Extracted (6 page)

I look to Flynn, not knowing what to say. How could doing something that felt so right be so wrong? His face is sympathetic as he walks over and drops his arm across my shoulders. “I know it’s hard, Ember. But you have to learn to have absolute trust in Tesla. He knows what he’s doing.”

I look at the steamy ghost of Tesla. For all that he is, I know he’s doing what’s right for all of us. He’s trying to make the world a better place. I get that. I respect that. It’s what we all want, the whole reason we’re here. It’s why we train and use our abilities. Still, I can’t get that boy’s face out of my mind. In saving one, I failed so many others. My friends, my team, and countless faceless people I will never know. My stomach churns at the thought.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Tesla’s voice never alters, nor does his expression change, but the threat still sends a shiver of dread up my back. “Your duty is to preserve the time stream at all costs. Sometimes that cost is high. But you must not turn from it. If you ever again disregard my orders, I will cast you out. Is that clear?”

“I understand. It won’t happen again,” I say, glancing once more at the police report. But even as the words leave my mouth, they feel like a lie.

They don’t seem to notice my deception. The Tesla projection vanishes, and Flynn squeezes my arm. “Let’s go get that bump on your head looked at, shall we?”

I nod and let him lead me out of the room.

“So, tomorrow is your final Trial. Are you excited?” Flynn asks.

“Nervous. Petrified, to be honest.” I’m rambling now, but there’s nothing I can do about it. “I mean, not scared or anything. Just, more like, you know. Anxious. Like before Christmas. If Christmas was terrible and possibly deadly. Like that kind of Christmas.”

He grins and hits the keypad. The door to the hospital slides open. The rest of the center is always a little cold, but this place is sterile. It looks more like a really clean mental institution than a hospital. I feel the goosebumps breaking out across my arms.

“Is that why you look like you haven’t been sleeping?” he asks, his voice concerned.

I bite my lip. Did I dare tell him about the dreams? The truth is, I haven’t slept a full cycle in months. I’ve been training for almost a year, and now it’s time for the test that will either carry me from recruit to operative or send me packing to whatever corner of the time stream they want to drop me in if I fail. Of course, those are the most optimistic outcomes. The odds are, if I wash out, I’ll just die.

Then the dreams started. As time went on, the dreams grew more detailed, more intense, until I realized they weren’t bad dreams at all. They are my memories surfacing.

Some deep sense of self-preservation keeps me from going to anyone about it. Mostly I’m afraid they’ll take them away again. I hear rumors of recruits who begin remembering things. Supposedly, the Institute has a way to fix that, though no one is exactly sure how.

And I want to remember so badly.

I didn’t even know how badly until the dreams began, but now I cling to each new nugget of history like a lifeline. I mentally file the pieces away until the day I can put my old life together.

“Ember, relax. You’re grinding your teeth so hard they’re going to be stumps when you finally open your mouth again.” Flynn smiles and pokes me in the cheek. “Oh, that reminds me. I have something for you.”

From his pocket, he pulls out an old-fashioned skeleton key. It has a brass and green patina with a small leaf design on the tip. The keys are sort of a thing between us. He gave me the first one when I woke up in the hospital right after I arrived. He’s been bringing them to me ever since.

“Thanks,” I say earnestly, just as Doc arrives to bandage me up and send me on my way.

* * *

Back in my room, I’m still flustered. We have training today, and after the monumental beating I received yesterday, I’m not sure I can muster up the strength. I sigh, picking out one of the sparring outfits from my large closet: black sweatpants with a single red stripe up each side, a simple grey shirt, and add a soft brown vest with lots of pockets and hooks for my various tools. The vest isn’t strictly part of the uniform, but it’s comfortable so I put it on anyway. I pull on a pair of black-and-gold-striped arm warmers and strap the brass cuffs on over them. My stomach gives me an angry growl. I thought the pangs had just been guilt and nerves, but now I realize I’m hungry. Like, haven’t eaten in a month hungry. Maybe I can grab a protein bar and a juice before class.

I button my vest, just about to sprint for the cafeteria, when a knock at my door makes me jump. The doors have a chime if someone is requesting access—the tap is metallic and hollow-sounding by comparison. Ethan and Kara are standing there in full sparring gear—sweatpants and loose grey T-shirts—ready to head to class. Kara looks almost as colorful as I do, and the bruises from our battle with the Hollows are in full bloom along her jaw.

