Inner Circle

  Copyright 2018-2019, Y.A. Marks

  All Rights Reserved.

  V20190819

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any characters, places, or events described in this publication are used fictitiously, or are entirely fictional.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer, or with written permission of the publisher.

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  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  Finishing Acks

  CHAPTER 1

  My eyes locked onto a projection of myself on a holographic monitor. My projection version raised an automatic weapon at Governor Read’s ruddy face. On the screen, my shaky form lay sprawled on my back in a pool of a dead policeman’s blood.

  The gun’s trigger pulled back toward the grip and fire exploded from the barrel’s end.

  The first bullet broke Governor Read’s chin into two pieces. The second impact ripped apart his nose and left eye. While the third shot missed him entirely, the fourth tunneled through his head, leaving a hole on the other side. His round body collapsed forward onto the dead policeman who Governor Read had killed nearly in the same way five minutes earlier.

  My video form staggered up before fumbling against the wall. She spun toward the left corridor and disappeared from view. The screen that I had been watching, which replayed the events from two days ago, flickered away as the logo of the local news network took the video’s place.

  “You’d think they’d show the part when Governor Read killed Captain Davis,” I said, my heartbeat pulsing along my skin.

  Josalyn glanced back at me with her brown, cat eyes. “C’mon Paeton, you know better.”

  My heart cracked inside of me. I hated seeing myself like that. I wasn’t a killer, at least in my heart I wasn’t. I was just a normal sixteen-year-old. I had a boyfriend, sort of, and a little brother and sister who weren’t really related to me, and a mom who hadn’t borne any of us. I lived in an underground bunker, and thanks to Governor Read, I was the face of a rebel movement that wanted to destroy the government.

  Okay, I wasn’t normal.

  I dragged my hands through my hair until long, brown strands hung over my face. Then, a childish whine exited my lips as a news reporter blipped onto the screen.

  “Anyone who encounters Paeton Washington should consider her a threat. As of today, she is wanted for twenty acts of homicide. Any reasonable leads that aid in her arrest will be rewarded with fifty thousand credits.”

  “Fifty thousand,” I yelped. “I’d turn myself in if I was still living on the street.”

  I sighed, mussed my hair some more, and slid down until my knees pressed against my chest. Involuntarily, I reached for my backpack straps, but I didn’t have my backpack on. My hands fumbled in the air before rubbing my shoulders.

  My mind was lost, and my heart hurt in ways I didn’t know were possible. Every fiber within me ached.

  “Josalyn, turn it off, please.”

  Josalyn, my new friend and the best hacker in North Georgia, raised both eyebrows. “Yeah, sure. Why don’t you head out and get some food? Maybe, Sun Hi can make you that chocolate coffee thing you like.”

  “Chocolate crème mocha?”

  “Yeah.”

  She leaned forward onto her tiny desk. Her foot tapped the ground, causing the desk to rotate forty-five degrees. The illumination from at least a thousand monitors flickered on her brown skin. She ran a hand through her curly hair that jutted out from around her head like a mahogany helmet with a purple streak on the left side.

  My knees locked open as I made my way to my full height. After a second, I took a few steps toward the door.

  A light, scraping sound dotted the air as she spun the desk. “Hey Paeton, it’s okay to be scared.”

  I craned my head back toward her. She pulled her lips into a smile, and her eyes tightened. I wondered if she was worried about me fulfilling my part of the promise. I was supposed to help the Escerica Rebels take the Summit where the highest level of the upper class lived. I hated the Upper-Cs as much as anybody, but I’ll admit my resolve waned.

  Josalyn spun back around to watch the monitors feed her information from television, security cameras, and who knows what else. As far as I knew, she may had tapped into the cameras on everyone’s Personal Communication Device. I had used and lost three PCDs in the last week. Josalyn’s hacking skills were so good she could probably get a read on a new one in a matter of seconds. If we did make a move on the Summit, I would need her hacking speed, maybe to save my life.

  The tendrils of fear latched to my vertebrae. This was not the life I had wanted. I was happy a week ago living my boring life as a Lower-C whom no one recognized.

  I left the room and slid the metal door shut. I still wasn’t used to so much metal used for building materials. The tractor-trailer style, storage containers that the rebels used must have been cheap or easy to get to.

  My head fell back and amber light from the walkways splashed onto my pale skin. Around the floor, containers stacked up nine-stories-high with makeshift parts holding rails and ladders together. Children dashed between the slow moving adults. Everyone headed to an important place or had a worthwhile task.

  I shuffled toward Sun Hi’s room which was on the second level.

  A lump of hardened coal formed in my stomach concerning Governor Read’s death. The coal hadn’t ignited, but weighed on any happy thought that ran through my mind. I hadn’t slept well over the last two nights, but I refused to take any more drugs to sleep. There was something about that zombie feeling the drugs gave me that rubbed me the wrong way. I preferred my mind clear.

  The drugs did give me the courage to kiss Rylan. Part of me wishes I had waited until the next day. At least my mind would’ve been clear. Another part of me wonders if I would have kissed him at all without the drugs. Sure, I wanted to, but it’s not every day that a girl just up and demands a guy kiss her. Well, maybe not demands, but asks.

