Firstlife
A sharp pain nearly slices open my chest. Vans knows just how to wound for maximum damage. “Has torture ever worked for you?” I ask, but I already know the answer. I’ve noticed the fast turnaround. Most kids stay only a month or two.
“More often than not.”
“Might Equals Right, eh?”
My derision causes him to tap faster. “One decision can change your circumstances, Miss Lockwood. Just one.”
I smile a little too sweetly at him. “One bullet can change yours.”
The smile he gives me is just as sweet. “Up to this point, I’ve been easy on you. Keep pushing, and you’ll see my worst.” He reaches into his pocket and throws what looks to be a black button at me. A button that hits the floor because I don’t even try to catch it. “Almost forgot. This is from your mother.”
Why would she give me a button?
He leaves at last, locking me inside the room.
My tears long to break free, and my knees long to buckle, but I maintain my tough-as-nails attitude. The cameras...
With a trembling hand, I pick up the button. A flash-scribe, I realize. A way to send a recorded message. Now I’m even more confused. What does the mother who abandoned me, not visiting for seven months, wish to say to me?
Ignoring a swell of eagerness—have to know, now, now, now!—I stuff the device in my own pocket and stumble to Bow to check the fetters for locks. I find none. Good. I can free her, but oh, it’s going to hurt.
What’s a little more pain, right?
The outside of both cuffs is heated, and—I hiss—by the time I press the release button on each one, seven blisters decorate my fingers and palms.
The glow of the metal dwindles, the needles on the inside of each device detaching from bone and ejecting from her skin.
Clink, clink. The cuffs fall away, but she doesn’t wake. I’m glad. I’m not in the mood to deal with her.
With a curse, I tumble onto my squeaky mattress and stare up at the ceiling. Life sucks.
A muted scream suddenly echoes from the floor, and I jolt.
Isn’t Clay, isn’t Clay, isn’t Clay. He’s safe. He made it out.
Will I?
The flash-scribe is practically burning a hole in my pocket, my eagerness overtaking me. I withdraw the device and press my thumb into the top. As soon as my print registers, my mother’s voice fills the cell.
“Hi, Ten. Bet you never expected to hear from me, huh?”
My heart thumps against my ribs, and my gut clenches.
“I know I haven’t come to see you in forever, but there’s a very good reason for that. A beautiful secret. One that’s taught me how to be a mother again. I’m sorry, sweet girl. I’m sorry for everything, and I love you, I really do. Your dad loves you, too, but he’s scared of losing his job and—well. That’s not your problem. We’ll be coming to visit you soon, and it’s my hope we’ll take you with us when we leave.”
Hope flares, only to die a quick death. This is a trick. Has to be.
A baby cries in the background. My mom says, “Shh, shh,” as if there’s a human being with her rather than a television, and I frown. No one under the age of eighteen—besides me—has ever been allowed inside the house. My mom’s rule.
And I get it. She prefers not to look at what she isn’t allowed to have: another kid. She wants one as fervently as I want a sibling—someone to love me unconditionally, just because I’m me, not because of what I can do. But, long ago, the realms made a deal with the human governments. To prevent overcrowding in Secondlife, where spirits can live for centuries, even millennia, there is a one-child-per-family limit during Firstlife. In return, the realms share their advanced technology, like this flash-scribe.
My mom clears her throat. “I’ve got to go, sweetheart. I know I screwed up with you, but I’m going to give my—child a better life. You have my word.”
Why the hesitation before child?
I toss the device across the room. She doesn’t love me. She can’t. And there’s no way my dad even likes me.
Are you sure about that?
A memory takes center stage in my mind. My dad carries me on his shoulders as I stretch my arms overhead, doing my best to capture a star in the sky.
“Almost got it,” he says with a laugh.
My mom claps and calls, “You can do it, sweet girl.”
All right, maybe they loved me once. The emotion has withered. Like my heart.
A moan escapes Bow. A second later, she comes up swinging, panting for breath. Her gaze is far from disoriented as it finds mine.
“Are you okay?”
Her first thought is of my welfare? Even though I did nothing as the guards knocked her around? My guilt returns. “I’m fine. What about you?”
“Fine, no thanks to Killian.”
I remember the way he raced past her. “What’d he do?”
