Unworthy: Marked to die. Raised to survive.

by Joanne Armstrong

  My eyes never leave her as she moves through the bars of sunlight, dust motes whirling around her feet, and comes to sit cross-legged in front of me. She lays the knife gently in front of her knees, between us. Her palms come to rest on her thighs and she tilts her head left and right, stretching her neck. She makes a satisfied sigh and her eyes open to rest on me.

  She runs her fingers through her hair and gathers it up at the base of her neck, then twists and twists it until she can stick a sharp pin through a tidy knot on the back of her head. She smiles at me all the while.

  “Now, let’s get started,” she says, the words flat and emotionless.

  I know it’s all an elaborate act for my benefit. Knowing makes no difference though - I’m terrified. It’s all I can do to stare back at her. My heart is thudding so hard in my chest that I am sure my shirt is shaking with it. I already feel like crying and sobbing, begging for mercy, and she hasn’t even touched me yet. However, I know without a shadow of a doubt that there is no point trying to reason or plead with this woman. She enjoys her craft too much.

  “Ah, where are my manners? You’ll be thirsty. Water?” She leans forward and lifts my canteen from my side. I narrow my eyes at her, wondering if she would put something into the water, but my desperately dry mouth is crying out for it. I am also absolutely certain that she is going to kill me. What purpose would she have to drug me as well?

  I nod and drink thirstily as she tips the bottle for me. Some runs down my face, but she doesn’t stop until the water is gone.

  The flat stare is back and the questions begin. “So, let’s start with the basics. Who are you?” She’s twirling a loose strand of hair between her fingers. Mid brown, with a kink in it. I realise she must have taken it from me. My heart’s beating like a hammer, but I try to think quickly. If she can’t link me with Arcadia through my records, then maybe I have a chance.

  “My name is Chloe. I came through the southern pass from Sector Nine -”

  Crack! She slaps me, hard, with the back of her hand across my cheek. The speed is a shock; I didn’t even see her eyes flicker. As I reel from the sting she continues talking.

  “What a disappointment. An unsettled sector? Really? You’re Marked, you fool. You were born under Polis rule.” I realise my mistake. I start trying to devise a story that she can’t see through so easily, but my head is foggy and I just can’t think.

  “I’m thrilled to have that out of the way, actually. Let’s get something clear though, because I’m on a schedule here. I know you’re from Sector Four, I’ve been tracking you. I also know that I’ve got the right person, whether the data confirms it or not. I wouldn’t have expected to have much on file for Arcadia Grey anyway.” She lifts my chin and looks me straight in the eye. “So I swear that I’ll tell you what I know if you promise to do the same. Alright?”

  I swallow and nod. What else can I do?

  She stands slowly, leaving the knife on the floor near me. A taunt. The promise of freedom is so close, yet I can’t reach it. She gets my backpack, which has been picked over, and taps the monitor. “I know you’ve been getting help. I’ll need to hear about that. I’d been wondering how you managed to get so far so fast. I was lucky to receive a call from the informant. So now you know what I know. It’s your turn.” She sits down in front of me again, her elbows on her knees, and wiggles her index finger at me as though I’ve been caught taking an extra biscuit. “And no more stories. Who are you?”

  “Arcadia,” I reply quietly.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Sector Four. Greytown.”

  “That’s better. Arcadia, Sector Four. Check!” she smiles, and then adds thoughtfully, “The Unworthy part, that was unexpected. But what a bonus!”

  A bonus. She’s thrilled to be killing an Unworthy, and her sick anticipation helps me to find my tongue. “Hunting the Unworthy? Is that seen as sport where you come from?”

  I wonder if I’ve gone too far, but far from being angry, she laughs. “It’s not open season on the Unworthy, if that’s what you think. Unfortunately.”

  It might be easy to forget how dangerous she actually is, if it weren’t for the long blade she lightly caresses on the floor between us. She seems to be enjoying the conversation, but then an evil glint creeps into her expression, and her eyes narrow. A smirk plays around her lips.

