by Dan Rix
But there had also been a third voice.
At that moment, a man stepped into Aaron’s room. A man who had to duck to get through the doorway, a man whose white lab coat drifted, cape-like, behind him.
Dr. Casler Selavio.
***
“No!” Aaron jumped off his bed and backed to the wall as the blood recoiled from his skin.
Casler waved him back down. “Sit, sit.”
“You—” Aaron groped behind him for his bedside lamp, but only grasped air. The lamp lay on the floor at Casler’s feet.
“Clive told me what happened,” said Casler, pulling up Aaron’s desk chair and sitting. He slid a folder out of his briefcase—Aaron’s medical record. “This is all my fault.”
“Where is she?” Aaron whispered.
“May I see the arm?” said Casler, glancing up at him with watery eyes. His ashy cologne filled the room.
When Aaron didn’t move, Casler wheeled the chair forward and reached for his hand.
Aaron yanked it out of reach. “What did you do to her?” he said.
“We weren’t sure you were going to make it last night,” said Casler, craning his neck to examine the inflamed skin around Aaron’s knife wound. He pulled out a pen. “The arm’s healing nicely.”
“Is she okay?” said Aaron.
“Since your channel is unconnected, your clairvoyance is especially vulnerable to disturbance,” said Casler, scribbling something in Aaron’s file. “That’s why you lost consciousness when Clive touched your head. In fact, now that you’re eighteen and your channel’s grasping for your half, I wouldn’t be surprised if just being in the same room as him would irritate the back of head.”
“Just tell me if she’s okay,” said Aaron.
“She demanded the same about you,” said Casler.
“Yeah. Because she’s my half,” said Aaron.
Casler stopped writing, and Aaron could see the muscles working inside his temples. “Yes . . . yes she is,” he said, as if only now realizing this was true. He glanced up, “which is why I’m going to make you halves again.”
Aaron blinked. “What?”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said.
“And what was?” said Aaron. “You severed our channel and gave her to Clive.”
“We didn’t fully understand the machine,” said Casler. “We thought if we severed an infant’s channel during her birth, her would-be half would just connect to someone else . . . not that he would be born halfless. After Clive lost his half, we had to act fast.”
“And how did he lose his half?”
Dr. Selavio stiffened. “It happened when they were four,” he said. “Their juvengamy backfired. They were playing by an old well, and Clive just lost it all of a sudden and pushed her in. By the time we fished her out, it was too late.”
“You mean he murdered his half?”
“It was an accident,” said Casler. “He was too young to realize the consequences.”
“So you severed his channel and rerouted it to another girl,” said Aaron, his jaw twitching, “and that didn’t have consequences?”
“I’m sorry, but I wasn’t about to watch my only son die . . . not when I believed I could safely give him a new half.”
“But why Amber?”
“I didn’t choose her, Aaron. The potentate did. Probably because the Lilians and the Selavios are the only pure bloodlines left, and together, Clive and Amber are the perfect heir and heiress to inherit the Brotherhood. I didn’t care, though. I would have taken anybody. When I heard you didn’t have a half, though, I realized I’d done something terrible.” Casler reached forward and touched Aaron’s forearm. “Let me switch you back.”
Aaron’s skin prickled. There were too many reasons not to trust him. “You murdered Emma’s half,” he said. “I saw the body.”
“I meant to explain that earlier,” said Casler smoothly. “The boy died mysteriously. The cause of death was clairvoyant in nature, so the coroner requested me for the autopsy.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m the best there is, Aaron.”
“Then why’d you bury the body?”
Casler smiled and squeezed his wrist. “You and Amber love each other. You deserve to be halves.”
“Last time, when you and that priest were talking, you wanted to drain her,” said Aaron.
“No, she offered that herself,” said Casler.
“She didn’t,” said Aaron.
“Yes, I believe she wanted to donate her clairvoyance to less fortunate victims of juvengamy, but Clive wouldn’t let her.”
“She didn’t.”
