The soldier leading me glances at the paper in his hand, a scrap with scribbled numbers, and stops by a door. “Adrian Lockwood?”
I nod. Takeshi left me near the entrance to the cells but gave strict instructions I was to be granted access to whomever I want. I gave Ian’s name before I was asked.
The soldier enters a series of numbers to a keypad. There’s a buzzing, the shifting of metal, and the man pulls the door open. He enters first.
“You have a guest,” he says into the hollow space. Then to me he says, “Ten minutes.”
I don’t watch him as he leaves…don’t follow him out with my eyes. As the latch engages behind me, my gaze lands on my friend. He sits tired at the edge of a cot, one hand clutched around the metal frame holding his weight, as if he’s only just risen from sleep. Beneath an unzipped, hooded sweater, thick bandages wrap around his chest. His arm rests in a sling.
The temperature is warm…comfortable. I glance up at the flat, low ceiling, not vaulted or fixed with vents used to freeze skin.
There are no lights meant to singe.
“Will you rescue me this time?”
I meet his tired smirk through the dim space.
“I’m sure it won’t be long,” I say.
“Yeah, they keep saying that,” Ian mutters, his voice straining as he scoots to make room. I sit beside him, and together we stare across the bare room.
He looks at me over his wounded shoulder. “How’s Cash?”
It draws up old feelings of distrust, but he’s looking at me in earnest, and I can’t deny him kindness.
“He can’t walk,” is the first thing I say, and sorrow cuts through me like ice. “Yet,” I add. “But they believe he will.”
Ian mutters something I don’t hear.
“Have they questioned you yet?” I ask.
“A couple times.”
“What was it like?”
“They have machines that detect lies. When we’re questioned, it assesses our answers. Honestly, I don’t know how it can be accurate. I’m sweating every time they strap me down, and I always tell them the truth.”
I hope they’re listening now, monitoring our conversation and taking note. Maybe his words will help free him. But it must be a difficult job sorting through the Watchers, trying to determine who deserves a new chance at life. They are all guilty on some level. Even Cash. Ian’s expression falls.
“What is it?” I ask.
“What I did. It could keep me in here longer.” He glares at the floor. “I suppose I deserve it.”
I don’t respond. Nothing in his words shocks me, but how do I answer? Maybe he does deserve consequences for his betrayal. A good man died as a result.
“It’s okay,” he says quietly. “I do know that I deserve it. I meant that.”
But he’s misinterpreted my silence. It isn’t his guilt leaving me without a response. It’s the conflict I feel. He does deserve it, but I don’t want him to suffer.
“Maybe Cash can speak up for you,” I tell him. “Maybe his word will be enough.”
“Maybe,” he says. “But I won’t ask him. And you shouldn’t either. Whatever happens, let it happen on its own.”
A brave response, without desperation or seeking pity. It warms me.
“What kind of questions do they ask?”
Ian leans his back to the wall. “About our loyalties. When I defected and why. Details of the last few weeks.” I follow his glance to a corner, where I barely make out a camera. Quietly, he says, “They ask what I know about loyalist groups still in hiding.”
Fear grips me. “Loyal to the Council?”
“Think about it,” he whispers, sitting up suddenly. The same fear reflects back to me in his eyes. “They have soldiers all over the North. Watchers weren’t limited to the valley.”
“But the South has taken the whole nation.” I say it, but the words lack conviction. Unease settles in my bones.
Ian shakes his head. “It’s too early to think they have total control.”
When the soldier returns to escort me out, Ian stands to say goodbye, hobbling unsteady on the leg that was shot. He hugs me with his free arm.
“Get back to the South,” he says in my ear. “It’s not safe here.”
44
The tires hit a deep rut, and I grit my teeth against pain. This road is neglected…full of holes and cracks. Outside, a neighborhood flies past in a blur of browns and greens and whites. Simple, single family homes separated by grass.
