Watch Me, page 2
Jonah darts forward. “But— We were only playing around—”
“He was going to take your eye out,” Soledad barks, then jerks his head in a familiar motion.
Micah screams.
Jonah stills, but his eyes are fixed on his brother, who’s lying on the ground, now silent and twitching violently. There’s the slam of a door, a sudden cry, and his mother, Zadie, comes running. Soledad shakes his head in disgust, and Micah is released from his paralysis. With some effort, the boy revives in his mother’s arms.
“Sorry, sir,” says Micah, his chest heaving. “I didn’t mean—”
Soledad directs his next words to Zadie. “If you can’t get these two idiots to stop acting like animals, you’ll spend another year in the pit. Is that clear?”
Heads appear, then disappear, in neighboring windows.
Zadie nods, mumbling something inarticulate, then grabs her boys and bolts.
In the quiet aftermath Soledad returns to my side, scanning me for a reaction, but I’m careful, as always, to betray no emotion. It’s the only way I’ve survived here, where I’m surveilled not only by the system but also through the eyes of everyone I encounter—even my own sister.
Surveillance is security, Rosa.
Only criminals need privacy.
Only criminals need privacy.
For so many years I used to believe everything my father said.
Those were the years when Soledad was a friend to our family; the years we lived in a warm, comfortable home, when food was abundant, when Nanny would dress me in silks before braiding my hair. I’d sneak downstairs during my mother’s dinner parties just to hear the sound of her laughter.
“How many more before you’ll lift the sanctions?” I ask, ripping the balaclava off my head. I feel the static of my hair; the compression of my chest. Brisk wind batters my face but the icy air is welcome against my heated skin.
Soledad shakes his head. “I can’t answer that. Your father is still alive, still feeding secrets to the enemy. For as long as we can’t know your mind, you’ll always be a question mark.” He shrugs, then looks away. “We all make sacrifices for the security of our nation, Rosabelle. For the security of our future. This is your sacrifice—and it may never end.”
He returns his eyes to me.
“Look,” he says. “You can kill them all at once or one at a time. I’ll let you decide. When you’re done, I’ll see about getting Clara some medicine.”
“And food,” I say too quickly, then pause, taking a moment to compose my face. “And firewood.”
“All at once, then,” he says, narrowing his eyes.
“All at once,” I agree. “And right now.”
Soledad raises his eyebrows. “You sure? One of them won’t stop screaming. She had a bad reaction to the sedative.”
I feel unseasonably warm. Overdressed. I distract myself by stuffing the balaclava into Papa’s coat pocket, and the thick envelope from earlier kisses me with a paper cut. The pain focuses my thoughts.
It’s not necessary to kill them like this.
We have among our ranks some of the best medics and scientists in the world; we possess far more advanced and humane ways to kill the rare spies who manage to breach Ark Island.
Of course, murdering them isn’t meant to be humane.
“Do you care how I kill them?” I ask, and my voice is mercifully steady.
The electric hum of the helicopter pulls my attention skyward. Clara will see it. She’ll know what it means.
“I don’t care how you do it.” Soledad smiles now; a real smile. “You’ve always been creative.”
JAMES
CHAPTER 3
“Okay. All right. This is fine. You’re fine,” I say, pacing up and down the short length of my prison cell. I hesitate, then look around for the hundredth time.
I mean, I’m guessing this is a prison cell.
It’s clean, which is weird. It’s also well-lit, fully illuminated by a light source I can’t identify. The walls and floors are made of gleaming steel—so glossy I can see myself from every direction—and the warped reflections keep freaking me out. I have no idea how long I’ve been in here. Every once in a while a weird mist is released into the room, and each time I lose what feels like a few hours.
My brilliant plan is not exactly going to plan.
