by Megan Curd
I heard the door of the office slam. My focus shifted, and the cloud melted away to steam. Slush covered the wooden floor, darkening the boards. I wrapped my arms around my body, suddenly cold.
Xander brushed off the snowflakes that lingered on his arms. “Don’t mind him. No one knew what you were capable of. He was doing his job when he brought you here.”
I huffed in indignation. Jaxon’s sudden disappearance left an almost tangible emptiness in the room, as if the life had been sucked out of the room with his vacancy. I thought about Xander’s comment. “If he’s so against his dad, then why’d he bring me here? Why would he do his job, as you call it?”
“Because Riggs is still his father, and no matter what, part of him wants to have his father in his life.”
“So you’re saying he can hate his father and still want to please him?”
“Exactly.”
“That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
I followed him out of his little man cave. He chuckled as he crossed his room to check on Legs. “For it not making sense, you caught on awful quick. Either way, it doesn’t have to make sense. It’s a family thing. Most people will do anything for their loved ones. It’s manipulation at its finest when someone is forced to choose between doing something they’d rather not or abandon family.”
Something stirred in the pit of my stomach. I’d been on my own for so long, I didn’t really remember what having a family was like. Sure, I still had memories—early ones—but no part of me would want to make my dad happy if he were a power-hungry, ego-tripping nutcase.
I watched as Xander checked Legs’s vitals, running his fingers lightly over the nearly translucent skin on his remaining wrist.
No one deserved to go through what he had today. His head lolled to the side, and his eyes struggled to open as he fought to wake up. His lips turned upward into a weak smile as he watched Xander work.
“I take it you haven’t sewed my arm back on, doc?”
“I’m afraid I practice medicine, not miracles,” Xander said with a gentle smile. He squeezed the bag that once held my blood. “Almost full up, I’d guess. You still look quite peaked.”
“That’s the best compliment I’ve gotten today.”
Even in the heaviness of the moment, the joke amused me, and Legs’s eyes crossed the room to mine. They widened in surprise, then recognition lit his features. “Who’s the hot nurse?”
“She’s not a nurse,” Xander said while he rummaged in one of his many drawers that lined the small room, “She’s one of the three people who made sure you survived your adventure today. Avery donated her blood to your cause.”
“I know who she is, doc. That’s Pike. She’s always making me rescue her. Today was business as usual.”
I shook my head. “I think it was me saving you today, by the looks of it.”
“We could call it even for today, but you’d still owe me.”
Legs. If he could be this upbeat after losing an arm, I needed to make sure he was around if there was ever another apocalypse. He could find the upside for sure. “You’re right. I’m always one behind you.”
“Always.”
Silence filled the room as Xander continued to rummage through drawers.
I glanced at the stump of an arm that was left for Legs and felt a pang of guilt. There had to be some way I could help him, some way to give him something in return for what he’d lost.
Then it hit me.
I gathered the courage to ask Xander the question burning in my mind.
“Do you know that arm contraption that Mr. Riggs has? The one he wore when he came to meet me?”
“Yes,” he said as he redressed Legs’s wounds. A tight bandage wound around the crook of Legs’s arm where the IV had once been that filled him with my blood. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, how does it operate? When he wore it, it seemed as though it worked independently of any levers or pulleys. Like it could—”
“Read his mind?”
“Well, yeah.”
“That’s because it can. Will created the mechanical portion of the arm, but Sari set up the electronics, and I put the wires where they needed to be.”
“You put wires…in him?”
“Exactly,” he said, as though it was common. “He slips the mechanical arm over his real one and plugs the wires into the jacks on top of his shoulder that I inserted there.” He motioned to the top of his shoulder, where the rotator cuff ended and the arm began. “And those go directly into the portion of the brain that controls motion. He thinks, and the arm responds as it normally would. It’s a very powerful device. He has twenty times the crushing power in that hand than a crocodile has in its jaws.”
The comparison was lost on me because I’d never seen a crocodile or its power, but I assumed it was a lot since Xander sounded impressed. I tried to act as though I knew what he was talking about.
He smiled and ushered me back to his cubbyhole. His fingertips slid across spines of books in all stages of life. Some appeared to never have been touched, while others seemed they might fall apart if moved. His hand stopped, and he pulled what might have been a textbook off the shelf. He rifled through the pages and apparently finding what he was searching for, he tapped the page twice and handed over the book. “Here. This is the creature I’m talking about.”
So he had seen through my noncommittal nod. I’d have to work on getting better at hiding my facial expressions. I examined the beast on the page. It looked like the dinosaurs my Early Sciences professor had shown the class. “Wow. He’s a nasty one.”
“Indeed. And Riggs’s mechanical arm is capable of doing more damage than this magnificent animal’s jaws.”
I looked up at him and blurted out my nonsensical idea. “Do you think we could have another one crafted? Or steal Riggs’s?”
His eyes took on a knowing look. “I see where you’re going with this, and it’s an admirable idea, but believe me when I tell you it’s nothing short of signing your own death certificate. That thing is Riggs’s pride and joy. There’s no way he’ll let anyone make a copy of it. How would you even come up with an excuse to create another one?” He mimicked my voice. “Excuse me, Mr. Riggs, but could I borrow your mechanical arm, so I could make another to give to an insurgent that’s currently residing right under your nose?”
