Unravel

by Imogen Howson

  “Oh,” said Lin suddenly. “Where’s my hoodie?”

  Elissa cast a quick look at her. Had that been all the empathy Lin had to spare? Seriously? She tried not to let her voice show disappointment. “Over by Felicia or something, I guess. It’ll be all bloody, though, Lin—they won’t let you get it.”

  “Okay.” Lin looked back at Cassiopeia. “Sorry. I had some chocograin bars, but I can’t— Oh, wait!” She delved in the pocket of her trousers, and after a few seconds produced the familiar wrapped bar and held it out to Cassiopeia. “I forgot I put one in there.” She looked at the bar critically. “It’s a bit squashed.”

  Elissa found herself smiling, wanting to reach over and hug her twin. “She’s right,” she said to Cassiopeia. “We’re all pretty shaky, I bet. Chocolate does kind of help.”

  Cassiopeia took the bar, fumbled to tear it open, and bit off a piece.

  Lin watched her eagerly. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”

  Cassiopeia swallowed and bit off another piece. She nodded, and Lin beamed. Then, after a moment, Cassiopeia lifted her head fully. “It was you two who saved us down there,” she said. “Wasn’t it?”

  Elissa felt herself flushing. It was one thing to have Cadan praise her; it was somehow less comfortable to have the others comment on it. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was just that she and Lin—oh, they’d been so lucky, really, although it hadn’t felt like it at the time. The fact that their link was powerful enough to save themselves, to save other people, felt almost embarrassing, like it was good luck on top of good luck, and none of it really deserved.

  Lin didn’t seem to feel any of the same reticence. “Yes,” she said, a smile spreading across her face. “That was us.”

  From over by Zee, Ady spoke. “What you guys can do—it’s amazing.” He gave a rueful grin. “And kinda unfair. All the Spares were taken for the same reason—at least, as far as we know. We should all have that kind of power, don’t you think?”

  “No,” said Lin seriously, missing the humor in his tone. “People’s minds are different, even when they have telepathy or electrokinesis.”

  Just the corner of Ady’s mouth curled. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said, deadpan.

  Past him, Samuel started to laugh, then covered it by turning his head to speak to Jay.

  Jay dug into his pockets as Lin had done, coming out with two bars—not chocograin but a couple of varieties of chocolate and dried fruit. Elissa had always thought those mixes worked even less well than chocograin. Samuel took them, unwrapped one, and started breaking it into pieces, dropping them back into the wrapper as he glanced up at the others. “Do you want to share? There’s not enough for, like, everyone, but we could save a bit for Sofia and El?”

  “That sounds fair,” said Ady, reaching to pluck a bit from the opened wrapper.

  Elissa shook her head. She felt shaky, but nothing like the ravenous hunger from before. Maybe some of the energy from the bars she’d eaten then was still in her body? How much energy does electrokinesis use up, anyway?

  Lin nibbled a corner of her piece. “I never tried this one. We didn’t have it on the Phoenix.” Then her eyes went to the far end of the flyer, where the parents and children sat, huddled and silent. “Should we . . .” She hesitated. “Some of those children were crying. Do you think they’d like some?”

  Jay followed her gaze, a reluctant look appearing on his face. “But we don’t have much. And they’re my bars.”

  Lin narrowed her eyes at him. “You can get more. And those children are really little.” She leaned forward, took the second bar from Samuel’s hand, and stood. “I’m going to give them some.” So there, said her tone of voice.

  Elissa smothered laughter, turning to watch as Lin made her way across to the far end of the flyer. Beside the laughter, affection for her twin glowed, warm within her. Those kids weren’t even other Spares. They were just people, ordinary Sekoian citizens. She’d asked Lin, once, what people like that were to her, and Lin had said, Just nobody. They’re not anything.

  And now, here she was, looking at them and seeing people who’d been frightened and upset, people who might find chocolate as comforting as Lin did herself.

  The glow inside Elissa wasn’t just affection. It was pride.

  One of the mothers looked up as Lin neared where they sat, and—suddenly, weirdly—something seemed to freeze in her expression. She moved her hand to touch the man next to her. The man looked up too, then, with the back of his hand, he touched the shoulder of the man next to him.

