“You’re talking about Monarch.” I’m shaking my head. “No, he wouldn’t do something like that.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Just like he wouldn’t erase your mind?” He pauses when he sees how upset I’m getting. “Don’t worry, he only did it because he had to. It was the only way he could fix the world or at least that’s what he thinks.”
What he thought. I run my hand across my face, the metal links of the chain dragging across my cheek. “I’m not a Higher.” I meet his eyes. “Black hair. Brown eyes. And I don’t like to slaughter people.”
“Sometimes, the transformation takes time,” he says. “Eventually, you’ll turn, just like they all did.”
“Even if what you’re saying is true—if Monarch did create the Highers, he wouldn’t change me into one. I know he wouldn’t. He cares … cared about me too much.”
Dominic leans forward, overlapping his brittle fingers. “He would, if he thought it would save you from being discovered.”
“Discovered?” I ask.
His expression is attentive. “Have you ever wondered how The Colony came to exist? Why everyone ended up there? How the Highers ended up in control? Why they put salt in the water that surrounds The Colony when silver would work much better?” His voice is low, pressing each word as he speaks. “Because that’s how they wanted it.”
His words confuse my head. “I’m not sure what you’re saying. I’m trying to, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. Why would anyone want things like that?”
“I think the question you should be asking is why wouldn’t they,” he says. “I mean think about it. All that power, control, perfection. It’s what everyone wants, isn’t?”
I shake my head.
“Well it’s what Monarch wanted with you,” he says with a smile. “But I guess he just couldn’t get there. Still, turning you into a Higher, just to preserve what he did, that takes guts.”
I want to kick the old man to the ground. I slide to the end of my chair, my knee twitching.
“Easy,” he says. “I’m only giving you the truth, which is hard. What Monarch and I did wasn’t right. And what he was trying to do to fix it definitely isn’t right.”
My eyes skim my veins, barely visible through my skin. “I’m not a Higher,” I mumble, trying to convince myself more than anything. “I can’t be.”
He smiles sympathetically. “Maybe that’s true, but I can’t wait around to see if you’ll change. It’s too dangerous. I’m sure you understand the damage just one Higher can do.”
“But you keep that other one around,” I argue. “Locked away in that room.”
“And having one around is enough to keep me awake at night,” he says. “But the only way we know how to kill a Higher, is by the hand of another Higher and since we have two now we can at least get rid of one.” He stands. “It’d be better if you’d both just eliminate each other, but I don’t see that happening so…” He starts for the door.
“So what was all that crap with the vampire,” I call out, desperate to keep the conversation going, desperate to keep living.
“A test,” he says, without turning.
“And did I pass or fail.”
A pause. “I’m not sure.” He sighs and faces me. “Don’t worry Kayla, eventually we all will die. Some just sooner than others.”
“Everything must die, it’s a part of life. Not doing so, now that’s going against nature. I should have realized this sooner.”
“Even the Highers,” I say. “Because from what you said—with the only way for them to die is by the hand of another Higher—I don’t see a death in their near future.”
He smiles, tapping his head. “You’re clever—another thing Monarch did right. It really is a shame he had to end it like this.” Then he’s leaving again, already almost to the doorway.
“So what? You’re just going to kill me because you think I might be a Higher?” I shout after him.
“It’s for the best, Kayla,” he says. “Even if you aren’t, what you can do goes against nature any way, whether Monarch thinks so or not. He can’t fix his mistakes by trying to play God.” One last smile and he’s out the door. I start to run, slowly, because I’m chained. But a group of guards mob the room, boots marching against the floor as they corner me against the wall.
“Time to die, Kayla.”
I’m not sure which one of the a**holes says it.
They seize the chains and take me up the stairs, but I don’t make it easy for them. I kick and fight the whole way. But it doesn’t do any good. As strong as I am, there are too many of them. They drag me through the ridiculing crowd and back to the glass room. But just as they’re about to lock me up, Aiden runs up.
“Hold on,” he says, but one of the guards steps in front of him, sticks a hand out and shoves him back. “I just want to say goodbye to her. That’s all.” The guard doesn’t budge and he continues, “Please,” he says in an angelic voice. “She used to be a friend of mine.”
