daynight (17 page)

On that particular day we were doing combat in a dumpy shack located an hour into Death Valley. During the fight my dad made a crucial mistake, as I’d faked a hit to the abdomen, but whirled around and chopped him in the kidney from behind. His recovery was quick, but his stamina suffered, and the strength of his blows to my knees and left shoulder weren’t enough to keep me from a blunt kick to his shins, buckling his body and allowing me to pin him to the ground.
 

My dad never once showed pride in my efforts, that day being no exception. Instead, he pointed out my flaws and weaknesses, each posing a risk to my life, and by extension everyone important to him.

“I beat you,” I said.

“Your hits were weak, and I’d have been able to break your grip before you’d disabled me,” he responded. Sure, I thought, as I watched him wipe the sweat off his receding hairline. He’d long since shaved his beard and wore his hair military style—a stark contract from the bushy mess he’d kept in my youth, probably due to lack of shears or razors. Although my father had aged as all parents do, he kept a youthful glow about him, or what I like to call the ‘fire of revenge’ within.

“Well then, perhaps you should get someone else to go back to that hellhole,” I turned to storm out of the sauna he’d chosen for our match.

“Don’t you dare walk out on me! We have hours of work left. Once you get past the Eco barrier sim and across miles of desert you can rest. Until then, stop whining and focus, or I’ll leave you here and you can try to get back to civilization intact,” he said, voice raised so high it cracked.
 

All kind feelings he’d once displayed vanished the day my mother died, every pore of his body and soul having been devoted to getting us to safety, and then taking down the SCI. I blame the Militants for my dad’s changed demeanor. They took his seeds of disillusionment and blossomed them into a full-out obsession with revenge on the SCI that splintered the Exilers into two factions. Fanatical and practical. Guess where my Dad sided?

“Will I get birthday cake?” I said with a glare, not expecting an answer or the cake. “Happy birthday to me.”

“Just be happy you’re even able to have a birthday. Your mother’s not so lucky,” he responded, as if I needed the reminder. I followed him out of the shack. We walked a hundred yards where my ‘obstacle course’ awaited me. Rather than waste time with further argument, I slipped into a thin white reflective suit and protective mask, and squeezed my toes into the grips of the handmade stilts I’d fashioned from desert brush.

Placement of the stilts through the simulated dead man’s land was crucial. I blocked out everything but the pattern of chemical detonators. This pattern resembled the Milky Way. Any pressure applied on an actual Eco barrier sensor would fog the area with deadly gas. If the gas didn’t kill you immediately, the prolonged reaction to the acid released with the gas would melt the clothes from your body and disintegrate your flesh.

My dad could only simulate the experience. To live once back in my homeland, I’d try to figure out a way to disable all Eco barriers. Short of that, I need to locate and mentally store each city’s Eco barrier pattern, along with all the other data my father and his cohorts need. Had I not been blessed with a photographic memory, the task would be impossible. But I’d inherited my parents’ brilliant minds, and so the memorization was easy. I just had to master the physical execution.
 

Failure had plagued me the first couple dozen times I attempted the Eco carrier sim exercise. I’d set off my father’s fake chemical ‘smoke bombs,’ choking on the cloud of fumes generated and having to be dragged off the field. However, I refused defeat on my birthday, and so that day I’d used extra care to maneuver the grid, completing my mission in record time, despite the heat and dry brush littering the desert landscape. Twelve inches left, eight up, nine kitty corner to the right, back four, sideways to the right fourteen, and so on, three hundred sixty-four steps total. My legs had ached. Thirst consumed me, not having been allowed water in over twelve hours. But I removed my suit, wrapped it around my head in a makeshift sun hood, and ran the final five miles averaging seven minutes per mile to my destination, a small camp. There I’d coughed bloody mucous until my father had offered me a meager amount of water and dry biscuits.

“Your form was terrible,” he said. “You came within inches of the pressure points more than twenty times.”

“Whatever. I’d like to see you try,” I’d said, as I attempted to dislodge hot sand from my sweaty clothes. “I finished and I want to go home now.”

“Survive the night without being killed by scorpions or rattlers, and you can return to your cushy life at Aunt Jennifer’s,” he’d said.
 

