Content copyright . Vivian Marie Aubin du Paris. All rights reserved.
Ariana was completely, utterly broke.
She looked over her shoulder at the darkened street, but there was no one following her. Not a single soul was on the street with her, stepping into the dim circles of yellow light on the sidewalk.
Good. The last thing she needed was for one of those metal cops to start following her. Not that they tended to patrol on this side of city center, but it happened occasionally, and the metals were a pain in the ass to lose.
She crossed the street, looking around again for any signs of life, and headed down the back alleyway to the city center.
In sharp contrast to the streets behind her, the city center was filled with bright lights, hundreds of people, and loud noises. The city center was thee place to hang out and have fun for teenagers on a Friday night, their wallets thick with their parent’s cash, and Ariana was counting on it.
She spied a young couple, maybe two years older than her sixteen years, walking with their arms around each other in the middle of a crowd. They were being jostled in all directions, but they didn’t seem to mind the bumps, not letting it disturb their moment. Ariana joined the crowd, deftly cutting through the crowd so that she, too, could bump into the young man.
It was flawless. She offered a sweet, apologetic smile at him as she slipped the wallet into her pocket. He smiled and reassured her that it was no problem, even as he returned his attention to the blond on his arm.
Ariana cut out of the crowd, smiling to herself. She kept her hand in her pocket as she casually removed the bills, and slipped the money out. She made her way to one of the street vendors and ordered a cup of coffee and a hot dog, casually looking around for the RCs, but the big metal human-like figures were just on their normal patrol, walking away from where she was.
She pulled out the stack of cash, delighted to see that she’d pegged him appropriately as a mark. He’d been carrying at least two hundred dollars on him—no doubt money that he’d planned to spend on the model beside him—and now she would be able to eat for a couple of weeks, at least.
She shoved a couple of napkins into her jacket pocket as she moved the money to her jeans after paying the heavy-set man behind the cart who looked like he’d rather be getting a root canal than stand there, and carried her hard-earned food to one of the retaining walls that surrounded a flower bed.
Once she was done eating, her stomach gurgling in protest at the sudden intake of food, she deliberately wiped her hands on the stack of napkins, wrapping the wallet up in them to remove her prints. Then she tossed the wad into the nearby trash bin.
“Have you seen a wallet?” she heard a man ask in one of the shops nearby, sounding slightly frantic. Ariana quickly ducked her head and, wrapping the trench coat around herself, passed by two RCs headed toward the shop as she escaped back to the darkness of the alley.
She could hear someone whimpering in the distance, gasping for air. She hesitated, but plunged ahead, steeling herself against the noise. It wasn’t her problem, she reminded herself. If someone had wandered out this way and gotten jumped, that was their fault for being so stupid and leaving the safety of the crowded city center behind. She was not going to take responsibility for someone else’s idiocy.
There was a moan, and then a shuffle, and she paused. Whoever it was sounded seriously injured. And, maybe, they had a wallet on them that she could swipe. It was unlikely, but it was possible. Sometimes the gangs out this way were only in it for the thrill of the destruction—they didn’t actually bother with the wallets.
She stopped walking and cocked her head, listening for the noise. It was down the alley to her right, on the way to the back of the city center stores. She turned on her heel and headed in the direction of the noise, straining her eyes to see in the darkness.
“Hey,” she called, her voice echoing around the bricks. “Are you okay?”
There was a moan in response.
The gangs had really done a number on whoever it was. Ariana continued ahead, her eyes landing on a figure on the ground, drawn into a ball, hands covering the head. She could see dark hair, short for a girl at only a few inches, jeans, and a zip-up sweatshirt. Maybe the gang had cut the girl’s hair?
She started to reach for the back pocket of the baggy jeans, but the girl moaned and clutched herself even tighter into a ball.
“Hey,” Ariana said, reluctantly kneeling down. “Are you okay?”
She heard a soft whimper.
She sighed. “Look, no matter how bad you’re hurt, you don’t want to get stuck here in this neighborhood at this time of night, get it? There are some bad people running around.” She laughed. “Guess it’s a little late to tell you that, huh?”
Apparently it was a bad time to make a joke. The body rolled over onto itself again, trying to get to hands and knees. Ariana watched for a moment, sitting back to just let the girl get up on her own, and then, reluctantly, ducked her head under the shaking arm to help her stand.
Ariana sprang back, gasping in disbelief as she found herself touching not a soft, girlish figure, but a muscled, lean male figure. As the bruised face lifted, the figure collapsing against the wall from exertion, Ariana found herself staring at a boy at least half a foot taller than her, slender, his boyish face mottled by pain, dirt, and blood.
“The hell!” she exclaimed angrily. What kind of guy moaned and whimpered like a little girl? “You’re a guy?”
The eyes opened, around blood that oozed from a head wound. Darkness glittered back at her in the moonlight, filled with pain, anguish, and desperation.
And then the body fell in a heap on the ground.
Ariana stared at the boy’s fallen body, and then, before she could talk herself out of it, she reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet.
# 9. They eat the food of him who does not eat his own food
Ariana tapped the ID card on the table in slow, methodical succession, letting it slide between her fingers as it fell to the table top, then turning the card to start over again.
She wasn’t sure why she had brought the boy to her almost-empty, dingy apartment on the fourth floor of the run-down apartment building. She tried to tell herself that it was because his student identification stated that he was only a freshman in high school and was too young to die, but she also couldn’t help noticing that he went to the prestigious private school at the top of the hill. Plus he’d been carrying at least five hundred in cash in his wallet, and if some kid was carrying around that kind of cash, he had to be loaded. Maybe he’d be indebted to her and his parents would hand over some money in payment for rescuing him.
That was the logical route out of the situation, but she still hadn’t called his parents, and instead of taking him to a hospital she’d cleaned him up and dressed his wounds.
He was cute, in a boyish way. The kid clearly had some growing up to do. His hands were soft and meticulously kept, like he’d never worked a day in his life. Usually when she saw those types of kids in the city center, she’d pick their pockets without hesitation. But this kid… She just couldn’t help feeling sorry for.
Maybe it was because he was the same age as Colin.
She shook that thought from her head. She had told herself when she’d left home that she wouldn’t think about her younger brother anymore. It was best for all of them, Colin especially. He didn’t need to know that the home life he loved and thought was perfect was built on a soggy foundation of mud and clay, ready to topple down at any moment. He was just a kid and far too young to deal with all of it, but she couldn’t lie to him, so it was best to just stay away. Safer that way.
She heard a stirring from her bed and let the student ID fall from her fingertips with a clatter onto the wooden table. The boy groaned softly, but he sat up, holding a hand to his forehead.
