“Sacrifices must be made.” His shout echoes around the sterile, white room. “My citizens deserve perfection, and I can give it to them, but it requires the sacrifice of those who would only mar that perfection.”
He grabs the remaining pages on the desk and shoves them back into the file. “You can’t see the bigger picture.” With his back to me, he tucks the file back into the drawer and slams it shut. “This is so much bigger than us now. After you’ve been dealt with, and the world sees how much the Machine can accomplish, every country on the planet will want one. Imagine an entire world cast in perfection. Wars, crime, violence, all fade into the past.”
“That’s not perfection.” I stand and grip the back of his chair. “It’s a demented way of viewing the world. The people of the Territories aren’t your string puppets that can be moved around into place and discarded if it doesn’t fit just right with the other puppets. These are real people. You’re sick.”
His hand flashes out at me so fast, I don’t have time to even attempt to dodge or block it. My ears ring in the sharp slap of skin against skin a split second before my cheek registers the stinging pain. I reach up a hand, and tentative fingers probe at the sensitive skin. It’s warm to the touch and the area over my cheekbone is already swelling.
The Cardinal calmly walks to his desk and sits in the chair I’ve just vacated, his expression blank and unaffected by his actions. “You have no idea, and I can’t expect you to understand. I’m only doing what I’ve always done. What I swore to do and what I’ve dedicated my entire life to. Protecting my citizens.”
I march around to the front of the desk and lean in so we’re eye to eye and my broach can capture his entire face. “By killing them.”
The Cardinal adjusts a blotter a fraction of an inch and looks up to meet my stare. “So many of them are unworthy of my perfection.”
Thirty-Three
The Cardinal pushes a red button on his desk. “Guards. Ms. Whedon is done here.”
The door to the office opens and four guards in the red Cardinal uniform file in and grab my arms.
“You’ll spend the night here in the comfort of a guest room. I’m not a monster, no matter what you believe. Tomorrow, you will join me to announce your capture, and then you’ll be pruned.”
The Cardinal holds up a hand, and the guards stop pulling me to the door. He walks over to where I stand, no sense of urgency. He doesn’t fear me. He reaches out and unclasps the pearl broach from my collar. “I do hope your recording device captured video and audio. I believe I’ll enjoy re-watching the footage of our conversation once you are no longer a thorn in my side.”
He sits back down and dismisses the guards with a flick of his wrist. They drag me back out into the all red hallway. I don’t even put up a fight, my feet barely keeping up with their fast pace. My mind keeps picturing the walls painted with the blood of all those the Cardinal has called upon to make a sacrifice for the good of the Territories.
The guards lead me back into the elevator, through the building, and into the same room I was in before. They lock the door behind them, and I collapse onto the floor. All of my energy was spent holding it together in front of the Cardinal, but now that I’m alone I can let go.
I crawl over to the couch, pull myself up, and huddle under the blanket. There’ll be no escape now. Not that there ever really was a chance for one. The Cardinal was much too calm about finding me in his office. Almost as if he knew he’d find me there. I should have known it was all too easy. Was Danforth’s help a ruse, or maybe the Cardinal has spies in places we didn’t consider? It doesn’t really matter since the end result is the same. At least I got something on the feed, and the Cardinal assumes it was only recording, not streaming. But are a half dozen names enough?
I toss on the couch, but there’s not any way to get comfortable. Throwing back the covers, I march to the bathroom and rinse my mouth with cold water. A red hand print marks my face. I press a finger to the skin near my eye and hiss in a breath at the contact. There will be a bruise for sure. Evidence that I’m no match for the Cardinal.
Stepping back into the room, I grab the first thing I can get my hands on: a tiny, white marble bird figurine. I chuck it across the room, against the wall, where it smashes into a thousand tiny pieces. They explode all over the room, dust flying into the air, ensuring the miniature cardinal is beyond repair.
