Defiance (11 page)

After my fourth disastrous attempt, I let fly with the most creative swear word I ever heard my father say and toss the Switch onto the grass beside me. I can’t master it. Can’t swing it around in time to deliver the crucial blow that could mean the difference between life and death. I lay back on the grass, squint against the glare of the afternoon sun, and suddenly feel like crying.

With Dad by my side, I’d always felt invincible. Now I feel like a freshly shorn lamb, stripped bare of a shield I never thought I’d lose. Whatever was in that package he refused to deliver, whatever he’s keeping from the Commander’s grasp, I have to help him. And to help him, I have to be prepared to face anything the Wasteland has to offer. Which means that failing at the Switch isn’t an option.

I slowly push myself to my feet. Grasp the Switch. Close my eyes. Take a deep breath that smells of grass, sun-warmed dirt, and the fresh buds slowly unfurling in the orchard next door. If I keep my eyes closed, I can imagine Dad, standing behind me, his arms wrapped around me, his hands covering mine and holding me in place.

I widen my stance, crouch, and remember the last time we sparred together.

“Drop your shoulders a bit. You’ll need the room to move.” He tightens his grip on my hands when they start to slide together. “No, you don’t. Nice, wide grip. Keep it loose. Gives you balance and control. There’s my girl.”

I drop my shoulders, widen my grip, and keep my eyes closed.

“All right, now, you’ve got a weapon on either end. You’ll only have seconds to decide which one to use.” He lets go of my hands, and places calloused palms on my shoulders. “Big man, sprinting toward you.”

“Weapon?”

“Doesn’t matter, Rachel. He’s twice your size and his speed will bring him in range within seconds. Which end do you use?” His fingers curl around my shoulders as if willing me to know the answer.

“Blade. No time to swing the weighted end.” I slide the blade free and crouch, the afternoon sun painting crimson swirls against my closed eyelids.

“Very good.” He squeezes my shoulders and walks around to face me. “Now, if you must engage an opponent who is bigger, stronger, and faster, what do you do?”

“Take him down. Make it so he can’t get up and come after me.”

“Yes. He won’t expect a Baalboden girl to know how to stop him. You get one chance to surprise him. Make full use of that advantage. Where do you make the first cut?” His eyes are deep gray, like a sky before the rain falls, and the fierce determination in them fills me with the same.

I’m Jared Adams’s daughter. I can do this.

“Let him come in, then spin and slash the inner thigh as I turn. Cut open the artery.” I draw in a deep breath, imagine a man barreling toward me, let him come almost too close for comfort, and then spin and slash, planting my left foot to keep my balance for the next move.

“Good! He’s bleeding, but the pain hasn’t hit yet, and he doesn’t realize how badly he’s hurt. He’ll try to come after you. How do you stop him?”

“Cut the Achilles tendon as he passes me, then get out of range.” I spin and slash again, the Switch beginning to feel like an extension of my arm as I thrust, turn, and slice in tune with my father’s voice in my head.

He’s clapping, pride and love written on his face. “You did it. I knew you could. I always knew you could.”

“But what if I can’t?” I lower the Switch. “What if one day I don’t know what to do?” My throat closes, and I have to force myself to whisper, “What if you’re gone, and I have no one left to teach me?”

But the scene in my mind falls silent. I never asked him those questions last time we sparred together. I never knew I should. And now, when I desperately want to fill in the blanks, to hear his voice tell me how to escape Baalboden, how to find him, and how to keep the Commander from finding what Dad so desperately wanted kept hidden, he’s gone.

“I can teach you,” Logan says quietly, and my eyes snap open.

He’s a few yards away, his face shadowed by the branches of the tree he stands under. As he steps forward, I swear if I see pity on his expression, I won’t speak to him ever again. But when the sunlight brushes against his face, there’s no pity in his eyes. Instead, they’re steady and filled with the same determination I always saw in Dad’s.

He walks toward me and reaches out to slide his hand along the weighted end of the Switch I still hold.

“I miss him,” he says. “That unmovable assurance he always carried with him. Like he could shoulder the weight of the world, and it wouldn’t break him.” His fingers brush mine, but neither of us pulls away.

