Under My Skin (16 page)

He looked away from me and I almost could imagine the gears turning in his head before he spoke. “General Dagon hid my brother and I need you to find him.”

I didn’t answer Quinn for some time. I was already in a precarious position. How could I do such a thing?

“Quinn, I don’t think that’s something I can do...I wouldn’t even know how to begin the search,” I murmured.

“If we find him, then I’ll tell you exactly what you need to do to get rid of him.”

I crossed my arms. “Where did you learn how to do this?”

“You’re not the only one who has been through this. Before I entered the military, I’d been a Water Bearer too.”

Even if he had been one though, I needed more information. It couldn’t be that simple. “Any way you can prove that?”

He offered me a small smile. “The proof you need lies with the Resistance. They’re the ones fighting the Guild.”

Now he had my attention. “What do you know about them?”

“Plenty. They were the ones who tried to capture you before you were taken to the General’s estate. Their operative, a girl named Claire, had plans to warn you and failed.”

I nodded—he’d given me all the proof I needed for now. “One last question. Does the Vorhees Unit work in reverse? Can we use it to push him out?”

“Nope. The tech doesn’t work that way.”

Well, there went that idea. Even though I still didn’t completely understand his request, I couldn’t help but feel a bit of hope.

That hope vanished the next morning when I woke to a world in motion. My body moving on its own. I wasn’t in control today. Just simply a passenger while the true driver walked around.

“What are you doing?” I asked the General. My question came out as a slur. My mouth wasn’t mine right now.

“Handling my business for the day. What does it look like, girl?” To hear my own voice while the General used it...was beyond disgusting, especially after all those days of feeling in control. He most likely used all that time to recharge and prepare for what he did to me now. All my confidence slipped through my fingers while he ate breakfast. Des brought his tray to the master suite. When she lifted the lid, I held back a shudder.

So much food. So much meat. He forced me to eat everything. Forced wasn’t the right word. Using
my
hand, he scooped up sunny-side up eggs and placed them in my mouth effortlessly. I fought. I prayed. But I was nothing but a bystander, a prisoner in my own body. Worst of all, I could faintly taste what I ate, feel the slimy leather-like texture as the eggs slid down, and hear the jarring crunchiness of the bacon. When the back of my throat wretched twice, the General laughed.

“Don’t like it that much, do you? Quite a shame, isn’t it?” He laughed while Des continued her work. I could only see where the General wanted to look, but, from her downturned face, I sensed her pity.

I still tried to fight him. I really did. But nothing I did so much as twitched a muscle. Quinn’s words swam through my head again and again:
He plots how to dominate people in his sleep.
And I should’ve prepared for today.

Just as the General promised, we conducted business in the city: visits to dignitaries, lunches with other military personnel, so many people I didn’t know and couldn’t escape. I wanted to cover my mouth from all these strangers who openly stared at my face, but I didn’t. They were beautiful men and women with bodies perfected by the hands of the best physicians. I wanted to walk away from men who argued with me—with the General—over problems I didn’t know about or understand. Like Quinn told me, I tried to listen and retain any information, but it was too overwhelming at times.

I was swimming against the current, and soon I’d be over my head.

At one particular meeting, I had afternoon drinks with a high-ranking Guild official and his wife. They sat opposite me, the woman feeding morsels of beef to an overweight toy dog, while the man scratched at a gleaming bald spot on his head. I tried not to imagine the poor people whose souls they’d buried to take their place.

Quinn and Cecelia waited to serve me from the other side of the room. For once, I wished I could join them. Smoke from the man’s cigar filled the room, leaving me in a haze I inhaled with each breath the General took. The man’s Water Bearer, a girl who had to be around my age, stood close behind him with a serving tray. After she offered him another drink, he said, “You’ve had this body for some time now? Do you have any plans for that atrocious scar on your face?”

Trapped within my mind, I couldn’t react to his words.
Jerk.

