“What is all this?” I ask him quietly.
He averts his eyes for a moment. When he looks back at me he says, “We need to get her out of here.” His tone is grave.
The guards shove us into chairs and bind us to them. Struggling against the binding is useless; they won’t budge. Nathaniel has the same difficulty.
“We’re just moments away from the big event,” Isadora coos, her voice full of excitement. “You’re going to want to stick around for this.”
The guards stand at their posts, imposing pillars of terror who won’t question Isadora’s motives. They were created to follow orders, just like I was. Only they haven’t been exposed to humans and so they have no humanity. There’s no point in reasoning with them.
Whispering to Nathaniel I say, “Tell me what’s going on. I know you know.”
In all of my time chasing Nathaniel, I’ve never seen him look the way he does now. He’s pained and frightened. He works his lips, pulling them in and out, grating them with his teeth because he doesn’t want to tell me the truth. But it isn’t that he relishes in keeping the information from me, like he would have before.
“Gage,” Nathaniel’s voice is empty, hopeless. “They’re not going to kill Mercy. They’re going to do something so much worse.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Mercy
“Mom, please, please wake up.”
She’s no longer breathing. Will CPR work on someone like her? I don’t know, but I have to give it my best shot. Titling her head back, I pinch her nose and blow breath into her mouth. Then I pump and pump her chest.
“You can’t leave me,” I beg. “You can’t leave me!”
I can’t let her die.
Regaining my composure, wiping the sweat from my brow, I tell myself to calm down and concentrate. Deep, yoga breaths. Steady.
I tap into something deep within me. For the first time, my power is willing to reveal itself. I see the scope of my abilities, understanding them now for the very first time.
I take a leap of faith and believe that I can do what I’m about to do.
With my left hand, I pierce my mother’s chest, through her flesh and past her rib cage until I hold her heart. Lightly, I grip the heart and squeeze over and over again, willing it to beat again.
The pull to breach her body entirely is strong. I know I don’t have much time before I succumb to the need.
“Come on, beat!”
When her heart thumps against my hand, I rear back and slam myself against the wall. The humming, the urge, the need—it’s all I can think about. The room is jump-proof, meaning I can’t leave and breach somewhere else, but no one said anything about not being able to breach another body while inside the room.
Oh God. No!
It’s like a magnetic force and fighting against it is beyond excruciating. Clawing at the walls, I’m unable to find a foothold.
“Mercy, don’t.” My mother’s voice is weak. She’s rolled onto her side and is trying to push herself up. “Fight it.”
Scrambling, I push myself further away. “I can’t.”
“You can,” she gasps. “I know you can.”
Locking eyes with her, I tell myself that I don’t want to breach, that I don’t need to, that I’m safe. I keep inhaling and exhaling deeply, all the while staring at my mother, my mom who I haven’t seen in six years.
The need to breach subsides slowly as the longing to be near my mom intensifies. We crawl toward each other and crash into an embrace.
“Baby girl,” she breathes into my hair.
We cry together and cling to each other. She explores my face, runs her hands along my arms. Like I am with Nathaniel, I am whole around my mother even without a body.
“You saved me.” She kisses my cheek. “My girl, my sweet baby girl.”
“What are they going to do to us?”
“Don’t worry about that,” she says. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I nod, believing her.
“You have more power than they do, Mercy. That’s why I left. You have to know that. I didn’t want them to find you, to use you like they used me. What do you know about The Assembled?”
“Only what Nathaniel and Gage have told me. That The Assembled is some sort of controlling body. Nathaniel told me about Ellie.”
“They punished us, Mercy, for wanting to be human, for wanting to find love. They made us their slaves. I’m ashamed of what I did for them.” She bows her head as she speaks. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t have a choice,” I say to her.
She looks up and holds my face. “But you do.”
“What do you mean?”
“There isn’t time to explain it all. They’ll be coming soon. You’ll know what to do when the time comes.”
She has such faith in me. It’ll kill me to disappoint her.
The door opens and Isadora enters. “You lived,” she says to my mother. “Good for you.”
“If I hadn’t … ” I start to say, but my mother grabs my arm, silencing me.
Isadora tilts her head and glares at me. “If you hadn’t what?”
“Nothing,” my mother answers for me. “She did nothing but hold me and whisper to me to come back.”
“How sweet.” Isadora’s tone is mocking.
My mother doesn’t want Isadora to know what I’ve done. The Assembled must not know very much about me, or what I can do.
I was able to leave Lyla’s body without killing her, which no one expected. I even breached a dead girl and brought her back to life.
What I did for my mother is so much more than breaching. If I was able to reach into her chest and start her heart, does that mean I can reach into a chest and stop a heart?
“On your feet,” Isadora barks.
My mother is still weak and needs my assistance. I feel the burden of her weight as we follow Isadora. It’s difficult to keep focused. Thinking of myself as solid helps a little, but with my mother pressing down on me I can feel myself blending into her. Luckily, we don’t have far to go.
