He pulls his sword and hands it, hilt first, to Barley. “I would prefer a quick death,” he says, pausing, “Commander Barley Pearse.”
She steps forward to take the sword and he closes his eyes. She lifts it above her shoulder with both hands and swings it towards him, decapitating Alex Franklin in one swift movement.
Afterwards, Barley ordered a sweep of Rockwall to ensure that all Guardia were dealt with and setup a guard rotation for the night. She sent the rest of us to sleep, knowing that our bodies and minds needed a break.
Peony was silent, emotionless, and empty. I recognize it by now; there’s been too much today and she used up what she had to survive. I led her to my old trainee room, locked the door behind us, and curled my body around hers on the small bunk. She was asleep within seconds.
My thoughts led to my father, keeping me awake. He gave his life so that I could live, but I can’t forget everything else that he did before that. I was always told that my father didn’t leave with them, didn’t escape to build Haven. What made him choose The Compound and harming our kind over my mom and me?
Are his actions his legacy, or am I?
“Why not both?” Peony asked the next afternoon, after we woke and I explained my thoughts.
“What do you mean?”
“One does not negate the other,” she responded. “If it helps, you can split his actions into Drex and Crow, but no person is just one thing.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know if that can be true for him. You know he was evil, Peony.”
“Barley told me about Mo and Drex,” she said, taking my fists in her hands. I spread them in hers and looked up. “She said that he was nurturing and ambitious and that your mom was very much in love with him.”
“Crow, nurturing?”
“Do you trust your mom’s judgment? Would she love someone that completely if they were evil? Her love didn’t fade, Gray, even when she knew what he’d become. She drew that crow and kept it hanging in your home.”
I do trust her and I hadn’t thought of it from her perspective. “What would make someone worthy of my mom’s love turn against their own kind like that?”
“I don’t know what changed him, but I did see the distress in his features when he held your body in his arms. You are what changed him back.”
I scoffed. “He figured out who I was in The Compound. I wasn’t enough then.”
She cocked her head, thinking. “Would you have accepted him if he had? You knew who he was, what he’d done. The only reason you’re considering him now is because he died for you.”
“I—” I began, but cut off when I realized that she was right.
“He was not a good, pure person,” she said, pausing. “But I’m starting to think that the horrible things that he did were the result of bad choices, not that he was a bad person.”
Later, I asked Barley what my mom’s last name was. I had just learned hers the day before. “Russell. Morrighan Russell, daughter of Max and Ginny Russell.”
“Are they still alive?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know if mine are, either,” she responded.
“Did my mom ever decide what last name to give me?” I asked. “When I was trained, they asked and I said Haven.”
She shook her head. “Take your pick: Russell, Calder, Haven… even Pearse, if you want it.”
I nodded, but didn’t respond.
Haven doesn’t fit me anymore. I’ve outgrown it, just like we outgrew Haven. More than that, it reminds me of my time in the Guardia.
My mom abandoned the name Russell and was never given the chance to re-claim it. Honestly, I don’t know if she would have. She never gave up on my father… Crow. She probably hoped to have taken his and pass it along to me.
Perhaps Peony is right that I should split him in my head. He may have become Crow, but he died Drex Calder. He got there in the end. At the very least, I owe him that.
35
Peony
A week after the attack, Barley calls us into the Commander’s rooms. Every single talist has been working diligently to right Rockwall: removing the corpses, burying our dead, scrubbing the blood off of all of the surfaces, and taking over necessary jobs. I study these details as we walk through the halls. This building is ours now; is Trinity?
I stop walking when I see Anza sitting in one of the courtyards, bent over herself. I tell Gray to go ahead and I step through the door onto the grass and sit down next to my friend. She doesn’t sit look over and we sit in silence for a few minutes. I’m not sure what to say and it’s probably better not to push, anyways.
“What’s left?” she asks, finally, voice quiet.
I look over at her, unsure what she means.
She meets my gaze and my eyes flick down, away. “I was wrong about everything, Peony,” she says.
My face scrunches in confusion. “You got us here,” I tell her.
She shakes her head and looks back down at the grass. “Everyone else got us here, despite me. Even you, Peony. I sent you to Barley thinking that you couldn’t handle all of this, just like I sent all of the others when we were attacked.”
I look down at the grass, too. So Barley was right that Anza didn’t think I was capable, but was she really wrong?
“I wasn’t,” I tell her. “Not then. I needed to reset and you gave that to me. It’s not your fault that you only ever saw me at my weakest. You sent me to Haven and Haven was what I needed.”
She nods once, but doesn’t respond in any other way.
“Anza, if it weren’t for you we’d all still be in The Compound and Crow would be using us to test his serum. You might have been wrong about some things, but you had Eli and Barley to help balance that. They weren’t right about everything, either.”
She looks back up at me, considering my words.
I continue. “Eli wanted war and destruction. We did need to be ready to fight, but we needed diplomacy, too. Barley hid for years and only returned because of the work you did. She was a powerful ally, but that doesn’t make anything you did less than.”
“Are you mad at me for judging you, Peony?” she asks. I consider her words, unsure exactly what I feel. A small part of me is hurt and proud that I proved her wrong. When I answer, I speak for the rest of me.
“I understand why you did. You didn’t make your decision out of malice,” I respond, answering honestly if not completely.
“Are you upset at what I became?” I ask.
“I understand why you did,” she answers, the edge of her mouth lifting. “You didn’t make your decision out of malice.” I roll my eyes playfully and we both laugh, still subdued.
Together we walk to the Commander’s room. This room was no exception, cleaned and restored as much as the rest. The bookshelves have been repaired, the burned books have been removed, and the ash and smoke have been cleared. If I hadn’t lived the battle myself, I would not be able to tell there had been a fire.
We join Barley, sitting at the large wooden table in the center of the room alongside Gray, Rob, and the vanilla Guardia defect Catt.
“I would like to form a council to help with the governing of Trinity,” she tells us, after the pleasantries that come with a meeting like this. “I think it would be best to have one representative for each element, and one to represent those without elements. As you can see, I’ve made my choices. It is now up to you whether to accept.”
“What does the position entail?” Catt asks. Gray told me that she had always been a stickler for rules and had used them to help him, but had learned to see when they needed to be changed. I can see why Barley chose her.
“Right now, that is up for discussion and something that the council would decide together. My hope is that we can start by getting our bearings in Trinity and begin training talists for positions designed for them.
“Once that is accomplished and running smoothly, I would like to start exploring outside of our boundaries. Trinity has always secluded itself, immediately
defeating anyone that approaches the borders. I think we can learn and grow through knowledge of other groups and republics.”
We all accept, then draft an announcement that will be sent throughout Trinity to let them know we’ve taken control, to share our plans. At the end, we sign our names.
People of Trinity,
It is with great joy that I announce our defeat of Alex Franklin and his genocidal regime. For too many years, they have lied to encourage hatred and fear in order to perpetrate crimes against your friends, neighbors, and children.
We have formed a joint council to help us govern Trinity. Our first goal is to reform our infrastructure and train talists to aid our republic in farming, medicine, enforcement, and communications. We are not to be feared.
We hold fast to the belief that every member of our society is not only important, but necessary for our success.
Commander Barley Pearse
Anza Hartwell Rob Goncharov
Gray Calder Paeonia Willows Cataleya Walry
Many thanks to…
My friends that have supported my writing: Dublin, Matt, Nic, Cheyenne, and Reed;
My loving husband Jeremy for stepping into Trinity with me; and
My rambunctious son Isaac for pulling me back into reality.
Rush of Blood Page 15