Aiden

Like every dream since, Nadia sneaks off after her bloodwork to see the white rat. She talks to it the way one would talk to an old friend. All the while, I scan the visible paperwork on the desk by the door. Perhaps I’m imagining it but the highlighted portions of the brains on both the rat and the girl are beginning to look… almost the same. Did they do it? Recreate her gift?

The rat looks healthier somehow. Despite being abused and neglected. It squeaks happily when Nadia gets closer to the bars, having now associated her with the treats she sneaks in when she visits.

“You know we’re a lot alike, you and I,” she whispers to the small rodent, who twitches its nose in response. “They put us in cages because they’re scared of us. But I’m not scared of you. And you’re not scared of me, are you?” The girl laughs as the critter licks at her fingers through the bars, sniffing the remains of the cheese she bought with her today.

Every week after she would bring bits of cheese with her, hide it until she can visit the rat. And every week I would marvel at the brain scans, how they look identical now. Terrifyingly so. 

But one dreary evening I spawned in the center of the lab. Nothing seems all that different at first. The door slams open as Nadia comes running in, her hair a mess, bruises on her face and arms. Her eyes are watery but she isn’t crying. But it's when I look at the rat that I do a double take. Something about it is off. It looks sickly, refusing to drink or eat. Nadia, however, doesn’t notice. Not yet, at least. She runs to the cage and presses her forehead against the metal bars, unaware of how much longer it takes the rodent today to hobble over and greet her.

Nadia sighs, pain heavy in her voice.

“I’m going to get you out of here, Clovis. One day. We’ll run away. Anywhere but here.”

And, like every time I see her, I try desperately to gather her in my arms. But, like every night, she slips right through. It’s a cruel dream. Where I am helpless to her pain.

In the weeks following, the rat’s health declines more and more. Until Nadia has no choice but to acknowledge it. Only then does she cry, as the rat has to practically drag itself across the cage to greet her cheese-covered fingers. Now it’s practically just skin and bones, a horrid sight for a little girl. The rat’s MRI chart is the weirdest part. The whole brain glows as opposed to only a few spots like Nadia’s. Like a cancer.

My eyes shift to the cabinet beside the files, lined with rows and rows of clear vials with a murky greenish liquid, each labeled by batches.

“I’ll get you out of here. I promise,” She says, sobbing silently into the cage. But Nadia is older now, so much older than she was when I first started seeing her. I wonder how long she’s been telling herself that. I wonder if she herself knows that that’s a lie.

“I promise.”

But the rat, none-the-wiser, labors itself to lick at her fingers, even as its bones struggle to carry its weight and its eyes, once a bright red, now look almost gray. The pain the image inflicts haunts me even when I wake. I can’t shake the image of the crying girl trying to hold a dying rat through the small metal bars of its cage, both somewhat aware of their impending doom; the knowledge that they may both be stuck here for the rest of their  lives.

***

I follow him out of the meeting room, away from the scene I caused with the guards. He doesn’t even spare them a second glance.

“Sir? Mister- uh- Covenant?” I match my strides to his but he’s surprisingly quick. The palace interior is even more architecturally garish than the other buildings. I feel too poor to even be looking at something that probably cost multiple fortunes to even plan out. The high ceilings are hand painted with murals, actual gold lines the crown moldings along the walls and the stairs he leads me up in what looks to be a main foyer are made of what appear to be actual diamonds. It’s disgusting.

“Please, no need for titles when it’s just us,” he sighs heavily.

“Um sure, ok. Mister-”

“Hayes.”

“Mister… Hayes. Where are we going?”

He does not answer. And I feel increasingly more uncomfortable when I look over my shoulder to find a whole troop of guards shadowing us from just meters away. 

“Aiden, do you know of the prophecy?”

“How could I not?” I ask rather bitterly. Mr. Hayes laughs under his breath.

“Right, of course.”

