Catalyst (6 page)

Chancing a glance at Mitis, he was staring straight ahead, his features tense. Was this how it would be with him? I wondered if he might be able to help me, if he would even be willing to. I’d spent my week locked in my bedroom. Much of the time I’d been too ill to leave, but I hadn’t been too ill to think or to plan. I’d made a list—a list I fully intended to see through from start to finish.

When we approached my door, I inhaled deeply, twisted the knob and led him inside. As Father promised, there was something on my bed. A black box with a small gold clasp sat in the middle of the pale green satin bedspread.

“I’m not sure what this is, Mitis. Would you please close the door?”

He quirked a dark brow. “You sure Daddy would appreciate me being alone with you in your bedroom?”

Heat flooded into my cheeks. “You’re my companion, not my lover. And he is going to have to get used to us being together, even in here. Please close the door.”

Mitis moved to the door and gently closed it before returning to my side, pushing the pad of his thumb over his lower lip. “Let’s see what’s in the box. I have a feeling it’s going to suck for me.”

I had the same feeling but didn’t want to voice it. I nodded and moved my fingers to the golden clasp, easing it upward and then lifting the lid. The sound of my gasp mixing with Mitis’s broke the silent tension.

“You’re kidding me, right?” he pleaded, sea-green eyes begging me to tell him that it was a joke, that my father wasn’t a complete psychopath. Unfortunately, I had no words of comfort. This was low, even for him.

Inside the box sat a collar.

With his index finger, Mitis lifted the clasped ring of woven, black nylon fibers. There was a silver ring in the center and a small black box on the back near the cheap, plastic clasp. “This is a dog collar.”

His jaw muscle ticked, and I could see his top lip lift in disgust. I felt the same with a sprinkling of guilt on top. “Are you going to speak, Seven Anderson?”

“Don’t you call me that. You call me Seven. Only Seven, please.” What had started as a demand, ended on a begging note. “And I never imagined my father would do something so revolting. I knew he supported the companion program. He helped to achieve the legislation that made the program legal, but Mitis, I swear I didn’t know about this. It’s demeaning.”

He snorted, crossing his muscular arms over his chest. “It’s beyond that. It’s dehumanizing.”

I sat down on the bed, easing the box to my side. “I need to tell you a few things. They aren’t easy for me to speak about, so please bear with me.” Clearing my throat, I watched him nod once at me. “You won’t be my companion for very long.”

His brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

A loud knock at my door interrupted our conversation. I stood up from the bed, smoothing the wrinkles from my skirt. “Come in.”

My father entered the room, a satisfied smile on his lips. “I trust you’ve found his welcome home gift.”

“Father, please reconsider. It isn’t necessary.”

He tsked. “It is necessary. I’ve made a significant investment. A wise businessman always protects his investments. I’m sure Mitis can appreciate that. Can’t you, son?”

Mitis wanted to hit him. I watched his fists clench and unclench.

“Place it on his neck, Seven. Now. He’s not to remove it at any time. It’s waterproof, so he can even bathe with it on.”

I swallowed and looked from my father to the collar, squeezing my eyes closed. Suddenly, for the first time in a long time, I felt warmth in front of me. While I wasn’t watching, Mitis had moved in front of me. It startled me slightly when I looked up to see him standing there, bending forward so that I could reach his neck.

“Are you sure?” I whispered so that only he could hear. His eyes met mine. They said yes.

My eyes thanked him, silently.

I released the clasp on the collar and eased it around his throat, fastening it at the back of his neck.

“I’ve spoken with Sonnet about the entire situation. She and your mother have eased my apprehensions about this arrangement. So while we intended to stay here tonight, I’ve changed my mind. Your mother and I will retire to the condo. Zara and the staff are available should you require dinner or assistance, Seven. You need to explain your condition to Mitis so that he can help you as well.”

“I will, Father.” My eyes fell to the floor. The shoes looked ridiculous, encrusted in crystal, another simple and unnecessary way to show our wealth to others.

His footsteps padded toward the door. When it opened and closed behind him, I could breathe again.

I waited until I couldn’t hear anything else and then looked up to find Mitis staring at me. The collar looked awful. I wanted to tear it apart, to rip it from his neck and burn it. But my father would just replace it and probably make sure the next wasn’t removable at all.

Toeing off my heels one at a time, I bent to pick them up when the room began to blur and spin. I reached out for the bed.

“Seven?” Someone said.

Then, everything stopped.

Starve

/stärv/

verb

1. (of a person or animal) suffer severely or die from hunger.
   Synonyms: dying of hunger, deprived of food, undernourished, malnourished, starved, half-starved;
   

SEVEN EASED HER
feet out of the shoes she was perched on. I didn’t know how simple chicks walked in those things. The heels were pointed and at least six or seven inches tall. She bent down to pick them up, and I was trying so hard to be a gentleman and not look at her chest in that dress. I blew out a breath and glanced to the ceiling.