  By the time Lin reached them, all the parents were watching her. A couple of the toddlers, too—one of them with his eyes fixed firmly on the snack bar she was holding.

  “Hi,” said Lin. Only three of the parents responded, and with nothing more than awkward-looking nods. Although they were looking at Lin, none of the parents’ gazes seemed to focus steadily enough on her face to indicate that any of them were meeting her eyes.

  The warmth inside Elissa ebbed a little. What’s going on? If they’re blaming us for getting them caught up in the attack, that’s completely unfair. She stood, steadying herself against the wall, and began to walk over to join her sister.

  Lin held out the bar to the nearest woman. “Would your children like some? It’s chocograin—no, I mean”—she turned the bar to look at the wrapper—“oh, chocoraisin. I think it’s good, though.”

  The woman shook her head, a polite smile flickering over her face, then disappearing. Too quickly, Elissa thought, to actually be polite at all. “No thanks.”

  Lin took half a step back, looking suddenly unsure of herself. “Okay. Um, would anyone else—”

  A dark-haired woman, one of those who hadn’t replied at all to Lin’s greeting, spoke. “No thank you,” she said, the words emphasized.

  Elissa was next to Lin now, and she saw her twin’s face go momentarily still. Lin often didn’t pick up social cues, but the ice in the woman’s voice was impossible not to notice.

  “It’s just chocolate,” she said, her voice uncertain. “We thought—back down there, it must have been really scary for your children. We thought they might like . . .” She trailed off, still holding out the bar, and Elissa saw her throat move as she swallowed.

  What’s the matter with them? Like she said, it was really scary, and it would make sense if they were all shocked like Cassiopeia, but this isn’t shock. This is . . .

  This is hostility. But she stuck on the word. Okay, that was what it seemed like, but it made no sense. The parents had seen what had happened; they must know that it was Lin and Elissa who’d saved them.

  At that point the toddler who’d had his gaze fixed on the choco bar apparently decided that the grown-ups were all taking too long getting him his share. He lunged forward, escaping from his father’s arms, one chubby hand grabbing for the bar.

  Lin’s face lit in a smile as she put her own hand out to stop the toddler staggering into her legs. “Hey, do you want some?”

  His father snatched him away. The dark-haired woman stood with a fast, jerky movement that made Lin step back. “We said no thank you, okay?”

  Lin stared, bewildered. Elissa put a hand on her arm. “Lin, don’t bother. It’s just . . . whatever, they don’t want it. They—”

  But Lin wasn’t moving. “What’s wrong?” she said, looking at the man who’d snatched his son away. “It’s just chocolate. You don’t have to have any, but your little boy—he’d like some.”

  “That’s because he doesn’t know any better.” The dark-haired woman’s voice was bluntly belligerent. She stepped sideways, between Lin and the other parents, speaking past Lin to Elissa. “We said no, we said it politely, now can you stop her harassing us?”

  “I’m not harassing you!” Lin’s voice rose, sounding squeaky and indignant. “I’m being really nice! We already saved you back in the square, and now I’m sharing chocolate with you. That’s not harassing.”

  But now understanding came to Elissa. Can you st
op her, the woman had said. She’d spoken not to Lin, but about Lin to Elissa. As if Lin were some badly behaved child. Or not even a child—an animal. As if Elissa were her keeper.

  They can see the difference between us. They can see I’m the “real” one, the one they can treat like a normal human. Somehow they’ve noticed those weird little differences, the things that make her look as if she’s not quite familiar with the world she’s living in. They know what she is. They know she’s the Spare.

  “Lin.” She tugged on her sister’s arm. “It’s not worth it. Leave it.” She had to get her away before Lin realized what exactly it was that she was meeting with—and why. She hadn’t yet picked up that the woman had addressed Elissa, that she was treating Lin as if she didn’t even want to acknowledge her presence. She hadn’t yet picked up what that meant.

  Lin had come here brimful of good intentions; Elissa didn’t want to see her face change when the truth hit her, didn’t want her to be left hurt and exposed in front of these horrible, ungrateful, freaking stupid people. “Lin, come away.”

