PANDORA

by Rebecca Hamilton

  He was right. Owen’s arms were bare. With his free hand, Allister Leeman pulled a knife from his jacket pocket and held it out to me.

  “The trigger in Owen’s mind is ready. If I press the sequence that he heard in those calls on this remote, it will turn Owen into a killing machine. He’ll destroy everything in sight, and he won’t stop until I enter a code telling him to.”

  The people in the white chairs got on their knees, pinning their eyes on the floor, and pushing Merrin and Wendy down with them. The blue mohawk man grabbed Casper, and put him in a similar position.

  “So, I’m giving you thirty seconds to kill one of these people. If you don’t, I’m going to sound the sequence and let Owen here go to town with your mother’s entrails.” He pushed the butt of the knife toward me again. “It’s your choice Cresta; kill one of these people, or watch the boy you love murder your mother.”

  Chapter 20

  All Fall Down

  They were just standing there; my mother and Owen, talking, embracing, seemingly oblivious to what Allister Leeman had just proposed to me, or the fact that I was even watching them at all. If only I were down there with them. If only I could grab them and pull them away from all this.

  “Tick tock, my darling.” The butt of that horrible knife was still pointed at me. Allister Leeman’s eyes , thin and menacing, tore at my sanity. “Your time’s almost up.”

  Maybe he was lying. Maybe Owen hadn’t been brainwashed. Maybe the tones were gibberish. Maybe Owen wasn’t really the dragon after all. No. The tones opened my mind up and allowed me to follow the stars. They led to a trap, true enough, but I was affected, nonetheless. And that was after just one session. Who knew how many times Owen had listened to those sounds?

  “Listen,” Allister Leeman said. Calm layered his tone. “It’s easy enough. It doesn’t have to be one of your friends.” The word came thick off his tongue. “Though, if it were me, I’d strongly consider killing the person who’s destined to kill me. That doesn’t seem likely though. So, I digress. Look at these people.” He motioned to the room full of people now on their knees. “You can choose anyone of them. Any of them would be honored to help you become who you’re meant to be.”

  “By dying?” My face twisted.

  “One life is a small price to pay to ensure the future,” he answered. “These people understand that. “ He took my hand, placed the knife’s handle in my palm, and closed my fingers around it. It felt foreign and heavy in my hand. It occurred to me that, while I had certainly held knives when cooking or doing other mundane things, I had never held a knife like this, not one that was meant to kill someone.

  “It isn’t murder, Cresta. They want you to do it. They’ve actually fought over who gets to be the one you choose.”

  My eyes, filling with tears that I refused to cry, scanned the people. They rested on Wendy, on her own pale seer’s eyes. Did she know how this was going to end, what I was going to do? And, if so, would she tell me? I thought Allister Leeman had noticed, because he marched toward her. But, instead of getting Wendy, he grabbed a handful of Merrin’s hair and pulled her toward me, still on her knees.

  “What about this one?” He grinned. “Tell me you haven’t thought about it, that it wouldn’t make your life easier if Owen’s perfect little perfect was out of the picture.”

  “The only thing that would make my life easier would be for you to die,” I spit at him.

  “Now, now, there’s no need to be crass,” he said, yanking Merrin’s head back and exposing her neck. She flinched, but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of crying out. “Besides, I am the one person in this scenario that you cannot kill. It just doesn’t fit. Now, slit this bitch’s throat or watch your mother die.”

  I stood there, my hands shaking violently. I had never thought about killing anyone, never even seriously thought about hurting anybody. Sure, there was a time when I wanted nothing more than for Merrin to be out of the picture, and it hadn’t been even a day ago when she swore she would kill me herself if need be. But the black and white of my life had gotten increasingly gray lately and, for all our differences, Merrin didn’t deserve this; to wriggle around on the ground at the mercy of a madman.

  “Fine,” Allister Leeman huffed, sensing my hesitation. “We’ll see how you feel afterward.”