“Doesn’t matter.” She plays with the edge of her blanket. “Vans is right, you know. At least about this. One decision can change your circumstances.”
“I know, but—” Wait. “How do you know what he said?”
“The body—I mean, my body—might have been drugged, but I was still aware.”
How’d she manage that? I’ve been drugged before, and I was out for the count.
“Sign with Troika, Ten.” Those copper eyes beseech me. “You’ll never regret it.”
“Prove it. Give me a guarantee.”
“My word isn’t good enough?”
No. “Why do you want me, anyway? Why do they?”
She inhales deeply, exhales sharply. “Have you ever heard of a Conduit?”
“Yes. Someone or something used as a means of sending something from one place or person to another.”
“Right. And in Troika, a Conduit is the highest type of General, second only to King. Conduits are rare and precious, powerful both here and there. They absorb sunlight from Earth—which is more than just heat and illumination—and direct the beams to the realm. There are whispers about you,” she says, only to go quiet.
“Whispers suggesting I’m a Conduit?” Someone rare and precious? Powerful? I laugh at the absurdity. “Wrong.”
“How do you know?”
“Better question. How do they?”
“Like you, I don’t have all the answers.” She sighs. “Let’s forget the Conduit thing. There’s a lot about you to admire. When you fight, you go balls to the wall. When you believe in something—like your right to choose—you can’t be shaken. You’re too stubborn. And whether you admit it or not, you’ll never be okay with the Myriad way of life, the strong taking from the weak.”
“You can’t know—”
“I can. Because that is what’s happening here, and you hate it.”
“Not every Myriad supporter is like that.” James never took without asking. “Just like not every Troikan is forgiving.”
She pinches the bridge of her nose in a show of fatigue. “Yeah. There’s that. I try to remind myself that everyone has their damage and no one is perfect. Except me.”
At least she didn’t try to deny the problems. “Both realms need a personality makeover.” And the thought of making a difference in one...kind of intrigues me.
“A makeover of any kind requires the proper tools, honey. And talent.”
“Are you saying I’m currently toolless and talentless?”
“Oh, good. You understood.”
We share a smile.
But her amusement doesn’t last long. “Sign with us, Ten, and you’ll be one of mine. I’ll get you out of here.”
“One of yours?”
“My friend. A member of my team. My family. Those I protect, whatever the cost.”
I laugh even though, deep down, a need to belong to someone plagues me. To be cared for and finally, truly loved...to be first rather than last. “Trust me. I’m not someone you want in your family.” I’m bad news. Everything I touch turns to rust. “And let’s be real. You can’t even protect yourself. Not here, not all the time.”
“This?” she says, motioning to herself, then the room around us. “What you see? It’s not even close to reality. Stop trusting your eyes and start listening to your heart. It sees more than you ever will.”
“Heart...as in emotions?” Troika is usually more concerned about law.
“Heart, as in spirit. The real you.”
That’s just it. Who am I? Ten? Or soul-fused with someone else?
My mom once speculated about my “other half.” With the way Myriad is acting, she said, it must be someone powerful.
How do you know I’m Fused? I remember asking.
Everyone is Fused with someone, sweet girl. It’s a way to give those who originally signed with Troika a second chance...a way to give those who signed with Myriad a chance to win more souls.
Before all this, I was pro-Myriad all the way. The fairy tales she wove about an enchanted land where daylight never intrudes and the royal ball never winds down, where candlelit castles are standard housing, and marrying a prince is a very real possibility, enthralled me.
The dirty little secret I kept from her? A part of me has always been Troi-curious.
Is the realm poverty-stricken? Does sunlight always glare? Are the homes basically cardboard boxes? Or is the sun bright and glorious, offering comforting warmth? Does the sweet scent of wildflowers saturate the air?
My (former) TL told me deception is Myriad’s greatest weapon. The hungry wolf hidden by a lamb’s skin. I haven’t heard from him since my incarceration.
To my parents’ consternation, it’s illegal to prevent a Laborer from speaking with a potential candidate if said candidate is willing. No matter the Laborer’s realm.
I’d mostly ignored my TL, not wanting to cause trouble at home...until a friend admitted she’d signed with Troika. In a moment of startling clarity, I’d realized we were—for all intents and purposes—enemies. I would be expected to excise her from my life. Even hate her.