“My father asked me to make one more stop,” Takeshi says, “but you don’t have to go in if you don’t want to.”
“Where?” I ask.
He grips a handle above his head when we hit another rut. It’s difficult to hear him over the noise of the engine. “The Council are detained in separate locations. There’s a house just outside the city playing host to one of them.”
Fear is such a strange emotion. One minute it’s cold like death, and the next it burns me. Heat floods my body, pulsing. An instinctive reaction. A memory of trauma. But I have learned not to follow these signals.
“I want to go in,” I say, looking him dead in the eyes.
Takeshi scoots to the edge of the seat and opens a shoulder bag on the floor. He pulls out a pistol, shoves a rectangular case of bullets into the handle, and hands it to me. The first thing I check is the safety. Takeshi gives me a familiar holster to wrap around my middle. He turns when I put it on.
“This place is a target. Don’t drop your guard for a second.”
The city disappears, the last of the buildings fading behind us.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Cash?”
Takeshi doesn’t look at me when I ask it. “He trusts me to look out for you. That’s something no one can say at the hospital.”
“This country is still at war—”
“And part of that war,” Takeshi cuts in, “is poisoning all the Workers who were rescued. Hannah—” His lips press together, “they could all die. We don’t know anything about that illness. Cash did what he thought was right.” He throws me a glance. “And he knew you’d want to come. Was he wrong in thinking that?”
“No,” I say quietly, my back falling against the seat. “He wasn’t wrong. But he called me this morning to apologize.”
Takeshi grins as he leans to see out the windshield. “Thought he might.”
I spend the next twenty minutes wrestling back images of Ben’s lifeless body. Of Sam dead before he can run a race or see the rest of the South.
We pull onto a rocky drive, and we’re jostled as the vehicle rolls up to a one-level brick house. Bushes line the front beneath barred windows. A single, dead tree stands in the center of a huge front lawn. A forest of pines looms behind the building. It is the only beauty. Everything else has died.
A cold wind lifts at my hair when I step onto the pebbled driveway. The rocks pop and grind as we make our way to the door. Soldiers move slowly around the perimeter of the house. The chill that travels my body is deep, beyond the reach of air and snow.
We step through the front door into a small room. Three soldiers stand near the windows. They acknowledge Takeshi but continue peering out to the cold stretch of open land. I wonder what exactly they’re watching out for.
We follow a short hall to a larger room in the center of the house, with a kitchen attached. Three soldiers sit around a table, playing a game with cards. Our entrance creates a stir, and the men rush to stand, knocking the table and unsettling their game.
“As you were,” Takeshi says, chuckling. The men grin.
“Sorry, sir,” one says. “Only, we had a disagreement about the toilet schedule. Seemed like the best way to solve it.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Toilet schedule?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says. “The old man’s got to be guarded at all times, you see. And none of us care much for the job.”
Takeshi nods toward one of the men. “Keep an eye on Fortner. He cheats.”
A sly smirk appears on the shortest of the men, and the others grumble and complain. Takeshi laughs, but I see the tension in his eyes. The constant watch. Ears always listening.
“Go ahead and have a seat,” he says. “I’ll be back.”
He leaves me standing just inside the doorway, and I inch toward the game, curious. Three pairs of eyes rise to meet me. I don’t miss how their gazes drift over the wounds that mark my face, but I don’t shrink back.
“How do you play?”
Fortner jumps to his feet. His hair is more orange than red, and I’ve never seen so many freckles.
“Please.” He gestures for me to sit. I settle onto the cold, metal chair.
“It’s called war, ironically,” says the third man. “Easiest game you can play with cards. Grab Fortner’s. I’ll show you.”
I’m laughing by the time Takeshi returns. I’ve won three rounds, and these men make a point to celebrate each victory with loud shouts and hard claps to the back. A few others have gathered to watch.
“Where’d you find this girl, Your Highness?” someone behind me asks. “She’s got some kinda luck on her side.”