  “I know!” she just about claps her hands, she’s so pleased with her idea. “Let’s play a game called ‘True or False’. I tell you something about your lovely little hub and you tell me if it’s true or not true.”

  I stare at her. She’s like a cat playing with a mouse. She’s planning to have fun for a while, and when she gets tired of the game, she’ll end it.

  My wits are coming back to me as the cloudiness in my head slowly clears. I give my hands another careful tug. No slack at all.

  “Right, let’s start with an easy one,” she says, and dramatically taps her chin with an index finger, as though thinking. “True or false… your country is peaceful.”

  Play dumb, play dumb, I tell myself. It would do me no good to appear well-versed in Polis knowledge now. I think back to five days ago, and how little I really knew. “True,” I say.

  She looks gleeful. “False! Ignorant hubbite,” she adds. She slaps me across the cheek, another stinging smart. “How about… true or false, you’re free to leave your little town.”

  I think about where I am now, facing my tracker. “Obviously false,” I say, looking her in the eye.

  “Correct,” she says. “True or false… you were marked because you got a bit sick,” she coughs pathetically, “after your first exposure.”

  My first exposure. I’m not sure what she’s getting at. “True,” I say, but she knows it’s a guess.

  “Lucky guess. True or false… Hubbites are re-infected every six months.”

  This time I can’t even hazard a guess. I have no idea what she is talking about, and it’s all I can do to look at her steadily. Re-infected?

  Her smirk broadens, “I win!” she trills. “So, did you get sick much? After those fun-packed Festivals I mean?”

  The Festivals… the leaden weight in my stomach starts to rise and I feel like I’m going to vomit. I don’t say anything. I’m clinging tight to the hope that she’s making it up in order to see me despair before she kills me.

  “Next question.” Her tone changes and suddenly she is deadly serious again, the game forgotten. “You’ve got quite a bit of Polis equipment here. How did you get it?”

  “An officer came to Greytown and told me I had to come with him. He told me he was on Polis orders.”

  She taps her fingertips gently on her knees, as though feeling for the lie. “Why would I lie about it?” I continue. “He told me to come with him to the Polis, but I gave him the slip and stole his equipment.”

  At this she laughs out loud. “You? Managed to overcome a Polisborn officer and escape?” She laughs again. At least she’s not hitting me.

  “Maybe it wasn’t as heroic as it sounds. He was injured.” I’m not sure how much I want to say about Captain Hayes. I know I’d rather keep his location and identity to myself. I’m just hoping she doesn’t ask.

  She picks up the monitor and pushes some buttons. “Polisborn army locations,” she tells me. “And… well there we are then. In Sector Four, there’s me and the troop stationed at the hub. No-one else has been assigned to this region for the last week. What’s his name?”

  “He never told me.” She looks up at me, stroking the blade gently.

  “Now, now…” she warns. “So, describe him.”

  “He didn’t tell me his name,” I garble. “He said he was on a secret mission and didn’t want anyone to know who he was.” Partly true, but her raised eyebrow tells me that she doesn’t believe a word of what I’m saying.

  Very deliberately, she puts down the monitor and picks up the deadly-looking knife. Light glints on the blade, clean edged on one side and with serrations on the other
. She sways it from right to left slowly, and my eyes follow every mocking motion.

  “I like to start with the toes,” she says, conversationally. “You’ll still be able to tell me everything I want to know, but for every lie you’ll find walking a little bit harder.” She chuckles at her own joke. We both know I’ll not be walking out of here.

  I swallow the bile rising in my throat, a sense of sick dread overcoming me. Maybe if she gets angry, she’ll end it quickly. As if in a dream, I watch her taking my shoe off, carefully untying and loosening the laces, and I know that anger is not going to save me. Her calmness is part of her madness.

  “Let’s try that one again,” she smiles. “Let’s just pretend for one moment that I believe a Polisborn soldier came to your hub to retrieve you,” she says slowly, watching my face very closely as she speaks. “What’s his name?”

