Entanglement (YA Dystopian Romance) (33 page)

“Okay, I’m injecting
myself.” Casler rolled his sleeve up to his elbow, plunged one of the needles
into his own forearm, and drained the plunger. Then he lifted the second
needle.

Aaron swallowed hard,
wishing he hadn’t agreed to this, and averted his eyes as Casler rolled up his
sleeve.

“There—” Aaron hardly
felt the prick. Then Casler daubed his arm with a cotton ball and slapped on a
bandage. “Give that a few minutes. Then we’ll draw the blood.”

Clive limped into the
dungeon, his cheeks scratched up and swollen.

Dr.
Selavio stared at his son. “Was she too much for you to handle?” he sneered.

“No,
Father.”

“If
you ever embarrass me like that in front of company again—”

“I’m
sorry, Father,” he said.

“Learn
to discipline your half,” said Dr. Selavio. “I didn’t give her to you
as
a toy.”

Clive’s
pale eyes flicked to the machine, still humming in the background.

 
The chemical was taking
effect. Suddenly woozy, Aaron lowered himself to the floor. A thousand suns
wobbled above him, the quartz-halogen lamps. Their blue glare pierced his
pupils.

“I
want more,” Clive blurted out, his eyes still on the machine.

“More
of what?”

“More
of her clairvoyance.”

“You
have enough,” said Casler. “Now help me start the machine.”

Aaron stared at his
hands. They had paled to the color of frost. He felt his own blood pooling at
the back of his head, as if he was hanging upside down. Meanwhile, Casler
barked orders to his son, completely unperturbed. The stuff was only affecting
Aaron.
God damn it
.

“Alright Clive—” Casler
wheeled a chair in front of his laptop and typed something fast. The screen
spit out line after line of green code. “Let’s spin.”

At
the machine, Clive coiled his fingers around a massive switch and shoved. At
first it didn’t budge. The tendons bulged in his forearms, and his shoulder
trembled with exertion. Then the switch chunked into place.

The
halogen lights dimmed, sputtered, then failed completely. They were plunged
into midnight.

Aaron’s
blood
continued to pool at the back of his skull. He wanted to scratch it, but where?
The itch was inside him.

The lights flickered
back on.

Then
the oscillations began.

From
the machine’s belly, the first revolution struck Aaron’s chest like a shockwave
and knocked the breath out of him. It echoed off the granite walls. The second
revolution hit his skull, the third his heart. Faster and faster. The machine
revved up, growled.

The bulbs rattled in
their aluminum funnels. Dust and bits of granite sprinkled from the ceiling.
The revolutions blurred into a deafening drone. The pitch climbed.

“Clockwise—two
degrees,” Dr. Selavio shouted to Clive. Meanwhile, his fingers
blurred across the
keyboard. “Keep the field stable.”

Clive spun a wheel on
the side of the machine.

Aaron stared at its
looming mass. Its edges flickered, blurry, sometimes not even there.
Sweat dripped into his mouth. No way Casler was
putting his son in that thing.

“Clive,
watch the drift,” said Casler, his voice closer. He appeared over Aaron, his
gaze radiating warmth. “How you feeling, bud?”

“What
the hell did you inject me with?”

“A
chemical agent. Like I said, it’s dissolving that scar tissue into your
bloodstream. Give it three more minutes.”

“How
much is going to dissolve? A sample, or the whole goddamn lump?”

Casler
just smiled, patted Aaron’s shoulder, and returned to his station. And Aaron
had his answer. Of course. The chemical agent was dissolving the scar tissue
that had
kept
Aaron alive for eighteen years—dissolving
all
of it. Casler was simply
removing the plug from Aaron’s severed channel. Without the scar tissue, Aaron
would suffer half death. Of course the doctor was immune; he had a half.

Three minutes. Aaron
had three minutes before his clairvoyance started to evaporate, before his soul
leaked into the gaping hollow at the back of his head.

