New World Ashes

by Jennifer Wilson

  He clasped his hand over mine, pressing it to his face. Then his eyes shut, blocking me out. “It’s more than that…”

  I had never seen so much pain on Triven’s face. An icy fear trickled over my heart.

  My voice came out pinched. “What are you saying?”

  Triven’s throat spasmed as he swallowed. “It was my idea to give you the hallucinogenic drugs.”

  I recoiled from his touch.

  “What?” I shook my head in disbelief.

  He didn’t try to reach for me.

  “Ryker wanted The Minister to think you were slipping. He thought that if you showed signs of cracking they would pull back on your guard. And then we would have a better chance at getting you out. We had no way of telling you without giving away Ryker’s position. Hiding your emotions is not your forte. We agreed it had to look authentic.” Apologies hung on his every syllable. “I know you. I know that you’re strong and would never crack on your own. So… I suggested we help your mind slip a little.”

  I could hear him swallow.

  “I didn’t know about the torture or the kids. Ryker only said they were holding you in solitary.” Anger shook Triven’s voice. “If I knew… I would have never—”

  “But you did.” I whispered. My eyes stung. The face that had given me hope was the same one that had caused me to lose my last shred of sanity.

  “It should have been me. I would have gladly given myself up to save you from the torture they inflicted. What I did to you. It took us too long… sometimes I can see it in your eyes. We didn’t get you out fast enough.”

  It was my turn to look away. I had tried to hide my pain. I had tried to hide the fact that while my body was free, a part of me was still trapped inside The Sanctuary’s prison cell. But he knew. I hadn’t deceived anyone. I wasn’t okay. And he had a hand in it. Triven’s betrayal hurt, but I couldn’t take this pain too. Not right now. I shut my eyes and said the hardest thing I had ever admitted.

  “I need you.”

  Triven’s hands wrapped around my wrists like tender shackles. “I am so sorry, Prea. I will never do anything to hurt you, not ever again. I promise. I won’t leave you like I did that night. I won’t ever make that mistake again. I will die before that happens.”

  He pressed his lips to mine. I could taste the regret and sorrow behind his kiss and wondered if he could taste the fear in mine.

  A foreboding sensation settled itself in my bones. Too many had already died to keep me safe. How many more would fall victim to the same fate?

  Triven stayed in the bed with me for the rest of the night. And while I kept my palm pressed against the metal spur to keep myself awake—to keep him safe—I could feel a rift opening between us. Triven might have revealed a guilty truth to me, but he was still hiding something.

  I could feel it.

  15. TRAITOR

  THE AIR FELT sharp in my lungs. It even burned a little as I inhaled. It was a welcoming feeling. After nearly a month of being trapped in a cell, the air—even man-made air—felt like freedom.

  I had snuck onto the rooftop seeking peace. It had become a kind of refuge in the last few days. Once I had overcome the panic attack that first night, the wall-less rooftop space began to feel like a reprieve.

  I stared at the city’s skyline from my safe little crow’s nest. Triven had informed me that the roof was protected, that we couldn’t be seen, but I still shied away from the edge if there were people on the street below. The city was nothing like Tartarus. The buildings were all pristine. The genetically enhanced trees that released twenty times the regular amount of oxygen cropped out occasionally above the beige rooftops. Just as the day we first arrived, the sky was a perfect crystal blue, with a gleaming sun that actually heated my skin. Only the unavoidable horizon broke the illusion of it being real. Meeting the sky in every direction was The Wall. It towered above the homes with an austere authority. Even surrounding their beautiful homes and manicured trees, it still looked foreboding.

  The city was bigger than I had anticipated. Nearly every building looked the same. Every building, but one. A solitary goliath stood in the center of the metropolis. The Tower, Triven had called it. The silver building loomed over its brothers. The windowless sides stretched straight up toward the false sky, while the front of the building was divided into three glass-covered fingers. The monstrosity curved at the top, peaking to its back. The center finger rose above the other two, giving the building the appearance of a wing.

