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Copyright
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Amy S. Foster 2018
Cover illustration © Larry Rostant
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Amy S. Foster asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008190415
Ebook Edition © August 2018 ISBN: 9780008190408
Version: 2018-09-18
Dedication
For Vaughn, my warrior prince, who showed Ryn what was worth fighting for.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Amy S. Foster
About the Publisher
CHAPTER 1
“Stop scratching,” my mother commands tersely. Her fingers grip the steering wheel tightly and instead of the radio that is usually playing in the car, there is only silence. Even at seven years old I can tell that she is annoyed, but mostly, she is worried. I stare down at my slender, bony wrists. Even though it is October, I am wearing only a tank top and shorts. I cannot bear the weight of actual fabric on my skin, and even this little amount is torture. I grit my teeth. I can feel my face flush and a sheen of sweat starts to form on my forehead. I want to do as my mom says, but my skin is on fire.
I need to scratch.
I stare at my legs, two skinny toothpicks. They, like the rest of my body, are covered in red, angry welts. I have had this rash for three days. Seventy-two hours. During that time, I have slept for maybe ten of them, and my parents have survived on even less. No one knows what this is. Not my pediatrician and not the doctors at Doernbecker Hospital. Nothing has helped. I’ve had three shots of different medicines—exactly three more than I like. They put some kind of lotion and then a cream on the rash. I screamed in agony and threw up because it hurt so bad. So far, everything has just made it worse. I am trying not to cry. I have cried so much these last few days that my throat hurts and my eyes sting in the corners where the tears come out. I feel like the pictures I’ve seen of the deserts in Africa, empty except for miles and miles of sand that go on forever. That’s how I feel on the inside: like a thousand pounds of sand.
On the outside, all I want to do is scratch.
One of the doctors from the hospital has told us to go to another doctor in North Portland. A special doctor. This doctor only knows about skin and now my mom and I are driving there in the quiet car where I only hear my own heartbeat and my mother’s occasional muttering of swear words under her breath because of the traffic.
When we get to the address, I see that it is a normal office building, white and gray. This place doesn’t look all that special. In fact, it looks pretty shabby compared to the hospital and my own pediatrician’s fun and fancy office that even has a fish tank. We park the car near the entry and climb out of our seats. I am slow and deliberate.
“Come on, Ryn,” my mom says, a little calmer now that we’ve arrived. She reaches out and then pulls her hand back. If no one touches me, the rash is only itchy. If someone tries to do something else with it, even brush up against it, the rash gets angry and hurts me. Like it’s mad at someone else touching me. My mom opens the door and we walk up a flight of rickety stairs and end up in a hallway. She is looking for the name of the doctor on one of the doors. When she finds it, she opens it swiftly and we move inside. There is a small waiting room and a lady sitting at a desk behind thick glass. This is the same kind of thing that I have seen at our bank. The people who give out the money sit behind a clear wall like this. Maybe this doctor really is special. My mom does not seem to notice this. She is giving the lady our name. She is talking faster than normal. I hear the lady say through the tiny holes in the wall that our visit is covered by Doernbecker Hospital. My mother doesn’t understand.
“This is free?” she asks. Her accent is thicker now, the way it usually gets when she’s excited. She is Swedish. I speak Swedish, too. Why is my mom arguing about paying? Who cares? Let me in there behind the thick wall where the special medicine is so I can stop feeling like this!
“Don’t I have to fill out some forms or something?”
I sigh and look at a particularly large welt on my right hand.
“The hospital sent everything over. Let’s just get Ryn in to see the doctor right away,” the woman explains calmly. “Poor thing, she really looks bad.”
“Yes,” Mom snips, “of course she does. It’s—it’s just so unusual to not have to deal with paperwork.” I know this tone. This is the tone that makes me go to my room on my own without being told to.
“Well, it seems like your daughter has a very unusual rash,” the lady says while smiling at me. She is trying to be friendly, but I don’t like her smile. It’s too big. I hear a buzzing sound and a door opens. The lady ushers us inside past her desk and into an exam room. I do not want to sit. Sitting hurts. I stand in the middle of the room.
“You okay?” my mom asks. I just nod my head. I’m too tired to talk. After about five minutes, the door opens. It is not the doctor, but the lady again. She has a mug in her hand.
“I thought you could use this,” she says kindly as she thrusts it toward my mom. “I know you must be very anxious about Ryn. This is a valerian and chamomile tea to calm your nerves. I don’t know if they told you that while—of course—we believe in traditional Western medicine here, we also practice Eastern, homeopathic, and naturopathic medicine as well. This is a very holistic office.” My mom takes the mug and says thank you, and I can see she means it. She loves all that kind of stuff with plants and yoga and juices. The lady stays and watches my mom drink the tea. No one is saying anything and it feels weird.
