скачать книгу бесплатно
Whatever. I’ve got work to do before we can Rift out. I walk to the other side of the beach and collect more seawater in a metal can about the size of a coffee canister. I drop in a pill to desalinize the water and then I undress, putting my underwear, bra, and bandages inside of it. This is yet another great Roone invention: a tiny, portable washing machine. I take a drop of soap and snap the lid shut. I hit the On button and quickly slither into my extra undergarments. I slip on a pair of leggings and a T-shirt so that I can air out my uniform. I jump up a few feet and attach it to a small palm leaf.
When I turn, Levi is back. His uniform is unzipped about as far as it can be without it being indecent. His V, which is admittedly glorious, is as defined as an underwear model’s. I also notice that his face looks fine, as if he’s a little sunburnt. His nose is peeling, though, and he gives me a sheepish grin.
“God, Levi,” I say while rolling my eyes. “Why don’t you just get naked?” I’m frustrated. We need boundaries here more than ever. The Blood Lust isn’t a problem for me anymore, but Levi is still susceptible. This is no time to be reckless.
“Do you see anyone here? There is nothing. No one. This is literally a desert island. I didn’t realize you were so uptight.”
Am I being uptight? Would I care if it were Boone or Henry? No, probably not. But Henry is gay and Boone is in love with Violet. So no, I’m not uptight. I’m wary and Levi is playing a dangerous game because even though he’s one of the most irritating people I know, he also has Captain America’s bod. Which is doubly annoying, really. This partnership of convenience would be so much easier if he were hideous because even though he’s Levi, it’s hard not to stare.
“Whatever.” I shrug my shoulders, unwilling to let him know that he can affect me in that way, or in any way. “I’m doing a wash of my bandages and some … other stuff. You should do yours. They were pretty gross.”
“I will. I need to eat first, though. I actually don’t think I’ve ever been hurt so bad.” Levi proceeds to set up our camp stove and sets the water to boil. Then he grabs a food pack and dumps it in to heat. Sitting on the ground with his face in his hands, he does look more worn than I’ve ever seen him. My stomach growls loud enough to get my attention, and probably Levi’s, too. So I grab my own food pack and put it inside the boiling water and wait a few minutes.
I am not thinking about the injuries we just sustained or how sensitive my skin might be, and I pick up the hot package of food from the pot, unprepared for the searing pain in my fingers. I drop my meal and stumble backward, right into Levi. I land squarely in his lap.
He is almost naked and I am not wearing my uniform. It takes only a second for me to realize what I have done. We lock eyes momentarily. I had been so wrapped up with what Levi might be up to that I’m the one who fucks up. I lost focus.
Dammit.
I scramble up, hoping that our brief contact was not enough to trigger the Blood Lust. But his eyes narrow and take on a look of absolute malice, and I know that all the wishing and hoping in the world is not going to change what my clumsiness has just done. As Levi said, we are on a desert island. It’s just the two of us and I didn’t just brush against him. I landed on him.
“Levi,” I say gently as I back up. I don’t have very long before he comes at me. My soothing tone fails to even register. “Levi!” I snap, this time with authority, as if he’s an attack dog and I can get him to heel by playing alpha. That doesn’t work, either, but to his credit, he hasn’t yet lunged for me. Maybe he can fight it.
Then again, probably not.
I have no doubt that if I don’t manage this situation, Levi will kill me. I’ll put up a hell of a fight, but he’s better than I am, and bigger. I have to think, quickly. There’s only one thing that will stop him. Pain. A lot of very, very bad pain. I look around for anything I can use. I’m almost up against our stove. I could throw boiling water at him, but if it gets in his eyes it could blind him, maybe permanently. I need a partner who can see.
I notice his utility knife in the sand. He probably left it out to puncture the food packs. It’s still sheathed, but I’m fairly certain that I can get the blade out faster than he can get at me. He sees me look at the knife.
Time’s up.
