by Frankie Rose
“You don’t think Ryka did the same thing?” James’ voice is deadly calm. He stares down at Caius and I have a terrible feeling that throwing knives are going to end this conversation, not words. “Ryka chose to travel from his home to break into your city on the hill in order to save you all. I think you all owe him a debt of thanks.”
Caius doesn’t look like he’s going to thank Ryka. He looks like he’s going to kill him. “If I recall correctly, it was you who guided us out, not Ryka. He didn’t do anything to help us.”
James thrusts a finger out, pointing at someone in the small crowd. I’m completely horrified when I realise he’s pointing straight at me. “Do you consider her one of yours?” he says. Two tiny lines form between Caius’ eyebrows—a frown that vanishes so quick I barely see it. But I do.
“Yes. Yes, Kit is one of ours.” The possessive tone in his voice isn’t lost on me. Ryka hears it, too, and looks away.
“When I was helping you, Ryka was busy risking his own life, staring down pretty poor odds of survival, in order to keep her safe. In order to save Luke. He chose to leave his home, knowing there was a very strong possibility he wasn’t going to come back, and he did that for her. For people he had never met before. We all did.”
Caius opens his mouth but no words come out. Instead of looking at James or Ryka, he looks straight at me. His eyes carry so much hurt in that moment that I can’t bear it. Gods, how do I fix all of this? How did we even get here in the first place?
“I’m just saying it would probably be smarter to have someone more competent in charge of this mess,” Caius breathes. He’s still staring at me. I hold both hands up to my neck, massaging at the tendons, trying to loosen the chokehold of my phantom halo—the one dead set on strangling me right now. Caius freezes, a horrified look on his face. His expression is enough to make my blood run cold. What on earth? Why is he reacting that way? And then I realise. The two tiny black lines on the undersides of my wrists—they’re on show. My kill in the pit. I drop my hands, pull my shirtsleeves down to cover the evidence of what I did.
“I can see why you would feel that way, Caius,” Ryka says softly. “I know I’m not qualified to protect anyone here. I know there are others who have given more, risked more, sacrificed more. I am eternally grateful to those people, but that doesn’t mean I won’t give my life to keep those I love safe, too.” Ryka’s message is clear as a bell. This isn’t a pissing contest, though. Ryka is sincere in his words, and Caius can hear it. He pulls back his shoulders and faces him.
“And what about your revenge? You said it yourself, your town’s faith won’t allow Lockdown’s actions to go unanswered for. That must mean you have other plans in the works, too.”
“I won’t lie. We are planning on an offensive against Lockdown.”
“Can you guarantee that your plans won’t endanger the lives of everyone here?”
Ryka surveys the room carefully. The ex-Falin, Theron and Élin of the Sanctuary gaze back at him. “No,” he says. “I can’t guarantee that.”
“But you’re going to hit out against them regardless? To put an end to the oppression of people like us. To claim revenge for all the people who have died at their hands. You’re willing to sacrifice your life for that cause?”
Ryka doesn’t flinch. “Blood will be answered with blood, Caius.”
Caius tucks his thumbs into his belt loops. They stare each other down for what feels like forever. Eventually, he gives Ryka one curt nod of his head. “Alright then. Blood will be answered with blood.”
******
“Kit?”
I’m asleep. It took hours to falls asleep. Hours. I’m not waking up for anybody now, not even Luke.
“Kit!” He digs me in my side, drawing me that little bit further from my hard-won rest.
“What is it?” I grumble.
“There are voices. Downstairs.”
There are voices all the time in this building no matter what time of day or night it is. Usually though, beyond the small room on the twentieth floor that Luke and I have claimed as our own, a silence reigns. We like it that way. We chose this distant location for that specific reason. I crack one eye open, because this somehow helps me listen. That’s when I notice Luke is balled up in the corner of the room, his arms wrapped around his knees. He’s freaking out.
“Hey! Hey, what’s going on?”
