Altruist (The Altruist Series Book 1) (17 page)

They glide open against invisible tracks, and the open air beyond is thick with dust and dirt. Heaps of garbage line a dirt road, weaving back and forth as far as I can see. Old mattresses stand on their sides, creating a make shift barrier for the wind. A high wooden wall soars to my left and a dog barks in the distance, fighting with an old man for a scrap if food. My attention shifts ahead as a group of men, around max's age sit huddled up, their backs against a rubbage heap. They play some sort of dice game but stop and look up at me as I approach, "what you want?" A boy in a torn yellow shirt yells. I stand there and as I inhale the dust I begin to struggle to breathe, the room starts to spin as the young men drop the dice and begin approaching me. "I fink she's looking to start somefing, boys" his accent is thick and foreign, his tongue sounds lazy and tense at the same time and I struggle to understand his words and my chest heaves in the heavy air particles. Suddenly the boys pace increases as they begin to run towards my scarves around their faces, I try to ready myself for their blows but my eyes struggle to focus and as I feel the impact of the first punch, blackness. 

I wake inside of the glass tube in the white room, Judah still quiet at the desk, staring at a monitor. 

"How was that? Abel asks, my head aches, my entire body aches. "I don't know, I blacked out." Abel's face says nothing but he walks towards me and kneels next to me, "the air is heavily polluted in the places between where we are and where we're going. And it's not uncommon to find rogue areas where gangs of people are their own enforcement. You need to be quicker scanning your surrounding, take in the constant variables, the air, the landscape and let them dictate your next move." I nod, still aching for clean air.

"Send me in again"

"Now?" Judah asks? "We can pick this up on another day."

I stare at him and then at Abel, his eyes lock on mine and I know that he knows me well enough to know what I need. "Start it again" he says to Judah, his eyes not leaving mine.

I prepare my body, pulling my shoulders back against the cold metal table and Judah makes his way back towards me. As the clear circle opens, allowing for the red liquid to break through my veins again, I breath deeply. Closing my eyes, I focus, counting each breath until there is nothing that exists except for everything that I am. The burning sensations screams through my body and I ready myself. Ten, it bleeds through my lungs, 9, eating it’s way through my tissue. 8, scarring my skin, 7, scorching it’s way to my heart.

This time, as the doors open this time, i rip off the left sleeve of my T-shirt and fit it over my head and secure it into place around my nose and mouth. I glance briefly at the dog and the man and then at the boys "what you looking at?" The familiar remark rolls off my back. Instead of standing and gawking my legs shoot into action and I sprint towards the wall at my left. Accelerating as quickly as I can in order to lift my body from the ground high enough for my hand to catch a small divot in the rotting and worn wood. I pull myself to the top and lie on my stomach underneath a tarp, breathing in slowly the air above the dirt maze, like gulps of fresh water and scanning my surroundings. The boys drop their dice and sprint towards the wood, jumping up and reaching towards the sky. They kick their feet at the bottom of the fence, struggling to make their way off the ground.

“Stupid girl!” One of the boys shout.

I watch them kick at the dirt, eventually giving up and returning to their makeshift table. I rest my cheek against my hands and breath deeply, closing my eyes.

When I open them again, I’m laying on the medical table in the white room. The glass partition returns to its home in the left side of the table and I sit up.

“How was that?” I ask.

Judah stares at the screen of his computer, charts and digits zooming across monitor.

“That was good.” Abel smiles.

“Can I have another go?” I ask.

Abel laughs.

“Cate, there will be plenty of time for environmental training.”

I swing my legs over the table and stand, following Abel out of the room and towards the black hallway. Before I leave I turn and glance at Judah. I want to say ‘bye’, or ‘thanks’; more importantly, I want to know what he thinks. If my reactions and decisions were intelligent enough, if I scored well. He never looks up at me even though I linger for a moment. I press my lips together and turn back around, jogging slowly to catch up to Abel, the doors creaking shut behind me.

The ground’s training facility is an extensive maze of rope courses and equipment encircled by a high white marble wall. Though I feel that I’m being prepared for a war, I’ve heard little about what the plan is once I leave this place, or if there is even a plan at all. The halls in The Manor are too quiet and I miss the sound of Max and Sophie bickering, the sound of my mother arguing with me over how important breakfast is. I miss the smell of my room, I miss waking up to pictures of my friends, and I miss my life. I haven’t been permitted to see my family since I’ve been here.
I wouldn't want you to be distracted at this critical point
, I hear Eliath's words run on an incessant loop. Why? Why is this moment critical? I've heard nothing but a series of, frankly, unimaginable stories and the harder I push myself, the longer I'm here, the more isolated I feel from the world. The world I am meant to protect. It’s as though they’re trying to break me down so that they can rebuild me into the image they expect me to fit. But I don’t want to be that person, I want to be who I am.

Approaching the marble door that seals the training center, I place my hand against the triangular symbol like Abel taught me. I still have no idea how it works. The identification chip in my arm alerts the city to my whereabouts, that makes sense to me, but this, this symbol isn’t electronic and its inner workings baffle me. I stare at the iron triangle, the symbol of the guild with its horizontal lines outstretching the width of the shape, signifying the balance that the guild stands for; it means nothing to me. I pray that one day it does mean something, that it stands for something that resonates somewhere deep inside of me, that all of this work, that putting the people I love at risk, is worth something, anything.

