Rival

by Cindy R. Wilson

  It was wrong.

  Maddox had done exactly what he was supposed to. He’d stayed away from Juno—he’d even hurt her to make sure she wouldn’t come around anymore. And all for what?

  They reached the boathouse, the familiar building he recognized from off the beach, the same place Juno always came from when she’d meet him at the dock. There were people outside talking and laughing, wearing clothes similar to his—holey and frayed at the ends. When they saw him and his group, they froze, eyes wide.

  One of the guards said, “Get Rand and Stef,” and someone ran off quickly.

  “You can have your meeting in here,” the same guard said to Theo.

  Theo nodded and stepped inside the door. There were cots set up near the window, and he spotted a familiar girl. Pillar.

  He gritted his teeth, wishing he could warn her. Get out of here! He didn’t want her caught in this mess, either.

  Theo tensed every time he heard a noise. “Stay on guard,” he murmured. His eyes swept over Maddox before he narrowed his gaze on the door again.

  After a few minutes, a woman and a man the same age as his mom walked through the door.

  Theo straightened, but someone else walked inside just after them.

  Juno.

  Her eyes locked on his, and she froze in her tracks.

  “That’s her,” Theo said, stepping forward and pointing. “She’s the one who stole our supplies.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Juno

  Suddenly, there were eight sets of eyes on her. Words, excuses, shock, and fear all stuck in her throat.

  Maddox was here. In her boathouse. With two other men she didn’t recognize.

  Rand held up his hands, commanding attention. “Someone explain to me what’s going on right now.”

  The man standing next to Maddox, the same one who had accused her of stealing, stepped forward. “She was inside our border last week, and I have reason to believe that’s not the first time she’s been nearby.”

  Nearby? What was that supposed to mean?

  Maddox glanced at her, and she felt the betrayal all the way to her toes. How had they known she’d been on their side of the border unless he’d said something? Was that why he’d ignored her at the bridge? Because he knew how much trouble he was going to make for her? Because he’d washed his hands of everything she’d thought they had?

  He opened his mouth to speak, but she narrowed her eyes. Anything he said now would only make it worse. Not only would Rand and Stef think she was a thief, but they’d know about her other lies as well.

  Tears pricked the corners of her eyes when they turned to face her.

  Stef asked, “Were you on their side of the border?”

  Juno ducked her chin, wondering if it even made sense to deny it.

  “She wasn’t the only one,” her accuser said. “We saw another one, too.”

  Juno’s breath caught. Pillar! No, no, no, they couldn’t blame her. Pillar hadn’t done anything.

  “I did it. I was there,” she said quickly, hoping to keep their focus on her.

  A wave of shock traveled through the room, voices mumbling to each other.

  “What were you doing there?” Rand demanded, eyes looking absolutely murderous.

  “I—it wasn’t…” What was she supposed to say? She couldn’t lie. She couldn’t do it anymore. But if she told the truth, it’d be even worse.

  “We know exactly what she was doing,” the man from the other side said, glaring at her. “She was looking for supplies to steal.”

  “I didn’t steal supplies,” Juno said, but it was so quiet no one heard her.

  Rand stepped farther into the room to address the man. All eyes followed him. “That’s a bold accusation to make.”

  “The fact remains, she was inside our border, and the supplies are missing.”

  “Are you asking for permission to search our territory?” Stef asked. “Because I can guarantee you if there were any extra supplies around here, someone would have found them by now.”

  “Where do you keep your regular supplies?” the older man asked, looking around. “Here? In a closet somewhere?”

  Juno heard Stef exhale. Probably because this was right where they kept their stash. Which meant after today, they’d have to move their supplies if they didn’t want people across the border knowing where they were.

  “Our supplies are kept in here,” Rand said, “as you can see.”

  The others looked to the shelves lining the wall, appearing incredulous. There wasn’t much there. In fact, most of it was fishing gear or the materials Juno had been using for the rat traps.

  But those weren’t their only supplies.

  As if sensing this, the man beside Maddox said, “Is that all?”

  Stef glanced at Juno, barely veiled anger in her eyes, before complying. The fact that they even considered believing she had stolen anything pretty much summed up their relationship. They had no faith in her. And love? Juno wasn’t even sure they knew what love was.

  Juno swallowed, eyes straying unwilling toward Maddox as if he would know what to do. As if he could fix this. And she hated it. He’d ignored her at the bridge, and for all she knew he’d betrayed her, too.

  She had no one to back her up.

  Everyone crowded around the crawlspace, every single eye on the door as Stef pulled it open to reveal the contents underneath.

  Juno’s gasp caught in her throat. The storage space was full of items she’d never seen before. Food, clothing, and more. Far more than they’d had to begin with.

  Stef’s eyes came to Juno’s automatically. “What is this?”

  The accuser nodded his head. “It looks like our supplies.”

  “It can’t be,” Cam said, the first time he’d spoken up. “How did that get in here?” He’d been at the boathouse nearly every night since her parents had taken her off duty.

  Or maybe he knew Juno well enough to know she wouldn’t steal anything from anyone.

  “I know how it got in here,” the accuser said. He looked at Juno. “Her.”

