SWAB (A Young Adult Dystopian Novel)

by Choate, Heather

Gray let out a long snore, answering my question, but Derrick was awake, despite the late hour.

  “I’m here if you need me, “he told me with a gentle thought, but he didn’t intrude on my conversation with Nate. I rubbed the points of the barbs on my scalp. I liked feeling the sharp tips, like knives against the soft skin of my fingers.

  “What do you think is going to happen now?” Nathan asked. He pressed his face against the bars, and I could barely make out the shape of his nose and his eyes. I could hear the gentle rustle of his wings.

  I thought about his question. What on earth is going to happen now? “Well, the queen ordered us captured, not killed, so she obviously still wants us alive.” That wasn’t much consolation. “She’ll probably force me to carry out her breeding plans.”I wrapped my fingers around the icy bars. “I may spend the rest of my life down here, spitting out larva as fast as possible.”

  Nathan spat. “I won’t let her.”

  “And what are you going to do about it Nathan?” I said, directing my anger at him. “You’re just as stuck as I am! Our plan failed! We’re at the mercy of a monster.”I sank to my knees, my head falling to my chest. A sharp blade twisted in the chambers of my heart. I thought back to the days on the island—gathering food and wood, sparring with Ray late in the evening, feeling the grass brush against my legs, even sitting in Mr. Blackwell’s class. Life had been so simple then, though I never knew it. I wished I could go back, wished I could bite into a juicy turkey leg hot off the campfire, watch the afternoon sun sparkle on the lake, hear the jays calling in the trees, fall asleep in my own sleeping bag. Not entirely safe, but still human, living my own life.

  “Even though we’re scarb now, we can have that kind of life again,” Derrick said quietly, almost imperceptibly to my mind, like a hush of wind afraid of stirring the leaves.

  We can have that again. I played the idea around in my mind, loving the hope it offered. But his breeze created a storm inside me. We can never have that again! Everything’s changed. We’re scarb now. We’re part of world we don’t understand and have no control over. Even if we get out of this colony, nothing will ever be the same.

  *****

  The next morning, the guard changed. They came with yellow lanterns, which made me think a new day must’ve come. But nothing was different. We were still prisoners. Even worse, we were prisoners of our own despair, trapped by hopelessness.

  Our food consisted of celery, some kind of grass, and water. The others ate, but the food only made me more despondent. If they were feeding us, they weren’t planning to let us out any time soon. I was right. We were trapped in the underbelly of the colony mountain for five days. No one but the guard came to see us, and they never spoke a word or answered any of our questions like when the queen would come to see us or when will we might get out of there?

  By the evening of the sixth day, my face was set in rigid lines. I’d stopped talking to the others for the most part. I let them tell stories and jokes to pass the time, but I had nothing to laugh about. I’d resigned myself to the fact that I’d likely never leave the dungeon. My life was to be one of forced servitude. There was nothing I could do. No amount of pounding my fists against the walls, no shrill screams, no shaking of the iron bars would free me.

  I wished that I wasn’t a Bearer. To be scarb was bad enough, but to be one with valuable abilities was so much worse. If I’d just been some rebellious Newborn, they would’ve killed me. I could be lying in a deep, eternal sleep now, instead of being a bug stuck in a cage. But now my body would be used to produce soldiers, warriors made for no other purpose than to go into battle field and die. I didn’t care how much the scarb of this colony praised and adored their queen for her goodness, her wisdom and nobility. She was nothing but a deranged, power-hungry psychopath to me.

  “The queen approaches,” a guard suddenly announced. All the guards straightened and tapped the floor rhythmically with the poles of their long lanterns. Gray, Nathan, Jorge, and Travis emerged from the dark corners of their cells. Even Derrick came close for a look. I stayed where I was, with my back to the wall, rubbing my fingers up and down the last bar of my cage. Here it comes.

  We heard their footsteps down the stone steps before we saw them. Their thoughts were completely shielded from us. First came a half-dozen guards, most of them with black hoods drawn over their faces like some kind of cult. Then I saw the hem of a forest-green dress. Her face was even sharper and more pointed than the murals around the colony depicted her, it was as if the artists had tried to soften her face to make her more likable. Short, curly brown hair that was starting to show the signs of age bounced as she walked in clipped steps along the stone floor. She passed my cell without pausing, filling my nose with the smell of lilac perfume. Iva was behind her. A growl came out of my throat.

