Unworthy: Marked to die. Raised to survive.

by Joanne Armstrong

  Although the hands that pin my elbows to my backpack are rough and unkind, I’m grateful for them. They are all that stand between me and the knife-toting madwoman who is desperate to cut me.

  “Don’t look so smug,” she sneers in my face. “Your luck won’t hold forever.” She places a splayed hand on my chest and gives me a sharp shove, sending me off balance and into my captor. He twists me firmly to the side and applies a band to my wrists that immediately tightens, giving no slack. He starts me moving from the alleyway. A glance over my shoulder tells me that the tracker is directly behind me, followed by Alex and the two other guards.

  I only catch a glimpse of his face, but it looks grim. He hasn’t said a word since the three soldiers showed up, and I don’t know whether to find comfort in this or to despair. Is he silent because he sees this turn of events as positive, or simply because he is powerless?

  The soldiers march us from the alleyway and along the busy road. I vaguely notice vans, trucks and many motorbikes. I receive suspicious looks which border on hostility from anyone we pass, either in Polis or Firstborn uniform, and drop my eyes to the pavement. After that I concentrate on putting one boot in front of the other. The last thing I want to do is stumble and give my guard an excuse to be rough.

  The walk isn’t far. We stop outside a long, low building with a flat grey exterior and a flat roof. It has the same feel as the guard post at the Perimeter, the look of a bunker, but this one is much larger. At the entrance, the first soldier explains they have two prisoners, then each of them turn and look directly into a screen on our right, and the monstrous piece of wrought iron barring our way slides back.

  In the dimly lit hallway I am steered to the left and then down a flight of stairs to a lower level. I hear more steps behind me and although I don’t dare twist my head to look, I know that Alex is still there. The temperature drops and an earthy smell fills my nostrils. I realise with a feeling of dread that we are being taken underground. The passageway is narrow and only just allows for the height of a man. We are passing door after metal door, one after another, and I feel the cold sensation of fear starting to wash over me. Lighting is supplied by electric domes set into the wall every few metres. It’s not enough. The passage is dank and creepy.

  Ahead of me I make out another soldier. She holds open one of the thick metal doors. When we reach her, my captor turns me without a word. I feel the female soldier’s hands at my wrists and the binder is gone from them. She roughly removes my backpack from my shoulders and my arm twists painfully. The one who brought me from the alleyway is in front of me, and he reaches up to take a few hairs from my head. He yanks them away from my scalp and the shock makes me cry out. I put my fingers above my ear where the pain is smarting and look into his eyes. I see nothing there but disinterest.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  He spins me round and shoves me forward, and I stumble into the dimness of a tiny cell with grey concrete walls and a solid concrete floor. It’s so narrow it feels like being entombed. I feel Alex pushed in after me, and when I turn I hear the door clang shut and the sound of a heavy bolt drawn across on the other side.

  This far underground the only light comes from a naked bulb glowing dimly on its cord above us.

  I lean my forehead against the roughness of the concrete and close my eyes. I press my palms against its coolness and feel the shaking begin, starting in my hands and spreading up my arms. Panic. I press on the wall harder, willing myself to control it.

  “Breathe out,” Alex says, a voice at my shoulder. “Five times.” I don’t open my eyes, but I try to comply, forcing air through my constricted throat. He counts for me, and by the time I’ve reached five I do feel calmer. I open my eyes and look at him.

  His face is drained of all colour, a stark contrast to his dark features. Despite this, his pale eyes regard mine steadily. An unflinching gaze is something I have come to expect from him, but this time it is far from unfeeling. He regards me softly, with so much emotion in his eyes that I hardly know where to look. A face that until now I have only seen guarded, seems to be laid bare, naked without its defences.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers, his head shaking but his eyes not leaving my face, imploring me to forgive him. They glisten only a few inches from mine, and I notice for the first time that they aren’t colourless at all. A ring of gold circles his pupils; a sunburst breaking through a grey dawn.