“It’s not luck,” Takeshi answers, leaning against the doorframe. “It’s pure, unrestrained liberty.” He winks, and I grin.
With a tilt of his head, Takeshi beckons me over. I listen to the soldiers as I walk away. I can imagine Edan among them, laughing and joking as loud as the rest.
“Before we leave,” Takeshi says, “I need to know…do you want a chance to address him?”
“I do.”
No thought. No hesitation.
I walk behind him down a hall of beige walls and thick gray carpeting. We pass other rooms, open doors revealing beds or desks or more soldiers. A small flight of stairs leads us up to another hall…and three doors.
The first door sits open. A bathroom.
The other two remain closed, guarded.
Takeshi touches my arm to slow me. “There’s no rush. You can take a minute if you need to. He’s not going anywhere.”
But I know what I want to say…what I must say. Words were assigned to this moment long before Edan found me. Long before Solomon spread a dream that our lives could change. Only weeks ago, I sat crying on my cot, glaring into the darkness of grief. Resigned to it.
I know what I want to say. The only thing.
“Do you want me with you?” Takeshi asks. I shake my head. It’s all I can do now that my body pulses with nerves.
A guard pushes the door open, and I enter into a brightly lit bedroom. No shadows. No hidden corners. Light has a way of revealing us in the end.
An old, fragile looking man sits in a rocking chair, and his eyes settle on me, assessing. Recognizing. A shiver sweeps down my body, but I hide it with another step forward. I do not look away.
“What a pleasure,” he says. I know his voice. I’ve heard it over the speakers all my life. He’s so small…so helpless in this room of blankets and rugs. So powerless against soldiers and a wise king. “I don’t think I’d recognize you at all if not for Councilor Gray’s obsession to find you.” He waves his hand with a flourish. “Your image decorated our final weeks.”
His smile suggests I should be flattered.
“Then again,” he continues, leaning back and folding his hands on his lap, “it is hard to forget a face like that. Tell me, do they still itch?”
Quiet hangs between us, and his eyes narrow at my silence.
“That’s the funny thing about healing,” he continues. “The itch drives you mad. And in the end, the injury is reopened by all the scratching and picking.” He smirks. “Some wounds never heal. Never stop bleeding.”
My mother once told me that bullies hurt others to ignore their own pain. Do not respond in kind, she told me. Show mercy whenever possible.
But I look at him, hear the voice that haunted my childhood, and mercy might be asking too much.
“How is young Gray?” he says, and the smirk remains. The wrinkled skin by his eyes show the joy he’s getting from provoking me. I bite down hard, hating him. Hating that he could rise at any time, walk with ease, and Cash cannot. He knows that’s how I’m feeling. It’s what he wants. So I swallow it. Press it down. Do not feed it.
Some people, Hannah, are cruel for their own gain. You should pity them. They’ve forgotten all the good things…or they never knew.
I take another step, moving away from the door and the soldier behind it. Closer to the man responsible for countless deaths. Decades of trauma. I look over the veined flesh of his hands and the sagging skin at his neck, and I no longer fear him. He is nothing to me. Just a shell of bones and old skin. Soon age alone will kill him.
“This is your chance, girl,” he snarls, as if understanding just how little he scares me. “Out with it.”
He rises slow, pulling up to his full height. Even hunched by a worn-out frame, he is taller than me. It’s just enough to make me shift away a fraction. Even now, his presence fills the entire room.
His hands fold neatly behind his back. He keeps talking, and I wonder if he is uncomfortable with silence now that he is no longer in control. “Have you dreamed of this moment? Spent hours choosing your words? I can’t wait to hear it. How exciting for you.”
But it’s more than me. I stand here for the thousands. My gaze drifts to the floor…remembering.
Do you understand what I’m saying to you? Mother asked, her soft palm turning my face to see her eyes. She wore urgency. Desperation. There is only one way to ever really be free.