The General made me laugh, loud and hearty. “I paid good money for this body. I even paid a few more credits to keep this
smile
.” He snorted for good measure. “I’ll get rid of it when I’m good and ready.”

Quinn’s fists clenched, but I couldn’t see him anymore when the General turned away.

After a few minutes, the official switched subjects. “Do you think the Prime Minister will select you to push back the invaders to the north?”

“Most likely. But the Prime Minister can be fickle when it comes to politics.” The General picked up a drink from the end table next to his seat. He took a gulp of liquor and sighed. Again, that awful taste. A burning on my tongue from the honey-colored liquid. The tenuous hold I had on my body was centered in an area from my nostrils into my mouth. And this area was being subjected to the most foul smoke, food, and drink. It was just another way to show me who had the upper hand right now.

“Our enemies have made similar mistakes in the past,” the man said. “But with a coordinated effort, we should have no problems driving them out.”

“Every conflict is solved with deceit, Marcus. You study the enemy, you learn his weak points, and then you exploit them.”

Right after I said the words, a spark ignited in my brain. I’d heard those words before:
deceit and conflict are one and the same.
With my interest piqued, I clung to that statement and formed a plan: once we returned to General Dagon’s estate, I had to search his library.

The trip ended as it began, with me sitting alone while Cecelia and Quinn sat ahead of me. I would’ve dreaded the ride, but as Des helped me dress for the trip, she tucked a small piece of plastic into my hand. From the quick glance she gave me, she expected me to look at it when I was alone. Truly alone.

I had that chance once we reached the General’s estate, my new home in the middle of a vast expanse of grounds surrounded by electrified fences and two guard posts at the gates. I practically had my own military base in my front yard. To see all this from the outside again made me feel like a trapped animal. Everyone told me the fences and walls were for the safety of the General’s household. But I knew his defenses were meant to keep people—like the ones who tried to rescue me—out and to keep me in.

Des offered to bring my lunch to the master suite, but I declined. “I have things to do in my study. I’ll eat later,” I said with as much coldness as I could muster.

Unlike Rebecca, who would’ve chased me and questioned who was in control, Des gave Cecelia a tray instead. I expected Cecelia to play tag-along, but she simply left me in the grand foyer and plodded down the hall. Quinn waited patiently at my side.

With no one to spy on me, I entered the General’s study and locked us inside.

He didn’t know who was in control, so he took his place to guard the door.

I covered my mouth. “Don’t let anyone in, Quinn.”

He slowly nodded, trailing behind me much closer than expected. “What are you looking for?”

“Something valuable…”

“Can I help?” The distraction of my hunt was nothing compared to the fluttering in my stomach having him so close. He just wanted to offer a hand, but I couldn’t help but think about what it might be like to turn around and really talk to him face to face.

“Not yet,” I finally replied. “If someone comes in, I don’t want things to look suspicious.”

While he hovered nearby, I examined the plastic square. I’d rolled it around my hand for the entire flight, and I couldn’t wait to see what it was about. The small, bright pink disk resembled the ones I’d seen on the comm-console. Girls used them to send quick text messages to each other. I turned it over and examined it, but nothing happened. No network indicator light. Just a black strip where the text should appear. I tapped both sides and waited. After a few minutes, I gave up and put it on the desk. Maybe I’d try again later.

Okay, time to find a needle in a haystack.
I searched for a while and tried not to feel deterred by all the books on the shelves along the walls. All I had to do was find a book about war, most importantly, a book that taught about how to make war.

As I browsed the shelves, Quinn kept me from going mad with casual conversation.

“I vaguely remember what it was like to have one of them in my head. How are you feeling?” he asked.

I paused in my search. “Both deterred and hopeful at the same time.” I could’ve said much more—that I was growing tired everyday and that this chance from Quinn was all I had. Instead of saying the words out loud I set about doing what had to be done.

