by Tess Sharpe
She could feel the energy rising in her, restless, poised to spring and unable to. And all Rhi could think was: I did this. I brought us here.
“What are the conditions?” Her father stood tall as he asked, his shoulders straight like a free man, refusing to cower.
“There is an isolated series of large islands on the other side of our planet, typically used for grazing lands for livestock. We will allow some of your people to remain there.”
“Some of us?”
The undersecretary stepped forward, closer to her father. His eyes slid to Rhi. Her mother struggled to her feet to face the threat. Her hand grabbed and squeezed Rhi’s, hard. Rhi’s fingers throbbed with the pressure, which briefly quelled her rising fear as the undersecretary stopped in front of her.
“This one, she’s yours? Your people say she brought you all here.”
Rhi’s eyes burned with tears she refused to shed as she raised them to meet his gaze. His mouth flattened, those thin lips disappearing.
“So young,” he said. “But so audacious already.”
Lesson Two: Women do not meet their betters’ eyes.
His fingers slid under her chin, tilting it up until her neck strained, and then back and forth, as if he were examining a prize cow.
“Don’t you dare touch her!” The chains rattled so hard as her father lunged against them that the guards hurried over to restrain him further.
Next to her, her mother shook, shackled and helpless, her nails biting into her palms to keep herself from doing the same.
Rhi swallowed, her heart beating so fast she was scared the man could hear it.
“How did you do it?” he asked. “See past all our shields?”
Her lips, dry from too little water and too much crying, cracked when she answered, blood dotting the corners. “Nothing stays hidden forever, not even you. Not from me.”
His fingers slid from under her chin to her neck, and the smoothness of the movement made her think he’s done this before just as his hands closed around her throat. Her mother dove for his hands, her nails sinking into his flesh. Screams filled Rhi’s ears as she gasped for air, feeling herself fade, about to spill into the welcoming black. For a moment, she wanted that welcome… wanted this to be over. Because what was to come, she knew— with a prescience no child should have—would be far worse. That was what they wanted—for her to give up, all the fight draining from her. But at her core, up in the sky and down here on the ground, she was built to fight. And to rise.
The undersecretary released her, and Rhi fell to her knees, gasping. The inside of her throat felt raw, and the finger marks on her neck throbbed.
But the Inhumans, the ones watching from the windows, were restive. Voices rose from the building, her people shouting protests from inside as her parents struggled against the guards ordering them back.
The undersecretary swept a hand across the ground. Fire brighter than ever seen on Attilan sprang up in a greedy line inches from their feet, consuming the ground as it boxed them in. The heat rose, sweat trickling down the bridge of Rhi’s nose as she breathed in a wretched kind of warmth, all bitter fear and no comfort.
“Our esteemed president’s terms for your people’s amnesty on our planet are as follows,” he said. “All men and male children will be allowed to depart for the Forgotten Islands at once. You will be provided supplies to build settlements and live your lives under our watchful eye. In time, some of you may even prove trustworthy enough to be allowed to use your powers. For the betterment of Damaria, of course.”
“You expect me to leave my daughter? My wife?” Her father’s voice trembled. He knew, just as Rhi did, that there was no good answer for that question.
Ansel sighed, steepling his hands together in a thoughtful, almost concerned way. Rhi didn’t believe it for a second.
“Your wife will be returned to you as soon as she is outfitted with the proper technology to control her and you are instructed in its use. We are not monsters. We are not in the business of breaking up such important bonds or interfering in the households of men and what they demand of their wives. However, your daughter, like the rest of the unmarried females, must remain with us. Maiden Houses for them are being built as we speak. They will be very similar to the schools our own daughters are sent to—though our females, of course, are not afflicted as yours are.”
“Afflicted? There is nothing wrong with us!” Her father’s words were strong and sure, even as the guards held him in a vise grip.
A gleeful sort of pity swept over the undersecretary’s face, his eyes positively shining with it as they gazed down at Rhi. “Any woman stricken with power she cannot bear is cursed. And no woman can hold a flame for long without it consuming her. I understand this is difficult, but it is for the betterment of all, including your daughter and all your people. I assure you, all the girls will be entrusted into the care of good men who will protect them from the threat of their powers—and who will take on the management of those abilities once they come of age.”
“What is he talking about?” Zeke muttered to Rhi.
“They don’t like girls with powers here,” Rhi whispered back, though even as she spoke the words, she knew she was just grasping the edge of it. The way that man had touched her—like she wasn’t a person, but a thing to be examined, to be owned— made her skin crawl.
“Just let us go,” Rhi’s father said, staring at the undersecretary, pleading. “If we present such a danger and problem, we will go. Give us a ship and we’ll take our leave.”
“That is not possible,” he said. “Despite our shields, you have discovered our planet and breached our defenses. We cannot have you spreading word of us to the rest of the galaxy. We prefer our privacy, and will not allow you to disrupt it—or tell others of our location.”
“We won’t do anything of the sort. We—”
“You have only two choices here,” the undersecretary said. “If you agree, you will be able to depart with your son, and your wife will join you soon. If not, you will all die.”
