by Logan Keys
Always waiting for an order.
Always lethal.
Simon quiets the crowd, then gestures to the guards. “These have come too far into our territory. We’ve mostly been the prisoners.” He looks over at me. “It won’t be long before we take back the city of Anthem!”
The crowd cheers.
This war’s been going on for so long, I don’t remember who started it. Oh yeah, the Authority shoved us off the edge of the Americas a long time ago.
We’re back, though. And looking around … we’re back in spades.
The councilwoman rises and as Simon moves to sit, she takes his place. Those holding the guards let them go.
“Hey, guys.” Baby’s pushed through the crowd to stand by us, and Liza gives her a fond smile.
Already they’ve bonded in a womanly way, just from shopping together.
I roll my eyes, then look back to the front. The councilwoman’s removed her sunglasses. She’s beautiful—like, scary beautiful—and I try not to gape, though I do it so obviously, like everyone near me does, including Liza.
The councilwoman’s hair is streaked with many colors, all of them dark shades. But the most arresting thing about her are her whiskey-colored cat eyes shining like gems across the sea of people.
She approaches the guards.
“Thomas, don’t look into her eyes,” Baby whispers, and I frown. They’re too peculiar not to look at, which might be the idea.
Instead, I focus on the whole scene, not directly on her. Out of the corner of my eye, though, the gaze glints like fool’s gold in a stream, and I have to fight to look away.
At once, the guards become the center of attention, saving me in my struggle, as their chalky skin grows impossibly white, almost like marble, even with their veins drawing shapes across them.
The crowd isn’t surprised, but I am. Liza gasps next to me.
“Medusa,” Baby whispers. “That’s what they call Adrian behind her back. Never to her face; never to those eyes.”
I look over at Baby to avoid the risk of being affected next. “Why are you looking?”
Baby’s mouth quirks. “She can only do it to men.”
“Oh.”
When I glance back, the guards are statues, frozen where they stand. The change happened so quickly, they had no time to fight.
Adrian places her glasses back on—a barrier I now understand. An Underground soldier comes forward with a giant mallet, and I cringe at the barbarism. To be executed with blood running seems more fitting. Instead, when commanded, he smashes them, one by one, and they dissolve into a powder that floats away on the breeze.
Nolan comes forward, mouth curved low in disgust. He wouldn’t argue with it, though I expect he hasn’t changed much on his position regarding us Specials. He doesn’t like the vulgar display of such power. Used to, we had to keep it buttoned up. But here in La La, the council and Simon seem to thrive on the attention and fear, using us pawns for control, or even a carrot to offer if people obey.
Nolan announces they’ll be medaling a soldier today. Well-deserved, he says, and I remind myself to breathe. But this isn’t just an awards ceremony. This is a reenlistment. I’ve signed my life away again—well, Liza has—and I’ve decided not to fight them on it. It’s just not worth the risk.
He motions me forward, and everyone steps aside as Nolan announces, “Sergeant Thomas Ripley Hatter is being awarded for bravery on the Day of Groundbreaking.”
Everyone claps. Some pat me on the back, and when I arrive on stage, people cheer. Soon, the crowd’s become a dull roar of excitement, and I get vertigo just looking at them. Some girls stare back with adoring eyes, while the guys mostly hold a gleam of admiration. To them, I’m the reason this place was built, the reason they stopped being forced out of their homeland.
When we landed back on this rock, I’d risked it all and paid my dues. Joelle, too. We did this—took LA from the Authority, and it’s risen from rubble because of our sacrifice.
My chest swells with pride.
Ignoring Cory up there beside me, I gaze over the sea of navy-and-white, feeling euphoric for the first time in a long while. The blur’s all the same, except for Liza in her summer dress and Baby in bright orange.
“I want…” I clear my throat into the microphone, and it echoes. “I want Liza to come up here.”
She looks shocked, and she’s not the only one. But I need something from her.
This time, when the crowd parts, it’s with suspicion and angst.
As she approaches, she turns a pretty, flushed color before climbing the steps to the platform.
We stand together in the silence.
The man who’d given them back their world, and the girl who could steal it away.
Though the council doesn’t look pleased with my request, I nod over at Nolan, who nods back, and he begins the medaling by handing it to Liza to pin under my other medals. She does so with gentle hands, her eyes not quite meeting mine. She’s embarrassed by the honor.
When we face the crowd again, the soldiers yell, “Hoah!”
The council waits as I turn to salute them, and Cory’s smirk isn’t hard to miss as I’m forced to pay him this honor. Liza glances from him to me and back.
Side by side we leave the platform and stride through the sea of people, yin and yang. Adored and abhorred.
Chapter Sixty-Six
Dallas
Lotte was the last to watch us go. She gripped the gate so hard, her knuckles turned white. She fears for me, and that provides a small amount of comfort.
I look for ways to make sense of the world around me. Some explanation of how I, only a few days earlier, was almost thrown out, and now I’m the one who saves them.
We barely go a handful of miles before bridegroom Toby sets up camp, then drinks until he’s furious before he looms over me, ready to take what’s his. My hands shake as I sit in the tent, waiting. To think he’d be gentle now, to think I’d be treated well, is a lie from Hell.
