What would happen, and there was no doubt now, when Ashton had to choose?
“Our Lancelot treads a dangerous ledge,” Riley’s lip curled as he spoke aloud my very thoughts. “How much can you truly trust him?”
“Mr. Wells is trying to find the truth. We both are.”
“Charlie, stop,” Ashton interrupted. “Do not tell him anything.”
“And so is Lizzie!” I shouted over Ashton. “I heard them talking and they both want to know.”
“If you truly believe that then you are more naïve than I thought,” Riley snapped. “Whoever finds out what is happening will rule the people, baby Blackburn. In this day, it is information and outrage that moves the masses. First, it was droves of scared survivors clamoring to feel secure again that enabled this crushing rule over them, and now it is the downtrodden laborers who scream for their piece of New Societies’ riches.”
“But if the end result is stopping…”
“Stopping?” Riley scolded. “I’m the only one who wants to stop this.” He strode around the bar toward me, leaning into my space as Ashton tensed. “Fear and panic, Charlie. They are powerful. Prove this sickness is a result of Defiance bombs and the populace will scream for their heads. Prove it is the something else…the vapors in the wasteland…anything else, and the Peaceful Union tightens its grip on everyone and everything in their reach.”
“Surely, it is in the best interest of everyone to stop this blight of monsters.” I looked to Ashton, whose glare offered no answers.
“The Order would use it to influence their own gain,” Riley continued. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Wells?”
“He twists the truth, Charlie,” Ashton muttered.
Confusion clouded my thoughts. Uncertainty tangled my tongue. I did not truly know Ashton’s mind or his intensions. I only knew that he was loyal and unmovable in his aim to serve his masters. I thought about what Lizzie said. That he and she differed on what was just and I found myself questioning every conversation, every altered attitude of Ashton’s. How he could turn from cavalier to callous in the same breath to persuade me to comply with his wishes. I’d known him for such a short time yet all he’d done since I met him was try to prevent me from getting the journal to Collodin.
My father, an honorable man my whole life, did not trust The Order. I believed, then, that neither should I. But I would not make the same mistake with Riley. I could not trust him either. His violence and abduction of us could attest to that.
“I claim allegiance to no one. Not The Order and not Defiance.” I covered my trembling lips with my fingers. “I—I was at a beautiful ball, and then all this ugliness started. I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know what you want from me. I only want my father back!” I collapsed into sobs.
Riley’s withering gaze stayed on me. He made no move to either comfort or confront me further.
A quick glance at Ashton’s raised brow told me he did not truly believe my display of waterworks, but he remained silent.
“Your father gave you no information?” Riley said finally. “Nothing to pass on to anyone?”
“Leave her alone,” Ashton growled. “She doesn’t know what her father discovered.”
“But you have an idea?” He turned to me and brandished the lorgnettes I’d altered. “The mind that did this is not a sniveling debutante.” He shook me by the arm. “Now, tell me what you know.”
“Stop,” Ashton shouted.
“Fine,” I yelled as I yanked from Riley’s grip. “My father found out something, but I don’t know what it is. It’s…it’s undecipherable.”
“What does that mean?” Riley snapped.
I wiped at my face angrily, my hands shaking as I adjusted the leather bodice and avoided Ashton’s gaze. “It means, the more you shake and scramble my brains the less likely you’ll find out.”
“This is not a game,” Riley said, his voice edge with steel as he flexed his mech-glove. “Lives are at stake.”
“I know that,” I said evenly. I was so tired. So scared. I was at my wit’s end. “My father’s life, in particular. I can’t do anything about these monsters until I get him back.”
“Monsters?” Riley bellowed, making me jump. “They are more than monsters. Just because you don’t sit next to them at the opera or at your fine dances doesn’t mean they matter less than your precious father.”
“But I need him to—”
“I need answers.” He didn’t let me finish; instead, he grabbed me by the shoulders, the anger pulsing as he glared at me. “What did your father discover?”
I shook, feeling the flare of pain from Riley’s mech-glove as he exerted pressure.
The guard with the lightning stick tightened his grip, his beady eyes on me, but I could not hand over the journal. Not to anyone but Collodin. I was sure of that.
Ashton watched me in silence, his gaze brushing my bodice where the journal remained hidden.
“I—I didn’t understand what he said,” I answered truthfully. “The security soldiers burst in and my father threw me out a window.”
“He what?” Riley blinked rapidly. “You want to test my resolve?” Riley’s face flared red and he yanked me toward him. “These monsters are not for you to bargain for your father.”
“Riley, don’t.” Ashton stepped forward, trying to stop him.
In an instant, the lawman was there with the lightning stick. The prod connected with Ashton’s chest delivering a jolt.
I screamed as his head whipped back, his body going rigid with the shock. “Stop, just stop.”
“I’ll show you what you allow to continue with your silence.” Riley took me by the elbow, propelling me across the floor.
Ashton slumped to his knees, his dark gaze finding mine as he looked up.