Winning the guard over, he steps aside and lets Aiden by.
I back up, not wanting him near me. “Stay away from me.”
He pulls me in for a hug anyway, backing us into a corner and pressing our bodies together, like we’re lovers. I think about kneeing him between the legs until he whispers, “The keys to the cuffs.” He slips them and something else into my pocket. “And a knife.”
Then he’s gone, pushing past the guards and disappearing down the hall. He doesn’t give me an explanation or any instructions on what to do next. I think it’s right then and there that I realize just how well he knows me.
Because I can do a lot of damage with a knife. No instructions needed.
The guards shove me into the glass room. There are no people watching me from the other side this time. I’m all alone, a prisoner, waiting for the right moment to unlock myself and fight for my life.
The door squeaks open and someone steps in, dressed in white, hair like snow, perfect features.
The Higher, ready to take my life so he can preserve his own.
Chapter 23
Highers can only be killed by another Higher.
I quickly grab the keys and unlock the cuffs, the chains hitting the ground with a clack. Taking out the knife, I step back, until I press against the wall. The knife is small but sharp and shimmers in the light.
“Do you remember me?” The Higher asks, taking a lazy step toward me. He’s dressed in ratty clothes, but the perfection of his existence outshines the minor flaw. “Do you know who I am?”
“Am I supposed to?” I poise my knife in front of me.
“Well, I know you.” Another slow step. “An abomination. Just like the rest of us.”
I sidestep toward the glass. "What does that mean?”
He doesn’t answer, chanting away in the Higher’s language. Another step and another and I’m right in front of the glass.
“You know why they put me in here?” He asks.
“To kill me.” I tap my knife, testing the thickness of the glass. “Because they think I’m like you—they think I’m a Higher.”
“That’s one reason,” he says. “But there’s more to it than that. There’s more to everything that just simplicity. Everything has an underlining meaning.” He brushes his snow-white hair back, revealing a small tear in his faultless skin. “Not everything is what it seems.” He rolls up his sleeves showing me the same set of numbers like on Cedrix’s skin, only they’re different numbers. “Even I’m not one of them, at least not on the inside.”
“One of what? A Higher? Because you look just like them.” But my eyes catch the tear in his skin. “Almost.”
“I didn’t use to.” He rolls down his sleeve. “And I’m still not completely, because that was never supposed to the point. The point was to change me back, but that never happened.”
“Change you back?”
He takes a deep breath and I pick up on a sense of fear flowing off him, but can’t quite grasp what it is. “I was an experiment that didn’t work.”
“An experiment?”
“I use to be a human, Kayla.” He walks around the room, with his hands tucked behind him. “Honestly, I had no idea what they did to me until I was tossed out here and Dominic started trying to resurface my memories.” He pauses, his pale eyes pained. “It was awful, all the blood spilled, all the needles, and the more I saw the more I wanted to forget it again. And I did, for a while, but then I started to change and it all caught up with me.” He holds up his hands. “Eventually I turned into this and I was locked up in a room lined with silver.”
“But I thought they said that silver made vampires weak?” I say. “Not Highers.”
He presses a smile. “Aren’t they almost one and the same?” He’s right in front of me, the tip of my knife grazing against his chest. “You know, I can feel my humanity slipping away from me every day, even though I fight it. Soon, I know I’ll be just like them. And I don’t want it—not at all. But I never really had a choice, did I? None of us do.”
And that’s when I break through on what it is he fears the most. He fears losing himself, fears becoming one of them completely.
His face is close to mine, so close I can see the remaining specks of blue deep beneath the pale in his eyes—the last of his humanity. “You’re not what they think,” he whispers, looking into my eyes like he can see my thoughts. “And one day, you’re going to save everyone. Too bad I won’t be here to see it.” He clutches my hand and with his alarming strength forces me to plunge the knife deep into his chest. He lets out a painful scream and then thrusts me through the window. Glass splinters rip at my skin as I fall back and slam against the floor. I jump to my feet, seeking the knife. I find it a few feet away, the blade soaked with blood.