Page 33

Chapter thirty-one

Forest

I lift up on the latch to the window in my bathroom, forcing it open. It’s the only window in the house that won't signal our exit, buying us enough time to get across our sector and away from anyone who might try to stop us. Kai utilizes his knee to hoist me up, watching me swing my legs over the windowsill before I reachdown for my bag as he hands it up to me. I look at the drop and then use my arms to support my weight as I slowly lower my body over the edge and away from the side of the house.

My feet hit the ground with a thud, kicking up dirt. My hood is up, and my hair is twisted back into a braid. I look back and see Kai’s long legs draped over the side of the house, using the momentum from his fall to close the window, keeping his hood up like mine. I linger next to him, expecting him to call this whole thing off and turn around. He brushes his hands against his pants, ridding himself of the dust from the windowsill.

“What are you waiting for?” he questions, coaxing a smile from my lips.

We swiftly move towards the neighborhood’s perimeter, running our hands along the ward as our house fades away into the background.

Our hands hit the glass door of the tram. The doors fly open. Both of us spill into the warm vehicle. We both look back several times, only pulling down our hoods once we take notice that no one but Mark is present. He looks off, glancing between us, unsure what to say in my brother’s presence.

“Your hair,'' Mark finally says after a few moments, pointing out the few strands of gray peeking through the entirety of my mane. Even Kai pauses to look, twisting a piece between his fingers with curiosity.

“Focus,” I whisper, swatting away his hand.

“I need you to take us to the Unfortunate sector,” I say in a rush, watching any lightness in Mark’s eyes quickly wane. Instinctively, Kai moves around me, covering the one camera on the tram with the first thing he can find.

“You know I’m not allowed to do that,” Mark begins, reaching to try and pull away the hat Kai had used to keep the security camera covered. “Besides, you need an Official ID-”

I slap my father's ID down on the dash, impatiently tapping my foot. The longer we wait here, the more time my father, Adam, and Xavier spend with Fallan, and the likelihood will only grow that we’ll be seen by someone getting on the bus.

“Please, Mark,” I whisper, taking another step closer to him. “They are going to hurt Fallan, all because he got near me. He shouldn’t be punished for that,” I say, feeling the fear seep out of my voice.

Mark runs his hands over his face, tapping his fingers against his head.

“He said something very similar to me once when speaking about you,” Mark says, sliding the ID back over to me. “It was just as hard to say no then as it is now,” Mark whispers, turning on the ignition to the tram.

“You’ll take us?” Kai questions, finally breaking his silence.

“I’m taking her, and trusting her faith in you is not misplaced,” Mark says, looking toward the road, letting his foot press down on the gas, taking us away from the bus stop.

“I can’t get you to the front of the sector; the Officials will notice, but I can get you to the side. There, you can breach one of the holes in the fence and use your father's ID to get into the main town square,” Mark says, motioning us to take a seat. We oblige, quickly sitting down, both of us knee to knee.

I feel drained, unable to reach Fallan through our mind connection. I peer at my reflection in the window across the aisle. But something is different. In the reflection, my hands are bruised and worn. My own are clean, completely clear of any damage. What message is this version of me trying to send me now?

“Why are you doing this for him?” Mark questions after a few moments.

I shuffle uncomfortably in my seat, unsure of what to say. Once more, the other version of me takes over, finding the words I cannot.

“Because whether I like it or not, our paths have crossed before and will continue to,” I say. I watch the shift in Mark’s demeanor. “But he already told you that, didn't he?” I push, somehow able to hear the way his heart rate increases at the question.

Kai looks confused, waiting for one of us to keep talking. I watch my brother fidget in his pocket, quickly looking over something in his hands with wide eyes.

“I may know more than I let on,” Mark says after a few moments, keeping his eyes on the road as that other side of me slowly becomes dormant once more.

“Is that why you keep a picture of our family tucked away in your wallet?” Kai says, catching both Mark and me off guard.

