The Rift Uprising
The Rift Uprising
Amy S. Foster
What’s the difference between the monsters you fight against and the monsters you fight for?What do the multiverse and teenage super soldiers have in common?Nothing.And that’s Ryn Whittaker’s problem.Ryn is a Citadel, specially chosen and trained to guard a Rift – one of fourteen unpredictable tears in the fabric of the universe that serve as doorways to alternate Earths – and she’s one of the Allied Rift Coalition’s best, until the day eighteen-year-old Ezra Massad comes tumbling out of The Rift and everything changes.Despite her training, and the fact that any romantic entanglements are doomed by her violent, cybernetically-altered hormones, Ryn can’t keep away from Ezra, and what starts as a physical attraction quickly grows deeper. Ezra’s curiosity about The Rifts, the mysterious organization that oversees them, and the Citadels themselves echoes Ryn’s own growing doubts and unasked questions.But can she fall in love, uncover the truth, and protect her friends and family? After all, she already knows that secrets have a price…and not keeping hers may cost Ryn more than she’s ready to lose.
Copyright (#ulink_9287b62a-de08-5ff5-ba15-d8dde2e155de)
HarperVoyager an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2016
Copyright © Amy S. Foster 2016
Cover design and photography by TK
Amy S. Foster asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008179243
Ebook Edition © October 2016 ISBN: 9780008179250
Version: 2017-06-21
Dedication (#ulink_02f3a24d-152a-5d8a-a26b-d329575a7c11)
For my daughter Mikeala, who taught Ryn how to be brave
Contents
Cover (#u556d7bb4-57c9-5b42-a451-1ad4ab67f307)
Title Page (#ud90ae223-785a-5fd1-b900-8c197c364eb8)
Copyright (#u9d25a19e-13e1-5d54-8eb2-f3ab05057715)
Dedication (#ud55c36ee-a80a-5481-b349-9b65c267529f)
Chapter 1 (#u55780825-c195-568c-9bb0-aa0e23df41b8)
Chapter 2 (#u0c2ae28d-5269-55d8-870c-74d86689f56e)
Chapter 3 (#u66441cf5-a043-5c59-bec9-437de072e5bf)
Chapter 4 (#u31a20522-dcb4-5350-8150-21ce4f572dea)
Chapter 5 (#ue9147ba7-9a03-5623-be4e-e406a6ff3ae5)
Chapter 6 (#uf773892c-3728-59eb-a88c-1f7df041b037)
Chapter 7 (#u998e1738-4689-5517-9797-74657b67a863)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
'məltēˌvərs/
noun
an infinite realm of being or potential being of which the universe is regarded as a part or instance.
CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_35629056-5035-50b8-b1ff-1fdb9dd4d51b)
“Command Center, this is Gamma Team in Nest four. There is no visual. Over.” The voice crackles in my earpiece. I tap the small device without thinking. It’s not a hardware issue, not with the kind of equipment we use. More than likely it’s interference. We are the closest team to The Rift. I wait for the other teams to check in, but it’s protocol at this point. They aren’t going to see anything before we do. We hear from Lambda, Phi, Rho, and Omega. The reserves are farther back, in the denser part of the forest, waiting in case something really bad comes through, like a column of Karekins. Karekins are the most dangerous enemy we face in The Rift game. They are humanoid but proportionally much, much bigger—at least eight feet tall. Whenever I see one, I think of the Titans from Greek mythology. Maybe the big shots at ARC thought the same thing when they divided us all into groups using the Greek alphabet.
The scientists at The Allied Rift Coalition created sophisticated machines that spike and beep whenever The Rift is about to dump something out.
We don’t need them.
Citadels are in tune with the opening. I don’t even think it’s our heightened senses. We just spend so much time around the damn thing that we’ve grown accustomed to its habits. I am Beta Team’s leader. I was surprised at first when I got the rank. I am not the fastest or strongest among us. When we first deployed, it didn’t take long to see that I think quickly on my feet. I’m a natural tactician and I don’t make sentimental decisions. In the beginning of all this, I would never have volunteered for a command. After so much time on active duty, however, it’s clear the rank is a good fit. The fact that ARC figured out my strengths before I did still pisses me off. It’s like swallowing one of those huge horse vitamins without water. The truth that they somehow know me better than I know myself will always burn right in my center.
I try not to think about how or why anymore. It’s pointless and distracting, and I need to focus. I’m here and in charge, responsible for my team. We are holding our positions. The four of us are crouched behind a large rock that sits just off to the left of The Rift. The rock was strategically placed here so that we can see what’s coming out, but they can’t see us.
No, we can’t actually see through solid rock or anything … though that would be cool. Instead, the rock has a couple holes bored through, covered and camouflaged on The Rift side with paint and sieved metal. It’s kind of like a two-way mirror. No one would notice the holes unless they got right up and put their face up to them, and by that point, well, more than likely they would have already been neutralized.
I study my three teammates for a moment. They look so badass they could be on the cover of a comic book. Three years ago, Christopher Seelye—the head of ARC—told us we had all been chosen because of our incredible “averageness.” He got that one wrong by a mile. Maybe it was bad math, or maybe it’s the chip they implanted us with to give us all these crazy superpowers. Either way, we are far from average. Citadels are striking. People look at us and can’t look away. We are sleek and dangerously fascinating, like any other large predator, which makes it impossible for any of us to fly under the radar. Am I pretty? No, not conventionally. But we all have a strange and complicated beauty that’s undeniable. We have become used to being watched and stared at. I wonder what our parents think sometimes. Do they notice, or are they just used to us? I wouldn’t dare ask them, and because of the role I am forced to play at home, they wouldn’t expect me to.
I am snapped back into the moment when Boone checks in on the mic, trying to sound all official. “Command, this is Brony Team. We still don’t have a visual.” He smirks beside me. I roll my eyes. Always the comedian.
“Repeat,” Command demands through our earpieces.
“This is Team Rainbow Sparkle and we have a negative on a visual.”
Violet gives Boone a smack, and per usual Henry says nothing at all. Henry has no sense of humor. He’s as immovable as the rock we are crouched behind.
Colonel Applebaum’s voice cuts through the static. “Cut the shit, Boone. After we’re done here today you can go home and play with all your little action figurines, but since we know something is about to come through, maybe you’d like to focus so that we can save some lives.”
It’s an inside joke, years old, that Boone never gets tired of. When we first met Applebaum we were so intimidated that it was difficult for most of us to even speak, let alone answer one of the dozens of questions he would scream in our faces during basic training. It was Boone who came up with the idea that his last name sounded like a My Little Pony character. Boone can be a smart-ass, but he can always defuse a tense situation. After we started associating Applebaum with a children’s cartoon, the colonel seemed far less terrifying.
“Ryn?” he asks.
“I’m on it, sir.” I shoot Boone a look. A look that says everything without me having to use any actual words. And then I feel the hair on my arms begin to stand up. I know that I am the first one to sense that The Rift is about to open. I always am. I think that’s another reason I was made team leader: I have a hypersensitivity to it. I hold my hand up and make a fist. It’s a gesture that means business, and my team knows me well enough to stop the nonsense and follow my lead. I keep my head down and close my eyes. I can feel the tug of The Rift’s giant mouth in my belly. I know we won’t be sucked in, because all the mathematicians have calculated the exact safe distance from The Rift. It’s one of the few things ARC has told us that I believe absolutely, because we haven’t yet lost a Citadel that way.
But it doesn’t mean the pull doesn’t bother me every time.
My heart begins to beat a little faster, the adrenaline starts to course through my veins. The Rift’s rippling intensifies.
“Command, this is Beta Team leader. We have a visual. Stage one. Repeat: We have a visual. Stage one.” Through the rock I can see the shimmering air undulate like a hummingbird’s wings and then, from The Rift’s center, a purple dot begins to bleed out toward the edges. “That’s Stage two, Command. Copy,” I say swiftly.
“We copy, Team Leader. Hold your position.”
I grit my teeth. They don’t need to tell me what to do. I know exactly what needs to happen next. I’m about to put my life on the line and they are safely sitting on their asses a mile away, watching this all on a bunch of camera feeds. I take a breath. Irritation won’t help me if things turn ugly. I have to empty myself of every emotion. I have to become a thing instead of a person if I want to survive the next ten minutes. It’s why we’re called Citadels and not soldiers. Solid, immovable objects, not malleable beings.
Ready to withstand anything.
The purple in The Rift begins to darken until it is pure black. It’s not a normal black but the darkest color my eyes can register. It is the inky night of the universe. I look at my team. They are ready. Focused. Intense.
“Stage three, Command. Stand by.” We all wait for the sound. The Rift always opens with a muffled sonic boom. It’s not ear piercing. It’s not even all that unpleasant. In fact it comes as sort of a relief. No more waiting. No more guessing. It’s time.
The boom happens.
It is an echo of a thing started a million or a billion Earths away from our own Earth. The ground shakes ever so slightly.
“That’s it. Stage four. Weapons ready,” I say calmly. I peer through the rock. The view isn’t perfect through the tiny holes perforated in the metal on the other side, but it’s enough. The Rift opens completely and a person comes tumbling out. Just as quickly, The Rift closes and turns back into the neon green tower of energy that it is. It always closes with far less ceremony than it opens—like a guest who’s overstayed his welcome and hustles to get out of there before things get awkward.
“It looks like we have a solo passenger, Command. I repeat: a lone individual, a man or possibly …” I peer through the grate in the rock. It’s ten a.m., so he’s pretty easy to see from my clumsy vantage point, even though there are fifty feet between us. He’s tall but a bit wiry, a swimmer’s build. He looks pretty young, maybe my age or a bit older. “A youth. Not a child, though,” I add hastily.
“Roger that, Team Leader. Let’s give him The Five,” Applebaum says cautiously.
“Yes, sir, going silent,” I say softly. The Five is what we give every Immigrant—human or otherwise—who comes through The Rift. There are a few species we simply attack, like the Karekins, because we know they are a threat and have shown no desire throughout the years to negotiate.
For the rest of what or whoever ends up here, we have a pretty decent method of threat assessment: We watch them for five minutes. It becomes clear almost right away what we are dealing with. They are all afraid. How that fear manifests itself is the key. Some get panicked and desperate. Some cry. Some wail. Some simply sit down and look at The Rift, staring into its sickly green abyss, clearly in shock over what has just happened to them. Some get very, very, violent.
I breathe out slowly. There is an unlikely chance things will turn ugly this morning. This young man is wearing a flannel shirt and jeans, and sporting a backpack that makes him look like he’s from a version of Earth very similar to our own. Obviously we’ve seen more benign-looking beings step through and wreak havoc, but my gut says he’s not about to go on a rampage. And yet I’m troubled.
He is also standing just a little too close to The Rift.
Regardless of whether their five minutes are up, we can’t ever let them go back through. Who knows where they would end up? The chances of making it back to their exact same Earth of origin are almost nonexistent. Anything that has the misfortune of stumbling through becomes our responsibility, and we wouldn’t want them jumping back in and ending up God knows where—an Earth without an atmosphere? A Karekin Earth? The sharpshooters are ready with a tranq gun up in one of the tree towers, or Nests, just in case.
“He’s awfully close,” Applebaum says, as if reading my mind, but I know he’s just looking at one of the video feeds back at Command Center.
“Just give him a second,” I whisper. The young man cups his hands over his eyes and steps back, as if he’s trying to get a better view. He’s taking it in.
He looks around. All he will be able to see is forest. He looks back at The Rift. “What the hell?” he asks in plain English. He reaches around for his backpack and then stops, bites his lip and slips it over his shoulder once again. “Oh my God.” His voice is just barely loud enough for me to hear. My hearing is enhanced, so he must have almost whispered it. The minutes tick by. He scratches his head and begins to pace. He’s trying to figure it out. He’s trying to analyze. I recognize this approach. I’ve seen it in others. There is no real logic to what’s happened to him, though. Well, there is—in a “PhD in quantum physics” type of way—but this guy doesn’t look old enough to have that. Besides, even if he could wrap his mind around how this happened, there is no rhyme or reason for why it happened to him. It’s moot at this point, though.
The Five are up.
“Command, this is Beta Team leader. I’m going in.” My team begins to stand up, and I immediately stop them. “I’m going in alone,” I say with finality. I register their looks of annoyance. I don’t care. This guy is not a threat and he doesn’t need to be scared half to death by a bunch of commandos jumping out from behind a rock.
“Not a good idea, Ryn,” I hear Applebaum say with authority. “What if there is a weapon in that backpack of his?”
Applebaum doesn’t care about me personally one way or another. What he does care about is losing any Citadel—probably because of the expense that goes into training us. It’s hard to think of Applebaum caring about an actual person.
“I don’t think there is,” I say. “I’m making the call, but it’s sweet that you’re worried about me.” I put my gun down and stand up. I try to imagine what this guy is going to think when he sees me pop out of nowhere. We wear a uniform, of course. A long-sleeved unitard in forest green. The suit was designed by the Roones—one of the first groups that came through The Rift, and the creators of a lot of the tech we use. In terms of the uniform, our outfits are made of a polymer titanium, and spandex for movement. The titanium is spun so lightly and so deftly that it weighs practically nothing, but it is in effect like chain mail, kind of like wearing a bulletproof vest on your whole body. They must have added another compound to the suits, to compensate for the impact of melee weapons, but the Roones don’t like to answer questions about exactly how things work. Since the suit has saved me more than a few times, it seems rude to keep asking.
Attached to the bodysuit are strategically placed lengths of quilted black leather. Our knees, shoulders, elbows, and torsos are covered for added heat and protection in hand-to-hand combat. We wear boots, too, though they aren’t standard military issue. They look more like motocross meets Mad Max. I wish I could wear them outside of work, but we aren’t allowed to take any of these provisions home. How would we explain them to our parents? Especially the utility and weapons holsters? The guys generally choose to put khakis over the suit. I understand why. Tights are a pretty hard sell to a teenage boy. The girls have no such qualms. The suit helps us fight better and stay alive. I see no reason to alter it, even though we are all acutely aware that our uniform hugs every curve.
I walk around the rock with my hands up. I have taken my holster off. I have no type of weapon on me at all. Granted, every Citadel is basically a living weapon—and yes, Boone loves to make that joke over and over.
And over.
The guy is looking not at me but down at the ground, shaking his head, muttering something to himself. I walk closer and clear my throat.
“Hi,” I say with a smile on my face. He looks up and I really see him for the first time. I catch my breath. He is gorgeous—specifically, my type of gorgeous. His skin is one shade darker than olive. His hair is tousled and brown, his eyes are azure blue. They look almost unreal, like he’s wearing contacts. I push this thought aside. Even from this distance, he doesn’t seem like a guy who would wear lenses to enhance the color of his eyes. Then I push that thought aside. How the hell would I know what kind of guy he is? Yet even as I think that, my heart begins to race and I clench my fists. ARC is monitoring my vitals through my suit. The last thing I want them to see is my attraction. It’s so embarrassing. My cheeks flush. I suck in a deep breath and center myself. I’ll be fine as long as this kid doesn’t come too close or make any sudden moves to reach for me. He looks at me and narrows his eyes. He seems more wary than scared, which is good. He should be wary. But he’s not panicking, and that is even better.
I force a grin. “Pretty crazy, right?” What a stupid thing to say. He looks at me and then at The Rift.
“Where am I?” he asks slowly.
“Washington. State.”
“Well, then, when am I?”
The question catches me off guard. He’s smart. He knows that whatever has happened to him is huge and mind bending.
I walk closer to him, my arms open, my body language showing vulnerability. “When do you think you are?”
“Please don’t come any closer,” he says politely. He tries to smile, but it’s forced. He is standing stock-still but looks as if he could bolt at any second.
“Do you think you’ve time traveled or something?” I make it sound like that could never happen in a million years, but in a way it’s not that far off from the truth.
“I don’t know—have I?” He looks down again and then back at The Rift. His gaze finally falls back to my face, but his eyebrows are raised in a way that says he knows something and there’s no point in making small talk.
I tell him what year it is and he nods.
“Same year, then,” he says hesitantly.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” I ask with genuine concern. How disorienting that trip must be. How terrifying.
“I was working in the lab at school. I heard a kind of drumming noise coming from outside. I walked toward the sound to investigate it and I saw this green light. That light,” he says, pointing to The Rift. “And then the next thing I knew, I don’t know … it sucked me inside and I couldn’t breathe. It felt like I was being dragged underneath a wave and didn’t know which end was up. What is it?” His words are cautious and carefully chosen. Most people are in shock when they end up here. Maybe he is, too, but he’s holding on to his rationality pretty well.
Our eyes really lock for the first time and something passes between us. Heat maybe? Or just plain interest?
Or maybe wishful thinking. Get it together, Ryn.
“It’s a cosmic anomaly—that’s really as much as I know. Can I come a little closer? I promise I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Okay,” he says. Yet his voice is anything but casual. I walk toward him slowly. We are beside each other now.
I hear Violet’s voice in my ear. “Watch yourself, Ryn.” She’s part of my team, so that’s not surprising. But she’s also my best friend, and that means she knows exactly what’s going on in my brain right now. She’s not warning me against any kind of sudden attack by him. She knows he’s my type. She’s heard us talking. She’s worried for him.
“I’m not really trained to answer all the questions you must have. There are people here who can, though. I can take you to them,” I offer. But I don’t really want to take him anywhere. I wish we could just stay here for a while. I wish we were two normal people who met by chance, and who decided that they would like to get to know each other better. It’s a selfish thought. We are a thousand light-years away from normal and the answers he wants won’t bring him anything but pain.
It hurts me to think about that, and I start to wonder when in the past couple minutes I stopped being a Citadel and started acting like a teenage girl.
Never mind the fact that I am a teenage girl …
He looks me up and down. “What are you trained for, then?” he wonders out loud. Is he flirting with me? I’m so crap at this kind of thing, I have no idea.
“I’m like”—I fish for a word—“a guard.”
“You’re a girl,” he says flatly.
Now it’s my turn to narrow my eyes. “A girl can’t be a guard?”
“A woman can, sure—a female—but you’re a girl. How old are you?”
His words sting. He thinks I’m a child. I imagine picking him up by the collar and holding him in the air. He’d change his mind pretty damn quick about me being a little girl.
Definitely back to being a Citadel again.
“I’m seventeen,” I say, trying not to sound defensive or pouty. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen. Technically an adult. And last time I checked, you had to be an adult to be in the military, especially if you’re guarding something like that,” he says as he points to the huge shimmering green pool in the sky. “So again, where are we?”
“We’re in Washington, like I said.” I have to move things along now. They aren’t going to give me forever to get this guy to trust me.
“Yeah, but where exactly in Washington?” he asks—not in a cocky way, but in a way that says he’s not going to be distracted from getting an answer.
“Battle Ground,” I say.
He jerks his head up and takes a slight step away from me.
“I mean, this isn’t a battle ground—at least, not always …” I bite my lip. I’ve never done anything like this before—gone in alone and made first contact without my team. Boone is better at this kind of thing. Way better. “The name of the town we’re in is Battle Ground, though actually, technically, we’re at Camp Bonneville Military Base.”
“And why would a seventeen-year-old girl be in charge of a cosmic anomaly?” He cocks his head, almost daring me to answer.
“I’m not so into the tone you’re using when you say the word girl—just gonna put that out there,” I snap back, and he gives me a half smile.
“Sorry. Why would someone so young be guarding something so … I don’t know, what’s a synonym for terrifying, but, like, way, way more?”
Now it’s my turn to give a hint of a smile. “Have you ever heard of the Multiverse Theory?” I ask tentatively.
“Ryn!” Applebaum barks in my ear. “Enough. You do your job and let the experts do theirs for the intake. You have sixty seconds,” he warns.
“Yes, the Multiverse, heard of it, go on,” he says warily.
“Okay, so that thing is a portal to different versions of Earth. Some versions are similar to yours and mine and some are different?” It’s weird that I’m framing this as a question. Am I trying to be cute? I am not cute. Applebaum is yelling objections through my earpiece and it’s throwing me off. I need to take charge here. “I have a very particular skill set to deal with the ummm … more dangerous variations of other Earths.” I do not take charge with this statement. I sound ridiculous.
“A particular skill set?” he counters immediately with sarcasm. “Like Liam Neeson?”
“Well, no, but yes, I mean, that’s great. You have a movie star Liam Neeson on your version of Earth and so do we. We’re getting somewhere!” He frowns. I am screwing this up royally.
“Thirty seconds, Ryn,” Applebaum growls at me, “and I am not happy at all.”
I sigh and then I disable the audio. I don’t need the colonel’s disappointment buzzing in my ear. I take a step closer to the guy in front of me. I get so close that my mouth is just an inch away from his ear. He smells like the woods and something else, something spicy. I like it, but I do my best to ignore it.
“Look,” I whisper, “I don’t have time to walk you through this. I know you have no reason at all to trust me. But, if you just let me and my friends escort you away from here, to someplace safer, there will be a bunch of people who are far better equipped than I am to answer all your questions. Okay?”
He turns toward me. His eyes are like turquoise and they are boring into me, making my knees go a little weak. I make a fist and push my short nails into my palm. “What if I say no?”
“Please don’t do that,” I plead. There must have been something in the tone of my voice because he nods his head slightly. “All right,” I say softly, “my friends are going to come over here from behind that rock. Don’t be freaked out. They have guns, but it’s just standard procedure. That being said, don’t, like, make any crazy sudden moves.”
“Given that I can barely feel my arms or my legs right now, I don’t think that will be a problem,” he says, and stands perfectly still.
“Hey, guys, I think we’re ready to go back up to Base. We just need to get a reading.” Boone, Henry, and Violet pop up from behind the rock and make their way toward us, much faster than I would have liked them to. I can see him tense up beside me. But Boone, with his open face and his casual body language, immediately changes the energy among us all.
“Hey, man,” he says, extending his hand. “I’m Boone and this is Violet, Henry, and of course you’ve already met Katniss.”
Vi stifles a giggle.
“Your name is Katniss? Seriously?”
“No, it’s not. That’s Boone’s idea of a joke. My name is Ryn.” I hold my hand out and he shakes it and smiles genuinely.
“Ezra.”
“Ezra, great!” Boone says. “Okay, we’re all friends now and we’re gonna get outta here ’cause, I’m not gonna lie, this particular spot is very not safe. All I need to do before we leave is use this little machine,” he says, holding up a small silver box about the size of a phone, “to make sure you aren’t radioactive. It’s cool, right?”
Ezra gulps, and his eyes widen in alarm. “Why would I be radioactive?” Boone doesn’t answer his question, nor does he wait for permission; he just waves the machine up and down over Ezra’s body. He looks at me, wondering if Boone is kidding again. I mouth the word sorry to him and then crane my neck and look at the interface. It’s blue. Ezra is fine, which I pretty much knew, but in our line of work you can’t take anything at face value.
Even a face as gorgeous as Ezra’s.
I suppose I was distracted by what I had just done, and that being so close to Ezra threw my senses totally out of whack, because I’m a bit surprised when he points at The Rift and says, “Why is it doing that?”
I glance over, and my eyes widen: The Rift has escalated to Stage 3. We all look at each other for a moment. This is how quickly things can go wrong here. This is how stupid mistakes can get people killed. I enable my audio right away, report to Command, and I’m instantly treated to an onslaught of expletives from Applebaum.
“We need to get to cover,” Henry says calmly, but I can hear the strain in his voice. He’s pissed. I feel a pang of guilt that my rash decision to come out and meet Ezra alone has now put us all at risk. I sweep it away. I can’t afford to feel anything right now. I have to let my training take over and go back to being a soldier. The Rift doesn’t usually open up again so quickly, but of course, this would be the day it does.
“There’s no time, everyone, just hold your positions. It could be a dog for all we know. Just calm down and keep your hand on your weapon. Do not draw, though. Repeat: Do not draw your weapons,” I say with authority. “The Nests have eyes on our situation and can provide ample backup if we need it.” My team listens to me, and Ezra to his credit is also standing perfectly still. A lot of other people would have run, so his staying says something about him.
Of course, he could be doing the whole deer-trapped-in-headlights routine. That happens sometimes, too.
The Rift turns to deadly black and seven men come tumbling out. They aren’t Karekins, so at least there’s that. But they are very large. They have fair skin and long beards, and long hair, though some have pulled it back in rows of braids. They are wearing leathers and pelts. They are armed with an assortment of weapons, some axes, some broadswords. Each is holding a wooden shield with enough decoration and symbology to give me a clue. Apparently Ezra has the same idea as I do.
“Are those Vikings?” he says incredulously.
“Yes, it seems like … yes, those look like, uhh, Vikings.” I take a step forward, but I do not reach out my arms. If they are anything like the Vikings we had on our Earth, they will not respect passivity.
I put my hands on my hips and give the newest Immigrants what I can only describe as a Peter Pan stance. “Legg ned våpnene. Jeg gir deg kun en advarsel. Legg ned våpnene nå!” Which roughly translates into: Put down your weapons. I’m not going to give you another warning.
“You speak Viking?” Ezra asks, noticeably shocked. I would argue that the fact that I speak Norwegian is far less fantastic than the fact that real-life Vikings have just tumbled through a Rift of time and space, but bantering seems inappropriate. The warriors shout and shake their weapons.
“Vi har visst dødd og er kommet til Valhalla. Det er vår rett til å ta våre våpen til Odin selv, for å bevise at vi er krigere. Vike trollkvinne!”
Boone can’t stop the laugh that escapes full throttle out of his mouth.
“What did he say?” whispers Ezra.
“They think they’ve died and have arrived at Valhalla. They need their weapons to prove what hard-asses they are to Odin. They also say I’m a witch or demon.” I wonder if Ezra thinks that we’ll just shoot them. I know that would probably be my initial thought if murderous warriors just popped out in front of me. As easy as shooting them would be, though, things don’t work that way. We don’t kill people without prejudice. It was our scientists who created this Rift, and the thirteen others around the world, albeit accidentally. I mean, I think it was an accident. That’s what we were told. ARC has never fully explained the experiment, and even though we all have advanced intellects capable of understanding the complexities of the exact cause, we’ve never been given the full debrief. It’s been deemed top secret, above our security clearance. I guess they don’t want us Citadels blaming any one scientist specifically. Which is ridiculous. As members of ARC, we collectively shoulder the responsibility for what happens with The Rift. We are way past finger-pointing.
Again, though, how or why this happened doesn’t matter. It’s our fault these men are here. It’s our fault that their communities will be broken and their children will grow up without fathers. You can’t point a gun at someone and pull the trigger to solve this kind of problem, especially when they can’t even wrap their minds around what a gun is, let alone the circumstances that led them to be here. We could tranquilize them—in fact, that’s exactly what we used to do. But then we figured out (through trial and error and the input of many anthropologists) that, in cases like this, these men must be defeated on their own terms. They have to be given a fighting chance so that their surrender will be lasting. I don’t love combat, but I am good at it, especially hand to hand. Everyone gets a boost when they do something they are really good at. I’m no exception. And these guys … it’s pretty clear they like a good throw down. Their body language is defiant, tensed. They are ready to bring it.
So am I.
“Vi, stay here with Ezra. Make sure he’s covered.”
Violet nods and stands in front of him, her hands on her rifle, but as ordered does not draw it. The three of us who remain walk just a few steps forward, and I see out of the corner of my eye Violet backing up, taking Ezra farther away from where the action is bound to happen. We don’t run at the men, because we want them to come to us, away from The Rift. The men are screaming in Norwegian and pounding their swords against their shields. As annoying as it is, it’s better than getting an earful from the colonel. Applebaum is blessedly silent. He knows well enough not to try to talk to me with the threat right in front of us, though I know he’ll go ballistic on me once we return to the base. Now we just have to make sure we make it back to the base.
The Vikings begin to move forward, and I take a deep breath. Good. They are gaining distance from The Rift. When we are about twenty feet apart, one of the men throws his ax and it hurtles toward me. I catch it easily with one hand and for a moment the seven men are silent. I turn around and throw the ax in the opposite direction, much farther than he could have thrown it, right into a tree trunk. The Vikings charge anyway.
I have to give them bravery points for that.
The whole encounter lasts less than two minutes. I leap ten feet into the air and use a tree as leverage to make another jump down onto two of the men. I land squarely on the chest of one and kick out hard into the groin of the other. The one on the ground is unconscious. I have just enough time to turn him over and make sure there is no blood, that he hasn’t hit a rock. Nope. Just your basic traumatic head injury. The one I kicked has recovered somewhat and lunges toward me. I see both Henry and Boone a few feet away. Henry actually picks up one of the men by the throat and lifts him high enough to throw a few feet. Boone blocks and parries the weapons easily. We all move so much faster than them, it’s hardly a contest.
The Viking who lunges at me flips his shield up, presumably to use as a sort of battering ram to knock the wind out of me. I dance easily away, sidestepping him and ending up at his back. I jump on him from behind and wrap my arms around his neck. He tries to shake me loose, but I am so much stronger than he is. I know this shocks him. He probably thinks that women are feeble. I feel a sense of satisfaction as he begins to go down, but this is quickly replaced with the knowledge that he also thinks I’m some sort of demon guarding the gates to his afterlife. This one act of overpowering him is unlikely to change his views on women, but he’ll learn soon enough when he gets to the Village. He passes out in my arms and I let him drop to the ground. When I look up, I see that all the Vikings are similarly disabled. I hear Applebaum through my earpiece calling for two teams in the Nest to assist. Eight soldiers jump from their perches high atop the trees and land softly behind us. We begin to zip-tie the Vikings’ hands and pull each of the men to their feet. They are dazed and defeated, all of their bravado washed away. I notice the youngest one, probably close to my age. A single tear falls from his eye. If this was their great test, they have failed. All hope must be lost for them now. As my adrenaline recedes, I feel for this young man. I look over at Ezra and my heart breaks a little more. We haven’t killed anyone, but in a way they are all dead. As soon as they entered The Rift they were reborn into a new life. Ezra’s won’t be as bad off as the poor Norsemen. Still, for the first little while, maybe for a long while, they will all be walking ghosts trapped in a new world that will take them years, if not their lifetimes, to understand.