I follow him into a room, a bedroom from the looks of it. It's intricately designed but not as pointlessly grand as the room I was trapped in previously. In fact, it doesn’t have much to it besides the decor. A bed, a bureau, a bathroom and a chaise lounge and vanity.

I look toward the door, noticing the guards have stopped following us and now position themselves against the walls along the hallway.

“They won’t follow us in,” the dictator says, following my eyes. “Privacy is still something we practice here,” he says with a slight chuckle.

“Bryce, if you will,” he tells the closest guard who bows and closes the door between us.

“This is your room. Do you like it?” He asks when catching me looking around. I nod because what else am I supposed to say in this kind of situation? The lamps are already on, flooding the space in golden light, illuminating the man’s softened features.

“Do you know what the prophecy entails, Mr. Brooks?” He asks. I nod again, slowly.

“Yes, though now I’m not quite sure. What with the way everyone’s been treating me.”

Mr. Hayes smiles, leaning back on his heels. There’s something in his eyes. I can’t put my finger on it.

“I kind of thought you would be trying to kill me or something,” I say. This earns another laugh from him.

“Perhaps in a different lifetime, dear boy. But, before all, I am a man of science. I bet you didn’t know that. Did you?”

“I suppose not.”

“Well what if I told you that prophecies can change? And still be fulfilled?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if you don’t have to die, Aiden? What if there’s a better way?”

“I-” I’m having a hard time following. Because I can’t yet understand why he looks so excited, or why his excitement seems so familiar. He’s not what I expected. Not at all. There’s no way this man is the monster everyone claims he is. There’s no way this man killed my mother and tried to kill me. That had to have been another lie.

“I will make a deal with you, Mr. Brooks. So listen closely and listen well.”

He looks to the door and then back at me, stepping closer so he can lower his voice a notch.

“No one else has to die, no one after the council leader. This war can finally be over with your help.”

“W-what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I will capture and kill Clovis Lynch if you agree to one condition.”

“Fine, you name it,” I say all at once. “I’ll do anything if it means she’ll die.”

Mr. Hayes chuckles at my enthusiasm, once again looking at me like that, like he can see right through me. His eyes shine as though almost with tears.

“You're just like-” he whispers beneath his breath. He cuts himself off when realizing that he had just spoken those words aloud. 

I suppose I don’t know what I was expecting when meeting the great and merciless Head of Atlas, but it wasn’t this. Because this man is… just a man. He’s not tall or mean-looking. He’s average. Dirty blond hair and brown eyes and weathered wrinkles around his mouth and eyelids. He looks more his age in this lighting, not so timeless as in the meeting room. 

“No need to be so brash, you should hear the conditions. I wouldn’t blame you for disagreeing either. I admit, it is no small ask of you, no matter how hellbent you are on this.”

“Just tell me, I can handle it.”

“I know you can,” he says, pausing slightly before finally giving in. “I will kill the councilwoman if you lay down your gift, Son of Fire.”

His words don’t register, not yet at least. They can’t have, because I don’t react the way I thought I would, the way anyone should. The breath doesn’t leave my lungs. My heart doesn’t fill with disappointment or sorrow. I don’t cry or shout or bargain. I don’t grieve or wallow at the thought. In fact, for some unspoken and strange reason, the sigh that slips through my lips is a sigh of relief. Like I’ve been holding my breath for a lifetime and can finally, finally, breathe again.

“You have until the ball to make your decision.”

I open my mouth to answer but no sound escapes. So I nod, stare at my reflection in the mirror of the vanity where I stand. How much I’ve changed in just a year.

The dictator steps closer until he too is present in my view of the vanity. He looks at our reflections alongside me, our light and shadows beside each other. The similarities we share. And I didn’t understand it, not at first. But now I’m starting to. 