“I just…I can hear shouting,” he mumbles. He pulls his knees up closer to his chin, his wide eyes staring up at me in the dark. I take a second and I can hear voices, too. Not shouting, though.
“It’s okay, Luke. People are laughing.” He shakes his head, but he doesn’t say anything. I crawl out of my cot, dragging the moth-eaten blanket I’ve been using to keep warm with me. I sit down beside him and thread my arm around his shoulders, drawing him close. “You know nothing bad is going to happen, right?”
“You don’t know that.” His voice is small, a whisper. It makes me feel helpless, because he’s right. I can’t make promises to him. Not ones that will remove his fear altogether anyway.
“If anything does happen, I’ll be right by your side, Luke, okay? I’ll never leave you alone, I promise.” He leans into me and his head nods up and down against my cheek. His hair is growing out, a lot longer than it was when Ryka carried him out of the Sanctuary. It makes him look so much younger now that he doesn’t have a shaved head. He’s just a kid. There are only a few years between us but right now that difference feels like a vast ocean.
“My heart feels strange,” Luke mutters. He holds his hand over his chest and his whole body is tensed. I pull his hand away and hold it in mine.
“Don’t worry about that. It’s going to be fine. Just remember what Ryka said. Just think about us, me and you. Nothing’s going to hurt you. We’re in control. We keep each other safe.”
“It’s not the same, Kit.”
My hand tightens around his. If only I could hold him tight enough to make him believe I’ve got him. “Why isn’t it the same?”
“It just isn’t,” he says. He won’t put it into words, but I already know. It isn’t the same because Ryka isn’t here. After twenty minutes, Luke’s breathing evens out into a slow and steady draw, and I somehow manage to lift him into his bed. The voices downstairs have been increasing since I woke, and now it seems as though quite a crowd is gathering somewhere. There’s little chance I’m going back to sleep now, so I slip quietly out of the room and carefully tread barefoot down cold concrete steps. In the corridor on level nineteen, I see something that makes my heart swell.
Melody.
Her eyes find me at the same time, and then we’re pushing and shoving through bodies, trying to get to one another.
“What are you doing here? When? How?”
She laughs softly, but the haunted look she carries with her detracts from it. “We arrived about an hour ago. Jack sent a group of us together yesterday. It took us two days to find this place.”
Maybe not everyone in Freetown is as at home in the forest as I once thought. “Who else is with you?” I look over her shoulder and see at least twenty faces I recognise if not know, and amongst them is James. His face is serious as ever. He listens to a huge man, who talks with his hands as much as his mouth. I know him, know the tips of the tattoos that poke out of his short-sleeved shirt. His name is Lettin Corr, the fighter who tried to save me from falling into the pit. That seems like such a long time ago, when really it is only a matter of weeks. He turns and smiles at me as he talks, and his face is so badly swollen and bruised down one side that I almost gasp.
“Mostly women and children,” Melody says. “Jack wanted to get the most vulnerable people out of Freetown as quickly as possible. My father forced me to come. I fought him on it, there’s so much to do, but he wouldn’t listen.” Her bells chime as she leans and looks around me, her smile developing a little more. “At least now I get to be with my friends, I suppose.” She squeezes my arm and reaches out for another—Callum has jo
ined us. The smile on his face is more genuine than any I have seen over the past few days.
“Hey, Mel. Missed you,” he says. She lets me go and flings her arms around his neck. I flex my naked feet against the dusty, cold concrete while they cling to each other. I’m still no good at this. I don’t know if I ever will be. I catch Caius across the other side of the room watching us, and the angry mask he’s been wearing over the past few days seems to fracture a little. He gives me a half-hearted smile, one corner of his mouth tugging upwards, and I return it. I’m full to brimming over with memories when I look at him. Every day of my life, I have been in some form of contact with him. We taught each other and learned together and grew into new bodies, which was a strange time for us. The two of us always felt so strong, inside and out, but those few years where we changed from children into this in between state, not quite adults but no longer juvenile either, they were hard. Confusing. Halos can only do so much during that time, because the human body is so full of hormones. We challenged each other not to feel anything, to conquer our bodies, and for the most part we won. And now look at us.
