A Touch of Truth Read online

  REWARD: Treatment and release.”

  All the blood drained from my face. I forgot how to breathe.

  The three of us stood in stunned silence.

  Then Maura backed away from the sign. Turning on me, she looked me over with an expression that chilled me to the core.

  Her eyes shot to her brother.

  “Treatment and release,” she said breathlessly. “Treatment and release!”

  As suddenly as everything had just occurred, somehow, I was already prepared for what was about to happen. It was every man for himself out here, after all, wasn’t it? Orlando had said it himself.

  Maura cast another fleeting glance at me, and the next thing I knew, she had bolted into the narrow alleyway… back in the direction of the hunters.

  Grace

  As much as every instinct I had within me urged me to go racing after Maura, attempt to somehow stop her, my feet remained rooted to the spot. My mind was frozen in shock. In fear. In panic.

  Orlando was a blur as he zoomed after her without even a backward glance at me.

  They’re going to turn me in.

  They would be fools not to.

  They will get treatment and release!

  What person wouldn’t leap at this?

  Move, Grace! You have to move! In a few minutes from now, this road is going to be teeming with hunters. I had to make it on my own from now on. I had to find somewhere to hide.

  As I raced away from the alleyway entrance and loped across the road toward the opposite sidewalk, I tried to bring some sanity to my frenzied thoughts and focus on the things that I still had to my advantage.

  I still have my backpack. I still have lighters and matches. I have fire. Somehow, I just needed to wait around this area and stay undetected, and find a way to slip through to the other side of the fence. At least I had been able to travel this far with Maura and Orlando through the city. I should be grateful I hadn’t had to do that all alone. I wasn’t far from the shore now. There has to be a way to get out! There has to—

  My desperate ramblings were interrupted by a hiss behind me, coming from the other side of the road.

  “Grace!”

  I dared shoot a glance back to see that it was Orlando. He had returned to the sidewalk, and he was standing with a struggling Maura in his grip.

  He furrowed his heavy brows at me, mirroring my own confusion.

  “Where are you going?” he mouthed.

  Where am I going?

  Where AM I going?

  Shock and confusion rolled over me before a swell of relief rose in my chest. Orlando hadn’t left to join his sister in ratting me out. He had gone to bring her back!

  But why?

  What kind of crazy person was he?

  Even as he continued to fight with his sister, he beckoned me over to them. I approached cautiously, watching as he clamped a hand over Maura’s mouth as she tried to call out.

  “Maura!” he seethed. “Don’t. Do. This.”

  Fury flashed in Maura’s eyes as she glared at her brother. “Have you lost your damn mind?” she managed beneath Orlando’s hand. “Get off me!”

  Orlando kept her mouth smothered. His eyes dug into hers just as severely. “Do you honestly believe those people?” he whispered. “Do you honestly believe that they’ll give you treatment—the same people who put us in this hellhole to begin with?”

  “What is the risk?” she panted. “There is none! Even if they’re lying, it can only help us to get in their good graces.”

  “You’re an idiot, Maura!” Orlando snarled. “Good graces? You think these people even have good graces? Look at what they’re doing to people here!”

  “But—”

  “And even if they gave us treatment,” Orlando bulldozed on, “and cured us of whatever the hell they have infected us with in the first place… they would release us where? Into what?”

  At this, Maura faltered. She stopped struggling so much. Orlando removed his hand from her mouth slowly. “You don’t think things through, do you?” he went on. “They would release us back out into the world where we are convicted criminals—sentenced to death.”

  “But… they could waive that punishment for us,” Maura croaked. Although she had started arguing her case again, at least now she was being quieter about it. “They obviously have a lot of sway with the government. They could grant us immunity from our crimes.”

  My stomach tensed as Orlando paused. Terror gripped me as I thought that perhaps his sister had managed to turn him over to her line of thinking. His expression became stony, unreadable. He gulped. But then he shook his head.