I’d wanted to know why. So I risked chastisement at long last, going to a Troikan center, where humans in need of aid could request a meeting with a TL.
Before we parted, the TL assigned to me asked me a question that cracked through a hard outer shell I hadn’t known I’d erected.
Are you living your parents’ dream...or your own?
I’d scoffed at him then, but that night and every one after, I’d wondered... Why do I believe what I believe? What is truth and what is lie? What is real? What makes me right and so many others wrong? What if I’m wrong?
The wily bastard had planted seeds of doubt in the rich soil of my brain, and the more I searched for answers, the more those seeds were watered...the stronger they grew. Now the leaves are so thick I can’t see past them.
If I’m Fused, I’m not me. I’m part of someone else. Or several someone elses. But if I am me, I alone am responsible for my problems. Who wants to suck that badly?
But the thing I wonder most? Do I have a set fate, or can I change it? In other words...can I mess it up worse?
chapter four
“What is isn’t always what’s supposed to be.”
—Troika
I watch him. At lunch and dinner that day, I watch Killian. When he talks to girls, he seems utterly absorbed in the conversation, as if every word spoken is a secret he has to know. And the girls eat it up. He makes them feel special, I can tell. They preen for him. But those girls...they aren’t special to him. I can tell that, too.
He’s too aware of the world around him, his hand never far from his pocket, as if he has a weapon hidden inside. As if he expects to be ambushed at any moment. As if he wants to be ambushed.
Anytime the girl looks away from him—which isn’t often—his gaze finds me. He winks. He knows I’m watching him, and he wants me to know he knows.
His confidence lends him an aura of power and, someone please help me, I admire it.
Later that same evening, Vans does as promised and arranges my “date” with Killian. The doc is upping his game.
First, Nurse Ratched delivers a dress to my cell. A pink sundress. Pink. With ruffles and lace. I grimace. I’ll be the prettiest princess in the asylum.
Her parting words are both a threat (to me) and a triumph (to her.) “You can wear it...or you can go naked. Your choice.”
A red haze descends over my vision. A choice that isn’t really a choice is a violation of my rights.
What rights?
“Wow,” Bow says, looking me over after I’ve changed. “A make-out session would not be out of pity today.”
“Um. Thanks?” I smooth my hands over the ultrasoft fabric. “I feel ridiculous.”
“What’s the occasion?”
As I explain today’s therapy session, her eyes narrow.
“Son of a Myriad-troll,” she mutters. She’s sprawled atop her bed. “Wonder how much Mr. Flynn had to pay for that privilege.”
I spread my arms wide. “Because wanting me is completely unfeasible?”
She closes her eyes as she shakes her head. “Sorry. Sorry. You’re hot. You’re awesome, and I know he craves a taste of you. Who wouldn’t? But he’s a piece of scum, and he always has ulterior motives.”
A grumbled apology, but an apology nonetheless.
“You’re forgiven. I guess.” I mean, even I’m wondering why Killian has turned his predatory sights to me. “Tell me your history with the guy.”
She growls low in her throat. “He sucks. That’s all you need to know.”
This girl has repeatedly pried open my secrets with a crowbar. She doesn’t get to keep her own. “Don’t you want to help me build extra defenses against him?”
“Are your current defenses in danger of crumbling?”
No. Absolutely not. But... “Do you really want to take the chance? There’s something about him...”
She points a finger at me. “Is that breathlessness I hear in your tone, Lockwood?”
What? “No!” Me? Breathless? Never! “I’m as hard as steel.”
She punches her mattress, the springs squeaking. “You want details, fine. He stabbed his best friend in the back—twice! He’s selfish and cruel. He uses girls to get what he wants, and then he discards them.”
“Are you one of the girls he used and discarded?” I ask gently.
“No! Gross! I’ve never jonesed for his scones.” She shudders. “It’s just...he’ll sleep with you and leave you brokenhearted in the rubble that has become your life.”
Bow, who is obviously biased, has probably seen a distorted version of the truth. She’s never seen into Killian’s heart.
Or maybe I’m making excuses for the guy.
“If getting down and dirty is his main objective, I’m the last girl he should target.” I possessed the common sense and wherewithal to stop James every time his hands wandered past my shoulders, and I loved him.
