The Enlightened Read Free

me again. And again.
    I gasp for air, nearly gagging from the pain as he finally steps away. I wonder if he’s going to get a gun to finish the job. At least this time I know I’ll survive getting killed in the Quiet, though I’ll be Inert again and for who knows how long. With all my remaining strength, I start crawling away, though my shattered ribs scream in protest.
    All of a sudden, I’m back in the car in real time, with the noise of the engine roaring and the cold of the air conditioner blanketing me. I’m blissfully not in pain, but then everything goes quiet again.
    I stare at Caleb, who’s now in the back seat with me. What the hell is he doing? He took me out of the Quiet only to pull me back in.
    “Get. Out,” he says through clenched teeth.
    With a sinking feeling, I realize I’ve never really seen Caleb pissed before. Not until now, if pissed is indeed what he is.
    My heart hammering, I scramble out of the car. He climbs out too and takes off his vest with the weapons, dropping it on the ground.
    It seems like he wants to fight.
    Ignoring the hopelessness of the situation, I focus and brace myself.
    My right hand moves to block his first punch without my brain really telling it to. My left tries to hit him in the jaw. He manages to block my hook, and in the next moment, I’m seeing stars.
    My nose is the epicenter of unspeakable pain. I feel something warm running down my chin, and as I try to inhale, something obstructs the air from entering. My nose must be broken. As that realization hits me, I block a punch to my solar plexus.
    Then Caleb does a move I can only describe as a football tackle. He rushes me, and since I didn’t expect it, I lose my balance and fall to the ground.
    He kicks me in the head. The crack that accompanies the strike sounds as though the universe split open. Must be a skull fracture , I think vaguely as painful white light fills my vision.
    Caleb seems to pause, and my consciousness ebbs.
    I’m in the cold car again. The pain is gone, but my confusion is multiplied a hundredfold. What the—?
    And then I’m pulled into the Quiet again.
    “Do you want to keep playing, or are you ready to talk?” Caleb asks after I get out of the car, my legs wobbly.
    This is what it’s about? Some kind of a creative torture he invented? Kick the shit out of me in the Quiet, reset the injuries by phasing out, and then pull the restored me back in, beat me up, rinse and repeat?
    “What the fuck do you want?” I say with more bravado than I feel.
    “You can start by explaining how Jacob was killed by the gun I gave you,” he says, and I know I’m in really deep shit.
    “Jacob was killed?” I ask, trying my best to sound surprised, which is easy because I am surprised—surprised that Caleb found out about the gun. Thomas—my new friend and the only other adopted Guide I know—was so convinced we were in the clear. But I forgot that the gun I used was the one Caleb had personally given me. He must’ve gotten access to the ballistics report from Jacob’s murder case and realized it was his revolverthat had killed Jacob.
    “You know he was.” Caleb crosses his arms over his chest. “Do you really want to resume my game?”
    I think quickly, knowing full well a delay in response will be interpreted as a sign of lying. If I come clean about everything, including being a hybrid, he’ll likely kill me outright, like in the memory I experienced where he killed a Pusher bomber. If I give him a half-truth—yes, I killed Jacob, but he was the bad guy responsible for killing Mira and Eugene’s parents—he might believe Jacob’s guilt, or, again, he might kill me for murdering his boss. This leaves me with the weakest response of all, but I proceed anyway, feeling as if I have as many choices as a person being Pushed.
    “Wait,” I say. “I genuinely don’t know anything about Jacob getting killed—”
    Caleb takes a threatening step toward me.
    I start speaking faster. “Look. I