  He began pressing buttons. The tones rang out. “No!” I yelled, but I was too late. Casper charged him, crashing into him with 165 pounds of Georgia boy. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered Coach Allen saying that Casper was ‘too soft’ for the football team. Watching the way Allister Leeman flew against the plate glass window, the remote in his hand shattering, I wondered what Coach Allen would think now. The kneeling seat fillers charged us. I rushed to the window. Looking over, I saw Owen kneeling in pain on the floor. Slowly, he got up and, watching the way he moved, like a cat circling his prey, I knew Casper had been too late. Owen pounced at my mother. Stunned, he almost got her before she darted out of the way. He was going to kill her.

  I fought my way through the seat fillers, which wasn’t hard, given that it seemed they didn’t want to hurt me. I grabbed the remote, which was now in two pieces. I crammed the pieces back together, praying it would work. But I still needed the correct tones.

  “What is it?!” I lunged at Allister Leeman. “What’s the code?!”

  The blue mowhawked man grabbed me. I fought him, but he was huge, and it wasn’t long before he had lifted me off the ground, my feet kicking uselessly in the air.

  “Kill him Cresta,” Allister Leeman said. “It’s the way it has to be. Kill him, or he’ll kill your mother.” The crowd seemed to part, making a path for me that stretched toward the stairs. I met Casper’s eyes, looking for some sort of guidance. He was pinned under two huge people; one man and one woman. His eyes, gleaming up at me, told me all I needed to know. I darted toward the stairs.

  I must have ran down a hundred steps before I knew it. The stupid dress kept getting tangled around my feet, and I was huffing like a racehorse, but none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was that two of the people I loved most in the world were going to rip each other apart, unless I stopped them. Of course, I had no clue how I was going to stop them. Still, I ran.

  When I made it to the end of the stairs, to a glistening silver door guarded by a man and woman who were dressed in a tuxedo and black evening gown (you know, for my hostage wedding), I grimaced. “Right this way,” the woman said, and flashed me a smile every bit as black as her dress.

  “Don’t worry,” she added. “He won’t hurt you. He’s not programmed to.”

  I wanted to pummel her, to tell her that Owen’s a person, and that he never should have been programmed in the first place. And while I was at it, I’d tell her that kidnapping someone’s mother in an attempt to force them to marry your insane cult leader, was both creepy and rude. But I didn’t have time. Owen and Mom needed me, so I shot the woman a look that would curdle milk, and ran inside.

  The first thing I saw was Owen’s foot connecting with my mother’s face. It sent her spiraling to the ground. The next thing I saw was my mo0ther’s blood splattered across the metal floor. Running to my mother, it occurred to me that I had seen too much of the people I love’s blood; too much of their tears, and their anguish. For too long I had watched them thrown into horrible situations because of me, because of what people hoped I either was or wasn’t.

  Never again, I swore to myself. It ends today.

  I collided into Owen. Though I could never be confused with a menacing person, I had caught him by surprise and I put enough shoulder in it to knock him off his feet.

  “Mom!” I yelled, as she took me into her arms. It was strange seeing her in person; really in front of me again. She looked older, more worn. And sure, there were things she hadn’t told me, truths she had kept from me since the day I was born. But I was with her now, in her arms, and in that brief moment, nothing else mattered.

  Owen did a ninja style
backflip, landed on his feet, and started running toward us.

  Oh. Well, there’s that.

  “Come on!” Mom said, and we made a beeline for the door. As if on cue, the door swung shut, closing our only exit. “There goes that,” Mom said in the same tone she used whenever she spilled something on her blouse or misplaced the leys to the car.

  “Are you okay?” She asked as we ran to the far end of the circular room.

  “I’m okay,” I answered shakily, though whether that was true or not was anyone’s guess. “What about you?”

  “I’m good,” she said, squeezing my hand. “Now I’m good.”

  We reached the far wall and spun around. Owen was barreling toward us. Mom pushed me behind her, blocking me.

  “No, Mom. He won’t hurt me.”

  “You’re damn right, he won’t” She answered. “Did you know Owen was a Breaker?”

  “Yes. No. I mean, I didn’t before, but I do now,” I stammered. “This isn’t his fault. Allister Leeman put a trigger in his mind. Owen is one of the good guys.”