“Maybe you don’t know her as well as you thought,” said Casler, his eyes twinkling.
“Well, that’s because you didn’t tell her the consequences,” said Aaron.
“No, she knew,” said Casler.
“And she still wanted to?” said Aaron.
“Apparently, until she discovered you.”
Aaron stared at him, and then he shook his head. “You’re not going to switch us back. You’d have to sever Clive’s channel. He would die.”
Casler smiled. “That’s why I need something from you, Aaron. You survived eighteen years with a severed channel . . . and I think I know why. Since you and Amber were severed at birth, your channel retained its malleability, allowing it to heal despite incredible trauma. Amber’s too, hence the scar tissue near the entrance of her channel—”
“Wait, she has the same scar tissue?”
“She didn’t know until recently. It’s where the wound healed after you two were split apart, and yes, it matches yours. You see, the machine is useless on adult patients. It’s like cutting through glass and trying to press the pieces back together; it won’t seal. However, your clairvoyance acts like glue. With a tiny sample, I could reseal Clive’s severed channel. He wouldn’t have a half, but at least he would be alive, and that’s all I ask for. Before we do it, I just need a tiny sample.”
“Of my clairvoyance?”
“Just a thimbleful. You won’t notice it’s gone. If you prefer, I could take out a bit of Amber’s—”
“You’re not taking anyone’s clairvoyance.” Aaron narrowed his eyes, but it was Casler’s hypnotic voice, the way the man’s eyes bored gently into him. Aaron wasn’t sure he wouldn’t do anything the man asked. “But hypothetically, you could switch us back? Would you use the machine?”
“I have to bend space a bit to reach the opening,” said Casler. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
“What about the part of her Clive has?” said Aaron.
“Which part?”
“The stuff you took out when she was born.”
“Amber will get it all back,” said Casler. “Actually, you’ll get it.”
Aaron’s heart slowed, skipped beats, then slammed double-time inside his chest to make them up. “Will it hurt her?”
“Only a prick.”
Casler was lying, obviously. Yet as Aaron peered into the depths of his calm eyes, he wondered again if he had gotten Casler wrong from day one. When he said it, it felt so real, so tantalizingly close; Aaron and Amber could be halves again. All Aaron had to do was give in, believe. Trust—just for a moment.
Aaron took a deep breath. The man was a doctor, after all. Trust was easy.
“When I look through an aitherscope,” said Aaron, “I want to see her eyes. I don’t want any of Clive left inside her—not a trace. And no drilling through anybody’s skull.”
“It’s a deal.” Casler returned the folder to his briefcase and rose to his full height. “Come as soon as you’re ready. She’ll be waiting.”
***
Casler’s explanation was plausible. His reasoning made sense. His facts agreed with what Aaron already knew; there were no contradictions. Maybe he could put Aaron and Amber back together again.
Maybe every last stinking word was a lie.
But Aaron also realized how much danger she was in. Amber was Clive
’s second half. Clive had already killed his first.
In the middle of pacing, his phone rang. The same number Amber texted him from the night before.
“Hello?” he said, and even though it probably wasn’t her, his heart quivered with anticipation. Just the thought of hearing her voice. Suddenly, his doubts vanished, replaced by a dizzying euphoria. He was about to blurt out that Casler was a hero, that he was going to make them halves again, when she spoke.
“I know about the deal you made with Casler,” she said, her voice biting.
Aaron could tell something was off, and his heart chilled. He answered carefully. “He said he could reconnect us.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “We’re not supposed to be halves.”
“What?”
She sighed. “You were just a fling, Aaron. It’s not like I wanted you to be my half. I wasn’t thinking last night; I’m sorry.”
“But we talked about this,” said Aaron. “Casler severed us—”
“Casler lied to you,” she said. “All he wants is your scar tissue, and even if he could make us halves, I wouldn’t want him to. I know I said things before, but I don’t actually want to be your half, Aaron . . . I’m happy with Clive.” She paused, waiting for him to answer.
But he couldn’t.
