Unraveled
Authors: Gennifer Albin
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To James and Sydney, who always want three stories
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
T
HE SEA IS DARK AND LOVELY AND
it calls me to its arms. I can sleep there. But as I stop fighting, the water grows
heavy on my chest, pushing me down, paralyzing my arms. My eyes fly open but there
is no light. I am nothing. I am the ocean. I am everything.
There is no surface near enough to break through, so I have to learn to breathe underwater.
I must be reborn. A dozen glass boxes dangle from my arms, binding me to my past.
Inside some, my friends are trapped, crying out for help. In others, those I love
reenact mistakes I cannot escape. Fragile reminders of gambles I have lost and games
I am still playing hold my arms so I cannot swim.
I can change everything if I let go first. Release Jost and Erik. Trust who Amie has
become. Abandon my hatred of Cormac. I must shed the past and emerge in a thick, new
skin. To rise above, I strip off the weight that pushes against me and drags me down.
I ascend through the water. I say goodbye to them and with each release of the past
I float higher and higher, unburdened by the debts and stories that brought me to
this point, because I am free.
Autonomous.
Independent.
Dangerous.
Nothing holds me back now. This is why the Guild should fear me. I’ve given everything
away. I have nothing more to lose. I can save worlds, and I will.
The Guild may lie in wait for me, but I am ready for them.
ONE
I
WAKE TO A DARKNESS THAT ENVELOPS
me in comfortable oblivion. My convictions and memories jumble into a snarl of thoughts
I can’t quite untangle, so I call for the lights. The bed I’m in is strange and unfamiliar,
and I can’t quite sort out where my dreams end and my life begins. Then I remember
I’m in Cormac’s quarters on an aeroship bound for Arras.
My hands are in heavy gages, restrictive manacles that prevent me from using my skills.
Without access to my hands, I struggle to rise like a bird with broken wings. Through
a small round window I watch the crackle of light and energy bursting through the
barrier as the aeroship glides smoothly along the Interface, the roughly woven boundary
that separates Earth from Arras. Around me is possibility—the luminous pulse of the
universe surging through the golden strands. Even though my hands are bound, I feel
in control. Being separated from my arguably most powerful weapons reminds me that
I have one defense left—one capable of inflicting much more damage: my mind.
Cormac and the Guild have underestimated me. Now as they take me back to the alteration
labs and the Coventry looms, I know I have power. I must remember that, especially
as I stand alone, torn from my friends, my family, and Erik.
Flexing my fingers against the steel gages that lock them into place, I study these
glove-like shackles that are meant to cripple me. The gages look like a series of
rings stacked on top of one another and then melded together. They appear simple in
construction, but if I press too hard against them a shock of electricity jolts through
my skin. On each gage’s cuff a small blue light is illuminated. Taking a deep breath,
I raise my hands to my mouth and try to bite down on the latch. The blue light flashes
and a stronger bolt knocks the breath from my lungs.
I stop trying to take them off.
They’ve left me in Cormac’s quarters, which are as slick and impersonal as Cormac
himself. For a man who oversees a world as opulent as Arras, with its sculpted skyscrapers
and cosmetically enhanced population, Cormac’s taste is spartan. In the center of
the room wait two ramrod-straight leather chairs with a steel table planted on the
slate-tiled floor between them. The bed that I awoke in is perched on a low platform
near the window. No artwork graces the walls. A small mirror shows me a girl with
strawberry hair sharpening to fiery red, the remains of my cosmetic routine at the
Coventry. For the moment, my face is clean, without a trace of cosmetics—pure and
pale. But for how long? My eyes reflect the question back at me. They are still the
same emerald green as my mother’s.
The door to the corridor slides open and Cormac enters. He’s changed out of the tactical
gear he wore during our confrontation on Alcatraz and into his customary black tuxedo,
though he’s left his button-down open at the top, not even bothering with a tie. I
assume this is what he calls casual wear.
While at first he looks exactly the same in his everyday attire, as he comes closer
I notice faint blue circles under his eyes and more gray peppering the hair near his
temples.
“I took the liberty of having something sent up for you to eat,” he says.
I’m shocked to see he’s holding the tray himself.
“You know how to lift things?” I ask.
“I do most of the heavy lifting,” he says, setting my food on the gleaming table.
“Poor baby. Want a massage?” I offer.
“That would be lovely.”
I lift my hands to remind him that his men have bound them. “Take these off first.”
“Sure. I’ll go ahead and give you the keys to the cockpit, too. Nice try, Adelice.
Those gages are staying on until…” Cormac’s eyes wander to the ceiling as he searches
for an answer.