I walk over to Ezra and Violet. “Come on, I’ll take you to transport,” I say wearily. I’m usually pumped after this kind of exercise, but looking at these newest arrivals I just feel kind of sad. “Violet, we still have another couple hours on duty. Can you get Boone and Henry and go back to our post? I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Sure,” she says softly with a smile. Vi is a lovely person. It’s an old-fashioned word, but that’s what she is. Lovely. Not a mean bone in her body. What we do, who we are, is harder for her than anyone. The only thing that keeps her going is the knowledge that she saves way more lives than she is forced to take. She gives me these few moments with Ezra without making any kind of big deal about it, and I love her for that. She squeezes my shoulder and walks back down toward the big rock.
Ezra and I head for a separate transport vehicle. He will not be going back to base in the same car as the Vikings.
“So …” he says, drawing out the word, “skill set.”
I chuckle. “Yep.”
Ezra lifts up both hands and wiggles his fingers. “Thanks for not zip-tying me.”
I keep my eyes on the ground. I don’t want to look at him. I don’t want to face any more questions, but I know they are coming.
Sure enough, he asks, “Where are they taking me? And when will I be able to go home?” He stops walking and so do I. I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. I finally look him in the face, deep into those gorgeous blue eyes of his.
“Oh, Ezra, I’m … sorry,” I whisper. I don’t need to say anything more. He still doesn’t know the specifics, but he knows enough now.
He bites his lip and nods. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. Thanks for being nice.” And then, out of nowhere, he pulls me toward him. He is hugging me. It’s not a sexual embrace, but it’s not exactly brotherly, either. It’s a good thing that I had been feeling so sad; it takes a while for my body to get the signal from my brain that our skin has made contact and my face is now in the crook of his neck, and to notice that smell of his, a spicy earthiness mixed with his fear and wonder and the purity of The Rift. I have just enough time to pat him lightly and step back. We walk a couple more minutes in silence until we are just a few feet from the jeep.
“Just promise me that this won’t be the last time I see you?” It’s a statement, not really a question. Ezra’s intake coordinator, Kendrick, is standing right behind us. I look over at him, and he raises his eyebrows. I stop for a minute and wonder why Ezra would ask me this. Does he like me? Does he think we can hang out later or something? He just saw what I did to those two Vikings. Didn’t that freak him out? Or maybe it’s because I was just the first person he saw when he got here and I was nice.
“Yeah. Okay,” I say, and Kendrick gives me a stone-faced look. “Ezra—sorry, what’s your last name?”
“Massad.”
“Is that Arabic?” I ask, because it would explain his remarkable coloring.
“Well, yeah, my dad is Moroccan and my mom is American.”
“Cool. Well, this is Kendrick. Kendrick, this is Ezra. Kendrick is going to be your main guy here for a while and answer all those questions you must have.” Kendrick is one of the better intake coordinators. He has a calming vibe about him and is pretty much a straight shooter.
“As-Salaam-Alaikum,” Kendrick says, putting his hand out.
Ezra shakes his hand. “Wa-Alaikum-Salaam. But I’m not really a practicing Muslim. And after today … well, I might have to table the whole religion thing.”
Kendrick laughs genuinely and opens the rear passenger door of the car. “I hear ya, man.”
Ezra and I look at each other. There is too much to say.
There is nothing to say.
“Bye.” I give him the warmest smile I can.
“Bye,” he says, also smiling, but his eyes are not happy. “Thanks again.” Not sure how to take that thanks, though. Everything above his mouth is a mixed bag of terror and crushing sadness. I watch the car drive off down the path and stare after it. I know Kendrick didn’t say anything at the time because he thought it would be easier for me to lie. Yeah, sure, I’ll come and see you. No problem, Ezra. The thing is, Citadels my age don’t go to the Village. You don’t have to be an adult to kill here at Battle Ground, but for some reason you need to be one to get posted to the Village. I have always known this, but now, suddenly, it strikes me as extremely worrisome. However, little does Kendrick know that I was being honest. Whatever it takes, I’m going to get into the Village.
I have decided that Ezra is going to be the only person in the world I will never lie to.
CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_67b67a68-50e3-53e1-83ae-5a6e239a56dd)
It always feels surreal to walk away from The Rift, from combat, from hours of intensive training—and then straight into Safeway. But it’s my turn to cook, and that means it’s my turn to shop. Have to keep up the pretense and all that.
I push my cart up and down the aisles. I notice the cans stacked neatly one on top of the next, the endless rows of cereal boxes and the bright reds and oranges of the fresh peppers in the produce department. Shoppers pull items off the shelves and fill up their carts, totally unaware of what’s going on just a few miles away. They might notice me, they might pick up that there is something different about me, but they would never be able to guess that I just put the smackdown on a bunch of actual Vikings.
When I get home, I have about thirty minutes until I have to make dinner. So I decide to just sit on our living room sofa. It is a couch we rarely use in a room we use even less. We are not a “Game night!” family. We are more of a “Great having dinner with you all, I’m going to my room now” family. I wonder if I caused this. I wonder if the thing in my head programmed me this way and my parents and brother just followed my lead. Or maybe, in a rare stroke of good luck, I was born into a naturally solitary family.
It’s not that I don’t love them. I just don’t know them … and they certainly don’t know me.
The walls in here are like most of the walls in our house—covered with artwork. A lot of the paintings and photographs I just don’t get at all. For the most part, those are the ones that were done by my dad’s art school friends. Some of the artists are famous now and their stuff is worth a lot of money. My dad never got his big break, even though I think his work is ten times better. He paints portraits mostly. I slide my backpack to the floor and stare at one of my favorite paintings by him. In it, a woman in bed, surrounded by letters, looks out a window. I feel her pain through the canvas. I feel like I know her even though she lives in New York and we have never met. Dad says it was more than twenty years ago and he can’t remember the exact circumstances that led her to sit for him, though he knows her name is Patricia and that they both lived in the same dumpy building. Did she ever get over whatever broke her heart so badly? The letters are yellowed and old and she isn’t exactly young. I used to think it was a love affair, but as I get older I feel like it’s something different; her grief seems deeper. Lately I’ve begun to wonder if she is even alive anymore. It scares me a little, that I feel so connected to an old woman whose sadness is so unbearable. I look away. Patricia is too much for me to deal with right now.
My father, Dan, is in his office, over our garage. He became a freelance graphic designer once I was born so he could bring in steady money. I’m not the only one in this house who’s had to make sacrifices for the greater good, and this connects me to my father in a way that I cannot connect to my mother. I try not to let this favoritism show. I feel guilty enough as it is. I lean back in the sofa and close my eyes. My dad always goes on about how he wants me to sit for him. I will never let this happen. If he stares at and studies me for hours, I am sure his brushes and mixed-up colors will reveal all my secrets. My parents will figure out that I am hiding something and I know that this will hurt them. My dad’s talent far outweighs my gift for lying, and that’s saying something, because I’m a pretty amazing liar.
My mom’s name is Vega, which means “star” in Swedish. I get my blond hair and fair skin from her. My green eyes come from Dad, and I got his dimples, too. When I first became a Citadel I hated my dimples because they made me look cute. “So adorable!” everyone would say whenever I smiled. How was I supposed to be a tough guy? A soldier? So adorable might as well be code for soft, and a Citadel needs to be anything but. Now that I’ve been in the field for three years, I am grateful for my dimples. I see death all the time. The hardness comes close to consuming me. My father won’t live forever, but I will always see his smile in my reflection, and it’s a great reminder that I’m the result of two loving people, and not what ARC has made me.
My mother moved to America from Stockholm for college and met my dad in New York City. My mom is a designer. She had big dreams, too, of being the next Diane von Furstenberg or Miuccia Prada. By the time she graduated from college, I think she let that dream go. Her classmates were risk takers, avant-garde designers who made crazy clothes out of recycled beer cans and raven feathers. She just wanted to make women look good. A school friend helped her get an interview at Nike. Since my dad grew up in Portland and his family was here, it seemed like the right move. They thought that only rich people could raise kids in Manhattan. They wanted children and so they relocated. We are, each of us, a product of decisions that other people made, one long chain of choices that stretch back to the beginning of humanity. Working so closely with The Rift, I have seen this firsthand. People arrive who have never heard of a world war, or who have never seen electricity, or who don’t understand how it’s possible that we are able to move freely from one country to another. History can be entirely rewritten based on one person’s choice. Somewhere out there, through The Rift, is a version of Ryn Whittaker who lives in an apartment building in New York City. She is just a normal seventeen-year-old. I wonder who that girl is and what she’ll become when she grows up.
I think a lot about her as I sit on the couch, with its hard cushions and unworn feel. I wonder if she’ll ever meet Ezra Massad. Probably not. Then again, I have no idea where he’s from. Rifts on the other Earths open and close randomly. They don’t stay active like ours but flicker off and on, possibly opening once and never again. Scientists theorize that the Earths closest to ours have more frequent Rift activity, as the dark matter in the universe is drawn to these invisible fissures made by our experiment and strike like lightning. But they don’t really know. They can’t know anything for sure because no one goes back through The Rift. Ezra will never go back. The Roones are stuck here, too. The one exception is that Karekins keep coming, though no one can figure out how or why. It’s such bullshit—all of it. I am so drained from today that I just want to sit here and try to think about nothing for a while.
But I pull myself up from the couch and make my way into the kitchen. We rotate cooking duties in the house. Nike is pretty far from Battle Ground. Sometimes my mom is in the car for two hours a day. Since it’s my fault we’re even in Battle Ground to begin with, I don’t mind picking up some of the slack. My brother, Abel, is three years younger than me and has just started high school. He is useless in the kitchen, so he’s exempt. Cooking is one of the few things he can’t do. He’s one of those people who seem to excel at everything they try. He’s a natural athlete, he’s artistic like my dad, he gets straight As—but I rarely see him doing much work. He’s already over six feet tall and very handsome. He looks Scandinavian, but dark haired, like my dad. Actually, the first time I went to Stockholm to see my grandparents, I saw that most people have brown hair, which surprised me at first. That and the fact that they are insanely good-looking. Like, every random person just walking down the street could be a model. It’s weird. I would be jealous of Abel, but honestly, if he had been average, like me, he might have been chosen to be a Citadel. I am so glad that he’s not one; I can get past the fact that he is so friggin’ good at everything.
I begin to cook sausage in an old Le Creuset pot that my mom has had since before she and my dad were married. I start boiling water for the pasta. I cut up the smooth-skinned peppers with an efficiency that belies my skill with knives. Even as I do these mundane things, I think, I am a killer. Not really a murderer, because it’s all in the name of defense, of my life and the lives of those in Battle Ground and beyond. But a killer just the same. Sure, the way ARC says it, everything sounds quite reasonable. Heroic, even.
Then why don’t I feel like a hero?
Each life I take takes a little something from me. I feel impossibly old for my seventeen years. I am not an innocent. I think about Ezra’s hands when he waved them in front of me, thanking me for not restraining him. Where do you even go from there? Is that any kind of beginning to a romance? I roll my eyes. I can’t have a romance with Ezra and there are so many reasons why that come tumbling into my thought process, they are beyond counting. I put the peppers into the pot and add some garlic as my mom walks through the front door. I hear her kick off her shoes and the thump of her bag on the formal dining room table.
“That smells good,” my mom says. “Pasta?”
“Uh-huh,” I reply. I look at her and smile quickly. Her pale blond hair falls loose to her shoulders. She is wearing jeans, a cotton button-down blouse, and sneakers. Since she works at Nike, her clothes are sporty and comfortable, but somehow she always manages to look chic. She layers necklaces, winds scarves brilliantly around her neck, stacks leather and gold bracelets on her wrists, has big chunky belts, and even the cut of her jeans—slouchy but fitted—is elegant. I can attribute this only to her being European. A cultural thing—not genetic—because no one would accuse me of being stylish. I rarely think about what I wear. More often than not it’s yoga pants and boxy T-shirts with Converse sneakers in the summer and boots in the winter. In a way, my sartorial choices are great, because the rules are clear: We are not to draw any unnecessary attention to ourselves. I think I’ve worn makeup maybe twice in my life. I’m sure this must be somewhat disappointing to my fashion-conscious mother, but to her credit she never says anything. She takes a look at me and opens her mouth to say something but closes it. How could she not want a normal daughter who rambles on about boys and clothes and teachers at school? Instead she got me: a kid who talks as little as possible and keeps her mother at arm’s length.
I am a good girl. She says that a lot. “Ryn, you’re such a good girl …” She tries to be validating, because that’s what I am. That is all I can offer my parents. I am good. I do not sneak out at night, I don’t water down their liquor, I don’t come home smelling like weed, I don’t break my curfew, I don’t date. For a while there, my parents thought I was gay. They sat me down and quite sweetly said they would love me no matter what and that if I liked girls, I should just tell them, get everything out in the open. “I’m not gay,” I said softly. “I’m shy.”
The thing is, I am not shy. I’m quiet only because I hate that every other word out of my mouth is an untruth. I probably should have just said I was asexual … which is pretty much what my job requires of me anyway. Besides, that’s a thing now. It would have given them something to research and they would stop smirking at each other every time Boone or Henry comes over … and then frown when it’s clear nothing is happening between me and either of them.
It’s almost like my parents would welcome me having sex. I think they’d breathe a sigh of relief even as they grounded me. And it hurts sometimes that I can’t even give them that.
“Dinner in fifteen,” I say, and go back to stirring the peppers. I am always hyperaware of my body language. I know how to close myself off, how to disinvite a conversation with a slight turn of my chin, a shuffle backward, a drawing in of my shoulder blades as if they were wings that needed hiding. I try not to be dismissive, but I know that’s what she sees. We both hear Abel come in, and my mom—with some relief—walks to the door to greet him. He’s been at football practice. I pretend I don’t know his schedule, like I couldn’t give a shit. The truth is I know where Abel is almost every minute of the day. I know where everyone in my family is, because if trouble that can’t be contained comes through The Rift, I might need to get to them quickly.
I put the pasta bowls on the kitchen table and neatly set a folded paper towel and a fork beside each one. I fill up a carafe with ice water and lay out four glasses. My family arrives from their separate corners of the house and everyone sits in their chairs. The conversation bounces lightly between them … and mostly off of me.
“We just got a prototype of a running jacket that I designed and I’m really excited about it,” Mom gushes. “I know you don’t run, Ryn, but it’s supercute. It would look great on you. You could use it as a light coat when the weather gets cooler.” I run, on average, about twenty miles a day—not that my family would know. When I tell my parents I hate working out, this is not exactly a lie. I don’t love exercising, but I don’t exactly have much choice, either. “I’ll order you one when it goes to market—if it goes to market. But I’m sure it will; everyone seems really positive about it at work.”
“That’s great, V,” my dad says, and gives her a broad smile.
“Thanks, Mom,” I say politely.
“So,” my dad begins, “how’s varsity looking?”
Abel’s mouth is full of food. I have never seen anyone eat as much as Abel does, not even Henry and he’s way bigger than my brother. Abel begins to nod his head as he swallows. “It’s good. I think it’s there if I want, only I’ll probably be benched most of the season. Greg Casiano is a great QB, and I’m just a freshman. I don’t think I’ll get much field time. Maybe I should just do JV so I can really play.” Abel takes another mouthful.
“I don’t know …” Dad ponders, lifting his thumb and index finger to his chin as if to stroke an imaginary beard. “Playing varsity all four years of high school looks great on a college application.”
Abel shrugs. He’s fourteen. He’s not thinking about college. He just wants to get out there and have some fun. I get it, and I think my mom does, too, but she doesn’t say anything. I know she will bring this up to my dad later, when they are alone. I also know what’s coming next.
“Speaking of college,” my dad says, turning his eyes to me. I groan inwardly but keep my face passive. “I hope you’re giving some serious thought about where you want to apply. Now’s the time, Ryn, and you have got to do some extracurricular activities. I know you’re in ARC, but it might not be enough. It’s not just about grades.”
My parents believe that ARC stands for Accelerated Rate Curriculum. They think I’m in a highly advanced scholastic program, but it’s a cover for the real acronym—Allied Rift Coalition. They moved to Battle Ground from Portland just so that I could be a part of the program. Even though I start my days off at Battle Ground High, I don’t even go to school. I don’t need to. When I was fourteen and my chip was activated, I had a secondary and post-secondary education downloaded straight into my brain. I still haven’t decided if this is the best or worst part of being a Citadel. ARC robbed me of the opportunity to learn like a normal person. I will never have to sit through a boring lecture or do homework or worry about getting to class. I don’t know if I got super lucky or completely cheated.
“She does all that volunteer work at the old military base,” Abel says brightly, and looks at me. God, my brother is a nice guy. He has so many reasons to be an asshole, but he’s just not wired that way. The taller Abel gets, the more protective of me he feels. It’s cute. I smile genuinely back at him.
“I just want you to find the right place, Ryn, where you can really open up and find out who you are, you know? A place that will help you come into your own. Nothing would make me happier.”
That would make me happy, too. And the fact is, I will leave Battle Ground in a couple years. My parents believe I am a junior in high school and think I will be off to college soon. In reality, though, I will be working another Rift site. I feel the dull throb of a headache emerging. I reach back with my hand and rub at an invisible scar at the base of my skull.
“I know, Dad,” I respond, but I don’t say anything else. There are a couple of seconds of silence before Abel tells me how much he likes the pasta, effectively switching the subject.
“Thanks,” I say gratefully. The talk resumes until dinner is over. I have said six words throughout the entire meal. My parents do not know me. They truly have no idea who I am. I hate that The Rift has denied them the opportunity. I excuse myself and walk upstairs to my room, grabbing my knapsack on the way. I close my door, turn some music on, and unzip my bag. I take out a binder, open it, and put it faceup on my bed. It is filled with fake assignments and handouts from nonexistent teachers. The ARC program (that is, the Accelerated Rate Curriculum) has us use an iPad instead of textbooks, and it is where all of our papers, written by God knows who, show up in the appropriate folders. I flip the iPad so the attached keyboard sits propped up beneath the screen, so if one of my parents happens to walk in, it’ll look like I’m working.
I take out a book, one of my own from the library, and lie down on the bed. I love reading, and every time I finish a book I feel both indulgent and defiant; I process information faster than a regular person. I could, in theory, read the book in my hands in about half an hour, but, through much trial and error, I have learned to slow this process down when I want. Reading should be savored. Each word should be enjoyed. I’m sure our bosses at ARC would prefer we read technical manuals, something practical on bomb making or physics. Actually, they would probably prefer that we spend our downtime doing crunches and pull-ups, which is never, ever going to happen. The reading is mine. It’s the one thing I won’t let them have.
I love the look on Applebaum’s face when I show up at work holding a romance novel.
And yet I can’t seem to enjoy reading tonight. I open the book and stare at the words. Each sentence seems to end and then double back on itself. If I truly focused I could let them settle, but I know there is no point. I keep the book cracked and bring it down over my face. Inhaling the ink and paper, I feel my tension slide just a little. This smell—of the library, of stories and childhood and oak shelves—is comforting.
I allow myself the luxury of thinking about Ezra.
I see him in the clearing near The Rift, so brave, so handsome, and so totally fucked. I throw the book across the room. It hits the wall with a thud. How can I get to him? Even if I do, what can I do? Be his friend? How can I be around him without wanting to kiss that beautiful mouth of his? I can’t. It’s impossible and then I’ll hurt him—literally. He’s been hurt enough. If I was a decent person I would just let it go, let him go. I am not a decent person, though. I am a liar and a killer. And I can’t stop thinking about him, of him being debriefed and tested back at the base. After that he’ll be sent to the Village. No one breaks out of there.
But, just maybe, someone can break in.
CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_24dccd56-f2c9-563e-a4cb-3e85956ddccd)
The next morning, I throw on some clothes and stuff my things back into my bag. It’s early. I know I am the first one awake. Since I need so little sleep, I am up at dawn or even earlier sometimes. I make a pot of tea and turn on the TV. I don’t really watch it, but the quiet always seems different first thing in the morning, more depressing somehow. The night feels like it’s full of possibilities, full of dreams and escape plans. Mornings are empty. I don’t know exactly what my day will bring, but I know that there is zero chance that I can stay home sick or skip, like I could if I was actually in school. I am needed at my post. People always say, “Oh, I have to get my hair done,” or “I have to pick up my dry cleaning.” In reality there are only a few things you absolutely have to do: eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, and, in my case, show up for my shift at work in front of an interdimensional Rift in time and space.
You know—the usual stuff.
I drink my tea and eat some toast, zoning out. My mom comes downstairs, takes her coffee with her and zooms out the door with a wave good-bye. She’s always in a hurry to get to work on time. I probably won’t see my dad this morning. He’s more of a night owl and doesn’t get out of bed till nine or ten. He’s his own boss. Must be nice.
It’s my job to get Abel out of bed. This is a Herculean effort that generally takes at least three separate wake-up calls and has involved, to a much more minor degree, some of the torture techniques I’ve been taught as a Citadel. Oddly enough, blaring death metal doesn’t work nearly as well on a teenage boy as one might think.
Eventually, after twenty highly annoying minutes (for both of us), Abel comes down dressed and ready for breakfast. He grumbles a simple “hey” in my direction as if the last half hour didn’t just happen and pours himself some juice. He then eats two bowls of cereal in under ten minutes. It’s impressive. We take turns brushing our teeth and then head out the door to my car.
Every summer I work full-time at The Rift. My parents think I’m a camp counselor. I do actually get paid pretty decently. I mean, I’m not a millionaire, but I will never have to worry about money. Once I turn eighteen and leave home I will get paid even more. In the meantime, as a minor, the majority of my money is held in trust. Isn’t that a bitch? At the end of the day, I probably have about as much money in the bank as an average teenager who only works during the summer. I was able to buy a car, though. I needed something fast because, once again, if shit goes sideways at The Rift, I might need to get everyone to safety in a hurry. A Ferrari was out of the question obviously, so I opted for a Dodge Challenger. It’s not the most comfortable ride in the world, but it’s fast, and big enough to fit my whole family. The choice absolutely baffled my parents. But since I rarely, if ever, ask them for anything, they agreed to sign the loan, especially since I put a large chunk of money down and make the payments myself.
Abel, on the other hand, thinks the car is cool, and that alone makes me happy about my choice. He slides into the passenger seat and I fire up the ignition. The engine purrs into life and I turn up the music, deliberately selecting a song I know my brother likes. I do these little things for him and I hope he’s getting old enough now to figure out that it’s my way of showing him how much I love him. Abel isn’t weak or helpless. But of course I worry about him. I might just love my brother more than anyone in the world, but I can’t get too close. The lying is always going to be a wedge, of course. But there’s more than that. As a soldier, my brain often goes to worst-case scenarios. Who knows what could happen? What if the Karekins invade and succeed? What if they round up everyone I love and hurt them just to try to get some leverage on me? Because of those thoughts, I must keep everyone at arm’s length. Close, just not enough to kill me if I lose them somehow.
The drive to Battle Ground High is uneventful. I park in the lot and my brother and I walk to the entrance.
“Later,” Abel says as he goes off in the direction of his locker. I turn right and follow the hallway to a solid metal door. I notice the other students staring at me. I feel their eyes scanning me with a mixture of fear and awe. They know I’m different, though they can’t quite figure out why, other than I’m part of the ARC. Whatever. I look forward and ignore them all. I don’t have the time or the energy to think about how these kids perceive me. I’m too focused on trying to save their lives.
I walk down a flight of stairs into what is, in theory, the ARC section of school. This section is guarded by what looks like just a normal security guard but who is, in fact, a private in the army. For all intents and purposes the entrance looks like a metal detector, but it’s all for show, like the rest of this area. This need for enhanced security was built around a lie that one of the ARC kids pulled a gun and tried to shoot a bunch of students when the first Citadels started working. They said we were under more pressure than the other kids. That the workload was so demanding and the schedule so brutal that extra precautions were necessary. This also handily sets up another lie: that the intensity of the program could be mollified by increased physical activity. As such, they tell our parents we take daily martial arts instruction to reduce stress and anxiety in a productive way. It helps explain if we happen to do something extraordinary (“Oh—we learned that today. It’s Krav Maga.”), and it’s an excellent cover for all the injuries we come home with. The key is our parents will never know it’s not true, because no one gets through here without proper ID. I walk through the metal detector and down a long hallway with empty classrooms on either side. Although there are other Citadels here waiting to go through the last bit of security, this is a lonely stretch of linoleum. The classrooms, fully kitted out and ready to hold students, are just another lie. If things were different, I would be right here every day—learning and probably hating it a lot—but all of this seems oddly cruel, like a reminder of what we can’t have. ARC has to keep up appearances, though, for open house nights and fake teacher conferences.
I wait for the few people ahead of me to have their retinas scanned, then put my eye up to the device. “Confirmed,” a soothing voice says. “Citadel Ryn Whittaker, designation 473. Proceed to transport.” Now this … this is where it gets interesting. ARC built a train beneath the school, linking it straight to Camp Bonneville. Think of it as a high-speed subway that takes us the few miles to base in just under ten minutes. I hate this thing. If the Karekins ever got through our line and found the entrance at the base, Command Center can remotely blow the whole tunnel so that it collapses and prevents the Karekins from getting into town—and they’ll blow it up regardless of whether there are Citadels in the tunnel at the same time or not. You take your chances every time you step in here. It’s a death trap. I practically hold my breath during each ride.
When the train slows to a stop, I hightail it out of there and take the stairs up just one level to our locker rooms. I shimmy into my uniform quickly and as I do, I feel the change come over me as well. Once again I’m not a kid anymore. I’m a soldier. I’m ready for action. Today might be the day I die.
God, I’m morbid.
As I pull my hair up into a ponytail, Violet races in. It’s clear she has just come from dance practice. Her hair is in a perfect bun. She is wearing tights and leg warmers over a long-sleeved leotard. The irony is so glaringly obvious I don’t even need to say anything.
“Oh, good,” she says a little frantically as she begins to open her locker. “I thought I was going to be late. I’m actually a little early for a change.”
I give her a warm smile. “You’re fine.” A regular soldier walks in and stands a little nervously in front of me. We have a complicated relationship with the military here. Special Ops used to run the show at The Rift, but they did a pretty piss-poor job of it. There were many casualties on both sides, and so they were taken off the job once the first crop of Citadels was activated. It’s only natural that a Navy Seal or a Ranger would resent a fourteen-year-old kid who can not only pull rank but kick your ass in every fight. I never saw it happen, but we’ve all heard stories of the early years. It created a very us-versus-them mentality. Tensions have only eased as the older, professional soldiers have been transferred out and replaced with younger, greener troops. These newer troops are still resentful, but they are mostly just intimidated. We all kind of respectfully leave one another alone.
“Citadel Ryn?” the soldier says. “Colonel Applebaum wants to see you.”
Violet and I exchange glances. I figured that he would have stopped me yesterday before I went home. When he didn’t, I assumed I was in the clear.
Apparently not.
“Okay,” I say brusquely, and grab the rest of my gear. There are weapons caches all over the bunker. Normally we grab ours from an armory room beside the transport bay right before we go on duty at The Rift site. I’m sure Applebaum wouldn’t want to meet any of us for disciplinary action with rifles in our hands. I follow the private out the door, up another flight of stairs to Command. There is nothing much to see at the base from the outside. A few buildings here and there, defunct shooting ranges. But beneath all of that is a bunker, a vast network of offices, control rooms, training facilities, and dorms in case we need to put everyone on lockdown for safety.
The soldier leads us through a maze of corridors until we reach Applebaum’s office. I knock once and wait for him to tell me to enter.
When he does, I walk through the door and stand at attention in the middle of the small room. He is seated behind a large wooden desk. It seems out of place in this room; it’s more presidential than military, though the office is actually decorated quite nicely, with bookshelves, framed photos on the walls, and an ornate desk lamp that looks like an antique. Fancy. My eyes hover on a picture of Applebaum and Christopher Seelye in the Oval Office. I involuntarily shudder. Applebaum is a prick, but Seelye is something else. If anyone is the villain in this story it could easily be him, the president of ARC. Then again, he could also be the hero. I know he certainly thinks he’s the hero, and maybe I would think he is, too, if I didn’t feel like taking a shower every time I had to deal with him. His face is happy and light, but his eyes tell a different story. He isn’t afraid of us Citadels. Sometimes Applebaum accidentally slips and lets his guard down. The horror of what we do, the carnage we leave behind—it frightens him. Seelye is proud. He makes me feel like a shiny gun or an expensive sports car, like something he owns.
“At ease, Ryn.” I move my legs apart and put my arms behind my back. We stare at each other in uncomfortable silence for a few seconds.
“Ryn,” he begins, “you’re a good soldier. A natural leader with superb combat skills. I depend on you.”
I keep my gaze fixed above his head, on a photograph of him with the president and first lady. “Thank you, sir,” I respond.
“But that stunt yesterday was not only a breach of protocol—it was stupid. You saw a kid your age, you assumed he was an MTI, but that guess endangered you and your team. You could have gotten hurt or worse.” Applebaum’s voice is level but strained. He pauses. Maybe he thinks I agree with him, but I don’t. He closes his eyes for a moment and sighs. “You know why we call them MTIs? Minimal Threat Immigrants? Because there is no such thing as a Zero Threat Immigrant. These people, or whatever they happen to be, that come through The Rift are never not going to be a threat. It’s our fault that they are snatched from their homes and loved ones. It’s our fault that they can never return. They have every right in the world to be pissed off about that. We can never let our guard down around them. Do you understand?”
“I understand that you believe that, sir, but I’m not sure I can completely agree,” I state calmly.
He looks at me and narrows his eyes. Then he pounds his fist hard on the table. I do not flinch. “No, Ryn, that is unacceptable. You, more than anyone, should know that we can’t trust what comes out of that green hellhole.” Applebaum’s voice is rising with every word and still I do not move, nor do I change the look of indifference on my face. “This isn’t Portland. The Rift isn’t an organic farm. On a good day it’s a hot zone. On a bad day it’s a war zone. You can’t act like a social worker out here. That’s not your job.”
“So having empathy and compassion makes me a social worker? I mean, call me crazy, but shouldn’t having those things be kind of a prerequisite if you’re going to be pointing a gun at someone?” I know I’m speaking out of turn, but I’m getting fed up. He’s not the one fighting. He sits on his ass all day while I put mine on the line. Besides, look what they did to us. What a hypocrite. I might not have lost my home, but I lost any chance at a normal life when I was seven years old. Don’t they get that? That we could be just as dangerous, if not more so, than any Immigrant, for practically the same reason?
