His words didn’t make her feel any better. She had spent the last ten years teaching herself to heal the human body, and he didn’t think she would’ve found some stupid rungs set into a wall. What has he spent the past decade doing? Does he have a skill? Other than jailor for the DOE and sewer guide for the Unequals? A rude snort escaped her.
“Someone crawled out from under the wrong side of the rock this morning.”
She shook herself. “What?”
He gave a soft sigh, so filled with patience it made Rue angrier. “You’re in a bad mood. I don’t blame you. Not really. This situation is messed up. But I promise everything will get better once you’ve had a good meal and a real bed to sleep in.”
“I’ve gone longer without either,” someone sniped and she realized it was her. She must’ve sounded awful to Crispin. “Sorry. I’m being—”
“Rude? A bitch?” He shrugged. “Everyone has their off days. At least, everyone who’s Unequal. If you weren’t out of sorts, I’d wonder if I’d retrieved the wrong person.” Crispin touched her shoulder. “Maybe after you have several really bad days, you earn the right to be bitchy. If you have to, let it all out before we go any further so you can enter into this with a clean slate.”
She slapped his hand away. “That’s just it. Enter into what? Maybe if someone explained what the hell was going on. If I had a tiny inkling of what was going to happen to me. Well… I might not be so rude.”
“Not much longer, and you’ll learn everything.”
“You’re repeating what you told me yesterday.”
“Earlier this morning. We’ve only been walking for a few hours.”
“Fine, you told me earlier I wouldn’t have to wait long. So much time gone by and nothing.” She put her head in her hands. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m usually a patient person. I have to be. But I can’t be patient about this anymore. I don’t care if you think you’re protecting me or if you’re protecting Justin, I want to know.”
Crispin pried her hands away and looked into her eyes. “I wish I could, but we’re not out of the DOE’s grasp yet. I’ll tell you as soon as we are. Promise.”
Again with the waiting and the delays. “I won’t tell them anything.”
“You’re right. You won’t. I won’t give you the opportunity. And as long as you’re with me, I won’t give them the opportunity either. Hang on a while longer.”
His words seemed so sincere her will caved. Maybe once they got out of this tunnel, she’d be more like herself. This whole dark, dank scenario was driving her nuts.
“Follow me.” With one deft move, he hooked a foot into the lower-most rung and hoisted himself upwards. Seconds later, he was close to the ceiling. Rue scrambled to follow, her joints aching with every pull. By the time she reached the top, he’d pushed the cover away and was disappearing through the hole. And taking their one light source with him.
“Wait.” Her voice trembled as the darkness closed around her. She’d never been afraid of the dark before. It had always been her companion and her accomplice. Now, though, it didn’t possess the same friendly mood. A shudder went through her.
Out of the gloom, a single hand reached for her. In the glow of their one, small flashlight, she questioned whether the appendage was Crispin’s. His hand hadn’t seemed hairy, but she might’ve been too busy studying his face to notice.
It is such a nice face—
With a sudden pull, she was hoisted from the hole.
And found herself looking into a face almost as hairy as the hand it was attached to.
Another hand wrapped across her mouth from behind. “Not here,” a woman hissed in her ear.
“You’re safe, Logan.” Crispin was barely a meter away, and she desperately wished he was the one holding her. Only then would his words have any meaning.
“If I let go, are you going to scream?” the woman asked.
Rue shook her head, uncertain whether the woman was telling the truth and willing to lie if she had to. Of course, screaming in the belly of the city wouldn’t do her any good. No one would hear her—not anyone who cared at any rate.
The hand left her face as the bear of a man released her arm. “What did you bring us today, Crispin?” The soft voice didn’t match his burliness, but it went perfectly with the way his eyes twinkled in the light. “Surely not the doctor Justin’s been waiting for. This one is too young and too pretty to have escaped the DOE for so long.”
Rue’s cheeks heated.
“Bruno’s playing with you, lady. He wouldn’t know pretty if it slapped him.”
“I know pretty, Shiraz. I look at it every day.”
She couldn’t see the female of the group without turning, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to present the big man with her back. Not yet.
“If we’ve had enough of a reunion,” the woman—Shiraz, she assumed—said, “then we’d better get moving. We’ve got a ways to go before Justin’s pretty prize is safe.”
Without another word, the two men tromped forward into the darkness, leaving her alone with a woman she didn’t trust.
“Off you go. Or did Crispin risk his life so you could rot in here?”
The light was fading as the men moved farther away. Shiraz’s footsteps echoed as she, too, left Rue. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out she wouldn’t get another invitation. Hurrying to catch up, she examined her surroundings as well as she could. Meters away, plasterboard walls told her she was inside a normal building. Under her feet, she heard wood and then carpet over wood as they moved deeper into the structure.
Ahead the light stopped as the trio waited for Rue. The windows had been blackened by some kind of paint but along the edges, she caught glimpses of outside. “You expect to go out in the daytime?”
“You expect everyone to stay here until you’re more comfortable?”
“Knock it off, Raz,” Crispin snapped. “And quit being such a bitch.” He turned his attention toward Rue. “Don’t mind her. She’s not any more comfortable with the chance of being seen than you are.”
