ARC: The Almost Girl

by Amalie Howard

  A few minutes later, we stop walking and the bags are removed. I blink against the sudden light. Only three of the initial men are with us. We’re standing in some kind of holding room, with a rough-hewn door barred with metal on one end and two thin cots on the other. They thrust us into it and swing the door shut behind them. Our packs are placed along the wall near the outer passageway. Our weapons are nowhere in sight.

  “Wait!” I shout, but they’ve faded into the darkness before I can take a breath.

  “What do we do now?” Caden asks. He looks concerned but no worse for wear, other than a reddening bruise on his chin.

  “That looks like it hurts,” I say.

  He grins wryly. “The one who hit me was my age, I think. I saw it coming, but my brain said freeze instead of duck. Don’t worry; I have my eye on him for a little payback when we get out of here.”

  “Cade,” I begin. “I don’t know who these people are or what they’re doing here, but you need to know that they may not want us here.” I don’t say that they wouldn’t want me there, especially if they know anything about who I used to be. But if they are from Neospes, sooner or later one of them will recognize me. “And if they don’t, we need to do anything we can to get out, OK, even if they look like kids your age.”

  “I get it.”

  “No, you don’t. In this world, we are taught how to kill before we even learn how to talk. They are not kids like you are. If they see you as the enemy, they will take you out without blinking.”

  “Riv, I said I got it,” he snaps.

  I stare at him but he looks away. I can tell that it’s bothering him. That kid had probably hit him out of pure gut instinct, and he maybe hadn’t expected it to hurt quite as much as it did. I, for my part, was happy that it had only been a fist and not something worse.

  My head feels fuzzy, and I’m not sure it’s because we’re underground. Something feels off but I can’t quite put my finger on it. I lean against one side of the room and close my eyes for a second before taking stock of the cell we’re trapped in.

  The walls of our prison are the same dark, shiny rock from the first cave, and it’s oddly warm and smooth to the touch. There are no openings, but I can feel airflow coming from somewhere against my legs. I push off the wall to follow the changes in the air to an inch-long vent carved into the floor. The air is cool and smells fresh, as if it’s being piped in from the outside. I find that odd and am intrigued, because it seems like this whole place has somehow been constructed. Such an elaborate venting system hasn’t happened by accident.

  Someone enters the hallway beyond our door with a tray. It’s a young girl. Her face is covered with a veil, but she doesn’t look at us. She’s been instructed to deliver whatever is on that tray and leave without any eye contact.

  “What’s your name?” Caden asks, his hands wrapped around the bars of the door as she slides the tray underneath along the floor.

  Startled, she answers automatically. “Sela, sir.”

  “Thank you, Sela, for the food.”

  She smiles despite herself at his gentle words, and then without warning, her eyes grow wide and terrified as she glances up into the far corner of the room. Realizing that I’m following her gaze, her eyes drop hastily to the floor. Sela shuffles out far more quickly than she’d entered, and is gone without another word.

  “You scared her,” Caden says reproachfully to me.

  He pulls the tray to the middle of the room, and I squat next to him. There are two wooden cups of water and some kind of ground meal in a bowl. He stares at me.

  “You think it’s safe?” he says. I frown. “You said if they wanted us dead, they would have killed us by now, right?”

  “Yes, but killing by poisoning is far less messy than an arrow in the stomach.”

  Caden rolls his eyes at me and stares glassily at the food. “I’m starving. It feels like hours since I ate that food bar. And I’m so thirsty.” He looks away from the tray with effort. “The smell of it is killing me.”

  For a second, I stare at him mutely, wanting to answer but unable to. The outline of his body shimmers into two people as my vision flickers. Forming the words in my head takes energy. “You can eat if you want to, Cade.”

  “Are you going to?”

  I shake my head thickly. “No, not until I find out where we are and who these people are. Force of habit.”

  “Are you OK?” Caden asks me, frowning. “You look a little woozy.”

  “I feel really tired. You?” I ask. Caden shakes his head. “Must just be me then.”