  “I didn’t put it there,” Juno said, pleading with her eyes for someone to believe her.

  “Tell the truth, Juno,” Rand snapped.

  Shocked rolled through her body in waves. He really didn’t believe her. And it looked like Stef didn’t either.

  “You crossed the border, and now this,” Stef said.

  Juno opened her mouth again, but nothing came out.

  The accuser ignored her and spoke to the rest of the room. “As payment for our loss, we demand all our supplies back as well your entire stock—for your deceit. And we want James back as well. Unharmed.”

  Juno froze. All their supplies? Everything in their boathouse? Even the older man beside the accuser blinked. It was harsh to be sure—but Rand and Stef would’ve done the same thing. Maybe worse.

  “Or,” the accuser continued, meeting Juno’s eyes, “she can come with us and await her punishment.”

  No one said anything. Rand and Stef didn’t speak up for her. Even Cam shifted his gaze and then stared at the floor, not knowing what to say.

  Juno swallowed hard. The supplies were more important than her. That was the plain, sad truth.

  But it didn’t matter. If she didn’t go, it might be even worse. They might accuse Pillar again. It seemed like they were willing to let that go as long as she came with them.

  “I’ll go,” she whispered, voice trembling.

  The accuser narrowed his eyes. “What was that?”

  Juno lifted her head. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No,” Maddox said. Her gaze snapped to his. “Let’s just get the supplies and James and go.”

  Stef narrowed her eyes at Maddox, on the verge of questioning him when Juno held up her hand. “I was on your side of the border. I broke the rules. I’ll go with you.”

  She hadn’t admitted to stealing the supplies, though. Even if it sounded like she was guilty, she wasn’t. She had no i
dea who’d done it, but it wasn’t her.

  But if this kept the rest of the truth from coming out, if it meant saving Pillar and stopping a war, she’d deal with her punishment…no matter what it was. Her hands shook, so she tucked them behind her back.

  It wasn’t like she had anything else going for her anyway, right? She had no community now. She’d already lost everything she had to lose.

  Rand and Stef said nothing, only watched in disappointment as the accuser and the older one gripped her arm and hauled her to the door. Someone brought their man, James, and Juno was relieved to find him only bruised and a little bloody, but okay.

  One of the men ripped the knife from her belt, and she couldn’t even drum up the courage to ask them to be gentle. Her body was going to be bruised, too, but not as badly as her heart.

  She heard Pillar’s voice the moment they stepped out the door.

  “Juno, you can’t go!” Her face was stricken, tears at the corners of her eyes and rage in her voice. “What are they doing? They’ll kill you—”

  “Move,” the accuser said, pushing past Pillar.

  Pillar kept up with them, jogging alongside their group. “You did this. How could you?”

  Juno glanced back to see her pointing her finger at Maddox. She glanced at his face, nearly tripping on the pavement at the speed they were taking her away. He looked almost as stricken as Pillar.

  But why? Maybe he’d blamed this on her because he’d had no other choice. If his family or community had found out their supplies were missing, it only made sense to blame it on her.

  Juno lifted her chin and spoke to Pillar, shooting a glare at Maddox. “I’ll be okay. Don’t worry.”

  One of the men jerked on her arm, and she stumbled again but didn’t stop moving. She’d said she’d go with them, and she meant it. She wasn’t going to fight or try to run away. This was what needed to happen.

  Juno could feel Maddox’s eyes on her, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of looking back. He’d made his choice at the bridge. She knew where he stood.

  She kept her chin high all the way to the border, and then to the other side, around buildings she didn’t recognize, streets that looked similar to hers but weren’t home. Then the people started to appear. They came out of homes and down those same streets. Most of them stared, but some of them yelled.

  “Thief!”

  “This will teach you to cross the border!”

  A sob lodged in her throat. She couldn’t let them see her cry. Couldn’t let Maddox see her cry. She’d wait until she was alone, until she was by herself, before she’d even think about what she’d just done.

  She wasn’t a thief, but she’d admitted to it, and now she had to face the consequences. Why hadn’t she left when she had the chance? Run away from home to live by the bridge?

  They pulled her inside what looked like a courtyard. There were empty storefronts and stone columns all around. Most of the people had followed them. While many stayed quiet, a few still yelled at her or cheered every time she tripped or stumbled to catch up to the men’s long strides. Some surrounded James and took him away to be seen to.

  When they rounded the corner, and a door came into view, it was the first time Juno balked. What was inside? What were they going to do to her?

  “Look familiar?” the older man sneered.

  Familiar? She had no idea where they were. She’d never gone farther than the beach on this side of the border, and that had been hardly twenty-five feet in. Maybe less—it had been hard to tell with all the fog.

  They jerked her arms, and she stumbled forward, making it easy for them to shove her inside the door. She straightened in the small room, whipping around to see her captors.

  “Since you took most of our supplies, this place can hold you now,” the man said.

  She blinked. This must be their supply room—where they thought she’d stolen from.

  “Have a nice night,” the accuser said. “We’ll decide your fate in the morning.”