  I’m not even sure if he took it well. Maybe, he wanted it to be different. Maybe, he wanted to be the one in control. Did I spoil our first kiss? For me it was magical, a constant tickle along my lips with an aura of, how do I explain it, testosterone? Manliness? He wanted me, all of me, but held back because I needed him to. I needed him to be gentle, so he was. Tender, so he took care. However, beneath the surface was an untamed desire that entered into me on his breath, allowing a oneness in which our passions united.

  After that first day, we hadn’t kissed and had barely even seen each other. He had been busy with all the ruckus I had caused. I’d been recovering from my bumps and bruises, but it just felt distant… and cold.

  I pulled myself up to the next level and glanced through the tiny holes that were cut into the metal walkway. People beneath me shuffled along at different paces. T
hey all had lives, dreams—maybe, that’s what I was missing. I needed to figure out what to do.

  My knuckles clacked against Sun Hi’s door. She checked on me every hour since I had gotten back. She didn’t have any mochas for me, but at least she had her friendship. Both of us had lost Dhyla, a mother figure to me, a friend and employer to her. We didn’t talk about it much, but in the tight smiles and furrowed brows, we may have communicated ten times as much compassion over her death.

  After a quick shuffle and some giggles from behind the door, the metal, corrugated slab opened. Her head popped out but she hid her body. Her bra-length, blonde hair fell forward and settled into a straight line behind her head. She had a t-shirt on with some jewelry hanging around her neck. For the first time, I noticed a tattoo of roses in bloom on her upper arm.

  “Hey, Paet,” she said.

  “Hey, Sun Hi. Am I disturbing you?”

  “Nooooo, no. We just relaxin’.”

  “We?”

  Air slid from her nose. A smile played on her face, followed by a giggle. “It’s just me and Bryson. He got in a few hours ago.”

  “I’m bothering you,” I said matter-of-factly.

  “No,” she said. Her eyes widened, and she yelped. “No!” Still grinning, she glanced behind her. “Stop that. Stop it, not in front of Paeton.”

  I was a child who’d caught her parents doing overly-friendly things.

  A head full of dreadlocks popped into view, followed by a deep salutation. “Hi, Paeton.”

  “Hi, Bryson,” I said. “I’m sorry for disturbing you guys.”

  He shifted his mischievous eyes toward Sun Hi, who still had her head sticking out of the door. He was a tall, black guy about a foot taller than Sun Hi with copper skin and eyes that changed color from brown to hazel to green, depending on what color clothes he had on that day. It was weird. I wondered how his eyes changed like that, but I had only known him for less than a week so it wasn’t like we were old-time buddies.

  “I told you, you’re not distur-ur-ur-bing.” The high pitched note that Sun Hi let out on the last word, definitely confirmed my suspicions.

  “I’m going to go now,” I said. “A sock on the door would be helpful in the future.”

  I turned around, and the door screeched shut.

  So much for my chocolate crème mocha, since Sun Hi was the only person who had the knowledge to make me one.

  “Crix,” I cursed my bad luck.

  I spied Mari, my fake, adopted, six-year-old sister, speeding around the corner. Yes, my life is confusing. I mean two years ago, I was lonely and poor. So yeah, having Mari and her seven-year-old brother Miko as my wards seemed perfectly logical. We could starve together using our love to fill our empty bellies. At least I made money as a small-time, bank thief.

  Mari ran with another girl about her age, and both of them tried to avoid a boy who had a piece of tissue paper in his hand. The two girls jumped over a small gap in the metal walkway and then ran down a slight incline toward me. I dashed out of the way to let them pass, but Mari and the girl hid behind me to use as a human barrier.

  “Paeton, tell him to stop,” she said.

  “Stop what?” I asked.

  “He pulled a bugger out his nose and put it on that paper,” the other girl said.

  “I didn’t!” the boy exclaimed with a muffled voice.

  They continued to argue over the plain reality of the boy’s cold. The fact that his nose was stuffy told me the truth.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “Let’s stop chasing.” I turned to the boy. “You look like you’re sick.”

  “I’m not. I can play,” he said.

  “Well, the girls don’t want to get sick. If you want to play with them, why don’t you go put the tissue up and wash your hands.”

  “But they like the tissue.”

  “No, we don’t!” the girls barked.

  “Oh-kay.” He relented and started to walk away.

  The girls slid their heads out from behind me. Mari’s glossy, brown hair shone brightly in the orange lights. The other girl glanced at me. She looked like she could be Sun Hi and Bryson’s daughter, but I didn’t think Sun Hi had any children.

  “Thanks, Paeton,” Mari said.

  They both said their goodbyes and started off toward their room to play some game called Fashion Police. I smiled and took a step toward the rails. As soon as the girls were ten feet away, the boy turned around and sped past me holding out the tissue once more. The girls screamed and sped away.

  This was getting me nowhere. Boys chasing girls with mucus and boys doing lewd things to girls behind closed doors only made me lonely. Where was the boy who was supposed to be chasing me? Hopefully not with mucus, though.

