The Almost Girl – ebook edition (12 page)

I move to leave but pause at the door, thinking ahead. I don’t have a plan in place, but if any of us are to make it back to Neospes, we will need clothing. The Vector’s uniforms are designed to keep their bodies protected and are made from a rare type of engineered fabric-like armor, which also provides warmth and heat depending on weather conditions, both of which are unpredictable in Neospes. It would be stupid to leave them.

I frown at the task at hand but move quickly before I have time to think about what I’m doing. In no time at all, I have three sets of uniforms peeled off of the Vectors’ bodies. They stink, but I can’t help that. I put them along with the weapons in Caden’s fencing bag and sling it over my back.

Now for the medical kit.

At the door, I glance back into the room. Looking at their naked, decaying flesh is far more repulsive than seeing them clothed. Curved ribs and sharp hipbones protrude against their milky, opaque skin with grotesque prominence: the stuff of nightmares. Blue veins traverse their near-transparent skin to route the nanoplasm from their artificial central nervous systems to the rest of their bodies, like a ghostly blue spider web. They barely look human now. Instead, they look like rotting, dead wraiths. I shake my head, swallowing thickly – the Vectors are true abominations of my culture.

The sound of the front door jerks me out of my thoughts.

“Hello? Caden? Anyone home?” It’s June’s voice. She must have come home early. I glance down at my filthy shirt and grab one of Caden’s clean T-shirts off the dresser, shrugging into it. “What is that horrific
smell
?”

“Hey, June,” I call out, taking the steps down three at a time. “Sorry, we were doing an experiment for bio. Went bad. I wouldn’t go up there if I were you for at least ten minutes.” The last things I need her seeing are the three dead bodies in her house that look like something out of a science fiction movie. I fake an embarrassed grin and offer her an apologetic look.

“Why am I not surprised?” she says slowly, after glancing with narrowed eyes to the stairs before putting her keys and bag on the counter. I hesitate – I still need to get the medical supplies.

“June, we were looking for your… medical bag?” I ask in as casual a manner as I can manage.

“Why?” So much for putting anything past her as her eyes meet mine, immediately full of concern. “Are you hurt?”

“Nothing major,” I say quickly. “I hurt my leg fooling around with Caden’s foils earlier. I’m worried that it will get infected.” It’s not an outright lie, as one of the Vectors caught the back of my calf, but it’s not like I’ve paid much attention to it with everything else going on.

“Well, let me just wash up, and I’ll take a quick look. My bag’s in my office.”

“I’ll get it,” I say, and all but sprint to June’s office. I grab the bag and a couple of the blankets lying on her couch, and go back to the kitchen where she’s still washing her hands. June stares quizzically at the blankets and the medical bag in my arms, and her eyes flick to mine. She dries her hands slowly, her gaze drifting between Caden’s gear bag, the blankets, and me. Then her eyes flit to the staircase.

“What’s going on, Riven?” Her voice is quiet, but there’s something in it that raises the hairs on the back of my neck. It’s an instinct that has kept me alive all these years. Her gaze settles on some fluid spattered on my collar peeking out over Caden’s shirt. My stomach sinks. I can see something dawning in her eyes. Mistrust. Fear.

Gently placing the bag on the floor, I shift my balance from toe to heel and back again. There is no easy way to explain what I’m about to do, no lie that will make my actions any less terrible. She has to go down below, willing or not. And the fact is, I don’t know June, which means I can’t trust her. I edge closer and place my hands in the air in a non-threatening motion.

Not missing a beat, June edges nearer to the kitchen island so that it stands between us. “Where is Caden?” she asks carefully.

“Caden’s fine.” My voice is inflectionless and slow. “You have to trust me, June. But I need your help. Shae’s hurt.”

“Shae?” A small furrow of worry shadows her brow, but she steels her expression almost immediately. “Shae’s not home. She’d have called to let me know.”

“She came back today,” I say. “She had an accident.”

A sharp glance. “And the dead Vectors upstairs?”

“What?” This time it’s my eyes that rivet on hers. “What do
you
know about Vectors?”

