Unraveled (26 page)

“To make Remnants,” I say. “Giving up your war on Earth?”

“Oh, no. We’ve developed much more effective ways to rid ourselves of the vermin on
Earth.”

My words are strangled. “Which means?”

“I’m sure you saw them in the Eastern Sector.”

The moths. The citizens of the Eastern Sector rotting before our eyes, their strands
being eaten slowly. “You didn’t need to sever the sector,” I accuse. “You wanted to
test your bugs.”

“And they worked as beautifully as we imagined they would.”

“But then…” My words are lost to my thoughts.

“We were watching you the whole time?” he asks. “Of course.”

“You severed the sector though,” Dante says.

“Exactly. I severed it. I didn’t destroy it. The sector still exists.”

Dante and I exchange a look and I know we’re both feeling the same thing. How stupid
could we have been? This means he knows everything we’ve planned. He knew about Loricel
and Albert. He knew about …

“How much did you see?” I ask. My voice is strangled.

“I saw everything,” he says with emphasis. “So much for purity standards, eh?”

My chest constricts knowing that my time with Erik was on display for Cormac. It makes
me feel hot and sick and angry at the same time.

“You son of a—”

“Be a lady,” he says.

“Oh, I am well past being a lady.” I spit the words at him.

A blur knocks past me, causing the world around me to spin. Before I can determine
what happened, Cormac crashes to the ground. My eyes flash to the empty chair next
to me and I see that the rope has been torn in two. The whole time we’ve been here
Dante was slowly altering the rope with his fingers. It hadn’t even occurred to me
to try because I’d been distracted by my conversation with Cormac. That explains why
Dante had been silent most of the time.

The room splits and light bursts across the space as Cormac and Dante tear at each
other.

I tug at my own bindings, feeling their composition and pulling them apart. There’s
no point in trying to do it quietly. Dante clearly claimed the element of surprise.

By the time I stand up it’s hard to tell what to do. Dante and Cormac are rolling
on the ground and by now each of them is bleeding from superficial tears. Neither
has managed to get a strong enough grip to incapacitate the other. But I’m pretty
sure trying to grab either of them will end poorly. Each second there’s more blood,
and I know that most of it is Dante’s, because he has to work extra hard against Cormac’s
reinforced suit.

I head to the loom and trail my fingers along it, adjusting its scope to try to find
this room on it. It’s the only hope I have of helping Dante. If I can find the room,
I can rip Cormac’s thread. The loom shifts and pulls up one room after another, but
I can’t find this one.

I turn back to the pair grappling on the floor and consider lunging at Cormac just
as Dante manages to pin him to the ground. I rush toward them, hoping I can help.
Dante must not unwind Cormac—we need him to say the pass code before we can fully
initiate Protocol Three. But Dante reaches for Cormac’s chest anyway.

“Don’t!” I cry. Dante’s eyes flash to mine and it’s only then that I realize what
I’ve done.

I’ve distracted Dante.

It’s only a split second, but that’s all Cormac needs. I charge forward to stop him,
but it’s too late. Cormac’s hand sinks into Dante’s chest and I fall to the ground
facing the golden strand clutched firmly in Cormac’s hand.

“Please.” It’s the only thing I can say in this moment.

“Because you asked nicely,” Cormac says, “I’ll give you a second to close your eyes.”

“You don’t have to do this,” I remind him. “You have a choice.”

“Yes, I do.” And with a wrench, he rends the time strand clean from Dante’s body.

My eyes meet Dante’s and he smiles. “Close your eyes, baby. I’m glad I met you.”

I squeeze them shut and try to drown out the horrible scraping noise of unwinding
time, the unnatural dissonance of stolen years leaving my father’s body too soon.
We never had enough time.

“Open your eyes,” Cormac orders me. I shake my head, my eyelids pressed down to hold
back tears I don’t want Cormac to see.

“I’ve seen you cry before,” he reminds me.

I open them and let the angry tears roll out. They are tears of accusation and hatred,
but I’m not entirely sure they’re meant for Cormac.

I can’t escape knowing that this is my fault, but that’s not a new feeling and I’ve
learned one thing.