The General had a vast amount of reading material. Books about agriculture, politics, and, most importantly, ancient weaponry. But there was nothing I could classify as a book about tactics of warfare. The task was time-consuming, and I didn’t have much time to linger on all the titles. I started at the far end of the room and used the ladder to view the titles on the higher shelves. By the time I got close to the far end, I abandoned the idea. If this book were so special, why would he keep it on one of those shelves?

From up high on the ladder, I considered the glass cases he kept on the other side of the room. The General stored old weapons inside of one, while the other two had old boxes inside. At first, I didn’t try them, since I expected them to be locked. But then again, didn’t I have the General’s bar code?

I passed the first glass case and only gave a side glance at the dirty and weathered las-gun inside. None of the other stuff was recognizable.

The next two cases looked interesting. I walked around to the other side of them until I spotted the locked opening. Yep, he’d used a bar code scanner for these. With a flash of my wrist, I opened the door to one and took out the velvet-covered box. When I opened it, I expected to see a book. Instead, I found a beautiful locket. The tarnished metal barely shined, but the weight in my hands told me the jewelry was real gold. On the front side of the locket someone had scratched out an inscription. The latch was broken, but when I gently pried it open, I found an image inside.

A smiling man and woman, perhaps a few years older than me, sat side-by-side in a garden. I recognized the man immediately from my dream and that haunting painting. It was General Dagon. In the tiniest of letters under their faces, I read:
Frederick and Justina—Forever
.

So they had been a couple. With the way those two acted, I wasn’t surprised they weren’t together anymore. I put the locket back in the box.

Time to check out the next one. This box appeared newer than the last. It had the same velvet, but had a greater height than the other box as well. When I opened it, I couldn’t contain my squeal. A small leatherback book with the title,
The Tactics of Combat,
lay on the bottom. This had to be it!

Quinn looked at me with interest, but didn’t interfere.

I pulled out the book and sat at the desk. Time to figure out if the book would help me with the passcodes. He’d said the first one was
vital importance
. Now I just had to find where those two words were located and attempt to discern how I could get another passcode. There had to be some kind of system in place. Even maniacal generals didn’t just pick words at random.

Once I settled into the chair, I browsed and hunted for the first passcode. The contents of the book wasn’t be something I would read, but I tried to remember Quinn’s words. Whenever I wanted to glance over anything boring, like instructions on the proper way a general governed his troops, I mentally slapped myself and tried to stay on task. This was my life. And if I had to read and memorize this entire book, then I’d do it.

After about five minutes, I found what I was searching for:

1. The tactics of combat are of vital importance to the military.

There it was. The first passcode. I bet the second one had to be part of number 2:

2. These tactics are a matter of life and death, a path either to safety or to ruin. Thus one must study with perseverance and determination.

A lot of words there. I brought the comm-console to life and saw the login form waiting. I almost typed in the word determination but stopped. Was that the right one?
Take it slow.
No need to hurry. Which one would
he
have picked? Determination sounded too simple. No power behind it. I chose ruin.

The console flashed red and warned me I had two more times before the console would lock me out for twenty-four hours. I scanned the two sentences again. Ruin seemed like a good choice. But he had used two words together last time. I sat back in the seat and sighed. Things didn’t look good.

Well, time to lock this console down. I tried
life and death
next. The console flashed red. Instead of waiting again, I decided to just try another one and get it over with. I entered a single word and waited for the lock out.

But it worked.

The screen changed and presented me with access to the network. All thanks to one word:
death.
I wasn’t surprised at all.

The console asked me if I wanted to use the next passcode set. I told it no. As tempting as it would be to have access whenever I wanted, I still had to keep the General in the dark for as long as possible.

First things first, I sent my parents a message. I used a public ID though. I didn’t want them replying back to General Dagon. No matter how much I missed them, I refused to bring them into this mess with me. If the General was willing to hurt me, then I couldn’t imagine how he’d hurt them to get to me.