It’s bizarre to return to the normalcy of my unit and pick up where I left off weeks ago, before Renascence. I feel like I’ve been through a war. My soul is bruised and battered from the things I’ve seen and discovered and the decisions I have made. Add to that the stress of the incident with Drake, and I am left with a pounding in my temples as I try to concentrate on tasks I’ve done a hundred times.
Springer is uncharacteristically quiet, like some silent rebuke. The day drags on, and he remains aloof, making me feel increasingly uncomfortable. When it is finally over, I try to dart out of the room, wanting to avoid a confrontation. But Springer has been biding his time and catches up to me.
“Don’t run away from me, Enora,” he snaps while jerking my arm.
“I’m not running from you, Springer. I’m running from what we know, what we saw, what we’re a part of,” my hand flings outward, encompassing everything I see. “All of this is a part of it, you…me…all of it!”
“Don’t you think I know that? What do you think we can do? What can you do?”
My shoulders slump. “I don’t know yet. I just…” I shake my head, unable to put into words what I want to do with the knowledge I have.
“You think telling Drake is going to make it better?”
My eyes widen. How does he know about Drake? He watches me closely, so accustomed to my thoughts and actions that I need not say a word for him to know exactly what I’m thinking.
“Yeah, I know about Drake and your secret hiding spot. I was tempted to burst through that door last night and end your little tryst.” I can see the hurt under the layer of anger as he stares me down. “What makes you think you can trust him, Enora?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. I have to trust someone. I’ve known him from the start. He’s the only one in this bunch of drones who’s human!”
“Don’t you find his relationship with you a little strange?” He’s looking down at me from his greater height. “He could hurt you. You can’t trust him. You can’t trust anyone. How do you even know if you can trust me?”
“I trust you.” As I say the words, a sense of rightness steals over me. “I trust you, Springer, more than anyone.”
I see him nod slowly, relief etched in his face. “Then trust me when I tell you to stay away from him. He’s not safe, and you’re putting us both in jeopardy by saying anything to him.”
“How did you know where we were meeting or even that we were meeting, to begin with? I mean, I was so careful, or at least I thought I was…” I look up at him, remembering those muffled footfalls as Drake and I held our breath in the closet. Could it have been Lina again?
“It doesn’t matter how I know. What matters is that if I knew, then who else knows?” His voice is pleading now, begging me to see the danger he senses.
“Are you sure, though? Drake is different. I mean, he’s real, you know? He gets me, and he sees the wrong in all of this too.” The last part comes out with a tinge of defensive anger.
I stare at him, feeling a flare of resentment that he’s trying to keep me away from someone I care about. It doesn’t matter that I’ve decided not to tell Drake anything. I don’t like taking orders, no matter who they come from, and this bucking of authority rears its ugly head despite being directed at the one person who has only ever looked out for me.
Springer sighs as though he’s tired of trying to spell it out for me. “Enora, please listen to me,” he reaches out and grabs hold of my arms, tilting me at an angle so that I have to crane my neck and look up into his eyes. “He’s not your friend. Do you understand me? Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
I jerk my head, shaking it in denial.
“Drake is one of them. He’s like a parasite, skillfully and painlessly attaching himself to you so that you forget the danger he poses. So that you drop your defenses and tell him things you shouldn’t tell anyone! He’s using you, Enora!” He’s shaking me in anger as he spits out. “How can you not see that?”
I don’t see it. What could he be using me for? I’m nothing special, never have been. Springer’s hands drop limply to his sides as he takes a few steps away and turns his back to me. I see his head drop to his chest. “You have to wake up, Enora. You have to accept this…please.” He turns to me. “You said you trust me, right?” I nod slowly. “He’s using you. You’re going to have to decide, Enora. Either you trust me, or you trust him. But you can’t trust us both because one of us is lying to you.”
I’m not sure what to think or who to believe, and I feel untethered and lost. Then I turn to Springer. I can look into Springer’s face, see his worry and fear, and know that it is real. Whether or not Springer’s warnings hold any merit becomes irrelevant. He believes them to be true, and I believe in him. So there it is.
“Okay,” I say quietly as though afraid to shatter the silence with my voice. “No more Drake, I promise.”
I see his eyes soften as he lets out a deep breath of relief. “Thank you, Enora.” And we leave it at that. And it’s good enough.
It becomes challenging to fulfill my promise as Drake finds me over the next few days, trying to convince me of a safer meeting place. He plies my conscience with desperate wishes to talk to me, to hold me in his arms, to hear about those things I saw that I never got to tell him. And it is this last wish that makes me revisit Springer. I find myself replaying my last conversation with Drake and the question he posed that had taken me off guard. It was almost leading like he knew something already or was fishing for information he suspected I had. I look at his incredibly handsome face and wonder if it hides something. My mind goes back to the time he kissed me. Does Drake really like me? Or is Springer right? Is he just using me? I listen to Drake’s pleas, and my uncertainties grow, little by little.
