Alex

Whenever we could escape, my mother would take us to the park to sit on the metal benches, let the sun iron out our wrinkles. Her cheeks would always turn a dusty rose in the golden light, her brown skin lighting up in the most beautiful way. Her home was in the sun. And I never understood it, not really. But I understood this small sliver of freedom. I understood what it meant to her. To us.

“Ojos que no ven, corazón que no siente.” That’s what she always told us. Every time she uttered the phrase she said it with a kind of foolish confidence that could only be faked. As though to convince herself that if the hurt is out of sight it too could be out of mind. She was wrong, though. I never had the heart to tell her.

A pain like that demands to be felt. You can run forever, until you catch the sun itself. It won’t change a thing. Not a single damn thing. Because, in a way, you’ll never be able to outrun it. You can wash at the stain but it will always leave a mark. You can stop the bleeding but the skin will still scar. 

Everyone in the cafeteria works hard to avoid my eyes. It’s been this way for days. I don’t care, as I keep reminding myself. It doesn’t matter what they think. I’ve been alone my whole life. I don’t need them. I don’t need anyone. They don’t understand. They could never understand the situation I was in. I did what I thought was best to protect what I loved. Anyone would.

But that’s not really it. Is it?

I only finally had a chance to prove I wasn’t the weak kid my old man thought I was. I finally had an opportunity to stick it to the place that turned a blind eye and left me, an innocent child, to die. After all this time, I’m only proving him right.

Aiden never made me weak. I’ve always been weak long before I met him. He made me strong. But now… now I’m just scared.

It was a childish anger and fear that has always fueled my decisions. I only hated Atlas because they were no better than I. Because they, too, would sacrifice anyone and anything for some stupid idea, for a taste of power. And they wouldn’t bat an eye.

I knew what I was doing, and the consequences of it all. It was not for Aiden that I struck a deal with Finch. It was a lifelong selfish ambition to see the people who hurt me hurt. Hurt as terribly as I did. That’s all.

I catch Emi’s figure standing stiff as a board across the room. She saw me. And for a second, pure grief melts onto her features, her eyes filling with tears. But her fists clench tight and that sorrow turns to rage. I don’t blame her.

So I turn the other way. She’s right to hate me. I would hate me too. I do hate me. Nothing I say now can rectify that. She has a right, anyway.

My knuckles tense around my mug of coffee. They’ve been abused through tireless training. Fresh wounds scrape themselves open again and again on the bandages I poorly wrapped them in. Blood now stains the white gauze a dirty crimson. By now, the punching bag has permanent indents where my knuckles fit perfectly.

My meal is bland. Like everything lately, it has no taste. The way the sky has no color and the air has no smell. I didn’t just lose Aiden, I lost my willpower, my drive, my way. Without meaning, it feels so pointless. Whether we all live or die now, what does it matter? It won’t bring him back. It won’t wake Joan up. It won’t undo the countless deaths by my own hands. It won’t stop the war. I’m starting to think nothing will.

“Giving up so easily?”

They sound more amused than distraught. I don’t have to look up to know who’s speaking to me. 

“What do you care?” My words sound empty. Vacant.

“It’s just not like you, that’s all.”

“You don’t know me, Ezra,” I scowl. But it’s fake and obviously so. My heart isn’t in it. Ezra sighs, sinking down into the chair beside me. Their eyes, a golden color like light itself, soften. I blink and see my mother staring back at me.

“Alexis, I know you better than anyone else here. Better than even you.”

And since that’s something I cannot argue with, I turn away to hide my face from the light I’ve always feared. No matter how hard I tried to love it just like my mother.

“So what?” I ask dryly. “Are you here to tell me to stop pitying myself? Are you going to tell me that it’s not all my fault and I should stop moping? Or are you here to ridicule me for thinking I could be capable of something like love?”

A very sorrowful look flashes through their eyes. I know because I steal a glimpse of it. And just a glimpse is enough to swallow me, all of me. But guilt is something I’m learning to live with.

“I came to give you this.”

The Edict places a small object delicately on the table in front of me. It’s a woven old bracelet made of cow leather. It was my mother’s. I thought I lost it.

It feels so fragile in my fingers, something that was once a symbol of strength to my mother. She was my hero once, but that was before I knew that she was faking it, all of her strength. Everything but the brightness in her eyes when she sat in the sun.

“You are capable of love, Red.”

I don’t know why but it suddenly feels hard to breathe, like all the air has been stolen from me. Replaced with something far thicker. And all at once, I am a child again, staring at her bronze skin, the pink beneath. Her eyes aglow as I wonder what I’m doing wrong? To not feel the relief she feels…

“Then why?” I ask, my words thin and strung and sharp with a suppressed cry. “Why do I keep fucking it all up?”