Noise erupts outside the building. It’s faint, but this late at night it stands out against the quiet. President Tiroso must be here. He’s early, but I guess a nighttime assault is a better plan than waiting until the morning. He’s desperate to get the Machine, no matter what it takes.
What I don’t know is who is fighting against him. The Cardinal guards for sure. They have to know the Mexican army marched to their capital. But what about the others? Hundreds of Freemen are stationed in the trees all around the city, and no doubt John David is out there trying to rally others to his cause. Will they follow him and help the Mexican army or try to hold them off and give the citizens of the Territories a chance at choosing their own freedom?
I sit up against the back of the couch and realize for the first time that my room doesn’t have a window. More noise, but closer this time. And booted feet running down the hallway outside my door. The unknown is killing me.
I need a distraction before all the unanswered questions running through my head drive me crazy. It’s impossible to focus on being in danger when I don’t even know which enemy I should be worried about. Getting to my feet, I scan the room for anything to keep my mind from wandering into dark places.
The tiny bird statue I was planning to use as a weapon is still sitting on the nightstand. I start there at one and count all the birds in the room. I skip the wall paper and bed spread so I can save those for last. Starting with the wall to my right, I move down the space counting every painting, sculpture, and engraving. I reach twenty-four at the corner and move to the next wall.
I’m at fifty-three when the pounding feet that have been racing up and down the hall for the past thirty minutes stop right outside my door.
“Open it now.” The voice from the other side is muffled, but there’s no mistaking the commanding tone of the Cardinal. The door bursts open, and the Cardinal lunges into the room. Or at least a disheveled man who looks just like the Cardinal. His salt and pepper hair that is always combed back neatly sticks up from the crown of his head in every direction. The suit jacket he had on earlier is missing, and his tie is pulled loose against his wrinkled shirt. The effect is terrifying.
The Cardinal turns his wide eyes on me and lunges, grabbing my arms and digging his fingers in like fish hooks. “What did you do?” He shakes my arms, jerking my torso back and forth. “You’ll destroy it all. Everything I’ve worked for. Gone.”
Between recruiting the Mexican army, mobilizing the Freemen, and broadcasting his dirty laundry from his office, I’m not sure which act of treason he’s talking about.
He runs over to a cabinet I haven’t checked for birds yet and throws open the doors. A screen nestles inside, which the Cardinal turns on with a tiny remote. His face fills the screen. I don’t need the sound on to know his speech from his office is broadcasting across the city. Citizens are hearing for the first time that the Cardinal isn’t the leader he promised to be.
“You did this.” He throws his arm at the screen and stares at me in disbelief.
I lift my chin up and meet his crazed glare. “No, you did this. You lied to the people who trusted you, and you turned anyone who’s different into a monster. It didn’t have to be this way, but it’s too late now.”
“I’ll kill you.” He runs back to the door, arms flailing at his sides and tugs in a guard. “Give me your gun.”
“Sir, we don’t carry guns.”
The Cardinal grabs at the guard’s waist. “Whatever you have then, give it to me.”
The guard looks in at me and then backs out into the hallway. “Sir, I think we should take y
ou back to your office.”
The Cardinal lets loose a primal scream that stuns both me and the guard. He grabs at his belt and pulls out a shock stick. The guard takes a step forward, hand out as if to take it back, but the Cardinal swings at him, forcing him back.
The guard casts me a last look and sprints down the hall, leaving me alone with an armed madman.
“This is what I get for being too soft.” He waves the shock stick up and down at me. “I wanted to get rid of the PIT years ago. It ties up too many of my guards and creates an unnecessary risk. But the council convinced me to reconsider. The infrastructure provides too many jobs, not to mention the focus of my continued benevolence. What a waste.”
He creeps forward, and I side-step so the couch is between us.
“If I had stayed strong, the PIT would be nothing more than a piece of history, and you would have been killed the day of your ceremony. Time to fix at least part of that mistake.”
The Cardinal dashes to the couch and swings out with his stick, barely missing my head as I jump back toward the bed. He circles the couch, and I’m forced to back up further. If I can draw him a little closer, then I stand a chance of making a break for it out the door. I inch back and take a tiny step to my right toward the door.