“Yo,” she greeted flatly, watching as his head snapped to look at her. He narrowed his eyes as he tried to focus on her in the darkened corner, then winced with the effort. She felt a moment of sympathy and considered turning on a light, but lights tended to be dangerous in these parts. Anything that drew attention usually was.
“Want some water?” she asked.
He swallowed hard, looking like the movement pained him, but looked up again, still trying to see her in the darkness. “Yes, please.”
His voice was rough and scratchy, but she could guess that it usually had a sweet, pleasant tone to it. He was polite, at the very least, considering the circumstances. She didn’t think she would be so well-behaved if the tables were turned.
“Beside the bed.” She nodded at the four-legged table that she’d stolen from her last neighbors during their move out. It was plain and dull, just like everything else in her apartment.
She watched as he reached out a bandaged hand, flinching every few seconds with every movement. Her body ached just watching him. He tilted back the cup, and for a moment there was silence as he drank.
He set down the cup with a hollow tap. Empty. She watched as he leaned back against the pillows, still trying to look out at her in the darkness. “Thank you.”
He really was polite. She leaned against the table, studying him. “What were you doing out there?” she asked. “Everyone knows that the other side of city center isn’t a place for nice kids to go.”
He winced again as he settled down onto the pillows. “I was looking for someone.”
“A friend?”
“Yeah.”
“Well they’re probably dead by now. No one survives long over here. You certainly wouldn’t have.”
He suddenly seemed to be able to focus on her. “Thank you,” he said, his dark eyes glittering in the dull glow of the moonlight. “You’re the one who pulled me out of the alley, right?”
She didn’t like being thanked. He really was a nice kid. “Yeah. It was no big deal. Should I call your parents or something?”
He shook his head. “I’ll be okay. I just need a taxi.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Your parents won’t come get you?”
“No.” His answer was so final, so definitive, that she felt her heart go out to him. “I’ll be fine, really. Thank you for taking care of me.”
She watched in disbelief as he pushed himself out of the bed, leaning her chin against her palm as she stared. It looked like everything he did took all of his energy, but he still continued trying to stand, until he was able to get a hold of the table beside the bed and hold himself up on shaky feet.
“If you come by my house tomorrow, I’ll make sure you get something for your trouble,” he said. He smiled weakly. “I’d give it to you now, but I think my wallet’s gone missing.”
Her mind trailed back to the wallet that she’d stowed in the rat hole in the wall, and considered, briefly, giving it back to him. He seemed like a good enough kid, but if she went to retrieve it now, he would know that she had stolen it, and he might call the cops… Better to just let him think that the guys that had jumped him had made off with it.
Besides… It wasn’t like he had spent the money himself, right? If he wasn’t going to spend it, then why couldn’t she keep it?
“You’ll never catch a taxi out here,” she said, lifting one shoulder in response to his comment. “And with the shape you’re in, you won’t make it down the block before someone decides to satisfy their hunger with you.”
His lips parted. “You mean… cannibalism?”
She laughed shortly. It had disgusted her, once, too, but somehow through the course of the months she had grown accustomed to it. At one point, the human bones in the dumpster had made her retch and gag, but now she just tossed her garbage on top of them like everyone else.
“Things aren’t so nice on this side,” she told him flatly. “It’ll do you good to remember that in the future.”
He just stared back, speechless.
Ariana stood. “I’ll take you out to city center,” she told him. “Just don’t come on this side again. If your friends end up over here, consider them dead and mourn their loss.”
He hesitated, but said nothing. She started to press him for a confirmation, then gave up. If he wanted to die, that was his business. She certainly wasn’t going to waste her time trying to stop him.
“Come on,” she ordered, and nodded at the door. “Get moving.”
He was still silent as he moved ahead, opening the door. She caught it as he tried to step back, holding it out for her, and narrowed her eyes at his look of surprise in the darkness. “No one walks behind me,” she warned coldly.
He stared for a moment longer, then turned and walked out of the apartment.
#12 – No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
There were footsteps outside the door.
Ariana’s vision focused on the ceiling of her apartment as she woke, her ears long-since trained to hear footsteps of any kind in front of her door. She deftly slid out from under her covers, pulling her knife out of the sheath on the table as she made her way across the cold wooden floor in her bare feet to stand behind the door. She’d been caught by surprise only once—and that had been enough.
There was a knock on the door.
Ariana scowled, already having a bad feeling about the person on the other side. That boy from the night before… He wouldn’t have been stupid enough to come here again, would he?
There was a second light knock.
Damn!
She shoved the knife back into the sheath and tossed it angrily onto the table, stalking to the other side of the door to yank it open.
Sure enough, standing in front of her was the boy from the night before, dressed in expensive-looking jeans, brand-new sneakers, and a white button-down shirt. His long dark hair was brushed and clean, and he would have looked impeccable except for the bandages covering his forehead and hands.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded furiously, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and yanking him into the apartment, casting a quick look around in the hallway to make sure that he was still alone out there. Satisfied, she shut the door quickly, turning to glare at him.
He had a startled, shocked look on his face, and she almost laughed. “Guess you couldn’t see it last night,” she said, running the back of her finger along the white scar that ran from the middle of her right cheek bone to her jaw. She glared at him angrily. “It’s what happens when you run around this area without being able to defend yourself. Get it? Now tell me what you’re doing here.”
He quickly regained his composure. “I-I wanted to thank you,” he stammered. She felt like she’d been sucker punched when he withdrew a bundle of cash from his pocket and held it up between them. “I didn’t know how else to do it… I know it’s a little tasteless, but I didn’t think you’d appreciate flowers or chocolate.”
For a moment, she imagined grabbing him by his very expensive brand-labels and hurling him out the window. Her words were cold when she spoke. “I don’t want your money. I just want you to get the hell out of here and never come back.”
He faltered, then gestured out the window. “My driver is outside with my bodyguards… I’m perfectly safe—“
“You brought what?” she hissed, crossing to the glass to look down onto the street. Sure enough, there was a black car out in front of her building, with a rather large man in a suit standing with his arms crossed, his face like stone.
“Are you crazy?” she demanded, feeling a sense of hysteria bubble up inside of her. “The people around here see that kind of car out front and they’re going to think I’ve got money. Then they’re going to come in. Get it?” She ran a hand through her hair in frustration. She had to think. Quickly. She could probably get some locks for the door with the money she’d stolen the day before, but that wouldn’t keep the neighbors out for long. Half of them would probably climb in through the window.
Just the thought of it made her skin crawl, and she shuddered, turning her fear into fury as she whirled on the stricken boy. “Just get out of here!” she exclaimed. “Get out of here and never come back!”