  “They didn’t state that on the sign—I’m sure they would have, considering all of us here have come from Death Row. But even if they offered immunity, making a deal with them like this… It just doesn’t feel right.”

  “What? Doesn’t feel right?” Maura wheezed, and I realized that she had tears in her eyes now. She was so desperate she was begging her brother. When he didn’t respond, she shook him. “Nothing feels right about our situation, dammit! This is the only thing that could make us right!”

  Orlando exhaled sharply, clutching her hands and shoving them down from his chest. “The outside world would never welcome back murderers,” he replied.

  “Uncle would take us in,” Maura pleaded.

  “But would he? We don’t even know if he’s still alive. He was in a hospital with stage-four liver cancer, Maura. We don’t even know how much time has passed since we got taken from jail. We can’t rely on his open arms. And without him, we would never find a home outside—and who would employ us? How would we survive? What would be there to stop us from sinking back into our old habits? Would you be able to resist?” He glared daggers at her.

  Her lips quivered, moving to say, “Yes,” but not quite managing it.

  Orlando’s burning eyes flickered to me momentarily, before returning to his sister. “Grace has offered us a place in The Shade. A place where we don’t have to worry about food, shelter, or safety. We might not get the IBSI’s treatment, but I for one would rather spend the last days, or months, or years—neither you nor I can say how much longer we have—in a place of beauty and peace, than pass a longer life in hell.”

  Maura scoffed scornfully. “Oh, The Shade. It sounds like heaven. A land of rainbows and roses. I, too, would rather spend the last of my life there than go back to our old life. And yes, maybe Grace would allow us to reside on the island, but—” Here, she broke down, tears spilling from her eyes—tears of desperation, tears of sheer exhaustion. She sank to her knees. “Let’s face it, Orlando. We’re never going to get past the fence. We’re never going to make it to the shore!”

  Deep voices sounded on the other side of the alleyway.

  Orlando stooped to his sister and scooped her up before meeting my eyes. He nodded toward a derelict hotel on the opposite side of the road. I picked up his blade wheel and carried it for him while we dashed across the street and hurried inside the hotel.

  Orlando and I were silent, Maura still sobbing quietly against her brother’s shoulder, as we hurried up a dusty staircase. We wound our way upward—thankfully meeting no Bloodless on the stairs—until we could climb no further. We found ourselves emerging in a long hallway lined with doors that led to what I guessed would be luxury suites.

  Orlando barged into one toward the end of the corridor, one whose lock had been broken. Indeed, this was a suite, a two-bedroom suite by the looks of it. I closed the door behind us, and we moved to the furthest room in the apartment, locking ourselves inside. Orlando laid his sister down on the bed. Her sobbing subsided, and her wet, pale face took on a glazed, dead expression. She curled up into a fetal position, then shut her eyes tight, as though the world around her was just too much to cope with right now.

  Orlando sank down on the edge of the double bed, heaving a sigh and dropping his face into his hands.

  I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Although half of me was still
swimming in relief that the siblings had not turned me over to the IBSI, the other half of me felt guilty. Painfully so. These people were placing all their hopes on me. Me, when I didn’t have the foggiest clue what I was doing or how I was going to lead them to my so-called promised land.

  And now I really was in deep crap. Not only did I know for certain that the IBSI was fully committed to hunting me down, but they were also recruiting a selection of the worst, most dangerous criminals in the whole United States to help them do it.

  Great. They really, really care about this FOEBA thing…

  Still, more than ever, fire burned within me—I had not just myself to think about. I held these two fragile lives in the palms of my hands—people I owed my own life to several times over.

  I planted the blade-wheel down on the floor and moved to the dirt-smeared window. I brushed against the glass with my sleeve, attempting to clear it. Gazing through, I was met with the most welcome sight I had beheld since arriving in this black, hopeless city.

