by Rosiee Thor
“Sir!” One of the officers held out a hand to stop him. “A government-issued passport is required to—”
“Isn’t that the young Master Fremont?” Nathaniel heard the second officer say as he reached them, but he tore right past without slowing. He wasn’t about to let something like paperwork stand in his way.
Nathaniel caught up to Anna just before the tree line outside the gates. He had no weapon, no upper hand—he had only his speed and a set of handcuffs. He could do only one thing.
He tackled her.
The seconds that followed, as the grassy earth slowed his momentum with almighty force, were a flurry of fists and legs. The world spun as Nathaniel sat up, but Anna had already regained her footing, poised to run again.
Nathaniel, kneeling in the grass, grabbed her foot. She kicked him hard, her boot colliding with his face. Nathaniel brought his arm down on her outstretched leg. She fell back to the ground.
Scrambling toward her, Nathaniel readied the handcuffs, but she righted herself and lifted her fists, landing a blow to the side of his head.
“Get away from me!” she yelled, scooping up a handful of mud and throwing it at him.
Nathaniel dodged inexpertly. He wiped the splatter off his arm and clicked the handcuffs against each other.
“Not a chance.” Nathaniel took a step toward her. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you walk away.”
Anna glared, widening her stance. “I’m not sorry at all.”
She intended to fight him.
Nathaniel eyed her warily. She wasn’t particularly muscled, but she was taller. She’d probably been in fights before—she’d probably won fights before.
With little more than an arm’s length between them, they squared off, sizing up each other. Nathaniel was not a fighter; even with a weapon, he’d be hard-pressed to swing a sword or fire a gun. It simply wasn’t in his nature.
Nathaniel was more adept at taking punches than giving them.
His father would laugh if he could see him now.
But before Nathaniel could make his move, a form hurtled across the grass toward them, small but loud.
A boy, no more than seven or eight years old, approached with an expression as fierce as a feral tomcat protecting its catch. The boy snarled, eyes wildly flickering over Nathaniel’s face and arms.
“You stay away from my Anna!” he shouted, raising his fist. “She hasn’t done anything to you!”
Nathaniel clenched his jaw. She represented everything wrong in the world—the symbol of chaos in the Settlement, and disorder, distraction, disgust. But the boy was right.
Anna had done nothing to Nathaniel—nothing at all but show him he wasn’t alone.
Anna could hardly count her lucky stars. She’d walked into a trap. And she’d walked right back out. But nothing was this easy—something had to go wrong.
And wrong it went.
Roman, small but sure, stood between her and Nathaniel. He should have run back to Mechan and warned the others. A rescue should have come from the runners—trained scouts who knew when to fight and when to flee, when to cut their losses—not from a seven-year-old child. But Roman didn’t understand any of that. He knew only that Anna needed help, and just like his father and like the pirates in the stories she told him, he would never back down from a fight. But Roman wasn’t part of this. She couldn’t let Roman suffer for her mistakes.
“I can take care of myself, Roman. You run along.” Anna tried to keep her tone as level as possible. He couldn’t know how afraid she was. She needed him to believe her words, even if she didn’t. “I’ll be fine. You go get your mother.”
Roman glanced over his shoulder, fixing Anna with a look reminiscent of an irritated Ruby. “No! I’m here to protect you.”
“Get out of the way.” Nathaniel took a step toward Roman.
Every instinct in Anna’s body told her to run, but she couldn’t very well leave Roman there. What would she tell Ruby?
“Roman, go!” She stepped forward to move in front of him. “You can’t help me with this.” The hurt in Roman’s eyes was almost as heartbreaking as what she was about to do, but she couldn’t let his feelings change her mind.
“Move!” Nathaniel barked, swinging his arm in an exaggerated gesture.
Roman stumbled to the side, ducking out of the way of Nathaniel’s arm, though he swept several feet over Roman’s head.
“I-I’ll go with you,” Anna said hurriedly. “Leave him out of it and I’ll come quietly.” She held her hands before her, waiting for the cuffs.
