Revived (The Lucidites Book 3) Read online

  One-Twenty-Six Press.

  Revived

  Sarah Noffke

  Copyright © 2014 by Sarah Noffke

  All rights reserved

  Copyeditor: Christine LePorte

  Cover Design: Andrei Bat

  All rights reserved. This was self-published by Sarah Noffke under One-Twenty-Six Press. No parts of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. If you are seeking permission send inquiry at www.sarahnoffke.com

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States by One-Twenty-Six Press

  ISBN: 978-0-9862080-5-8

  For Colleen. Wasn’t sure if you knew how much I appreciated your friendship so I did this.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  If there were any windows in the Institute, I’d shatter them all. Assaulting stainless steel walls isn’t just unsatisfying, it’s ridiculously stupid. As evidenced by my bruised knuckles, steel is unrelenting to attacks. When glass shatters, it releases pain, numbs ache, dissipates anger. Steel mirrors me, amplifying the negative emotions. Encouraging them. I loathe metal. I’d tear my silver and copper bracelet off and chuck it across the Institute except it’s the only thing keeping Zhuang from boring into my head and making me insane.

  For the rest of my life, I will never forget the moments that followed Trey telling my brother and me that he was our lost father. Joseph’s face paled; there was this weird mix of hope and pain in his eyes. Silence filled the room. I imagined a sound like sandpaper on tile as Trey’s eyes shifted between Joseph and me. His fingers flexed as he braced himself, waiting for a response. Trey was already accustomed to my bad temper and tendency to explode, like when I learned that Joseph and I were twins. This time, I remained silent. Stunned.

  Now I’m sitting in a remote corner of the Institute’s five-story library. I have surrounded myself with fifty-eight books like a shield-wall. Hopefully this serves well enough to tell anyone who happens to find me that I want to be left alone. If it doesn’t, then I’ll rip pages out of the books and make a banner that reads “Stay Away!” I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that. I love books and these are all of my favorites. Having them around me brings an ounce of comfort as I review the conversation from the night before.

  Trey’s words were like jagged pieces of stale bread that I was forced to swallow. After his confession, he explained in broken sentences that he had to split Joseph and me apart and have us raised by strangers. To protect us from Zhuang, he insisted. If we’d spent our childhood at the Institute, there would have been other problems. His eyes didn’t look directly at us when he said, “It was difficult to make that decision, but that’s the one I made. I know you’re already wondering why I’ve kept this secret from you. I don’t see what benefit you’ll gain by knowing I’m your father. You’ll just be consumed with resentment and frustration now—exactly what I wanted to avoid. The moment I split you up and sent you away from the Institute, I made the decision that you’d never know the truth. In light of the severity of our current situation, however, honesty is the only remedy.”

  He was deflecting his mistakes onto Joseph. Also, he’d already played that “difficult decision” card on me in the past. This was manipulation and I wasn’t buying it.

  Surprisingly, it was Joseph who asked the first question as I sat frozen. “Who was our mother?”

  “Her name was Eloise. She was a Middling,” he said, meaning that she couldn’t dream travel. Even the description of our mother as a Middling stuck in my throat. I thought that soon I’d be gagging from all the new information.

  “What happened to her?” Joseph asked, not meeting Trey’s eyes.

  “There was an accident on a ship with no way to save her.” His voice was cold, businesslike, and it made me hate him even more.

  When I finally spoke there was nothing “businesslike” in my tone. I had questions and I wanted answers. No more deceptions. “Who else knows?”

  “Only Ren,” Trey said, staring directly at me. “No one else knows I’m your father.”

  “Why him?” I asked, disgusted immediately.

  “That’s not relevant,” Trey answered.

  “You realize this is complete bullshit!” I yelled.

  “I figured you’d see it that way,” he said flatly.

  “Roya,” Joseph tried to caution me.

  “Shut up, Joseph!” I roared, feeling heavy and motivated. “You know whose fault it is that Zhuang has been revived? It’s yours!” I said, pointing a shaking finger at Trey. “If you hadn’t kept everything from us then this never would have happened.”

  “Roya, I really wish I could take the blame for Joseph’s mistakes, but I can’t,” Trey said, staring at me, eyes red.

  “Well, Trey, I really wish you’d take your lies and Institute and shove them all up your ass!”

  Needless to say, that was the end of that conversation.

  ♦

  Somehow, by breakfast the next day, most of the Institute knew about the latest scandal. Sitting at my table, I stirred my oatmeal until it turned to sludge. I tried to make sense of something that was never going to compute, even if I owned all the greatest minds in the entire world––like my father.

  “You don’t have to be a mind reader to know you’re about to murder someone of high status,” Samara said, easing into the seat next to me.