It doesn’t matter.

Mistakes ebb and flow like the ocean and if you linger in them, the tide will wash
you out to drown.

TWENTY-SIX

C
ORMAC IS COVERED IN DUST AND HE
brushes it off as though it’s nothing, dropping the time strand on the floor at his
feet. I reach forward and pick it up, cradling it in my palm.

“Keep it,” he says.

I drop the strand and swipe at Cormac, but he sidesteps me and I crash to the ground.

“I want you to think about what you’re doing,” he says.

“I know exactly what I’m doing,” I say, scrambling to my feet and preparing to launch
myself at him again.

“You need me,” Cormac says, “and you couldn’t defeat me if you tried. Are you willing
to let innocent people die because you were impatient?”

I push my arms down to my sides and stare at him. My tears haven’t abated, and I don’t
care.

“Are you going to give me the pass code?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“Absolutely not.”

“You know,” I say in a low voice.

“Know what?” Cormac asks. I lean across his desk and press my hands hard against the
smooth wood, waiting for my moment to strike as he pours a drink.

“That both worlds are in danger. What
I
don’t know is how you think Arras will survive without Earth. Albert calculates—”

“Have you ever considered that those are the ravings of a decrepit man?”

“Look who’s calling someone else decrepit,” I mutter.

Cormac ignores me, but he sets down his glass with unusual force. “What would you
do? Repopulate Earth? That is madness. Only one can survive—Earth or Arras. Which
would you choose, Adelice? A world where everyone has what they need or a dying planet
full of criminals and deviants?”

“The people of Arras don’t have everything they need,” I say.

“And what are they lacking?” His lips smack on the final word.

“Freedom.” I hold my gaze steady with his. He knows this and he can’t deny it’s something
Arras doesn’t have and will never have under the control of the Guild.

“That’s a
want
, my dear,” Cormac says without missing a beat. “No one
needs
freedom.”

I guess we’ll have to disagree on that.

“We could kill each other,” Cormac says. “Right here and now and then what would come
of Arras? Of Earth?”

“I’m not sure what happens if we both live through this,” I say softly. I don’t know
if either of us deserves to walk out of here. And yet if we don’t, what becomes of
everyone else? The singularity Albert predicted could be another form of control,
misinformation spread by Cormac to distract us from his plans and lure me here. But
did Albert believe it? Because I’m certain he wouldn’t lie to Loricel and me.

“It’s not too late. We can still join together,” he suggests.

“You just killed my father,” I remind him. “Our relationship is built on body bag
after body bag, Cormac. I can’t think of anything worse than joining with you. Plus,
you already admitted you’ve wanted to kill me this whole time.”

“There is that.” Nothing flickers in his cold black eyes. He’s not amused. He’s not
calculating. His eyes are the color of the dark of night when the world lies in wait.

He’s plotting.

“Then neither of us walks out of here?”

As though he’s giving me a choice.

There are no choices with Cormac, only carefully laid traps. This is something I know
too well.

“Arras won’t survive, but if we initiate Protocol Three then we can still save the
people,” I argue with him. “As long as I’ve known you, you’ve always acted out of
concern for the citizens, even if your methods were a bit warped for my taste.” I’m
putting this mildly, hoping to lure him in with honeyed promises and sweet words.

He laughs at me, clearly seeing through my act. “Don’t try to placate me, Adelice.
I’ve spent my career twisting words to get what I want. There will be no compromise
on Protocol Three.”

I look to my useless digifile. There’s no one to call. Every channel leads to dead
air.

“I see you’re still trying to set things right. You can stop,” Cormac says. “You’ve
played your part remarkably well, Adelice.”

I don’t feel the ball of burning rage that usually builds in my chest when Cormac
mocks me. No clever retorts float to mind. In their wake is something much more chilling:
a dreadful emptiness that yawns inside me and makes me feel like giving up. How can
you save the world from men like Cormac? There are too many to ever defeat them all.

Too many of them to even make it a possibility.

Cormac watches me with interest and a smile plays at his lips.

“What now?” I ask him.