“Possibly. The only thing I know for sure is that we can never, ever trust them. Period,” Applebaum says flatly.
“We trust the Roones,” I snap back.
“They’re different. I don’t even think they are capable of feeling hate, or actually anything for that matter. And they saved us,” he says quickly.
I finally look at him. “So says the guy without a chip in his skull.”
Applebaum smiles smugly and leans back in his chair, holding his arms out in front of him and gripping his desk. “You’re young. I always forget that about you kids. You fight so well—and don’t get me wrong; you all do an excellent job—but it’s always a bit like playing soldiers, isn’t it? What’s that thing the nerds do? Larp? Larping? It’s like that. No real discipline.” He shakes his head and closes his eyes. For a brief moment I imagine punching a hole right through his chest. I imagine taking one of his hands and pulling it all the way back, breaking the bone so that it sticks out from his wrist. The fact that I don’t disproves his theory of discipline. Even so, I will not give him the satisfaction of seeing how his truly offensive words have stung me. I will not let him dismiss me as a sulky teenager.
“Will that be all, sir?” I ask in a passive voice.
“Don’t let it happen again, Ryn. You’re the team leader for a reason. Boone’s a clown, Violet is a ballerina, and Henry is coiled so tight I think he might be one mission away from going postal. You’re the only one with any sense. Or at least that’s what I thought until yesterday. Don’t disappoint me again.”
I refuse to say anything. I know he’s pushing me, though I can’t imagine what reason he has for doing so. My own family can’t get a reaction out of me—and I want to be around them. This guy is getting nothing from me.
After another couple of seconds, he sighs and tells me to go.
I meet the rest of the team at transport to The Rift site. The site is about a mile away, down a graveled road through the forest. We say very little in the car because there are just normal troops accompanying us and we prefer to keep our distance from them. We understand that the things we say get reported back to Command and then to ARC. We’re on the same team, but at the same time, we’re not. No one trusts anyone here, and either way, I’m happy for the silence.
Today we are working up in one of the seven Nests above ground, in the tree line. The Nests surround The Rift and serve as both lookouts and vantage points for sharpshooting, if it comes to that. The four of us easily scale the rope ladder that leads up to a wood platform suspended in a huge sequoia tree. There are provisions here—water and emergency rations—but no bathrooms. The boys will often piss in empty bottles. The girls have gotten good at holding it until the shift is over in four hours.
Nothing like a little institutional sexism to remind us we’re in the military.
Omega Team is at the rock on lookout. We really just have to check in and make sure Command knows we’re here if needed. I ask the team to make sure their earpieces are functioning and then we disable the mics so we can talk without being overheard.
“So, did Applebaum cut you a new one this morning?” Boone asks, wasting no time. Before I can even answer he goes off again. “He’s an ass. You didn’t do anything wrong, Ryn,” Boone assures me.
“You really didn’t,” Vi adds.
I lean back against a wooden slat in the platform. “I shouldn’t have gone in alone. Without a weapon. It wasn’t the smartest move,” I confess.
“It wasn’t,” Henry says through clenched teeth.
Violet places a hand on my arm. “Oh, please. He was young and cute. It’s bad enough that he ended up here. He didn’t need a bunch of us ambushing him.”
I have to smile at her optimism.
Henry pulls a few pine needles off a close branch and throws them down from the Nest. “He could have been dangerous. You gambled. It worked out okay, but it might not have.”
“Stop being such a hard-ass all the time, Henry,” Boone says. “It’s boring. I think I might have a coronary if you ever cracked a joke.” Of course, Boone’s sarcasm does not play well with Henry. Henry is wound tight. Applebaum hadn’t gotten that wrong. At six four, he is the biggest of us. His mom is Korean and his dad is Native American. He’d probably be the total package if you didn’t have to go on such a search-and-rescue mission for his personality. The thing about Henry, other than the fact that he’s a superb soldier, is that he is loyal as anything. He’s taken a bullet for me more than once, multiple punches, and even a knife wound. Whether we are at work or hanging out, he is always just there. I love him. I love his quiet strength and the little things he does to show he cares about us—things that Boone is too clueless to pick up on.
“Knock it off, Boone. It was fine with Applebaum, but to be honest I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“Fine.” Vi tries to negotiate. “We’ll leave Applebaum out of it if you tell us why you went out there alone. I meant to ask yesterday, but you went home so fast.”
“Whoa, what’s with all the questions?” I snap. “It seemed like the right thing to do. That’s it. No agenda. I just said I didn’t want to talk about it. God.” My teammates look at each other with raised eyebrows.
“It’s okay to think someone is cute,” Violet says softly. “It’s okay to be attracted to someone, to have feelings for someone even if they come through The Rift.”
At that, I have to laugh. I look at her, my eyes widening. “Are you crazy? It’s not okay to be attracted to anyone. Because obviously, thanks to ARC, we’re mature enough to save the world but not mature enough to keep our hormones in check.” Without thinking, I pick up my arms and start doing a weird version of jazz hands while talking in an absurdly low voice. “Hey, I’m ARC,” I blurt out sarcastically. “We’re going to make you superstrong and superfast and supersmart but not smart enough!” I’m off on a tangent now. I see Henry sigh. “You might check for a text from your boyfriend while you’re fighting for your life, so we’re just going to put this little glitch in your implant that turns you into a maniac if you touch anyone you might be remotely attracted to. Not so much as a little, teeny-tiny, even-Catholics-would-approve-of-it hug. Nope, sorry! No sex for you! Ever!”
“You didn’t need to go straight to the Blood Lust, Ryn,” Violet says with an undeniable hint of sadness. “It’s a long way from liking the way someone looks, and maybe even crushing on them a bit, to activating that part of the chip’s programming. It’s not like we have no control.”
I look up to the sky and shake my head. “Oh, well, I know that,” I spit back meanly. “Look at you and Boone. You guys have been in love with each other since we were fourteen and you two haven’t killed each other.” This is common knowledge, but we never speak it. The fact that we are all just the best of friends, like family—that is another lie. “It’s easy, right? As long as you guys don’t touch each other or even brush up against one another. Unless you’re fighting. We can always fight. They made damn sure of that.”
“Shut up, Ryn,” Boone shoots back, clearly wounded.
“And what about poor Henry?” I continue even as Henry shoots me a death stare. “He’s gay. I mean, seriously, he’s like every gay guy’s wet dream. He could get more ass than all of us put together and he can’t even jerk off without destroying his bedroom, maybe even his whole house. So yeah, I’m a little skittish. I’m a little fucking sensitive about being attracted to anyone, because I can’t even stick my hand down my pants and make this teeth-grinding ache go away.” The silence in the Nest becomes a living thing, awkward and full of ugliness. I put my head down on my knees. Shit.
“I’m sorry,” I say finally. “That was mean. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. And so help me God, Boone, if you say ‘PMS’ I will punch you in the face.” Boone puts his hands up in surrender. “Can we please just drop it? I don’t know why I went out there or why this Ezra guy should be any different from anyone else. He probably isn’t. I’m just … I don’t know …” I rummage around in my head trying to come up with the words to explain how I feel. When I can’t, I just apologize again.
Vi reaches over and gives me a hug. “It’s okay. We’re all just doing the best we can. Some days are better than others,” she says, and I nod my head, embarrassed. I hate hurting my friends. And for the most part, Violet was right. The Blood Lust is one of the crueler by-products of the chip, but it’s not like we want to kill every person we find attractive. It’s always there, though, simmering beneath the surface like a sleeping junkyard dog. As long as we are careful, as long as we don’t linger on romantic thoughts or touch someone that we might have—in another life—hooked up with, the dog remains asleep. I understand that the idea behind this wiring was to make us more efficient, but honestly it takes a lot of energy to suppress these urges. ARC must know this, but they continue on with it anyhow. Maybe it’s just too late; they can’t have some Citadels who can get it on and some who can’t without a mutiny. Or maybe it’s just another cruel way to control us. I don’t know, but if you combine the Blood Lust with our constant lying and living a double life, we can burn out in this job. When that happens, they send the Citadel away for a couple months to recuperate. Sounds great, but it’s not something we push for. Our teams depend on us. What if something bad happens while we’re gone? Something we might have stopped?
I take hold of her hand. “Thanks, Vi.” I watch Boone look at us. We are comforting each other the way best friends do. He turns sharply away, uncomfortable, knowing it’s something he’ll never be able to safely do with her—yes, even something as benign as holding her hand. There’s a lot of pain on this platform, and it’s relieved only when I suddenly hear Omega Team in my earpiece. The Rift is opening. I enable my mic, as do the rest of us.
We stand and look out at The Rift. That was quick. We have been on duty for only a matter of minutes. I check in with Command, confirming that we have eyes on the situation and can see The Rift opening. The center of The Rift turns black as tar and then we hear an earsplitting sound.
An explosive detonated by a hand-held rocket launcher deploys as soon as the Karekins enter this Earth. They don’t mess around. The rocket destroys a tree about seventy-five feet away from us. Karekins are streaming out of The Rift. I use my enhanced eyesight to count as they come through. A dozen. Two dozen, fifty, one hundred, one hundred fifty, two hundred. That’s a significant number. There are about a hundred of us Citadels, so I don’t love the odds. The five other teams that have been hiding in trenches will emerge. The reinforcements will come forward. Each Nest team will jump down, leaving the best marksman behind to shoot whomever they can safely. In our case it’s Violet. Boone, Henry, and I give each other a nod and do a swan dive off the platform, flipping at the last second so that we land on our feet. I immediately get shot in the shoulder. Karekins use laser technology. I wince in pain and take sharp breaths until I can steady myself. The suit has absorbed most of the impact. I’ll have a bruise, but that’s about it.
I take about two seconds to calm down. I must not be angry. I must feel nothing. I must run forward when every instinct I have still says, even after all this time, to get the fuck out of there. I take out my gun and shoot one Karekin in the middle of the forehead. I swing around and shoot another in the same place. Karekins, like us, evolved from apes. I think in their case it was more of a King Kong thing. They are eight or nine feet tall, and hairy. Their eyes are small and slit-like. They use sound and smell mostly to fight. Sounds like a big disadvantage, but the research people at ARC think it might be an advanced form of echolocation that allows them to compensate for their poor eyesight. They aren’t savage, though. They wear sleek black uniforms and have advanced weaponry—lasers, remember? Most important, they keep coming through, and they seem more prepared each time to deal with us. It’s almost as if they are getting to know our weaknesses and adapting, which should be technically impossible. Because that would mean that they are reporting back through The Rift, and they should not be able to do that. Yet here they are. Shooting into the trees, into the Nests.
How else would they know to do that?
I feel one of the Karekins pick me up from behind and fling me at least twenty feet to the side. My shoulder takes the brunt of the impact. I know it’s been dislocated. I flip up before I can get attacked again. I try to pull my shoulder back into its socket. I can’t get the right angle. Bracing myself, I smash it into a tree so that it pops back into place. I hear a Karekin behind me. I kick out, pushing off from the tree trunk. I turn around and he staggers a bit. I leap up, using his shoulders as leverage, and land with my legs around his neck. I squeeze, and we both fall to the ground with a thud. I reach down and pull my bowie knife from my boot and stab him squarely in the throat. I push my body out from underneath him. Just for good measure I slice his throat back and forward. Blood spurts all over me.
Gross.
I almost laugh at that thought—surrounded as I am by all this gore and death—but another Karekin is already racing toward me on the ground. I have just enough time to whip my knife out of the other one’s throat and throw it into the approaching Karekin’s right eye. Their suits are just as protective as ours, so there is no point in aiming anywhere else. Boone runs up beside the one who is now down on his knees with my knife planted firmly in his eye. Boone shoots him in the forehead and kicks him down to the ground.
There are screams and shouts, and the sound of gunshots and the smell of blood are thick in the morning air. I cannot afford to take the time to really live in the middle of all this. And yet, just for a split second I wonder how I got here. Who put my name down on the list for this? Who guessed that I would make such a good killer? Who would even look at a seven-year-old and be able to imagine such a thing?
“Ryn!” Henry screams at me. He leaps ten feet in the air. I turn just in time to hear a laser pulse whiz past my ear. I can’t believe how stupid that was. I lost focus for just a couple seconds and I almost died. Henry is now just a few feet away, but before I can turn and face the enemy to fight, I feel a massive Karekin hand on the back of my neck. He’s going to try to snap it and now I have to break free. Henry lunges at him. The Karekin has just enough time to remove his hands and hit me with something large and heavy on the head. When I fall, the sky shifts sideways. It’s like it happens in slow motion. One minute I’m up and the next I am floating to the ground. Henry has killed my attacker. From this angle it all looks so different. Like a dance. I can almost hear music in the rifle shots.
“Ryn, are you okay?” Henry screams, but his voice seems far away, like he’s on the other side of the forest and not right beside me. I open my mouth to answer, but all my words are gone. I want to say that yes, I am fine, but I am not fine. I am always almost dying and so is he and Violet and Boone. I am not fine, because I will most likely die a virgin. I will never have another profession. I am a liar. I’m not even sure I am capable of telling an absolute truth. My head will heal, but I am not okay. I want to say this, but I can’t say anything. Nothing is working on my face. Henry stands guard over me, taking out two or three Karekins as I lie helpless on the ground. The world tilts again and everything goes black.
CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_14f83148-aa41-547c-8ffe-a2e3bec8af6f)
I awake to the steady electronic beeping of my heart. I am back at the base in the medical facility. I am hooked up to an IV. As my eyes flutter open, I see the plastic tube first, running from the back of my hand to a bag beside me. I try to blink away the fuzzy outline of everything in the room. In short order, the room snaps into focus. I am not lying down but reclined on the gurney. I try to sit completely up, but I feel a small hand gently push me back to the bed.
“Easy, Citadel Ryn. You are safe,” the voice purrs. I know immediately that it is a Roone. Their voices are distinctly nonhuman. They rasp and whirr; it’s difficult for the muscles in their throats to push out the words in our language. I recognize the kind blue eyes that are looking back at me with concern. She is smiling, and her skin, like polished onyx, reflects off the fluorescent lights. The Roones are tiny, all of them under five feet. Their bodies are made up of a higher mineral count, so their skin looks like lacquered stone. They vary in color, as rocks and people do. They have no hair and their faces are mostly eyes.
I smile weakly. “Edo, I told you, please just call me Ryn.”
“It is a form of respect, Citadel. Like the great castles and fortresses on your Earth, you do so much to keep us safe. Citadels are our greatest defense and it is my job to make sure that you do not become a ruin.” Edo checks the electronic pad in her hands and looks at my IV bag. “Though I must say, there are times when you make that increasingly difficult.”
I look at the clock on the wall. It’s almost one. I have been out for hours. Not good. “Then why don’t I call you Doctor Edo, or Nurse Edo, or … What are you, again?”
“Because there is no name for what I am in your language,” she answers kindly. “But if it makes you more comfortable I will simply call you Ryn.” Edo squeezes my shoulders lightly. I feel the pressure of her cold, hard hands, but it is not unpleasant.
“You always say that, but then you forget.” She gives me a look that says in a million years she would not forget anything, and I sigh. “How bad is it?”
“Not bad at all. A little concussion. We’ve given you medicine and the swelling is gone. Your brain is back to normal. We put you to sleep so that you could heal.” Edo once again looks at the silver pad in her hands. She could be checking my vitals, but because she is a Roone and the implants were designed by them, I am almost positive she is checking to make sure the chip is functioning at full capacity. I reach back and feel a small metal disk the size of quarter, which is magnetized to attach to my implant. “If I keep getting these little concussions I’m going to turn into one of those football players who goes off the deep end one day.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about. But we have repaired all the damage done to the tissue around the concussed area. It’s as if it never happened, and your implant …” Edo smiles, but the smile is weird, off somehow.
“What about my implant?” I ask, immediately sitting up.
“It’s fine. I promise.” Edo’s smile is genuine this time. I can’t say why, but I know she is not being totally honest with me. I am an expert in detecting even the barest hint of a lie, and my experiences at The Rift have meant my expertise is not limited to humans. I would push, but I know that I would never get a straight answer. Most Roones remind me of robots. Since they are responsible for the chip that created the Citadels, I am naturally resentful of them. Edo, though, is unlike others of her kind. She is warm and even funny. Still, she is not different enough to confide in me. Instead, I take that one moment when she let me see something in her face that I shouldn’t have, and file it away for later.
I pull the magnetized disk off my neck and hold it in my hands. It just looks like a shiny, round piece of metal to me. I examine it for a second or two before handing it back to Edo. She takes the disk and attaches it to her pad.
“My team?” I ask, stretching my back.
“Training. But you are not going with them today. I have put you on twelve hours of bed rest. You can do that here or at home. Your choice.”
“Oh my God. Home for sure. No offense.” I grin.
Edo looks at me warmly. “You did well today, Citadel Ryn. You killed at least three Karekins. No one from our side was seriously injured. A victory.” Edo does not sound victorious.
“Today, yes,” I concede. “But what about tomorrow? What about when five hundred come through—or five thousand? What then? And why? Why haven’t we been able to get any intel on their agenda? Why isn’t everyone more freaked out about what’s happening with them?” I try to sound logical—Roones don’t deal well with too much emotion—but I’m sure there’s a ton of frustration in my voice.
“I don’t have an answer to those questions, though they are good ones,” Edo says carefully.
“Come on,” I say, sitting up straighter and giving her a level stare. “The Karekins must have a way of navigating The Rift, of passing information through it. If that’s the case, then why isn’t every single person on this base—and every other base, for that matter—working their asses off to figure that out? If they did, wouldn’t that mean you could go home?”
Edo takes a step away from me and hugs the pad closer to her chest. “I do not think about home anymore. It is pointless and painful. Words, explanations, reasons—none of those things help when tragedy strikes. We just do what we can to continue. To survive.” Edo sighs and it sounds like a rush of wings. She steps closer to me. “I am sorry, Citadel Ryn. For the pain that you feel today and every day. I truly am. Why don’t you get some rest for a little while longer and then you can leave with your team?” Without waiting for me to say anything in return, Edo walks out the door.
AS VI IS DRIVING ME and Abel home in my car, I feel almost 100 percent, apart from a slight headache that could have nothing to do with the fighting. The conversation I had with Edo is still with me. There was something about it that wasn’t right, but since it is only my intuition guiding that feeling, I don’t feel confident in sharing my thoughts with Violet or anyone else on the team. I don’t even know what I would say to them because I’m not sure if Edo was lying or if she was, in fact, trying to hint at something else—though what that could be, I can’t imagine. Something about my implant? We get to our house and Abel gives Violet a funny look. “Aren’t we going to drop you off first?” he asks. Man, he’s observant for a teenage boy.
“Nah. I’m going to walk home. I know Ryn has a bunch of work she needs to do by tomorrow. I think she wants to get a jump on it.” I roll my eyes. Violet is mothering me. She wants me to get to bed after the day I’ve had, but I feel fine. It’s also a terrible lie—I cringe at how lame it sounds. But Abel just shrugs, says good-bye, and runs into the house.
Violet lives less than half a mile away from us. If she runs, she’ll be home in less than two minutes. I feel antsy. I don’t want to go inside just yet. “I’m going to walk with you.”
“Ryn …” she starts.
“I need the air. I know I’m supposed to be resting, but as long as you don’t mind not running, I think it’ll be fine.”
“I think you already know I’m fine with not running,” Violet says, not bothering to hide the exasperation in her voice.
“Good,” I tell her as I head toward the direction of her house. We live in a quiet, leafy part of Battle Ground called Meadow Glade. It’s early in the season, so the leaves have not yet turned. Vi is unusually quiet.
“I’m sorry again, about the crack I made about you and Boone. It was shitty.”
Violet shrugs. “It was. But it was also true. There’s a part of me that’s glad you said it out loud. Somebody had to.” More silence. A couple cars and a kid on a bike pass us. “Do you think you’ll ever get it removed?”
I bite my lip, unsure of what to say. I know that I have to say something, just to make my friend feel better, but she wouldn’t want my real answer.
“Well, if I make it to thirty, I might,” I lie to her. We were told that at thirty, we could have our chips removed and go on and live a normal life. Settle down. Get married. Have kids. It’s a wonderful dream to sell us. But I know I will never take it out. First of all, I doubt I am going to make it to thirty. Even if I do, I would be so totally messed up from doing this job that I am positive I would be a crap wife and an even worse mom. I would worry all the time about The Rift, but without my enhanced abilities, I would have no way of defending my white-picket-fence life. I am lonely now, but I am useful. Who’s to say that I wouldn’t be just as lonely without the implant? More than likely I would end up alone anyhow because this life I’m living is taking a toll and I know it. I would be weak and I would never really be normal.
But Vi is not me. We arrive at her house, a quaint and cozy craftsman painted gray with white trim, and I think she might have a chance at this kind of life in the future, even without Boone. Then again, I’m not sure if she wants it. Violet is an only child. Her parents work a lot and she is often alone. This never seems to bother her. She must be lonely, as we all are, but I never see it. She grabs me and pulls me into a long hug.
“I hate it when you get hurt, Ryn. I worry so much about you.” We both know that she is not just talking about my injury today. I am the team leader. I carry an extra burden, one that I am happy to accept. Everyone else seems to have some kind of an outlet for their frustration. Violet dances, Boone jokes, and Henry trains pretty much twenty-four hours a day. I strategize—and by that, I mean I overanalyze, running scenarios in which I am able to make sure everyone is safe. My own safety is rarely a priority.
Another person might say I worry.
“I’ll be fine. We’ve got the day off tomorrow, so I’ll sleep in and chill,” I promise her.
“Yeah, but you are going to Flora’s party tomorrow, right?”
I groan inwardly. I do not feel like going to any party. I want as little social interaction as possible over the next twenty-four hours. Vi looks at me expectantly, though, and I know I have to go. I am the buffer between her and Boone. I make it safe for them to be together.
Being team leader doesn’t end when you step out of uniform. It’s always there. I am never not doing my job. So I finally say, “Of course. She is practically my neighbor. It would be kind of rude if I didn’t go.”
Violet gives me a huffy sort of laugh. “Oh, please, like you give a shit what anyone thinks about you. But thanks. I’ll come over a bit early and get ready with you.” I nod my head and watch Violet walk into the house. I amble slowly back, trying to block out the swirling thoughts that are beating inside my brain. I just want to not think—about anything. I need a break from my own brooding over Ezra and Edo and the implant and the people I killed today.
It’s so hard to fight a war hardly anyone knows about.
When I get home I tell Abel that I don’t feel well and that I am going to bed. He’s playing a video game. Something with shooting and guns. I practically leap up the stairs to get away from the noise. I skip dinner and my dad comes in eventually to check on me.
“Rynnie?” I see his outline under the door, through the purplish twilight of the day’s end.
“Yeah?” I am in bed. My iPad is open beside me. I have been trying to read, but mostly I have been lying here with my eyes closed.
“Can I come in?” I tell him yes, and he walks in and sits gingerly on the edge of my bed. Unlike other teenagers’, my room is spotless. Since becoming a Citadel, I have become an obsessive organizer, taking control of the one thing in my life I feel that I can. “What’s wrong? Are you coming down with something?” He puts the back of his hand over my cheeks and forehead.
“No, I’m just tired.” I don’t turn away from him. I like the way his skin feels on my own. Safe. Comforting. I regress to ten years old, when my dad was everything to me. My biggest hero, my greatest champion. I remember what it was like to be so small he could hold me in his arms. My eyes begin to tear, but in the darkness, he won’t see. He waits a minute, and then runs a hand over my head.
“I’m sorry if I came on too strong about college. I know you’ll make the right choice. I’m your dad, and even though you’re such a good kid, I worry about you.” A tear spills down my cheek and I turn my head into the pillow to wipe it off. “You used to talk nonstop. You wanted to know how everything worked. ‘Why is the sky blue?’ ‘Do animals have their own heaven?’ ‘Is gasoline like water for cars?’ You had such an imagination, Ryn.” My dad laughs, remembering. “We would play the quiet game and you would sit on your hands and stomp your feet, dying to speak. Your face would go red! And now …” My dad breaks off. “Well, I suppose it’s a teenage thing, or friggin’ ARC. I never thought I would miss those millions of questions, but I do, Rynnie. I really do.”
“Yeah.” I wish I could say more, but I don’t trust myself to speak. “Sorry.” It’s about all I can manage. My dad stands up.
“Don’t be sorry. Just, I don’t know, reach out once in a while. Let us know what’s going on in that magnificent head of yours. We’re here for you. There’s nothing you could tell us that would make us love you any less.” No, they wouldn’t love me any less if they knew the truth, but they would never get over it. They would be furious, worried, half-crazy if they knew.
I roll over on my side, away from him. “’Kay, ’night.”
“Love you, darling girl,” he says as he walks toward the door.
“I love you, too,” I whisper. My parents are great, truly good people.
I cannot say the same about myself.
CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_68998b8d-0b0e-5ce3-a6b7-a60c7e237d9a)
Violet has outdone herself with the wardrobe selection. She is wearing super-high-waisted jeans and a skinny belt around her impossibly tiny waist. Her gray silk blouse is unbuttoned low enough to show some cleavage. She is covered from head to toe, but the look is far sexier than the trampy, try-too-hard outfits I know the other girls at the party will be wearing. I tried to get away with a sweatshirt and my yoga pants, and honestly it almost came to blows. After refusing to put on a dress, or a skirt, I finally agreed to short Levi’s cutoffs and a cropped black tank. I insisted on my dark brown leather boots with straps, but I did concede to a bunch of jangly bangles. I am wearing my hair long and loose. I almost always wear it back, so even I am a little surprised when I see how long it is—down to the middle of my back. My hair is a Nordic blond with a natural wave. Because I wear it up so often, I have darker-blond highlights that have been tucked away from the sun. I pull the light strands over my shoulders and twist the ends to make it look smoother. When I realize I am preening at my own reflection, I stop. I’m not used to caring about how I look, but for tonight, I realize how much I want to look pretty. Or at least, I want to know that I can be pretty.
I let Vi put makeup on me. Luckily we both agree that, for me, less is more. I only look good wearing makeup if I don’t actually look like I have any on. Violet has dark voluminous hair and even darker eyes. Her skin, though, is as fair as mine. She can get away with all kinds of crazy eye shadow colors and, unlike me, not look like a hooker.
We walk to Flora Branach’s house and don’t bother to knock. We can hear the music blasting, so there’s no point. We get more than a few stares when we walk in. I know the boys are imagining all kinds of sexual scenarios when they look at us. What they don’t know is that we’d likely crush their windpipes before they would ever find out what we look like without our shirts.
The way some of them are outright leering, the prospect of some broken tracheas appeals to me. I find myself smiling.
The house is jam-packed. I guess we took more time getting ready than I’d thought. Boone comes up behind us and starts dancing right away with Violet. I suppose the fact that they’re grooving to a boy-band song from the nineties in a room full of people takes the sex appeal right out of it. Surprisingly, he’s actually pretty good. Violet starts doing what I can only assume is the Robot. I laugh, and so does everyone else. People don’t, like, dance at house parties. But Vi and Boone somehow make it cool. I’m sure that everyone will join them soon enough. Maybe if I drink enough, I will, too. But it takes a lot for us Citadels to get drunk.
Flora sees me from the kitchen and starts to shimmy toward me with an extra cup in her hand.
“You came.” She looks pleased and also strangely wary. The corners of her mouth are turned up into a smile, but it seems forced.
“I did,” I say, smiling back at her. There is an awkward silence for a couple seconds. We both just stand there, grinning like assholes. The thing is, Flora and I used to be absolute best friends. Flora and I had almost every class together in eighth grade and we had an instant connection. We just got each other. We liked all the same things and, with her living so close to me, I think we spent just about every day together. She can be sassy but also really kind. When the headaches came because of the implant, I can vividly remember lying in her lap, her room darkened because the light stung my eyes. She would put a cold washcloth on my forehead and whisper that everything was going to be fine. She talked me through that agony on more than one occasion.
I repaid her by abruptly cutting her out of my life once I became a Citadel.
I was mean about it because I was mad, too. I just couldn’t lie to her; she was my best friend. So I avoided her as much as possible. It broke both our hearts. We have gotten over the worst of it by now. We are civil to one another—nice, even. Still, it will never be the same between us. Tonight, though, she seems weird but happy, happier than I have seen her in a long time. Her cheeks are flushed, and I realize part of the reason for her attitude: She is drunk. She passes me a drink and puts a hand on my shoulder.
“I mean …” Flora begins, “how can you not even have one ounce of body fat on you? It’s, like, not natural.” Flora is slurring her words. I take the drink and shrug. What am I supposed to do? Apologize? I look around, suddenly uncomfortable. “I think you … something is going on there. I don’t know. It’s Levi, too. Levi!” she screams over the music, and waves her arm wildly. I catch her older brother’s eye. He’s on the stairs, behind us. Watching. Slowly he walks down and joins us. Levi and I look at each other, communicating caution without words.
He is tall and muscular but not too beefy—as his sister noted, not an ounce of fat on him, either. His hair is a true auburn, like his sister’s, and his eyes are the most remarkable shade of green, far brighter than my own. Another interesting fun fact about Levi is that he tried to work around his implant with his girlfriend, another Citadel, named Ingrid. She ended up in a coma for three weeks, while he got most of his ribs broken. A leg, too.
Oh … and he’s a jerk.
During one of my first experiences with Karekins at The Rift, I had almost let one get the jump on one of his teammates. When it was over, he just screamed at me. He was the first boy I really crushed on, but after that day any romantic feelings I had for him immediately evaporated. To be fair, he was never really all that nice (hot, yes, but aloof), but after the Ingrid thing he became a downright prick. I generally avoided him as much as I could.
“You two.” Flora sways as she says it and points a finger at us both. “What is it with you? You’re like aliens. You think I’m stupid? You think I don’t know there’s some freaky shit going on?” Levi tries to grab the drink from her hand, but she lifts it up and spins away from him. “Fuck off, Levi, you weirdo.”
“I think you’ve had enough to drink,” he says sternly, narrowing his eyes.
“Shut up, Spider-Man, or whatever the hell you are. I just wanted to tell you both that I don’t know exactly what it is, but I know it’s something.” Flora backs away and walks off into the crowd.
“What was that about?” I take a long swig from the plastic cup in my hands.
“We were in the kitchen last month and she started a grease fire. I put it out very quickly. Too quickly, if you know what I mean.”
