by Jack Alden
There are some things I need to tell you. I move my hands slowly so he knows this is serious. And it might be hard for you to understand, but I need you to try. Okay?
Beck stares at me a long time, unmoving, as if he’s considering whether or not he actually wants to know whatever it is. His left eyebrow lifts just the slightest bit, making him appear older than he is, and I wait. I watch. For the first time in his life, I keep quiet and let him make the decision on his own. I’m done trying to dictate what’s best for him to know and do. I feel like I’ve failed him enough for a lifetime.
When he finally gives me a curt nod, I begin again.
Tempest and I have gotten into some trouble, some big trouble.
I try to stay as calm and as steady as possible, the way Tempest always manages to do in a crisis, but I can feel tears welling up. Burning in my eyes. Choking in my throat.
And there is no way out of it.
I’m not sure how to continue. As much as I want to be honest with my brother, I don’t want him to hate me. I don’t want him to grow up resenting Tempest and me for how selfish we’ve been, for abandoning him this way. I can’t bear the thought of the boy I’ve raised like a son, the boy who completely lights up my life, hating me. So, I freeze. I stall. I hate myself enough for the both of us.
For a while, we sit in silence, just staring at each other. He knows how I operate, toiling over what I want to say before I ever say it, and he never rushes me. He never complains if I take too long. He just waits. This time, though, I don’t know what to say, let alone how to say it to my nine-year-old brother who thinks Tempest and I hold the universe in the palms of our hands. So, instead, I say this: I love you.
I kiss his forehead, then place my lips next to his ear so he can hear me clearly. “I’m going to go find Tempest, but I’ll be back, and we’ll talk then. Is that okay?”
He nods and squeezes my hand, tight and hard, the way Tempest always does, and it’s the same message. He loves me, too. I watch him cross to the cooler box, where Mom is reorganizing the already organized goods we keep in cool storage. He taps her on the back and waits for her to turn around, but she doesn’t. She just puts her hand down at her side and tousles his hair.
“I saved you a special plate,” she says, surprising me. “It’s on the counter.”
When Beck carefully pulls down a large plate of food, I feel my eyes begin to burn and water again. She hadn’t thrown out the entire feast after all, and the wide-eyed look on his face is worth every penny of the earnings she spent to make it. His lips spread with a smile so wide it looks painful. His voice rings out as I cross to the door.
“Is this all for me?”
“Yes, it is, honey.”
“Thank you so much, Momma!”
I smile at his words, click the door shut behind me, and head into the cold.
***
The wind bites. Even covered head to toe in thermals and gear, my teeth won’t stop chattering. My fingers feel stiff. I make my way down an alley behind the Market. The wind whistles and howls at both openings, but the Market warehouse thankfully serves as shelter. Just past the spot where we met Gerta, on the opposite side of the alley, stand two large metal trash cans. Scooting them aside, I grab onto a wooden plank pressed against the brick wall of the old abandoned building behind the Market. It budges as I push my shoulder to its edge, forcing it to the side to reveal a hidden door.
Two knocks. One turn of the locked knob. Three kicks at the base.
After a few moments, I hear the faint sound of a latch sliding, then the door jerks open just enough to reveal the small sliver of a face. Tredge Lawson’s beady eyes lock onto me.
“Password?”
“Daveny,” I say. My stomach lurches the slightest bit at the name. It always does.
Daveny was Tredge’s daughter, killed “accidentally” by the Administrator himself, about four years ago. Caught stealing from the Administrator’s house, she was sentenced to a public striping, a brutal kind of lashing with a claw-ended whip. I remember every detail of it. Every word. Every scream. The blood. There was so much blood. And the look in the Administrator’s eyes. Like fire. Wild and blazing. Hungry. I’ve never been able to forget it.
The deep echoes of Tempest’s voice permeate the walls of the abandoned building as I make my way through. Tredge’s mousy figure scuttles along in front of me. If I didn’t have legs almost longer than his entire body, I imagine he’d be difficult to keep up with. I have to walk in a crouched position the entire length of the hallway, because the ceiling is partially caved in.
