Stateless (Stateless #1) Read online

  Stateless (Stateless #1)

  Meli Raine

  Copyright © 2019 by Meli Raine

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Stateless

  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

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Stateless

  When you’re born without a trace, no one knows you’re a weapon.

  I lie for her.

  I hunt for her.

  I kill for her.

  And above all, I betray my mission for her.

  She doesn’t know why. She doesn’t care why.

  I do.

  Treason comes in many forms.

  Love is one of them.

  Our training taught me to be a sociopath. A machine. A pawn. Nothing more than a tool for a larger goal, without attachments or feelings.

  Our teachers forgot one important detail:

  Pawns shouldn’t have hearts.

  Yet we do.

  It turns out our emotions are our greatest weapon.

  And I know exactly where mine are aimed.

  Chapter 1

  Nine Years Ago

  Kina

  “I am four,” I say, my body suddenly small, transported to the past yet frustratingly here in the present, too.

  In the present, I have long, gangly arms, biceps that brush against my newly growing breasts.

  In the past, I feel short and simple, nimble and fierce again. The wind in my mind sweeps across my skin, gooseflesh rippling down my arms.

  No no no.

  My body cannot betray me. Not here.

  Not now.

  “And what is happening?” my instructor, Angelica demands, her face severe, brown eyes narrowing at the bottom, the look malevolent. Her hair is pulled back in a tight bun, cheekbones sharp enough to cut rope.

  All of her attention is focused on me. My body flushes.

  In spite of the risk, I like being the center of attention.

  I did not know this about myself until now.

  All eyes in the classroom are on me. Jason smirks, arms crossed over his broad chest, his whole demeanor designed to intimidate. With dark hair and bushy, thick eyebrows that remind me of dangerous predators in the woods outside our door, Jason's body language matches his personality.

  In our cohort, I am the weakest. I am the one he targets. I am the one he knows he can defeat.

  Watching me squirm is entertainment for him.

  It's fun.

  “There is a woman. She is smiling,” I say, struggling to raise my whisper. Be bold, I tell myself.

  Chin up.

  Angelica blinks. Reaching up, she scratches the hollow of her eye under the large tortoiseshell glasses she always wears. An epic eye roll from Jason is squelched instantly when he sees my sister on the periphery, watching him. My twin, unlike me, makes people think twice.

  She can intimidate, too.

  “Is her smile good?” Angelica asks. “The woman.”

  “Good?” The shake in my voice alarms me. We're never to show fear.

  Fear is what we instill in others.

  “What emotion is she covering with her smile?”

  I am not allowed to close my eyes to conjure the memory of the dream. Weakness is not allowed. To not know the layer beneath the smile is a failure.

  And failure means death.

  “She is lying. Pretending to like me. I am little. Maybe four?” I say, voice rising with an uncertainty that makes Jason snort.

  “Who else is there?” Angelica presses.

  My mind's eye roams the memory, seeing myself again. And seeing my mirror image, except in a mirror, left is right and right is left.

  “My twin. Glen.” The woman is holding both our hands, her nose nuzzling my hair. My past self laughs.

  I don't tell Angelica that part of the dream.

  “What does Glen say?”

  Glen is in the room, her attention diverted from Jason as we talk about her. Even the steady sound of breathing among my classmates disappears. This dream analysis goes beyond any we've done before. My interrogation has no precedent.

  We are making it up as we go along.

  I hope my self-control can override the chip's detectors.

  “She slaps the woman.”

  Now I am lying.

  The chip inside me will tell them I am lying if I let the fear override me. Controlling my emotions means controlling my biochemistry. Mastering this is part of our training.

  It is also how I survive training. Until a few years ago, Sally would have been the instructor questioning me. She was softer. Nicer.

  That's probably why she was reassigned.

  Angelica looks at her phone. She blinks exactly once.

  “And then?” she asks, giving me nothing. No clue. No hint. No idea if I am walking into a trap or if I have cleared the hurdle.

  I must continue into the unknown.

  Armed only with my wits.

  My classmate, Judi, the one who sits to my right and has since we began instruction at age four, stares straight ahead. She also sends strength my way. How do I know? Because we're trained to feel tension. To study it. To feel it in the air, like a presence no one else can detect.

  I feel her support. It means everything to me.

  “The woman grabs the girl's hair in a fist, twisting her fingers like snakes. The nails stretch out, long and fibrous,” I lie. I let my heart rate increase, breathing hard to help it for a few seconds then backing off, pressing my tongue against the edges of my teeth, knowing that will calm me. Visualizing the root of my brain, I slow my pulse. I am allowed a slight physiological response to the recounting of the dream.

