by Gwen Cole
Something touches my back and I flinch, but it’s just Torreck coming up behind me. He chuckles in my ear and runs a finger down my back again. “By the end of this, you will call me sir. I won’t stop until you do.”
He backs away, snapping the whip to get a reaction out of me. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction—I can’t. The crowd and prisoners now watch silently from behind the bars. I wait for it to come, and when it does, it’s not like anything I’ve ever felt.
I stifle a scream and clench my jaw shut, pain coursing through every inch of me. Another one comes—I can’t feel my hands and the metal digs deeper. If I didn’t know better, I swear my back had been lit on fire. The leather slashes my skin with every stroke, and sweat already drips into my eyes.
Again and again. To the point where I can’t take a breath.
“Have you had enough?” Torreck yells, waiting for me to say that word.
I only manage to say, “No,” before my jaw trembles and I have to force it shut. The people in the crowd shift and whisper, probably thinking they didn’t hear right.
“So be it,” Torreck says.
I hear him pull the whip back again, but that’s when someone calls his name. I close my eyes and pray that will be the last of it.
“May I ask what you’re doing?” the voice asks.
“My job.”
“Torreck, can I have a word?”
He mutters a curse and walks away. The crowd sees something, or someone—I don’t—because they whisper and point to an area I can’t see. A thin trail of blood runs down my arm from one of my wrists. Before I hear them, a pair of Lawmen come up beside me and lift my hands off the hook. As they unlock the cuffs, I lean against the post, unable to feel my legs.
I can’t feel anything. My skin is ice except for the fire on my back, and everything else is numb.
The soldiers lead me away, holding my upper arms and supporting most of my weight. They take me toward Torreck and the other man he’s talking to—the one who stopped this from going any further. He’s older with graying hair. His clothes are clean and unwrinkled, so different from what I’ve ever seen.
He’s the Sheriff—the one I keep hearing about—I know he is. The one who’s really in charge.
The soldiers drop me to my knees before him and I don’t have the strength to try and stand.
“This is the one Hatch brought in?” the Sheriff asks, looking down.
Torreck nods. “This is him.”
The Sheriff sighs. “Well, he’s useless to me like this. Take him to the cellar—I’ll send someone to fix him up.” Then he looks to Torreck and says, “Come up to my office. We need to talk.”
The Sheriff walks off, but before Torreck turns, he takes another look at me. I see something in his eyes that I’ve seen too many times to count—he wants to kill me. They take me inside. This time I don’t have a chance to look at the sky for the last time.
The cellar is what they call the level underground, where a hall of old cells have been forgotten. People walk somewhere overhead, unaware I’m underneath them, even if I were to yell out.
It’s dark here except for a window somewhere down the hall, but it’s clean. Dust covers everything except for the room I’m in and it doesn’t smell. It’s the only one with a bed and bucket if I find myself needing to piss.
But the only thing I can do right now is lie on my stomach and let my eyes tear up every time I move. I can’t even worry about the walls seeming to close in around me with every minute. The pain is too much of a distraction. The Lawmen pushed me in this room and left, laughing to themselves as I struggled to the bed on my own.
What feels like an hour later, the door at the top of the stairs opens and lets in light. The stairs creak with someone’s weight as they come down.
Footsteps come closer until Marshall stands on the other side of the bars. He wears a plain shirt and carries a lantern in one hand and a bag in the other.
Down here, without the white band or jacket, I could almost forget he’s a soldier.
“If I knew what happened, I would’ve come sooner,” he says, “but they only just told me.”
He puts the bag down to unlock the door and leaves it open as he joins me inside. After setting the light on the small table, he bends over my back. His fingers touch something tender and I suck in a breath.
“Well, at least this time I don’t have to reopen the wound to clean it, right?”
It’s meant to be a joke, but I can’t laugh.
“Thanks for coming,” I tell him, my voice hoarse.
Marshall nods, looking down. “Of course.” He sits on the edge of the bed. “Besides, if anyone else were to see you, you wouldn’t be on your feet by tomorrow.”
I close my eyes and relax my back. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard all day. You’ve made something amazing … you know that, right?”
“Guess we’ll find out.”
Marshall starts applying his healing paste to my back. It’s so quiet down here—somewhere down the hall, water drips every minute or so, and mice scurry in the next cell.
After a while, I ask, “Why did you join them?”
His fingers pause for the shortest of moments before he answers. “Because I didn’t have any other option. I was raised by my mother and she died when I turned sixteen. I couldn’t find work and I found myself without a home or food to eat. The only thing I could do was become a soldier.”
I can’t say anything against that. People have to do whatever they can to survive, even if that means giving up your freedom. I couldn’t stand for it, though.
Marshall moves down my back, working in silence until I think of something I need an answer for. “Can I ask you another question?”
“If I can answer it.”
I hesitate because it’s going to sound stupid to him. “What does the cloth around my wrist mean to these people?”
Marshall stops, this time completely. “You mean you don’t know?”
I shake my head once and put my chin on my arm.