She has taken me by surprise, and just as I’m considering leaping across the island and knocking her unconscious, a small voice has us both spinning around. Shae’s leaning against the wall, her face a mottled collage of purples in the fluorescent lighting. Climbing the stairs from the secret room has her wheezing.

“June’s a… Guardian, Riven,” she gasps, besieged by a round of ugly-sounding coughs. A trail of bloody spit runs down her chin as her body slumps down against the wall. I stare at June’s impassive face, incredulous.

A Guardian! My hands grasp the hilts of the blades tucked into my waistband.

“
Was
a Guardian,” June corrects, this time placing both her own hands in the air. She turns her head toward Shae, and I understand what she wants to do. I nod but don’t release the handles of my weapons lying flat against my back. She cradles Shae’s head against her. “Can you pass me the bag?” she asks me. Her eyes, so warm before, are now cold and expressionless.

Unconsciously, I steel my expression to equal hers. “You can’t help her. She’s everted too much. She needs more than the help you can give her.”

“I can try.”

With a glance at Shae, I push the bag across with the toe of my boot, ever cautious. I am the enemy here, the one who has come to take Caden back. I can’t trust either of them, even after what happened with the Vectors.

“
Was
a Guardian?” I ask, after a couple minutes watching her take out several glass bottles from her bag. “I didn’t think someone could stop being a Guardian.”

“Well, I did.”

“Why?”

“Look at you; you’re just a kid,” June says softly, not answering my question.

“I’m not a child,” I snap back.

June’s eyes are gentle. “But you are, Riven. Look around you, look at the
children
in your school: they’re kids. The same age as you are. You’re babies trained to kill.” I can’t stand the pity in her voice, and I bristle.

“They’re useless and wouldn’t last a minute in Neospes. Answer the question, June.”

A long, searching look as if she’s trying to see inside my head. “I didn’t believe in executing innocent people… innocent kids.” Now it’s my turn to stare at her. “The Guardians honor a code to protect the fabric of the universe,” June continues. “You know what would happen if people were to jump back and forth, don’t you?” It’s a rhetorical question, so I remain silent. “The threat of infection, of disease, is of course the worst, not to mention altering the course of a civilization’s future. We honor an agreement between the worlds to protect each side from the other… more so to protect this world from the greed of yours. Eversion was never meant to be permanent. It was a mistake to let it go this far, to create an algorithm that allows abominations like the Vectors to come here.”

“What do you mean, it was a mistake?”

June answers my question with an equally blunt one of her own. “Why do you think Murek wants Caden so badly?”

“I don’t know.” It’s not a lie. I have many theories but none of them strike me as accurate. The truth is I have no idea why he wants Caden, especially if Murek wants to rule Neospes. Getting rid of him would be the easiest thing to do, after Cale is out of the way. It makes no sense that he would want him so badly. “So why does he?”

“Pass me the blankets,” she tells me, and I comply automatically. She makes Shae, who keeps slipping in and out of consciousness, more comfortable on the floor. I glance at my watch, knowing that each second we remain here becomes more and more risky. June sends a sidelong glance in my direction and continues speaking while sticking a thermometer into Shae’s mouth. “It is a secret that many would kill to protect.” She pauses as if assessing whether to tell me or not, and I wait, silent. Nothing prepares me for the next words that come out of her mouth. “Caden, like Cale, is a hybrid. A product of both universes.”

“That’s impossible,” I shoot back. “I may not know Murek’s endgame, but I do know what happens to any progeny that comes out of any union between universes. They are abominations and are all to be disposed of… by you, the Guardians, and the Vectors.” I can hardly keep the vitriol out of my voice. “It’s the law. You track them, and the Vectors eliminate them.”

June is calm. “It’s true. Caden’s mother was from this world. She never returned, because of her children. It was only when Caden was in danger that she came back, but she couldn’t survive. Her immune system had become too weakened to protect her. And that is the sole reason I stopped being one of them. Caden was an innocent child. And Leila, too…” She trails off.

“I don’t get it. Why do you care about either of them?”

After another searching look, June sighs. “We grew up together. She was like my sister. My first mistake was to tell her what I was, and from then on, she couldn’t let it go. We were barely your age, but it consumed her to the point of obsession. My second mistake was that she everted there because of me… all because I was careless and told her in the first place.