He backed to the door. “I-I’m sorry,” he apologized. She could barely hear him through her panic. “I-I just wanted to say thank you… A-And tell you my… my name…”
“I don’t give a damn what your name is!” she cried, advancing on him. She was almost as tall as he was, giving her an advantage. “Just go away!”
“Tell me your name,” he pleaded, even as he continued stepping back.
Footsteps. Outside. Ariana lunged for the knife and reached for the boy in the same motion, throwing him behind her and holding out the knife even as the door flew open.
#16 – The Early Bird Catches the Worm
“Ariana,” the cool, rough voice of Bryce greeted.
Ariana let the knife fall, but only slightly. Bryce was theoretically a friend, but she didn’t trust him after he’d stolen the last of her money the month before, leaving her penniless and without food for nearly a week while she recovered from being jumped.
“Bryce,” she returned flatly. “You broke my door.”
“It was broken anyway.” He cast a calm look at the boy behind her. Ariana wanted to move, to stand more in front of him, but that would only have provoked Bryce further. “Your friend here has quite the ACB out front.”
Ariana didn’t flinch, though she was tempted to turn around and smack the boy. He had said bodyguard… He didn’t mention anything about an ACB. She should have known, though. Rich kids all had the Advanced Cybernetic Bodyguards to follow them around now-a-days.
But then why hadn’t the ACB been with him the night before?
Bryce was moving, further into the apartment, and Ariana instantly turned, raising the knife as he stepped closer. He came to a halt, his dark eyes betraying nothing as they met hers. “Let your guard down a little, Ar. I’m just here to warn you to get the kid and his machine out of here before anyone else wakes up and sees what’s outside.”
Ariana narrowed her eyes at him. “Out of the goodness of your heart?” she sneered. “Well that’s kind of you, Bryce. Now you’ve said what you had to say, so why don’t you get out of my apartment?”
Bryce tsked at her mockingly as he started circling her, forcing her to return the gesture, keeping the boy behind her. “Such bad manners, Ar. I’m disappointed in you.”
In a moment they would have circled each other so that Ariana and the boy had their backs to the door. From the distance, Ariana could hear the footsteps in the hallway; the shifting of feet, waiting for the right moment. Fury shot through her and she grabbed his shoulder, yanking him to her so that she could press the knife into his throat. Bryce’s body stilled, going rigid. “He’s got nothing for you,” she growled softly. “Now get out and take your buddies with you.”
She threw him across the room, toward the door. Bryce stumbled but managed to stay on his feet, looking back at her and rubbing her throat before tossing her an impish smile. “Good to see you haven’t lost it,” he told her, almost cheerfully. Ariana almost threw her knife at his head. He tipped his head to gesture at the boy. “You’ll want to get him out of here. Quickly. I may have been the first to arrive, but the others will come soon, and when they see his ACB they won’t leave like I did.”
“You still haven’t left yet,” Ariana reminded flatly.
Bryce offered a half-smile, and then he was out of the apartment. Ariana didn’t realize how tense she was until the door closed. She wanted to fall onto her bed and sleep, but there was no time for that yet.
“Fire escape,” she ordered, pushing the boy to her window. He looked like he was in shock, but there was no time for that, either. She threw her window open and looked down, but so far they were alone. No one was on their way up, or down, yet. Ariana motioned for him to climb out of the window. After a moment of hesitation in which he eyed the wrought iron, he slowly reached out a hand, then suddenly withdrew and turned to her.
“I’m Levi.”
She stared at him blankly. They were only two words, but she couldn’t process them. She watched as his bandaged hand came out toward her in a sign of friendship. Was this kid crazy? Didn’t he realize the kind of danger he was in? Never mind the danger he was putting her in.
She placed her hand in his and yanked, all-but tossing him out the window so that he stumbled down onto the fire escape. He looked stunned, but he his dark eyes met with hers for only a moment before she heard the noises outside of her door.
“Hurry!” she pleaded desperately.
He hesitated, but then quickly scaled down the stairs as Ariana turned to face her visitors.
13. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again
Ariana poured the antibacterial liquid over the open wounds in her arms, gritting her teeth to keep from crying with the pain. She’d been lucky—the gang had only brought one Hack with them. If they had brought anymore, she wouldn’t have survived.
There was a soft scraping sound outside of her window.
She snapped her attention to it, drawing her knife out and poising beside the window, preparing to strike at whoever was climbing up the fire escape. A moment later, fingers appeared on the rubble of broken glass where her window pane had been before she’d tossed Bryce and the Hack through it. Ariana waited, her heart beat slow and methodical in her ears as she stood tense in the cold darkness.
A face appeared through the window, and suddenly a body toppled in, shaking the hard wood floor violently. Ariana closed her eyes, trying to keep herself from stabbing the boy in a heap on her floor through the head just to put him out of her misery. If she’d known that helping him out would have resulted in him stalking her, she would have left him to die.
“What are you doing here?” she asked quietly, trying to control her rage.
The head snapped up, and she was annoyed to discover that it was starting to become a familiar face that greeted her. “I snuck out,” he told her, looking so proud of himself that she was again tempted to put her knife through his heart. “You said it was dangerous to come here with the ACB, so I thought…” The smile on his face died as he saw the chunks missing from her arm and he jumped to his feet, ignoring the cuts and scrapes he’d received from the glass pieces scattered around the floor and window sill. “What happened?” he asked, horrified.
Ariana was so angry she was almost seeing red. “Someone keeps following me around, so some guys came over with a Hack that decided to take a few pieces of me with it,” she told him coldly. “Give me one, just one, good reason why I don’t alert everyone in the neighborhood that you’ve decided to return.”
He blinked, then looked up at her. “I… Just wanted to make sure that you were okay…” He studied her arm again, then dragged his eyes back to hers. “What’s a Hack?”
She remembered a time when she didn’t know what a Hack was, either. Most people who didn’t live on the wrong side of city center hadn’t heard of it. Sometimes, just for a few seconds at a time, she would allow herself to remember what it had been like.
“You know the parts yard?”
“Where they throw all the dismantled pieces of the robots, right?”
“Yeah. Well Hacks are robots that are created from those junked pieces. Then they get turned into something else.” She held out her arms and displayed the gashes. “This Hack had his hands replaced with small chain saws.”
Levi ‘s eyes showed white all around. “They… They did this to you… Because of me?”
Ariana glared at him. “Well they didn’t do it because they were bored and wanted something to do.” After a moment, she muttered, “Not this time, anyway.” She tossed the knife back onto the bedside table and returned to her position on the bed, over the bowl where she allowed the run-off of liquid to spill into from the bottle she poured over her arm.