“Ahh.”
“And a couple days ago she walked into my room without knocking and I was working out. Doing a handstand. On one hand.” I nod my head because I’m not sure what else to say. Finally, though, I can’t stand his eyes boring into me.
“You think I should go talk to her or something?” I ask. I really don’t want to go talk to her, but I feel like it’s the right thing to do, even though I have no idea how a conversation like that would play out.
“Nah, she’s too drunk to reason with. You’d probably just make things worse.” I roll my eyes. I don’t really know Flora anymore, but I’m sure I could say something that might make her feel less paranoid about the vibes she’s been feeling. Before I can say anything, though, Levi turns around and leaves. He’s about as sensitive as a bag of rocks. I shrug and join Boone and Violet, who are dancing happily in the living room. I don’t exactly start to dance, but I tap my boots to the rhythm of the music. Henry has arrived. I see him at the fireplace with his arms crossed, looking like a bouncer. No wonder kids think everyone in ARC is a freak.
I drink some more. I feel myself loosening up. I can’t believe it, but I actually think I’m having a good time. After about an hour, though, I get a pang about Flora. I really should go find her and make sure she is okay. I look throughout the house for her and then outside where the party has spilled out around a fire pit. I see Levi talking to another Citadel his age, a year older than me, a supposed senior at Battle Ground High. When I don’t see Flora, I ask Levi if he has. He says he hasn’t, sighs with annoyance, and together we walk into the house.
I grab a random girl on the stairs and ask her if she’s seen our host.
“She went up to her room,” the girl says drunkenly. “With two guys,” she whispers, and stumbles a bit on the step. I see Levi tense. I can see he’s about to leap up the remaining flight of stairs, but I grab the back of his arm and push him up against the wall, pinning him to it. Anyone looking would assume that we’re about to hook up. I speak softly in his ear.
“Take it easy, Levi.”
He turns his head and looks at me, his eyes burning. His voice goes deathly quiet. “Get off of me, Ryn.”
“I will go and deal with this,” I assure him. Levi pushes forward and I push him back harder.
“She’s my sister.”
“Yeah, but if you go in there, you’ll kill them. Me?” I smile. “I’ll just hurt them.” Levi rolls his eyes and then nods his head. I race up the stairs, and throw open the door to Flora’s room. I see my friend naked on the bed. She is totally passed out. One guy is on top of her, and the other, beside me, has his phone out and shirt off, and is clearly filming the action.
“Hey, girl, you wanna join the party?” the guy next to me says. Oh my God, did he just say that? The party? Dumbass must think we are in an actual porno, because that’s the only situation where I think a girl would be down with this rapey shit.
I consider how much restraint I actually want to show. My conclusion: very little.
“Oh, yeah, I really do.” My voice is a soft purr. I quickly reach out and grab the guy’s phone and throw it hard against the wall so that it smashes into pieces.
“What the hell?” he screams. The guy on the bed turns around. His pants are open, but it doesn’t look like he has done anything … yet.
Thank God.
“She brought us up here, she wanted to do this and it’s a free country, so get naked or get the fuck out,” Bed Boy snarls. “Oh, yeah, and you can pay for my buddy’s phone, too, you crazy bitch.”
Restraint level: virtually zero.
“You think this is cool?” I yell. “She is passed-out drunk. Any alarm bells go off in your head? Even you two morons must know that this is wrong.”
The guy closest to me goes to grab me by the arm. I’m not sure what he was thinking, but now the gloves are off. Maybe he was going to try to force me onto the bed, too, or maybe he was just trying to throw me out of the room. Either way, he should not have touched me. I grab his hand and bend it back the wrong way. I sidestep him as he yelps in pain. I easily maneuver my arms around his neck to put him in a choke hold. I squeeze, applying just enough pressure to make him pass out. His body slumps, I push him off of me, and he falls to the ground with a thud.
The guy in the bed scrambles up. He’s about six feet tall with sandy-colored hair and brown eyes. He’s not exactly ugly, but there is something distinctly ratlike about his nose and mouth. He looks at me with a mix of surprise and anger. “What did you just do? Did you just kill him?”
I walk closer to him and see that he’s breathing hard. His chest is puffed out. If his body has gone into fight-or-flight mode, I know he’s going to choose the first option. It’s a big mistake.
“Thought about it, but no. He’s sleeping.” I can’t help but give a little laugh. I am wearing a dangerous smirk. This idiot has no idea who I am or what I can do. I’m grinning because he thinks he has a chance, and I’m happy because there are so many cruel boys like him in the world and so many helpless girls. I don’t really believe in Karma. I’ve seen too many good people die and too many assholes win, but tonight is different. It feels like the universe put me in this room for a reason, and on behalf of so many defenseless women, I’m about to tip the scales in their favor—for once.
“You’re disgusting,” I tell him as I lose the smile. “All the therapy in the world won’t help you. There is something dark and twisted inside of you; I can see it in your eyes. A person like you understands only two things: fear and violence. And since you’re clearly not afraid of me …”
The boy gets inches in front of my face. The veins in his neck bulge. His eyes widen and shift erratically back and forth. “Shut up!” he screams. “All you ARC brats are the same. You walk around thinking that you’re better than us, smarter than us—”
“We are,” I interrupt, which only pisses him off more.
“There is something not right with you people. I don’t even know if you are people.” Now he’s the one to laugh, and he throws his hands up wildly. “You’re all fucking robots or aliens or something, but you don’t scare me. You think I won’t hit someone just because they’re a girl?”
I narrow my eyes at him. I know I’m goading him, but I can’t help it. He is a truly vile individual.
“I’m counting on it.”
He lunges at me and I grab his fist and squeeze, breaking every bone in his hand. He whimpers and goes down on his knees. I twist behind him and deliver one swift kick to his kidney, which lands him on the floor, howling in pain. I spin once more and hit him in the face. Then I hit him again. I keep hitting, knowing that I’m inflicting damage, but I’m holding back because I do not want to kill him. Though, frankly, I kind of think the world would be a better place without him. His face is a bloody mess.
I crouch down beside him. He is sputtering blood, coughing, trying to catch his breath. “Pay attention,” I say in a soothing tone. “There is a lesson to be learned with every defeat. Like I told you: fear and violence—that’s all you understand. You’ll think twice now before you try something like this again. Really, you should be thanking me. Maybe you won’t end up in prison.”
“Screw you,” he manages to wheeze out of his swollen lips.
I stand up and look down at him. “No. Clearly that won’t be happening. I guess you haven’t learned your lesson after all. So I suppose we’ll just have to stick to violence. I know who you are and if I ever, ever hear that you’ve been inappropriate with a girl, I will come back and finish you. I will kill you, and I will get away with it.”
The boy says nothing. I lean down and grab his face with my hand. I rear my other fist back to punch him again. He whimpers and shies away. “No, no, please don’t.” He is crying now. “I heard you. I won’t. Please!” I let his face go. I grab his T-shirt from the floor by the bed and wipe as much blood off my hands as I can manage.
“Now, pick up your friend and get out of this house. And don’t even think of telling anyone what happened here.” I throw the shirt in his face and he gingerly puts it back on. He picks himself up slowly and then grabs his buddy, who is just coming around. Somehow he manages to pull the other guy to his feet.
“How am I going to explain this?” he asks, pointing to his face. “I’m probably going to have to go to the hospital. I think my jaw is broken—and my hand …” He really is pathetic, asking me for answers. Such typical behavior in an alpha who has been kicked out of his dominant place. I roll my eyes. He’s surrendered all his power. I’ve seen it too many times to count.
“I dunno, tell them you walked into a door or tripped down the stairs. Women have had to use those lines for years.” I turn away from him, toward the bed. He has been dismissed. He will leave and say nothing more, and because he’s such an unevolved human being he won’t even really understand why. I look down at my knuckles, which are raw and scratched. I saved Flora. I may have saved some other girl from the same fate. I don’t feel guilty for what I’ve done, but I resent the fact that I had to do it. I just wanted to go to a party. I feel like I drag violence along with me everywhere I go, the same way a mother has to drag her screaming toddler around a grocery store. It’s just life. Things have to be done. I look down at a bloodstain on the carpet. This is who I am. This is more than just my job, and all the times I just wish for something normal are starting to feel like wallowing.
I walk lightly over to Flora, who hasn’t awakened. Thank God. I check her vitals. She’s fine, just drunk as hell. I go to her chest of drawers and pull out a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. Gently, I dress her. I pull back the covers, put her into the bed, and tuck her in. I walk out the door, turning the light off as I go.
I walk down the hallway and see Levi waiting for me at the top of the stairs, his arms folded, his face like stone.
“I saw them leave,” he says through a clenched jaw.
“I told you I would handle it. I did,” I offer. There is silence between us. A silence that reaches up and stretches outward beyond whatever explanation I could give.
“Did they hurt her? Did they …” Levi can’t continue from there. The words seem to stick in his throat and he clears it. I hear pain in that half-strangled cough. He breaks eye contact and looks away. I watch his hands, they twitch and his fingers curl into fists. Without even thinking, I reach out and cover them with my own hands. His skin is hot to the touch.
“They tried, but I stopped them before anything happened. She’s so drunk, I doubt she’ll even remember bringing them in there. Does she do this a lot? Is this a thing with her now?” I was referring to both the drinking and the guys, but my tone was soft, as tender as I could manage.
Instead of answering, Levi stares down at our hands. He looks back up at me, at first confused and then angry. He jerks himself free. “What are you doing? Don’t do that. Don’t touch me, Ryn, ever.”
“Seriously?” I ask him, thoroughly insulted. I was just trying to be nice. Then it dawns on me why he wouldn’t want me touching him. “Oh,” I say, looking at my hands and then at him. “I … didn’t know that you thought of me in that—”
Levi huffs and scowls at me. “Please,” he condescends. “You’ve got tits and I’m a dude. I won’t let any female touch me.”
I fold my arms and consider this typically rude statement, and Levi snaps his game face on. I know this face. I’ve seen creatures and beasts whimper at this face. His eyes become terrifyingly vacant. His features become still and hard, as though sculpted out of marble. And then something changes in his eyes. He begins to stare intently at me. It’s not attraction I’m getting—at least, not the obvious kind. It’s something else. If I had to name it, I would say hunger, like he wants to pull me apart and eat me bit by bit. He is so screwed up, though; who knows what he’s thinking? He probably can’t want something without wanting to hurt it, or maybe he just wants to hurt everyone. He’s not like the boys who were up in Flora’s room. He doesn’t have an abusive nature. He’s not a bully. I’ve never seen him be unnecessarily violent … but I think there’s a part of him that wants everyone to hurt as badly as he does.
It’s a feeling that I can totally relate to.
Eventually he looks away and I am only partly relieved. Like I said, my crush on Levi came to an end long ago, but I’m messed up, too. The way he stared at me should have made me uncomfortable, but it didn’t. It’s strangely hot, to think of him eating me, to imagine him biting into my flesh and tearing off the muscle and bone. Every Citadel is twisted up in some way. I thought my fucked-up-ness came in the form of over-the-top control freak. It scares me to think that it can come in the form of something so much darker.
“I suppose this means I owe you one.”
His voice snaps me out of my own brooding. I cock my head suddenly. I did not expect him to say that. Maybe I just imagined whatever it was that passed between us, because his question makes me think that he doesn’t really remember me at all. I used to practically live in his house. His sister and I were best friends. He does not owe me anything. I didn’t do anything for him. But a plan is forming in my mind, just the barest hint of an idea.
“Yeah, you do,” I lie. And with that I walk past him, down the stairs, and out the door.
CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_e70e2a2f-fbf2-5e04-a495-346168f8dc61)
Beta Team is on reserve duty the following Monday. We are staggered throughout the forest with almost seventy troops, about three-quarters of a mile from The Rift. The four of us sit underneath a canopy of tree branches. A weak sun dapples through them and the shapes throw down pockmarked shadows. We are not at attention, but we are not relaxed, either. We are ready to push forward should the need arise at a moment’s notice. We hear the other teams check in. The Rift is silent, a closed mouth. No fighting today.
When our rotation is up, we take the transport back to base. My team is unusually quiet.
I wonder if my team is annoyed at me for leaving without saying good-bye, but I don’t provide a reason for leaving and they don’t ask for one. I wonder, too, if Henry had to step in at some point and make sure Boone and Vi didn’t spend too much time alone. That would be reason enough for all three of them to be irritated.
When we arrive back at the base we go to our separate changing rooms and dress for training. Our training uniforms are much like our combat ones, only black and with less padding. The four of us spend an hour doing circuit training, which is kind of like an amped-up version of CrossFit, in the facility’s large gym. Then we spend another hour working on agility and hand-to-hand combat skills in a different part of the building that is a huge room with padded floors divided into dozens of small rings. We do a lot of stretching to keep our muscles limber and flexible—Violet has us all beat on this front, but what’s always so surprising is how giant Henry can contort his body.
Like I said: every gay guy’s fantasy come true, and probably most straight women’s, when it comes down to it.
Then we spar in a style that is, for the most part, mixed martial arts but with an emphasis on a particular martial art given our individual strengths. For me, it’s Krav Maga.
When that’s done, we spend an hour outside with weapons. The base already had a significant target range; our group just enhanced it. We shoot for a while. Then we practice knife throwing—at the same distance we shot. Sometimes we work with explosives. We know how to build bombs and how to detonate much more sophisticated ones. Sometimes we do survival weaponry, which means we learn how to turn a dead branch into a spear, or we make our own arrows from flint and fallen logs. There is an array of bows hidden throughout the forest, just in case things get truly terrible and we run out of ammo. This hour also sometimes incorporates survival training. We hunt game and learn how to skin and cook it. We learn about the medicinal properties of plants and how to make a fire without matches. The boys universally love this hour—some of the girls do, too, but it really feeds into all the boys’ Red Dawn fantasies. I generally excel when I’m in survival mode, but please, give me a hot shower and a comfortable bed any day.
For the last hour of training we run. As Citadels, we run fast and we run hard. Our speed is inhuman, almost faster than a human eye can track. There is a number that we have maxed out at, miles-per-hour-wise, but I prefer not to know it. They were smart like that, to give us the choice. Some people like Boone and Henry want to know how fast the fastest Citadel can run. Me? I prefer not to know. I don’t want to know my limits. I don’t want to have to make those calculations in my head if I am fleeing a nightmare. I’d rather go on thinking I have a fighting chance to escape to safety or, at least, to fight another day.
Of course, I don’t like running. For one thing, I prefer fighting rather than fleeing, and I’d rather spend my time training at that more. Hell, I think I may even prefer hunting and skinning to running. Sure, it’s vital that we keep our stamina up, but I find it so … stupid.
Maybe I should clarify: I don’t dislike racing through the uneven terrain of the camp because it’s exhausting—it takes a lot more than that to tire out a Citadel, even after the three hours of training that went on before—it’s just, well, boring. Henry, as well as other Citadels, finds the running soothing, like meditation. I wish I could zone out like that. My brain won’t stop turning, though. I’m always imagining other things I could be doing, would rather be doing, like reading or watching some lame TV show (if I’m being completely honest with myself).
Thankfully, it’s not only running we do. Very rarely are we on clear terrain, so it’s crucial that we use the trees and other aspects of the forest to give us an advantage: a kind of bastardized version of parkour. We don’t use traditional obstacle courses and obviously we aren’t around much cement. But the woods provide more than enough to work with. We spin and leap and flip over rock formations and logs. We use the soft moss covering the firs to swing for momentum and jump down. We use the massive tree trunks by pushing the tread of our boots into the bark for traction to spring up and out in any direction. I prefer this to running. As a woman I can use my flexibility to my advantage and my light weight to scramble up places that are almost impossible for someone like Henry to get to.
More important, this comes naturally to me, and unlike while sprinting along the roads of Camp Bonneville, I can let my mind wander. So today I use this hour to strategize even as I leap through and fly over the green and brown at my feet. My focus: I have a way to get into the Village.
The problem is, I have no real idea what the Village is like inside. Citadels who are old enough to work there are not permitted to talk about what goes on with those of us who aren’t. As soldiers, we accept the hierarchy of secrets. It has always made sense to me before, but as I look at it now, it seems illogical. Why does the Village even need to be a secret? What is ARC hiding from us there?
And now my imagination is in full overdrive.
They wouldn’t make Immigrants live in tents, would they? Always cold, never truly comfortable. Surely they would have built proper barracks. If they imagine Immigrants living out their natural lives in the Village, then even barracks wouldn’t cut it. They must have prefab homes, even neighborhoods. Maybe. Or maybe it’s built like a prison. Maybe they keep the Immigrants in cells, behind bars. The idea of that makes me suddenly nauseous.
How can I not know?
And the answer is more than just how well ARC keeps its secrets. The fact is, it’s been three years and all I’ve thought about is The Rift. I have been obsessed with keeping everyone safe: my fellow soldiers, my family. I don’t know why that concern has never extended as far as the Village, and I am ashamed. The Immigrants, as part of this Earth now, deserve my protection, too.
I jump ten feet in the air, grab a tree branch, swing myself up onto a thick limb, and squat down, bracing my back up against the trunk. I guess I have chalked up what happens with the Immigrants to bad luck. That’s my go-to response—it’s like cancer or a hurricane or a car accident.
Like getting chosen to be a Citadel. The bitterness of this thought surprises me.
And like us, they get pulled here terribly, but it’s beyond anyone’s control. Vi brings it up a lot, and I am forever changing the subject. Don’t we have enough to worry about? That’s been my excuse. As I’ve gotten older, the excuse has worn thin. I am getting past my own bad luck. I suppose this is what it means to grow up. You realize that everyone has something dark and hidden that seems colossally unfair. It’s not right anymore that I should just dismiss these other stories out of hand because mine feels so much worse. The truth is that, compared to nearly getting raped like Flora, or a lifetime in a wheelchair because of an accident, or losing your mom to breast cancer like Boone did when he was only nine, my story is definitely not worse.
I leap down and start running again. I hear the others swish through the undergrowth not too far away, and I know they’re focusing on their own training. I get back to musing.
Once I get into the Village, though, then what? I have to find Ezra, obviously. But, just as obvious, that won’t be easy. I will need help with that. And then, once I do find him, what am I supposed to say? We can’t go off and talk. We can’t go for coffee and compare life stories. I will have to remain with him wherever he is and hope I can get a few minutes of privacy. Given that I know nothing about the Village, this could be a tall order.
When our hour is up, I realize I’m still basically nowhere in terms of a plan.
We run back to the base. Upon arriving down in the facility we are given a massive protein drink that the doctors and scientists must watch us finish before our training is officially over. We expend so many calories a day, and this elixir, invented by the Roones, keeps our nutrition up. As I gulp down the shake, I see Boone is almost finished with his. I need to catch him before he goes into his locker room.
“Boone,” I say, grabbing his arm before he can leave.
“Yeah?” Boone has a towel and he’s wiping off the sweat and grime of our training.
I take a deep breath. I try to sound casual. “Can you do me a favor and ask Levi to meet me at Old Town Burger before he goes home? I know he just got off duty, so he should be in there changing.”
Boone smirks. “Levi, huh?” He crosses his arms and cocks his head. “Well, does Saint Ryn have the hots for someone?” I do not smile—if anything, I do the opposite of smile—and the grin on Boone’s face disappears. “Fine, but don’t expect me to pass him any notes in math class, okay? I’ll ask him, then leave me out of it. That guy is bad news, Ryn.”
Boone is sneering and I’m a little shocked. I know what happened with Levi and Ingrid—it’s common knowledge that they tried to have sex and failed. It was consensual, something they both wanted, and everyone knows that, too. Is Boone blaming Levi for that? I suppose Boone’s own predicament with Violet makes him sensitive to the issue. I don’t get any more insights from him and he disappears through his locker room door. I walk to the other side of the hall and go into mine.
I shower quickly and throw my hair up into one giant knot on my head. On go my yoga pants. I pair them with Converse and an old T-shirt of my mom’s with some grunge band on it that she used to love. I look at myself in the mirror and, unlike the way I felt on the night of Flora’s party, I’m not thrilled with what I see. I don’t care about impressing Levi, but I am beginning to think that at some point I should put a little more effort into the way I present myself to the world. Maybe going to the party awoke something in me that had long been dormant. That thought seems way more exhausting than the four hours of training I just put in, though.
I take the train to the school. I don’t need to worry about driving Abel because he has football practice and Mom will pick him up on her way home. The burger restaurant is almost exactly across the street from Battle Ground High. When I walk in, there are about a dozen students, and Levi is waiting at one of the only free tables. He must have been on the train before me. I slide into the booth so that we are facing each other.
“That was fast,” he says by way of a hello.
“Yeah, well, I just jumped in the shower and got the first train I could.” I say this impassively. I don’t want Levi thinking that I was racing to meet him.
“No, I mean that you want to use your favor pretty quickly. I have to admit I’m curious. Obviously, I can’t give you just anything.” He smirks and leans back in the booth, every gesture dripping with aggression. Even his neutral look smolders. Wait. When he said anything, did he mean his body? Does he think because he admitted to me that I was an actual girl, with boobs, that I want to confess my love to him or something? I don’t know a lot about guys, but I know it doesn’t take much to get one sexually attracted to you. Does he actually believe I’m naive enough to confuse normal teenage lust with real feelings? Is this his version of flirting?
I’m so out of my element, I wonder if this is everyone’s version of flirting. But Levi is so singular in his wretchedness, I have to think it’s just him.
“Uhh …” I pause, because even though I am itching to tell him that he is not actually God’s gift to the universe and that, no, I am not interested in him in that way, I need him to agree to this. If I piss him off, he won’t. If I butter him up too much, though, he won’t do it just to spite me.
He’s like an enigma wrapped in a mystery wearing a smirk that makes me want to never stop slapping him.
Instead, I take a deep breath and decide to just take the plunge. “Well, there is actually one thing you can do …” He raises an eyebrow in question. “I need you to get me into the Village.” I smile brightly, innocently. Levi does not return the smile. Instead he glowers at me. An awkward silence settles between us and my smile fades.
Levi’s lip curls sufficiently high to almost reach his eyeball. “What?” he demands. “No, even better: Why?”
“I captured an MTI from The Rift. He was very nice, very confused, obviously. And then I promised him I would come and see him and make sure he was okay.” This is not a lie. It isn’t the whole entire truth, but I am not lying to him. It feels good.
“Oh,” Levi responds coolly. He’s clearly unimpressed with my answer. “I get it, you have a crush on a boy. So you want me to help you break into one of the most heavily guarded areas on Earth so you can—what? Ask him to homecoming?” Levi laughs, and there’s a cutting cruelty to it that makes my cheeks burn.
“Don’t laugh. It’s not funny,” I protest, my back straightening. “I don’t have a crush on him. I don’t even know him. I just made a promise. It was a stupid promise, I know, but I did it and after what he’s been through I don’t want to be an asshole … not that you’d know what not being an asshole is like.”
“Ooh, you got me!” he says, grabbing at his chest like he’s wounded. He really is an asshole. He sits up. “Listen, Ryn, he’s going to be in there for the rest of his life. Just wait until next year, when you turn eighteen. You’ll get assigned a Village rotation. You can see him then.” Something about the way Levi says it—with such obvious disdain—it’s like it just doesn’t compute that there is anyone on Earth who can compare with him, especially an Immigrant, and he thought it was important I know that.
I bite my tongue and count to five in my head. I need him to help me. It’s taking a lot of work not to antagonize him. I lean in close so that no one else can overhear. “I don’t understand—aren’t we both on the same side here? I’m a Citadel, you’re a Citadel. I’m not a spy. I don’t see what the problem is. In fact, I don’t see what the big deal is in general. What is it with the Village that we aren’t supposed to see it till we are eighteen?”
“Seriously?” Levi asks through gritted teeth, in a voice just barely above a whisper but stern enough to get my adrenaline going. “It’s fucking monsters and demons and crazy shit that we don’t even have words for in the English language, it’s so out there. It’s also normal people like you and me who will basically be in prison, not because they are criminals, but because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. So yeah, they don’t want kids near there.”
“I am not a kid.”
Levi lets out a loud, disrespectful laugh. “A kid calls in a marker to go and meet a boy regardless of consequences. Grown-ups don’t do shit like that. You’re so immature. I can’t believe you’re a team leader. I wouldn’t let you be in charge of a picnic. I wouldn’t let you babysit my cousin, and she’s ten.”
It hurts, and it hurts more than I thought it would. I couldn’t care less if he liked me or not, but to not respect me?
“You are so mean, Levi. Honestly, you’re the meanest person I know. Why are you acting this way? Why would you even say that? We’ve fought side by side and I’ve held my own. I deal with those monsters and demons and whatever all the time! I’ve saved people and put the safety of my team before my own. You’ve seen that! So why say such horrible things to me? I am not an adult. You’re right. But you’re going to sit there like a pompous jerk and tell me grown-ups are smarter? ‘Grown-ups,’” I say, using my hands to make quotation marks, “are the reason you and I will never have a normal life. Adults opened The Rift and they made children police it. Adults are the reason you and Ingrid nearly killed each other.”
Levi gives me a dead-level stare. He shakes his head. “I can’t believe you went there.”
“I went there and I’ll go further. Either you help me or I tell Flora the real deal about us. I miss your sister. I would love nothing more than to tell her the truth, so please give me a reason to.” The fury is building inside of him, I can see it. Levi clenches his fists and releases them.
“You have no idea” is all he says.
I am breathing hard. I’m angry, ready to fight, and so is he. No one pushes my buttons more than Levi. His tone, his arrogance, the fact that, realistically, he’s a better Citadel than me, or at least a more lethal one—it all gets to me. But I need to get to the Village. I slow my heart rate down. I take a deep breath. I have to get him on my side. “You’re right. I don’t have any real idea about the Village or what you’ve gone through and that is part of the problem. I’m tired of being in the dark. I’m not scared of them. They need us.” I look at him calmly. He really is beautiful but so, so broken. “The question is, why are you so scared? What are they going to do to you? Make you a Citadel? Again?” Levi leans back in the booth, eyeing me. I don’t know what he could be thinking. Maybe he wants to slam my head into the table. Maybe he wants to kiss me. Maybe he wants to slam my head into the table because he wants to kiss me. I’ve just told him I was willing to risk God knows what to see a boy, threatened him, and emasculated him all at once. Levi hates to lose—I know, because I’m the same way. I also know he is not going to help me and I’m starting to wonder if he’s going to say anything else.
“Fine. I’ll find a way in without you.” I grab my bag and go to stand up.
“Hey.” Levi kicks my leg gently under the table.
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell Flora. She doesn’t need to know anything. I mean, look what happened when she saw you do a handstand. She invited two thugs up to her bedroom for a drunken threesome. Imagine what she would do if she knew the real truth. Our secret is safe.”
“Ryn, stop,” Levi says firmly, and I turn back in the booth to face him. “I will get you in, okay? Somehow. I’ve got a shift at the Village coming up this Sunday. What’s Prince Charming’s name?”
“Ezra Massad,” I answer with relief. I’m in shock. I cannot believe he is going to help me.
“You have to promise me you’ll be careful. Don’t tell anyone on your team and don’t get your hopes up. You can’t touch him. You can’t even think about it, not for one second. Do you think you can manage that?”
I want to tell him to screw off. Of course I can manage that. I’m not a lunatic. I don’t hurt people on purpose. He’s the sick fuck who tried to get it on with his girlfriend. I would never be so dumb. I can’t exactly say that, though, because although I can be sassy, I’m not rude like he is.
“I won’t tell anyone and there will be no touching. Promise.”
Levi lets out a long sigh. He seems resigned. He isn’t angry anymore. He looks so different when he’s not mad. Younger. Sadder. Once more I think the word broken.
“I will come to your house Saturday afternoon with a plan. Around four?” I don’t know if he’s asking or telling.
“Just text me with the details. You don’t need to come over,” I offer.
“Oh, man, you really are a kid.” Levi shakes his head and stands up. Then he leans over to whisper in my ear. I can feel the heat of his breath. His lips are so close I have to close my eyes and dig my nails into my palm.
“You think they don’t read our texts?”
CHAPTER 7 (#ulink_bf42639a-0ac4-5d25-bb96-66a1df9285f2)
The following Sunday I’m waiting high up in a tree canopy. Both my feet are planted on a thick branch and I am braced and ready to jump more than twenty feet to the ground below. This is the first part of Levi’s plan. I cannot go through the main entrance of the Village without the proper credentials. So I am here in this tree, and in exactly one minute I will avoid the electrified fence by swinging my body over it and landing in The Menagerie.
The Village is a little over ten miles northeast of Camp Bonneville. I parked my car about six miles away off a graveled utility road and hid it as best I could inside the tree line. I ran to this exact spot, which Levi gave me via a set of coordinates that I have managed to find quite easily thanks to our extensive survival-skills training … and Google. I still have no real idea of the scope of this place. The Menagerie would not have been my first choice, but Levi has assured me that this particular section I’m jumping into has nothing more than a bunch of flightless birds. I imagine they must be something close to chickens or maybe turkeys. I also imagine that my idea of harmless and Levi’s idea might not be the same thing.
When the time is exactly right, I jump down into the pen. I pop back up right away. I don’t have a gun. I was able to steal my uniform out of my locker room, but I could not gain access to a rifle. There are several coops around the pen, and sure enough, there are birds on the ground. They do look like large chickens, but their feathers are a scarlet red shot through with a few bright yellow plumes. I walk slowly. I don’t like the idea of being pecked by them. I don’t even want to touch them. I only like birds when they are plucked, gutted, and part of a meal.
I know—not very forgiving. But birds give me the creeps, and that’s that.
The good news is that I won’t be staying long, and I soon reach the inner fence. It’s electrified, and not as high, maybe ten feet. There is a regular gate that people who work here use to exit, but it requires a swipe card, which I don’t have. What I do have are leg muscles that would give the Bionic Woman an inferiority complex.
