by David Estes
Chapter Twenty-Six
Benson tries to distract himself with Minda’s holo, using it to send a message to an anonymous username Check used to use. He keeps the message cryptic, in case Pop Con is checking all holo-messages for suspicious activity. When he receives no response, he sends two more.
An hour later he’s still staring at the holo-screen, waiting for it to flash with an incoming message. Instead it’s dark, having shut itself down to conserve energy.
“I remember the games you used to play,” Janice says, plopping down beside him on the couch.
“Do you?” Benson says, his eyes flitting up to meet the gaze of the woman who used to make him laugh so hard he thought he might pee himself. Although her fake retinas make them look so different, he can still feel her real eyes behind them, watching him like she used to ten years earlier.
“Memories are like ducks,” Janice says, and when Benson gives her a funny look, she insists, “They are! Sometimes they’re right there on the glassy surface of the water, so clear you can practically reach out and touch them. Other times they dunk their heads and you can barely see them; it’s like looking through a fog. And then they might fly away, leaving you to admire their beauty from afar.”
Benson shakes his head with amazement. Ever since he was reunited with his mother, he’s been trying to understand her, to connect with her on some deep emotional level. The way he thinks Harrison is able to connect with her. But now he realizes that he doesn’t need to, and maybe that’s not the way his twin sees it at all. She’s his mother and she loves him, and that’s the most important thing. All he has to do is love her back and admire the sun-like brightness of her beauty and strength that appears at the most unexpected times, filling those around her with warmth.
“What?” she asks. “Did my words say the wrong thing?” She’s not frowning exactly, her look of concern almost child-like in its innocence.
“No, Mom,” Benson says. “You can only say the right things.”
She laughs at that, high and mirthful, like the tinkling of wind chimes, and it takes Benson back to the games they used to play. Some were made up, like the one where they’d draw squares on the back patio and have to hop on only one foot to complete the course. Others were on the holo, and Benson always won. During those times, Janice would laugh, even louder when he would win.
“I’m glad you think so,” she says. “Words can split logs and start fires and break stones, but they can also hug you and warm you and fight the wars you don’t have the strength to fight.”
Benson nods and smiles and feels stupider than ever before as he tries to figure out exactly what her words mean. And that’s his problem, he knows, always thinking with his head. Although it takes considerable effort, he opens up his heart, just a crack, and lets his mother inside.
Her words are beautiful and wise and not crazy, even if they might sound like they are. She sounds different, but she’s not. She’s the same woman from all those years ago. The same, only better. Stronger. Less fearful of the world and more confident she can conquer it.
The crack opens wider and his eyes split with tears, not because of the hug his mother now offers, but because of Luce and Gonzo and his fear for Harrison and his father. His friends, too, who are a world out of reach.
Sobbing into his mother’s shoulder, he lets it all out, until the crack in his heart pools with his tears and begins to heal itself.
As hearts do.
~~~
The doctor locks them in Michael Kelly’s old cell without answering any of their questions. He doesn’t tie them up, however, probably because it would be too much effort considering his still-bleeding stab wound, but it doesn’t matter anyway.
Because they’re stuck. Stuck and clueless as to what the President of the RUSA could possibly have to do with the doctor helping save the Destroyer’s life.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” Destiny says, running a hand over her mountain of hair. Her back is pressed to the wall. Michael Kelly sits across from her, elbows on knees. Under the halo of light provided by the flashlight that the doctor generously left them with, he could almost be Harrison, such is the strength of their resemblance. The posture is all wrong to be Benson.
“How do you know my sons?”
She wants to say her own name, but she knows that’s not right. “Bad luck,” she says, and she means for Harrison, not her. She doesn’t offer to elaborate.
“Seems there’s a lot of that going around.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“Why are you here, Destiny?”
“To kill the Destroyer.” Those four words that once would have filled her with fire and passion, now leave her empty, a task so impossibly out of reach she might as well be trying to pluck the stars from the sky.
“Why?”
“Because he’s evil.”
“A lot of people are evil. Are you going to kill them all?”
“He’s trying to hurt your family. And I couldn’t let him.”
Michael’s silent for a minute, and Destiny hopes he’s run out of questions. She doesn’t feel like talking anymore. Talk won’t save her friends. Or them.
“You care about my family?”
She nods grimly.
“Why?”
She closes her eyes. Speaks slowly, deliberately. “In case you haven’t guessed, I’m a Slip. Everyone hates me, wants me dead. But not your family. So I guess they’re my family now, too.”
When she opens her eyes, he’s watching her with interest. “You know that you’re good, right?” Michael asks.
“No one’s good,” she says. “We’re all just different shades of bad.” She hates the way she sounds, but can’t seem to shake the sinking feeling she’s had ever since getting so close and then failing.
“Harrison, too? And Benson? What about Janice?”
“Not them. Never them.”