  She only caught a quick glimpse of Maddox’s face before the door slammed. She heard the low rumble of voices, some arguing—Maddox?—and then laughter. Then she heard the sound of a lock trapping her inside.

  Once the voices faded, Juno released a shaky breath and turned around in the room. There was one tiny window above the door, too small to crawl through, but large enough she had some light. Otherwise, there were only cement walls lined with mostly empty shelves.

  Otherwise…she was alone.

  Probably the only one who even cared was Pillar. Not Rand or Stef, not Maddox. She wasn’t just alone, she was abandoned.

  Juno sat hard on the floor and pulled her knees up to her chest. They said they’d decide her fate in the morning, but she already knew what they planned on doing. They’d make an example of her. Of showing the community there was a serious punishment for breaking the rules. A punishment harsh enough to deter anyone from doing it again.

  Death.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Maddox

  He’d tried several times throughout the evening to reason with Theo, and when that didn’t work, Maddox appealed to his mom. He told her Juno wasn’t the thief and that they should let her go. Every time, she’d ask him for proof, to tell her who the real thief was. But he had nothing. The identity of the thief was no more obvious to him than it had been in the beginning. He had no idea who it was—he just knew who it wasn’t.

  Maddox had fallen asleep in his spot at the table in the dining area—as close to Juno as he could get without looking suspicious—with his head on his arms. He woke with a start when people began filing into the room.

  He rubbed his eyes then his neck as he watched for his mom and Theo. He needed to get through to them somehow. They couldn’t keep Juno locked in the storage closet forever. She needed food and water.

  She didn’t belong in there.

  But where did she belong? Maddox gritted his teeth. No one had even fought for her back in her community except for her friend Pillar. Rand and Stef, the people who were supposed to be her family, hadn’t stood up for her. No wonder she was planning on leaving.

  Why hadn’t she gone earlier? Why hadn’t she stayed at the bridge when she’d had a chance this afternoon?

  He hung his head. He knew why. Because he’d broken her heart. Even her escape to what was supposed to be a better place was marred by the way he’d treated her. He’d been trying to protect her, but he ruined it, and now she might never make it to the bridge.

  Maddox stood and stretched his arms. He spotted Theo the moment he stepped through the door. Maybe talking to Theo was a bad idea.

  Then he saw his mom. He’d try again. She was reasonable—she’d listen.

  He walked straight over, stopping them from reaching the table. “I need to talk to you,” he said to Alice.

  She glanced around, and he shook his head. “Outside.”

  “If this is about the captive,” Theo said, “we can talk in here. We all have a say in what happens to her.”

  Her name is Juno, Maddox wanted to shout. He didn’t care anymore if people knew he’d been spending time with her. She was a person, not an animal. And she deserved to be treated like one. But he did care how the rest of the community saw his mother. If they thought she might have known about Maddox’s excursions to the bridge or his conversing with the enemy, they’d lose respect for her.

  “She shouldn’t be in there,” Maddox said, keeping his voice low.

  Theo laughed, drawing the attention of even more of the crowd. “Where should she be, then? Back at home in bed? In one of our homes? What makes you think she won’t steal our personal items as well?”

  A few people nodded their heads. Maddox kept his gaze focused on his mom. She’d listen to reason—he knew she would. He just had to make sure she saw the other side.

  “We don’t have any proof she stole those supplies.”

  “Theo said she confessed,” Alice told him.

  “She sai
d she’d come with us—that’s not the same thing.”

  Theo laughed again, along with a few others. “Why would she come with us if she isn’t guilty? We both saw her over here, on our side of the border. Or don’t you remember?”

  He winced. Yes, he’d seen her. And he’d tried to get her out as fast as possible. But he’d be lying if he said Juno wasn’t in their territory.

  “That doesn’t mean she stole supplies,” Maddox murmured. “We don’t have any proof of that.”

  And besides, he wanted to say, she’d been stolen from as well. But he couldn’t tell everyone that, only his mom.

  “She should at least have food and water,” Maddox said.

  “Give her our food?” someone asked, making him turn. “Isn’t that the reason she’s here? Because she stole our food?”

  “Right,” someone else echoed. “So her reward for taking our food is to give her more of our food? Doesn’t make sense.”

  “Water, then,” Maddox said.

  “Let her sweat it out.” Theo shrugged. “She knew what she was getting herself into. She admitted to stealing. She deserves what she gets.”

  “What does she deserve?” Maddox growled. “She’s a person. Are you just going to let her starve to death in there? Die of dehydration?”

  Alice set her hand on his arm. “No.”

  But Theo’s look said something different. He exchanged glances with James like they already had a plan and that plan meant making Juno suffer as much as possible.

  “We’ll bring her some water,” Alice said.

  “In a little while.” Theo pushed around Maddox to sit at the table next to James. “She’s fine for now.”

  Alice pointed. “Let’s sit and eat first. We’ll have to discuss what’s going to happen now that she’s here. And we need to get back to work. We’ve already wasted enough time.”

  Maddox sat because there was nothing else to do. Going over to the storage closet right now would just aggravate things—make the people trust him even less.

  But that still didn’t mean he had to keep water from her.