“It’s not just here, but this is where it started. That piece of cloth represents … well, it represents everything this place doesn’t. Freedom and the old laws where it wasn’t okay going around killing people. When the Sheriff started this place, he was in complete power. Nobody could stand up to him out of fear of losing their lives. So when a few of his soldiers rebelled, they left and started a new settlement to the south. Now it’s not safe here for anyone who wears a red band. He’s scared of everyone else leaving, too, or maybe revolting.”
“So they think I’m one of them,” I say.
“Does this mean you aren’t?” He continues on my back, fingers gentle.
“No, it was my father’s. But I don’t know if it’s coincidence, or if he really was a part of that. He never told me if he was.”
Marshall stands and puts the paste back in his bag. “Well, I guess the decision is up to you then.”
“What decision?”
“About what side you’re on.” He pulls a shirt out of his bag—the same one they pulled off me. He puts it on the table near the lantern. “I’m going to have someone bring you food and I want you to eat it whether you’re hungry or not, and then I want you to sleep as long as you can. And try not to move much, at least until tomorrow.”
Marshall locks the door behind him, but before he walks away, I ask, “What side are you on?”
He pauses and looks back. “I don’t know.”
14.
Seph
I’m sitting on the bed when they come for me.
Three of them, all wearing white bands around their biceps and guns in their holsters.
I’ve been down here two days, and they’ve finally come for me.
Two days of sleeping and a full stomach has put me in a position I haven’t been in since before Hatch found me. I’ve regained my strength, my mind is sharp again, and the scars on my back feel like they’ve been there for years.
I don’t move to get up. My elb
ows rest on my knees and I rub a finger over the cloth around my wrist. I’ve thought a lot about it during the time I’ve spent down here—it was the only thing I could do to keep my mind off the walls pressing in around me and the lack of air.
Without Cade here to talk to, my mind wanders more freely.
The three Lawmen stop before my cell, then they move aside to let a fourth through. I look up to see Torreck. His hat makes even darker shadows than before, eyes sharp under the brim.
“Give me a minute with him,” he says. The soldiers walk away and he waits until they’re out of earshot. “We don’t get many of your kind here. If it were up to me, you’d be dead already.”
“I guess I should be glad it’s not up to you.”
He half smiles and steps closer to the bars, looking down on me. “I don’t know what the Sheriff will decide to do to you, but if we ever cross paths again, it’ll end on my terms.”
I stand and meet him at the bars. “If we ever meet again, make sure you have a gun.”
If the bars weren’t between us, I’m sure he would be strangling me right now. He doesn’t hide his emotions well.
A soldier comes up behind him. “Sir, we shouldn’t keep him waiting,” the Lawman says.
Torreck turns without another word to me and walks away. “Take him up.”
They pull me from the cell and walk upstairs with me between them. Each one with one hand on his gun. Because there’s nowhere for me to run, they don’t bother with handcuffs. We walk up two flights of stairs until they lead me down a different wing—one a little offset from the cell blocks. We come to a hallway with windows lining the left side. While others would look down at the city and people below, the only thing my eyes find is the sky.
I stare up at it until it’s gone, and we move through a set of doors. The Sheriff sits behind a large desk, the window behind him covered with an old set of drapes. A sliver of light shines through, making a dull line across his desk.
They push me down in the chair before him and leave, the door slamming shut behind them. But they’re still out there—waiting for the word if I do something stupid.
“I see you’re on your feet again,” the Sheriff says, “no doubt because of Marshall. Things have certainly changed with him here.”
“Can we cut to the chase?” I ask. “I’m not one to have small talk with people who keep me prisoner.”
The Sheriff smiles—an unpleasant thing I wish never to see again. “That’s actually what I wanted to discuss with you.” He leans forward, elbows on the desk. “Hatch tells me you claim to be an outlaw—one of those wanderers who never survives for long. But you wear a red cloth, so what are you really? A spy? Here to steal more people from me?”
“I don’t have a home, if that’s what you mean. I know you won’t believe me, but the red cloth is merely a coincidence.”
The man stares at me a long time, his jaw clenching and unclenching. “I’m going to ask you something, and if you lie to me, I will have you killed. I won’t think twice about it, because without answers, you are nothing to me.” Then he asks, “Do you wander because you’re looking for it?”
I repeat the question in my head, not understanding. I don’t know if I’m looking for anything. The ocean maybe, but I know where it is. I just need to get there.
“Am I looking for what?” I finally ask.
“The sky.” That’s when I see something in his eyes—something I’ve seen in a lot of people I’ve met, and if I were to look into my own, I would probably find it there, too. The Wild puts it in everyone.
I nod toward the covered window. “The sky is out there. All you have to do is look up.” And I’m serious when I say it.
He stands, his hands pressing down on the desk. “I mean the real sky. The one hidden by the clouds that have plagued us all these years.” He leans forward. “Don’t you miss it?”
“I can’t miss something I’ve never had.”
Realizing what he said, he straightens, lowering his eyes. “Sometimes I forget how long it’s been. I’ve lost count how many years it’s been and how old I’ve come to be.” Then he says, more to himself than me, “It’s not natural.”
