by Terina Adams
“You’re kidding, right?”
His attention had been on whatever he was searching for in his pocket. Now, he focused on me, eyebrows raised high on his forehead, waiting for me to elaborate.
“After everything that’s happened, we’re going to have a little chat? I kind of thought you’d torture me first and ask questions later.”
“If that’s what you want, I’m sure I can organize something. But in general, we don’t torture here.”
“What do you do?”
“This facility is for reeducation.”
“What does that mean?”
“Sometimes people forget the reasons why we exist as we do. They forget the importance of the senate’s mandates and the danger of disrupting order.”
He found what he’d been searching for, a thin, black bracelet similar to the cephulet Jax wore on his wrist. “If you don’t mind.” He extended his hand, another encouraging smile, which creeped the itches over my body, but mostly because I longed for something warm and welcoming from someone in this world. Like a simple smile. Don’t. He was dangerous, and not just because he was ungrafted and worked for the senate; I wanted to believe someone cared.
“What is that?”
“This is what they should’ve used instead of the cuffs.”
I had no choice but to give my hand. He took my wrist. Instead of attaching the band, he turned my hand over, exposing the pale skin on the underside. With a finger, he traced a pattern feather-soft, following the swirl with his eyes. “It’s miraculous, really.”
My own eyes followed the trail of his finger then flicked up to his face, but I couldn’t read his expression. The distracted awe in his voice, like he’d forgotten I was there, was the only hint I got. I was an anomaly, an experiment, something to be caged for dissection.
His one finger turned to more, creeping their warm, soft touch over the non-grafted area. I inched my arm away, but his hand viced to my wrist. With its suddenness, I jumped. Slowly, he relaxed his hold to one finger, which rested across my wrist, pressing firmly into my flesh. His eyes found mine. “Your pulse is fast.”
“Yours would be too in the same situation.”
He gently shook his head with a smile to ease my seized heart. “You don’t need to be afraid of me. I want to help you.”
The crystal of his eyes became the twisting facets of lies. This understanding must’ve reflected in my eyes, for he broke eye contact and slipped the black band on my wrist. Once done, he pushed off the floor with casual, easy grace.
“This does the same thing as the cuffs.”
“In a more comfortable way, wouldn’t you say?” His smile was back, so alluring. I wanted to believe it.
“Why must the people remember the senate’s mandates?”
“They must remember why they agreed to be a part of this society in the first place.”
“Why did I agree?”
“To stop fearing yourself. To feel like you belong.”
In the entrapment of his stare, time wound to a halt. He started the clock ticking again by moving to the door. “I’m Archon, by the way.”
Chapter 24
The water sprayed hot and needle-hard, hammering into my scalp and across my back. I stayed still, savoring the punishment while I thought of Jax. What were he and the others doing now? Jax would’ve told Alithia about her daughter. I turned around, pressing my hands into the smooth surface of the wall, feeling the same awful desolation Alithia would be feeling, the same feeling I felt when I read Holden’s message on Jax’s phone.
What did they do with the children? Stay true to your word, Holden. Look after my family.
The hot turned warm, which soon turned cold. Once I stepped off the plate at the base of the shower, the flow stopped—a neat trick, which had taken me a while to discover. True to Archon’s word, my clothes arrived down a chute in the bathroom, wrapped in a thin, rubbery film. Overalls, socks, and boots. Instead of abandoning my clothes, I pulled the overalls over the top, since they were baggy enough. If the opportunity arose, I would escape in my normal clothes. No doubt, they’d tell me soon enough if it was unacceptable or not to continue to wear my normal clothes.
In the mirror, I surveyed my nose from different angles, and each way told me it was swollen and ugly, same as my top lip, which was twice the size of my bottom one. I also found bruising along my jaw to go with the dull ache. If I saw that intake woman who brought me here, I’d ask her to recite the protocol. Then again, she’d probably feel smug at my appearance. I had no friends here, especially Archon. He was a rat, a snake. I was sure of it. The way he fondled my wrist like I was a rare specimen to explore spoke of his greed. He wanted to know me, but not as a person, as a possibility.
He looked youngish, maybe in his late twenties, much older than me, but not so old that his hair was about to turn gray, which meant he wouldn’t know what it was like to be graft-free. Or maybe he wasn’t grafted. Maybe he was trusted by the senate. I’d been unable to tell, because his sleeve covered his wrist. How many of the staff were grafted?
No one is your friend here. My face told me what I needed to hear. An ugly, fat nose and lip, because no one cared what happened to the people inside. If they did show interest, then it was time to be worried.
A repeated dong echoed through the empty chamber of my cell block. I left the bathroom and moved out into the open space. There was no one there, no indication to what it meant, except when the door opened with no one on the other side. The warning dong meant get out before my brain was fried again.
In the corridor, I saw no one. I also saw nowhere to run except the way I’d come, and I knew where that led, the way they wanted me to go.
At some point, I’d fallen asleep—how I managed that was a mystery. As if sensing I’d awoken, my cell door slid aside the moment my feet touched the floor, releasing me from the confines of my cell, but the door to the block had stayed shut until now.
