The Rift Uprising (26 page)

The Karekin remains unmoving. He says nothing and he keeps his body taut.

“We fight your kind. We kill your kind, but we aren't the enemy. We were taken as children and the ones in command changed us; they turned us into soldiers. I want to stop this. I want to close the . . . big green thing.”

There is no Karekin word for Rift. I don't know if anything I am saying is getting through to him. Still, I am closer to him than I have ever been to another one of his race that I'm not in the process of killing. Usually everything happens so fast on the field and when you're fighting for your life, it's difficult to observe all the little things. For the first time I notice a small black device in his ear. He sees that I've seen it and immediately reaches for his head. He's fast, but I'm faster. I grab his hand and the others grab the rest of him. He goes down. Henry grabs one arm, Violet grabs the other. Boone restrains his legs, but he is flailing wildly, trying to get us off. I quickly reach into his ear and pull out the tech he's got in there. It's definitely a communication device. I hold it up to my own ear, and hear a faint buzz and possibly a voice, though it sounds distorted and like it's underwater. It's too faint to make out what anyone is saying.

“What is this?” I ask, holding it up. “I'm telling you the truth. I don't think you want to die, so tell me something useful! Can you talk to your army through this?”

Suddenly, the Karekin stops moving. His mouth transforms into a maniacal smile. He begins to laugh. “I am a loyal servant.
I am loyal.
You will learn obedience in time.”

I blanch, distracted, which in turn distracts Violet. The Karekin sees his opening. He breaks his good arm free in a flash and grabs the knife strapped to my thigh. Before I can make another move, he drags the knife swiftly across his throat. Deep crimson blood arcs in the air. The Karekin has severed his artery; he will bleed out in a matter of moments. His violent suicide has stunned us all and we stand there watching as his life drains away.

“What did he say, Ryn?” Boone asks as he crouches down to get a better look at the Karekin.

“He said he was a loyal servant. He told me that we would all learn to be obedient and loyal.” I take the knife from the Karekin's hands and wipe it off on the hard ground below.

“Oh, good,” Boone says dramatically. “I thought he was going to say something scary. Fuuuck.” He swears in a long whisper that ends in a flourish of annoyance.

“Loyal to who?” Vi asks solemnly, looking squarely at the Karekin's mutilated body.

I shake my head and back away. “I don't know. But whoever it is, they're scarier than slicing your own throat open, so yeah, no answers, only more questions.” I begin to walk away. I hope the other Citadels have contained the Karekins near The Rift.

I don't feel like fighting anymore.

I am staring out the window from my kitchen sink. I have washed my hands twice already and the air is thick with the scent of lemons and bleach from scouring the table. It's almost dark. In this weather, the sun doesn't so much fade as slam shut like a door. One minute it's light, and the next the light is gone, erased from the sky, a blanket smothering the heavens. I wish we could have timed this better. I'd have liked to do this in the day, but lately time is becoming more and more aggressive, turning against our little band with hundreds of counter moves. Pretty soon it will be the enemy outright. I can't stop it. I can't even slow it down. I don't stand a chance against it.

It won't be long until the rest of the team arrives. Boone and Henry are on their way from home, and Violet has gone to rob her father. That's how she said it, anyhow; she's clearly still not comfortable with what she needs to do. At this point,
though, comfort isn't really our priority. God knows I would have loved to get some more alone time in with Ezra, but I know that from here on out, there is safety in numbers. I go upstairs and tell Ezra what happened with the Karekin. He doesn't have any more insight than I do. I give him the earpiece that I managed to retrieve. Right away he notices a small button down toward the bottom. When I suggest he push it, he immediately says no.

“This is an advanced race. I doubt they need to use something as basic as an On/Off button to turn this thing on. By the sounds of it, he was willing to die brutally rather than talk. I wouldn't be surprised if the earpiece had a self-destruct option that kills not only the signal but also the person wearing it. I'll try to take it apart while you guys do . . . your own thing.”

I lean down and kiss Ezra on the mouth. He tastes like peanut butter. I don't think I will ever get tired of kissing this boy. “Cool, well, yeah, you mess around with the potentially highly explosive device up here and I'll go and perform some brain surgery downstairs on my friends.”

“Have fun, hope you win,” Ezra says with a little click of his tongue while pointing his thumb and forefinger in the shape of a gun.

I walk back downstairs to wait. I go to the sink to wash my hands yet again. I feel the skin tighten around my knuckles when I pat them on a paper towel. I tell myself that I can't touch anything else because I don't want to scrub them a fourth time. Dry skin I can handle; cracked skin will distract me from doing what needs to be done. I hear the doorbell. Immediately I know something is off. The team would have just knocked or let themselves in. No one rings the bell. I know my parents aren't expecting a package. They have already given me the flimsiest of excuses to check in way more
often than they need to (like making sure the sprinklers have really been disabled for the season and did Mom return that shirt to Nordstrom or is it still on her closet shelf?). A delivery would have been big news.

