“I’m working on it. All right? I do have some self-control. And please don’t say anything. If Herald ever found out. . .”
“I won’t,” she replied, quickly and convincingly. “The last thing we need is more internal strife. And that leads me back to respect. Gospel left you behind. And no one argued on your behalf.”
“I’m not hero material.” He lay back down and found the wall to be the companion he sought. Why did she have to prod at another bruise to his ego? Couldn’t she leave him alone and let him sleep? “You don’t need to remind me.”
“That’s not it. You don’t see it yet, do you?”
“See what now, exactly?” he glanced over his shoulder to ask.
“Do I really have to spell it out for you?”
His head went back down onto the cushion. And he didn’t answer.
“You’re. . .” She was going to sum him up, and yet she struggled to find the words. “Good-looking,” she blurted first. There was another round of dense silence, and then, “You’ve got Braintree blood in your veins. You’re well spoken, well written. . .” All right . . . now we’re getting somewhere. “You’re good with people. All people. Barrett didn’t kill us, for example. You got us through it without abandoning your principles. Or losing the film. . .” She was gaining some momentum. He had her pegged as a bit of a simpleton among their cohorts, but she had more substance than she let on. “And you were intoxicated enough to be tripping over your own feet! That said, do you honestly think we don’t have bigger plans for you? That maybe we don’t want you dead? Because . . . when it comes the time to offer an alternative. . .”
He shrugged. Nice to hear, but. . .
Doxy started stroking his back . . . with intent. And he went stiff with indecision. And she took that to be an immediate and definitive no thanks.
She withdrew her hand and stood up. “You don’t believe it yet. You don’t even know what you want. But we both know what you don’t want. And that’s me.”
She sounded . . . heartbroken.
“Miss Roslyn!” he beckoned through clenched teeth as she began using those long legs to walk away.
“Please don’t call me that,” she turned around to say, and of course! To make another bad day worse, she had tears in her eyes. “And I get it. You don’t have to explain.”
She kept walking. She wasn’t even going to give him a chance to explain.
“For what it’s worth. . .” he called out, his final effort to convince her—to convince someone—that he wasn’t just another cold, callous, selfish . . . that he wasn’t his father essentially. “I’m sorry! I can’t be what you want me to be!”
“Neither can I. You and I both know . . . I’ll never be Virtue.”
Fuck!
He punched the cushion until his fist hurt and he was choking on the dust cloud.
I’ll never be Virtue. . .
She left him alone with those words, said purposely to haunt him as he tried, tried, and tried to actually get some sleep!
No more. He was swearing off women . . . forever.
It took a while, but eventually he dozed, and then he fell hard and deep. He would have slept the day away had he not been awoken by a blinding bright light coming in from behind a bald Fallow head.
He was about to close his eyes again and blurt a what now? But the sight of blood pierced right through the lingering brain fog.
His eyes found their focus.
Blasphemy. . .
Sitting now, he rubbed a hand over his face, as if that would somehow clear the liquor, dust, and exhaustion hangover. “Are you all right?” The whole front of her was covered with blood. She even had a smear of it across her cheek.
“I’m fine.” Glancing down, she blanched and trembled, like it was the first time she’d seen it. “It’s not mine.” Blasphemy pulled him to his feet and tugged him until he was jogging next to her. Apparently, there was no time to lose. “It’s a disaster, Law. The others. They’re at Virtue’s house.”
“Oh, that isn’t good.” Herald was facing her father . . . by choice? “Why there?”
“It was the closest place we could think of. We were carrying the wounded around in broad daylight! We actually thought they might help us! Herald . . . he’s losing it. Waving the gun around. And, and . . . you’ve been summoned. . .”
“By whom? Herald? What makes him think I can fix this?”
“He needs all the help he can get. But the one to ask for you was Virtue. And in her condition . . . it was hard to refuse. And the least likely to make it. . . ?”
No . . . it couldn’t possibly be. . .
She took in a shaky breath and it seemed about to burst back out . . . as a sob.
“Gospel.”
Chapter 19
Virtue
Virtue was in her own bed. Under her floral bedspread. She was wearing her warmest nightdress. She wouldn’t be naked and chained up like an animal for the rest of her existence.
But this was not her home. Was it ever?
Maybe it was the yelling.
This is your fault!
How dare you?
Happy now?
Nothing more than a whore. . .
Call her that again and I will shoot you. . .
It could have been the unconscious man splayed out on the floor at the foot of her bed. Gospel. He had two gunshot wounds, one to his upper thigh and the other bullet was embedded in his lower back. They had patched him up as best they could. Still, his blood was saturating the pink throw rug, a small luxury that used to make the room feel less like a prison.
Was it her throbbing foot that made everything seem so foreign, like she wasn’t even there? Now, at least, it was wrapped up tight and on ice.
Maybe her bald head had something to do with her withdrawal. It felt so weird on her pillow. And why was it that she could barely keep her eyes open, even in broad daylight?
It was impossible to rest, though. She was shivering to the point everything ached. The ice was, perhaps, her leg’s only hope, but it wasn’t helping the rest of her system settle and heal. And she could still feel that doctor’s fingers skittering over her skin, digging into her wounds, inflicting more pain. . .