My brother raises his hand, holding up a very worn photo my family had taken years ago. Kai and I are both still babies, our parents youthful and glowing. The picture has several creases. It is falling apart from being opened and closed so often. Ink bleeds on the back, and the words are no longer legible. I grab the photo, looking at Mark's petrified expression in the mirror.

“I found his wallet in the hat I used to cover the camera,” Kai starts, folding the photo once more, “I wanted to know who we’re deciding to trust to help us.”

Mark grips the steering wheel, anxiously tapping his fingers against its cover.

“Your father gave that to me,” he says after a few moments, my next words spilling out like a flood.

“Why would he give you something like that? It’s useless to you,” I say, watching the old man's expression turn melancholy.

“If you looked further into my belongings, you’d know that photo is far from useless,” Mark says painfully.

Kai pulls out the old man's wallet, retrieving his ID. We scan it up and down, but then we find a second plastic card clung to its back. This ID is more hidden, meant to stay tucked away behind the first. Slowly, we look over the card, both of us holding our breaths the minute we look over the old man's name.

“Mark Blackburn?” I question, looking over the ID repeatedly.

Kai shakes his head, letting out a scoff.

“This must be some joke,” Kai starts, pointing his finger at Mark.

“You think it's funny to walk around with something like this that could incriminate my whole family?” Kai questions, standing on his feet while forcing the contents back into the leather wallet.

“Has Andrew truly made you that naive, Kaiden?” Mark blurts out, using my brother's full name. Kai stops in his tracks, put off by the man's sudden change in attitude.

“H-how did you know my full name?” Kai questions.

“We live in a web of too many secrets,” Mark says, glancing at me once more. “And it all starts with your father and ends with her,” Mark finishes, giving me a look I know too well. A look I have only seen paint my father's expression.

“Forest, what does he mean?” Kai questions, the gears slowly turning in my head.

Same nose, same eyes. Both men have a downward smile and freckles that hide within their eyes.

“You're his father,” I whisper, finally finding clarity in the importance of such a small photo.

Mark closes his eyes for a moment, drawing in a shaky breath.

“That's not possible,” Kai starts, running his hands through his hair, “Dad is-”

“An Unfortunate,” Mark finishes, both of us gripping our seats. “An Unfortunate who turned his back on everyone, all for the sake of a cause he thought was greater than us all,” Mark says, my throat burning with my final question.

“What cause?” I question, my hands shaking from anticipation.

“You.”

The tram had become silent moments after our revelation with Mark. Years of coming and going off this tram, looking past the old man who had to watch his grandchildren look past him as if he were nothing and no one. My father never spoke of his family, saying they passed away early on in his life. However, there is no scenario in which I thought he’d stand by and watch his only father be berated and used by our people daily. I rack my brain over our countless interactions, cringing at the thought of how I treated him. Kai has had a blank stare for several minutes, only letting out exacerbated, inaudible sounds as words catch in his throat each time he tries to look or speak to Mark. The old man tried to ease our shock, telling us he didn’t blame us. It only seemed to make it feel that much worse.

“If Officials find out what we're doing, any Unfortunates who helped us are as good as dead,” Kai finally says after a few moments, biting his nail beds.

“Not just Unfortunates, but us too,” I mutter, covering my eyes with my hands, no longer having the energy to stomach my reflection.

“You know they never harm Untouchables-”

My eyes are already on him, stopping that thought pattern before he can continue.

“Am I wrong?” he questions. He’s a prisoner to the chip inside his mind.

“You should tell him,” my reflection mutters next to my ear, my voice an angry mess.

“Get out of my fucking head!” I yell, slamming my hand against the glass closest to me. Kai flinches away, his eyes growing wider.

“Who are you talking to?” Kai questions. It's evident in his tone he thinks I’m going insane.

“No one…. No one that matters.”