  “You witch! I yelled at her. I saved your lover, and now you’ve come to gloat over me in my cell?”

  Iva said nothing. She didn’t even look at me.

  The queen stopped and addressed the guard. “Where is she?” The guard pointed his fat finger wordlessly at my cell. The queen’s dress flared as she turned. Her expression was all hawk as she looked into my cell. That was when I saw the eyes that she was named for: pure, cold emerald, unusually divided into only two irises.

  “Cat,” she spat my name like it was a hairball in her throat. “Or have you chosen another name more suited for what you now are?” I disliked the course sound of her voice in my head, like a bad chord struck on a piano.

  “And what am I now?” I asked, fighting the urge to stand and face her on my feet. I wasn’t going show her the slightest bit of fear or loyalty. So I sat.

  “A scarb in the greatest colony on the earth,” she said with a smug up-turn of her chin. I felt Derrick trying to tell me something, but I pushed his thoughts out of my head.

  I pursed my lips and pretended to think about what the queen had said. “Slave, captive, even breeding mutt would fit a bit better, don’t you think?”I tilted my head to look up at her from an angle.

  Emerald swept her hand through the air in a beheading motion. “Enough!”She rubbed her temples with her hands. Without looking, she spoke. “I assume six days down here,” she twirled her wrists around at the dank dungeon, “has been enough to convince you it would be wise to cooperate.”

  I rubbed the pointy tips of the barbs on my skull.

  “Those sure are pretty,” the queen’s voice interjected into my thoughts. She was bending down to get a closer look at me.

  “Thanks,” I spat, shifting away. She was assessing me like a poodle she’d like to see puppies from.

  “So, what do you say, Cat?” she grinned slightly. “If you cooperate, I can give you much better accommodations. Your friends, too.”She cocked her head to the side. “Isn’t it wise?”

  I dug the tip of my longest of my barbs into my pointer finger until it drew a small drop of blood. We were in a predicament. If we refused, it wasn’t hard to guess that the queen could just easily kill us. But not me. No, she’d keep me. And probably Derrick too. But she’d probably kill the rest. It is wise,” I agreed. “Unfortunately, it’s also impossible.”

  The lines of her face flinched and her eyes glowed hotly. “What do you mean, ‘impossible’?”

  I twirled a strand of my blonde hair around one of my barbs. “Well, you see, Emerald,” I emphasized her name like she had mine, “I can never agree to what you want to do with me or my friends.”

  “Well done,” Derrick said approvingly from the other cell. He and the others were already in fighting stances.

  Emerald clicked her teeth. “What a shame. Well I suppose I’ll just have to get your cooperation another way.”She motioned to Iva, who. had a set of keys in her hands. She didn’t look at me as she unlocked my cell, but her voice came into my mind.

  “Bow to no one,” she said. “For you are a Swab.”

  Swab? What on earth does that mean? Surely, it was a trick.
Or just something to confuse me. Iva didn’t say anything else as she unlocked the other cells. The guards marched into one. Derrick and Gray started protesting, but were stilled by the tips of spears aimed at their hearts. The guards came back out, holding Nathan. They had his arms twisted behind him.

  “Your brother,” Emerald said, sounding bored. “You care for him; I can see it in your eyes.” She pulled a knife out of her gown. I stepped out of my cell. “Perhaps you will be willing to cooperate now.” She handed the knife to the guard at her left. He pressed the blade against Nathan’s throat. He inhaled sharply. His eyes were wide, and the whites of them shone brightly in the yellow light of the lanterns.

  The queen held her hand up, pointer finger extended to signal the command. Her dark green eyes were on me. “I will spill your brother’s blood right now. Tell me you will serve me.”

  Bow to no one, for you are a Swab. Iva’s words repeated in my mind. My eyes jetted from my brother, to the guard, to Derrick; hoping to find an answer anywhere. I wouldn’t let Nathan die for me, but Iva’s words echoed inside me. Bow to no one.