“And I’ve got better reasons,” Shiraz said. At least she can blend in.”
In the dim light, Rue caught her first glimpse of the woman. A girl, really, at least a few years her junior. In profile, Shiraz was stunning, but as the girl faced Rue directly, it was all she could do not to gasp.
Unfortunately, Shiraz caught the look on her face. “What are you staring at?”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.” Apologizing didn’t make her stop, though. The raspberry birthmark covered an entire half of Shiraz’s face. “With the right technology, I could fix it for you.”
The girl’s hand clenched at her sides, giving Rue the impression if Shiraz had a weapon, it wouldn’t be any birthmark needing medical help. Crispin shook his head at them both. “Let it go,” he said, and she wasn’t sure which of them he was talking to.
Pulling something out of her pocket, Shiraz said, “I don’t need your butchery.” Her hands moved to her face and while Rue watched, the girl transformed herself. “The miracles of technology aren’t limited to the medical field. Surgery can give me a new face. Theatrics gives me a new face without the pain. Top that, Citizen Doctor Logan.”
Rue raised an eyebrow at the new change to her designation. She wasn’t a janitor anymore, but she wasn’t Citizen Doctor Mason anymore either. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have implied—”
“Forget it. Let’s get out of here so my obviously Unequal face doesn’t offend you anymore.”
Rue flinched as the words struck her, but she had to admit she deserved them—at least in part. Maybe if she had a chance to explain to this woman, they could get past the hard feelings. If the DOE didn’t catch them first.
“Speaking of which.” Bruno held out a paper sack to her. “You need to change into these. Justin picked them out, so they should fit.”
“If they don’t, there’s no help for it now,” Shiraz said.
R
ue opened up the bag and found an outfit she supposed would help her blend in. She hadn’t considered changing. But the filthy scrubs she wore presented a glaring sign of inequality. “Thank you.”
As soon as she was presentable, Bruno stepped into the daylight. Shiraz, who immediately latched onto his arm as if they were an assigned couple, went alongside him. For Rue’s part in the charade, Crispin tucked her hand into his elbow and led her out the same way. Soon, the quartet could’ve passed for any other group of acquaintances out for a stroll.
“It’s the weekend?” she asked in a whisper.
“Got it in one.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Timing is everything. We couldn’t pull this off on a workday, could we?”
Since she hadn’t spent a weekend doing anything but working since she was a child, she couldn’t say for sure whether they would pull anything off. Judging from the other people they passed, they appeared normal enough. Certainly no one was pointing and staring. Bruno’s thick beard drew a few stares, but facial hair wasn’t illegal—simply frowned upon.
Shiraz’s mask passed the test. Her long auburn hair fell in a swath over the side of her face, giving her a mysterious look but she didn’t draw more than a few stares. Mostly from men who gazed at her appreciatively. For ten years, Rue claimed the prize for blending but whoever these people were, they surpassed anything she’d accomplished.
Leaning her head against Crispin’s shoulder, she tried to remember the last time she’d walked in the sun. Other than the brief excursions in her charade from janitor to doctor every night, she couldn’t remember the last time she actually went outside. As a child, she had spent as many hours away from the inside of her home as she could manage.
If only to escape her father.
The last time she wandered alone in the outdoors had to have been the night before she was released from education and given her first assignment in the working world. Despite it being her last night with her mother, she needed to get away. To walk amongst the trees and the vacant lots seemed a proper end to her childish adventures. She strolled to the bank of the thin waterway and threw pebbles into the sluggish trickle. She caressed the trunks of trees she was too old to climb.
Back then, she’d been alone. Curfew had been several hours past. In the danger of possibly getting caught, she found a kind of freedom she wouldn’t taste any time soon. The very next day, DOE workers would arrive to transport her belongings to a new set of quarters. She would awaken in her own bed and fall asleep in a strange place.
She shivered and Crispin tucked her closer along his side, playing the perfect mate. For a moment, Rue let herself revel in the feeling. If she could spend years pretending to be a doctor, a few moments of pretending she belonged to someone who belonged to her couldn’t hurt.
When she had walked in the darkness and solitude all those years ago, she dreamed of being assigned such a mate. She created a whole fantasy future for herself—one where the DOE assigned her to be a doctor, and she experienced love at first sight with the man who was appointed as her spouse. She never imagined being shoved into a squalid, one room dwelling on the other side of town. She never conceived of learning the best way for her to serve her fellow man was as a janitor. Even in her nightmares, she hadn’t envisioned finding an appointed mate, twenty-years her senior and smelling of sewage, waiting for her at the start of her new life.
The next day she went to the hospital and never went back to either the man or the dwelling. As far as she was concerned, he could have the apartment and her earnings. All she wanted was to be left alone—and if it meant living in a basement and scrounging for food, so be it.
“Are you hungry?” Crispin asked from beside her.
Her stomach must’ve growled an echo to all those starving years. Her body probably needed food, but her mind couldn’t tolerate the concept of eating. She shook her head.
