Evanescent (31 page)

I sat in the crossfire, both my shifts fighting each other for a place in my heart. I choked back tears of fear as the bitter taste of hate for what I was clung to my insides. This is how the disease works. It turns you against yourself, so you can give in to it, to its promising power to take all humanity away from you – to forget. How could he love a monster? I could not contain it any longer. It was who I had to become. I saw my transformed reflection in the pod. I was a hideous beast. I
ran from one side of the room, stricken with fury and a blazed sai glued to my palm, and tore through the glass of each bluish, domed pod before me. Vengeance was all that existed as shards showered down on me. I was deep within my guilt and self-loathing. Blood, oil, and ichor splattered the walls around me as I kept running; it all stained my skin with their strange blood – my blood! It was I who had been responsible for their existence. I let Enoch do this to me, to them. My mind was reeling like a speeding craft through all existence, beyond and back. My pulse beat a solid shame inside the dark fabric of my mind, spreading like a wild fire through my veins, infecting my body with its venom. This was what a weapon did – abolish all, leaving nothing in its wake. The next hall of tubes were merely shapeless bodies, no faces, no hair, but the blood leaking through paper-thin skins taunted me. I drew both sais higher, and ran through the rows once more, cutting, piercing and shattering glass. My rage showered me with sharp, clear, glass slivers, reflecting the blue liquid from other pods. I was drowning in a sea of monsters. With each slice of glass on my skin, the sweet pain attempted to work its magic in killing my suffering heart. I spun and sliced through a golden tube running up and out from the floor, and into a row of pods. A huge alarm pierced the air, a siren designed to bring the intruder down with such a high frequency it shook the stone walls, threatening to bring the entire structure down, too. I grinned, watching the unmarked clones drain of the little life they had. There will never be another disaster like me! My instinct took over and I was deaf, not able to hear a single shard of glass crashing to the floor, or the shrill that sent waves of paralyzing noise throughout the fortress. I took to a flight of stairs, the yellow beat of lights flickered, illuminating only patches of the narrowing tunnel. I reached yet another tapered line of tubes and shapeless bodies. I flicked my sai out again, hardly feeling the burn of untrained muscles, the strain of weak wrists, and my ruined arm. I screamed, sprinting through the wall of tubes, slicing every single pod right to the end of the room. I am the destroyer, and destroy the dark army I must. But, as their life force drained, I felt their fear, their panic and anger. In a weakened frame of mind, I had not noticed that they had been activated. They had started to breathe, and as the panic took hold, I shut it down from all reason and logic. Those beings were not meant to be. I had to walk away, pull up a wall of ice around myself. It had to be that way. I was the one. This was my destiny. Then I felt something else pushing its way up my throat, and I knew exactly in that moment what Enoch had meant when he had said we were the same. Indeed, there was something inside of me that ran through him, the same rottenness that caused us to become killers. I didn’t want to be a killer. I wanted my shift to leave me!

“Get out of my head!” I screamed. I found it hard to drink down the bitterness, but in its wake a burning sensation rose up from my stomach. I knew the taste of dark craft working its way up and out of me. I held on to the wall before me, not being able to ignore the faint beating of the now dying, synthetic beings. Thoughts spilled through the liquid fire burning its way up my throat. I doubled over as the dark liquid forced its way out, it bit at my insides; scorched my entire face as it came pouring out of me. The potion left me cold and numb. Dizziness gripped me with ironclad fists. This wasn’t me. The anger, the regret and mortification crept in – this wasn’t me! I closed my hands around the hilt of the sai. I fell with my back against the hard, stone wall, wiped my mouth with the back of my forearm and drew in a breath, my broken arm shaking violently as I slowly released the blood-shift; its claws unhooked. I had to fight it, even if it meant for an eternity. I will not let it take me again. Troy. Troy was my salvation. I would stay pure for him. My arm trembled, and my body felt each and every injury as the shift disappeared. I stared at blood and bone. I had to save these beings!

“
Hold on,”
a voice said.

I looked around pointlessly because I knew that voice, the voice that had pulled me from the darkness before. His heart was beating so close. I slowed my pulse, closed my eyes, thought of Arriana’s words. “
Block it all out, the fear binds you.”

