Revive (17 page)

Whatever I was expecting—and I'm not sure what—it wasn't that. I try not to squirm, but the way she looks at me makes me want to punch her. “Something happened to me. The doctors think I'll get my memory back.”

“Something happened to me.” She mocks my voice. “Listen to yourself. You don't even have the guts to admit you were attacked and lost the fight.”

My jaw clenches. “We don't know if that's what happened.”

“Wrong. You don't know, but I do. I'd bet on it. And why don't you know?” She pauses as though waiting for my response. “Because you failed.”

No shit, I failed. It's all I've been able to think about when I'm not busy thinking about Kyle or wondering what's going to happen to me. So I don't need Fitzpatrick getting in my face about how much I screwed up. “I'm aware of it.”

“No, I don't think you are.”

I bite down on my tongue and concentrate on the pain to keep myself from saying something I'll regret.

Fitzpatrick gets up and paces. “Countless research hours went into designing your brain.”

Yes, but I could count them if someone gave me the data.

“More went into engineering you the right DNA.”

An average of 1.2 lectures a day since I was five years old equals 6,132 lectures. At 1.73 minutes per lecture, that's just over 10,608 minutes—the equivalent of 7.4 days—of my life that have been spent listening to Fitzpatrick bitch at me.

That took me less than a second to compute. See how well I can count?

Fitzpatrick is oblivious to my mental math. She probably needs all her fingers and toes to count to twenty. “Nineteen years went into training you how to use that brain and body of yours.”

Actually, it's seven thousand eighty-one days to be precise. More counting.

“And what do you have to show for it? You were at that school for three months. What were you doing the whole time?”

Enough counting. How about a little Emily Dickinson to explain?

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

That sums it up. And see? Sum! A pun. Bitchpatrick needs a sense of humor.

“I told Malone two months ago that you should be recalled because you clearly weren't up for the task. You remember what I said to you that day in Boston?”

I can't take it anymore. It's time to sing.
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb…

“How hard could it possibly be to find one student—”

LITTLE LAMB!

“—out of eight hundred possibilities?”

“Eight-hundred-seventy-seven possibilities. Of which I narrowed down the possibilities to forty-six within the last month. I can't help it if Malone didn't keep you briefed on my reports.”

She gapes at me.
I
gape at me.

To start, mouthing off to Fitzpatrick was definitely not a good idea. To middle, I wasn't even supposed to be paying attention to her. And to end, where did that forty-six number come from? Had I really done that? I want to be cheered by this memory's return, but Fitzpatrick looks murderous. Her face has gone totally red. She might explode. I'll be covered in Fitzpatrick debris.

“What?” Her voice booms like thunder.

“I did.”

“Let me be clear, HY1-Seven.” Although she's burning up with her blood pressure, Fitzpatrick's voice is as cold as her eyes, and she sticks her face in mine. Her breath stinks of coffee. “If Malone didn't have such misplaced trust in your abilities, you would have gone nowhere. I knew you couldn't handle such an important and difficult mission. But while Malone and the doctors keep faith that your memories will return, I have no such misguided beliefs. I'm not waiting for you to fix yourself. We're going to spend today figuring out how broken you are. Now get out of my sight until I see you at the gym.”

I go, hoping that doesn't mean another dunk in the lake.

Sucking in the winter air, I head back to the mess. It's nice to know some things haven't changed around here. I still hate Bitchpatrick. It's almost reassuring.

Yes, but… This new thought buzzes around my brain like a gnat.

Yes, but Fitzpatrick gets orders from somewhere too.

I ball my hands into fists, and start humming “Mary Had a Little Lamb” again. But blocking out Fitzpatrick is one thing. Swatting a mental gnat is another.

Malone supervises everything that goes on at the camp. That means Fitzpatrick works for him. That means Malone signs off on everything she does, whether it's starving us for three days then throwing us into the lake, or simply being a mean old bitch.

I don't like this realization. I don't like many of the realizations I've had in the last twenty-four hours, but I especially don't like this one because it makes me feel even more unstable. The one thing I've been relying on is this: the people I work for are good people. Whatever morally questionable things I might have done in the past, they were done because good people believed they were the right thing to do.