  Owen started screaming, pulled something that looked like a dagger from his pants, and threw it at it, without breaking stride. It whizzed inches past our faces, hit the wall, and fell.

  “I can tell,” Mom muttered.

  “I can fix him Mom,” I said, eyeing the remote in my hand.

  “You can’t fix boys, honey. The sooner you learn that, the better. Now, let Mom do her job,” she said.

  Mom lunged forward. I had seen a lot of strange things in the time since our house blew up, but watching my mom do a somersault, hit Owen with an uppercut, slide into a split, and then take his feet out, knocking him down, might have been the strangest. And that’s counting the glowing dragon made entirely out of energy.

  She pounded against his chest with a flat palm. He jerked up, gasping for air. Okay. So, maybe Owen wouldn’t kill Mom after all. Maybe Mom would kill him. That wasn’t a good result either though. I looked up at the ceiling, grimacing at the space I had just come from. It was a two way mirror, but I was sure Allister Leeman was standing on the other side, probably laughing and watching me squirm. I would make him pay for this. I meant that.

  By the time I looked back, Mom was on the ground. Owen stood over her, kicking her hard in the gut over and over again. The look in his eyes; it was like he wasn’t even there. I flashed back to the day our house blew up, to watching my mom get beat on by those bulky crazies. Suddenly, I realized the knife Allister Leeman gave me was still in my right hand.

  “Owen, stop it!” I screamed, gripping the handle. “Owen, it’s me! It’s Cresta. Just listen to me. I know you’re in there.”

  He kept at her; kicking her until she yelled and grunted like a wounded puppy.

  “Owen, you’re going to kill her!”

  He didn’t stop. He didn’t seem to notice me at all. He was an animal; a programmed thing that was going to put an end to my mother. Suddenly, he pulled a second dagger from somewhere on his person. Sweat glistened on his chest and his face looked practically feral. There would be no getting through to him. Mom turned toward me. She opened her mouth to speak, and blood poured from it.

  “Run,” she mouthed.

  “No,” I said firmly. “I left you once. I left dad. I won’t do it again. God forgive me,” I whispered, tightened my grip on the knife’s hilt, and ran toward him.

  “I love you,” I said as I slashed at his chest. A red gash appeared under his left shoulder and began weeping blood. He didn’t react. He didn’t fight me at all. He lifted the dagger, but it wasn’t aimed at me.

  “Mom, go!” I yelled, and pushed Owen to the floor. I kicked the dagger out of his hand. It slid across the metal. He pushed me with a hard hand. I went winding and landed hard on my back. But he didn’t come back at me. He had a one track mind, and it was all about my mother. He had been programmed to kill her, programmed for this moment.

  Walking him step closer to my mother, who was stumbling backward across the floor, I realized this was it. I could rush him; stab him in his lower back. With my fancy new Breaker mind, I might even be able to do it with such precision that I didn’t actually kill him. But would that do any good? If I was right, Allister Leeman had programmed him so thoroughly that only death would stop his rampage. That is what he wanted, after all; for me to kill someone, for me to kill Owen.

  No. I wouldn’t give him that. I wouldn’t give in to his machinations. If I did this, if I killed Owen, not only would it break my heart so completely that I was sure it could never be put back together, but it would also give every fundamentalist on either side of this crazy coin cause to believe I, folk-rock loving 115 lb. girl that I was, was going to destroy the world. But it I didn’t, he was going to kill my mom.

  There had to be another way. As if it was trying to tell me something, the remote in my hand started to tingle. I lifted it. If it worked, I could reenter the code that sent Owen on this rampage. Of course, I didn’t know the code, but I figured one mountain at a time.

  “Come on, I muttered, pressing the buttons feverishly. Nothing happened. It had been broken when Casper tackled Allister Leeman. Wait. The thought crashed into me like a Mack truck. If I could manipulate shade to make people see things; or more aptly, not see things, then maybe I could make use it to make them hear things too. If I could manipulate some shade, namely the blobby aura still surrounding Owen’s tattoo, then maybe I could make him hear the tones he needed to.

