True Born

by L. E. Sterling

  “How close was that one?” I ask. Two heads whip around to stare at me in surprise, followed by Storm, who clearly is not surprised. Jared’s mouth drops open.

  “Catching flies,” I tell Jared pointedly, although secretly I’m pleased.

  Storm fiddles with a gold cufflink as he appraises me. “You look very nice, Lucy.”

  I step into a small curtsy, perfected from years of use. “Thank you.” I clutch my small black beaded purse closer and examine the trio. They are all three dressed up, even Jared, who wears a tux like it’s a bathrobe. Beneath the fitted black shell of his jacket is a pristine white shirt with a thick white collar and a bow tie. He tugs at it impatiently, as though he’d like nothing better than to tear it off and wrestle it to the ground. Even his boyish locks have been tamed back into casual waves with some sort of product that leaves his hair glinting like shiny gold. But it’s his eyes that I watch: there’s a look to them that spells trouble.

  Unlike Jared, Kira could pass for Upper Circle. Aside from the gun she leans down to strap to her thigh and the bloodthirsty expression on her perfectly made-up face, she’s done up in a black sequined halter dress that falls, smooth as silk, across her collarbones. She turns slightly, revealing a smooth expanse of skin where the fabric drapes into a tiny “v” at the small of her back, her hair tumbling down her back in perfect auburn waves.

  For some reason, though, Storm’s fancy clothes make him look a cut above. I’ve always marveled at people who can turn themselves into dignitaries as easily as shrugging on a coat. Then again, I have the feeling that Nolan Storm is as rich as they come—and that he’s redefining what important looks like in our exclusive little world.

  “You all look very nice, as well,” I murmur shyly. “Do I get a gun to round out my outfit, too?”

  I can feel Jared freeze from across the room. Storm just laughs. “Self-defense lessons are definitely on the agenda. But unless you know how to fire a gun…?”

  I toss my head. “That’s what mercs are for,” I quote an oft-used phrase in our exclusive little world.

  “Another time, then. Shall we?” Storm offers me an arm and escorts me down the hall to the private elevator.

  “No one answered my question,” I argue. One of Storm’s thick eyebrows tick up. “How close?”

  “No more than a mile, I’d say. Likely they took out the North Dominion power station.”

  I gasp, genuinely shocked. Blowing up the power station means that half the city that still had power will be plunged into the dark and cold tonight. There’s no saying whether it could ever be rebuilt. “Why would they do that?”

  Storm’s teeth gleam in the dim hallway, bright as buttons. “Because they can.”

  “Kira says there’s some cult called the Watchers.” He doesn’t offer any explanations. “Don’t we deserve to know?” I ask, huffing in annoyance.

  Storm ushers me into the elevator. Jared and Kira wedge themselves in uncomfortably beside us. They all look like they’d rather eat nails than tell me anything. But somehow I know this is important. And so do they. I stare at him expectantly until finally Storm sighs, deep and wild.

  “I’ll fill you in on the way.”

  ...

  “They call him Father Wes on the street,” Nolan Storm begins from the backseat of the van. Jared smolders at me through the rearview mirror as he drives. Kira sits shotgun. Nervous, especially with Jared’s eyes following every insignificant movement, I fiddle with the neckline of my dress. It just seems to make Jared angrier. I pull my concentration back to Storm. “His real name is Jerry Westfall. I understand he was a mechanic up until about seven years ago when the car industry crumbled. After that he converted to the faith and took up a post at Southside Mission.”

  “Is Father Wes responsible for the uprising?”

  “Not alone, by any means. But our latest intel suggests that right now, at least, he’s the guy running the show.”

  “There are others?”

  Storm nods. “At least three other major preachers in mid-city alone. But none of them capable of advanced strategy. Westfall has ties to the Mafiosas. Worse, we’ve heard he presses kid gangs into his service.”

  I shudder, thinking about the dirty boy again. I’d heard of the kid gangs. They were rumors, tales passed around at school to shock and scare. They say that lost Laster children come together like packs of wild dogs. Young orphans ready to beg, steal, and kill to survive, they terrorize the surviving shop owners, organize heists that would put a lifetime criminal to shame.

