“Not even Lila would tell a youth a scientist’s secrets,” Frost argues.
“I’ll be a scientist soon. If you don’t believe me, go ask her.”
“You will never be Angeleen!” She eyes me suspiciously. “Did Lila send you here to spy on our progress?”
“I can’t divulge her plans,” I say, as I slip my hand in my pocket, caressing Petal and sending her thoughts of stay quiet and don’t move.
“What plans?” Frost’s hand on the gun shakes with her anger.
I purse my lips, refusing to say any more. I’ve never hated anyone so much. If I had claws like the caged beats, I would gladly rip out her throat.
“Tell me now or the droll will throw you in a cage with a slither-claw,” she threatens. “The beast is small but deadly. He’ll shred your skin, then dissect you bone by bone and swallow every piece.”
Frost steps toward me, so close with her gaze fixed on my face, unaware this droll is more than a breathing pair of handcuffs.
“If what you say is true about Angeleen’s memories, then Lila must be stopped. I should have eliminated her long ago.” Frost strokes the smooth side of her face, deep in thought. “Daniel will mourn her for a while as he did with Angeleen, and I will comfort him. With no wife or sister to interfere, he’ll turn to me and finally realize we belong together.” The gun still aimed on me, she snaps her fingers at Nate. “Droll, kill her now.”
Nate doesn’t move, but I feel the jump of his pulse through his hand.
“Droll, I gave you an order!”
Her gaze shifts to him, and her eyes widen. “You’re not a—”
Nate withdraws a small pipe from his pocket. Raising it to his lip, he blows.
Frost realizes what’s happened only a second before the swift dart strikes her neck. Her weapon clatters to the floor. Her mouth moves but nothing comes out. Swaying, she thuds on the floor.
“Did you … Is she … ?” I ask, peering down.
“Only stunned,” Nate says. “It’s a mild poison, but if you want her dead, I can do that too.”
With Frost dead, no one will know I’d found this room. Her death will be blamed on the beasts. I can leave here and no one will ever know what really happened. I can become a scientist—if I want to. Is it worth being married to Scientist Daniel, a man who turns youths to zombies and is so full of his own importance he doesn’t realize his assistant killed his wife? Scientists don’t live by ordinary rules of marriage, so I can stay with Lila as a scientist—unless Frost destroys everything. She would have killed me, and she wants to kill Lila. Eliminating her would be self defense.
Kill her, a voice hisses in my head, and I feel Milly’s fear She’s crazed and almost killed us. She deserves to die.
Milly’s fear and mine overlap, so I’m not sure whose voice I’m hearing. It would be so easy to let Nate kill Frost. To him, killing is survival, not a crime. He’d feel no guilt at killing an enemy.
But I would. And so would Milly.
“Don’t kill her,” I tell him.
I hurry into the room with the cold box containing vials of DNA, the womb of all genetic monsters, thousands of beasties waiting to be born. I can’t kill another human, but I can stop more beasts from being created.
I unplug the cold box.
When I return to Nate, he’s staring at the walls of cages, growls and hisses echoing around the room.
“They will grow to kill hundreds of innocent people. I don’t have enough poison shards for all of them. But I do have this.” He takes rubber strips and a green bottle from his pocket.
He wads papers into a pile near the cages, douses the papers with green liquid, then trails a snake-like rubber strip through the center of the room. When he ignites the rubber, a slow spark burns toward the papers.
“We only have minutes before smoke poisons the room,” he says in a rush.
I imagine smoke filling the room, silencing the creatures as it steals their last breaths. When the fire engulfs the room, they will already be dead. I never thought I was capable of killing—not even monsters bred to kill humans.
Yet Frost’s death won’t be on my conscience. As the door shuts behind us, silencing growling and hissing monsters, Nate and I drag Frost’s limp body down the hall, a safe distance away.
“Let’s go.” Nate holds out his hand to me, and we run.