“Hurry up, slacker. We’re going to be late,” Kara chastises playfully. I know full well she’d just as soon miss class altogether. Today, I would be tempted to ditch too, but I’m already skating on thin ice.

I snort. “I thought we were beyond the reaches of time.”

Ethan shakes his head. “Time moves everyone, Ember. Even us. Maybe especially us.”

I can’t argue with that.

* * *

My breath comes in short, shallow bursts. I can feel the warmth of Ethan’s body radiating like a tuning fork against my back. In front of me, there is only darkness. I strain, listening, waiting for the next wave of attack. The leather straps holding up my suede harness dig into the skin of my shoulders, but the ache only sharpens my focus. The urge to turn around is strong, though I know better. Months of training have taught me exactly what happens when I turn my back to the darkness. So I listen, honing my senses until I catch the sound of Ethan taking a small step forward, away from me. My eyes are useless, so I close them. Knowing my attackers are well paid for their ability to move in silence, there is little hope that they will give themselves away. We need another strategy. As if reading my mind, Ethan picks up the conversation we were having earlier.

“All I’m saying is, maybe you need the extra practice,” Ethan says, his tone mocking. Even without being able to see him, I can sense him moving, beginning to circle counterclockwise. I know he’s trying to draw them out, to bring the fight to him. It seems like a sound strategy, so I jump on board.

“Oh, yes, because it isn’t like she turned around and kicked the crap out of you, too.” I’m mimicking his movements now. My voice is flat, free from emotion, and my words are empty. I can’t see him moving, but I can feel him, as if we’re connected by a million invisible threads.

“How am I supposed to just punch a girl?” Ethan asks. “And I was tired from taking the guy out like five seconds earlier.”

“She isn’t a girl. She’s more like a pissed-off kangaroo in a top hat. She has a nasty right hook, I’ll give you that.”

I hear the sharp whip of air as a bamboo pole cuts through the darkness, headed toward my face. Even with our phony argument going on, I’m able to hear it coming before it lands. I bring up my hands and block the blow with my forearms. The impact stings, bruising the bones there, but better my arms than my face. With a movement perfected after one too many blows to the head, I grab the pole and pull it aside, dragging my attacker with it. As he closes in, I drop the pole and lock arms with Ethan. I flip over his back and kick out, knocking my attacker to the mat. As he struggles back to his feet, Ethan spins into my place, delivering a secondary kick that sends the man flying into the wall with a dull thud.

“Yeah, but she’s scrappy,” he says.

“Scrappy? Is that boy code for you couldn’t stop staring at her rack?”

Behind me, I feel Ethan duck a blow, then land one of his own before pressing his back against mine. “I…that’s not…I didn’t even…I mean…” he sputters.

I smirk. Busted.

Footsteps approach, but we keep sparring. I bend over, using my attacker’s own momentum against him as I put my shoulder into his gut and stand, propelling him over my head and onto his back on the mat. I don’t need to see my victory to realize what the maneuver has cost me. A muscle in my lower back seizes, and it’s all I can do not to drop to my knees in agony. I clench my fists until I feel my fingernails cut bloody crescents in my palms. There is no way I’m going to be the weak link—no way I’m going to let Ethan fight alone. Back-to-back, that’s how Rifters are trained to fight. And Ethan always has my back.

“Don’t feel too bad. She was pretty scrappy after all,” Ethan mumbles. “It’s a girl thing.”

“Hold up, what’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, stiffly regaining my footing as my back screams in protest.

As usual, Ethan turns to check on me. “Nothing personal, Ember.”

Not wanting him to get slammed for it again, I grab him by the shoulder and pull, returning us to our starting positions just as the first attacker flips back onto his feet and lunges. He would have taken me in the stomach, but I bring up my knee just in time to block his advance, then kick him in the face. There is a loud crunch that sounds like breaking bone. I hear him hit the mat with a groan. The lights flick back on, and Mistress Catherine blows her whistle.