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Amy S. Foster
What’s the difference between the monsters you fight against and the monsters you fight for?What do the multiverse and teenage super soldiers have in common?Nothing.And that’s Ryn Whittaker’s problem.Ryn is a Citadel, specially chosen and trained to guard a Rift – one of fourteen unpredictable tears in the fabric of the universe that serve as doorways to alternate Earths – and she’s one of the Allied Rift Coalition’s best, until the day eighteen-year-old Ezra Massad comes tumbling out of The Rift and everything changes.Despite her training, and the fact that any romantic entanglements are doomed by her violent, cybernetically-altered hormones, Ryn can’t keep away from Ezra, and what starts as a physical attraction quickly grows deeper. Ezra’s curiosity about The Rifts, the mysterious organization that oversees them, and the Citadels themselves echoes Ryn’s own growing doubts and unasked questions.But can she fall in love, uncover the truth, and protect her friends and family? After all, she already knows that secrets have a price…and not keeping hers may cost Ryn more than she’s ready to lose.
Copyright (#ulink_9287b62a-de08-5ff5-ba15-d8dde2e155de)
HarperVoyager an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2016
Copyright © Amy S. Foster 2016
Cover design and photography by TK
Amy S. Foster asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008179243
Ebook Edition © October 2016 ISBN: 9780008179250
Version: 2017-06-21
Dedication (#ulink_02f3a24d-152a-5d8a-a26b-d329575a7c11)
For my daughter Mikeala, who taught Ryn how to be brave
Contents
Cover (#u556d7bb4-57c9-5b42-a451-1ad4ab67f307)
Title Page (#ud90ae223-785a-5fd1-b900-8c197c364eb8)
Copyright (#u9d25a19e-13e1-5d54-8eb2-f3ab05057715)
Dedication (#ud55c36ee-a80a-5481-b349-9b65c267529f)
Chapter 1 (#u55780825-c195-568c-9bb0-aa0e23df41b8)
Chapter 2 (#u0c2ae28d-5269-55d8-870c-74d86689f56e)
Chapter 3 (#u66441cf5-a043-5c59-bec9-437de072e5bf)
Chapter 4 (#u31a20522-dcb4-5350-8150-21ce4f572dea)
Chapter 5 (#ue9147ba7-9a03-5623-be4e-e406a6ff3ae5)
Chapter 6 (#uf773892c-3728-59eb-a88c-1f7df041b037)
Chapter 7 (#u998e1738-4689-5517-9797-74657b67a863)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
'məltēˌvərs/
noun
an infinite realm of being or potential being of which the universe is regarded as a part or instance.
CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_35629056-5035-50b8-b1ff-1fdb9dd4d51b)
“Command Center, this is Gamma Team in Nest four. There is no visual. Over.” The voice crackles in my earpiece. I tap the small device without thinking. It’s not a hardware issue, not with the kind of equipment we use. More than likely it’s interference. We are the closest team to The Rift. I wait for the other teams to check in, but it’s protocol at this point. They aren’t going to see anything before we do. We hear from Lambda, Phi, Rho, and Omega. The reserves are farther back, in the denser part of the forest, waiting in case something really bad comes through, like a column of Karekins. Karekins are the most dangerous enemy we face in The Rift game. They are humanoid but proportionally much, much bigger—at least eight feet tall. Whenever I see one, I think of the Titans from Greek mythology. Maybe the big shots at ARC thought the same thing when they divided us all into groups using the Greek alphabet.
The scientists at The Allied Rift Coalition created sophisticated machines that spike and beep whenever The Rift is about to dump something out.
We don’t need them.
Citadels are in tune with the opening. I don’t even think it’s our heightened senses. We just spend so much time around the damn thing that we’ve grown accustomed to its habits. I am Beta Team’s leader. I was surprised at first when I got the rank. I am not the fastest or strongest among us. When we first deployed, it didn’t take long to see that I think quickly on my feet. I’m a natural tactician and I don’t make sentimental decisions. In the beginning of all this, I would never have volunteered for a command. After so much time on active duty, however, it’s clear the rank is a good fit. The fact that ARC figured out my strengths before I did still pisses me off. It’s like swallowing one of those huge horse vitamins without water. The truth that they somehow know me better than I know myself will always burn right in my center.
I try not to think about how or why anymore. It’s pointless and distracting, and I need to focus. I’m here and in charge, responsible for my team. We are holding our positions. The four of us are crouched behind a large rock that sits just off to the left of The Rift. The rock was strategically placed here so that we can see what’s coming out, but they can’t see us.
No, we can’t actually see through solid rock or anything … though that would be cool. Instead, the rock has a couple holes bored through, covered and camouflaged on The Rift side with paint and sieved metal. It’s kind of like a two-way mirror. No one would notice the holes unless they got right up and put their face up to them, and by that point, well, more than likely they would have already been neutralized.
I study my three teammates for a moment. They look so badass they could be on the cover of a comic book. Three years ago, Christopher Seelye—the head of ARC—told us we had all been chosen because of our incredible “averageness.” He got that one wrong by a mile. Maybe it was bad math, or maybe it’s the chip they implanted us with to give us all these crazy superpowers. Either way, we are far from average. Citadels are striking. People look at us and can’t look away. We are sleek and dangerously fascinating, like any other large predator, which makes it impossible for any of us to fly under the radar. Am I pretty? No, not conventionally. But we all have a strange and complicated beauty that’s undeniable. We have become used to being watched and stared at. I wonder what our parents think sometimes. Do they notice, or are they just used to us? I wouldn’t dare ask them, and because of the role I am forced to play at home, they wouldn’t expect me to.
I am snapped back into the moment when Boone checks in on the mic, trying to sound all official. “Command, this is Brony Team. We still don’t have a visual.” He smirks beside me. I roll my eyes. Always the comedian.
“Repeat,” Command demands through our earpieces.
“This is Team Rainbow Sparkle and we have a negative on a visual.”
Violet gives Boone a smack, and per usual Henry says nothing at all. Henry has no sense of humor. He’s as immovable as the rock we are crouched behind.
Colonel Applebaum’s voice cuts through the static. “Cut the shit, Boone. After we’re done here today you can go home and play with all your little action figurines, but since we know something is about to come through, maybe you’d like to focus so that we can save some lives.”
It’s an inside joke, years old, that Boone never gets tired of. When we first met Applebaum we were so intimidated that it was difficult for most of us to even speak, let alone answer one of the dozens of questions he would scream in our faces during basic training. It was Boone who came up with the idea that his last name sounded like a My Little Pony character. Boone can be a smart-ass, but he can always defuse a tense situation. After we started associating Applebaum with a children’s cartoon, the colonel seemed far less terrifying.
“Ryn?” he asks.
“I’m on it, sir.” I shoot Boone a look. A look that says everything without me having to use any actual words. And then I feel the hair on my arms begin to stand up. I know that I am the first one to sense that The Rift is about to open. I always am. I think that’s another reason I was made team leader: I have a hypersensitivity to it. I hold my hand up and make a fist. It’s a gesture that means business, and my team knows me well enough to stop the nonsense and follow my lead. I keep my head down and close my eyes. I can feel the tug of The Rift’s giant mouth in my belly. I know we won’t be sucked in, because all the mathematicians have calculated the exact safe distance from The Rift. It’s one of the few things ARC has told us that I believe absolutely, because we haven’t yet lost a Citadel that way.
But it doesn’t mean the pull doesn’t bother me every time.
My heart begins to beat a little faster, the adrenaline starts to course through my veins. The Rift’s rippling intensifies.
“Command, this is Beta Team leader. We have a visual. Stage one. Repeat: We have a visual. Stage one.” Through the rock I can see the shimmering air undulate like a hummingbird’s wings and then, from The Rift’s center, a purple dot begins to bleed out toward the edges. “That’s Stage two, Command. Copy,” I say swiftly.
“We copy, Team Leader. Hold your position.”
I grit my teeth. They don’t need to tell me what to do. I know exactly what needs to happen next. I’m about to put my life on the line and they are safely sitting on their asses a mile away, watching this all on a bunch of camera feeds. I take a breath. Irritation won’t help me if things turn ugly. I have to empty myself of every emotion. I have to become a thing instead of a person if I want to survive the next ten minutes. It’s why we’re called Citadels and not soldiers. Solid, immovable objects, not malleable beings.
Ready to withstand anything.
The purple in The Rift begins to darken until it is pure black. It’s not a normal black but the darkest color my eyes can register. It is the inky night of the universe. I look at my team. They are ready. Focused. Intense.
“Stage three, Command. Stand by.” We all wait for the sound. The Rift always opens with a muffled sonic boom. It’s not ear piercing. It’s not even all that unpleasant. In fact it comes as sort of a relief. No more waiting. No more guessing. It’s time.
The boom happens.
It is an echo of a thing started a million or a billion Earths away from our own Earth. The ground shakes ever so slightly.
“That’s it. Stage four. Weapons ready,” I say calmly. I peer through the rock. The view isn’t perfect through the tiny holes perforated in the metal on the other side, but it’s enough. The Rift opens completely and a person comes tumbling out. Just as quickly, The Rift closes and turns back into the neon green tower of energy that it is. It always closes with far less ceremony than it opens—like a guest who’s overstayed his welcome and hustles to get out of there before things get awkward.
“It looks like we have a solo passenger, Command. I repeat: a lone individual, a man or possibly …” I peer through the grate in the rock. It’s ten a.m., so he’s pretty easy to see from my clumsy vantage point, even though there are fifty feet between us. He’s tall but a bit wiry, a swimmer’s build. He looks pretty young, maybe my age or a bit older. “A youth. Not a child, though,” I add hastily.
“Roger that, Team Leader. Let’s give him The Five,” Applebaum says cautiously.
“Yes, sir, going silent,” I say softly. The Five is what we give every Immigrant—human or otherwise—who comes through The Rift. There are a few species we simply attack, like the Karekins, because we know they are a threat and have shown no desire throughout the years to negotiate.
For the rest of what or whoever ends up here, we have a pretty decent method of threat assessment: We watch them for five minutes. It becomes clear almost right away what we are dealing with. They are all afraid. How that fear manifests itself is the key. Some get panicked and desperate. Some cry. Some wail. Some simply sit down and look at The Rift, staring into its sickly green abyss, clearly in shock over what has just happened to them. Some get very, very, violent.
I breathe out slowly. There is an unlikely chance things will turn ugly this morning. This young man is wearing a flannel shirt and jeans, and sporting a backpack that makes him look like he’s from a version of Earth very similar to our own. Obviously we’ve seen more benign-looking beings step through and wreak havoc, but my gut says he’s not about to go on a rampage. And yet I’m troubled.
He is also standing just a little too close to The Rift.
Regardless of whether their five minutes are up, we can’t ever let them go back through. Who knows where they would end up? The chances of making it back to their exact same Earth of origin are almost nonexistent. Anything that has the misfortune of stumbling through becomes our responsibility, and we wouldn’t want them jumping back in and ending up God knows where—an Earth without an atmosphere? A Karekin Earth? The sharpshooters are ready with a tranq gun up in one of the tree towers, or Nests, just in case.
“He’s awfully close,” Applebaum says, as if reading my mind, but I know he’s just looking at one of the video feeds back at Command Center.
“Just give him a second,” I whisper. The young man cups his hands over his eyes and steps back, as if he’s trying to get a better view. He’s taking it in.
He looks around. All he will be able to see is forest. He looks back at The Rift. “What the hell?” he asks in plain English. He reaches around for his backpack and then stops, bites his lip and slips it over his shoulder once again. “Oh my God.” His voice is just barely loud enough for me to hear. My hearing is enhanced, so he must have almost whispered it. The minutes tick by. He scratches his head and begins to pace. He’s trying to figure it out. He’s trying to analyze. I recognize this approach. I’ve seen it in others. There is no real logic to what’s happened to him, though. Well, there is—in a “PhD in quantum physics” type of way—but this guy doesn’t look old enough to have that. Besides, even if he could wrap his mind around how this happened, there is no rhyme or reason for why it happened to him. It’s moot at this point, though.
The Five are up.
“Command, this is Beta Team leader. I’m going in.” My team begins to stand up, and I immediately stop them. “I’m going in alone,” I say with finality. I register their looks of annoyance. I don’t care. This guy is not a threat and he doesn’t need to be scared half to death by a bunch of commandos jumping out from behind a rock.
“Not a good idea, Ryn,” I hear Applebaum say with authority. “What if there is a weapon in that backpack of his?”
Applebaum doesn’t care about me personally one way or another. What he does care about is losing any Citadel—probably because of the expense that goes into training us. It’s hard to think of Applebaum caring about an actual person.
“I don’t think there is,” I say. “I’m making the call, but it’s sweet that you’re worried about me.” I put my gun down and stand up. I try to imagine what this guy is going to think when he sees me pop out of nowhere. We wear a uniform, of course. A long-sleeved unitard in forest green. The suit was designed by the Roones—one of the first groups that came through The Rift, and the creators of a lot of the tech we use. In terms of the uniform, our outfits are made of a polymer titanium, and spandex for movement. The titanium is spun so lightly and so deftly that it weighs practically nothing, but it is in effect like chain mail, kind of like wearing a bulletproof vest on your whole body. They must have added another compound to the suits, to compensate for the impact of melee weapons, but the Roones don’t like to answer questions about exactly how things work. Since the suit has saved me more than a few times, it seems rude to keep asking.
Attached to the bodysuit are strategically placed lengths of quilted black leather. Our knees, shoulders, elbows, and torsos are covered for added heat and protection in hand-to-hand combat. We wear boots, too, though they aren’t standard military issue. They look more like motocross meets Mad Max. I wish I could wear them outside of work, but we aren’t allowed to take any of these provisions home. How would we explain them to our parents? Especially the utility and weapons holsters? The guys generally choose to put khakis over the suit. I understand why. Tights are a pretty hard sell to a teenage boy. The girls have no such qualms. The suit helps us fight better and stay alive. I see no reason to alter it, even though we are all acutely aware that our uniform hugs every curve.
I walk around the rock with my hands up. I have taken my holster off. I have no type of weapon on me at all. Granted, every Citadel is basically a living weapon—and yes, Boone loves to make that joke over and over.
And over.
The guy is looking not at me but down at the ground, shaking his head, muttering something to himself. I walk closer and clear my throat.
“Hi,” I say with a smile on my face. He looks up and I really see him for the first time. I catch my breath. He is gorgeous—specifically, my type of gorgeous. His skin is one shade darker than olive. His hair is tousled and brown, his eyes are azure blue. They look almost unreal, like he’s wearing contacts. I push this thought aside. Even from this distance, he doesn’t seem like a guy who would wear lenses to enhance the color of his eyes. Then I push that thought aside. How the hell would I know what kind of guy he is? Yet even as I think that, my heart begins to race and I clench my fists. ARC is monitoring my vitals through my suit. The last thing I want them to see is my attraction. It’s so embarrassing. My cheeks flush. I suck in a deep breath and center myself. I’ll be fine as long as this kid doesn’t come too close or make any sudden moves to reach for me. He looks at me and narrows his eyes. He seems more wary than scared, which is good. He should be wary. But he’s not panicking, and that is even better.
I force a grin. “Pretty crazy, right?” What a stupid thing to say. He looks at me and then at The Rift.
“Where am I?” he asks slowly.
“Washington. State.”
“Well, then, when am I?”
The question catches me off guard. He’s smart. He knows that whatever has happened to him is huge and mind bending.
I walk closer to him, my arms open, my body language showing vulnerability. “When do you think you are?”
“Please don’t come any closer,” he says politely. He tries to smile, but it’s forced. He is standing stock-still but looks as if he could bolt at any second.
“Do you think you’ve time traveled or something?” I make it sound like that could never happen in a million years, but in a way it’s not that far off from the truth.
“I don’t know—have I?” He looks down again and then back at The Rift. His gaze finally falls back to my face, but his eyebrows are raised in a way that says he knows something and there’s no point in making small talk.
I tell him what year it is and he nods.
“Same year, then,” he says hesitantly.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” I ask with genuine concern. How disorienting that trip must be. How terrifying.
“I was working in the lab at school. I heard a kind of drumming noise coming from outside. I walked toward the sound to investigate it and I saw this green light. That light,” he says, pointing to The Rift. “And then the next thing I knew, I don’t know … it sucked me inside and I couldn’t breathe. It felt like I was being dragged underneath a wave and didn’t know which end was up. What is it?” His words are cautious and carefully chosen. Most people are in shock when they end up here. Maybe he is, too, but he’s holding on to his rationality pretty well.
Our eyes really lock for the first time and something passes between us. Heat maybe? Or just plain interest?
Or maybe wishful thinking. Get it together, Ryn.
“It’s a cosmic anomaly—that’s really as much as I know. Can I come a little closer? I promise I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Okay,” he says. Yet his voice is anything but casual. I walk toward him slowly. We are beside each other now.
I hear Violet’s voice in my ear. “Watch yourself, Ryn.” She’s part of my team, so that’s not surprising. But she’s also my best friend, and that means she knows exactly what’s going on in my brain right now. She’s not warning me against any kind of sudden attack by him. She knows he’s my type. She’s heard us talking. She’s worried for him.
“I’m not really trained to answer all the questions you must have. There are people here who can, though. I can take you to them,” I offer. But I don’t really want to take him anywhere. I wish we could just stay here for a while. I wish we were two normal people who met by chance, and who decided that they would like to get to know each other better. It’s a selfish thought. We are a thousand light-years away from normal and the answers he wants won’t bring him anything but pain.
It hurts me to think about that, and I start to wonder when in the past couple minutes I stopped being a Citadel and started acting like a teenage girl.
Never mind the fact that I am a teenage girl …
He looks me up and down. “What are you trained for, then?” he wonders out loud. Is he flirting with me? I’m so crap at this kind of thing, I have no idea.
“I’m like”—I fish for a word—“a guard.”
“You’re a girl,” he says flatly.
Now it’s my turn to narrow my eyes. “A girl can’t be a guard?”
“A woman can, sure—a female—but you’re a girl. How old are you?”
His words sting. He thinks I’m a child. I imagine picking him up by the collar and holding him in the air. He’d change his mind pretty damn quick about me being a little girl.
Definitely back to being a Citadel again.
“I’m seventeen,” I say, trying not to sound defensive or pouty. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen. Technically an adult. And last time I checked, you had to be an adult to be in the military, especially if you’re guarding something like that,” he says as he points to the huge shimmering green pool in the sky. “So again, where are we?”
“We’re in Washington, like I said.” I have to move things along now. They aren’t going to give me forever to get this guy to trust me.
“Yeah, but where exactly in Washington?” he asks—not in a cocky way, but in a way that says he’s not going to be distracted from getting an answer.
“Battle Ground,” I say.
He jerks his head up and takes a slight step away from me.
“I mean, this isn’t a battle ground—at least, not always …” I bite my lip. I’ve never done anything like this before—gone in alone and made first contact without my team. Boone is better at this kind of thing. Way better. “The name of the town we’re in is Battle Ground, though actually, technically, we’re at Camp Bonneville Military Base.”
“And why would a seventeen-year-old girl be in charge of a cosmic anomaly?” He cocks his head, almost daring me to answer.
“I’m not so into the tone you’re using when you say the word girl—just gonna put that out there,” I snap back, and he gives me a half smile.
“Sorry. Why would someone so young be guarding something so … I don’t know, what’s a synonym for terrifying, but, like, way, way more?”
Now it’s my turn to give a hint of a smile. “Have you ever heard of the Multiverse Theory?” I ask tentatively.
“Ryn!” Applebaum barks in my ear. “Enough. You do your job and let the experts do theirs for the intake. You have sixty seconds,” he warns.
“Yes, the Multiverse, heard of it, go on,” he says warily.
“Okay, so that thing is a portal to different versions of Earth. Some versions are similar to yours and mine and some are different?” It’s weird that I’m framing this as a question. Am I trying to be cute? I am not cute. Applebaum is yelling objections through my earpiece and it’s throwing me off. I need to take charge here. “I have a very particular skill set to deal with the ummm … more dangerous variations of other Earths.” I do not take charge with this statement. I sound ridiculous.
“A particular skill set?” he counters immediately with sarcasm. “Like Liam Neeson?”
“Well, no, but yes, I mean, that’s great. You have a movie star Liam Neeson on your version of Earth and so do we. We’re getting somewhere!” He frowns. I am screwing this up royally.
“Thirty seconds, Ryn,” Applebaum growls at me, “and I am not happy at all.”
I sigh and then I disable the audio. I don’t need the colonel’s disappointment buzzing in my ear. I take a step closer to the guy in front of me. I get so close that my mouth is just an inch away from his ear. He smells like the woods and something else, something spicy. I like it, but I do my best to ignore it.
“Look,” I whisper, “I don’t have time to walk you through this. I know you have no reason at all to trust me. But, if you just let me and my friends escort you away from here, to someplace safer, there will be a bunch of people who are far better equipped than I am to answer all your questions. Okay?”
He turns toward me. His eyes are like turquoise and they are boring into me, making my knees go a little weak. I make a fist and push my short nails into my palm. “What if I say no?”
“Please don’t do that,” I plead. There must have been something in the tone of my voice because he nods his head slightly. “All right,” I say softly, “my friends are going to come over here from behind that rock. Don’t be freaked out. They have guns, but it’s just standard procedure. That being said, don’t, like, make any crazy sudden moves.”
“Given that I can barely feel my arms or my legs right now, I don’t think that will be a problem,” he says, and stands perfectly still.
“Hey, guys, I think we’re ready to go back up to Base. We just need to get a reading.” Boone, Henry, and Violet pop up from behind the rock and make their way toward us, much faster than I would have liked them to. I can see him tense up beside me. But Boone, with his open face and his casual body language, immediately changes the energy among us all.
“Hey, man,” he says, extending his hand. “I’m Boone and this is Violet, Henry, and of course you’ve already met Katniss.”
Vi stifles a giggle.
“Your name is Katniss? Seriously?”
“No, it’s not. That’s Boone’s idea of a joke. My name is Ryn.” I hold my hand out and he shakes it and smiles genuinely.
“Ezra.”
“Ezra, great!” Boone says. “Okay, we’re all friends now and we’re gonna get outta here ’cause, I’m not gonna lie, this particular spot is very not safe. All I need to do before we leave is use this little machine,” he says, holding up a small silver box about the size of a phone, “to make sure you aren’t radioactive. It’s cool, right?”
Ezra gulps, and his eyes widen in alarm. “Why would I be radioactive?” Boone doesn’t answer his question, nor does he wait for permission; he just waves the machine up and down over Ezra’s body. He looks at me, wondering if Boone is kidding again. I mouth the word sorry to him and then crane my neck and look at the interface. It’s blue. Ezra is fine, which I pretty much knew, but in our line of work you can’t take anything at face value.
Even a face as gorgeous as Ezra’s.
I suppose I was distracted by what I had just done, and that being so close to Ezra threw my senses totally out of whack, because I’m a bit surprised when he points at The Rift and says, “Why is it doing that?”
I glance over, and my eyes widen: The Rift has escalated to Stage 3. We all look at each other for a moment. This is how quickly things can go wrong here. This is how stupid mistakes can get people killed. I enable my audio right away, report to Command, and I’m instantly treated to an onslaught of expletives from Applebaum.
“We need to get to cover,” Henry says calmly, but I can hear the strain in his voice. He’s pissed. I feel a pang of guilt that my rash decision to come out and meet Ezra alone has now put us all at risk. I sweep it away. I can’t afford to feel anything right now. I have to let my training take over and go back to being a soldier. The Rift doesn’t usually open up again so quickly, but of course, this would be the day it does.
“There’s no time, everyone, just hold your positions. It could be a dog for all we know. Just calm down and keep your hand on your weapon. Do not draw, though. Repeat: Do not draw your weapons,” I say with authority. “The Nests have eyes on our situation and can provide ample backup if we need it.” My team listens to me, and Ezra to his credit is also standing perfectly still. A lot of other people would have run, so his staying says something about him.
Of course, he could be doing the whole deer-trapped-in-headlights routine. That happens sometimes, too.
The Rift turns to deadly black and seven men come tumbling out. They aren’t Karekins, so at least there’s that. But they are very large. They have fair skin and long beards, and long hair, though some have pulled it back in rows of braids. They are wearing leathers and pelts. They are armed with an assortment of weapons, some axes, some broadswords. Each is holding a wooden shield with enough decoration and symbology to give me a clue. Apparently Ezra has the same idea as I do.
“Are those Vikings?” he says incredulously.
“Yes, it seems like … yes, those look like, uhh, Vikings.” I take a step forward, but I do not reach out my arms. If they are anything like the Vikings we had on our Earth, they will not respect passivity.
I put my hands on my hips and give the newest Immigrants what I can only describe as a Peter Pan stance. “Legg ned våpnene. Jeg gir deg kun en advarsel. Legg ned våpnene nå!” Which roughly translates into: Put down your weapons. I’m not going to give you another warning.
“You speak Viking?” Ezra asks, noticeably shocked. I would argue that the fact that I speak Norwegian is far less fantastic than the fact that real-life Vikings have just tumbled through a Rift of time and space, but bantering seems inappropriate. The warriors shout and shake their weapons.
“Vi har visst dødd og er kommet til Valhalla. Det er vår rett til å ta våre våpen til Odin selv, for å bevise at vi er krigere. Vike trollkvinne!”
Boone can’t stop the laugh that escapes full throttle out of his mouth.
“What did he say?” whispers Ezra.
“They think they’ve died and have arrived at Valhalla. They need their weapons to prove what hard-asses they are to Odin. They also say I’m a witch or demon.” I wonder if Ezra thinks that we’ll just shoot them. I know that would probably be my initial thought if murderous warriors just popped out in front of me. As easy as shooting them would be, though, things don’t work that way. We don’t kill people without prejudice. It was our scientists who created this Rift, and the thirteen others around the world, albeit accidentally. I mean, I think it was an accident. That’s what we were told. ARC has never fully explained the experiment, and even though we all have advanced intellects capable of understanding the complexities of the exact cause, we’ve never been given the full debrief. It’s been deemed top secret, above our security clearance. I guess they don’t want us Citadels blaming any one scientist specifically. Which is ridiculous. As members of ARC, we collectively shoulder the responsibility for what happens with The Rift. We are way past finger-pointing.
Again, though, how or why this happened doesn’t matter. It’s our fault these men are here. It’s our fault that their communities will be broken and their children will grow up without fathers. You can’t point a gun at someone and pull the trigger to solve this kind of problem, especially when they can’t even wrap their minds around what a gun is, let alone the circumstances that led them to be here. We could tranquilize them—in fact, that’s exactly what we used to do. But then we figured out (through trial and error and the input of many anthropologists) that, in cases like this, these men must be defeated on their own terms. They have to be given a fighting chance so that their surrender will be lasting. I don’t love combat, but I am good at it, especially hand to hand. Everyone gets a boost when they do something they are really good at. I’m no exception. And these guys … it’s pretty clear they like a good throw down. Their body language is defiant, tensed. They are ready to bring it.
So am I.
“Vi, stay here with Ezra. Make sure he’s covered.”
Violet nods and stands in front of him, her hands on her rifle, but as ordered does not draw it. The three of us who remain walk just a few steps forward, and I see out of the corner of my eye Violet backing up, taking Ezra farther away from where the action is bound to happen. We don’t run at the men, because we want them to come to us, away from The Rift. The men are screaming in Norwegian and pounding their swords against their shields. As annoying as it is, it’s better than getting an earful from the colonel. Applebaum is blessedly silent. He knows well enough not to try to talk to me with the threat right in front of us, though I know he’ll go ballistic on me once we return to the base. Now we just have to make sure we make it back to the base.
The Vikings begin to move forward, and I take a deep breath. Good. They are gaining distance from The Rift. When we are about twenty feet apart, one of the men throws his ax and it hurtles toward me. I catch it easily with one hand and for a moment the seven men are silent. I turn around and throw the ax in the opposite direction, much farther than he could have thrown it, right into a tree trunk. The Vikings charge anyway.
I have to give them bravery points for that.
The whole encounter lasts less than two minutes. I leap ten feet into the air and use a tree as leverage to make another jump down onto two of the men. I land squarely on the chest of one and kick out hard into the groin of the other. The one on the ground is unconscious. I have just enough time to turn him over and make sure there is no blood, that he hasn’t hit a rock. Nope. Just your basic traumatic head injury. The one I kicked has recovered somewhat and lunges toward me. I see both Henry and Boone a few feet away. Henry actually picks up one of the men by the throat and lifts him high enough to throw a few feet. Boone blocks and parries the weapons easily. We all move so much faster than them, it’s hardly a contest.
The Viking who lunges at me flips his shield up, presumably to use as a sort of battering ram to knock the wind out of me. I dance easily away, sidestepping him and ending up at his back. I jump on him from behind and wrap my arms around his neck. He tries to shake me loose, but I am so much stronger than he is. I know this shocks him. He probably thinks that women are feeble. I feel a sense of satisfaction as he begins to go down, but this is quickly replaced with the knowledge that he also thinks I’m some sort of demon guarding the gates to his afterlife. This one act of overpowering him is unlikely to change his views on women, but he’ll learn soon enough when he gets to the Village. He passes out in my arms and I let him drop to the ground. When I look up, I see that all the Vikings are similarly disabled. I hear Applebaum through my earpiece calling for two teams in the Nest to assist. Eight soldiers jump from their perches high atop the trees and land softly behind us. We begin to zip-tie the Vikings’ hands and pull each of the men to their feet. They are dazed and defeated, all of their bravado washed away. I notice the youngest one, probably close to my age. A single tear falls from his eye. If this was their great test, they have failed. All hope must be lost for them now. As my adrenaline recedes, I feel for this young man. I look over at Ezra and my heart breaks a little more. We haven’t killed anyone, but in a way they are all dead. As soon as they entered The Rift they were reborn into a new life. Ezra’s won’t be as bad off as the poor Norsemen. Still, for the first little while, maybe for a long while, they will all be walking ghosts trapped in a new world that will take them years, if not their lifetimes, to understand.
I walk over to Ezra and Violet. “Come on, I’ll take you to transport,” I say wearily. I’m usually pumped after this kind of exercise, but looking at these newest arrivals I just feel kind of sad. “Violet, we still have another couple hours on duty. Can you get Boone and Henry and go back to our post? I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Sure,” she says softly with a smile. Vi is a lovely person. It’s an old-fashioned word, but that’s what she is. Lovely. Not a mean bone in her body. What we do, who we are, is harder for her than anyone. The only thing that keeps her going is the knowledge that she saves way more lives than she is forced to take. She gives me these few moments with Ezra without making any kind of big deal about it, and I love her for that. She squeezes my shoulder and walks back down toward the big rock.
Ezra and I head for a separate transport vehicle. He will not be going back to base in the same car as the Vikings.
