that was now.
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He wanted the ordered, clean lines of the city around him.
“Where are we going?”
Before she could answer, he realized where she was taking
him. It wasn’t anything directional. No more than a feeling, like
an echo of his grandfather’s words. Those conspiring against him
consorted with Sparks. His mind flashed to the scene in the alley.
And isn’t she already guilty of the same? His mind hissed the
thought. She loves you , after all.
“Merry, are you taking me to the Kennels?”
Her happy expression flashed into irritation. “Don’t call it
that. It’s a village. A community, just like the one we live in.”
“Okay,” he said. A feeling of wrongness worked through his
belly like spreading fingers. What business did she—did either
of them—have in the Spark village? “But are we?”
Meredith smiled and glanced over her shoulder at the far
shore, still focused on luring him onward.
Was she a lure? What had Edgar said? Once they had Lucas,
they had his grandfather?
How had Edgar known he was a Spark? Lucas had told only
one person.…
“Why?”
She let an impatient huff of breath escape and tilted her head.
“I wanted to surprise you. Dad said to wait, he was afraid.… But
the Councilor knows now. You talked to him, and we’re getting
married!” She let a giddy laugh escape and threw her arms to the
side, gesturing her happy disbelief with the long stick. “He
knows about us, and of course, he knows about you. The
Councilor’s own grandson is a Spark. Dad couldn’t even hardly
believe it when I told him.”
Lucas felt a sick sort of spinning in his midsection, as if
something—his breath, his understanding—was being sucked
down into a death spiral.
He’d told her she had to keep that between them. It was his
deepest secret. It was his shame. He’d shared it with her because
her love somehow eased it.…
What had she done?
She’d given his weakness to her father as a weapon.
A rush of heat suffused his face. His pulse throbbed in his
temple. He could hear the pounding in his ears, the force of his
blood echoing the anger that flashed through him.
“Yes, we’re going to the village.” Her voice was breathless,
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excited. “We’re going to see my niece. She’s strong, so strong.
Stronger than any of the men. Do you know the Council policy
on girls like that?”
He nodded automatically. Lucas had heard Grandfather
discussing policy with aides. But what difference did the stupid
policy make? Why was she even talking about this? She’d
betrayed him. And she was babbling on like it didn’t matter.
“They take them away,” he said. “Because the Council
believes they’re a danger to the delicate balance of freedom and
production.” It was easy to parrot what he’d heard. The Council
wanted Sparks just strong enough to power the cities but not so
strong that they could do more. Not so strong that they could
want more. With a matrilineal power, that was dangerous. The
rare strong girls, a one-in-a-thousand evolutionary slip, would
grow into women who’d pass on their strength. They’d create a
generation of monsters just like them.
He didn’t tell Meredith that, though. Something in him was
pulling back, watching. Wary. Doing exactly what the voice in
his head had told him.
Meredith nodded. “You do understand. But now we don’t
have to hide Emma anymore. Your grandfather will stand for us
in the Council. He’ll protect Emma. And we owe it all to you.”
Lucas struggled to follow her leaps. He’d never said that.
He’d never promised any of that. All he’d wanted was someone
to share his secret.
“No,” he said softly. Then, again, louder, “No. I didn’t say
that—any of that. You want my grandfather to stand up to the
rest of the Councilors against his policy? No, Merr. Grandfather
didn’t even give me permission to marry you. That wasn’t what
Her smile died. “He asked you to what?”
Lucas shook his head. He couldn’t tell her. “I want to marry
you, Meredith, but he wants to send me away.” A partial truth
was better than nothing. His next words tumbled out, a rush of
air to push the sin of disobedience from him. “I want us to go
away, instead, start new somewhere else where we don’t have to
pretend anymore. Somewhere neither of us has to be a secret.”
“You’re a Spark,” she whispered. “It doesn’t matter where
we go. It’ll always have to be secret.”
“No. Not every Zone is like this.” This was where he could
convince her. She hadn’t been outside Zone Four before. Lucas
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had. Whether it was biblically right or not, he knew there were
places where Sparks were as free as any other citizen. His
grandfather was determined to change that. But it hadn’t
happened yet. “My foster family took me to other—”
“Lucas. No.” Her voice was firm. “We stay. My place is here.
Fighting with my family.”
“Fighting my family?” He snapped the question.
Meredith’s chin lifted. “If necessary. Your grandfather is
right about one thing. We do have to stand on faith. Some things
are righteous, Lucas. Sometimes God requires us to do things
we’d never consider, because they are right.”