“Until?” I press.
“I’m trying to decide if I’ll ever take them off.”
I plop into one of the chairs near the table. It’s as uncomfortable as it looks. With
Cormac everything is about appearance.
I try to ignore the plate of food he’s brought me, but my stomach rumbles angrily.
Nearly a day has passed since I ate. The last meal brought to me at Kincaid’s estate
had been drugged and I had been warned not to touch it.
In a bid to discover why Kincaid was sedating me at night, I’d discovered the truth.
He was using the time to take my measurements, planning to alter me to suit his twisted
plans for Earth and Arras. Caught in the rush to get away and find the man responsible
for the Kairos Agenda, I’d forgotten to eat.
We’d had no food on our impromptu mission to Alcatraz. I had been too busy trying
to rescue the scientist the Guild had imprisoned there, and other than a spot of tea
brought to us by Dr. Albert Einstein, my stomach has been empty for hours.
Cormac’s tray is loaded with roasted lamb shanks and buttery hot bread. I assume the
cocktail is for him.
Then I realize I can’t eat with these gages on. Cormac can’t hold out forever. If
he doesn’t want me to have access to my hands again, there are worse things he could
do to me. He needs my ability or he’d have cut them off instead of binding them. I
don’t feel any better though. If it’s not gages to control me, it will be a prison
cell, or alteration to make me docile, which leaves only one solution: I have to earn
his trust back.
“Are you going to feed me, then?”
Cormac’s mouth twists into a grimace at the request and his fingers squeeze the bridge
of his nose. “You’re already giving me headaches.”
Apparently he’s not into grand, romantic gestures like feeding the woman he imprisoned.
I can see the conflict with each flick of his eyes between the plate and myself, but
finally he cocks his head to the side to activate his complant. It’s so like Cormac
to call someone else in to do the dirty work.
“Hannox,” Cormac calls, connecting his complant to his right-hand man. He’s been ordering
around the mysterious Hannox since the moment I met him. “Take Amie to a secure room
and put two armed guards in front of the door. If anyone tries to get in, I want you
to kill her.”
There’s a pause.
“Even me,” he confirms. “Assume the possibility of Protocol One until we arrive in
Arras.”
“It seems like a bit much to kill someone for entering a room,” I say as his head
settles back into a more natural position.
“In your case there’s no such thing as being overly cautious,” Cormac says. “I should
have learned that the night I met you. I’ve since learned who you really are.”
I want to tell him that I knew exactly who he was the night he came to retrieve me
from my home in Romen. He destroyed my family when my parents tried to run and save
me from a life locked in a tower. Since then he’d only succeeded in showing me time
and again how big a monster he truly was.
“Does that mean you’re going to take these off?” I ask.
“I don’t see why not.” Cormac relaxes into his chair, smirking. “If you try anything,
your sister is dead. You can’t possibly save her.”
Death threats always bring out the twinkle in his black eyes.
“Maybe I’ll leave her behind,” I hedge. “You’ve turned her into someone else. I don’t
know who she is anymore or what lies you’ve told her about me.”
“She’s the last member of your family, Adelice. I know exactly what you would do for
her.”
“She’s not the last,” I point out. Cormac knows that better than anyone. The Guild
altered my mother, removed her soul, and sent her to Earth to hunt me. As a Remnant,
she bears only my mother’s face. But she
is
still alive, no matter what she’s done. I’d recently even met another family member,
someone I didn’t know existed: Dante, my biological father, who ran from the Guild
so they couldn’t force him to use his alteration skills. His brother, Benn, raised
me as his own and died trying to protect me from the Guild. Cormac had taken a lot
from me, but he hadn’t wiped away my whole family. And there were other people I loved
now, even if things were a bit complicated between us.
But despite my brave face, I try not to think of Amie. She’s close to me at last.
With my hands free I have all the weapons I need to reach her. It’s possible I could
enter her chambers through a window or an adjacent room. There might even be options
for escape that don’t involve walking past the armed guards. But rescuing Amie and
returning to Earth won’t get me anywhere. There will be no peace between the worlds—no
peace for myself or those I love—until
I
create it.
“Amie may as well be the last member of your family.”
I ignore Cormac’s comment, focusing on gathering as much information as I can before
he clams up again. “What is Protocol One exactly?”
“Don’t tell me you spent all that time on Earth among Kincaid and his Tailors and
you don’t know,” he says, licking his lips as though I’ve provided him with something
delicious to savor.
“Humor me.”
“It simply means that no one, myself included, can see Amie until we reach our destination
and certain safety clearance has been granted.”