Chapter 17 Rosabelle
Rosabelle
Chapter 17
My mistake.
I knew James wouldn’t trust me right away, but I thought he’d be easier to manage. He’s a stronger, more formidable fighter, but I pegged him as emotionally inferior. He struck me as ridiculous; unserious. His easygoing, playful attitude tricked me into thinking he might be lazy, less observant, unlikely to ask too many questions.
I pick out a pair of medical scissors, weighing the variables of the situation.
I’ve been trying to pin James’s character to a pattern without success; every time I think I’ve found consistencies in him, he introduces deviations. So far, my only concrete discovery is that he lives by some kind of moral code. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have cared to save Clara. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have offered me a chance to prove him wrong. Based on many of his actions, I’d categorized him as rash and impulsive; instead, he wants to be sure he’s making the right decision before he kills me. Another inconsistency.
This is interesting.
It seems clear to me now that James’s conscience is the only thing keeping me safe from ejection. If I give him a solid reason to doubt my intentions, he’ll likely toss me off the chopper and head home without a second thought. I can’t risk underestimating his intelligence again by feeding him a thin lie. I have no choice, then, but to settle for an admission of truth.
“I used to build these things,” I say.
“What does that mean?”
“It means sometimes I’m allowed to do regular work. Factory work.” I gather up rolls of gauze and tape from the emergency kit, a pair of tweezers. “Some of our manufacturing isn’t fully automated yet, so for a while it was my job to oversee the assembly of mini choppers. I was required to memorize not just the manual but the schematics. These,” I say, glancing around the hull, “are called PEARLs. Personal electric aerial recreational lifts. Civilian grade. I’m familiar with the military iteration because Ark Island is a militarized state. I see them everywhere. I’ve ridden in them. I know what they’re capable of.” I hesitate then, adding quietly: “I’m not a genius-level hacker. But I appreciate the compliment.”
For a full minute, James stares out the broken windshield, silent and hardly moving. I’ve never witnessed a quiet, contemplative James, and the character reversal is making me anxious. It occurs to me then that I’ve spoken more in the last several minutes than I have in years.
“I should cut off your sleeve,” I say, leaning forward. “I think your body is trying to heal itself around the bullet—”
“If I’m worth more alive than dead,” he says, moving out of reach, “why were you sent to kill me?”
“I don’t know.” Slowly, I sit back in my seat. “At the time, I wasn’t told who you were.”
He crosses his arms, wincing only slightly. “And once you found out who I was you decided to change the course of your entire life? Dumped your fiancé, abandoned your sister—”
abandoned your sister
“—walked away from a fulfilling career as a murderer— all for me? I’m flattered.”
abandoned your sister
The words catch in my head, repeating on a painful loop.
abandoned your sister
abandoned your sister
The reminder nearly rearranges me. Images of Clara attempt to crowd my mind: where she might be, what they might’ve done to her—
abandoned your sister
I shutter the thoughts desperately, withdrawing further and further inward until I fear I’ve lost my soul.
When I finally look up, I find James watching me with a fascination I’ve never felt before. Soledad only ever stared at me with suspicion; Sebastian with a mixture of longing and pity. No one has ever studied me as if I might be interesting, or worse: a real, comprehensive person. The intensity of James’s inspection makes me feel naked.
I don’t like it.
“I should really take a look at your arm,” I say, breaking the silence. “If the bullet moves—”
James stretches his neck, the action issuing cracks in the hardened blood on his face. “Thanks, but I think I’ll pass,” he says. “The last time you came at me with a sharp object you slit my throat.”
Quietly, I say, “Are you going to hold that over my head forever?”
He raises his eyebrows. “The fact that you killed me? The fact that you watched me die without remorse, then sent me off to have my organs harvested? Yes, yes, I am.”
A rare heat creeps into my cheeks, and James doesn’t miss it. He doesn’t miss anything, I’m realizing.
“But I just saved your life,” I point out. “We have a truce.”
“Fine.” A muscle tics in his jaw. “I’m going to ask you one more question, and if you answer it honestly, maybe I’ll let you take a look at my arm.”
“I really don’t want to answer any more questions.”
“And I really don’t think you’re in a position to negotiate,” he counters.
I stifle a sigh, bracing myself.