  I found the steps and took them to the basement, or the Corridor of Death, as I called it. The hallway was dark, gloomy, and cold. The faint smell of mold hung in the moist air. Muffled sounds from several stories above me echoed along the walls.

  I slid the door open at the end of the hall. Ducking my head, I slunk in and glanced at the bluish-green, holographic display of downtown Atlanta, complete with the three tiers, one for each of the three classes. Above the buildings was the Summit, which appeared like a flying saucer hovering over the city.

  I shut the door and took a few steps toward the display. Rylan’s head and arms rested on the circular table that projected the hologram.

  The desk was about ten-feet-wide and had touchscreen keyboards embedded within it, but at the time, it showed a screensaver of rain falling onto paper. The rain drops turned into the watercolor paint on impact and dripped around the surface in an array of colors.

  I walked over to Rylan and sat down next to him. My fingers moved a strand of hair from his face. Goosebumps pickled my skin as the crisp air settled on my skin. I crossed my arms to retain some of my heat. His mouth was slightly open, and a pool of drool collected on the LCD touchscreen beneath his head. His long eyelashes had a dab of crust near his nose. Every few seconds a dog whimpering sound escaped his mouth. He was alive, human, and real. In this quiet moment, he was beautiful.

  I strummed my fingers on the LCD panel. The computer made a hollow noise and the LCD blinked to life. The screensaver disappeared and was replaced by a keyboard and mouse panel.

  Rylan stirred. His torso rose, but his head drooped forward like it weighted fifty-pounds. A second later his eyes blinked open, and he ran his fingers across his eyes, cleaning them.

  I had a feeling that he had pulled an all-nighter. There was no get-up-and-go in his movements, and he’s usually fully awake at breakfast. His brain contemplated if the computer noise was a false alarm and if he could go back to sleep. I didn’t want him to go back to sleep, though. I was selfish, but I hadn’t seen him in over a day.

  Leaning over, I rubbed the back of his head. I thought about touching his ears. I had read enough books to know some boys had sensitive spots in certain places. Ears were generally one of them. I stopped myself, concerned if he would enjoy it or not. The more I let the idea linger, the more I wanted to try it. Slowly, I rolled my thumb over the top of his ear trying to be as soft and seductive as possible. A mischievous grin tugged at my lips.

  He leaped out of his seat. His hand covered his ear as his eyes flew open. After glancing at me, he twisted around with his head down. He quickly made himself tidy, tucking in his shirt into his pants and running his palm over his head.

  My chest filled with naughty red light beams. His ears were sensitive… very, very sensitive. I should say that the good girl in me warned me never to do that to him again, but I was ready—no itching—to touch the top of his earlobe with my fingertips or maybe…

  “Paeton, hey! How are you?” he asked, his hand cupping his right ear.

  I giggled. “I’m sorry if I startled you.”

  “Were you watching me sleep?” he asked.

  “A little.” His shoulders slumped, and pink spread over his cheeks. After he spied behind him, he dashed over to where
he was sleeping and ran his sleeve over the console. He made a few, unhappy noises as he cleaned up his drool and sat down. “I usually don’t—It was a long night.”

  “I’m sorry. Don’t feel bad. You’re kind of cute when you sleep,” I said.

  He pressed a happy finger into my shoulder. “I’ll have you know I’m extremely handsome when I sleep, not kind of cute.”

  “Handsome? I don’t know if I’d call it that…” Joy whirled in my chest, spreading outward into my limbs. I couldn’t tease him any longer. “Yes, you’re very handsome.”

  “And you’re very cute, and pretty, and kind of badass. I mean the way you took out—”

  The image of Governor Read’s head exploding filled my mind. My chest deflated. All my happiness slid from my shoulders and drained away.

  He crossed the tiny distance between us. His long arms wrapped around my torso as I did my best to control my shakes.

  “I’m sorry, Paeton,” he said. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s okay. It’s okay,” I said and forced a smile. I leaned into his body, allowing his heat to warm me and dissolve my chills.

  Thinking about the Governor’s death was too much for me. I wish someone else had done those things. Only a few threads of my sanity stayed, many drifted away. I didn’t need to relive the moment.

  I glanced toward the ceiling and reset my emotions so I could resemble a normal person. I didn’t want him to see the pain in my eyes. “Sooooooo, what have you been doing?”

  He released me and sat back down next to the console. His gaze avoided mine. He wasn’t trying to hurt me, but the mood had been ruined.

  I rubbed my shoulders, trying to add to the heat that was evaporating from my skin, partially because of the cool in the room, but mostly because of my internal anguish. He placed a hand over mine and squeezed it.

  “We’ve all been there.” He took a deep breath and spun around. “Map of Atlanta,” he said boldly.

  I smiled, knowing that he was trying to move on with the conversation, which was what I needed.

  “I’ve been studying it. It’s been hard to get back into the city after we destroyed the police mobile unit.” His fingers tapped the console. After a few seconds, he turned to me. “See, this is nothing exciting. How have you been? Is everyone treating you okay?”