Ezra scoops me up into their arms unannounced. They’ve never embraced me before, not like this. Not once. And I tense from the touch, having never been accustomed to gentle hands, but I surprise myself by not pushing them away.

“Why does anyone self sabotage?” They ask softly. I answer my own question.

“Because I’m afraid of love.”

Ezra shakes their head, rests their hand on my shoulder.

“Because you’re afraid of not being loved as desperately in return.”

A wave of silence washes over us and then retreats back into its tide.

“You know what I love about human beings?” They ask, finally separating from me. I shrug half-heartedly, not sure I could think of even a single thing at the moment.

“How hard they love. It’s a desperate, frightening love. A love that comes only with the understanding of mortality. They have such little time. And yet it only makes them more passionate to love as hard and as much as they can. Don’t you find that fascinating? Is it not the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard?”

“You only say that because you’re an Immortal.”

“Precisely,” they say, eyes lit in excitement. “It is only because I cannot understand that it makes an absurdly perfect sense to me. And let me say one thing. If the passion of love is the closest thing a human can feel to immortality… if you’re given that fleeting and impossible opportunity, why are you giving up so easily?”

The determination in their eyes forms a lump in my throat.

“Because he hates me, Ezra. Because I betrayed his trust.”

“Only because he does not understand. And no, he does not hate you. I’m sure of it. In fact, he needs you now more than ever.”

“Well that’s not your decision to make.”

“And it’s not yours either.”

Frustrating. I forgot how frustrating conversations with Ezra can be. Maybe it’s the billion year age gap between us.

“Why?” I whisper, a bitterness gripping my chest. “Why would he go there? To a place he knows has inflicted pain and suffering, just for revenge?”

Ezra sighs softly, their lips twinging into some kind of sad smile.

“Why did you come to the Alloy? Was it not for the same reason?”

“That was different,” I defend quickly, even if some part of me knows they’re right.

“That betrayal you felt, both from your brother and the city that failed you, that too was different?”

No. I suppose it wasn’t.

Ezra sighs and gets to their feet.

“There’s something else, Alexis, that I sought you out for. Walk with me.”

I hesitate, looking between the Edict and the many murmuring people around me. My fingers uncurl themselves from around my mug as I stand.

We remain quiet as we walk. It is only when we are in front of the intensive medical room that I find my voice again.

“Ezra-”

They do not hear the hesitation in my voice. I’m left to follow them, to face yet another one of my failures.

Joan is lying right where we left her. Besides the odd furrow in her brows, she looks to be asleep. 

“Finch gave you an ultimatum, did he not?”

My whole body tenses at their words.

“How did you know that?”

“You’re not the only one with eyes and ears in the Alloy,” Ezra says quietly while perching themself on the stretcher next to Joan. The Edict tucks a strand of long blond hair behind their ear, looking from the young woman on the hospital bed back to me.

“I need you to do it.”

My head whips up so quickly I have to step back to regain my balance.

“What?”

“You have to bring her to him.”

“Ezra, I can’t do that.”

“You must,” they say firmly. I shake my head in disbelief. I can’t. I can’t make the same mistake again willingly. “There is a way of weakening the dictator, but only Finch knows how. That’s the secret Lambert was hiding, the thing that Joan Wu saw that put her in this coma. I need you to take her so that Wu can decode it. She is the only one who can.”

“That’s crazy,” I mutter, more to myself than to anyone. “Even if we do manage to wake her up, you’re asking me to put her right back into her coma. For what? For some small chance that Finch can stop Atlas advances?”

“I know what I am asking you, Alexis. It is how dire this situation is.”

"This isn’t my decision to make!” I shout.

“I don’t think you understand,” Ezra says.

“I understand clearly!” I retort. “Aiden is in danger, I know that. But you’re asking me to risk Wu’s life and the life of everyone else here for some half-assed plan.”

“No, Red. That’s the thing. The dictator doesn’t want to kill Aiden. He wants to use him.”

“Use him?” I echo.

“Power is the most dangerous game. And he is convinced Aiden can make him the most powerful. I am afraid he might be right. If he is, he won’t stop at just Alloy territories. He’ll keep going until there’s nothing left. Do you understand?”

“Even if we wake Joan up,” I say, my mind reeling. “How is she going to slip past Finch’s wards? He’s a councilman for fuck’s sake.”

“He’s not as airtight as you. You just have to distract him.”

“Ok but how the hell do we even wake her up? Much less in just a few weeks?”

Ezra chews their lip in thought. “I may know of a way.”

There’s another saying my mother would often tell me growing up. Las degracias nunca vienen solas. And when it rains, it fucking pours.

***