“I can… Do you want me to… I can get you to a doctor…”
She shot him a scathing look. “I was hoping after I threw you out of my window, I’d never see you again.”
He flinched and ran a bandaged hand along the back of his neck. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. I caused you all of this trouble in the first place…”
“Yes. You did. And I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t cause any more.” She nodded at the window even as she tilted the bottle and poured the stinging liquid into her bare flesh. The overwhelming pain froze the rest of her words in her mouth. She could only clench her teeth and try to stay calm as the sharp pain resonated throughout her arm.
It was still surprising, though, when Levi knelt down in front of her, his delicate hands taking hers and freeing the bottle from her grip, taking over the painful duty.
“What the hell are you—“ she started, barely able to choke out the words in fear that she’d burst into tears.
“I’m helping you,” he said, simply. She would have stopped him, but the burning sensation started again, and it took all of her strength to stay still, let alone speak.
They sat in silence as he finished cleaning the grime from the gashes. She’d had to hide behind some dumpsters for almost eight hours until her apartment had been vacated and they’d stopped searching for her—probably to find another victim. It would be a miracle if her arms didn’t end up infected.
But no, they couldn’t get infected. Infections meant hospital, hospitals meant CDs, and she hated CDs more than real doctors.
“I’ve got a CD on staff at my house that could treat these,” he said quietly, even as he finished bandaging up her arm.
She yanked her arm away from his grasp, glaring down at him. “I don’t do the cyber doc thing,” she told him coldly, a little annoyed that they’d been thinking along the same lines. “And I don’t take charity. So thanks for bandaging my arm. Now get out.”
He looked sad. “Are you sure you want to stay here?” he asked her. “I… My house… it’s really large. No one would find you if you didn’t want them to. I’d make sure the staff stayed away from—“
“Look, kid, I’m not your good deed, okay?” she snapped, running a hand through her hair as she stood from the bed. She flinched at the movement—too soon to be moving her arm around. Ow. Damn. “If I’d known you were going to follow me around after last night, I would have left you there to die.”
He looked hurt as he stood, but not crushed. There was almost something admirable about the way that he stood in the moonlight, proud and tall, her words painful but not hitting some inner strength inside of him.
The thought frightened her. Unnerved, she quickly turned away and glared out the unbroken window. “You should leave. I’m not walking you out this time. You’re on your own. Maybe you’ll learn.”
There was silence behind her. “I came here by transport.”
The kid really had to be fabulously wealthy. For a moment, she allowed herself to think about his large house, and the undoubtedly large tub he and his family probably had in one of their many bathrooms. She couldn’t remember the last time she had bathed outside of the public showers.
Again she steeled herself and turned back to him. “Good,” she stated flatly, nodding at his wrist. “Then you can go back by it.”
He was fingering the transport button on his wrist. “Are you… Are you sure you don’t want to come back with me? Even just for a night? Your window is broken… You could catch the Mestonin.”
Goosebumps broke out on her body just hearing the name of the virus that had swept through, and almost immediately killed, billions of the planet’s population. The vaccine was administered to children while they were still in the womb, as kids who were allowed to breathe the earth’s air for even one breath tended to die almost instantly. Still, every couple of years the disease mutated in some form, and the neighborhood sprayers would turn on and douse every inch of the earth and every living being. Vaccines were administered yearly. It didn’t matter… Thousands still died every few years. The chances of catching the virus seemed to increase if the immune system was shot in some way, so most people tried to keep the temperatures in their homes up, and keep themselves healthy.
“I’m probably going to catch it eventually anyway,” she returned, trying to hide the bitterness in her voice. She hadn’t had a vaccine in over five years.
“Come with me,” he pleaded. She tensed as he stepped toward her. He stopped, his expression serious and sad. “Let me try to repay you. Please.”
“You can repay me by never coming back here.” She turned her back to him, closing her eyes. She hated the longing look in his eyes… The desperation to help. She didn’t want pity—not from him, not from her parents, not from anyone.
There was a hesitation, and then a click. Ariana turned back around to the middle of her apartment, which was now empty, and slowly sagged against the wall, letting out a deep sigh.
#22. He who looks for a friend without fault, remains without a friend
“Cash or scan?” the bored girl behind the counter asked.
Ariana pulled out a folded bill and tossed it onto the counter in response. The girl’s spiky blue and black hair caught the light as she threaded the cash into the machine, Ariana’s change coming out the side. Ariana picked it up, shoving it into the pocket of her trench coat.
“27,” the girl said, sliding the ticket to her with one hand while the other fiddled with one of five piercings in her left ear. Ariana stepped aside as the couple behind her stepped up to the counter and punched their order into the screen.
She made her way to a table in the front corner of the room, trying to ignore the bright lights and hustle around her. She watched as the man at the counter held out his wrist to be scanned, his chip card deducting the amount from his bank account, then stepped aside to wait for his order like the rest of the group gathered around the front.
She looked down at the inside of her own wrist, where her chip card was located, just between the two tendons. For a long time she’d considered pulling hers out, but the RCs had a way of finding out when people removed their chip cards, and those people usually disappeared amidst a lot of hysterical screaming in the middle of the night and were never seen again. So she’d left hers in, though she still hated the idea of the GOV being able to track her every move, to know whether she was healthy, how fast her heart was going, how much money her bank account had… The chip cards were just an elaborate tracking device, once sold as an early detection of the Mestonin. Now, though, she wondered how anyone could have been so dumb to buy into it.
“27!” a boy behind the counter called, looking just as bored as his blue-and-black-haired friend. Ariana eyed his long curly black hair, black eyeliner, red lips, and silently took her food before exiting the store.
There was an empty retaining wall outside of the door, so she sat, opening her bag and pulling out the bottle of water and the cheeseburger and fries. She was starving. After being stuck in her apartment for a week with nothing more than a package of crackers, any food sounded good.
She was crumpling up the bag when she heard someone say her name.
Silently, she sent up a prayer to whatever being was up there listening. Then she looked up.
Sure enough, standing before her was Levi, flanked on either side by bodyguards. This close, though, she could see that they were ACBs. How could she have missed the fake-looking skin covering their metal bodies when she’d been up in her apartment? She couldn’t afford to make mistakes like that. It had almost cost her both arms.
“Do you remember me?” Levi asked, looking like he was hesitant to appear hopeful. For a moment she considered saying no, but something in his dark eyes choked the words back down.
“I don’t remember telling you that you could call me by name,” she told him flatly, avoiding his eyes as she stood.
The trash was suddenly out of her hands, and Levi was already two feet away at the trash can, tossing it in. He came back, a boyish grin on his features.
She narrowed her eyes at him angrily, watching as his smile died. “I don’t need you to do things for me,” she snapped sharply. “Don’t do that again. I’m no lady that needs pampering.”
