Twenty-Eight Melinoë
Twenty-Eight
Melino?
Sleep finds Inesa quickly, but it can’t seem to get a hold on me. The pain has receded into the background, just nipping at me lightly when I move too quickly or too suddenly. It’s more the opposite sensation that keeps me awake: the way my skin is still warm and humming with the memory of her touch. The way my lips are swollen, throbbing with the echoes of pleasure. I touch them and feel the pulse of my own heartbeat, dragging and low.
When I do close my eyes, the world behind them explodes with color. Bright white and deep green. Even with the more-than-perfect vision my prosthetic grants me, it all feels new. Shades I’ve never seen before. Hues I didn’t believe were real. Extinct colors, long-erased from the City, from the world Caerus built, but springing quietly back to life out here.
Inesa’s bare shoulders rise and fall with her breathing. The bruises I left on her neck have nearly faded, but there’s a smaller one blooming up in its place, violet and tender, in the shape of my mouth. I want to kiss her again. I want to touch her. I want to fall asleep next to her and know nothing will wake me.
But I remember it all now. Azrael jerking me out of Keres’s bed. The icy fury in his eyes. I extricate myself from the blankets, taking care not to disturb Inesa. When I rise from the bed and put my weight gingerly on my feet, pain shoots up my legs and jolts my heart. I have to bite my lip to keep from making a sound.
I wait until the pain returns to its bearable equilibrium, and then I walk over to the table. My hunting suit still lies puddled on the floor, torn and charred. Streaks of my blood are drying on the wood. The jagged holes in the wall and the door where the Dogs clawed their way in are exposing planks of shivery light. The woodstove is cold.
There’s no putting my suit back on. Instead, I take the oversize flannel shirt from where it’s draped over the chair and button it to my throat. The pants are hopelessly large, so I just leave them. The shirt falls all the way to my knees, and I figure my legs and feet may benefit from exposure to the numbingly chill air.
I open the cabin door and step into the snow. Outside sunlight is glancing off the fast-melting layer of frost. Even though it’s barely been an hour since I blew up the Dogs, it feels like an eternity has passed. The new world that hangs before my eyes is beautiful and strange. Maybe I did fall asleep and this is a dream. Maybe it will always be this bright and I’ll never see the setting sun.
But I can’t quite convince myself it’s true. I take slow, halting steps through the snow, my whole body feeling clumsy with both the returning pain and the residual numbing effects of the pill. Eventually, I reach the smoldering pile of metal.
The Dogs are in pieces, legs snapped off their bodies, hulls crushed inward. I have to admit that I’m surprised how easy it was to destroy them. From all the stories I’ve heard, from all the demonstrations I’ve seen, I thought they’d be a lot more durable. It surprises me, too, that they never shot back at us, even though examining them now, I can see the charred remains of their mounted machine guns. If they had wanted us dead, they could’ve killed us instantly, in a spray of bullets.
I kneel down beside the nearest one and begin picking through the rubble. The metal is still hot enough to burn my hands, so I pull down the shirtsleeves to cover my palms. The pieces of the Dogs are all warped. I can’t shake the feeling that this is wrong. Admittedly, my knowledge is limited, but how can kerosene burn hot enough to melt such tough, durable metal?
Something gleams from the mass of rubble, smooth and black as a piece of polished obsidian. I brush off the ash with my sleeve.
It’s a large square object, unmarred by the explosion—not even scuffed. When I tap it with my index finger, there’s a faint reverberation, suggesting it’s hollow inside.
A literal black box. I run my hands around it until I find a small latch, just barely big enough to flip open with my thumbnail.
Inside there’s a rolled-up length of fabric, also black. I recognize the insulated, heat-reflecting, Kevlar-lined material at once. I unfurl it onto the snow. A hunting suit.
My heart starts pounding. Underneath the suit, the box is full of other supplies: bullets, syringes, bandages, decon-tabs, meal replacement packets. My fingers tremble as I remove each item and set it down beside me. Total numbness overtakes me. I can’t even feel the cold on my bare legs.
The last item is an even smaller box, made of the same sleek, polished metal. It looks like the sort of box that would hold a wedding ring, but when I flip it open, I find a tiny black object, curled like a mollusk. I struggle to even pinch it between my finger and thumb. I raise it up to the light.
It’s an earpiece. My heart lurches.
Still trembling, I place it in my ear. There’s the crackle of static, the high-pitched hum of a searching signal. And then a low, familiar voice.
“Hello, Melino?.”
Azrael.
“I’m sure you have plenty of questions. Don’t worry. I’ll answer them all in good time.”
His voice is so smooth, so controlled, that at first I wonder if it’s a recording. I stay silent, my heart hammering painfully against my sternum.
“Okay?”
Dry-mouthed, I reply, “Okay.”
“I’m glad to see you survived your encounter with the Dogs.”
Something twinges in my stomach. “You didn’t mean for them to kill me. If you did, I would be dead.”
“No,” he agrees. “You’re smart enough to figure that out. You’re also smart enough to know that we’ve been watching you.”
My vision tips. The ground seems to switch places with the sky. I stare and stare into the middle distance until my eyes burn, until I hear Azrael inhale, impatience evident in just that single sharp breath.
