Susan Kim - Wasteland

But he was already inside the Source, stumbling to get to the controls to lower the door, to shut out her voice. He could not accept what she had said. After all he had accomplished and what he looked forward to doing in the next few years, it could not be true.

It must not.

And in fact, it wasn’t.

Driven by shock and pain and on the spur of the moment, Michal had blurted out the one thing that she knew would hurt him the most. More than anyone, she was aware of Levi’s terror of both water and the sun. Now she could only hope that her lie would spread unchecked throughout his body and mind, weakening both almost as effectively as the poison he so feared.

It was not much, but it was her last and only way to retaliate.

Michal got to her feet and stood, swaying, her hands still pressed to her face. Every movement was sheer torture. She realized she had nothing left in the world: no home or shelter, not one possession or a single friend. She had no idea where to go, but one thing was certain.

It would be far from the town of Prin.

Inside, as the door of the Source rumbled to the ground, a guard ran up to Levi. “There’s been another security violation,” he said. “The camera caught the thief with the baby.”

Levi felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him.

“Are they still on the premises?” he asked. For the second time in his life, he found himself trembling violently.

The guard nodded. “They’re still down there,” he said.

Levi nodded. Without a word, he took off at a run.

He had received a death sentence. That he understood abstractly, as if it were happening to someone else. Yet even while the full truth had yet to sink in, he felt more alive than ever, his nerve endings and his mind surging as they responded to this latest threat.

All he knew was that there was only one thing left in the world with any value, and it was about to be taken away from him.

Levi could not trust the others to do his work for him. He could not depend on anyone who was not his equal; they were full of envy and would only look for ways to cheat and betray him. He was foolish to have taken in Michal, he understood that now, to have shown her any sort of kindness or generosity; for she repaid him like the animal she was. And now, he had to take matters into his own hands if he was to protect his new son and heir and only legacy.

He must save the child.

When Esther heard the door burst open behind her, she whirled around with Kai still in her arms. Levi stood in the open doorway, staring at the two of them.

For a fleeting moment, she could see the resemblance to his younger brother. But unlike Caleb, Levi had hair that was swept back from his paper-white forehead, and his eyes glittered like black stars. Right now, he was cooing, saying strange things as he approached.

“Don’t be frightened,” he said. “Everything is going to be all right.”

Esther realized with a sickening lurch that he was talking to Kai and she tightened her hold on him. She tried to dart past Levi to the open door, but he slashed out at her. She had not noticed the knife he carried and the blade barely missed her arm.

“Esther,” he said, recognizing her.

He sounded pleased, as if he had just run into a familiar face at a boring gathering, and his smile seemed genuine. “It’s been such a long time. You were just a little girl when I knew your sister, Sarah. You’ve grown up very nicely. But you’ll have to hand him over to me. You know that, don’t you?”

Esther shook her head and backed up. She needed to stay free of his reach without allowing herself to get cornered. But Kai was restless and growing heavy in her arms. As Levi drew closer to them, she stumbled on a toy, nearly falling.

“I had some good news today,” continued Levi, in a strange, absent tone. “Exceptional news, in fact. I discovered water. Fresh, drinkable water, bubbling up from the ground. But I need my son.” He sounded so plaintive, so reasonable. “I need him to help me celebrate. What good is it when you have good news and no one to celebrate with?”

With a start, Esther realized that she must do more than merely react to Levi, backing away from his advances. At the moment, he was behaving in an odd and distracted fashion, but it would be foolish to underestimate him. The open door lay at an equal distance between the two of them. If she could engage with him, she could perhaps distract him enough so she could escape with Kai.

“Don’t you have friends?” she managed to say.

Levi chuckled. “You mean my employees?”

Despite his mocking voice, he seemed to be considering her question. Esther realized with a shock that her hunch was right: in some crazy way, Levi wanted to have someone to talk to. She took advantage of the moment to take an unobtrusive step toward the exit.

“You’ve seen them,” Levi said. “They’re hardly the stuff of companionship, wouldn’t you say?”

“But you must have other friends,” she continued.

His expression darkened and he lowered his eyes. This allowed her to sidle closer toward the door.

“Friendship,” Levi mused. “That’s just business mixed with sentiment. Two people at the same level… if they’re of service to each other, they call each other ‘friend.’ But if they aren’t equals, the whole idea is impossible. It can’t exist.”

Esther decided to take a chance. “You were friends with my sister,” she said.

Levi seemed to be listening, nodding his head. “It’s true. Sarah provided a valuable service when she taught me how to read. But even back then, I was aware of her limits. I didn’t think she was going to amount to anything. And I was right. Your sister was going to stay where she was. I wasn’t.”

Esther bristled, but forced herself to bite her tongue. She was almost at the door.

“But there must be someone ,” she said.

“Like my… companion?”

His eyes flashed with understanding. With one move, he was on her like a cat, twisting her free arm behind her back and holding the knife against her jaw. She held still, feeling its point digging into her flesh.

“What do you know about Caleb?” he breathed into her ear. “You aren’t by any chance a friend of his, are you?”

Esther would only have had a chance of escaping if she dropped Kai; and she was not about to do that. Instead, she stood silent, as Levi wrenched her arm harder and pressed the knife even deeper into her skin.

But then he stopped. He had noticed the red strip tied around her wrist.

“I see,” he said. Then he smiled.

So his younger brother had not been destroyed. If Caleb sent this girl as his emissary, he was still in Prin and bent on revenge. For a moment, Levi almost felt pride in his sibling’s persistence.

But he had the advantage.

The life of Caleb’s partner had to be worth a great deal. He was quite certain it could be used to barter for something valuable.

And if that turned out not to be the case, at least ending it would bring him the very real pleasure of creating more agony for his enemy.

Downstairs in his windowless basement office, a guard scanned the flickering monitors arranged in front of him with renewed vigor.

The guard was relieved he happened to be paying attention earlier, when the girl broke into the baby’s room. He shuddered to imagine what Levi would have done to him if he had been napping or looking elsewhere or daydreaming like he usually did and the baby was kidnapped during his supposed watch. He and the others still carried the painful marks of Levi’s earlier displeasure.

Now Levi had asked him to be especially alert for the return of the stranger, the boy they had left for dead. Doing so was the only way to avoid more pain.