Oh no. I grabbed the water bottle and ripped the cloth off what had been a hard loaf of bread. “Gray?”
I sat down gently beside him easing his head onto my lap. “Gray, it’s okay. It’s Abby.”
“Abby?” he gurgled. Blood trickled out of his lips, landing on the frigid metal beneath him.
“Shh. Don’t talk—just let me help.”
I wet the towel in the cold water and used it to soak up the blood from his face and hair. I cringed to think of how the rest of him looked. He was already turning black and blue. “I’m so sorry.”
He moaned and quickly fell back asleep.
I sat holding Gray’s head in my lap until late afternoon. When the shaft of sunlight seeping in through my window, moved across the room and began to fade, I got worried. He should wake up soon, right? “Gray?”
“Mmmm.”
“Are you okay?”
I stroked his silky, dark brown hair with my fingers gently to try to wake him up. His dark lashes fluttered and opened slightly. Both eyes were badly swollen. The whites of his eyes were red. He sat and looked at me for a long time. “Do you need anything?”
He licked his dried lips and rasped, “I need to use the bathroom.”
“Okay. I’ll help you.”
He looked at me and tried to wag his eyebrows. He could barely move them, but I was glad that he still had a sense of humor. I rolled my eyes.
“I mean I’ll help you get over to it.” He looked from me to the toilet. It was only a few feet away, but that must have seemed like too much. He groaned. “Fine. Help me up.”
I helped him sit up, waited for him to catch his breath and then stand. When he was ready, I let him use me like a crutch. He shuffled over to the toilet and steadied himself with the wall. I turned my back while he relieved himself and then helped him back over to the bed. He sat down on the edge of it and then laid back down. “I can’t sit up. I can barely breathe.”
His breaths were labored. “Did they break your ribs?”
“Yeah.”
“Anything else broken, other than your ribs and nose?”
He felt his face. “Son of a...they broke my nose.”
“Aww. You’re still pretty,” I smiled.
He grinned. “Damn right, I am.”
His grin turned into a grimace when he tried to move into a more comfortable position. On that cold slab, there was little comfort to be had. I grabbed our water and the loaf of bread.
“I’ll be your pillow,” I offered. I helped him lift his head and scooted backward until my back hit the cinder block behind me. “This is my fault, anyway.”
He looked up at me. “Why would you say that?”
“My performance must’ve sucked. I didn’t take enough attention away from you.”
He tried to laugh. “Yeah. Well, I kind of drew attention to myself.”
“What happened?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
I nodded. “Okay. Get some rest.”
Gray looked back up at me. “You lie down here, too, when you get cold, okay?”
“‘Kay.”
I laid my head back against the cinder-block wall behind me and blew out a breath. Gray’s breaths were steady, but each one had a unique rattle that scared me to death. I knew he was strong. He would make it, but I ached seeing him in such a state. They’d really worked him over.
As darkness took over and moonlight filtered into the room, I tried to think of anything other than Crew. The happiness on his face had cut me so deeply. I couldn’t get the happy couple out of my mind and it was making me sick and miserable. I was sure the two of them were getting cozy. It was their wedding night, after all.
I swallowed thickly, and then lay down next to Gray. We could keep warm together.
I watched from behind a huge Oak as Ardis led Abby away. I knew what I had to do. When the guards didn’t leave Orchard after the Olympian train took the girls away, they needed a place to stay. They chose Abby’s cabin. I made sure to offer to clean it out. That lasted a few hours until they got impatient and started dumping stuff out the back door. But, before that, I was able to find a few things.
I grabbed some of Abby’s clothes and some of the things Lulu and I had given her over the years. They wouldn’t seem like anything special to anyone else, but to Abby, they were treasures; a bouquet of dried lavender, a smooth pearly stone I found for her in the lake when we were kids. Rushing around, I went into Lulu’s room to get Abby Blue a reminder of the only woman she’d ever known as a mother.
Lulu had always worn a silver ring with a light blue stone set in it on special occasions. While rifling through her drawers to find it, I found something else. On a worn piece of paper were written two names and a Vesuvian comm number. I’d found Abby’s parents.
I rushed home to find it and send the comm in case I was arrested. Then, I went to see Mom. She was still so sick. I wanted to see her before anything happened, at least one more time. Dad let me in the house. They’d been excused from the celebration given Mom’s condition. I sat beside him at the kitchen table that I’d eaten on since birth. “Why the late hour, Kyan?” he asked. I was shocked at how much I’d grown to look like him. It was like I knew by looking at him, what I would look like at age forty-five.
“A lot of things happened in the village tonight. I wanted to tell you what was going on, just in case.”
Dad nodded. “The resistance has begun?”
My mouth flew open. He laughed and slapped my knee. “Kyan, I may be old, but I’m not dumb or blind. And neither is your mother.”
Mom shuffled into the room, and Dad and I both helped her into a seat at the table as well. “We can go to the couch, Mom.”
“Don’t you treat me like an invalid, Kyan Ray Marks.” Her eyes dared me to talk back to her. That was a dare I’d learned repeatedly not to take.
