by Terina Adams
“See ya.” I gave a pathetic little wave and hurried after Jax.
We found the first market space we entered eerily quiet. No one bothered to return and right the chaos. Jax continued with his brisk pace, weaving around and over people’s livelihoods now strewn in the dirt. No one in the fringe could afford this, but there was little we could do. Even so, I couldn’t help but bend and scoop up a few things that weren’t food trodden into the ground and placed them in woven baskets or wood boxes still sitting right-side up. No help really, nor did it lift the feeling that my limbs were wrapped in elastic bands and forced to move under tension. I was like a deadly virus to the people of the fringe. Once caught, it would spread its dire consequences to everyone who lived here.
After jogging to come alongside Jax, I said, “It’s like the aftermath of an apocalypse.”
“The fringe is waiting for continual retribution. I doubt the sweepers left with the answer to how their comrade was killed. They will return again in greater force. And we’ve wasted too much time hiding in the escape room.”
“You needed your strength before we left.”
“We could’ve left a day ago.”
“With you looking like you did?”
Jax jabbed a glance sideways at me. Reaching the mouth of the alley, I gladly dropped behind as we entered the narrow gap. He was in a hurry. His brisk pace said so, but the pounding of his boots said something else. Jax was angry, fueled by the pain of leaving Alithia and Azrael? The delay? The devastation the sweepers left? When he walked away from Alithia’s home, he walked away from the happy part of himself.
I kept behind and stayed quiet for the rest of our labyrinth jog to the platform. I craned my head up to the skytrain waiting at the top of the metal scaffolding. Seeing it made my stomach somersault, and I hadn’t even left the ground yet. I really didn’t want to get used to this.
Jax’s boots were clanging up the metal grille already, snapping me out of my scaredy-cat headspace, not even stopping once to see if I was behind him. Destruction rose up, just like my eyes, glancing back up the face of the scaffolding. Oh no you don’t. This baby needed to stay in the air. Any sudden release, even a small ejection, would be catastrophic.
As I climbed the stairs, I pumped my fists, curling them into tight balls and focused on forcing destruction into my feet, visualizing a release through my boots to see if that would help, which made me stomp harder with each stride.
Almost at the first landing, before the next set of steps, my gait faltered, knee buckling when I felt a sudden dip. I sprung up onto the next step, my heart choking up my throat, hands manacled to the railing. The step I’d just left bowed down; metal twisted like it had been melted in a hot furnace then reformed distorted.
Jesus Christ. I darted a look above me to the underside of Jax’s boots pounding up the next level of stairs. There was no one coming up behind me, no one anywhere near the platform. But that would not disguise this mess. Did the sweepers use skytrains? If so, they would see this and know. Nothing could buckle metal except extreme force or extreme temperature. At least not back home. And we weren’t near any furnaces, so the only answer was destruction. They would know the moment they found it. Everything I did put the fringe people at risk of retribution from the senate.
I jogged the rest of the way, gasping by the time I reached the platform. There, I stopped, holding the railing to catch my breath. One look over, and I spun away and hot-footed it over to Jax, waiting by the open door to the skytrain, my legs tremoring and not just because I’d ran all the way. Forgetting about the height, that was the only benefit to my mess on the steps.
An empty skytrain—not surprises, given the ghost town we left behind. Jax led us to seats down the back. Without a word, he pulled the harness down over my head and buckled me in. I would’ve told him to let me do it, but with the dark cloud engulfing him, and trying to work out how I would tell him about the step, he was done and buckling himself in before I composed myself.
“I feel guilty for what we’ve done. The people of the fringe are going to suffer because of us. Isn’t there something we can do for them?” Even though the skytrain was empty, I still whispered.
“The best help we can give them is to end all this, which we can’t do by staying here and hiding. If you live in the fringe, you know how to survive.” He stared ahead at the seats opposite. “We need to change the rules.”
“When did you decide on that? I thought your plan was to stop Carter from starting a war?”
Jax’s face no longer looked like it had been used by heavyweight fighters for warmup. Wounds remained as scabs, but the swelling subsided, leaving a few blotchy yellow stains. Hopefully, that was enough to prevent any suspicious questions should we run into a sweeper. Alithia had found him clothes similar to those we arrived in, a little on the baggy side. My new clothes were more conspicuous. She managed to gather a simple fringe outfit in the time she disappeared. The clothes were supposed to be temporary while she tried to wash the blood stains out of mine, but she failed. My new clothes were not the sort of clothes someone from the inner sectors of Califax would wear.
“If we stop Carter, what changes?” He struggled to keep his voice even.
“All-out war, for starters.” I did the same, still trying to keep my voice to a whisper, because the skytrain might have ears in the form of a high-tech listening device, which seemed in keeping with the senate’s paranoia.
“That’s inevitable.”
“But it doesn’t have to be.”
“Don’t be naïve, Sable. You’ve seen too much to think like a child.”
I didn’t expect the flare of anger that surfaced. “At least I’m not gunning for a fight.” For the people of the fringe, I was, but as Jax asked, how far was I willing to go?
Jax swallowed his comment and closed his eyes. When he next spoke, it sounded filtered through a carefully thought process. “Do you really believe that’s what I want?”
