I breathe in measured increments, afraid to speak. Their grand plan seems good, but there’s darkness at its core. Finally, I can’t hold it in any longer. I’m not here to save the world. I’m willing to push aside my father’s betrayal for another time when I can examine it, pick it apart in masochistic detail. But first, Dylia.
“I want my sister.” Such a simple request. “Where is she?”
SunAj goes back to the chair. “In time, in time. You’ll be reunited.”
“I want to see her now,” I demand. “I have something worth more than her, maybe even more than me. I’m offering a trade.”
Sun squints at my brazenness, examining me like an insect. For the first time, everyone in the room perks up. I dig inside Dyl’s bag, pulling out the cold pack with the bottles and the microchip loaded with data. I carefully place the pack on the smoky glass floor and retreat. As if a few steps back could protect me from anything here.
“I’ve figured out how to manufacture my trait. The elixir will delete the telomeres and relink chromosome specific sequences, making them a continuous loop, like mine.”
Sun/Aj, whatever its name is, turns to let Sun speak.
“We have synthesized this as well.” My shoulders fall in defeat. Why did I imagine that I could beat them? When they probably have better equipment and money—
“However, ours has not been successful.”
I almost smile. “Mine worked on our cell culture karyotypes, and we even tested it on a pig—”
“Oy, you mean, this one?” The carrot-haired boy shoves the jelly beans into his pocket and reaches beneath his chair for a large, black box. He carries it over and takes the top off, dumping the contents at my feet.
With a sickening thud, the hairy stiff body of Callie rolls to my feet.
CHAPTER 28
CALLIE’S PRESENCE AT AUREUS MAKES NO SENSE. Everyone smirks at my frozen expression of confusion. Her body is covered in massive lumps, one so large, it’s overtaken her ear and disfigured her face. The dead eyes are hazy and half open, as is her mouth. She’s not just dead. She’s dead from something that covered her inside and out with tumors, within hours.
“How . . .” I begin, but I don’t have to finish. Caliga walks up to me and kicks Callie’s dead body away.
Callie. Wilbert. My head whips up and I spin around, searching for him. I don’t know why I didn’t see him when I first came in. He’s been sitting in the corner the whole time, just behind me. His face is morose and pitiful.
“Wilbert!” I run over to him. “Are you okay? How did they get you here?” I clutch at my chest, afraid that all the members of Carus are in terrible danger. But strangely, Wilbert hardly reacts to my panic. He lifts his hands up, hesitating.
“I’m sorry, Zel.” He won’t look me in the eye. Caliga clicks over to Wilbert in her high heels and caresses his faceless head. Wilbert wilts next to her and smiles, but within seconds, he turns sallow and limp from her effects.
Callie. Caliga. No way.
“I don’t understand.” The words escape before the understanding sinks in with sharp precision. God, it makes sense. His willingness to get me to the junkyards and the agriplane so I could keep my conversations with Micah going. Testing everyone’s experiments on Callie and shrugging off the fact that his own trait was already on the market as ForEverDay. He’s been helping Aureus, at every turn. The memory of his nausea after Argent collides with the realization that I never actually saw him drinking. He was probably hanging out with Caliga the whole time, driving to see her at night in his chars while everyone was asleep, medicating himself with the gargantuan bottle of NoPuk.
And yet, some things don’t fit. Wilbert didn’t want us to go to Argent, I remember. He was disappointed, almost frightened when Hex picked it that night. He couldn’t have given them a heads-up, or we’d all be stuck in Aureus.
“They’re your family! I was your family!” I choke, hardly containing my rage.
“No. We are his family,” Sun tells me. “Wilbert is my son, brought into Carus by your father himself. To this day, your foster family has only the weakest understanding of what your father really was. Caliga”—he waves his hand dismissively at her—“is Wilbert’s wife, though I wasn’t thrilled at their marriage at such a young age, but what can you do? Love does strange things to people.” His fingers tap against each other, amused at the soap opera of his home.
“It’s about time you came back,” Caliga says softly, rubbing Wilbert’s head. It would be an endearing scene, if it weren’t so sickening. “You were supposed to deliver Cyrad too. You promised us you would.”
Wilbert flushes the brightest red I’ve ever seen. “You know I tried. I sent you copies of his protocols . . .”
“But none of them are complete.” She pouts. “I think you’ve tried to protect him. Where are his blood samples?”
“I couldn’t get them. Every time I drugged him, the needles wouldn’t work. His vessels seal up before I can draw the blood!” Wilbert whines. For a second, he shoots me a look that cries out for mercy. If he really wanted to deliver Cy, he could have done it a thousand times over. What stopped him?
Sun silences them with a raised hand. “Enough.” I look back at him and realize that my cold pack with the elixir is now missing.
“Where is my elixir?” I ask, once again off balance.
“Disappointment in your experiment aside, I think it will still be useful.”
“Really?”
“You’ve created a formula that causes rapid, cancerous growth. What could be a better weapon that that?”
“No.” I almost choke on the word as I back away.
Sun claps his hands together with satisfaction. “Well. It’s time we expanded into weapons.” He shifts forward and his smile disintegrates into an emotionless straight line. “There will be no bargaining, no haggling. You have come here of your own power, against the wishes of your previous family. Your father owed us what he stole. The balance is even now.” He turns to fully face me, and I get a glimpse of Aj, hanging limply against his right cheek. Her eyes are closed, her mouth slack, the lower lip shiny with saliva. Sun dabs her drooling mouth with a handkerchief. “Ah, you’ve exhausted Aj. I can read in peace.” Sun reopens his book and waves a hand in my direction. “Send her to her room.”
“Get on with you,” Ren says gruffly, pushing off from a chair. He points me to the door. As I pass by Micah, he holds my arm for a moment.
“Don’t fight it so hard, Zelia. You’re meant to be here, you always were. We’re just righting the mistake we made.”
“My sister is not a mistake.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You’re good at not meaning what you say.”
“This isn’t how I wanted it to be. We’re all victims, Zel. I always wanted you on my side, even before we knew about your trait.” Regret is written on his face, but it’s too late. He’s made his choice, and so have I.
I turn from him to follow Ren. The other members of Aureus barely look up. This is familiar to them. Boring, even.
How many new Aureus recruits have been through here? I count the current members in the room—Caliga, Micah, Ren, Tegg, the short muscular guy, and the dark-clothed girl with sunglasses, Blink. Six. Seven, counting Dyl, all made by my father. What happened to all the others?
“YOU NEED TO MOVE FASTER, CHICKADEE.” Ren shoves me into a transport after we pass back through the white room. For a change, it zooms upward instead of down. I want to shrink away and hide in a shadow, but I can’t. I still have something to lose. I push away the ugliness of the last few minutes and force-feed myself a teaspoon of bravery.