  “Oh, well, I’ll work on altering my thoughts a bit. I don’t want to get arrested.” I gave a ridiculously fake laugh, then added, “Do the Lucidites have a police force?”

  Samara shook her head.

  “So do you know?” I asked, letting the question hang in the air like smoke after a fire.

  She nodded and stared at my oatmeal, unable to ma
ke eye contact with me.

  “And is it because the information is sitting on the top of my head?” I asked.

  “Well, yes, and also because Patrick told me when I was having my omelet made.”

  “Oh, that’s fabulous,” I said without a hint of enthusiasm. “Just how you want your closest friends to find out the news.” The Institute suddenly felt small, although it was huge and went on for miles. Everyone would know within the hour. No one would hear the news from me.

  I looked up right then to find George framed in the entryway to the main hall. He scanned the room, then his eyes seized mine, a whirl of concern in them. Hurried steps brought him over to me. He blinked, like trying to clear suddenly blurred vision. “Roya, what is it?” he asked, taking the seat on the other side of me.

  Undulant pressure rose to the surface at the sound of his voice. I shrugged in response to his question. It wasn’t a good response, but it was the only one I could manage without turning into a blubbering idiot, which wasn’t an option. His presence piqued every emotion––making them impossible to easily handle. Unable to meet his eyes, which were no doubt leaking with desperate concern, I shot Samara a look and nodded. She returned the gesture.

  “Roya and Joseph just learned Trey is their father,” she said too loudly, an excitement in her voice she failed to suppress. “As you can probably tell by scanning the main hall, most of the Institute has just learned this too. I found out in the breakfast line,” she added in a conspiratorial whisper.

  George turned to me, went to grab for my hand, but paused an inch away. “Oh, Roya, I’m sorry. This is so unfair.”

  Unfair. George overuses that word the same way people overuse the word awesome. Most things aren’t awesome. The Milky Way is awesome. Niagara Falls is awesome. But a pair of shoes isn’t awesome. A side of fries isn’t awesome. Neither is a new hairdo or most other things that are described using that word. And most things aren’t unfair. Fairness isn’t something that even exists in the world I live in. Things just are. Trying to equate them using a scale of justice is ridiculous and only leads to frustration and defeat.

  “It’s okay, George,” I said, sounding oddly like I was trying to console him in this awkward situation. “I’m not fine, but I will be. Just need time to process.”

  He leaned down low, his breath smelling minty. “I’m here if you need anything.”

  “You didn’t know, did you?” I accused, suddenly gripped by the idea. “You didn’t know Trey was my father, the way you knew Joseph was my brother? You said you could feel the connection between us and that’s how you knew before I did.”

  He shook his head, a roughness in his eyes like he was appalled that I’d even consider the notion. “No. I hardly feel any emotions from Trey,” he said.

  “I’m not sure he has any,” I said, looking up from the table and immediately regretting it. Most people in the main hall were staring at me like I was wearing a plate of spaghetti on my head. And one person’s expression in particular was enough to snap my sanity like a twig. Aiden’s eyes grew wide as the white coat next to him leaned over and whispered the news in his ear. His chin jerked to the side and down, repulsion written on his face.

  I expected him to bring his eyes back up to find mine, to offer me comfort in a look. I expected him to raise his head and finish his toast. I even half expected him to come over to me and say something, anything. But he didn’t. Aiden stayed, eyes pinned on the table, stress furrowing his brow, for too long. I lost track of how long he stayed frozen. Then I left, unable to bear how his paralysis threw my heart into a fit of wild tics.

  Now I’m cuddled up on a couch in the library surrounded by books and not able to make sense of any of this. Volumes written by Poe, Emerson, Thoreau and their contemporaries aren’t doing their jobs anymore. I’m starting to feel the doom push in on me.

  Joseph strides up to my fortress of books and swiftly knocks it down with a single kick. “Enough!”

  I turn over on my side, pull a book up next to me, and pretend to read it.

  “Stark, this is worthless behavior,” he reprimands.

  “Who says?” I say, stretching out my feet on the coffee table in front of me.

  “Face this with me,” Joseph says, looking defenseless.

  “Why’d you blab to everyone?” I ask, not hiding my disdain.

  “It was an accident actually,” Joseph says, pushing his hands through his short blond hair. “I told Trent when we were standin’ in line at the buffet table this morning. I guess one of the kitchen people overheard it. By the time I’d gotten through the line and sat down it appeared a fair amount of people already knew. People love a scandal, what can I say.”

  “It shouldn’t have come out,” I say bitterly. “You were sloppy.”

  “Well, it’s too late now, so get over it.”