“Are you even going to acknowledge me?” she said.
“Amber . . . I . . . ” His voice choked up.
“I know I hurt you, and I’m sorry. Obviously, what we did together hurt me too, but will you please let me get on with my life?”
“You’re lying,” he said finally. “You’re trying to protect me. I know what we had.”
She sighed again, more exasperated this time. “I knew you would say that. I liked you too, Aaron. I even thought I loved you at one point. You were fun, and I really needed that during that time of my life. You helped me through a lot. But I’m eighteen now and I have a half. What we had is over . . . and I want you to promise me you won’t try to contact me again.”
“So you love Clive?”
“Of course I do, he’s my half,” she said. “I told you that like a thousand times. Aaron, will you please just promise me?”
Aaron shut his eyes and loathed the words that came out of his mouth. “If you love Clive, then yes. I promise.”
“Trust me,” she said, “you’ll be happier without me screwing up your life. Bye, Aaron.”
Then she hung up.
***
At ten forty-one on Tuesday morning, three days after his appointment at the Chamber of Halves, reddish sunlight slashed through the dust and scorched Aaron’s retinas as he crossed the street to his doorless Mazda. He would drive away. No idea where. He would just drive. He pressed his phone to his ear, and one more time, he listened to Amber’s terrified message, the one she left while his phone was off.
“Aaron, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this—I’m so sorry—you have to run away—”
He slid the phone off his cheek, and it occurred to him in stabbing thrusts. That message was his last memory of her. They weren’t halves, they weren’t supposed to be. They had no connection to each other. She didn’t love him.
And that was the end of it.
Casler had tried to lure him into a trap; it hadn’t worked. Sure, he could toy with her clairvoyant channel, cut her open, reconnect her like the plastic pieces of a marble maze. But not to him—never to him. Amber didn’t even want them to be halves.
In this world, he had no right to love her. Casler could drain her into a vial, and Aaron had no right to stop it. She was Clive’s half, and in the eyes of the Juvengamy Brotherhood, his property—his possession.
Aaron’s cell phone rang again.
He let it ring in his pocket, thinking instead about the half-baked plan he had been formulating when Amber called. First, he would have driven to Dominic’s house and made sure she was okay. Then he and Amber would meet Dr. Selavio in the dungeon. Aaron would volunteer for the machine first. Amber would go next. When it was done, they would be halves again.
They would leave here and travel somewhere faraway, like Spain, or Sicily.
Thinking back, it was all a delusional fantasy. Every second he spent with Amber—fake. His body had been confused, fragile. It hadn’t been love.
Aaron eased himself into his car, taking shallow, pinched off breaths, and his phone rang again. Only this time he felt goose bumps forming along his forearms.
Aaron dragged the phone out of his pocket. It was Tina.
“What is it?” he said.
“Aaron—” Her voice crackled over the speaker. “It’s Amber, she’s in trouble!”
“What do you mean?”
“She heard Clive’s father visited you,” she said. “She’s scared he’s going to hurt you—”
Aaron’s heart jerked. “What did she do?”
“Amber made a deal with him,” she said. “He promised to leave you alone, but now she has to go through with it.”
“Go through with what?” said Aaron.
“They’re doing it in fifteen minutes,” she said. “The machine . . . they’re going to drill into her head and drain her clairvoyance. They’re going to make her like the other juvengamy women!”
FOURTEEN
Plus 2 Days, 23 hours, 45 minutes
“No—” he gasped, “talk her out of it, tell her she can’t.”
“We tried,” said Tina, “but she’s not thinking straight. She heard Casler say he could use your clairvoyance to make his machine work, and she freaked out. She volunteered herself instead.”
“But she knows what it will do to her,” he choked, barely forming the words. “She doesn’t have any left to give.”
He heard Dominic’s voice in the background, and then the rugby player came on the line. “Number eleven?”
“I’ll volunteer. Just tell her she can’t.”
“She’s not listening to anybody, fuckface.”
Aaron squeezed his eyelids shut. “She never does.”
