Resist: A Possession Short Story Page 2

there. I noticed the flip of a curtain on the fifth floor which meant someone was breaking curfew. I caught the flash as the front entrance opened and closed, quick as a blink.

  Despite the chill, I arrived at Rise Twelve sweating. I needed a nice long break after this. Midnight missions to enemy territory were taxing, especially when you’re perched on the pinnacle of two impossible decisions.

  I’d always choose Vi. I would not be responsible for her death, for any more suffering than she’d already endured. With her dad gone and her mother on her case all the time, she needed a safe place. I wanted to be that person, that place. No matter what.

  I circled around to the back of the building, where my Freedom spy should be waiting. Together with the three Insider prisoners we’d leave this pathetic excuse for a city behind.

  I stood at the corner of a medical kiosk, studying my watch. Seven seconds… Four… One…

  The back door opened and a tall silhouette emerged from the building. Click, step, click, and the door closed again, sealing the techtricity inside in under a second.

  I didn’t speak; I never spoke first. Part of me wanted to tell him to hurry, but I waited still and silent.

  “Warm tonight,” the man said, and my blood ran cold.

  That wasn’t the keyword. Not even close.

  I turned to leave but had only taken one step before angry fingers gripped my bicep. “Well, Zenn, have you made your choice?”

  I tried to shake my arm out of Director Myers’s death grip. I freed myself and strode away on legs made of putty. Director Myers. Director freaking Myers. How did he predict my every move? How did he know I’d be here tonight of all nights? My heart battled against my ribs, sending fear and desperation coursing through me. The only redeeming thought I had was that at least Blaze Barque was safely hidden in that alley.

  “I’ll match you with Violet Schoenfeld.” The Director’s voice sliced daggers through me. “You can be together. You and Miss Schoenfeld. I’ll make sure it happens.”

  The stillness of Freedom pressed down on me, unnatural and terrifying.

  “I can make sure something else happens to her too.” He spoke nonchalantly, but danger lurked in every syllable.

  “When?” The word seared my throat.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “What else do you want?” I asked, because surely he wasn’t going to give me Vi and then allow me to scurry home to report to Jag. I feared that if I made this deal—any deal—with Director Myers that he’d exploit it for the rest of my life. I might never be free from him.

  “I want Jag Barque.”

  “He’s impossible to cage,” I said. I’d lived the past two years watching him. By now, I could predict his decisions about half the time. The other half left me shaking my head and wondering what he was thinking.

  “Maybe,” Director Myers said. “But you can provide me with at least some details I need.”

  “He doesn’t tell me everything.” I held my breath, hoping Director Myers wouldn’t hear the half-lie in that sentence.

  “He tells you enough.”

  My back ached from standing so straight and still. “So I turn Informant, is that it?”

  “No, Zenn,” Director Myers purred. “You get the girl you want. A life with everything you want—and more. So what if you send a few e-comms every once in a while? No one has to know.”

  I didn’t respond. The Resistance had provided me with some measure of control in my life. Jag was my best friend. I wasn’t sure I could abandon him, and the thought of informing on him made me queasy.

  But the Director didn’t have to know that. And he didn’t know how much—or how little—I knew. I’d been playing both sides for years; I could do it a little longer. The stakes felt infinitely higher. This was Vi’s life on the line.

  “You’ll match me with Violet Schoenfeld? She’ll be safe and protected?” I knew she had a record. Vi didn’t like to follow rules, something I adored about her.

  “You have my word.”

  “Her record will be wiped clean,” I said. “Mine too.”

  “Consider it done.”

  “Done.” I didn’t turn and we didn’t shake hands. I simply melted into the night.

  His voice cut through the darkness when he said, “Two minutes, Mr. Bower.”

 

  One minute and twenty-one seconds passed before the city of Freedom began to wail. The whitest of white lights flashed from every doorway, every rooftop. The sound of hoverboards filled the sky.

  Alarms and sirens and hoverboards I could dodge. I could push away the extra thirty-nine seconds I’d been promised and didn’t get. Myers was such a liar. What if he didn’t honor his word regarding Vi?