  I knew this building.

  Not only had I been held captive beneath it, but I had also seen it on every Sanctuary crest. He was in there.

  I turned away, glowering at the street.

  I was avoiding people. I knew that. But how do you face a room full of people when you don’t even know who you are anymore?

  Triven and Mouse still looked at me with love and admiration, even after they saw how little of me was actually left. But there was something new in Triven’s eyes now too. Regret. I hated seeing it there. It hurt. I had forgiven him. Or at least I wanted to. Deep down. But emotional pain doesn’t always listen to what you want. It’s irrational that way.

  All the rebels, on the other hand, treated me with respectful reverence. But every time my eyes met theirs, they looked as though they expected me to remember something, or to know some past connection I had with them. Even Inessa’s kind eyes had begun to bother me.

  I hated it.

  I hated seeing the love in their eyes, when inside I loathed myself.

  I shouldn’t be allowed around other people. The other night was the perfect example. My self-restraint was still spiraling out of control and I was just barely clinging to the edge. I knew somewhere inside the girl I had fought so hard to become was still there, but the layers of anger, drug-induced hysteria, and torment were burying her alive. In Tartarus I knew who I was. No matter how lonely or angry or spiteful I was—I was still always me. Phoenix. The girl who needed no one. The girl who could always survive.

  Here, however…

  In The Sanctuary I wasn’t just a renegade trying to survive. I was someone they were looking up to, someone they had lost. I had a family and friends that I couldn’t remember. Everyone here knew more about myself than I did. Inessa’s stories proved it. Not even the girl in the mirror looked like the one I remembered. Her eyes were dead, her face sunken in. It was as if I had begun to wither away.

  It was as if my reality was slipping away and I didn’t know how to hold on. Less than two months before—what seemed like a lifetime ago now—I had desired above all else to come here and find answers. But I had never prepared myself for the consequences of those answers. I had wanted to know what life was like here. Who my parents were. Who I was. But every time I found more answers, the less I wanted to know. And the more I lost myself.

  I pressed my fists to my temples, wrapping them with my knuckles. Trying to call on the warrior inside me. Trying to make the voices of uncertainty shut up. Everyone here wanted to talk war, to debate strategy. But as soon as the topic came up I couldn’t get away fast enough. The old Phoenix would have never run away from a fight. She would have pushed her useless feelings aside and soldiered on. So why did that seem so hard now?

  Triven had managed to keep going. Despite the fear over losing me—despite being forced into hiding—he had managed to keep moving. He went to meetings, was involved in plans about the uprising, but whenever the offer was extended to me I had feigned tiredness and disappeared into our room. Then as soon as I was alone, I would wish I wasn’t.

  Part of me wanted to know the truth of the city. Like who were these people who had rescued me, but the other part of me was furious for how long it took them to break me out. Inessa had given me a taste of my past, but there were still so many unanswered questions and I had not seen her in two days. Mercifully, I had not seen Ryker since dinner that first night either, but his absence also made me apprehensive.

  While my days were spent avoiding peop
le, my nights were filled with sleepless hours. In those rare moments I actually managed to doze off, the night terrors were horrific enough to keep me from wanting to sleep. Mouse had not slept with us since the first night. I had tried repeatedly to send Triven away as well, but he refused to leave me alone to suffer. So instead we suffered together. Me with imaginary ghosts. Him with feelings of guilt. We were quite the morose pair.

  Secretly, I was thankful and angry with him at the same time. We both looked worse for the wear, what with scratch marks and bruises from my nightly outbursts when sleep snuck up on me and then there were the growing circles under both our eyes. We had been in our room just a moment ago. Triven was trying to talk about the rebel’s last meeting I had avoided when his words slowly began to slur. He was asleep within seconds. I felt excruciatingly guilty as I watched his eyes flutter beneath their lids. He was so exhausted. It was my fault. Dinner would be ready soon, but knowing that tonight would be hell again, I had pulled the blankets over him and snuck out to let him sleep for a while. Plus, I needed the space.