“Then not you either. If you care about them, then not you.” She gets the feeling that he’s not just talking about her. She remembers the fallout after the truth surfaced about Michael Kelly. It was confusing. He had an illegal son and yet he’d been helping Pop Con kill UnBees? How did that make any sense? Even knowing what she knows now—that he was only doing it to protect Benson and carry out the consortium’s plans—she still can’t understand how he was able to do it. Give those orders. Watch innocent children be murdered. She can’t fathom it.
And yet, she finds words spilling from her lips before she can hold them back. “You’re not a monster either.”
“I don’t have scaly skin or fangs, no,” Michael Kelly says. “But I’m as much of a monster as that cyborg in there.” She wants to rebuff him, but he’s got more to say. “I always knew it, too. I could barely look at myself in the mirror. I distanced myself from Harrison, from Janice, because I knew they needed to hate me when the truth came out. They needed to stay safe from the monster lurking nearby.”
A hopeful thought pops into Destiny’s head. “But if the plan works and Pop Con is dissolved, you’ll be redeemed. Everyone will have to forgive you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Destiny,” he says. “There’s no redemption for people like me. And I don’t want it because I don’t deserve it. All I want is my family safe.”
She doesn’t want to believe him, but before she can even consider what to say next, the door creaks open and the doctor waves them out the door with his gun. His shoulder is more heavily bandaged now. His face is sheened with sweat.
“The Destroyer is awake,” he says. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Let her go,” Michael says. “He only needs me. She has nothing to do with this.”
“Too late,” the doctor says. “He wants you both. I have to obey.” His voice strengthens suddenly and he bellows, “Now MOVE or I’ll shoot her NOW!”
With no other choice, they stand and stumble into the corridor, letting him herd them back toward where they last saw the Destroyer. His head is propped up
on a pillow, and he watches them enter. Destiny tries not to show her fear when she sees the vicious smile plastered on his face.
“Hello, Slip bitch,” he sneers. “You tried to kill me.” His statement is incredibly matter-of-fact considering the subject matter.
She wishes she could channel some of Harrison’s wit right now, say something devilishly clever, but her mouth is too dry to speak.
“And Michael Kelly, too? What a beautiful face to wake up to.”
“What do you want, Domino?” Michael says, and Destiny is amazed at how even his tone is. Almost tired.
“Want? Only for both of you to die,” he says.
Destiny’s mouth flops pathetically open, like that of a fish out of water, but she can’t seem to close it. Her breath is gone, her heart beating erratically.
“Kill them both!” the Destroyer growls at the doctor, veins bulging from his face. His body begins shaking and his eye rolls back in his head. Drool meanders from the corner of his twisted lips. Seconds later, his jaw goes slack and he collapses back onto the bed.
Destiny’s eyes fly to the doctor, who’s got the gun levelled on her chest. This is it. Oh god. This is it. I’m not ready, not ready, not—
“Steady, doctor,” Michael says. “Your master is unconscious. This is your choice, not his. Are you ready for her blood to be on your hands?”
The doctor’s eyes never leave Destiny’s. She sees the moment he makes the decision, his unblinking stare working in tandem with his locked jaw and tightened muscles, running in coils down his arm, through his hand, and to his finger, which depresses the trigger.
The gun explodes with fire and Destiny screams.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Everything is dark. Destiny’s world is gone. She failed. Failed her friends, failed herself.
And yet…she hears sounds:
Someone sobbing, shhhhhing whistling through teeth, a voice wracked with pain echoing through the darkness.
“I can’t. Can’t do it. Can’t do it.”
Her eyes are closed, she realizes. And when she opens them, the world returns to the black of the blank holo-darkened walls and the pale white face of the doctor, who continues to hold the gun in trembling hands.
Her gaze cuts sharply to the left. Michael Kelly is hunched over, in so much pain he can barely stand. Has he been shot? Did the bullet go wild and hit him instead? No. There’s no fresh blood on him; any injuries are from days past, suffered under the vengeful care of the madman on the metal slab.
Michael’s head lifts, but he looks past Destiny to the doctor. “No,” he breathes.
“Have to,” the doctor’s voice says. “It’s me or you.”
When Destiny looks back at the man who shot his gun from point blank range and missed purposely, her heart ka-chunks in her chest. His hand is still holding the gun, still shaking, but the barrel is now flush with the side of his head. An errant thought ping-pongs around in her brain: Do it.
The tears pool in her eyes immediately, rushing out in hot streams, and she can taste salt on her lips. And she hates the person she’s become—the person who would hope for a man to take his own life, as she once almost did. All because she wants a second chance at an impossible redemption.
For the first time in the last week, a gear seems to turn in the right direction in her head, locking into place in such a way that she feels warm and right. This man doesn’t have to die for her to have a reason to live. Nor does the Destroyer, although she can’t help but hope he does. Words spill through her mind. All the words Harrison spoke to her on the journey from Refuge to the Lifer safe house to Saint Louis and after their escape from this very same prison. Words that she thought she’d rejected, that her ears had turned out at the door, are in there. Not lost, not rejected…waiting. Waiting for this moment of realization where she sees herself in the lost, hopeless man standing before her with a gun to his head.
“No!” she practically shouts, reaching out a hand.