  I blink and remember where I am. He makes a tiny movement towards me, and his hand reaches hesitantly towards mine. Before I’ve even thought about it, I’ve closed the gap and buried my face in his chest. I feel his arms wrap themselves across my back, pressing me tightly against him.

  His hand moves to my head, cradling it against his shoulder, and I feel a stillness settle on both of us. I inhale the smell of him through the cotton of his T-shirt, and it pushes back the dankness of the concrete cell. My palm pressed against his shirt, I can feel his heart thudding, reassuringly steady. As I cling to him, I sense him gaining strength from the embrace too.

  “I’m so sorry, Arcadia,” he repeats. “I’ve done a terrible job of protecting you,” he mumbles into my hair, the despair in his voice plain. “It’s my fault you’re in here. You shouldn’t be here. I should have taken you straight to the General. I should have known that Elyssa wouldn’t just slink back home with her tail between her legs. I should have killed her when I had the chance -” The words tumble out.

  I push away from his embrace and place my fingertip gently on his lips, silencing the flow of regrets. In his astonishment he stops speaking, frozen in place. I wonder whether I have overstepped the mark when he draws my hand away and fear floods in to fill the gap along with coolness where his body heat warmed me only a moment before. I look down and swallow, but he forces my eyes back to his when he traces his thumb along my jawbone. I see his intention clearly written there. The other hand in my hair, he bends to kiss me and my stomach somersaults. The kiss is soft, and I find myself beginning to tremble all over.

  “You’re cold,” he whispers, pulling himself away from me and removing his jacket.

  I shake my head, mainly in denial but also to clear the fuzziness which has crept into it in the last few moments. “I’m okay,” I say, but my teeth chatter and I clamp my jaw shut.

  “You’re not very convincing,” he says, and makes me put it on. His eyes don’t meet mine and the tension in his jaw betrays his uneasiness about the kiss.

  The moment has passed and I feel a confusing mix of relief and disappointment. Relief because I have more important issues to deal with right now, but the truth is that all I want to do is feel his touch again.

  My trembling knees threaten to give way. I slide down the wall and he sits opposite me, so close that our bent legs are touching. We sit for a moment in silence. I try to ignore the tingle I feel in my left calf, resting casually against his. Bringing my mind back to where we are and why we are here helps me to focus.

  “What will they do with me?”

  He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

  “A hubbite in the Polis? It’s not allowed. Ever. When they run your DNA and find you are neither Firstborn nor Pureborn, there will be no questions asked and no trial offered. You’ll be executed immediately.”

  He’s definitely the same Polis soldier who picked me up five days ago, kiss or no kiss. I find that this irritates me. I realise that I was expecting, or at least hoping for, tenderness from him, and have only myself to blame.

  “Well, don’t sugar-coat it for my sake,” I mutter. I find it curious that his delivery of my situation is what bothers me, more than my fate.

  He is quiet, considering his answer carefully. He then picks up my hand, and intertwines his fingers with mine. As angry as I am trying to be with him, my stomach betrays me by performing flips again.

  “Arcadia, from the moment I met you I have had this crazy urge to burst the bubble in which you live and drag you into reality - into my world. It’s unforgiveable
of me and I owe you an apology.”

  “You’re apologising to me for being honest?”

  “I suppose I am. If I lived in a world with a rosy sky and a hopeful future, I think I’d want to stay wrapped in it forever.”

  A derisive noise escapes my throat. He can’t believe my world had a rosy sky? “You sound jealous.”

  He shrugs and a lopsided smile plays on his lips, to match mine, and just like that I find myself enfolded in the caress of his eyes again.

  “Maybe jealousy isn’t the word exactly - but I won’t pretend I haven’t wondered what it would be like to live as a hubbite without knowing the truth, sheltered from reality. Ignorant bliss.”

