Chapter 8 #2
I inhale sharply the second I realize where she’s going. ‘Enough, Maria. I know the stakes. I want this as badly as you think I do – more, even.’ I run my thumb over the medallion round my neck. Soon.
I promise. A tight hug, a gentle kiss. The last I remember.
I promise, I promise, I promise.
‘Girls.’
Maria and I turn. Ah Ma stands behind us with her hands clasped, her wrists adorned with golden bangles and a beaded jade bracelet, her blouse auspiciously red.
‘Ah Ma,’ I greet with a little bow, and hear Maria chorus the same.
‘Food looks good,’ Ah Ma says with a nod to the pan, and my chest shivers with pride.
She unfolds her hands to reveal a slim black box. ‘Raven, this is yours.’
The poison. I feel Maria’s eyes on me as I reach out and take the box. It’s light, nearly inconsequential.
Ah Ma clears her throat. ‘It’s bitter. Best hidden in coffee or chocolate. Can you do that?’
‘Yes, Ah Ma.’ I turn it over.
‘You’ll need to put in the full dose, and it’ll activate within twenty-four hours. She might faint, or pass out once it’s activated. It’ll also only last a week. Can you work within that?’
‘Yes, Ah Ma.’ I tuck it safely in my pocket.
When I look up, she’s still staring at me. ‘You’ll make them very proud, you know,’ Ah Ma whispers.
A pang hits me, and I cut my gaze low so she won’t see the way my bottom lip quivers. ‘Thank you.’
After Ah Ma turns to leave, a hand slides over to squeeze my wrist. When I glance up, Maria’s smile is gentler than usual.
It’s two of us alone in the kitchen, again.
I swallow, moving to tug my hand from hers. ‘Maria, we’re not . . .’
Maria sighs and rolls her eyes. ‘I don’t need to be your girlfriend to be nice to you.’
Actually, in the course of our relationship, Maria proved she could both be my girlfriend and not be nice to me, but maybe it’s better not to bring it up now. Maria’s hot–cold, volatile love is best left untouched.
Fine. With a smile born from practice and not emotion, I squeeze Maria’s hand.
I find my assassination target meddling on a computer at the lab, a rectangle marked on the floor with duct tape near my lab desk.
Tia glances up as I near. ‘Haven’t seen you much in the past week.’
I hear the silent question. Where were you? After that first day in the lab, I’d taken half a week off to lie in bed and let my skin stitch itself over Lune’s blaster wound. Yesterday’s Fox gathering was the first time I’d stepped out of the house.
‘Just say you missed me.’ Question dodged, as evasive as shadow. I slide into the seat opposite Tia.
‘What do you want me to miss? Your bad jokes? Or the time you spent the night infesting the school building with roaches?’ Tia leans away from her laptop, an eyebrow canted with accusation.
‘Yeah, well, it was April Fools’ at the Academy, and it was none of your business.’ I hook a thumb on my medallion’s chain, tugging it to feel its punishment on the nape of my neck. I shouldn’t be standing here bantering with Tia. ‘Do you snitch on me just so you’ll have an excuse to watch me?’
Oh, it comes so easily.
Tia’s cheeks flush. She readjusts her weight and clears her throat. ‘Did you start thinking it was okay to be cute with me when we’re barely friends?’
Friends. The vial flashes through my mind, and I shift to distance myself from Tia. Not friends. ‘What do we have to do today?’ I say as a distraction.
Tia is thrown, albeit only for a second.
‘Well, Niko’s still banned us from looking at moonstones while they’re in discussion with the board of directors.
So I’ve compiled all footage we have of Raven’s body movement and formulated a software that’ll identify anyone who fits her movement pattern, but I need someone who’s not Raven to try it out. Ergo, you.’
She points at the duct-tape rectangle. A bulky set of wiring and a camera sits opposite it like a death machine.
I shuffle close to the contraption. ‘I know Raven’s the main villain of the day in Singapore, and your feud’s pretty public, but it’s always been about capturing her, not figuring out her identity. Why so obsessed now?’