I nodded. Her eyes glittered with more life than I’d seen in them in months. “So,” she said, “what happened tonight?”
Blinking my eyes, the room slowly came into focus. My face was cold, but my body was warm. Really warm. I raised my head up. Gray and I were wrapped up together on the bed frame. We’d kept each other from freezing. I hoped I didn’t hurt him last night. I didn’t even remember lying down. He stretched as much as he could and pulled me tighter.
“Uh, Gray.”
“Hmmm?”
The stubble on his chin scraped my forehead.
I giggled. There was no way to jerk away from him without hurting him and it was actually sweet. This big, tough guard liked to cuddle.
He opened his eyes, blinked a few times, and looked down at me, almost startled. “Sorry.”
I laughed. “It’s fine. We kept warm.”
He let me raise up and then groaned, “It’s still freezing.”
“Big baby.”
He chuckled and coughed, clutching his abdomen.
I winced when I saw how much even laughing hurt him. “Sorry.” I felt bad for teasing him, but given the situation, what else could we do?
We cuddled back together to keep warm until the sun warmed the room for us. Later, two guards brought lunch, which consisted of another loaf of bread and what looked like left over ham from the wedding feast. They slipped the food and two jars of water through the bars of the door and left, but not before glaring at Gray.
When they were gone, I grabbed the food and divided it between us. “It’s not much. I know you’re used to more, so I’ll give you the biggest pieces.”
He shook his head. “No. You need it. Trust me. Divide it evenly.”
“Gray, you need to heal.”
“I am. Greaters heal much faster than Lessers for some reason.”
I ticked my head at him. “With medicine, yes. Without it? I don’t think so.”
“I’m fine. I feel much better than yesterday.”
Hands on my hips, I said, “You’re wheezing and can barely walk.”
He laughed. “But I can walk without you as m
y crutch today.” A self-satisfied grin stretched across his lips.
“Yeah, yeah. Small victories, big guy.”
I tried to take time chewing every bit of food as best I could, savoring it. Who knew what they would bring us next or what it might be. Left overs were only edible for so long.
Gray took a swig of water from his jar. “You okay?”
I pointed at my chest. “Me?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“I am.”
Gray looked at me. “You’re not. You went through a lot yesterday.”
I nodded. “But, I’m okay.”
“Whatever.”
“Whatever, Gray. What do you want? Want me to say that my heart is broken? It is. Want me to say that it sucks being in here? It does. Want me to say how damn bad I feel that they beat you? I do. I hate it. I hate it all. I just...there’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing. That’s what sucks.”
“He shouldn’t have done it.”
“What?” I looked up from the pulled apart piece of ham in my hand.
“He shouldn’t have married that girl.”
I closed my eyes and released a breath. Tears made their appearance, beginning to gather and well up in my eyes.
“Not if he loved you. I don’t care what his reason was, Abby. Even if he thought he was ultimately helping you. He shouldn’t have done it.”
“I know.”
I hated tears. They showed weakness, vulnerability. But sometimes, that weakness had to escape. And so it did.
Gray pulled me into his shoulder and let me cry.
When I finally pulled myself together, I sat back and took a drink of water. “Thanks.”
He ticked his head.
“Any strokes of profound wisdom you’d like to impart about love?” I tried to laugh, remembering his statement about the non-existent present.
“Yeah. Love doesn’t betray.”
I nodded. “Yep.”
My father sat in the box, raised high in the air above the citizens of Olympus. The amphitheater was filled to the brim. Almost everyone attended public executions. It was a sickening spectacle, made even more disgusting by the curiosity and blood thirst of the citizens themselves. Some even brought their children, picnic lunches, and made a sick sort of family outing of it all. I sat to my father’s right and Marian sat to the right of me. My mother had taken ill and was not present.
Looking at the small golden tiara adorning Marian’s head, I was suddenly thankful and sorry at the same time. I was sorry that she had to see all of this. Sorry that she had stepped into the viper’s den. But I was thankful that that crown did not grace Abby’s head. I was thankful she was spared this scene, for now.
My father needed her. Well, the Greater scientists needed her eggs in case the first round of implantations failed. I had overheard more this morning. She was being held in an abandoned prison several miles south of the village. My father ordered that she be given food and water regularly and that no hair on her head and no part of her body was to be harmed. He had laughed, calling her the “goose with the golden eggs.”
No one in Olympus was laughing today. A tension hung heavy in the air, even despite the giggling children and excited energy that charged the atmosphere just before the commencement of the beheadings. The first order of business was to literally chop the head off of the leaders of the resistance along with those belonging to anyone who aided the movement. My father would remove the heads of the snakes with one fell swoop. Literally.
The night of our wedding, the night that Abby’s story was broadcast to all of the Greater cities and Lesser Villages, a communication went out into the night. That communication from Orchard, which I assumed was sent by Kyan, had been sent directly to Senn. It did not take long for my father’s technologists to trace the comm. That message led them to check Senn’s personal computer.