My voice is quiet. “I miss his laugh. Remember?”

He smiles. “He filled a room when he was in it, didn’t he?”

I nod, and the raw ache of feeling so alone subsides a bit.

“I know I can’t take his place, and I don’t want to. But I know how to use a Switch. And you’ll need it in the Wasteland. Will you let me teach you?”

I smile a little. “If you don’t mind getting humiliated by a girl, tech head.”

“You’re going to eat those words.”

I toss my hair out of my face. “Make me.”

S
he stands in front of me, wild red hair streaming in the wind, a fierce gleam in her eyes. I want to reach out and touch her. Let some of the brilliant light she carries spill over onto me. I stretch out my hand, but rational thought kicks in at the last second. I grab Jared’s Switch instead.

“This is too big for you. I’ll make one your size, and we’ll train.”

“But the tracking device—”

It takes me a second to realize she still thinks I need time to work on the device to find Jared. I don’t. I simply need another day or two to finish the one I’m making to find
her
. Just in case the Commander gets away with whatever treachery I’m sure he’s planning.

“I can do both,” I say. “Listen to me, Rachel.” I wait until her eyes meet mine. “I want you to promise me that if the Commander ever makes you feel threatened, you’ll do exactly what Jared taught you. Strike him down, and get away.”

“If I do that while we’re still in Baalboden, everyone I love will pay the price. I can’t.” Her voice is firm, but her eyes look shadowed. She knows the kind of danger she’s in, but she’s determined, if it comes to it, to lay down her life for Oliver. For me.

As if I could ever let her do that. Anger licks at me, chased by a cold frisson of fear. She isn’t my Protector. I’m
hers
. And I’m not dropping this until I get her promise.

“Yes, you can.” When she shakes her head, I snap at her. “You
can
. He’s just a man. A cruel tyrant who doesn’t deserve the power he’s been abusing.” Pain pierces me, swelling on a tide of something almost feral as I remember the heat floating off the dusty cobblestones, the heavy smell of my mother’s blood, the way her breathing hissed in and out slowly until suddenly it was gone.
She
was gone.

“But—”

“Do you know what happens to girls in Baalboden who cross the Commander, Rachel? Do you?” My voice cracks. “They
die
. He kills them. He’ll kill you if he finds out what we’re planning.”

“Logan—”

“He’ll kill you. Do you understand?”

She nods.

I look away. At the distant orchard where men crouch behind trees waiting for us to run. Where the idyllic picture of early spring is nothing but a mirage covering the bloody truth of life in Baalboden. I look, but I can’t quite erase the sight of my mother’s lifeless eyes staring at something far beyond anything I could imagine. Missing her is a constant ache I carry with me.

“Logan?”

I turn toward her, braced for the pity I’m sure I’ll find, but she has none. Instead, she watches me with steady understanding.

“I never told you how much I admire your mother.”

The ache in my chest eases. “Really?”

“Really. Dad told me how she was the only woman in Baalboden who wasn’t allowed to go through the Claiming ceremony again after her husband passed on. I guess he died before you were born?”

I nod. Mom rarely spoke of my father. Instead, she’d hold me close and say she was lucky. She had me, and who needed anything else?

“Dad also told me the Commander assigned himself as her Protector, but he wouldn’t check in on her for weeks at a time. Don’t you find that strange? Why break the protocol for your mom and no one else?”

“I don’t know.” But I wish I did. Maybe if he hadn’t kept her from being Claimed again, she’d still be alive.

She frowns, and says slowly, “It’s almost like the Commander hated you from the very start. Dad said he, Oliver, and some of the other men would bring her food. See what she needed in between the Commander’s visits.”

“Until Oliver was sick. Jared was out on a mission. And no one else remembered us.” The words are hard to say. The memories they evoke are worse. The bare cupboards. The desperation in Mom’s eyes as days passed, and we slowly starved.

“She was a hero. It was unfair of the Commander to deny her real Protection. Unfair to treat her differently than any other woman here. It took courage to go to Market without permission. She did it for—”

“Me! She did it for me, and it cost her her life.” I can’t breathe past the sudden wave of guilt and grief tearing at me. “If I hadn’t been hungry, she never would’ve risked it.”

