Sever (Chemical Garden Trilogy)

by Lauren DeStefano

  I lie beside them and try to sleep, but all night I’m visited by images of flame and ash. There’s no sense in calling out for my brother. In this wasteland of rubble and bodies, he’s nowhere to be found.

  We leave just before dawn. Jared tells the other guards that he’s taking me on another of Madame’s missions and that they aren’t to let Linden and Cecily leave the compound.

  “Sure you want to leave them behind?” he asks me as I’m climbing into the rusty car.

  Right now I’d love nothing more than to have them with me. And I know they’ll be angry when they wake up and realize I’m gone. But am I sure about leaving them behind? Sure that it will be safer for them? Sure that this is something I need to do alone?

  “Yes,” I say. And Jared turns the key in the ignition, and we’re on our way to Lexington.

  There’s a little screen mounted over the dashboard that displays an electronic map of where we are, the red line of a road twisting and conforming to Jared’s steering.

  I can’t help but stare at it. It’s nothing like any of Reed’s inventions, and I think it might be an antique from the twenty-first century. After the wars devastated the rest of the planet and before the virus took over, technology was at its most advanced. That much I know. Hospitals and businesses were sprawling. And then the virus was discovered, and it all deteriorated. What took generations to build took less than fifty short years to come undone.

  Jared sees my interest. “Madame hates that thing. She says it’s how the spies keep track of people.” That last part is said as he rolls his eyes. Madame’s fictitious spies are a recurring figment of her opium delirium.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “It’s a positioning system. Like a digital map. It reads data from satellite signals.”

  “I thought all the satellites stopped working years ago,” I say.

  “Just one of many rumors,” Jared says. “The president still has use for them, I think. There are plenty of theories about what the president’s role really is. Then again, maybe he’s just this useless figurehead like everyone says, and the rumors are a way to keep hoping.”

  It’s quiet for a while, and then I say, “I heard a theory.”

  Jared glances at me before focusing on the road again.

  “I heard that the other countries and continents still exist.” Reed’s theory seemed outrageous to me when I first heard it, but now nothing seems too crazy to be considered.

  Jared laughs. “That one’s been going around for years,” he says. “Plenty have tried to prove it.”

  “What happened to them?” I ask.

  “Oh, they came back with tales of the wide blue yonder,” Jared says, and laughs. “They were killed, of course. What did you think?”

  I set myself up for that. I ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach and watch the map twist and unfold.

  The Lexington Research and Wellness Institute is the heart of a ramshackle city. It’s a multistory brick building, in pristine condition compared to the deteriorating housing complexes that surround it. Multifamily homes with boarded windows, a squat grocery store that doesn’t appear to have any electricity, other buildings that could be more housing developments or orphanages. There are traffic lights still hanging from overhead wires, nonfunctioning.

  As is the case with many research towns, the hospital and laboratory is probably the area’s only source of income. Because the president is so adamant about the human race not dying out entirely, he funds these types of institutes, which create jobs locally and provide a shelter for the wounded or the dying.

  Situations like Cecily’s when she had her miscarriage, for instance.

  If people still believe there’s cause to heal, they’ll believe there’s a chance they’ll be cured before the virus claims them or their children.

  The president will fund these establishments, but not defend them from threats like my brother.

  There’s not a person to be found. “Did they evacuate the whole town?” I ask.

  “They’re probably all hiding indoors,” Jared says. “Where would they evacuate to? We’re just going to make them suspicious if we keep driving around in circles like this.”

  “I don’t know where to start looking for my brother,” I say.

  “I’m guessing he’s not just going to come out of his gopher hole,” he says. “We’ll have to wait for him to come to us.”

  “Where?” I say.

  In answer he drives around to the back of the hospital, pulls into its dilapidated parking garage, and shuts off the engine.

