The Rift Uprising (16 page)

“Different how?” I respond as casually as I can. I purposely begin walking to the door, and she, taking the signal, begins to follow.

“I don't know—softer? Less conflicted?”

Well, I wasn't expecting that. I'm just happy she didn't say nervous or distracted. The idea that I am coming across as more easygoing is only going to help my case if Vi is questioned. I mentally curse myself for going to such a dark place.

“Oh. I guess I'm just happy to be on my own. There's always so much pressure with my family, to be normal. I think what you're picking up on is just . . . relief, really. Now I have fourteen whole days to let loose and not have to . . .”

“Lie?” Violet interrupts.

“Right. Exactly.” There is a bit of an awkward silence. We are at the door now. It's past midnight. I know I should offer her a ride home, but I am reluctant to leave. Besides, if Vi hustles, she'll make it home before I could even fish out my car keys and lock up the house.

“Space. I get it. In theory, anyway. My parents are so wrapped up in their own shit all the time that I don't mind the double-life thing so much. Your mom and dad are really
cool. I know how tough it is for you. But it will get easier once we graduate. Or lie about graduating, that is,” Violet says with a laugh. She hugs me tightly.

I feel a pang, but I have to remember I am protecting her. I am doing what's best for her. Except that's not true, either—I'm lying to myself now. If I was to involve her in any of the Ezra business, it would only be because it would be better and easier
for me
.

I am a horrible friend.

I close the door behind her and turn off the lights. I sit back down on the couch. There is nothing to do but wait. I cannot sleep. I barely sleep on a good night. Tonight, it will be impossible. I am paranoid. I don't even bother turning the TV on. If anyone was to drive by my house they would see that almost every window is dark except for a hall light I've left on upstairs.

Time pulls and drags. Each minute stretches out like a rubber band, then snaps back and smacks me when I realize that only one has passed. As a Citadel, I am often asked to simply sit and wait in silence. In fact, I would even go as far as to say that I'm pretty much an expert at it. This is different. I don't feel like a soldier. I feel like a girl waiting for the guy she likes to show up. I throw my head into a cushion. This is absolutely the wrong thing to be thinking. I have to somehow rid myself of these feelings I have for Ezra. Stupid. I might as well wish for an invitation to Hogwarts.
Why do I always go to Harry Potter when I'm feeling stressed out? It's not like Harry Potter's world is peril-free . . .

Great, now even my mind is rambling.

The hours pass. I see the first flush of gray in the sky. I start to worry. I try to calculate how long it should have taken him to get from the Village to my house: It's about ten miles from the Village to the base. It's another ten from Camp Bonneville
to my house. Twenty miles in the dark with little to no survival skills. Twenty miles without my endurance or speed. But if he left when it first got dark, and it's now five
A.M
., that's almost twelve hours. It shouldn't take that long.

Should it?

An hour later, I begin to pace. I have to go to work at seven thirty. I can leave the back door open, but really, I don't know how I'm going to get through an entire day of not knowing. I don't have a choice, though—Citadels don't get sick days, because we don't get sick.

I go upstairs to shower and change. This time I switch it up with jeans and a T-shirt with a different cardigan. Man, my wardrobe is lackluster. I guess that's for the best, given the circumstances. I make some coffee, eat some oatmeal. It's almost seven now—shit. Where is—

Then suddenly, I hear a slight tap on the kitchen door. It's him. I practically trip over myself to open it and there he is. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

“Oh my God,” I sigh. I pull him in with my thumb and index finger, careful not to touch anything but the fabric on his jacket. The magnitude of what we've done makes me momentarily dizzy. It's all well and good that he wants to rewire me, fix me, but if I break his neck or slice open one of his arteries before that can happen, it will all have been for nothing. He could be on his way to living a whole new life right now. Instead, he's here.

Why did I agree to this?