  Water. Lake Michigan. It took my breath away to realize just how close we were to it—only a few streets away. But as my eyes roamed the streets… they were teeming with men and women. They appeared to be predominantly IBSI members, but I also spotted some others who, judging by their attire, were obviously inmates of Bloodless Chicago like Maura and Orlando. And there was a fence. A high, electric fence with nasty barbs lining its top. It stretched for as far as I could see along the shore.

  We were so close… yet so, so far.

  Now more than ever in my life, how I wished that I had inherited my father’s powers of flight. The ability to thin myself, soar wherever I wished. If only I had more of his genes in me, I never would have found myself in this place to start with. I would…

  A thought struck me like a bludgeon, stalling my pointless regrets.

  I spun around and looked at Orlando’s blade wheel. That thing could fly. It was sturdy, too. Sturdy enough to slice through packs of Bloodless and leave them in nothing but mangled pieces.

  My breath hitched as I fought to keep my hopes down. If I let them rise, the disappointment would crush me to dust.

  “Orlando,” I croaked, moving to the wheel and picking it up. It had a grip in the center of it, in between all of the outward-pointing blades, which allowed a person to hold it safely. The grip was also wide enough for two hands to clamp comfortably over it.

  Orlando’s eyes rose to me, his eyelids heavy. “What?” he asked.

  “Th-This wheel can fly,” I began to stammer. “Could it—”

  Orlando had already guessed where I was going with this. To my dismay, he shook his head immediately. “That thing couldn’t carry you.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “I know what I built, Grace,” he said, irritated now. “And I don’t suggest that you try it. It would be dangerous. It’s not made to take that kind of pressure. One of the blades could come loose and go driving into you.”

  I hesitated. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “It’s just that,” I dared to go on, “they look pretty secure in their places to me.”

  “So you’re saying you want to try it?” he asked, raising his brows.

  Is that what I’m saying? I glanced at the razor-sharp knives and gulped. “Yes,” I replied. Can one achieve anything in life without risk?

  Orlando stared at me, then raised his hands in the air. “Okay. Okay. Try it if you really dare. Just don’t blame me if you get a limb sliced off.”

  Yeah…

  I moved to the center of the room with the blade, a safe distance away from the siblings, and raised it above my head. Orlando picked up the remote, still eyeing me doubtfully as if half hoping I would have second thoughts at the last minute. I pursed my lips, indicating that I was about to do no such thing, even though inside of me I was wincing.

  “You ready?” he murmured.

  “Yup,” I said, clipped. As ready as I’ll ever be to have a dozen freaking samurai blades spinning less than a foot from my skull.

  “Okay…” Orlando moved a dial, and the rotor began to spin. The blades picked up speed, flying terrifyingly close to my ears. They sent air beating down my neck. My pulse raced at twice its speed. My hands began to sweat so much I feared I’d lose grip and then… I felt a sudden lift. A tiny one—enough to raise me a fraction of a centimeter above the ground before my soles flattened again—but a lift nonetheless.

  Orlando switched off the wheel. The blades slowed.

  “Wait!” I said. “Didn’t you see that? It lifted me a bit! Try again!”

  Orlando rolled his eyes. “I put it at full speed already. Whatever small lift you felt is the maximum it’s capable of. I told you. It’s not strong enough.”

  “But… Maybe I’m just too heavy.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Orlando said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “That’s one explanation.”

  “I mean, maybe it could lift someone lighter.” My eyes immediately moved to Maura. I felt guilty and out of place to dare suggest that she try such a dangerous stunt but… I couldn’t help myself. “What if Maura tried it? She’s a lot shorter than me, and she’s way slimmer, too.”

  Maura stirred at her name. She sat up on the bed and looked at me. Her eyes were still glazed, distant, as though a part of her was still locked away in her shell.

  To my surprise, she murmured, “I’ll try it.”

  Orlando cast me an annoyed look. “You know it’s dangerous, Maura. You seriously want to try it, too?”