“I find your reaction rather dull,” he says. “I expected a fight. I find it tasteless
to unwind someone who’s sitting around doing nothing. If you aren’t a threat, then
what’s the point?”

“If what you’re telling me is true, then I’ve
never
been a threat to you.”

“Touché, and yet…” Cormac pauses, tilting his head slightly. The companels in the
room prompt us once more for the pass code but now the evacuation sirens feel like
background noise. I hear the prompt, but it doesn’t matter. “Hannox, initiate the
troops in the Eastern Sector.”

My eyes fly up to Cormac’s and now there’s a glimmer of amusement in them. He’s made
his puppet dance.

“Would you like to watch?” he asks.

“Is this necessary?” I ask him, reaching for any argument that might stop him. “The
bugs will spread to Earth more quickly if you let the citizens go to the surface.”

“Who sounds desperate now?” He barks a security clearance code at the screen and it
begins to stream the Eastern Sector. There’s a crowd of people gathered outside the
Ministry offices. The camera’s stream sits far off the ground but I spot Jost and
Erik directing the group.

“Stop this. I’m asking you to stop.”

“I can’t!” He knocks his glass from his desk, sending its contents flying across the
room. “As long as the poison is in the system, it continues to spread.”

I set my chin defiantly and stare at him. “Then you’ll have to kill me, too.”

“It will be my pleasure,” he says.

Cormac hasn’t noticed the small changes I’ve made to my posture. He hasn’t noticed
that I’m not sitting but rather squatting over my chair and that my arms are locked
and ready, so when I fly across the room, my feet pounding out the few steps that
lie between Cormac and me, he doesn’t have time to react.

I bound up the desk before he can move away and with one perfect, precise swipe, I’m
holding his time strand in my left hand. It’s golden and new, much too young for someone
as old as Cormac. I knit it through my fingers, raising it up to my face so that Cormac
and I are both staring at it hovering there between us. My fingers are red with blood,
and it oozes onto Cormac’s lifeline.

“Always lead with your left,” I whisper. “All Crewelers know that.”

“I guess this means that you win,” Cormac says. His voice is breathless. Expectant.

“I never thought of this as a game,” I say as I twist the delicate strand. I only
have to pull it, but is it too late?

“Are you waiting for something?” he asks.

“You’ve always struggled under the illusion that one simply does or doesn’t do something,”
I say, “but that’s taught me to think about my actions.”

“I suppose you expect me to beg for mercy.”

“I would never expect that.” And in truth I don’t. Cormac is too proud to beg, but
there’s something else in his eyes now. It could be mistaken for dread, but it looks
more like finality.

“The world tells us there is a black and a white. We’re told people fall into those
two categories, Adelice. Good and evil. Light and dark. But that’s the real lie they
sell us. Everyone exists in the gray. We’re only capable of living within that shaded
perception of truth,” he says.

“So what you’ve done wasn’t wrong?” I ask, thinking of my mother and my father. Of
Dante. Of Erik and Jost, who are probably dying right now at his hands.

“It’s wrong to you, but can’t you see the gray?” he asks. “If you were me, could you
turn away? From the power? From the possibility?”

“And leave innocent people alone?” I ask. “Yes.”

“And yet plenty of innocent people have died at your hands,” he says.

I stare at the time strand wrapped around my fingers and wonder how his perception
has become as warped as the strand itself. It’s no longer simply about the greater
good. Cormac has made himself into a hero. He’s given himself the power of the creator,
after bestowing that “gift” upon others before him. He doesn’t see himself as having
committed any wrong, because he did what he thought was right.

And here I am, holding his life in my hands and knowing exactly what it means to persist
in a gray area. Cormac Patton deserves to die. Of that much I’m certain, but do I
deserve to kill him? Does anyone have the right to kill someone else?

There is enough blood on my hands for a lifetime.

I could unwind Cormac and wait. Wait for the singularity. Wait for the Guild officials
to find me. Wait to die one way or another. It hardly matters anymore.

Because no one wins in this scenario.

“Don’t tell me you’ve had a sudden fit of mercifulness?”

“I’m thinking.” I press the time strand tightly between my fingers and Cormac gasps.