“How does it feel to have something you love under attack? It is exactly what you’ve done to the Initiative. Your Resistance came into my home, my world, and tried to destroy it. Do you see what happens, Miss Woodson, when you hurt something I love?”
My breath comes out in a low hiss. I meet his eyes, and in mine, I hope he sees the fire. “You’ll burn for what you’re doing to her. She’s just an innocent child. Take me. Take me and hurt me, but leave her out of this.” I do something my father would never do.
I beg.
“Please. I’ll do anything. Anything you want. Just take me instead of her.”
The Commander throws his head back and laughs.
It echoes off of the round walls, slithers through my ears.
“The fearless Lark Woodson’s daughter, begging for mercy from her enemy.” He paces, back and forth, laughing as he goes. “Your sister is much more than a child, Meadow. She’s an asset. A very valuable one, and the Initiative intend to use this new connection to your sister as a way to get you to do our bidding. Anything we ask, you’ll do. Anything we need, and you’ll fall at our feet, begging to help us.”
I clench my teeth. I grip the chair as hard as I can, force myself not to lunge from my seat and grab his throat. “What do you want from me?”
He sits back down on the white couch, legs crossed, poised and proper. It cannot hide the madness inside of his soul. “Your mother is quite the inventor,” he says. “This Regulator you have, it was one of hers. An original option, before she and her team discovered the connection we could make with the Murder Complex. But we’ve found uses for her old inventions. The Initiative is sentimental, wouldn’t you agree?”
Breathe in. Breathe out. My father’s voice. Don’t move, don’t speak, don’t do anything at all.
“We used to be great friends, your mother and I. But then she turned her back on the Initiative. She decided that she couldn’t handle the pressure of the job. And of course, she lost her mind, the crazy wench.”
Deep breaths, calm and even. My father’s voice guides me. You can control your anger. Reel it in, and save it for later, when you will need it the most.
The Commander continues. “She eventually did give in, you know. Gave us the codes, showed us the workings of her system. But there’s a problem, Miss Woodson. Do you know what that problem is?”
I shake my head. I don’t know, and I don’t care.
All I want to do is kill him, save my sister, and die, so that no one ever again will be affected by the Murder Complex.
“Your mother’s system is rebelling.”
That gets my attention. I look up, and he smiles. “How?” I ask.
“A virus, of sorts, and quite complex in its coding. Naturally, we have plenty of people on the job, working around the clock to repair it.” He sighs, and for a second I catch the dark circles beneath his eyes. “It came from somewhere inside of the Shallows.”
“What do you need me for?”
He licks his lips, then gives me a smile that chills me to my core. “You’re going to find your mother, of course! You’re going to bring her back to us and convince her to retake the system. Repair it, renew it, and run it all over again.”
“And if I refuse?” I ask. “Or if I bring her in, and she refuses?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Oh, I think you’ll find that convincing you, the both of you, will be quite the fun little game.”
He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a NoteScreen. He stands, places the device onto my lap, and heads for the door.
“You’ll leave first thing in the morning,” the Commander says. “A quick tap on the screen should be all the convincing you’ll need.” He shuts the door behind him, and I am alone.
I stare at my lap.
The NoteScreen stares back.
I don’t want to touch it. I don’t want to know what horrors will lie on its face the second it comes to life.
But I reach out and tap the screen.
It is my nightmare, come true.
It is my world, crumbling away like ashes or dust.
It is an image of a wooded area. Trees tower all around, and somewhere in the distance, I think I see a flickering fire. There is movement, near the base of a tree.
There is a trembling child. Lying against the trunk, curled up in a ragged blanket. The child’s back is to the camera, so I can see all of their hair is shaved away. I gasp as I see the same black device as mine stuck to the back of the child’s neck, and I know.
It’s her.
“Peri,” I whisper. I press my face so close to the screen that my breath fogs it up. I wipe it away, and I see Peri roll over onto her side, so that she’s facing the camera. Her face is smudged with dirt. Her bald head is covered in cuts. Her eyes are dim, like fading lights. There is a metal cuff on her wrist, the color of the springtime sea. It shows how thin she is, how small. She trembles, and I see her breath come out in thick fog. She moans, just once, and then she goes still.
“Peri, hold on. Just hold on,” I hear myself say. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll come for you. Daddy will come for you. Koi will help.”
She’s crying.
“You’re okay,” I say, wiping tears from my own eyes, and I wish she could hear my voice, know that I’m here, I’m watching, and I’m going to make it all better somehow. “You’re okay. . . . You have to be okay.”
Suddenly, the image fades, pulling her into darkness. I tap the screen again, but it does not light back up. She’s gone.
“Peri?” My voice cracks. “No. Come back. Just come back to me.”
I tap it again, and again, and again, but her image does not return.
The fury comes from out of nowhere.
I don’t have control of myself anymore. I stand up and throw the NoteScreen across the room. It shatters against the wall, bursts into a million pieces. I grab the chair I was sitting on and launch it against the door. The sound is deafening, a roar that mirrors the blistering hate inside of my heart. “Let her go! Just let her go!”
I scream my sister’s name.
I scream for her brokenness, and for mine.
I grab a shard of the NoteScreen’s glass, the sharpest, longest one, and aim it toward myself.
I could end this now. If I die, everything the Initiative has built will die, too. It’s worth it. For the first time in my life, survival is futile. Dying is the key.
But the second I thrust the shard toward myself, right over my throat, I hear a voice.
The Commander. I wouldn’t do that, Miss Woodson. If you kill yourself, rest assured that your sister would soon join you in death.
There’s a jolt of pain.
Peri screams again.
I drop the glass. “Get out of my head!”
I curl into a ball on the middle of the floor. I can feel the pieces of myself tumbling around, breaking into fragments with every second. Soon they will be as tiny and worthless as grains of sand.
I rock back and forth, whispering her name.
“I’ll do it!” I scream. “I’ll do whatever you want!”
That’s a good girl, the Commander says.
The door of the room slides open. I can’t live for myself, and I can’t die. Everything I do goes back to her, and I will do it. Whatever they ask, I will do it, because Peri is worth the worst deeds in the world.
Sometimes, we have to give up everything, throw our lives into the line of fire, if it means saving the ones we love.