  She was already sliding off the bed. “I’ll try it,” she repeated.

  I placed the wheel down on the floor, allowing her to pick it up. She moved to the center of the room where I’d stood and held up the wheel.

  Orlando reluctantly picked up the remote once again. “You ready?” he muttered.

  Maura nodded, her neck stiff with nerves.

  Orlando moved a dial and the rotor returned to life. I chewed hard on the inside of my cheek as the rotor sped up. Please let it work. The pessimistic side of me—or rather, the realistic one—told me that it wasn’t going to work. That it would be another failed attempt. That Orlando obviously knew his contraption better than my stupid self and…

  But then the impossible happened.

  As it looked like the blades had reached their maximum speed, Maura’s small feet lifted from the floor—not just a fraction of an inch or so, like mine had, but a full three inches. And then the gap widened even more. She was… soaring up to the ceiling!

  Orlando looked so utterly shocked by it, he seemed to forget for a moment that he was supposed to be navigating the wheel. As Maura continued gliding upward, he stopped the machine just in time before the blades hit the ceiling. He slowed and lowered them, returning Maura to the floor. He switched off the rotor. And the three of us gaped at each other, hardly daring to believe what had just happened.

  “That’s…” Orlando stammered. He leapt up from the bed and took the wheel from his sister, examining it with a dumbstruck expression on his face. “I-I can’t believe it. I didn’t make it for this. I didn’t think it would be strong enough—”

  My brain lit up with optimism. Like a bright light—light that I had been deprived of for far too long.

  I planted a hand on Orlando’s shoulder even as he continued to stare down at the device, disbelieving.

  “You underestimated your skill, my friend,” I said, managing a smile for the first time in—I didn’t even know how long. “You created not only an excellent weapon… but a badass flying machine.”

  Grace

  After experiencing the high that came with discovering that the wheel could fly with Maura, my chest was soon weighed down again as we were faced with the reality of the situation. Yes, we had found out that the wheel could support Maura’s weight, but that was only a tiny drop in an ocean of obstacles that now lay ahead of us.

  For one thing, how long would the wheel be able to fly with Maura? It was certainly slower movin
g with her weight, not the nifty thing it had been when I had witnessed it battling with the Bloodless. And how, exactly, would Maura being able to fly help us? The obvious answer was that in the best-case scenario—assuming that the wheel could travel a few miles and would not break down mid-air, and assuming that Maura was willing to risk such a possibility—she would be able to soar with the wheel over the last few streets before the shore, then over the fence itself, and to the other side where Lake Michigan awaited… But then what exactly? We hoped there would be some boats there. Some vessels that were available to hijack.

  But Maura would be all alone in this. Orlando and I would be stuck back here. She would have to somehow make her own way, find a phone on her own, and I would have to give her The Shade’s numbers to call in case she found a working line. She would have to call up the island and tell them that she was calling on my behalf —and whoever picked up had better believe her. Though I doubted anyone in The Shade would take her words lightly, given that I was missing.

  Then there was the danger of Maura being targeted mid-flight. There was certainly no shortage of people to target her with all these hunters and gangs roaming the area. They might even mistake her for me from the ground, since she was a girl. Even if we planned her escape to take place at nighttime, surely someone would notice the weird flying object and Maura’s dangling body. Hunters kept watch over this fence, didn’t they? As Orlando had suggested before, we would need to locate all the main posts—the main lookouts of the IBSI—and try to pick a spot that was in between these, and a bit more vulnerable.

  Maura was looking paler than ever as we discussed all of these potential pitfalls. And I didn’t blame her. If she got caught, she wouldn’t be in as much hot water as I would be, of course, but I didn’t like to think what fate would await her. The IBSI had made it amply clear that all those they had placed in here, they wanted to stay in here. They wanted this part of the city contained, closed off. They might even end Maura for such a transgression as attempted escape.