“She went so far as to major in quantum mechanics at school, and even though I wouldn’t tell her anything I knew – I was terrified of the consequences – she was determined to find a way. And she did. That was the night she almost got herself killed trying to evert using some home-designed calculation that she must have stolen from my notes somehow. She almost succeeded too, but in the end, her body couldn’t take the force and started to collapse on itself, half stuck in this world, half of it in yours. I panicked, and instead of going to my father as I should have for help, I everted us both to Neospes.” She glances at me, breaking off to place a cold compress on Shae’s head after cleaning off the remaining blood on her face. I keep my face composed despite my racing thoughts.

“Your father saved her. Her injuries were too great for us to return, and by the time she was well enough to make the jump back, it was too late. The Lord King was fascinated by her, and then she got pregnant. That was the last time I saw her until she came to me ten years ago with Caden.” June shrugs. “How could I say no to what she was asking? For help. For protection. It was my fault she went there in the first place. I broke the law, and she was the one who paid the price. I owed her.”

“But she’s from
here
,” I say.

“The Lord King of Neospes doesn’t answer to the law. He forbade her to return.”

I frown to cover my sense of shock at what she is telling me about Cale, about Cale’s father… about who his mother is. I can’t get my mind around it.

“That’s a large debt,” I say for lack of anything else. June shrugs again, her lips twisting in a sad, wry smile.

“It is what it is.”

Despite my shock, her story rings true as I think back to all of the times I’d seen Cale’s mother. She always seemed so odd to me, as if her mind was always somewhere else, like she didn’t quite fit in with everyone else in Neospes. She used to wear these long, flowing, brightly colored dresses – custom-tailored, Cale had once told me – instead of the standard black or gray tunic and leggings that most of us wore. I’d always thought the dresses fanciful and strange. And now I know – she had never belonged there at all.

“Did Shae tell you anything about me?” I ask June abruptly.

“No,” she says, checking Shae’s eyes with a thin instrument. “She didn’t have to. I realized what you were after the clinic.”

My eyes narrow. I voice the words pounding in my head. “What I was?”

“A soldier of Neospes.”

“And yet you still trusted me with Caden?” I couldn’t help the derision in my voice.

“Not at first – I wanted to keep you close – but then I saw something there… something about the way you were with him. And he with you. I thought you cared about him. But I was wrong, wasn’t I?”

My teeth grind together, and what escapes my lips is little more than a snarl despite the unfamiliar tug in my chest her words provoke. “You
are
wrong. I don’t give a damn about him. Caden is a target, nothing more.”

“Riven?”

We both turn at the quiet voice behind us. The betrayal on Caden’s face hits me like a slap. I meet his eyes and drop them just as quickly. I don’t know how long he’s been standing there, but I know it’s been long enough for him to hear my last few words. I sling my backpack across my chest as if it’s some kind of shield, a distraction maybe, and rifle through its contents until I find what I am looking for. I slide the silver case toward June. I won’t need it anymore – when I return to Neospes, I won’t be coming back.

“Give her this. It will help.” I stand, slowly stretching my legs. I nod toward the stairs and grab the bags of gear I’ve piled together before leaning over the gas stove in the middle of the kitchen island to tuck one of the metal golf balls that I’d found on one of the dead Vectors in the middle of the grate. I’m business now, emotion tucked deep. “More of them will come, if they’re not here already. We need to move and seal the door. Either you come down with me or you can stay here to greet them. One way or another, there’s not going to be much left up here. It’s your call.”

I don’t look at Caden as I push past him to the trapdoor above the basement stairs. Truth is, I can’t even look at him. My curiously burning eyes won’t allow it.

 

 

UNDERGROUND

 

By the time I’ve carried Shae down the stairs along with a few extra supplies that June’s thrown in, I’ve almost forgotten that Caden’s even there. But I feel him staring at me, with heavy thoughtful glances that make me far more unsettled than if they were filled with anger. June has gone quiet as well, but I expected that. Knowing what she knows, I’d be the last person she would ever fully trust, but still, there’s an uneasy understanding between us that at the moment we both need each other.