“Look,” I say, pointing at a melted blur of my face. “There’s no reason to panic. You’ve still got your own pants on, plus all your original body parts, and if you were supposed to die here, no one would care if you had to use the bathroom, okay? They’d let you die in a heap of your own shit—”
As if on cue, a mechanical whirr precedes the reveal of an aperture in the ground. I’ve been here long enough to have learned that every time I say the word bathroom a panel slides away to reveal a bottomless black pit, the opening of which is lined with metal teeth that all but promise to bite off your dick. I’ve never been so terrified and relieved to take a piss in my life. I fucking hate it here.
I tried shouting other things, too; things like Get me out of here and Motherfucker and Ice cream sundae, and all I got was more mist in my face.
I wonder if anyone back home has realized I’m gone.
“Of course they have, moron,” I mutter.
Adam is going to be pissed. Warner is going to be super pissed. Juliette might already be crying. If I survive this, Kenji will probably kill me himself.
A week ago it seemed like a good idea, trying to break into Ark Island. This shithole is the last refuge of The Reestablishment—the last gasp of a fascist psychopathic government that basically wants to enslave the world—and no one’s ever been able to penetrate their defenses. Back in the womb of home and family, where I’m still treated like a baby who doesn’t know how to wipe his own ass, doing something like this seemed genius. If I could do the one thing even the famous Aaron Warner Anderson couldn’t do, maybe they’d finally respect me. Maybe they’d finally look at me like a man and not a ten-year-old boy who used to cry for his big brother every night.
“Great job, idiot.” I bang my head against the wall.
If I ever make it back home, they’ll never let me do anything again. My own half brother is basically running the world with his wife, and I’ll be reduced to desk work. Back in diapers. All my security clearances revoked.
I let out a nervous laugh, then push both hands through my hair. I don’t know how Juliette did solitary confinement for nearly a year. Before she single-handedly orchestrated the downfall of The Reestablishment, she’d suffered in ways I could never imagine. Now, looking around this gleaming hellscape, I realize I’ve never appreciated her enough. I thought I couldn’t love her more than I already do—hell, she and Warner helped raise me—but imagining how The Reestablishment tortured her—
Nah. I can’t go there. Not here. Not now.
“Shower!” I shout at the wall.
Nothing happens.
“Piece of shit!” I shout at the wall.
The toilet hole opens again.
“Listen,” I say angrily, “if you’re not going to kill me, the least you could do is offer me some snacks—”
The words have barely left my mouth when I’m startled by memory. Propelled into motion, I search my pockets until I find it—a little plastic pouch of gummy bears, half-melted.
I can’t help but smile.
These assholes stripped every weapon off my body but left me the candy. I’d swiped it from five-year-old Gigi’s snack bag on my way out the door; a moment that now feels like a lifetime ago. I rip the packet open, then stare at the melted gummies for half a second, the artificial scent of various fruit flavors generating sense recognition so strong my heart nearly gives out.
“Hey,” I say, narrowing my eyes at my liquid reflection. “Pull yourself together.”
I empty the bag of gummies into my mouth, then stuff the plastic into my pocket. I’m still chewing when I say, “You’re going to go home. You’re going to see everyone again. You’re—”
The room begins to vibrate with a soft, mechanical rumble, and the words die in my throat. I stiffen and back up, shielding my eyes as one of the walls disappears, then reappears in a flare so bright I can’t clock the change.
Suddenly, I have a visitor.
I knew The Reestablishment had seriously advanced tech—we’ve been studying their work for a decade—but this girl materializes as if out of thin air. We’re face-to-face, trapped by steel in all directions, and she’s standing so inhumanly still that for a second I think I’m hallucinating. She looks like an elfin creature out of a fairy tale, so slight she’s practically a beam of light. White-blond hair, icy eyes. Skin like glass.
Really, absurdly gorgeous.
My heart beats a little too hard as I blink and straighten, fake candy flavors coming alive on my tongue at the worst moment. My mouth is full of half-chewed gummy bears. I’m trying to chew without looking like I’m chewing. Jesus.
The tiny elf takes a step toward me, and I flinch.
