Creators (6 page)

“Let’s not go feeling sorry for yourself.” Henry rolled his eyes. “We both messed things up.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I guess you’re right.”

“I usually am,” he said. He paused, looking at the night sky above us. “Actually, I never am. I don’t know what I’m talking about,” he said, and then he started to laugh, too.

“It’s time I make things right, and that means talking about James. And me. James and me. I know that George took him back to the council—”

“Would it be a waste of my time to explain to you that the likelihood of ever seeing him again is slim?” he asked.

I offered a small smile. “Yes, it would. That’s where I went wrong before. I convinced myself that I was never going to see him again, and I didn’t let myself feel the weight of that. At least not completely. So, I tried things with you. I wasn’t ready. I tried to be, but I wasn’t.”

Henry pulled his hand from mine, turning his face from me. “Don’t sit here and tell me you didn’t feel anything for me. I remember the way you kissed me.”

I swallowed, knowing the next thing I said would destroy him. But it would be a temporary destruction, like burning down a forest so it could grow again. “I did feel something for you. I’ll probably always feel something for you. But even in those moments when I convinced myself I would never see James again, I was still more in love with the memory of him than I was with you.”

I braced myself for Henry’s reaction. Instead of arguing, he sighed and ran a hand over his face. I realized he was probably just as tired as I was. “I know,” he said.

I pulled myself to my feet and placed a hand on his arm. “I wish it could be different.”

“You know what’s crazy? There’s a part of me that doesn’t care that you’ll never love me as much as you would him.”

“You say that right now, but you would mind one day. And then you would hate me. I can take you being mad at me now, but I could never handle you hating me,” I said.

Henry nodded and walked off into the darkness without another word. I stared after my best friend as he moved further and further away from me, and despite his slumped shoulders and bowed head, I knew I had done the right thing.

For once.

Tess,

There are no words to express the utter astonishment I felt at receiving your letter. I never even let myself hope to see you again; it didn’t feel fair. You were alive. You had your sister. What else could I ask for? And then your letter arrived, handed to me by one of the creators under my plate at dinner. Effortlessly. The smallest of gestures with the greatest of impact.

Despite half of your letter being crossed out, no doubt by someone to keep hidden any fact or detail that might lead them to you, I lost myself in every word that crawled across the page.

I have always moved through life blindly. I have always stumbled, reaching my hand out, searching for the wall, needing something to help me along. This is the way it has always been with me, and I sometimes think it’s the one part of my being that will never change.

You have been my guide since that first day in the piano room. When I think back on you, our times together, I don’t want to change. The council is wrong. Kendall was wrong.

Needing someone isn’t weakness.

The council is trying to change me. When George returned me to them, taking me right to the center, the headquarters, he was welcomed back a hero. It was almost as if the man who processed us was expecting George to show up with me. The things he knows, Tess, are enough to make any man tremble with fear. Every dark thing that has ever whispered seductively in my mind, he has recited back to me.

I believe George used his ability to gain acquittal for his crimes. It probably didn’t hurt that he had me as well. Once I went through de-briefing (don’t worry, I said nothing of you or the community, I swear it. I would never tell them. I would die before giving them a way to hurt you more than they already have) I told them I had left the compound because I sought to find out what lay in the woods. I was curious. Once they were done questioning me, George and I were both assigned to different creators, and I have only seen him once since.

That’s what they do with chosen ones here. Each one of us is assigned a job based on our ability. You were right when you guessed that I would be selected as a bodyguard for someone important. Once they ascertained the extent of my ability from George, they assigned me to a man named Scott Harper. He is the son of Abrams, one of the original creators of the first batch of chosen ones presented to the public. No one dares to call him by his first name, though. Just Harper. I suspect they are afraid of showing disrespect. Even his two sons call him sir.

I believe the council has been making genetically engineered humans for quite some time, much longer than they have let on. I have only been given a little bit of information because I am still rather new, but things are worse than either of us ever knew. There are whispers of things I shudder to write down, not out of fear that someone will read them, but more from a deep-rooted nervousness that by writing them, they will be true. No denying the rumors anymore.

Needless to say, when they assigned me to Harper, they forgot one important detail. When Kendall created me, he wired me so that I could only sense when someone was in trouble when I cared for them deeply. So, while I followed Harper for days, I was unable to prevent him from receiving an injury while awakening a new batch of chosen ones. One of them bolted straight up and attempted to strangle him. It was the oddest thing I have ever witnessed. Once everyone had regained their composure, they looked to me, wondering why I hadn’t foreseen the event and stopped it.

I am not certain, but I believe they spoke with George, who decided to share what he left out about my gift. No doubt he gives and holds information in ways that suit his personal agenda.

He told them about you.

