Page 5 of The Darkest Half

“But they’re all still human,” my mother says. “And no special breeding or training can ever take emotions and attachments away from humans—even terrorists have emotions. When The Order finally believed their plan would never work, they shifted gears. Instead of trying to breed emotional attachments out of their operatives, they utilized them instead.”

“And that’s why you’re here,” I say.

“Yes. That’s why I’m here and have been kept here all these years. For this very moment. And it’s why you—.”

I look up to face her sudden silence. And then I understand.

“It’s why they kept me alive,” I say, lowering my head. “Because I’m Victor’s only weakness—and here I thought all along it was Izabel.”

“She is a weakness,” my mother says, “but you are your brother’s greatest weakness; you always have been, Niklas.”

I swallow down the emotion congealing in my throat.

“You know about Izabel?” I ask, wanting to drop the previous topic.

“Everybody knows about Izabel,” she says. “She was a kink in the armor they never saw coming—were it not for that girl, none of this would’ve ever happened. Victor never would’ve fallen so far—or at all—and never would’ve left The Order. There never would’ve been a bounty placed on his head; he would be next in line to run The Order when Vonnegut died or stepped down.” She looks toward the door where Lysandra had left. “Instead of that woman. And you and Victor never would’ve had your falling-out.”

It surprises me how much she knows being locked away in this place. But then again, I guess it doesn’t.

“How do you know all this?”

“What else have I got to do in here?” she comes back. “Hearing and seeing and the occasional conversation is all I have.” She shrugs. “And besides, Lysandra was sure to fill me in on a lot in preparation for your…visit.”

I nod.

Then I raise my head with newfound energy.

“Where is Vonnegut?” I ask.

“That I don’t know,” she says. “I haven’t seen him in many years.”

I blink, surprised, and straighten my back against the chair.

“You’ve seen him? You know who he is?”

“Yes,” she says. “He’s your biological father. He’s Victor’s father. Lysandra’s. Naeva’s. I don’t know how many children he’s fathered, but I guess it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

“Our father…?” My eyebrows bunch in my forehead. “But…” I can’t get the words out because I can’t untangle my thoughts. That man I always knew…the one who I thought looked just like Victor and me…the one who hated me and had always favored Victor—the one Victor supposedly killed to protect me. He wasn’t our real father? I want to punch a fucking wall, but my hands are tied behind my back!

“Did you know?” I look at my mother in a sidelong manner. “That he was their father too?”

I know the answer when she looks down and doesn’t answer right away.

“I’m sorry, Nik,” she says. “I never told you…not because it was forbidden, but because I wanted to protect you. If you knew, they would’ve killed you a long time ago.”

“So…I’m just like Nora Kessler,” I think out loud. “We were all just pawns, bred for one purpose—like fucking cattle!” I shake the chair; the legs scrape the floor.

“I’m sorry, Niklas,” she says. “But it doesn’t for a second mean I never loved you as my son. I wanted to take you away from all this. They wouldn’t let me. You were my son, but you were their property.”

I feel a warm sliver of blood fall from my wrist and down into my hand from where the plastic cut me, and I realize it’s due to absently trying to break my hands apart in anger.

Then I relax, but I still can’t look at her. I believe she loved me—this is all just too much to take in.

“It’s all I’ve ever wanted,” I say, the tiles blurring in my focused vision. “To get away from all this. To live a normal fucking life where all I had to worry about were bills and Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking on my door.” I laugh, gaze upward at the ceiling, and shake my head at the absurdity of it all. “This woman I…was with a few times”—I had started to say “fucked,” but this is my mother, after all—“ended up pregnant. I thought for sure it was mine, and she was still coming around because she wanted me to do something about it, but after a while, she never said anything. So, I came out and just asked her, ‘Is that mine you’re carrying in there?’ She looked down at her little rounded belly and then laughed. It kinda cut me, her laughter. And then she told me no, that it definitely wasn’t mine. She then reached for her cigarette on the bar and returned to what we were talking about. I hated her after that. I got up, took the cigarette from her mouth, crushed it in the ashtray, and then walked off. I never saw her again.”

“You wanted that baby to be yours,” my mother says.

I pause and then nod. “Yeah…” I say distantly. And then shake it off. “But I’m sure as fuck glad it wasn’t. A kid would just give The Order something else to use against me like they’re doing with you.”

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