When she gasped and swayed into the bed, I reached out for her. Her body slumped and then went completely slack. Her head lolled, and it looked like her neck would break from the angle. I lifted her into my arms and eased her onto the bed, feeling her forehead out of habit. She was freezing, and a cold sheen of sweat covered her skin, but she was breathing.

I ran to the bathroom and grabbed a towel, holding it beneath the faucet, soaking it with the cool, running water before returning to her. Dabbing her forehead and neck seemed to be working. She stirred and her long eyelashes fluttered.

When she eased the lids of her eyes open, her nose scrunched up. “What happened?”

Those eyes, green mixed with white until they looked almost fake. “You fainted.”

“I’m sorry. Mitis, I—” She tried to sit up, but winced.

I stopped her. “No. Not right now. Let’s just get you feeling better before you try that.”

She sighed and laid her head back down on the pillow, taking the cloth from me and draping it over her forehead. Seven stared at the swirling patterns on the ceiling.

There was a light tapping at the door just before it swung open. Sonnet was there, dressed in simple cotton pants and a matching pink tank top. She’d rolled the top of the pants down to reveal her toned, tan stomach and the tank top dipped low across her chest. She was carrying a tray with two covered dishes on it and two glasses of water. The water had cubes of ice floating across the top of the surface, tinkling against the glass.

“Thought you might be hungry, Seven. You haven’t eaten all day.”

Seven removed the cloth from her face and sat up, smiling slightly. “Thanks.”

Sonnet smiled at me slyly and sat the tray on a nearby desktop before leaving the room. I went over to the tray and uncovered the food. It smelled amazing.

“Are you hungry?” I asked, peering over at Seven. She was pale—much paler than she usually was.

“Unfortunately yes, but I’m going to change first if that’s okay.”

It was. I moved toward the tray of food. I could smell the steak even though the plate was covered. “I’ll set up a place for us to eat.”

“Mitis?” She gulped. “Could you untie the strings? I can loosen them, but they are knotted to keep them in place.” Seven motioned to the small of her back, where the purple strings were, indeed, knotted.

I cleared my throat. “Sure.” Those strings were going to be the death of me for more reasons than my being all thumbs. When they finally gave way, I breathed. When she stepped into the bathroom, I raked my hands through my hair and over my face, groaning quietly before shaking myself out of it. I couldn’t care less about Sonnet’s flesh, but seeing Seven’s did something to me—something I didn’t even want to think about.

All of Seven’s furniture was made of wood, painted white. There was a tall chest of drawers, a dresser with an attached mirror. The glass wasn’t tarnished; the image wasn’t distorted at all. A small table with two matching chairs were positioned beneath her window across the room. I moved one plate and glass there at a time and waited for her to come out of the bathroom.

The walls of her bedroom were a light gray color. Her bedclothes matched her pale green eyes. I imagined her lying in them, dark hair splayed over the silky pillow cover, nothing else on but a smile…

The bathroom door opened revealing Seven. I looked at her for a moment, before glancing away. She wore long, dark gray pants and matching fuzzy socks. Her shirt was a pale yellow and dipped in a v at her neck. She’d taken her fancy hair down and pulled it up in a simple, messy knot on top of her head.

I preferred this version of her.

It was real.

She approached the table and wrinkled her nose. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I don’t eat meat. It makes everything worse.” She switched our plates before sitting across from me. Made what worse?

“I’d assumed that
pets
got no meat. Sorry.” The biting words flew out of my mouth before I even thought about them.

Seven shrunk in her seat, poking her fork at the colorful scoops of perfectly portioned food. “I’m sorry you’re in this position.”

“You shouldn’t be. You helped me, Seven. When no one else in this entire city would, you helped. Then you chose me as your companion. I’m glad it was you, for what it was worth.” Firstly, she had helped me and secondly, she gave me the opportunity to kill her father.

“But I didn’t help, did I? If your brother was okay, you wouldn’t be here. And if there were any other option, I’m sure that Confidence is the last place you would want to be right now.” She looked through me. I tried to swallow the thick ball of truth that clogged my throat. But there was no way to breathe.

I scooped up a forkful of the strange, frothy potatoes and shoved them in my mouth. I was done talking. Even Seven wouldn’t get a piece of Griffin.

Hell no. She didn’t get off that easy. None of the simples did.

“What happened back there?” I asked, motioning toward the bed that she’d almost collapsed beside.

“I wanted to tell you everything before my father barged in, and before…” using her spoon, she motioned toward my neck.

The collar itched. Easing my fingernails beneath the edge, I scratched until I found relief, looking like the dog it was meant for. I’d get used to it, but the material was cheap, which seemed uncharacteristic of Elect Anderson. I thought he went all out on everything...everything but pets, it seemed.

“I…I need to show you something in order to explain.” Bracing her hands on the edge of the table, Seven pushed her chair back, scooting its legs loudly across the wooden floor planks. She squared her shoulders and made her way across the floor to her dresser, where she eased open the top drawer and reached into the back of it, fishing around for something.

