Chapter 1
22. Takes a misstep out of the shower.
15. Takes a purposeful step off of a too-high ledge.
58. Terminal cancer.
Not that it mattered. A Mark was a Mark. A job to do. An endless task to complete. Nothing more. Nothing to get upset about.
Dev though. Dev was distraught. Dev was looking distraught more and more often these days. He’d stand there in his white uniform with that look on his face, and it wasn’t a new phenomenon, but this time, I knew we weren’t going anywhere until he got it off his chest.
“Go ahead,” I said.
Dev brushed his bangs out of his eyes. It was his nervous gesture, and I was seeing that much more often, too. He was nervous to tell me, and I hated that. I wanted to listen to him. I always wanted to listen to him. He was my Leader, of course, but he was also my friend. And, not that it mattered, but part of me just wanted him to say it out loud.
“Is it, you know, the teenager?” I asked as gently as I could, which usually wasn’t very gentle at all, but with Dev, I could try a little harder. “Seems like that’s happening more and more now.”
Dev pulled his shoulders back, tightening his posture as he looked away. I watched him carefully while he gathered his courage: the shining sliver of his wings curled tight against his back, his dark eyes under heavy eyelids and equally heavy eyebrows. His hair was black and curled, his brown skin was a few shades darker than mine, and there was a flat mole right at the corner of his expressive mouth.
Sometimes, I thought I knew his face better than I knew my own. For instance, I knew the moment he decided to talk to me, even though it still took him another few seconds to begin.
“To be honest, Liam, it’s everything,” he said. “But if I had to pick for today? It’s mostly about the cancer.”
“Really?” I asked with an incredulity I couldn’t hide. “Why that one?”
Dev shrugged like it didn’t matter, which was a sure sign that it did. “It’s just…we can’t do anything about it.”
“We can’t do anything about any of them,” I reminded him, not so gently.
“I know that.” He didn’t quite snap back, but it was a close thing.
I looked away from him too quickly to pretend it wasn’t a response to his words. I forgot sometimes that Dev and I were different. He was a Leader, a rare male Leader with all of the extra capacity for empathy that implied. I was just a Marker, a blunt instrument who could only wish he’d been carved for delicacy.
“I’m sorry,” Dev said.
I said, “It’s not your fault.”
Dev fidgeted with his hair again, the round curve of his face a distinct line in my peripheral vision.
I could leave it at that. Dev would drop it. And afterward, he’d keep that sad look on his face, that tense posture to his shoulders. It wasn’t an image I was willing to endure.
“Keep going,” I said, and then added when he looked a question at me: “Why that one and not the other two?”
Dev held himself tightly for another moment, then gave in.
“With the other two,” he explained, “something could have changed. Even right now, there’s still time for one more conversation, one more chance. One more thing that could make it different. Not with this one.”
“It’s those chances that get to me.”
Dev looked over, surprised and trying not to show it.
I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to say what I was thinking. I never said it. It wasn’t a good idea. But out it came. “Sure, there was time for one more chance, for a whole slew of ‘if onlys,’ a whole mess of things that could be different. And that sounds great on paper. But you and I, Dev? We know the truth. You can drive yourself crazy thinking it could have changed ‘if only’ when we both know it can’t. When we both know I’m going to go out there, no matter how many last little things, and use the Dust. In the end, it’s all just the same inevitability. It’s exhausting.”
I was exhausted. But I didn’t add that.
Dev studied me, and his big brown eyes were soft and clear like he heard it anyway.
“Do you want me to go with you?” he asked.
“Go?”
“To your jobs.”
“No,” I waved a dismissive hand in front of my face. “I can do it.”
“I know you can, Liam,” Dev said. “I asked you if you wanted me to be there with you while you do.”
I thought of my list again. 22. 15. 58. All those years calcified into what couldn’t be more than a thirty-second action from me. Less than a full minute for me to dip my fingers into the pouch at my waist and end their lives. Whole fascinating, unique, hopeful lives. It occurred to me then, that it wasn’t really the inevitability that got to me. What got to me was the moment that I did my job and all of the chances, all of the possibilities ended, like a flow chart torn in half, like a choose your own adventure story with missing pages. Maybe the 15-year-old would have found a cure for the cancer taking the 58-year-old. Maybe that shower with the wrong step was the one where that person would have discovered the idea for a symphony. I would never know. And thanks to me, neither would they.
I looked at Dev, at his kind eyes and his white uniform and his wings, spreading slowly.
“Yes,” I answered. “I would like that.”
