Ashes (27 page)

There was a unique taste on his tongue. Perhaps it was her imperfection filtering through. But she could not stop. His lips caught hers and pressed back into her with whatever strength his body still possessed. As if gravity were pulling them together, his teeth toyed with her bottom lip, kissing her more and more deeply.

 
Adam breathed into her and said, “Emery, we are the same.”

35

 

ISAAC GABLE LOOMED OVER Arson's twitching body. The boy was quiet most of the time, the screens flashing to life now and again. There was something hypnotic about watching the lines of liquid food flow into Arson's body.

Isaac had never taken time to watch him before, to watch what Morpheus—what this facility—was doing to him. Up to this point, it didn't matter. Arson didn't know him, and Isaac did well to forget his previous attachment to the boy as father, and realized this was business.
The business of survival.

“My own flesh and blood is a menace. A horror. I never would've believed it,” he sighed over the boy. “Never in a million years.”

It was clear what was coming. Isaac knew it. Everyone in this facility knew it. He'd sat in on enough
video conferences
with the heads of state in foreign nations and the president to know there was no stopping what rulers had put in motion. Puny men like him had no opinion. All they could do was be smart; all they could do was
become
one with the system, to become with them.

As he looked over the boy, felt his slippery flesh, Isaac was transported back to the hospital room, to the birth of this unnatural thing—boy, creature, clone. Whatever he was. What part of Arson was he? What part did they share? Anything?

Isaac now touched Frances Parker, the love of his youth. She in turn squeezed his grip, praying for him amidst the screams and horrors of the emergency room.
The needles, the trauma, the fear-drenched cries that could not be contained.

 
How much pain had she suffered because of this? How much had she endured to bring this animal into the world? Perhaps he should have strangled the child when it escaped the womb, charred and fragile mess that it was.

“Henry, you lunatic!” Isaac seethed. “She was your own daughter. Your own flesh and blood.” Tears cradled his eyes. He remembered Frances being led into a room not unlike the rooms where he assisted in “studying” Arson and the girl with the scars.
A room not unlike a prison cell, surrounded by white walls and cameras.
Needles pumping blood and brain fluid into her veins, changing the course of history with every injection.

“You knew. You knew it all along. How could you? I hope you rot in hell, Henry!” The scenarios that waited at the back of his mind were cruel things—what he'd do to Henry Parker if he were still on this earth. Memories were like loose triggers firing rounds of hatred and violence. He recalled Lamont's phone call. Remembered following Arson to and from work several times a week. How he watched the boy's life unfold, only to be ripped away from it all.

And there he was again. Isaac couldn't beat the memories. They were far too strong to subdue. The sun watched him break into the boy's hidden life, that worn-out cabin beside the lake, a hell of a home. Kay was not so surprised by Isaac's arrival. Maybe she knew he was coming all along. Despite the curses and the tormented blows she doled out, maybe she was waiting for him all these long years.
To set her free.
 
 
 

In that moment when he returned to a past he had forsaken, he was no longer Isaac Gable. He'd become something else entirely. They all were becoming. They were changing by the hour, by the minute. Less and less they cared for others, for what this world could give. What love could
give.
The wealth would come, along with promised new life. When the world passed away, when the age of man was ended, a new race, a new beginning would come, and they would be gods and kings.
 

The scratch of Kay's voice was a dirty splinter in his head. “I let the devil in my house.” Her words were soaked in venom. How gifted she was at being evil. He'd never fully allowed himself to realize it until the time came when he had to. After smashing her head into glass, beating her, and throwing her weak carcass down a flight of stairs, Isaac was only barely satisfied.

With a blade he opened her up. Rage and revenge were the only blood passing through him. “You stood by and did nothing. You let them do it to her. You're filth, like he was.” There were no tears that day. In the violent quiet, there was nothing. Blood soaked his gloves, his neck, and his suit. He'd been really messy taking care of this one. He knew Hoven would never send him to handle this kind of business again. Redd was a much better handler of such vile deeds, but it didn't matter. Not really. Finishing Kay the proper way was all he'd wanted. He wasn't a hired hand; he wasn't a killer. He was a man who could kill; he was a man who did. A chapter in his past was now closed.