And unlike Killian, James looked at me as if he adored me. He smiled with me, not at me. He whispered beautiful things in my ear...
So lovely.
So soft.
So perfect.
I’d been as mesmerized as I was flustered.
“I’ll never say yes,” I add.
“Famous last words. If you find yourself tempted, remember Killian is selfish in bed,” Bow says, as smoothly as if we’re discussing our favorite kind of donuts. “Oh. And I hear he’s small. Like, micropenis small.”
I roll my eyes. “Can you tell me something about him that doesn’t have anything to do with sex?”
“All right. For starters, he’s going into this thinking you’re going to fall for him and do anything to spend eternity with him.”
“Why does he even care? He’s human. If I sign with Myriad to be with him—” no boy is ever going to factor into my decision, because they don’t come with a guarantee, either “—he won’t be rewarded.”
She stands and walks over to pat me on my cheek. “Wow. You’re, like, Super Naive Girl.”
In the back of my mind, I note the temperature of her skin. Like James, she’s too cool, as if she’s incapable of absorbing heat.
Try to warm me up, James used to say.
“So... Killian will be rewarded?” I ask.
“Well, yeah. Everything we do has a consequence. Good or bad. In Firstlife and Everlife.” She tilts her head and studies me more intently. “Who’s your ML?”
“I’ve always had two at a time. Many have come and gone, but one has always remained the same. Madame Pearl Bennett.” A flawless blonde with a warm smile.
Distaste darkens Bow’s features. “Madame is the title for a Leader, which is step above a Laborer.”
“Yes.” A fact I’d pointed out to Madame Bennett as soon as I learned about the different positions. She’d smiled sweetly and said, You, my beauty, are special. I want to oversee your case myself.
I’d asked what made me so special, and her smile had only grown. You remind me of someone I loved and like her, you’re going to do great things for our realm.
I’d adored her. Once. She was the one who told my parents to send me to Prynne. I’d heard them talking. At first, my dad resisted the idea. When Madame promised him the experience would toughen me up, help me become the person I was meant to be, and snap me out of my pouty teenage refusal to sign with Myriad, he finally relented. Then he convinced my mother.
“Well,” Bow says, and I can’t tell what emotion she’s projecting. I only know it’s negative. “You must be as important to Myriad as you are to Troika. No one I know has ever had two MLs.”
Me, either. But... “Myriad doesn’t have Conduits.”
“No, they have Abrogates. Those who extinguish the light. The most powerful people in their realm.” She glares at me. “If you sign with Myriad, you won’t only deny Troika a Conduit, you’ll drain the Conduits we do have.”
I rub the back of my neck. “What would happen then?”
“Troika would plunge into darkness right alongside Myriad. It’s what the other realm has always wanted. It’s what we’ve always fought.” Bow bites her lower lip. “Are you sure you can resist Killian’s...charms?”
“Definitely.” His eyes make my blood sing... “Possibly. Hopefully.” His smirking mouth and blatant innuendos make my blood boil... “Definitely.”
She pushes out a heavy breath. “Do you have any experience with the opposite sex?”
“I’ve had a boyfriend,” I tell her, suddenly defensive.
“Here? He was human?”
“Of course.”
“How do you know?” she asks.
“How else? I was allowed to touch him.” Every Laborer comes to earth in a Shell, a humanoid outer casing that somehow makes a spirit tangible to the physical world.
Despite that tangibility, we’re forbidden from touching the Shells for any reason. Without being told why!
She crosses her arms. “What was he like? This boyfriend?”
“His name was James. I met him my first week. He snuck me food when I was starved and salve every time I was beaten.” The true miracle? In the quiet of the night, he made me laugh. “Why the curiosity about him?”
“Duh. I’m nosy. You know this. Was he Unsigned?”
“No. He was secretly a Myriad loyalist—” Vans would have fired him if he’d known “—but he rarely talked realm business with me.” He saw me, not a potential realm-mate.
“Ah.” She makes a face as she nods. “He was doing the long con.”
“Excuse me?” What did that mean?
“The long con requires more planning and preparation. A longer window of interaction with a target as well as a longer period of time to execute the main objective—signing you.”