I could feel my pulse, a slow drum beating within my mind, a solid thump within my body. My breathing slowed, a soothing silence flowing into the corners of my mind, wiping away the fear, the shift, and then I felt Maya – she, too, was so close. I was saved, and we could save these beings from dying a cold, lonely death. I had to run back, find my way to that golden pipe and plug them back in. The second I opened my eyes, a hand pinned me to the wall.

“I know what you are going to do before you even do it!” Enoch sneered at me, hitting the weapon from my hand.

I suddenly realized that the sirens had stopped. Did the silence mean the beings had died?

“You cloned me you sick, twisted, freak!”

“Why do you think I created her? All in the name of research.” He smiled. “I used her to gain knowledge of you and him. I know what your true purpose is, and now I know what he is. What he is to things like us.” He chuckled. “The only way to destroy the disease is by knowing it, being it. And now you know
it
, and you know its antidote. If you two don’t ignite…” He continued to smile wickedly. “You know what you will become right?”

I stared at Enoch, trying to figure out if he was pushing images into my mind. I glared into glacier eyes. Was it really him with metal extremities so cold it scalded the very skin he touched? His metallic arm held me to the wall, the icy burn spread through my veins, slowly searing up into my throat. I started to choke on icy tendrils. My breath came out in white frozen wisps. I closed my eyes, pushing the frost from my mind; he had tricked me before, and I was not going to let it happen again. He couldn’t push me anymore, it was my choice not his. There was no ice, and I was not dying!

“I am going to enjoy taking all of this away from you. Who do you think you are, you have no right,” I said to Enoch, opening my eyes so I could stare into his solid glare. The ice around his touch slowly started melting.

“You are the queen carrier, so this is for you, my destiny is to deliver all of this to you!”

“You have no right,” I repeated, feeling so delirious from the pain I wanted to laugh.

“You gave me that right and lost yours the moment you took from the Shadow to kill me, and by killing yourself you only sealed your fate; by killing me, you became
my
Ignited one.”

His grin was chilling, but his words ripped through my mind. What was he saying?

I swallowed, summoning courage.

“You gave me full rights to your body, to your soul, when you gave it to me willingly. You are responsible for our bond. You made who you are by your own hand, and you are the Shadow we were warned about. You have brought this war.”

“Liar.”

“No. I know what you are. I have always known. You will become the Alpha of Darkness. This is why the spirit wanted you. Now that you’ve taken over from him – you are compelled by blood, and by your choices to infect and carry the Shadowing disease to its fullest potential. Your divinity only gives it strength. You have made our kind indestructible.”

“No!” I whispered.

His metal hand, cold and solid grabbed my jaw and he shoved his face into mine. With his human hand, he traced his fingers up the side of my face, and slid them through my hair. I summoned up any fluid I could from my parched mouth, and spat it in his face forcefully. He only grinned.

“How can you forget that night, your naked body against mine? Your desire so pure and intense, it took from me.” He pressed himself against my body.

It became difficult to breathe, to think.

“You wonder how the Shadow is a part of you. You, Ava, asked for it to come,” he said simply.

“You tricked me!” I shouted, feeling the heaviness of that mistake fall down on me repeatedly.

“I’ve said this to you before – I will take everything from you,” he said on a whisper as he turned my head to speak into my ear, and then sharply inhaled my scent.

“Let her go.” Troy stood at the entrance.

My body shuddered in cold and hot sweats. He stood in the doorway, fists clenched in hard, white balls of fury, his eyes bleeding into a distant, dark, midnight-ink. My blood ran ice into the pit of my stomach. He had heard everything. He now knew what I was, what I had done, and what I would become. I was a disease.
The
disease. I had ignited Enoch. I had killed the prophecy. Worse, I had ruined our destiny to be together. Turning my glare to the floor, I felt so ashamed knowing that he knew how I had welcomed the darkness which had ruined us, how I was becoming addicted to the shift. When I looked back up, his eyes clung to mine for answers, where I could give him none. I was fallen.