  Anything less would mean I was not quite human.

  Anything less could mean I am lying.

  Which I am.

  In the real dream, she smothered us with kisses, then took us to a lake, blowing bubbles until they drifted out so far. Too far. We wandered into the water, captivated, and when we turned around, the woman was gone.

  Calling two names I do not know. Sawyer and Madison.

  Two names I can never speak.

  Names that make my heart hurt, as if I've heard them in a language that I used to be fluent in but have forgotten. As if I’ve heard an echo from the past.

  In the present, a man slips into the room. He’s clothed in all black, a knife on a black belt, his front pressed flat by a flak vest. Eyes the color of dark avocado skins look at me, then at Angelica's phone sitting on her desk. His face twists in a sneer as he rests his hip against the desk, clearly comfortable with his authority.

  Romeo expects very little of me.

  “Too much,” Angelica snaps. “You had a nightmare and it's disturbing you simply to recount it. You are eighteen–almost nineteen–years old. You are mediocre.
”

  Someone in the class snickers.

  Romeo turns, pushing up from the desk he's leaning against, his body flying up with the power, halfway down the row of tables before we realize it. Twenty-four of us sit in formation, a U of twelve against the back, six on each side, Angelica at the front, closing the U into a square.

  “Mediocre means she is in the middle. How many of you are with her? Too many for laughter. Too many for us,” he barks, eyes blazing.

  The room stills. Everyone holds their breath.

  Everyone except Callum.

  He breathes.

  He always breathes.

  The strong tendon on his neck, underneath the port-wine stain that spreads across his collarbone like a melted rose petal on a peach, tightens. His hair is clipped short, a sandy blond color that complements his pale blue eyes. Our leaders love Callum, but it’s not his beauty that they prize.

  It’s the symmetry of his features.

  But most of all, Callum looks just enough like California senator Harwell Bosworth to be a member of his family. And that is a characteristic that instantly elevates Callum above us all.

  Romeo whispers in my twin's ear. Glen leaves. Where did he send her?

  “I think Angelica is wrong,” Callum says, breathing out on the last word, casual and assured.

  The stillness grows stronger, as if even our hearts have stopped in unison.

  “What is the basis for that belief?” Romeo prods.

  Callum addresses Angelica, who folds her arms, holding her glasses by the stem. “You assume Kina is weak,” he tells her. “Perhaps she is lying. Perhaps she is a better liar than you are a teacher.”

  I hate him at this moment.

  Oh, God, how I hate him.

  Rage rolls through me like marbles set loose from a bag to trip an enemy in pursuit. He is revealing my secret, although he doesn’t know. Callum has no idea I use the training to fool the trainers. I've never told him, never said a word. So how could he know?

  And even if he did, why would he out me?

  He knows what I stand to lose. We all know what the leaders do to us when we are weak. How they take the strongest among us and give them free rein to prey on the less strong. How we all want to prove our worth. How desperate some are to exceed expectations.

  An excess that always leaves scars.

  “Her?” Angelica laughs, the sound turning to a choke. “The Mule? You think The Mule is capable of that level of deception? If she were, she'd be stronger than her sister.”

  Callum's eyebrow goes up.

  “Stronger than you,” Angelica adds, upping the ante.

  I go rigid, thighs tightening, the cords on my neck hurting like too-tight guitar strings being played. I can wait this out.

  It will pass.

  They call me The Mule because mules are stupid, dependable, dull creatures. Over the years, I've learned to meet their expectations.

  On the outside.

  “Kina,” Romeo says, nodding to the door. My twin sister is back, her face slack, but those eyes. Oh, those eyes. I can read her eyes anywhere, as I should–they are my own. We are identical in every way, except for one small birthmark. So close.

  But close is never enough here.

  She carries my bunny.

  My bunny is not quite true. We do not have pets here. But it's undoubtedly the bunny I've played with when on Woods punishment. We are sent to the woods for “contemplation.” We just call it Woods. You're sent for one, two, three, five, however many nights our leaders want to banish us.

  Sent alone, without provisions. The clothes on your back and the will to live are all you've got.

  And sometimes, the will is optional.

  “Kill it,” Romeo tells me.

  Darting to Glen, my eyes betray me. She tightens her hands around its neck. Glen is the golden girl here at the compound, the one who wins all the games.

  Even the ones where victory requires a killing.

  She would snap the animal's neck in a second without blinking.

  Tears threaten my eyes. The dream of two little blonde girls and the kind woman ripples through me like an electromagnetic pulse.

  Now my chip will pick up on my distress.