  “Bliss,” I echo in wonder, but I’m smiling. I can’t help it. “Believe me, my life was far from blissful. Perhaps the other hubbites though…” I think about them for a second and experience a twinge of the emotion he’s just described. A hint of jealousy for what seems to be an easy life drifts through my thoughts and I feel the pull of its appeal. Then I shake my head. “No, Alex,” I say. “Don’t apologise for taking the blindfold away. I’ll always choose truth over a façade, every time.”

  He tips his head in acknowledgement, and I’m relieved to notice that the wall hasn’t returned behind his eyes. I suddenly realise that I’ve not wondered about him.

  “What will happen to you?”

  “The truth?” He is keeping the conversation light, and I cling to his levity just as I clung to his embrace when we first entered the cell.

  “No sugar-coating.” I look him straight in the eye.

  “The General was very clear about that. It will depend on how much he wants to bend the rules for me, but he is always true to his word.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he’d have me branded a deserter if I was discovered out of the City.”

  “You’re not out of the City,” I point out.

  “Exactly. It depends on how much he wants me alive.”

  It takes a moment for this to truly sink in. “It can’t be that bad. You’re his son…”

  “Oh believe me, it’s that bad,” he interjects.

  “Maybe he just doesn’t know how to show his affection for you…” my voice peters out at the expression on his face, and I know I’m grasping at straws. His own father sent him on a solitary mission likely to result in death or exile. Even now, one word from the General would exonerate his son, but Alex seems pretty sure that he’d not intervene. What kind of a man would treat his son like this?

  “We’re in the Polis now, Arcadia. There are things that matter here way more than love or family.”

  I change tack. “Alright, think as a soldier then. From his point of view, I mean,” I add, realising my mistake when I see him raise an eyebrow. Did I just forget that he’s a soldier? “What would make you more valuable to him alive?”

  “Information, usefulness, purpose,” he sighs. “It doesn’t matter, Arcadia. There is nothing we can do now. Your fate rests in the hands of the ranking officer of this post, mine with my father. Please - don’t worry about me. I just want to switch off for a second; not to think about it.”

  I know exactly what he means. It’s very tempting to shut the world out and let tomorrow look after itself. I feel the restriction of the small narrow cell, the extent of my realm of control. Outside the concrete walls, outside the metal door, my fate is being decided and I have no way to alter it. This thought threatens to wash over me, the feeling of panic once again rising and constricting my throat, but instead I close my eyes and take a slow controlled breath. I focus on the tiny cupboard space as it would appear on Alex’s monitor, with two shapes of warm human life close together as though joined.

  In the here and now, I’m alright. It’s what is to come that makes me want to panic.

  “How long will it take to read the samples?”

  “Mine will be easy. There will be all sorts of information on file for me. Yours, I’d imagine, will take longer. They will have to run it against many different databases to make sure they have no match for you.”

  “But how long?”

  He has my fingers in his, and is gently rubbing the back of my hand with his thumb. “The truth is I don’t know why it’s taken this long. The longest test I’ve seen took less than ten minutes.”

  Ten minutes… it’s been at least half an hour. What’s taking so long?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I’ve been dozing. The faint sound of a rhythmic thudding outside the cell makes me jerk my head up. Footsteps. They keep moving, and the sound recedes.

  I’m on the floor of the cell, leaning against Alex’s chest, his arms round me like a warm shield. He sits with his back against the wall and one knee bent behind me.

  “They’ve gone,” he murmurs. My shoulders relax again, and I want to burrow back into the warm space under his chin which felt so secure. I brush my fingertips over the hollow of his throat where the T-shirt ends and inhale the scent of him.

  “Are you sniffing me?” he asks. I can hear, rather than see, his smile. He gently pushes me away. “Come on, I smell like sweat and horse and no bath.” He rubs his jaw roughly and grimaces. He hates the week-long growth.

  “There’s nothing wrong with sweat and horse. I smell like sweat and horse.”

  He pretends to sniff me near my ear. “Yes you do,” he says, in mock surprise. I feel his breath on my neck when he speaks and a tingle runs through my skin. “So you need a bath too.”