I stand back as the horizontal bars pull apart, over and under the triangle and the doors open. Abel is already standing in the middle on a blue mat.

“Where have you been? You’re late,” he says as I drop the bag containing my shoes and a water bottle on the ground. I plop beside it, pulling a boot out and lacing it up. “I’m only five minutes late.” I stare up at him irritated. “Just one of those mornings, you know? Hey how is it that it’s okay for me to use my phone here? How is it okay for any of you to use such communication at all, for that matter,” I say.

“There are scrambler devices on all of our compounds, blurs the signal and makes any and all communication undetectable to anyone who may be interested in such things,” he says like he’s rambling off a safety brochure of sorts.

I narrow my eyes. “Right. I used to be the sort of person who never cared about what the council witnessed me do or say.” I look around at the large white dome. “Now I’m just full of secrets.”

He clenches his jaw, and I know that he’s taken my remark as passive aggressive, which is fine, because I meant it that way. But instead of countering my words, he picks up a medicine ball and paces the mat until I stand again.

After an hour of cardio and weight lifting, beads of sweat gather on my forehead. “Remember the strike defense I showed you yesterday?” he asks and I nod, gulping water from the white bottle that has quickly become my best friend. “I want you to try it on me today.”

He readies his stance, preparing for impact. I squint my eyes. “You want me to hit you in the chest?” I ask and this time he nods. “Why? Can’t I just work on the dummy over there like I have been?”

“You need to get comfortable with hitting flesh, and a dummy can’t offer you that. So come on, hit me.”

I toss the water bottle to the side of the mat and ready my stance the way he taught me. Quickly, I propel my open palm towards his chest as hard as I can. He sidesteps my thrust and catches my wrist, pulling my arm behind my back in a fluid motion. “You can’t look at where you’re going hit some—” I stomp on his foot as hard as I can and he’s caught off guard, giving me the time I need to free myself from his clutch. I hold onto his bicep with both hands and pull him over my back so that he flips and lands on his back at my feet. I drop to my knee and bring my forearm close enough to his throat that his hands claw at my skin.

He laughs and a twinge of success ignites inside of me. His hands raise to my cheeks and his soft touch sends chills straight though my core. I have missed him. He’s become this drill sergeant when what I really need is my boyfriend. He pulls me close and my forearm releases as I place my hands flat against the mat on either side of him head. As his lips graze mine, I feel normal. I need this, more than anything, please let me feel normal again. My eyes close and he rolls me over onto my back, effortlessly resting his body on top of mine, his hand against my hip.

“Where have you been?” I whisper in between his kisses. The question paralyzes him and I kiss his neck, urging him to stay close but it’s too late. My silly question has pushed him away for some reason and I immediately regret it with all my heart. He sits down beside me, his arms propped against his knees.

“I need you to be ready,” he says. I sit up, and touch his arm. “I need to know that you’ll be okay. It’s all I think of.”

I stand and walk over to the end of the blue mat. "What more can I do? I've done every single thing you have asked of me, all of it, without question. I have never questioned you Abel! Do you have any idea how difficult that is? To run into a great unknown with someone that just appeared one day out of the blue? Told you that you've lived a million lives and takes you from your home?" My voice rises, higher than I've heard it in quite some time, and all of that pent up emotion and love and sadness and hurting collides together in my heart and penetrates the air at once. And this time, I am unable to bite my tongue, to hold it in, to be 'strong'. I turn around and face him, expecting something, anything to be shown on his face. Instead, I'm met with the same blank stare that I have come to know far too well. "Abel, for God's sake, say something!" I yell, wild and belligerent in my anger.

He stands and moves towards the door leading out into the training field.

“That’s it? You’re just going to walk away? To leave? You’re good at that aren’t you? You’re good at leaving me alone.” The words seethe and burn the entire journey from my heart to my mouth and I know immediately that I’ve gone too far.

He stops, standing still, staring straight ahead for a moment before slightly turning his jaw so that the outline of his mouth is barely visible. “I don’t argue with children.” And with that he leaves the training room, passing Eliath on his way out.

I turn and hit the wall, pain shoots through my knuckles but the physical manifestation of discomfort doesn’t come close to that which lies within my soul.

“Running a bit behind today?” Eliath taps his watch.

I turn and stare at Eliath.

“Are you alright, Cate?” His voice sounds hollow and far, too far away to fully register within my mind. I stand there, swallowing hard and biting my lip. “What is it, Cate? Talk to me.”

I can tell he doesn’t have any idea how to respond to me right now, that he can’t gauge the severity of the situation. I know that on a scale from walking into a glass door to a head on collision with an airplane, an argument between his son and I ranks rather low. My eyes focus, then dance and twirl from one inanimate object to the next, avoiding his gaze.

“It’s nothing.” I say. “I said something I shouldn’t have.”

Eliath leans his back against the wall next to me. “Sometimes people fight. Sometimes people are stressed out and they fight and that’s it. There’s nothing else to it. It is what it is, people say what they need to say and it’s over.”