Crispin’s interruption brought her focus back to the present. Ahead, the other couple had disappeared into the crowded streets. Other people were walking close together, but no one was holding hands or leaning into each other the way she was with her companion.
She jerked away from him. “What were you doing letting me carry on like a lovesick cow?”
He shrugged. “I enjoyed it.”
“But it made us stand out.”
“Unless the DOE is nearby, we’re safe enough. Assigned couples do occasionally fall in love, you know.”
“And if the DOE catches them, they’re immediately reassigned,” she reminded him. When she was very young, her own parents had been in love. One of her first memories was a family outing where the two of them spent the day holding hands and walking the way she’d been walking with Crispin.
Years later, she had asked Howard why her parents never touched much after the day the Equalization Laws were fully implemented. His face grew sad and he told her their love didn’t have the strength to last in the face of the DOE. She wasn’t old enough to understand everything he imparted, but she understood that. Too strong an emotional response of any kind made you Unequal.
“You have a point but,” Crispin said, “since we’re here, I don’t think they’re going to separate us today.” He pushed the door open to a small cafe and was rewarded with the tinkle of a tiny bell.
“I told you I wasn’t hungry.”
“I heard you.” He may have heard her, but he was ignoring her wishes. Before she could protest, he encouraged her toward a corner table. Saying anything then would draw unwanted attention, so Rue allowed him to guide her into a seat. After he took one of his own, he leaned back and smiled. “Coffee?”
“I said I wasn’t—”
“And I said I heard you.” He chucked her under the chin as if she was a child or a petulant lover. “One thing you didn’t consider is I’m hungry.” A waiter brought them both sandwiches—the same as every other patron—and once the man had departed, Crispin leaned forward. “You also didn’t consider I have a very specific set of directives to follow, and this is one of them.”
His breath tickled her neck and brought a flush to her cheeks. She pushed at his arm in as playful a manner as she could manage. “Stop that.” Pretending to be an assigned couple was harder than she figured it would be. On a whisper, she asked, “What do you mean directives?”
“Bruno told me,” he said as he brushed a lock of hair away from her face, “we are to stop here for lunch. Someone is supposed to arrive and tell me where the new safe house is.”
Rue was on the verge of asking why they needed a new safe house, but Hubert’s face swam in front of her eyes. The duty nurse gave her specific instructions of where to go if something bad happened. It must’ve been the original safe house.
“The offices… the DOE section wasn’t really a part of the DOE at all…”
“I was told you were smart.” Crispin took a bite of his sandwich and nodded toward her lunch. “I don’t know what’s going to happen from here but I’m guessing whatever the plan is, your fainting from hunger isn’t part of it. Eat up. Relax while you can.”
She glanced at the sandwich. From the looks of it, it was some kind of mystery fowl salad on government bread. A limp piece of greenery stuck out from between the slices, topped with a slimy piece of cheese. “No thanks.”
“This could be the last meal you have that doesn’t come out of a can.”
“I’ll wait for the canned stuff.”
He shook his head as he picked up her sandwich. “Your choice.”
The rest of his meal was spent in silence while Rue scanned every person in the café. No one looked Unequal, but they probably didn’t appear out of the norm either. Good thing the other two weren’t with them. Shiraz’s disguise was good, but the fluorescent lights were unkind. Several people looked her way—staring at the dark circles under her eyes, she guessed. Or hoped, dressed as she was.
“I shouldn’t be in here looking this way,” she said on a hiss of breath.
“You’re fine.”
He reached out and touched her cheek. “You’re lovely no matter what.”
“Quit playing the doting spouse and listen to me.”
“I am listening. Are you? I’m trying to tell you not to worry about it. No one here is going to do anything.” He nodded at one of the gawkers.
“Why not?”
“Just trust me.”
“Another secret you don’t want me to be able to give away to the DOE?”
Crispin’s hand tightened around hers. “This is an agency-free zone.” Every face turned toward theirs faced suddenly away.
“A what?”
Their waiter came and set a plate of cookies in front of her. As he began to turn away, she heard him whisper, “If you continue to refer to the agency, I’ll have to ask you to leave. You’re making the other patrons uncomfortable.”
Crispin reached out and slipped something into the waiter’s pocket. “We apologize. She’s new here. It won’t happen again.”
The man nodded. He didn’t bother to check the bribe, igniting Rue’s curiosity.
“What was all that about?”
“You really haven’t been outside the hospital in a very long time, have you?”
Her gaze dropped to the tablecloth. The gingham pattern was probably the same color as her cheeks. “It seemed safer to keep to myself.”
“It was. But if you ask me, Justin didn’t have any idea exactly how removed you’d been. This is going to be harder than anyone expected.”
“What’s going to be harder?”
“My good friend means,” said a familiar and nauseating voice. A hand fell onto her shoulder, holding her in place when she felt a rabbit’s urge to bolt. “It will be harder helping you blend into the world now that you’re free.”
TEN
Rue froze. The grip on her shoulder wasn’t painful, but her tormentor squeezed enough to let her know he wasn’t playing. Part of her wanted to see his face, but another part of her was afraid. It would’ve been less frightening if she hadn’t recognized the voice.
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