But first I have a question. My eyes snap back to the cruel man scowling across the room. “Why did you kill them? You destroyed your own men.”
His face turns stony. “I see. So that is what concerns you. The ruin of weak-willed soldiers.” He steps closer, and I fight to hold my ground. “Their cowardice destroyed everything we built. And it was our pleasure to bury them.”
“But not the rebels.”
“Weakness disgusts me,” he says flatly. “Failure must be punished.”
A chill travels my blood. He holds my gaze, and it’s suffocating…the unrepentant evil he displays. I wonder if there is anything good left hidden in him.
“It is interesting,” he says, “that you still care so much about soldiers who would kill you with just one word from my lips.” His voice drops to a whisper. “Just one word, and everything you think you’ve accomplished will be nothing but ash.” A sly grin pulls at his lips. “How are the refugees settling in?”
I go rigid “It’s true then.”
He laughs. “My dear, I think I’ve discovered your great weakness.” Whispering again, he says, “You think all soldiers are good men at heart.” His eyes flick to the door.
They are Titus’s words, echoed back to me. My confidence falters. Are they right? Do I trust too easily? My heart slams against my ribs, telling me to get out. Run.
When the moment comes, Hannah. You must be brave. Fight against what you feel and do what’s right.
Strength squares my shoulders. I shut out his baiting and think of my mother. A swell of courage forces the words from my mouth. The assigned words. The ones I promised to say.
“I forgive you.”
I’m trembling as I leave. I don’t turn when he shouts.
45
You must forgive them, Hannah. Do you understand how much it matters?
My mother pulled me onto her lap, brushing stray hairs that tickled my forehead.
Near my ear, her soft words pleaded. You will never be free of them unless you let go of hate.
I didn’t feel hate then. I was too young to understand our world. But she knew. She knew one day I would see the valley for what it was, and it would damage me. Hurt me. Leave me scarred. She could not stop that from happening. But what she gave me was a way out.
Promise me, she whispered, you will forgive them.
I smiled up at my beautiful mother, my eyes still innocent. Naïve.
That image, her face, r
emains at the front of my mind as we breeze past the same homes. The same green lawns. People amble on the cracked walkways, gazes following our vehicle as we growl past.
Takeshi doesn’t ask me about the tears or about what I said. Instead he gives me space, peeking over every so often as the pain drains from my eyes. All the bottled-up hate. The longer I cry, the less I feel it.
As we roll through the front gates of the fortress, I gaze up at the red and gold and gaudy building. At the effort, the show of it all. The contrast between the citizen’s homes and the Council’s wealth sickens me. Pity, deep and sorrowful, settles in my gut. What kind of emptiness leads a person to this level of greed? This insatiable hunger for power and wealth.
Seeing this softens my opinion of the Northern citizens, if only a little. Maybe even small doses of oppression blind a person to the suffering of others. Maybe the Council knew this, and they kept their people always in need. Always struggling just enough to be vulnerable to suggestion.
A soldier opens the door for me, and I hold his eyes longer than I should. He shifts his gaze away, but I don’t stop studying him, wondering now where his loyalties lie. We climb the high stairs, and the same pang of distrust hits me when I glance at the guards waiting at the top. Once inside, are we at their mercy? When we left the house, I told Takeshi what the Councilman said. But it feels no different than sorting through Watchers in the valley; how can we know what’s in a person’s heart until they reveal it?
Our guide from yesterday approaches.
“Before you leave,” he says, “would you like a tour?”
“Yes,” we answer in unison.
The first door we enter leads us to a long hall of offices.
“This is where the administrators worked. Where visitors talked business with representatives of the Council.”
“But not the Council themselves?” I ask.
“Not ever,” says the man. “Guests rarely saw them in person. And always in their masks.”
Fear of the unknown. Their greatest weapon.
We continue on past pristine desks and rooms where lies were perpetuated.
The Slave Series Page 55