Levi pounces as I jump for the knife. He lands where I just was while I somersault away again, taking the knife out as I do. I put the blade between my teeth so I can use my hands to do a back handspring away. This is a pretty show-offy way to distance myself from him, but it’s also something he’s not expecting, and I can get a tremendous amount of space between us because I’m using both my arms and legs for power.
I don’t have time to bask in the glory of nailing the landing. I whip the knife out of my mouth and throw it. He’s not expecting this, either. He wants to kill me, but he wants to use his bare hands. He wants to strangle me or maybe punch my head until my skull shatters into a hundred pieces. You don’t think about knives or guns so much inside the Blood Lust, because the kill would be too clean, too unsatisfying. You want blood, and you want to feel that you caused it.
The knife lands squarely in his right shoulder, exactly where I meant it to. I threw it hard and it’s now embedded deep inside the muscle. That’s an actual skill they teach during Citadel training. At the time I believed it was utterly ridiculous. Who has the luxury to stress about missing a vital organ when you’re fighting for your life? Sadly, since then I have honed this throwing talent and used it many times. Do I worry about being killed on the battlefield? Absolutely. But I worry more about killing unnecessarily. There are only so many lives you can take without it completely, irrevocably, fucking you up.
My plan works. I watch Levi’s face change from fury to frustration to outright pain. He looks at the knife and I look at him. He closes his eyes and clenches his jaw.
“I am so, so sorry,” I say as I walk toward him, picking up the med kit from the pile of our stuff on the way.
“Ryn, stop,” Levi commands, with more defeat in his voice than I have ever heard. I do as he says. I want to keep on apologizing, but I feel like it’s better if I don’t speak, and follow his lead. “Just throw the med bag over here,” he asks softly.
“Levi, come on …,” I practically plead. “You won’t be triggered again. You’re in too much pain. Let me help you.” I take another step.
“Seriously, Ryn, back the fuck up!” I wince at his sudden burst of anger. I’m used to him like this, of course, but right now I’m feeling guilty. I’m vulnerable to his tone. I swallow hard.
“Fine,” I tell him as I throw the bag. It lands at his feet and he squats down, opens the case, and grabs an anticoagulant gel, superglue, and a bandage. I can’t believe he’s going to do this by himself. I blow out in frustration and wish that I could turn away, but I have to make sure he patches himself up decently because he won’t let me help.
Levi remains on his knees. He slowly pulls the knife out. I watch the blood drain from his face. Without the knife as a kind of stopgap, the wound begins to bleed profusely. Levi doesn’t even seem to notice. He rubs the anticoagulant on it and the bleeding stops within seconds while the wound bubbles and foams. He doesn’t have a mirror, so he can’t really clean the cut properly and he doesn’t even bother to try. Levi closes the slit as best as he can with the glue, though it’s still filled with coagulant and covered in blood. Then, he undoes a large bandage and slaps it on his shoulder.
Using the sleeve of his uniform, he picks up his food out of the pot on the stove and opens the pack with the same knife he had just pulled out of his body. Gross. He pours it into a bowl and starts to eat in silence.
There’s nothing I can do now. He’s going to blame me for this for a while, and I suppose it’s mostly my fault even if I didn’t mean to hurt him. I didn’t give him the Blood Lust. I didn’t even ask him to come along with me through the Rift. All I did was trip, but he’s the one parading around half-naked and acting like this is some sort of vacation. If he’d been acting normally, then I wouldn’t have been worried about this exact thing happening. I realize there’s a causality thing going on here that if I think too hard about will do my head in, so I dismiss it.
The silence becomes increasingly awkward. We focus on eating our food and hydrating the cells in our weakened bodies. Regardless of our superhuman abilities, that last Earth pushed us to the limit. I know we need to get moving, but right now I just want to sit here. I’m exhausted from the drugs and it takes a lot of concentration not to think about what just happened. I’m so lost in my own thoughts that I am startled when Levi finally speaks.
“We can’t do this,” he tells me solemnly.