His eyes fell, his head hanging slightly. “Sorry. I just… With your injuries… I thought some help might be nice.” He slowly glanced up at her again. “How is your recovery going?”
She couldn’t help but look up at his forehead, which showed no signs of marring. The beauty money could buy with the right CDs… She almost sneered at him, thinking of the barely-healed oozing wounds on her arms. “Perfect. Completely healed. Glad we caught up. Let’s go our separate ways, now.”
“Ariana—“ His hand closed around her arm to stop her walk past him.
She sucked in a sharp breath against the pain that shot through her body, turning her vision red for several seconds. In the back of her mind she could hear Levi almost hysterically apologizing, but she couldn’t focus on the words as she sank down onto the retaining wall, holding her arms to try and stop the throbbing. She was vaguely aware of Levi kneeling in front of her, his hands warm on her knees, the concerned tone welcome and hated at the same time.
When her vision returned to normal, Ariana blinked her eyes slowly to clear them and looked down into the concerned, apologetic face in front of her. She wanted to backhand him for his lack of consideration, but the boy was almost near tears.
Pathetic.
She couldn’t hurt someone so sad and pathetic. It was too cruel, even for her. She stood, angry, even as he stood as well, just inches in front of her.
“Aria—“
“Stay. Away. From. Me.” She enunciated each word carefully and slowly, as curtly and acidic as she could manage. She lifted her eyes to his stricken ones. “You’re a pathetic, weak little brat, and if I’d known what a waste of human tissue you were, I would have left you to be eaten by the others. If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you myself.”
With those final words, she turned and stalked away, outside of city center.
24. When one door closes, another will open
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Ariana growled furiously, smacking her hand against the door frame.
Hector’s face was cold. “If you’re not going to pay for the damages, you’re out. You can leave now, or I can call the RCs to get rid of you.”
Ariana glared at him. For a moment she considered stabbing him with the knife hooked through her belt, but decided against it. Hector had a rather mean looking Hack with knives coming out of it standing over his shoulder.
“Call ‘em,” she suggested darkly. “Then they can see your Hack hanging around. How much time is it for having one, Hec? Three years? More?”
Hector leaned against the door frame, towering over her. He smelled like sweat and grime. She didn’t know if she’d ever seen him going to the public showers. His t-shirt was so yellow and disgusting that it was practically molding on his body. “You don’t want to make an enemy out of me, Miss,” he warned quietly. His breath was thick and pungent, worse than sour milk.
“I could say the same to you,” she returned evenly. She balled up the eviction notice and tossed it at his chest, whirling around on her heel and heading down the street.
Damn. Damn damn damn damn damn. She had worked hard to not make any friends here, so where the hell was she going to stay? Going home was not an option, and she didn’t know of any places that would take someone at ten o’clock at night. She could try to find a hotel, but now-a-days the hotels were so damn expensive that she would undoubtedly lose every last cent in her pocket.
Damn it!
She was not going to go to one of the shelters. She wouldn’t. She would rather fall asleep on the street and have the RCs grab her and throw her in the Chambers than end up in a shelter. That would certainly show her parents…
But she wasn’t going to think about that. Bastards.
There had been one night, when she’d first left home, that she’d stayed at one of the shelters. She hadn’t known better, then. But when she woke up and found a number of people who had been sleeping in the giant room on the cots around her missing and their loved ones and friends crying in despair, she had ran out and refused to go back.
People disappeared from shelters. For no reason. And she wasn’t planning to be one of them.
She made her way out to city center, glaring at the happy people strolling through the streets. Her backpack was light on her shoulder, but her arm still ached where it banged against the almost-healed wound.
Almost healed… Huh. She tried to think back, but it was hard. Time blurred together when there was no reason to count days. She guessed it had been almost a month since she had rescued that kid… Levi… And Bryce and his buddies had shown up with their Hack in tow, trying to get information about him.
She bought a bottle of water from a vendor and sat on the retaining wall. City center would close soon, and anyone left behind after hours would get picked up by the RCs and thrown into the Chambers. The thought made her sick to her stomach. The Chambers… Was she ready to face the horrors that awaited her there? The tests? The manual labor? Being treated like lab rats by those disgusting monsters who called themselves human?
She had only known one person who had ever come back from the Chambers… He’d lived down the street from her. He’d been in the Chambers for almost four weeks, and in that time, they had removed his hand, cut out his eye and replaced it with a robotic one, taken out part of his brain, and shaved off part of his tongue. And then, according to him, they’d made him work in an assembly line putting together more machines.
Ariana shuddered and took a large gulp of water to cool herself down, trying to force down her anger and rage before she did something she would regret.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, staring at the wall, waiting for the inevitable clock strike, signaling curfew for city center. People walked by her, but she barely noticed them. What, she wondered, would they do to her? Not even her mind was twisted enough to come up with something as horrible as what had happened to the guy she’d met. And if they’d already done that to him… What else could they do to her?
“A… Ariana?”
The sound of her name startled her. Her head snapped up, bringing into focus a young boy with dark brown hair, dark eyes, pale skin, a dark blue button-down shirt, and jeans, flanked on either side by two ACBs. For a moment, she could only stare at him in confusion. He knew her name… But how?
Then everything clicked, and she felt her eyes narrow.
“Out a little late, aren’t you?” she asked flatly.
Levi looked up at the large clock in the center of city center, a frown on his boyish features. “It’s only five minutes until curfew… What are you still doing here?”
“I’ve got a friend in the Chambers and I thought I’d try to get in to get them out,” she returned flatly.
He stared at her for a moment, his dark eyes wide. “B-but the Chambers—“
She glanced over her shoulder at the clock, trying to ignore the hard pounding in her heart. “You’d better move,” she warned him, using the practiced calm tone that she had perfected over the many months on the other side of city center. “You’re going to miss curfew.”
He automatically lifted his eyes, looking worried, but not as afraid as he should have. “I-I’ll be okay. Ariana, you can’t go into the Chambers… They do horrible things to people—“
“Don’t I know it,” she snorted, sneering at him. “Much more than a little kid like you. So run along.” She didn’t like how nervous she was suddenly feeling, seeing him standing before her. Three minutes. “Go, kid. You need to get out of here. Fast.”
He again looked at the clock. “I’m not going to leave without you,” he told her doubtfully.
What was with this kid? She had been nothing but mean to him, and yet he still kept coming. He was crazy. “Then I guess we’re going to go to the Chambers together,” she drawled.
The clock struck 11:30.