I search his face for trepidation or fear, but all I can see is a look of excited defiance. I realize that he wouldn't be anywhere else. In the same way that I won't remove my chip when I'm thirty, he could never lead a normal life now. He's seen too much. He's a scientist. He wants to know why and
how. He wants to know it all. Even though I have to be even more careful of every move I make now, I ache to put my arms around him. I can't. He won't. We just stand there like a couple of morons. “You did it,” I finally say.

He drops his knapsack and I can see he's exhausted. “I can definitely scratch ‘break out of a prison camp' off the bucket list.”

“Go sit down and I'll make you some coffee.” Ezra doesn't argue. Instead, he falls backward into the couch with a whoosh. “Tell me how it went, but I don't have long. I have to leave for work in half an hour.”

“It went totally as planned. I left my tracker in my bed. I walked out of the house. I jogged to The Menagerie. I have been jogging every morning for the past month, by the way, so my endurance isn't terrible.”

“That was smart,” I tell him while pouring out coffee into a cup. “I'll let you make your own breakfast after I leave, unless you're starving. I just want to hear what happened, and there isn't much time.”

“No, I'm fine for now. I grabbed something when I was in Portland.”

I walk over to him and hand him the coffee. I put one hand on my hip. That wasn't part of the plan.
Be cool, calm down.
I can feel the screechy voice coming on. I have a sudden urge to put my hands on him, but there is
nothing
sexual about it this time. “Portland? Are you crazy? Do you know how many cameras there are in Portland? And cops? Why did you go there?
How
did you get there?”

“I stole a car and drove there.” Ezra smiles at me. Smugly.
He's proud of it
.
This stupid son of a—

I try to take a deep, cleansing breath. “You . . . stole a car? Did you manage to run over any hookers or shoot a drug lord
while you were at it?” Apparently the cleansing breath didn't help. “I mean, you
do
get that you aren't actually a criminal, right? Why would you take such a risk?” I sit down in a chair, not beside him on the couch. I am far from pleased.

I am also apparently the queen of understatements.

“Okay,” he says, “first of all, just back off a little, all right?”

I bite my lip. I am not used to anyone besides Applebaum telling me what to do. It feels weird and irritating.

Understatement. Again
!

“Second of all, in order for this thing to work between us”—Ezra gestures with both of his hands back and forth, implying the connection—“you are going to have to trust me and you are going to have to let go of the notion that you are always going to be the smartest one in the room. Admittedly, there are things that you are going to know that I am not going to have a clue about, but there's other stuff that
I
am going to be the expert in. That's why we are going to succeed. Our strengths and weaknesses balance each other out. But if you start second-guessing everything I do, without even giving me time to explain, then we are fucked. Got it?”

He's being bossy and domineering. I find this to be simultaneously rude and totally hot. Well, of course. I'm me—I wouldn't fall for some spineless guy. An alarm bell mentally blares in my head. I am not
falling
for Ezra. No way. I have feelings for him, lusty ones, and obviously there is a connection. But it's a connection that cannot be explored in any way, shape, or form. Unless, of course, he can get my implant rewired—then, whew . . .

No. I can't go there. Not yet.

“You're right,” I concede. “I'm sorry. Go ahead.”

“So we have limited access to the Internet at the Village. I hacked into the system, but not very well. I wanted them to
find all my search histories about survival skills and orienteering and auto theft, but I wanted it to look like I was hiding those searches.” Ezra pauses and takes a long sip of coffee. “I got through the forest. Wasn't easy, got turned around a bit, but I made it. Then at the first sign of civilization—a house, actually—I stole the car. It was easier than the forest part.”

“Great,” I mutter, looking at my watch.

“Then I drove to Portland, dumped the car at the bus station, and bought three different bus tickets to three different destinations.”

Again with the smug face. We are going to have a talk about that if we are laying ground rules. It won't do if half the time I'm slapping that expression off of him.

“No one asked why you were buying all those tickets?” I wonder.

“I just said I hadn't made up my mind yet. They really aren't that curious at the bus station, funnily enough.”

It's almost time for me to go. “So how did you get back here?”

