Firstlife (5 page)

Sometimes I think I hear screams rising from my concrete floor.

“That boy...he's Myriadian, you know,” Bow mutters.

She says
Myriadian
with the same inflection she might use with
cancer
. Does she hate him just because he signed with the other realm? “Have you ever heard of HART?”

“Humans Against Realm Turmoil? Yep. They like to protest the war between the realms in front of the House of Myriad, the House of Troika, and the White House.”

“Right.” From my History of the Worlds class, I know their ultimate goal is a treaty between the realms and the Land of the Harvest. I also know the first members got together soon after the realms revealed themselves...again.

Apparently, the realms did the whole “Hi, we're here and we're real” a few times over the ages, but humans—being human—romanticized the truth. Myriad has been called everything from Valhalla to Mount Olympus, while Troika was once known as Paradise. Then, around the 1500s, both realms began to insert themselves into everyday human existence, drawing us out of the dark ages.

“Why?” Bow asks, her tone cautious.

“Well, I'm wondering why members of the realms haven't agreed to a peace treaty. Or, you know, just hugged it out. I'm wondering why you hate a boy just because he's different. Or because he's hurt you for some mysterious reason. You Troikans claim you're all about forgiveness, right?”

“Forgiving someone isn't the same as letting him crap all over me. Dude. Have you ever heard the Myriad pledge of allegiance?
We won't rest until Troika is nothing but ash in the wind of eternity.
Also, the HART campaign is ridiculous. Light and darkness cannot coexist. A house divided cannot stand.” She pushes her tray to the middle of the table, as if she's lost her appetite. “We'd be a two-headed beast, and we'd consume ourselves.”

Speaking of consumption, she's eaten so little since her arrival I'm beginning to worry about her health.

“Distract me,” she says.

“Eat,” I reply.

“No. Distract me,” she repeats.

“Want me to sing and dance for you?” I ask drily.

“Yes!”

“No way, no how. Not happening.”

“Fine.” She sighs with disappointment. “Just... I don't know, talk to me. Tell me something about your life before the asylum.”

I don't want to share details about myself, but I also don't want her to starve, and it's now clear she requires motivation. “I'll give a nugget or two, but only if you eat everything on your tray.”

“Are you kidding? It's gross and—”

“Trust me, you need the vitamins.”

“Fine.” With a grimace, she returns the tray to its proper place. “Now talk.”

Where to begin? It seems like an eternity since I've revealed even a minor detail about my history. “I attended a Myriad-endorsed private school.”

She waits for me to say more. I don't. She gives her tray another push.

I scowl at her. “What do you want to know?”

“How about your studies?”

“Besides the usual courses?” Easy. “The inner workings of the realm.” Those classes were taught by Messengers, people responsible for spreading the word about the realm they loved.

Mostly, I'd been fascinated by the daily life of spirits. Unlike us, they have no need to sleep. They eat only one meal a day, a single piece of manna. A honeycomb-like wafer. Anyone under the age of eighteen attends school to learn more about their realm and its leaders. Kids are also taught the skills they'll need for whatever job they'll one day be assigned.

Everyone over the age of eighteen works an assignment nonstop until completion—even if the assignment takes years. Like undercover cops.

Bow swallows a bite of slop and grimaces. “What about your friends?”

“They were sheltered, like me.” The answer leaves me without hesitation, as if I'm already used to sharing. “We could hang out together, but only with a parent or Laborer in view. We weren't to get behind the wheel of a car or even into a car with someone other than the person paid to drive us.” At first, I accepted it. I thought,
My parents love me, want me protected
. Then came resentment.
My parents simply need me alive, whatever the cost.

The day of my sixteenth birthday, after I refused to sign with Myriad, I stole the keys to my mom's car. I'd never driven before, but autopilot made it effortless. I'd soared, and I'd never had so much fun.

But that kind of fun never lasts, does it?

The next day, I ended up at the asylum, scared out of my mind, shocked and confused.