  To me they’re just stories. I’ve never seen a kid gang. Still, I can’t help but think of the young boy holding up his sign, following me with eyes burning with hate.

  Evolve or die.

  “What does that mean exactly?”

  It’s Jared who answers, voice tight. “It means we’re totally screwed.”

  I turn to Storm. “Is that true?”

  “Let’s just say that the situation is more challenging and unpredictable than I’m comfortable with.”

  “And these Watchers?” When Storm doesn’t answer, I give him my best Upper Circle glare. “We’re turning eighteen soon. Old enough to live or die. Don’t we have a right to know what’s happening?”

  He sighs. “You’re right, of course.” Sighs again. “The Watchers are the most unpredictable element. They take their orders from Father Wes, but as far as I can tell they’re all zealots, and therefore completely capable of going off script if they believe something strongly enough.”

  “What do they want?”

  Storm rubs at his face. “We aren’t entirely sure, to be honest.”

  “Word on the street is they’re looking for some kinda savior,” Kira supplies. No one needs to ask what from.

  I swallow past the growing lump in my throat. “Do you think they could have had a hand in what happened…at the Clinic?”

  “Doubtful.” Storm shakes his head. “But we’ll find out,” he promises.

  “Those freaks at the Clinic.” I stumble on the words, unable to put a proper name to the horror that was the men at the Clinic. Jared and I meet eyes in the rearview mirror.

  “Yet another party with a stake in this whole mess. I’m just not sure who they work for or whose interests they represent.”

  “Just not yours.”

  Storm pats my hand and smiles down at me. “No, not mine.”

  At Storm’s gesture, my eyes flicker to the rearview mirror. Jared’s indigo gaze follows me through the dark of the car. The van jolts as Jared swerves and lets fly an inspired curse. We’ve neatly missed a body on the streets, a woman by the looks of things. I stare at the long, almost elegant thinness of the wrist bone jutting out from a heap of flesh and cloth.

  All that separates us, that poor woman and me, is an accident of birth.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dread squeezes me as we arrive at the brightly lit mansion. It’s the Senator’s mansion. Tucked up in the highest bower of the city’s northern hills and walled away with a concrete security fence, high voltage wires and men with machine guns, Senator Mitchell Kain and his family live like royalty. I’ve been here before, of course, many times. Senator Mitchell Kain used to bounce us on his knees as Margot and I held hands and giggled. He’s been a senator a long time, thanks in large part to our father’s ardent support. Mitchell Kain knows our family very, very well. Owes our father much.

  Senator Kain’s footmen and valets wait at the bottom steps to escort the arriving guests. Bodies are frisked for incendiary devices, guns, neurotoxins. The high-pitched tinkle that passes for society laughter reaches us from the car. The mansion’s windows are undressed, showing off crystal ropes hanging like nooses from the chandeliers.

  I gape. “What are you thinking? My father is going to kill the both of us.”

  He shrugs. “I take it you know where you are.”

  I consider throwing a fit. But what would that accomplish? Margot isn’t ready to go home, and Storm is the only protecto
r we have at the moment. I decide to swallow my worry.

  That Storm would waltz me into the home of one of our father’s closest friends had, sadly, never occurred to me. I’d pictured us sitting all cozy on some little settee with some minor statesman and batting my eyelashes until he revealed a contact of some worth to me. Someone I could follow up with on my own.

  Clearly I have underestimated the man standing at my side. I’ll have to improvise.

  “Do they know?” I ask.

  Storm regards me calmly. “Know what?”

  “You know.”

  “That I’m True Born? Yes, I should say it’s fairly obvious to most people.”

  “Then—how did you get an invite?”

  Storm’s eyes glitter as he points at the sparkling chandeliers. “You see all those pretty firecrackers, Lucy? You know what’s keeping all that wealth afloat these days? Money. And you want to know who has the money? Me. And you know what else I have that these rich, fat cats want? True. Born. Talents.” He leans back like a king, resplendent in his suit and tie, and glances up at the opulent windows of the mansion above. “The world is changing, Lucy. The men and women in that house may not want to admit it, but they are aware of it.”