  Owen inched closer to my mother. His dagger was still on the ground, but I was sure he wouldn’t need it. I focused hard on Owen’s tattoo, on the shade around it. Just like earlier in the 7-11, my mind latched hold of the shade. It was mine to control. Now all I needed was the correct code. I code have went through all the possible combinations; the remote only had nine numbers on it after all, but Owen was closing in on Mom, and he’d have ended her by then.

  Instead, I looked at the remote, remembering Allister Leeman when he punched the code in. I thought back, remembering the way his fingers moved when he keyed it in. I mimicked him.

  Six.

  I focused. The shade suddenly became the tone.

  Four.

  It happened again.

  Six again.

  Nine.

  Two.

  Three.

  And there was one more, but that was when Casper tackled him. Thinking back, I couldn’t get a clear view of what number Allister Leeman had pressed.

  Owen’s hands wrapped tightly around my mother’s neck. She gurgled and flailed. I stood and ran toward him. I had to kill him. But could I? I loved him more than myself, but I loved my mother too. I ran toward him, tears running down my face. Iknew what I had to do. I would-

  Seven. It was always seven.

  The tone rang out like the sweetest sound I had ever heard. Owen snapped back to himself, jerking away from Mom.

  “By fate’s hand,” he said trembling. “Mrs. Karr-Ash-I . . . ”

  I collided with him, dropping both the knife and the remote, and using my hands instead, to hug his back and kiss his neck.

  “Cresta,” he turned to me. “I . . . ”

  “I know,” I said. “Mom, are you-“

  “I’m fine,” she coughed. “I’m okay.” She stood, and brushed herself off. “I just- Did I miss something? I thought he wasn’t into you.”

  There was still a lot to do. Allister Leeman still had Casper, Wendy, and Merrin. And Lord knows he would certainly pull every rabbit he had out of his hat in an effort to get me to kill before the sun came up. But I smiled anyway. I couldn’t help it. I had my mom back. Owen wasn’t under Allister Leeman’s control anymore. Maybe, I thought hesitantly. Maybe we can win this.

  That’s when I heard the explosion.

  Chapter 21

  Breadcrumbs

  The world shook as the sounds of thrashing metal, shattering glass, and maligned bodies erupted around us. Bits of steel and glass showered down onto us. I ducked, tucking my head between my legs. I
even felt Mom overhead; shielding me from the worst of it. Still, we it was all over, I found myself covered in tiny painful cuts.

  Mom was worse. Her face and neck were marked heavily with cuts, and her hands looked tattooed in red. Still, Owen had the worst of it. When Mom threw herself over me, he must have thrown himself over her; because when he turned to see what had happened, I found his back was slick with blood. Shards of glass were still dug into him.

  “Owen . . . ” I gasped.

  “It’s fine,” he said, without missing a beat. “It’ll heal. I’m fine.” But he winced when Mom started pulling the shards from his back.

  Looking up, I saw that the two way mirror had exploded. The floor I had just left must have been ground zero for whatever just happened. A tight sickness gripped my heart. Sure, that was the floor Allister Leeman had been on, but my friends were there too. Casper was there.

  The door swung open. The well-dressed pair that had ushered me in, strode toward us. They had pistols in both their hands.

  “What the hell’s going on?” I demanded.

  “Come with us,” the man ignored my question.

  “We’re not going anywhere with you,” I said.

  “Don’t make us use these, little girl,” the well-dressed woman chimed in.

  “As if you could,” I scoffed. “Your boss wouldn’t like it very much if you shot me.”

  “Perhaps,” the man said. The guns parted, and now pointed at Mom and Owen instead. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if we killed them though.”

  I swallowed hard, ready to do what they said; anything, so long as they didn’t pull those triggers. But, like twin tornadoes, Mom and Owen grabbed the guns’ barrels, ripped them from their would- be assailants, and struck them across the head. They crumpled onto the ground like the discarded bride and groom from a toppled wedding cake.

  “Well done,” Mom glanced at Owen.

  “Thanks,” he beamed. “I love it when they get cocky.”

  “Well, you’re gonna freakin’ adore me.” The voice belonged to Ezra. The amputee floated in the doorway, blocking our exit and grinning a wicked greasy smile.