I found Archon standing in front of the lifts. Hearing my approach, he spun on his heels, his expression that of a welcoming host seeing a visitor arrive. His eyes darted over my outfit. “Seems I misjudged your fit.”
“It’s comfortable. How long has it been since you left me?”
“Sounds like you fell asleep.”
Stop making this a pleasant conversation.
“Twenty hours. You must’ve been tired.”
Twenty hours! How had I managed it? With a little assistance perhaps? That would mean Nada and Azrael spent that long in the senate’s hands. Alithia spent that long going out of her head with grief. Jax and the team spent that long cursing my name for ruining their plans.
“I’ll get someone to look at your nose.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“It is. I don’t want everyone else on the reeducation program to think you have been deliberately abused.”
He didn’t care, but he wanted the people to believe he did, which made no sense. Archon didn’t need to win their trust. They were all powerless to whatever he chose to do with them, whatever he chose for them to believe.
Hands clasped behind his back, he stepped into the lift. “Come. I’m keen for that chat I promised, but we have to make a stop first.”
This wasn’t an invitation. It was a command.
The lift doors closed on an empty corridor. Not even the woman who’d given me my cell number could be seen behind her desk recessed into the wall.
Archon didn’t bother to make small talk while we rode the lift to the surface. Thank God. He was much better silent, and in that time, I could try for a few seconds to pretend he wasn’t there. The high-polish, reflective surface of the door turned into a mirror of sorts. While not clear enough to show his face, I could see his body, as a blur, standing less than a meter from mine. Close enough that if I snapped out my arm, it would collide with his face. Then what?
Chaos. I remembered. Set was in control of deception and—
“Excuse me?”
“Chaos.�
� Oh, Jesus. You bloody fool.
“I’m sorry?”
“My head feels full of it.” I wanted to slap myself. But he’d distracted my thought with his sudden question.
The lift stopped, but Archon moved to stand in front of me rather than exit from the now open lift doors. My breath rolled up my throat when he placed his palms on either side of my face.
“That’s why you are here. I will calm this chaos. I will give you peace.”
Get your hands off me.
Spring filled the space before me, the smell of a gentle breeze as it passed over budding flowers, of crisp, ripe red apples ready for picking, of sweet, spicy, earthy amber sap oozing from the trees. I opened my mouth to suck it in as a subtle joy spread through my chest, the sort that comes with the glimpse of sunshine washing the long, dark cold away. I closed my eyes and stepped forward, drawn by the allure of what I felt. But when I opened my eyes and stared into Archon’s face, I remembered where I was. I stepped away from the cocoon of his warm hands. What was going on here? This was not what I smelled when I first entered the lift. This was not the way I should feel, like my heart was bursting with joy.
Archon’s lips twitched at the corners as he lowered his hands. My confusion muddled his smile—genuine or smug? Smug, of course. He was Set, manipulating me into a position of his choosing. He wants me to trust him. Was this what it meant to wield deception? Phonus had the ability to make me see night when it was day. Could Archon, a Set, twist my mind, force me to see only his reality?
And what did it mean to wield chaos?
With a slow, fading smile, Archon led me out of the lift and into a pristine white corridor with squeaky floors and not the vast open space I passed through when I first entered the facility. This had to mean we’d not reached the surface. Another man coming our way, dressed in blue scrubs, flicked a glance at me, snapped his eyes to Archon, then stared ahead without acknowledging him.
Still spinning from the incident in the lift, I had to skip a few steps to keep pace with Archon’s stride. His uniform might’ve looked like it had yet to experience a fight, but the way he moved spoke of a military background. This was not a man who spent his time behind a desk all day enforcing senate laws to a bunch of recalcitrants via paperwork. He was much more dangerous.
Farther down, we stopped in front of a door that took form from the wall once Archon palmed the panel. A man dressed in white scrubs met us inside. My muscles twitched to turn me around and sprint me out the door. To where? A corridor sunk beneath the desert.
“Let me know when you’re finished,” Archon said to the man in white. He didn’t bother to look my way before he marched out the door.
There was one piece of furniture in the room. A long metal table reminiscent of a hospital surgery bed.
“Please.” He gestured toward the bed.
This man was going to graft me. Once he did, I would be helpless in this world. I would become another citizen slotting into a society I wasn’t a member of and didn’t want to be a member of.
“It will not hurt.” His eyes were kind. Genuine. The first genuinely warm expression I’d seen since arriving here. His gray hair, full beard, and rounded stomach reminded me of Santa Claus.
“What if I don’t want to?”
His smile dropped. “Sadly, that is not a choice.”
“Do you believe in what you’re doing?”
“Of course. This will bring you peace from the threat of your factional nature.”
“Not all see it as a threat.”
He came around the bed, resting his hand at my elbow, his touch light as a moth. “What have you done to end up here?”
I sucked in a breath, stepped away from his hand.