I took in every inch of all that was gorgeous – Troy, from his golden halo of hair, to his divine face, a perfect square jaw, his tender lips, and etched it all into my mind, my skin, my chest, and pushed it into my soul. In case I never got to see him again. This way, I would remember him with all of me. My salvation. Then I saw the wound in his side, no wonder I smelled him so fiercely. Troy’s eyes flickered from mine and pinned on Enoch, but Enoch only squeezed my jaw tighter and laughing, lifted me from the ground with one hand. I kept my eyes on Troy, I was no longer scared of what was to come, there was nothing left to lose. My clone emerged behind Troy, her hand reached for his. Troy registered this as if it was all new to him – who I was, and who she was. I guess seeing both of us in the same place at the same time, was a certainty. Enoch smiled, his grip slipped upon Troy’s next firm warning, but only to tightening around my windpipe. Troy stalked closer, his wound bleeding profusely, but still he held on to my clone’s hand. I knew he had too much to do. How could he keep her from shifting and save me without injuring himself any further?

“Troy,” I called for him.

His gaze collided with mine. I told him everything I wanted to say in just one stare. I had to. I was sure I was never going to get the chance ever again. When his eyes met mine, it froze everything, and I was with him for that moment.

This is love; when it feels like your insides are going to come out, so intense that it breaks all enchantments. The moment when we know that this was the closest two people could ever be. There was no touch and no words. In that moment, I knew him. He was beautiful, strong, gentle, solid and real. I wanted to let go because it was so strong. I thought it would kill me.

“I will not tell you again Enoch,” he threatened.

The itchy sensation crawling beneath my skin was building into a crescendo of clear, unadulterated anger, sharp and powerful enough to steal my breath. I was fighting the blood-shift with all I had. I was fighting for love. Looking into Troy’s eyes as they darkened upon his realization, the fire behind them was a look of solid madness. He was holding back too, but he was also paling by the second. We kept our eyes locked, waiting for the perfect moment. It was heartbreaking that this kind of damaging love was dangerous enough to move the most rigid hearts, the intensiveness turned my stomach. I closed my eyes, because I couldn’t stand that he was feeling this way too, especially after everything I had done. And because of that kind of deep love that burrowed itself into every inch of me, I was able to withstand every push Enoch forced on me. The shift was slamming against any restraint I could manifest. Enoch’s words pierced through me, burning their way into my head, seeking somewhere to slip in and slay me from the inside. I had ruined everything with one stupid mistake. And now it fell upon us all. “
Hang on
.” The words were clear, the voice unmistakable. Troy had found a way to push words into my mind. I felt a second wind take me and forced my lids open. Enoch was so close I could almost taste him, and I hated that. He was my mistake, he was my ruin, and I would not let it decay my hope. The Truth Seekers had come far, our kind had a way out. Troy’s pulse thumped inside me. We steadied each other with our rhythms, we connected through the distance between us. I felt him, we thought as one and it lifted me. Enoch looked from me to Troy and then back, grinning so wickedly it cut. He knew my weakness. My blood boiled, stomach churned, and anger flared white-hot through me. My skin tingled. The shift was coming. It all happened in slow motion; Troy lunged at us, sweat from his brow fell to the floor, his hand gripped his side when the flesh of his wound tore open as he closed in on us. I was watching everything slowly slip away. Enoch turned toward Troy, and his mechanical arm shot out whilst still holding me. Enoch snarled like a beast. Out of his mechanical arm, a short-handled spear escaped. It released a poison that splattered over the entire room as it spiraled through the air. Troy had missed the drops. I swayed in Enoch’s grip. I was having a hard time keeping the shift at bay, but when I saw my sister and Rion enter I screamed, “Get oooout!” as the poison took to the air around the twisting spear.

My eyes trailed the last of the poison’s spray as it landed on them both. I tried to kick Enoch as I dangled from his grip, but my legs were too short to reach. Troy slid to the floor moments before the tip planted itself in his heart. The spear sliced above his head and as he slid, he kicked Enoch’s feet from under him and slammed me with him. My breath left me as I thumped, chest first to the ground, my fingers desperately trying to twist the material out of his claws. But somehow Enoch managed to strike Troy when he was distracted by my well-being. Troy grunted getting to his feet again, his gray shirt a bloodied mess. His breath ragged and broken.