Well played, big man.
If there was any flaw in Casler’s execution, it wasn’t that he had gone through
all the trouble of starting the machine, then not used it. It wasn’t that he’d
lied unnecessarily. It wasn’t even that every smile and every word that crossed
his foul lips stank of treachery. It was only that he might have warned Aaron,
given him half a minute, thirty seconds—just to contemplate his own death.

And to remember Amber.

Aaron collapsed on the
floor, muscles limp. His cheek slapped cold stone. He could already feel
something flowing out the back of his head, but the sensation was painless,
surreal. Peaceful almost.

The machine whined ever
faster, but Aaron had already done what was required of him. At least Amber was
safe.

Fatigue weighed on his
eyelids, closed them.

 “Clive—” It was
Casler’s voice, somewhere high above him. “Bring Amber back down here, would
you? The machine’s ready for her.”

Plus 3
Days, 0 hours, 12 minutes

Aaron opened his eyes.
The machine wobbled in and out of focus. It was his imagination, he hadn’t
heard right. Dominic was upstairs. This was his house. The rugby player
wouldn’t let Casler touch her.

Even so, the fight
would be two on one without Aaron. He
willed
himself to move. First his pinky, then his whole hand. But with each passing
second, his body weakened. He didn’t know how much longer the scar tissue would
hold out.

“Clive, go get her,”
said Dr. Selavio, “or is that too much for you to handle?”

“You said we wouldn’t,”
said Clive.

Casler peeled off his
mask and gloves. “I’ll get her myself.”

But Clive intercepted
him on his way to the stairs. “Father, she won’t be the same afterwards—”

“She’ll be
obedient!
”

Clive didn’t budge.
“But you
promised,
” he said.

Meanwhile, Aaron
twisted, scrunched every muscle and dragged himself an inch across cold, grimy
stones. His heart missed beats. Even his eyeballs slumped in their sockets.

Above him, the machine
screamed like a jet engine.

Dominic reappeared at
the foot of the stairs. “You guys trying to wake the dead, or something? Turn
that shit down.”

“Would you bring Amber
down here?” said Casler.

Dominic’s eyes flicked
to Aaron, crumpled on the floor, then to the machine ten feet away from him, still
unused. “What’s going on?”

“We’re doing Amber
instead. Aaron doesn’t have enough scar tissue left.”

“No, you’re not,
fuckface. It’s number eleven or no one.”

“Boys, she’ll be fine,”
said Casler.

“
Fine?
” said
Dominic. “She’ll be just like your half—the goddamned walking dead.”

“That’s extremely
rude,” said Casler.

Dominic stepped around
him and leaned over the laptop. “I’m turning this thing off.”

“Amber
wants
the
operation.” Casler rested his hand on Dominic’s arm. “You know that.”

“Bullshit,” said Dominic,
scanning the green lines of code. “That was for number eleven.”

Aaron inched closer to
them, stronger now.

“Dominic—” Casler moved
his hand up Dominic’s arm and massaged his shoulder. “She’s going to be fine, I
promise.”

Dominic shrugged off
his hand. “That’s a lot of promises, and I haven’t yet seen you keep one.” He
lowered his eyes to the keyboard and started typing. “I’m turning this thing
off and calling my parents.”

It happened very
quickly after that.

Casler’s hand jumped
two inches to the left, and he closed his giant fingers around Dominic’s
throat. “Dominic—” he whispered, his smile barely faltering. “
Please
don’t touch my things.”

Dominic gurgled and
scratched at the bulging tendons in the man’s wrist, but Casler only tightened
his grip. In a split-second, though, Dominic clicked open his switchblade and
sank the knife into the side of Casler’s neck.

Finally, Casler dropped
him. He stared at the rugby player, bewildered, then struck him in the temple.
Dominic flew backwards and landed in a heap. Casler pulled the knife from his
neck and dropped it on the floor, and blood dribbled into his collar. But it
must have missed his jugular.