After all these years, I thought I’d be used to it: the surveillance, the interrogations, the constant suspicion, the endless threats against my life. And yet, somehow, being hated by James feels worse. He doesn’t seem like the kind of person who hates many people, and I’m surprised to discover how much it bothers me to be the exception.
“All right,” I say. “What’s your question?”
“When was the last time you ate a proper meal?”
This is so unexpected it disarms me. My right hand trembles again, and the scissors I’d been holding clatter to the floor.
My heart begins to race.
Rosa? Rosa, my stomach hurts. Rosa—
I freeze, my eyes unfocusing, my breaths loud in my head. There’s something wrong with me. My legs are cold. My hands are tingling. Something’s wrong with me and I don’t—
Rosa, what’s wrong with me?
“Hey,” says James. “You okay?”
I look up and there’s Clara, sitting in bed, tearing into a loaf of bread with a smile I haven’t seen in weeks. I stand by the door in my boots, watching her.
Aren’t you hungry, too, Rosa?
No , I lie to her.
Are you sure?
When you eat, Clara, it’s like I eat.
“Rosabelle,” he says forcefully.
I shake my head. I can feel the hard chair beneath me, the wisp of hair stuck to my neck, my hands holding each other. “I’m sorry, what was the question?”
“When was the last time you ate a proper meal?”
I reach for the fallen scissors and my right hand shakes so badly I have to grip it with my left, dropping the other supplies in the process. Something’s wrong with me. Something’s wrong with me and it’s scaring me. I’m losing control of my facade and I can’t seem to pull it back into place. Maybe because I don’t know whether I’ll ever see Clara again. Maybe because interrogations have never included questions about my welfare. Or maybe it’s because there’s no chip in James’s body. No audience watching through his eyes. I haven’t had a private conversation with anyone in years and I feel safer with this stranger than I do with my own sister and it’s emotionally destabilizing.
“Why won’t you answer the question?”
“Why are you asking?” I blink, trying to focus. I can’t seem to return to my body. “Why are you—”
I suck in a breath.
The hunger I’ve been compartmentalizing for days roars suddenly back to life, spearing me with a shocking, breathtaking pain. It’s a reminder to me that underneath the bursts of adrenaline my body is slowly atrophying, stripping nutrients from my bones, metabolizing itself.
“Rosabelle, are they starving you?”
I shake my head. I shake my head and it won’t stop, Clara won’t stop crying, won’t stop screaming. There’s blood on her lips, smeared across her sallow cheeks. She’s three years old again, gnawing on her fingers. Four years old and I can count her bones. I curl around her every night, pressing down on her stomach so she can sleep, trapping the pain with my hands. She whimpers for hours and I can’t get it out of my head. I can never get it out of my head.
I can’t stop shaking my head.
Aren’t you hungry, too, Rosa?
“No,” I say out loud.
“So you’re defending them? Protecting them?” James sounds angry. “Great. That’s two good reasons to throw you into the ocean right now.”
I look up, no longer able to hide my alarm.
Never mind the fact that I haven’t eaten in three days, I rarely sleep through the night anymore. I haven’t felt warm water on my skin in years. My mind falters more these days; my body isn’t as resilient as it might’ve been. The only clothes I’ve ever owned are the castoffs of my mother and father. I’m wearing yesterday’s hospital scrubs and the moth-eaten sweater I once used to wipe down the kitchen counters. I haven’t engaged in hand-to-hand combat in two years. The tremble in my right arm has gotten progressively worse, and it’s becoming a liability. The Reestablishment knows this. The weaker I become, the more they downgrade my assignments. The weaker I become, the less I’m worth.
My last mission was to assassinate a professor in the Academies District; he’d been flagged by Klaus as a zealot with the potential for domestic terrorism. The man spent so much time with his kids that it took me two days to get a clean shot. This mission is expected to last well over a month, and I haven’t even been ordered to kill James yet; I’ve been ordered to use him.
In order to use him I have to inspire him to trust me, and he’s too smart to survive on a diet of lies—which means I have to be willing to part with more and more truth. But I’m only good at my job when I disconnect from my own humanity. The hunger helps keep me hollow. I survive only by freely and quietly dying, over and over, inside my head.
Dealing with James will require accessing my soul, and few things have terrified me more.
I look up, into his eyes—