But what sort of good person lets Fitzpatrick abuse a bunch of children? And if I question that, do I need to question my other assumption?

The cold wind bites at my ears.
Block it out,
I tell myself.
Block out the cold and the doubts.

I console myself with the knowledge of how busy Malone is. He's always coming and going, and we are not his sole responsibility. Maybe Malone isn't aware of everything that goes on. Maybe he trusts Fitzpatrick to train us how she sees fit and doesn't pay much attention, or maybe he didn't approve of that lake exercise and that's why it didn't happen again.

It didn't happen again, did it? How would I know?

“Sev!” Jordan waves and jogs over to me. “Welcoming you back, was she?”

“Oh, yeah. By making it clear what a screwup and embarrassment I am.”

“She said that?” Jordan kicks a chunk of broken asphalt down the path. “Please. If she could do any better, then why is she here torturing us and not off somewhere saving the world on her own? Ignore her.”

I unclench my hands but can't relax. This time at RTC I'd still be in bed. The dining hall didn't even serve breakfast on Sunday until seven. I'd eat with Audrey, meet up with Kyle, then spend the morning in the library pretending to catch up on my assignments with them. Since I didn't usually need those hours to do my own work, I'd help out when I could or find some random book to read. Often I'd work on mission planning or reports, but that depended a lot on whether I could sneak away from everyone. Part of my mission required I remain unnoticed and unremarkable. That made life difficult.

It also, frankly, made life fun sometimes. That is, when I could justify hanging out with people as part of maintaining my cover.

What happens to those people now? What did Kyle and Audrey and Chase think when I didn't return last night? Did Kyle tell people what happened, and if so, what will he think when he hears about the excuse Malone planted? He'll know it's a lie. But then, if Kyle works for the enemy, maybe it doesn't matter.

And what about Audrey? Did she go to bed worried? She can't afford to be distracted, not when we have our physics final coming up this week. Damn it—I really need a way to send word to RTC, but how?

“Sev?”

With a start I realize I've stopped walking. Jordan is way ahead of me. “Sorry. The memories are coming back fast and furious this morning.”

“Ooh, that's good. Anything useful?”

“Yeah, my cover identity has a physics final on Wednesday.”

“You had to take physics at that school? Damn, you must have been so bored.”

I grimace. “Yeah, horribly.”

As Jordan fills me in on the day's schedule, I gather the courage to ask about the issue weighing on my mind. From my limited recall, I trust Jordan won't be bothered by my questions. I'm just not sure I want to know what she'll say.

When we reach the newest building, I draw her aside. “That time when we were thirteen and Fitzpatrick made us go in the lake—did we do that more than once?”

Jordan stuffs her hands in her pockets and checks around us. “How many times do you remember?”

“Just the once.”

“Lucky you. We did it five times.”

“Five?”

“Five. They made us do it until we could all hold out in the water for as long as they demanded.”

I shiver in sympathy with my younger self. “Malone would have had to authorize that, right?”

“Malone authorizes everything, doesn't he?”

“But they could have killed us.”

Jordan throws me a pitying expression. “You think that's the worst thing they did to us? You need to get the rest of your brain working.”

She reaches for the door, and I grab her arm. “It's not right.”

Her hand drops. She seems to consider something, then presses that hand to the cut on my forehead. “What did you do to yourself? This isn't like you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you were always on Cole's side. You know, the ‘they're tough on us because we need to be tough' line. And ‘we'll thank them for this when we're older.' And my personal favorite: ‘after they did so much for us, it's our duty to be as good as we can for them and our country.' Now you sound like me.”

The breeze picks up and blows hair in my face. “What do you sound like?”

“Oh, you know. ‘We're all a bunch of slaves, and I don't care if our country needs us to defend it. One day I'm going to burn their house down.' That's my line.” She yanks the door open. “If being on the outside's changed your attitude, you'd best keep quiet about it.”

I purse my lips, following her in. “I want to defend my country and help people, but that kind of treatment seems wrong.”