For a horrible moment, Rhi considered it. Should she give herself up? Was she brave enough? Her stomach knotting in on itself, she teetered on the decision, looking at her parents desperately for some sort of answer. What do we do?
What do I do?
“You will have your son,” Ansel said with a smile that was supposed to be encouraging, but stretched his mouth like a smear of blood on the ground. “That’s what matters. Your legacy. The girl is nothing.”
“You’re sick.”
This time, it wasn’t her father. It was her mother, her face glowing in the flickering flames behind them.
“We will not allow it! Don’t listen to him, dear heart.” She focused her gaze on Rhi even as the guard jabbed her in the stomach. “You are smart… smart and strong,” she gasped. “You are somebody… you are something. You and your brother are everything, do you hear me? You’re every—”
The gunshot came out of nowhere. Her mother stiffened, a trickle of blood slipping down her forehead as she sagged to the ground, lifeless.
Rhi didn’t have the mind to scream as she stared at the pool of blood spreading behind her mother’s head, but Zeke did. Her brother’s wail wrenched through the air, almost drowning out the sound of the second shot.
Her father had been reaching out to her, and now he wasn’t. Now he was slumped in the dirt.
Dead. That impossible word was the only thing that penetrated her shock and confusion. And as the guards turned to her and Zeke, she grabbed her brother, her nails digging into his arm. A warning, built on pure survival.
Lesson One: Women speak only when spoken to.
Lesson Two: Women do not meet their betters’ eyes.
Lesson Three: You rebel, you die.
She kept her eyes lowered as he approached them, tucking the gun back into the holster in his jacket. Undersecretary Ansel, her parents’ murderer. Zeke sagged against her, the shock overwhelming him.
As An
sel came to a stop in front of her, Rhi stood stock still, even though every part of her body roared with the need to lash out, to rip a hole big enough to toss him inside. She wanted to split him apart with her bare hands, and tear at his skin with her nails, shredding it under her fingers. She wanted to send this man floating forever in that between place where he’d never be found, because she’d never go looking for him.
She wanted her mother to get up. She wanted her father’s hand to hold, instead of forever reaching, never touching.
But that could never be. Her heart shuddered at the knowledge, the grief she couldn’t afford to feel right now. Her mother’s words echoed in her head: You are smart and strong.
When he touched her chin this time, she did not tremble. She had to be strong.
“Are you going to argue, too?” he asked her.
She had to be smart.
She shook her head. “No, sir.”
Only like this could she figure out how to make him pay.
* * *
WHEN THE girls arrived at the Maiden House in the middle of the night, Rhi’s feet were still speckled with blood. Her father’s? Her mother’s? They’d separated her from Zeke as soon as they were off the prison field, and it would be a year before she would be allowed to see him again, though she didn’t know that then.
All she knew now was the white walls of the room they’d shoved her and the other girls in, the sobbing of a little girl— Mazz—whose parents had refused to hand her over, and the other girls’ terrified faces, because they knew what that meant. Half of them had started this day with parents and ended it orphaned. The other half had started this day loved and ended up betrayed.
“What are we going to do?” whispered one of them.
No one replied. No one knew the answer or had the strength to summon up a comforting lie.
When the door swung open, the girls reacted as one, huddling in a corner, their backs to the wall, aware that here, they were prey.
But this time, it wasn’t a guard or the terrifying undersecretary.
It was a woman.
Her pretty blue eyes were carefully made up, and her hair was smoothed back from her face with a blue headband, which matched the skirt skimming down to her knees, and she wore shoes of the same shade. She was neat and tidy and warm-looking, like she baked cookies and gave hugs.
“Hello,” she said. “My name is Miss Egrit.”
Mazz, who was only three, toddled forward, almost automatically drawn to the motherly voice and smile.
“Mazz, no!” Rhi jumped forward, instinctively snatching Mazz up before she could get close to the woman. She held Mazz tight to her, the girl squirming in her arms, curious and unable to understand the other girls’ fear as they circled around her.
The woman’s smile turned from friendly to sharp as she took one step forward; the girls, as a group, huddled back in their corner, drawing their youngest close.
“You won’t need to bother with silly things like names anymore,” she said. “But we’ll get into that in a little while. First, I want to sit while I tell you a very important story. About a girl much like you. A woman who fell from the stars.”
7
CAROL SAT back, absorbing the reality that Rhi had just laid out to her. The murder of her parents and all who refused to hand over their daughters, the imprisonment of her people who did obey, the cruelty of these Damarian men—and some women, who seemed to buy into this terrible, patriarchal system.
She didn’t know what to say. What could she say? That she was sorry? That it was wrong; that it was evil? It was all those things and more. A world already built on oppression, adding another level to it when a new species arrived and they saw their chance to pounce.
“So you’ve spent all these years at this… this Maiden House?” Carol asked carefully.
“Once they were sure there would be no rebellion from the surviving parents, they allowed them to come visit. And sometimes we were sent places when the Keepers had use for our powers, but for the most part, they kept us locked up.”
“How did you get free? And how did you manage to learn how to fly their ships?”