  Lin threw her a bewildered, angry look. “But she’s crazy. I’m not harassing them. Lissa, you tell her.”

  “It’s not you, Lin. You didn’t do anything wrong. She probably is crazy. Let’s just leave them alone—”

  “Oh, I’m crazy?” It was naked enmity in the woman’s face now. “You think we don’t know what she is? You think we want her near our kids?”

  And that was when it hit Lin. Her face went still, the stillness of someone who has sustained a bad blow and freezes, as if keeping motionless will stop the pain from getting through. “You mean Spares,” she said, her lips hardly moving.

  The woman had drawn back toward her friends as if they’d provide some kind of shield. “You shouldn’t even be out in the population,” she said. “You’re supposed to be shut away.”

  Fury licked up through Elissa, a wave of heat like sheet lightning. “She’s not, she’s supposed to be in a safe house. No one’s supposed to be shutting her away—she never did anything!”

  “You call that down there nothing?”

  “That was both of us,” Elissa said, enraged. If this woman was freaking out because of what their electrokinesis had done, then at least she should be freaking out about both Lin and Elissa, not just one of them.

  “Oh, and you were doing it before IPL put the two of you together?” The woman paused just long enough for Elissa to do exactly what the woman was obviously expecting, which was to say nothing. She’d have said yes if she could: Yes, I was already electrokinetic, yes, I’m the freak here.

  “IPL,” said the woman, the word colored with contempt. “Taking over, ruining our planet. Treating Spares like they’re the only victims here. Putting them and their doubles back together. They should have investigated it, they should have thought about what it might do. Anyone could have warned them they needed to be more careful. All those reports of what they can do! Reading people’s minds, psychokinetic abilities, for God’s sake—they should never have been let out.” She was shaking as she spoke. At first Elissa thought it was just anger—like she had any business being angry. But then something—the overrigidity of the woman’s lips, the screwed-up crinkle at the outer edges of her eyes—told her that if it was anger, it wasn’t just anger. The woman was afraid.

  And it was Lin she was afraid of. She’d seen what Lin and Elissa had both done, but she was only afraid of Lin. She thought Lin needed to be locked up. As if she were dangerous, as if she were a criminal.

  Somewhere at the back of Elissa’s mind, a voice, born of the unease of weeks ago and the fear and fury of the day before, whispered, Well, she is dangerous.

  I don’t care! She didn’t do anything this time. She saved them. She saved this stupid woman and her stupid friends and their stupid children!

  She opened her mouth to say something like that—except maybe with some really bad words tacked on—but at that point a cold hand slid into hers, cold fingers closed around her own.

  “It’s not worth it,” said Lin, her voice without expression, echoing Elissa’s words as if, for the moment, she had none of her own. “Come away.”

  Actually, telling this woman what Elissa thought of her seemed completely worth it, but when Elissa turned her head and saw her sister’s face, the words died on her lips.

  The brief, blunting edge of shock had worn off. Now the pain had reached Lin. Before, when people had shown they thought of her as subhuman, like some kind of weird full-body clone, Lin had been angry, but not hurt. But back then, she hadn’t expected anything different. She hadn’t expected anything of legal humans, hadn’t, at first, even expected anything of Elissa. But this time . . .

  She thought they’d accept her like they would accept me. She thought she could offer them chocolate and they’d take it like Cassiopeia did, like it wasn’t a big deal.

  And instead, the woman had slapped her away, treated her like some—thing—they didn’t even want to get near. And because this time Lin had expected it to be different, this time it hadn’t struck her with anger, but with pain.

  Elissa looked at Lin’s face, her pressed-together lips, her stricken eyes, then turned her gaze to the people who’d hurt her twin. For an instant her anger seemed to bleach out everything, turn it into a white haze. And it must have shown in her face, because the dark-haired woman took a big step backward, so fast that she almost stumbled over one of the toddlers.

  Then Ivan was there, his big arm around Lin’s shoulders, his other hand on Elissa’s back. “Like she said, sweetheart, it’s not worth it. Not with these types.” Elissa felt his gaze go over her head and meet that of the dark-haired woman. The woman’s chin went up, defiant. There was fear in her eyes, but a whole lot less than when it had been Elissa looking at her.