At the movement, he says, “Stay back. Just stay back.” His face is streaked with tears and eyes that are fathomless black holes of self-hatred, loss and despair.
“Don’t do this. You don’t deserve this.” She’s shocked at how calm her words sound when her nerves feel split open.
The man laughs, and she takes a step back in surprise. But no. It’s void of mirth, not a real laugh. A scoff. “You don’t know the first thing about what I deserve.”
“I know you’re human. I know you didn’t shoot me when you could have. I know you don’t want anyone else to die.”
He bites back something, a memory perhaps, as more tears overflow the pools in his eyes. “No,” he says. “I don’t. They already took her from me, but I can’t let them take anyone else.”
“We can help you,” Michael Kelly offers. “We have a real plan to change things, and we can help your family.”
“My family?” He throws up his hands and the gun waves dangerously through the air. “You can’t help something that’s broken. My daughter is authorized. We did everything right. And they killed her anyway. Said I should think long and hard before I tried to defy them again, or they’d take my wife too.”
Destiny realizes her hand is on her forehead, her fingers massaging the headache that’s slowly setting in. A missing piece of this man’s puzzle is just out of reach.
“You delivered UnBees,” Michael Kelly says, recognition dawning in the sureness of his tone.
Destiny’s eyes never leave the doctor’s as he nods. “We needed the money, and anyway, surely a few more people weren’t going to make a difference. We didn’t know anyone who was starving. The shelves at the stores were all fully stocked. What was the harm?”
“I remember you,” Michael says.
“You should,” the doctor says. “You interrogated me. For a while, at least. I stonewalled you and you left. Someone else came in.”
“Corrigan Mars.”
“He wasn’t as gentle. I eventually gave him the information he wanted. Names, locations.”
“We planned several more missions because of what you told us.”
“You killed children,” the doctor says, and the sadness in his tone is replaced with venom.
Destiny doesn’t look at Michael. She can’t. She has to keep seeing him as Harrison’s father, not as the ex-Head of Pop Con.
“I—I know,” Michael says.
“You should be the one with the gun to your head.”
“Yes.” Michael’s voice is whisper-soft, ghostly.
The doctor shakes his head. “This screwed up world should be burned to the ground.”
Destiny doesn’t know what to say. It’s hard to disagree with him when she’s feeling the exact same way. They are the perfect examples of his message. None of them wanted the lives they ended up with. None of them wanted people to die because of them. And yet they were powerless to stop it from happening anyway.
“How are you alive?” Michael asks, his voice cracking.
“You don’t know? The government needs crooked doctors, too. Particularly ones they can control. I wished they’d just killed me instead.”
“Your daughter,” Destiny says, wishing the words back the moment they escape her lips.
“Yeah, my freaking daughter!” the doctor screams, shoving the gun back to his head. “And if I don’t either kill you or myself, they’ll take my wife too. So which do you prefer? You choose. I’m warming up to either option.”
Everything is spiraling out of control, and Destiny wishes she had a reset button so they could start this conversation over. Or maybe so she could unlearn everything she’s just heard. The pain of this man, of this father, feels like a dark well in the center of her gut, and her heart is trapped down there, trying to claw its way up unclimbable walls, made smooth and glassy by the fires of his torment.
“Me,” she says. “Take me.”
“No,” Michael says, his voice even weaker. She realizes he’s in a crouch now, his legs unable to sustain his
weight any longer.
The doctor’s head cocks to the side in surprise. The momentary expression on his face is that of an innocent child, washed clean of the mistakes of his past. “I—I—”
Movement draws Destiny’s attention away from the doctor, who continues to stutter. The Destroyer’s arm twitches and he groans. Spit bubbles from his lips. His eye flutters open, flicking around, disoriented, but then locking on her. A shiver runs down her spine.
“Kill her,” the Destroyer says, lifting his head, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
“I—I—”
Destiny feels herself inching away as the Destroyer eases to his feet. She wants to be brave, to be the one who finally stands up to the monster rising up before her, but the fear is back, freezing her to the hard ground beneath her. She tries to activate her hoverskates, but can’t seem to move her feet in the right way.
The Destroyer wobbles slightly, his legs uncertain at first, but then he manages a step forward. Toward the doctor. “Kill them, or I will!”
The doctor still has the gun to his head, but then he turns it on Destiny, his expression full of indecision. “I—I—”
“Shoot her!”
“I—I’m sorry,” he says.
Destiny’s feet still won’t move, and anyway, she knows she can’t outrun a bullet, even with her hoverskates. From the side, Michael lets out a roar of agony, exploding from his haunches and plowing into her the moment the doctor depresses the trigger.
The gunshot is like a bomb blast in the confined space. Destiny feels weightless for a moment, her body airborne, before she smashes hard onto the ground, Michael’s heavy form crashing down atop her a moment later. Splitting pain crackles through her shoulder, her knee, her ankle. Her elbow is ringing, having miraculously protected her head. Michael is a dead weight on top of her, his eyes barely open, slitted like oyster shells.
The doctor stands over them, and the Destroyer says, “Yes,” the throaty word full of glee and malice.