“Good old public transportation.”

I clench my teeth. I am not going to freak out, but taking public transportation was a seriously dumb move. “You realize there are cameras on those things, right?” I say it passively, though it is taking a fair bit of my willpower not to turn into the incredible screeching woman again.

“Of course.” The way he throws that out, so nonchalantly, it's almost as if he's exasperated with
me
.

It's not like
I
was the one gallivanting through public places just days before a massive manhunt starts up.

I force myself to focus on what he's saying.

“. . . bought the tickets I made sure the cameras at the depot caught me. I was wearing a coat and a very bright red baseball
cap. When I exited through the back of the depot and came out on the street again, I gave that coat and hat to a homeless guy and put on this very dapper knitted cap and a different jacket when I got on the train. I got up here. And then walked to your house. Ta-da!” Ezra is smiling, but he looks exhausted. I have to hand it to him. He did it. He also left a false trail, which might actually buy us some more time.

Whole hours, in fact.

But there isn't much to do about it now. And we still—hopefully—have a day or so before anyone even notices he's gone. So I'll let him have his little victory.

“That was good work and smart thinking. Let's go upstairs and I'll show you your room.” Ezra stands without saying anything. In all likelihood it is all catching up to him now. He needs rest and some time to adjust. I show him the bathroom and give him a towel. I'm sure he'll want a shower before he gets into bed. Then I pull down the metal stairs from the linen closet. He looks at the narrow opening and then back at me.

“If you're going to make an Anne Frank joke, please don't because I really, really love Anne Frank,” I say before he can say anything.

“I wasn't going to. I think I was going more toward a Hunchback of Notre-Dame thing. But no, this is good. Scary, but good.” We climb the stairs and I show him the bookshelf. He is duly impressed and it's my turn to be just a bit smug.

“I hope this stuff of my dad's will be okay. There's a lot there and I did buy a one-terabyte drive, which I didn't think would be too suspect.” We stand facing one another in the small space. I am acutely aware of the bed. Of
him.
He smells like the forest, loamy and just a little smoky, as if some far-off bonfire had found him somehow in the woods.

“I'll have a better idea once I start working. Thanks, Ryn.
Really. I would hug you, but . . . well . . . you probably need to go, right?”

I nod slowly and cross my arms. Things are strained between us. He's had a glimpse of the monster inside of me and he is wary, as he should be. I am relieved and heartbroken all at once.

“Are you ready for what you've got to do?” he asks tentatively. His eyes change. He looks pained. It dawns on me that this is his worry face. He's worried for me. For what I have to do today.

“I am. And if nothing happens when I'm on duty, then I will make something happen during training.” I begin to walk down the stairs and Ezra follows me so that now we are both on the landing.

“All right, well, I'm going to use your facilities.” He gestures toward the bathroom door.

“Have fun with that,” I respond with a bit of sass. I turn to go, but Ezra stops me.

“Hey,” he says with that same worried look. “Make sure you get hurt, but don't get hurt so bad that . . . well . . . I don't know. Just be careful getting your ass kicked.”

We've been on duty for an hour. The Rift has already opened and dumped out a few alligator-type things. Violet tranqued one from up here in Nest 6. They were dragged off by the Zoology Team and now we are waiting to see what else will come through today. Actually, it would be more accurate to say the rest of the team is waiting; I am trying to work out which part of my body will be the least useful over the next few days.

When Ezra and I discussed the implant—or, more accurately,
rewiring
the implant—I told him everything I knew about it. It took speaking about the chip with a civilian to make me realize how little I know about the thing that is responsible for who I am. In a way, the implant is like a bizarre, electronic parent.

When I explained about the magnetized disks they put on the chip to run diagnostics, Ezra told me that it was imperative
we get one. Although I am fairly sure they store the disks in Medical, I don't know exactly where they are kept. That night in the Village I reluctantly admitted to Ezra that the only way I could get close to a disk safely was to get an injury. He didn't get it. How could getting hurt be safer than sneaking around an infirmary? Ezra doesn't know the layout of the bunker or how insanely guarded it is. I just told him that I was going to do it. End of story.