It’s not until we’ve passed the room where scientists’ voices murmur, fled through the tunnel, and taken the elevator back to level one that the ground rocks with an explosion.
We keep running.
FORTY-TWO
No one stops us—a sista we pass is running toward the explosion and doesn’t even glance at Nate. It’s almost too easy to leave the scientists’ compound. Security measures only prevent intruders from getting inside, not from getting out.
I try not to think of the destruction and death we left behind.
When I breathe in fresh, salty air and a breeze smelling of wild grasses blows through my hair, I feel a rush of hope. I may have no home with scientists or a Family, and the Uniforms will grab me and drag me off to jail, but for the first time in my life I’m free to make my own choices.
“We made it!” I shout into the sky as if my words are young birds flying for the first time.
“Yes, we did,” Nate says with a smile that lights up his blue eyes. “Thank you, Jennza. Without your help, I wouldn’t have the medicine for my father.”
“He’ll be better soon.” I stare up into Nate’s sweet, scarred, wonderful face and am overwhelmed by emotions. “You risked your life to save your father, but by stopping the growth of more monsters, you’ve saved all Nocturnes.”
“We both did it,” he says. “But you risked more. Where will you go now?”
“The cave.” Petal musically tinkles from inside my pocket, and I’m reminded of the urgency to get her to seawater.
“But after Petal is safe, where will you live?” His voices softens. “You can’t go back to the scientists or a Family.”
“Petal has taught me how to find food and stay safe in the cave. I can live there.”
“Or you can live with me.” He holds out his hand. “There is much beauty beneath the ground—my people have brightened darkness. You would be welcomed there, and eventually—when there is no threat from monsters—we will make a new community aboveground.”
I stare at his hand, tempted to take it and agree to a future with him. Thoughts tug for attention in my spinning head. Go back to Rosemarie, Milly begs. I’ll clear your name so you can be in a Family, Marcus offers. Please don’t leave. You’re my best born-mate ever, Lorelei sobs. The only thing I know for sure is that I have no future with the scientists. By now, Lila knows I’m responsible for destroying her beasts, and instead of becoming a scientist, she’d Return me to a droll.
Blinking back tears, I shake my head. “Once Petal is safe, I’ll figure out what to do. If we head for the Edu-Center, we can cut through the woods to the Fence. It’ll be a long walk since we can’t use the main road.”
“Why walk when we can ride?” Nate grins.
I don’t know what he means until he leads me down a wooden path to a towering oak. A hoxen is tied with a long rope to the oak.
“I’ll get on first, then lift you,” Nate says.
I back up, not sure about climbing on such a giantness creature.
Ride with the wind! There’s nothing to be afraid of when I’m tall on a horse. Milly’s thoughts push into my own. She’s offering courage, not fear. A vision of her galloping on a horse gives me a burst of excitement. Milly soars confidently on the back of a horse. A hoxen isn’t a horse, but it’s close. Before Nate can climb on the hoxen, I dig my fingers into the thick mane and swing myself up as if I’ve been doing this forever.
“Impressive,” Nate says. “I thought you said you’d never ridden a hoxen.”
“I haven’t … not exactly.”
“You look comfortable up there.” He lifts his arm. “How about givi
ng me a hand up?”
I stretch my fingers toward his reaching hand. Touching. Lightly. Then a firm grip, our fingers weaving together. A long moment stretches, like we’ve both jumped into deep water and are holding our breaths. Sizzling warmth spreads through me. I’m pulled into his blue-sea gaze. I notice every curve and angle of his face—scars from a life lived mostly sub-ground. His lips tilt up at the corners.
“Ready?” he asks, and I’m startled he’s still on the ground, waiting for me to make room for him on the hoxen.
I boost him up. His strong arms slip around my waist. He leans close, his breath hot on my neck, and I’m burning and wonderfully shivery at the same time. I smell a scent like the sea and sweat, and I glance down at his hands wrapped around my waist. Can’t think. Emotions racing fast, although we haven’t moved yet. His touch … his scent … his everything. These feelings must be the dangerous hormones my Instructors warned against. Yet they’re nothing fearful; they’re wondrous.