“State your name and date of birth,” she says quietly, her cold eyes appraising me.
Something about the way she tilts her head—that, and the smooth, measured sound of her voice—and suddenly I understand. This beautiful weirdo isn’t a real person. She’s artificial intelligence.
I exhale, irritation doing the counterintuitive work of relaxing my body.
The fact that she’s a robot makes things easier. First of all, I’m not going to talk to a fucking robot. I might be an idiot, but I’m not uninformed. I know how much The Reestablishment loves surveillance. I know that this cell is being watched. They love mind games. Love to torture. If they wanted me dead, they’d have sent a real person to mess with my head at least a little before killing me. Instead, this thing is probably recording and analyzing my vitals while doing a background check. I bet it’s mining some database right now, figuring out that Aaron Warner Anderson is my half brother; that Juliette Ferrars is his wife; that I’m the youngest son of Paris Anderson, the dead, ex–supreme commander of North America. They’ve caught themselves a big fish.
Mentally, I kick myself in the face.
“I gave you a directive,” she says, and takes another step closer.
I chew a little more, trying to swallow without killing myself. “Look, if the computer in your head doesn’t already know who I am just by scanning my face, I’m not going to answer your questions. So if you’re here to extract information, you’re shit out of luck. Maybe just send in the guy who’s supposed to torture me.”
She hesitates, surprise coloring her features so briefly I nearly miss it. Fascinating, lifelike tech.
She blinks those strange eyes at me before saying, softly, “Are you eating something?”
“Gummy bears,” I say with my mouth full.
She blinks again. There’s something so human about the way she studies me then that it gives me goose bumps.
“I don’t understand,” she says.
“Gummy bears? It’s, like, a chewy candy—”
“You’re not afraid to die?”
“Uh.” I stop chewing. “What?”
And then she moves toward me, closing the gap between us in two strides, and I realize with a sudden, palpable fear—
This is a real woman. Not a robot.
I’m so distracted by this fact, so alarmed by the warmth of her small hand as she touches my face that, at first, I don’t even notice the knife she’s pressed to my throat. She has my head in a surprisingly firm grip, my neck open and exposed to her blade, but I can feel her breath against my skin and it’s messing with my head. She’s got doll hands. She smells fresh, like pine trees and soap. Up close her eyes are a pale grayish blue and her dark coat is moth-eaten and oversized. Underneath she wears a baggy sweater, the collar gaping to reveal a glimpse of skin so fine I feel lightheaded just looking at her.
I don’t think I understand the point of this exercise.
I’m a high-profile prisoner; any idiot would know not to kill me right away. They should be torturing me for information. Using me as bait or leverage. Instead, they’ve assigned me an elf who needs to stand on tiptoe to reach my neck. It feels like I’m being assaulted by a flower.
It’s annoying, though, the knife at my throat.
I decide to toss her across the room just to be safe, but when I slip my hands inside her coat she takes a sharp, startled breath and nearly stumbles. I grab her on instinct, holding her steady without thinking, but I’m thrown by the feel of her—a waist so small it seems almost dangerous. I study her face, my eyes narrowing in confusion, and she stares back at me with a flare of emotion so intense I swear to God I feel it in my chest.
“You smell like apple,” she whispers, and I’m actually about to smile when she slits my throat.
I see the flash of metal, but the blade moves fast and the pain doesn’t hit me until she’s backed away. I lift a hand to the wound as my vision deteriorates, blood seeping against my fingers just as I realize I can’t speak.
Motherfucker.
She’s cut my trachea, too.
Doll Hands has clearly done this before, and done it well. I sway slightly, making a strangled sound as I land badly on my knees. She looms over me, watching, expressionless.
As if from outer space I hear her say, “He’s ready for organ extraction,” just as I slump to the floor.
She swipes the gummy wrapper from my pocket before she disappears.
