Bound to Ashes (The Altered Sequence Book 1) (26 page)

But then again... the relationship he has with the other Altered is almost... I dunno, luminous. They’re a unit. Picking up on each other’s moods, always on the same wavelength, getting through all these roadblocks together.... Laughing, joking, sticking up for one another. Of course it’s better to be alive. And after we get to the dome, after they see it, it’ll all be different. They can start over with the rest of us. Everything they had to go through to get here would be worth it.

It has to be.

[Dev]

Morning barely feels like morning. Like every time we wake up, it’s still nighttime. As we continue on, just specks in the labyrinth, the carpet finally fades away and it’s clear that the tour route has met its end.

“Back to the interior shell,” Alessandra says. She opens the metal door labeled with an EMPLOYEES ONLY sign but stops short at the door frame.

Jules looks over Alessandra’s shoulder. “It’s just one thing after the other....”

We all jostle closer to see and sure enough, the management scaffolding is absent. It takes a second, but then I notice the scaffolding far below us. It crosses to the other side of the deep ravine at a slant, as if it had fallen off the wall on our side.

“Well, would you look at that,” James says shakily.

“I can get down there,” Ashton says with certainty.

“Yeah, but can the rest of us?” Alessandra said.

“I mean, I can test to see if it’s sturdy enough. If it’s not, I can just jump back up,” Ashton replies.

No way. “That’s—you’re not gonna have enough time to react.”

“I can handle it, Dev. It won’t drop that fast, I’ll be fine,” Ashton says, staring straight at me. I can’t fight him about it, but I want to. It’s a deep, deep ravine.

“Here,” he says, emptying his pockets and handing me his bag. “The less weight, the better.” I can only nod as I take his things. I stuff the journal and pen in my coat pocket.

Everyone else gives him room. He stands on the very edge of the door frame. I’m holding my breath. From where I stand, the scaffolding isn’t even visible, not even on the other side. It’s just nothingness, and a metal wall at an impossible distance. When he takes a breath and drops down, the nothingness swallows him. The image hits me like a physical blow. Everyone else leans over to see, but I can’t move.

A gentle metal creaking breaks the silence and Ashton’s voice, “You’ll be fine as long as you don’t fall too hard.”

“Oh, yeah, no problem,” I hear James mutter under his breath, craning to see over the edge.

Alessandra swallows, glances down, and jumps. Then Jules, Peregrine, Vinder— who hesitates, but eventually grimaces and jumps. I follow suit, too numb to fear the drop. The scaffolding is pretty stiffly in place, it surprises me when my feet hit it. I join the others on the opposite side, where the scaffolding is securely welded to the metal wall and wide enough for us to settle on.

James lingers. It doesn’t seem like he’d be the kind of person to be scared of heights. Before, when we walked the scaffolding, he hadn’t seemed fazed. But now that there’s more danger of falling, he’s frozen.

“Your turn,” Alessandra calls, not bothering to hide her impatience.

James doesn’t seem to hear her. His feet barely hang over the edge and he’s shaking slightly.

“It’s safe,” Peregrine says. “C’mon.”

Vinder, who hasn’t said a word, huffs an annoyed breath and shoves his hand in his pocket. Probably thinking, ‘If I can do it, why can’t he?’

“Would you just hold on?” James says hurriedly, like he has too many words for too little breath. For a second I think he’ll never do it. He’ll stay at that edge for the rest of his life. Then, like he was pushed, he forces himself off.

The scaffolding buckles and falls.

Our end shakes violently, I throw myself backwards and grab Alessandra on my way. She’s gripping the railing instantly and we’re all pressed against the wall.

“James!” Alessandra yells.

I caught a glimpse of James dangling from the railing off the raw edge of the scaffolding, as it fell. But now all I can make out are his hands white-knuckled on the bars. He shifts his weight onto the almost-vertical surface. He doesn’t look like himself, face twisted in fear....

His chest heaves with every breath and he struggles to pull his legs over the scaffolding. With every movement he makes, the scaffolding bounces and threatens to give in.

“Hang on!” Alessandra shouts. James starts laughing, but it’s high and manic. Too hysterical to say anything else....