Ariana had once watched from the safety of an alley when city center shut down, but though she had seen it before, she still wasn’t prepared for the overwhelming darkness as every light shut off, plunging them into darkness. Then, over her shoulder, the clock tower suddenly burst with lights in every direction, huge beams of light that swept the area, searching for any remaining people to send the RCs after.
The spotlights found them in seconds. Ariana rose to her feet as the RCs appeared instantly from all around them, some coming up from behind the retaining wall, others from the sides of shops, and some from seemingly nowhere. She stood in front of the boy, who was shielded on either side by his ACBs.
“Run,” Ariana hissed at him, even as they were surrounded by the large metal enforcers.
“No,” he whispered back, but he sounded shaken.
“Extend your chip cards for scanning and processing,” one of the RCs ordered, walking toward them with the jerky metal steps unique to the machines.
Ariana glared into its scanner eyes. “For—“
“I am Levi Muirden,” Levi announced, with such an authoritative ring that Ariana swung around to make sure that it was really the boy who had spoken. He stood with his shoulders back and his face calm and almost annoyed. As she watched in disbelief, he stepped around her and held out his wrist. “I have the authority to be anywhere I please, with whomever I please. You will step back and let us through.”
Ariana could only gape in utter astonishment as the RC scanned his chip card, then nodded once, the gears in its neck letting out a soft hiss as it did. “Yes, sir,” it said, turning away.
Ariana watched as the RCs disappeared, the spotlight on them falling off, plunging them back into darkness, then light again as the bulbs caught them. This time, though, the light swept on.
“What the hell just—“ Ariana started, gesturing to the RC’s retreating back.
“Not now,” Levi murmured. She was too stunned to stop him as he took her by the elbow. “Come on. We have to get out of here.”
“B-but—“
“If you have nowhere to go,” Levi continued, even as he led her and his ACBs out of city center, “then you’ll stay with me.”
“What?” she protested. She tried to pull away and turn to argue, but she was still too stunned by what she had seen to stop, and Levi’s grip was surprisingly strong for such a slender kid. “I didn’t say I had nowhere to go. What makes you think I’ll go with you?”
He held tighter when she tried to tug her arm away. “No one with a place to go would willingly go to the Chambers. Now let me help you.” He did stop, then, his dark eyes pleading. “Please. Let me pay you back for saving my life.”
Hesitantly, she ran a hand through her hair. She didn’t want to accept his help, but she really didn’t want to end up in the Chambers, and if she could just get a place to stay for the night, she could find somewhere else to live in the morning. And besides… Maybe she could find out who the hell this kid was—and why he could boss RCs around with an all-access pass. She’d never heard of such a thing before.
“Okay,” she agreed.
His face lit up in a boyish grin.
4. Give him an inch and he'll take a yard
Something smelled delicious.
Ariana’s eyes flew open.
Was that her? Was she being cooked? Was someone cooking her?
It took a few seconds for her to recognize the strange, lush bedroom, twice the size of anything she had ever seen before. The gigantic bed she slept in was the softest thing she had ever touched, and the silk sheets were not like anything she had ever felt before. It was almost like water caressing her skin.
An mbot was placing a tray on a table by her bed, its movements smooth despite its mechanical components. Ariana watched as the metal censors it called eyes turned up and looked at her.
“You’re awake,” the mbot said, the robotic voice echoing slightly through the mesh they all knew as a mouth.
Ariana nodded, once. She didn’t like that the mbot had been able to come into the room without her waking up. How hard had she slept? She couldn’t remember the last time she had actually slept so soundly, or through the night. After Levi had brought her to his estate—it was an entire estate, larger than any school she had ever seen—he’d taken her straight to one wing of the house and to this luxurious bedroom, with its attached grand bathroom at least three times the size of her old apartment. She hadn’t been able to resist a bath, and when she’d emerged, pajamas had been sitting on the bed waiting for her. They were a little big, but she guessed that they were his mother’s, and they were so soft and smooth that she never wanted to take them off. And then she’d fallen into the bed, and that was the last thing she remembered.
“I’ll tell the young master,” the mbot said, turning away.
“That’s not necessary—“ Ariana objected, sitting up in the cushioned bed.
“He asked to be informed the moment you woke,” the mbot interrupted, leaving no room for argument. Ariana watched in dismay as it exited the room, leaving her alone in the cavern.
The smell was tantalizing.
She couldn’t resist crawling out from under the covers and over to the side table, carefully setting the silver tray onto her lap. There was coffee, eggs, ham, hashed browns, bacon, sausage, juice, and milk. When was the last time she had eaten so extravagantly? She didn’t even know if she ever had, even when she was still living with her parents and Colin.
She carefully lifted the heavy silver utensils and dove in, stuffing herself until she was sure she’d throw up if she ate one more bite. Then, when she was done, she moved the tray back to the bedside table and fell back against the pillows, allowing herself just a moment to revel in the luxury of something she could never have.
There was a knock on the door.
Ariana sat up quickly, startled. Her heart beat thumped poignantly against her ribs. Had someone found out she was there? Was it Levi? It was probably Levi.
“Ariana?” she heard through the door. “It’s Levi. Can I come in?”
She relaxed, but remained sitting up. “Yeah,” she called back.
The door opened, and Levi stepped in, shutting the door behind him. He looked fitting in these elegant surroundings. Richness suited him.
She felt the wall between them rise.
“How did you sleep?” he asked her, as he walked toward the bed.
“Great,” she admitted, but kept her tone even. “Thanks for letting me stay the night. And for breakfast. I was just about to get dressed and—“
“You should stay.”
His stubborn tone startled her, and she paused, blinking up at him. He was standing just a few feet in front of her, his stance firm, but his eyes betraying his nervousness. She could read it in him almost as if he had told her.
“What?” she asked, sure that she had somehow heard him incorrectly. Maybe being surrounded by money had somehow dumbed her down in the last few hours.
Levi nodded. “I think you should stay here. Move in.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Why would I do that?” she countered. “I don’t live here, I don’t really like it here, and honestly, kid, I don’t really want to spend that much time around you.” She offered him a mocking smile. “Besides, today isn’t ‘adopt-a-poor-street-kid’ day. I think it was last week.”
He crossed his arms. “I think you should stay here,” he said again. “You don’t have anywhere else to go, do you? You’ll just get picked up by the RCs, and they’ll send you to the Chambers. At least here you’ll be safe, you’ll be warm, you’ll have plenty of food to eat—“
“What’s with you?” she demanded, annoyed. She wasn’t going to admit he was right. Even if he was, and she was a little scared of the bleak future she faced, she’d never accept being his charity case. “Are you trying to rack up good deeds for your mommy and daddy to see what a good little boy you’ve been this year? Hoping they’ll buy you a new Jesetti?”
