“I will take my daily sips, of course,” the Ruler says, his voice dreamy, unaware that I’m no longer paying attention. “But I will also take my daily bites, too. Using pincers, I’ll pull off bite-size nibbles of his flesh. I’ve found that after a few days, the flesh gets very soft, simply pries off with only the gentlest of teasing.”
David’s eyes lock on to mine. They once looked at me with sweet innocence under bright blue skies, and I had seen the man this sensitive, tender boy would grow up to be. A man who would learn to laugh with sadness, and cry with joy.
“I will initially partake of the ancillary flesh, of course, avoid the vital areas . . .” The Ruler’s voice drones on.
David’s lips open and move, with emphasis. He’s mouthing words to me.
Run. Run.
I shake my head at him.
“. . . especially the earlobes, so filled with succulent fat . . .”
It’s okay.
I choke back tears as I turn away.
“. . . if you can avoid the tangy areas of the arms or the gamy texture of the biceps, I have found that . . .”
“Enough,” I say, my voice hard and gritty. “Enough.”
The Ruler’s mouth freezes mid-speech.
I walk over to the enclave, step inside.
“Transport me, already,” I say through clenched teeth.
Nineteen
THE ENCLAVE IS transported directly to the Palace wall. A narrow slit widens and that’s all I see before I’m scorched with piercing sunlight. I throw an arm over my eyes. There’s an electronic beep, and I hear the glass lid of the enclave sliding open. Blinded by light, but afraid the lid might close on me, I step out.
My feet meet nothing but air and I fall a short distance, a meter or so, to the hard, baked desert ground. The fresh sting of sunlight on my skin, after so long underground, feels like life itself.
Gradually, my eyes get used to the brightness. I see skies saturated with the purest blue, the endless stretch of the desert plains. A breeze blows past me, refreshing despite the grains of sand picked up and thrown into my sweaty face. I’ve changed; now I crave all those things I once avoided: sunlight on my skin, open space, warm winds blowing through my hair, the feel of sweat pouring down my back. They make me feel alive.
A horse nickers. Right up against the Palace rampart, tethered to a hitching post. I walk over, clouds of sand kicking up at my feet. The horse perks up at my approach, nervous, and I slow my pace and move directly into its line of vision. I stroke the side of its neck, clucking softly. Next to its front hoofs are two upturned bowls of food and water. Some of the water has spilled on a backpack.
The backpack is filled with weapons. Lots of weapons. Four handguns, a couple of daggers, Moonlight Visors, a handful of pre-loaded magazines. Several boxes of ammunition. And a small metallic briefcase that I don’t open. Not yet. Now it suddenly feels real. These are weapons of death, of Ashley June’s death. These are the triggers I must pull; these are the cold bullets that must pummel through her body.
I think about the deal struck with the Ruler. How forcefully I’d insisted that Sissy come with me. Of course, it had to be Sissy. I wanted to be with her. But it never occurred to me—until now—that my choice might have been more calculated than emotional. That there might have been an ulterior motive. My lungs go cold.
The sound of screeching metal disrupts my thoughts. Next to my enclave still jutting out of the rampart, another enclave suddenly protrudes out of an opening. It’s Sissy, arms spread against the glass walls of her enclave, trying to stabilize herself. A hiss, then the side facing the outside slides open. Her arms are thrown in front of her eyes.
“Who’s there?” she demands, her voice filled with both fear and warning. Trying to see, but blinded by the light.
“Sissy.”
Her head snaps toward me. “Gene?” She steps out of the enclave and, like me, mishandles the short drop. She falls awkwardly, sprawling on the ground.
I go to her, and the heat of her skin singes me with guilt.
She tries to open her eyes but can’t. “Where are we? What’s going on?”
“We’re outside. It’s okay.”
“What? Why did they let us go? One moment I’m in the catacombs locked in the enclave, the next moment I’m transported outside.” She slants her head to the side. “David? Epap? Are you guys here?”
“No, Sissy, it’s just you and me.”
She grips my forearm harder. “What’s wrong, Gene?”
I shake my head.
“Tell me what’s happening! None of this makes any sense!”