The old building has been abandoned for years. It was a care and courtesy clinic a few decades before, but it hasn’t been anything but dirty since before I was born, and water and weather damage have taken their toll. Dilapidated walls, ceilings, and floors only continue to crack and crumble. Every time Tempest and I come here, I get this horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that the entire building is just going to collapse on top of us. But it’s the only place we can safely dig, so I swallow the fear and deal.
The Administrator remarkably leaves the building alone, leaves Tredge to run his digs in relative peace. The mess with Daveny had been taken to the Elder Council, a wrongful death suit, but it never went anywhere. Still, the Administrator and Tredge have steered clear of one another ever since.
At the end of the hallway, we hit a right turn that leads to the housing room. We call it the housing room because it’s full of beds. Small cots on rollers, each with a little standing tray next to it, some of which still hold old medical supplies like stethoscopes and otoscopes, which even thirty years ago, were considered mostly obsolete. This is the day and age of medical miracles. No one should have to want for treatment. There are no organ transplant lists or chemotherapy machines. The creation and use of prosthetic organs was mainstream long before I was born. In the Gutter, though? You’re lucky to get a vaccine. Medical treatment is reserved or those who can pay, the people in the city sectors further up the mountainside.
I find my brother laid back on one of the old cots, legs crossed and arms resting behind his head. His feet dangle off the bed, and a crooked grin stretches his lips.
“How’d I know you’d come looking for me? Are we psychically in tune or something?”
“More than I’d care to admit some days,” I say, rolling my eyes.
When I plop down next to him, Tempest grabs hold of an otoscope from a nearby tray. He pushes aside my messy ponytail and sticks the tip in my ear.
“Let’s just a have look, shall we?” he says, then gasps and jerks back.
I roll my eyes again. “Something wrong, doctor?”
“No brains!” Tempest sticks his finger in my ear and wiggles it. “No brains at all!”
He shoves me back, nearly knocking me to the ground, and we both end up laughing. It’s comforting, his laugh, though I know he’s covering. Holding it all together. Tempest never shows weakness, not really, but sometimes, I think … maybe there are only pieces left inside him, little fragments just trying to find a way to stick together and never having much luck.
“All right, you two,” Tredge says. “Are we going to get down to business sometime tonight, or should I leave and let you children play?”
When Tempest goes to follow, I tug his arm back, and he waves his hand at Tredge. “Be right there,” he says, then turns to me. “You okay?”
“We need to talk to Beck,” I tell him. “He knows something’s up with Mom, and I didn’t want to lie to him, Temp. I tried to tell him what might happen, but I didn’t know what to say.”
Tempest doesn’t say anything. He merely gives me a quick nod and pulls me up from the cot.
We head to a long rectangular table in the center of an empty room. A cloth covers the length but remains folded over at the end to conceal its contents. Tempest and I take our place in front of the table while Tredge posts up behind it. He clears his throat, and we both know a speech is coming. Tredge is definite
ly a salesman. He never fails to make his products too appealing to resist, and most of the time, the buy is well worth the money shelled out for it.
But this time, he doesn’t lay it on. Instead, his expression turns serious. His voice lowers. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck prickle and stand.
“This is the rarest item I’ve ever gotten my hands on,” he says, “and if I’m caught with it, if you’re caught with it, there’ll be no help for either of us. I’ve never bought into the stories, but the value of this item, whether it works or not, is beyond measure. Still, it’s not something I’m willing to risk my life for, so if I can’t trust you both to keep your mouths shut about my involvement, then no deal.”
I glance to my brother and realize he’s watching me. He must have some idea of what it is. My stomach starts to stir.
“Let’s have a look,” I say with a nod, and Tredge obliges without a moment’s hesitation. His fingertips clutch onto the edge of the cloth and with a flick, reveal what lay hidden within.
A hard, echoing gasp chokes in my throat. It can’t be.