Riley pulled me to a barred door, heaved up the lock, and flung it open.
In the soft glow of an ambient lamp, the cage in the corner of the room shook violently.
I screamed, stumbling back, but Riley held me in place. Horror engulfed me as I took in the quivering limbs of the half-naked man. He snarled and lunged at the bars with pale, blue-tinged skin. The smell of rot and filth blasted from his mangled face as he gnashed his ruined teeth at me. An anguished wail tore from him as every muscle in his body convulsed, sending his jet black eyes rolling into his skull.
The floor tilted underneath my feet, the buzz in my ears overwhelming as I started to lose my grip on consciousness.
“Don’t faint,” Riley yelled, shaking my arm. “You look. Look at him and tell me you still want to keep silent. Something is doing this. Something is turning innocent men into this!”
“I—I don’t…” I couldn’t speak, my mouth working around words I could barely get out. “What…what is that?”
“A Trembler. There’s more every day and your father found out why. I don’t care about ancient orders or new-found rebellions. This is about real people; fathers and husbands, and…” Riley’s voice broke. “and friends. Forget about allegiance and promises, Miss Blackburn, and tell me what I need to know.”
“I—I never spoke with my father about any of this. Please!” Horrified and scared beyond all reason, I did not know who to trust. I only knew what I saw in front of me; a gnashing, writhing creature in pain. I looked back at Ashton, his anguished expression stripping me to the bone. He knew something. More than what he had told me.
“Do not say another word, Charlie,” Ashton breathed.
“Ash?” The look on his face made my blood run cold. He did not hesitate to forfeit my father to the Union Security Soldiers. Ashton was a trained spy who had never been anything but steadfast in his mission to get my father’s journal to his superiors.
The idea that I could persuade him or win him over was naïve and reckless.
“I heard when they took him, he gave you something. Information,” Riley snapped. “What did he tell you? What do you know?”
“No, Charlotte.” Ashton held my gaze.
I wondered now, at Lizzie’s words. She’d asked me if I thought I was able to trust Ashton. As if she knew the cost might be too steep to weather.
“Well, Miss Blackburn?” Riley raised the gun to my head. He pulled back the hammer and the sickening click of the tumbler sent my stomach lurching. “He will never betray his Order. Will you?”
15
Daylight waned as we neared dusk. The constant breeze that flowed through the port took on a chill and I hugged myself.
“You did the right thing in keeping silent,” Ashton said quietly.
“Well, I didn’t see you jumping in to stop my impending death.” You kept the journal a secret and protected the interests of The Order despite a gun to my head.
“He would not have shot you. Not even Riley is so cold-hearted,” Ashton said through the bars of the jail cell. His forehead pressed against the metal, dark eyes beseeching. “I knew he would not.”
“There is no way you could know that.” I turned from him, striding to the opposite side of my adjoining cell. “He’s desperate and angry, but you…you play games with the lives of everyone.”
“You think I see all of this as a game?” I heard him move, his feet shuffling on the dirty floor. “Charlotte, please…”
“Leave me alone.” Refusing to look at him, I leaned a shoulder on the cold plank wall, my head pounding.
Outside, Riley’s harsh voice echoed.
A sigh, followed by the sound of Ashton’s weight on the filthy cot made me look over my shoulder. He sat with his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. “Thank you for not saying anything about the journal.”
“I kept silent for my father, not you. If Riley has the information then I can’t use it to bargain for his return. So you needn’t worry. When he returns to question me I won’t be weak. I won’t be the undoing of your cause, Ashton.”
“The undoing…what?”
“From our first moment, you made things abundantly clear where the Blackburns stand,” my voice cracked.
The snap and flap of the flags just beyond the barred window were the only sound save for the steady drone of the tower rotors.
We sat like that, in dark and silence.
“What are you really saying to me, Charlie?” Ashton asked after a few moments.
“When I came to you…when Riley let me see you, your first words were, ‘you’re here.’”
“I’m sorry?” Ashton looked up at me, his face cast in half shadow in the gas lamp’s light.
“You said, ‘you’re here,’” I repeated. “Not, ‘you’re all right.’”
“I was glad Riley had not sold you back to the Security Force.” He stood. “They are brutal men. You witnessed firsthand what they are capable of. How little regard they have for life. I was worried.”
“But why? If Riley is correct and The Order and the Union worked together on this, then why would you try to stop them from taking my father in the first place? Why keep me from them? You would be working against your own purpose…unless The Order means to betray their agreement with the Union. You would help them do this? Even if it means obscuring the truth about the Tremblers?”
“Charlie, don’t do this.” Ashton shifted, the moonlight casting his worried face in a sliver of light.
“You didn’t say that you were glad I was not hurt. You said, ‘they don’t have you…’” I wiped my face, furious that I had been so easily used. “I am leverage. You told me yourself. I am nothing but a pawn in all of this. I just didn’t fully understand until now. I’m not a pawn of the Peaceful Union to use against my father. The Order wants to use what my father discovered to maintain their grip on those in power.”