The Sheriff reminds me of men I meet on the road whose minds are set on one thing: finding the sky. They’re always looking up and always searching for something that cannot be found. It’s the only thing they live for. Countless times, I’ve come across people who’ve killed themselves—hanged from crossbeams or used their own weapon against themselves.
One man had a handwritten sign pinned to his jacket. It said, I couldn’t find it.
Too many cling to the past and don’t embrace what’s around them. Maybe it’s easier for me since I’ve never seen it.
When the Sheriff turns back to me, his expression reveals nothing of what just happened. Unlike Torreck, he’s become good at hiding what other people can’t seem to. “Well, I was hoping you would bring me better news, but even as it is, it doesn’t change my mind about your execution—”
“Wait—what?”
I rise from my chair, but soldiers have already come through the door, forcing my arms behind me.
“You can’t kill someone for doing nothing,” I say, fighting to keep my hands free. The Sheriff doesn’t look at me, like his papers are more important. “Look at me, you son of a bitch!”
He does—his eyes stone-cold. “You really didn’t think I would let you live, did you? I saw the way the prisoners and the people looked at you the other day. They saw someone who had enough courage to say no.”
“So you’re going to kill me for it?”
Without hesitation, he says, “Yes, I’m going to kill you for it. These people don’t need someone like you on a pedestal, thinking another way of life would suit them better. You aren’t the first to come here and have every eye on you from the start. I’m going to get rid of you like I did the rest of them. You know how?”
The cuffs snap around my wrists, rubbing against the scars already there.
“I make them disappear,” he says, stepping around his desk to come face-to-face with me. I struggle against the soldiers, hoping somehow I’ll be strong enough to break free. “They’ll never know your name, and in a few days’ time, they’ll forget you ever existed.” He nods to the soldiers. “Take him downstairs until morning.”
The Sheriff turns his back on me. They drag me from the room as I yell curses, even after the door is shut.
They take me deeper and deeper to a cell where I don’t exist and no one can hear me yelling.
15.
Seph
They come before dawn.
They drag me from the cell and cuff my hands in front. Horses wait in the prison yard—three of them. And waiting with them is Jeremiah and Marshall.
We ride through the city under dark clouds, the streets quiet with the morning haze. Nobody is out at this hour, and this is exactly what the Sheriff wants—for me to disappear. The gates are waiting open, and the soldiers nod to Jeremiah as we pass by.
Then we ride west. The horses toss their heads as they’re let loose, enjoying the small freedom as much as I am. I close my eyes to let the wind take me in—the smell of horse and dirt right there with it. Letting Cade loose on a flat stretch of ground is like flying. But with metal brushing my wrists and a strange horse beneath me, I’ve never felt more grounded.
We don’t ride for long—just enough time to let the day start and the crows stretch their wings far above us. We’ve stopped near the bottom of a large rise, where there’s no chance for witnesses and nobody to hear gunshots. Now that it’s come, I can’t keep my heart beating at a normal rhythm.
Instead of the Lawmen saving me like they did a few days ago, this time they’ll be the ones to kill me.
Jeremiah pulls me off the saddle and Marshall takes the horses away to tether them.
“To tell you the truth,” he says, leading me by the arm, “the Sheriff was going to ask Torreck to do this for him, but after I insisted, he
agreed.”
“Congratulations,” I say.
He stops me with a hand on my chest. “You’re a little smart-ass, you know that?”
“No, but thank you for telling me, Jeremiah. It’s been the highlight of my week.” I can’t make myself shut up again. I usually have the self-control to keep my mouth shut, but right now when it doesn’t matter, I can’t. So I ask, “Do you feel better telling people things so you appear smarter than you really are?”
He swings fast to land a blow to my jaw. I hit the ground on my elbows, tasting iron on my tongue. Then I realize I have nothing to lose at this point—there’s no reason for me to sit here and take it. I spin up, catching him in the stomach when he’s coming for me again. I start for him before he can recover, but Marshall comes up behind me, holding me back.
Jeremiah lets out a laugh and takes off his jacket. “This is going to be more satisfying than I thought,” he says. “Marshall, give him his hands.”
“Jeremiah—”
“The Sheriff said he wants him dead,” he says. “He never said how.”
Marshall hesitates behind me, but in the end, he frees me. He posts up against a large rock near the horses with a rifle loose in his hands. A sentry in case I decide to run.
“Have you ever been in a standoff, little wolf?” Jeremiah walks over to his horse and pulls out a holster and gun—my holster and gun. Without it at my hip, I feel bare.
“No, but I’ve seen it done,” I say.
I’m lying and I love it.
“That’s better than most, I suppose.” He stops a few feet away and takes out my gun, checking the cylinder for ammunition. He snaps it in place and returns it to its holster. Then he holds it out to me, grip first. “There’s one bullet,” he says, nodding over to Marshall. “If you decide to shoot me before it’s time, he’s going to take care of you himself. Understand?”
I take the gun while my heart skips beats. “I understand.”
This is my chance to live. Even if he might not know it yet.
I buckle the belt around my waist, where it sits unevenly on my hips—a familiar weight I never want to miss again. I check to see if the bullet is in place and return it to its holster. Jeremiah turns to face me fifty feet away, his stance wide.