His paranoia showed not only in his behavior, but also in the way he perceived others, like the whole persecution theory he had manufactured years ago to explain his first bad grade. He had told her many times that he needed to work twice as hard to receive the same praise that other subjects were given. She had tried telling him that his hair color had nothing to do with his treatment and that his instructors highly respected him, but he didn’t listen. Once he got fixated on an idea, he was as tenacious as a dog with a bone, refusing to let go.
Now, at his dismissive words, she thought he was going to put on a mask once more—and was quickly proven wrong.
“The videos, they’re not so bad anymore,” Two continued, surprising her. His hand squeezed hers, once, and she looked down to find him staring past her, at the bottom of the top bunk. “They don’t even really seem like actual people, you know. Even the kids.”
“Kids?”
“I’ve seen them die,” he said, using his thumb to draw small circles in her palm. “Over, and over, and over. Tortured. Killed. And then: ‘How does this make you feel, A-02?’”
At once, the nature of the videos became abundantly clear to her. These weren’t the slice-of-life shows she watched to learn more about American culture. These were snuff films.
“Two, these videos—”
“Violence.” His eyes fluttered shut, and his fingers loosened from around hers. His breathing grew soft and steady, and his head lolled loosely against the pillow. “Violence is good.”
It couldn’t be. Were his instructors training him to enjoy killing?
“What are they showing you?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer, just lay there, a blissful smile on his lips. In recent days, exhaustion had left its cruel mark on him, hollowing out his cheeks and smudging his eyelids as if with soot. Now, she watched his fair features soften with pleasure. As his hand slipped away and fell limply to his side, she wondered if he was asleep and what he might be thinking about.
After a moment, she settled down next to him. She needed him right now. She needed to know that he was still here, that same raven-haired boy she had grown up with and fallen in love with. Unchanged.
The bed was so narrow that it could only accommodate the two of them if she lay on her side. In his twilight sleep, he sought out her warmth and curled around her. His strong legs folding against the backs of hers, as if they were interlocking puzzle pieces built to fit perfectly together. His arm furled over her waist and remained there, a soothing presence.
Staring down at the gray stains that target practice had deposited on his slender white fingers, she realized that she could no longer distinguish the scent of gunpowder from his own natural smoky aroma. He smelled like it all the time now. It was as much a part of him as the calluses on his palms, ingrained beneath his skin.
“Nine,” he murmured, his breath fanning hot across the nape of her neck.
“Yeah?” she asked.
“I killed him for you.”
Her blood chilled at his soft confession. Before she could ask him what he meant, the door to the room opened and a guard walked in.
She shot into a sitting position. Two’s mild groan of protest was even softer than the squeaking bedsprings. When she stood, he rolled over to claim the patch of heat left by her body.
The guard wore her hair fastened into a severe bun so tight that the skin on her forehead appeared stretched to the tearing point. When she furrowed her brows at the sight of them, Nine half expected the skin along her hairline to split.
“Subject Nine of Subset A,” the woman said.
“I can explain, ma’am,” she said. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
“You need to come with me.”
Nine blanched. As she searched for what to say, she found herself stuttering almost as badly as C-03 had during their debate. “T-two, I think he’s s-s-sick. I think he might have a f-fever, so he came here looking for me. We’re just friends. We didn’t do anything.”
“This isn’t about that.” The guard sighed. “Now come with me. The Leader wishes to see you.”
“But what about Two?” She glanced over her shoulder and was unsurprised to find him still curled on her cot, fast asleep.
The woman pursed her lips. “If he’s truly sick, I’ll send a doctor for him.”
As Nine walked to the door, she ran through possible reasons for being summoned. She couldn’t think of any transgressions aside from the one she had just committed. Her grades were high, her behavior impeccable. So why?
Reaching the Leader’s office, she brushed her hair out of her face and stepped inside. The room was lavishly decorated compared to the rest of the Academy, with wood-paneled walls and a luxurious Persian carpet. A stone-topped desk dominated the space, and an imposing white-haired man sat behind it.
Her eyes watered at the clove-scented smoke that hung heavily in the air. She bit her lip at the sight of the Leader, but quickly found her attention drawn to a brown-haired man pacing back and forth across the room.
The man froze the moment he saw her and stared at her with such intensity that she became uncomfortable.
“My God,” he said. Stubble darkened his cheeks and chin, and his eyes were bloodshot, as if he had been crying recently. She had never seen a grown man weep before, so more likely the smoke was to blame for the irritation.
“She’s nearly a mirror image, wouldn’t you say, Senator Hawthorne?” the Leader asked, his voice colored with the faintest touch of mockery.
“It’s incredible,” the senator said, smiling wanly. “She looks just like her. Almost identical.”
“Fraternal, to be more accurate.”
Unsure of how to answer, she decided that the most diplomatic response would be to wait for the Leader to explain why she had been brought here. She stood at attention, her arms held at her sides. She glanced at the Leader, but he appeared more entertained by the brown-haired man’s reaction than anything else.
