Robin Wasserman - Frozen

The gunshot was like thunder.

The men ran away before Tak’s body hit the ground.

“Now!” Jude shouted. “Before the cops!”

As Auden and I clung to each other, Jude and Riley jumped out of the car, grabbed Tak’s body, and slung it into the back. Onto us. They piled into the car themselves, and suddenly we were speeding away.

“Awesome,” Tak gasped, his head in my lap. There was no blood, but the wound was oozing something green and viscous. I didn’t want it touching me.

“Hurts?” Jude asked, programming in a new set of coordinates as the city fell away behind us.

“Like fuck,” Tak said, thumping his shoulder where the bullet had slammed into him. “Gonna be a bitch to get this one out.”

“What the hell is going on?” I said. “You did that on purpose. You let them shoot you! We all could have been—”

“Killed?” Jude asked wryly.

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“Because you’re learning.” Jude twisted around in his seat to look at me. Me, not Auden, who had turned pale and was pressed up against the window, like he wanted to jump out of the car, speeding or not. “We all have our little daily pleasures,” he said. “Tak’s happens to be pain. Violence, too. And fear, of course.”

“Fuck fear,” Tak shot back. “Just a gun, right?”

Jude smiled. “But mostly pain. Or at least, a digital simulation of such. A quick trip to BioMax and he’ll be all better, won’t you?” He patted Tak on the shoulder; Tak screamed at the touch. “I would think you’d have a little more understanding now that you’ve seen for yourself how addictive this sort of thing can be.”

“It’s not the same and you know it!”

“What are you two talking about?” Auden asked, eyes wide.

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “Just bullshit. His usual.”

“That’s right, look down on us, like we’re crazy, like you’re so different.” Jude sneered. “I hear the land of denial’s lovely this time of year.”

“It’s not so easy for some of us! Your life may have sucked, but mine didn’t. I’m not ready to give it up yet.”

“Like you know anything about my life.”

“I know tonight was a little trip home for you,” I spat out, so angry and freaked out that I forgot about the promise I’d made to Ani. “I know you probably like this better than your wheelchair.”

Jude hit manual override, and the car skidded to a stop. “Who told you?”

I was glad Ani wasn’t riding with us. “Nobody.”

“Get out.” Jude said quietly. “And take the org with you.”

“What?” We were in the middle of nowhere, a long, dark stretch of highway bounded by nothingness. “No way!”

“Get. Out .” Jude reached back and opened the door. “You love running away when things get intense, right? So let me help you. Run .”

I didn’t move.

“Now!”

The scream was pure rage. I leaped out of the car, letting Tak’s head slam against the seat. Auden jumped out behind me. The car sped away before the door was fully shut.

And then we were alone.

“Now what?” Auden asked. “We walk back from… wherever the hell we are?”

There was no way I was ready to tell my parents what I’d been doing—and I was guessing Auden didn’t want his father to find out either. There was one better option.

Which didn’t make it a good one.

I linked in to the network, trying to ignore Auden’s I-told-you-so glare.

Lucky us, she was there.

Lucky, right. Good thing I was getting used to redefining that concept on a daily basis.

“Zo?” I said, hating the words as they came out of my mouth. “I need a favor.”

Zo didn’t bother asking where we’d been or how we’d ended up stranded on the side of some deserted road. She stayed linked in for the duration of the ride, her eyes closed and her lips moving silently along with the lyrics only she could hear. Auden and I didn’t talk much either until we dropped him off at his place.

I kept hearing it. Tak’s scream. The gunshot.

I kept seeing him fall.

I saw him fall to the concrete, as I’d seen the bodies fall into the waterfall—and then, suddenly, I got it.

It was all the same.

This night, this moment, this was the ugly truth that lay hidden behind the wild beauty of the falls, behind Jude’s pretty speeches. He had called me a coward, someone who couldn’t face the truth. So I forced myself to face this ; I forced myself not to look away.

This was the core of Jude and his friends. The core of what they did, who they were, what they wanted. A scream. A gunshot.

A gun.

Destruction and pain, in a place as broken as they were.

This is what they sought out, these people I’d thought were like me; this is what they offered, when they invited me to belong.

It wasn’t romantic. Whatever Jude said, it wasn’t bold, it wasn’t freeing.

It was a raw, ugly need.

And it was a need I finally understood.

Or maybe Jude was right; maybe I always had.

“I’m sorry,” I said as he was getting out of the car.

He shook his head once. “Don’t be.”

But from the way he said it, I guessed that meant I shouldn’t bother apologizing—not because it wasn’t necessary, but because it wasn’t enough.

When we got home, Zo brushed past me into the house and went up to her room without a word, slamming the door behind her. I couldn’t believe she was acting like I’d done something to her when I knew, because they’d been live-casting it on their zones, that she’d spent most of the night with Walker.

I should have just shut down for the night. And I tried. I uploaded the day’s memories. I pulled off the clothes covered in city grime and slipped into my favorite pair of thermo-sweats. I even lay down in bed. I could have shut my eyes and been out with a thought. That’s how it worked. None of that inefficient tossing and turning, trying to force your brain to slow down and your body to relax. I just decided how long I wanted to “sleep,” then told myself to shut down , the same way I told myself to walk or sit or scream . It was just another command, easy to issue, instantaneously carried out. But I wasn’t ready to let go of the night.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the neat tunnel the bullet had made in Tak’s shoulder. I heard him scream; I saw him smile.

No blood. No danger.

Just the thrill of the moment. And the pain.

And I wondered.

I found a razor in a bunch of junk under the bathroom sink. Left over from the days when I had real skin that sprouted real hair. It was a little rusty, but still sharp.

It wasn’t the same as what they did, I told myself. I wasn’t seeking pain in some sick attempt to make life more interesting. I wasn’t sick, not like they were. I wasn’t so numb that I needed a jolt of violence to wake up my brain. I wasn’t chasing a death that would forever be out of my reach.

I was just curious.

It was an experiment. Perfectly safe, perfectly normal. I just wanted to see what would hurt, and how much. I needed to see how far I could go.

The blade pierced the skin.

Although I knew better, I half expected beads of blood to bubble up along the cut. It didn’t happen. Nothing happened. The razor had barely sliced through the surface layer. It was like cutting through leather, the blade leaving only a thin groove behind.

And it hurt.

But not much. My brain registered: pain . Like a flashing red light, a warning to stop. But I didn’t feel it, not really.