“I cannot believe that is truly what motivates my superiors.” He stood and reached through the bars for me. “Nevertheless, that is not the reason that I wanted you safe.”
“Don’t.” I backed away. “Please don’t insult me further by feigning concern.”
“I had a choice to come to you or to fight to keep your father from the Union Soldiers. I chose to help you.” Ashton said evenly. “In that moment, I chose you over my orders and I have been ever since. Do you think it would be hard for me to wrestle that book from you? I want the truth. I am not interested in using what your father discovered for anything but stopping this affliction.”
“Do you doubt The Order? Is that why you align yourself with Lizzie and Defiance?”
“Lizzie and I have an uneasy truce out here by mutual necessity. Nothing more. I am not part of her band of rebels. I have a place. An allegiance.”
“I thought this was about truth. Fighting the blight and saving lives?”
“It is,” he snapped. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he paced the cell. “That is what I am trying to do.”
“Then why are you so resistant to finding Collodin?” I gripped the bars between us. “If you are after the truth alone and not, as Riley accuses, simply the information to use as leverage, then why continually stop me from doing what my father asked me to?”
“I don’t know this Collodin. I only know that The Order has the means, the network, and the scientists to fight this blight. I must believe that is what they will do. I have to trust them.”
“Why?” I pled. “Explain to me why, in the face of what Riley said, do you still do their bidding?”
“Not everything he said is true. The whole of The Order cannot be corrupt.”
“But enough to give you doubt,” I said and held his gaze. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“Feelings are ephemeral, Charlie,” Ashton said. “I can’t abandon all I’ve ever known because I have a moment of uncertainty.”
“A moment, really?” I ran the pad of my fingers over the shackle of his mandate.
He stilled, his eyes boring into mine.
“Is this the only time you’ve questioned what they were doing?”
“You look down on me because I am steadfast?” He pulled away, his features tense.
“Steadfast or stubborn?” I shot back and he recoiled. “Faithful or too fearful to seek answers you don’t want to face?”
“Enough,” he growled. “You speak without knowing more than what others have told you to think. Is this you or Riley talking now?”
“This is me, Charlotte Blackburn, questioning Ashton Wells; the man, not the agent, not the servant, not the warrior.”
“What is it, then?”
“What are you doing, Ashton?” I asked softly, my heart tumbling. “You cannot straddle both worlds. You can’t help me find the truth and secure it for The Order if you have even the slightest doubt that they will do the right thing.”
“One can never be absolutely certain of another.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Can I? You would do anything for your father, yes? If given the choice between saving thousands and getting him back, how do you know what you would choose? You said yourself you kept your silence for his sake. How dedicated to fulfilling your father’s wishes are you, really?”
“I…” How had this conversation gone so awry? Now he was questioning my intentions?
“He sacrificed himself so the truth might get out. You, on the other hand, would trade the truth for his safe return. You say you mean to find Collodin because your father entrusted you to, but I suspect you will use the tinkerer as you’ve used me. To get you the means to bargain for your father back.”
I stared through the bars, wiping at my eyes and grateful that the dark hid my face. Finding Collodin kept me going despite my fear and confusion. It gave me direction in this chaos, but deep down I had always held the hope of both getting my father back and revealing the truth as he’d asked. I had not let myself think about the possibility that I might have to make a choice. “I am sorry that I used you.”
“We used each other.” Ashton smiled ruefully. “And for that I am sorry.”
“Why can’t I do both?” I croaked.
He looked at me then.
I felt small and ignorant.
“You will have to choose soon,” he whispered. “And I fear it will break you either way.”
We sat in silence for a long time, the din of Outer City in the background gradually dying down to only the sound of the tower rotors.
Only a short time ago, my greatest concern was whether or not I might feel butterflies in my stomach if I walked in the garden with Cornelius. How silly and petty those worries. Now my thoughts whirled with anguish over my father and aunt. I huddled locked in a cage in the dreaded Outer City next to a spy, all the while concealing secrets both the government and a rebel faction were willing to kill to retrieve. I shook my head. How different my idea of what was important had become. “I don’t understand how my father could keep these secrets only to thrust them upon me all at once. Why would he leave me so unprepared?”
“It is because I lost his trust.” Ashton’s voice broke.
“What?” I shifted, peering at him.
“I don’t know what happened. How could I have failed him so utterly that he lost belief in me completely?”
“Failed him? You barely knew him. You thought I had a twin brother.”
“Your father saved my life.”
Rising to my knees, I tried to see him in the dark of the cell. “What are you talking about?”
“When I was orphaned at a young age he rescued me from the streets. He took a dirty, thieving child and gave me a purpose. He paid for my education in The Order, taught me how to fight. Told me of his assignments and trained me to do better, to be smarter. I strove so hard to be what he…” Ashton looked at me with bewilderment. “I don’t know how I lost his trust. I thought he wanted me to be loyal to them.”
Stunned, I could only stare, struggling to understand. “You’ve known my father that many years? How…how could that be?”
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