Antitype (8 page)

“Goddammit,” I yell at the phone, and I'm about to throw it, but Dad steps outside.

“Come on. We have an appointment.”

“What appointment?”

He frowns. “Don't ask questions. Just come on. I don't want to be late.”

I walk toward the house. “Should I change?”

“No.”

We take the teleporter together and appear in the WTC. “What are we doing here?”

“Didn't I tell you not to ask questions?”

He gives me his back and strides off. The hallways we take are quiet, and given his pace, we have a bit of time. I try Mitch again.

“Come on,” I mutter. “Pick up.”

Every passing ring kills me. Every second that goes by unanswered puts distance between me and the one person on this planet who understands me.

“In here, boy,” Dad calls back. “Let's get this over with. I have back-to-back meetings all day.”

I pick up my pace but leave the phone against my ear. I need Mitch to answer. I need him to.

Dad turns into a room up ahead. I hear him a second later say, “Skinny, but you'll do.”

What the hell? Who's he talking to like that?

I turn into the room, and there she is. As brave and beautiful in her defiant stare now as she was last month.

“Hang up,” Dad snaps.

I do without hesitation, because I want to devote all my attention to this girl. Whoever she is. Her hair is curled, she wears a simple layer of makeup, and her teal dress benefits her in ways she can't possibly understand.

But then I realize this is Dad's appointment. I attempt a laugh but manage only a smirk. “She's a little young for you, Dad.”

Say she isn't for him. Say she's for
me
. Say there's a ray of hope in the form of this beautiful girl. Say my future isn't as dark as I think it is.

Dad grunts. “Don't be ridiculous. She's for you. Declan, meet your birthday present.”

He says her name, and it's as if I've known it my entire life.

I'm going to be worthy of her,
I swear to myself.

Noah

I pace the white hall outside the hospital teleporter room. A thick indigo stripe acts as a runner down the center of the light-reflecting linoleum. The air has an antiseptic smell, and the occasional distant yell breaks up the quiet tapping of my footsteps.

Sonya leans against the wall opposite me, arms folded, ankles crossed. Her long hair lies twisted over one shoulder. “Hannah's fine.”

“They're late,” I say, dragging a hand through my hair. “Can you call someone?”

She pushes off the wall. “They're only ten minutes late.”

My cell rings. Dad. I can't talk to him. Not today. Not when I'm about to make his eldest daughter disappear. I don't know why I feel so guilty. He did this to himself. But a part of me wonders if he'll grieve her absence. If, behind closed doors, he'll suffer even an ounce of heartache.

I decline the call and shove the device back in my jeans pocket. “I'd lose an account in less time than that,” I mutter. Ten minutes is a lifetime to some people. Dad taught me that.

“Maybe there was a fuckup with the transfer paperwork,” I say. “Do you think anyone will notice the orders are false?”

She slants me a wry grin. “Don't worry. I know what I'm doing. She'll be here.”

Dad calls again. I silence the ring, asking, “Who did you send to get her?”

“People I trust.” She crosses the hall and grips my arms. The deep brown of her eyes sinks into the depths of mine and holds them steady. There's always been something so inexplicably trustworthy in them. “You have to stop tormenting yourself. You're tormenting me.”

She smiles, and I return it before I can help it. The act feels strange. I haven't had much to smile about lately. “Okay. I'll stop.”

“Good.” Her lips purse in an attempt to quell her smile, and she rests against the wall, arms behind her back. “Nathan said you're leaning toward crossing over to work with us full-time.”

“Yeah, I think so.” I recline beside her, our shoulders touching. Her smell is sweet today. Almost too sweet, but not unpleasant. “Once I get everything settled. Gabe seems to be ready to take over in my place, which was a concern before. No matter what, I want to make sure my family's company is in good hands. And the girls are taken care of.” I look at the closed teleporter room door. “Almost, anyway.”

“Did you get an adoptive home for the other girls worked out?”

My throat thickens. “Yes. My mother found them a nice home in Oregon.”