  The garage is silent. Even the birds have ceased singing. The positioning system goes black; the satellite can’t find us here. I wonder about Jared. I want to ask him how he came to belong to Madame. I wonder what it is that makes him return to her even though she sets him free. He could easily keep driving and never look back. Why does he return? Is it because he wouldn’t leave Lilac to face that woman alone? Because he has no place else to go? Because imprisonment is the safest existence in this world?

  I think it’s deeper than that. I think he loves Madame with the loyalty of a child who loves its parent.

  Maybe hope isn’t the most dangerous thing a person can have. Maybe love is worse.

  I’m starting to think this is a senseless endeavor. Or some kind of trap.

  Then I hear the voices accumulating outside. I hear the feedback of a microphone.

  I twist around in my seat and look out the back window. From where we’re parked, halfway underground, I can see the crowd of legs. They’re setting up a makeshift stage with wooden crates. The scene is unfolding just like the one I saw on the news on Edgar’s television.

  My brother is preparing to make a speech.

  I open the door, but Jared puts his hand on my arm to stop me from getting out of the car. “Think before you act,” he says.

  “But—”

  “There’s a crowd out there. A crowd who not only think you’re dead, but also get off on the idea of this building going up in smoke. You’re not dealing with a whole lot of sanity, Goldenrod.”

  “That’s why I have to stop him,” I say.

  Jared smiles ruefully at me. “You can’t stop what’s already here. I’ve heard this kid on the radio and seen him on the television Madame keeps in her tent. He’s beyond your control now.”

  “I refuse to believe that,” I say.

  “Come on,” he says as he opens his door. “We can listen from here.”

  My legs barely work when I step onto the concrete floor of the parking garage. My vision bursts with moments of brightness as my pulse throbs in my temples.

  Jared and I huddle at the opening to the parking garage, and I have to stand on tiptoes to peer out at the crowd.

  It’s a beautiful day, warm with a bright blue sky.

  The crowd is mostly new generations, an even divide of boys and girls. “He’s got quite the loyal band of followers,” Jared muses.

  “How did they know he would be here?”

  He looks at me, smug. “Word travels.”

  “You knew,” I say. “Didn’t you? Knew he’d be here at this exact time?”

  “You didn’t think I crushed sleeping pills into your friends’ dinner simply because they looked like they needed a nap, did you?” he says. “There were rumors that this would be his next target. Information is always available if you know the right people.”

  The shrill microphone feedback forces me to cover my ears. And then it’s replaced by a different sound. A voice I’d know anywhere, saying, “Hello. Welcome.”

  Rowan is standing on the makeshift stage.

  His voice is booming through the speakers, thundering in the earth, forcing its way inside my skin. My bones shake with the sound. I feel dizzy and sick and unable to speak, unable to breathe, every neuron, every particle of me waiting.

  He’s standing just a few yards from me. But if I called his name now, he wouldn’t hear me. The crowd is double, maybe triple, the size of the
one I saw on the news. My brother notes this. He says he has benefactors now—benefactors that choose to remain nameless, but who are funding his cause because that’s how important it is. He tells the crowd that each one of them is important, that they are not terrorists, as the news claims. They are a revolution. They are preventing more generations of suffering. He says that destroying these laboratories will end fruitless human experimentation.

  Then I can’t hear the words he says next, because the crowd has gone wild with applause. It doesn’t matter what he says. They’re desperate for it, need to know that there’s a leader among them. I try to cling to his words—I can feel them throbbing in my blood, but I can’t make them out. Jared does, though. He’s pushing me back toward the car, saying, “Go, go, go!” My door isn’t even closed before he slams his foot on the accelerator.

  We’ve just sped out of the parking garage in time to see the blast that dominates the rearview mirror.

  The car is still in motion when I open my door. Jared is calling after me, but that’s no matter. I’m on the ground now. I stumble forward onto my hands and knees, dizzy for a moment before I’m able to stand.

  The earth is shaking under my feet.

  The next explosion comes. And another, and another, and another.