After a few minutes, the lady leaves again and immediately there is a light knocking on the door. She doesn’t wait for us to answer. She just walks right inside. I thought the doctor would be a boy. I am happy that it is a girl because girls are better.
“Ohhh,” the doctor says, looking me up and down with sympathy. “That looks sore, Ryn. Let’s see what we can do about it.” The doctor looks at my mom and says very sweetly, but firmly, “You should wait outside.” My mom blinks. She looks at me and her eyes frown. I don’t want my mom to go. I want my mom to stay. “I should wait outside,” she says stiffly and she does. She actually leaves!
“I want my mom,” I say to the doctor. She is a tiny woman with very dark skin and bright blue eyes.
“Well, you can have your mom or you can get rid of that rash. You choose.” That doesn’t seem fair at all. My mom never leaves me in the doctor’s office alone. I stare for a quick minute at the doctor who is just looking at me. Her eyes are raised and her eyebrows would be, too, but she is bald there. Her skin is almost shiny.
“I guess I want you to fix the rash,” I tell her.
“Excellent,” she says as she walks over to a cupboard above a counter with a sink. She opens the cupboard door and takes out a package. “Now, I’m going to have to give you a shot. I am not going to lie to you. It’s a big shot and it will hurt. But I promise—as soon as I give it to you, the rash will go away.” My bottom lip starts to quiver. I hate shots. I’ve already had three! This room is cold. I want my mom. I try not to let the tears fall. Not because I care about being brave, but because the tears actually hurt my face. Doctors don’t lie. If this doctor says she can fix the rash, then she can.
“Okay,” I say quietly. I don’t watch her as she gets the needle ready. I don’t want to know how big it is. I close my eyes. I just have to get through this next part and then I will be better. The truth is, I’d probably take a hundred shots to get rid of this rash. The doctor moves quickly and without warning I feel the sting in my arm. It really hurts. It isn’t the quick kind of shot the nurses usually give out. This is taking a long time. Real long. But after about five seconds, my skin stops itching. After ten seconds, I feel the doctor pulling the needle out.
I look down at my legs and the backs of my hands and I watch the bright red spots begin to fade. They disappear almost immediately. It doesn’t take long at all for the entire rash to be gone. I let out a long steady breath.
“You fixed me,” I tell her.
“Yes. I’ve made you better, but now we have to make sure the rash never comes back.” The doctor is standing behind me and she places her hands, which aren’t that much bigger than mine, actually, on my shoulders. “You’ve been very brave so far, Ryn, and now you must continue to be brave.”
“I must continue to be brave,” I say. At least, I think I say that. I don’t remember thinking it. I don’t remember agreeing with her in my mind.
“Lie down on the table. Not on your back, but your front. There is a little cradle for your face.” Lying down on that table is the last thing I want to do. I want to go and see my mom, but my legs move toward the exam table anyway. I’m shocked to find that I am doing exactly what she has ordered. I feel the doctor move my hair up and away so that it is falling over the headrest. My blond locks are scraggy and unbrushed because of the rash.
“I am going to do a biopsy. That’s the word I want you to remember when we talk to your mother. I have to do this in a special place, right at your hairline on the back of your neck. So first, I’m going to shave the area.”
“Biopsy,” I repeat. I can’t really see anything from this vantage, just the middle section of her body, but it’s enough to notice the razor in her hand. I feel a cool liquid on my neck and the funny tickling sensation of my hair being shaved.
“Now I’m going to give you a bunch of tiny needles to freeze the area. These won’t hurt like the last one I gave you. Just lie still.” I want to jump up. More shots! I don’t want more shots! I want my mom and I want to get out of here but I can’t move.
But I am lying still just like the doctor told me to. Why is my body listening to her when my brain doesn’t want to?
I feel the teeny pinpricks go into my head. They actually don’t hurt all that much, but I am getting another feeling, like, suddenly, this is all very wrong. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be letting this doctor do this to me. When I see her remove the large scalpel from a paper container, I lift my head up. I stare at the doctor, who seems genuinely baffled that I am looking at her.
“I told you to lie still,” she says calmly. I put my face back in the cradle, but every instinct I have is screaming to get up. The doctor gets closer and just as she is about to move into position above me I jolt up and grab her arm.
I am no longer seven.
I am no longer wearing a tank top and shorts. I am in full uniform and I am ten years older. I watch as the doctor’s face morphs. Her eyes, as blue as a neon sign at night, get bigger and wider. Her body shrinks. Her hair disappears and her skin, which was already dark, becomes jet-black and reflects the fluorescent lights from above.
“You will let me do this to you,” she tells me. Any warmth she may have had has been drained from her tone.