“You don't sound happy about it.”

“The couple isn't a fan of the resistance. They're happy to help, but as long as I'm enlisted, they ask I keep my distance.” Mom, against her better judgment, had to tell them why this had to happen so fast, and she was out of options.

Sonya's hand wraps around mine. “That's terrible.”

I attempt a smile. “If only there were a way to have both lives. The CEO and the resistance fighter.”

“I'm sorry.”

“It's okay,” I say. “I'll figure it out.”

My cell vibrates with yet another call. I groan and drag it back out of my pocket. “It's my dad. I should take this.” I step away and put the phone to my ear. “What's up, Dad?”

“Son, I need you to come to the house.” He sounds eerily calm, but not the easygoing sort. This is the bad news about to roll in and wreck my ship of calm.

“Something wrong?”

“I got an emergency alert fifteen minutes ago from the hospital. It's Hannah.”

I spin toward Sonya, who straightens. I wasn't expecting this call for hours. But if Hannah's already gone, why isn't she
here
?

Sonya's phone buzzes. She stares at the screen and a crease deepens between her brows. She turns to answer and whispers into the receiver.

“Did something happen?” I ask. If I could stare through Sonya's back to see her face, I would. Based on the fact that my heart is galloping its way into my throat, I know something's happened.

“What's happened is I'm going to bury that hospital in litigation,” Dad says firmly.

Sonya turns and tears shine in her eyes.

I hang up the phone, too frustrated to wait for Dad to tell me. “Tell me.”

“I'm so sorry,” she whispers.

The weight of gravity doubles on my shoulders. “What? They found out, didn't they?”

She shakes her head. “No.” She takes a moment to steel herself. To blink and suck in air. She's donning her doctor composure like a suit. “Hannah's gone. She committed suicide.”

My stomach sinks, and I fight the urge to be sick. Sonya reaches for and sinks with me to the floor that will hold what remains. Tissue, blood, and bone swathed in pain so acute I can't breathe.

 • • • 

The vodka bottle clicks sharply against my glass in the dark dining room. Somewhere in the house, Gabe has gathered our brothers to tell them about Hannah. Aaron yells at Dad. I can't blame him.

This goes on for another half hour before Dad appears in the doorway, a towering silhouette of righteousness. “I could have used your help in there,” he says. “Lights.”

The chandeliers turn on and I squint, blinded. With the new brightness in the room, I realize how raw my eyes are now that I'm forced to see my surroundings.

Dad stands across the table, arms folded. His dark gray suit jacket looks as pristine as the open-collared black shirt he wears underneath. Like he just put them on for a day of work.

“You mourn well, Dad,” I say, tipping my glass at him.

He glances between the half-empty bottle and me. “Just how drunk are you?”

“Drunk enough that if you don't move a little slower, I'll be sick all over this fine mahogany table.” I laugh, realizing I just might, and wouldn't that be perfect? Dad loves this table.

He frowns. “I'll have a room made up for you. Carter and Aaron are staying too. You may as well.”

“Don't tell me. You're concerned I might get ahold of a med injector and type in a lethally high dosage.” I grin. “Losing two kids the same way in one day? Would you at least mourn one of us then?”

His lips purse. “I refuse to have this conversation again. Of course I'm heartbroken over what happened. It's a horrible tragedy no one could have foreseen.”

My blood pressure rises to dangerous levels too fast to contain. How dare he act as if he lost a pet? A good servant. A wife.

I stand and throw my empty glass at the wall. “Nobody? Explain to me how a girl who couldn't fight, who was too doped up to even plan a trip to the bathroom, knocks out a man twice her size. How she happens to know his security codes on the injector. Don't for a second assume you'll have the same conversation with
me
you had with
them,
Dad.”

His face pales, and his knuckles whiten on the back of the chair in front of him. “That's quite an accusation.”

“I'm beyond accusations. I've moved right into sentencing.”

“There's no proof.”