Jordan shushes me, and she's right to. Despite Malone's promise that no one is going to erase my memories—if I ever get them back—Fitzpatrick's threat hovers above me like an executioner's ax. I cannot give anyone here any reason to know just how corrupted I became on the outside.

Oh yeah, I'm feeling very off balance this morning. Not the best thing when I'm about to face some hand-to-hand combat practice. And Fitzpatrick's wrath.

Chapter Fifteen

Sunday Morning: Present

The gym Jordan leads me through is not merely a gym, but an all-purpose training center on several floors. She points out the indoor firing range and the pool, then takes me down a flight of stairs. We pass a room filled with weight-lifting equipment, another filled with ropes and climbing walls, and finally we enter the last one on this level.

This room is a large, open space with two mirrored walls facing each other. Mats are spread out on the floor, and the rest of my unit has already assembled. Cabinets line one of the non-mirrored walls. One of the doors hangs open, revealing sets of practice blades.

I really hope today's session doesn't require the use of weapons. Given Fitzpatrick's comment earlier, I suspect I'm going to come out of this broken. I'd rather not add stabbed or sliced to my future wounds.

Everyone except Cole crowds around me, continuing to press for information. He hangs back and tells them to stop bugging me. Footsteps echo out in the hall, and we break apart as Fitzpatrick enters the room.

She crosses her arms and waits for us to line up. “We're picking up where we left off on Friday. Warm up.”

Cole leads us through a series of stretches while Fitzpatrick stalks among us. Mostly she says nothing, but occasionally she takes the opportunity to point out that I'm not as limber as I once was. It wouldn't do me any good to point out in return that I couldn't train for hours a day at RTC. Besides, she must be right about me. I'm not as flexible as the others.

“Two, Three, you'll be supervising,” Fitzpatrick says once we're done. “Pair everyone off and practice Friday's drills. One and Seven, with me over here.”

One doesn't look happy as we head over to her. He probably thinks he should be supervising.

Fitzpatrick takes us into a far corner. “My task today, and for however long it needs to be, is to see how much Seven remembers and get her back into fighting form. One, since Malone's designated you to help, you'll be her sparring partner.”

Oh, good. Because it's not like Cole isn't eight inches taller or fifty pounds heavier. Sure I fought off those guys in South Station, but Cole's had the same training as me. He knows everything that I don't know I know.

“Get in positions.” Fitzpatrick leans against the wall, looking smug.

Cole circles around. “Do you care what moves I start with? I'm thinking of running her through some basic defensive—”

“Anything,” Fitzpatrick says. “Attack her. Give her the best you've got, and we'll see if she can defend herself. If not, you'll keep backing up from there until we discover what she can do.”

Yeah, right after he breaks me.

That thought must pass over my face because Cole's jawline hardens. Our eyes lock, and my muscles tense in anticipation.
Let it go,
I tell myself. Conscious brain off. Muscle memory on.

Cole seems to be waiting for me to take some sort of defensive stance, but I don't know what it is, and my body isn't adopting it on its own.

Fitzpatrick's patience runs out. “Get on with it.”

I'm standing in the wrong position when Cole rushes me. I twist around, barely maintaining my balance. He hesitates a fraction of a second, giving me time to recover before he comes at me again. My arms don't fail, thankfully. They move on their own, blocking his punches, but my feet remain clumsy. Cole attacks from my left, and I stumble over his foot as I move to counter. It's over in under ten seconds. With a dull pain, my knees hit the mat and my hands follow. I hold my breath to keep from hissing.

Fitzpatrick snatches my arm and drags me upright before my knees are ready to support me. They buckle slightly as she lets go, and again I'm fighting for balance. “I said attack her, not toy with her. Not go easy on her.”

Cole's hands open and close at his sides. “Injuring her isn't going to help anything. There's no point—”

“That was an order.” Fitzpatrick steps toward him.

“She's missing large chunks of her memory. You're not going to beat them out her.”

“But you might shake something loose. Hit her.”

Cole doesn't move.

Wetting my lips, I peer to the side and catch the rest of my unit in the mirrors. They're trying hard to look busy, but they're clearly watching us more than each other.