“What... else am I s’posed to do...?” he chokes out.

“Can you climb up?” Jules shouts down after a moment.

“Trying,” he stutters, slowly reaching forward for the next railing post. James isn’t weak. He fought the Sentinels and took down Heydrich and his men. He doesn’t lack strength. Paralyzing fear holds him back. Is this what I look like during the episodes...?

Jules inches forward. I grab her arm. “Jules, no, it’ll cave from the weight.” No way am I letting her take that risk. She better not do what she’s planning.

She just looks at me and grins, sharing a secret joke with herself. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were calling me fat.” My arm falls to my side useless and limp. Dammit— touched her bare skin, how stupid can you get....

“Jules, this is serious—”

“And so am I. Be right back,” she says with a smile and starts to carefully scale down the scaffolding.

James stares up at her and stammers, “I can do it.” He meant it to sound aloof and bitter, but it came out thin.

“Yeah, you’ve done a great job so far,” Jules says, reaching her hand out while clinging to the rails. The two of them are on the completely other half of the scaffolding. The anticipation of my next breath hangs in my chest.

“...Oh no,” Alessandra says, staring into the darkness down the metal canyon face. I shut my eyes. God, if there even is such a thing, don’t let it be what I think it is.

Red lights creep out of the gloom on the opposite wall. There’s a distinct click... click... metal on metal.

As the Sentinel comes into view, its head swivels to meet our horrified faces. Its multiple eyes glow eerily, processing the situation. It looks at us. Then at Jules and James.

“Get up here!” My own voice is drowned by the others yelling the same thing. I stoop low and try to make my way down to them, but the scaffolding lurches dangerously. My body stops itself instinctually. Come on, you have to get to them, get them up here—

Jules reaches farther for James, who whips his hand out to her in an instant. The moment their hands connect the fear is gone from his face. He springs to life and hefts himself onto the scaffolding, bracing on the rails. Jules pushes him behind her and says, “Go, go,” and he listens. When he joins us, Alessandra and I grapple to steady him, he’s panting and looks beside himself. Jules worked her magic on him just like I thought. Our conversation back in the office comes to mind. ‘It’s not plus one, minus one.’ Oh, Jules....

The sentinel eyes us hungrily from its position on the wall. I have no idea how it’s holding on. The wall is slick metal. It spreads its six legs slightly apart as if to brace itself for something. Its face slowly parts open. Vinder, next to me, quails at the sight of it.

“This one’s not like the last,” Alessandra says. “This one’s different!”

“Jules!”

She leaps forward up the scaffolding with an angry grunt.

The red light that shoots out isn’t a wide, scanning light—it’s focused into a beam, and loud. The force pushes the Sentinel back like the kickback from a gun, and it slices right through the metal scaffolding. A perfectly clean cut. The scaffolding, no longer even partially braced by the wall, falls with surprising speed. Our end still clings to the wall and everyone backs up farther.

Jules dangles. She holds on with both hands and is struggling to pull herself up. I call her name and begin the descent again, but someone grabs my shoulder.

“It’s too unstable,” someone says. I stop, the scaffolding shifts under me, but all I can look at is Jules. My boots have a good grip on the metal, I can walk on it no problem, I can get down to her....

Jules pulls herself halfway up the scaffolding so she’s doubled over. Still struggling to climb up. She looks over her shoulder at the Sentinel, but it’s gone. It had climbed as close to her as it could, directly in line and still attached to the wall. It adjusts its aim.

Right when I think she’d try again to right herself, she looks up at me. She has her brand of cocky arrogance on, that half-smile I’d grown used to over the years. She had it on the day we met, we were just kids, we almost killed her until she could prove she was one of us, but she was grinning the whole time. We didn’t know what to do with her, but she knew how to handle everything. She always did.

My voice cracks. “Don’t do it.”

The red light goes off again and Jules leans out of the way. It singes her sleeve and slices a sliver of the scaffolding off.

Ashton chimes in desperately, “Just climb up and we’ll get out of here!”