“Uh uh, Ms. Whedon.” The Cardinal vaults over the couch to block any chance I had of escape. “You won’t be finding your way out of this one. It’s time for you to pay for your acts of treason.”
Shouts sound in the hallway, drawing my attention, which I instantly regret. The Cardinal moves quicker than I could predict and swings out wildly with the stick. I jump to my left, but too slow. The shock stick connects with my elbow, and a crack echoes through the room.
I scream out as fire races up my arm. The room blurs around me, and I stumble back toward the bed. My brain is screaming at me to move before the Cardinal attacks again, but the electricity coursing through my body keeps my feet from responding. My elbow knocks into the bed poster and darkness closes around my head.
My knees hit the ground followed by my head, my arms cradled against my chest as if that can stop the pain. The Cardinal cackles above me, but I can’t move. My body spasms on the floor and razor blades dig into my arm.
I smile, knowing that my last act was taking down the Cardinal, and let oblivion take me.
Thirty-Four
Soft hands cradle my shoulders, and something cold and wet clings to my forehead. I lift my eyelids a fraction of an inch, but the world is nothing more than a swirl of light and color. Voices whisper over my head, but I can’t make out their words.
The hands underneath me move and lift up my torso. My head falls to the side, weighing a hundred pounds. More hands bend my legs, and then I’m lifted. Whoever carries me stumbles, and my arm falls to the side before I can even think about doing anything to stop it.
Pain lances down my arm, and I scream out, my eyes flying open. “Stop. Put me down.”
“I’m sorry, shit, I’m sorry. Eric, help me out here.”
I stare up into the face of the man who promised to love me forever. “Daniel?”
“It’s me. I’ve got you, but we need to get out of here. Eric, please.”
Eric, his blond hair flying everywhere, steps up next to me, a syringe in his hand. “Tiny prick, and then this will feel so much better.”
A sharp pinch digs into my shoulder, and then numb warmth spreads out, cutting out the throbbing ache in my arm.
“Okay, let’s go.” Daniel carries me straight out the door and down hallway after hallway. I lose track of where we go.
“What happened?” I try to lift my head, but everything hurts too much. “How did you get here?”
Daniel keeps walking as he talks. “We came as soon as the Cardinal took your camera. Clarence got the video out and then everything blew up. People came out of their houses still in their night clothes. Guards ordered them back home, but eventually they gave up and retreated inside.”
I close my eyes and focus on Daniel’s words, trying to keep up despite the chaos all around us. “It worked?”
“Are you kidding me?” Daniel laughs, and the sound vibrates across my chest. “It was like dropping a match into a bucket of kerosene. Cheryl was right. People heard what you said last spring. This pushed them off the fence.”
A trio of guards rush down the hall past us, none of them even glancing in our direction. “Where’s the Cardinal? He was going to kill me.”
“I know, love. His guards stepped in and stopped him. Turns out they aren’t as loyal as the Cardinal thought. They have him locked in a room for now until we can figure out what to with him.”
We step out a door and into the bitterly cold night air. It pushes the rest of the fog out of my head, and my brain catches up to the conversation.
“You can set me down now.”
Daniel eases my feet down to the concrete sidewalk but keeps a hand on my good arm to steady me. Eric moves to my other side, ready to catch me in case my balance isn’t as good as I think.
“It will take a bit for the full effect of the shock stick to wear off.” Eric uses a tiny light to check out my eyes. “The impact broke your arm, but we can get you fixed up now that we’ll have access to Territory medicine. You should be good as new in a few days.”
Panic eats into my stomach and threatens to spit out everything I’ve eaten in the past day. “We don’t have days. President Tiroso will be here within hours, unless he’s here already.”
Daniel and Eric exchange a look over my head that does nothing to ease the dread taking over my body.
Eric places a light hand on my good arm. “He’s here already. Liam and Clarence are talking to him now.”