“Does Troika choose humans the same way Myriad does?” I ask.

“Pretty much. Headhunters monitor people on the earth, searching for a certain trait.”

Headhunter, a subdivision of Leader. “What trait?”

“Willingness.”

“Willingness?”
What does that even mean?

“Anyway,” she continues. “Laborers are sent to protect the chosen and then, when the human reaches the Age of Accountability, they negotiate covenant terms and guide the human through the rest of Firstlife. With us, though, covenants are voided if the signer is coerced. With Myriad, a coerced signer must go to court to gain freedom.”

Court? “There's a way out?” The news gives me hope.

“Yes, but too many lose the case, since the court insists both Troikans and Myriadians attend. The signer often cracks during questioning.”

Well, a
little
hope.

“Now I know the before-Prynne Ten.” Bow waves her spoon at me. “Tell me about the after-Prynne Ten. What are you going to do when you're free?”

Reveal who I want to be, rather than who I used to be? That one proves more difficult. “You first.”

“As if you couldn't guess. I'm going to continue spreading light, and I'm going be the best Troikan Laborer—and the sexiest—in the history of ever.”

I've struggled to pick a side for over a year. Here she is, unwavering in her belief. I'll just pretend I'm not writhing with envy. “How do you know you'll be a Laborer? There are four other jobs in the Everlife with multiple subpositions under each.”

“I've known here—” she taps her fist over her heart “—all my life.”

“And the feeling has never wavered?” Not once?

“Why would it? My position in life—and death—is part of who I am.”

The envy I'm totally
not
feeling prompts me to say, “Or, fate has decided for you.”

She scoffs, saying, “Don't get me started on fate! Fate is an excuse, a way to remove blame and therefore guilt for poor decision making. Free choice decides the outcome of your life,
not
fate.”

Girl makes a good point.

“Why aren't you branded?” Those who make covenant with Troika are supposed to tattoo a three-point star on the top of each hand—not that everyone does. Those who make covenant with Myriad are supposed to tattoo interlocking jagged lines on their wrists. Again, not that everyone does. It's supposed to be an outward sign of an inward commitment.

“Oh, no.” She shakes her head. “I answered your question. It's your turn to answer mine. What are you going to do after the asylum?”

I chew on my bottom lip as my mind whirls. I've never voiced my desire aloud, have held the secret close to my heart. “My grandparents left me a trust.” One my parents can't touch. My grandparents were Troikan, which was how my mom was raised. When she met my dad, she decided Myriad was the place for her. “At eighteen, I'll be set. I'll be able to afford a house on the beach.” One with zero neighbors who force me to think about issues I can't solve. “I'm going to...surf.”

I've never been allowed, could only watch other people from the safety of my bedroom. Anytime I asked to do something remotely “dangerous,” I was told I had to wait until I reached the Age of Accountability and signed with Myriad.

Now I crave excitement. The wind in my face, water beaded over my skin.

For some reason, as happiness buzzes in my veins, my gaze is drawn to New Guy.

He's staring at me again.

Each of my pulse points leaps. Not knowing what else to do, I nod in acknowledgment.

“Wait. Are you
eye-screwing
him?” Bow demands.

What? “No!”

Somehow he hears our conversation over the chatter around us and calls, “Yes.” Then he winks at me.

I glare at him before I glare at Bow. I might have shared tidbits of my life with her, but that doesn't mean she knows me or has the right to castigate me. “Do you want me as your enemy, Bow?”

Her jaw drops. “No. Of course not.”

I say nothing else, my point made. I stand and walk away from her...toward New Guy.

He smiles at me, but it's the wicked one, as if he knows a secret I don't, and it sets my nerves on edge.

As I pass him, I take a page from Bow's book, hook my foot around the leg of his chair and yank. The chair topples over, taking him with it.

His surprised laughter follows me out of the cafeteria.

chapter three

“There is no supposed to be, only what is.”