  I nod, suddenly keenly aware that Storm’s civilized demeanor is a thin disguise. I would never mistake him for Upper Circle now—can’t imagine how I would. And it isn’t a matter of manners or breeding: Nolan Storm is just too elemental, too raw, like the weather he’s named for, to ever be a true part of the Upper Circle.

  The Upper Circle doesn’t like things too real. They like to pretend there aren’t things like sex and death. Everything about the Upper Circle is about the civilized, cold veneer—which might go a long way to explain why our parents are so popular.

  I sigh as the footman opens my door. “This is going to end badly,” I tell him.

  “Probably,” Storm concedes with a nod.

  At least he’s honest.

  We have completed less than one full circuit of the room, swampy with the crush of bodies, but thus far even Mother would be proud of Storm’s Upper Circle manners. All around us the rich flash diamonds and gold cufflinks. In and among them move the black-and-white-suited waiters, trays loaded with drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Along the right side of the ballroom are buffet tables overloaded with food while most of Dominion starves. Before me, Betts Gallagher is terrifying in her blood-red sequin dress that hits the floor with a four-inch train.

  “Darling, whatever are you doing here? Where is your sister?” is followed by the double take. “And who is this?” The greeting ends with air kisses and a shrill note of uncertainty. Beside me, Storm’s jaw tightens. Jared scowls at a polite distance behind me. Kira, on the other hand, is all charm and smiles.

  But it’s the crocodile before me that I can’t afford to turn my back on. Betts Gallagher is the gatekeeper of our little world. When our mother feels kind, she calls Betts the “only true friend of the Fox family,” and “a true arbiter of social taste.” When she’s gone sour on batty old Betts, she’s “that menacing, busybody dragon lady,” and sometimes, “that bony old hag.”

  “May I present Mr. Nolan Storm, Betts? Mr. Storm, this is Mrs. Gallagher, a dear friend of the Kains and my own family, as well. Mr. Storm is a close business associate of our father,” I prevaricate.

  Betts raises one carefully drawn-on eyebrow. “Oh? And how are Lukas and Antonia?” she asks, all fake innocence. She even glances over my shoulder as though she expects to see them. But Betts likely knows more than I about our parents’ whereabouts, and we both know it. “Will they be joining us this evening? I don’t recall seeing their R.S.V.P.”

  The other thing Betts Gallagher happens to be is Mrs. Senator Mary Kain’s, our hostess’s, best friend.

  “Mrs. Gallagher.” Storm leans low over Betts Gallagher’s hand. A smile hovers around his lips that would have most ladies’ knees knocking together. “I have had the pleasure of conducting business with your husband, Gerald. It’s an honor to meet you at last.”

  Betts’s false eyelashes flutter. A real blush peeps out from underneath her severely rouged cheeks. But Old Betts won’t crack that easily. “Oh? And just what is your business, Mr. Storm?”

  “Construction. Or, more precisely, reconstruction.”

  I watch as a light bulb flickers on in Betts’s scarily organized brain. “Ohhh. You’re the backer for the core and fringes projects,” she coos.

  Storm’s dimples deepen. “Guilty as charged, ma’am.”

  As Betts all but gushes over Storm, I look past them to the rest of the room. The walls are hung with gilt-framed portraits of ancestors that, according to our father, Senator Kain probably made up. The OldenTimes band strikes up its first song, a peppy number filled with horns and strings. From across the room Senator Kain’s ice-blue eyes rake over me. He breaks away from his cluster of suited admirers.

  We are secret keepers, my sister and I. We know, for instance, that Senator Kain is a notorious womanizer. He and Betts had an affair at one point, and we’ve seen him trying to stuff his hands up our mother’s skirts a time or two. But what really tipped us off was last summer, when Kain tried turning Margot’s internship in his office into a different kind of internship altogether.

  “Is that you, Margot?” Kain peers at me with his sharp eyes. His carefully manicured salt-and-pepper hair swoops down perfectly across his patrician brow as he looks over my cleavage. “I hardly recognize you, all grown up.”