“No, Anna!” Roman grabbed for her arm but missed.
“How do I know this isn’t a trick?” Nathaniel asked, eyeing her with suspicion.
Anna rolled her eyes. She couldn’t help herself. “You’re the one who tricked me, remember? Deception seems to run in your veins, not mine.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Nathaniel snapped.
“You dandies are all liars. I may be a criminal, but at least I care about people, about the truth.”
“I do care!”
“Your father doesn’t.” Anna crossed her arms.
“Of course he does.” Nathaniel shook his head.
“Does he?” She tapped the metal plate of her TICCER, regaining her confidence at the doubt in his voice. She might not be able to escape her circumstances, but she could still sow the seeds of doubt.
Nathaniel’s gaze snapped up. “I don’t know what you’re playing at—”
“I’m not playing.” Anna raised her arms above her head in surrender. “Let him go, and I’ll be your prisoner.”
Anna glanced quickly at Roman. Why wasn’t he gone yet? She’d told him to run twice, but he was either defiant or terrible at following directions. She would have words with his mother later.
Only she wouldn’t.
There weren’t many people she’d miss once the Commissioner had done his worst. There weren’t many who’d miss her, either. Thatcher would grieve but only the exact appropriate amount. Perhaps he’d even be glad to be rid of her—she would no longer be a threat to Mechan, her exploits over, their secrets safe.
But Ruby—Ruby had been her true family, part sister, part mother. Anna would be sad to leave such a friend behind.
Nathaniel clenched his jaw before nodding. “All right.” He stepped forward, cuffs in hand.
Anna stretched out her hands, hoping she’d made the right choice. She’d do her best to turn him to her side, to make him see the truth about his father. And if that didn’t work, well … she’d escaped once before; she could do it again.
But as Nathaniel flipped open the cuffs and reached for Anna’s outstretched hands, Roman stepped between them and took hold of Nathaniel’s wrist.
“No!” Roman cried. “Stay back!”
“Out of my way!” Nathaniel tried to brush him aside, but Roman came at him stronger, swinging his fist. Nathaniel took a deep breath and shoved the boy to the side.
Roman stumbled back but returned with as much determination as before. “Leave Anna alone!”
“Enough!” Anna jumped forward, trying to get between them.
But it was too late.
Nathaniel’s elbow connected with Roman’s chest, eliciting a tinny clunk. Rubbing his arm where he’d hit Roman, concern and confusion laced his gaze.
Roman’s eyes widened as his hand snaked up to rest against his chest—his TICCER.
Anna’s heart stopped—or it would have, if not for the machine keeping it pounding heavily, painfully, inside her body. Roman’s eyes flicked to hers and his mouth formed the beginnings of a word he never spoke.
His body crumpled, falling like it was no longer made of the boy who loved to run and play, the boy who dreamt of becoming a pirate—or a runner—one day. He looked like a doll or a scarecrow, playing at life, not living it.
Anna lunged to the ground beside Roman, reaching for his wrist to find a pulse. But when her hand connected with his, she could feel it already fading. Red
blossomed across the boy’s chest.
Anna tore his shirt open and tried to wipe away the blood, to see the damage underneath. She could still save him, if she did everything right. But as she examined his chest, a memory flashed before her eyes of the same boy lying beneath her scalpel, sedated, vulnerable. He’d had no idea she was about to cut into his skin, too deep—too wrong. What if she couldn’t sew him back together again this time? What if she tried but failed anyway?
“I-I only meant to push him out of the way.” Nathaniel’s voice wavered.
But even a push was enough to rupture the stitches of a post-op patient. Anna had seen the redness around the incision that morning, the irritated skin. Roman should never have walked so far; she should never have allowed it. She should have taken him home the moment she saw him following her, but instead she’d played along with his game, more concerned with her mission than with his health.
There was no difference between the blood on her hands now and the blood in her memory. Thatcher had saved Roman’s life then, but there was no Thatcher in the field to save him now.