***
My brother’s deep laugh bounces all around me as he pats my back hard enough to knock me into the table. The room begins to spin a bit, and I realize I haven’t taken a breath since Tredge’s mousy fingers dramatically whipped back the cloth from the smooth, ebony curve of the single dagger that now lay gleaming before me.
A Viper. A genuine, as-sure-as-I’m-standing-here Viper.
“How did you get this?” The words spew from my mouth as realization hits me hard in the gut. This dagger isn’t just another trade. It’s a famous weapon owned by the government. The only two left in existence are held in a museum in The Dome, and no small heist could have acquired it. It was stolen, no doubt, but by who? Only someone on the inside could have assured the lift, and who would be willing to do that? If caught, the punishment would be death, no question.
“He didn’t. I did.” Tempest’s words slither across my skin like sickness. “Well, we both did.”
“How?” I blurt. “Tempest, how?”
“It’s a long story,” Tempest says, “and it’s not important. Not right now.”
“How you could be so stupid? Do you want to die, Tempest?!” Every word hurts as it makes its way up my throat. “Whoever helped you with this? They’ll be tortured for names, Tempest, and I promise you, they will give you up. And then wha—”
“Dagger!” Tempest’s hands dig into my shoulders as he yells my name. “I did this for you, and I did this for our family. This Viper—it’s your birthright.”
“You don’t even know if the legend is true!”
“It’ll work,” Tempest says. “I know it will, and now that we have it, we might actually have a chance. Look, I started this before I knew about the cave, D. I swear. But this, the timing…it’s perfect.”
I narrow my eyes at him, force my heart to calm. “What do you mean?”
“If you have the Viper, the Sanctioning Squad won’t touch you, not unless you allow them to. You can protect yourself, protect us.”
“If it works,” I say. “And even if it does, we don’t even know what it’s capable of. All the stories could be complete crap for all we know.”
“But that’s the thing,” Tempest says. “Nobody knows. We can use that to our advantage. Strike a deal with the Squad. Get them to bargain. They’ll be too afraid not to.”
They’ll be too afraid not to. The words travel through my brain like an electric current, synapses firing back in answer. If this works, it could change everything. I could save my brother, my family. Myself. With a working Viper, I could be untouchable, a living, breathing, human weapon. My brother is right. But then…
“What if it doesn’t work?” I ask, quiet. “What if they won’t listen? Then what, Tempest? What do you expect me to do? Kill them? They listen or they die? Is that it?” Could I do that? I’ve thrown plenty of daggers but never sank one into human flesh before. I’ve never held the fate of another person in my hands.
“We’ll do what we have to,” he says, and I laugh. Empty. Scared.
“You mean I will.”
“You’ll do what you have to do to survive,” he says. “To protect yourself and your family, and sometimes, that means you have to fight, and yeah, kill. But you’re not heartless, Dagger, and you never will be, no matter what happens. You would never take a life unless you had to, and that’s the difference. Do you understand?” He doesn’t say the words to make me feel better. He says them because he believes them. I can hear it in his voice, his sincerity, and that’s enough to soothe me.
I turn toward the table. The Viper. I reach out to touch it. My fingertips graze its smooth, ebony curve. I pick it up and twirl it between my fingers, toss it from hand to hand. Nothing happens. No instant, cosmic connection or sudden jolt of psychic inspiration telling me to dominate and kill anyone who crosses the path of my legendary blade. It feels like a regular dagger, nothing special, though I’m not really sure what I was expecting it to feel like. What I really feel is disappointment, real disappointment flowing as deep as it can run inside me. That’s it. There’s nothing left to hope for, not a leg to stand on.
As I turn to look at Tempest, I feel a wet drop smack into my arm, then another. That’s when I realize I’m crying. I’m not sure why or when it even began, but there’s an ache inside. Suddenly everything I’ve been through, everything my family has been through, hits me. It assaults until my knees buckle.
“This is it,” I say, barely able to raise my voice above a whisper, and Tempest nods.
“This is it.”