  “Lucy,” I correct the Senator as he pulls me into a too-tight hug. His hands linger on my waist a few seconds too long for propriety. Jared’s eyes scald my back. I pull away from the Senator as soon as I’m sure it won’t give offense and tip back my head with a plastic grin.

  He returns it, brittle and wolfish. “Where’s that gorgeous sister of yours tonight?”

  “Oh, right where I left her,” I tell him honestly. “She’s having a quiet night in.”

  “Your father and Antonia are still abroad, aren’t they? Who’s your fella?” He looks around the room, everywhere but at the man at my side, Storm. The wily old lech.

  “Senator, may I present to you one of Father’s associates, Mr. Nolan Storm?”

  Storm offers a hand. “Senator. I believe we’ve already had the pleasure.”

  “Yes,” Kain says slowly, sizing up my escort like a gunslinger. “I believe I vaguely recall. Beg your pardon, Mr. Storm.” Kain stretches out his hand as though he’d rather do anything other than shake Storm’s hand. But even he can’t seem to find a reason not to. “I meet a lot of people. And how is that, er, project going, Mr. Storm?”

  “Extremely well, Senator,” Storm counters blandly.

  “Well”—Kain nods and looks around the room anxiously—“make sure you say hello to Mary. Enjoy yourselves.” With a final squeeze of my arm and a leer down my top, the Senator backs away.

  “What the hell was that about?” I seethe through a frozen smile. How am I to gather information if all of our father’s most important associates are running away from my escort and me?

  Storm just takes my elbow and escorts me over to a waiter holding a tray of champagne flutes. He hands one to me before taking one for himself. His glass clinks against mine as he sips.

  “What kind of game are you playing, Storm?”

  He evades my question. “You’re doing well,” he murmurs.

  “Kain doesn’t like you. It’s obvious. So why is he doing business with you and pretending he isn’t?” I smile like I’m having a ball, a little trick we girls perfected years ago.

  “Not everyone feels they can afford to let the world know they’re working with the True Borns, especially in your circle.”

  “Yes,” I say with some bitterness. “Appearances are everything.”

  Storm regards me curiously. “It’s a game, Lucy,” he says.

  I snort as a reply. I’d just as soon call it what it really is: a Upper Circle insult.

  Storm has other ideas. “
Where do you think the senator would be if his constituents knew he and the rest of Dominion’s government, not to mention the State, have given up on them? A collapse in the order is imminent. We know it. They know it. They also know Father Wes and his ilk are about two seconds away from a full-scale riot, and soon it’s going to be obvious that the senator and the rest of the government aren’t going to do a damn thing to stop it.”

  I can’t completely stifle a horrified gasp. “But why?”

  “Because they can’t. If they bring in the army to defend the Upper Circle, they expose themselves as the complacent death dealers they are. And they don’t have the resources to fix the mess they’re making. Believe me, we are their last resort.”

  I stare into the ruggedly handsome face, the eyes alight with a vast intelligence and that eerie, unearthly power. He’s beautiful, so haunted with power it takes me a second to realize exactly what position Nolan Storm has put me in, and by extension, my family. Our father may have hired Storm to protect us, but he surely didn’t reckon anyone would know about it.

  “It was supposed to remain a secret, wasn’t it? Oh God, Father will kill me.” I groan. The room lurches as my stomach flips over. I set my untouched champagne flute carefully down beside me. I stare down at my feet, at the beautiful dress I’m wearing, a dress my father would never approve of, the heels a little too grown up, the hair too untamed. I am not dressed like his perfect little girl, the girl who fulfills her duty to the family. Nor am I acting the part.

  “Relax, Lucy,” Storm breaks in gently. “Your father is not a stupid man. He knows what side he needs to be on. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have hired us in the first place.”

  “You don’t know him,” I say, my breath coming hard and shallow. “You don’t understand.”

  “I do.” He tips my chin up. His eyes sear mine. “I will protect you and your sister.”

  “You can’t protect us,” I tell him. Because he still doesn’t understand. He can’t know the depths of our father’s hatred and distrust of the True Borns, nor the extent of his reach.