What had driven this division between us? Was it because of Alithia and Azrael, the crack I’d made, or the fact I’d chosen Aris as my tattoo and not Persal? Despite my best efforts to swallow the hurt and jealousy, it wouldn’t go down. But the tension wasn’t from me alone. Where was the man who playfully cuffed Azrael under the chin? “Of course I don’t. But you’ve changed.”
Jax’s dark eyes penetrated right through like the sharpest knife. “I killed a man. How’s that for change?”
I turned away, but everything in front of me was meaningless images and color.
I’m sorry. So lame. This had nothing to do with love, but everything to do with his heart.
I felt like I was shrinking small enough to slip between the gap in the seat, but the curse of my true nature fought me again. Mechanical whirring began then a loud clank below my feet. The sudden feel of movement as the skytrain pulled away from the platform distracted me enough that I lost my full grip on destruction. The press of the harness on my chest holding me in place loosened. At the same moment, the buckle flung outward and pierced the metal on the other side of the hull.
I shrieked.
Jax rounded on me. “What’re you doing?” His expression was as dangerous as a sledgehammer.
“I…”
He jerked his head around with enough force to give himself whiplash.
“I hate flying.” I closed my eyes.
Beside me, I heard Jax unbuckle. “Get up.”
He crossed the aisle and slid into the seat a few places down. “Hurry.” He barked the order as he lowered the harness over his head. “The system will register someone is unharnessed on takeoff.”
I slipped down beside him, fumbling myself into my harness, but he pushed my hands away and locked it up himself. “No way will we get that out.” He exhaled as if to even his breath, while he looked down the rows of seats to where the buckle sat embedded in the hull.
I couldn’t say anything that would undo this, not without pouring out a whole heap of apologies and pleas
, fast-tracking me into feeling miserable. I was lightning-quick sliding down into that dark well anyhow. But if I let myself sink, I’d likely blow the skytrain up, because destruction would claw its way up and out rather than wallow with me.
Chapter 16
The sweeper was tall, taller than Jax, and broader. He boarded at the next stop along with a half-dozen others. My eyes stayed focused on the seat opposite, but my body, my instincts, my innate warning bells followed his every move, heart a staccato beat as I prepared for the worst—that he would take the seat with the broken harness. He sat opposite us a few seats down. A deliberate taunt. With all the room on this skytrain, he decided close to us was best.
I kept my eyes straight as my skin felt tickled by millions of insects. The urge to look his way became an insistent knocking on my head. What about the buckle embedded in the hull, a neon for unregulated destructive activity? The moment it was discovered, the senate would know someone was moving about ungrafted, added to that the warped metal on the steps back at the fringe and the dead sweeper. I dared not think what this meant for everyone in the fringe. I was leaving more than breadcrumbs behind me.
The urge to look won out, more so because the stress of holding back made destruction jittery, roiling a great wave under my skin. The constant motion dizzied my head. One glance, that was all. Solid green eyes met mine at the other end, because he had bothered to remove his helmet. I felt forked through the head. Like the condemned, my eyes darted away. The great wave rose again. The tremor in my hands didn’t show, but I pressed them onto my thighs all the same.
Jax nudged my shoulder as he leaned over. “We’ll get off at the next platform.”
“Isn’t it too early?”
“We can catch the next ride.”
So it wasn’t just me with the heebie-jeebies. I was suffering a serious case of fight or flight, a natural human response, but my response was much deadlier.
Eternity passed, me struggling with destruction, forcing myself to sit still when I wanted to burst out of my seat. For some crazy and inappropriate moment, I thought of Holden—so not good, because any thoughts of him made me feel feral—and his teaching me to find my inner calm, to center on a state of inner tranquility, the opposite of chaos, my internal state right now.
I should’ve listened to that asshole more when I had the chance.
Eyes still on me, they peeled me open like an onion. Heat rushed into my chest then migrated up my neck. Good thing the fringe clothes buttoned up to a high collar. I touched it. Was he wondering what a fringe dweller was doing traveling farther into Califax?
My senses acute, this time I heard a small click at my buckle as the lock engaged to keep me seated during docking. Whirring, clanking, grinding, the skytrain maneuvered into place. I gripped the harness on my shoulder, ready to throw the cage off the moment the buckle unlocked.
A hand rested on mine, and I glanced at Jax. “Give us time to dock.”
My panic was likely saturating the enclosed space. I couldn’t even find him a wane smile.
When the skytrain came to a stop, Jax flipped his harness over his head and launched for the door as if driven by fire, but in my haste to remove the harness, the buckle caught in my hair. I was ready to yank the messy clump out regardless of the pain, when someone gently pushed my hands aside and began to pry the buckle from its tangle.
I jerked my head around. My eyes poured into the solid green of the sweeper standing next to me. Salted brown hair, trimmed mustache, normal-looking, nonlethal, he was anything but. A heavy dose of cologne wafted my way, and I thought of a weed that grew wild in our garden back home, the home we had before Dad went to jail. Invasive, but Mum loved the flowers and ordered the gardener to let it stay. That’s what I smelled now, mixed with earthier tones that rooted you to the ground.