I cautiously walk to the door. There's no time to call up to Ezra and tell him to stay put without whoever's outside hearing me yell—I can only assume he understands that a doorbell is not a good time to come downstairs. I push down on the latch and the door swings open.

Christopher Seelye is standing there.

The breath is knocked out of my lungs as if someone has punched me in the stomach.
What is
he
doing here?
Seelye is one of the most, if not
the
most, powerful people on this Earth and he's standing at my door, casual as anything with a grin that is impossible to read.

This is very,
very
bad
.

Our eyes lock, and in those brief seconds I imagine pulling him inside, grabbing hold of him, and twisting his head the wrong way round till his neck breaks. I consider hitting him on the most vulnerable part of his skull with the fireplace poker. I think about slicing his throat with a kitchen knife. I know physically I am capable of doing any and all of these things, but I also know that while I may be a killer, I am not a murderer. I may think I'm a monster sometimes, but I am not.

Unless
Seelye tries something stupid—and then all bets are off. I have no qualms about defending myself.

“Hi, Ryn,” he says in a tone slick enough to be an oil spill.

“Hello,” I respond, but I do not budge. I don't open the door any wider. He may be smiling, but I'm not.

“Can I come in?” Seelye asks, with just the barest hint of sarcasm. As if I'm not being polite, as if somehow I'm the one intruding and he's indulging my teenage rudeness by not
being more welcoming. Of course, I don't want him anywhere near here. I don't want to look at him. I don't even want him in the same state. But if I slam that door shut, I will no longer be playing the game. I reconcile myself to the fact that I am an expert liar and Seelye doesn't stand a chance no matter how clever he thinks he is.

“All right,” I concede, and once the door is open, he waltzes inside with the kind of smug sense of entitlement I would usually associate with royalty. He's tall and slender, with the sort of frame that makes me think he has to work to put on weight. Seelye makes himself right at home and sits on one of the chairs in our living room while unzipping what looks to be a very expensive jacket. He's wearing jeans and a navy sweater that looks soft enough to be cashmere. Seelye is not unattractive in the face, but he's still fairly repulsive.

I reluctantly take a seat across from him. I cross my legs and lean back, forcing my muscles to relax, to pull away from my bones. I don't say anything; I am waiting to hear whatever bullshit reason he has for being here. Seelye doesn't say anything, either; he just looks at me with narrowed hazel eyes. I work hard to keep my breathing even. Ezra is upstairs and the boys are due any minute.

Finally, he crooks his head to one side and says, “You're not going to ask why I'm here?”

I fight the urge to look at the white grandfather clock against the wall that really did belong to my grandfather in Sweden. I don't have time for this, but it's imperative that Seelye believe I have all the time in the world.

“No,” I say as if bored.

“Aren't much of a conversationalist, are you?”

I shrug my shoulders. “I must have missed that day in basic training.”

Seelye lets out a loud, arrogant-sounding laugh. I don't crack a smile. I just continue to stare at him. His laughter stops abruptly, unnaturally. “Where are your parents, Ryn?” It should be a question, but the way he's asked it sounds more like a statement, like he knows exactly where they are.

“Not here,” I answer back, careful not to answer too quickly. I steal a glance at the clock. Any minute now Boone and Henry are going to walk through that door and God only knows how they are going to react to Seelye's presence here.

“Well, I can wait for them.” Now it's his turn to lean all the way back in the chair.

I clear my throat. I don't like having to disclose this. “They're out of town.”

“So you're alone,” Seelye responds slowly.

“Why do you care where my parents are? What do you want them for?” I sit up a little straighter now.

“Well, I did tell you that I was going to be taking a more active role, nurturing that raw talent of yours. I wanted to tell them how special I think you are, how well you're doing. And to give them the heads-up that we might be putting you in charge of some special projects and that you might be away from home for extended periods of time. It's the burden of leadership, Ryn. Sacrifice. For them and you.” Seelye looks relaxed, but there is something undeniably predatory about the man. Did he really come here to explain to my parents that I might be gone for a while? Or is he just warning me that ARC can take me away whenever they want? Both, probably, the former as justification for the latter.

A lot of Citadels love Seelye. I've seen them watch him doe-eyed and breathless—even the guys—during Seelye's speeches. He's never fooled me, though. I've always suspected that he has Hollywood screenwriters on the company payroll.
His words never ring completely true or heartfelt, no matter how hard he tries to sell them. He's like those slimy Evangelical preachers on TV who go on and on about Jesus but then make millions of dollars off little old ladies who live on cat food. I need to remember that now. He's just a man—a powerful one, to be sure—but a man all the same.