It's not just me, I realize. Fitzpatrick's baiting Cole too. She knows he doesn't want to hurt me, and that's why she chose him as my sparring partner.

Fuck Fitzpatrick, I tell myself. She's nothing. She's beneath me—a tool to make me stronger. I have to focus on what's important. And what's important is that a student at RTC is counting on me to keep them safe, and I'm failing them. I have to pull myself together and remember who I am even if it means remembering things I don't want to know.

I take a deep breath. “Hit me,” I tell Cole.

Startled, he spins around. “Sev—”

“The camp sent men after me in Boston. I didn't know who they were and so I fought them off. I
did
it. I don't know how, but the knowledge is obviously locked somewhere in my brain. We need to get it out.”

“There are better ways.”

“Do it, or I'll attack you.” When he still doesn't move, I close my eyes. I have no doubt Cole can defend himself from anything I do, so I let the worries nagging me float away.

Then I rush him.

Despite my speech, he isn't expecting it. I land one solid hit to his stomach before his training kicks in. He's stronger; I'm faster. So long as I keep my gaze from his face, the instincts keep my consciousness from intruding. I feel every blow that he lands, every hit that I block, but the pain doesn't last. It passes right through me like I was trained to let it.

We're well matched, as we should be, and I maintain this twisted Zen state for longer than I'd have believed possible. Then Cole gives me an opening, and I kick. He recovers, grabbing my leg and flipping me to the mat. My other leg shoots out, and I take him down with me.

All it takes is a second of rolling on the mat with him, and my mind jumps to RTC. To tackling Kyle. The scent of the grass, the cold, dry leaves against my cheek, the giddy emotional high. I can't separate here and now from there and gone. A hole opens in my chest. My anxiety soars.

Cole lands on me. He pins me to the mat long enough to make his point, then releases me. As I climb to my knees, I discover he's grinning. “You're right, it is in there.”

It warms me that I made him happy, but the satisfaction does nothing to ease the pain of missing Kyle. Stretching my bruising limbs, I join him on my feet.

Just as quickly I'm knocked back down. But not by Cole.

Completely unprepared, I barely get my hands out in time to save my face. My nose slams into the mat. Nothing cracks, but fiery pain spreads across my nerves. I'm too shocked and angry to bother repressing it. I revel in it.

“You still don't watch your left,” Fitzpatrick says.

Her words smack me harder than the mat did, triggering another memory.

Judging by the direction of her voice, Fitzpatrick's right behind me. I try not to get flustered, but I swear I can smell the sweat and coffee on her. Somehow it's more powerful than the bitter tang of gunpowder clinging to the air or the comforting scent of the pine needles beneath me. Fitzpatrick drinks so much of the stuff it must be seeping out her pores.

I push the thoughts of her away and put my earmuffs on. Fitzpatrick is a distraction, and I can ignore distractions. I have to. We're being tested not only on accuracy but on speed.

I run through my checklist. It's been five minutes since I fired my last shot and conditions haven't changed much. Humidity is an oppressive eighty-five percent. Wind speed is fifteen miles per hour from the southwest with occasional gusts of thirty-six miles per hour. That's almost directly perpendicular to my trajectory, and my target is eight hundred meters away across a ridge.

As an added bonus, the sun is directly in my eyes.

My hands work on their own, adjusting the rifle's scope and performing the necessary compensatory calculations. To my right, Octavia fires. On my left, so do two others.

I take aim and hold my breath until my bullet strikes the target. This shot is supposed to hit the painted-green dot. If it's perfect, I'll obliterate the marking.

It's not. I'm off by an inch. Damn.

Turning my binoculars to other nearby targets, I see that Octavia missed by twice as much, Summer did about the same as me, and Jordan nailed hers. She's the only one besides Cole, Jules and Eva who did. But Jules took the longest to take his shot, which should count against him.

After everyone finishes, I take off my earmuffs and await the inevitable insults. Fitzpatrick stomps behind us, taking note of how we did. I try not to fidget. Though the ground is cool, the air is not. Sweat rolls off me, and pine needles and other bits of the forest stick to my skin. They itch.

