Page 66 of Ghosted in Arkadia
“Hey Killian, how long is this trip you’re taking me on?” I point to the road in front of us, then unscrew the top of the medicine bottle. The land outside the car stretches for miles. And no matter which direction I look, I don’t see any signs of civilization.
“It will be a full day of driving.”
“That sounds like plenty enough time to tell me a whole story. From the start.”
Killian sighs. “You’re right. But it’s not just my story. It’s Ghost’s story and Calvin’s too. And I don’t know what they want shared yet.”
My mind trips over his words. Maybe I need to let a few more of the drugs out of my system after all.
“Calvin’s my older brother, and Ghost is my younger brother. But we call him Zac.”
“Zac,” I say. Testing out the name. “Zac? As in Zac the techie?”
Killian nods.
“Fucking really?” I remember Vicky saying the new techie was cute, but I don’t remember seeing him myself.
“And Calvin died in a car accident along with your parents?” I ask, mostly because my memory gets a bit muddy when thinking back to the time in the graveyard. What I really remember from that day was my time in the kitchen with Ghost.
“Calvin and his mom Eden staged the car accident after killing Anthony. Then Eden took Calvin, Zac, and I out of the city. And that’s when we learned the truth.” Killian pauses, but he can’t just leave me hanging on a cliff like that.
“What truth?”
Killian lets out a deep sigh, glancing my way. “That the world you lived in was a lie. You’ve been lied to since the moment you were born, Kira.”
“I don’t.” I stop. I’m not sure what to think. I still don’t have enough pieces to put the puzzle together properly. “I’m going to need more than that.”
“I know. I know. I’m trying, Kira. There’s just so much, and I tried to explain it before. To Katherine. And that didn’t exactly turn out the best.”
“That’s another topic I have questions on.”
“I know.” Killian sighs. “There’s a lot. And some of it, I have only recently learned.”
“Katherine. Cathy. Type thirteens? All that sort of stuff?”
“Yeah. All that and more. You are one of the thirteens, by the way.” Killian says it nonchalantly, but it’s the first piece of information that feels monumental.
“I am? What’s that mean? I’m an experiment?”
“You’re like Calvin, Zac, and I. Genetic experiments created by my father. Only, even he didn’t understand what he had done.”
Great. I am a fucking experiment. No wonder I’ve never fit into society. Even as a mateless, I felt like something other.
“Cathy was one too, and so was Katherine. And Bill Roman as well.” Killian seems to have a bit more difficulty with his words. He looks down at his arm, and that’s when I notice the black marks that look a lot like soulmate marks.
“So you do have a soulmate,” I say, pointing.
“That’s one of the things. I know it’s going to be hard to understand at first, but soulmates… they aren’t real, Kira.”
I hear his words, but don’t understand what he’s saying. “No. You said you were taking me to Ghost. Ghost is real.”
“I am taking you to Ghost. It’s just. Soulmates aren’t real, princess. It’s a lie your government told you. It’s part of the way they controlled you. Along with poisoning your food. They created an entirely fake narrative and have been teaching this lie for generations now. This,” Killian moves his arm to give me a better view of the letters written on his skin.
ETA?
“That’s technology,” Killian says, but there’s an edge to his tone, a slight anger. Though it’s not directed at me.
My heart hammers while my mind attempts to reconcile this new information but struggles. Everything was made for soulmates. Everyone has a soulmate. I’ve seen it. Seen them.