Tredge leaves the room to give us a minute, and I collapse. I drop to the floor and tuck my head into my hand. The Viper, still clutched between my fingers, taunts me with its gleaming curve. An extraordinary design—aerodynamic, lightweight, and dark as night with a built-in, retractable sheath. This dagger once graced the hands of a legendary assassin, my ancestor. I’m holding a piece of history in my hands, and instead of feeling grateful, I feel angry and cheated. I’d heard the stories for years, and now, when I most need those stories to be true, they’re not. They’re nothing. The Viper sits cold in my hand, unyielding. It has no power.
Tempest’s hand drops onto the top of my head. He nudges my shoulder with his knee. He doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything. I nudge him back. I’m not okay, but Tempest can’t know that. I’ve broken down too many times already. It’s time for me to collect myself and stop letting my emotions get the best of me. Being emotional only leads to errors, and we have no room for errors. We have to be ready for anything now. We have to be ready for everything.
“Let’s go home.”
4
When we walk into our house, everything is quiet. The embers in the fireplace are barely glowing, and the house is dark. Mom and Beck are already asleep. I keep the Viper close to my side. It didn’t work for me, but I don’t want to lose it. Tempest was right. This dagger is my birthright, and it’s not like I have any other weapons to my name. Tempest and I kept all our weaponry at the cave, and we can’t risk going back to get them now. Besides, what good would it do? Are we really going to attempt to fight off the Sanctioning Squad? The president? We wouldn’t stand a chance.
We sneak up the stairs as quietly as possible. Tempest hugs me and reluctantly lets me head off to bed. I can tell he wants to talk, but he doesn’t have the words. Beck is, of course, curled into a tiny ball on his pile of blankets, and my mother is motionless in the bed beneath the window, her back to me. I strip, pull on an oversized t-shirt that was my dad’s, and fall into my bed. I don’t expect to sleep, but when I close my eyes, I drift off almost immediately.
I spend the entire next day in bed. I can’t make my body move. Can’t tear my mind away from all the thoughts that haunt. All that’s happened, all that could happen, and of course, the Viper. No one bothers me or asks if I’m okay. In fact, no one speaks to me at all, except Beck who asks if he can take h
is afternoon nap in the bed with me. I let him. It’s nice to feel his warmth against me, his little body cradled in the curve of mine. I kiss the top of his head and he pulls my arm around him. Beck makes every day worth living. He’s the reason I work. The reason I fight. The reason I keep caring.
After about an hour, he wakes and heads downstairs to help Mom clean. That’s how she keeps him occupied on the days Tempest and I have to work at the textile factory. It isn’t much, but we’ve managed to collect a decent savings over the past few years.
Around sunset, my stomach starts to rumble, but I choose to ignore it. I’ve already wasted an entire day. No sense in getting up now. I can feel the hard outline of the Viper beneath my pillow. Last night’s disappointment resurfaces, touching every inch of my skin, soaring through my veins. I’m not sure what I’d expected to happen when I picked the Viper up, but I’d expected something.
I pull the blade from beneath my pillow and turn it around in my hands, the same way. The black enamel is flawless, not a scratch or stain. Lightweight, perfectly hardened and tempered, the Viper curves to the right giving it a shape similar to that of a wide-open C. The handle, though smooth like ivory, is made of wood. I can see the grain lines running through it and the small spiral of a flawless wood knot. The handle, too, is solid black, butt to tip, just like my Kishis. With another turn, my eye catches something I hadn’t noticed before. There, on the butt of the handle, is an engraved set of initials: D. L.
“Deling Leary,” I whisper to myself.
“Or Dagger Leary.” Tempest’s voice breaks my trance. He stands hunched over in the doorway, just enough to keep his head from smacking the top part of the frame. “Same initials. Pretty cool, huh?”
“My name is Prudence,” I say, rolling my eyes—my way of letting him know that just because a good eighteen hours or so have passed with me holed up in my room doesn’t mean I’m ready for company.
“Only to Mom,” he says, then sighs. “C’mon Dagger. I know you’re upset, but it’s not the end of the world, and besides—”