“Unacceptable.” Fitzpatrick says at last, and I roll over so I can see her. Hands on her hips, she plows through the underbrush. “Only four of you made that shot. Do we need more incentive? Should I start putting apples on your heads and making you use each other as targets? Would that motivate you to do better?”

“If I could have my old equipment back,” Octavia mutters.

But that's part of the point. Sometimes in the field we'll have familiar rifles, but sometimes we won't. We have to get used to compensating for a new weapon quickly.

“Again,” Fitzpatrick says. “Yellow squares.”

We shoot four more times. I make two of the shots dead perfect, but fifty percent success doesn't impress Fitzpatrick. Never mind that if I were shooting at real people, their brains would be larger than a two-inch square. My shots would still be kill shots.

Although my performance isn't the worst, Fitzpatrick takes particular delight in berating me. I suffer through it in silence because really, what else can I do? Mouthing off to her will only get me punished. Been there. Done that. Bear the scars.

She dismisses us eventually with the dire warning that we'll do better tomorrow or else.

Summer and Jordan whisper curses as we trek down the trail, rifles and supplies slung over our shoulders. Partway down, I realize I don't have my jacket with me. I left it on the ridge.

“I'll catch up with you in minute,” I say, and turn back.

The trail ends in a couple steep switchbacks near the top, and I pause. Cole is on the ridge, and he's talking to Fitzpatrick. I know I shouldn't listen, but I can't help myself.

This past year, Cole's gotten more assertive. He's been our unit leader forever, but for most of our lives that didn't mean much. Lately though, he's been expected to meet regularly with Fitzpatrick to discuss our progress. And there are other meetings too. Ones he doesn't talk about, but which take him away a couple times a month. There's speculation that he'll get sent on his first mission soon—that's why.

I've always held him in high regard—I hold everyone in my unit that way—but Cole is special. He's taken his leadership seriously, even when it meant nothing, and stood up for us. Usually that would get him smacked down by Fitzpatrick, but I had to admire his nerve. Now, finally, it seems he's been given permission to speak his mind.

“I don't appreciate you threatening our unit cohesion with talk about pitting us against each other,” Cole says. “We already have to deal with that shit from everyone else.”

I smile. Go Cole.

“And you need to back off of Seven.”

My smile fades.

“She wasn't the worst, but you were on her case twice as much as anyone else.”

“You were far down the line,” Fitzpatrick responds. “She wasn't the worst, but she fidgeted the most. You couldn't see it.”

“According to you, she's the worst at everything. Even when she performs the best, you single her out for criticism.”

“And you're always just as quick to jump to her defense.”

My whole body tenses, and I ignore Cole's retort. It's true. From both of them. Fitzpatrick's never liked me, and Cole—perhaps because of it—has always risen to my defense faster and more loudly than to anyone else's. Right now I hate them both for it.

Figuring I paid for my eavesdropping, I purposely snap a few branches and kick some stones down the trail. Cole and Fitzpatrick shut up as I appear around the trees.

“You left your jacket.” Fitzpatrick motions toward it.

I grab it from the dirt. “That's why I came back.”

I storm away without glancing at either of them. It's unfortunate that I have to sit through Bondar's class this afternoon. Not only has bomb making never interested me much, I could really do with working off some aggression. By which I mean kicking some ass in the gym.

“Sev, wait up.” Heavy boots pound the trail.

I grit my teeth in frustration but do as ordered. “Why?”

“So I can walk with you?” Cole swats my ponytail. “Why do you think?”

I can't tell if he's being obtuse on purpose, or if he truly has no clue that I overheard his conversation. “I mean why did you have to single me out with Fitzpatrick?”

Cole makes a gesture to silence me. I strain my ears but don't hear her coming down the trail. But fine. Voices carry in the woods. I keep my mouth shut. Though it feels like we're in the middle of nowhere, it's only a five-minute hike into the camp proper, and I'll attack him then.

Cole takes his jacket off and slings it over his shoulder with his pack. Irritated as I am with him, I'm drawn to the way the muscles move in his arms, straining against our tight, regulation T-shirts. We've been required to lift weights for years, but it's only been in the last few that puberty dramatically changed the way our bodies respond to the exercise.