“So …” he says, drawing out the word, “skill set.”
I chuckle. “Yep.”
Ezra lifts up both hands and wiggles his fingers. “Thanks for not zip-tying me.”
I keep my eyes on the ground. I don’t want to look at him. I don’t want to face any more questions, but I know they are coming.
Sure enough, he asks, “Where are they taking me? And when will I be able to go home?” He stops walking and so do I. I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. I finally look him in the face, deep into those gorgeous blue eyes of his.
“Oh, Ezra, I’m … sorry,” I whisper. I don’t need to say anything more. He still doesn’t know the specifics, but he knows enough now.
He bites his lip and nods. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. Thanks for being nice.” And then, out of nowhere, he pulls me toward him. He is hugging me. It’s not a sexual embrace, but it’s not exactly brotherly, either. It’s a good thing that I had been feeling so sad; it takes a while for my body to get the signal from my brain that our skin has made contact and my face is now in the crook of his neck, and to notice that smell of his, a spicy earthiness mixed with his fear and wonder and the purity of The Rift. I have just enough time to pat him lightly and step back. We walk a couple more minutes in silence until we are just a few feet from the jeep.
“Just promise me that this won’t be the last time I see you?” It’s a statement, not really a question. Ezra’s intake coordinator, Kendrick, is standing right behind us. I look over at him, and he raises his eyebrows. I stop for a minute and wonder why Ezra would ask me this. Does he like me? Does he think we can hang out later or something? He just saw what I did to those two Vikings. Didn’t that freak him out? Or maybe it’s because I was just the first person he saw when he got here and I was nice.
“Yeah. Okay,” I say, and Kendrick gives me a stone-faced look. “Ezra—sorry, what’s your last name?”
“Massad.”
“Is that Arabic?” I ask, because it would explain his remarkable coloring.
“Well, yeah, my dad is Moroccan and my mom is American.”
“Cool. Well, this is Kendrick. Kendrick, this is Ezra. Kendrick is going to be your main guy here for a while and answer all those questions you must have.” Kendrick is one of the better intake coordinators. He has a calming vibe about him and is pretty much a straight shooter.
“As-Salaam-Alaikum,” Kendrick says, putting his hand out.
Ezra shakes his hand. “Wa-Alaikum-Salaam. But I’m not really a practicing Muslim. And after today … well, I might have to table the whole religion thing.”
Kendrick laughs genuinely and opens the rear passenger door of the car. “I hear ya, man.”
Ezra and I look at each other. There is too much to say.
There is nothing to say.
“Bye.” I give him the warmest smile I can.
“Bye,” he says, also smiling, but his eyes are not happy. “Thanks again.” Not sure how to take that thanks, though. Everything above his mouth is a mixed bag of terror and crushing sadness. I watch the car drive off down the path and stare after it. I know Kendrick didn’t say anything at the time because he thought it would be easier for me to lie. Yeah, sure, I’ll come and see you. No problem, Ezra. The thing is, Citadels my age don’t go to the Village. You don’t have to be an adult to kill here at Battle Ground, but for some reason you need to be one to get posted to the Village. I have always known this, but now, suddenly, it strikes me as extremely worrisome. However, little does Kendrick know that I was being honest. Whatever it takes, I’m going to get into the Village.
I have decided that Ezra is going to be the only person in the world I will never lie to.
CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_67b67a68-50e3-53e1-83ae-5a6e239a56dd)
It always feels surreal to walk away from The Rift, from combat, from hours of intensive training—and then straight into Safeway. But it’s my turn to cook, and that means it’s my turn to shop. Have to keep up the pretense and all that.
I push my cart up and down the aisles. I notice the cans stacked neatly one on top of the next, the endless rows of cereal boxes and the bright reds and oranges of the fresh peppers in the produce department. Shoppers pull items off the shelves and fill up their carts, totally unaware of what’s going on just a few miles away. They might notice me, they might pick up that there is something different about me, but they would never be able to guess that I just put the smackdown on a bunch of actual Vikings.
When I get home, I have about thirty minutes until I have to make dinner. So I decide to just sit on our living room sofa. It is a couch we rarely use in a room we use even less. We are not a “Game night!” family. We are more of a “Great having dinner with you all, I’m going to my room now” family. I wonder if I caused this. I wonder if the thing in my head programmed me this way and my parents and brother just followed my lead. Or maybe, in a rare stroke of good luck, I was born into a naturally solitary family.
It’s not that I don’t love them. I just don’t know them … and they certainly don’t know me.
The walls in here are like most of the walls in our house—covered with artwork. A lot of the paintings and photographs I just don’t get at all. For the most part, those are the ones that were done by my dad’s art school friends. Some of the artists are famous now and their stuff is worth a lot of money. My dad never got his big break, even though I think his work is ten times better. He paints portraits mostly. I slide my backpack to the floor and stare at one of my favorite paintings by him. In it, a woman in bed, surrounded by letters, looks out a window. I feel her pain through the canvas. I feel like I know her even though she lives in New York and we have never met. Dad says it was more than twenty years ago and he can’t remember the exact circumstances that led her to sit for him, though he knows her name is Patricia and that they both lived in the same dumpy building. Did she ever get over whatever broke her heart so badly? The letters are yellowed and old and she isn’t exactly young. I used to think it was a love affair, but as I get older I feel like it’s something different; her grief seems deeper. Lately I’ve begun to wonder if she is even alive anymore. It scares me a little, that I feel so connected to an old woman whose sadness is so unbearable. I look away. Patricia is too much for me to deal with right now.
My father, Dan, is in his office, over our garage. He became a freelance graphic designer once I was born so he could bring in steady money. I’m not the only one in this house who’s had to make sacrifices for the greater good, and this connects me to my father in a way that I cannot connect to my mother. I try not to let this favoritism show. I feel guilty enough as it is. I lean back in the sofa and close my eyes. My dad always goes on about how he wants me to sit for him. I will never let this happen. If he stares at and studies me for hours, I am sure his brushes and mixed-up colors will reveal all my secrets. My parents will figure out that I am hiding something and I know that this will hurt them. My dad’s talent far outweighs my gift for lying, and that’s saying something, because I’m a pretty amazing liar.
My mom’s name is Vega, which means “star” in Swedish. I get my blond hair and fair skin from her. My green eyes come from Dad, and I got his dimples, too. When I first became a Citadel I hated my dimples because they made me look cute. “So adorable!” everyone would say whenever I smiled. How was I supposed to be a tough guy? A soldier? So adorable might as well be code for soft, and a Citadel needs to be anything but. Now that I’ve been in the field for three years, I am grateful for my dimples. I see death all the time. The hardness comes close to consuming me. My father won’t live forever, but I will always see his smile in my reflection, and it’s a great reminder that I’m the result of two loving people, and not what ARC has made me.
My mother moved to America from Stockholm for college and met my dad in New York City. My mom is a designer. She had big dreams, too, of being the next Diane von Furstenberg or Miuccia Prada. By the time she graduated from college, I think she let that dream go. Her classmates were risk takers, avant-garde designers who made crazy clothes out of recycled beer cans and raven feathers. She just wanted to make women look good. A school friend helped her get an interview at Nike. Since my dad grew up in Portland and his family was here, it seemed like the right move. They thought that only rich people could raise kids in Manhattan. They wanted children and so they relocated. We are, each of us, a product of decisions that other people made, one long chain of choices that stretch back to the beginning of humanity. Working so closely with The Rift, I have seen this firsthand. People arrive who have never heard of a world war, or who have never seen electricity, or who don’t understand how it’s possible that we are able to move freely from one country to another. History can be entirely rewritten based on one person’s choice. Somewhere out there, through The Rift, is a version of Ryn Whittaker who lives in an apartment building in New York City. She is just a normal seventeen-year-old. I wonder who that girl is and what she’ll become when she grows up.
I think a lot about her as I sit on the couch, with its hard cushions and unworn feel. I wonder if she’ll ever meet Ezra Massad. Probably not. Then again, I have no idea where he’s from. Rifts on the other Earths open and close randomly. They don’t stay active like ours but flicker off and on, possibly opening once and never again. Scientists theorize that the Earths closest to ours have more frequent Rift activity, as the dark matter in the universe is drawn to these invisible fissures made by our experiment and strike like lightning. But they don’t really know. They can’t know anything for sure because no one goes back through The Rift. Ezra will never go back. The Roones are stuck here, too. The one exception is that Karekins keep coming, though no one can figure out how or why. It’s such bullshit—all of it. I am so drained from today that I just want to sit here and try to think about nothing for a while.
But I pull myself up from the couch and make my way into the kitchen. We rotate cooking duties in the house. Nike is pretty far from Battle Ground. Sometimes my mom is in the car for two hours a day. Since it’s my fault we’re even in Battle Ground to begin with, I don’t mind picking up some of the slack. My brother, Abel, is three years younger than me and has just started high school. He is useless in the kitchen, so he’s exempt. Cooking is one of the few things he can’t do. He’s one of those people who seem to excel at everything they try. He’s a natural athlete, he’s artistic like my dad, he gets straight As—but I rarely see him doing much work. He’s already over six feet tall and very handsome. He looks Scandinavian, but dark haired, like my dad. Actually, the first time I went to Stockholm to see my grandparents, I saw that most people have brown hair, which surprised me at first. That and the fact that they are insanely good-looking. Like, every random person just walking down the street could be a model. It’s weird. I would be jealous of Abel, but honestly, if he had been average, like me, he might have been chosen to be a Citadel. I am so glad that he’s not one; I can get past the fact that he is so friggin’ good at everything.
I begin to cook sausage in an old Le Creuset pot that my mom has had since before she and my dad were married. I start boiling water for the pasta. I cut up the smooth-skinned peppers with an efficiency that belies my skill with knives. Even as I do these mundane things, I think, I am a killer. Not really a murderer, because it’s all in the name of defense, of my life and the lives of those in Battle Ground and beyond. But a killer just the same. Sure, the way ARC says it, everything sounds quite reasonable. Heroic, even.
Then why don’t I feel like a hero?
Each life I take takes a little something from me. I feel impossibly old for my seventeen years. I am not an innocent. I think about Ezra’s hands when he waved them in front of me, thanking me for not restraining him. Where do you even go from there? Is that any kind of beginning to a romance? I roll my eyes. I can’t have a romance with Ezra and there are so many reasons why that come tumbling into my thought process, they are beyond counting. I put the peppers into the pot and add some garlic as my mom walks through the front door. I hear her kick off her shoes and the thump of her bag on the formal dining room table.
“That smells good,” my mom says. “Pasta?”
“Uh-huh,” I reply. I look at her and smile quickly. Her pale blond hair falls loose to her shoulders. She is wearing jeans, a cotton button-down blouse, and sneakers. Since she works at Nike, her clothes are sporty and comfortable, but somehow she always manages to look chic. She layers necklaces, winds scarves brilliantly around her neck, stacks leather and gold bracelets on her wrists, has big chunky belts, and even the cut of her jeans—slouchy but fitted—is elegant. I can attribute this only to her being European. A cultural thing—not genetic—because no one would accuse me of being stylish. I rarely think about what I wear. More often than not it’s yoga pants and boxy T-shirts with Converse sneakers in the summer and boots in the winter. In a way, my sartorial choices are great, because the rules are clear: We are not to draw any unnecessary attention to ourselves. I think I’ve worn makeup maybe twice in my life. I’m sure this must be somewhat disappointing to my fashion-conscious mother, but to her credit she never says anything. She takes a look at me and opens her mouth to say something but closes it. How could she not want a normal daughter who rambles on about boys and clothes and teachers at school? Instead she got me: a kid who talks as little as possible and keeps her mother at arm’s length.
I am a good girl. She says that a lot. “Ryn, you’re such a good girl …” She tries to be validating, because that’s what I am. That is all I can offer my parents. I am good. I do not sneak out at night, I don’t water down their liquor, I don’t come home smelling like weed, I don’t break my curfew, I don’t date. For a while there, my parents thought I was gay. They sat me down and quite sweetly said they would love me no matter what and that if I liked girls, I should just tell them, get everything out in the open. “I’m not gay,” I said softly. “I’m shy.”
The thing is, I am not shy. I’m quiet only because I hate that every other word out of my mouth is an untruth. I probably should have just said I was asexual … which is pretty much what my job requires of me anyway. Besides, that’s a thing now. It would have given them something to research and they would stop smirking at each other every time Boone or Henry comes over … and then frown when it’s clear nothing is happening between me and either of them.
It’s almost like my parents would welcome me having sex. I think they’d breathe a sigh of relief even as they grounded me. And it hurts sometimes that I can’t even give them that.
“Dinner in fifteen,” I say, and go back to stirring the peppers. I am always hyperaware of my body language. I know how to close myself off, how to disinvite a conversation with a slight turn of my chin, a shuffle backward, a drawing in of my shoulder blades as if they were wings that needed hiding. I try not to be dismissive, but I know that’s what she sees. We both hear Abel come in, and my mom—with some relief—walks to the door to greet him. He’s been at football practice. I pretend I don’t know his schedule, like I couldn’t give a shit. The truth is I know where Abel is almost every minute of the day. I know where everyone in my family is, because if trouble that can’t be contained comes through The Rift, I might need to get to them quickly.
I put the pasta bowls on the kitchen table and neatly set a folded paper towel and a fork beside each one. I fill up a carafe with ice water and lay out four glasses. My family arrives from their separate corners of the house and everyone sits in their chairs. The conversation bounces lightly between them … and mostly off of me.
“We just got a prototype of a running jacket that I designed and I’m really excited about it,” Mom gushes. “I know you don’t run, Ryn, but it’s supercute. It would look great on you. You could use it as a light coat when the weather gets cooler.” I run, on average, about twenty miles a day—not that my family would know. When I tell my parents I hate working out, this is not exactly a lie. I don’t love exercising, but I don’t exactly have much choice, either. “I’ll order you one when it goes to market—if it goes to market. But I’m sure it will; everyone seems really positive about it at work.”
“That’s great, V,” my dad says, and gives her a broad smile.
“Thanks, Mom,” I say politely.
“So,” my dad begins, “how’s varsity looking?”
Abel’s mouth is full of food. I have never seen anyone eat as much as Abel does, not even Henry and he’s way bigger than my brother. Abel begins to nod his head as he swallows. “It’s good. I think it’s there if I want, only I’ll probably be benched most of the season. Greg Casiano is a great QB, and I’m just a freshman. I don’t think I’ll get much field time. Maybe I should just do JV so I can really play.” Abel takes another mouthful.
“I don’t know …” Dad ponders, lifting his thumb and index finger to his chin as if to stroke an imaginary beard. “Playing varsity all four years of high school looks great on a college application.”
Abel shrugs. He’s fourteen. He’s not thinking about college. He just wants to get out there and have some fun. I get it, and I think my mom does, too, but she doesn’t say anything. I know she will bring this up to my dad later, when they are alone. I also know what’s coming next.
“Speaking of college,” my dad says, turning his eyes to me. I groan inwardly but keep my face passive. “I hope you’re giving some serious thought about where you want to apply. Now’s the time, Ryn, and you have got to do some extracurricular activities. I know you’re in ARC, but it might not be enough. It’s not just about grades.”
My parents believe that ARC stands for Accelerated Rate Curriculum. They think I’m in a highly advanced scholastic program, but it’s a cover for the real acronym—Allied Rift Coalition. They moved to Battle Ground from Portland just so that I could be a part of the program. Even though I start my days off at Battle Ground High, I don’t even go to school. I don’t need to. When I was fourteen and my chip was activated, I had a secondary and post-secondary education downloaded straight into my brain. I still haven’t decided if this is the best or worst part of being a Citadel. ARC robbed me of the opportunity to learn like a normal person. I will never have to sit through a boring lecture or do homework or worry about getting to class. I don’t know if I got super lucky or completely cheated.
“She does all that volunteer work at the old military base,” Abel says brightly, and looks at me. God, my brother is a nice guy. He has so many reasons to be an asshole, but he’s just not wired that way. The taller Abel gets, the more protective of me he feels. It’s cute. I smile genuinely back at him.
“I just want you to find the right place, Ryn, where you can really open up and find out who you are, you know? A place that will help you come into your own. Nothing would make me happier.”
That would make me happy, too. And the fact is, I will leave Battle Ground in a couple years. My parents believe I am a junior in high school and think I will be off to college soon. In reality, though, I will be working another Rift site. I feel the dull throb of a headache emerging. I reach back with my hand and rub at an invisible scar at the base of my skull.
“I know, Dad,” I respond, but I don’t say anything else. There are a couple of seconds of silence before Abel tells me how much he likes the pasta, effectively switching the subject.
“Thanks,” I say gratefully. The talk resumes until dinner is over. I have said six words throughout the entire meal. My parents do not know me. They truly have no idea who I am. I hate that The Rift has denied them the opportunity. I excuse myself and walk upstairs to my room, grabbing my knapsack on the way. I close my door, turn some music on, and unzip my bag. I take out a binder, open it, and put it faceup on my bed. It is filled with fake assignments and handouts from nonexistent teachers. The ARC program (that is, the Accelerated Rate Curriculum) has us use an iPad instead of textbooks, and it is where all of our papers, written by God knows who, show up in the appropriate folders. I flip the iPad so the attached keyboard sits propped up beneath the screen, so if one of my parents happens to walk in, it’ll look like I’m working.
I take out a book, one of my own from the library, and lie down on the bed. I love reading, and every time I finish a book I feel both indulgent and defiant; I process information faster than a regular person. I could, in theory, read the book in my hands in about half an hour, but, through much trial and error, I have learned to slow this process down when I want. Reading should be savored. Each word should be enjoyed. I’m sure our bosses at ARC would prefer we read technical manuals, something practical on bomb making or physics. Actually, they would probably prefer that we spend our downtime doing crunches and pull-ups, which is never, ever going to happen. The reading is mine. It’s the one thing I won’t let them have.
I love the look on Applebaum’s face when I show up at work holding a romance novel.
And yet I can’t seem to enjoy reading tonight. I open the book and stare at the words. Each sentence seems to end and then double back on itself. If I truly focused I could let them settle, but I know there is no point. I keep the book cracked and bring it down over my face. Inhaling the ink and paper, I feel my tension slide just a little. This smell—of the library, of stories and childhood and oak shelves—is comforting.
I allow myself the luxury of thinking about Ezra.
I see him in the clearing near The Rift, so brave, so handsome, and so totally fucked. I throw the book across the room. It hits the wall with a thud. How can I get to him? Even if I do, what can I do? Be his friend? How can I be around him without wanting to kiss that beautiful mouth of his? I can’t. It’s impossible and then I’ll hurt him—literally. He’s been hurt enough. If I was a decent person I would just let it go, let him go. I am not a decent person, though. I am a liar and a killer. And I can’t stop thinking about him, of him being debriefed and tested back at the base. After that he’ll be sent to the Village. No one breaks out of there.
But, just maybe, someone can break in.
CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_24dccd56-f2c9-563e-a4cb-3e85956ddccd)
The next morning, I throw on some clothes and stuff my things back into my bag. It’s early. I know I am the first one awake. Since I need so little sleep, I am up at dawn or even earlier sometimes. I make a pot of tea and turn on the TV. I don’t really watch it, but the quiet always seems different first thing in the morning, more depressing somehow. The night feels like it’s full of possibilities, full of dreams and escape plans. Mornings are empty. I don’t know exactly what my day will bring, but I know that there is zero chance that I can stay home sick or skip, like I could if I was actually in school. I am needed at my post. People always say, “Oh, I have to get my hair done,” or “I have to pick up my dry cleaning.” In reality there are only a few things you absolutely have to do: eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, and, in my case, show up for my shift at work in front of an interdimensional Rift in time and space.
You know—the usual stuff.
I drink my tea and eat some toast, zoning out. My mom comes downstairs, takes her coffee with her and zooms out the door with a wave good-bye. She’s always in a hurry to get to work on time. I probably won’t see my dad this morning. He’s more of a night owl and doesn’t get out of bed till nine or ten. He’s his own boss. Must be nice.
It’s my job to get Abel out of bed. This is a Herculean effort that generally takes at least three separate wake-up calls and has involved, to a much more minor degree, some of the torture techniques I’ve been taught as a Citadel. Oddly enough, blaring death metal doesn’t work nearly as well on a teenage boy as one might think.
Eventually, after twenty highly annoying minutes (for both of us), Abel comes down dressed and ready for breakfast. He grumbles a simple “hey” in my direction as if the last half hour didn’t just happen and pours himself some juice. He then eats two bowls of cereal in under ten minutes. It’s impressive. We take turns brushing our teeth and then head out the door to my car.
Every summer I work full-time at The Rift. My parents think I’m a camp counselor. I do actually get paid pretty decently. I mean, I’m not a millionaire, but I will never have to worry about money. Once I turn eighteen and leave home I will get paid even more. In the meantime, as a minor, the majority of my money is held in trust. Isn’t that a bitch? At the end of the day, I probably have about as much money in the bank as an average teenager who only works during the summer. I was able to buy a car, though. I needed something fast because, once again, if shit goes sideways at The Rift, I might need to get everyone to safety in a hurry. A Ferrari was out of the question obviously, so I opted for a Dodge Challenger. It’s not the most comfortable ride in the world, but it’s fast, and big enough to fit my whole family. The choice absolutely baffled my parents. But since I rarely, if ever, ask them for anything, they agreed to sign the loan, especially since I put a large chunk of money down and make the payments myself.
Abel, on the other hand, thinks the car is cool, and that alone makes me happy about my choice. He slides into the passenger seat and I fire up the ignition. The engine purrs into life and I turn up the music, deliberately selecting a song I know my brother likes. I do these little things for him and I hope he’s getting old enough now to figure out that it’s my way of showing him how much I love him. Abel isn’t weak or helpless. But of course I worry about him. I might just love my brother more than anyone in the world, but I can’t get too close. The lying is always going to be a wedge, of course. But there’s more than that. As a soldier, my brain often goes to worst-case scenarios. Who knows what could happen? What if the Karekins invade and succeed? What if they round up everyone I love and hurt them just to try to get some leverage on me? Because of those thoughts, I must keep everyone at arm’s length. Close, just not enough to kill me if I lose them somehow.
The drive to Battle Ground High is uneventful. I park in the lot and my brother and I walk to the entrance.
“Later,” Abel says as he goes off in the direction of his locker. I turn right and follow the hallway to a solid metal door. I notice the other students staring at me. I feel their eyes scanning me with a mixture of fear and awe. They know I’m different, though they can’t quite figure out why, other than I’m part of the ARC. Whatever. I look forward and ignore them all. I don’t have the time or the energy to think about how these kids perceive me. I’m too focused on trying to save their lives.
I walk down a flight of stairs into what is, in theory, the ARC section of school. This section is guarded by what looks like just a normal security guard but who is, in fact, a private in the army. For all intents and purposes the entrance looks like a metal detector, but it’s all for show, like the rest of this area. This need for enhanced security was built around a lie that one of the ARC kids pulled a gun and tried to shoot a bunch of students when the first Citadels started working. They said we were under more pressure than the other kids. That the workload was so demanding and the schedule so brutal that extra precautions were necessary. This also handily sets up another lie: that the intensity of the program could be mollified by increased physical activity. As such, they tell our parents we take daily martial arts instruction to reduce stress and anxiety in a productive way. It helps explain if we happen to do something extraordinary (“Oh—we learned that today. It’s Krav Maga.”), and it’s an excellent cover for all the injuries we come home with. The key is our parents will never know it’s not true, because no one gets through here without proper ID. I walk through the metal detector and down a long hallway with empty classrooms on either side. Although there are other Citadels here waiting to go through the last bit of security, this is a lonely stretch of linoleum. The classrooms, fully kitted out and ready to hold students, are just another lie. If things were different, I would be right here every day—learning and probably hating it a lot—but all of this seems oddly cruel, like a reminder of what we can’t have. ARC has to keep up appearances, though, for open house nights and fake teacher conferences.
I wait for the few people ahead of me to have their retinas scanned, then put my eye up to the device. “Confirmed,” a soothing voice says. “Citadel Ryn Whittaker, designation 473. Proceed to transport.” Now this … this is where it gets interesting. ARC built a train beneath the school, linking it straight to Camp Bonneville. Think of it as a high-speed subway that takes us the few miles to base in just under ten minutes. I hate this thing. If the Karekins ever got through our line and found the entrance at the base, Command Center can remotely blow the whole tunnel so that it collapses and prevents the Karekins from getting into town—and they’ll blow it up regardless of whether there are Citadels in the tunnel at the same time or not. You take your chances every time you step in here. It’s a death trap. I practically hold my breath during each ride.
When the train slows to a stop, I hightail it out of there and take the stairs up just one level to our locker rooms. I shimmy into my uniform quickly and as I do, I feel the change come over me as well. Once again I’m not a kid anymore. I’m a soldier. I’m ready for action. Today might be the day I die.
God, I’m morbid.
As I pull my hair up into a ponytail, Violet races in. It’s clear she has just come from dance practice. Her hair is in a perfect bun. She is wearing tights and leg warmers over a long-sleeved leotard. The irony is so glaringly obvious I don’t even need to say anything.
“Oh, good,” she says a little frantically as she begins to open her locker. “I thought I was going to be late. I’m actually a little early for a change.”
I give her a warm smile. “You’re fine.” A regular soldier walks in and stands a little nervously in front of me. We have a complicated relationship with the military here. Special Ops used to run the show at The Rift, but they did a pretty piss-poor job of it. There were many casualties on both sides, and so they were taken off the job once the first crop of Citadels was activated. It’s only natural that a Navy Seal or a Ranger would resent a fourteen-year-old kid who can not only pull rank but kick your ass in every fight. I never saw it happen, but we’ve all heard stories of the early years. It created a very us-versus-them mentality. Tensions have only eased as the older, professional soldiers have been transferred out and replaced with younger, greener troops. These newer troops are still resentful, but they are mostly just intimidated. We all kind of respectfully leave one another alone.
“Citadel Ryn?” the soldier says. “Colonel Applebaum wants to see you.”
Violet and I exchange glances. I figured that he would have stopped me yesterday before I went home. When he didn’t, I assumed I was in the clear.
Apparently not.
“Okay,” I say brusquely, and grab the rest of my gear. There are weapons caches all over the bunker. Normally we grab ours from an armory room beside the transport bay right before we go on duty at The Rift site. I’m sure Applebaum wouldn’t want to meet any of us for disciplinary action with rifles in our hands. I follow the private out the door, up another flight of stairs to Command. There is nothing much to see at the base from the outside. A few buildings here and there, defunct shooting ranges. But beneath all of that is a bunker, a vast network of offices, control rooms, training facilities, and dorms in case we need to put everyone on lockdown for safety.
The soldier leads us through a maze of corridors until we reach Applebaum’s office. I knock once and wait for him to tell me to enter.
When he does, I walk through the door and stand at attention in the middle of the small room. He is seated behind a large wooden desk. It seems out of place in this room; it’s more presidential than military, though the office is actually decorated quite nicely, with bookshelves, framed photos on the walls, and an ornate desk lamp that looks like an antique. Fancy. My eyes hover on a picture of Applebaum and Christopher Seelye in the Oval Office. I involuntarily shudder. Applebaum is a prick, but Seelye is something else. If anyone is the villain in this story it could easily be him, the president of ARC. Then again, he could also be the hero. I know he certainly thinks he’s the hero, and maybe I would think he is, too, if I didn’t feel like taking a shower every time I had to deal with him. His face is happy and light, but his eyes tell a different story. He isn’t afraid of us Citadels. Sometimes Applebaum accidentally slips and lets his guard down. The horror of what we do, the carnage we leave behind—it frightens him. Seelye is proud. He makes me feel like a shiny gun or an expensive sports car, like something he owns.
“At ease, Ryn.” I move my legs apart and put my arms behind my back. We stare at each other in uncomfortable silence for a few seconds.
“Ryn,” he begins, “you’re a good soldier. A natural leader with superb combat skills. I depend on you.”
I keep my gaze fixed above his head, on a photograph of him with the president and first lady. “Thank you, sir,” I respond.
“But that stunt yesterday was not only a breach of protocol—it was stupid. You saw a kid your age, you assumed he was an MTI, but that guess endangered you and your team. You could have gotten hurt or worse.” Applebaum’s voice is level but strained. He pauses. Maybe he thinks I agree with him, but I don’t. He closes his eyes for a moment and sighs. “You know why we call them MTIs? Minimal Threat Immigrants? Because there is no such thing as a Zero Threat Immigrant. These people, or whatever they happen to be, that come through The Rift are never not going to be a threat. It’s our fault that they are snatched from their homes and loved ones. It’s our fault that they can never return. They have every right in the world to be pissed off about that. We can never let our guard down around them. Do you understand?”
“I understand that you believe that, sir, but I’m not sure I can completely agree,” I state calmly.
He looks at me and narrows his eyes. Then he pounds his fist hard on the table. I do not flinch. “No, Ryn, that is unacceptable. You, more than anyone, should know that we can’t trust what comes out of that green hellhole.” Applebaum’s voice is rising with every word and still I do not move, nor do I change the look of indifference on my face. “This isn’t Portland. The Rift isn’t an organic farm. On a good day it’s a hot zone. On a bad day it’s a war zone. You can’t act like a social worker out here. That’s not your job.”
“So having empathy and compassion makes me a social worker? I mean, call me crazy, but shouldn’t having those things be kind of a prerequisite if you’re going to be pointing a gun at someone?” I know I’m speaking out of turn, but I’m getting fed up. He’s not the one fighting. He sits on his ass all day while I put mine on the line. Besides, look what they did to us. What a hypocrite. I might not have lost my home, but I lost any chance at a normal life when I was seven years old. Don’t they get that? That we could be just as dangerous, if not more so, than any Immigrant, for practically the same reason?
“Possibly. The only thing I know for sure is that we can never, ever trust them. Period,” Applebaum says flatly.
“We trust the Roones,” I snap back.
“They’re different. I don’t even think they are capable of feeling hate, or actually anything for that matter. And they saved us,” he says quickly.
I finally look at him. “So says the guy without a chip in his skull.”