  She rests the point of the knife lightly on my little toe while holding my ankle with her other hand. Her grip is vice-like. My mind is completely empty of options. I know that I’m going to tell her absolutely everything I’ve managed to find out about Captain Alex Hayes, and about myself.

  “She’s telling the truth,” a glacial voice comes from behind her. Immediately she spins round, the knife in her hand.

  Hayes is standing at the entrance, casually leaning against the doorframe. He doesn’t look at me. His eyes don’t leave the figure of the tracker, who has dropped into a defensive stance next to me, the knife pointed towards the new threat.

  At first I sigh with relief. I have never been so pleased to see a Polis uniform. Then I realise why he’s leaning against the doorframe, and remember that the dazer he twirls in his hand is completely useless. This isn’t going to end well for either of us.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The tracker squints into the sunlight silhouetting Hayes’s dark shape in the doorway.

  “Well, well,” she sneers. “The famous Alex Hayes.” She relaxes her stance and cocks her head to the side.

  “The infamous Elyssa Greene,” he replies, not moving from his spot in the doorway. “You found my prisoner. Many thanks. Now let her go.”

  “You lost her. I found her. She’s my prisoner now,” she points out. “You’ve been making my job rather difficult,” she widens her eyes at him in mock exasperation.

  He shrugs. “Orders. Let her go.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t think so. I’ve got orders too, and you’ve been getting in the way of my carrying them out. I’ll be making a full report to the Generals.” Her eyes sparkle with malice.

  “I know you’ve been gunning for me for a long time, Elyssa,” he sighs. “But trust me - this is not the way to bring me down. Now let her go.”

  “Do you know that you have now asked me three times to let her go? What’s so important about her - what’s so special about her, hmm? Is this knife,” she strokes the flat of the blade on my cheek, “making you nervous?”

  It’s sure as hell making me nervous. I stretch my head as far as I can away from her blade.

  A derisive laugh escapes her lips, and she switches to tapping it against her thigh. “Come on - a hubbite out in the open, unsupervised? You know my job - almost as well as I do. No universe exists in which I don’t kill her.” She tilts her head and smiles playfully at him. “But please - please - try to stop me.”

  With the sun behind him, I can’t see his face well, but his voice has remained controlled throughout the whole exchange. I can only guess how much will power it must be taking him to appear confident when he’s feeling physically weakened. Of course, he doesn’t know yet that his one weapon isn’t going to do him any good. How can I warn him?

  “I have a much better deal for you. If you let her go, I’ll put down this dazer and I’ll fight you hand to hand,” he replies.

  She curls her lip. “Why would you think that I’d find that offer at all appealing?”

  “Maybe because I know you’ve been aching for a re-match since your second year. Or because you think that you can win. Or because out here, unlike in the arena, there are no rules and no-one to make you stop,” he says.

  I can tell that she’s tempted. “If I win…”

  “You get to tell your own version of what happened out here. And pursue your target anyway,” he finishes for her.

  “I have my target already. Right where I want her,” she retorts.

  “But I am not going to allow you to harm her,” he says, lifting the dazer and pointing it at her face.

  “It seems that we are at an impasse,” she smiles, her blade hovering near my cheek again. Why hasn’t he fired? He must already know that the dazer is useless. He walked into a stand-off with a weapon as useful as a child’s toy.

  “I thought you had more faith in your skills?” he taunts her.

  “Oh I know that I can beat you,” she replies.

  “Prove it then. You can even keep your knife.”

  She narrows her eyes. “And you’ll drop the dazer? You’ll fight me empty handed?”

  “Empty handed,” he swears.

  A broad grin spreads across her face. On someone else it might look beautiful, but it never reaches her eyes. They remain emotionless.

  “Now that is a deal no girl could refuse,” she shakes her head. “Go - untie her,” she motions him forward.

  He pushes himself off the doorframe and slowly moves towards me. Taking a knife from his belt he quickly cuts the bindings at my wrists. I muffle a groan as my muscles scream with the motion after being so long secured.

