Chapter One

A bonded Pair attempt to learn why a wealthy benefactor stopped aiding Gemini assistance organizations.

In a leaky shanty house lay a Pair, their eyes roaming behind closed lids. The male's hand firmly clasped the female's as they seemingly slept through the building storm. Neither felt the pallet of tattered blankets and limp, unwashed pillows beneath them, oblivious to the peals of thunder and the drops of rain having easily found their way through the cracks of frail, rotting wood of the tiny house. Outside, Gems ran from shanty to shanty, each placing their bets on assorted shacks in search of one that could hold its own against the howling wind. The Pair breathed evenly despite the swaying of their roof. They simply were not there to notice.

Less than twenty miles away, beyond the outskirts of Gem reservation sectors, a man named Jared Antoan sat dejectedly in his usual booth of the Carling building, nursing his watery scotch with frowning lips. The Carling was the latest Gemini conquest, every reflective surface turned spy, the very glass from which Mr. Antoan drank now a window through which the Pair could see �" and through which only Jared Antoan could see them as well.

Mr. Antoan paid no mind to the soiree to which he'd had no need of invitation; while the elegant dresses and fine suits had never been a bore, there was more on his troubled mind than his recently reacquired bachelor status. Women half his age stopped making eyes an hour ago, save one particularly young lady just a few tables away.

“He's got you in his sights,” the male of the Pair whispered despite standing on the other side of the Carling from his Initial.

The female hid her smirk from Mr. Antoan, though her Gem would know full well she'd made the expression. “Don't you think I'd know when a man notices me?”

Even in his current state, it would have been impossible for Mr. Antoan not to have noticed the long threaded legs parting the slit of a simple cocktail dress in pale lavender, the sleeves of which draped from strong, petite shoulders. Breathtaking as she was, she went completely unnoticed by every other man in the room. Mr. Antoan couldn't begin to fathom why she'd seemed to take an interest in him. He was handsome, something the laugh lines and streaks of grey had yet to affect, but he thought himself insignificant when it came to the plethora of young suitors who kept their eyes peeled for a conquest such as this. The woman was much too smartly dressed to settle for a boy, but Mr. Antoan was certain there were more than enough candidates about the Carling tonight.

“Actually, no.” The Gem recalled the awkward handshake his Initial had given their friend after what had clearly been a date. “You were completely oblivious then, don't see why you wouldn't be now.”

The Initial turned her chin a fraction. “Not oblivious. But you must have been if you thought I was into him.”

“Nah.” Halden grit his teeth to keep from smiling. “I just thought you would've at least humored poor Varian.”

“Poor Varian's still not over his Initial tossing him out. He's just bored.”

Halden knew this, of course. He just couldn't help himself, nor could he quite explain why their friend felt like such an intruder the other night. “Think she's coming back? Even I thought they had a chance.”

The Initial sighed quietly. “Hard to say.” She peeked from under long lashes at Jared Antoan, who was failing miserably in his attempts to appear oblivious of her. “But right now, Mr. Antoan requires our undivided attention.”

Over the past hour, Mr. Antoan had pondered the woman in the moments he was not completely consumed by more pressing concerns. She served as a marvelous distraction, and more than once he'd chided himself for not making the most of the evening. He imagined walking past her table, pretending to mistake her for someone else, a trick which had worked flawlessly on both of his ex-wives and every girl between. Something about this woman, however �" perhaps her age �" intimidated him. She was the loveliest in the building by far, and that was certainly something else to consider. Mr. Antoan felt a nagging insecurity that hadn't plagued him in decades, and it rooted him to his booth as he grew more irritable each minute.

“He's getting antsy,” the Initial noted. “Balcony?”

“Yep. Just give him a minute.”

Finally, under the weight of a now unapologetic stare, Mr. Antoan rose from his booth without having consciously decided to do so. His wooden legs carried him to the east balcony, and he closed the door behind him as he welcomed the static of rainfall. It was harsher than the warm, bubbling hum of casual conversation and did nothing for his nerves, but at least he'd lost his lovely ghost.

Click.

Mr. Antoan turned with a start. On a marble bench sat the aforementioned ghost, having appeared just as silently and mysteriously, shielding the small flame of a lighter from the wind as she lit a cigarette held between burgundy-stained lips. The hem of her dress was drowning in the pooling water, to which she paid no mind. She placed the lighter between her small breasts and proceeded to kick off her strappy high heels, each creating a small splash as they fell to the cold concrete. The young woman folded her legs beneath the dress, tucking it under her body's borders while the hem of its skirt still skimmed the pooling water.

The green of her eyes seemed to cut right through Jared Antoan as she took a drag.