Not about the community or even meeting in the woods. I still don’t understand why he kept those things secret, but he did. He told them I had fallen for a Templeton girl, and since meeting her, meeting you, my loyalties have been shifting.

That is when they decided to get to work on re-programming me. As you must remember from your time at Templeton, while we are incubating, the creators flash images into our brains that depict naturals in the worst possible way. Images of war, betrayal, wanton lasciviousness. So, when we wake up and begin our training, our minds are more apt to listen to the propaganda—the countless history lessons on how time and time again the naturals, due to their emotional weakness, turned on each other and their governments.

Chosen ones are not created to rebel, let alone think for themselves, so the creators have decided that I must be re-programmed. Every morning they tie me down and make me watch those films, the images that made up what I can only call my childhood. At first, I struggled against the ropes and tried to keep my eyes shut. But without scaring you, they have ways to make me watch, Tess. They have ways.

In the afternoons, I sit with a creator, a man so old I sometimes foolishly wonder if he was there at the start of time itself. He talks to me for hours and hours about the council, their beliefs, and even you. I don’t mind talking to him of the council. I have millions of questions that I want answered, but when he brings you up, I cannot speak. I cannot say your name in this place.

You are the brightness.

This place is the darkness.

And I don’t want to risk it destroying you. So, I say your name a thousand times in my head and write it here, knowing they cannot take it from me if I don’t give it to them.

When I refuse to talk to them about you, it makes them angry. And so a man appears, and he has ways. So, I talk. I am so ashamed by it. But I never say your name.

And when I’m done talking about you, they take their turn. They try and convince me that you have tricked me, manipulated me with your natural ways. They want to corrupt my feelings for you, but I never let them.

When I return to my room, my head hurts so much that I wonder if it would be better to just bash it against the wall. Then I think of you. If there is even the slightest chance I will ever see you again, I must keep going. I won’t give up. Every day, I thank the God that created you, asking him to bless you for that letter. I am so happy to hear you are trying to reconnect with your sister. I will continue to hope to receive another missive. Just the thought of it makes all the pain worth it.

George came to see me this morning. He told me to pretend. He told me if I didn’t, they would wash my memory completely. Re-start me. Re-make me.

I have to pretend to hate you.

Because if I don’t, they’ll make sure I don’t remember you at all.

And for some reason, George wants me to remember.

~James

“It’s all right to be nervous,” Eric told me, scratching the back of his head, clearly more apprehensive about the day’s lesson than I was.

I gritted my teeth and held my gun level with the target. “I don’t have time to be nervous.” I didn’t have time
or
patience. Every time I re-read James’s letter, I was filled with rage. If I ever came into contact with the men who tortured him, I would murder them. I would.

I took a deep breath and squinted my eyes, trying to bring the can into focus. The hardest part about shooting a gun was shutting out the rest of the world. A good shot had to maintain complete composure, focus, control. At least that’s what Stephanie had told me during breakfast.

While she refused to break my father’s orders and teach me herself, she always sat with me during morning mealtime and offered me tips. I could tell there was a part of Stephanie that didn’t think it was right that my father forbade me from learning how to use a gun, a part of her that knew in this world it was wise a girl learned how to defend herself. But she would never go against her commander. Luckily for me, Eric had no problem disobeying my father’s orders.

He was pretty much the only one brave enough to do so. Hours after arriving at the community, my father called a meeting with all of the leaders. By the time the meeting concluded, the community was under his control. He and his army walked the streets enforcing their own brand of law and order. For the most part, things remained how they were, but it still bothered me how quickly the Isolationists, ancestors of those naturals who ran from government control, gave up their rights.

No one dared to question me or any of the men who traveled with us into the woods to meet George. We may have forced our way back into the community, but no one treated us as outcasts. Whatever my father had told them must have been pretty damn convincing. Another reminder that words carried just as much power as the gun I held in my hands.

Needless to say, I hadn’t seen much of my father since the early days after our return to the community. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was avoiding me. Despite his attempt at reconciliation back in the woods, I hadn’t had much contact with him. He begged me to trust him, told me it would all be over soon. Maybe I needed to let him do what needed to be done.

“I’ll take your cow milking for the rest of the week if you make that shot,” Lockwood called out from behind me.

I spun around to remind him that I had been covering both of our cow duties the past two weeks, since he spent all of his time doting on my sister. But both he and Eric fell to the ground. “Whoa! Whoa! What the hell? You never point a gun at someone unless you plan on shooting them,” Eric yelled at me.

I lowered the gun. “Who said I wasn’t planning on shooting Lockwood?” I joked, but my cheeks were red from embarrassment. I cleared my throat. “How is she?”