He pursed his lips. “I have two,” he told her quietly. She stared at him in disbelief. She’d never actually seen the luxury transport vehicle before, but she certainly knew of them. And this boy had two? Who the hell were this kid’s parents?
She stood before she could think of a way to kidnap him and ransom him off. “I’m going to get dressed,” she told him, clipping her words. “So unless you want both of your eyes taken out before I do, I suggest you get out.”
He hesitated. “You’re going to stay, though, right? Isn’t it better here than where you’ve been living?”
The image of her punching him played across her mind, but she somehow contained it. “If I’d known coming here was going to cause you to think that there was a chance of me moving in here, I never would have come,” she said coldly. “Now out.”
His dark eyes met hers, then dropped to her bed, and after a slight nod, Levi was out of the room.
As soon as the door shut, she sank down onto the bed and held her head in her hands. She just wanted one more minute to experience the warmth around her. Just one more. Then she’d get up and leave. She certainly wasn’t going to outlive her welcome there the way she had at her own house with her own family.
The thought spurred her into action, and she rose to her feet to get dressed.
7. The road to a friend's house is never long
“C’mon!” Ariana pleaded, desperate. “Joey, c’mon. You have a room, I know you do. I can pay! I have cash. C’mon!”
The fat, smelly bastard just shook his head, his hands on either side of the doorframe, blocking the entrance to the office. “Sorry, Ar,” he said. “I got nothin’.”
“Did Bryce get to you?” she demanded angrily. “’cause he deserved what he got. He and his buddies came at me with a Hack!” She pulled back her sleeves and showed off the almost-healed gashes. “Look, Jo! Look what it did to me!”
Joey just shook his head. “Sorry, Ar. Can’t help.”
He stepped back and the door was shut in her face.
Ariana let out a cry of frustration, clenching her hands into fists. What the hell was she going to do? She had literally walked the entire area all god damn day, checking with every building manager, and every single one of them said that they had no rooms—even the ones that she knew personally and knew had rooms. Why had she been blacklisted?
Despair welled up inside of her, and for the first time in a long time, Ariana felt like crying.
She sat down on the sidewalk, dropping her head into her hands and fisting her hair. All that was left was a shelter, or letting the RCs grab her. If she stayed on the street where she was, something was going to come and kill her—if she was lucky. The Chambers or the shelter would even be a blessing compared to the depraved things these people would come up to do to her.
But why was this happening? She had money! She could pay. Bryce didn’t have that much influence over this side of city center. And even so, he wouldn’t use it to get her captured by the RCs and sent to the Chambers. He wouldn’t be able to torture her himself if she was locked up. So why was she being blacklisted?
And what was she going to do?
She heard the metal winding of pistons and gears, and closed her eyes as she felt the RC approaching her from behind. Just her luck… An RC chose this moment, on this night, to patrol this side of city center.
The Chambers was going to get another guest.
“Did you get her?”
The voice on the other end of the phone was calm. “Yes, young master.”
“Good.” Levi drummed his fingers on the table nervously. “They didn’t hurt her, did they?”
“No, sir. She’s perfectly fine. I do believe that she’s quite furious that she was unable to find a place to stay.”
Levi fidgeted. “You don’t think any of them told her, do you, Chellis?”
“I believe that they received enough compensation to keep quiet, sir.”
“It’s just that she’s not safe out there!” Levi burst out. “I don’t want her to get hurt.”
“I understand, young master.” Chellis’ voice was calm, practical, but understanding, just like the driver himself. “We’re pulling into the garage now. I shall bring her up shortly.”
“Thanks, Chellis.”
Levi switched off his compad and glanced at the time. 20 minutes. It had taken 20 minutes from the name Ariana had gotten picked up by his RC before she’d been brought here. He guessed that since she’d spent all day searching for a new place to live that it was a relatively short time, but it felt like an eternity. He had been unable to sit still all day, pacing around from room to room and back again.
He heard the door handle catch, his breath catching in his throat as the door swung open.
23. He can't see the forest for the trees
“…ready for the next…”
“…don’t give a damn how many…”
“…to get under control?”
“About 600 should be enough…”
“…double that…”
“We’ll start as soon as…”
“…okay.”
Ariana looked over at Levi, who was standing beside her in front of his father’s study. He looked just as confused about the conversation as she did, but he just shrugged and they continued down the hall, to his bedroom.
She still couldn’t believe that Levi’s dad ran the entire city.
“Guess he gets to know all the stuff we’re not supposed to, huh?” Ariana asked dryly, dropping down onto the soft suede couch in his room. She had discovered after a few days of living there that she loved this couch almost as much as she loved the bed she slept in.
Levi lowered himself onto the couch a cushion away, maintaining a respectful distance as he always did. “I guess,” he agreed, a little doubtfully. “Dad doesn’t talk about work. Pretty much ever.”
Ariana eyed him. “So you have no idea what that conversation was about?”
Levi shook his head. “No clue. Probably some project they’re working on that’s really important.”
She drummed her fingers on the suede. Levi’s dad… The world’s savior. No wonder the kid was ridiculously wealthy and could go wherever he wanted whenever he wanted. Charles Muirden was practically a god. He created the vaccine that stopped the Mestonin, and led the research team that was responsible for being able to control the outbreaks since the original that had wiped out most of the population. She never would have thought that the kid she had saved one night on the other side of city center was the son of Charles Muirden, even when she’d found out his last name.
“Want to see what’s on the screens?” Levi asked, picking up the remote and holding it up.
Ariana couldn’t help but smile. Levi, she had discovered, didn’t really have many friends, and the one that he had started to make had apparently disappeared to the other side of city center the night she’d met him, so he was very attached to the characters on the screens. It seemed as though they were really his only companions, besides her, who his father hadn’t found out about yet.
And probably wouldn’t, given the size of the estate.
“Sure,” she agreed, settling back against the sofa. Levi eagerly clicked on the screens, and she had to fight back her grin. While she wasn’t so much a fan of being stuck here at Levi’s, so far the place was pretty nice, and though she told herself that she would only stay until she found somewhere else to live, she hadn’t gone back out to the other side of city center since the RCs had picked her up and brought her back to Levi’s. He’d apparently ordered the RCs to bring her to him if they picked her up instead of taking her to the Chambers, and even though she didn’t like being in his debt, she was grateful.
But only for a little while. She would leave. Soon.
Resolved, she focused on the screens and allowed herself to get lost in the story.
17. Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped
“How did you end up on the other side of city center?”
Ariana sat up on the bed, looking down over her right shoulder at Levi. “What?” she asked the boy, stretched out in the opposite direction she was in.
He didn’t get up, one arm hooked pillowed under his head. His eyes were serious, curious, but cautious. “How did you get there?” he repeated. “To the other side of city center.”