The girl looked at her, then looked away. “Everybody loses things. Everybody hides things. Sometimes, those things are useful.”
She paused, and then let out a breath that could almost be a laugh.
“They never understood my power. I was the one who brought us to Damaria, so I was kept with the girls whose abilities were deemed most dangerous—and the most useful to the Council. Girls who could yank all the moisture out of your body with a twitch of their finger. Girls who could burst your brain by singing one note. Girls who could blend into any scenery, as good as invisible. And then me. They soon got bored with me, though. The Keepers, they like flashy powers.”
“Tearing through time and space isn’t flashy?”
A smile curled across her face, a flicker of rebellion in a girl who knew its cost. “Well, they never understood that part. I made sure of that. I can see flashes of where a thing is hidden if you give me a picture or description, or I’m holding something related to what you’re looking for. And that’s what I told them I could do— nothing more.
“They couldn’t test for anything more. And there was no one to dispute it. They’d killed my parents, and my brother wasn’t going to tell them. The people on our ship knew only that I’d found the coordinates, not how I’d done it… Those last days in space were just chaos and panic.” She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the memories.
“And even after all that, you fooled them—from the start.” Respect bloomed in Carol’s chest like a thorny rose. “How old were you?”
“Nine. Almost ten.”
Carol whistled, impressed, and when she said, “That was really smart of you,” Rhi looked surprised, as if no one had told her that in a very long time.
“They replaced the shock bracelets with implants keyed to the brain pathways that activate when we use our powers. But mine was keyed only to the pathways that light up when I use the visual facet of my power—they never mapped my brain when I was creating a rip. Some of the pathways, they’re the same, but some aren’t. It took me a few years to work through the pain, but I kept at it.”
“And here you are,” Carol said encouragingly.
But instead of relief in the girl’s eyes, she saw tears. “But I left them all behind,” she whispered. “We had a plan, to get all of us out. Every girl in my Maiden House. We spent five years working out the details. But then… everything had to change.”
“Why?”
“One of the conditions in Damaria was that we weren’t allowed to have children,” Rhi said. “I don’t know what they did to the adults on the Forgotten Islands but it’s against the law for Inhumans to reproduce. It was one of the last laws President Lee passed before he was ousted from office by Undersecretary Ansel, who is now President Ansel. President Lee said the scourge of us Inhumans must be stopped, or we’d just have so many babies we’d take over.”
“Well, that’s messed up,” Carol said.
“We heard stories. Rumors about girls in other Maiden Houses who got pregnant,” Rhi said. “I always hoped they weren’t true, but then… I couldn’t just hope—I had to act.”
“Rhi, are you pregnant?” Carol asked, alarmed. How had the doctors missed that?
Rhi shook her head. “Not me—my friend Alestra. She’s next, after me, to be given to a Keeper. Or, I guess, now that I ran, she’s just next.” Rhi’s lips trembled as she pressed them together, trying to control her emotions. “She and Zeke, my brother, have always been friends. Alestra’s family doesn’t visit her, so she used to spend time with us during visiting hours. And the two of them… I know it wasn’t allowed. But it’s not like you can stop love, can you? I know that, just as well as the two of them.”
“So Alestra’s pregnant,” Carol said. Well, that certainly complicated things, if she had to factor in rescuing an expectant mother.
“We
agreed, all of us girls, that we had to protect Alestra and the baby above everything else. Because if we didn’t—” Her words faded off, as if she was too scared to voice what might come next.
“Rhi,” Carol said gently. “Are you afraid they’re going to kill Alestra and the baby?”
But when Rhi raised her shimmering eyes to meet Carol’s, the look on her face was almost pitying, like Carol was being terribly naive.
“No,” she said. “I’m afraid of the opposite. I’m afraid this will be the dawning of a new age. We’re just tools to them; resources. A way to uphold their beloved motto, ‘For the betterment of all.’ ‘All’ except women and Inhumans, that is.
“And we have made the planet better. The crops would never have survived the droughts without Umbra’s help. Because, when it comes down to it, diversity and evolution within species are necessary for survival. But the Damarians have gotten lazy and too dependent on what we provide their planet and society. And you can’t grow dependent on a resource that’s going to die out in a generation, can you? Unless you’ve ensured a second generation. And a third…”
Oh God. Carol’s stomach clenched as the scope of Rhi’s fear hit her, her own heart beating too fast.
“There are still men on the Council who lean toward the thinking that we should be banned from procreation,” Rhi went on. “But there are others who see into the future where we’ve died off, and they realize what that means. It’s too early for her to show yet, but that won’t last forever. If Alestra’s pregnancy is revealed, President Ansel might bring it up for Council debate as a test case to overthrow the procreation ban. And if he succeeds…” Studying her trembling and scraped hands, the girl didn’t even look at Carol.
“They’ve taken everything from us,” she whispered. “I can’t let them take our children. That’s what they want. That’s the mistake they made before. They thought they could break us, like they break their own girls. Their girls have never known freedom, but we know what it feels like. We understand what has been taken from us. And the girls who are too young to remember, we older ones remind them, and teach them to resist what they try to teach us.