“No …” I say firmly, “I won’t.” She tries to move her hand, the one with the scalpel in it. She can’t. She raises her other hand and I grab that, too, so that we are locked in a bizarre kind of dance. Her wrists are as hard as rock but I know, deep inside, that I am stronger than her. I can beat her. I can kill her. Yet when I kick her in the stomach, expecting her to go flying, she barely moves.
What’s happening? This isn’t right. My strength is waning. She is getting the upper hand. She pushes me back against the table, whips me around, and shoves my head into the tissue paper cover.
“Stop! Edo! Stop it!” I beg.
“You cannot beat me, Ryn. And why would you want to when I am about to give you such an extraordinary gift?” She sounds almost seductive in that raspy inhuman voice of hers.
“I don’t want it. Please, please.”
But her hand remains on my neck and I am stuck. I feel the slow painful drag of the scalpel—which is also wrong. She gave me anesthetic to numb this area, but it still hurts. I scream out loud. I am squirming and kicking, but I can’t get away. I begin to truly panic when I see the little black box in her tiny childlike hand. I know what it is. I know what it will do to me. It will change me. It will turn me into a Citadel, a soldier, a monster. She shoves it into my open wound with brutal intensity.
“No! No!” I keep yelling, begging, screaming, but it’s done. I can’t undo this. I can take the box out, but I can’t change what it did to me all those years ago. The fight goes out of me and a single tear leaks out of my eyelid. It’s hopeless.
“Ryn!” I hear another voice calling me from far away. It sounds like it’s coming from another room. The waiting room? My mother? But, no, this is a male voice. “Ryn, wake up! It’s just a dream! If you keep jerking your head around, you’re going to open up the cut again. Ryn!
“Ryn!”
I’m asleep.
I cannot be asleep.
CHAPTER 2
What a shitty dream. I open my eyes and blink. It’s really bright. I put a hand up to my forehead so that I can see. I can’t make out anything, just two shapes, blobs really.
“She’s coming out of it,” I hear one voice say.
“Yeah, man, I can see that. Just back off, okay? You have zero medical training and I don’t want to have to get into it with you again about all the things you aren’t trained for that you insist on being a part of no matter how much danger you put people in,” another voice slaps back.
I suddenly know exactly where I am.
With Levi and Ezra.
Are they seriously fighting right now? As far as I can remember, which all things considered, might not be the most accurate, we have Rifted onto a Pandora Earth. This is an Earth that has been randomly selected by our computer program so as not to lead hostiles—or in our case, potential hostiles—straight to our Command Center. And we were fighting. We were all fighting … pigs?
What the fuck?
There was me and Ezra and Levi and … who else? Right, the Karekins. Like Vlock. He died, though—on the other Earth. I struggle to remember where we are and so I start the running tally again: it’s me, Ezra, Levi, and not the Karekins, but rather the Faida. We Rifted from the Spiradael Earth with the Faida Citadels who look like angels and claim to be on our side, but I have ridiculous trust issues—for very good reasons, I might add. So I can’t be sure of them.
Or anything really.
I am pretty sure I’ve hit my head. My tongue feels too big and my skull, while not actively painful, seems like it belongs to someone else.
“Did we win?” I croak.
“Uh. Sure,” Levi answers noncommittally.
“Did I get knocked out?”
Levi frowns, though the gesture is only apparent in his eyes. The rest of his face remains a mystery. He could be worried. He could be pissed off. Or both. Or neither. It’s never easy with Levi. “You got a kind of a tusk thing stabbed into your neck.” I narrow my eyes at him. I was stabbed? And I don’t remember? “We Rifted out. Again. Because those pigs, or whatever they were, would not stop coming. We must have killed six hundred or seven hundred of them, but they were everywhere. It came down to numbers that we didn’t have. Retreat was the best option.”
I blink my eyes hard trying to get them to focus. “The pigs I remember. Unfortunately, but the rest is … I don’t know …”
Levi sighs. “I had to put you out. Sedate you. It was bad, Ryn. You lost a lot of blood.”
“But you have the SenMach patches. You didn’t need to drug me,” I tell him angrily.
“Look.” Levi’s tone has just gone from sort of concerned to downright defensive. “We heal fast, but we aren’t magical. The only way to accelerate the healing process is sleep. Rest. So that’s what we’ve been letting you do for the past two hours while the boy wonder and I”—Levi gestures flippantly to Ezra—“had to hang out here with Lucifer and the Morningstars. Hasn’t been awkward at all.”
“Fine. Sorry, but I’m okay now.” I try to get up, but the moment I do, I start seeing little black dots bouncing around my sight line and my body suddenly feels like it weighs a ton. I sit back down abruptly.
