Fear Me Not (The EVE Chronicles) (21 page)

“How?” Taj frowns. “I know Umala could kill a few dozen Gutters in a blink, from what the
Ki’eth
says. But she trained for years, and her methods were lost –”

“The
mharata
discovered detailed records of Umala’s methods in Latori’s library. They know how to train a
zol
user to reach Umala’s level of mastery. Human nervous systems react differently. It would be a few dozen Gutters. But by my father’s calculations, it would be hundreds of humans. In a second. And hundreds more in the next second. Not to mention, their technology does not rely on kinetic crysts as ours does. Electricity is their prime energy source. And it’s highly explosive when in contact with
zol
. The causalities would be devastating.”

“I think you’re all forgetting something,” I say quickly as Taj looks at me with a gleam of fear. “I mean, even if I am this crazy Umala thing - I would never,
never
do any of that. I would never kill anybody! I swear to you!”

“But what if they had your family?” Shadus hefts off the wall. “What if the
sotho
had your family at gunpoint? Then you would kill. I know you would. You care too much about your family not to.”

I open my mouth to argue, but he interrupts.

“Even if they didn’t have your family, there would be other ways to convince you. There are drugs derived from Gutter plants that would drive a human insane at the slightest drop. You may not have a choice. In fact, I know it. If the
sotho
got hold of you, you’d have no choice. Not anymore.”

“I’m stronger than that,” I snarl.

“I know.” His ruby eyes gleam as he smiles. “I know you are. But even you can’t be strong forever. I know how they work. I know what they’d do to you. And that’s not an option.”

I’m quiet. 

“But you still have a choice now,” Raine insists. “And we have to act if you want to keep it.”

“How are we going to –” Taj shakes his head. “There’s no way we can keep her a secret forever. Does Jerai know?”

“He came very, very close to knowing just a few moments ago,” Raine sighs. “But no. He doesn’t. He will, soon. Yulan can’t disguise the findings for long. He’ll read her chart and know instantly, if the
mharata
don’t sniff her out first.”

“Then we have to act. Now,” Taj asserts. Raine nods.

“Yulan and I have been putting together the plan. We’ve bribed so many people I can barely keep track anymore, but we’ve managed to buy a plane ticket, and a driver to get her out of here.”

“Wait, whoa –” I start. “Are you saying I’d just pack up and leave? What about my family? I need the money for Alisa –”

“Yulan and I will arrange it,” Raine cuts me off. “We can pay for her treatment. The
sotho
won’t dare kidnap a human family, not while they don’t have the
zol
to threaten the human government with. So you must leave. There’s a family in Switzerland who is willing to shelter you. We have doctored passports, and papers –”

“It won’t work,” Shadus cuts in. Raine shoots him a nasty look.

“What?”

“No matter how well you hide her, it won’t work.”

“We have supporters everywhere. The American government has the least influence in Switzerland. She will be safe –”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that. It’s easier to disappear on this planet than it is to frighten a
psori
into wetting itself. But you’re forgetting something. She’s not trained. The
zol
won’t go away – the outbursts will only get worse. And then they will certainly find her.”

Raine opens her mouth, then closes it. “You can’t be sure.”

“Your father may have studied the scientific side of
zol
, and what it really is,” Shadus walks up to her, staring her down. “But my father and I have spent years with the
mharata
. They know most about how it is controlled. She could just as easily kill a hundred people on accident by blowing up the wrong car, or bus, or plane. Without training, she is just as deadly, and four times as noticeable.”

Raine’s glower turns dark, and they glare each other down. I clear my throat.

“Hey, okay. So say I really am, you know. What do we do about it?”

Shadus looks at Taj. “We give you to the
mharata
.”

“Are you insane?” Raine hisses.

“And then we take you back, before our parents can get to you,” He finishes. Taj’s eyes widen.

“And that would…that would make us –”

“Correct,” Shadus smirks. “That would make the second generation
sotho
more powerful than the first. We could overthrow them easily, take control of the Gutters, and stop this nonsense.”

“Nonsense? It’s not nonsense!” I snap. “You guys need to go home. And if my government is really planning something horrible to kill you all, you need to go home
quick
,” I say. Shadus studies me, then turns to Raine.