She blinked heavily over her childhood things. Her Dark Times book collection, the one she used to be so proud of. Her drawings. Flowers, mostly, but there was one of Herald she worked so hard to perfect. She gazed upon it often, half the time with tears in her eyes.
She had some mastery of the visual arts, but they were really her grounds for collecting any scrap of paper she could find. On the back of every drawing, there was an Ungodly poem.
On her desk, she had one framed photograph angled toward her bed. It was a lovely one of her mother when she was slightly older than Virtue’s twenty-one years, before the pregnancy that led to her death.
It was the second familial tragedy her father had to endure. He lost his first wife as well. She slipped on ice and died almost instantly from a massive brain hemorrhage.
With two loves lost and sinking in debt, he then married Maureen.
She was his third and final wife, someone he wouldn’t have been able to raise seven children without. It was just as well that she was infertile. And in another twist of convention, her Shift Supervisor position at the local paper mill eventually earned her a higher income than what the great Dr. Wallace Alexander made at Portsmith University. She had a habit of reminding everyone of that, especially the “ungrateful,” a word she tossed around more often than common things like “Good Morning” or “How was your day?”
Even her father had earned his fair share of her contempt.
And Virtue was always the most ungrateful of the bunch. Words would earn her punishment. Silence would earn her the same. Bonnie, her closest-in-age half-sister, used to amicably tease Virtue, claiming the wicked stepmother preferred Virtue with a face full of rainbows. It was a tendency that accompanied her through adolescence and early adulthood, steadily increasing in frequency
and severity as her older siblings married and moved on with their lives.
Looking past the chaos, everything else in Virtue’s room was in the exact place she left it. Nothing had been moved, despite Virtue’s “disappearance,” which would have aroused suspicion when the Authorities did their sweeps.
I’ll sleep soundly. Will you?
It was the last thing Maureen had said to her before she locked Virtue in her room the night before the Delinquency Purge began.
Did she know something? Did she want Virtue to get caught?
Maybe. And probably, yes. If nothing else, to scare her into submission. Maureen had one lonely single brother, an Authority Figure, who couldn’t catch a bride on his own. He was the “strong silent” type. Virtue met the man against her will and found him to be dull and terrifying.
In Maureen’s narrow mind, Virtue was the perfect match.
You think you’re smart? You can entertain him. And maybe you’ll learn when to bite your tongue.
You think you’re so pretty. Put it to good use for a change. Let him enjoy it while it lasts.
Twenty-one and two months, and Virtue was supposed to be his fertilized womb by now, if Maureen had had her way. In her family, there were fifteen Authority Figures, and supposedly, it was what their world was lacking—enough Moral Authority.
More wives, more procreation, more future Authorities and their future wives, put on Neoterra to assume the position—with arms and legs open wide.
The world would be a better place.
Virtue’s father wasn’t quite on board with this future for her. Wary of the Authorities and with good reason, he also had high expectations for his youngest daughter. He put the most time and care into her home education. She’d marry well and bring about reform with the aid of power and influence.
And what she became wasn’t exactly what anyone had in mind. A failure . . . as a child, a writer, a lover, and a woman. And to complete her humiliation, she was the only one in her immediate or extended family who had ever fallen victim to Fallowhood.
Virtue had bigger concerns. Will I live? Will I ever walk again? And still, she didn’t regret picking the lock and running away. Even then. At least she tried to have the life she always dreamed of.
But it was no longer possible.
She stays here. . .
She’s not welcome. . .
She’s coming with me!
You won’t get away with this!
“Herald!” Virtue suddenly cried out, her body lurching to a sitting position. She had to cradle the onslaught of such unbearable pain in her lower abdomen.
Herald, Maureen, and her father all looked over, shocked that she found her voice. They also appeared inconsolable, livid, or subtly remorseful, respectively.
“Sit down!” Herald herded her parents into the corner of the room and made them turn to face the wall.
Eventually, they obeyed.
And then he came to her. He was about to reach for her hands, but she took his neck in an embrace instead. “Please don’t leave me here,” she whispered in his ear.
He placed the hand that wasn’t holding the gun tentatively on her back. On her pulverized flesh, it hurt enough to bring more tears to her eyes, but with all her might, she held in the flinch. “I won’t. I couldn’t bear it,” he assured her, after only a moment of hesitation.
He would want her safe and well cared for above all else. But they both knew they weren’t going to find it where they were.
She’d be back in a crypt somewhere. Her body would be fresh meat for some monster to devour, probably by nightfall.
You brought this on yourself. You deserve this.
Whether it was real or imaginary, the words kept circulating through her fractured thoughts . . . in Maureen’s tone of voice.
Virtue wanted to remain in his arms, the only place she did feel safe and at home, but she couldn’t keep him there. Not forever.
As it was, Herald had let his guard down for too long. Maureen darted from the bedroom, attempting to close and lock the door on her way out. But Herald was too quick, strong, and persistent. She chose to run rather than continue to push against him. He had to bolt into the hall after her. She had a head start, but she also had arthritis and a stout body.