“Got you,” she said with smoke. She smiled, and it was sweeter than Mr. Antoan had anticipated.

“I'm sorry,” he said, splashing his shoes as he turned completely to her. “But are those real?”

“I'm going to assume you're referring to the cigarettes.” She smiled again, then nodded as she held out the lit stick.

Mr. Antoan stepped forward, inhaling the scent of tobacco. She noticed.

“How long has it been?” she asked as he took the cigarette.

“Not as long as for most people, I'd think.” He took a drag, his head falling back as he sighed, then watched the smoke before the wind snatched it away. “Much fresher than anything I've had in years.” He passed the stick back to her, eyeing the burgundy stain on the filter and trying not to think of sharing a smoke as anything more than what it was.

The woman filled her lungs, and Mr. Antoan was struck by how casually she sat, hunched over with elbows on knees as if she were wearing trousers and a shirt rather than such a fine dress. Her shoes must have cost thousands of units, yet it seemed she couldn't care less as the water ruined them.

“I'm sorry,” he said again as she passed him the cigarette, “but who are you?”

The corners of her mouth tightened before turning up into a smile, still sweet, but not as much. “Isn't that what you've been asking yourself all night?”

Mr. Antoan froze, the wind now only a small source of the chill burrowing beneath his skin.

“Do you know where he is?”

“Where who is, Mr. Antoan?” She seemed genuinely puzzled.

“Halden?”

“I'm not deep enough yet. Keep him talking.”

“So you're not. . . ?” Jared Antoan exhaled, exasperated as his eyes searched the balcony for he didn't know what. His identity was no secret, he reasoned. It didn't mean she was involved.

“You can sit if you'd like.” The Initial gestured to the empty space on the bench beside her.

He took up her suggestion, placing his face in his hands as he sat. Lifting only his eyes, he spoke through his fingers. “I don't think I follow you, miss. . . ?”

“You can call me Nye.”

“But that isn't your name?”

“Nope.”

He sighed again. “Well, Nye, I'm sure there's something you'd like to talk to me about?”

“You don't sound very sure.” Her playful smile faltered as something registered on her face. Her brilliant eyes grew serious as she looked past the edge of Calder's wall in the distance. It was not a wall of stone and metal, but it was a wall just the same.

“What did you mean,” Mr. Antoan reiterated as he followed her gaze, “when you said I'd been wondering who I was?”

His words hung between them as Nye considered her own. “You used to be a benefactor for institutions that aided Gemini,” she said to Calder's wall. “Your last donation was over a year ago. Some of us would like to know if there's any chance you might reconsider taking up our cause.”

Mr. Antoan looked behind them to the window. Their reflections were both mirrored, as one would expect. Not a Gem, then. “You're a fellow sympathizer?” Not many of those left, he thought.

“An Initial,” she said as she turned to him. Something registered on her face again, more severely than before.

“Careful Demi,” Halden buzzed. “He's obviously paranoid.”

“So leave me to this so you can find out why!” She fought to keep her face smooth.

“You shouldn't be telling me this,” Mr. Antoan said breathlessly. “An Initial.” He shook his head. “I don't think I've actually met one before. Not wittingly, at least. Plenty of Gems, sure, but I don't think I've even heard of anyone so comfortable with admitting they've borne a Gemini.”

She nodded, offering up the cigarette again. He took it and inhaled. “I understand, of course,” Demi said. “But you can see why I’m so invested in seeking your help.”

“I can't,” he said simply. “I know they �" you �" need it, now more than ever. I express to my colleagues almost every day that those bombs were dropped by desperate people, that it doesn't make the rest of you undeserving of assistance. . .” He shook his head again, took another drag and flicked away the growing ash. “No one hears me. Of course they don't.” He decidedly snuffed out the cigarette altogether, blemishing the white marble between them. “But I can't help you. Not anymore.”

Demi felt Halden's seething. “It's fine,” she reminded her Gem. “That's not why we're here.”

“He's a coward,” Halden spat.

“What's he afraid of, Halden? What changed?”

“I'm working on it. Hold him there.”

“You're sure?” Demi placed a hand on Mr. Antoan's arm, her touch warm over his dinner jacket. Her eyes burned, imploring him to reconsider as no sound but the sheets of rain fell between them.

“Unfortunately,” he finally said with a nod. “Thank you for the cigarette. It was lovely.” He stood, brushing his slacks as he reached for the door to head back inside.

Halden exhaled sharply. “Don't lose him yet! Should I come to you?”

“No, just wait.”

“Mr. Antoan.”

His head stiffly swiveled back to the warm visage. She'd relit the cigarette, its end fiery as it hung from her lips. Jared Antoan doubted he'd ever forget those lips.

“Is there anything I can help you with?”