Tia shrugs and returns to her computer. ‘New developments. Now, get in.’
‘The Foxes have been stealing the new moonstones,’ I hear in what she doesn’t say. Okay, fine. But now I’m in trouble. Refusing to be a test subject would be suspicious, but if this software actually works, would that expose me as Raven? How much would I be able to deny it?
‘Why not just face recognition?’ I step into the square, eyeing the sensor on the table and tracking the many makeshift wires Tia has soldered in place. Knowing her, none of these wires are redundant. If I snap one of them, my secret identity might still live until tomorrow.
Behind the death machine, Tia’s head dips with a sigh.
‘Her mask is enchanted enough that none of our facial recognition software works. This program will compare any detected warm bodies to her body movement patterns. If it matches, my suit flags the person as Raven, so—’ Tia finally looks up from her computer, and now she frowns. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’
I shrug, as nonchalantly as I can when my entire chest constricts with the feeling that Tia’s just locked me up and ripped off my mask. ‘I was just wondering how accurate this program is. You know, before you run something completely untested on me.’
‘Not completely untested.’ Tia raises a brow. ‘I almost wish you were Raven, so I’d get to see ALFRED eject you straight out of the window. But don’t worry, you’re the third Not-Raven person to stand in there.’
Not-Raven. I lick my lips and find them dry. ‘Of course.’ I zero on the wires again, clasp my wrist behind my back so I can wriggle my fingers to activate my telekinesis without drawing attention. ‘You’re just so smart, aren’t you?’
‘Jealous?’ Tia flicks a switch by her computer, and the sensor begins to whir.
Showtime. I focus on a yellow wire snaking over the edge of the table, and give it an experimental tug. When Tia doesn’t react, I pinch my fingers together and pull. But . . . God, she’s soldered it.
Tia’s still focused on watching me through what looks like an infrared scanner. ‘Do a quick jog on the spot.’
I comply, grabbing the wire with my telekinesis again. The yellow wire goes taut between its soldered point and my grip, but I have to stop when Tia looks up. ‘Do a squat and put your hands up.’
‘Now you’re just publicly humiliating me.’ All of the interns look preoccupied with their own work, but I catch several curious glances.
‘I’m being completely serious.’
I grit my teeth and comply. Damn Sentinels. I should never have interned with one. I should never again be around one.
As I ease my way out of the squat, I clench my fists like I’m stretching and feel for the wire with my telekinesis.
When I stand, I stretch my arms over my head and the cord snaps.
The effect is immediate. The computer begins beeping, and Tia’s brows knit as she ducks to squint at the computer. ‘What the—’
‘Are we done?’ I stuff my hands in my pockets, forcing my shoulders to slump in feigned disinterest. ‘That’s about all the physical exercise I want to be doing today.’
‘Something’s wrong.’ Tia’s gaze darts between me and the screen.
My gut sinks. Every wire must have been functional, which means the one I pulled out was important – important enough, even, to set off the alarm.
ALFRED’s voice booms over the speakers. ‘Hostility alert. Ejection protocol commencing in three . . . two . . . one . . .’
I barely have time to brace myself before a spell-like force slams into me. Behind me, a window shatters in preparation, and the force shoves me off the fifty-fourth floor of the Lain Co. building.
Shit.
Raven can jump. Raven can bolster her landing with telekinesis.
Harper cannot. Wind whistles past, joining my roaring heartbeat as the void swallows me whole. My only shot at survival is to use telekinesis, but that would reveal my identity and, last I checked, I can’t do that.
A thought that’s quickly followed by, I’m going to die.
It’s my identity or my life, and I stretch my arms out to prepare my telekinesis.
But against the cloudless sky, a blot appears. Light glints off a figure hurtling down to me.
Tia. As in, civilian Tia. Not Lune. Flesh and cloth, no armour, no suit. I watch her scramble to snap her wristbands in mid-air.