Isaac suddenly realized he wasn't alone in the Sanctuary. A few surgeons and nurses brushed by him. He knew they were watching him like the vultures they were becoming. Quite good at searching for meat to devour, even
among their own
. He noticed Arson beginning to shake. A few of the monitors picked up his nightmare. A new school hallway that led to a room the monitor was unable to broadcast.
Nothing but static and gray dots.

The boy's mind was growing stronger, there was no longer any doubt. He began to wonder if there was even any point to starting over. If mankind was damned to fall from the start, what made any of them believe by creating a new breed—beginning with his son—
that mere broken, fragile earthlings
could survive?

But perhaps it was better to be on the side of the devil than to oppose him.

36

 

EMERY STEPPED OUT OF the shower and wiped the foggy mirror. She was still shocked the water hadn't been shut off. How long had Adam's family been gone? Where did they go? Were they taken, like them?

And worse, were she and Adam really safe here?

She quickly found her reflection in the glass, a reflection she never thought she could call her own. She touched her face repeatedly, making sure nothing had changed since Adam had removed the infected skin.

She breathed in the hot air around her, feeling new and restored, except for the markings underneath her eye.
Slight, but there, terrible reminders of her capture.
Of what they wanted her to be.
Nothing more than a number,
like
Adam.

 
The next several moments she spent lost in reflection, combing her new hair strands, getting used to them being there. It seemed right, the way she was always meant to be.
 

Adam was waiting outside the bathroom for her. He'd shower next. For some reason, it wasn't all that awkward to have him wait there for her, like a guardian soldier or something. He just wasn't ready to leave her side. An offer to wait inside the bathroom with her was too much, though, and Emery told him not to get overly paranoid.

Oddly, she was beginning to detect a transformation in herself. Strength she'd never used before, a sense of calm nestling up along her spine. Was she finally all right? The longer she remained away from home, away from her parents, away from Arson, the more she possessed
a certain
independence. Adam had similarities to Arson, sure, but he was
worlds
different too. When they kissed, something electric, immovable, and incomprehensible existed between each breath. Something strong. Dangerous. And beneath it all, there was joy mixed with shame. Emery knew she loved Arson; that wouldn't change, could never change, she was sure. But kissing Adam was powerful; it moved her, burned the chaos to dust. He unloosed a phoenix she swore could never again be contained.

But how could one kiss do so much to her? How could one boy—one man—(she still was a bit confused about that) nearly cripple her?

Emery's shoulders slinked
downward,
her spine hunched somewhat over the vanity. Her feet were cold on the tile, but she was thankful to feel something. After all the running barefoot, she thought she'd never walk right again. But Adam's touch had healed that pain as well.

Somehow the healing was spreading.
But how?
How in the world was he able to heal her in the first place if his blood could only heal a part of her before?
The parts where the sick doctors split her open.
Maybe his power was greater when it was he who unleashed it instead of a copied, diluted form.

Her mind was running circles. She wanted to kiss him again, to feel whatever it was that made her like this. But right in front of her, somewhere lost in that new reflection of hers, the scarred girl she once knew longed for the boy who played with fire and lived in a cabin beside a lake, the boy who saved her life, in more ways than one.

But would she ever be that girl again?

* * *

Like seeing a picture for the first time, Adam marveled at Emery's beauty as her feet hit the cool floor outside the bathroom. A plume of steam and heat was caught between the two spaces, lost somewhere in the confusion of the last few hours. He followed the drops of water that trickled along her clavicle, and held onto every second her eyes spent with his.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she said.

“Like what?” he returned with a gasp.

“Never mind.”

The skin beside his eyes crunched together as the words left his mouth. Using the heel of his hands, he pushed himself up, or tried to.

“What's the matter?” she asked him, her towel nearly falling off as she rushed to his side.

“I'm weak. It isn't good for me to be weak. It's part of the transference. When I healed you, that sickness was imprinted on me. It became a part of me, at least for a time.”

A revelatory flood enveloped her. “A part of you? So when you heal something or someone, you get weaker?”

“Yahtzee,” he wheezed. The pain waltzed through his veins. He wasn't sure how long it would stick around to aggravate him. “Eventually it goes away. That's how it used to work, anyway.”

“Used to?” Emery asked, helping him up. He wasn't happy to take her aid, but the lethargy wouldn't let him argue.

