Creators (Entangled Teen) Read online

  So much color for an organization that infused our lives with darkness. Did they think they were the only ones who got to keep the richness and beauty of the world?

  When we lined up that first day to receive our orders, I had convinced myself that my time at the headquarters would be spent in a similar fashion to my time served at Templeton. I would keep hidden, cleaning and tending to the needs of the great estate that kept and trained young chosen ones.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Terribly and utterly wrong.

  I should have known from the noise.

  We were forced to wait more than an hour in the grand lobby of the establishment. As we stood there, men, chosen ones and naturals alike, hustled and bustled through the halls. Their movements were always with a purpose, always anxious. Their conversations hummed like a hive of bees had taken residency inside. The pounding of soldiers’ boots echoed across the halls as groups marched in order.

  These men paid us little attention. We were a hodgepodge of girls ranging in age from one girl who barely made it to her teens to an older woman who must have been nearing seventy. Dirty and worn from our long travels, we all stank of sweat. But there was one girl who stood apart. Injured and hastily sewn up after the attack on her compound, a small, waifish girl named Rachel had a haphazard set of stitches that ran from under her left eye down to the top of her lips. She would be hideously scarred forever. The rest of the girls stood apart from her as if they sensed what was coming. Like her disfigurement would crawl from her face and mark theirs, and amongst the finery around them, they were already feeling self-conscious.

  Was this feeling, this need to please, something the council had conditioned us into believing, or had it always existed in us girls?

  Everyone except Stephanie.

  She had made it her mission to stick by the girl during travel. While part of me thought she did it to avoid talking to me about the loss of Henry, Stephanie ate her meals with the girl and slept near her. The firm reserve that she’d called from within herself minutes after he was killed seemed to deplete the further we got from Henry’s body. As we stood there waiting for whatever came next, Stephanie took the girl’s hand in her own.

  It was against protocol. We were supposed to blend in. Gather information. As I glanced at her from the corner of my eye, I was growing more certain that something broke inside of her when she watched Henry die. She had lost a sister as well…

  I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. I wanted things to begin. Left with nothing to do for too long and I would remember Henry, too. The images would return of his blood spilling from him and the way he crumpled to the ground, and I didn’t know how long I could repress it.

  A series of bells chimed throughout the halls of the massive building and every man stopped in place. Their whole demeanor relaxed at the wretched sound. The naturals slumped and slouched their way to where we waited while the chosen ones followed behind. That was where they always stood, behind the men who had created them.

  I remembered the bells that warned of the attack on the community and my teeth scraped against each other. A few girls next to me stood a little bit straighter while others tried to hide behind their hair.

  A man near my father’s age, dressed in a clean and finely tailored suit of tweed, walked back and forth in front of us. Inspecting us. A chosen one followed behind him and when the council member made some observation of a girl, he mumbled it to the chosen one, who jotted it down onto a clipboard. It was as if he were defining us with a simple tsk or cluck of his tongue. I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to hear a tsk or cluck when he passed by me.

  When he finally stopped in front of Stephanie’s new ward, Rachel, the man scowled. He slowly looked back at the chosen one who stood behind him. “What is this?”

  “One of the girls brought in from the compound attacks. She had all three marks,” the chosen one replied matter-of-factly.

  “And who would bid on her?” the man replied.

  Bid on her? As if we were something to be owned and traded to suit their needs. But hadn’t that been the way they always treated us girls? I couldn’t help but think of Abrams—the never-ending horror she must have felt when she realized that the two men most important to her were working to ensure the death of her gender. Sacrificing the women in order to create a new master race of superhumans. They had made her a thing, and so she destroyed the world they wanted to rebuild.

  Stephanie pursed her lips. Her knuckles turned white with the force with which she clutched onto the shaking girl’s hand. The inspector’s eyes moved to Stephanie. “Let go of her,” he demanded.

  I silently begged Stephanie to do what the man said. I needed her here with me. I wasn’t a solider like her, I certainly was no expert on espionage, and I was positive my father had given his most trusted compatriot information that he didn’t think I needed.

  Stephanie did not notice my silent pleas. She lifted her head and stared the man down. The inspector’s fingers began to tap furiously against his leg. While the room was absolutely quiet with attention, there was a tension that screamed inside of my ears.

  Let her go.

  She’s just one person.

  We can save so many more.

  I shuddered. The unsaid words tasted sour in my mouth, the place I would leave them to rot. I had sounded just like my father. I managed to meet Stephanie’s eyes and gave her the smallest of nods. I didn’t know the girl, but that didn’t mean she was any less important. I didn’t get to sacrifice her for anyone. That wasn’t my right.

  Maybe that was what Stephanie had finally realized as she watched Henry die. Maybe he meant more to her than some cause, and the council had taken him from her. She realized too late what I had learned long ago: I didn’t belong to anyone. I didn’t belong to any country. I didn’t belong to any rebellion. I only belonged to myself. My choices and who I fought for would be entirely of my own choosing.

  Stephanie brought the girl’s hand to her chest. “No,” she said.