Lockwood pulled himself off the ground and shrugged. “The same,” he answered, instinctively knowing who I was speaking about. Of course he knew; Louisa consumed both of our minds. Sharon couldn’t offer the answers I sought. Not without access to medical instruments and machines that were near impossible to find in the wilds of the Isolationist territory. “She’ll barely eat. She won’t talk. She just sleeps and stares at that wall,” he continued, kicking at the dirt beneath his feet.

I nodded and turned my attention back to my target. “I’m ready to try it,” I growled, figuring the best way to stem my anger was to shoot the hell out of a tin can. Of course, if Eric knew how angry I was, he’d probably take the gun right out of my hands and tell me to walk it off.

“All right, then,” Eric said. “Breathe in and out. Steady your aim, find your center, and shoot. Your stance is important, and, please, for the love of God, remember the recoil.”

“Um, should I back up? Like go back inside back up?” Lockwood teased from behind me.

“Shut up, Lock. Tess has this. She’s a strong son of a bitch. She can do it,” said Eric, his voice firm.

I replayed all of Eric’s rules and reminders in my head, doing everything he told me. I closed off my mind, shutting out all my anxiousness and fears about Louisa. I focused and did what Eric, my great teacher, had taught me.

And then I shot.

I promptly and ungraciously fell straight on my ass. My chest burned with adrenaline, and my breath escaped from me like the birds that flew from the trees upon hearing the shot.

“Hot damn!” Eric yelled, running toward the fence post where the can had been placed.

I stood up, furiously wiping the dirt off my pants. “I’m sorry. I thought I was prepared for the recoil. I’ll do better next time.”

“Better? You shot it dead on. Right in the middle.” Eric beamed, running over with the can so I could inspect it.

I couldn’t help but grin too. “Well, hot damn indeed. Of course, I did fall on my butt—probably not the most useful thing if it ever comes to fighting,” I admitted a little sheepishly.

“You just need some practice. You did fantastic. We’ll continue tomorrow,” Eric replied. When I opened my mouth to beg for another go, he cut me off. “I have border duty, and I don’t feel like hearing your father’s mouth if I show up late. Don’t worry. Tomorrow,” he promised, punching me playfully in the arm before heading toward the dining hall. One day, I would have to remind him how hard those punches were.

“Wait!” I called out after him. Eric stopped and turned around to face me, raising an eyebrow. “Would you mind if I kept that?” I asked, pointing to the can. He laughed and tossed it to me.

“So, what are we going to do about your sister?” Lockwood asked as soon as Eric was out of earshot.

I rolled my eyes and tucked the can into my coat pocket. Then I slung the rifle over my shoulder and walked to the shed where the community stored the weapons. “There’s nothing to do but wait. Unless you know how to time travel, I suspect you’re going to have to learn a bit of patience.”

“She’s freaking out, Tess,” Lockwood countered, closing the shed and locking it once I had returned the gun.

“Louisa’s main occupation in life has always been drama. Don’t get swept up in it,” I warned, pushing past him and striding back toward the dining hall. Between working all day with the livestock and training, I was near famished.

Lockwood grabbed onto my arm and halted me. “So, we’re back to being this girl? The
I don’t feel anything
girl? Let me tell you something about that girl. She’s a real bitch, and nobody likes her.”

“Nobody likes a potty mouth either,” I countered, trying desperately to lighten the mood.

Lockwood continued to stare me down. I looked up at my friend, paling at his words. He was right.
I
didn’t even like that girl. But it wasn’t as simple as all that, either. I was frightened. Not for myself, but because I was certain that, once again, I was going to fail my little sister. Emma had always taken care of us, during the worst of my mother’s drinking episodes and after my father left; my sister hadn’t been dead for a year before I abandoned Louisa, leaving her to be manipulated and used by the likes of George.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked, my voice cracking. “Look at my little sister and tell her I don’t know if she’s going to die? Tell her that I was wrong when I thought Sharon could help her? Remind her that I’m the reason she’s stuck in this backwoods place, away from all the comforts the council could offer her? I mean, if she’s going to die, at least she could do it without starving.”

“Backwoods place? Even you have to admit the community is better than the compound.”

I sighed. “Of course. But she won’t see it like that. She grew up believing everything the council told us. Now, she just sees us as the people who took her from that safety. Brought her to a place where she’s scared all the time. You saw her in the woods.”

“Maybe you could help her be less scared.”

I pulled my arm from his grasp. “She knows what happened to Emma. She remembers. Now she’s stuck out here waiting for that thing inside her to crawl its way out and kill her.”

“It’s not some thing, Tess. It’s her child. When I sit with her, she, well, she tries to protect the baby. I can see it in the way she curls in on herself.”

