CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Nova
OUT OF TIME
Cas locked me into the extraction chamber, along with my hope.
I closed my eyes and took one long inhale, remembering why I was here – who I was doing this for. I pictured my mural and all the faces I’d painted – my neighborhood, my lifeline.
Steeling myself, I found the sleek panel in the back corner of the chamber, almost seamless with the rest of the wall. One press to the bottom edge and it popped open. I sighed with relief. It was exactly like the simulation: the cording inside, precisely where it should be.
I’d thought more about why Mr Fox hadn’t dismantled this lab – why he’d kept such damning notes and research when he wouldn’t even use it for his own blood.
The only answer I could come up with was that it was for himself.
If Cas had a rare blood type, chances were someone else in his family did too.
Mr Fox would know how hard it would be to match, and he’d know his age and prestige didn’t mean he was exempt from the disease awakening in him.
It was so vain. But I was grateful for it.
I pulled the wires loose and braided them together, then attached them to the wrist node hidden under my sleeve, the way Apollo had taught me.
The patch fit perfectly over the raised scar of my Pain Carrier chip.
Everything was just as Dr Anand’s and Mr Fox’s notes described.
Next came the part Cas would hate, possibly refuse.
I’d kept one thing from him.
‘OK, what do I do now?’ He stood behind the console, his fingers twitching to press a button.
I pointed to my phone, the directions already typed out for him. Even if the box wasn’t soundproof, I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
He entered a few commands on the holoscreen, then flashed a thumbs-up.
First step complete. Dr Anand had theorized reverse-engineering the transference as part of her extraction cure.
The pulse frequency emitted during the Giver–Carrier transfer lured the parasitic helical disease in.
With the new setting Cas had entered, the pulse would force the disease out. In theory.
‘Warning,’ announced Centaurus. ‘Unstable settings.’
‘We know, we know,’ Cas muttered, moving on to the next step.
I tensed, clenching and unclenching my fists. My nails left half-moons in my palms.
‘Pain Giver: Castor Fox, Active. Chip functioning at one hundred per cent,’ Centaurus chimed. Schematics for Cas’s chip projected on to the holoscreen.
Cas frowned, looking between the flashing red text and my notes. ‘This isn’t right. This second warning wasn’t in the practice simulation.’
Apollo said our only chance at this was if the helical disease had nowhere else to go.
Helical disease flowed through Pain Carriers as a guest. The Pain Giver technically remained the host, even after the transference.
If you cut out a Pain Carrier’s chip, the disease returned to the host – its anchor.
It would still conduct itself as a stable current.
But if you cut out a Pain Giver’s chip – or, in our case, disconnected it – well, there was an ethical reason no one ever did that.
Cas straightened, finally understanding. ‘I’m not turning off my chip.’
I cursed under my breath. ‘You have to.’
I didn’t know if he heard me. He shook his head.
‘If I disconnect it and this doesn’t work, my disease will be stuck with you.
I can’t go to anyone to reset it after tonight.
Someone’ll figure out what we did. They’ll see we intentionally turned it off.
And we both know my family wouldn’t help you.
They’d probably have you arrested, and you’d be stuck with my pain. ’
‘Cas, please,’ I whispered, desperate. We didn’t have another option. I’d said yes to this knowing the risk. For me, it was worth it. We had to turn off his chip. We couldn’t give the parasite anywhere else to go. If we didn’t, the extraction would fail.
‘It says turning off the chip destabilizes the connection,’ he said. ‘What does that mean? Why didn’t you tell me this before?’
Because it meant he’d never be able to take his pain back if we failed.
Disconnecting his chip was like cutting an anchor free.
There’d be nothing stabilizing the disease in my body.
It’d crash through my nervous system like a glassrail with no brakes.
The pain would be excruciating. I could only hope the disease settled naturally under my skin and accepted me as its host. If not, the stress would be too much. I hadn’t told anyone. Only Apollo knew.
It was a risk I’d decided to take – my body, my choice.
So many people had hidden their pain over the years because they had no other option.
They’d put on a strong face to support their families, sat through the gaslighting just so they’d have enough to live.
If this cure worked, all of that could change. I’d be the one to make them listen.
I thought of Mom – how no one had believed her, and how it led to her death. I’d make the world listen to me. I was tired of us being in pain and silenced.