“How long?” I ask hoarsely. “How long have the cameras been on?”
“We did lose connection briefly. And after your encounter with Luka, your comms chip was indeed disabled. But the Lamb’s tracker eventually came back online, and so did the cameras. Just in time to see you fall asleep next to her in that cave.”
“But I didn’t hear the cameras. Not once, since...” I trail off. My voice is smaller than a whisper.
Azrael laughs, a raspy, pitying sound that makes me feel like I’m eight years old again, my hand slipping out of my real father’s grasp. I can almost remember that now, too. My real parents: Their faces are blurry, like reflections on the water, but if I focus, they sharpen and clarify. I’m starting to remember it all.
“You think we can’t keep them below your detection?” Azrael clucks his tongue. “Making them audible was always a favor to you and the other Angels, so you would perform well. But as it turns out, your best performance has been when you believed the cameras were off.”
“I’m not performing ,” I bite out. “I’ve been trying to stay alive. Because you abandoned me.”
Azrael is silent, leaving only the faint hum of static in my ear, as anger surges like fire through my veins.
“You saw me get hit in the head,” I go on, feeling almost breathless with fury. “You saw me almost get killed by the Wends. I could have starved or frozen, and you didn’t help.”
Azrael lets out a breath, full of indulgent contempt. “You must have forgotten how this works, Melino?.”
“No,” I say, “I haven’t forgotten. I remember everything now.”
Silence. The static skips and hums irregularly, like the staggered beating of my own heart. I know the cameras are on now, hovering close to pick up every twitch of my mouth, every flash of emotion in my gaze, but I don’t care. I want to claw out the hideous machine they’ve given me in place of my real eye. I want to scream until it tears my lungs.
“I remember everything,” I say again, bitterly. “I remember what you did to Keres. What you did to me. What you’ve done, this whole time, to all of us...”
The buzzing static in my ear is wretched and almost painful. I hear Azrael inhale sharply.
“And what good has it done you, to remember?”
My righteous fury starts to wither. I feel myself slipping back into the body of the girl who was happy to forget. Who begged for the Wipes. Who had lain still as cold hands worked on her, as a black-clad body arched over her—I remember that, too. And the words I want to speak turn to ash in my mouth.
“I have been kind,” Azrael says. “I have been merciful. Do you wish I had let Keres put a bullet in her brain? Do you wish I had left you mired in guilt and misery forever? I’ve given you the gift of oblivion. It’s something many would kill for, or die for.”
Something essential inside me cracks. Because he’s right. It hurts to remember. As painful as it was to become this icy, unfeeling creature, it’s even more painful to revert. The backward metamorphosis is like a thousand small deaths. Terror, grief, and shame all hammering into my titanium-grafted bones.
“You never gave me a choice,” I say. “And now I’ll never know what I might have chosen.”
Azrael lets out a short, cold laugh. “All of New Amsterdam has witnessed your choices, Melino?. They’ve seen what you’ve done when you thought you were alone. They’ve seen everything.”
I lean over, bile rising in my throat.
The only thing that stops me from vomiting into the snow is the cameras. I was an idiot to think they haven’t always been there, carefully keeping just out of earshot. Seventeen years of life, nine years of Angel programming, and I’m still so naive and stupid. I should have known.
“ Everything ,” Azrael repeats in my ear. His tone is lofty, gloating.
They saw me save Inesa’s life, over and over again. They saw her save mine. They heard me talk about the little girl on my last Gauntlet. Sanne. They heard me talk about Keres. They watched me strip off my hunting suit, baring my whole naked body to their unblinking eyes. They watched me say I want to do more than just survive.
They saw me kiss her. They saw me do far more than kiss her. Our bodies running under the blankets, her mouth grazing my shoulder, my hands running the length of her thighs.
I tip forward, catching myself before I land face-first in the melting snow. My breaths are coming in short, hot gasps. It’s the very last thought that breaks me. The realization that they’ve seen Inesa, too. I’ve always been strung up, stretched out for the consumption of the audience. I’ve seen every comment, from the most laudatory to the most contemptuous and every intrusive, vile thing in between. I was shaped and trained for the cameras. But she wasn’t.
Now the audience is dissecting Inesa, too. Zeroing in on all the places she has a right to keep hidden, the quiet words that passed between the two of us, the tender, secret, wounded places she thought she was showing to me and me alone.
“Please,” I whisper. “Please—turn them off. Just...”
Azrael doesn’t reply. He merely sighs, with the disdainful pity I know as well as I know my own heartbeat.
“What do you want from me?” I finally choke out.
“The only thing I’ve ever asked of you, Melino?. To do what you’ve been made for.”
I draw in a breath, try to prepare an answer, but my tongue feels numb in my mouth.
“Don’t speak now,” Azrael says. “Just listen. You have plenty of time, still, to make this right. But it can’t be done just any which way. You know that. Especially not after everything the audience has witnessed between you two. This is the most-viewed Gauntlet in history. There’s not a household in New Amsterdam that hasn’t clicked on the live stream at least once. The CEO is very, very pleased.”