Why has my father bemoaned me the life he’d promised my mother I’d have? But, ultimately he’s not really responsible, is he? The Second Chance Institute and their benefactors shoulder that burden. And what’s that saying about burdens being lifted off shoulders? That day will truly be a day for celebration. Not just for me. But for every Exiler and Second Chancer.

Night is the blotting paper for many sorrows.

Author Unknown

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Kira

Whatever uncharacteristic sweetness Blake had offered in the canyon quickly disappears the moment we enter the gym in our workout clothes and find Tristan and Bailey waiting for us.

“Welcome back,” Tristan says. “Hey Blake, want to lift with me? Think you can bench more?”

“Uh, no thanks, I’m going to run,” Blake responds. Thinking this must give him license to address me, Tristan wedges his way between us, pushing Blake aside with his right arm, and putting his left arm around me.
 

Tristan licks his lips and says, “I missed you while you were off canoodling with what’s his name in the canyon. We haven’t really had a chance to get to know each other,” looking me up and down like I’m a slab of beef at the local steak house. I check him out in return like he’s some sort of dead guy brought back to life. Oh wait...

Bailey wastes no time, grabs Blake’s arm, and says, “You run. I’ll follow. I love a good chase.” Looks like it’ll be a long night for both of us.

“Look,” I say staring into the big brown eyes I once loved so much, but don’t have the same glisten for me they’d used to have. “Tristan is it? I got a chance to know your girlfriend and she seems pretty cool. And, I’ve got a mandatory workout to get to, so…”

“I’ve got a killer circuit I can show you,” he says, ignoring my hints. “I’ve whipped every girl here into shape.” He starts to point at several girls and I note that he seems to only point out the exceptionally pretty ones, certainly not ‘every’ girl. My eyes turn to plead for Blake to interfere, but he’s already up to full speed on one treadmill, while Bailey’s slowly walking on the next one.

“I love Tristan’s circuit. Give it a try,” Bri says, appearing out of nowhere. Of course you do, I think. When I was forced to take cheer, gymnastics and dance as my mom’s clone-in-training, Briella played soccer and softball. In sixth grade, she grew from five foot two to five foot eight and took up basketball and volleyball, and her skills in both only improved as she grew another couple inches by eighth grade. She has the height and looks to be a model, though she could easily crush one. In contrast, I was all toothpick until ninth grade when I finally sprouted and curved. This secured me a coveted spot on the Carmel Valley High varsity cheer squad my sophomore year—or maybe my tumbling skills secured me the spot, I’ll never know. But I never topped five foot six.

“Yeah, OK, fine. Circuits it is,” I say, as Tristan leads me over to an area by the free weights and weight equipment. I follow along as he takes me through a routine of squats, chest presses and flies, tricep and bicep curls, lunges, leg extensions, crunches and more. He’s shocked that I pick it up so quickly, and use the right form. Of course, I can’t mention that I watched him do the same circuit dozens of times and suffered through it with him just as many. Every expression and grunt he makes ring familiar, not to mention his obsession with form and resting no more than thirty seconds between sets, and the way he slides his hands over his stomach ripples after doing crunches as if there’d be an immediate improvement. The only thing missing to complete the déjà vu is the kisses between sets and the thing added to create maximum awkwardness is periodic glares from Bri and Blake.

“What do you think?” Tristan asks, interrupting my thoughts.

“About what?” I mumble. I’m not sure I’m ready to make small talk with him.

“About all of it. Your new digs, the school, the people, the workout, me,” he says. That all?
 

“Oh,” I say. “It’s a bit early to make judgments on anything a few hours in.”

“You are an amazingly beautiful girl,” he says. “There’s something about you that is really… familiar and appealing. I can’t decide what it is, but I’m going to figure it out.” Could it be possible that some part of him remembers me, too? That he still feels a connection? Spud said that the Second Chancers often feel connected to the person they were last with… Well, Tristan in his stupidly drunken state that night kissed both Bri and me. I’m not sure how to respond to the flirting, though. A shower comes to mind, as the thought of kissing a dead guy still oozes creeper vibes from head to toe, just as I’d told Bailey and her vamp-seeking friends the night of her party.

“Thanks, I guess, for the inappropriate compliment and the workout,” I say. “I’m going to go do some stretching so I don’t feel like a pretzel tomorrow.” And so I can shake off the willies.