  Still too ashamed to see Mouse alone again, I had let my feet carry me somewhere for a moment of peace. Which is how I had ended up standing on the flattop roof staring down at the streets below. Darkness was beginning to fall. A falsified twilight was blooming on the horizon, casting everything in an auburn hue.

  I breathed again deeply.

  The stark sweetness of the fresh air still felt strange in my lungs compared to Tartarus’s polluted smog.

  While I heard nothing, my senses began to itch. Only one person in this house could make my stomach burn white hot with such underlying rage. I felt a small pang of pride that not all of my senses had been damaged. I spoke without turning, “It’s not smart to sneak up on people.”

  “Good to see your awareness of your surroundings is still intact.” Ryker walked to the railing where I was standing, but kept a careful distance between us. I stared at him. This was the first time I had seen him out of uniform. He now donned simple white linen garb much like the one I had been provided. While his stance was still severe, he seemed more at ease than I had ever seen him. More human. He was also holding two cups of steaming liquid and offered one to me.

  I was careful not to touch his hand when I took it.

  I also had no intention of drinking it.

  We stood in silence for a while watching the street below. Every nerve in my body was on edge. I had to remind myself that while the man standing next to me was certainly not a friend, he was no longer the enemy either. Mouse obviously put her trust in him and despite my own foibles she had trusted me as well. Out of respect for my small friend, I would have to try my best not to kill him.

  A passerby on the street glanced up for a moment and without thinking I shrank away from the edge. Ryker glanced down at the civilian unfazed.

  “He can’t see you.” He waved his hand idly at the passerby. The man gazed right through us and then continued on his way. I leaned closer to the edge to inspect the rooftop. I couldn’t see anything but as I reached my hand out, Ryker shifted to stop me. I snatched my hand back automatically balling it into a fist and taking a fighting stance. He rolled his eyes and held up his hand in surrender. “Easy Princess, I was just going to tell you not to reach over the roof’s edge. The holographic field only projects to a certain point. If you reach out too far, passersby are likely to see a disembodied hand floating above my roof.”

  “Your roof?” I raised an eyebrow at him. I had assumed this was Inessa’s home. “And don’t call me Princess.”

  He actually chuckled. “Yes, my roof. Did you really think I would entrust yours and Mouse’s safety with anyone else? You know, you hated that nickname even when we were kids.”

  I twisted in his direction. Sarcasm soiled my tone. “You knew me when I lived here?”

  For the first time since I met him, there was a sadness in Ryker’s eyes. Ignoring my question, he turned away from me and moved to a beige chair someone had placed on the rooftop. I followed cautiously as he gestured to another one a few feet away. I positioned my seat in order to keep a better eye on him before sitting down. Once seated, I calculated my positioning between him and the edge of the roof. One wrong move and those passersby would not only be seeing my hand but a male body flying over the side of the building.

  Ryker stared out at the street. “The rooftops are supposed to be for repair access only, but when the second rebellion began we installed this holographic force field as a sort of baby-step toward fighting back. Our people aren’t allowed privacies here. Everything we do is monitored. Watched. This was the first place we could escape. This was the first place we could be unseen.”

  “What about inside your house?” I turned back toward the hatch imagining Fandrin’s frosty eyes watching my friends.

  Ryker waved his still bruised hand. “The cameras in the house are on a three month perfectly calculated loop. As far as Fandrin’s concerned I’m living a stable boring life alone. To him I am nothing but a loyal and committed solider.”

  “Funny, I would have said the same thing about you. By the way, too manly to take a healing serum like the rest of us?” I asked glancing at his damaged face and hand. While he looked at his hand, I suspiciously sniffed the tea he had given me. Ryker watched with an amused smile. I narrowed my eyes and took a sip out of spite. It was a while before I could actually muster the nerve to swallow.

  “The Minister thought it a fit punishment for letting you escape. All of the soldiers injured during your escape are healing in pain.” He rolled his eyes and took a sip of his own drink. “It’s not drugged.”