Millions of people. My face plastered across their tablet screens. Inesa’s bare body. I’ve protected her from Wends and Dogs, from freezing and starving, but I couldn’t protect her from this.
“Obviously they are very invested in the narrative you’ve created. The Angel who fell in love with the Lamb. They don’t know, of course, that you aren’t capable of such a sentiment. None of you are.”
I swallow, tasting blood and bile. “Just turn the cameras off,” I beg. “Please. Just for a little while—”
“It’s too late for that now. All of New Amsterdam is watching.”
They’ll only be able to hear my end of the conversation, not Azrael’s voice in my ear. And I don’t want them to hear my pathetic wheedling anymore. I force myself to sit up, ignoring the agonizing pain in my legs and the urge to whimper.
“And what if I don’t?”
Saying it aloud sends a thrill of fear through my chest. Defying him is terrifying. Even more so, now that I remember what he’s done.
“Then you’ll have failed,” he says. “I’ll have no choice but to decommission you. Do a final Wipe. And then I’ll hand you over to Visser.”
The memory of his hand on the small of my back is enough to make me want to retch again. Visions of the party swim through my mind. The glasses of sapphire-blue liquor, the shine of Keres’s silk dress. Her empty, empty eye. All the damage the fire must have done, erased, her scars cloaked in new synthetic skin so she won’t remember that once, at least, she had tried to be free. I can’t choke out a reply.
“I don’t want to see you fail,” Azrael goes on. His tone is soft now, and I realize that I remember the softness, too. Just as much as I remember every blow. “I’ll even make you a deal. Kill the Lamb, and I won’t Wipe you when I decommission you. I won’t give you to Visser.”
He’s actually negotiating with me. My mind is in overdrive, trying to make sense of it. He must be truly desperate. The connection between Azrael and the CEO has always been shadowy and somewhat mysterious to me, probably by his design. But just like everyone else in New Amsterdam, Azrael is obligated to please him. If Azrael’s Angels fail, Azrael himself will be a failure in the CEO’s eyes, too.
Especially now, with this being the most publicized Gauntlet ever. It would be shameful. It would make Caerus look weak.
“You understand, of course,” Azrael goes on, “that she cannot be allowed to live. Think of the precedent it would set. That a Lamb could seduce an Angel into sparing their life. You have already done untold damage to your reputation—to the reputation of every Angel in the program. It will take a lot to undo this. But you must kill her. There is no other option.”
Light slants through the branches and onto the snow. It all seemed so immaculate just moments ago. Now the white is mottled with shadow. Where the snow is melting, damp brown patches of dirt emerge. The air starts to feel dense with humidity again, impossibly heavy.
When I still don’t reply, Azrael says, “There’s a new countdown timer fixed to the hunting suit. I would recommend looking at it. And look for the last box. You have everything you need now.”
And then, with a crackle of static, he’s gone.
I just stare ahead, unseeing. There’s only carnage behind my eyes. Sanne’s arms flailing as I pinned her down. Visser’s hand sliding up the small of my back. Keres’s blank, unknowing gaze. It all pours down on me like water. I feel drowned. Only a Wipe could save me from this, could pull me back onto dry land. That merciful oblivion. The worst part of it all is knowing that Azrael is right.
The memories are so blinding and the blood in my ears is pulsing so loudly that everything else fades into the background. I don’t hear the crunch of snow behind me. And I don’t see Inesa until she lays a gentle hand on my shoulder. I turn around.
“Mel?” Inesa’s eyes are wide, her chin quivering. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
At last, the truth. It comes flooding out of me, all at once, before I can even think to stop it. Maybe it would be smart to hide some things; maybe it would protect her. But I can’t reason with myself through the woozy glaze of fear.
I take the earpiece out and show it to her, flat on my open palm. I gesture to the new hunting suit spread out on the snow. I show her the box, crammed full of syringes and bullets and other supplies. My whole body is shaking, but not from the cold. In fact, I can’t feel anything but nausea, pooling slick in the bottom of my belly.
The whole time, Inesa doesn’t speak. I only see her throat tick as she swallows.
“I was stupid,” I whisper. “So stupid. I should have known they’d still be watching. I should have...”
Inesa just shakes her head. She reaches out to me, then stops, hand hovering in the air. Who knows how close the cameras are now? If they’re zooming in on her face, or mine? And who knows what all the people behind the screens are thinking? Nothing we do is private anymore; none of our words and actions are our own. We’re being laid out and dissected by millions of viewers. We’re being chewed and swallowed.
I know there are going to be hundreds of clips of us, maybe thousands. Of our kiss and more. They’ll be embedded in news articles, replayed on other people’s streams, uploaded to unsavory websites. If I linger too long on this thought, I can’t breathe. Even if we both survive, we’ll never escape this. One way or another, we’ll always be on this Gauntlet.
At last, Inesa speaks. Her voice is hoarse. “Did you check how much time we have left?”
“No.” The word falls between us into the snow. “Not yet.”
Inesa stares down at her open palms. The blisters are only partly healed, with pale, slightly raised streaks of pink with yellow bubbles of new skin beneath. Her lips quiver.
“Maybe,” she says, “we should look in the other box.”