Applebaum smiles smugly and leans back in his chair, holding his arms out in front of him and gripping his desk. “You’re young. I always forget that about you kids. You fight so well—and don’t get me wrong; you all do an excellent job—but it’s always a bit like playing soldiers, isn’t it? What’s that thing the nerds do? Larp? Larping? It’s like that. No real discipline.” He shakes his head and closes his eyes. For a brief moment I imagine punching a hole right through his chest. I imagine taking one of his hands and pulling it all the way back, breaking the bone so that it sticks out from his wrist. The fact that I don’t disproves his theory of discipline. Even so, I will not give him the satisfaction of seeing how his truly offensive words have stung me. I will not let him dismiss me as a sulky teenager.
“Will that be all, sir?” I ask in a passive voice.
“Don’t let it happen again, Ryn. You’re the team leader for a reason. Boone’s a clown, Violet is a ballerina, and Henry is coiled so tight I think he might be one mission away from going postal. You’re the only one with any sense. Or at least that’s what I thought until yesterday. Don’t disappoint me again.”
I refuse to say anything. I know he’s pushing me, though I can’t imagine what reason he has for doing so. My own family can’t get a reaction out of me—and I want to be around them. This guy is getting nothing from me.
After another couple of seconds, he sighs and tells me to go.
I meet the rest of the team at transport to The Rift site. The site is about a mile away, down a graveled road through the forest. We say very little in the car because there are just normal troops accompanying us and we prefer to keep our distance from them. We understand that the things we say get reported back to Command and then to ARC. We’re on the same team, but at the same time, we’re not. No one trusts anyone here, and either way, I’m happy for the silence.
Today we are working up in one of the seven Nests above ground, in the tree line. The Nests surround The Rift and serve as both lookouts and vantage points for sharpshooting, if it comes to that. The four of us easily scale the rope ladder that leads up to a wood platform suspended in a huge sequoia tree. There are provisions here—water and emergency rations—but no bathrooms. The boys will often piss in empty bottles. The girls have gotten good at holding it until the shift is over in four hours.
Nothing like a little institutional sexism to remind us we’re in the military.
Omega Team is at the rock on lookout. We really just have to check in and make sure Command knows we’re here if needed. I ask the team to make sure their earpieces are functioning and then we disable the mics so we can talk without being overheard.
“So, did Applebaum cut you a new one this morning?” Boone asks, wasting no time. Before I can even answer he goes off again. “He’s an ass. You didn’t do anything wrong, Ryn,” Boone assures me.
“You really didn’t,” Vi adds.
I lean back against a wooden slat in the platform. “I shouldn’t have gone in alone. Without a weapon. It wasn’t the smartest move,” I confess.
“It wasn’t,” Henry says through clenched teeth.
Violet places a hand on my arm. “Oh, please. He was young and cute. It’s bad enough that he ended up here. He didn’t need a bunch of us ambushing him.”
I have to smile at her optimism.
Henry pulls a few pine needles off a close branch and throws them down from the Nest. “He could have been dangerous. You gambled. It worked out okay, but it might not have.”
“Stop being such a hard-ass all the time, Henry,” Boone says. “It’s boring. I think I might have a coronary if you ever cracked a joke.” Of course, Boone’s sarcasm does not play well with Henry. Henry is wound tight. Applebaum hadn’t gotten that wrong. At six four, he is the biggest of us. His mom is Korean and his dad is Native American. He’d probably be the total package if you didn’t have to go on such a search-and-rescue mission for his personality. The thing about Henry, other than the fact that he’s a superb soldier, is that he is loyal as anything. He’s taken a bullet for me more than once, multiple punches, and even a knife wound. Whether we are at work or hanging out, he is always just there. I love him. I love his quiet strength and the little things he does to show he cares about us—things that Boone is too clueless to pick up on.
“Knock it off, Boone. It was fine with Applebaum, but to be honest I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“Fine.” Vi tries to negotiate. “We’ll leave Applebaum out of it if you tell us why you went out there alone. I meant to ask yesterday, but you went home so fast.”
“Whoa, what’s with all the questions?” I snap. “It seemed like the right thing to do. That’s it. No agenda. I just said I didn’t want to talk about it. God.” My teammates look at each other with raised eyebrows.
“It’s okay to think someone is cute,” Violet says softly. “It’s okay to be attracted to someone, to have feelings for someone even if they come through The Rift.”
At that, I have to laugh. I look at her, my eyes widening. “Are you crazy? It’s not okay to be attracted to anyone. Because obviously, thanks to ARC, we’re mature enough to save the world but not mature enough to keep our hormones in check.” Without thinking, I pick up my arms and start doing a weird version of jazz hands while talking in an absurdly low voice. “Hey, I’m ARC,” I blurt out sarcastically. “We’re going to make you superstrong and superfast and supersmart but not smart enough!” I’m off on a tangent now. I see Henry sigh. “You might check for a text from your boyfriend while you’re fighting for your life, so we’re just going to put this little glitch in your implant that turns you into a maniac if you touch anyone you might be remotely attracted to. Not so much as a little, teeny-tiny, even-Catholics-would-approve-of-it hug. Nope, sorry! No sex for you! Ever!”
“You didn’t need to go straight to the Blood Lust, Ryn,” Violet says with an undeniable hint of sadness. “It’s a long way from liking the way someone looks, and maybe even crushing on them a bit, to activating that part of the chip’s programming. It’s not like we have no control.”
I look up to the sky and shake my head. “Oh, well, I know that,” I spit back meanly. “Look at you and Boone. You guys have been in love with each other since we were fourteen and you two haven’t killed each other.” This is common knowledge, but we never speak it. The fact that we are all just the best of friends, like family—that is another lie. “It’s easy, right? As long as you guys don’t touch each other or even brush up against one another. Unless you’re fighting. We can always fight. They made damn sure of that.”
“Shut up, Ryn,” Boone shoots back, clearly wounded.
“And what about poor Henry?” I continue even as Henry shoots me a death stare. “He’s gay. I mean, seriously, he’s like every gay guy’s wet dream. He could get more ass than all of us put together and he can’t even jerk off without destroying his bedroom, maybe even his whole house. So yeah, I’m a little skittish. I’m a little fucking sensitive about being attracted to anyone, because I can’t even stick my hand down my pants and make this teeth-grinding ache go away.” The silence in the Nest becomes a living thing, awkward and full of ugliness. I put my head down on my knees. Shit.
“I’m sorry,” I say finally. “That was mean. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. And so help me God, Boone, if you say ‘PMS’ I will punch you in the face.” Boone puts his hands up in surrender. “Can we please just drop it? I don’t know why I went out there or why this Ezra guy should be any different from anyone else. He probably isn’t. I’m just … I don’t know …” I rummage around in my head trying to come up with the words to explain how I feel. When I can’t, I just apologize again.
Vi reaches over and gives me a hug. “It’s okay. We’re all just doing the best we can. Some days are better than others,” she says, and I nod my head, embarrassed. I hate hurting my friends. And for the most part, Violet was right. The Blood Lust is one of the crueler by-products of the chip, but it’s not like we want to kill every person we find attractive. It’s always there, though, simmering beneath the surface like a sleeping junkyard dog. As long as we are careful, as long as we don’t linger on romantic thoughts or touch someone that we might have—in another life—hooked up with, the dog remains asleep. I understand that the idea behind this wiring was to make us more efficient, but honestly it takes a lot of energy to suppress these urges. ARC must know this, but they continue on with it anyhow. Maybe it’s just too late; they can’t have some Citadels who can get it on and some who can’t without a mutiny. Or maybe it’s just another cruel way to control us. I don’t know, but if you combine the Blood Lust with our constant lying and living a double life, we can burn out in this job. When that happens, they send the Citadel away for a couple months to recuperate. Sounds great, but it’s not something we push for. Our teams depend on us. What if something bad happens while we’re gone? Something we might have stopped?
I take hold of her hand. “Thanks, Vi.” I watch Boone look at us. We are comforting each other the way best friends do. He turns sharply away, uncomfortable, knowing it’s something he’ll never be able to safely do with her—yes, even something as benign as holding her hand. There’s a lot of pain on this platform, and it’s relieved only when I suddenly hear Omega Team in my earpiece. The Rift is opening. I enable my mic, as do the rest of us.
We stand and look out at The Rift. That was quick. We have been on duty for only a matter of minutes. I check in with Command, confirming that we have eyes on the situation and can see The Rift opening. The center of The Rift turns black as tar and then we hear an earsplitting sound.
An explosive detonated by a hand-held rocket launcher deploys as soon as the Karekins enter this Earth. They don’t mess around. The rocket destroys a tree about seventy-five feet away from us. Karekins are streaming out of The Rift. I use my enhanced eyesight to count as they come through. A dozen. Two dozen, fifty, one hundred, one hundred fifty, two hundred. That’s a significant number. There are about a hundred of us Citadels, so I don’t love the odds. The five other teams that have been hiding in trenches will emerge. The reinforcements will come forward. Each Nest team will jump down, leaving the best marksman behind to shoot whomever they can safely. In our case it’s Violet. Boone, Henry, and I give each other a nod and do a swan dive off the platform, flipping at the last second so that we land on our feet. I immediately get shot in the shoulder. Karekins use laser technology. I wince in pain and take sharp breaths until I can steady myself. The suit has absorbed most of the impact. I’ll have a bruise, but that’s about it.
I take about two seconds to calm down. I must not be angry. I must feel nothing. I must run forward when every instinct I have still says, even after all this time, to get the fuck out of there. I take out my gun and shoot one Karekin in the middle of the forehead. I swing around and shoot another in the same place. Karekins, like us, evolved from apes. I think in their case it was more of a King Kong thing. They are eight or nine feet tall, and hairy. Their eyes are small and slit-like. They use sound and smell mostly to fight. Sounds like a big disadvantage, but the research people at ARC think it might be an advanced form of echolocation that allows them to compensate for their poor eyesight. They aren’t savage, though. They wear sleek black uniforms and have advanced weaponry—lasers, remember? Most important, they keep coming through, and they seem more prepared each time to deal with us. It’s almost as if they are getting to know our weaknesses and adapting, which should be technically impossible. Because that would mean that they are reporting back through The Rift, and they should not be able to do that. Yet here they are. Shooting into the trees, into the Nests.
How else would they know to do that?
I feel one of the Karekins pick me up from behind and fling me at least twenty feet to the side. My shoulder takes the brunt of the impact. I know it’s been dislocated. I flip up before I can get attacked again. I try to pull my shoulder back into its socket. I can’t get the right angle. Bracing myself, I smash it into a tree so that it pops back into place. I hear a Karekin behind me. I kick out, pushing off from the tree trunk. I turn around and he staggers a bit. I leap up, using his shoulders as leverage, and land with my legs around his neck. I squeeze, and we both fall to the ground with a thud. I reach down and pull my bowie knife from my boot and stab him squarely in the throat. I push my body out from underneath him. Just for good measure I slice his throat back and forward. Blood spurts all over me.
Gross.
I almost laugh at that thought—surrounded as I am by all this gore and death—but another Karekin is already racing toward me on the ground. I have just enough time to whip my knife out of the other one’s throat and throw it into the approaching Karekin’s right eye. Their suits are just as protective as ours, so there is no point in aiming anywhere else. Boone runs up beside the one who is now down on his knees with my knife planted firmly in his eye. Boone shoots him in the forehead and kicks him down to the ground.
There are screams and shouts, and the sound of gunshots and the smell of blood are thick in the morning air. I cannot afford to take the time to really live in the middle of all this. And yet, just for a split second I wonder how I got here. Who put my name down on the list for this? Who guessed that I would make such a good killer? Who would even look at a seven-year-old and be able to imagine such a thing?
“Ryn!” Henry screams at me. He leaps ten feet in the air. I turn just in time to hear a laser pulse whiz past my ear. I can’t believe how stupid that was. I lost focus for just a couple seconds and I almost died. Henry is now just a few feet away, but before I can turn and face the enemy to fight, I feel a massive Karekin hand on the back of my neck. He’s going to try to snap it and now I have to break free. Henry lunges at him. The Karekin has just enough time to remove his hands and hit me with something large and heavy on the head. When I fall, the sky shifts sideways. It’s like it happens in slow motion. One minute I’m up and the next I am floating to the ground. Henry has killed my attacker. From this angle it all looks so different. Like a dance. I can almost hear music in the rifle shots.
“Ryn, are you okay?” Henry screams, but his voice seems far away, like he’s on the other side of the forest and not right beside me. I open my mouth to answer, but all my words are gone. I want to say that yes, I am fine, but I am not fine. I am always almost dying and so is he and Violet and Boone. I am not fine, because I will most likely die a virgin. I will never have another profession. I am a liar. I’m not even sure I am capable of telling an absolute truth. My head will heal, but I am not okay. I want to say this, but I can’t say anything. Nothing is working on my face. Henry stands guard over me, taking out two or three Karekins as I lie helpless on the ground. The world tilts again and everything goes black.
CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_14f83148-aa41-547c-8ffe-a2e3bec8af6f)
I awake to the steady electronic beeping of my heart. I am back at the base in the medical facility. I am hooked up to an IV. As my eyes flutter open, I see the plastic tube first, running from the back of my hand to a bag beside me. I try to blink away the fuzzy outline of everything in the room. In short order, the room snaps into focus. I am not lying down but reclined on the gurney. I try to sit completely up, but I feel a small hand gently push me back to the bed.
“Easy, Citadel Ryn. You are safe,” the voice purrs. I know immediately that it is a Roone. Their voices are distinctly nonhuman. They rasp and whirr; it’s difficult for the muscles in their throats to push out the words in our language. I recognize the kind blue eyes that are looking back at me with concern. She is smiling, and her skin, like polished onyx, reflects off the fluorescent lights. The Roones are tiny, all of them under five feet. Their bodies are made up of a higher mineral count, so their skin looks like lacquered stone. They vary in color, as rocks and people do. They have no hair and their faces are mostly eyes.
I smile weakly. “Edo, I told you, please just call me Ryn.”
“It is a form of respect, Citadel. Like the great castles and fortresses on your Earth, you do so much to keep us safe. Citadels are our greatest defense and it is my job to make sure that you do not become a ruin.” Edo checks the electronic pad in her hands and looks at my IV bag. “Though I must say, there are times when you make that increasingly difficult.”
I look at the clock on the wall. It’s almost one. I have been out for hours. Not good. “Then why don’t I call you Doctor Edo, or Nurse Edo, or … What are you, again?”
“Because there is no name for what I am in your language,” she answers kindly. “But if it makes you more comfortable I will simply call you Ryn.” Edo squeezes my shoulders lightly. I feel the pressure of her cold, hard hands, but it is not unpleasant.
“You always say that, but then you forget.” She gives me a look that says in a million years she would not forget anything, and I sigh. “How bad is it?”
“Not bad at all. A little concussion. We’ve given you medicine and the swelling is gone. Your brain is back to normal. We put you to sleep so that you could heal.” Edo once again looks at the silver pad in her hands. She could be checking my vitals, but because she is a Roone and the implants were designed by them, I am almost positive she is checking to make sure the chip is functioning at full capacity. I reach back and feel a small metal disk the size of quarter, which is magnetized to attach to my implant. “If I keep getting these little concussions I’m going to turn into one of those football players who goes off the deep end one day.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about. But we have repaired all the damage done to the tissue around the concussed area. It’s as if it never happened, and your implant …” Edo smiles, but the smile is weird, off somehow.
“What about my implant?” I ask, immediately sitting up.
“It’s fine. I promise.” Edo’s smile is genuine this time. I can’t say why, but I know she is not being totally honest with me. I am an expert in detecting even the barest hint of a lie, and my experiences at The Rift have meant my expertise is not limited to humans. I would push, but I know that I would never get a straight answer. Most Roones remind me of robots. Since they are responsible for the chip that created the Citadels, I am naturally resentful of them. Edo, though, is unlike others of her kind. She is warm and even funny. Still, she is not different enough to confide in me. Instead, I take that one moment when she let me see something in her face that I shouldn’t have, and file it away for later.
I pull the magnetized disk off my neck and hold it in my hands. It just looks like a shiny, round piece of metal to me. I examine it for a second or two before handing it back to Edo. She takes the disk and attaches it to her pad.
“My team?” I ask, stretching my back.
“Training. But you are not going with them today. I have put you on twelve hours of bed rest. You can do that here or at home. Your choice.”
“Oh my God. Home for sure. No offense.” I grin.
Edo looks at me warmly. “You did well today, Citadel Ryn. You killed at least three Karekins. No one from our side was seriously injured. A victory.” Edo does not sound victorious.
“Today, yes,” I concede. “But what about tomorrow? What about when five hundred come through—or five thousand? What then? And why? Why haven’t we been able to get any intel on their agenda? Why isn’t everyone more freaked out about what’s happening with them?” I try to sound logical—Roones don’t deal well with too much emotion—but I’m sure there’s a ton of frustration in my voice.
“I don’t have an answer to those questions, though they are good ones,” Edo says carefully.
“Come on,” I say, sitting up straighter and giving her a level stare. “The Karekins must have a way of navigating The Rift, of passing information through it. If that’s the case, then why isn’t every single person on this base—and every other base, for that matter—working their asses off to figure that out? If they did, wouldn’t that mean you could go home?”
Edo takes a step away from me and hugs the pad closer to her chest. “I do not think about home anymore. It is pointless and painful. Words, explanations, reasons—none of those things help when tragedy strikes. We just do what we can to continue. To survive.” Edo sighs and it sounds like a rush of wings. She steps closer to me. “I am sorry, Citadel Ryn. For the pain that you feel today and every day. I truly am. Why don’t you get some rest for a little while longer and then you can leave with your team?” Without waiting for me to say anything in return, Edo walks out the door.
AS VI IS DRIVING ME and Abel home in my car, I feel almost 100 percent, apart from a slight headache that could have nothing to do with the fighting. The conversation I had with Edo is still with me. There was something about it that wasn’t right, but since it is only my intuition guiding that feeling, I don’t feel confident in sharing my thoughts with Violet or anyone else on the team. I don’t even know what I would say to them because I’m not sure if Edo was lying or if she was, in fact, trying to hint at something else—though what that could be, I can’t imagine. Something about my implant? We get to our house and Abel gives Violet a funny look. “Aren’t we going to drop you off first?” he asks. Man, he’s observant for a teenage boy.
“Nah. I’m going to walk home. I know Ryn has a bunch of work she needs to do by tomorrow. I think she wants to get a jump on it.” I roll my eyes. Violet is mothering me. She wants me to get to bed after the day I’ve had, but I feel fine. It’s also a terrible lie—I cringe at how lame it sounds. But Abel just shrugs, says good-bye, and runs into the house.
Violet lives less than half a mile away from us. If she runs, she’ll be home in less than two minutes. I feel antsy. I don’t want to go inside just yet. “I’m going to walk with you.”
“Ryn …” she starts.
“I need the air. I know I’m supposed to be resting, but as long as you don’t mind not running, I think it’ll be fine.”
“I think you already know I’m fine with not running,” Violet says, not bothering to hide the exasperation in her voice.
“Good,” I tell her as I head toward the direction of her house. We live in a quiet, leafy part of Battle Ground called Meadow Glade. It’s early in the season, so the leaves have not yet turned. Vi is unusually quiet.
“I’m sorry again, about the crack I made about you and Boone. It was shitty.”
Violet shrugs. “It was. But it was also true. There’s a part of me that’s glad you said it out loud. Somebody had to.” More silence. A couple cars and a kid on a bike pass us. “Do you think you’ll ever get it removed?”
I bite my lip, unsure of what to say. I know that I have to say something, just to make my friend feel better, but she wouldn’t want my real answer.
“Well, if I make it to thirty, I might,” I lie to her. We were told that at thirty, we could have our chips removed and go on and live a normal life. Settle down. Get married. Have kids. It’s a wonderful dream to sell us. But I know I will never take it out. First of all, I doubt I am going to make it to thirty. Even if I do, I would be so totally messed up from doing this job that I am positive I would be a crap wife and an even worse mom. I would worry all the time about The Rift, but without my enhanced abilities, I would have no way of defending my white-picket-fence life. I am lonely now, but I am useful. Who’s to say that I wouldn’t be just as lonely without the implant? More than likely I would end up alone anyhow because this life I’m living is taking a toll and I know it. I would be weak and I would never really be normal.
But Vi is not me. We arrive at her house, a quaint and cozy craftsman painted gray with white trim, and I think she might have a chance at this kind of life in the future, even without Boone. Then again, I’m not sure if she wants it. Violet is an only child. Her parents work a lot and she is often alone. This never seems to bother her. She must be lonely, as we all are, but I never see it. She grabs me and pulls me into a long hug.
“I hate it when you get hurt, Ryn. I worry so much about you.” We both know that she is not just talking about my injury today. I am the team leader. I carry an extra burden, one that I am happy to accept. Everyone else seems to have some kind of an outlet for their frustration. Violet dances, Boone jokes, and Henry trains pretty much twenty-four hours a day. I strategize—and by that, I mean I overanalyze, running scenarios in which I am able to make sure everyone is safe. My own safety is rarely a priority.
Another person might say I worry.
“I’ll be fine. We’ve got the day off tomorrow, so I’ll sleep in and chill,” I promise her.
“Yeah, but you are going to Flora’s party tomorrow, right?”
I groan inwardly. I do not feel like going to any party. I want as little social interaction as possible over the next twenty-four hours. Vi looks at me expectantly, though, and I know I have to go. I am the buffer between her and Boone. I make it safe for them to be together.
Being team leader doesn’t end when you step out of uniform. It’s always there. I am never not doing my job. So I finally say, “Of course. She is practically my neighbor. It would be kind of rude if I didn’t go.”
Violet gives me a huffy sort of laugh. “Oh, please, like you give a shit what anyone thinks about you. But thanks. I’ll come over a bit early and get ready with you.” I nod my head and watch Violet walk into the house. I amble slowly back, trying to block out the swirling thoughts that are beating inside my brain. I just want to not think—about anything. I need a break from my own brooding over Ezra and Edo and the implant and the people I killed today.
It’s so hard to fight a war hardly anyone knows about.
When I get home I tell Abel that I don’t feel well and that I am going to bed. He’s playing a video game. Something with shooting and guns. I practically leap up the stairs to get away from the noise. I skip dinner and my dad comes in eventually to check on me.
“Rynnie?” I see his outline under the door, through the purplish twilight of the day’s end.
“Yeah?” I am in bed. My iPad is open beside me. I have been trying to read, but mostly I have been lying here with my eyes closed.
“Can I come in?” I tell him yes, and he walks in and sits gingerly on the edge of my bed. Unlike other teenagers’, my room is spotless. Since becoming a Citadel, I have become an obsessive organizer, taking control of the one thing in my life I feel that I can. “What’s wrong? Are you coming down with something?” He puts the back of his hand over my cheeks and forehead.
“No, I’m just tired.” I don’t turn away from him. I like the way his skin feels on my own. Safe. Comforting. I regress to ten years old, when my dad was everything to me. My biggest hero, my greatest champion. I remember what it was like to be so small he could hold me in his arms. My eyes begin to tear, but in the darkness, he won’t see. He waits a minute, and then runs a hand over my head.
“I’m sorry if I came on too strong about college. I know you’ll make the right choice. I’m your dad, and even though you’re such a good kid, I worry about you.” A tear spills down my cheek and I turn my head into the pillow to wipe it off. “You used to talk nonstop. You wanted to know how everything worked. ‘Why is the sky blue?’ ‘Do animals have their own heaven?’ ‘Is gasoline like water for cars?’ You had such an imagination, Ryn.” My dad laughs, remembering. “We would play the quiet game and you would sit on your hands and stomp your feet, dying to speak. Your face would go red! And now …” My dad breaks off. “Well, I suppose it’s a teenage thing, or friggin’ ARC. I never thought I would miss those millions of questions, but I do, Rynnie. I really do.”
“Yeah.” I wish I could say more, but I don’t trust myself to speak. “Sorry.” It’s about all I can manage. My dad stands up.
“Don’t be sorry. Just, I don’t know, reach out once in a while. Let us know what’s going on in that magnificent head of yours. We’re here for you. There’s nothing you could tell us that would make us love you any less.” No, they wouldn’t love me any less if they knew the truth, but they would never get over it. They would be furious, worried, half-crazy if they knew.
I roll over on my side, away from him. “’Kay, ’night.”
“Love you, darling girl,” he says as he walks toward the door.
“I love you, too,” I whisper. My parents are great, truly good people.
I cannot say the same about myself.
CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_68998b8d-0b0e-5ce3-a6b7-a60c7e237d9a)
Violet has outdone herself with the wardrobe selection. She is wearing super-high-waisted jeans and a skinny belt around her impossibly tiny waist. Her gray silk blouse is unbuttoned low enough to show some cleavage. She is covered from head to toe, but the look is far sexier than the trampy, try-too-hard outfits I know the other girls at the party will be wearing. I tried to get away with a sweatshirt and my yoga pants, and honestly it almost came to blows. After refusing to put on a dress, or a skirt, I finally agreed to short Levi’s cutoffs and a cropped black tank. I insisted on my dark brown leather boots with straps, but I did concede to a bunch of jangly bangles. I am wearing my hair long and loose. I almost always wear it back, so even I am a little surprised when I see how long it is—down to the middle of my back. My hair is a Nordic blond with a natural wave. Because I wear it up so often, I have darker-blond highlights that have been tucked away from the sun. I pull the light strands over my shoulders and twist the ends to make it look smoother. When I realize I am preening at my own reflection, I stop. I’m not used to caring about how I look, but for tonight, I realize how much I want to look pretty. Or at least, I want to know that I can be pretty.
I let Vi put makeup on me. Luckily we both agree that, for me, less is more. I only look good wearing makeup if I don’t actually look like I have any on. Violet has dark voluminous hair and even darker eyes. Her skin, though, is as fair as mine. She can get away with all kinds of crazy eye shadow colors and, unlike me, not look like a hooker.
We walk to Flora Branach’s house and don’t bother to knock. We can hear the music blasting, so there’s no point. We get more than a few stares when we walk in. I know the boys are imagining all kinds of sexual scenarios when they look at us. What they don’t know is that we’d likely crush their windpipes before they would ever find out what we look like without our shirts.
The way some of them are outright leering, the prospect of some broken tracheas appeals to me. I find myself smiling.
The house is jam-packed. I guess we took more time getting ready than I’d thought. Boone comes up behind us and starts dancing right away with Violet. I suppose the fact that they’re grooving to a boy-band song from the nineties in a room full of people takes the sex appeal right out of it. Surprisingly, he’s actually pretty good. Violet starts doing what I can only assume is the Robot. I laugh, and so does everyone else. People don’t, like, dance at house parties. But Vi and Boone somehow make it cool. I’m sure that everyone will join them soon enough. Maybe if I drink enough, I will, too. But it takes a lot for us Citadels to get drunk.
Flora sees me from the kitchen and starts to shimmy toward me with an extra cup in her hand.
“You came.” She looks pleased and also strangely wary. The corners of her mouth are turned up into a smile, but it seems forced.
“I did,” I say, smiling back at her. There is an awkward silence for a couple seconds. We both just stand there, grinning like assholes. The thing is, Flora and I used to be absolute best friends. Flora and I had almost every class together in eighth grade and we had an instant connection. We just got each other. We liked all the same things and, with her living so close to me, I think we spent just about every day together. She can be sassy but also really kind. When the headaches came because of the implant, I can vividly remember lying in her lap, her room darkened because the light stung my eyes. She would put a cold washcloth on my forehead and whisper that everything was going to be fine. She talked me through that agony on more than one occasion.
I repaid her by abruptly cutting her out of my life once I became a Citadel.
I was mean about it because I was mad, too. I just couldn’t lie to her; she was my best friend. So I avoided her as much as possible. It broke both our hearts. We have gotten over the worst of it by now. We are civil to one another—nice, even. Still, it will never be the same between us. Tonight, though, she seems weird but happy, happier than I have seen her in a long time. Her cheeks are flushed, and I realize part of the reason for her attitude: She is drunk. She passes me a drink and puts a hand on my shoulder.
“I mean …” Flora begins, “how can you not even have one ounce of body fat on you? It’s, like, not natural.” Flora is slurring her words. I take the drink and shrug. What am I supposed to do? Apologize? I look around, suddenly uncomfortable. “I think you … something is going on there. I don’t know. It’s Levi, too. Levi!” she screams over the music, and waves her arm wildly. I catch her older brother’s eye. He’s on the stairs, behind us. Watching. Slowly he walks down and joins us. Levi and I look at each other, communicating caution without words.
He is tall and muscular but not too beefy—as his sister noted, not an ounce of fat on him, either. His hair is a true auburn, like his sister’s, and his eyes are the most remarkable shade of green, far brighter than my own. Another interesting fun fact about Levi is that he tried to work around his implant with his girlfriend, another Citadel, named Ingrid. She ended up in a coma for three weeks, while he got most of his ribs broken. A leg, too.
Oh … and he’s a jerk.
During one of my first experiences with Karekins at The Rift, I had almost let one get the jump on one of his teammates. When it was over, he just screamed at me. He was the first boy I really crushed on, but after that day any romantic feelings I had for him immediately evaporated. To be fair, he was never really all that nice (hot, yes, but aloof), but after the Ingrid thing he became a downright prick. I generally avoided him as much as I could.
“You two.” Flora sways as she says it and points a finger at us both. “What is it with you? You’re like aliens. You think I’m stupid? You think I don’t know there’s some freaky shit going on?” Levi tries to grab the drink from her hand, but she lifts it up and spins away from him. “Fuck off, Levi, you weirdo.”
“I think you’ve had enough to drink,” he says sternly, narrowing his eyes.
“Shut up, Spider-Man, or whatever the hell you are. I just wanted to tell you both that I don’t know exactly what it is, but I know it’s something.” Flora backs away and walks off into the crowd.
“What was that about?” I take a long swig from the plastic cup in my hands.
“We were in the kitchen last month and she started a grease fire. I put it out very quickly. Too quickly, if you know what I mean.”
“Ahh.”
“And a couple days ago she walked into my room without knocking and I was working out. Doing a handstand. On one hand.” I nod my head because I’m not sure what else to say. Finally, though, I can’t stand his eyes boring into me.
“You think I should go talk to her or something?” I ask. I really don’t want to go talk to her, but I feel like it’s the right thing to do, even though I have no idea how a conversation like that would play out.