  I swallow. The thought of a bath has taken my thoughts in a new direction, and I have to remind myself that I’m unlikely to see another sunset, much less have the chance to wash.

  I feel him lean his head back against the wall above me, and although his arms still hold me, I sense a change in his mood, a slight distancing. Perhaps that was a little too much for either of us.

  “When you were feverish by the river, you said some things,” I begin, moving us onto less rocky ground. “You said that you were a tracker.”

  He doesn’t move, but I feel his shoulders stiffen slightly. “I was a tracker,” he repeats.

  He continues to stare up at the ceiling, where the bulb flickers. I move back from him, releasing his arms from the protective embrace. I run my hands down his arm until my fingers find his wrist. I wrap my hands around it like a cuff.

  “It’s not something I’m proud of,” he says quietly.

  “What would make you want to… do that?” I ask, dropping the wrist but lacing my fingers with his. Our tenuous link is still so new, and it seems strengthened by contact.

  He takes a deep breath. “It was years ago. I graduated basic training and was put into the tracking section. Yu know what happens, and, well, I did my job. Afterwards all I felt was guilt. Deep, festering guilt at what I had done. And when I received the next assignment, the next one to track down, I knew I couldn’t do it. So,” he shrugs. “I saw only one way out.” I look away, feeling his confusion and his pain, and he adds defensively, “I know it was stupid, and selfish. I was in a bad place.”

  “I’m not judging you,” I say, amazed he could think it. “I’m not blaming you. I just wish you hadn’t been put in such a desperate position. How did you… survive?”

  “My mother found me bleeding all over the bathroom floor. Stitched me up. And I woke up alive. She told me that it had never happened, and no-one would ever know. The main thing was not embarrassing the family; especially my father. But that I’d need to be reprimanded, so she made up some story about me sneaking out of the barracks to visit some Firstborn girl.”

  “She had you punished?”

  “She was right to. What I tried to do… it was the coward’s way. But she also made sure I didn’t have to track again. I think she knew that I’d disappear for good if I was made to.”

  I slowly shake my head at him, eyes filling with compassion. I can visualize the Captain Alex Hayes who turned up at my pod, but this image is at odds with the man I now see. I realise that the person I m
et five days ago is a façade; a very strong one, built by years of submission and training. And this version I’m sitting with now, warming me with his honesty and his physicality… this one is a whole new Alex. He’s a bundle of contradictions.

  I get the feeling that he’s still disturbed by the vulnerability revealed when he tried to take his own life. Although the scars on his wrists are well mended, I realise that there is more to his healing than the visible marks. The way his parents dealt with the incident is far from resolved.

  “Some scars are worn on the inside,” I say quietly, and he finally tips his head forward to meet my gaze. His jaw is tense, his eyes full of pain. He blinks in acknowledgement, but I can also see that he’s greatly uncomfortable with the topic.

  “So, this Firstborn girl you were meant to have been seeing…” I say, tipping my head to the side and smiling at him.

  The tension is released and he also smiles. “You do realise this was nearly three years ago? And that she was non-existent - a figment of my mother’s creative imagination?”

  “But you were punished for seeing her? Because she was Firstborn?”

  He nods. “My mother wanted me beaten but obviously didn’t want my father to know what I’d actually done, so she chose something he’d be absolutely livid about, without quite the same dishonour.”

  “What was the punishment?”

  “Public whipping. My father got to deliver the blows, and to choose the number. He was pretty fired up; I don’t think I’d ever seen him lose his cool before.”

  What is it with the Polis and whipping?

  I shudder at the thought, and an image of the criss-crossing scars on his back returns to my mind. “Is there a law against Polisborn and Firstborn relationships? In the hub the soldiers only showed a passing interest in us, but I thought it was just because they disliked us so much.”

  “They can’t marry, that’s against the law. Some Polisborn have Firstborn as special companions, and it’s pretty much ignored. But the General finds it a repulsive idea and he’s never made a secret of that. My mother taught us from very young never to look at a Firstborn like that, ever. It would never be acceptable in our house.”