The Defiant
Chapter Forty

\Six had a minor concussion. I had claw marks on my neck and bruised knuckles, and Three had a bloody nose from being kicked in the face by Eight’s flailing feet. Other than that, we had virtually escaped injury.

Five was calm and allowed Seven in to treat his dislocated shoulder and split lip. If I didn’t hate him so much right now, I would almost feel bad for him. He’d taken quite a few beatings on this trip.

Eight wouldn’t allow anyone inside, although she probably needed medical treatment, based on the sickening crack I’d heard when her head struck the floor. Seven had tried to go in, but Eight attacked her with a book and tried to escape into the hallway.

Unfortunately, though we had regained control of the ship, there wasn’t much we could do. Without Five’s voice command, we couldn’t order the ship on a new course. We sat, dead in space, and waited.

Early attempts to get Five to relinquish control so I could take it over again had been fruitless. He was polite, but insistent: he wouldn’t allow us to take the passenger to Sorhna.

Five wouldn’t even talk to me or Four. Three had some success, but ultimately he refused. Two couldn’t bear to see him. Seven got the closest, but he shut her out eventually, too.

I told Four to start preparing the hack that would allow us to circumvent the verbal command, despite her warnings that it might permanently damage the ship.

I had one more plan, but I didn’t think it would work.

“I still think I should come in with you,” Six told me as we stood outside the door to Eight’s room.

“She can’t hurt me. She’s tied up again, and even if she weren’t there’s nothing in the room she can hurt me with anyway,” I reassured him.

“But—”

“C’mon, Six. You know I have to do this. And if she does anything to hurt me, I give you full rights to the phrase I told you so, okay?”

“Fine.”

I opened the door and walked inside with the tray, setting it on Eight’s bedside table for her to eat once we were done.

She sat in the center of her room, which was a mirror image of mine, tied to a chair. Seven had tranquilized her earlier so they could secure her for my safety, which was not a good omen for this meeting, but we had to do it.

Eight glared at me as I sat down in a chair facing hers, pure venom in her gaze.

“What do you want?” she spat.

“I brought your dinner. And I want to talk.”

“The weak always want to talk. The strong speak with their actions.”

“So speak with your actions. Tell Five to return control of the Defiant to me. He’ll only listen to you.”

Eight tipped her head back and laughed, creepily, like a hyena or a witch. Just as suddenly as it began, the hysterical laughter cut off.

“Why do you think I would do that?”

“Because I think in your heart, you know what’s right.”

“No. It’s because you don’t want people to look at you and wonder if you’re secretly like me. If I do this, people won’t look at you the rest of your life and wonder if you’re secretly wishing you’d joined your dear sister in support of the Aerzhu.”

“Sister?” I asked, surprised. She’d never acknowledged us as siblings before, although we obviously were. Was someone really your sibling if you had no memory of them?

“Wow, you’re even dumber than I thought. Unless you hadn’t noticed, One, you and I are identical. Well, almost. You have that hideous scar. Get in a fight with a jaguar?”

“You know I don’t know where I got that.”

“You don’t, but I do.”

“What?” I gasped, like someone had punched me in the stomach. She knew about my past?

“Oh, my dear, stupid little One. I still have my memories. They weren’t taken from me like yours were. And none of you realized. So naive, believing everyone was in the same boat. So gullible. I’ll tell you a secret,” she said, voice dropping nearly to a whisper as she leaned toward me, “Believing everything you’re told is a good way to get killed in this world.”

“Why weren’t your memories taken?” I demanded. How could she have kept this from us for so long?

“It wasn’t necessary. They knew I’d never talk,” she said. At my confused expression, she continued. “That’s why your memories were erased. So if we were captured and tortured, you couldn’t give up information. Not like you ever knew much anyway. Not like me. See, my idiot little sister, I work for the Aerzhu. I am a trusted member of their organization. I’m here doing their bidding.”

The air whooshed out of my lungs all at once.

“You… You betrayed us! How could you? We were your friends!”

Eight’s face, my face, twisted into a hideous mask of hatred. “You were never my friend. And you betrayed me, so much more than this little tiff of ours now.”

“What did I do? What did I ever do to you?” I cried.

“You stole my life from me!” Eight screeched fanatically, startling me with her sudden vehemence, which was doubly unexpected after she’d spent weeks barely saying anything. “You had everything I ever wanted. You grew up whole and undamaged, untouched by the hurts of life. And I grew up in hell!

“You think your scar makes you damaged. I see you watching my smooth, pretty face, wondering what you ever did to deserve being such a hideous creature. My scars are on the inside, one for every minute I’ve spent hating you, hating you and your life, the life that should have been mine.” She took a long, rattling breath.

“Our mother was a whore. Miss Rachel Landen, from Hartford, Connecticut. City girl, soft-hearted and average. Her rich parents sent her for a year to the East Asian Coalition, supposedly to broaden her education, but my theory is they wanted to get rid of her for a while. She was a senior in high school. Only a bit older than us.

“She met some boy there in old Korea. Bitch opened her legs, and a month later found herself pregnant, in a foreign country. Of course she panicked, put her twins up for adoption. But like I said earlier, she was soft, and she got cold feet. Tried to pull out of the adoption. She half succeeded.

“One family gave her the rights to her child back. But one wanted to keep their baby, and she couldn’t convince them to back out. So when she gave birth, Miss Rachel had a decision to make. Maybe in the hospital you laughed and I cried. Maybe she just liked you better. I don’t know, and I don’t care. She took you, and she left Korea, and she left me behind.

“So while you were growing up in Hartford with your rich family and all your rich friends, I groveled in Korea, getting a meal every other day, getting beat by my adoptive father. Best day of my life was when the old bastard finally croaked. I fell in with a couple down the street who worked with the Aerzhu. They noticed potential in me, started training me to be a weapon, to change the world. So no one else had to go through what I went through.

“I was twelve when I realized I’d been adopted. I broke into the adoption center and stole my records. Found about you, and what had happened. Fifty-fifty chance, and she picked you. Picked you for a life of opulence and happiness, and family who loved you.

“When the couple down the street heard about the mission, the one we needed a set of twins for, they told me, and I stepped up. I took the duty. I told them where to replace you. I helped them pick others. When the time came, I helped them capture you.

“Because of you, my life was ruined. So now I’m going to ruin your life and rise up from the wreckage, become the next great leader of the Aerzhu. Everyone will know my name. They will fear me and love me. And no one will ever remember you.”