  I can feel the heat of the flames, the perfect morning appearing rippled and distorted by it. I’m coughing when I turn around to watch the burning building that just moments ago was the Lexington Research and Wellness Institute.

  The crowd is absolutely wild.

  They’re glad.

  That word they’re chanting with such passion is “Rowan.”

  He did this. High up on the third story, a window shatters, barely audible in all the chaos. Something that was once a piece of wall lands before me.

  Jared is pulling me back by the elbows, and I’m too numb to resist. Too stunned.

  When we’re far enough away, Jared lets go and I just stand there in the dirt, watching the destruction and the celebration intertwine, until I can’t even tell which is which.

  If Linden were here, he’d be telling me to breathe. I try to remember the motions of inhaling and exhaling. I try to slow my heart, because I’m sure it’s going to burst through my ribs.

  “Now do you see?” Jared says into my ear. “Whoever your brother once was, he’s beyond your control now.”

  That brings me back to myself. I shake my head. “No, he’s not,” I say.

  I run forward, and Jared doesn’t come after me this time.

  My brother has stepped down from his makeshift stage. The crowd is everywhere. They don’t notice me, because on the outside I’m no different from any of them—a victim of the new generation, a kid in someone else’s clothes with dirt on her hands. When people are in large groups, they lose what makes them human.

  But I see him now. He’s got his eyes shielded from the sunlight as he admires his handiwork. There’s a girl wound around his arm, and I recognize her as the girl from the news, who stood beside him as he gave his speech about his dead sister. She seems fascinated by the sight of him now, though he’s paying more attention to the flames.

  When I call his name, it’s a sound almost entirely out of my control. It soars over the crowd and hits him. Even from where I’m standing, I can tell that he recognized my voice. Hastily he unwinds himself from the girl, stands to attention like an animal sensing danger. And I try to call him again, but that word, that name, was all I had the energy for. I barely have the strength left to stand.

  I wait helplessly for him to find the sound, and when he does, when his heterochromatic eyes meet mine, my mouth forms the word again, but just barely. The girl at his side disappears. The crowd blurs into senseless shapes and colors. I can’t feel my heart or my body or the heat of the flames.

  I can only see his face—his bewildered, beautifully familiar face.

  THE MONTHS FALL to shards at my feet. My legs move as though kicking to be free of them. I’m all arms and legs, all motion, and I can’t move fast enough.

  He catches me just before I’d crash into him. Grabs my arms, stares at my face, at my quivering mouth. His eyes are like mine and not like mine at all. They’re sharper now than I remember. He’s gotten taller, and I think so have I.

  He opens his mouth, but before he can utter a word, I say, “Don’t try to tell me I’m dead. I’ve heard that so many times, I can’t stand to hear it again.”

  He tries to speak, but only a little cry comes out of him, like the inflection of grief I heard when he spoke about me on the news, and then he’s pulling me to his chest and I’m throwing my arms around him.

  He’s shaking, and his breaths are hot sobs going down my neck, and I’m trying to say, “It’s okay. I’m here now; it’s okay,” but I’m sobbing too.

  Reality is beckoning us to return to it. I hear the crackle of the flames and I hear a stranger’s voice saying his name, asking him what’s going on. But I don’t want to return to that world. I don’t want to answer its questions and face what my brother has done.

  Which is why I’m surprised to be the one to ask him, “What did you do?”

  I bunch his shirt—his flimsy, dirty shirt that reeks of ashes—in my fist. His collarbone is pressed against my cheek, so close that it hurts, but I don’t pull away.

  “I can explain,” he says. “I can explain everything.”

  “Rowan,” another voice persists. His name sounds so alien on her tongue.

  He moves away from me, but wraps his arm around my back and squeezes me to his side. “Bee,” he says to the wild-eyed girl. “This is my sister.”

  I can’t tell from her expression as she looks me up and down whether she wants to spit at me or stare right through me like I don’t exist. “The dead one?” she says. “Or is there another sister you haven’t told us about?”