Her hand withdrew a piece of folded up, white paper. She opened the folds and scribbled something before folding it up again and nervously turning it over and over in her hands. When she sat back down, she smiled nervously tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Please don’t laugh at what I’m about to show you. I need your help, and I’ll need it fast.”

What was she talking about?

She unfolded the paper and smoothed it over the table’s surface, turned it around to face me and then pushed it in my direction.

I took control of it, scanning the page to see what she was talking about. On it was a list.

1.    
   Go swimming.
   
2.    
   Sleep under the stars
   
3.    
   Go to a party
   
4.   
   Dance with a guy
   
5.    
   …in the rain
   
6.    
   Make a mess
   
7.    
   Have my first kiss
   
8.   
   Drive a car
   
9.    
   ...really fast
   
10. Walk the perimeter of the wall
    
11.  
    Go to the market
    
12. Drink alcohol
    
13. Get a tattoo
    
14. Blend in
    
15. Belly laugh
    
16. Hold someone’s hand
    
17. Give a random person a hug
    
18. Help Mitis
    
19. …and his friend
    

20. Leave the city

I looked up at her questioningly. She was fidgeting with her fork, a blush tinting her cheeks. Suddenly, she paled, and the fork clattered onto her plate. “Oh, no. Not now.” She ran toward the bathroom. The sound of her kneecaps hitting the tile floor had registered seconds before she started retching.

Even in her retreat, she’d managed almost to shut the door, but I pushed it open, gently easing myself inside the bathroom. “Get out,” she coughed before puking up more her dinner. “Please, Mitis. Please, just get out. I don’t want you to see me like this.” Her knuckles were white, gripping the toilet so hard, I thought she might break the porcelain.

“Too bad. I’m your companion.” I didn’t say it like a jerk this time. I wanted to help. The only thing I could do was pat her back and let her know I was there with her, right beside her. Her hair was already put up. The longer she was sick, the more violently she shook. But slowly, the sick spell passed, and she was completely wiped out.

With a trembling hand rubbing her forehead, she asked, “Mitis, can you help me up?”

She reached out for me, but I grabbed her waist and lifted her to her feet. She swayed, but caught hold of the porcelain pedestal sink.

“Can you get me another shirt and a cloth?”

I hesitated, scared to let go of her. She might faint again and bust her head on the toilet or tile. My fingers didn’t want to let her go. Somehow, she read my thoughts and managed to put my fears at ease. “I’m okay. I want to wash off.”

“Yeah.” I found the cloth first in a small closet right beside me and handed it to her.

“My shirts are in the chest of drawers third drawer down.”

Running to find a shirt quickly, I grabbed a pale blue one and returned. She had removed her soiled one and stood, holding onto the sink’s edge, with her back to me in nothing but a tiny white bra. That didn’t bother me at all. It was seeing the knobs of each bone in her spine sticking out beneath her skin that stopped me in my tracks.

I cleared my throat, and Seven jumped like I’d hit her. I extended the shirt with one hand and raised the other in surrender. “I just went to get this.”

“Sorry. I’m jumpy.” Smiling slightly, she took the shirt and draped it across her front as I eased backward into her bedroom. I thought the meal and the stress of the night had caused her to get sick. But now everything made sense.

Seven needed a companion because she wasn’t just sick tonight. She was terminally ill. And she needed that list, so that she could live a little before dying, which wouldn’t be very long at all, given the urgency that had laced her voice when she shared her last requests with me.

I shouldn’t have cared. I should have placed another layer of stone around my heart. After all, my plan was to murder her father, slowly if possible.

But maybe I could help Seven like she’d helped me. Maybe I could help her live the last of her time to the fullest. And it didn’t seem like a bad idea—this list—after all, I’d need to live a little while I could. A person who murdered an Elect would no doubt be hunted down and killed. Murder was a crime against the City itself.

After she was gone, I would take her father down. And she wouldn’t hurt, but they would. They all would. He was an Elect.

When she opened the bathroom door and turned out the light, I helped her to her bed and eased the covers up around her quivering body.

“Do you need a waste basket?”

“N-no. Thank y-you, though.”

“I get it. You don’t have to explain anything, Seven.”

She just looked at me and nodded, steeling her eyes and clearing her throat. “We start t-tomorrow?”

I smiled and said, “Yeah. We’ll start first thing tomorrow.”

When I sat back down at the table, her eyes met mine. I just grabbed her list and tried to make a plan. Some of the things would take time. Others, like the weather, were beyond our control. But we could make some headway tomorrow. I didn’t know how much time she had left, but we would work on these things, and anything else she wanted to add. It was going to be hard to get anywhere close to her father. So I had time to burn. And, Seven? She was as strong as she would get, so we had to focus on the more physically challenging tasks first.

The bottom items bothered me. I didn’t need help. Cason might, but I was exactly in position to have my revenge. And lastly, Seven wanted to leave the city. Sighing, I sat the paper down. Maybe we couldn’t do
everything
on the list.