Isadora directs us into as room. As soon as I step in, two men take hold of me while a third sticks a syringe in my arm. I can’t put up a fight as they strap me to the table. My heavy eyelids close. I struggle to keep them open.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Nathaniel and Gage tied to chairs across the room. They’re both yelling, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. A fog surrounds my thoughts, preventing me from grasping anything.
A light goes on overhead. It burns my eyes. Squeezing them shut, I begin to wriggle on the table. The sounds hit my ears all at once: Gage yelling for me and screaming threats at the guards who stand by, my mother hurling insults at Isadora. Nathaniel stares at me, saying nothing. I think I see a tear streaming down his face.
Another needle plunges into my forearm. Again there’s nothing but fog until Isadora leans over the table and says to me, “This is going to hurt.”
Chapter Forty
Gage
“What are they giving her?” I ask Nathaniel for the third time, but he isn’t responding. He’s gone into shock. Tears careen down his face as he watches the horror unfold before us.
Mercy is drugged and not responding to our cries. With Nathaniel fading to my right and Ariana sobbing to my left, I know I have to act. I’m the soldier, the Hunter. I’m the one who has to put a stop to this. But fighting against the restraints is no use. Then I think maybe if I struggle enough I’ll at least cause a distraction and buy us some time.
My plan is thwarted quickly as a guard backhands me across the face and tells me to be still. I am about to issue a threat to him when Rae enters the room. Rae. One look at her and all words are lost to me.
Rae, with her long, wavy blond hair and piercing blue eyes; she’s standing right in front of me as if I had not seen her dead on the floor a few hours ago.
“Hello, Gage.” She greets me befor
e walking toward Mercy.
“You’re dead.”
She whips around and says, “You’re partly right. Watch and learn.”
Rae fiddles with a few instruments, making sure everything is to her liking. The anticipation of not knowing, but suspecting, what she’s about to do, and knowing that there isn’t anything I can do to stop her is killing me.
Selecting a scalpel, Rae moves to Mercy’s left blocking our view. She raises her right arm and presses the blade into Mercy’s ribs.
The scream that follows is deafening.
Mercy’s body flops against the table like a fish on dry land. Guards move to hold her down.
Nathaniel is not looking at Mercy. His head is hanging down, a steady stream of tears drip from his chin to the floor. Ariana is struggling with all her might. Extra guards are brought in to hold her back as well.
Rae continues to work and Mercy screams again and then she goes limp. I can’t see what Rae has in her hand, but I have an idea. She swaddles the item in muslin cloth and hands it off to an assistant. Then she stitches Mercy back together. I expect Mercy to react to the needle, but she doesn’t even flinch.
“You can’t do this!” Ariana shouts. “She hasn’t done anything wrong!”
“It’s done,” Isadora answers flatly.
“What? What’s done?” I ask Ariana.
She looks at me with sad eyes, with pity. “They’ve taken her rib.”
“No!”
“Do you protest our little ritual, Gage?” Isadora feigns innocence. “Without it, you wouldn’t exist.”
This is what they did to Nathaniel? It’s at that moment that I understand his pain. I understand why he hated me, why he hated them. They ripped part of his body away and from that they created me—the one ordered to hunt him down and kill him.
I no longer care what motive The Assembled may have had. This is wrong.
The white bundle containing the rib is removed from the room. I don’t need Nathaniel or Ariana to tell me what happens next. I already know.
The rib will be cultivated and nurtured like a plant, given nutrients and special elixirs until it expands into an entire cage of ribs, beneath which a heart will grow. From there, blood from the donor would be injected into the heart and, with the help of machines, the heart will begin to pump. The rest of the body grows much like that of a baby. An incubator simulates that of a womb, but the growth rate is sped up, again with the help of elixirs, until a full-grown man or woman develops.
The DNA, although taken from the donor, is altered to create a super species that is faster, stronger and more adaptable. The entire process doesn’t take long. Rae, Jinx, Zee, we’d all been born this way, and we never gave it much thought.
My whole life I thought I served a greater purpose, a greater cause. I’d never questioned that I was created from Nathaniel. It made sense to me that we should be created this way. What better way to stop someone than to create its copy, yet more powerful?
To know the truth now is maddening. To know that I’ll never be able to express my remorse, my sorrow to Nathaniel is more than I could handle.
It’s time to act, to set things right. No longer will I sit by and let this happen.
“Isadora!” I shout. “You won’t get away with this! I won’t let you!”
She laughs like I’ve just said something exceptionally funny. “You sound just like him, you know.” Isadora motions toward Nathaniel. “You were a test case, which clearly failed. I won’t get it wrong this time.”
“You’re sick! Why are you doing this, torturing her like this when you could kill her and end it all now?”
“Where’s the fun in that, love?” Isadora struts over to Mercy’s lifeless body and runs her fingers along Mercy’s leg. “Besides, I don’t want Mercy dead. She’s much more useful to us alive.”
“She won’t do what you ask!” Ariana yells.
“Why not? You did.”
“Isadora, sister, listen to me,” Ariana pleads. “Leave the humans. They don’t need your interference. The wars, the murders, the bloodshed, to what end?”
“The humans don’t want peace,” Isadora answers. “They want war; they crave conflict. Lust, greed, mayhem; it’s what makes them tick. It’s what makes them human.”