“Before tonight, I haven't used my powers. They wouldn't let me. They kept me hooked to machines and kept injecting me with some chemical crap. Spider venom, I think, but I'm not sure what it is. It never took away my powers; it only subdued them. When you've had the gift long enough, you start to know when it's there. You feel it moving inside you, even if you can't fully control it.” Adam winced. A rock was breaking in his chest, crumbling to bits as he breathed. “I think my feet fell asleep,” Adam said, struggling to get up. “I hate this.”

“I'll turn on the shower for you. You can relax.”

A laugh suddenly swallowed Adam's voice. “Relax. I wish.”

Emery helped him into the bathroom and turned the handle to the shower. Adam removed his shirt and noticed her eyes descend upon him. “I think I'll be fine in here,” he said with a smirk. “Check the drawers in my sister's room. I think she left her clothes in there. Wherever they went, they must've taken off in a hurry. They were probably running from those evil men.”

“Adam, maybe they are still alive, then.”

“Maybe. Or maybe they were killed.”

She hated his debilitating tone of voice.

“I don't want to think about it right now. Look, the clothes might be a little outdated, but hopefully they'll be fine until we find a store far away from here.”

“Right. I'll be fine…out...side,” she said.

He nodded. As the door to the bathroom shut, steam once more enveloping the walls and the empty space, a new pain was released in his body. He stopped for a moment.

It went away.

Seconds later, the rest of his clothes came off, and he placed one tired foot into the tub, the other slowly behind. He felt so weak, so taken. Each breath trailed behind the last, its origins unknown. His nostrils sucked in the hot air and steam as warm clouds piled above him and transparent lines surrounded a chilled frame. He liked the smoke, the warmth. His family was gone, possibly dead. The only thing that felt right was hiding in the smoke of the past, the innocence he once possessed but now abandoned for something darker and more real.

He kept picturing
her
face, those blameless eyes, that glow she had that he never could name. It was fixed in him to remember her above all others.
His sister, Lana.
His tears blended with the hot water dripping over him. It could cleanse his body from the world's dirt, but the dirt underneath remained always.
 

Was he dark? Could this rising violence rule in him? How long before it was let out and never put back?

Hands clenched, Adam turned one of his abilities on again. It was faded at first, but slowly a ball of fire was held in his grip. In seconds, the fire became one with his hand, and his wrist and palm glowed with heat, fingertips lit like the sun.

Inhale. Exhale.

The fire couldn't stay, and a curse split through the warm rain draining from the spout above his head. “It's beginning to come back. I know it is. I can feel it.”

His mind drifted momentarily to the scumbag they'd left in that rig miles back. Bruce, the one he'd killed, the throat he'd singed with his fingertips. Adam swallowed. He knew he was weak and that, if given enough time, his powers would fully manifest once more. It was a mindset. It was a conscious thing, some spiritual-mental connection he'd learned to do when he was a kid. No one ever taught him. His powers could be endless, so long as he tapped into them. So long as he remembered that he controlled them and not the other way around. This weakness in his body, bubbling in his veins, wouldn't stay for long, couldn't. It would pass, and his strength would return fully. But time, he knew, was no more an ally than death itself.

Adam liked the hot needles of warm water splashing against his forehead. The needles turned into beads that rolled down his back and purified him. When he opened his eyes again, he watched the dirt from his body sink into the drain like a brown snake returning to its filth.
 

“We return,” he mouthed, almost soundlessly. “We all return to what we are.” The steam held him. His lungs longed for more breath as he pondered the mystery of the human race and what he knew it would become.

Just then, sharp pains came back. Adam hugged his side. Something like electricity surged through his ribcage. His bones vibrated, and he could feel the numbing tremors in his head. He winced, banging his fist against the wall.

And then again, it wasn't there.

Reeling back from the stinging attack, Adam held still. The water now felt like knives stabbing into his skin from all angles.
His face, his arms, his legs.
Visions of Krane and the false prophets.
Their needles.
Their spells.
Their attempts to control him, to use him.

Suddenly, he was surrounded by their smoky façades. The empty steam now had faces and hands that reached out to capture him. He wondered if they were reaching into him to pull out the only thing he had left. He waved through their fading faces and finally lifted his head. He knew in that moment he wasn't ready.
  

Another electric jolt consumed his insides. All of his fears came alive again. He shuddered with the realization. “Oh no! They're coming.”