  I scared her. Good. Good. I wish—

  But then Ivan was turning her and Lin around, steering them away across the floor of the flyer, and the wish slipped away before it could become entirely verbalized in her mind.

  The others had witnessed enough of the little scene to understand what had happened. Ady was giving the refugees a look like a laser, and as Lin got within reach and stepped away from Ivan, Samuel came to give her a huge hug. Past Lin’s head, Samuel’s eyes met Elissa’s. His move toward Lin had been so calm that Elissa was almost shocked to see the blaze of fury within them.

  “Screw them,” he said, loud enough to carry across the flyer. “Slow learners, that’s all. They’d be in itty-bitty pieces if it wasn’t for you guys.”

  Elissa gave a choke of laughter, so unexpected that it hurt her chest the way a hiccup would have. She looked at the back of Lin’s head, her gaze moving from the place where the dark roots faded to pale blond, to the place where her skull curved down and where, under her hair, a hole had been drilled in through the bone. Lin was standing still, not moving out of Samuel’s hug, not returning it either.

  “Lin?”

  Lin stepped away from Samuel’s arms. She looked as if every muscle in her face had tensed, pulling the skin tight over the bones. As if she were holding herself together.

  Elissa’s stomach cramped. Lin wasn’t supposed to look like that, not now, not anymore. “You did the right thing,” she said. “They’re idiots, and they’re scared and they’re stupid, but everything you did—it was the right thing to do.”

  Lin shrugged, not speaking. She wasn’t just holding herself together, she’d closed herself off. Again rage bleached up through Elissa’s head, fading the world, scalding the back of her throat.

  The flyer banked, not sharply, but enough to make Elissa reach for a grab handle. They were descending to whatever safe place the pilot had decided on to put down the group of inadvertent refugees.

  Good. Let’s dump them. Forget about them. We shouldn’t have bothered with them in the first place. Back when Lin was newly escaped from the facility, when she’d said that kind of thing, Elissa had been horrified. But now, anger scorching through and through
her . . . I get why she said it, I get what she was feeling.

  She didn’t mean it, not really, not with all the bits of her brain that were still rational, but it was a kind of sour comfort to tell herself she did, to let herself give in to the vicious thoughts. People like that—they’re not worth even thinking about, let alone helping. And they’ll bring their kids up to be as dumb as they are—what’s even the point?

  The flyer descended only a short distance before touching down. Through the glass slits around the top of the passenger cabin, Elissa caught a glimpse of tower block roofs, the dazzle of sun on metal railings.

  They’d landed on a roof. Of, Elissa guessed, yet another tower block, although she’d lost all track of where they were. Still one of the residential areas, probably. The indoors route down wouldn’t be accessible to anyone without the entrance codes for the block, but their unwelcome passengers would be able to get down to street level via the external fire escape.

  As for which sector they’d ended up in, which way they’d have to go to get to the square where they’d been attacked, Elissa didn’t have a clue.

  Not that it would be a problem for the refugees. They’d all have phones or myGadgets, and there were mapscreens displayed at nearly every street corner. It’d take them all of thirty seconds to figure out how to get back home.

  Unless the mapscreens had been turned off when the lights were? Unless the citywide communication channels were all down so their phones wouldn’t work?

  She was jerked from her thoughts as the door beeped, letting them know the lock was off. Markus opened the door, and the unwanted refugees filed past.

  The moment the last of them had stepped out, Markus hit the doorpad to shut the door. The propellers picked up, vibrating through the roof above Elissa’s head. She glanced back and saw Lin watching the closed door. Her face was still tight, her lips bloodless.

  If the mapscreens are off, thought Elissa, furious all over again, if their phones won’t work, well, serve them right.

  Then, flaring in her head, hot and vicious, came thoughts so strong she felt them all through her body, as if it were her veins acting as their conduit. Let them be lost and scared and not know where to go! Let them have to run from people who want to hurt them. Let them have just a taste of what it was like for me!