“We can. We just have to be more careful. Maybe we jump with our masks on next time or—”
“No,” Levi interrupts. “I don’t mean the mission or the Rifts. And you know that I don’t. I mean, this—me and you together all the time, alone. I’m going to kill you.”
“You won’t,” I assure him as I put down my canteen. “It was bound to happen once. Think of it as a warning shot. Now we’ll be extra vigilant.”
“Jesus,” he says as he shakes his head. “For someone who is so smart, you really can be dumb as shit sometimes.”
I throw him a nasty look. “You’re trying to bait me, but it’s not going to work. I made a mistake. I’m not going to make it worse by getting into an argument.” And then, he actually laughs.
“Make it worse? Worse than a knife in my shoulder? Worse than the fact that I can barely do my job because I’m so friggin’ scared of accidentally touching you? What if we’re on another Earth and some poor girl who doesn’t know the rules puts her hand on my shoulder? What then? I just kill an innocent person because that’s how it is?”
I slowly lean back, away from him. “What are you saying?”
“Stop it!” Levi yells. “Stop playing dumb! You know what I’m saying. You know what we have to do, and don’t for one minute tell me that you haven’t considered it.”
“No,” I tell him, and I shoot up, off the sand, onto my feet. “It is way too dangerous.”
“More dangerous than what the fuck is going on right now?” Levi gets up, too, and faces me in a standoff. “You know,” he says with a sarcastic huff of a laugh, “if I thought you were saying no because you were afraid for your own safety that would be one thing, but that’s not you. That’s not Saint Ryn, leader of Beta Team, the savior of all Citadels. That isn’t the case. You won’t do this because of Ezra. You don’t want to cheat on your boyfriend. Look around you!” Levi yells as he points at the bandage on his shoulder. “Look at me! You think normal rules apply? You think life and death is more important than disappointing some kid?”
I take a long breath in an attempt to calm myself, center myself. I told myself that I wasn’t going to let him bait me and I’ll be damned if I let him play me like that, even as I want to tear his face off for the contempt that dripped from his voice. I’m almost proud of myself for my restraint. He just has to think this through.
Shit, I need to think this through.
What would it mean, really, to deprogram Levi? He’s asking me not to consider Ezra, but that’s impossible. I could fight beside Levi all day long, but touch him? Softly? The way I let Ezra touch me? Alarm bells and sirens and a robotic Danger! Danger! voice goes off inside my head. He doesn’t know what he’s asking me. He thinks it’s something easy. That it’s something we can just do in all our spare time jumping from Earth to alternate Earth.
He thinks, but he has no frickin’ idea.
I have to handle this very carefully. I begin to talk, but I make sure to keep my tone level and empathetic. Well, as empathetic as possible for me: “Were you listening when I explained to everyone what the Roones and ARC did to us? We were fourteen when they figured out exactly what turned us on and exactly what we thought would be romantic and loving … and then they drugged us and beat us and broke our bones. We were tortured. The Blood Lust isn’t something you just get over. So this is not about cheating. It’s not about sex, it’s about feelings. And as strong as you are about everything else, you aren’t good with the feelings, Levi. In fact, you suck at them. You aren’t ready.”
Levi folds his arms, one over the other, and then nods his head slowly. “Yeah I was listening,” he tells me, as stone-faced as I’ve ever seen him. “I was right there when you laid out all the big bad secrets ARC had been keeping from us. I was also there when Edo hit the kill switch on more than a few of my friends when they disagreed with your assessment that ARC is the devil.”
“Are you kidding me?” I throw my hands up. I can’t believe what he’s saying. He doesn’t think that ARC is the enemy? “Are you saying you agree with your brainwashed friends?”
“I never said that, Ryn. I just said that I was there. I was there when they died and I was there when we pulled in their parents and gave them the deluxe ARC treatment so that now they think their kids are off at some year abroad. They can’t even grieve their own children’s deaths.” Levi kicks his toe in the sand. It hits me that maybe Levi might actually have feelings, as I see this particular injustice weighs heavy on him. I could try to justify my actions, but there’s no point. Even though it was the only way to ensure the life of our rebellion, he is right: It was a vile thing I did to those Citadels’ moms and dads. I hate that I have to defend those decisions, so I remain silent while Levi keeps talking. “I was also there when you made sure that everyone else on that base was either loyal or drugged to become loyal. This is a messy, ugly thing that you started. I’m not saying you weren’t right to do it, but your methods? Not good, Ryn.”