“Nah, she’s too drunk to reason with. You’d probably just make things worse.” I roll my eyes. I don’t really know Flora anymore, but I’m sure I could say something that might make her feel less paranoid about the vibes she’s been feeling. Before I can say anything, though, Levi turns around and leaves. He’s about as sensitive as a bag of rocks. I shrug and join Boone and Violet, who are dancing happily in the living room. I don’t exactly start to dance, but I tap my boots to the rhythm of the music. Henry has arrived. I see him at the fireplace with his arms crossed, looking like a bouncer. No wonder kids think everyone in ARC is a freak.
I drink some more. I feel myself loosening up. I can’t believe it, but I actually think I’m having a good time. After about an hour, though, I get a pang about Flora. I really should go find her and make sure she is okay. I look throughout the house for her and then outside where the party has spilled out around a fire pit. I see Levi talking to another Citadel his age, a year older than me, a supposed senior at Battle Ground High. When I don’t see Flora, I ask Levi if he has. He says he hasn’t, sighs with annoyance, and together we walk into the house.
I grab a random girl on the stairs and ask her if she’s seen our host.
“She went up to her room,” the girl says drunkenly. “With two guys,” she whispers, and stumbles a bit on the step. I see Levi tense. I can see he’s about to leap up the remaining flight of stairs, but I grab the back of his arm and push him up against the wall, pinning him to it. Anyone looking would assume that we’re about to hook up. I speak softly in his ear.
“Take it easy, Levi.”
He turns his head and looks at me, his eyes burning. His voice goes deathly quiet. “Get off of me, Ryn.”
“I will go and deal with this,” I assure him. Levi pushes forward and I push him back harder.
“She’s my sister.”
“Yeah, but if you go in there, you’ll kill them. Me?” I smile. “I’ll just hurt them.” Levi rolls his eyes and then nods his head. I race up the stairs, and throw open the door to Flora’s room. I see my friend naked on the bed. She is totally passed out. One guy is on top of her, and the other, beside me, has his phone out and shirt off, and is clearly filming the action.
“Hey, girl, you wanna join the party?” the guy next to me says. Oh my God, did he just say that? The party? Dumbass must think we are in an actual porno, because that’s the only situation where I think a girl would be down with this rapey shit.
I consider how much restraint I actually want to show. My conclusion: very little.
“Oh, yeah, I really do.” My voice is a soft purr. I quickly reach out and grab the guy’s phone and throw it hard against the wall so that it smashes into pieces.
“What the hell?” he screams. The guy on the bed turns around. His pants are open, but it doesn’t look like he has done anything … yet.
Thank God.
“She brought us up here, she wanted to do this and it’s a free country, so get naked or get the fuck out,” Bed Boy snarls. “Oh, yeah, and you can pay for my buddy’s phone, too, you crazy bitch.”
Restraint level: virtually zero.
“You think this is cool?” I yell. “She is passed-out drunk. Any alarm bells go off in your head? Even you two morons must know that this is wrong.”
The guy closest to me goes to grab me by the arm. I’m not sure what he was thinking, but now the gloves are off. Maybe he was going to try to force me onto the bed, too, or maybe he was just trying to throw me out of the room. Either way, he should not have touched me. I grab his hand and bend it back the wrong way. I sidestep him as he yelps in pain. I easily maneuver my arms around his neck to put him in a choke hold. I squeeze, applying just enough pressure to make him pass out. His body slumps, I push him off of me, and he falls to the ground with a thud.
The guy in the bed scrambles up. He’s about six feet tall with sandy-colored hair and brown eyes. He’s not exactly ugly, but there is something distinctly ratlike about his nose and mouth. He looks at me with a mix of surprise and anger. “What did you just do? Did you just kill him?”
I walk closer to him and see that he’s breathing hard. His chest is puffed out. If his body has gone into fight-or-flight mode, I know he’s going to choose the first option. It’s a big mistake.
“Thought about it, but no. He’s sleeping.” I can’t help but give a little laugh. I am wearing a dangerous smirk. This idiot has no idea who I am or what I can do. I’m grinning because he thinks he has a chance, and I’m happy because there are so many cruel boys like him in the world and so many helpless girls. I don’t really believe in Karma. I’ve seen too many good people die and too many assholes win, but tonight is different. It feels like the universe put me in this room for a reason, and on behalf of so many defenseless women, I’m about to tip the scales in their favor—for once.
“You’re disgusting,” I tell him as I lose the smile. “All the therapy in the world won’t help you. There is something dark and twisted inside of you; I can see it in your eyes. A person like you understands only two things: fear and violence. And since you’re clearly not afraid of me …”
The boy gets inches in front of my face. The veins in his neck bulge. His eyes widen and shift erratically back and forth. “Shut up!” he screams. “All you ARC brats are the same. You walk around thinking that you’re better than us, smarter than us—”
“We are,” I interrupt, which only pisses him off more.
“There is something not right with you people. I don’t even know if you are people.” Now he’s the one to laugh, and he throws his hands up wildly. “You’re all fucking robots or aliens or something, but you don’t scare me. You think I won’t hit someone just because they’re a girl?”
I narrow my eyes at him. I know I’m goading him, but I can’t help it. He is a truly vile individual.
“I’m counting on it.”
He lunges at me and I grab his fist and squeeze, breaking every bone in his hand. He whimpers and goes down on his knees. I twist behind him and deliver one swift kick to his kidney, which lands him on the floor, howling in pain. I spin once more and hit him in the face. Then I hit him again. I keep hitting, knowing that I’m inflicting damage, but I’m holding back because I do not want to kill him. Though, frankly, I kind of think the world would be a better place without him. His face is a bloody mess.
I crouch down beside him. He is sputtering blood, coughing, trying to catch his breath. “Pay attention,” I say in a soothing tone. “There is a lesson to be learned with every defeat. Like I told you: fear and violence—that’s all you understand. You’ll think twice now before you try something like this again. Really, you should be thanking me. Maybe you won’t end up in prison.”
“Screw you,” he manages to wheeze out of his swollen lips.
I stand up and look down at him. “No. Clearly that won’t be happening. I guess you haven’t learned your lesson after all. So I suppose we’ll just have to stick to violence. I know who you are and if I ever, ever hear that you’ve been inappropriate with a girl, I will come back and finish you. I will kill you, and I will get away with it.”
The boy says nothing. I lean down and grab his face with my hand. I rear my other fist back to punch him again. He whimpers and shies away. “No, no, please don’t.” He is crying now. “I heard you. I won’t. Please!” I let his face go. I grab his T-shirt from the floor by the bed and wipe as much blood off my hands as I can manage.
“Now, pick up your friend and get out of this house. And don’t even think of telling anyone what happened here.” I throw the shirt in his face and he gingerly puts it back on. He picks himself up slowly and then grabs his buddy, who is just coming around. Somehow he manages to pull the other guy to his feet.
“How am I going to explain this?” he asks, pointing to his face. “I’m probably going to have to go to the hospital. I think my jaw is broken—and my hand …” He really is pathetic, asking me for answers. Such typical behavior in an alpha who has been kicked out of his dominant place. I roll my eyes. He’s surrendered all his power. I’ve seen it too many times to count.
“I dunno, tell them you walked into a door or tripped down the stairs. Women have had to use those lines for years.” I turn away from him, toward the bed. He has been dismissed. He will leave and say nothing more, and because he’s such an unevolved human being he won’t even really understand why. I look down at my knuckles, which are raw and scratched. I saved Flora. I may have saved some other girl from the same fate. I don’t feel guilty for what I’ve done, but I resent the fact that I had to do it. I just wanted to go to a party. I feel like I drag violence along with me everywhere I go, the same way a mother has to drag her screaming toddler around a grocery store. It’s just life. Things have to be done. I look down at a bloodstain on the carpet. This is who I am. This is more than just my job, and all the times I just wish for something normal are starting to feel like wallowing.
I walk lightly over to Flora, who hasn’t awakened. Thank God. I check her vitals. She’s fine, just drunk as hell. I go to her chest of drawers and pull out a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. Gently, I dress her. I pull back the covers, put her into the bed, and tuck her in. I walk out the door, turning the light off as I go.
I walk down the hallway and see Levi waiting for me at the top of the stairs, his arms folded, his face like stone.
“I saw them leave,” he says through a clenched jaw.
“I told you I would handle it. I did,” I offer. There is silence between us. A silence that reaches up and stretches outward beyond whatever explanation I could give.
“Did they hurt her? Did they …” Levi can’t continue from there. The words seem to stick in his throat and he clears it. I hear pain in that half-strangled cough. He breaks eye contact and looks away. I watch his hands, they twitch and his fingers curl into fists. Without even thinking, I reach out and cover them with my own hands. His skin is hot to the touch.
“They tried, but I stopped them before anything happened. She’s so drunk, I doubt she’ll even remember bringing them in there. Does she do this a lot? Is this a thing with her now?” I was referring to both the drinking and the guys, but my tone was soft, as tender as I could manage.
Instead of answering, Levi stares down at our hands. He looks back up at me, at first confused and then angry. He jerks himself free. “What are you doing? Don’t do that. Don’t touch me, Ryn, ever.”
“Seriously?” I ask him, thoroughly insulted. I was just trying to be nice. Then it dawns on me why he wouldn’t want me touching him. “Oh,” I say, looking at my hands and then at him. “I … didn’t know that you thought of me in that—”
Levi huffs and scowls at me. “Please,” he condescends. “You’ve got tits and I’m a dude. I won’t let any female touch me.”
I fold my arms and consider this typically rude statement, and Levi snaps his game face on. I know this face. I’ve seen creatures and beasts whimper at this face. His eyes become terrifyingly vacant. His features become still and hard, as though sculpted out of marble. And then something changes in his eyes. He begins to stare intently at me. It’s not attraction I’m getting—at least, not the obvious kind. It’s something else. If I had to name it, I would say hunger, like he wants to pull me apart and eat me bit by bit. He is so screwed up, though; who knows what he’s thinking? He probably can’t want something without wanting to hurt it, or maybe he just wants to hurt everyone. He’s not like the boys who were up in Flora’s room. He doesn’t have an abusive nature. He’s not a bully. I’ve never seen him be unnecessarily violent … but I think there’s a part of him that wants everyone to hurt as badly as he does.
It’s a feeling that I can totally relate to.
Eventually he looks away and I am only partly relieved. Like I said, my crush on Levi came to an end long ago, but I’m messed up, too. The way he stared at me should have made me uncomfortable, but it didn’t. It’s strangely hot, to think of him eating me, to imagine him biting into my flesh and tearing off the muscle and bone. Every Citadel is twisted up in some way. I thought my fucked-up-ness came in the form of over-the-top control freak. It scares me to think that it can come in the form of something so much darker.
“I suppose this means I owe you one.”
His voice snaps me out of my own brooding. I cock my head suddenly. I did not expect him to say that. Maybe I just imagined whatever it was that passed between us, because his question makes me think that he doesn’t really remember me at all. I used to practically live in his house. His sister and I were best friends. He does not owe me anything. I didn’t do anything for him. But a plan is forming in my mind, just the barest hint of an idea.
“Yeah, you do,” I lie. And with that I walk past him, down the stairs, and out the door.
CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_e70e2a2f-fbf2-5e04-a495-346168f8dc61)
Beta Team is on reserve duty the following Monday. We are staggered throughout the forest with almost seventy troops, about three-quarters of a mile from The Rift. The four of us sit underneath a canopy of tree branches. A weak sun dapples through them and the shapes throw down pockmarked shadows. We are not at attention, but we are not relaxed, either. We are ready to push forward should the need arise at a moment’s notice. We hear the other teams check in. The Rift is silent, a closed mouth. No fighting today.
When our rotation is up, we take the transport back to base. My team is unusually quiet.
I wonder if my team is annoyed at me for leaving without saying good-bye, but I don’t provide a reason for leaving and they don’t ask for one. I wonder, too, if Henry had to step in at some point and make sure Boone and Vi didn’t spend too much time alone. That would be reason enough for all three of them to be irritated.
When we arrive back at the base we go to our separate changing rooms and dress for training. Our training uniforms are much like our combat ones, only black and with less padding. The four of us spend an hour doing circuit training, which is kind of like an amped-up version of CrossFit, in the facility’s large gym. Then we spend another hour working on agility and hand-to-hand combat skills in a different part of the building that is a huge room with padded floors divided into dozens of small rings. We do a lot of stretching to keep our muscles limber and flexible—Violet has us all beat on this front, but what’s always so surprising is how giant Henry can contort his body.
Like I said: every gay guy’s fantasy come true, and probably most straight women’s, when it comes down to it.
Then we spar in a style that is, for the most part, mixed martial arts but with an emphasis on a particular martial art given our individual strengths. For me, it’s Krav Maga.
When that’s done, we spend an hour outside with weapons. The base already had a significant target range; our group just enhanced it. We shoot for a while. Then we practice knife throwing—at the same distance we shot. Sometimes we work with explosives. We know how to build bombs and how to detonate much more sophisticated ones. Sometimes we do survival weaponry, which means we learn how to turn a dead branch into a spear, or we make our own arrows from flint and fallen logs. There is an array of bows hidden throughout the forest, just in case things get truly terrible and we run out of ammo. This hour also sometimes incorporates survival training. We hunt game and learn how to skin and cook it. We learn about the medicinal properties of plants and how to make a fire without matches. The boys universally love this hour—some of the girls do, too, but it really feeds into all the boys’ Red Dawn fantasies. I generally excel when I’m in survival mode, but please, give me a hot shower and a comfortable bed any day.
For the last hour of training we run. As Citadels, we run fast and we run hard. Our speed is inhuman, almost faster than a human eye can track. There is a number that we have maxed out at, miles-per-hour-wise, but I prefer not to know it. They were smart like that, to give us the choice. Some people like Boone and Henry want to know how fast the fastest Citadel can run. Me? I prefer not to know. I don’t want to know my limits. I don’t want to have to make those calculations in my head if I am fleeing a nightmare. I’d rather go on thinking I have a fighting chance to escape to safety or, at least, to fight another day.
Of course, I don’t like running. For one thing, I prefer fighting rather than fleeing, and I’d rather spend my time training at that more. Hell, I think I may even prefer hunting and skinning to running. Sure, it’s vital that we keep our stamina up, but I find it so … stupid.
Maybe I should clarify: I don’t dislike racing through the uneven terrain of the camp because it’s exhausting—it takes a lot more than that to tire out a Citadel, even after the three hours of training that went on before—it’s just, well, boring. Henry, as well as other Citadels, finds the running soothing, like meditation. I wish I could zone out like that. My brain won’t stop turning, though. I’m always imagining other things I could be doing, would rather be doing, like reading or watching some lame TV show (if I’m being completely honest with myself).
Thankfully, it’s not only running we do. Very rarely are we on clear terrain, so it’s crucial that we use the trees and other aspects of the forest to give us an advantage: a kind of bastardized version of parkour. We don’t use traditional obstacle courses and obviously we aren’t around much cement. But the woods provide more than enough to work with. We spin and leap and flip over rock formations and logs. We use the soft moss covering the firs to swing for momentum and jump down. We use the massive tree trunks by pushing the tread of our boots into the bark for traction to spring up and out in any direction. I prefer this to running. As a woman I can use my flexibility to my advantage and my light weight to scramble up places that are almost impossible for someone like Henry to get to.
More important, this comes naturally to me, and unlike while sprinting along the roads of Camp Bonneville, I can let my mind wander. So today I use this hour to strategize even as I leap through and fly over the green and brown at my feet. My focus: I have a way to get into the Village.
The problem is, I have no real idea what the Village is like inside. Citadels who are old enough to work there are not permitted to talk about what goes on with those of us who aren’t. As soldiers, we accept the hierarchy of secrets. It has always made sense to me before, but as I look at it now, it seems illogical. Why does the Village even need to be a secret? What is ARC hiding from us there?
And now my imagination is in full overdrive.
They wouldn’t make Immigrants live in tents, would they? Always cold, never truly comfortable. Surely they would have built proper barracks. If they imagine Immigrants living out their natural lives in the Village, then even barracks wouldn’t cut it. They must have prefab homes, even neighborhoods. Maybe. Or maybe it’s built like a prison. Maybe they keep the Immigrants in cells, behind bars. The idea of that makes me suddenly nauseous.
How can I not know?
And the answer is more than just how well ARC keeps its secrets. The fact is, it’s been three years and all I’ve thought about is The Rift. I have been obsessed with keeping everyone safe: my fellow soldiers, my family. I don’t know why that concern has never extended as far as the Village, and I am ashamed. The Immigrants, as part of this Earth now, deserve my protection, too.
I jump ten feet in the air, grab a tree branch, swing myself up onto a thick limb, and squat down, bracing my back up against the trunk. I guess I have chalked up what happens with the Immigrants to bad luck. That’s my go-to response—it’s like cancer or a hurricane or a car accident.
Like getting chosen to be a Citadel. The bitterness of this thought surprises me.
And like us, they get pulled here terribly, but it’s beyond anyone’s control. Vi brings it up a lot, and I am forever changing the subject. Don’t we have enough to worry about? That’s been my excuse. As I’ve gotten older, the excuse has worn thin. I am getting past my own bad luck. I suppose this is what it means to grow up. You realize that everyone has something dark and hidden that seems colossally unfair. It’s not right anymore that I should just dismiss these other stories out of hand because mine feels so much worse. The truth is that, compared to nearly getting raped like Flora, or a lifetime in a wheelchair because of an accident, or losing your mom to breast cancer like Boone did when he was only nine, my story is definitely not worse.
I leap down and start running again. I hear the others swish through the undergrowth not too far away, and I know they’re focusing on their own training. I get back to musing.
Once I get into the Village, though, then what? I have to find Ezra, obviously. But, just as obvious, that won’t be easy. I will need help with that. And then, once I do find him, what am I supposed to say? We can’t go off and talk. We can’t go for coffee and compare life stories. I will have to remain with him wherever he is and hope I can get a few minutes of privacy. Given that I know nothing about the Village, this could be a tall order.
When our hour is up, I realize I’m still basically nowhere in terms of a plan.
We run back to the base. Upon arriving down in the facility we are given a massive protein drink that the doctors and scientists must watch us finish before our training is officially over. We expend so many calories a day, and this elixir, invented by the Roones, keeps our nutrition up. As I gulp down the shake, I see Boone is almost finished with his. I need to catch him before he goes into his locker room.
“Boone,” I say, grabbing his arm before he can leave.
“Yeah?” Boone has a towel and he’s wiping off the sweat and grime of our training.
I take a deep breath. I try to sound casual. “Can you do me a favor and ask Levi to meet me at Old Town Burger before he goes home? I know he just got off duty, so he should be in there changing.”
Boone smirks. “Levi, huh?” He crosses his arms and cocks his head. “Well, does Saint Ryn have the hots for someone?” I do not smile—if anything, I do the opposite of smile—and the grin on Boone’s face disappears. “Fine, but don’t expect me to pass him any notes in math class, okay? I’ll ask him, then leave me out of it. That guy is bad news, Ryn.”
Boone is sneering and I’m a little shocked. I know what happened with Levi and Ingrid—it’s common knowledge that they tried to have sex and failed. It was consensual, something they both wanted, and everyone knows that, too. Is Boone blaming Levi for that? I suppose Boone’s own predicament with Violet makes him sensitive to the issue. I don’t get any more insights from him and he disappears through his locker room door. I walk to the other side of the hall and go into mine.
I shower quickly and throw my hair up into one giant knot on my head. On go my yoga pants. I pair them with Converse and an old T-shirt of my mom’s with some grunge band on it that she used to love. I look at myself in the mirror and, unlike the way I felt on the night of Flora’s party, I’m not thrilled with what I see. I don’t care about impressing Levi, but I am beginning to think that at some point I should put a little more effort into the way I present myself to the world. Maybe going to the party awoke something in me that had long been dormant. That thought seems way more exhausting than the four hours of training I just put in, though.
I take the train to the school. I don’t need to worry about driving Abel because he has football practice and Mom will pick him up on her way home. The burger restaurant is almost exactly across the street from Battle Ground High. When I walk in, there are about a dozen students, and Levi is waiting at one of the only free tables. He must have been on the train before me. I slide into the booth so that we are facing each other.
“That was fast,” he says by way of a hello.
“Yeah, well, I just jumped in the shower and got the first train I could.” I say this impassively. I don’t want Levi thinking that I was racing to meet him.
“No, I mean that you want to use your favor pretty quickly. I have to admit I’m curious. Obviously, I can’t give you just anything.” He smirks and leans back in the booth, every gesture dripping with aggression. Even his neutral look smolders. Wait. When he said anything, did he mean his body? Does he think because he admitted to me that I was an actual girl, with boobs, that I want to confess my love to him or something? I don’t know a lot about guys, but I know it doesn’t take much to get one sexually attracted to you. Does he actually believe I’m naive enough to confuse normal teenage lust with real feelings? Is this his version of flirting?
I’m so out of my element, I wonder if this is everyone’s version of flirting. But Levi is so singular in his wretchedness, I have to think it’s just him.
“Uhh …” I pause, because even though I am itching to tell him that he is not actually God’s gift to the universe and that, no, I am not interested in him in that way, I need him to agree to this. If I piss him off, he won’t. If I butter him up too much, though, he won’t do it just to spite me.
He’s like an enigma wrapped in a mystery wearing a smirk that makes me want to never stop slapping him.
Instead, I take a deep breath and decide to just take the plunge. “Well, there is actually one thing you can do …” He raises an eyebrow in question. “I need you to get me into the Village.” I smile brightly, innocently. Levi does not return the smile. Instead he glowers at me. An awkward silence settles between us and my smile fades.
Levi’s lip curls sufficiently high to almost reach his eyeball. “What?” he demands. “No, even better: Why?”
“I captured an MTI from The Rift. He was very nice, very confused, obviously. And then I promised him I would come and see him and make sure he was okay.” This is not a lie. It isn’t the whole entire truth, but I am not lying to him. It feels good.
“Oh,” Levi responds coolly. He’s clearly unimpressed with my answer. “I get it, you have a crush on a boy. So you want me to help you break into one of the most heavily guarded areas on Earth so you can—what? Ask him to homecoming?” Levi laughs, and there’s a cutting cruelty to it that makes my cheeks burn.
“Don’t laugh. It’s not funny,” I protest, my back straightening. “I don’t have a crush on him. I don’t even know him. I just made a promise. It was a stupid promise, I know, but I did it and after what he’s been through I don’t want to be an asshole … not that you’d know what not being an asshole is like.”
“Ooh, you got me!” he says, grabbing at his chest like he’s wounded. He really is an asshole. He sits up. “Listen, Ryn, he’s going to be in there for the rest of his life. Just wait until next year, when you turn eighteen. You’ll get assigned a Village rotation. You can see him then.” Something about the way Levi says it—with such obvious disdain—it’s like it just doesn’t compute that there is anyone on Earth who can compare with him, especially an Immigrant, and he thought it was important I know that.
I bite my tongue and count to five in my head. I need him to help me. It’s taking a lot of work not to antagonize him. I lean in close so that no one else can overhear. “I don’t understand—aren’t we both on the same side here? I’m a Citadel, you’re a Citadel. I’m not a spy. I don’t see what the problem is. In fact, I don’t see what the big deal is in general. What is it with the Village that we aren’t supposed to see it till we are eighteen?”
“Seriously?” Levi asks through gritted teeth, in a voice just barely above a whisper but stern enough to get my adrenaline going. “It’s fucking monsters and demons and crazy shit that we don’t even have words for in the English language, it’s so out there. It’s also normal people like you and me who will basically be in prison, not because they are criminals, but because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. So yeah, they don’t want kids near there.”
“I am not a kid.”
Levi lets out a loud, disrespectful laugh. “A kid calls in a marker to go and meet a boy regardless of consequences. Grown-ups don’t do shit like that. You’re so immature. I can’t believe you’re a team leader. I wouldn’t let you be in charge of a picnic. I wouldn’t let you babysit my cousin, and she’s ten.”
It hurts, and it hurts more than I thought it would. I couldn’t care less if he liked me or not, but to not respect me?
“You are so mean, Levi. Honestly, you’re the meanest person I know. Why are you acting this way? Why would you even say that? We’ve fought side by side and I’ve held my own. I deal with those monsters and demons and whatever all the time! I’ve saved people and put the safety of my team before my own. You’ve seen that! So why say such horrible things to me? I am not an adult. You’re right. But you’re going to sit there like a pompous jerk and tell me grown-ups are smarter? ‘Grown-ups,’” I say, using my hands to make quotation marks, “are the reason you and I will never have a normal life. Adults opened The Rift and they made children police it. Adults are the reason you and Ingrid nearly killed each other.”
Levi gives me a dead-level stare. He shakes his head. “I can’t believe you went there.”
“I went there and I’ll go further. Either you help me or I tell Flora the real deal about us. I miss your sister. I would love nothing more than to tell her the truth, so please give me a reason to.” The fury is building inside of him, I can see it. Levi clenches his fists and releases them.
“You have no idea” is all he says.
I am breathing hard. I’m angry, ready to fight, and so is he. No one pushes my buttons more than Levi. His tone, his arrogance, the fact that, realistically, he’s a better Citadel than me, or at least a more lethal one—it all gets to me. But I need to get to the Village. I slow my heart rate down. I take a deep breath. I have to get him on my side. “You’re right. I don’t have any real idea about the Village or what you’ve gone through and that is part of the problem. I’m tired of being in the dark. I’m not scared of them. They need us.” I look at him calmly. He really is beautiful but so, so broken. “The question is, why are you so scared? What are they going to do to you? Make you a Citadel? Again?” Levi leans back in the booth, eyeing me. I don’t know what he could be thinking. Maybe he wants to slam my head into the table. Maybe he wants to kiss me. Maybe he wants to slam my head into the table because he wants to kiss me. I’ve just told him I was willing to risk God knows what to see a boy, threatened him, and emasculated him all at once. Levi hates to lose—I know, because I’m the same way. I also know he is not going to help me and I’m starting to wonder if he’s going to say anything else.
“Fine. I’ll find a way in without you.” I grab my bag and go to stand up.
“Hey.” Levi kicks my leg gently under the table.
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell Flora. She doesn’t need to know anything. I mean, look what happened when she saw you do a handstand. She invited two thugs up to her bedroom for a drunken threesome. Imagine what she would do if she knew the real truth. Our secret is safe.”
“Ryn, stop,” Levi says firmly, and I turn back in the booth to face him. “I will get you in, okay? Somehow. I’ve got a shift at the Village coming up this Sunday. What’s Prince Charming’s name?”
“Ezra Massad,” I answer with relief. I’m in shock. I cannot believe he is going to help me.
“You have to promise me you’ll be careful. Don’t tell anyone on your team and don’t get your hopes up. You can’t touch him. You can’t even think about it, not for one second. Do you think you can manage that?”
I want to tell him to screw off. Of course I can manage that. I’m not a lunatic. I don’t hurt people on purpose. He’s the sick fuck who tried to get it on with his girlfriend. I would never be so dumb. I can’t exactly say that, though, because although I can be sassy, I’m not rude like he is.
“I won’t tell anyone and there will be no touching. Promise.”
Levi lets out a long sigh. He seems resigned. He isn’t angry anymore. He looks so different when he’s not mad. Younger. Sadder. Once more I think the word broken.
“I will come to your house Saturday afternoon with a plan. Around four?” I don’t know if he’s asking or telling.
“Just text me with the details. You don’t need to come over,” I offer.
“Oh, man, you really are a kid.” Levi shakes his head and stands up. Then he leans over to whisper in my ear. I can feel the heat of his breath. His lips are so close I have to close my eyes and dig my nails into my palm.
“You think they don’t read our texts?”
CHAPTER 7 (#ulink_bf42639a-0ac4-5d25-bb96-66a1df9285f2)
The following Sunday I’m waiting high up in a tree canopy. Both my feet are planted on a thick branch and I am braced and ready to jump more than twenty feet to the ground below. This is the first part of Levi’s plan. I cannot go through the main entrance of the Village without the proper credentials. So I am here in this tree, and in exactly one minute I will avoid the electrified fence by swinging my body over it and landing in The Menagerie.
The Village is a little over ten miles northeast of Camp Bonneville. I parked my car about six miles away off a graveled utility road and hid it as best I could inside the tree line. I ran to this exact spot, which Levi gave me via a set of coordinates that I have managed to find quite easily thanks to our extensive survival-skills training … and Google. I still have no real idea of the scope of this place. The Menagerie would not have been my first choice, but Levi has assured me that this particular section I’m jumping into has nothing more than a bunch of flightless birds. I imagine they must be something close to chickens or maybe turkeys. I also imagine that my idea of harmless and Levi’s idea might not be the same thing.
When the time is exactly right, I jump down into the pen. I pop back up right away. I don’t have a gun. I was able to steal my uniform out of my locker room, but I could not gain access to a rifle. There are several coops around the pen, and sure enough, there are birds on the ground. They do look like large chickens, but their feathers are a scarlet red shot through with a few bright yellow plumes. I walk slowly. I don’t like the idea of being pecked by them. I don’t even want to touch them. I only like birds when they are plucked, gutted, and part of a meal.
I know—not very forgiving. But birds give me the creeps, and that’s that.
The good news is that I won’t be staying long, and I soon reach the inner fence. It’s electrified, and not as high, maybe ten feet. There is a regular gate that people who work here use to exit, but it requires a swipe card, which I don’t have. What I do have are leg muscles that would give the Bionic Woman an inferiority complex.
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Amy Foster
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Детская проза
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: What’s the difference between the monsters you fight against and the monsters you fight for?What do the multiverse and teenage super soldiers have in common?Nothing.And that’s Ryn Whittaker’s problem.Ryn is a Citadel, specially chosen and trained to guard a Rift – one of fourteen unpredictable tears in the fabric of the universe that serve as doorways to alternate Earths – and she’s one of the Allied Rift Coalition’s best, until the day eighteen-year-old Ezra Massad comes tumbling out of The Rift and everything changes.Despite her training, and the fact that any romantic entanglements are doomed by her violent, cybernetically-altered hormones, Ryn can’t keep away from Ezra, and what starts as a physical attraction quickly grows deeper. Ezra’s curiosity about The Rifts, the mysterious organization that oversees them, and the Citadels themselves echoes Ryn’s own growing doubts and unasked questions.But can she fall in love, uncover the truth, and protect her friends and family? After all, she already knows that secrets have a price…and not keeping hers may cost Ryn more than she’s ready to lose.