She shakes her head. The Sentinel’s mechanical parts whirr as it adjusts its aim once more. “It’ll follow you,” she says.

She uses the railing to anchor herself as she turns around, still dangling off the edge. Despite our cries to stop it, just get up, we’ll outrun it, stop, she arches her back and starts to swing her legs. She has her toes at a point and pumps more momentum into each swing. Finally, as the Sentinel is about to fire, she launches herself at it feet first.

I can’t breathe anymore.

At first she stands on top of it, but the Sentinel’s writhing throws her off balance. She falls hard on top of it. She folds over it, screams, and plunges her hands into its firing mechanism. Her hands fly up again clutching mechanical parts and wires. The machine jerks around, left and right, trying to throw her off. With a wild cry, Jules plunges her hand deep into the broken-up eye sockets of the machine. She rears back and lets the mechanical mess fall, a waterfall of wires and shrapnel.

She smiles. “All done.”

The Sentinel begins to slide off the wall, a screeching sound. It’s dropping fast. Jules is still on it.

I’m on the base of the scaffolding. My hand can’t stretch far enough. She’s too far out.

“Jump!!”

Her eyes lock with mine. I never noticed how brown and beautiful they are.

I hate you, Jules. You just had to play the hero. You had to risk your life. Why can’t you ever see the worth in yourself? Why don’t you realize you’re the glue that holds us together? We’d be dead without you, dammit Jules, just jump—

She stays knelt on the Sentinel as it descends. She smiles. But it’s not a Jules-smile. It’s kind and gentle, like falling asleep. The Sentinel’s grip fails.

They fall.

14
• amniotic sea

[Dev]

“Jules!!”

The black pit swallows my voice. The only sounds are the echoes.

“
Jules
!”

It’s a hallucination, an episode, it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen. It’s not real. It’s an episode, a flashback, of something I don’t remember, a nightmare... But where have we been that’s dark like this? What canyons did we traverse? My mind is making things up, now. It’s making things up.

She fell.

Frantic hands grab my arms, my shirt, drag me up. My feet fall under me and I stand. Alessandra says something urgently and leads. There’s no reason to run. Faced with a ladder, I have to pause—grab it. One foot after the other. One hand over the other. Come on. Now there’s a larger platform and a door, which we enter.

Alessandra is keeping us moving, as if it could slow the realization. It doesn’t. Ashton stops her by yelling, “Would you stop?!”

The way his voice sounds.... So it
wasn’t
a nightmare. It happened. I can only stare at the floor, at my shaking hands. The hands that, not moments ago, nearly had her.

“I almost had her.”

Alessandra stops. Before exiting the room she lets her breath rattle out. Her voice catches when she says, “We have to... We have to keep going.” She’s trying to be the strong leader but why can’t she just shut up?

James, avoiding my eye contact, clutches his shoulders and shivers. Does he know she died for him?

Died. Dead. It’s not real....

I can’t formulate words. I scramble to place the blame. It’s James’s fault, for being stubborn. It’s Jules’s fault for playing hero. It’s mine for not catching her. I could’ve tried harder to convince her not to go. But, really, blame can’t be pinned. Not now. No matter how much I want certainty, and justification, that’s not how it works.

My voice sounds detached, outraged, and my fist plants itself in a pipe jutting out of the wall. The metal dents. I rip my hand out of the crater but it doesn’t help. My knees hit the ground. The pain in my hand is real, the hollow feeling in my chest is real. But I still feel like Jules will walk in at any moment, a bounce in her step, chiding us for overreacting. I fold over and grab my head to make her memory go away. I can’t stand to look at her. I might die, myself.

Someone is yelling.

“...your fault!!”

But it’s not me, it’s not Ashton. It’s Vinder.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?! You couldn’t get over yourself for two seconds to—”

“Hey! You got some room to talk, kid, the supersoldiers had to save you, too! Only I didn’t lose a fucking arm—” James grunts.

I look up. Alessandra and Peregrine tear Vinder off James. Vinder swings his one arm wildly to stay balanced and lunge at James, dark eyes wide. “She’s dead because of you!” He screams.