But Herald couldn’t necessarily catch them both. Fortunately, her father seized the opportunity to move toward her rather than away. “This is exactly what I was trying to avoid.”
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. . .
“Shhh.” He helped her lay back down, her hand pressed between his. “I’ll accept some blame. You remind me of me at the same age. But I had the advantage. The world never told me what I can and cannot be. Maybe soon, you’ll be able to look on the bright side. At least now, you’re free.”
He gave her hand a final squeeze and then let go. He wasn’t ashamed. He didn’t hate her. And maybe he truly wished her well. But still, she felt tiny and insignificant . . . so terrified and defeated.
Free?
Even if she survived and managed to avoid the Authorities and her societal obligation, she’d be a hopeless leech the rest of her life, sucking the life force out of those she cared about. Herald would eventually grow tired of it, wouldn’t he?
He returned to the room with Maureen held at gunpoint. Behind him, he had company . . . help, at last!
Blasphemy, the blond-haired young man—Caleb—and then Parody, Doxy, and. . .
“Law!” she blurted upon seeing him, surprising everyone once again. “Can I speak with you for a minute? Alone?”
He glanced at everyone, and uneasily at Herald. He sidestepped over Gospel on his way toward her, while Blasphemy urged everyone else out of the room, even Herald, who was the last to leave.
“Please!” She grabbed Law’s shirt. “Herald. He’s had enough. He’s going to shoot someone. Maybe himself! And . . . I’ll do anything. Just don’t let Gospel die for me!”
He eased her clutch away from his shirt, squeezing her hands consolingly as he returned them to her. “All right.” He smiled, though it lacked conviction. There was torment in his eyes, dulling the gesture. “I’ll take care of everything. You just focus on you.”
She nodded, one weight finally lifted. “Thank you.”
He left the room. Herald was the first to re-enter. She noticed with a rush of relief that the gun was no longer in his possession. He needed both hands to scoop her out of bed. “We’re getting you out of here.”
But first, he placed a few of her things in a shoulder bag. Clothes. He handed her a coat, helped her into it, added a scarf, and then placed her favorite winter hat over her head, one he would certainly recognize. Adjusting it low over her ears, she almost felt like a woman again. Meanwhile, Herald, without the need for her to ask, added the picture of her mother to the bag as well.
On their way out, she plucked the drawing of him from the wall.
“It’s you,” she told him, letting him see. She carefully tucked it beneath her coat.
“I know,” he replied, somewhat less distraught. And then their lips drifted closer, securing their first kiss of the new era. Even with the spiky projections on one side of her mouth, it was enough to instill some hope. “Aside from you, it’s the only beautiful thing I’ve seen in what feels like ages.”
She clung tightly to his neck and buried her appreciation there. She may have been pierced with metal—her eyebrows and half of her upper lip. She was also missing a few fingernails. Her left hand was a mess of blood and gauze. Also, bald and bruised . . . feverish, malnourished at this point, and too weak to move much, even if she had two working feet. . .
In other words, beautiful was a matter of opinion. And yet somehow, he convinced her that he still, for some reason, believed her beauty to be something higher, greater, and something untouchable, as long as she remained true to him and self.
Behind a set of tall bushes, what remained of The Verity Chronicles staff reconvened for the first time s
ince disaster struck. Gospel was on a stretcher that her Fallow companions had assembled for him out of blankets and strong branches. And it was as if his eyes lolled open just for the occasion.
“What now?” Herald demanded of Law privately, though Virtue had no trouble hearing every word from her place in his arms. “Hospitals require identification and paperwork. Money for their services and extra for their silence.”
“Well. . .” Law paused to blow out a deep breath. He tugged at his slightly mussed hair and then massaged the bridge of his nose. Like everyone else, it appeared he had fallen behind on rest, sustenance, and basic grooming. And on him, it seemed particularly out of place. He was usually so spirited and put together. When he introduced a thought with a word like well, it would normally be followed by not a plan but the plan and without delay. But it also seemed as if he had fallen behind on his knack for finding solutions. “There’s this man they call Lance. He’s a doctor . . . or nurse . . . I’m not sure.” He gave Parody an upward nod. “Fixed her arm. But. . .”
A wince flickered through Law’s expression. It was the face of a man withholding information.
“I’m not taking her!” Herald exploded. “Them. . .” he corrected, calmer, after buckling under the looks he received. “To a guy named Lance!”
“Then we’ve got ourselves a real problem,” Law hissed in response, his teeth clenched. He turned his back to pace away. But then he snapped his fingers and whirled back around, his point-making finger up in the air. “Corollary! He’s part of that circle. He’ll know what to do.”
“Didn’t he confess to escape the noose?” Herald countered. “Are you sure we can trust him?”
“It wasn’t like that,” Virtue informed them, since she had witnessed his court appearance. She was the only one who had seen them all. “They pieced together the clues and figured out who he was. And then they had leverage against him.”
“See?” Law propped a hand at her and winked. “He has a family, Herald. You would have done the same thing.”
“Perhaps. . .” Herald acknowledged softly, as if family had become something else that was purely hypothetical to him.
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