I dig my heels into the side of the hoxen and shout, “Giddy up!”
We ride through dense trees, far from the road. Despite having to detour around rocks and deep gorges, we’re quickly at the Edu-Center boundaries. When I see the shadows of the buildings where I spent my childhood, I smack my feet against the hoxen and command, “Whoa.”
I’m flooded with memories here: climbing trees, chasing flutterlings, hiding so well in games that my born-mates couldn’t find me, crafting hair decorations with Lorelei, and my secret kiss with Marcus. These buildings held more than lessons; they were my home. My memdenity.
Yet if any of the Instructors who chose to stay here rather than join their Families see me, they’ll have me arrested—unless Marcus and Lorelei find evidence to clear my name. Is it possible? To gain my freedom, I’d have to expose the Believers’ “trade” with Nate. But only a Believer can prove that Nate was a hired weapon.
There’s one Believer who might help.
I stop on the trail, unsure whether to turn back or go forward to the cave. Is clearing my name worth the risk of being arrested? Yes, I think with a rush of certainty. No matter what happens today, I don’t want to be an outlaw in my own community. I love ShareHaven, my born-mates, Instructors, and Rosemarie. I want the choice to be in a Family and perhaps even bond with a husband.
Keep going with Nate. Don’t go back into danger. Milly’s thoughts push me to keep walking, but I won’t listen. Silence, I tell her, not sure if I’m speaking to a soul or layers of memories, and it doesn’t really matter because ultimately I’m the one who makes decisions for this body.
Lifting Petal from my pocket, I hand her to Nate. “Take her to the cave.”
“But I thought you’d come with me … at least that far.”
“I’ll meet you there. I need to talk to someone first.”
“Who?”
“Instructor Penny.”
Sneaking into the Edu-Center is child’s play, and I excel at it. It’s easier too, because only a few Instructors choose to stay here after youths have left. Most Instructors have returned to their Families—but not Instructor Penny. She confided to me once that she feels closer to youths than her actual Family. I find her in the reading nest, her head bent as she reads a thick book.
When I shut the door behind me, she looks up, gasping.
“Jennza!”
I nod warily.
“Graces good! I thought you were … but you aren’t!” Her book skids across the table as she jumps to her feet with her arms outstretched. “I’m so relieved! I’ve been worried about you, Jennza—I mean, Milly.”
“You were right the first time.” I don’t move into her arms, holding stiff and sturdy like the door my fingers clutch for support. “I’m not Milly.”
She sighs sadly. “I know.”
“Then you also know why I can’t go back to the Cross Family and what they tried to do to me.”
“Yet you’ve survived.”
“Only by luck—I was almost turned into a brainless zombie.” My words blow like poison darts from my lips, accusing. “That’s what Returned means, although I’m sure you know that too.”
“Please don’t hate me. I wasn’t even aware you were gone until it was already over. I was devastated, more than you’ll ever know. I’m overjoyed to see you, yet afraid for you.” She bites her lip. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
“Are you going to turn me in?”
“I would never!” She speaks with such ferocity that my doubts about her fall away. “I’ll hide you and keep you safe. Ask me for anything, and I’ll help you. I love you, Jenny.”
The nickname softens my heart, and when she opens her arms, I melt inside her hug. She’s warm and smells of honey-lemon soap. I want to tell her I love her too, but the words lump in my throat.
“I wanted to help you, Jenny,” she goes on. “But by the time I’d heard what had happened, you were already gone. There wasn’t anything I could do.”
“Except tell the truth.” I pull out of her embrace and stare at the glint of gold peaking out from her tunic collar.
“What do you mean?”
“I know why you wear this.” I grasp the golden chain around her neck, tugging so the star symbol dangles. “You’re one of them. You say you want to help me, but you kept their secret. You could have cleared me by telling the other Leaders who was really behind Grand Sarwald’s death.”