“You’re not okay, actually. You need more rest,” Levi tells me. Or possibly orders me. But it doesn’t matter. Rest isn’t an option right now.
“I don’t. I need water and some of those cubes from the SenMachs. You’re the one who said I lost a lot of blood.” Instead of answering, Levi just folds his arms and stares at me.
“Give her the water, Levi. And the other thing, whatever it is. Ryn knows her limits,” Ezra says with authority. I’m not sure where exactly this authority is coming from, because Levi could beat him seven ways to Sunday with one finger.
“Okay,” he relents as he gets the stuff out of his pack. It’s only then that I realize I’m actually lying on my own bag. “But I need to examine you.”
Levi holds out a canteen and the gel cubes and I snatch both away. “Like I wouldn’t let you examine me,” I chide. “I was stabbed. By a giant pig. You can look at my wound.” I keep drinking and then I pop a few of the cubes into my mouth.
I bend my head down and Levi approaches. I suppose I should be worried about the Blood Lust activating. He’s not cured and he’s about to touch me, but I know that I am safe. There’s too much going on. We’re God-knows-where surrounded by twenty questionable Citadels. Levi’s guard is up. He’s nowhere close to being turned on.
And God knows I couldn’t feel less sexy at the moment.
I feel his hand gently pull my hair away from the nape of my neck. His touch is tender but efficient. He seals the SenMach biopatch down on my skin and into my hairline. “I could take it off to check the wound again, but I might have to hack through some of your hair. I think we should just let it be for now,” he tells me as he sits back down on his haunches.
“That’s your crack analysis? The Band-Aid is still on?” I ask while slowly bringing my head back up again. The water and food has helped, but I feel weak and groggy from the drugs. “The SenMach tech can do more than stitch up a cut. You know that.”
Levi’s lips purse. I get it. He’s being protective over one of the biggest advantages we have—technology from a race of androids, the SenMachs. Still, now is not the time to be coy. I need to make sure I’m okay. I look past Levi’s shoulders to the group of Faida who are, thankfully, not in any kind of defensive formation but are instead talking in low tones to one another. Although that could be equally as dangerous …
Worry about that later. First, get better.
“Do it, Levi.”
“Fine. Computer! SenMach Computer—” Levi awkwardly spits out.
“Oh my God. Just let me.” I interrupt because I already feel weird enough, and I don’t need Levi’s anxious fumbling to make me feel even more out of it. “Doe,” I say into my cuff softly, “take bio readings from the cuff. Report on my medical status.”
“I will need a drone scan to get a more accurate diagnosis,” Doe’s ghostlike voice says as it floats up from my wrist. Instead of saying anything, I raise an eyebrow at Levi who looks really irritated now.
“You want to risk letting the Faida see one of those?” he asks me.
“Uh, yeah, cuz I don’t feel right and I don’t know if it’s the drugs or brain damage. So all things considered, we should take the risk.”
Levi growls, but he does open up his pack again to release a small oval-shaped silver drone. He then pulls Ezra hastily over to him so that they both are blocking any view of what is happening from the Faida. I appreciate Levi’s vigilance, but in this case it’s unnecessary. Showing the Faida what we have might lead to an uncomfortable conversation, but they’d never be able to use our tech. It was designed for us and us alone, and it’s unhackable.
The drone hovers just a few inches above my chest and then, from its middle, where the alloy has the thinnest of lines, a blue flash scans my body. When it’s done, Levi grabs the thing and shoves it quickly back into his pack as if it was a kilo of heroin. He’s just being plain paranoid now. I look past him to the Faida who are watching. I strain to listen, but they are speaking Faida, which I don’t speak. Yet. One thing at a time, though.
“You had a deep laceration running 5.3 inches from the middle of your neck to your skull between the occipital lobes. You lost 1.3 liters of blood. I would recommend a further eight hours of rest and minimal activity. There is tissue damage that is still being healed,” Doe’s voice tells me with the kind of distanced candor I’d expect from an AI modeled after a robot modeled after Tim Riggins.
“Can I fight?” I ask quietly. I’m fairly sure the Faida don’t speak English as we had been communicating in Roonish, but I’m not about to risk it.
“If necessary, but I would recommend against it.” There’s an oddly judge-y tone to Doe’s voice.
“Fine. I will do my best to keep this civil,” I say out loud to Doe. But it’s also for the benefit of both Ezra and Levi, so they know that, at the very least, I’m going to try and talk with my mouth and not my fists. I slowly get up. Levi does not assist me because he’s well aware that I’ve already shown enough weakness.
I stand up and straighten my spine. I plant my feet into the earth to steady myself. I’m not even sure which has me so off my game, the blood loss or the drugs. I guess it doesn’t really matter. Every time I move I feel like I have to push through tar.