  When the dogs started barking, I couldn’t swallow back the fear. I had a solid mile of ground to cover, and I sprinted full-out toward Rise Eleven and ducked into the alley I’d emerged from twenty minutes before.

  Blaze, gone; the teleporter ring, dark. I swore and gasped for breath. The barking grew louder. The sirens pitched shrilly. The panic blossomed into terror.

  I wrenched the backpack off, desperate to find something inside that would save me. Before I could even unzip it, a girl stepped into the alley. Her eyes shone sharp and metallic in the flashing lights. She threw something hard at the ground and slunk back into the shadows. A purple ring brightened the alleyway.

  I didn’t wait to say “Thank you,” or “Where’s Blaze?” or anything. I bolted into the teleporter ring and shouted the coordinates for my dad’s lab in the Goodgrounds.

  The whole two minute, twelve-second ride echoed with the word traitor.

  “I don’t know,” I said, probably for the fifth time during the interrogation. Technically, it was a post-mission report, but since the Resistance had lost such an important member, it felt more hostile.

  “You don’t know where the prisoners were?” Dad asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where was Blaze while you were gone?”

  “The alley. I asked him to stay in the alley.” A cold shock of guilt chilled me. I’d told him to stay. Had he died there, waiting for me? The alley hadn’t held a footprint. Not a speck of blood. Almost like we’d never been there.

  “You don’t know who the girl was who helped you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  And I didn’t. My dad recorded my answers, a look of supreme doubt in his eyes. I wanted to shake him, make him understand. I was his son; I was the one who joined the Resistance when my older brother wouldn’t. I desperately needed my dad to believe me.

  I opened my mouth to explain it again, but I didn’t have different words that would work. I’d told him what had happened, right down to the detail of that girl’s crazy-controlling eyes.

  Of course, I’d left out the bit detailing Director Myers’ offer and my agreement to feed him information about Jag. I’d simply said the Director had been there in place of our Freedom spy, and that I’d hightailed it out of the area as quick as I could. Both items were true.

  The only thing going for me was the fact that Jag was away on business. He’d fillet me alive with a simple look. I imagined him getting the news of the failed mission, his missing and presumed dead brother. The anger in his eyes would be replaced with anguish.

  I put my head down on the table, feeling lost. Trapped. How could I tell Jag—or anyone—about Vi? About my crazy-intense need to protect her? That she was the reason I’d turned Informant?

  I couldn’t.

  Jag would scoff; tell me that a girl didn’t warrant backstabbing; remind me that in the Resistance, we shouldn’t have any emotional attachments.

  “Zenn,” Dad said, his tone soft and parental. Something squeezed inside, tightening the fist I felt around my heart. He didn’t touch me, but his hand hovered over my shoulder.

  “I don’t know.” I exhaled, pushing all the air out of my lungs in an attempt to get a decent breath. “Dad, I don’t know.” My voice cracked on the last word, but I
swallowed hard and regained my composure. I did not cry. I did not show weakness on the job.

  Dad nodded, tapped in a note on his screen, and sat down next to me. “I’ll send word through the proper channels. I’m sure Jag will want another meeting.”

  I was sure he would too.

  Sure enough, the summons for the face-to-face meeting with Jag came three days later. He must’ve left the moment he received the report and flown most of the way. He didn’t use teleporters if he could help it. He adored flying, but three days from Seaside set a new record.

  The message contained one word, scrawled in Jag’s messy writing on a ripped piece of paper: Midnight.

  I left at dusk, minutes before curfew. I walked along the tree line, one foot in the forest and one foot out. The settlements had been swallowed by foliage, but I picked my way through the undergrowth with ease. I’d been here so many times before.

  Instead of going to Resistance headquarters, I went into a house on the edge of the settlement that overlooked the border between the Goodgrounds and the Badlands. From my spot in the attic, I saw tiny lights winking in the distance. They reminded me that here in this house, I was utterly alone.

  I loved this house. It had room to think. Air to breathe. Space enough for me and Vi and the huge plans I had for our lives together. Director Myers had been true to his word. The day after I’d returned from Freedom, Dad had returned from work with an official envelope. My match notice. Mine held an extra slip of paper. On that paper sat two typed words that sealed my fate: Your turn.

  My mother had wondered at it. Dad too, and he’d