  The inspector narrowed his eyes. Clenching his jaw, he looked back at the chosen one. “Very well, then. We don’t need them.”

  “Please, she was just being nice. Don’t punish her for me,” Rachel begged, tears streaming down her scarred, imperfect face. The chosen one pulled her by the arm, dragging Stephanie along with her. Stephanie didn’t fight back. Whatever solider she had once been was gone. She had given up the last bit of it to get me here.

  At first, my fears were quelled. The chosen one simply ushered the two of them off to the side as the inspector continued to go down the line. Eventually, a few others, including the elderly woman, were also placed in Stephanie’s small group. Once the inspector had looked everyone over, each of us was asked to show our identification numbers—the numbers the council had long ago lasered onto my wrist.

  258915

  The inspector’s aide pinned a piece of paper to each of our shirts, which proclaimed our number for all of the spectators to see. Men began to huddle into groups in front of us. The aide passed out green cards to each of these families. Groups of men who had lost their mothers and sisters to the illness that threatened to destroy our species. We were what were left. Replacements.

  Once each group was prepared, the inspector nodded toward four burly men who waited near the small cluster of women isolated from the group. In unison, the men stepped forward in front of Stephanie, Rachel, and the other women. Each of the men placed one hand against their collarbones. Stephanie turned her head to me and gave a small smile.

  And then she closed her eyes.

  A wild surge of energy burst through me, and it took everything in me not to run to her and grab her free hand in mine. She still held on tightly to Rachel’s hand. The chosen ones placed their palms under the women’s chins, and with the cluck of the inspector’s tongue, they snapped their heads back.

  A girl beside me fell to the floor in a faint while others cried. I saw dark spots in front of my ey
es, and I wondered if I was near passing out myself. I had seen chosen ones snap necks before. It seemed to be their specialty. But it was also some weird sort of embrace. They stood behind their victims and wrapped their arms around their necks.

  This had been something different. Carried out with the least amount of human contact possible. Women murdered because they did not meet some unknown standard. Murdered because they had been found wanting.

  James.

  I whispered his name over and over again in my head. It was the only thing that kept me from attacking, from clawing their faces off, from joining Stephanie. James was here, and I would have to play my part to find him.

  To save him.

  The creators lined up before us, and then the bidding started.

  I was auctioned off.

  …

  This was how I came to be in the service of the Harper family. Once they paid for me, I was taken out back behind the headquarters with Reagan, another girl who was purchased along with me. Shoved forcefully against the wall by the eldest son of the family, the younger brother grabbed a hose. Not the kind used to water plants, but the kind I had been told was carried on the back of trucks once. These trucks would rush to fires and use the traveling water source to put them out.

  These trucks would have gotten a lot of use during my lifetime.

  Terrance and Richard Harper, the sons of the newly inducted head of the council, turned the hoses onto us. The water burned and pounded against my skin. Regan, who was barely a teenager, stumbled to the ground and covered her head.

  “Get up, your dirty, dirty girl,” Richard yelled. The Harper brothers enjoyed themselves way too much.

  That night, as Regan cried herself to sleep, I gingerly touched the multitude of bruises that covered my body from the painful pressure of the water. There was barely an inch of me that was left unscathed. I had been a victim. I had been hunted. But before now, I had never been property.

  I was to do whatever the Harper men commanded of me. If I disobeyed, my punishment would fall to them. They had bought me, and in the eyes of the council, I didn’t own myself. But, then again, to them I didn’t deserve to. According to their doctrine, I was weak. Filled with such reckless wantonness that I could only corrupt, never lead. So, while the council abandoned the naturals stationed in compounds, we were forced to be the servants of the men left in the headquarters.

  If only they knew the person responsible for their continued power was a woman. Was that why she did it? Some cosmically sick joke? The supreme creator a woman. It was wild.

  Or did she really do it because she thought the world, and everyone in it, too dark and twisted to save? She had told me the code for the fail-safe. Whispered it into my ear gleefully. I still had no idea what any of it meant. And while the older members of the council had to know Abrams was female, these pissants had no idea.

  It was no secret that soon their bloodlines would die out. That one day, the chosen ones would be the only ones left—a perfect species to carry out our civilization, a civilization molded and created by the council itself. That would be their legacy. So, these younger children, boys not smart enough to carry out their father’s work, sons of man-made Gods, pranced and lived in the headquarters with no purpose.

  Lives of frivolity that went unchecked.

  The first time I was locked in the closet was on the third day of my servitude. I was punished because Richard had accused me of spitting in Terrance’s tea when he wasn’t looking. I had stood there, holding the tea tray while the boys lazily sat around the table, and watched as Richard spat into the cup. After Terrance drank from it, Richard nearly fell from the chair laughing. When the boy, who couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen, raised his eyebrows at me and whispered mischievously to his brother, I never would have dreamt he would accuse me of such a ridiculous action.

  This petty act left me dumbfounded. I was used to seeing people who thought they were better than me take for granted the lavish lives they were given, but this overwhelming sense of mean-spirited silliness wasn’t something I had ever truly experienced before.