“Dr. Selavio’s warming up the machine right now. They’re doing the operation at eleven.”
Aaron held the phone away from him, stared at it. It was a nightmare, surreal. His heart sounded far away, buried, and the whole world rippled when it beat. He pulled the phone back to his mouth.
“I’m coming right now,” he said. “Why the hell didn’t Dr. Selavio wait for me? We had a deal.”
“Amber made him swear not to contact you,” said Dominic, “and he decided she would be better anyway. She’ll let him take more out.”
“Jesus. Just tell him I’m coming,” said Aaron. “And tell him we had a deal.” He flung his phone onto the passenger seat and reached for the ignition.
What the hell was Amber thinking?
The operation would drain her body of something she could never replace. She would be docile afterwards, helpless, pathetic. She would follow Clive around like a pet, taking orders and feeling sad when she was reprimanded, happy when she was rewarded. Never defiant. On the outside, she would still be the same girl—Clive’s trophy—with only a tiny scar at the back of her head to remind her that she was hollow.
They would do this to her, and in fourteen minutes, she was going to let them, all just to protect Aaron, a boy who wasn’t even her half.
He had to stop her.
Aaron ignored the burn of the ignition wires, and his Mazda fired to life. Fourteen minutes. On a bad day, the drive to Dominic’s house could take twenty. He wasn’t going to make it in time—
Aaron hadn’t even found first gear when a figure loomed to his left. He glanced up as two large hands closed on his collar and dragged him out of the car.
***
“Amber, turn around,” said Dominic. He stood in front of the cellar door, swirling a glass of whisky—blocking her.
Amber stopped just short of him. “What are you doing here?”
“Trust me, you don’t want this,” said Dominic.
“You mean you don’t wa
nt this?” she said.
“No one does.”
“It’s my choice,” she said.
Dominic scanned the entrance hall behind her and raised his eyebrows. “No Selavio?”
“I’m all alone,” she said. “Does that excite you?”
“Nah.” He tilted his glass, and the ice crinkled. “My birthday’s in five weeks.”
“Am I invited?” she said.
“Depends on how much of you is left.”
She sighed. “Can you please move?”
“Seriously though,” he said. “He’s going to stop you.”
“Clive?”
“Number eleven.” Dominic wrinkled his nose and sipped his whisky.
Amber felt a twinge in her heart. “He won’t. Not anymore.”
“Let him volunteer instead of you. He’s already halfless; no one’s going to miss him.”
Amber glared at him. Then her eyes flicked to his glass. She snatched it from his hand and poured the rest on his head.
He flinched, then shook the liquid off his letterman jacket, kind of like a wet cat. “If that leaves a stain,” he said, “you’re paying for it, Amber.”
She smiled sweetly. “Can I go now?”
He stepped to the side. “Don’t let me stop you.”
Before he changed his mind—or she changed hers—Amber pushed through the door. In the cellar, the silver haze of the aitherscope made her feel see-through. She held her breath until she was safely past it.
Her stomach still hadn’t unknotted from her final, heartbreaking conversation with Aaron. On the phone, it had taken all her strength not to burst into tears, not to cave and confess she loved him. But somehow, she had to push him away. It was the only way to protect him. Whether or not they were supposed to be halves hardly mattered. Even if Casler agreed to reconnect them, the operation would be her second switch, and she wouldn’t survive it—at least not all of her.
And she never wanted Aaron to see her like that. As long as Casler left him out of it and promised never to touch him, he could do whatever he wanted to her. In fact, the more he took out the better. When it was done, she wanted to feel nothing.
She couldn’t stand another excruciating minute as Clive’s half. Up until now, he had kept silent about his father draining her clairvoyance, though she knew it terrified him. In his own way, he did love her; he wanted to own her just the way she was, not hollowed out like other juvengamy girls. He wanted her to love him in return, to really love him, and he knew that would only come from the feeling, thinking, self-aware part of her, from the part she would be missing after the operation—but Amber would rather throw it away than let him have it.