  I stretch, circling and pumping my arms to get the blood flowing in my body. It helps a little. I study the tiny black spot on the corner of the wall. If Sela hadn’t looked directly there, the spot would have been unnoticeable, as had obviously been intended, but now it bothers me. What exactly had she been so afraid of when she’d looked up there? The way her eyes had dropped to the floor right afterward makes me think twice about it.

  Squinting out of the corner of my eye, I study the dot. Something flashes – it’s the barest hint of a reflection in a lens – and I belatedly realize that I am looking at a minuscule camera. Someone is looking at us right at that moment, and has been looking at us all along.

  “Caden,” I hiss. “Don’t even think about touching that food.”

  “But you just said–”

  “I know what I said,” I say exasperated. “But I didn’t know two minutes ago that we were being watched like rats in a cage.”

  Caden’s hand drops so quickly I almost laugh, but the shaken look on his face makes my humor fade instantly. He shoves the tray under the door.

  His voice is a worried rasp. “Where?”

  “Upper left corner of the room. Don’t look now,” I warn, grimacing as his eyes flick towards it.

  “I see it.” After several moments, he mouths. “What’s the plan?”

  “No plan. We wait.”

  Caden frowns but I shake my head imperceptibly. If they can see us, I’m pretty sure that they can hear us. My guess is that they’re waiting for the direction of some leader, some person who will decide what to do with us.

  I want – no – I need to know who that person is and what they’re doing here outside the boundaries of the city, and building some kind of secret sector in the Outers. And most of all, how do they stay safe from the reptiles and the metals? It’s baffling. Neospes, like other city pods around the rest of the world, was built on the knowledge that the Outers were uninhabitable. And yet, real people are living here.

  Have things changed that much in the three years I’ve been gone?

  There’s no doubt in my mind that the tiny camera has a full view of the entire room, and while they’ve taken our weapons, we still have the suits. I can at least try to understand the layout of where we are being held, and where we are on the map.

  I hold my arm up and press the map command. Nothing happens. I press it again but there’s no response. Frowning, I tap in the security sequences to power up the suit but the entire thing remains unresponsive. I swear under my breath and try again. But it’s no use. The suit has somehow been deactivated.

  “What’s wrong?” Caden asks.

  “It’s not working.”

  “What do you mean, it’s not working? I thought you said the suits were automatic?” Caden whispers. He averts his eyes hastily as I unzip and roll down my suit, separating the connection from my body and studying the microchips around the neural connector. But there’s no light whatsoever.

  “They’ve definitely been deactivated,” I say quietly. “Let me see yours.”

  Uncaring of the cameras or the fact that I’m clad in just a sports bra, I detach Caden’s suit and roll it down to his waist, but it’s the same as mine – completely unresponsive. He moves to shrug it back on, but I put a hand on his arm.

  “Don’t,” I say. “I don’t know if the neural connectors are safe if the suit’s been disabled.” My fingers are still resting on his arm and
I’m startled at the unexpected warmth of his skin. My eyes flutter to his leanly muscled chest, and my hand falls away along with my eyes. I step back, irritated at myself for being distracted. I’ve seen Cale shirtless countless times, but seeing Caden without a shirt bothers me far more than it should.

  The buzzing in my head grows louder and my vision distorts once more, so much so that the floor starts to undulate beneath my feet. I shake my head roughly, trying to clear the static that seems to be crackling and coming from the inside my skull.

  I don’t realize that I’ve slumped to the floor until I feel Caden’s hands on my shoulders, shaking gently. “Riven? Are you OK? You’re freezing.”

  “Get off me,” I say, shrugging him off. “I’m fine.”

  But Caden is right. My body is cold, as if it can no longer regulate my internal temperature. My teeth are chattering so hard that it feels like they’ll break at any second. And claustrophobia overtakes me – a feeling I’d conquered years ago. As if on cue, my heartbeat elevates rapidly and suddenly; I can’t breathe.