“This is all a game to you,” I spit.
“And you are all my players,” she says without even the faintest hit of guilt. “I’ll give Mercy exactly what she wants, her body, her life as a human. And in return, she’ll give me what I want—servitude. She’ll breach for me and do my bidding and when her life runs out, I’ll let her cross over.”
Nathaniel’s head snaps up and he roars, “Liar!”
Isadora marches over to Nathaniel and seizes him by the throat. With her face an inch from his she seethes. “You are the liar, Nathaniel Black. I gave you everything! And you betrayed me.”
Confused, I look to Ariana hoping she might clue me in, but she offers nothing.
“My love was not yours to command, Is,” Nathaniel says in a voice barely above a whisper.
Isadora’s beautiful face contorts into an ugly grimace. “You chose that pathetic human when you could have ruled at my right hand. You will suffer for your choice from now until the end of time.”
Casually, Isadora saunters over to Ariana and says, “Know this, sister. I might have let Mercy alone, might have done you that courtesy, but I couldn’t sit by and let Nathaniel have her. He doesn’t deserve leniency.”
This is all about revenge? That’s what Isadora really wants? It all makes sense now. Nathaniel was once Isadora’s love. It wasn’t just that Nathaniel fell in love with Ellie, that he broke the rules; it was that he spurned Isadora in the process.
Everything Nathaniel told me was the truth. The Assembled are not who I think they are. The reason I was created, to hunt and kill Nathaniel; there was no justice in it. My purpose was not for the greater good. My entire life was merely for the purpose of being a pawn in Isadora’s sick game.
“Isadora!” I shout. “Let Mercy go! Now!”
“Absolutely anything for you, Gage.” Isadora unhooks the restraints binding Mercy and with her entourage, including Rae, she leaves the room.
Chapter Forty-One
Mercy’s body isn’t moving. Nathaniel, Ariana, and I can do nothing but helplessly watch. The room is eerily silent as none of us even bother to breathe. All we can do is wait for a sign of life. And so we wait.
And wait.
“Her finger twitched,” Nathaniel says suddenly.
“You’re imagining it,” I tell him. “I didn’t see anything.”
“Look again.” Nathaniel motions toward Mercy.
Sure enough, Mercy’s pinky moves ever so slightly. It’s encouraging to know the procedure hasn’t killed her. She’s still for a long time. As I start to think we imagined seeing her finger twitch, she flexes her whole hand and opens her eyes.
“Mercy, can you hear me?” Nathaniel calls to her.
The three of us continue to struggle against the restraints, but clearly, we aren’t having any luck. I’ve seen the video of both Nathaniel and Ariana bursting forth from the custody of The Assembled and it’s clear that improvements have been made since then.
Mercy moans and rolls onto her ride side, facing away from us. Slowly, with great effort, she sits up. She lets out a cry of pain and clutches her side.
“Mercy?” Ariana speaks softly, in a motherly tone.
Mercy tries to move, to get down off the table, but it’s clear that every move she makes is agony. I want so desperately to help her. I don’t need to ask Ariana or Nathaniel, I can tell by the way they lurch forward every time Mercy makes even the slightest movement that they want to help her as well.
Eventually, Mercy slides off the table. She holds her side the entire time. With short steps, she shuffles toward us.
“Mom?”
“Oh honey, it’s me. I’m here. I’m so sorry.”
More tears spring from Ariana’s eyes.
Confused, pained, Mercy looks to the three of us and asks, “What happened?”
There’s a pause as none of us wants to be the one to explain.
Nathaniel breaks the silence. “Can you help me out of these?”
Mercy nods, but it’s unclear whether she’ll have the strength. If she’s in great pain, and I assume she is, she doesn’t let out another sound as she tirelessly works to free Nathaniel.
He bounds out of the chair like a puppy and scoops Mercy into his arms. She winces then melts into him while still holding her side. He closes his eyes and kisses the top of her head. A pang of jealousy surges in my chest, but I have to ignore it. Now is not the time.
Nathaniel carries Mercy to a nearby chair and gingerly lowers her into it. He kisses her again and whispers something I can’t quite hear before he returns to Ariana and me.
Deftly, quickly, Nathaniel undoes our restraints and the three of us rush back over to Mercy. Her eyes are closed and her head is lolled to the side.
Ariana kneels before Mercy and cups Mercy’s face in her hands. “Sweet girl, can you hear me?”
Faintly, Mercy nods and mumbles, “Yes.” She opens her eyes and holds her mother’s gaze. “Mom,” she says faintly.
Ariana cries against Mercy’s thigh. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
The doors burst open interrupting their moment. Nathaniel and I assume a protective stance around them, but we’re outnumbered and unarmed. There’s nothing we can do to fight against the army that Isadora’s fielded.
“Step aside,” one of the more heavily armed guards barks.
Nathaniel and I exchange a look and then grudgingly moved apart.
“Get up,” the guard orders. It’s unclear who he’s talking to, Ariana or Mercy. When Ariana stands and huddles near Nathaniel and me, the guard says again, “Get up.”
Into the Dark Page 18