—Myriad

There's a line in the hallway. As I take my place at the tail, Bow rushes up behind me, apologizing. I ignore her. As usual, some kids are sent to the gym to “lose a few pounds,” and some are sent to the commons to “lose a little crazy.” In either case, the time is considered a preclass “warm-up.”

Also as usual, I'm sent to the commons.

A guard oinks at Bow and pushes her toward the gym. For the first time, she sidesteps him and tries
to follow me.

I remember her warning.
You have to keep me nearby from now on.

She's
that
worried about New Guy?

The guard—I call him Colonel Anus—grabs her. At the moment of contact, she spins, raising the arm he's holding and also cradling it against her chest while rotating her wrist, putting her palm just under her chin. She uses her other hand to latch on to the meaty part of
his
palm. Then she steps back, twisting his wrist.

He drops, hitting the floor with a thud, his arm now positioned behind his back.

Girl has even more skills than I realized. I'm impressed.

“I'm staying with my roommate today. Get used to the idea.” She drops Anus's arm and steps on the back of his head to pass him. His nose slams into the floor, and he wails with pain. The problem? He has a friend I've named Ben Dover. Ben launches into action, grabbing Bow by the hair and yanking. She flails as she falls backward.

“Chubby girls don't get to spend their mornings chatting about their problems.” He spits at her when she lands. “The treadmill is your best friend.”

“Well, my fist is your worst enemy.” She kicks out and nails him between the legs. “And my foot. Yeah, I probably should have mentioned my foot.”

He loses his breath as he drops to his knees.

She sits up and draws back her elbow, clearly planning to knock out his teeth. New Guy runs past her before she can act and she goes still, as if her mind has clocked out for a smoke break. Did he do something to her? By the time she's all systems go, the guard has swallowed the nuts she drilled into his throat and reentered the game. He easily dodges her next blow and throws one of his own, popping her in the jaw.

A loud
crack
rings out.

As Bow crashes, other inmates move out of the way. Including me.

I want to help her, and I will—when I can actually do some good.
Know when to strike and when to wait. Or hurt.

Two other guards and a nurse—a woman I affectionately refer to as Nurse Ratched—enter the fray.

Nurse Ratched pulls a syringe from the pocket of her lab coat. “A special cocktail for a special girl.” Bow is held down and stuck in the neck. Her entire body begins to twitch, but she remain conscious. Most other kids pass out when they're drugged.

Guilt fills me. Could I have done something?

She would have done something for me.

“Show over.” Nurse Ratched, another Russian, glares at me as if I'm at fault. “Move along. Now!”

No other choice. Well, no other
intelligent
choice. I head to the commons alongside the others. I'm trembling as I sit in my assigned circle in the back of the room, where chairs without cushions have been nailed down.

New Guy shoves someone aside to take the spot next to me. That someone—a boy named Hank—protests until New Guy gives him a hard thump to the throat. While Hank gasps for air, New Guy gifts me with that slow predator's grin.

I breathe him in: peat smoke and heather. Exotic, with a hint of musk, and I swear it's like I've just been transported to the British Isles after a rainstorm.

His eyes...they're as bright as the sun I haven't seen in over a year, and they are the most mesmerizing shade of gold with flecks of crystalline blue.

In one, there are five flecks. In the other, three.

Five. The number of our senses. Sight, sound, touch, taste and smell.

Three. A trinity. We have a spirit, soul and body.

In an octave, the fifth and third notes create the basic foundation of all chords. How appropriate. Those eyes have somehow made my blood sing. Or I'm simply malnourished and on edge, and my brain is overcompensating.

Yeah. That.

This close, I can almost count New Guy's individual lashes. They are long, spiky and jet-black...and I'm staring at him, I realize.

“That wasn't a very nice thing to do,” I say.

“And knocking over my chair was?” His voice is low and husky with a slight Irish lilt, and it's almost as smoky as his scent. “Let's do the introduction thing so my heartbeat will finally calm down. I'm Killian. And you are stunningly beautiful.”