  “That’s what I was trying to do. You’re interrupting my ‘get-over-it’ ritual.”

  “No I’m not. You’re just using this as another excuse to sulk.”

  “I don’t really need any more excuses, thank you very much.” I pull a few of the closest books to me, hoping they’ll provide the comfort and salvation I’m seeking through osmosis.

  “I just need you to wake up,” Joseph pleads with an exasperated tone. “You think I can face this without you right now?” Apparently he forgot how much he made me face alone while he was off resurrecting Zhuang, but this is probably not the right time to throw it in his face.

  Joseph ignores my obvious body language that warns him to stay away, shoves a dozen books on the ground loudly, and sits down on the sofa next to me. “Please, just this once don’t run away. I need your help. This isn’t somethin’ I want to deal with on my own.”

  Suddenly something new enters my heart; it isn’t my own self-pity, it’s Joseph’s suffering. I pull at the string attached to his emotion and a series of thoughts follow. They aren’t my thoughts though, they’re his. For some reason now I can pick up on his thoughts and emotions the way he’s always done with me. I stay silent as I listen to him. Why does she have to be so difficult? She’s so selfish.

  I swiftly punch him in the arm.

  “Ow!” he yelps. “What was that for?” he says, rubbing his arm.

  “Selfish? Really? Well, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

  Realization falls on his face after a brief moment of confusion. “Oh, well it’s about time, Stark. Welcome to the sibling mind reading club.”

  Joseph has been able to pick up my thoughts since the beginning. However, I’ve had more difficulty with it. I suspect this is because I was too overwhelmed with facing Zhuang and dying. After that whole mess was over, Zhuang was apparently in Joseph’s head, blocking our connection. Now is the first time I’m able to truly feel and know his thoughts. The experience is foreign, like I’ve just put on a pair of gloves that are too big but soon conform to my hands. It feels all wrong and also, completely right. And it creates an obligation to him I haven’t felt before.

  “All right,” I finally say, “you’re not alone in this, Joseph. We’re a team. I’m here for you.”

  “Thank you,” he say. “It hurts, doesn’t it? It hurts to know that whatever his reasons were, he let us go. He put us each in a stranger’s home believing that was somehow better for us than being here…together.” Joseph stares off in the distance at nothing in particular.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I say.

  With a shake of his head he continues, “He’s so distanced from this whole thing. There are a million things he should be telling us, but instead he sums up everything in a few words.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” I say.

  “Like something about our mother. More than just her name would be nice.”

  “And why is it that Ren is the only other person who knew?” I ask, the question suddenly occurring to me.

  “Yeah, that makes no sense whatsoever,” Joseph says, then laughs unexpectedly. “Bet Trey is being bombarded with questions now.”
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  “Good, I hope it’s terribly difficult for him.” My words feel rough as they come out of my mouth.

  “Nah, I doubt it. He appears to be pretty good at deflecting these things.”

  “Isn’t it weird that he’s spoken to us so many times and not shown the least bit of sentiment?” I ask, twirling my hair rapidly around my finger.

  “You think that’s weird?” Joseph gawks at me. “That’s you! That’s totally your behavior.”

  I narrow my eyes. “I resent that statement.”

  “Sorry, but that’s the truth.”

  “That’s your opinion,” I say, but silently I know there’s some truth to what he says.

  “Trey is really the least of my problems at this point. I’m actually grateful that people are busy gossiping about this conspiracy.” Joseph tugs on his shirtsleeve, yanking it down by his wrist like he’s suddenly cold.

  “Because it takes the attention off the fact that you brought Zhuang back,” I state abruptly.

  “Yeah, as I said, sensitivity really isn’t your strong suit.”

  “I can understand the guilt and frustration; however, it could have happened to anyone. Zhuang picked you because you fit the criteria, but it just as easily could have been me or someone else,” I say.

  “It wouldn’t have been you. There’s no way you would have fallen for it. If you can spot Chase’s projections then you’d spot Zhuang’s for sure.”

  “It was going to happen one way or another. You can probably appreciate Samara’s position more than ever. She was in a similar predicament when she killed Pearl. What’s done is done. Zhuang is alive because he was never dead. This just means that this time we have to kill him for good.” I sound much more triumphant than I feel.

  “We?” Joseph looks at me weakly.

  “Yeah, this time we’re a team,” I say. “We have to act that way. For starters, we need to figure out how we’re going to confront this whole Trey mess when we face the Institute.”

  Chapter Two

  The decorations from last night’s party are still hanging in Aiden’s lab. A song I’ve never heard plays softly from the speakers overhead. And the Head Scientist looks like he’s seen a ghost when I stroll in and lean against his door frame.