Read Online Torn (Cold Awakening) by Robin Wasserman - Free Book Online

me it doesn’t matter, and it was a long time ago,
don’t
. Long time for you, maybe. For me it’s been a week.”
    “No. I was going to tell you that if you wanted to get back at him, you should have done it. To
him.
Sloane, the others, they didn’t do anything to you.”
    There was a long silence. I waited to see what would come next, anger or acceptance. I suspected she didn’t know either, until she spoke.
    “It sounds crazy, doesn’t it?” she said, with a weak smile. “That’s what I said, when they told me. I thought they were lying. Then they showed me the vids.”
    “They weren’t lying.”
    “I remember wanting to hurt him,” she said. “And I knew how to do it. He doesn’t care about what happens to him. You can’t
do
anything to him that someone hasn’t already done. I needed something that would … I don’t know.”
    Make him feel responsible.
    Make him feel deceived. Betrayed. Lost.
    Make him give up on trusting anyone, including himself.
    She was right; she did know him.
    “It was just an idea,” Ani said. “I didn’t think I would actually do it.”
    I couldn’t imagine how strange it must be to wake up and learn you’d become a different person, somewhere in that dark space between one memory and the next. That you’d done the unthinkable, and you would never remember enough to know why.
    Then again, maybe she was lucky: She got to forget.
    “I’m not sorry,” she said.
    I didn’t know how I was supposed to respond.
    “You can’t be sorry for something you didn’t do,” she added.
    “But you—”
    “Not me,” she said. “Not really.”
    I wondered whether she actually believed it. I could understand why she wanted to.
    “Do you know what you’re going to do, when they letyou out of here?” I said. Small talk seemed the best defensive maneuver.
    “Throw a party?” she said dryly.
    “I mean, do you have anywhere to go? Because you could stay with me… .” I tried to picture that, Ani bunking in the doily-draped guest room Zo used as a dump site for discarded junk, the three of us gaming, shopping, giggling like it was a fifth-grade sleepover. “Or Riley has some space, and I know he’d—”
    “I’m going back to the Brotherhood.”
    “What?”
    She spoke slowly, enunciating for my benefit. “When I leave here, I’m going back to the Brotherhood of Man. Auden has agreed to take me back.”
    “You’ve talked to—” I stopped myself. Auden was beside the point. “You can’t.”
    “Actually, I can.”
    “They
hate
us,” I told her. “They’re against our very existence. They’re trapped in an archaic, delusional, Dark Ages philosophy and can’t accept the fact that consciousness is transferable, humanity is fluid, that life isn’t defined by flesh and blood, it’s defined by our
nature
, and our nature is human. They think—”
    “Spare me the speech,” Ani said. “I’ve seen you on the network. I get it. But you don’t understand what the Brotherhood is about.”
    “Oh, really? It’s not about ripping your head open and tryingto find a way to get rid of us? Because I was there, and I know what I saw. What they did to you.”
    “That was Savona,” Ani said. “Auden’s in charge now, and he’s different. You, of all people, should know that.”
    “He
was
different,” I agreed. “
You, of all people,
should know that things change.”
    “And the Brotherhood has,” she said, with a serenity I could only assume masked insanity, or at least severe delusion. “So have I.”
    “Okay, tell me. What does this new and improved Brotherhood have to offer, besides self-hatred?”
    “The Brotherhood of Man celebrates humanity in all its forms and services those who have been overlooked or forgotten by—”
    “Spare
me
the speech. I’ve seen the press release. What’s it got for
you
?”
    “I don’t know.” Ani wouldn’t look at me. “Maybe … absolution.”
    “Ani—”
    “Everyone belongs somewhere,” she said. “They have