“It’s been so long, Dallas,” he breathes, coming in, shedding his clothes without preamble.
It’s like no time has passed. Again he’s asking me why I’m crying, and telling me not to cry in his bed or else, then yelling at me to leave, only to laugh at me for trying, and then that laugh turns into a heckle, a hyena playing with its food, and soon becoming the trick that’s trapped me over and over, believing something, anything he ever had to say.
But now, he’s too drunk to notice my sadness.
Toby paws at me. “Get out of these! Where are the latches? Good grief, you’re in there tight as a sausage…” He laughs at his own joke. “Sausage.”
His big eyebrows waggle while his hands keep tugging at my clothes.
I smuggled a knife into the tent with me, and had meant to keep it just in case. But with him working at my belt, a rage I’ve never felt before swells.
I pull the knife, almost get it to his throat before he, like always, sobers instantly with terrible consequence. He knocks the knife out of my hand, then backhands me so hard my ears ring.
I’ve been hit plenty of times before, but never by a man so big and so angry, he’s tried to knock my head clean off. It’s like Toby had hoped to kill me with that slap.
He’s livid. Never before had I tried to hurt him or get away. Joseph had been the one who’d stumbled upon their group back then, while hunting, and seeing Cara outside the tents, bruised, mousy, much different from now, he’d come back during the night to sneak us both free right out from under the nose of Toby, who slept only inches away.
That was the scariest moment of my life, only because I’d never wanted anything so badly—to get away.
Later, Toby had come to Ironwood’s gates, but had been run off, and he’d never returned, until now.
But this time, it’s me. A different me. The hunter.
Even with the world spinning, I manage to rise … and spit in his face.
Toby roars like a lion, leaping on me, chin h
itting my mouth and splitting it with an explosion of blood. His arms crush the wind from my lungs.
“I knew better than to trust you!”
He hefts me over his shoulder and carries me out into camp, where he dumps me by the fire. “Bring her,” he says to his men. “I figured I’d need a guarantee.”
My heart stops as they drag Cara out of the woods. She’s bleeding, already abused, so much so that she barely opens her eyes to look at me before she starts to cry.
“Dallas!” she wails.
“No! Toby, please let her go. Please, I’ll do anything, just let her go!”
“Too late for that.”
I do what I swore I’d never do again: I go to my knees, hold up my clasped hands. “Listen to me, Toby. Anything you want. Just let her go. Here, check me. No more knives. I was nervous, and—but I’m not anymore. Take me into the tent. Just let her go.”
He lays a firm hand on top of my head, eyes dilated with triumph. “Oh, I like this. Keep going.”
Humiliation feeds emotion, and my voice breaks. “I promise. I swear I’ll never fight again.”
Toby tucks a finger under my chin and lifts it up.
“I believe you. But I can’t let her go.”
I press my head to his thigh, hugging his legs to me. “Anything you want, you name it. But they can’t touch her anymore. Anything you want, just please, don’t let them touch her!”
For a moment he seems to weigh his options, his legs iron beneath my hands. “Okay. For my bride. For my queen.”
Toby walks away and picks up Cara. He carries her over, laying her down to allow me to treat her wounds while he unties her hands.
He peers at me with what I suppose might be his idea of devotion. “I won’t let the men touch her anymore. But I can’t let her go.”
“Oh-kay.” I hiccup my gratitude, rubbing her hands to get the blood flow back into them.
Cara moans with the returning sensation.
Then she makes another sound, this one brief, sharp, before she stiffens.
Toby stares deep into my eyes. Without looking down, he’d buried his knife between Cara’s ribs, straight up to the hilt.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Liza
“I think you should take the quarters they offer.”
I speak between the bites of a meal Tommy and I share, a week after the ceremony. Without looking up, I continue, “Nolan seems to think you could help strategize for the war with the Authority. He says they need you, and … I’m starting to think they do.”
Nolan revealed to me that the council had decided to ask Tommy to join since while outside the inner part of the base without protection, he could be “influenced” by outsiders.
The implications were certain: the more time Tommy spent with me, the more his own people distrusted him. Guilt was forcing my hand.
“We could leave,” he says, trying for a joke.
I smile, but it’s sad. “You wouldn’t be okay with that. I see it now, more than ever. What you’ve done for these people, what they see in you. You’ve been with the Authority for a year, and you’ll give them info no one else can. Who better to help lead?”
Tommy gives me a sidelong look, wondering who I’ve been talking to. I haven’t yet told him about Phillip or the hanging. None of that would help matters.
“Nolan’s words, no doubt.” He throws down his fork.
“But right, nevertheless.”
Guilt crosses his face before his jaw firms. He’d felt like going, but won’t … for me. “I can’t leave you all alone, Liza.”
“I know. I don’t want that, either. But you won’t always be able to watch out for me. It’s not possible.” I touch my throat, and his eyes flare. Maybe I hadn’t hidden it as well as I first thought. “I need to figure out where I fit in,” I continue, “and you already do. These are your people, or at least they were. Would you be okay with leaving them behind, if it meant they’d lose? What if you’re the one difference for their success?”