He considered for a moment, then almost laughed at himself for even thinking it could be possible for this mysterious, beautiful woman to help him with what he so desperately needed.

“That''s . . . something,” Halden said.

Mr. Antoan's smile was black. “I don't think so, no. Have a good evening.”

Back inside that leaking shanty, Demi's eyes opened as the storm began to subside.

“You should have held him longer.” Halden released her hand and rose from the pallet of filthy threadbare blankets. “I didn't get a chance to dig much at all.” He was only mildly more irritated than usual.

“It would've been easier without you buzzing in my ear the whole time,” Demi grumbled. “You got something, though.” She sat up, pulling on a pair of pale gloves. “Something caught your interest.”

“Something about his son, I don't know.” He pulled on a pair of black gloves, shoving his fingers to the tips. “Probably an Initial. Or wants to be.”

Demi pondered this as she stood, making her way over to the murky mirror in the corner of the small space. She ran a hand through her short dark hair, tugging the stubborn curls to frame her elfin face. Her caramel skin was faintly beginning to line despite her youth, and Demi tried not to dwell too much on her vanity.

“I liked that lipstick,” she sighed. “I think Antoan did too.”

“What was it that he asked you?” Halden asked as he tugged on his black jacket. “Something about whether you knew where someone was?”

Demi blinked at Halden's inverted reflection, one of few signs indicative of his Gemini status. “He,” Demi breathed as she turned.“Halden, it's his son! He said, 'Do you know where he is?'”

“You think someone has his kid?”

“It makes perfect sense. What else could it be?”

“Lots of things, I'd guess.” Halden shrugged.

“Oh, come on!” Demi tossed her head back, incredulous. She grabbed her ivory jacket with a huff and headed out into the drizzle. Halden took no time in catching up, his legs several inches longer than her own.

The Pair trudged through the mud, alone among the rows of shanties, a fair few of which were blown over during the storm. Demi found it impossible to resign herself while knowing full well her Gem was enjoying her frustration.

“You're almost never like this,” he mused.

“Get out of my head,” she grumbled.

Halden chuckled, observing what he could of her mind all the same. Demi willed herself to calm as the mud gave way to grass beneath their feet. Calder's wall was to their right as they paced toward the treeline farther ahead. Guards would soon exchange shifts, and the Pair would make for the small wooded patch separating an old suburb from Gem Sector 62.

“You're no fun,” Halden sighed, his irritation returning as Demi's own began to ebb.

“Your version of 'fun' is s****y, Halden.”

“Oh, you offend me,” he mocked. “What's your problem, anyway? I said nothing that wasn't true �" Antoan could be worried about lots of different things, even when it comes to his kid.” His smugness rubbed Demi's insides raw.

“I just don't think it's likely to be anything else,” she tried not to say through grit teeth. Always the first to offer the olive branch, Dr. Mallory had once said about her, an exemplary trait for any potential Initial to master. Demi breathed evenly, her pulse steady. “Jared Antoan was by far the most vocal Gemini sympathizer. He faced threats on the daily. It would have taken something significant to make him hide away for over a year. He's scared, Halden.” She stopped to face her Gem, who walked right passed her before stopping ahead of her at the edge of Calder's wall.

“Yeah, he's scared,” Halden said once his Initial reached him. He spoke softly as they watched the guards leave their posts. Twenty-four seconds was a long time for a Watch's next round to move into place �" more than enough time for a Pair to reach the safety of trees less than a hundred yards away. “But that doesn't mean we know exactly why. And he wasn’t exactly hiding away; he just pulled out of direct support. For all we know, he could be helping the resistance somehow.”

“Go,” Demi said.

They didn't look back as they ran, both fearing their last sight might be a bullet if they did. This, they felt, seemed the only thing upon which they could agree. Funny, Demi had thought the first time they'd made this very escape, how little else seems to matter when you're running for your life.

Once within the thick web of branches, Halden continued. “All I'm saying is we shouldn't rule anything out.”

Demi paced on through the trees ahead of him, still sore that her Gem had such a difficult time believing someone could care for another individual so much as to move heaven and earth for them �" or, in Jared Antoan's case, stop moving altogether. She was perfectly aware Halden wasn't as objective as he'd like to think; his distaste for Mr. Antoan was thinly veiled, his feet firmly planted in the notion that Jared Antoan was a mere philanthropist, someone with no true cause but more units than he knew with what to do. Demi also knew Halden thought her naive to assume Mr. Antoan was solely driven by the goodness in his heart, or, for that matter, the love of his son. Even if her idealism proved to be true, Halden thought Antoan a coward, a crime for which there was no punishment strong enough in the Gem's eyes.