JAMES
CHAPTER 4
Sounds bleed in and out: a smear of voices, the clangor of metal. Pain. Light flares in electric bursts behind my eyes. I feel hands on my body, cold steel, my thoughts slurring. A blind assessment of the situation seems to indicate that I’m lying on a gurney, being wheeled down what I can only assume is a hallway. I have to hold on to my mind, force it to focus before I pass out, because if I pass out I won’t wake up until my throat’s healed, which means I might wake up right as they’re cutting the kidneys out of my body.
Or worse.
It’s not common knowledge that I have healing powers, but it’s not exactly a secret, either. The Reestablishment must’ve really gone to shit out here if they’re this bad at their jobs. You’d think one of the most technologically advanced fascist regimes in history would’ve done a little digging on its prisoners. You’d think they would’ve known that they couldn’t just slit my throat and toss me on a gurney in the bowels of some top-secret location on a top-secret island without serious consequences. You’d think they would’ve bound my hands and legs before releasing me from my cell, that they might’ve given me some kind of tranquilizer or at least sealed my eyes shut—
Yeah. Never mind. Now that I think of it, no way they’re that stupid. This is more likely some kind of a trap.
Time to pivot.
Luckily, my head is beginning to clear. My breathing has begun to stabilize. A sentence I never thought I’d think: I’m grateful for the mess of blood all down my throat, because it’s hiding the fact that my wound is healing.
I slit my eyes open.
Doll Hands is a blur beside me, but there seems to be someone else, too. My hearing is improving, my heart rate picking up.
“—was hoping to get home in time for dinner,” some guy says, then laughs. “I guess I should’ve known better. All of them back-to-back, huh? I’ll be working through the night processing your new dump of bodies.”
Wow, great.
Doll Hands is a serial killer. My pants were getting tight over a serial killer. Kenji is going to love this.
“Did I tell you my wife is making lasagna?” The guy laughs again, but now he sounds nervous.
Can’t blame him. Serial killers tend to make people nervous.
“She makes great lasagna,” he’s saying. “Actually, she’s good at everything. I mean, I always knew she was talented, but man, every day she surprises me. Oh, and we just got our wedding photos back—”
Without warning we crash into something, and my head lifts, then slams back onto the steel gurney so hard I nearly wince. Silently, I revisit every foul word I’ve ever known.
“Whoops, didn’t see that wall there!” More panicked, high-pitched laughter from the guy, then the shuddering sound of wheels, the vibration of metal, and we’re on the move again. I have to be careful not to lift my chest as I inhale, but I’m feeling strength return to my body, which means it’s about time to make a move.
“You know,” says the nervous guy, “you don’t have to come with me all this way—”
“Yes, Jeff, I do,” she says softly. “Soledad’s orders.”
Something stirs in my chest when she speaks, and mentally I punch myself in the crotch. Her voice is silky smooth—the voice of a sociopath or a siren—and I’m worried Jeff and I might piss our pants if she keeps talking.
“Oh,” he says. “I—I didn’t realize.”
Luckily, Doll Hands says nothing to this, but now I’m wondering who the hell Soledad is.
“Did I mention my wife is making lasagna tonight?”
More silence.
“I love lasagna,” says Jeff. “Do you—do you love lasagna?”
When she ignores him for the second time, I start to feel bad for the guy hoping to cut the organs out of my corpse. I sit up and turn to face him. “For what it’s worth, Jeff, I fucking love lasagna.”
Jeff screams.
I lock eyes with Doll Hands for only a second, long enough to catch the horror on her face before I jump off the gurney and shove it violently in her direction, the heavy steel pinning her to the wall with a satisfying crack. She cries out as Jeff scampers off screeching, triggering an alarm as he goes. The hall is suddenly blaring with lights and chaotic sound. I spin around. Panicky-looking people in lab coats start streaming into the hall, but when they glimpse my blood-soaked neck and shirt—and the wilting girl sliding down the wall—they quickly disappear. The place, I note, is bright white and entirely unmarked. I have no idea how to get out of here. More important, I need to find a weapon.
