Authors: Abigail Collins
Why did he cut across my chest first, then? Was he testing my level of pain tolerance, to make sure the medication was working properly? Was he trying to torture me one last time before he killed me? Or maybe he did it just because he wanted to; it wouldn’t surprise me at all.
I close my eyes and wait for my lungs to stop drawing breath, but it never happens. Just as Tetra’s knife begins digging into my throat, the door is slid open loudly, and the two people I least expect to see walk – and wheel – inside.
Chapter twenty-five
Rin and Holden enter the room side-by-side, each holding a rifle level with their chests. I have no idea how they managed to get here – or how they even knew where I was – but I’m too relieved to see them to care. Tetra nicks my neck with his knife as he pulls it away, throwing it aside and reaching for the gun holstered in the belt on his pants.
Sir aims his gun at Rin and fires twice, hitting her forearm with one shot and the wall behind her head with the other. I pull on my restraints desperately, trying to force my hands through the tight loops so that I can help Holden and Rin in some way, but all I receive for my efforts are lacerations on my wrists that are rubbed so raw they’ve started to bleed.
While I’m watching Rin dodge the bullets Sir is firing at her, I hear a single shot fly through the air by my ear, cracking like a whip and burying itself deep inside of Sir’s skull; it hits him directly in the red chip on his forehead, which shatters like glass on the floor as he falls. I look over to the door and see Holden, his gun raised and smoking, with a tense look on his face that startles me. Tetra draws his gun and takes aim at Holden, but before he can even get his finger on the trigger Rin shoots him right between the eyes and he topples over.
Before Tetra’s body has even stilled on the floor, Rin is at my side. Her fingers are small and nimble, and it takes almost no time at all for her to untie the straps holding my arms and legs to the table; I rub my wrists, feeling the torn, swollen skin against my palms, and sit up. The room starts to spin, and I close my eyes until my nausea dissipates and my head stops pounding.
Rin pulls a long piece of white cloth out of a pack attached at her waist and winds it around my neck, dropping the ends along the cuts on my collarbone and securing them with tape. I look down and see blood dripping down the entire length of my shirt, already oozing through the fresh bandages and along the sides of my neck. I normally don’t mind the sight of my own blood, but this time I feel dizzier the longer I look at it.
“Can you stand?” Rin asks me, stepping back and holding her hands out to me. “We don’t have a lot of time, and they will notice soon that you two are missing.”
I nod at her and swing my legs over the edge of the table, my feet just barely touching the floor. It takes me a couple of tries, and I have to lean on Rin for support once my weight is on my both of my feet, but I am eventually able to stand on my own. Holden watches me from the doorway, and I’m surprised that he doesn’t offer to help, but the look in his eyes tells me that I’m better off not asking him why.
“How… how’d you get in here?” I ask, catching my breath. “There are guards everywhere!”
It’s a strange sensation – standing without feeling. It’s like I’m weightless, floating on the ground, but every step I take leaves me unbalanced.
Rin pulls a thin, red chip out of the front pocket of her dress and holds it up for me to see.
“A guard from outside of the wall,” she answers before I can ask where it’s from. “They use them as identification to get inside. And since there are so many other children here, I aroused no suspicion walking through camp.”
“And Holden?” I incline my head towards my friend, who’s still holding his gun like he expects he’s going to have to shoot someone again.
“I sought him out. I saw him and your other friend in the memories your microchip has stored for you, and I thought you would enjoy bringing them with you.”
I wonder if Rin thought that I maybe wouldn’t come with her if I had to leave Holden and Dori behind. Then I think about Holden, who
knew
what he was signing up for when he came here – who
wanted
to be in this place, to become one of those
things
. I don’t want to take away his dream by dragging him along with me; if he leaves these gates, he may never walk again. But I also know that the path he chose is not what he thought it was. If he could see Dori right now, he would never wish the same fate on himself.
“But I couldn’t trace your other friend. My systems do not detect any data from his microchip.” She looks at me, and I can tell from her expression that she knows what happened to Dori; she just doesn’t want Holden to know. “I am so sorry. But we can come back for him at another time if you’d like. Right now, our priority is getting you two out of here. Do you think you can walk on your own?”
“I… I’m not sure.” I take a tentative step and nearly trip, throwing my hands out in front of my body to keep my balance. “I don’t know. I don’t think I can.”
Rin puts her arm out to help me stabilize myself, but before I can lean my weight on her shoulders Holden pushes his wheelchair towards me and awkwardly spins it around at my side.
“Hold on to the handles,” he says, facing away from me. “And put your feet up on the bar in the back. I can still push if you can hold on.”
“Thank you,” I say, pulling myself up onto the back of the chair as best I can; it’s hard to keep my hands around the handlebars, but if I lean forward slightly and put most of my weight on my torso, I can stay upright without too much difficulty.
Holden doesn’t respond.
Rin picks Tetra and Sir’s guns up off of the ground where they fell and hands one to me; I tuck it into the waistband of my pants without saying anything, and she keeps the other held tightly against her side. Holden’s rifle is still in his lap, and I catch him glancing down at it every few seconds as if to make sure it’s still there.
“Everyone else is in the training rooms,” Rin says as she guides us out the door and down the hallway. “They intercepted just enough of my message to you to know I was planning on coming to get you later tonight. They aren’t expecting me for at least a few more hours, and they were hoping to have converted you by then.”