I chewed the inside of my lip while I tried to come up with a better excuse. “Well, what if someone said they needed to repair it, then we give it to Legs?”
“And what do you propose we do if we manage to get the arm?” Xander hissed under his breath, his eyes scanning into the other room, probably checking for cameras. “What do you want me to do? Attach it to him and hope Riggs doesn’t notice that it’s missing? He’ll turn this place upside down to find it.”
“Then I guess Legs will have to leave after you install it.”
“Where will he go, pray tell? Are you even listening to yourself?”
I was. The words sounded even more moronic and half-concocted out in the open than they had inside my brain. “I try not to.”
He tried not to laugh. “You and Jax are a match made in heaven.”
“Please don’t say that. It doesn’t give me much hope for a future or for heaven, in fact.”
Xander’s throaty chuckle made me smile. He took the book and placed it back in its space on the shelf. “Come to me with an intelligent plan, and we’ll talk. Honestly, I think I can find him a good prosthetic in one of the hospital wings if he wants one. For now, let me get him walking on his own two feet without falling over from anemia.”
He hadn’t denied me my idea. I supposed that was a start. I glanced around Xander to Legs, who was watching us intently. “Do you think I could talk to him for a minute?”
Xander looked back at Legs. “How do you feel?”
“I’m good enough to talk to Pike.”
Xander patted my shoulder as he passed and headed to the door. “I’ll come back in half an hour or so. Will t
hat be enough time?”
“For sure, thank you.” I whispered.
He left Legs and I staring at one another from opposite ends of the small space.
“Well,” I said awkwardly, “how are you feeling?”
“Like a million bucks, if a million bucks had one arm, of course,” he said with an impish grin.
“Of course.”
It was the first time I’d really looked at him. His face was slender and symmetrical. His brown eyes weren’t mesmerizing like Jaxon’s slate-colored ones, but they did feel like home. His wore an easy-going smile, and I noticed a little scar under his right eye I’d never seen before. I wondered idly if his father had caused it. Part of me wanted to touch his face, only to see if it were real. Jaxon had made me realize how little I really knew about one of the few people I considered a friend. I finally crossed the distance between us. “Why’d you come here?”
“I ordered food for pick-up and took a wrong turn evidently.”
“You know what I mean. Why you?”
He laughed bitterly. “Why does it matter why I came?”
“Because you have a little sister at home you need to think about.”
“Don’t tell me what I need to think about!” The IV jerked in his arm as he leaned toward me, and he winced. “Pike, you don’t know nearly as much about me as you’d like to think.”
“That’s becoming evident,” I said, deflated. “Jaxon just told me the same thing. I don’t even know your real name.”
This time his laugh sounded genuine. “That’s because I have the lamest name in the world.”
“What is it?”
“Nope, not telling you. Sorry.”
“I’ll just get Sari to find it out. She’s a hacker.”
“Who’s Sari? And what’s a hacker?”
“We don’t have time to talk about that stuff right now. What I need to know is why you’re here.”
Legs shrugged. “Because I’m in the military. That’s what the military does; they send people on missions. Mine happened to be to retrieve you.”
“Kind of convenient, since you knew me beforehand.”
He blushed. “Well, that was kind of the point. Send me on a death mission to screw me for fraternizing with you.”
“Are you serious?”
“Did you really think they expected me to come back with you? They wanted to punish me, and they knew how.”
“And your…your sister?”
“They took her from Dad. She’s in the orphanage now. He finally proved himself to be completely useless. Took him long enough.” Anger seeped out of every word.
I had nothing to say to that.
Legs took my hand in his and pulled me close. “Thanks for the blood. Xander said I would have died without it.”
“Um, no problem,” I said as I pulled away. He smelled of soap, fresh sheets, and maybe cologne? Not bad, by any means.
“You’ll come back to visit, won’t you?”
I deliberated before responding. “Will you tell me about the Polatzi if I do?”
“If you can find a way to speak in private, where we can be safe, I’ll give you answers.”
“Then you mean you won’t give me anything, because we’ll never be safe here.”
“Probably not here, you’re right. But if you come home with me, I could explain things.”
We stood in silence until he took my hand in his and lifted it to his lips. He kissed the back gently, his eyes holding mine in his gaze. “You’ve been worth every ounce of trouble you’ve caused me, Pike.”
“I’m glad you think so, considering you’re down an arm because of it.”
He lifted his remaining arm. “Eh, that’s why we’ve got two, right? Good thing you didn’t take my punching arm. How would I knock out Jaxon next time he makes a smart comment?”
“You’re good to have around, you know that?”
“You’re all right company yourself. Just don’t go thinking you don’t owe me.”
“Good night, Legs.”
As I entered the hallway, I jumped when I found Xander leaning against the wall outside the door. His eyes were closed, and in this light, his pale skin took on a ghostly glow. I clutched my chest as I tried to slow my breathing. “Good Lord, Xander. You could have warned me you were out here.”