Before he's finished delivering the (clearly) practiced line, I'm already building walls. “I think you mean I'm attitudinal.”

“Definitely not. But now I'm certain you're irresistible.”

“I think you mean unsuitable.”

“Or adorable.”

Oh, crap. Are we flirting? “All right. Enough.”

The corners of his lips twitch. “Are you playing hard to get, lass? It's never happened to me before, so I need clarification.”

“I'm not playing anything. And I'm
impossible
to get.”

He rubs his hands together with something akin to glee. “Well, then. Challenge accepted.”

I open my mouth to protest, but my gaze lands on his wrists. Myriad brands. They are the loveliest I've ever seen, the links slanted rather than rounded, creating languid eyes. And up close like this, the tattoos on his forearms appear to be Technicolor. They are spectacular, but there are too many to count without a more intense study.

I want to do a more intense study.

And...there's something odd about the images. Something more than simple aesthetics. The arrangement, maybe? There are lines through the skull with tears of blood. More lines through the cracked and crumbling moon, with pieces falling into the stars. Are they telling a story? Like hieroglyphics?

“Into tattoos, lass? Well, I'm happy to offer you a private unveiling later.”

My cheeks flare with heat. I duck my head to hide the reaction.

I'm not usually into tattoos, no. Even though I have one myself. A small rendition of planet Earth on the back of my neck. I was fifteen when I got it—snuck out with my friends in my first real act of rebellion—but I'm not sure why I thought a globe was “a perfect expression of my turbulent emotions, and something I'll
never
regret.”

“You're still staring,” he says.

I grind my teeth. “Where are you from?” Like the staff, inmates hail from all over the world. I'm a native of Los Angeles, where the House of Myriad resides—where my dad wields a massive amount of power. The laws he helps push through affect both humans and spirits.

My mother is an artist in high demand. Her paintings of Myriad always sell at auction.

I sometimes wonder what the two have told their friends about my absence. Boarding school? Rehab? Or the truth?

“Where do you want me to be from?” Killian rasps.

Irritation sparks. “Why are you here?” I always ask the newcomers, even though I rarely receive an answer. Bow, Marlowe and Clay are the exceptions.

He shrugs. “Would you believe I saw something I wanted and decided to come in and get it?”

My blush returns, and I lament the fairness of my skin. Not to mention my inability to hide even the slightest reaction. Most of all, I lament his effect on me. “Let me guess. You wanted the five-star cuisine? The frequent whippings? The voyeuristic staff?”

Nonchalant, he drapes his arm over the back of my chair. “Perhaps it was your friend. What's she calling herself these days?”

His odd phrasing throws me. “Her name is Bow, if that's what you mean.”

“Bow.” He laughs, low and intimate. “An archer uses a bow and arrow. How cute.”

Again, I'm thrown. “What's the deal between you two?”

“She's a bitch, and she can't be trusted. Don't worry, though.” He leans close enough to graze the tip of his nose against my ear. “I'll protect you.”

I jerk away, severing contact.

“Are you afraid of me? I'm disappointed.” Killian pouts at me. “Where's the firecracker who once choked a guard with his own belt?”

I don't have to wonder how he obtained his info. In here, the gossip train never stops running. I'm sure he heard about my punishment, too.

“I'm not afraid of you. I just don't like to be touched without first granting permission.” I meet his gaze dead-on, a clear challenge. “And if you want an introduction to the firecracker, I can arrange it. She's a little ticked you called her roommate a bitch.”

He accepts the new challenge with eagerness. “Yes, please. With a cherry on top of me.”

He's laughing at me, isn't he? He's even relaxed enough to twirl a lock of my hair around his finger, the black strands a lovely contrast to the bronze of his skin.

I slap his hand away. “You're positive? She's heartless.”

“You're only whetting my appetite, lass.”

Not just laughing, but mocking. It makes my next action easier. “Don't forget. You begged for this.” I punch him in the throat, a quick jab that causes him to gasp for breath he isn't able to catch. Payback for Hank. The action should stop...whatever this is.