She frowned and laid back, their heads side-by-side as they lay in a straight line on the bed. She carefully considered his words, listening to his slightly-quickened breath, indicating that he was nervous. He was always afraid that she was going to get angry and leave, and while she couldn’t blame him, she’d already been there for almost two weeks. It wasn’t like she was running away like she had in the beginning of her stay.
“I guess it was because I left home,” she answered finally. “I had nowhere else to go and the shelters were… frightening.” She turned her ear against the pillow and gazed at Levi’s dark hair, falling around his head on the cushioned bed. “It was the only place left to go.”
His face turned, his eyes meeting hers. “What happened?”
She looked back up at the ceiling, letting out a deep breath. She didn’t really know if she wanted to open up to him, but the words came out, haltingly. “I found out that my family wasn’t the perfect unit I thought they were,” she admitted. She suddenly felt flushed, uncomfortable under his gaze.
Almost as though he sensed her discomfort, she saw his head turn so that he faced the ceiling. “Is any?” he asked, almost sighing. She felt her heart go out to him and his loneliness and was alarmed to discover that she wanted to hug him.
Alarmed at her thoughts, she spoke quickly. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I just… It was…” Nervous and agitated, she sat up, the emotions creating a knot in her stomach. “I just couldn’t take the lies anymore. My parents weren’t who they said they were. They were…” For the first time, she allowed herself to voice what she had learned. “They’re part of the Chambers,” she finished, disgusted. Revulsion and fury almost choked her. “They’re the ones who… They help come up with the experiments to do to people.”
He sat up as well, and they faced each other on the bed. “What happened?” he asked.
She felt sick. “I confronted them when I found out, and they tried to deny it, at first, and then they told me the truth. They tried to tell me why and what they do, and I… I had to leave. I couldn’t take it.” She stared at the soft comforter they sat on. “And Colin… My brother… He didn’t get it. I couldn’t tell him, and I couldn’t bring him with me… I just had to leave, and he’s still there. But some day, I’m going to go back and get him out of there.”
She nearly gasped when a warm, gentle hand closed over hers. She looked up, startled, finding herself staring into tender, dark eyes. “I know you will,” Levi reassured her quietly. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you.”
Her smile broke, and before she could start crying, she stood. “Want to watch the screens?”
His smile was sympathetic. She hated sympathy. It was then that she made her decision.
It was time to leave.
27. Don't put all your eggs in one basket
“There is no ‘backup plan.’ Get it done right, the first time.”
“But, sir—“
“The people are starting to get…”
“Yes, sir…”
“…problem?”
“…if we can’t get it ready for another…”
“…Chambers…”
“…understand.”
Ariana looked over in disbelief at Levi, whose own dark eyes were wide. She watched as he leaned against the door, straining to hear the men’s lowered voices, then backed away in frustration. To her surprise, he stalked down the hall, not waiting for her.
Instinctively, she started to go after him, then hesitated. This was her chance, wasn’t it? She wanted to leave, so wasn’t now the perfect time to go? Levi had walked away without waiting for her, so wasn’t it fitting that she walk away from him without notice?
With a heavy heart, Ariana turned and walked down the hall in the opposite direction.
5. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
He was there.
Ariana watched as the boy with short, light brown hair jogged around the race track, clad in sweats and sneakers, sweat building up on his face. He was alone, except for the ACB standing by a bag on a bench—his, one he had stolen from her when they were kids.
She approached slowly, feeling out of place. She and Colin had come to this park every day when they were younger and played together, and when she had taken up running, he had, too, and they had become running partners. It was nice to see that he continued the tradition even after she had left, but it also made her sad to see that her leaving had such a minimal impact on his life. Her life had been turned upside down, and yet nothing had changed for him?
He paused as she approached, his run slowing to a stop. Even from the distance, she could see the stricken, stunned expression on his face. She supposed that she did look different from the last time he’d seen her… Back then she’d been all about dresses and nice clothes and looking pretty. Now she was scarred and her light brown hair was tied back, she wore no makeup, her clothes were black and looked like they’d been pulled out of a gutter, and her long trench coat was so thin it barely protected her from the elements.
He didn’t come to her, so she walked to him, hesitantly. “Colin,” she greeted slowly.
The wide eyes slowly returned to a normal size, shifting to cold dispassion. She didn’t know if she’d ever seen her cheerful, loving brother look so… empty… before. “Ariana,” he returned evenly, looking away. “What brings you here? You look… like hell.”
It startled her. “Colin, I—“
“Save the apologies, Ar,” he snapped, glaring at her. “It’s a little late, don’t you think?”
She stared at him, stunned. What had happened to her brother? What on earth had happened to her wonderful little brother? “I-I wanted to explain—“
“And I told you, it’s a little late.” He looked her over from head to toe in disgust, and she suddenly felt incredibly ashamed. “What the hell happened to you? You move to the other side or something? Get stuck in the Chambers?”
She pursed her lips. “I had to leave, Colin. I had to leave, and I couldn’t take you with me because it wasn’t safe for you. But you have to believe me. I just wanted the best for you.”
He sneered at her. “Just because you’re older doesn’t mean that you get to decide what’s best for me,” he hissed. “Older doesn’t mean smarter, Ar. Just more wear and tear on your body.” He actually looked like he wanted to hit her. “I woke up and you were gone. Mom and Dad were heartbroken. And you thought a note with ‘I’m sorry’ on it would make it okay?” She flinched. She’d left the note for him, hoping that he would understand, but apparently he hadn’t. “Well, it didn’t, Ar. At all. In fact, it made it worse. Maybe we could have thought you’d been kidnapped. Instead we had to know that you deliberately abandoned us, without reason.”
“I had a reason—“ Ariana protested quickly, pleadingly.
“What?” he burst out furiously. “What was so terrible about our family that you had to leave us?”
She faltered. “I-I can’t…”
He glared at her. “That’s what I thought.” Disgusted, he turned away. “Go back to wherever you came from, Ariana.”
Desperately, she reached for him, but he had always been faster than her, and he yanked his arm away before she could, his eyes blazing with anger. “Colin,” she begged. “I can’t tell you why I left yet, but I need you to trust me. I didn’t tell you or take you because I want what’s best for you. I can’t bring you with me now. It’s not safe for you. But when I can, I’ll come get you—“
“God,” he spat, sounding repulsed. “Save the song and dance, would you? It’s making me want to puke.”
“Colin!” she cried.
“Go to hell!” he shouted.
And with those final words, he was gone.
Ariana slowly sank onto the ground, hot tears stinging her eyes. And there she sat, sobbing for everything she had lost.