Anna would have to do it.
Red pooled against her skin and iron burned her nostrils. She saw the infant arm in her hand, barely recognizable as what it had once been, blood pouring, spurting, spraying across her vision.
She shook her head to clear it. Right now she needed to be a doctor. She needed to be Thatcher.
Roman’s skin was ripped in two along his incision. The stitches had not just spontaneously burst; they’d been worn down, weakened. His hike chasing her that morning had been the true culprit, Nathaniel’s elbow only the catalyst.
She had to get him back to Mechan. Thatcher could help, surely—but no, she knew better. Mechan was nearly an hour away. Roman couldn’t wait that long for a medical technique that didn’t exist. If only it was a problem with his TICCER. Metal, she could mend.
As Anna formulated the beginnings of a plan, Roman’s fingers curled against Anna’s, his blue eyes wide and urgent. His mouth opened, as if to speak, but all that came out was a stuttering, staggering breath, blood pooling in his mouth. Roman’s chest rose and fell one last time. There was so much blood—too much blood. He couldn’t lose any more. She would have to clear the airway.
But it didn’t matter. It was over. He was already gone.
“I didn’t mean to hurt him.” Nathaniel spoke as if from far away, his words muddled and distant. “Let me help—what can I do?”
It took several ticks before Anna realized he’d said anything. She couldn’t hear, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She wrapped her tongue around words of blame, of anger, of sorrow, but they rose and died before ever passing her lips. Anna sat back on her heels, hot tears scorching her skin. There were no words worth saying, no words that could adequately represent the way her chest ached, the way her blood boiled. There were no words for emotions, only facts.
“You can’t do anything.”
Nathaniel rushed to her side, one knee on the ground beside her. “No, please let me help. I can fetch a doctor, or—”
“He’s dead.”
“No. He can’t be— He was just— I didn’t mean to—”
“He’s dead.” The words didn’t feel real on her lips—like lies. Only Anna did not lie to Roman, and she wouldn’t lie to herself, either.
Nathaniel froze. “I-I didn’t mean to— I’m not a killer.”
“You are now.” Anna tried to yell, but it came out a croak. She couldn’t look at him. “I might become one, too, if you’re still here in five seconds.”
Nathaniel rose to his feet. “Please don’t— I can get someone to help. Let me do something.”
“You’ve done enough. Go home.”
He didn’t move.
Anna clenched her fist around the grass and tugged, uprooting it as she yelled, “Go!”
Nathaniel’s shadow slowly retreated, but she would not look away from Roman’s body. Leaning forward, she removed the TICCER, unhooking the device. Tears fell from her cheeks onto the metal, cleaning away the blood one drop at a time.
But the clock never stopped ticking, unaware that the boy it served was no more.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Nathaniel wished the boy didn’t have a name. It would be easier if he were no one. It would be easier if he were still alive.
Roman.
Nathaniel could still feel the metal against his arm, hard where the boy’s chest ought to have been soft.
He’d killed someone.
But hadn’t he intended to cause harm all along? He’d been willing to let Anna suffer so that his father would see him in a new light. But his father would never see him—not really, not in the way that Anna had back when she’d fixed his heart. He should have left things there. He’d learned far more from her that day than he had in eighteen years with his father. And how had he repaid her? By capturing her and then killing her friend—a child who had a name.
A child who had a family.
A lump formed in his throat, massive and suffocating. Anna would have to tell Roman’s parents, whoever they were. He’d left her there in that field with a dead body and a burden far larger than the weight of Nathaniel’s pride.
Nathaniel strayed off the main road, lodging himself in the shadows between two dwellings. There, he let his emotions run free. Tears cascaded down his cheeks, falling hot against his palms and knees, wetting the cloth of his trousers in tiny pinpricks, not unlike one of Former Earth’s paintings of ladies with umbrellas. Only Nathaniel’s pointillism was not a colorful scene of aristocrats enjoying a Sunday by the river; his was distilled in death and soaked in sorrow.
