Altruist (The Altruist Series Book 1) (20 page)

I force the thought from my mind and bring my hands to my face. Pressing my index fingers into the inner corners of my eyes, I cup my hands around my mouth and chin and exhale. Warm air circulates in the void between my palms and warms the tip of my nose. Closing my eyes, I breathe slowly. I concentrate on living in this moment and try desperately to calm my nerves. After a moment or so I resolve that calming down is not an option and I throw on a pair of jeans and lace my running shoes tight.
Where would he be right now? How can I reach him?
The questions turn in my mind as I search its corners for an answer. I tilt my head back and pray for his location to fall from the ceiling. Standing, I head for the only person who I know I can trust, the person most likely to help me.

I slink down the halls, down cold flights of stairs, and the mere act of hiding makes me feel like I’m doing something terribly wrong. I just need to see him. His name turns in my mind, Dante. I need him to know that hurting Asher, that killing me, that it all means nothing—that he can’t win. I am and will always be stronger and that the end of the Nasai is coming and that there is nothing he can do to stop it. More than seeing the look on his face, I want to know that my message will reach whomever he answers to. I want them to know that I know who I am now and that I am coming for them.

I make my way outside and through the courtyard. The grass springs beneath my feet and aids in my quiet steps. I avoid the spotlights that spread out through the maze and training center and walk huddled over, so close to the inner perimeter wall that my shoulder continually brushes against it. I start to think I’ve gone too far, that I’ve missed it, until the crunch of the grass turns into a click of a steel hatch. Kneeling to the ground, I tug at the metal handle but can’t seem to make it nudge. I lick my lips and scan the surrounding darkness, inhaling deeply and closing my eyes. Then I envision the hatch’s locking mechanism, picturing the connecting cogs and latches just like Shoshanna had instructed me, and I take a deep breath and press my mental energy against the space beneath me. I nearly give up, but then I hear the lock break free. Standing, staring, I almost don’t believe that it actually worked and it’s then that I realize that I have not completely accepted what I am, who I am. I lean down and pull the hatch open, peering downwards at the ladder below. It’s quiet, so quiet that I’m afraid to enter and disturb whatever normalcy they may have found.
I am afraid to see them, I’m afraid my place with them has disappeared
. I slowly descend down the rough metal rungs, rust transferring to my palms with each rung I grab. As I near the cement floor my shoe slips off the last rung and I tumble to the ground.
Where was my “enhanced physical ability” there?
I think.

“Stop!” a voice too young to attempt so much force creaks in the distance. Though I can’t see his face, I recognize the lanky figure stepping from the dark tunnel ahead of me, hands grasped tightly around a shovel.

“Max, you better have a hell of a lot more than a shovel if you’re looking to stop me.” I groan, standing to my feet and brushing the concrete dust from my jeans.

“Cate!” he says and rushes me, wrapping his arm around me and holding on so tightly that I wonder if he thought he wasn’t going to see me again.

“Hey, Max.” I smile and though I’m not a hugger, I return the gesture and hold onto him like he is my home.

“Max? Max, who’s there with you?” My mom’s voice reaches my ears and I feel myself start to cry, an involuntary sign of happiness, or sadness—a release of my raw pent up emotion.

“It’s Cate!” he yells.

“Cate?” she replies and soon the embrace of both of my parents surround me. Questions buzz around me and I am useless to grasp onto any of them. I squeeze my eyes shut and bury my face into my mom’s shoulder, refusing to let go, refusing to face reality again.
I want to go home.
“Let’s give her some room to breathe,” Mom says through laughter and both Max and my dad release me. I don’t want them to but I know they must. I’m meant to be somewhere else.

“Dad,” I say, lifting my face from my mom’s shirt. “I need to talk to you about something.” He looks shocked, like he genuinely doesn’t know what I could possibly need from him, his eyes become distance as the gravity of the situation presses against him with my presence.

“Yeah, of course,” he says and looks down the tunnel at a door set into the side and then back at me. “We can talk in here.” He nods.

“Will you be able to visit with us afterwards?” My mom’s watery eyes break my heart and I want to scream,
Yes! I’m not going anywhere.
But I can’t say that, because it isn’t true. Because the truth is that I don’t know when I’ll be able to sit down with them and talk about everything and nothing at all.

“Sorry,” I say, hugging her once more. “I can’t right now.” My eyes scan the tunnel before landing at my feet, doing everything in my power to avoid her gaze. “But I’ll see you soon, I promise.” As the words leave my mouth, I pray that they are true.

I follow my father into a dusty room, empty except for an old desk that looks like it would crumble under the weight of a piece of paper. The old bomb shelter must be a forgotten remnant of past wars, and I am thankful its protection has existed long enough for my family to take advantage of it. I lean against the far wall and my dad closes the door behind us. “I don’t know how much help I can be. I know you probably want to know about how your mother and I came to you—”

“No,” I cut him off. “I mean, yes, I do want to know everything you’ve kept from me, but that’s not why I’m here.” I walk towards him and look into his eyes, studying his face and noticing all of the discrepancies between our appearances, wondering what it says about me that I never knew that I didn’t belong to them.
How did I not know?
“Dad, I need to know where I can find Adam and Miranda. More than that, I need to know where I can find Dante.” My voice gets quiet towards the end of my request and I’m afraid that he can see how feeble I am in this moment.

“Have you asked Eliath? I would think he would know where you could find them.” I break our stare and look at the ground. I can’t bare keeping things from him but before I have time to materialize a lie he catches me. “But of course they don’t know you’re looking for him, because if they did, you wouldn’t be here,” he says. My gaze stays affixed to a nonexistent object. “Dammit, Cate. Do they even know you came down here?”