Dominic was crawling
away, choking for air. Casler followed him and stepped on his back, flattened
him. He held out his hand. “Rope, please.”

Clive brought him the
rope coiled on the floor next to the machine. Dr. Selavio knelt and unwound it,
tied Dominic’s hands behind his back, then tied his ankles—and Aaron could tell
the father’s knots were much stronger than the son’s.

“Clive,” said Casler
softly. “Get Amber.”

“But Father, you
promised we wouldn’t,” said Clive, close to tears now.

“And
you
promised she’d obey you,” said Dr. Selavio. “Look what happened on your
honeymoon.”

“I said I’d deal with
her,” said Clive.

“Yeah? Do you think the
rest of us want to see bruises on her face?” said Casler.

“I don’t care what the
rest of you think,” he said. “She’s
my half!
”

Casler yanked him
forward by the sleeve. “Then keep the part I take out in a vial. Wear it around
your neck if you want.”

“Father, that’s not the
same—”

“This is because you
and that brat stood up the potentate,” Casler spat. “Now go get her.”

“Soon, I’ll be
potentate,” Clive muttered, lowering his head.

“Yes, you will. But
until then—” Casler unclasped his fingers from Clive’s sleeve and touched
Clive’s cheek, brushing his fingers along his jawline and lifting his chin so
he could look him in the eye, “you’re still my son. Now bring me your half.”

Aaron saw Clive’s neck
muscles tense up as he swallowed. “As you wish, Father.” Then he headed for the
stairs.

Casler swung Dominic
over his shoulder and followed his son up the stairs. Then the dungeon was
empty.

Now it was just Aaron.
He was the only one left standing between Amber and the machine—and he
wasn’t
standing. In fact, his three minutes were almost up.

He had barely managed
to prop himself up on his elbow when Casler returned and leaned over him.

“How you doing, kiddo?”

Aaron strained to
speak. “You piece of shit.”

Casler
brushed Aaron’s cheek with the
back of his hand. “I’m sorry I lied to you,” he said. “But
you were supposed to die on the delivery table. I’m afraid Amber belongs to the
heir of the Brotherhood now, my son. As long as you’re alive, Aaron, you’re a
threat to their future. I’m sorry.”

Aaron stared at him,
dumbfounded. Casler had completely lost it. “Just . . . just let her be.”

“I have to fix her
first,” said Casler.

“She’s perfect.”

“She disobeyed. They
were supposed to spend their honeymoon at the potentate’s palace, but then—you
heard what happened.”

“I heard . . . Clive . . . cold
feet.”

“Aaron, it was
her
fault,”
said Casler.

Aaron’s
lungs rose and fell, still hollow. “It was my fault. I made her come back.”

Casler
lowered his eyes. “Unfortunately, she makes her own choices.” He laughed quietly.
“And she doesn’t realize that Clive will do anything for her.”

“Except
stop you,” Aaron wheezed. Then his arm buckled and his shoulder crunched into
the floor.

Casler
leaned closer, his eyes full of concern. He glanced at his watch. “You’re running
out of time.

“Still
all here,” said Aaron, fighting the weight of his eyelids.

“You
know, Amber’s truly lucky her channel can heal itself, because that’s what
makes this operation possible. For anybody else, once we drilled that hole it
would be a one way road.”

“What
about mine?” said Aaron. “Why isn’t mine healing?”

“Oh,
it is,” he said, “but it’s not instantaneous like it was during birth. Like all
organs in the body, the channel needs time to heal—a few days or so.
Unfortunately, you won’t have anything left by then.”

“What
about Amber?”

Casler
smiled. “We’ll drill a nice small hole so just the right amount of clairvoyance
leaks out by the time her channel heals—I’m aiming for about two-thirds. It’s a
slow leak, so naturally, she’ll still be herself at first. I wish you could see
what she’s like after the operation, when she’s flawless—ah, here she is now.”
He stood up, and his eyes beamed with pride. “Isn’t she stunning?”