“I wanted to keep a watch out for you. I hope you don’t mind? Although, I wasn’t doing a good job, since I was standing here dozing off.”
“It’s okay. It’s late,” I said with a yawn. “I’ve got to get back to the dorm before someone finds me out here. Thanks for letting me talk to Legs.”
“Anytime.”
As I walked away, his kind voice followed me, hollow but hopeful.
“I was thinking about what you said about helping Legs. If you want this idea of yours to work—the one where you somehow copy Riggs’s arm or take the one he already has—you’re going to have to leave with him. All of you. Jax, Sari, you, and Legs.”
I stopped. “Why?”
“Because Riggs will kill you when he finds out you stole from him, and I have no doubt you’ll include those three in any harebrained idea you drum up. You’ll all have to leave to survive.”
THE TREK BACK to my room was lonely and dark, and I hated it. I struggled to adjust to the velvety darkness of the night sky in the atrium. My hand slid soundlessly along the top of the marble crenellations around the fountain as I tried to collect my racing thoughts.
How could Riggs possibly think I could control domes? I wasn’t that powerful and probably never would be. Even if I were, there was no way I’d go along with his madness. And Legs, sent here because of me. It was my fault he lost his arm, my fault his sister was in the orphanage. How could I ever repay him for all he’d lost? Of course get Riggs’s mechanical arm for him, but at what cost? How many people would get hurt in my effort to help him? I couldn’t imagine hurting Alice or Sari or—God forgive me for even including him—Jaxon.
Oh, Jaxon. That…guy. Not a boy, not a man, but oh so sexy. I didn’t want to truly admit it, but he was going to be my undoing, one way or another.
Water droplets splashed onto the back of my hand. So what if I could control steam? Riggs made it clear that using old technology—more powerful technology, in fact—wasn’t as detrimental to our world as people let on. This place ran on electricity, and nothing bad had happened. For the first time since arriving here, I truly wondered which side was right and which was wrong.
I sighed and continued toward the dormitory hallway. The faux candles were glowing dimly. Wax overflowed dripped onto the alcoves and down the walls, creating cream-colored rivulets that wove their way to the floor. The measures that had been put in place to make the candles seem real were astonishing. Wouldn’t it have been be easier to simply light a candle? Maybe Riggs hadn’t yet acquired anyone who could control fire.
While I managed the storm of thoughts swirling in my mind, I reached the door to my room. Light bled through the crack in the bottom. What time was it? Were Sari and Alice still awake? I turned the knob as gently as possible and squeezed through the opening.
Alice rounded on me as soon as I latched the door. “Care to explain where you’ve been for so long?”
“I went to see Legs. You seemed preoccupied with Will, so that’s why I didn’t ask if you wanted to come.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sari was right about that guy. I won’t be seeing him again, but I did take him up on his suggestion of a midnight stroll through the restricted section of the library, and I found something.”
I let out a low whistle. “You sneaky thing!”
“I do what I can.” She pulled a folded paper from the waistband of her skirt. “It’s mangled and old, but it makes me wonder if Mr. Riggs is in deeper than we’d thought.”
Most of the print was worn away. A picture remained of a young Riggs in Alliance military garb. Medals hung from his breast pockets. The caption was dulled. What remained read SPE AL OP ATIONS.
Al
ice read it aloud. “Speal Opations.”
“I think it read Special Operations at one time. Impressive.”
“The best of the best from what I read in the library,” she confirmed. “Something drastic must have happened to make him switch sides. It doesn’t seem like those kinds of people would sway their loyalties. Anyway, this whole thing makes my head hurt. I’m giving the article to Sari in the morning, and I’m sure she’ll have me dig deeper. I don’t know where to look, but you can count on me to find out whatever Riggs was up to before he brought us here.”
“You’re going to get caught if you’re not careful. You’ve seen the cameras in this place. Promise me you’ll have a solid alibi.”
Her eyes grew bright. “Speaking of alibis, your goose is cooked!” she crowed. “Going off with that hunk, Jaxon? Don’t tell me you didn’t do anything all day long.”
“We didn’t.”
It was kind of the truth as far as she was concerned. She was implying spit being swapped or some other unspeakable thing. Her face made it clear that she didn’t believe me. She clucked her tongue against the back of her teeth.
“Well, then I guess the fact that Jaxon is in our room waiting on you won’t be too terribly enticing for you, will it?”
“He’s in our room? Why’d you leave him in there?”
She smiled devilishly. “I made sure your scandalous panties were well hid.”
“Alice, are you kidding me? It’s…well, that’s our room!”
“Yes…and this is our kitchen. Your point?”
“God, Alice, you’re exasperating.”
“I’m here all week!”
I stalked off to our room.
Alice called out, “Be respectful of your roommate. If there’s going to be funny business, do it out on the couch. I don’t want to hear it when I go to bed!”
I made a gagging sound, and Alice laughed. My hand found the smooth surface of the doorknob, and I faltered. My stomach was in knots, curling and uncurling. Get a hold of yourself. It’s a guy. Yes, he’s cute, but he’s an obnoxious overflowing fountain of sarcasm too. No reason to get all worked up.