I couldn't tell him how I really felt. That I would take a hundred blows and kicks and punches—a thousand, even—just to be able to touch him, to kiss him, to lay my head down on his chest. I'm not a masochist; I don't enjoy pain, but I would take more than my fair share if it meant even the slightest chance that things could be different. A concussion is nothing compared to struggling against the Blood Lust. Ezra thinks he understands it because of what happened that night, but he has no idea how little of it he actually got to see, how deep it runs. We destroy, but we can't love the way people are really meant to. There is no balance, and so I think each of us, in our own way, is going slowly insane.

How do you explain that to someone who hasn't experienced it?

“
Come on
, Ryn, you have to play.”

It's Boone, snapping me from my reverie. For the past ten minutes he has been at me to play one of his favorite games. I keep hoping that if I don't say anything or change the subject he'll let it go, but there's no way. Boone is like a dog on a fetch loop when he wants something. “Henry is no fun. He ends up choosing to kill everyone.”

“That's because we would kill everyone, no matter what. It's pointless,” Henry snaps back.

Boone lifts up a knee and casually rests his arm on it. “It's a
game,
Henry. You're supposed to use your imagination. I don't understand why you don't have one. It's like a birth defect.”

“Well, I'm imagining all the ways I could beat the shit out of you right now,” Henry tells him with a stony face. “Does that count?”

“That was a joke! Ryn, did you hear that? Henry made a funny!” Boone seems to be the only one laughing, but still he continues. “And if Violet goes first we'll be here till next week. She always takes too long to decide.”

“That's only because you bring inappropriate names into the mix, like Jesus or Buddha. You can't do that. If you could be less sacrilegious, then maybe I wouldn't take so long,” Vi counters. She crosses both her legs and her arms. She's not pouting exactly, but it's close.

“Fine, no gods. But you're still going last, Vi.” Boone rubs his hands together like a Bond villain. “Okay, here we go, Ryn. Fuck, Marry, Kill: Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Christian Bale. Go.”

I have about as much desire to take part in this game as Henry does, but I have a part to play. Violet has already noticed a change in my behavior. I can't afford any more inconsistencies.

“Are we talking
American Psycho
Christian Bale or
The Machinist
Christian Bale?” I manage to answer with a little smile on my face.

“Ohhh, that's a good question. And I like how you didn't bring Batman CB into the mix, 'cause it's so obvious. You're really thinking about this. You're
committed.
” Boone draws out the last word while looking directly at Henry, who just rolls his eyes. Before he can elaborate, though, we hear the voice of a team leader down on the ground. The Rift is opening. Without saying anything further, we all jump up and stare into the
shimmering green light, watching it morph and change. We have a fairly obstructed view with the trees, but we can see it well enough to know when it gets to Stage 4.

I can sense the change in the air. That same sweet pull down toward my abdomen. I have goose bumps. The hair on the back of my neck stands up. Out of the gaping, black center comes a large number of people. By a quick estimation, I would say at least thirty. Upon first glance, they look human. I grab the binoculars to get a better look. Yes, human men and women, but they are disproportionately good-looking. I wonder if The Rift opened up at Paris Fashion Week. They are all insanely, weirdly, gorgeous. Yet while their hair is all different shades, their skin is the same: alabaster, smooth, and fair. The clothes they are wearing are modern, but there is something about them, something not right.

“Unde Sutem?”

“Ceea ce sa întâmplat?”

“Este toată lumea în condiÅ£ii de siguranţă?”

We hear them speak calmly to one another. Too calmly. It's unnerving. They are speaking a language I don't know. Some of it sounds familiar, like Latin, but I don't understand the words. I look at my team. It's The Five—we can't speak—so we keep a whiteboard up here for situations just like this. Henry grabs the board and begins to write. He holds it out. It says
Romanian.
Then he writes that they are just asking where they are and if everyone is okay. He is straining to listen.

