Frozen

13. JUMP

“I’ll go with you,” Auden offered the next time we had what I soon began to think of as the Conversation.

“No, you won’t,” I said, “because I’m not going.”

“Stop saying I’m scared!” I insisted for the hundredth time the following week. “There’s nothing to be scared of.”

But all that got me was a smug smile. “That’s what I keep trying to tell you.”

“It’s not like I need more friends,” I tried later. “I’ve got you, don’t I? That’s enough.”

“Your flattery is embarrassingly transparent,” he said. “Don’t think it’s going to work.” But I could tell by the pink glow on his cheeks that it had.

“Why do you care so much?” I finally asked after one Conversation too many.

“Because I know, deep down, you want to go.”

“Except I don’t,” I pointed out. “So try again.”

“Okay… Maybe, deep down, I want to go.”

That was a new one. “Why?”

“Aren’t I allowed to be curious?” he asked. “You keep telling me I can never understand what it’s like to be a mech-head without actually being one. Fine. But maybe this is the next best thing.”

“You’re serious?”

He crossed his arms and nodded firmly.

“You really want me to go, just so that you can go?”

He nodded again. “Consider it a personal favor.”

I wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or if this was just his way of letting me change my mind without admitting that, deep down, I couldn’t stop wondering about the house of freaks and their fearless freak leader.

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll go. But only because you asked nicely. And because I’m sick of you asking at all.”

Auden grinned. “Whatever you say.”

We took Auden’s car. The coordinates Quinn gave me led us to a deserted stretch of road about an hour from his house, just a strip of concrete bounded on each side by a dark and desolate stretch of trees.

“You sure about this?” Auden asked as we parked the car on the shoulder and set out into the woods.

“Now you want to turn back?” Say yes, I thought.

“I guess not,” he said.

We disappeared into the trees.

The night was black. Auden led the way, silhouetted against the beam of the flashlight. We followed the GPS prompts, hurrying along the narrow, bumpy path, twisting through the trees, ducking under branches, Auden shivering despite his thermo-reg coat. I couldn’t feel the cold.

“You sure we’re not lost?” I asked.

He peered down at his dimly lit ViM. “According to the GPS, we’re almost—” He froze as the trees gave way to a riverbank dotted with people.

No, not people.

Skinners.

Although, in the dark it was harder to tell the difference.

They were lying in the grass, their flashlight beams playing against the trees, the water, the dark canopy of the sky. Beyond the treeline the night glowed with a pale, reddish light, just bright enough to cast flickering shadows on the fringes of my vision. As if, while watching, we were being watched.

Auden was still shivering. “Maybe we should—”

“Let’s do this,” I said, and started toward the group. He followed, careful to stay a few steps behind.

Most of them ignored us, but a few figures climbed off the ground as we arrived.

“No way,” one of them said, a tall, slim guy I didn’t recognize. “You can stay, but he goes.”

“Lia, you shouldn’t have.” Quinn appeared at my side and leaned in, her lips brushing my ear. “He’s not supposed to be here,” she whispered.

“This place is just for us,” a girl’s voice said. I thought it was Ani—especially when she threaded her arm through Quinn’s—although it was too dark to see whether or not her hair was blue. “It’s all we’ve got.” She jerked her head toward Auden. “They get everywhere else.”

Jude stood in the middle of the pack, silent. Watching.

Auden inched closer to me. “Maybe I should get out of here, let you—”

“You’re staying,” I said. “He’s staying. And he’s not a they.” Just like I wasn’t an us.

“He’s an org,” the first guy said. “He doesn’t belong here. And if you can’t get that, neither do you.”

“He goes, I go.”

The guy shrugged. “Fine.”

“She stays,” Jude said suddenly. His voice was deeper than I remembered. “They both do.”

There was no more argument.

After his pronouncement Jude wandered away. We were good enough to stay, but apparently not good enough to talk to. They all ignored us, except for Quinn and Ani, who sat down again, tangling their legs together. We joined them.

This is it? I thought. Some lame, food-free picnic in the woods?

Quinn did most of the talking, at least at first. Everything was new to her; everything was exciting. Life was amazing. Wonderful. She couldn’t get enough. I wanted to dig up a couple clumps of grass and cram them in my ears. Or, better yet, in her mouth.

Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. “So, Ani, what about you?” I asked. “What’s your story?”

She looked uncomfortable. “I… I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Why the download?” I asked. “What happened to you?”

“I… uh…”

“We don’t ask those questions here.” Jude loomed over us, his face hidden in shadow. “The past is irrelevant.”

“Typical,” Auden muttered.

“What?”

“I said, typical,” Auden said, louder. “That you would think the past doesn’t matter. It’s a common mistake.”