  “Do you say that to all the ladies?” I sneered, unable to help myself.

  Ryker scoffed. He didn’t miss my undertone.

  “I figured your Boy Scout would tell you about that sooner or later. It wasn’t in the food or water, just so you know. Anyone can refuse to eat, but everyone has to breathe.” Ryker took a deep swig of his own mug.

  I ground my teeth. Of course it was in the air.

  Despite his stern face, the corners of his mouth pulled up. “It’s nice to see that your charming wit hasn’t changed though.”

  I scoffed and sat back in my chair. “You say that like you know me.”

  Ryker fixed me with a penetrating stare. He chose his words carefully. “I do know you, Prea. You and I were… friends before you… left.”

  When I flinched at the use of my given name, he noticed. I snapped back to compensate for my reflexive reaction. “Friends? Really? How convenient. I can’t seem to remember anything and you have no proof. You know I’m getting a little sick of everyone thinking they know me.”

  Ryker leaned forward and pulled something flat and shiny from his pocket. I stiffened. Sighing, he tapped the screen a few time before tossing it to me. I automatically caught the device. The screen was playing images like I had seen in The Minister’s office, but these were not of children fighting. These were of a raven-haired boy and blonde girl laughing together. The scenes changed but the children’s fondness for each other was clear. They were play fighting, the girl always coming out on top. Then they were swinging on swings in a backyard, laughing as they got higher and higher. They were sitting at a table, the boy looking at the girl with adoration as she blew out a candle on a small yellow cake. A woman appeared behind the smaller version of myself and kissed the top of my head before sweeping the dessert away. My heart yearned. My mother.

  The screen began to shake as my hands trembled. These were moments of my past, of my life. Not someone else’s memories recited to me, but actual moments I had lived. And yet, I looked on as if they were a stranger’s.

  I tore my eyes away from the lost memories to stare incredulously at Ryker. “When you said we were friends…” I trailed off unable to form a further thought.

  “I meant we were inseparable.” Ryker’s eyes pierced mine, beseeching me to remember. When I continued to stare blankly at him, he broke the connection running his fingers t
hrough his hair with frustration. The stark difference between his jet-black hair and his pale fingers was mesmerizing. “Those are a few of the rare moments we were allowed to be children—they were almost always under your parents’ watchful eyes. You really don’t remember anything do you?”

  “In my mind, you never existed until the day you showed up in my prison cell.” There was an icy venom in my words. Ryker’s well-trained emotions gave almost nothing away, but the slight tick of his right eye told me I had hit a nerve.

  He stared at me with the intensity of a soldier. “When we first started training at the academy, I was the worst in our class. Just a small, scrawny boy who had only been admitted because his father was one of The Minister’s highest ranking and most trusted officers. I was a failure and my father never missed an opportunity to remind me of how ashamed he was of his only son. Of the dishonor my weakness brought to his name.” Ryker’s jaw locked as he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

  “One day, after a particularly bad performance in a match, a few of the older cadets thought that maybe they could beat some training into me since nothing else seemed to take. One of them damn near broke my leg when this tiny blonde spitfire came flying out of nowhere. She single-handedly managed to take down the three older boys like they were nothing more than rag dolls. Afterward, when I tried to thank her, she shoved a bony little finger in my bruised chest and proclaimed, ‘That’s the first and last time I save you. Either you learn to fight for yourself and keep up, or we’re through here.’ After that night, I spent every waking hour trying my damnedest to keep up with you. We trained together every day and hung out every other moment we were not in the gym. Eventually, I became second-ranked in our class. The only person I could never beat was you and it wasn’t ever for lack of trying.”

  I frowned at his story. There were still too many holes. The mental image in my past was still broken. It was like staring at a constellation of dots that didn’t connect. There were too many stories from too many people. Still I sought answers. “If my parents were so against Fandrin’s rule, why did they let their only daughter enlist in his child army just to flee with me later on?”