by Anna Carey
Page 12
My stomach was overcome by nausea. “What do you mean . . . belong?”
“You were going to bear his children, Eve. ” Arden practically laughed.
The King’s pictures were in the hallways of our School. He was much older, with hair that was gray at the sides and dry, thin lips. Lines creased his forehead. I remembered Maxine had spoken of the King’s supposed graduation visit. It suddenly seemed possible he really had been coming . . . for me.
“Of course you were. You’re the perfect specimen. All that education, and all the Teachers’ praise . . . ” Arden went on, her fingers pressing against her temple.
I crumpled the poster in my hands. My breaths were short, my lungs tight. I didn’t want to bear anyone’s children—especially not the King’s. But apparently the choice had already been made for me.
Caleb perched near the side of the boulder, his eyes fixed on the King’s men. They made their way through the woods, the sounds of their boots crunching on leaves filling the air. “We’re not safe here,” he said, looking behind him at the river. “Come—now. ” He darted toward the shore and waded into the rushing water, the rain hitting his bare back. Arden followed close behind. It took me a moment to realize: he wanted us to swim across.
I crouched down, frozen on the bank, as Arden dove under with ease. Behind me, the flashlights scanned the thick woods. The voices of the troops grew louder.
“Come on!” Caleb yelled. He paused, the water at his chest, letting Arden swim past. She kept swimming, coming up only for air.
Caleb rushed back to me on the shore. “Quick,” he urged, grabbing my arm.
The river churned with white water. Arden moved downstream, swept away by the current. “I can’t swim,” I said, wiping my wet hair from my cheeks. My face crumpled as Arden struggled to the other shore. She was up, her clothes and backpack soaking, but unharmed.
“I don’t know how,” I said, my voice trembling. Behind us, the King’s troops were getting closer, their flashlight beams reaching the water. “Just go,” I choked out. I couldn’t stop the sobs from coming now, my chest heaving with defeat. I pushed Caleb forward. “Go. ”
But he didn’t move. He glanced back at the shadows in the forest, then at me, and then he grabbed my hand. “It’s okay, Eve,” he said.
I stopped crying, surprised by the warmth of his skin against my own. He was so close that I could feel each of his soft breaths. His green eyes were bright, illuminated by the sudden glow of the flashlight beam. “I’m not going to leave you. ”
Chapter Nine
CALEB PULLED ME FARTHER DOWN THE BANK, HIS HAND gripped tightly around mine. We sprinted over rocks and broken tree limbs. I could hear the men behind us, struggling in the dense wood.
“They’re heading up the shore!” one yelled.
Caleb kept moving, seeming to sense every groove in the slippery stones, every patch of moss or rotten log. I watched his legs, careful to put mine down in the ghosts of his footsteps.
We rounded a bend and the flashlights disappeared. In the rain I could barely make out a structure in front of us, overturned on the shore. It looked like a giant dead cockroach. Caleb ran for it. I’d only seen a helicopter once before, in the pages of an archived book, but I recognized the bent propellers and podlike cockpit.
“Hurry—get in. ” He knocked out the shattered remnants of a window.
I lowered myself into its rusty shell and the shadows swallowed me whole. Caleb rushed in behind me, his feet crashing down on the floor. “They’re coming,” he whispered, as he pulled me into the front seats. The rain battered the cracked windshield, filling the cockpit with a relentless drumming.
“We need to hide,” I said. My hands wandered over the copter’s moldy insides. I felt a cushioned object, half my height—the passenger seat must have broken free in a crash. We crawled beneath it, the noise of the pelting rain muting our breaths.
In the dark, below the musty seat, I huddled beside Caleb, aware of the places where my body touched his. My shoulder pressed against his shoulder, the side of my leg against his. The closeness was alarming, but I didn’t dare move away.
The troops’ voices grew louder as they came down the bank. A flashlight beam hit the top of the copter and the broken glass sparkled. Caleb, barely visible in the beam’s glow, pressed his fingers to his lips.
“They ran back through the woods. I’ll search the shore and meet you on the road,” a man said from close by. His flashlight came down into the helicopter, shining first on a pile of leaves. The beams ran along the dented wall and across the skeleton of the pilot, still strapped into the seat. It finally settled on my right shoe, the only part of me not hidden.
Go away, I thought, willing the beam off my foot. It’s nothing. I closed my eyes and heard another voice, off in the distance, calling something out. It sounded like a question.
“No,” the man replied after a moment. The flashlight disappeared from my foot. “Nothing. ” I heard footsteps beyond the windshield and then the forest was quiet. We stayed there, crouched underneath the broken seat, until the downpour let up.
“There might be food in here,” Caleb said finally. He stretched his legs, then pushed the seat off us. “Help me look. ”
I felt around in the shadows, careful to stay away from the pilot’s skeleton. After a while I found what felt like a rope and a large tin box.
“This?” I asked, passing it to Caleb.
He rifled through the box. There was a cranking noise and then a sudden light.
“Yes,” he said, offering me a smile. “A lantern. See?” He grabbed the handle on the side and wound it, the light glowing brighter.
While he emptied the contents of the box onto the floor, sorting through tin cans and silver pouches, I studied his face. The river had washed away most of the dirt from his skin and it was now shiny and smooth, a few freckles covering the flat bridge of his nose. My eyes kept returning to his strong, angular features, the bones pressing against his skin. I knew I should be more afraid of him, but right now, I was simply fascinated. What was that word again, the one Teacher had used to describe her husband? The one Pip and I had joked about at School? Caleb, even with his brown nails and tangled hair, seemed almost . . . handsome.
He passed me a small silver pouch. “What are you smiling about?” he asked, raising one brow in a question.
“Nothing,” I said quickly. I lifted the pouch to my lips and sucked down the warm water.
“You like being chased by armed troops?” He moved his hands over his tanned skin, wiping the rainwater from his arms, his shoulders, and his chest. “Is that your idea of fun?”
“Just forget it. ”
Caleb popped open a can of brown mush. “Or . . . ” he began, licking the lid clean. “Were you smiling at me?”
“Definitely not. ” I watched as he brought the can to his mouth, and emptied its insides with his tongue. He chewed loudly, his lips falling open. Immediately the glimmer of handsomeness was gone.
I turned away. “Revolting,” I murmured.
“This doesn’t look appetizing to you? You can have the dehydrated peas then. ” He tossed me another pouch. I ate the dried pebbles in silence, but he continued staring at me. “So you and Arden . . . ” He tilted his head to the side. “. . . friends? Or not so much?”