  “I will not,” I said clearly. Queen Emerald’s mouth twitched, and she dropped her hand. The guard’s fingers tightened around the knife.

  “Stop!” I screamed at him. “You won’t harm him!” The stomp of my boot rang against the stone. Amazingly, the guard didn’t slit my brother’s throat. He dropped the blade and straightened. He still held onto Nathan but faced me.

  There was a moment of shock on all sides, but then Emerald was in a rage. “What are you doing?” she shouted to the guard. “Kill him!”

  The guard didn’t budge but continued to face me solidly. He didn’t kill Nathan! My heart rejoiced, but I was still stunned at what was going on. The guard listened to me.

  The guard turned to Emerald. “I no longer serve you,” he said. He faced me once more.

  Swab. The strange word repeated in my mind. No one moved for a long moment, a perplexing stalemate.

  “Do it, now!” the queen shrieked, stomping her foot.

  “Don’t,” I said over her, my voice clanging with challenge.

  The guard didn’t budge. Emerald gaped at the guard, then she spun to me.

  “Who are you to challenge me?” Her voice dripped with venom. She was the most powerful scarb in the entire colony and possibly the entire country. My hands trembled slightly at my sides, but I refused to pay them any mind. Emerald grimaced at me. She clenched her fingers tightly, like she would like to wrap them around my throat.

  “Seize her!” she commanded Iva and the rest of her guard. Several hooded guards came toward me, but Iva and the one who refused to kill Nathan stayed where they were.

  “Stand down!” I ordered, facing the soldiers head on. “You will not touch me or anyone else.”A few stopped; the others stalled as if they didn’t know what to do. Iva smiled.

  Emerald’s skin turned reddish. “Kill them!” she screamed at Iva. When Iva didn’t move, the queen turned to her guard. “Kill them all!” The guard rushed at me.

  “Not while I’m here,” Iva said crisply. Her body flew into motion. Her pale green hands hit the chest of the closest guard with razor force, causing him to fly back and knock down several others.

  The dungeon erupted into chaos. Guard fought against guard. “Stop her!” Emerald shouted. “You serve me! Filthy mongrels! You belong to me!”

  But more than half listened to me now, and they kept the others back. Bram, Iva’s lover, was among those that had joined me. Derrick came to my side. “Get your brother,” he told me, smashing his elbow into a soldier’s nose. Frantically, I looked through the dim light and crashing bodies to find Nathan, but. I couldn’t see him.

  “Bring Nathan to me!” I shouted, hoping the guard who held him would respond. But only the grunts of fighting and the sounds of ripping flesh answered me. Then the queen’s voice rang out, “I have Nathan, Cat! I have your brother!”

  Terror split my chest in half. “Stop!” I shouted. The scarb around me stilled, panting but no longer fighting. Derrick wiped at blood from a cut his forehead.

  “Move.” I motioned the guards in front of me. They did, and I could see the queen, her arms wrapped around my brother and her knife pressed against his Adam’s apple.

  “Kill him, and you’re dead,” Iva said lowly. She had her own knife aimed to launch at the queen’s heart.

  The queen glared at her mutinous scarb, then she turned to me. “I see that we have come to an impasse. Your rebellion will not go unchecked. You will pay for this in blood.”Using Nathan as a shield, Emerald side-stepped along the back wall of the dungeon. The guards still loyal to her inched along beside her until they fled into the darkness of the stairs. The queen was gone, but so was my brother.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Not Purely Stupid

  Nathan’s gone. She took him. Emerald had fled out of the dungeon with her guard. And she had taken my brother with her.

  Around me, Derrick and the others tended to their wounds. The guards that had turned against Queen Emerald stood at attention, watching me from the corners of their eyes. A few of them looked a little bewildered, like they didn’t really understand what had just happened. Neither did I.

  “You’re a swab,” Iva said, stepping around me from the left. She sheathed her knife onto the silver belt around her waist.

  “Swab,” I repeated, as if that word somehow explained everything. But before I could ask her what that meant, she bowed herself lowly to me so I could see the crown of her head.

  “I serve you now, my queen.”