“How sure are you of this plan the humans have?”

“Our spies are reliable and widespread. You know that. Your father commands them.”

“But they haven’t been able to get details. They’ve only discovered that a genocidal plan is being put in place,” Shadus leads. Raine agrees. Taj shakes his head.

“This is truly crazy. Asara help us – we’re just hatchlings. We can’t go against our parents! That would be in violation of so many laws –”

“Fuck your laws, Taj,” I say. “The government is planning to kill you all, and you’re worried about your precious
laws
?”

“The laws are what keep us together in chaotic times like these!” He argues. “We need to follow them now more than ever, or people will get hurt!”

“If you’re not with us, Taj, then you’re against us,” Shadus says smoothly. “Rules will be broken, yes. We’ll have to break many, many rules to prevent the humans from killing us, and the
sotho
from killing the humans.”

“It could be war,” I say softly.

“It
will
be war,” Shadus says. “If we aren’t careful.”

“I don’t –” My heart tears down the middle with red-hot pain. “I don’t want to go to the
mharata
. I don’t want to be part of any of this. I just want – I just wanted Alisa to be okay. And Dad. I just wanted…”

Shadus is near me in a blink, his warm body inches from my own. He puts his fingers under my chin and lifts it, slowly and gently.

“They will be fine. Raine and Yulan will help them with the money.”

“But you’re asking me to – to give myself over to those creepy aliens –”

“Might I remind you I was once a ‘creepy alien’ to you, too.” He smirks, a little crookedly.

 “You still are,” I grumble. He laughs, but it dies quickly.

“No, I know. We’re asking something terrifying of you. We’re asking you to step into a completely foreign world, and put yourself at the mercy of our religion. But it’s for the sake of learning control. We don’t – you don’t want to hurt anyone. You said it yourself. Every day you go without control, you risk hurting someone.”

I gnaw on my lip.

“And you – you promise me you’ll get me back before Jerai gets me?”

He grabs my hands and brings them to his chest. “I swear to you, on Asara and Umala, on Latori and Shototh. I won’t let them have you. I’ll amass allies. I’ll set the traps and the spies. And I will come for you.”

I look to Raine, who smiles, her scarred face crinkling.

“You’re my friend, Vic. Of course I’ll come for you.”

Taj steps forward finally, from the shadows. His face is pained, but set and determined.

“If it’s the only way to stop bloodshed, I’ll do it. I said I’d protect you, Victoria. And I meant it.”

I look back to Shadus, who grins.

“It looks like you have some loyal defenders.”

“
Friends
,” I correct in a repeat of the past, and fight to keep the tears where they belong.

 I’m scared.

But I’m not alone.

9. The Empress

Taj, Raine, Shadus, and I devise another plan. It’s fragmented, and a lot of it depends on how things play out, but we can change it at any time. It’s fluid, and it might go terribly wrong, but for now it demands little of me – all I have to do is keep acting normal and wait for the
mharata
to approach me. They’re following the faint scent I’d left all around school, and eventually they’ll trace it back to me. Raine discussed letting Yulan plant my blood report under Jerai’s nose to make my discovery go faster, but we decided against that. The
mharata
are the ones we want to get me first, not her weirdo dad. Raine is busy plotting with Yulan to secure funds for Alisa, as well as gathering information on what kind of massacre the humans are really planning for the Gutters. Shadus is doing likewise, but he’s also sending letters in coded Rahm back to the reservation, asking Executioner
sotho
who are more loyal to him than to his father for help.

Every night I wake up in cold sweats, dreaming of the car explosion and how close it was. I dream of the oven in the cafeteria, and Raine’s horribly burned face, not healed and scarred, but charred, blackened, and crisp with burnt blood, my brain fabricating screams of agony she never actually let out. Sometimes, my dream makes the fire spread to other people. To Ms. Gianca. To Yulan. To Mr. Targe and Principal Freeson and then Taj, Dad, Alisa, Mom. Shadus. And through the fire that feasts on their bodies, a dark-haired woman ghosts towards me. She is paler than the moon, with eyes like amethysts and hair like a raven’s tail, long and messy and black as the burnt piles of ash at her feet that were once my friends and family.