I smile at him. “Just so you know, even an animal in a cage can strike back.”

He recovers swiftly and—shocker—returns my smile with one of his own. His amusement appears genuine and, dare I believe it, tinged with a bit of respect.

He opens his mouth to reply, but Sloan glides into the empty seat beside him and pats his chest. She doesn't appear to enjoy the connection, but she doesn't end it, either. “Hey there, sugar bear.” She gives him a patented I'm-not-wearing-any-panties wink but it, too, seems faked. “I thought I'd save you the trouble of asking around for my info. I'm Sloan Aubuchon.”

His attention never leaves me. “No, thank you, lass. I'm only interested in Ten.”

His accent is thicker now, pure seduction, but the sweet words are actually a threat. I sense it. Too bad for him, I'm far from cowed. He has no idea the horrors I've endured. I'm not a wilting flower. Not anymore.

“Ten kisses from me?” she asks.

“To you,” I tell him, “I'm Tenley.” What's in a name? Only everything. Nicknames allow an intimacy I don't want to share with him.

“Or you can call her Nutter,” Sloan says, helpful as ever. “Everyone else does.”

His gaze rakes over me. “For the size of your balls, or the nutty goodness of your taste?”

Through gritted teeth, I say, “Do you require another introduction to the firecracker?”

He's smiling as Dr. Vans enters the room.

Quiet descends over the circle as the most hated male in the asylum sits in the only cushioned chair. His narrowed gaze finds Sloan, and he pats the empty seat next to him. The one always saved for her.

She raises her chin and remains in place.

I don't like the way he's looking at her. I lean into his line of sight, claiming his attention with my glare. He runs his tongue over his teeth before looking away from me.

He's a tall, lean man in his late thirties. His short brown hair is always meticulously styled, his clothes impeccably tailored underneath his lab coat.

“Are you
protecting
your enemy?” Killian asks me. “Lass, you're getting more interesting by the second.”

“You mean I'm getting more bristling,” I mutter.

“More riveting.”

Dang, he's quick.

“All right, everyone. We have a new member of our family. Please stand and tell the group three facts about yourself, Mr.—” Dr. Vans glances down at his notebook “—Flynn.”

Killian stands without hesitation. “I hear it's best to picture your audience in their underwear.” He winks down at me. “Nice choice.” As the other kids chuckle, he adds, “I enjoy long walks on the beach, swimming in the ocean and surfing. I used to have a weakness for blondes, but I have a feeling that part of my life is over.”

He surfs? Seriously?

What are the odds?

A brunette on the other side of the circle fans her face. Sloan signs
call me
.

Vans notices and scowls at her.

“Also,” Killian adds, “I'm a Myriad boy through and through. If you give me an hour, I'll convince you to sign in the first five minutes, and we can spend the rest of our time celebrating your decision.”

I give him a thumbs-down.

Hank raises his hand and, with challenge in his eyes, says, “I accept. Your cell or mine?”

“Like you could handle me, boy-o.” Killian sits.

“I like your enthusiasm, Mr. Flynn. Perhaps Ms. Lockwood needs to spend quality time with you.” Vans makes a notation in his book. “Yes. I'm already sold on the idea. I'll make the arrangements.”

I bite my tongue to stop a shout of negation. Of course Vans wants to pair me with a Myriad loyalist.

How would Killian, my parents or even Bow like it if I actively tried to convince them to join the world of the Unsigned?

I drum my fingers against my chin. “I think quality time with Mr. Flynn is
exactly
what I need...to finally push me in Troika's direction.”

Killian snorts, as if he knows I'm bluffing.

Vans purses his lips but doesn't reply directly. “All right, everyone. I'm here to listen to any problems you've been having. Talk to me. Help me help you make your stay here more enjoyable.”

More enjoyable for
him
. For us? More agonizing.

As different kids list their grievances—things I've heard a thousand times before—I distract myself with the childhood song that's never far from my mind.