  Caden whips one of the scratchy wool blankets off one of the cots at the end of the room and throws it around my shoulders. The fuzziness in my head gets worse, like some kind of high-pitched drill. The walls seem like they’re closing in, amplifying the sound tenfold. I clap my hands against my ears, but if anything, the sound grows louder. Caden’s shouting something but I can’t hear him over the noise in my brain.

  Focus, I tell myself. Focus. Breathe. Focus. Breathe.

  It’s an old mantra that Shae had taught me when I’d been held underground during fear training. It calms the noise as my breathing evens out. My skin feels warmer to the touch already. I have no idea what caused the episode, but I’m sure it has to do with some kind of post-traumatic eversion stress or some weird extended reaction to the serum.

  “Something’s wrong,” Caden is saying to the dot in the wall. “Can’t you see that? We need help!”

  I’m about to tell him that his cries for help are useless when I see movement out of the corner of my eye coming down the passageway.

  “It’s about goddamn time,” Caden says, and then stands back as one of the same men from before opens the metal-barred gate. He walks to stand next to me, his arms folded against his chest. “I don’t know what you guys did to her, but you better fix her fast.”

  Caden’s expression is stony like his voice, the realization that I could be in real danger hard-hitting. All traces of the boy Caden are now gone.

  “I’m fine, Cade,” I say weakly. “I feel better.” I try to smile reassuringly at him, but it fades as one of the men steps forward. As before, they are all dressed in the same brown clothing, their faces stoic and expressionless. Caden’s hand comes to rest on my shoulder, squeezing gently. His fingers knead the muscles , releasing some of the built-up tension, and I let my eyes drift close, despite the risk.

  “Who are you?” The voice is soft and musical… a woman, then. My gaze snaps open. “Who sent you?”

  “No one sent us,” I say, keeping my voice modulated and my hands flat against my sides. But the woman squints at Caden and steps closer. I see the recognition dawn in her eyes, and my heart sinks. She stares from Caden to me, and again, there’s an odd familiarity in her expression. Does she think he’s Cale, as I’d done at first?

  Still, she’s not too sure about me and steps close enough to touch the faded blue braid wound into my hair. My rank. Her fingers drift down to touch the inked seal on the side of my neck – the one that marks me as a general of Neospes – and lingers against the black lines beneath it.

  “You’re the general,” she says. “The one who defected three years ago.” Her eyes narrow, but something in her voice tugs at me… a familiar tone, perhaps. Maybe I’m still fuzzy. I’ve never seen – or heard – this woman before in my life. “Have you been here all this time?”

  “No,” I say. I don’t confirm or deny that I am whom she guesses. Caden is staring at me with wide eyes, but the understanding swirling in them is indisputable. Cat’s out of the bag now, and there’s no use pretending I’m not who I am.

  “Who are you?” I toss my own question in response back to the woman, who’s studying me with an odd expression that makes me feel open and uncomfortable. Naked. I tug the blanket across my shoulders and stand. All the men behind the woman rest their hands on the hilts of their weapons, but I ignore them. “Who are you?” I repeat, my tone sharper.

  She laughs at my posturing. It is a sound devoid of any humor. “We’re nobody. Exiles. Traitors. Enemies of Neospes. Defectors.” She says the last word with the hint of a smile, but I am growing tired of this game. They’re toying with us. I can take the five of them out blindfolded, even in my unfamiliar state. Without looking at Caden, I tighten my body into a state of readiness but freeze at her next words. “You really don’t know me, do you, Riven?”

  As before, I’m certain I’ve never seen this woman before, but then again, her hair is covered in a brown wrap. Her face is the same color as her clothing. Her eyes look dark in the light. She could be anyone.

  I shrug, arrogant, raising my palms upward in expectation.

  She lifts a hand and removes the wrap, and her hair falls loose, so long that the silken waves reach past her back. It is so blond that it’s nearly white, and I know without even seeing them that her eyes in the daylight are light gray. Silver.

  Like mine.

  The only thing I inherited from her.