Despite all the progress made in the Pair's bonding, Demi had yet to master how to properly convey these sorts of thoughts.

They walked in weighted silence as the drizzle came and went, heavy drops precipitating from lingering pools above, the quiet between them as oppressive as the looming pregnant clouds. As the fading daylight from the other side of the trees grew nearer, Halden sighed deeply, realizing it was his turn to take Demi's olive branch.

“Clever thing, the cigarettes,” he offered begrudgingly.

“It was just a hunch,” Dem said casually, as if she weren't positively delighted with Halden's effort. “His first wife smoked. The last two didn't. Figured he's been missing it since even before the shortages.”

“It was perfect,” Halden said, and he meant it.

“Oh, stop it.” But Demi couldn't help smiling.

The elation, however, was short-lived.

“Oh, forgot to tell you,” Halden said to the ground. “Sandra's missing now too.”

Demi froze for a moment, then smoothed her stride to keep up with Halden's long legs. “Another Gem we didn't know about.” She shook her head, breaking a stick beneath her boot as she stomped onward. “They're supposed to be safer in the city! How are they found so often? And if it's that easy to tell them apart, why can't we tell?”

Halden shrugged, seemingly apathetic. But Demi knew better as she placed a timid hand on his shoulder. She could feel his resistance as he forced himself to allow her comfort. “I'm sorry, Halden.”

She pursed her lips as she remembered the day in the Darcy when Sandra kissed Halden's cheek. Until that point, Demi had never seen her Gem surprised, and his widened mahogany eyes fueled an envy the Initial had never known. She could never imagine anyone invading them that way, as it was nothing she'd even once considered until a few weeks ago in the Darcy the moment Sandra's lips left a pleasant sting.

“Still mad about that?” Halden asked as he shrugged out from under Demi's touch.

“I wasn't mad.”

“You were,” Halden quipped, but Demi could hear he was smiling as she trailed behind him. The grass and trees finally began to thin, and she could see the peaks of the old suburbia over the edge of the little hill ahead of them. “You're just worried someone would get the wrong idea about it.”

He was right, of course. While unconventional, their relationship was far from romantic in nature. Their bonds were, even to themselves, mostly inexplicable. Until Sandra had taken an interest in Halden, neither had contemplated what might happen should someone encroach upon them. They'd been too busy trying to survive to think much of having any relationships outside each other's company.

Halden ascended the hill and waited for his Initial at the top, looking every inch as if he'd just won a mighty victory. Demi almost expected her Gem to raise his arms or laugh but he did neither. Ever himself, Halden stared forward with such intense focus that Demi could easily convince herself the houses, half-buried in the ground, had been forced under the surface by Halden's sheer will alone.

At some point, the earth had heaved from beneath the quaint village from the mid-twenty-first century, rising over the north ends of houses and half-swallowing them. Each time the Pair passed through here, Demi 's breath stopped short at the thought of so many people frantically trying to escape their own homes before they, too, could be gobbled up by the ground. The house before her now was once white, she was sure, the shutters once attached instead of lying against the tilted porch walls.

These thoughts never crossed Halden's mind, not even now as he kicked one of the fallen shutters from beneath the filthy window, proceeding to raise the glass and climb through. Demi heard his boots land with a dull thud on the other side, then crawled up after him before allowing herself to drop. It was always farther down than she expected, given the tilt of the house; the floor wasn't where it should have been, and the moment she thought her feet would meet it, her heart leaped into her throat. A moment later than she'd anticipated, she was crouched beside her Gem.

He looked uncomfortable, tense. “Will you never get used to that?” he asked, then sauntered away before she could answer. Demi didn't worry, knowing as soon as her heart recovered from the fall that his would do the same. She did, however, allow herself to wish they could just use the front door like normal people. Too noticeable that the door would be unstuck, Halden had once reasoned.

Halden led the way to the basement, the Pair clinging to the sloping walls as they descended to the back of the house. Demi once mentioned how much she felt like Lewis Carroll's Alice, traveling through a whimsical place in which nothing was right-side-up, seeking a door to another world.

That door opened now as she and Halden lifted the hatch. As they descended the stone steps into the dark, Demi felt that same sting on her cheek as she had that day in the Darcy. Halden's chest bloomed with an unfamiliar sorrow, and Demi couldn't find it in her to be as envious as she'd been before. She allowed Halden to grieve this loss while she kept herself in check, until finally he put Sandra's memory inside a steel box within a dark damp hole of nothing, never to be revisited again.

Demi wondered if he'd do the same to her should she, too, go missing.

Author's Note

Looking for overall impressions. Grammar and whatnot is not important right now. See my Note for Reviewers for the book as a whole for the kind of feedback I'm looking for.