When Nathaniel eventually regained his feet, darkness encroached on the city. Cold whipped through his clothes as images of the dying boy raced through his mind. Nathaniel might have stayed in the alley for hours more, but his stomach had begun rumbling, and a stray dog had come wandering past more than once, whining incessantly, as though Nathaniel was in his spot.
It was a good spot, hidden and protected from the outside world. What Nathaniel would not give to curl up on the hard ground and forget the day had ever happened.
But Nathaniel could never forget. Forgetting was a privilege for boys without clockwork hearts. In another life, Nathaniel could have been the boy he’d killed—Roman. The metal in Nathaniel’s chest dragged him down in a way it never had before. It had always seemed an accessory, something he wore like a glove. Now it was more like skin, but someone else’s, silver and foreign, sewn into him like patchwork.
When he returned to the manor, Nathaniel decided he would go straight to bed. He did not have the energy to eat or think. He needed the comfort of pillows against his skin and dreams against his memories, softening the whispers of hard metal against his elbow, stifling the sound of Anna’s sobs as he’d retreated, erasing the smell of blood from his nostrils.
The manor, however, wasn’t empty when Nathaniel entered, tracking a generous amount of mud inside.
“There you are!” his father barked.
Nathaniel couldn’t summon the energy to flinch.
The Commissioner glared at Nathaniel, looking him up and down. “Out again, I see. Don’t tell me.” He held up a hand. “You were chasing the damn Technician again, weren’t you? I thought I told you to let it alone.”
Nathaniel could barely hear him, his father’s voice muffled by an invisible barrier between them.
That morning, Nathaniel had cared only about catching the Technician. She had given him a reason to get out of bed, to act instead of wait. Now he wished he’d never met her that day in the market. If he’d never met her, he’d never have hurt Roman.
“You’re right,” Nathaniel mumbled. “I’m sorry. I’m done chasing the Technician.” And he found it was the truth.
There were things worse than letting a criminal go free, even if catching her would buy his father’s pride, even if catching her would prove Nathaniel’s worth.
Nothing was worth the life of an innocent boy.
He turned toward the stairs.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Nathaniel’s father grabbed his arm, yanking him back to face him.
Nathaniel’s arm hurt—but not in a way he could feel, just in a way that he knew it hurt, like he’d read it in a book. It had become something more than an arm the minute it hit Roman’s body, muscle made weapon. But he could not divorce himself from his limb, no matter how painful the memory of its actions—his actions.
“I need to clean up,” Nathaniel mumbled.
The Commissioner sneered. “You gave up that right when you walked out the door. You made the choice to muddy your boots and—have you been sorting through rubbish bins? You smell like the back end of a— Never mind.” He sighed, loosening his grip on Nathaniel’s arm. “We have an important guest. It’s time you met.”
Nathaniel’s stomach dropped. The Commissioner was dressed for company, his silk cravat tucked into a double-breasted vest with silver buttons. He even wore a coat and tails. Whoever his father intended to introduce, Nathaniel was not fit to meet them.
The door to the sitting room opened. “I thought I heard voices, Commissioner. Is Nathaniel home now? Oh!”
Nathaniel laid eyes on her the same moment she saw him. She was positively lovely, with ash-blond hair and dark eyes. Her lips, arranged in a pout, matched her dress and hat—an overwhelming pink.
“Eliza.” Nathaniel whispered her name, but the acoustics of the high-ceilinged foyer carried the word around and around until it encircled him, ensnared him.
“Miss Eliza.” The Commissioner bowed. “May I present my disheveled son, Nathaniel?”
Nathaniel must have looked a wreck, not the upstanding Commissioner’s son she’d been expecting. He crossed his arms self-consciously, but it did nothing to hide the mud splatter on his legs or his sweaty face.
Though his father had pointed out his most obvious fault already, Eliza showed no discomfort. To the contrary, her smile spread to her eyes, and she swept across the room to take Nathaniel’s arm as if they were old friends.