There, they found the information he had hacked and stolen, some of it for me. They found Abby’s medical records. They found communications with a few key members of the resistance in Olympus, including names. And they found that he had helped to hack the feed that let Abby tell her secret to the world.
Four others, whom I did not realize were personally involved in the resistance movement, had been rounded up last night and in the early morning hours today. They would receive no trial. There would be no jury or hearing at which they could assert their innocence or plead for their lives. There would be no mercy. There would only be swift and exact punishment.
Treason was something my father did not and would never tolerate. His actions were absolute in dealing with the matter and for a long time, those actions had been an effective deterrent to those who might think to stand against our city or its leaders. Things now, though, seemed on the cusp of change. There was no way he could stop the resistance. It was too large and well-organized, cut into small groups that weren’t related or interconnected in any other way.
My father stood and straightened his suit. A large microphone hung down from the ceiling of the box we occupied. “Citizens of the great city of Olympus,” he addressed. The crowd quietened down, giving him the respect that he so absolutely commanded.
“Lies have been spoken. I realize that many of you are upset by the malicious rumors spread by a small group of lowly cowards. We have located some of those cowards, those who would hide behind the screen of a computer and hope to tear down a great nation. Treason has never been tolerated. Olympus will not stand for or behind traitors. The five people brought before you today, have been found guilty of such an offense, against Olympus, against you, its citizens. I order them beheaded.”
Murmurs flooded through the crowd, filling the air with fear and blood thirst.
Father continued, “Let their punishment serve as a warning to anyone who might seek to harm our great city. You will not succeed.”
Customarily, cheers would have erupted from all levels of the amphitheater. Some did cheer, but those were sparse, few and far between. My father cleared his throat and nodded to the guards on the ground. Senn was dragged onto the dusty floor below, a thick metal collar around his neck that joined to the chains that bound his hands. He was dirty and blood smeared his skin in various places. His eyes were swollen closed.
He gasped as they jerked him forward, kicking the backs of his knees until he collapsed upon them. One guard slammed his head onto a large piece of wood, the chopping block. Another held it down as the collar was removed. His head was bound with leather straps, his hands still chained behind his back.
Shrieking and wailing, he thrashed trying in vain to get free. When the axe fell, the amphitheater fell silent, and so did Senn. The silence took hold over the crowd until all were dispatched. My father ordered the bodies and heads to be left for all to see as they filed out.
He only knew one way to rule and that was through fear. Intimidation would serve as the ultimate deterrent for those who opposed my father. Olympus did not deserve this.
Marian’s hand was shaking as she took mine with her fine white linen glove. I looked up at her and could see the fear in her eyes. I pulled her close to me. “It will be all right,” I whispered.
She sniffed and clung tightly to me. We waited as my father exited through his personal entrance at which time, we dutifully followed behind him. Things were out of hand. My father was out of control and Marian and I were in trouble. I began to wonder if I would ever see Abby again.
∞
At the palace, Marian and I finally had some time alone. I took her to my room. She almost collapsed into a chair, looking pale as a ghost. I poured her some water.
The small glass in her hand shook visibly. She whispered in desperation, “What are we going to do?”
“We are going to follow the plan,” I whispered, forcing as much false calmness into my voice as was possible.
“They are going to find out about us. About you. I have never seen anything so horrifying in my entire l
ife.” She clasped her neck.
I grabbed her hand. “Marian. Please, trust me. I would not let anything happen to you.”
She guffawed. “Like you stopped your father from hurting Abby? From taking her eggs? You...you scare me, Crew. You follow his law to the letter.”
Raking my hand through my hair, I looked at her. “Do you now see why? What would happen if I did not follow his law, Marian? What would you have me do right now? March into his office and tell him that he is under arrest. I have no authority!”
She stood up. I heard the smack before my cheek even began to sting. “Then take it! This has to stop!”
She sank into her seat once more. “I am sorry Crew. I just do not understand all of this. I do not understand you. I thought you were different.”
Marian cried most of the afternoon and refused to speak with me. It gave me time to think. She was right. I followed my father without question, even now. How could I stop this? How could I save Olympus, when I couldn’t even stop him when it came to Abby and the other girls?
∞
At dinner that evening with my mother and father, a heavy silence hung over the table. Cam had left the morning after the wedding ceremony, and though we were never close, he was the only normal I could count on for a long time. I missed him. I had no idea where he had gone. Marian squeezed my hand beneath the table, graciously infusing me with her strength.
“What news from the Lesser villages, Father?”
He looked up from his plate, his fork stopped in motion overtop a thick, bloody piece of meat. His knife screamed across the plate before grinding to a halt.
“They are secure,” he laid his silverware down and steepled his hands. “What they call a ‘resistance’ is laughable. They gave the guards some sort of herb to make them vomit. Apart from the little stunt they pulled by hacking the feed, it seems that was all they had planned. But they had help with that from Olympus. The simpletons could not have figured that out on their own.”
He laughed. My mother smiled at him nervously and then looked back at me.
Resist (The Harvest Saga Book 2) Page 7