Rachel leans close until all I can see is her. “No. If you hadn’t been there, she wouldn’t have had anything left to live for at all. She loved you, and you were worth the risk. You still are.”

We stare at each other as her words hang in the air between us. Then she steps back, looks at the ground, and says, “Are you going to make me a new Switch or not?”

Turning my attention back to the matter at hand is easy. Figuring out what to do with Rachel’s words isn’t. Setting them aside for now, I search for a stick heavy enough to turn into a Switch, and start working.

By late afternoon, I’ve finished making her Switch and have turned her loose on the dummy. The weighted end smacks into Bob with a satisfying crunch, and she spins the stick, releases the double-edged blade, and buries it into Bob’s heart as he crashes back toward her.

She grins and yanks her weapon free. “For someone who spends his days hunched over boring old papers, you sure know how to create a nice killing stick.”

Time to teach her who she’s dealing with. “I didn’t grow up in South Edge without learning a trick or two,” I say as I pick up Jared’s Switch. “Sheath your blade. We’ll count a solid touch from the blade end as a strike.”

She sends her blade back into its hiding place, widens her stance, and rolls to the balls of her feet. I walk toward her, the resolve I feel to protect her blazing into something hard and bright in the face of her courage.

“I spend my days hunched over boring old papers, do I?” My stick whistles through the air, and she leaps back to dodge the blow. Spinning, I tap her with the sheathed blade before she can raise her arms in defense.

“My point,” I say, and don’t bother hiding my smirk.

She circles me. “Lucky shot.”

I lash out again, but she’s ready. Blocking me with the middle of her Switch, she whirls beneath my outstretched arms and slams the weighted end into my thigh.

Pride keeps me from swearing at the pain. Instead, I sweep her feet out from under her. She flips in midair and rolls forward as she lands, coming up with her stick ready.

The controlled grace of her movements would make Jared proud. I decide the warm emotion sweeping through me must be pride too.

“You’re fast. That’s good,” I say, advancing toward her.

“You’re not bad for a tech head.”

We block, parry, and break apart. She’s strong and quick, but I worry she doesn’t know how to anticipate the unexpected. I step back, inviting an attack, and she charges forward, swinging the weighted end of her stick like a butcher slicing the head from a sheep. I wait until the last second, then drop to the ground and ram her with my shoulder. Her forward momentum carries her over the top of me and she lands face-first in the grass.

She spits dry blades of grass from her mouth, and swears, but a new respect for me is in her eyes.

I laugh, and my fear for her eases into something I can use to focus on planning. She stares at me, a tiny smile flitting across her lips, and the affection on her face makes me feel like the richest man in the world.

“I was a fighter long before I was a tech head.” I offer her a hand up. “You need to be ready for an opponent who does the unexpected.”

She takes my outstretched hand, closing her soft fingers over mine without breaking my gaze. The sun blazes a golden path through her fiery hair, and my eyes slide over her pale skin and come to rest on her lips. Warmth pools in my stomach and spreads lazily through me as I tug her hand and pull her closer.

I’m not going to kiss her. That would be … I don’t know what that would be. I can’t seem to think straight. All I see is
Rachel
, filling up my empty spaces and making me into more than I ever could be on my own.

Maybe this is what family does for each other. She’s my family now. Which is why, even as I lean toward her, unable to tear my gaze away from the softness of her mouth, I tell myself I’m not going to kiss her.

She steps toward me, face upturned. I lean in.

Behind us, someone clears his throat.

I
drop her hand and whip around, my Switch ready. Oliver stands on our back porch with the sternest expression he can manage aimed straight at me.

Rachel steps back and bends to pick up her weapon. I find I’m suddenly very interested in the exact position of the sun, and I take a moment to study the sky. When I look back at Oliver, his brow is raised.

“Going to invite an old man in? Or going to stand there pretending I didn’t just see—”

“We were sparring.” Rachel hefts her Switch to prove it.

“That’s not what we called it in my day,” Oliver says, and motions for us to come inside the house with him.