“They knew what they signed up for,” James mutters, wiping blood from his mouth.

“James!” Alessandra says. “That’s enough!”

He stares her down, but says nothing more.

I could kill him right now. If I had a fraction less self-control... Crushing his windpipe in my hands would be easy. Like crushing a tin can.

Every moment is an eternity and makes the ache in my chest worse. Alessandra brushes herself off, takes a fractured breath, and says, “We need to move now.”

My feet mimic those in front of me, briskly stepping down the hall and back into the innards of the machines.

Jules
did
know what she signed up for. But this wasn’t part of the plan. She could have jumped the gap, easy. Maybe if Alessandra let me get down on the scaffolding earlier, I could’ve pulled her up. I could’ve made Alessandra let me go. But I didn’t.

Why didn’t she jump? My mind is going back to the scaffolding over and over, asking the same thing, ‘Why?’

Then my breath is sucked out of me and I stagger in my step, because she forgot everything. Her powers leeched everything from her. She could have... not even been Jules anymore. Did she have her mind erased, when she looked up at me and my outstretched hand, did she not recognize me?

How could she not remember?

How
could
she?

The tears are hot and sting my cut up hands and I can’t wipe them away.

The route we take slowly turns into underground tunnels. Dim, cramped tunnels. Hours of walking, of passing by light after light, our shadows scanning the wall with each pass. We stop in a larger room. Various metal tubes, massive, cram into the space and connect to large vats suspended above the ground. The vats cast deep shadows. Thankfully, the room’s thick with a chorus of working, humming machinery. I don’t think I can handle silence.

I lay down with no food in my stomach, and even less desire for it. If I ate anything it would just come back up to remind me of my weakness.

Jules’s presence won’t leave me alone. She fills the cracks in my mind, pushing them farther apart. Her laugh, high and colorful, a constant loop in my brain. Even if I could sleep usually, I wouldn’t.

The humans sit in a loose semicircle far away, eating or not doing much at all. Vinder leans against a pipe and stares at the high ceiling laced with pipes and columns. I bet he’s thinking about how hopeless everything is. First his arm, then Jules. How can we hope to win? Some of the humans’ breath is shaky on the inhale as if they’re fighting the tears back.

I wonder if Ashton’s run is helping. We got into this room and it was the first thing he said, ‘I’m going for a run.’ That’s what he did after we lost Spec. I left him alone for that one, too. He has to do it. He’s built for running. It’s what he does best. Having something that familiar and effortless must be comforting. No matter what happens, he’ll always have that ritual to fall back on.

Me? I don’t have anything like that. Nothing to fall back on.

Soft footsteps sound in the chamber, I’m surprised I can hear them over the humming machinery. Ashton steps close to me and more or less collapses against the pillar against my back. He does nothing to acknowledge my presence, only drapes his arms on his knees and rhythmically breathes in and out, deeply. The patterns bring a shadow of comfort.

“You awake?” His voice is soft and far away.

“Yeah.” My voice sounds old. “How was the run.”

“Good,” he breathes. It must have been, because nothing else tires him. “Just took a few of the longer stretches of hallways, nothing too far, just enough to stretch my legs.”

“Good.” Don’t know what else to say.

I think the humans have fallen asleep at this point. The humming in the background starts to feel like it has multiple levels of shifting tones and patterns. It might have lulled a normal person to sleep.

“So what do you think,” Ashton says darkly, folding his hands near his mouth and staring straight into the shadows on the edge of the room.

“Think about wha—”

“Why she did it.”

No, Ash, I can’t go there... not now... not so soon....

“You saw it, I know you did, she didn’t even try. It’s like she wanted to....” He buries his eyes in his hands. “Why would she want to?”

“Do you remember how we met Jules?”

He glances at me and says dismissively, “Yeah, of course.” When I don’t answer, he elaborates, “We found her alone on the outskirts of the city, by the craters. We were shocked to find someone else like us.”

“Well. She doesn’t—” I catch my breath, “— didn’t remember.”

He pauses. He knows I’m getting at something. “What does that have to do with it?”

“She told me once, right after we got out of the stadium, that she thought her ability, whenever she used it, erased her own memories.”