‘Are you trying to die?’ I yell over the howling wind, but Tia reaches out. Hands circle my wrists, tugging me into a warm but solid embrace as she pulls me in.
The wristbands glow as her magic activates. We wrestle gravity until the world stops screaming.
Then the world stops, period.
My heart skips five beats, lands on all five in quick succession, but Tia’s waist is a steady handhold, her grip is secure, and my heartbeat slowly rolls back out into regularity.
‘Oh, God,’ I breathe, my forehead pressed against Tia’s collar. I’m shaking. It’s not like I’ve never been in danger before – but I’ve never been so close to death as a civilian. ‘God, shit.’
‘For legal reasons,’ I hear Tia say, her breath almost as laboured as mine, her chest heaving, ‘when I said I wanted to see you ejected from a window, I was not premeditating this.’
It’s tough to figure out who’s indebted to who once we reach the tower, given the fact that Tia’s the one who primed me for a crude, unprecedented take-off, but she also saved me.
‘I checked it.’ Tia slides a cup of juice across the kitchen table. ‘A wire came loose and the alarm tripped. Please take this as a peace offering. Niko said you asked for this apple juice after the gala.’
I run a hand through my hair as I stare down at the glass.
‘You’re only doing this because Niko yelled at you for half an hour.
Leave. I want to be alone.’ Lie. I’m only sitting because I can’t trust my knees to stop shaking when I stand.
It’s not even about the fall – it’s the fact that for several crucial seconds, I’d been completely helpless.
Alone.
Tia is quiet opposite me. When I glance over, she has both hands clasped in a death grip, her gaze locked with the marble countertop.
‘For what it’s worth, I really am sorry,’ she says finally. ‘I know you think I’m careless and heartless and it didn’t matter to me whether you got thrown out of a window—’
‘I don’t.’ Every time I remember the fall, amidst the terror, there’s a clear moment I can’t stop replaying.
It’s impossible. Tia is cold, detached. Sure, she’s also a spineless people pleaser, but that only makes her more of a coward.
Not . . . ‘I don’t think that. You jumped out of the window after me before you even put on your wristbands. Why?’
‘I had to save you. I had no time to think.’
Unbelievable. A shade of anger, deep and indescribable, seizes me as I grip my glass. ‘Do you know how much you risked yourself? For several seconds, you weren’t a Sentinel saving someone. You were a person falling to her death for someone you hated.’
‘The suit doesn’t make me the Sentinel, kit.’ Tia’s eyes dart away, like it’s difficult to admit. ‘You were in trouble. I had the power to help you. That’s all.’
This is why she’s a Sentinel. The thought comes unbidden, and it shakes my resolve. Tia’s never cared about the people around her. She’s always been a spectator, always the infuriatingly cool head. Even as a Sentinel, it seemed like she only ever followed Niko and Kiran’s orders.
Now, without the other Sentinels around, why is she—?
It’s so sickeningly selfless that I want to scoff with disbelief, but Tia cups her elbows and crosses them tight in something that looks frightfully close to vulnerability.
It’s not like I’ve haven’t seen past Tia’s icy exterior in the two years we’ve lived together. We’ve been almost amicable over the last month. Still, she’s never given a part of herself up like this. Not voluntarily.
My surprise must show, because Tia shifts in her chair and makes to stand. ‘Look, I don’t really know what you want from me, okay? I’ll be in my room if you need anything.’
She stands with a drag of the chair and disappears into her room.
I skim my fingers over the rim of my glass. Four more months of this strange, twisted push-and-pull tension with Tia. A month ago, it felt easy. But getting closer to her has already brought me to the edge of her fortressed personality. What will I find once I pass its gates?
I down the juice in one shot, and it sends happy shivers down my spine.
It’s time to put an end to the amicability between us.
What did Ah Ma say again about coffee? About how easy it would be to slip Tia a cup of something as a little thank you?
I have a plan, Ah Ma, Mama, Papa.
I have a plan.