However, I know that I need to continue the ruse, Springer would expect me to ‘play my part’ and avoid suspicion, but that is easier said than done. I’m not the greatest at coming up with valid excuses and lies on the spot. I’m more the type to think of great ones long after, as I’m perseverating over it. And so my excuses end up sounding lame. I can see that Drake doesn’t believe me but is willing to play the game even if he can’t fully hide the irritation simmering below the surface. In the end, I’m forced to play upon any inherent sympathy he might have and simply tell him that the last night spooked me, and I’m just too scared.
“We need to lay low for a while and make sure it’s safe,” I tell him. “Just a few days, okay? It’s just too scary right now,” I explain while infusing a slight pleading into my voice.
This seems to appease him. “Maybe you’re right. I just can’t stop thinking about what else you were about to tell me. I hope you know you can trust me, Enora.”
I smile, looking him in the eye and biting my cheek to keep from asking him, point-blank if he’s being honest with me. I manage to dredge up something to say, though it’s tinged with falsity. “I do trust you, Drake. And I want to finish what I was telling you. I’d feel so much better if I could get it off my chest.” His eyes light up, and I’m vaguely impressed with my acting abilities but stifle the urge to give myself too much credit.
“We’ll give it a week, and if everything seems normal, we can meet at the new spot I found. We won’t have to share a space with cleaning supplies anymore.” He reaches out and brushes a few loose strands of hair away from my face. “You can tell me everything, Enora. Don’t you trust me?”
“Of course I do. It’s just…I don’t know.”
His brow furrows. “Has someone been badmouthing me or something? Why are you pushing me away like this?”
“No one has been saying anything! I’m just not good at this, Drake. I don’t know how to act. I’ve always handled things mostly on my own, you know?”
He gives me one of his classic smiles, where his dimples show. “Let me help you, Enora. I promise you’ll feel like a huge weight is off your shoulders. I care about you. You’re beautiful and smart. You’re my only real friend in this place. In fact, well, I think you know I’d like to be more than friends. Don’t you feel it too?”
I can’t deny that I find him incredibly attractive. Who wouldn’t? No one, ever, has said I was pretty. I’ve always been the scrawny girl with a plain face. So to hear him say I’m beautiful pulls at me in a way that I’m not prepared for. And I guess it’s how strange this is that makes me wonder if it’s real. I manage to say, “I care about you, too.” But, in truth, I don’t understand how I feel. The lie, no matter how small it is, tastes like charcoal in my mouth.
Drake gives me a crooked smile. “One week, and then you can let this all go. I’ll take care of you, and you won’t have to be alone with these secrets anymore.”
He leans forward and gives me a soft kiss on the forehead before walking away. I watch his receding figure, hands clenched at my sides. I feel an inner battle brewing as my eyes stare at the space he left. I hear Springer’s warnings in my head and know that I can’t put limits on my faith in him. But it’s so hard to accept what he believes. I tell myself that Drake is just using me, but only a small part of me really believes it. So I force myself to repeat it, for Springer’s sake. Finally, when I’ve said it enough times, I turn my mind toward the promise of fitful sleep and await the next day when I can be with the one person I can trust.
I haven’t even finished walking into the room when I curtly ask, “Do we have another assignment yet?”
I can see by Springer’s reaction that my tone has surprised him. “You want an assignment?”
“We have a job to do.”
He nods in understanding without needing me to cough up an explanation. He’s been watching my mood steadily deteriorate since he told me about Drake and must know that it’s wearing me down.
“There’s nothing for us yet, but I can remind Bram that we’re ready to go back into the field.”
My lip curls in distaste when he says Bram’s name, and I feel that core of anger that I’ve been nursing flare-up in response. I feel the gears in my mind spinning from Bram to Drake and back again, and then the gears stop, locked into place like pieces of a puzzle.
“It’s Bram,” I whisper.
“Huh? What’s Bram, Enora?”
“Drake is a spy for Bram.”
I see Springer shaking his head in denial, and I cross the room to look him full in the face.
“It all makes sense, Springer. He’s behind it all, what I am and what I’ve done, and now he wants to be sure that his little robot is following orders! So he’s sent Drake to spy on me and find out if his pet project is spilling her guts!” It feels good to let this anger and resentment course through my veins and, though I shy away from it, it’s good to direct the rage away from Drake.
“You’re wrong, Enora,” Springer quietly interjects.
“No, I’m not. You don’t understand. Bram and me…we…you just don’t understand,” I can’t explain it, and even if I could, Springer wouldn’t accept it in his current state of mind.
I turn my back on him and fix my gaze on the training yards outside the windowpane. I can’t understand Springer’s refusal to see the truth, but I don’t need him to agree with me. I just need to get out of here.
After an awkward silence, I say, “It doesn’t matter anyway, Springer. It’s not like this makes anything different. I still want to go back into the field. I can’t…I just can’t be here right now. I can’t see him every day, knowing that he’s not what he seems to be.” I let him think I’m talking about Drake. It’s easier that way. I turn pleading eyes to him, and I can see the fight drain out of his stiff shoulders.
“I’ll get us an assignment.”
“Thanks.”