“Sit down, Subject Nine,” the Leader said, extending a hand toward the backless stool that faced the desk. Unlike the tufted leather chair he reclined on, the stool was austere and uncomfortable-looking.
She sat down. The round metal seat pressed cold and hard against her butt. Even shifting her weight to the balls of her feet failed to relieve the cramped tension in her glutes.
She sat directly in the Leader’s range of fire. Each time he exhaled, a puff of foul smoke wafted across her face, stinging her eyes.
Her position, together with the stool’s shortness, only furthered her sense of inferiority. When she was with Two or the other teens in Subset A, she felt like their equal. Here, she was reduced to an object on a pedestal, free for the two men to examine at their leisure.
Afraid to look into the Leader’s eyes, she lowered her gaze. This was the closest she had ever been to him, and she was surprised to see how jaundiced his fingers were, like how Two’s hands were grayed with gunpowder residue. His nails, though manicured into neat, squared shapes, were yellowed like old glass. She wondered if the smoke from his cigarettes was to blame. Every time she inhaled, she could easily envision the putrid smog clinging to the insides of her lungs, fouling her from the inside out. It only made sense that it would stain fingers, too.
“Senator, perhaps you should be the one to break the news to her,” the Leader said, lighting a new cigarette with the smoldering butt of his last one.
“Hello, Nine,” Senator Hawthorne said, stopping next to her.
Most adults referred to her as A-09 or Subject Nine of Subset A, but hardly ever just Nine. The Leader was one of the few exceptions to that rule. It took her off guard to hear another man say it.
After glancing at the Leader to see his reaction, she turned her attention back to the senator. She forced herself to smile, wondering if the man could see the sweat beading on her skin. “Hello, sir.”
“How would you like to come live with me and my wife?” Senator Hawthorne asked.
She s
tared at him blankly, certain she had misheard him. This couldn’t be the news that she had waited her whole life to hear.
“You’ll have your own room,” he said, smiling down at her. “Anything you want. You’ll be given a name.”
A smirk touched the Leader’s lips. “Inheriting one, actually.”
“Elizabeth Hawthorne,” the senator said. “It’s a beautiful name, isn’t it?”
Case Notes 6: Subject Nine of Subset A
When Nine returned to Subset A’s female barracks, Two was nowhere in sight. Trembling with anxious excitement, she went to the mess hall. She hoped that she would find him eating lunch at one of the tables, not handcuffed to the punishment pole for sneaking into the girls’ barracks.
After milling around the mess hall for five minutes, she decided that he wasn’t there. Maybe he had been taken to the sickbay or was resting in his own barracks.
When she ducked her head through the infirmary’s door, the only person she encountered was her bunkmate, Subject Seven of Subset A, groaning on one of the cots.
“Nine, what are you doing here?” Seven asked, regarding her through bleary eyes. Sweat plastered her squirrely brown hair to the sides of her face.
“Are you okay?”
“I’ll live,” the other girl said in a throaty mumble, wrapping her arms around her belly.
“Hey, did you see if Two was brought in here?”
“Two?” Seven blinked. “No, I don’t think so. Is he okay? Did something happen?”
An idea suddenly occurred to her. Seven was a mil like Two and played on his team during wargames. She would have also seen the videos that he had talked about.
“He’s fine, but can I ask you a question?” Nine asked.
“Okay,” Seven said, sitting up with some difficulty.
“Can you tell me about the movies you guys watch?”
A flicker of surprise touched the other girl’s face, but then her expression quickly evolved into one of caution. “I’m not allowed to talk about those outside of class. Why do you ask? Did he say something about them?”
“No, it’s just that I’m worried about him. He’s changed lately. He’s gotten kind of quiet, you know?”
Seven didn’t answer, just grabbed a fistful of tissues from the box next to her and coughed into them. Through her curtain of sweaty hair, her hazel eyes flickered past Nine to the open door.
“These videos, are they—”
“They’re training videos,” Seven said thickly, blowing her runny nose into the tissues. She sniffled a bit and rubbed her irritated eyes with the back of her hand. “Just training videos to show us how to be soldiers. Don’t worry about Two. He’ll make a good leader. I think he’s still upset about D-12’s death, and that’s why he’s been acting weird, but he’ll get through it.”
Nine bit her lip, contemplating whether she should tell Seven that she was leaving soon or grill her for more information.
That could wait. Right now, she needed to find Two so she could tell him the good news. It didn’t matter about the videos, because if everything went as planned, he would leave with her, too. She had already asked Senator Hawthorne if Two might be able to come along, and while his answer had been vague—“we’ll see” and then a curious glance toward the Leader—she was certain she could convince her new family to take him in.
While she hadn’t been told how exactly she would be integrated into the Hawthorne household, she had watched movies about orphans and foster-children in her American society class. She knew that little kids were taken in by families all the time, so she doubted it worked any differently with teenagers. What prevented the Hawthornes from adopting two teens instead of one?
We’ll leave together, she thought, smiling to herself. It would be different in the outside world. He wouldn’t be forced to watch those training videos anymore, they could stay up all night and eat candy with every meal. He would be given a real name. Just like in the movies.