He’s silent for a while, then says with added malice, “And that was enough for her to just throw her life away...?”

My inhale comes in staggers. “That, or... she lost everything.”

The tense silence between us is enough to make me agitated— I want to stand up and scream loud enough for Jules to know what she left us with. I want her to know how cowardly she was, for just giving up like that, when we’re left to deal with this without her help, without her support, without her smile or her jokes or her stupid nicknames....

A quiet sound interrupts my internal ravings. My fists slowly uncoil. Ashton’s head is bowed against his folded arms and his shoulders bounce gently, erratically, dotted with small gasps.

I can only lay my forehead on his shoulder and try not to do the same.

The touch helps. It reminds me that Ashton is still here. The same Ashton that found me in the landfill all those years ago. Alone, running from the revolt, dirty and starving with no one to trust. He was there, and he’s still here now. And that’s all I have to fall back on.

I’ve given up trying to tell how one part of the facility is different than others. Finally we’re in an area more suited for travelling, not made of rickety scaffolding. Thinking about the thin metal pathways makes me sick.

But that being said, this new place isn’t much better. The ceiling is lower and the walls are bleach-white. We pass doors labeled with small placards that read things like, “Sequencing K14” and “Gene Allocation”.

Ashton hovers by the last sign. Without addressing anyone, he says, “What genes were you allocating?”

Alessandra just glances over her shoulder as she walks. “For vaccinations. We worked a lot on trying to prevent harmful genetic anomalies.”

A few cloudy windows allow us glimpses into rooms only containing chairs and tables. A few are so clouded and dirty we can’t see inside.

Alessandra passes a few windows and sighs. “Most of these rooms are for storage now.... I remember when they used to have a function. This is depressing.”

“Well you remember them, so that’s encouraging,” James comments. “Do we know where we’re going, now?”

“Yes,” Alessandra says shortly. “We do.”

Lately, everyone’s voices end sharply.

“So what was this place for, anyway?” Vinder says. It’s the first time he’s said anything in a long time and everyone hides their surprise.

“This was the main development floor,” Alessandra says. “Mostly labs and offices.”

The word ‘labs’ sends cold chills through my body.

“Huh,” she says. “But I don’t remember
this
place.”

I’m just waiting for one more bad thing to happen so I can let loose and get it over with. I feel like I’m keeping a monster trapped in my ribcage and it’s clawing to get out and quench its bloodlust. I can’t stop it, and I crave its release, but I can’t say anything about it. Every moment is a small disaster.

Ashton’s presence is the only thing keeping it contained. He’s tense and silent, but he’s here, and that’s all I need.

Alessandra leads us to the end of the thick hallway to a set of double doors with crates and cardboard boxes stacked in front of it. There aren’t any boxes anywhere else in the hallway.

“I don’t like the look of this,” Peregrine says.

“Well,” Alessandra says, “it’s the only way.”

James rolls his shoulders and sighs. “Then let’s go.” He starts shoving stuff out of the way with irritated movements, letting boxes crash to the ground. Glass breaks. When he gets to the doors and pries one open, I stop dead. That smell.

Alessandra glances over at me. “What?”

I cover my face with my coat sleeve; so does Ashton. “You can’t smell that?”

She blinks a few times but turns back around and helps James open the door.

Like sour vomit and stale water, the kind saturated with coppery-tasting minerals and silt. Like blood’s aftertaste. Feels like my stomach is trying to turn inside-out.

The humans file through the doors. Vinder hovers near the entry, glances at us warily, and slips through. I can almost feel an invisible barrier surrounding that room, one that my feet don’t want to cross. But Ashton finally moves forward, so I follow.

The automatic lights in this room must be broken. The humans can’t see anything from how they move cautiously. Alessandra looks for a light switch. The small room is enough for us to mingle comfortably and a set of stairs sits opposite the doors. They lead to a raised platform lined with handrails. The mechanisms attached to the wall under the stairs seem out of place. Pipes, black screens, swivel chairs attached to the ground. Like a monitoring station. The pungent smell is enough to make me not want to breathe.