“What’s up with Ryka?” Melody says. Her words break my concentration. Ryka stands off to one side, arms locked and rigid by his side. He’s staring at Caius, wearing an expression so devoid of any feeling that he could pass as one of the halo’d masses with ease. Or, that is, I think he would until he turns to look at me. His eyes hold more emotion than I’ve ever seen before. They’re screaming at me, filled with anger. My skin flames, stinging across my cheeks, and my eyes start pricking.
“I have to go.” I can’t be here, can’t do this. I weave my way through the groups who have just arrived, ignoring their smiles or irritated looks. When I reach the corridor, I have the strongest urge to run. I can’t stop myself. I charge at the stairs and I start running, upwards, around and around. Twenty-eight, where I train my students, is the highest level I have visited thus far. I burn past the faded-out blue and white sign, scuffed with age, that reads twenty-eight, and then I burn past twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two… I stop counting after I pass forty-five. My thighs are screaming, my heart pounding, by the time I can’t go up any more. A dinted steel doorway bars my way, but I kick it and it flies open, smacking into brickwork on the other side of the wall. The roof. I’ve climbed all the way up to the roof. The city is a black maze at my feet. A maze with streets and alleyways and obstacles that lie unseen in the dark. I can’t see much, but the sprawling sense of vastness is undeniable. It feels as though I am the very centre of a wheel, and there are spokes spinning around me with a dizzying speed. All I want is to not be the centre of the wheel anymore. For the spokes to stop damn spinning.
A warm breeze runs its fingers through my hair, teasing at my clothing, gently pushing and pulling at me. I walk to the edge of the roof and notice scuff marks on the stone ledge, two long, thin lines that could only have been created by someone leaning against it. The stand of a rifle? A scraping sound sends adrenalin shooting through my muscles, and I freeze. I scan the dark corners of the rooftop, my eyes adjusting rapidly to the dark, and I find the source of the noise. A small bundle of dark shadow, tucked up against the wall.
“Am I not supposed to be up here?” a voice asks. It’s quiet, timid. Sad. I recognise the voice from those qualities alone.
“Simone?” The bundle shifts slightly and becomes a girl. Her boots make another scraping sound as she stretches out her legs a little.
“I just needed some air. Some quiet,” she tells me. “I’m sorry. I’ll go back down now.”
“No. No, it’s okay. You can be here. I…I needed some air, too.”
I sit down on the peeling rubbery carpet that covers the rooftop, leaving a good three metres between Simone and me. I immediately regret sitting. What am I supposed to say to the girl? We aren’t exactly friends. We barely know each other at all. Thankfully Simone does the talking for me.
“It wasn’t supposed to be this way, you know. I was supposed to marry Max and we were going to have the best life together. I’d wanted him since I was old enough to want anyone at all, but he was always with Olivia. I’m not stupid, y’know,” she sighs softly. “I know how he felt. He told me as much the day of our Claiming, but I thought…I knew if he just spent some time with me, he would eventually feel something for me.” Her eyes shine softly as she finally looks at me, and the instant our gazes lock, all of my problems seem incredibly small. I feel wretched. “And then he goes off to the Sanctuary days after we’re Claimed, and I don’t get that opportunity. I don’t get to share a life with him. I don’t get to show him that I can be…”
She trails off as tears streak down her face. Once more I’m trapped, unsure of what to do. Am I supposed to hug her or let her cry silently in peace? She sniffles and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “I know you’re Olivia’s friend. You probably couldn’t care less about how things have turned out for me. But I want you to know, I hurt for her, too. I know what the priestesses made her do. That she had to go up there and see him, see his body when they were setting him alight. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make myself. At least I get to mourn, though. Olivia can’t even do that, and for that I’m sorry.”
Simone obviously heard about the priestesses punishing Olivia for showing signs of emotion when Max was laid out. The memory makes me ball my fists.