I'm
the one with the superpowers.

“Cool,” I say without expression.

Seelye gives a menacing chuckle. “I like you, Ryn.” He folds his arms, one over the other. “There's something about you. I can't quite put my finger on it—it's not like you're the friendliest person. I think it's the fact that you're an original . . . and a bit of a rebel. Maybe you remind me a little of myself.”

I grit my teeth. I fight to stay calm.

I am nothing like you.

If the boys walk in right now this could be the end of everything. They are not yet unchipped, and Seelye, more than anyone, has complete access to the kill switch. For all I know he could have a remote in his gajillion-dollar jacket pocket right now. I wouldn't put it past him to push that button just to prove a point. He might have a weird affinity for me, but as Applebaum said, the rest of my teammates are nothing more than a designation.

From the floor above, the ceiling gives a tiny groan. And then, we both hear Ezra's footsteps. The hanging light overhead vibrates with the noise. I grit my teeth.

“I thought you said you were alone.”

“I never said that,” I tell him as calmly as possible.
Please, please don't come down here
,
Ezra.
The footsteps walk across the ceiling. I hear the bathroom door shut. I let out a breath I hope Seelye hasn't seen me holding.

“Well, if your parents are out of town, that must be your brother. Abel, right?”

There are thousands of Citadels all over the world. The fact that Seelye is sitting here in this room and knows my brother's name means that he also knows a lot more about me. The implications of that are too awful for me to even think about right now. Boone and Henry are supposed to be here already. If Ezra comes down and the boys walk in, this will turn into a fight. Seelye might not walk away from it, but we'll be hunted down by every Citadel and ARC associate in the world. There won't be a single place on Earth where we'd be safe.

“I'd like to meet him. Why don't you go get him, bring him down?”

“No,” I say sternly, standing up. I have got to get him out of here. Seelye looks momentarily befuddled. He's not used to hearing that word. He's backed me into a corner. Playing it cool isn't working, and I realize I've got to come out swinging. “Look, I will work for you. I will show up on time for my shifts and put on my uniform and follow orders. But my private life? My family? Off limits. You stay away from them. Got it?”

“Or what?” Seelye counters unfazed. The fact that he has chosen to remain seated while I'm standing tells me that he's not threatened in the least. Why not?

“
Please . . . give me permission to show you what that scenario looks like,” I practically whisper.

The plumbing in the walls slushes and flows. The door upstairs creaks open. I can hear it, but Seelye probably can't. I stare at him in a way that makes it obvious that he's not welcome here. Finally he stands. He looks me square in the eyes. “Oh, I know you can fight. But do you think you can win? Really?”

“Keep talking and I might be willing to give it a try,” I tell him with a sly smile. Upstairs, Ezra's footsteps stop at the stairs.
Stay there!
I wish, not for the first time, that mind reading was one of my abilities. I look at the door, hoping that Seelye will use it, praying my friends won't walk through.

“You don't want to make an enemy of me, Ryn. You
really
don't.”

Finally. An actual threat. His double talk was just pissing me off. I can use this. I hear the tiniest creak on the landing from upstairs. I hope to God Ezra is listening to this conversation. He'll stay put. Or shit, maybe he won't. He's thoroughly pissed off at ARC; I hope he can keep it together. He's probably the most rational person I know, besides Vi, maybe. But reason and logic can go out the window when you're having to listen to the douche bag who would have imprisoned you for the rest of your life threatening your girlfriend. I mentally will Ezra to stay where he is. I hope he knows that I can handle this for both of us.

“Why don't you tell me, then, what exactly it would take to become your enemy? Would it take implanting a chip inside your head without your permission? Would it involve a constant terror every time you go to work that you might die? Being forced to kill people? How about never having a normal life? Never being able to have sex? Would that make me your enemy?”

Seelye sighs audibly and gives me such a condescending look of mock sympathy that it takes everything I have not to pick him up by the balls and throw him against the wall. “Oh, the melodrama . . . ,” Seelye wails as he clutches at his chest like a southern belle about to faint. “It's good to know that all teenagers are the same, regardless of any kind of
special
talents
they may have. You all think the world is against you. I remember that phase.”

That's it. I've had enough. He could be Mother Teresa right now (which he
so
isn't), but this man has got to fucking go.

“Yeah, okay,” I say, refusing his last bait. “Like I said—when I'm at work, I belong to you. I will carry out any and all duties asked of me. I will even go along with whatever weird special project you probably have in store for me. Just give me my private life and leave my family out of it. I don't want them tainted with this shit any more than they already are. I think you owe me that much at least.”

He stares at me and the floor above creaks again. Seelye's eyes look sideways.