Tommy pushes away from the table, then leans back and crosses his arms. “Is this about those bruises you try to hide? I won’t ask if you don’t want to tell me, but it does bother me, Liza, that you won’t trust me.”
I take a deep breath. I could say “ditto.” Being the possible spy hasn’t felt so good, either.
“We shouldn’t have to tell each other every little thing.”
He scoffs. “When it comes to our safety, we should.”
I sigh. “I mean, it wouldn’t have helped to tell you anyway. I … I could be a killer, for all you know, Tommy.” I think of what Phillip had said. I still don’t know if I was on the right side of that, or the wrong, or even if I’m on the right side now. “I’ll always be grateful for you saving me, and still, for your friendship. But we put each other at more risk. How can you be so blind?”
“Are you saying I can’t help you?” Tommy grates out. “That I’m not strong enough?”
“Is that all you men think about? Strength? What if you were simply not able?”
He flushes, and I realize the horrible mistake I’ve made as his gaze drops to his arm and then to his leg. Not able. Disabled. My stomach clenches.
“I didn’t mean—”
“No. Liza. It’s fine.”
Tommy stands, sore-looking and tired, and he fights to stay erect, but the new limbs aren’t perfect. Not even close. He tries so hard not to limp away, it breaks my heart. I should say something to stop him, but his pride’s willing me to keep silent, to let him leave with dignity.
I know this is for the best.
At least, I think…
He opens his door, then stops. At first, I think he’s going to turn around to make this right, but instead, he looks down at his feet and asks, “Did you leave this?”
I approach to see a large box sitting just outside.
“No,” I say. “Mail?”
“Guess so.”
Together we drag the small crate into the room, and Tommy brings over a crowbar.
It takes some doing to pry it open, and all matter of filler and straw billows out in a dusty spray, making us cough. When it clears, we both gape at the object inside.
“What is it?”
Tommy moves away the sides of the box. “A sword,” he says and pulls it out of its sheath. The well-cared-for blade shines, and etched into its metal is a Latin inscription.
We translate it together: “The darkness cannot comprehend the light.”
We talk simultaneously again. “You speak Latin?”
“No,” he says.
“I guess so,” I say, and I narrow my eyes. “How did you know what it said, then?”
“See the engraving on the handle?”
It says “SPIRIT” in large letters.
“When I was little, this was a big find. Supposedly, this sword ended the Dark Ages. There wasn’t a boy on my block who didn’t pretend, when he held a stick that, in reality, he held Spirit, the sword forged by God, Himself.”
“It’s probably made in china,” I say with all seriousness.
Tommy chuckles, yet we share a nervous look. Who sent this, and why?
“Maybe Simon sent it, as a gift?” I say.
He shrugs, then hands it to me. I take it, my surprised face reflected back in the sword’s metal.
Feels like its forty pounds, at least.
“I don’t think Simon sent it,” Tommy says. “I bet it was Rubber Man … the doctor from the Island.”
“What, how?”
“I’m not sure, but this has that otherworldly wacko written all over it.”
I take a lame swipe, and Tommy moves farther back, out of my way.
“Why do you call him Rubber Man?” I ask.
“Because he doesn’t seem human.”
“Like your monster?”
“No,” Tommy says distractedly, like the sword has some strange hold over the both of us.
Tommy steps forward and lays his hand over mine on the hilt, trying to
steady it, before Spirit points upward.
Something inside me shifts as if the blade has come alive. A warmth moves through my body from the sword.
I glance over at Tommy in surprise, and he says, voice full of grin, “I know, right?”
“You feel that?”
“Yes.”
He sheathes the sword back into its home, and I rub at my hand, still feeling that tingle.
“Wow, I felt like a bad ass,” I say, making Tommy laugh out loud.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Thomas
Liza’s alone, even when she’s not. Splintered, she rubs against society, irritating the steady drum of cliques and gangs here in La La Land. In random stops and starts, she walks unevenly distanced from each person, escaping the group without going anywhere. And she does this gracefully, like it's meant to happen.
Her gaze wanders until it lands on me. "Strangers," I remember her saying about them, since that's all she sees anymore. But the light blue anchors on my face in easy recognition.
My glance conveys my meaning: “I'll be your tether.” I can only offer assurance for now, but by her relieved expression, it’s most welcomed.
She isn't quite all there, but at the same time, she's there more than anything.
And now I’m leaving her.
We’d fought, agreed, and then fought some more. She wants me to go, and though it burns my guts to do it, she’s right. Together, we’re more problematic. If I go, they’ll leave her be.
On the final night, I come into her room where she lies sleeping, and I whisper to her what I wouldn’t say while she’s awake: “If I don’t help Simon, they’ll keep attacking you. I’ve made a deal with the devil.”
She thinks everything’s her idea. But while Nolan urged her to push me toward this new offer, there’d been no other choice.
The marks on her neck … when I realized she’d been hurt, I was livid with myself. What good was I to her anymore? To anyone, really.
But Simon promised, if I joined the council, she won’t be touched again.