I don't need proof. I'm intelligent enough to know he's beyond penalization in a court of law. But I can do to him what nobody else can. “You, me, the company . . . We're done. I'm out. If I could disown you, I would. Or divorce you. There's a term you understand.”

For the first time in months, I know without a shadow of doubt what path to take. And I have him to thank for that. He reminded me what's wrong with the world we live in. How close I came to following in his footsteps. Now I understand the emotion that drove Updike into joining the resistance, where before it was just a myth. A notion I couldn't fully grasp.

Half his mouth curls up. “If you think I'll let you sell out—”

“If you try to stop me”—I lean forward and press a finger into the tabletop—“I'll
murder
your public image.”

He laughs. “You couldn't.”

“With Gabe and Aaron behind me? I'll never get Carter to stand against you, but make no mistake; I'm capable of just about anything at this point.”

His eyes narrow, and red splotches his cheeks. “Leave the others out of this.”

“Buy me out.” I shove a palm tablet across the table. “I've already done the hard part. The offer's a little high, but you can afford it. All it needs is your digital signature. I won't ask you for a single thing as long as I live.”

He leans over the table, palms pressed on either side of the tablet. He reads the offer he's made to buy my shares, frowns, and heaves a sigh. “You don't have to do this.”

“For the sake of everyone involved, I most definitely do.”

He meets my eyes. “This accusation of yours never leaves this room. Ever.”

“Not even a bedside whisper will pass my lips.”

He nods once and lifts the device.

 • • • 

I exist in a vortex. Twisted and spun and sucked deep by blurred lines they call days. Hours. Minutes. Every second is difficult to latch on to. Occasionally, I'm spit out, blinking, shattered by reality. Blinded by the truth of my situation. Feeling the pain of loss all over again. Before I know it, I'm lost in the whirlwind again. I long to be out, but then I am, and I long to go back in.

The truth is, I would rather not exist at all. I gave up so much, and for what? I lost Hannah, my father, my brothers. I'm about to say good-bye to my sisters for God only knows how long. I face isolation for the first time in my life and I have no idea how to handle it.

I remind myself repeatedly that I will never be alone. Not while I spend three meals a day with hundreds of my peers, eating food from the same scraped metal plates. Not while I wear the identical black uniform complete with a mandatory com in my ear and two HK plasma pistols on my hips. But that doesn't change the fact that I
am
alone. That I left my brothers with a father who is capable of unspeakable things. With every day that passes, I wonder if I made the right decision. The boys need someone other than our father to look up to. I can only hope Gabe is the man for the job. He proved to be more than I expected in the last four months.

“What do you mean you aren't coming back?” Gabe yells to me now.

I hold the phone away from my ear. Two men I pass in the hub's square, concrete hall hear his raised tone and glance over. “Gabe—”

“Dad said he bought you out at
your request.
I'm just as pissed at him over this Hannah situation as you are, but did you have to give up everything?”

“I can't get into this with you now,” I say, ducking into a quiet corridor. The crowds of enlisted men grow thick as they prepare to leave for tonight's raid. “Just suffice it to say that I couldn't in good conscience follow Dad so blindly anymore. I'm hoping you won't either.”

“I'm not asking Dad to buy me out, if that's what you're asking me to do.”

“No, of course not. I want you to take over the company after he retires. Turn it into something great. I've seen your recent reading material, so I know you've got ideas brewing. You'll take it in a better direction.”

He's silent for a moment. “I might have some thoughts.”

Warmth unfurls across my chest. I knew he could do this. “I'm so damn proud of you, little brother. You're capable of some really great things.”

“You think so?”

His voice sounds small, and we're suddenly six and four again. He's at the top of a hill with his hover trike, tears brimming, doubting he can make it to the bottom in one piece. “
You can do it,
” I told him. “
You're the bravest kid I know.
” And because I said it, he believed it. Believed, and succeeded.

“I know it,” I tell him. “Do what Dad can't. Or won't.”

He sighs. “You aren't really disappearing, though, are you?”