  A WEB OF LIES

  “You’re not her. You can’t be her,” I say in an emotionless voice. “She’s dead. My mother died years ago, strapped down to a bed in a lab. I saw her with my own eyes.”

  The words sting like poison barbs against my lips, scorching my insides on the way out, and I can’t even look at this woman who makes my heart pound and my eyes burn. No one in Neospes has hair that color, but where she came from – one of the cities on the other side of the burned oceans – that hair color is common.

  It’s not her.

  My heart argues otherwise, but my brain sees it for what it must be… a trick, some kind of lie to disable me. I cross my arms over my chest. My eyes narrow. “Don’t push me. Who are you?”

  “I did die that day,” the woman says. Her voice is soft so only I can hear it. “Just not in the way that you think.”

  “I don’t know what game you’re playing, and I don’t care. You know who I am, and you know that if I choose, none of you will be left standing.” The men once more bristle at my words, but I ignore them. All I can feel is the hot emotion welling up inside me like a tide, uncontrollable and violent. It’s at odds with the coldness of my words. “My mother is dead.”

  “Look again, Riven. Trust yourself, not what you’ve been told.”

  “I know what I saw,” I say flatly.

  “Look again.”

  At her gentle insistence, I struggle to keep myself in check, but it’s too late. There isn’t a shred of doubt on her face, no sign of untruth in her eyes, but I refuse to give in. I can’t… because if what she says is true, then my whole life has been a lie. She has to be lying.

  How dare this woman presume to be my mother?

  My rage erupts like a volcano, burning my mind with lost memories and thoughts I want forgotten. Without thinking, I drop to my knees in a crouch and spin behind her. I clip one of the men with my boot and take another out with a jab to the jaw before anyone can blink. The other two lurch toward me with their weapons, but I’m spinning again, my feet and hands darting out with swift, lethal purpose. And they too join their brothers on the floor.

  The woman hasn’t moved or drawn any weapons, but I still let my fury pin her up against the wall, my forearm under her slim neck.

  “Riv, no,” Caden says from behind me. “What are you doing?”

  “Shut up,” I growl to him. “She’s an imposter. An exile.” I turn back to her. The compassion in her clear eyes irritates me even more. “Otherwise, why would she and all her followers be hi
ding out here instead of in the city? And she’s a liar. A fucking liar!”

  My voice breaks on the last word, but still the woman doesn’t move, staring at me with those brilliant eyes and daring me to believe the impossible. I flinch against the light palm pressing along the base of my spine. “Riven,” Caden says again, his voice soft, “Stop. You’re not a soldier anymore. Calm down. What these people are doing here is anyone’s guess, but it’s not our place to judge. We need their help. Remember why we’re here?”

  His words are tentative, but I can’t see past the emotion storming inside of me. The fact that some stranger could elicit such a frightening response out of me because of the mere color of her hair or her eyes makes me furious… furious at myself, and furious at her for claiming to be someone that she isn’t. Caden’s foolishly timed words nudge me over the edge of my tenuous control on my anger.

  My voice is calm. Deadly calm. “It became my place to judge when they imprisoned us here.” I turn to face him, my expression echoing my voice, releasing my hold on the woman so that she slumps back against the wall, clutching her neck but still silent. “And don’t you ever talk about me being a soldier, ever again. You know nothing of it. I will be a soldier until the day that I die. So don’t presume to think that you know me or what I am, ever. Understand?” I jab at the seal on my neck. “You asked me once what this was. It’s a seal, a brand. It marks me as theirs and I can never escape it as long as I’m alive. And the black lines” – I’m spitting now, advancing on him, my words merging together – “mark the lives I’ve taken, those I’ve killed. Still think I’m not so tough?” I say, mocking his words from his bedroom, a lifetime ago.

  Caden is up against the other wall and I’m so close that I can feel his shallow breaths on my skin. But there’s no real fear on his face; instead his eyes are wide and worried, focused on me. His hands are flat against my shoulders but non-threatening.