“The Noc killed him. You were there when it happened.”
“Yes, I was. But I was also in the Cross compound when the Believers—including you—met to discuss what to do about the killer … my friend Nate.”
She reels back with a choked cry, clutching the necklace. “You couldn’t have been there. I never saw you.”
“No one did. I was listening outside the door. I heard you talk about killing Grand Sarwald. You defended Nate, and I’m grateful for that. Still, you knew our Leader was going to die. I don’t believe you’d be part of a murder conspiracy without a strong reason, but I can’t think of one … and I desperately want to, because you mean so much to me.”
Her eyes fill with tears. She glances down at her necklace; the four-point symbol catches a reflection of sunlight and shimmers like a night star.
“I’m guilty,” she finally says, the word guilty echoing off the reading room walls. “But it’s not what you think. Grand Sarwald’s death wasn’t murder.”
I put my arm out to balance against the table. “How can it not be murder?”
“Please don’t ask me to explain.” She sinks into a chair, her tawny brown skin paling. “I swore never to speak of this.”
“If you really care about me, you will—and you’ll tell the other Leaders too, so I can walk freely in ShareHaven without fear of being jailed or executed.”
“No one will arrest you if you stay with the scientists. Their compound is the best place for you. Go back there where you’re safe.”
“I can’t go back.” I shake my head.
“Oh, Jenny, I want to help, but I can’t betray the Believers.”
“You’d rather I die?”
She looks deeply in my face, and I study her too, saddened by the shadows beneath her eyes that make her look far older than twenty-five. “Have you ever wondered what happens when we die?” she asks me with a seriousness beyond the conversations we shared during lessons.
The question is so unexpected, and if she’d asked me when she was my Instructor, I would have automatically said, “No one dies.” But now I know of conflicting beliefs, souls, and murder.
“I have no more idea of what happens to souls after death than an ant knows how to bake an apple pie,” I tell her, glancing around at the reading nook I’ve enjoyed so often, a place of stories, and longing for the comfort of childhood. “But I do wonder … especially about souls …. What happens to a soul after death?”
“Does anyone really know?” she says with a wry smile. “Scientists assure us we can live again with memdenity in a youth. But Believers would ar
gue our souls go to a higher power. Do you know the word religion?”
I nod as if we’re in a lesson room and she’d called on me. “A retro-concept which led to many wars and suffering.”
“It also led to hope, faith, and miracles,” she says. “Before the Attack, I wore a symbol of a cross around my neck. Now I wear this.” She gently touches the chain. “The Believers are a mix of religions, so we created our own symbol. This necklace represents all our religions united in a mutual goal—to restore freedom of beliefs in ShareHaven.”
“Rosemarie told me her husband Jed was killed because he wanted to build more churches.”
“He wanted real churches for all faiths, not only the glorification of science. But even more, he longed to go on to his next life—beyond this existence. He worried about Rosemarie though, and didn’t want her to bear the shame if he committed suicide. He preferred that Rosemarie think someone killed him rather than tell her the truth—that he chose to die.”
I shake my head, confused. Jed wanted to die?
“It’s complex,” Instructor Penny says. “We maintain peace in ShareHaven by following laws. If a law is broken, the Uniforms deal a fair punishment. But breaking some laws is common—trading work roles, black-market bartering, hoarding food, and relations outside of marriage. If no one asks, no one tells what really goes on in Families. But worshipping old faiths in secret meetings would result in severe punishment.”
“Execution?” I ask, gulping.
“I don’t know … and don’t care to find out.”
“Then why join the Believers?” I ask.
“Daisy invited me into the group after I made a reckless comment about needing to go to confession. I missed attending traditional church. When the cease-aging patch gave us a forever life, it also meant never leaving this earth. Why worship a higher power you’ll never meet? At least, that’s what the scientists decided. But those of us who disagree met in secret to worship.”
“And to plot murder?” I challenge.
Memory Girl Page 29