I tell her. I don’t hold back—you don’t hold back from Sissy, she’ll insist everything out of you anyway—so I tell her everything, everything, the Ruler’s Suite, the aquarium tanks, the hours passed since Epap last sent a TT message. You give her everything and more, hoping the flood of information, the deluge of words, will conceal the secret agenda. You stand with the sun on your back and the light piercing into her eyes, hoping your face is obscured by shadow. And when she hugs you back, tightly and fiercely, and speaks words of corded steel that the two of you together will find Epap, together kill Ashley June, and together return to save David, you return her embrace with your own, only tighter, harder, to mask the self-hatred and self-loathing inside.
And minutes later, galloping away, you are only too glad she is sitting behind you and unable to see your face. And though her arms clasp around your waist and her inner thighs press against the outside of your legs—their intimacy a torture—you are at least relieved she does not see your face, that you do not have to look her in the eye. Because then she might see right through you, and realize why she is with you at all. Then she might discover your hidden motive.
That you are going not to kill Ashley June.
But to save her. To re-turn her back to human.
And in order to do that, you cannot do it alone, for you are insufficient. By half.
You need someone else. You need Sis.
Twenty
WE RIDE HARD across the desert land that is blazing copper and blasted with heat. I push the horse at full gallop for the first thirty minutes, relishing the hard, jaunty bounce, the impossibility of coherent thought in my rattling skull. I try to ignore the feel of Sissy’s arms and legs around me, the soft press of her on my back whenever we take a hard bounce. The wind in my ears, the harsh glare of sunlight in my eyes, it is all a welcome distraction.
When the Palace has shrunk to a distant dot behind us, we stop by a pile of large boulders. We disembark, lead the hard-breathing horse to the shade by the boulders. Its eyes are wild with exhaustion, it muscles bunched with fatigue.
“You’re pushing the horse too hard,” Sissy says, concern on her face. “It’ll keel over and die before we reach the metropolis. Go slower, Gene.”
I don’t reply. She’s right, but I’m not in the mood to admit it.
She stares hard at me. “Something’s different about you. What’s going on?”
I ignore her, and busy myself tending to the horse. She sighs with frustration, then scrambles up one boulder, then another.
The horse side-gazes me with large, accusatory eyes as if it knows my true motives. It snorts, spraying me. I return a hard stare, then climb up the boulders to join Sissy. The granite is blistering to the touch, almost singeing my hands. Sissy is staring into the horizon, through wavy bands of heat undulating off the boulders.
“You don’t have to worry about the Originators chasing us down,” I tell her. “The chief advisor can’t leave the Ruler’s side. Not at a time like this. And the other Originators won’t leave without him.”
But she’s not looking in that direction. Instead, she’s staring toward the metropolis, her hands placed over her eyes like an awning.
“I can see buildings. The metropolis isn’t too far,” she says. “Maybe an hour away.”
“An hour and a half,” I say. “I’ll slow down. You’re right.”
She doesn’t reply, but her expression softens a touch. “What’s that sparkle over there?” she asks. “That glimmer in the distance.”
I follow the trajectory of her pointing arm. There. “That’s the Domain Building. The tallest skyscraper in the metropolis.”
“Where your father worked.”
I nod.
Sissy whistles. “Look at all those skyscrapers. The metropolis is so much bigger than I imagined, Gene.” She looks at me with awe. And deep pity. “How did you ever survive? Living right in the midst of them? For all these years?”
“You just learn. Adapt. Survive.”
“It’s so massive,” Sissy says in a quieter, subdued voice. “How are we ever going to find Ashley June in there? It’ll be like searching for a needle in a haystack.”
“We don’t have to search. We have a time and place certain where she’ll be. The Convention Center. At dusk. We go there and let her come to us. Then we take her down.”
She doesn’t say anything, but I can see the idea taking hold. “And how do we find Epap?”
I reach into my pocket, take out the TextTrans. “We keep trying to reach out to him,” I say. I quickly explain how the TextTrans functions as I type out a brief message.
It’s Gene and Sissy. Where are you?
“Let him know we’re heading for the metropolis,” Sissy says. “Tell him we’ll be there in about an hour and a half.”
I pause. “I don’t know. Maybe we should leave out the details. Just in case his TextTrans has fallen into the wrong hands. It’d be better not to give away too much.”
She looks away. She knows what I’m insinuating about Epap, that he might not be alive. She gives a quick, almost imperceptible nod.
I hit SEND. “We do this every few hours,” I say. “Maybe we’ll get a reply.”
Her jawline juts out. “He’s probably dead, isn’t he?”
I don’t say anything.