My voice rises at the reminder of his authority over me. “They wouldn’t help me and I need help, Dad! I need help. You’ve kept so much from me and I need your help fixing…” I raise my hands into the air. “All of this!” My face burns. “I cannot get us out of this mess without speaking to Dante. I need you to trust me on that, I need you to trust me like I always trusted you, except now I’m the one keeping some massive secret like the one you and Mom hid—not that it was a secret at all! More of a blatant lie that you both allowed me to believe every single day.” I’m yelling and I cannot control it, weeks of anger boiling into this very moment. My chest heaves with adrenaline and it takes a moment to realize that he isn’t fighting back. He walks past me to the desk. “Dad, I didn’t mean that.” Instant guilt pours over me and I feel horrible.

“Yes, you did, Katie, and that’s okay. One day, you might be able to understand why your mother and I made the choices we did.” He opens a drawer that runs the length of the desk and pulls out a slip of paper along with a pencil. I suppose I miscalculated the desk’s durability because it effortlessly holds my father’s weight as he leans over it and scribbles something down. “I hope that you will try to reserve your judgment of your mother and I until we can sit down and talk.”

He hands me the piece of paper and I slip it into my front pocket. I clench my jaw and desperately urge my guilt for lashing out at him to disappear, but it stays put and for good reason. I deserve it. I wrap my arms around him and squeeze, my attempt at an apology. “Thanks, Dad,” I say and trace my way back to the ladder. I feel his presence behind me, walking me out. My hand clasps the first rung and I heave my body up for the climb.

“Cate…” My father’s normally booming voice is quiet in his new surroundings. I step back down onto the concrete and turn my head over my shoulder, my mouth slightly slack, and meet his stare. “Be careful, Cate. If not for your mother and me, think of your siblings. They need you. Whatever it is you’re planning, please remember, we all need you.” His request is weak and pleading more than anything else.

“I will. I’ll see you soon. Tell Sophie I say hi and…” I’ve never been good with words, I’ve never been good with emotions but I know that if anything were to happen to me, I’d want my little sister to know how much she means to me. “…and that I miss her.” He nods. “Oh and…” I look up towards the hatch. “You’re going to need a new lock on that, preferably something a bit stronger.”

He laughs and the sound of it alone makes me feel lighter, like I am able to smile again. I climb the ladder, rung after rung until I reach the top and throw the hatch open and pull myself up onto the ground outside. I reach for the slip of paper inside of my pocket and squint trying to read his barely legible handwriting.

452 Rambling Road, Sector 6, Ward 2

Of course they’re up in a Class 4 neighborhood
, I think, rolling my eyes, then head towards the far end of the property, making my way for the city centre.

Chapter 22 — Maggie

The bunker, with its concrete barriers garnished with steel fixtures, brings a type of cold that I have never felt. My cage pleads with me daily to give into its hopelessness and more than anything I’d like to yield to it. My mind tells me that life will never be the same, that any hope for the future has now dissipated, but my heart screams at me to stay strong. When Emzire’s father told me of the task his family had inherited, to care for an extraordinary child generation after generation, I can’t with any amount of honesty say that I believed him. When his mother showed me the pictures of a young woman who had lived and passed and lived again, I still can’t say that I thought their sanity was intact. But when that baby girl was placed in my arms, when the nurse instructed me to keep her safe, to raise her as my own, to instill in her a strong foundation, I knew without a doubt or inch of hesitation that I would give my life for her, for my Cate. I wonder what her mothers before me were like. If they loved her the same way I did, the same way I do. If they cleaned and bandaged her scrapes, if they brought her warm milk with butter before bed so that she could sleep easily. If they nursed her heart when a foolish boy broke it. I wonder what life was like all those years ago, if they were able to give her more because of how their worlds worked. More than anything, I wonder if I did right by her.

I will never forget the day we brought her home, stepping through the threshold of our home, instantly becoming a parent. I was terrified. I didn’t have nine months to prepare—I had three days. I remember thinking,
How on earth can I do this? I’m not ready to be called “Mom.” I’m not ready for any of this.
But I suppose it happens as most things in life do—the crescendo of “what if’s” finally dissipates and your heart takes over, giving your mind a break. I would be lying if I said those first few years weren’t challenging, but I wouldn’t give them up for the world. As I watched this toddler grow into a woman, when I realized that we had kept her safe, the thought of ever losing her, of ever having her taken away from us terrified me. I lived with that for two years before Eliath and Shoshanna came into our lives, that fear that I would lose her. Despite never carrying her in my womb, she is mine now, she is a part of me. And I know that perhaps I’ve become too attached, that she has had so many lives and that in those lives so many people have come into her life, but I don’t have that—I have one life. That’s it, just one, and she is my daughter, and nothing will change that.

Chapter 23 —Cate

The house sits on a hill. Long wooden stilts brace the back of the home against the earth. I grip the braces and pull myself up off the ground. My muscles burn awake as they shake off the comfort of sleep. Lifting myself over the balcony railing I peer into the French doors that stand in front of me. The home appears empty, though at this time of night, with curfew in effect, it’s more likely that its occupants are sleeping rather than out. Pressing my hand against the lock, I close my eyes and will the pins to align and slowly crack the door open. I walk into the kitchen and move towards the stairs when I spot the red haired boy asleep on the sofa.
It can’t possibly be this easy
, I think. I linger, standing there above him, thinking how simple it would be to smother him with a sofa pillow. Instead, I lean down and whisper into his ear, “Dante.”