White-hot anger sparks. “Not everyone is obsessed with eternity.”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t the guy who claimed to love you want you to be with him forever? And you once mentioned bonuses... I bet staff and inmates alike receive them.”
She...she... Oh! She’s ticking me off!
“What else did you like about him?”
“Screw you. I’m done with this subject.”
She gives a regal wave of her hand, all the queen wishes you to proceed. “Was he staff or inmate?”
“Staff. And he lived for me—then he died for me.” Apparently I’m not done with the subject. My chin trembles, my defensive tone echoing in my ears. “He was killed when he aided my escape attempt.”
Nine months have passed since Dr. Vans shot him in the chest.
A baby spends nine months in a mother’s womb. The phrase “on cloud nine” means to be happy or euphoric.
I’m anything but happy. Maybe I should sign with Myriad. I’ll get to see James again.
Part of me expected him to visit at least once. Even though the realms claim loved ones can damage a cause far worse than a stranger, so laws are in place to prevent after-death interactions.
“You saw his actions,” Bow says, “but not his heart.”
Is she serious? “Actions reveal heart.”
“Not always. Deception is all about perception.”
Okay. That’s it. “I’m done with this subject.” I mean it this time.
“Of course you are.” With an unfeminine grunt, she falls onto her pillow. “You’re a runner.”
The words are like a punch to the gut. “I’m a fighter.”
“Ha! Fighters take a stand.”
I throw myself on my bed and peer up at the ceiling, wishing I lived in a time before the realms existed. Not that there was such a time. There is and has always been a Firstking. He created both Myriad and Troika, a realm to give each of his sons. Then he created the Land of the Harvest and humans. Subjects to inhabit the kingdoms—after they picked a kingdom.
Of course, one brother soon plotted to destroy the other, hoping to rule both realms, and a war ignited.
Guess who says which brother is at fault?
Many Ends was (supposedly) created for criminals, but ultimately became the home for the Unsigned.
“Tenley Lockwood. You are expected in the commons.” The heavily accented female voice suddenly spills from the speakers strategically placed in our ceiling. Next, the door opens.
Well, zero. The time has come.
I give myself a pep talk: A pretty face won’t sway you, and pretty words won’t affect you. You will remain distanced. No boy is worth the hardships that accompany him—not here.
“Be careful.” Bow’s anger drains, and worry takes its place. “Do you have steel panties? If yes, put them on right now.”
I snort and rush into the hall, where I find Killian waiting for me. His eyes aren’t on me, but Bow, and they’re crackling with fury. His hands are balled into fists, ready to deliver.
Bow remains in place, staring back through slitted lids, but her hands aren’t balled, and she doesn’t try to sneak out and murder him, so I consider it a major improvement.
Like me, Killian has been relieved of his jumpsuit. He’s wearing a black T-shirt and a pair of jeans, and both fit him to perfection. I mean, wow. If he was beautiful before, he’s exquisite now. He’s a boy—man—without equal.
“How old are you?” I find myself asking.
“Nineteen.” When his blue-gold gaze finally finds me, he gives me a once—twice—over and smiles. “For once, I’m glad for my lack of years.”
So he can score without being a major creeper? “You’re a legal adult.”
“And you’re not. I know. Opposites attract.”
“I mean, no one can force you to do anything you don’t want to do. Why are you here?” I asked before, but he only fed me a bunch of bull. “If you want to survive the evening with all your parts intact, answer honestly.”
His smile returns as he stuffs his hands in his pockets and hikes his shoulders in a shrug.
Irritating! “Be a big boy and use your words.”
“Maybe Vans is paying me to beguile you. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”
Yes! And what if James was paid to do the same?
Argh! Bow! She’s in my head.
Killian offers me his tattooed hand. “By the way, you should always wear pink, lass.”
My stupid heart stutters and my stupid hand trembles as I link our fingers. His skin is as cold as Bow’s and James’s. That’s weird, right? Or am I the weird one?
“I shouldn’t have to mention this, but hey, why leave anything to chance? This isn’t a real date.”
“Don’t like the label? Fine. We’ll give it a new one. How about pants party for two?”
I almost laugh. Almost. “I’m not wearing pants.”
“Underpants?”
“I think I prefer the term death match.”
“Death match, it is. And look at me, willing to compromise. I really am the perfect guy.”
I do laugh this time. He’s shameless.