This would work. It had to.
I placed my hand on the glass, and Cas placed his over it.
‘It’s going to work,’ I said. ‘I know so many people have lied to you, kept things from you, but I need you to trust me.’
‘I can’t hear you,’ he said softly, ‘but I know you’re in there being stubborn.’
I laughed, a tear falling.
He leaned against the glass. ‘I know you know how I feel. And I know I’ve fallen harder than you, and I don’t care. I trust you. Even more now than when I said it on the beach. If you want me to do this, I will. I’m doing this because I care about you. Nova Williams, I –’
I slapped my hand against the glass, covering his mouth. ‘You are not about to confess your feelings for me when you can’t hear what I need to say back.’
I needed to correct him. He might’ve fallen faster, but I’d fallen for Castor Fox just as hard. He’d been my lifeline when he didn’t know it. Stars, I didn’t even know it. No matter how much I tried to run, I kept coming back to him – caught in his orbit. I’d always come back to him.
His lips curved into a crooked smile. ‘I know you’re scolding me for something.’
I crossed my arms, then pointed up.
‘The rooftop? Ah.’ He smirked. ‘Wait until we get outside to finish that sentence?’
I nodded vehemently.
‘Wait until we get outside, because you have something you want to say too?’
I rolled my eyes and pointed at the console.
‘OK, OK.’ He held up his hands and returned to the computer station, reading everything one last time. He sighed, an acquiescence, and swiped the button on the profile.
Centaurus chimed again. ‘Pain Giver: Castor Fox, Dormant. Warning. Pain Carrier may require medical attention.’ Cas’s chip was officially disconnected from mine.
The pain was immediate.
My wrist burned, and within seconds I was on the edge of the worst hellflare I’d ever known. It wouldn’t stop until the helical disease was out of my body.
I pointed to the final button. ‘Now!’
Cas slammed his hand over the control as blue light erupted up my arm. I screamed, falling to my knees. The node cuff warmed, the braided cording filling with an aquamarine glow.
‘Warning. Helical parasite unstable. Warning. Warning.’ Centaurus repeated.
‘Hey! HEY!’ Cas banged on the glass. ‘Are you OK?’
I swallowed the next scream, trying so hard to force my focus outward. No one else would have to be a Pain Carrier again after this. No one else would have to lie about their pain or feel forced into silence. No more being strong just to barely survive.
‘I’m turning it off,’ said Cas.
‘No!’ I hammered on the glass, motioning frantically to the light.
I bit my lip, tears streaming freely down my face as the glow shot through the tubes and into the nodes beneath the floor, crackling under my feet. The helical disease was trapped.
A hiss filled the chamber as a dark cloud churned within the blue lightning – a storm raging below me.
It felt symbolic of every emotion I’d carried since the disease first entered my body.
My hate, my frustration, my fear, my desperation.
I reached out to it, running my fingers over the glass as the pain faded from my body.
The sound warbled, a high-pitched cry that echoed a few seconds behind the movement of the light.
It bounced back and forth, dissolving to static, then, after a minute, nothing.
‘Extraction complete,’ announced Centaurus.
We’d done it.
Helical disease had been a rot festering in my community – and others like it – for too long.
And we’d just found a way to get rid of it – to kill it.
We’d uncovered a way to force change. No more Pain Carriers, no more Pain Givers.
We were far from equal, but one less thing would stand in the way.
Strength would become a choice – not a requirement.
A tear fell on to my arm. I touched it as the light beneath my skin went out.
I still glowed, but it was my melanin. I was just me: a Black girl from South Alta, ready to become Dominion’s worst nightmare, my community’s impossible dream.
Cas threw open the chamber door and ran to me, enveloping me in his arms.
‘It’s gone,’ I rasped. There was a weightlessness to my body I hadn’t felt in so long.
He kissed my cheeks and my tears, laughter bubbling from his lips. He turned to his phone recording, waved, and then flipped it off. I would have joined him, but this would be all over the news tomorrow, and the last thing I needed was to give Skye an excuse to use the gesture herself.
We did it.
Cas helped me to my feet, checking to make sure I could stand. I wasn’t weak. If anything, I felt stronger than ever. I was ready for what would come next.
We did it.
‘Race you to the roof?’ I challenged, too happy to contain myself.