“Keep telling yourself I’m not there. That clearly is working out great for you,” the other version of me hisses. I wanted to slam my head into the window again the more she talked.

“Did something happen that night at the screening?” Kai questions, landing his hand on my leg to return my attention. “I lost time that day, and ever since, everything has felt… different,” Kai mumbles. Mark listens in on the conversation, unsure of what to say.

I reflect on that night. The night that turned my whole life upside down, all in a matter of minutes. Every moment of my life had felt staged until that moment, only feeling real in the small moments I was near Fallan, even if all he felt for me was hate. They took that girl's life, all for being like me—someone who doesn’t fit into societal norms and conventional categories for our people.

“There was a girl,” I start, as he shifts in his seat, not expecting me to have answered. “A girl whose life was stolen because our people feared her. She walked and talked like me and you. She was an Untouchable,” I say, touching the back of Kai’s ear. “And they killed her. They killed what scared them and made you all forget,” I whisper, watching his eyes grow more distant.

He takes several moments to compose himself, grazing the back of his ear with his finger.

“If that's true,” Kai starts, shakily drawing in a breath. “Why can you remember, and I can’t?” he whispers.

I laugh at the remark, biting my lip in anticipation.

“Because I was like her, Kai, and Fallan was the one who stopped me from meeting the same fate she did. That’s why I got on this tram and why I have been so different lately, because of what happened that night. And if I had to choose between our people or theirs,” I whisper, looking to Mark, “I choose them every time,” I finish, grabbing my brother’s hand, letting it run beneath my hoodie, feeling the abrasive skin of my mark. His hand jerks back but then slides back to the raised flesh that I've hidden for as long as I can remember.

“I’m different, Kai, different gets you killed,” I whisper, letting go of his hand. He keeps his hand on the mark, rubbing his finger along its outline.

“I knew something was off,” he says after several moments of silence.

“How much farther until we reach your sector?” Kai questions louder, finally bringing Mark back into the conversation.

“We're coming up to the gate now,” Mark says.

My brother stands up, bringing me with him as he pulls up our hoods.

“This doesn't change anything?” I question, watching a smile finally meet his lips.

“Rules or not, Forest-”

He moves us closer to the front, cupping my face between his hands like he used to do when we were younger to ease me.

"My loyalty lies with you.” His finger reaches to his chip, pressing down on the small piece of metal, “I didn't sign up to be their test subject, either.”

“None of us did,” Mark starts, letting the tram roll to a slow stop.

“But something tells me your father’s hope in you isn’t misplaced,” Mark utters, making it apparent that we’ve only seen the beginning of this web of secrets.

“What hope? Mark, I’m nobody. I can’t save anyone,” I say, clinging to my brother's hand.

Mark smiles, shaking his head.

“Says the girl, breaking every single one of her people's rules, all for a boy from a group she was raised to hate.”

Kai taps his foot, looking outside at the mangled fence.

“Forest, we have to go,” Kai urges, pulling me down the steps.

The old man's hand comes around my wrist, stopping me from taking another step.

“The Apparatus is close. It will free us from eternal damnation,” he says, his words throwing me back to that night of the Untouchable’s suicide. The exact cryptic words the boy spoke before ending it all.

“Mark, what is that," I grab him. “What is the Apparatus?” I question, thinking of the words written across the scattered papers in my father’s study.

“Our salvation. Beyond that, there is nothing more that I know,” Mark says, letting go of my wrist. I try to return to him, but Kai only pulls me back.

“You must go. I don't know how long Fallan has if Officials are already with him. I will find you soon enough,” Mark says, watching Kai as he hands him back the wallet.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” Kai whispers, letting his hand linger in the old man's grasp.

“It wasn't your choice not to have me in your life. It never was your choice.”

They exchange looks; years of regret expressed between them in this one moment together. I let Kai pull me away from the man, giving Mark one last look before letting my feet hit the muddied ground of the Unfortunate sector.