  These boys, villains who enjoyed terrorizing Regan and me, weren’t so different than the naturals who lived in the compounds. Neither set of people had any true purpose guiding them through life. But I wasn’t sure what made these boys so hateful. They appeared to have everything just within their reach. Thinking back on the people who shared their lives with me within the walls of the compound and the Isolationists who struggled to find freedom, I began to hate the Harpers.

  Knowing full well I wouldn’t be stupid enough to let his younger brother see me spit in his tea, Terrance yanked me by the hair and threw me into the closet. Once I was inside, I realized all of the shelves had been removed, and there was a deadbolt on the outside.

  This space had never been used for storage.

  The second time I had been locked in the closet was because I had failed to guess that Terrance had wanted me to set out his light blue silk shirt instead of the white one. I was supposed to read his mind.

  The unfairness of it was enough to drive me insane. But somehow, I kept my mouth shut. James. James. James. It became my daily mantra. I waited for my father’s man on the inside to reach me. Any time an errand sent me outside of the Harper family quarters, I held my head up, hoping someone would recognize me. But the days turned into a week and I had no sign of my father’s man.

  The third time I was forced into the closet was because Terrance was bored. He called me into the family study and demanded that I entertain him. “You must have some sort of talent. Show me,” he chirped, chucking the book he was reading across the room. Had I not served time at Templeton, the sight of the book would have shocked me. The council had long ago outlawed them, but the council often picked and chose what rules they followed.

  I looked Terrance up and down. There was a part of me that was slowly becoming infected by the nastiness that spewed from these boys. I wanted to tease him, laugh at his ugliness. God, or whoever created him, had certainly given no attention to the construction of his face. Comically wide, Terrance’s teenage face was covered in acne. It was too plump for the rest of his body. His head looked as if someone got confused and switched it with a much bigger man’s by mistake. Bushy eyebrows and gapped teeth.

  I wondered why his father, one of the world’s most gifted scientists and leader of the council, didn’t fix him. Perhaps Harper didn’t worry too much about his sons; I barely saw him around the living quarters.

  Behind the greasy elder son stood a beautiful gleaming piano. There was a talent I could show him, but it wasn’t one I was willing to part with. Playing it for him would feel like I was giving him all the moments connected to it—the moments when I’d still looked up to my father and the moments when I’d fallen for James.

  “Stupid, useless girl. What did we even get you for?” he screamed at me.

  Most of the times Terrance or Richard put me in the closet, they would let me out after a few hours. They would remind me of how I had misbehaved, and then made me promise never to make those same mistakes again.

  This time felt different. As the minutes turned into hours and the hours into a whole afternoon, I wondered if they had forgotten about me. I brushed the hair out of my face, which had been matted with sweat. I felt my eyelids droop, and I knew there wasn’t a lot of time before the darkness came for me again. I couldn’t help but think of The Void. I was trapped once again. I reached a sluggish hand up and began to trace slash marks against the back of my hand.

  Sharon.

  Eric.

  Louisa.

  Emma.

  James.

  Myself.

  Henry.

  Stephanie.

  I forced my eyes open and managed to get myself to my knees. If I had to, I would use whatever strength I had left to kick down the door. I wouldn’t go out like this; I would make some sort of stand for the people I loved. With a grunt, I felt around the black void for
something to help pull me up.

  And then there was the brightness. It was so strong that I fell backward, knocking my head against the wall. My eyes slammed shut, trying to protect themselves from the new light battling the darkness that had successfully lulled them into submission.

  In front of me stood the last person I had ever expected to come and rescue me—George.

  The chosen one who had nearly ruined my life crouched in front of me and held out his arms to help me up. I gathered every bit of strength that hid within my muscles, balled up my fist, and let it fly straight for his face. My punch didn’t seem to do any damage to the chosen one in front of me, but it caused me to fall straight back on my ass.

  “I wouldn’t suggest you do that again,” George said, reprimanding me like I was a naughty little girl in the schoolroom.

  I punched him again.

  And when that still didn’t make me feel better, I pulled back my fist once more. This time, George caught it in his hand before the hit landed. “I said stop,” he growled.

  “Actually you didn’t,” I panted. “You suggested I didn’t do it again.”

  “See, that’s the kind of attitude that gets you locked in a closet,” he said. “Now, would you like me to let you out or not?”

  “Why the hell would you help me?”

  “Oh, Tessie. Don’t you remember our fun little meeting in the woods? I whispered that I couldn’t wait for you to join me. That you’d help me. And here you are.” He grinned.

  I had always hated that damn grin.

  “Now, how can you help me stuck in here?” he continued.

  “I have no intention of helping you,” I said. “I remember everything about our little meeting in the woods. I remember how you killed McNair. I remember how you returned my sister to me pregnant. I remember how you took James from me.”

  George placed a hand over his chest. “Are you implying I treated you unfairly? I killed that grizzly man because he was about to attack me. And if there is one thing I know you understand about this world, it’s kill or be killed. In regards to your sister, I returned her, didn’t I? It’s not my fault she couldn’t keep her hands off me.”