  And that’s when he draws away so he can look at me, and everything disappears around us again. “I thought you’d been killed,” he says.

  “I heard what you said on the news,” I say. “None of that is true. None of it.”

  “But I—” He looks at the girl, Bee, and back to me again. “I don’t understand. I was sure. I talked to a doctor who saw you. Saw your eyes. And he knew the date that you disappeared, your name, that we’re twins.”

  I can’t bring myself to say his name out loud, that awful name that seems to follow me wherever I go.

  “Reporters will be here soon,” Bee says. “Wanna speak to them?”

  “There’s no time for that,” Rowan says. “We have to get back.” He looks over my shoulder, and I turn to see Jared standing at a distance, watching us. And now Rowan is looking at Jared the way the wild-eyed girl looked at me.

  “I have to go,” I tell Jared. “Thank you for the ride.”

  “You’re sure?” he says.

  I nod. “Tell Linden and Cecily—tell them that when they make it back to Reed’s, I’ll come and visit them.” I’m struggling to keep my voice steady, because I don’t know if what I’m saying is the truth. I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again. But I’m thinking of what Cecily said to me that night at Reed’s. We have our own lives to take care of, and there’s only time to do so much with them. I know she was right. I know that she belongs with Linden and that I belong with my brother, with my family. “And, Jared? Promise me they’ll be safe.”

  “Sure,” he says.

  He turns into the crowd, and I cry after him, “Tell them both that I love them.”

  Jared waves over his head without looking back.

  Rowan does not ask where I’ve been, just like I don’t ask why he burned down our house or what course of events led him to be here, in the backseat of this hundred-year-old convertible that’s being driven by a young man who seems nearly as wide with muscles as he is tall. That will all come later.

  The driver eyes me as coldly as Bee, who is still glaring at me from across the backseat.

  I feel as though I’m in a strange dream. My brother i
s my Eden, but something’s amiss. There’s something dark lurking behind the picture of this beautiful valley of waterfalls and lilies. But I don’t want to acknowledge it. I want to be frozen here, where everything can be pretend-perfect, where I’m safe and Rowan’s safe.

  I pretend this year apart hasn’t changed everything. I pretend that his eyes don’t have some of the coldness I saw in that of his new friends.

  The speakers and the assemblage of stage pieces were packed into the trunk, which is tied down with lengths of twine. My brother didn’t have to lift a finger; he had fans in the crowd who were more than happy to help him. As he led me to the car, he didn’t introduce me to any of them; he held my wrist and led me behind him, either protecting me or hiding me, or both.

  He’s become some kind of rebel celebrity. One girl asked if she could touch him, and then without asking she gripped his hand and shook it with desperation. She said he’d changed her life, and he thanked her and said he preferred that she admire his work rather than his person.

  His work. Destroying the very thing our parents stood for.

  And again I feel that darkness lurking. But if I look closely at him, I can see the pink around his eyes from the tears that ceased the moment we broke our embrace, and I know it’s not like Jared says. The sunlight breaks in his hair that’s every kind of blond, like mine. He isn’t gone from me. Rowan can never be gone from me.

  “We’re home,” Bee says as the car pulls up to a pile of rubble that was formerly a house. She hangs on Rowan’s arm until he looks at her. She smiles at him, strokes his cheek with the back of her finger. “Should we rest before the doctor shows up?”

  He regards her with only vague interest. “You two should go inside. I’ll be along eventually.”

  “Sir?” the driver says. His voice is deep and menacing, even with that simple word.

  “It’s fine,” Rowan says.

  It’s with hesitance that they get out of the car, looking over their shoulders, not making their suspicion of me a secret. I should look away, but I watch them because I’m dumbfounded as to where they are going to go. The house has crumbling walls that barely come to their waists, and there’s nothing resembling a roof. All around us is a dead cornfield and the remains of what was once maybe a barn and a silo. The muscular one crouches down, undoes a padlock, and lifts a board that’s hinged to the ground, and they descend the staircase it reveals.