“You’re right, I fucked up,” I admit. He’s not saying anything I don’t know and haven’t agonized over already. “But I’ve copped to that and I’ve apologized as much as I’m ever going to. I was only trying to save everyone, so please stop holding my good intentions against me. They don’t teach ‘How to Effectively Start a Coup’ in our training, you know?”
To my surprise, Levi starts to laugh again, though I am sure it’s not because of the joke I just made. He’s laughing at me, not with me. Then he drags his hands through his hair, clearly frustrated. “I’m not holding anything against you. I’m trying to make you see how huge this fucking thing is. It’s bigger than you and your Boy Wonder. It’s way bigger than your bizarre sense of morality. You can’t not help me because it’s inconvenient, not when you’re all in everywhere else.”
Now it’s my turn to snicker. He just doesn’t get it. “Morality? I’m not being moral. I’m being realistic. It isn’t a question of convenience. At all. You want me to deprogram you? Okay, well, that involves shedding layers and layers of emotional armor. It involves intimacy and truth. So let’s start there. Why don’t you tell me exactly how you feel about me? Can you even do that?”
Gotcha, I think to myself. Because although I know that Levi is attracted to me physically (girl, boobs, pretty good hair, an ass I’m proud of—for a white girl—but I’m no supermodel), I doubt very much that he can verbalize his feelings for me beyond that, and more likely than not, there aren’t any of real significance. But instead of trying to avoid the question and redirect the conversation, Levi says nothing. He just stares at me. His gaze is intense. It’s so powerful that it makes me want to look away. I steel myself. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of watching me squirm.
“Fine,” he says finally. My heart starts to beat a little faster as I realize I don’t actually want him to answer that question. I don’t really want to know the truth, because if it goes beyond the physical, I wouldn’t know what to do with that. It dawns on me that I might have just made things worse between us by asking him to fess up: opening the door to a series of more tense conversations and weird, awkward silences.
But there’s no going back now. He’s already started talking.
“I feel a sense of loyalty toward you, but maybe that’s just because you’re a Citadel. I feel protective of you even though I know you don’t really need my protection. I think you’re strong. I think you’re beautiful, but I also think you’re a pain in the ass, and honestly, I’m not sure I even like you.”
I sigh and throw my hands up. “Well that’s just great. I can totally see how deprogramming someone who doesn’t even like me is going to work.” I’m relieved. He’s confused. He doesn’t know how to separate attraction and real feeling. No surprise there. Still, the conversation has me a little freaked. Hearing Levi say these things makes my heart race a little. Is it guilt? Because I’m with Ezra and I’m pretty sure this level of openness is inappropriate, but since I’ve never had a boyfriend before, it could very well be that this is the absolute best way to handle a situation like this—by acknowledging it, even if there’s no way to know exactly what “it” is. I should probably say something, but Levi holds out a single hand to stop me from continuing.
“I wasn’t finished, so calm down.” I let out a low growl that I’m sure he hears, along with an increasingly ascending pulse, but so what? This shit is intense. There is nothing I hate more than someone telling me to calm down as if I’m some crazy Real Housewife who screeches and wails all the time.
“I don’t know how I feel about you,” Levi admits. “I really have no idea. Mostly I’m just angry and everything else I feel is pretty much a mystery.” Levi stops talking and I sigh. I had been trying to prove a point, that despite our hormones the Blood Lust is not really sexual. I didn’t think Levi understood that, but by the look on his face right now, I know he does. Damn. There is something in his eyes, something lost and bewildered. This is Levi’s version of intimacy. “I am ashamed,” he tells me softly. “I’m embarrassed that, basically, I have the emotional intelligence of an eight-year-old. I know there are other things to feel besides anger and guilt, but fuck, I don’t know how to get to them.”