Normally we spar with off-duty guards, since most of them have military training of some kind. They know how to take a hit and how to deliver one without doing too much damage. We might be lowly recruits, but Rifters are rare, and our lives are precious.

But as the man whose nose I have just broken pulls off his black ski mask, my heart falls into my shoes. Flynn is staring up at me, and his face is covered in blood.

“Nice hit, Ember,” he says as blood drips from his nose and onto his white shirt. Mistress Catherine hands him his horn-rimmed glasses and shoots me an amused smirk. Behind me, Ethan snickers.

Great. And here I was thinking this day couldn’t get any worse.

Reaching down, I offer Flynn a hand up, which he accepts with a smile.

“I’m so sorry,” I mutter, but he waves it off.

“Catherine told me you were really coming along. I wanted to see for myself.”

The others are shuffling out, so I turn to grab a towel and follow them, but Mistress Catherine closes the door behind a worried-looking Ethan, presses her back against it, and narrows her eyes at me. I used to think it was hard to look menacing in a beige brocade top, but she radiates power. It might be the stern pucker of her thin lips, or the way her greying hair is knotted tightly at the nape of her neck. She resembles a librarian, except for the long, jagged scar that runs from her left temple to the cleft in her chin. Well, that and the spider-shaped iron shoulder harness permanently affixed to her upper arm.

Not sure what’s going on, I freeze, yellow towel in hand. Before I can say anything, I feel something moving behind me. I manage to move to the side just as a wooden staff comes slamming down against the spot where I’d stood a heartbeat earlier. I turn and see Flynn grinning, blood still dripping off his chin. He spits before whirling the staff like a windmill in front of him.

“What I don’t understand,” he says, circling to my left, “is how that Hollow got the best of you. According to Ethan’s report, Kara had no problem with her. And Catherine here tells me that you mat Kara at almost every practice now.”

I have no idea what to say. Does he think I let her beat up on me? Just then, my legs are swept out from under me. I fall to the mat, but rolling swiftly backward I bounce up onto my feet. Catherine has a staff, too, and comes toward me from the right. I hold up my hands and back up slowly. In the corner of the room, a vent erupts in a cloud of steam, and Tesla’s image appears but says nothing.

“Look, I didn’t let her get away,” I say. “If that’s what you’re implying. She was strong. And fast.”

Catherine shakes her head. “You are strong. And fast. And clever.”

“I’m sorry!” I blurt out when my back hits the corner, and they are still coming at me.

I don’t think Flynn would ever hurt me, not really, but Catherine, well…

Without another word, they both attack. I manage to duck one blow, but take another in the ribs before I decide to make a break for it. Jumping as high as possible, I’m able to get a hand on the chain attaching one of the punching bags to the ceiling and hoist myself up. I leap over Flynn and roll as I hit the ground behind him. They’re quick, though, and have me surrounded again in seconds.

It’s easy to forget that they are trained Rifters, too. Catherine doesn’t rift anymore, but Flynn is still active, and still in really good shape. They aren’t holding anything back, either. Flynn lands a blow to my lower back, but when Catherine moves in, I’m able to grab her staff and force it from her bad arm. Suddenly, time is moving in a blur. I’m not thinking about my next move anymore. My body is reacting of its own accord.

I’m not sure how it happens, but I blink and Catherine is on her knees. Flynn is standing in front of me, and I have the two staffs crossed at his neck. He’s holding up his hands and saying my name.

I drop the sticks and step back. The muscles in my arms and legs are twitching like I’ve just run ten miles.

“That’s what we mean,” Catherine says, climbing stiffly to her feet. “You could have taken the Hollow girl. So, why did you hesitate?”

I close my eyes, calling the fight to the front of my memory. There was something about the girl. She was beautiful, for sure, but that wasn’t it. There was something else, too. Something I can’t put into words. I look up and they’re staring at me, waiting for some kind of answer. I can feel Tesla glaring holes into my back, watching me like one of his little science experiments. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Flynn sighs and holds his hands out to me. I take them without hesitation. “Ember, I know it’s hard. I know you don’t like hurting people. It’s against your very nature to harm someone or let someone suffer. But you are too important to risk losing. Understand? Sometimes, you have to put someone down—or let someone get hurt or even die—to save yourself and your team. You can’t hold anything back.”