  Queen? I was about to stop her, but then all the scarb went to their knees. Jorge, Travis, Gray, and even Derrick all bowed.

  They still knelt. Clearly, they weren’t going to get back up until I told them to. “Please, get up,” I said softly, my voice thick with embarrassment. Especially because of Derrick and my friends. They didn’t need to treat me like this.

  When they stood, though, their faces gleamed with a mixture of joy and resolution. But I couldn’t smile back. I had infuriated a dangerous queen, and my brother had been captured because of it.

  Iva stepped forward, standing strong. She spoke to the other scarb clearly. “For five years, no one has dared to defy Emerald and survived. We have a new queen now. One that is young and strong, capable of greater power than Emerald ever was.”

  “With you, we can seize the colony!” one of the guards cried out, clapping the tentacles on his hands together.

  “We can take down Emerald!” Bram called out deeply.

  “Conquer the Americas!” a third cried.

  I put my hands up. “Wait. Wait, please. I don’t know why you think I’m capable of doing all that, and even if I were, all I want to do is get my brother back.” I paused. “And find Ray.”

  “Emerald will retaliate,” a soldier with yellow horns said. “We need to prepare.”

  Gray agreed. “We will have to fight if we’re going to get Nate back.”

  Jorge stepped forward. “We need to increase our numbers.”He motioned to the guards around us. “If you got these guys to join you, we can go get more.”

  Iva shook her head, “It doesn’t work like that. Loyalty can only be established in the heat of battle. It’s just us until we face Emerald’s armies again.”

  This was too much. I put my hand to my head, my fingers finding the barbs there. “I need a moment. Please.”

  I couldn’t face all those eyes staring at me, expecting some kind of miracle, so I went to the only place that seemed to offer any sanctuary: my cell. I didn’t close the bars, but I slipped into the shadow of the corner and felt myself relax a bit more in the protection of the darkness.

  A queen. They think I’m a queen. I didn’t want to submit to Emerald’s plans, but that didn’t mean I wanted to take her place. Being a queen was messy business, always fighting one another, struggling to keep order in the colony, and trying to be more powerf
ul than the next.

  How did these scarb get to thinking I was queen anyway?

  “May I answer that question, my queen?” Iva’s clear voice came into my mind. She was standing at the doorway of my cell, but her usual fighter stance was relaxed into one of graceful calm. I could tell she meant no harm. She only wanted to help ease my confusion. I knew the real intent of her thoughts when she gave them to me as clearly as I knew my own. I should have wanted to kill her. For days, I’d thought of nothing else. She took Ray from me. But ever since she had begged me to save her lover, something had changed between us.

  “Sure,” I answered. Iva gave a small flap of her wings and came to sit across from me in the cell. She smelled of spearmint. It was odd to be sitting now next to the one who had taken Ray, who I had wanted vengeance. But she’s not my real enemy, not any more. Emerald is. All of this had ultimately been her doing. I needed Iva. I didn’t like it, but I would be a fool to let my old grudge rule me now.

  “I understand your questions,” she said. Somehow, even in the low light, her skin still glowed softly, like pale green stardust.

  “Yes,” I exhaled, reluctantly grateful that someone seemed to understand that, even if it was her. “Why did you call me a ‘swab’?”

  “You don’t know what a swab is?” she asked with a cock of her head, like she was surprised I didn’t already know.

  “I’ve never heard that word until an hour ago.”

  She smiled. “I’m surprised. You acted exactly like one minutes after I told you.”

  I thought back to the scene with Emerald. She ordered the cells to be opened. Iva told me to bow to no one. The guard put the knife to Nathan’s throat. I told him to stop, and he listened. I then commanded the other scarb to not fight us. Many of them heeded me and fought the queen instead.

  I tried to piece it together. “So, because I started commanding like a queen, that makes me a swab?”

  Iva gave a gentle smile. “Not exactly. I knew you were a swab when I saw you at the Rand. You commanded the lights. It wasn’t until the battle at the waterfall during your attempted escape that you won my loyalty. You saved my lover. You kept my secret. It was then that I knew you would be a far worthier queen than Emerald could ever be.”