“Oh, Levi.” I exhale his name, pressing my palms into my eyes as if I can somehow ignite the right answer inside my brain.
“Listen,” he says with urgency, seeing me falter. “I don’t think it matters if I like you. I think what matters is that I trust you. With my life. Right? I need your help, Ryn, please.”
Sometimes I wonder if it’s possible to be a good leader and a good person at the same time, because let’s face it, there are precious few examples. After all I’ve done I think it might be too late for me to ever call myself a good person. But a true leader, the kind that I want to be, doesn’t hold fast to an opinion in the face of overwhelming evidence that it’s wrong. A strong leader is secure enough to change her mind.
I stare off into the distance at the light reflecting off the water. It’s gorgeous here, but it isn’t real. It’s a plucked moment. A pause before we jump again. Into God knows what.
There is no absolute right answer here. This isn’t something I can win. This isn’t a contest or a fight. My new partner may or may not have feelings for me that go beyond the way I look in an absurdly tight uniform (I get it, it’s supposed to fit like a second skin, but it’s more Black Widow than real black ops). I shouldn’t deprogram Levi because it’s dangerous and intimate and I have a boyfriend. But if I want to get that boyfriend back in one piece, there’s really only one logical choice.
As much as it annoys me, Levi is right.
It would be safer if he were deprogrammed. He’s asked for my help. He’s done it as honestly and authentically as he can. That’s huge for him. I can’t turn away from that. Ezra won’t like this, but again, props to Levi. I’m trying to apply normal relationship logic to this situation and it won’t work. By agreeing to help with the deprogramming, I could very well be saving my own life and the lives of others. It might be suicide—there’s that, too—but I think the odds are in my favor on this one. Ezra will get over it once he takes the time to think it through. Once I explain to him that it is the best chance that all of us have to survive. So, now the real problem is time. Deprogramming takes time, which we are desperately short of. Once we start, we can’t stop; doing so may ruin any chance he has at being cured.
But really, this mission can’t possibly succeed unless we do it. So …
“Okay. Since you said that you had considered this, I assume you brought a supply of the drug that leaves you open to suggestion? The red pills?” I ask, just to make sure this is even a doable thing.
“I have them. And I put some music, shows, and books on my tablet. That’s what we need, right? Sensory reminders of when we were younger? Before this happened to us?”
I nod my head and zip up my uniform to the neck. But the whole time I want to scream at him: Do you really think that’s all it takes? Listening to some songs? Watching a movie? He has no idea. “Just go take a pill. Take two, actually, just to be on the safe side. We’ll start in fifteen minutes.”
In the meantime, I’m going to pray to something and hope to hell this works.
CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_d83ebcdf-88cb-5726-9486-24cad1a1f4de)
We are sitting side by side, watching the tide as it pulls out farther with each wave. Levi has taken off his uniform and is in his khakis and a T-shirt. My uniform is on and I have put my blond hair, badly in need of a trim, back and up in a messy bun on the top of my head. I am thinking, though I don’t want to say it out loud just in case it isn’t something Levi had thought of, that me throwing the knife at him after he felt the Blood Lust might have ruined any chance of this working. He got turned on and I hurt him, which is how he was programmed in the first place. I can only hope that the drugs, in conjunction with patience and a true desire to kick this, might override what just happened.
It occurs to me that in deprogramming Levi’s Blood Lust, I might also need to deprogram myself of my distrust of him.
Levi has his tablet on his knees. He looks a little nervous. I’m downright scared. When I did this, I had Ezra. Ezra is patient and loving and, for obvious reasons, much more emotionally intelligent than I am. Ezra and I care for each other. Levi and I tolerate each other. If that. But maybe in a way that’s better. Maybe a little emotional distance will be more effective. I have no idea.
And that’s probably what has me the most frightened.
