they have. He loved me and I loved him, but he was only one part of me and they were the rest.
Asher stays silent after the story. What does he think? Does he miss his family? Sometimes having no family at all seems better than losing one. Especially that one.
“Mom always was feisty. I think she’s still the most courageous person I’ve ever met,” Asher says with a smile.
“You have her smile, you know,” Thorne says.
Asher looks at Thorne and lets his smile really show. Thorne’s right; it’s exactly like hers. I can see it even from the backseat. And then the car is quiet, filled only with the sound of the wheels on the road. I long for more of their hushed voices.
9 MONTHS BEFORE ESCAPE
THERE’S A HUSHED CONVERSATION coming from the kitchen when I open Sara’s door. My arms are full of food from the grocer, and Sara’s gentle voice floats toward me, her words lost in the shuffle of my feet.
“Don’t tell me what Amelia wouldn’t have wanted!”
I freeze. It’s my father. What is he doing here? Why are they arguing about my mother?
Sara’s voice is still calm. “Lucian, you’re being irrational. You’ve been irrational like this for months. Rowan Perkins was a nice boy, an innocent boy, and the Elders were wrong in their reasons.”
I gulp. Rowan was transferred earlier this week. They found some books from the Old World in his house- books that were forbidden, books that I’d been reading, too-and sent him away.
“Their judgment isn’t mine to question, and it’s not yours either. In case you have forgotten, it’s treason.” Treason? I try to see around the corner, but all I can make out is my father’s head.
“Don’t threaten me,” Sara says. Her voice is fierce and has an edge to it. It’s not a tone I’ve heard her use before, but then again, I’ve never heard my father, or anyone, talk to her that way. “I’m not afraid of you. I know who you are. I remember the scared little boy who cowered in corners from his own father. That’s all you’re doing now-cowering. Amelia would be disappointed.”
“Do not push me,” my father says through gritted teeth. I know the sound. Almost every conversation we’ve had lately has been forced like this one.
“This is my home. If you don’t want to be pushed, you can leave.”
The sound of a chair scoots across the floor. My father’s voice is sharp. “If it’s true, then I hope you are wise enough to tell me. I can protect them. She is my daughter. Her safety is my concern. The Elders are wondering, all of a sudden, the same questions from years before, so whatever has happened-”
“There is nothing to know. Neely and Thorne are perfectly normal. They won’t become what you say. Their branding is merely a marking like all the others. The Elders ran all those tests years ago, Lucian. Even if it weren’t, I would not throw our children at their merciless feet.”
“They believe those tests to be corrupt because of Liv Taylor. They want to know, Sara, and they will do whatever is necessary to find out.”
“And you’ll just let them do it? To your own daughter? To my son?”
The bottom of the bag I’m carrying collapses, and fruit scatters across the floor. I wince and try to catch it, but I’m caught as my father and Sara both look at me. For a brief reprieve, it’s like it was a year ago when they were friends and we were some sort of weird family unit. Not whatever they are now. Whatever it is that he’s becoming, I don’t recognize it.
We all stare at each other while oranges roll across the floor.
“What are you doing here?” I ask my father. I try to look surprised, but I don’t think he buys it. He knows I’ve heard too much.
“Just leaving,” he says. He kicks an orange in my direction as he steps over an apple. Sara and I watch him as he goes, and when his hand is on the door, he looks back at us. “They warned Liv Taylor, too. Before.”
Xenith’s mom. I look between Sara and my father before he turns away. The door opens, then slams shut. Sara exhales. She closes her eyes for a moment and then opens them with a smile.
“Let’s get this mess cleaned up,” she says, pulling the remaining bag from my hand and setting it on the counter.
“What was that about?” I ask, bending over to pick up an apple. I examine it for bruises, but it’s fine.
Sara shakes her head and gathers up the oranges. “It wasn’t anything.”
I watch her and join her in silence until all the fruit is safely in a big bowl on the counter. She puts some water in the kettle.
“Why did he mention Thorne and me?”
“You heard that?” Wisps of hair fall away from her bun and line her face as she looks at me. Her mahogany eyes look darker. “What else did you hear?” she asks before she moves around the kitchen, putting the kettle over the fire in the hearth. At my silence, she looks back at me and sighs. “Lucian says the Elders are questioning the decision they made to keep you and Tho
rne together with the branding, but he won’t tell me why. I don’t think he knows. They don’t really explain things to him.”
I gulp back the truth. I know that no one has the twin branding anymore, that it had some results the Elders felt were deadly to others. What if they find out about the connection? Would they separate us? They must not know anything, or we wouldn’t be here right now.
“What did the Elders warn Liv Taylor about?”
She sets some mugs on the counter. “When we were younger, I did things that challenged the Elders. We all did. We had secrets-Liv and your mother and me.
Secrets even your father doesn’t know. It seems Xenith knows these secrets. Your father fears you and Thorne might know them as well.”
“What secrets?”
We stand around in silence, and I wonder what secrets she’s keeping. They have to be big ones if she can’t talk about them. Finally, she looks at me. “The three of us protected each other until there was no one left to protect. But I will protect Kai, Thorne, and you. It’s all I can do.”
“Protect us from what?”
She hands me a mug. “It doesn’t matter.”
DEADLINE: 11D, 12H, 26M
SOMEWHERE IN THE OLD WORLD
THIS MOMENT MATTERS. It will forever be the time when Thorne met his brother for the first time, maybe the only time, and because of that I don’t want to intrude. I want him to have this. I rest in the back of van, eyes closed but not really sleeping as the road bounces me around.
“Do you still have the branding?” Thorne asks.
I peer toward the front of the van through my eyelashes. Asher stiffens next to him before turning his head. I can’t see anything else, but Thorne says something. I re-close my eyes and try to focus on sleeping, but I hear Asher’s voice instead.
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