  I am done no matter what.

  Tonight will be nothing but Woods for me.

  Which is better than this.

  Robotic arms attached to my shoulders reach for the bunny, resigned to what I must do, creating a box inside me for the horrible emotions I must learn to purge. We call it Elevation. We rise above our emotions, detaching from them, floating above them like a drone.

  Disengage the body and the heart from the weakness of emotion.

  This is how we do great things.

  We elevate.

  Before I can take the bunny, Callum inserts himself between me and Romeo, snatching the poor little creature from Glen, then snick–ending its life without fanfare.

  “One with true internal power does not need to make others suffer to make a point,” Callum announces, setting the rabbit down quickly on the edge of Angelica's desk, turning to look at Romeo with eyes so flat, they look like concrete.

  Romeo stares back, chest immobile, breath held close like a winning hand.

  And then his eyebrows arch. His hand goes to his chin, evaluating Callum.

  No, I think.

  Please, no.

  “Come with me.”

  And just like that, Callum follows Romeo out of the room.

  And I know I will never see him again.

  Chapter 2

  Callum

  “You think what you did back there was brave,” Romeo says to me as I follow him, rage roasting my skin from the inside out. Nothing he said in the classroom was different from anything he's said before.

  This time, though, tipped me over.

  Kina was lying. They couldn't see it. Couldn't detect it. They couldn't fathom that she's smart enough to outwit them.

  Why does she feel the need to outwit them?

  And how do they not notice her lies?

  I suggested she was lying to protect her. We've been taught to look for the unexpected, the hidden. To sniff out irregularities and examine them until we determine threat level and act accordingly. If the possibility of her lying is put forth and they reject it, they move on.

  But our teachers are hypocrites.

  Why that is, I do not know.

  Why I see it and others do not–again, I do not know.

  I do know, though, that it matters.

  My hands vibrate, palms tingling with the energy I just snapped in that poor rabbit's neck. To kill it was an act of mercy.

  Mercy for Kina. Not for the rabbit.

  And maybe, some of the mercy was for me.

  Romeo halts, long, lean legs encased in black, like mine. His head inclines just so, a gesture we here at the compound know all too well.

  He expects an answer.

  A real one.

  “You are all missing the obvious,” is all I say. The more I press this, the more they will resist, because for some reason, they have categorized Kina as one of the weaker ones among us.

  The only reason she has not been turned into prey is her inexplicable skill with the little ones.

  Otherwise, she would be ravaged. Tortured. A training body for the cohort.

  A literal body.

  The thought strengthens my resolve.

  “You think she is capable? The Mule?” he asks in a voice that strains to be casual, his light Eastern European accent becoming thicker with incredulity. “Of deception?”

  “Aren't we all? That's what you've taught us.”

  “What the hell is your mission, Callum?” Raking a hand through his crow’s-feather hair, he seems to be so hyped that he's practically vibrating.

  “The same as yours.”

  He doesn't bother to hide his grin. “Some people are just fools.” He shakes his head. “We're being attacked from all sides. I don't need you challenging me, too. I've got t
he governor of Texas and all the stupid bitch can do is go on television and talk about how people like us are vermin. Domestic terrorists, she calls us. Treasonous.”

  I frown. I have no idea why he's gone off on this tangent.

  “Ludame is her name. Ludicrous, if you ask me. She accuses us of being attached to shadow governments and deep states. How can we commit treason against a government we never subscribed to? How can we be part of a deep state when our goal is to end the state?”

  I wonder what Alicia Ludame has to do with Kina, but I'm smart enough not to ask. He just came in from The Field, out in American society, working on his mission. When operatives come back, they are often enraged. Our instructors can ramble. I just listen. All data is good data.

  Especially data about the unknown.

  “We have allies,” I point out.

  “Yes. Senator Corning,” he says, nodding. “And others. Yet the people with the most power in government are often those without the title of an office,” he adds.

  “Like who?”

  The withering look I get in return means I've asked too much.

  “The only way to violate a government's laws is to believe they are legitimate in the first place,” I say, the words coming from rote memory. This is one of the first phrases we are taught, memorized before our baby teeth begin to fall out.

  “Exactly.” Cold evaluation, something I'm used to, comes my way. Romeo’s movements are always compact and efficient, but his thoughts can ricochet. It's as if he has too many versions of himself inside the skin that contains him.

  They fight to come forth.

  “We have no goals,” he resumes, staring off into the distance, gaze soft but hands clenched. His slight accent slips in and out of his conversation, a liability that he must hate. His tongue betrays him, unable to shake the ghosts of his childhood in another land.