Including betraying the man who loves you? The anger beat
strong in his temples again.
Her words echoed his grandfather’s, yet her meaning was a
world apart. Both of them couldn’t be right. One of them must
be a pretender. One of them was using faith to further an agenda.
He loved them both. How was he to know who was wrong?
“No. It isn’t right. No matter how hard it is on any of us,
Grandfather is the one true path.”
“No. No! Lucas, Sparks aren’t aberrations. They’re not
subhuman. They’re not dogs, either. And they sure as Dust aren’t
a sign of the end times. Your grandfather is twisting something
good and true to suit his own purposes, and it’s wrong!” She
lifted her arms again, but the stick shook this time. “We are alive,
right now. And we are people, both of us. It’s just that one of us
can make the Dust do what he wants. Are you less of a person,
Lucas?”
No. But I’m chosen. I’m different than the other Sparks. You
should know that! If she loved him, truly loved him as
Grandfather did, shouldn’t she see that he was special? Was this
what the voice had wanted him to realize?
The truth hit him like a fist. She didn’t. She couldn’t. She was
working against his grandfather. Lucas was just a means to an
end. She wouldn’t leave with him because she didn’t love him.
She would never marry him.
“All I wanted was you.” He hated that his voice sounded so
broken.
She shook her head, her eyes going soft again. She stepped
closer, dropping the stick into the water to dip below the surface,
then bob back and spin slowly away. Meredith reached out to
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him. “I want you, too.”
He wanted to believe her. He just didn’t. Not anymore. Her
fingers left a cold trail down his cheek to his chin then dropped
to his chest. Her eyes followed them.
She can’t even meet my eyes. How could I have been such a
fool? The thought of how desperately he’d wanted to run away
with her made his stomach clench.
“I’m right,” she said. She raised her gaze to his briefly then
moved it over his face. “You know I’m right. Come with me so
you can see. Let us convince you. Being a Spark isn’t a curse.
It’s a gift.”
It was the exact word his grandfather had used. Except his
grandfather hadn’t used it to manipulate Lucas. He’d used it to
shame Jacob, to show him the divine in Lucas—the divine
Meredith could not see.
That was why he’d given Lucas this assignment. It wasn’t
merely so Lucas could prove himself to Grandfather. Jacob
sneered at Lucas at every opportunity. He expected Lucas to
did.
With sudden icy clarity, Lucas realized it might already have
done so.
He’d sworn to keep his Spark a secret. Not a single member
of the Brayer family had been born a Spark in the two hundred
years since Sparks were engineered, until Lucas. If it had been
up to his mother, he’d have been left at the edge of the contained
Spark community as a foundling. Or drowned.
Grandfather had saved him. He wanted Lucas. He needed
him. And Lucas had repaid Grandfather’s devotion by sharing
his secret with the family intent on destroying grandfather’s
legacy.
“You know I’m right.” Her hand rested on his stomach, her
fingers curling into his shirt. “Baby, you’re not a curse.”
His nerves fluttered under her touch, his body trying to
respond, even as his stomach curled with nausea. Lucas
swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. She had been using his
weakness for her this whole time.
He looked away from her, turning his head back to the
shoreline behind him. His gaze swept along the tangled forest,
looking for an answer, a path.
He found it.
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Two men crouched in the underbrush up the shore from them.
One of them was Jacob. How had he and Meredith not heard
them?
You were too focused on your plans to betray the only man
who has ever believed in you. And she was focused on plans of
her own, wasn’t she?
Lucas was certain Jacob watched not only to ensure Lucas
acted, but to complete the task himself if Lucas failed. The men
were following her. They must know she was being used as a
lure to corrupt Lucas. He had his answer. All he’d had to do was
listen.
And believe.
Meredith really was the key to Lucas’s future. He was
chosen.
Tears of gratitude welled in his eyes. Was this what
righteousness felt like? The making of impossible decisions?
“No,” he said. “It’s not a curse. It’s a weapon.”
He felt a wave of serenity settle over him, easing into him
through his skin like a misty cloak of virtue that cooled away the
anger. Lucas knew what he was now, even as he turned back to
look down at the only person he’d thought had loved him in spite
of what he was—
No, he corrected himself sternly. That’s wrong. Grandfather
loves me. Even when Mother rejected me, he always came for
me. “Maybe you’re right, Meredith.” He soothed away the
confusion in her eyes after his last words. He lifted her hand from
his stomach and gave each knuckle a soft kiss then settled it back
by her side. “But you’re a gift, too. You were meant for me.”