Jude sat down; Ani and Quinn leaped aside to make room for him. It should have made him less intimidating, down on our level. But somehow it had the opposite effect. Maybe it was those glowing eyes. “The past is irrelevant to us,” he said, stretching his legs out and resting back on his elbows. “What we were has nothing to do with what we are. Not that I’d expect an org to understand that.”

“Speak for yourself,” I said. “I’m the same person I was.”

Jude laughed.

“I think what Jude’s trying to say is that the sooner you forget about your org life, the sooner you can realize the full potential of being a mech,” Quinn said, darting a glance at Jude. He gave her a small smile. She beamed.

“This is why I didn’t want to come,” I murmured to Auden.

Jude leaned forward. “Then why did you?”

“None of your business.”

“Maybe you got bored pretending you still fit in to your tiny, claustrophobic org life,” he suggested. “You’re looking for a better way.”

“Better?” I sneered. “If this is so much better, if you’re all so superior, then why doesn’t everyone want to be a skinner?”

Ani gasped.

“We don’t use that word here,” Jude said quietly. “We’re mechs. And proud of it.”

There was a long pause.

“Sorry,” I said, only because I felt like I had to.

“As for your question, I don’t care whether your rich bitch friends recognize my superiority. Some of us can make judgments for ourselves, without just valuing whatever the masses decide is cool that minute.”

“I don’t—”

“But don’t worry,” he said. “Even the rich bitches will catch on. Sooner than you think.”

I stood up. “This rich bitch is leaving.”

“So soon? Such a shame.”

“All that crap about embracing potential, and this is what you come up with? A supersecret society that meets at midnight to—What? Sit around in the mud, gossiping? Lucky, lucky me to get a membership. I’ll pass.”

Jude shook his head. “You really don’t understand anything, do you? This is just the staging ground. You can go if you want, but you’ll be missing the main event.” He stood up too. We stared at each other, and for a moment it felt like we were alone in the night. Then he shouted. “Ready?”

As one, the skinners—mechs—stood up and began walking along the riverbank. I looked at Auden, who shrugged. “We’ve come this far,” he pointed out.

We hung back, but followed the group along the river, tramping through the mud for a little over a mile, a rumbling in the distance swelling to a roar, until we finally rounded a bend in the river—and stopped short at the edge of a cliff. The river tumbled over the side, thundering down the rocks into an explosion of whitewater below. Far, far below.

“It’s a forty-foot drop,” Jude said. He peered down the falls. “Eighty thousand gallons of water per second. Welcome to your new life.”

The other mechs—there were seven of them—lined up along the edge.

“What are they doing?” I shouted, over the roar of the water. “Are you all insane?”

“It’s incredible, Lia!” Quinn shouted back. “You’ll love it.”

I shook my head. “They’re going to kill themselves.”

“Not possible,” Jude said. “They—we—can’t die. Can’t drown. So we get a little bashed up on the way down. Trust me, it’s worth it.”

Someone jumped.

One moment there were seven shadowy figures standing on the rim, the next, there were six. And a human-shape form disappeared into the churning water. I didn’t hear a scream.

A moment later two more leaped into the air. They were holding hands.

“You’re more durable than an org,” Jude said. “This won’t hurt you—not much, anyway. Although, I should warn you, it will hurt.”

“So what the hell is the point?” I asked. Another mech took the jump.

And then there were three.

“The pain is the point,” Jude said. “At least for some of them. For others, it’s the rush. Like adrenaline or Xers, only better. Intense feelings—intense pain—it’s the only kind that feels real. And for some of us…” He paused, just long enough to make it clear that he was talking about himself. And maybe about me. “It’s about facing the fear—and conquering it. Mastering all those sordid animal instincts and rising above them. And having a hell of a good time on the way. Don’t tell me you’re not tempted.”

I looked over the edge, just as Quinn and Ani jumped, their arms around each other’s waists. Way down at the bottom, I could see the water churning, but not much else. It was too dark to pick out any individual features, like bobbing swimmers. If any had survived.

“You can’t actually be thinking about doing this,” Auden said. “It’s crazy.”

“Crazy for you,” Jude snapped. “You’re not like her.”

“And she’s not like you,” Auden said.

“Don’t hold her back just because you can’t move forward.”

“Better I should let her jump off a fucking cliff?”

That was enough. “No one lets me do anything!”

Auden rubbed the rim of his glasses. “Lia, I’m just saying—”

“If I were an uninvited guest,” Jude said. “I’d keep my mouth shut.”

“Would you both shut up!” I shouted. “I need to think.” They opened their mouths, but I walked away before either of them could start arguing again.

There was no one left on the edge of the falls. There was just me and the rushing water.

I’d never been much of a swimmer.

It was crazy. Jude was crazy. But what he’d said about the rush, about the pain… It made sense. Sascha had said the same thing about strong sensations flooding the system, fooling it into accepting them as real. Maybe it wouldn’t matter that I had no goose bumps, no heartbeat—not when I was plunging over a forty-foot drop with eighty thousand gallons of water slamming me into the rocks. There wouldn’t be time to notice what was missing. There would only be the body, the water, the fall. The fear.

