I don’t know her childhood. I never asked her questions, and she never spoke about herself. She told me stories. Imaginary ones, of nonexistent worlds, with characters that weren’t real and never could be.
Everything, even our time spent together, was centered around a lie.
And she knew. The entire time, she knew, that I was the key to keeping her precious creation alive. It makes me hate myself.
It makes me wish that I could dive into the sea and sink to the sand, forever forgotten from the world.
When dawn is near, I take the train back to the city. It soars over the bridge where I once leapt from the roof of this very train, dove into the waters below, and boarded an Initiative yacht to escape Zephyr.
So much has happened.
And now, I am back to chasing things again, except instead of chasing my mother’s ghost, I am actually chasing her.
Once I find her, I won’t be alone in this anymore. We’ll be together again, prisoners.
A part of me hates my mother. The other longs to see her again, to share in the fact that we are both pawns of the Initiative, and we always have been. She made it that way.
The train slows as it closes in on the main strip. The night has passed, and the sun is rising from the sea, shedding its light on the early morning. I pass the Graveyard, remember the moment when everything went bad. When I lost my family.
The train is nearing the old apartment building. I hop off, roll to my feet, and run toward it. And as I get closer, see the little concrete row of steps leading into the building, my heart drops to my toes.
She isn’t here. It is exactly 6 a.m.
I wait, pacing below the steps.
Two minutes pass.
Three.
I slam my fist into the brick building. Either my mother didn’t see the message, or she didn’t care. I am not sure which is worse.
It destroys me. I stand up, scream into the morning.
“LARK!”
I hear the wind blowing, see the sun rising in the distance, throwing the color of blood into the sky.
“YOU’VE KILLED HER! YOU’VE KILLED PERI!”
I throw my head back and scream, so furious that I’m reacting only on instinct now. Then the screams fade to laughter, and for a moment I forget who I am. Tears slip from my eyes, roll down my cheeks. My father’s voice doesn’t come to calm me.
Instead, I hear only whispers of ghostly screams that sound like Peri. I don’t want to gain control of myself.
I want to be empty.
I want to be free.
When my voice fades, I drop to the steps.
That’s when I see it.
Movement, a person walking out of the shadows of the nearest alleyway.
Silver hair.
That’s all I need to see to know it’s her. I stand up and run, sprinting across the street, until my mother and I are standing face-to-face.
“Meadow,” she says, and it is the sound of the past.
The sound of safety.
I do what I never thought I would do, ever again. I fall into her arms.
And I sob.
She wraps me up, holds me close. Her hands find the Regulator at my neck, and she gasps. “I knew it. I knew they would do this to you.” I hear her voice as she whispers into my ear, as she strokes my hair, holds me tighter. “My god, look at the precision on this. Who did they match you with?”
I bristle, start to pull away, but she reaches out.
“It’s all right, Meadow. I’m here now. I’m here.”
“Peri,” I say. “They’ve been torturing her. . . . She’s in pain.”
“My poor child,” she says. I hear her holding back a sob. She swallows it. “Your sister is fine, I promise. The pain is real, but it will not kill her. If anything, it will teach her to be strong. I designed the program myself, years ago. Beautiful thing, isn’t it?”
I gasp. “No, it’s not beautiful.” For one second, can’t she just be the mother I need her to be? The mother who brought comfort to me, so many years ago? “They showed me a video. Her hair is gone, her body is . . . I have to get to her. Before it’s too late.”
My mother stumbles. “There’s no way out, Meadow.”
“So we’ll make one,” I say, but she is already shaking her head.
Tears well up in her eyes, and she presses her hands to her temples. “I did this, my god, it was all me.”
She reaches out to touch me, pull me in for a hug, but I take a step back. “You’re coming with me,” I say. “The Initiative needs you. You can tell them what they want to hear, and they’ll get rid of the Regulators. Peri will be okay again.”
“She’ll never be okay,” my mother whispers. “Pain like that is something you don’t easily forget. My daughter, my littlest daughter. She never was strong, Meadow. Not like you.”
She laughs, stares at the sky.
It sounds exactly like the laughs that have come from my lips recently.
“We’ll start over,” my mother says. “We’ll make the Shallows a better place, together. It was always meant to be this way.”
“You’re wrong,” I say. I wrap my hand around her wrist, start to pull her away.
“Wait,” she says. “Meadow, you must know the truth.”
“The truth can wait. It’s time to go. For once in your life, stop trying to get out of doing the right thing. You will fix this. If not for me, then for Peri. For my father and Koi.”
She holds steady. “This is the right thing,” she says. “Please. You have to know, Meadow, you have to understand my mistake.”