“Let’s go.” I don’t wait for the boys to approve. Tucking my broken arm against my chest, I sprint back to the front gate of the complex and out into the streets. There are people milling about everywhere, but I keep my eyes focused on getting back to the safe house.
We make it back in minutes, all three of us sucking in deep gasps of cool night air. Daniel opens the door and I rush in.
“Rebecca, just the girl I was hoping to see.” President Tiroso sits with his feet propped up on the wobbly wooden table as if he invades foreign countries on a daily basis.
Eric pulls over another chair for me, and I take my time sitting down so I can catch my breath and search my head for the words I need to stop the next disaster.
“We were just discussing plans for the future.”
“And how the president doesn’t intend to take over the Territories.” Michael steps out of the shadows and leans against the table. I didn’t even notice he was here.
“What are you doing here?” I pick my words carefully, even though I want to throw him out the same way Clarence did to John David. “There’s no apologizing for what John David did. We won’t take him back.”
“I should hope not.” Michael smiles at me, and I feel like I’m meeting John David’s second in command for the first time. “John David was a coward, and you should know he’s been removed from Blue River. I’m here now.”
Tiroso claps his hands as if something momentous has been settled. “Now that that’s all cleared up, we can discuss when transfer of the Machine will take place.”
“You don’t want to do that either.” The words are out of my mouth before I have time to even think about what I’m going to say.
“Rebecca.” the Mexican president stands to his full height and looks down on me the way I might look at a beetle. “I made it clear that I won’t be crossed. You asked me to come; I came. And now you’ll give me the Machine.”
“Of course, we will.” Clarence stares at me and dares me with his eyes to back out of the agreement.
“Of course.” I swallow the bile threatening to rise up my throat. “You’re welcome to take the Machine back to Mexico as soon as we can get it loaded up. I just don’t advise it.”
“And why is that?” Tiroso’s voice has a warning ring, but his face
is all pleasantry.
I keep my eyes on Tiroso, but speak over my shoulder. “Daniel, how long did it take you to hack into the Territory broadcast network so you could air the footage from tonight?”
Daniel steps up to the table, his face scrunched up in concentration. “Well, the system here is pretty outdated. It only took me ten minutes or so. Nothing like when I hacked into the secure administrative files a few years ago and created brand new aliases for five Rejects.”
“Would you say the Mexican network would be harder to hack in to?”
“Absolutely.” Daniel’s face lights up like a kid in a candy store. “Their systems are much more advanced.”
I turn in my seat so I can look into Daniel’s eyes. “Could you do it?”
He smiles. His smile. Maybe it’s not quite as big as it used to be, but it’s there. The smile that reminds me how far we’ve come and what the two of us are capable of together. “Of course.”
Together we turn back to President Tiroso.
“The Machine is yours, but before the day is over, everyone in Mexico will know exactly how it’s used. They’ll know it can sort out the criminals. And they’ll know it can find people you might want to get rid of. They’ll know that with the Machine, they’ll live in fear that their son or daughter won’t make the cut.”
I expect anger and violence. Instead he smirks at the two of us and offers us a round of applause. “Well played, Ms. Whedon. Well, played. If the two of you are ever looking for a change of scenery, let me know. There’s always room for a few more bright minds down in Mexico.”
I nod, knowing there’s no way I’m moving down there.
“Gentlemen, it’s been educational.” Tiroso flicks an imaginary piece of dirt off his suit coat. “I imagine you have a lot of work ahead of you. Hopefully, this change can be the beginning of better relations between our countries. Let me know if I can be of any assistance.”
Tiroso shakes hands all around and leans in to give me a kiss on the cheek. The room is a bustle of activity as he leaves with the contingency of soldiers that stood motionless in the shadows. Then the door closes behind them and everything is still. Too still. Liam and Clarence just stare at me, unmoving. As if we’re all afraid that any disturbance will send the house of cards crashing down around us. It’s really over.
Rite of Redemption (Acceptance Book 3) Page 21