“What’s inappropriate about calling you beautiful?” he says, getting his sweaty, shirtless body a little too close for comfort, and reminding me how much taller he is than me. If I’d been expecting scars from where he’d been stitched back together, there are none, just the same swathe of chest hair he’s always had.

“Well, uh, you have a girlfriend and I’m with Blake,” I say. His eyes narrow and he shakes his blonde curls.

“Until I Cleave, I’m not tied down to anyone,” he says. “I still have a month before I’m eighteen, and until then I have time to convince any girl, including Bri and you, to Cleave me before someone else decides for me.” I shake at the thought. I’m speechless and just motion that I’m going over to stretch, leaving before he has the chance to say anything else, and quickly getting into a yoga pose, eyes closed.

“It’s okay, you know,” I hear, Bri’s voice. “I don’t blame him for being interested.”

I stare at her incredulously. “No, it’s not okay. At least I’m not okay with it. I think if you’re with someone, you’re with them and
only
them. From experience, I can assure you that anything else just leads to disaster and heartache.” I may sound a little bitter, still burned by their stunt the eve of Winter Formal, which is hardly fair since she has no memory of that night. For me, I only have one positive memory of that night and I’d like him to be the one to reappear. Every other person I remember being at that party and blown to smithereens is here, but not Ethan. In some ways, it’s worse to think that he
lived
and never contacted me, than died and resurrected here on Thera. He probably left the party, went straight to his girlfriend, and never looked back.
 

Bri cocks her head and gives me a look of pity. “Soon enough we’re going to be Cleaved for life, so I guess I want to make sure it’s right. And it wouldn’t be right for Tristan and me if he’s into someone else. He’d just be miserable. I knew the moment I first saw him that he was the guy for me, but it doesn’t happen that way for everyone. Last day I thought we would Cleave, but Tristan was pretty teebed so I let him sleep it off,” she says. This conversation sucks. How did I get to a place where I’m defending her relationship with Tristan and mine with Blake? And what exactly is ‘teebed’ that Tristan had to sleep off? I went through all our cupboards and didn’t see a drop of alcohol anywhere.

“Any guy would be crazy to not be into you. You’re gorgeous,” I say with all honesty. “And given Blake and I have only been here a few hours, it’s pure craziness to even be talking about Cleaving or anything of the sort. I’m just trying to get through the first night, you know?”

“Yeah, sorry,” she says, though I can tell she’s still concerned about it. I dare to look around and can see both Tristan and Blake’s eyes focused my way, though Bailey’s over there trying hard to distract Blake. My feelings are a jumbled mess. How can I ever make sense of dead people made alive, impending lifetime Cleavings and the implications thereof, my fake relationship with Blake, and back-to-life Tristan hitting on me? I rub my temples and fight off a migraine.

I continue my stretching and my situation analysis until Blake shrugs off Bailey and comes to offer me a towel. He stayed shirted tonight as if he’s embarrassed to be seen shirtless in the same vicinity as Tristan’s bodybuilder physique.

“Thanks,” I say. “How was your workout?” If I expected an answer, he disappoints, shrugging his shoulders as he winces. “Nothing’s changed,” I add, trying to reassure him. Why’s he so worried about our stupid, fake relationship anyway? He leans in to give me a light kiss on the cheek and whispers.

“Sure it has,” he says, and then louder adds, “I’ll walk you back after showers.” I open my mouth to object, but he puts two fingers against my lips. His defeatist attitude irks me big time.
 

Can he really think I’ll give up my entire life back on earth, as pathetic as it’s been recently, to live with my dead high school boyfriend here on rule-heavy Thera? Sure, I still have feelings for Tristan. How could I not? My life revolved around him before he died, but not always in a positive way. If I wasn’t sure Tristan was the ‘one’ after more than a year, how could I hope to decide that before his eighteenth birthnight? Those last few weeks before Tristan died had been a lot more negative than positive. If Blake has anyone to be concerned about for competition with our fake relationship, it’s Ethan, not Tristan. A perfect fantasy boy’s way more dangerous than a very imperfect, two-timing ex. Just thinking about Ethan makes my heart ache in a way that neither Blake nor Tristan can. With some effort, I re-bury the memory.