Chapter 21
She attacked Charlie without warning, reminding me of a thousand sparring sessions in the basement. My aunt staggered back under the fury of my mother’s assault, kicks and punches blurring through the space between them so fast I couldn’t count. I saw Mom jump-kick and catch Charlie underneath the chin, sending her reeling, and followed it up with a flurry of punches that brought my aunt to her knees.
“Wait...” Charlie gasped. “Sierra, wait...” My mother stood above her, hands still raised, ready to rain down a killing strike while looking down at her sister with cold indifference. “I was trying...trying to help her...” Blood ran freely from Charlie’s nose, and one of her eyes was already swelling shut. I didn’t think she’d even managed to land a blow on my mom.
Mom reached down with a gloved hand and picked Charlie up by the neck, holding her out at a distance, as though she didn’t want to get to close. “Help her what? Die?” She threw Charlie to the ground, her face scraping against the grated metal platform as she landed.
Charlie lifted her head and rolled over, holding a hand out as though she could ward off my mother’s cold fury with it. “Please...please, Sierra...please!”
My mother halted. “One chance, Charlie. Why should I let you go?”
“Please.” Charlie propped herself up, both hands behind her back. “I won’t come anywhere near her again, I swear. I swear on my life.”
My mother’s face twisted in disgust. “You picked the right one to swear on. Heaven knows you’ve never cared about anyone else’s.”
“That’s not true!” Charlie shook her head, her normally calm or sly expression completely consumed by fear, stricken by the uncertainty of whether she’d live or die in the next moments. “I came to help her, Sierra, I came to teach her because I knew you weren’t around! I knew she needed help!”
My mother halted her advance, hovering menacingly over her sister, her face a mask. She stood there, staring down, her expression impenetrable, for a very long moment. “Get out of here,” she said, growling. “If you ever come near my daughter again, Charlie, I will kill you. You know I will; and it won’t be pretty, or quick.”
I saw Charlie slide back, pulling herself to her feet, then turning to see her sister, and she nodded, quickly, all trace of the carefree, cocky woman my aunt had been gone as though she had never existed. “I swear. She’ll never see my face again.” Charlie turned and began to walk out, down one of the catwalks toward a door on the far side of the room.
“She better not see any of you again, Charlie.” My mother’s voice was hard, sharp as glass, and unforgiving. “If she sees so much as an eyelash of yours, you won’t have time to blink before I drain you into nothingness.” Charlie stiffened but did not turn back at my mother’s threat.
I watched her leave, the doors swinging shut behind her, and then turned to my mother to find her looking at me, her face the same mask of fearful indifference that she wore when talking to my aunt. “Mom,” I croaked. She took a few steps toward me, then stopped at my side. I looked up and saw she was using the console next to me. “Mom?”
“It looks like you haven’t been following the rules,” she said, voice hollow. “You’re not in the house, you’re not wearing gloves, a coat.” Her gaze hardened on me, leaning against the railing. “Actually, it looks like you’re wearing hardly anything.” My mouth opened and I tried to say something, but nothing came out. “You’re a Directorate Agent now, you’re living on your own and you’ve had a boyfriend.” Her eyes narrowed and focused in on mine. “Yeah, I heard about that. You’re a big girl, in other words. Big enough to deal with the consequences of your own mistakes.”
She knelt next to me, her face hovering a foot away from mine. “You’re going to make more mistakes, I know it. But that’s your problem.” She stood. “Not mine. Not anymore. Time to grow up.” She punched a button on the console and a deep rumbling filled the entire room. She turned her back on me and started to walk away.
“Mom, wait!” I tried to use the railing to stand again, pulling myself up. “Wait!” I slumped, putting all my weight on the console as the rumbling noise that filled the room centered on the middle of the platform. A cylinder rose up, sliding through the hole, black, sleek metal that extended six feet above the platform before it stopped moving. “Mom? Help me,” I said, my words coming out in a tumble, desperation lacing every one of them. “Help me, please, Mom.”
She didn’t stop, didn’t turn around, didn’t even slow her walk as she moved toward the doors I had entered through. “I just did.”
The doors swung shut behind her.