“
Simt miros de sânge,
” one of them says quite loudly. The rest of them go still. Henry gets an odd look on his face and starts to translate on the board. “
Am auzit batai de inima, multe, nu-i aşa?
” Henry scribbles furiously, then holds up the sign:

I smell blood

I hear many heartbeats

Boone gets the same look on his face that a ten-year-old boy would on Christmas morning with a new bike under the tree. He mouths slowly so we can all understand him:

“Are those motherfucking vampires?”
We all look at each other. Baffled. Before any one of us gets a chance to answer, one of the supermodels scrambles up Nest 3. She moves fast, as fast as any one of us. We hear a scuffle and then one of the Citadels plummets to the ground. I had a plan to get hurt today.

I think this qualifies as a “be careful what you wish for” scenario.

We wait to get the Go signal from base. The four of us are standing, ready to attack. Vi has her rifle aimed. Henry's fists are curled up, his back is tensed—he's about to pounce. Boone, on the other hand, is practically squirming. I can tell he is dying to crack a joke. He opens his mouth.

“Don't,” I hiss.

“Oh, come on,” he whispers forcefully. “It's vampires,
I have to
.”

I roll my eyes and sigh. Each of us deals with these things in our own way. “Just one,” I concede.

Boone grins and nods his head. Finally we get the go-ahead from Command, but Boone gets it in before we all leap off.

“See? This is why I was always Team Jacob.” He jumps down. We all follow.

“
Twilight?
Really? That's what you're going to go with? The entire vampire canon and that's what you choose?” I say as we land. He just shrugs at me. From above, Violet shoots one of them in the chest. The guy startles, but he doesn't seem all that dazed. Now that I'm this close, the elongated fangs that spill out over their bright red lips are unmistakable. I have seen a lot during my time as a Citadel, but this? This is over the top. If we weren't in so much danger I would actually be laughing. I guess it's not impossible that there would be a humanoid
species that lives off blood. But if that's the case, why aren't they burning up in the sunlight? It occurs to me that it's stupid to think that anything about vampire lore on this Earth would apply to a species on another version of Earth. Evolution just doesn't work that way.

The other Citadels have charged, but whatever these things are (and okay, let's call them vampires for lack of a better word), they are fast and strong. We are about evenly matched, and I can't remember the last time that has happened. There are more of us, so it stands to reason that we will win. That doesn't mean that this is going to be easy.

Suddenly, I am face-to-face with a super sexy vampire guy. He has dark brown hair and violet-colored eyes. His features are chiseled enough to remind me of Superman. He has a cheeky kind of a smile on his face, and it takes me a moment to figure out why. Then it hits me.

Oh, God—he's
excited.
This is
fun
for him. Great.

Of course, he probably took one look at me and thought I might be a dainty little morsel, like a finger sandwich or one of those French multicolored cookies. And I realize something: this might actually be fun for me, too. I smile back . . . and punch him in the face. He doesn't move.

Not good.

He responds by backhanding me hard enough to launch me into the air and onto my back. I spring up off my hands to face him again. He lunges, I dodge. I throw a punch, he whizzes out of the way. He kicks me, I manage to grab his foot and throw my full weight into his shin, hoping to break a bone. It doesn't break. I raise an eyebrow and we circle each other for a couple seconds. The thought occurs to me that I actually have no idea how to best this dude. He's stronger than me and a damned good fighter. The only thing I have is the element of surprise.

I leap up and straddle him with my legs. I wrap both arms around him and lick my lips. This wasn't exactly how I imagined this would be, but given my particular life, it totally figures. My instincts were right—he is somewhat shocked, but I can tell by the look in his eye he's not entirely displeased. He smells amazing, an odd mix of blackberries and sea salt. I breathe him in. He slides his hands up my thighs and cradles my bottom in his palms. I have never been this close to a man in my life and I can feel the Blood Lust inside me building, fueling my power.