I crossed my arms and tucked my chin down. I couldn’t look at Lockwood, not when I was sure my face radiated all the characteristics that defined the old me. It was the one part of myself that hadn’t been changed since leaving the compound. Even after seeing how great Sharon was with her kids and despite knowing I wouldn’t share my sister’s fate, I couldn’t see the point of bringing any child into such a messed-up world.

I had learned the hard way that us humans, naturals and chosen ones alike, were fragile. And not just in a physical way. We hurt each other with wounds and scars that no one would ever see, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist. Often, they were the injuries we could never come back from. My mother certainly hadn’t been able to.

I couldn’t even begin to fathom why women like Emma even thought of risking childbirth. So, how was I supposed to offer hope when it all felt so hopeless? Either Louisa was like me and would bring a fatherless child into a world where there were no certainties, only millions and millions of questions that no one bothered to answer. Or, she would be like Emma.

She would die.

I still could remember every moment of watching Emma’s death. Despite the fact that I was currently standing in the middle of a makeshift town miles and miles from the place where she had died, I saw and felt everything from that day. It replayed in my mind like a warning—a more convincing propaganda film than any produced by the council itself.

She had screamed. I’d been able to hear it stick in her throat, caught in a mixture of saliva and blood. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.

She’d reached out her hand to me. I’d hesitated.

I had glared at the midwife who was vainly trying to keep my sister breathing. I wondered what it would feel like knowing no matter how hard you tried, you would always fail. The midwife looked to me and I could read the emotion in her eyes: she was asking my forgiveness. I gritted my teeth and moved my gaze away.

I’d knelt down beside my sister, hoping the action would quiet her unnerving, unceasing cries for me. Her bright, feverish eyes bore into mine. “Did she live?”

“She?” I asked skeptically.

Emma repeated her question. Her longing for an answer was evident in her voice.

“No,” I’d said. “It didn’t live.”

Now, I swallowed, forcing down the shame that washed over me every time I thought about how I’d acted during Emma’s final moments. That was the reason I couldn’t be any comfort to Louisa. That was why I had to wait. Let whatever ending fate had decided for her play itself out.

I wasn’t strong enough to be there for her. I could stand up to a room full of people I barely knew and threaten to sacrifice myself for the boy I loved. I could learn to shoot guns, willing and able to fight if the need arrived.

But I couldn’t be a good sister.

I cleared my throat. “I…I just can’t.”

Lockwood clenched his jaw and looked away from me. For the first time in our friendship, I felt his disappointment in me. He threw his hands in the air and walked away without saying another word.

As I watched him disappear back toward the infirmary where they had permanently placed Louisa, I felt my chest tighten. It heaved up and down, vainly trying to gather air. But I couldn’t breathe. I clutched at the collar of my shirt and pulled it from my neck, but still I couldn’t manage to force air into my lungs. I stumbled back. My eyes went wide, searching for someone, anyone to help me.

It had been so long since I’d had a panic attack.

I couldn’t watch her die. I couldn’t do that again.

Not again.

Not ever. Not ever again.

A gentle hand landed on my shoulder, and I spun around to find Robert. As soon as I saw him, I fell apart, crumpling into his arms.

“Let it out, Tess. Just let it out,” he urged.

And so I did. I sobbed and sobbed into the chest of my brother-in-law. The more I cried, let go, the better I felt, until my wild, incessant sobs turned into a quiet whimper. “I’m so sorry,” I managed, pulling back so I could look up at him.

Robert’s brow furrowed. “Sorry for what?”

“How I treated Emma during that last day. I should have been there for her. I was so selfish and scared. She took care of me my whole life, and I abandoned her when she needed me the most,” I admitted, my voice hitching as the tears started to fall once more.

“Abandoned her? What are you talking about? You think she didn’t know you were frightened out of your mind? The most important thing was that you were there. That’s always the most important thing,” he assured me.

As I stared up at the man who traveled with me into the unknown because he had once loved my sister, I knew he believed it with all of his heart.

He had always been there.

“I’m scared,” I whispered.

“So is she,” he answered back.

Later that afternoon, when I was sure any trace of my breakdown had left my face, I went to my sister’s room. As I moved to open the door, I heard Lockwood’s voice coming from inside.

“I brought a new book today. I think it’s right up your alley. It’s by a woman named Jane Austen. Quite a witty one, that Ms. Austen. The book is called
Pride and Prejudice
.”

I smiled to myself, remembering how a boy once tried to help me with books. Happy to know that even in the wilds of the community, people believed in the power of the stories of our past, the stories the council wanted to silence.

I knocked gently on the door before pushing it open. “Mind if I sit and listen? I’ve never read this one,” I said quietly, bracing myself for whatever Lockwood, or Louisa for that matter, had in store for me.

Instead of accusations or judgment, Lockwood smiled. “Not at all.”

I smiled back. It was shaky, but a smile all the same.