It was true. Just not in the way that either of them had
thought.
“You were always meant to show me the right way.…” He’d
just had to see her through faith instead of desire. He bent and
touched his lips to hers.
Meredith rose on her toes to meet him, lifting her arms to his
shoulders.
It made sweeping her under easier. He wrapped his hands
tight around her neck and pushed her beneath the water.
Her hands clutched at his shoulders at first, as if she thought
it might be a game. After a moment, she fought him. Her fingers
curled into claws that strafed his neck and chin. His height kept
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his eyes from her nails. His long legs set wide gave him stability,
even as her own legs kicked.
The water boiled around her from her desperate flailing. Her
hands suddenly gripped the front of his shirt and then slid loose.
Her arms fell to the water and bobbed under and back up again,
just as the branch had moments before.
Her long black hair swirled around his wrists, an inky cloud
that helped him focus. He held her under, waiting. He had to be
thorough. Grandfather would expect no less.
Two crimson drops dripped from the gouges she’d opened
on his chin. They settled on the surface of the water then slowly
distorted with the lazy swirling of the water around his wrists.
The blood caught in the floating strands of her hair and separated,
spreading in the water until they couldn’t be seen. They were still
there, he knew. Still Lucas. But hidden.
He took a deep, cleansing breath and lifted Meredith from the
water. Her green eyes stared up. Water drained from her nostrils
and mouth, poured off her hair. Somehow heavier now, her body
resisted him. He pulled her to him, crushing her softness to his
chest a last time.
Lucas turned, dragging her with him. He trudged the few
steps back to the shore to settle his accomplishment in the
detritus of the river’s narrow beach. A slender thread of grief
fluttered in some wind within him. Soon, it would be gone, as
ephemeral as the life of the traitor he’d loved.
The footsteps of the two men crunched closer and then
stopped. Lucas took two steps back, allowing them in. His
brother would want to check her, to be certain Lucas had done as
he’d been told.
Edgar’s oldest daughter was dead. The family would know
the cost of their betrayal.
As Jacob inspected the body on the beach, Lucas turned his
impassive gaze to the other man. He could see the energy haze
of the man’s Spark. Jacob was partnered with a Spark? Jacob
&nb
sp; detested Sparks.
But we do what we must for the good of the family, no matter
how unpalatable.
“Who are you?”
The other man gave him a cocky dip of his head as his lips
curved up in an expression halfway between a grin and a smirk.
“I’m the man who’s going to train you to be the best damn mid-
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range agent-in-training Zone Three has ever seen.”
“You’re an agent?” It was less a question than a
confirmation. His grandfather used the tools that God provided,
as Lucas himself had finally done.
“Marreau.” The man stuck out his hand as he offered his
name.
Lucas calmly took it, offering a firm shake. “You’ll be
training me?”
“And escorting you down there, yes. Looking forward to a
little dry heat.” The man shivered at the damp coolness of the
Pacific Northwest’s version of summer.
Beside Marreau, Jacob shifted, his hand dropping from the
dead girl’s neck. He nodded over his shoulder at Marreau then
flicked a warily respectful gaze over Lucas.
“Maybe there’s hope for you yet, Spark.” The words were
grudging, but honest.
Lucas nodded. “We’re not done today.”
Jacob cocked his head at his brother.
“There’s a little girl being hidden in the Kennels. A strong
one. Emma.”
Jacob’s brows lifted. “We can run a sweep now.” He finally
offered his brother a smile.
Lucas felt his lips curving in response.
“Grandfather will be proud,” Jacob said, “especially because
of the relationship.”
Lucas let the curve become a full smile. Yes. That was the
feeling that had blown through him, a wind to push away the
grief, leaving behind the purity of their goal. That was the feeling
surging in his chest. Pride.
Kate Corcino writes adult speculative fiction. Her debut novel,
Spark Rising , placed second in the Paranormal, Futuristic and
Fantasy category of the Toronto RWA Catherine Award for
2014. It also won the 2015 National Excellence in Romance
Fiction Award for Paranormal/Futuristic. Her latest novel,
Spark Awakening , has just released. Her short stories include
“Border Time,” a forthcoming story set in The X-Files universe
of the TV show. She has also released Ignition Point , a collection