“Aris child.” The voiced sentiment sounded fatherly coming from his mouth. “You have committed a terrible crime to be here. But not from your choosing. It is our factional nature that drives us to do evil things.” He straightened. “Ah, yes. I see it in your eyes. You know it is true. Do you always want to be at war with yourself? Continue to feel fragmented and lost? Let us welcome you back to where you belong. Let us help you find that stillness inside that resides beneath the desire of your factional nature. It cannot be so while you are split.”
His expression was mournful, but his smile was welcoming. “Let me help you.”
He held out his hand; I placed mine in his. There was no manipulation in his words. They were true and honest and came from his heart. I wanted to be a part of that. Everything in my life was bad; I wanted him to help me.
“That’s it, my child. Let me stop the confusion, bring you peace. It is what you deserve.”
It had been so long since I felt anyone’s concern for me. What he said was addictive. After everything, I didn’t want to be me, fighting destruction, fighting Carter, fighting the senate, fighting innocent people. Fighting, fighting, I didn’t want to do it. Destruction felt more a part of me with every day. It gave me courage and strength, but it also turned me into someone else. I’d made one terrible mistake after another since destruction awoke inside me. I’d killed someone, destroyed another’s mind. I didn’t want to be that other person, because in a crisis, the bad choices were always made. I wanted to be normal.
“This fight inside you will only get worse. If you allow your factional nature to become you, this part, the part of you I am talking to right now, will disappear. The two cannot coexist, not in harmony. And the softer side will lose. Do you want to become that person?”
No, never, not destruction as it wanted me to be. He was right. I was split in two, always this war inside, always the darker side of me wanting to win through.
But once I lost destruction, would Jax and the others still want me? Would they hate me?
I allowed the man to guide me to the table, helpless in this final decision. I lay back on the bed, stared up into his eyes. “It will not hurt at all. And once it is done, you will be welcomed back into society.”
His face disappeared, leaving me staring up at the ceiling. I’m sorry, Jax. This was a betrayal to him, a betrayal to everyone in the fringe, but I wasn’t a good Persal. I didn’t have to agree with the senate, but I didn’t want to be a lethal killer; destruction wanted me that way.
The man reappeared, holding the grafter up for me to see. “Once this is done, you’ll feel good again. You will no longer be exposed to the dangerous urges of your factional nature. You will be safe.”
He moved my wrist with the tattoo farther away from my body in preparation for the grafter. I placed my hand over the tattoo.
His brow creased. For a breath, we stared into each other’s eyes. “What is your factional nature?” I asked.
“Does it matter?”
“But it is a part of you.”
“This is who I am. That other part doesn’t belong. I renounced my factional nature the day I used it to hurt someone I cared for.”
“You weren’t grafted at birth?”
“I was born in the fringe.”
“How are you working for the senate?”
“Once upon a time, I believed in the rebellion’s rhetoric; I believed in the fight. But I saw many terrible things done by those who claim the senate is the evil in Califax.”
Was this the truth?
He nodded his head. “I understand your confusion. It is hard to accept the reality of their lies. I did not want to accept myself. But I could not pretend, nor could I turn my head from the things I saw. The senate’s rule is just in comparison to what is committed by the rebellion.”
Carter was guilty, yes. And Dad, where Dominus was concerned, he acted no better than the senate. But I couldn’t believe Islia or Alithia were guilty of anything more than wanting freedom.
“There are no innocents when you fight a war. Do you want that war?”
Don’t ask me that.
He maneuvered the graft over my tattoo then clamped it down in place with side levers that held snug to my wrist. I surrendered. A few simple button presses illumin
ated a display on the back, and the grafter made a faint whining sound.
A faint buzzing vibrated through my wrist and then up my arm. After the last time I’d felt this vibration, my panic swelled. I inched my body away from the machine, but my wrist would not move. Not only was the grafter clasped to my wrist, but my wrist was immobilized to the table.
“It’s all right. It really doesn’t take that long, and then you will be one of us.”
No backing out now, not that I could.
I stared down at the grafter as a vibration hummed in the place the grafter touched my skin. The restraints fueled a sudden growing panic. Again, I jerked my arm against the bind.
The man pressed his hand onto my arm. “Calm. It is all right. It will not hurt, as I promised. The vibration will relent soon enough.”
I stopped fighting against the restriction, but my body remained tense, muscles twisted, ready to launch me off the table.
As he promised, the vibration eased, leaving prickles that spread up my arm.
“See? It is as I said.” His grandfatherly smile calmed my residual tension. Like a big exhale, my body relaxed onto the bed.
“We must leave the grafter on for a few more minutes and then all will be done.” He patted my hair like a parent.
I released a long breath, rolling my head to the side. The illuminated display had faded to black, the prickles lessening as well. Once the man removed the grafter, I raised my wrist, touching the red mark left on my skin.
“It looks like you may need a touchup on the tattoo. I was hoping there would be minimal damage to the design, since the craftsmanship was so good. Unfortunately….”
Islia’s tattoo, the one he’d given to protect me.
“I shall give you something for your face.”
The swelling and bruising. “No.”
“But child—”
“Leave it that way.” Let everyone in here see.
“If that is your wish. You don’t need this anymore.” He removed the black band from my other wrist. I wouldn’t need anything anymore to suppress destruction, not even my will.