‘
Y’sarash
,” the woman hisses in Rahm, her eyes glowing gem-like with the remnants of the embers. “
Kou’il y’sarash, vikali
!”

It’s a command, a demand, an order never to be disobeyed. Her voice rings with power, with anger, with desire for something I can’t quite understand. With the last syllable still ringing in my head, I wake up, my body cold and drenched and my hands clenched achingly so around handfuls of blankets. Sometimes it’s so bad I never want to go to sleep again, and I’ll stay up for consecutive nights to try to keep the woman at bay. But it never works. I have to sleep sometime. I pass out, and the cycle begins all over again.

I am
zol
. I don’t believe it though, not deep down where I should. It feels surreal, my entire life suddenly feeling like a dream that’s happening to someone else.

They can’t be right. It can’t be right. Not me. Anyone else but me.

To prove it, I brave the security and walk out to the football field during dinner. There are less patrols where no people are, but I still have to duck behind trees to avoid the CIA agent making her rounds.

There’s a clearing nestled in the trees, not quite visible from the football field, but far enough away from the school buildings and parking lot that I don’t risk blowing something up. Or so I hope. Or don’t hope. If something doesn’t blow up, it could mean everyone is wrong, and I’m not
zol
, and that’s what I want most.

I want this to fail. I squeeze my hand around the battery I took from Raine’s toothbrush before I place it in the clearing. It sits on top of the snow, innocent and brassy. I back up, and narrow my eyes at it. I try to recall how I felt when the car blew up. I was excited. Nervous. I was anticipating, vibrating with the sweetest kind of anxiety. And before that, when the oven exploded, I’d been angry. I’d been arguing. And then it hits me. The common denominator – the thing that was present during both those times - was Shadus. I was interacting with him both times it happened.

He’s not here now, and I don’t know why or how he’d have any affect on it. Maybe it’s because he, what, emotionally triggers me? If the
zol
is based on emotions, then I need to get feeling.

I screw my face up and focus anger on the battery. The battery doesn’t so much as twitch. Of course it doesn’t. I was stupid for thinking I have zol – everyone is stupid for thinking it’s me. How dare they. How dare they work me up like this, terrify me like this, back me into a corner and tell me what to do just because they thought I was something they could use –

I hear a faint ‘pop’. I whirl around. The battery is sunk into the snow, the brass of it unfurled forcefully, like a torn flower. Dots of battery acid sink slowly into the snow, bits of metal scattered about.

My insides turn to stone. I stare at the exploded battery for what feels like ages, and then I sink to my knees.

No.

No
,
no
,
fucking no
.

I look around for something, anything that could’ve done it. A machine, a magnet, something. Anything but me.

“Please,” I gasp. “No. Please, please,
please.
Not me! Anybody! Anybody but me!”

Who am I pleading with? God? It’s too late for me. It’s too late for him to save me. For anyone to save me. I am
zol
. I am the fear, the monster, the thing all others hinge on. I am the pivot, when I never wanted to be. When all I wanted was for Alisa to be happy, and safe, and healthy. When all I wanted was to protect my family.

The snow-laden trees watch me, uncaring and indifferent, as my world goes up in invisible flames.

***

I proved it to myself.

And I regret every moment of it.

If I hadn’t gone out to that clearing, I could’ve still pretended I wasn’t
zol
. But now, now it’s undeniable. Now I can’t run from it. I can’t turn a blind eye. I could, but that would be denial piling on top of the truth. And that would drive me crazy. Crazier.

Dakota tries to help in the only way she knows how – by being kind and considerate. But all I can do is snap at her, and she doesn’t deserve that and it makes me feel like a shithead. Because that’s what I’m being; a shithead. She’s done nothing. I’m the one with the problems. I’m the one who’s going to abandon her with no warning, and I can’t even tell her why, or how, for fear it’ll get around to the
sotho
somehow. Every time she smiles the guilt eats me up inside. Every time she tries to crack a joke, tries so hard just for me, I want to tell her to go find a new friend, one who isn’t shitty.