“Kiss me,” I whisper, but I don't wait for an answer. Instead, I touch my lips to his. I would have been more aggressive, but considering he has fangs and all—and I've never actually kissed anyone—I do my best. I hear him growl inside my mouth. God, I am a sick person, but this guy is hot and I can't deny that the whole experience is, in its own way, kind of a turn-on. No, scratch that—a massive turn-on.

Which is exactly what I am hoping for.

The fury explodes in my limbs and I squeeze harder, my mouth still on his. I feel his body tense and then scramble to get me off of him, and he manages to throw me. I feel like nothing in the world can stop me. I've never let this anger run its course and it feels wickedly good. I am panting now. I want to rip him apart. I ache to kick him in the chest so hard that his sternum breaks. My strange behavior has thrown him off balance and he is not prepared for the solid punch I land to his temple. He staggers a bit. I punch him again with an upper cut and he tries to shake it off. He looks at me with narrowed eyes. I see desire and rage.

Perfect—I feel the same way.

He runs at me, and I leap up over him, somersaulting in the air and landing behind him. I could take out my knife or
my gun, but I don't want to. I want to kill him with my bare hands. I have never felt so strong in my life. I know I could crush his windpipe if I get close enough . . .

And then I remember Ezra, the implant, the disk. I have to let him hurt me. I feel like that's impossible. I can't let the Blood Lust go. I'm on fire. The vampire uses my momentary distraction to pick me up and throw me as if I was nothing but a rag doll. I land in the soft peat. He hasn't hurt me. Not even a little. I spring up again and then jump to a low-hanging branch above me. I use the momentum from swinging to hit him hard in the stomach. It works. Finally he's down.

My rational mind is screaming to get injured. My body is literally trembling to hurt him. I scramble over to where he is in a flash. I am straddling him again now, me on top. I hear him laugh and say something in his own language. He's not scared of me. In fact, if I'm not mistaken—and based on what I am feeling beneath me, I'm not—he's pretty excited. It must be so simple for him. He wants blood and sex. I want everything. I want to hurt him, kill him, kiss him, undo his pants, press his eyeballs back into their sockets, lick him, strangle him, and let him hurt me. It's too much. I try to pin his hands down, but instead he rolls me over so that he's on top of me.

I have never felt the weight of a man this way, between my legs; it's foreign and strange. He absolutely should not be here, but I can't help the feeling that this is exactly where I want him to be. I don't know if it's my screwed-up wiring, or his exotic strangeness, or that finally, somehow, I am getting this kind of physical contact. He grinds against me slowly. It feels so good, and I am ashamed and furious. I buck my hips to try to get him off of me, but since I have zero experience in the sex department, it takes me a few seconds to understand that I am only making things worse. I stop and stare into his deep violet
eyes. There is only one way I am going to win today. I go perfectly still. While my body is retreating into opossum mode, however, my mind has other plans. I close my eyes and turn away from his beautiful face, exposing my neck. I can feel my jugular beating from the exercise and the adrenaline. He sees it. I know he does. I feel his mouth on my skin. His breath is hot, his lips are almost gentle at first. He kisses me and the only thing stopping me from raging against him is that my base instincts have strategically retreated and are waiting for another opportunity to fight back. My brain knows the truth of it. When his teeth sink into my vein, I involuntarily groan. It's painful, yes, but it's something else, too. It is dark and savage and . . . hot. Nice girls don't want to be hurt this way. I am not nice. Maybe this is all I deserve in the end. I could take out a weapon, shoot him in the forehead or cut his throat. The only reason I've engaged him hand to hand is so that I could get injured. The only reason I want to get injured is so that I can do this for real, without the violence. The irony of this is not lost on me as I feel the sticky blood he is sucking out of my neck trickle down behind my ear. I am suddenly very tired. It all seems pointless now. The edges of the forest blur and darken. The tension I've been holding in my body evaporates completely. If I was all alone I know I would be dead soon. I don't even really care that much.