A shiver runs down my spine. If Rin hadn’t come when she did, I would be turning into a monster right now.
There is an elevator down one of the adjacent hallways, which is how I assume Holden got up to this level in the first place. We squeeze into the cramped room and the doors slide shut behind us; I breathe a sigh of relief that is echoed by both of my companions. I can’t believe we’ve made it this far without being caught. We might actually have a chance of escaping.
But then the elevator stops on the main floor and opens its doors, and my heart sinks.
“Dori, you’re here!” Holden exclaims, and the excitement in his voice makes my chest ache even more. “Where have you been? No, never mind, we’ll talk about it later. Right now we need to get out of here.”
“I’m not going,” Dori says softly. “I’m not going to let you leave.”
He widens his stance until he’s blocking our only exit. I can see the door leading outside just across the room, and if I wasn’t still dizzy and disoriented from the drugs I was given, I would take a chance and run for it.
“Dori?” Holden asks, leaning forward in his chair to get as close to Dori as possible. “What’s going on? Are you-”
And then he sees it. His entire demeanor changes the moment his eyes land on the spot of red peeking out from underneath the fringe of Dori’s hair. His shoulders slump, and I can see him physically fighting with his own emotions.
Holden may have wanted to be here – wanted to join the Digits to get a new body and a second chance at life – but he never wanted any of this for Dori. More than he wanted to walk again, I think, he wanted Dori to be safe. I can’t even imagine how he must feel now knowing that he couldn’t do just that.
“I’m doing great, Holden. Better than ever.” Dori grins and leans over Holden’s chair until their noses are nearly touching. “And it’s all thanks to
you
.”
Holden swallows thickly and puts his hand on Dori’s arm. “Come with us. Please.”
“Why would I do that? I have everything I need right here. And all of the pain – everything I felt when you were in the accident, when I learned that you did it on
purpose
– is gone. You can’t hurt me anymore, Holden. If you stay here, with me, we can be together, and we can never hurt each other again.”
Holden blinks up at Dori, confused. “You can’t… feel pain?”
“I can’t feel
anything
. Illness, injuries, emotions… They’re all gone. But everything else is so much clearer now. My thoughts all make perfect sense, my body is stronger than it’s ever been, and I’m not afraid of anything anymore. I was terrified when I followed you here – I still remember everything I was feeling then. But you told me that this life would be better for you, and it turns out you’re right.”
I can’t see Holden’s face very well from my position on the back of his chair, but I can hear his breath hitch and his voice waver.
“I know I hurt you, Dori,” Holden says softly. “And I don’t think there’s anything I can do to make it up to you. But I
love
you, and I don’t want to ever forget what that feels like.”
Dori tilts his head to one side like he’s trying to remember something, and for a moment I think maybe Holden has actually managed to connect with him. But then he laughs, and it’s so bitter and dry that it makes me cringe.
“You
love
me? Don’t you remember who it was who wanted to be here so badly in the first place? What did you think they were going to do to you? Did you honestly think they were going to let you keep your
human emotions
when they were training you to be a
war
machine?”
I hear Holden sniffle, and I’m glad I can’t see his face.
“I… I don’t know what I believed. I just wanted them to fix my legs. I thought maybe… maybe they would just leave it at that. I just wanted to fix my mistake. I wanted to be someone you could feel proud to be with.”
His voice is so soft that I doubt Dori would be able to hear it if his ears weren’t less than an arm’s length away from Holden’s mouth.
Dori pulls back and draws his gun out of its holster at his waist. He glances quickly between his weapon and Holden’s pleading eyes, and I can see actual
hesitation
on his face. The fact that he hasn’t shot any of us by now means he must be feeling
something
, and the way he’s looking at Holden confirms it.
“I
was
proud,” he says, rolling the barrel of his gun between his fingers. “I didn’t care that your parents hated me, or that you didn’t have a home or a job. I didn’t care that you couldn’t walk. I cared about
you
. And look what that did to me.”
Something dull pokes me in the back and I whip around to see Rin, holding one index finger to her lips to quiet me and the other hovering over my spine. I clamp my mouth shut and nod, and Rin silently motions for me to come closer to her. I’m still not sure if my body has recovered enough for me to walk yet, but the look on Rin’s face is urgent, and I feel like I’ve already intruded on Holden and Dori’s personal confrontation too much.
Putting one foot on the floor at a time, I step off of the bar and let go of the chair’s handles. I feel dizzy, but not so much that I can’t stand, and my body is supporting its own weight much better now; I feel heavier and slower, so I know that the medicine Tetra must be wearing off.
Rin grabs my arm and pulls me towards her; I nearly trip, but she catches me and tugs on the collar of my shirt until I’m bowed down low enough for her to whisper in my ear without anyone else possibly hearing.
“We’ve got to get out of here while he is distracted,” she mouths into the shell of my ear. “Get to the door as fast as you can and I will guard you.”
“But… what about Holden?” I ask, flitting my eyes over to see Dori still struggling to keep his gun lowered.
“His choice has already been made. It is too late to help him now.”
I want to argue, but before I can a gunshot rips through the air and captures my attention. I turn around just in time to see the bullet connect with Dori’s leg, sinking into his calf and smoking as it burns through whatever synthetic material his skin is made out of. He doesn’t even flinch.