“Olivia chose her path,” I tell her. “I have to believe that she still feels it’s the right path for her, regardless of the things she can no longer do or feel.” I do have to believe that; to believe otherwise is dangerous. Even the idea of her unhappy in the Keep destroys me. “And I know Max was happy with you, Simone. I know he wanted to do right by you.” I don’t mention our conversation in the forest before we reached the Sanctuary—the one where he told me how torn up he was that Olivia chose the Keep over him. That would be unkind. Simone sniffs again, eyes finding me in the dark.
“He said that?”
I nod. “I know he never meant to do this to you. He would never have wanted this life for you.”
“Ah, but fighters are only good for two things, girl. Spilling blood and creating widows.” I hadn’t heard anyone approach, and James is as stealthy as ever. Simone yelps at the sound of his voice. He emerges through the doorway and stalks toward us, carrying a dim electric torch. Goodness knows where he found it. His tall, broad frame towers over us for a second—what the hell is he doing? I’m stunned by his next action. He sinks down beside Simone and wraps his arm around her shoulders. She melts into him like it’s the most normal thing in the world. It takes everything I have not to gape at him with my mouth hanging open.
“Fighters’ lives are sacrifice, cousin,” Simone says. “Their deaths aren’t meaningless.”
“I didn’t say Max’s death was meaningless. He died saving two lives.” There’s a soft quality to James’ tone that I haven’t heard before. He stares straight at me as he brushes his hand maybe a little too roughly up and down Simone’s arm. I never thought I would witness this, witness James comforting someone, and yet it’s happening right before my eyes. I get to my feet and rub my thumbs over my knives. I don’t say anything to either of them. I’m too stunned to even process this properly. I just leave.
Ryka and James don’t waste any time. First thing in the morning, the fighters that arrived from Freetown in the night are divided into teams and sent to scout out the city. Their task is to find rooftops that can be used as watchtowers, with a secondary goal of locating structures stable enough to house Freetown’s relocated populous. My class has tripled in size when I arrive in the morning. Thankfully Callum has shown up again—I breathe a sigh of relief, but the oxygen sticks in my throat when I notice the figure standing beside him. Caius beelines for me when I step foot onto the training room floor.
“I’m not here to cause problems,’” he says. “Ryka just thought you might need an extra pair of hands.”
Ryka thought I would? I frown. “I thought your job was u
p on the roof. I hear you have a keen eye for shooting things.”
“Of course I do. My aim is deadly.” Caius grins. He grins, and a wave of panic tears through me. This is the first time I have seen him smile properly, ever. The first time he has really and truly meant it. He mistakes the look on my face and shoves me with his elbow. “Don’t be like that. I’m sure you would be too if you gave it a go.”
I feel heat on the side of my face and I catch Penny glaring at me. Caius sees her too and makes a tsking sound. “You’ve inspired my half sister to train doubly hard. I guess I should be thanking you or something.”
The girl looks like she wants to kill me. I don’t blame her. Her brother is being nice to me and I’m calculating how best to run away and hide from him forever.
“Anyway, Luke is up there with Opa today. The old man is watching him.”
“What?” I forget Penny and her death stare. “Did you give him a rifle?”
Caius shrugs. “That’s kind of the whole point, Kit. If he didn’t have a rifle, there wouldn’t be much point in sitting up there looking for Sanctuary guards, would there?”
Images of Luke somehow managing to shoot himself with a rifle flitter through my head. I judder at the prospect, and Caius smirks. “Come on, Kit. He’s a smart kid. He’s careful with all his weapons, he respects what they’re capable of and treats them accordingly. We taught him that, remember?”
We really did, when he was so tiny my mother could still pick him up and carry him around on her hip. “You’re right. I’m being silly.”
Being around Caius and not arguing with him is new. It feels, well, it kind of feels normal. I’m not nervous or on edge around him. If anything I can almost forget he’s there. I start the lesson, and the whole thing flows a little better with him close by. After all, this environment is one I’m used to sharing with him. It was just him, me and a training room for the longest time.