“Uncanny, isn’t it?” he says softly. I look at his face in the mirror. At the sorrow suddenly present. But what I see is Lucy’s face staring back at me, the way she looked the day she came to tell me that Silva had died. A knot tangles in my throat. Because there’s no way. And yet…

There’s something fragile about the silence we share. I want to strangle a confession out of it. Something that makes sense. A reason as to why I suddenly feel like crying.

The weight sits on my chest, crushing harder and harder until I can’t take it anymore. I open my mouth, turn to look him in the eyes. But he beats me to it.

“You know, Aiden, you have this incredible familiarity about you. You remind me so much of someone I used to know quite well.”

“Aoife-” I blurt before I can stop myself. “Aoife Brooks.”

His eyes widen slightly, breathlessly. And then he smiles, albeit sadly.

“You’re her spitting image. Did you know that?”

I don’t know what to say to that. I’m too busy trying to find the words to my own question.

“I have many regrets, Aiden. So many. I was young and stupid and naive. I was given a choice, an obvious choice, and I still chose wrong. But, even so, fate has tied me back to that decision. And it has given me a second chance,” he says. I’m holding my breath. I don’t know why.

“And I know I cannot make up for it, any of it. But I would still like to try… to start anew. Perhaps even only for my own selfishness.”

I’m hanging on every word he says, my heart shattering in slow motion, much like watching a car crash in reverse. I’m silent through the turmoil in my chest. Because at the start we were whole once. At the start, before the wreckage, we could have been something. Something with hope. With a future.

“So perhaps what I’m saying is… this can be home for you, Aiden. If you’ll let me start over. And try again.”

A family.

There’s so much I want to say. So much I want to ask. Where were you my whole life? Why did you leave her? Why did you leave us? Where were you when she died? Why?

Why?

“You’ll never want or need again. And I don’t deserve the title of father. But you will always be my son, Aiden. Always.”

I should be angry. Sad. Happy, maybe. I should be feeling something, anything.

But I’m only numb as the car keeps tumbling back up the cliff.

“You look just like Lucy,” I mumble, not knowing what else to say.

“Lucy?” He asks. Because he doesn’t know. “Who is that?”

“My sister. My twin sister.”

And it’s the first time I’ve said that since she’s betrayed me. And maybe that’s why it feels like my heart is being slowly carved from my ribs. Still, I don’t say anything else. Because at the start, the car was whole. The car was driving. And we were happy.

I don’t remember Hayes leaving, nor do I remember stripping and turning the lights out and getting into bed, but here I am. I stare at the tall canopy of fabric over the bed posts, feeling more like a child than I ever was, even as a kid.

“You have the power to determine your own fate.” Alex once said that to me, lifetimes ago. Back when I still believed in the possibility of it. Fate.

Hayes said this feels like a second chance to him. I try hard to see it that way, a redo or something. But, somehow… for some reason… it feels only like punishment.

I lay awake in bed for many reasons that night, considering our deal, my gift and the Alloy and Lucy and Alex. But most of all I think of him, of the dictator. And how he’s now the closest thing I have left to family. And the last remaining reminder of her. Of Mom.

Maybe that’s why I can’t get angry at him. Because somewhere behind those eyes is a man that loved her, a man that loved my mother so much that the sorrow shines out of him even now. A man that my mother once loved in return. 

Even the heartbreak brings me closer to her. I’d rather be in pain than ever forget her… and lose her forever.

Because every day I lose more and more of her. I can’t remember the sound of her laugh anymore, nor the feel of her hands under my arms, lifting me over her head. I can’t remember her smile or her voice when she sang. I can’t remember any of it.

The knot in my throat finally caves as my eyes prickle with tears. I’m losing her. No matter how hard I try, one day I really will forget her entirely. And all I can do now is cry, staring at a ceiling of a place that will never be home to me, away from the people I once loved entirely, that I - against my better judgment - still love. 

I hug the stuffed rabbit close to my heart, hating the part of myself that wants, more than anything, to be held by him right now. Just for tonight. Just to chase the demons away and wipe the moisture from my cheeks.

***