Not a crease or wrinkle out of place on his uniform or his face. No tech code or wiring evident within his pupils, just the dark depths of a normal human eye. If I touched his skin, would it feel warm and soft like Jax’s, or rubbery and hard like a cyborg’s disguise?
My heart took off on a chase as my mind wound to a halt. Distracted by his proximity, my factional nature burst the lid and swam a lap of honor through my veins.
“Keep still if you don’t want to lose half your hair.” He sounded amused.
“I can do it.” Cool it, girl.
“Looks like you’re making a mess.”
Could this situation get any worse? Sweet Jesus, I was going to blow, which would definitely signify the situation spiraling to hell.
“I’m fine, really,” I said as I lurched up—anything to get away from his touch—but fell back at the pain of almost being scalped.
“Steady up.” Was he laughing at me?
“What’s going on?”
Through a tangle of hair, I glanced up at Jax. His stern expression said back off, but this guy was a sweeper, someone not easily intimidated.
The sweeper ignored Jax. “We’re almost done. If you wouldn’t mind keeping your head still a little longer.”
Jax’s jaw twitched as he chewed on his emotions. His tension doubled my own, forcing me to forget about what was going on externally and focus internally. Dancing around my body, my destruction flicked flames down my arms, my legs, and up into my head, lighting me on fire. I felt whole, alive, and lethal.
“I’ve got this.” This was not the voice I should use with a sweeper, but it was the voice destruction gave me, assured and determined. I pushed his hands away. “If you don’t mind.”
Dropping his hands, he took a step back then smirked. “If the lady insists.” His tone was sarcastic. God, asshole. He returned to his seat.
Jax wasted no time diving in to untangle what was left of the mess, which took no time at all. What had the sweeper been doing if it took Jax so little time? He hauled me to my feet, not bothering to be gentle.
I spared a quick glance behind as we exited to make sure nothing was left—weird, given I carried nothing, but it was a habit I had from back home—and spied the buckle, but Jax jerked me around and pulled me forward. “The skytrain will be leaving any time.”
Out on the platform, he hurried me down the stairs. Our freedom punctured my anxiety, so I was able to gain a mediocre of control over destruction.
“The buckle.”
“Keep going.”
“Do you think he saw?”
“Which buckle are you referring to? Besides, it doesn’t matter. Any moment, he’ll know you’re not a registered citizen.”
“Registered? How? Because of the buckle?”
“Save your breath for the run.”
To say I was skimming the boarder of all-out panic was an understatement.
For once, I didn’t notice our height and the long flight of stairs we jogged down, clanging noisily all the way, before we reached the pavement. Leaving the steps behind, Jax shot off at a brutal pace, which threatened to turn into a sprint at any moment. Already, a stitch stabbed me in the side, probably because I wasn’t breathing.
This far from the fringe, and the slums transformed to clean streets and spacious apartments laid out in what looked like a grid pattern rather than unplanned urban sprawl. Not quite the leaf-lined streets of central Califax, but the buildings looked architecturally designed rather than cobbled together with dung and mud. There was space to live, breathe, and walk, no one shacked up close to their neighbor, no one forced to shop in crammed market squares.
I followed Jax’s stare back over his shoulder. A handful of people came down the stairs and spilled in all directions. No sign of the sweeper.
“Perhaps the doors closed before he made up his mind,” I said.
“It’s best to assume the worst. We need to lose ourselves here for a while.” Dragging me by the elbow, we headed for the other side of the street. Much like in central, the roads were paved for walking, so we crossed without needing to look.
“I don’t know this sector, so we have to be careful. We’re still a
distance from central but close enough for the senate to flex its control, unlike in the fringe. This far out, the senate divides the factions in each sector into different housing estates to enforce separation. They allow everyone’s natural mistrust of differing factions to keep them from mingling beyond what is deemed acceptable. We don’t want to wander too far into another faction’s sector. This road is the neutral passage between the quarters to the terminal, but we venture off this in anything but Aris quarter and we’ll draw unwanted attention.”
I welcomed the distraction of his conversation. “So living in harmony side by side works as long as they don’t actually live side by side. Why even bother with the pretense?”
“For the sake of peace, the people need to believe it’s possible. Panic can easily slide into chaos, chaos to anarchy. They need the pretense. Califax was founded on an ideal, and the senate needs to maintain that ideal, because without Califax, there is no Dome. No Dome, no senate.”
“So you have no idea which way we should head.”
“Away from the platform is my focus at the moment.”
Jax stopped, his eyes doing what they did when he focused on his cephulet. “First left up ahead.” He launched into his grueling pace again, eating up the distance until we reached our turn.
Ahead of us, the street opened out to a kind of boulevard, minus the trees and gardens at central. Green patches dotted the road where residents bothered to add a bit of color; otherwise, there was nothing but neutral tones.
“I’m hoping we can find an eatery. We can get lost in the crowd there,” Jax managed to say through his unrelenting pace.
“I’m sorry about the buckle.” This felt as close to home base as we would get right now, a good time to apologize for what I’d done, yet again. I seemed destined to make mistakes, and in this world, mistakes could be fatal.