Visions of the future filled her head as she walked out of the main building and retraced her steps back to Subset A’s barracks. As she neared the entrance, the doors opened and Two walked out.
His eyes widened at the sight of her. Though he appeared slightly unbalanced, his reserved smile reassured her that he had come down from his intoxication. Had the doctor given him something to counteract the effects of the first drug?
“Oh, Nine. I’m sorry about earlier. I had a bad reaction, but I feel better now. I was just about to get some lunch. Have you already eaten?”
She couldn’t suppress the wide smile that spread across her lips. “Not yet, but first, I have some great news.”
He blinked. “What is it?”
She grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the entrance, toward the small yard at the back of the building. Now that other subjects were returning from their classes, she didn’t want to blurt out her news in front of the entire subset. Bragging about leaving was taboo, and sometimes she only learned about other subjects’ departures when she saw their stripped beds.
“You’re never going to believe this,” she said, standing under the dogwood tree that shaded the yard.
He looked at her uncertainly. His gaze was clear and direct, and his pupils were an ordinary size again, but she wondered if he might be struggling with some remnant confusion.
“I’m leaving,” she said and watched his mouth loosen in amazement. “I’m going tomorrow.”
Just one day away.
She expected him to respond with congratulatory words, but instead he just stared at her. Then his eyes narrowed, his jaw snapped shut, and his face tensed.
“No. You’re not leaving.” Over the last year, his voice had changed, first cracking then deepening into a pleasant, rolling timbre. Now, it acquired a different quality altogether; it became flat and hard, losing its natural inflection. Chilling over.
“Don’t worry, I’ll have them come back for you,” she said, reaching for his wrist. “I’ve already got it planned out.”
It wasn’t like they wouldn’t see each other again. She would be able to convince her new family to take him in, right?
As she touched him, he slapped her hand away, hard enough to make her fingers sting. Stunned, she could only stare speechlessly at him. He had never lifted a hand against her until today.
“You’re not leaving,” he repeated. “We’re supposed to go together. That’s the plan.”
“Two, I—”
“You can’t leave me here!” He clenched his hands into fists. His gas-flame blue eyes smoldered with anger, and his lips curled back from his teeth in a snarl that was almost rabid. The tendons in his throat bulged as gushes of air hissed through his bared teeth, harsh ragged breaths like nothing she’d ever heard him make before. “I. Won’t. Accept. It.”
At the sight of his rage, Nine began trembling. She took a step back, her legs wavering beneath her, weakened by fear.
For the first time in her life, she became fully aware of the size difference between them. He had almost six inches on her, and years of military drills had endowed him with a soldier’s lethal build. Even more frightening was that his training guaranteed that no matter what punches or kicks she threw his way, he would know exactly how to counteract any attack with the most brutal takedown.
As if sensing her thoughts, a pained spasm contorted his feral, beautiful features. The blood drained from his face, leaving his skin whiter than the flowers that bloomed on the dogwood branches overhead.
Gritting his teeth, he unfurled his fingers and turned away. He rolled his shoulders and lowered his chin as if preparing for a painful attack.
“I can’t believe it,” he said, with a rough, mirthless laugh. “You’re afraid of me.”
All at once, her fear evaporated into shame and regret. Her hands fell loosely to her sides. How could she think for an instant that he would hurt her, when for all their lives, he had been nothing but kind to her?
“No,” she said.
“It�
��s written all over your face,” he said and took a step away from her.
“Two, wait. Please, don’t go.”
“Do you have a name now?” Even with his back facing her, his voice betrayed him. He might have been able to keep his tears at bay and suppress the shuddering sobs, but he couldn’t hide the despair in his hoarse mutter.
“This isn’t goodbye.”
“Just tell me.”
“Two.”
“Tell me what your new name is,” he said. “I want to know.”
Nine took a deep breath, swiping at the tears that stung her own eyes. “Elizabeth,” she said, unsurprised to hear that her voice had become almost as choked as his. “It’s Elizabeth Hawthorne.”
“Elizabeth Hawthorne,” he echoed, and when he turned to her, a ghost of a smile touched his lips. But his eyes weren’t smiling. Tears clung to his thick lashes, and his mouth quivered with repressed tension.
“Like the flower, right?” he asked, blinking rapidly to hold back his tears.
It was spelled differently, but she nodded. She thought about how they used to snack on the hawthorn tree’s fruits during the autumn months, playing a game to see who could spit the seeds the farthest. That felt like another lifetime ago. To think, in less than twenty-four hours, she would leave this place.
“Like the flower,” she murmured.
“It’s fitting. I like it.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you like it?”
Nine loved her new name, but it felt wrong to admit that to him. She was afraid that he would think she was forsaking her old life and everything related to it. She opened her mouth to tell him that it was okay, she didn’t mind it, and found herself at a loss of words. She couldn’t lie to him.
“Elizabeth Hawthorne,” he repeated once more, this time so softly that she almost didn’t hear him. It sounded even more beautiful when he said it than it did in her head. Ah-leis-uh-bith.
Hades Rising Page 6