  Before letting me up, he crouches in front of me, his face inches from mine. His grey-blue eyes fix me in their unwavering gaze. “Run. You take the monitor and you get out of here. Fast,” he hisses.

  He takes my forearm and helps me to my feet. Elyssa stands nearby, arms crossed, a lopsided smile on her face.

  “Run fast, little rabbit,” she smiles. “Because this won’t take long. And then I’m coming for you.” She bares her teeth and snaps them at me.

  I scoop up my belongings with trembling fingers, my heart a jackhammer in my throat. I scramble to the porch before she can change her mind. My feet falter on the steps and I turn back. He doesn’t look at me, his eyes are still locked with Elyssa’s. I open my mouth but he speaks first.

  “Don’t look back,” he says evenly.

  I run.

  My feet slide on damp leaves as I career down the hill, desperate to be as far from the house as possible. I have no idea where I’m going, but I don’t care. Just away. I am so disoriented and panicked that when the ground flattens out I stumble and wind up falling forward, the heavy backpack clouting me on the head as I go down. Dazed, I rock back on my knees to try and clear my head.

  I need a plan. Running through the forest without any direction will do me more harm than good. I take out the monitor and easily spot the location of the ruined house on it. The contour lines indicate the rise and two shapes are clearly visible inside.

  What are my options? I have to get out of the five-hundred metre zone before she’s capable of coming after me. But what then?

  Slowly my thinking clears, and I realise that I have only one course of action. I was simply too terrified to see it before. I must go back.

  I hurriedly stuff the monitor into my bag, and instead take out my blowpipe and pouch of vials. I belt it on, and start back up the hill.

  The return climb takes longer than I expect. I must have managed to get further than I thought before falling over. By the time the house comes into view my breath is short and I watch for a moment from behind a tree while I try to get it under control. I can see no movement from my position and can only hear the rustling of the beech forest. I remove the heavy pack from my back and put it on the ground.

  My heart starts thudding in my throat as I leave the tree line to approach the side of the house, uphill, from the back. As I get closer to the front room I can hear voices coming from inside.

  “I should have known the family by the river was you,” H
ayes is saying. His voice is strained and hesitant.

  I slowly inch my way down the wall, treading as quietly as possible until I find a broken weatherboard that allows me enough of a view into the room.

  Hayes is standing with his back against the same wooden pillar which Elyssa had used for me. His ankles and wrists are bound, arms pulled back tightly around it. The fight mustn’t have lasted long.

  “Don’t try to distract me,” she says lightly. “It won’t work.” She raises the knife she has been casually tossing from hand to hand.

  His jaw is clenched and I watch in horror as she draws the length of the wickedly sharp blade lightly across the skin on his upper arm. His eyes remain squeezed shut as a ribbon of red begins to course its way down his arm.

  “Not a whimper,” she sounds impressed. “At least not for the first one.”

  I’ve seen enough. My fingers are shaking as they grope for the pouch on my belt and find the vial of tufted splinters. In my haste though I drop one in the dirt. I take a deep breath in and let it out slowly. I’ll only get one chance.

  Inside the house Elyssa leans forward and kisses her prisoner deeply, full on the mouth. My surprise stays my hand on the way to placing the dart inside the blowpipe. When she steps back she slaps him so hard across the cheek that his head whips round and cracks against the post.

  The sound focuses me and I lift the blowpipe. I realise that I can’t both place the blowpipe in the crack and see to aim through it. It’s too important for just a guess.

  I very carefully slide further down the cladding, following the gap as it widens. I hold my breath, trying to make no sound at all.

  “How many stripes can you last? You know how to make this stop.” Her back to me, all of her attention is focussed on Hayes. She leans in close and whispers to him, “Just say the word.” She draws her blade across his arm again as I bring the pipe to my trembling lips. Her hair is still tied back on her head, providing the bare target I aim for. A second red streak grows as if by magic on his arm and the blood courses to his wrists like a river drawn to the sea.