“This is the song my mom sang to me every night before I went to bed when I was little,” he says, showing me the tablet. “Don’t ask me why. Weird choice, I know. She did change up some of the lyrics so that it wasn’t a proper love song, ’cause that would be gross, obviously.”
“Look, you don’t have to defend the choices you make in this process. Ezra read Harry Potter to me. He wore my dad’s clothes. It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is that makes you feel safe and takes you back to that place, is not for me to judge. If you feel like I’m judging you or laughing at you somehow, then we can’t do this. It means that we haven’t created a trusting environment. Your guard will be up and things will go badly. Besides, Dolly Parton is amazing.”
By way of an answer, Levi nods his head. He pushes the Play button and “Islands in the Stream” starts up. I don’t think it’s actually that weird of a choice for a lullaby at all. It’s cute.
“Just make sure the song is on repeat,” I tell him.
I let the song play all the way through, and to his credit, Levi doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t demand to know what’s going to happen next. He just sits there, which is good. When the song starts again, I begin to speak, softly: “Now, Levi, imagine yourself as a young kid, in bed, your mom singing to you. Remember how it felt. Live inside this memory for a moment. You were safe, you were loved, nothing bad was ever going to happen to you, because your mom was there and she was going to take care of you. Let the drug work. It will take you deep inside this memory. You have to open up completely and let yourself feel how you felt all those nights.”
Levi closes his eyes. His breathing slows. His heart rate becomes more difficult to hear over the breaking surf. He is calming down, and thankfully, so am I. I let the song finish out and once it starts over, I begin to speak again. “You’re safe here. You have to clear your mind of doubt. In a few moments, I’m going to put my hand over yours. If you need to say out loud that you’re safe and that everything is fine, you should. You should talk. Don’t say that you aren’t going to hurt me. It won’t help. It will take your brain down the wrong path. No one is hurting anyone. Put thoughts of being hurt or hurting someone else far away from your mind.”
I let the song play again. I let Levi live inside this dreamlike state for a while. It’s probably been years since he’s thought about this, about how it made him feel. No one other than a Citadel would know why he has had to make himself forget the innocent child he was. There is no room for sweetness or vulnerability on the battlefield. Better just to put it away, lock it up, forget that we were ever young. “You’re a kid in this memory. You’re a boy and you’re defenseless, but you’ve never felt safer and that’s because love is safety and there is nothing stronger than a mother’s love for her child, not even a Citadel and especially not the Blood Lust. It’s no match for this love.”
I let the song play a little longer. Let him absorb what I told him. Slowly, I put my hand over his hand. I inch a little closer to him. I never imagined I would ever be so physically close to Levi. I can’t imagine being physically close to anyone besides Ezra. To that end, I start to say a mantra of my own. And while I know that what I’m saying to myself is not exactly the entire truth, bringing my boyfriend into the equation makes this whole affair seem like, well, less like an affair.
This is for Ezra. This is for Ezra. This is for Ezra.
While I’m silently saying this, Levi is repeating his own mantra: “I’m safe,” he whispers. “I’m safe. I’m okay.” I sit there unmoving for about ten seconds and then Levi’s eyes fly open and he looks at me with gritted teeth. Shit.
He takes my hand and flips it over, bending it the wrong way. My wrist could snap in an instant. He forces me to my knees and then he takes his free hand and puts it on the back of my neck, forcing my face in the sand. At this rate I will suffocate in a matter of minutes. I have to remain calm, but he’s going to kill me. My training overrides my good intentions. I kick out with my leg. I get him off balance and he staggers just enough so that I can roll out of reach. He lunges for me again and I block his arms.
“Levi,” I say calmly, “stop this. Go back to that place in your mind.” Before I can say anything else he gets a good punch in to my eye. It’s a massive wallop and I can feel my lid swelling almost completely shut. It’s going to be near impossible to defend myself when I’m blind in one eye. Yet if I attack more, then this is all for nothing. So I do my best to keep him at bay. We are dancing in a way. He keeps lunging forward and I keep moving my hands and forearms to various positions to block his attack. He gets in a few more punches that I miss because I don’t see them coming, and all the while I try to reason with him: “You’re fighting the Blood Lust and it won’t work! Surrender to it. Acknowledge the pain you’re feeling and try to pull it inside instead of taking it out on me … Levi!” I scream.