To feel something again, to really feel…

I peered down, trying to imagine launching myself off the solid ground. I would bend my knees. Flex my ankles. Shut my eyes. Then in one fluid motion thrust myself up on my toes, off the edge, into the air, arms stretched up and out, and for a long moment, maybe, it would feel like flying.

Then I would smash into the water. And together, the water and I, we would crash to the bottom.

I can’t die, I whispered to myself, testing the words on my tongue. They still didn’t seem real. I can do this.

I wanted to do it.

A hand wrapped around mine. “We can go together,” Jude said. “On three. You won’t be sorry.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t move.

“One… two…”

I ripped my hand away. And then I jumped—the wrong way. Into the shallow pool trapped behind a ridge of rocks, just before the falls. The water was nearly still, and I let myself sink to the bottom, settling into the packed mud. Everything was a murky black. And silent.

It was the first time I’d been underwater since the accident. I could stay there forever, I realized, hiding out. Because I didn’t need to breathe.

I had never felt more free.

I had never felt less human.

I launched myself off the bottom and exploded out of the water, scrambling onto dry land, soaking. Auden tore off his coat and wrapped it around my shoulders. I let him, although I wasn’t cold. And he was still shivering. I grabbed his hand without thinking and squeezed tight. It was so warm, so human. I didn’t want to let go.

Jude watched, disgusted.

“We’re leaving,” I told him.

“This is a mistake.”

“This was a mistake,” I said. “I’m fixing it.”

Jude came closer, close enough that I could see his eyes flashing, his silvery hair glinting in the dim moonlight. “You don’t belong with him. With them. You’re strong, they’re weak. He’s weak.”

“You’re wrong,” I said.

“Tell yourself that if it helps.”

“What do you even care?” I asked. Auden squeezed my hand.

“I don’t. But I can’t stand waste.” Without warning Jude’s hand shot out and gripped our wrists, tight enough that I couldn’t pull away. “And you’re wasting your time, pretending that the two of you are the same.” Something flashed in his other hand. The gray metal of a knife. “Don’t believe me?” Jude’s grasp tightened. He dragged the edge of the blade across my palm, then Auden’s.

Auden gasped. Blood beaded up along the narrow cut, then dripped across his skin, thin red rivulets trickling from his hand to mine.

I didn’t bleed. The knife had barely punctured the artificial flesh, and the shallow scratch was already disappearing as the material wove itself back together. Self-healing. Whatever pain there’d been in the moment was already gone.

Jude let go.

A moment later, so did Auden.

“You can pretend all you want,” Jude said, looking only at me, talking only to me. “But you’ll never be the same.”

Auden walked me to my door. We had driven home in silence.

“I’m sorry that was so… I’m sorry I made you go,” he said as we stood on the stoop. I wasn’t ready to go inside.

“No. I’m glad we did.”

“Liar.” We both laughed, which helped, but only a little.

Auden rested his hand on my arm. “Lia, what that guy said, it’s not true.”

“No. I know.” I ducked my head. He rubbed his hand in small circles along my arm, which was still wet. “He’s crazy. They all are.”

“Especially him,” Auden said with a wide-eyed grimace that made me laugh again, harder this time.

“Thanks for coming with me. Really. I’m glad we went. At least now I know. And”—it was the kind of thing I usually hated to admit, but for some reason I didn’t mind admitting it to him—“I couldn’t have done it alone.”

“Like I would have let you.”

I gave his chest a light shove. “Like you could have stopped me.”

“He was right about one thing, you know,” Auden said quietly. “You are strong.”

I didn’t know what to say.

So I hugged him. His arms closed around me. I shut my eyes and pressed my face against his chest, imagining I could hear his heartbeat. Imagining I could hear mine.

“What’s this for?” he asked, his voice muffled. I wasn’t sure if it was because my ear was against his coat or his lips were against my hair.

“For nothing. Everything. I don’t know.” I held on.

But I opened my eyes. And over his shoulder, I raised my hand to where I could see it, still spattered with Auden’s blood.

“Lia, there’s kind of something I’ve been wanting to—”

“I should go inside,” I said, letting go.

He backed away, and locked his hands behind his back. “Right. Well, good night.”

Auden left quickly, but I didn’t go inside, not that night. I’d learned my lesson about taking care of myself, and I’d been following a normal schedule—an org schedule, Jude probably would have said, his lip curling in disgust—shutting down for at least six hours every night. But not that night.

That night I sat outside, leaning against the front door, eyes open, wide awake as the reddish glow of night faded to the pinkish glow of a rising sun, remembering the thunder of the water, wondering what might have happened if I’d had the nerve.

If I had jumped.