But he can’t hear me. He’s lost to it. This won’t work. I have no choice. I don’t want to die. I kick him hard in the abdomen and he goes flying. I leap over to where he lands and before he can get his bearings I put him in a sleeper hold. I squeeze my biceps. I cut off his air supply until he loses consciousness. I release his limp body and sink to my knees.
Shit. I completely fucked it up.
I may have saved my own life, but I also may have ruined any chance of Levi’s deprogramming ever working with me. My eye is aching. I’m so tired of this. Watching Levi in the throes of the Blood Lust broke my heart. I know my own deprogramming was brutal. I almost killed Ezra, twice. He never fought back, though. He trusted me enough to know I would never take it that far, even when I myself wasn’t sure. He cared about me enough to want it to work more than he wanted self-preservation. I’m positive that’s not the case with Levi and me. For one thing, I don’t love Levi, so I’m not willing to die for his transition. For another, though, Levi’s Blood Lust is different from mine. He becomes primal, more animal than man. He himself may not be able to distinguish his emotions outside of the Blood Lust, but I saw every one of them on his face and in his eyes. There was so much pain there.
Who does this to children? It’s easy to blame the Roones, because it was their technology and their offer that put us here, but it was ARC that demanded this safeguard. The planet could not afford the distraction of teenage drama, so human beings took the risk away. We had to be focused. We had to be single-minded at all times. Guard. Protect. Fight. Kill. It wasn’t a monster that turned us into monsters, it was our own kind.
Human beings took away our humanity.
If I’m going to lead us through this, if I’m going to dismantle ARC and take control, I have to be willing to put it all on the line. I have to be willing to die to save us. I have to trust Levi in the same way Ezra trusted me. Levi said it. I need to be all in. Seeing Levi inside the madness of the Blood Lust has shifted my perspective. Levi absolutely cannot see this as a battle, but I have to. This is a fight like any other. I’m ready to die back home at Camp Bonneville every time I engage. I’m not willing, no, never that, but I’m always prepared for the worst. What’s one more risk on top of everything else? My life is always on the line one way or another.
If I were the type of person who cries easily, I would be teary eyed. I’m not, though, and thank God; otherwise, after what I’ve seen and done in my few short years, I would be hysterical all day long. When I look at Levi lying here helpless, with tiny grains of sand peppering his long, dark eyelashes, the injustice of the Blood Lust and who and why we are suddenly feels explosive. Sadness turns to anger. I’m mad now and more determined than ever to fix him.
It doesn’t take long for Levi to wake up. His eyes flutter open, but he stays on his back in the sand. “I’m sorry,” he says softly.
“No. It’s me who should be sorry. I should never have fought back. I was afraid. It won’t happen again.”
Levi sits up on his elbows. “What are you talking about? You had to fight back. I would have killed you. Look at your eye. I did that to you.”
I get up and wipe the sand off my palms. “Oh, please,” I say, deliberately playing it down. He doesn’t need the guilt. It won’t be useful moving forward. In fact, it’s probably the opposite. “I’ve had worse training with Violet. This is nothing. You’re not some asshole who likes to beat up girls. You’re not some psycho who takes pleasure in hurting women. We aren’t normal people. They did this to us. We’re sick and this is our therapy.” I walk over to his pack and take out another red pill from a container in his Dopp kit.
“You can’t be serious right now,” he says with disdain.
“We’re going to do this. We’re gonna fix you because you deserve to be fixed, even though in general, I think you’re kind of a douche.” I smile. He does not smile back. So much for trying to lighten the mood. “I’m serious, though. It’s too dangerous for you to be at such a disadvantage with this. And while we don’t have time, we also don’t have time not to do it. You were right. You were right from the start and I should have just agreed with you straightaway. Take another pill.”
