Defiance (14 page)

“You will be in the Claiming ceremony. I’ve seen the way Logan looks at you. I have no doubt he’ll try to Claim you.” His smile flickers at the edges. “You are going to turn him down.”

I’m too numb to protest. To wonder what the Commander thinks he sees when Logan looks at me. To argue that no one’s ever turned down an eligible man in the history of Baalboden’s Claiming ceremonies.

“When you turn him down, I will declare you a ward of the state. Logan’s influence will be legally severed, and you will then travel the Wasteland without him.” His voice lowers. “You will show my tracker where your father hid the package he received at Rowansmark, and you will return it to me, or Logan will be tortured and killed.”

He lets go of my chin and runs his palm across my cheek, tangling his fingers in my hair. “Do I make myself clear?”

I nod, a wobbly, uncertain movement, and watch the blood slide down his blade.

“Until tomorrow,” he says, and then he’s gone.

T
he wagon lurches forward again, and it takes a moment to realize I’m not alone in the back. One of the guards is sitting on the bench behind me, holding a paper-wrapped package in one hand and a damp cloth in the other.

I scoot as far away from him as I can without touching the puddle of Oliver’s blood seeping slowly into the floorboards. When he ignores me, I wrap my arms around my knees and try not to let the agonized wailing I hear inside my head leave my lips.

Oliver is dead.

Dead
.

He’ll never be a great-granddaddy. He’ll never hand me another sticky bun, or call me Rachel-girl, or see me clear my father’s name.

The truth is too harsh to touch, and I shy away from it before it sears itself into my brain and becomes real. Instead, I find a quiet place within myself where the Commander doesn’t exist, my family is still intact, and I’m not covered in anyone’s blood.

The harsh keening inside my head becomes muted—the grief of some other girl. Not mine.

I rock, holding myself as if I’ll fly into a million little pieces if I let go.

The guard says something, but I can’t hear him. If I listen to him, I might hear the grief-stricken wail of the girl who just lost something precious.

He slaps me, but I can’t feel it. He says something else, then crouches down in front of me and scrubs my face with rough persistence. When he pulls back, the damp cloth in his hand is covered in bright red patches, like little crimson flowers decorating the fabric.

Bile rises at the back of my throat, and I tear my eyes away from the cloth.

He removes the string on the package he carries and tears off the paper. I don’t look to see what he has. It might be covered in red too.

He’s talking again, louder this time. His boots dig into the hard wooden floor beneath us as he stands. I catch a glimpse of crimson staining the edge of his right sole, and tuck my head toward my chest.

My chest is covered in rust-scented crimson.

Covered.

I beat at it. Tear at it with frantic fingers. I have to get it off me. I
have
to.

The guard helps. Rough hands unlace my tunic, and I claw my way free. I’m panting, harsh bursts of air that fill the wagon.

He attacks my skin with his red-flowered cloth again, and I twist my body, trying to get away. I don’t want him to touch me with that thing. I can’t stand to have it touch me for another second.

He drops the cloth. In its place, he holds a new tunic that looks just like my old one used to look. Pure white. Crimson-free.

I let him slide it over my head. Let the rough linen threads scrape against my skin. Maybe if they scrape hard enough, I’ll forget. About the crimson. About the awful wailing I still hear inside me.

About what I just lost.

The guard pulls me to my feet and fumbles with the laces on my skirt, but I don’t help him. How can I? I’m not really there. I’m home, on our back porch, sipping lemonade while my family is close by, just out of sight.

He says something, but I don’t hear him. I’m too busy listening to the deep rumble of men’s voices coming from somewhere behind my back porch.

My skirt puddles around my feet, and he lifts me out of it.

The lemonade I sip is the perfect combination of tart and sweet. I want to share it with my family, but they stay just out of reach.

He pulls a new skirt over my head. Light blue, just like the one he removed.

Light blue like the summer sky I see from my porch.

I’m sitting on the wagon’s bench.

No, I’m sitting on our rocker.

My shoes are gone.

It’s summer. I don’t need shoes.

Now, they’re back again. A stranger is tying them. Which is silly, because I can tie my own shoes. If I want to. Which I don’t, because the summer sun is hot, and I’m too tired.

I’m so tired.

I stop rocking on the porch. Or maybe the wagon stops.

I’m not in a wagon. I never was.

Hands lift me up and set me down on a cobblestone street. I stare at my boots. They’re the same color and design as always, but the scuffs and creases are gone as if they never were.

Behind me, a wagon clip-clops away. I don’t turn. I don’t know where my porch is. Where the summer sun went. It’s cold now. Cold and gray and the air feels damp against my skin.

Someone calls my name, and I look up to see Sylph, her dark eyes full of fear, beckoning from the doorway to my right. As I turn and walk toward her, I hear the faint wailing of the grief-stricken girl grow louder, and clamp my lips tight to hold it in.

I
’ve met with contacts at the butcher’s, the blacksmith’s, and a corner table at Thom’s Tankard. No one knows anything more about Rowansmark or Jared than Oliver already told me.

I need to know what Jared took from Rowansmark, who gave it to him, and why. I need to understand why he hid it instead of bringing it into Baalboden. Most of all, I need a clear picture of the Commander’s role in all of this.

I might not be able to gain more information on what is happening outside our Wall, but I know how to get information on the Commander’s activities. Wrapping my cloak around myself, I walk through South Edge in circuitous routes, ducking through alleys and backyards, making sure I lose my followers. Approaching my destination with caution, I knock and wait to be allowed entrance.

Monty runs his business out of his kitchen at a table that leans precariously toward the floor on one side. On one side of the room, stacks of goods rest in haphazard piles, evidence of a successful week in the information-for-hire trade. On the other, Monty leans back in a chair, a wicked-looking dagger lying across his lap, sipping a mug of ale and watching me with narrow dark eyes.

“Monty.” I nod and settle into an open chair beside him.

He sets his mug on the table and lets his chair legs slam back onto the scuffed, dirty floor beneath him. “Logan McEntire. Haven’t seen the likes of you in these parts for several years. Thought maybe you’d outgrown good old South Edge.”

I don’t take him up on his clever invitation to tell him what I’ve been doing and with whom. For one, he already knows I earned the apprenticeship with Jared. Everyone does. For another, in a room where information is part of the currency, I’m not about to part with mine for free.

Instead, I rest my elbows on the table, steeple my fingers, and look at him steadily over the top of my hands. “How many times in the past three years have you been forced to relocate before the guards arrested you or one of your clients? Five? Six? Help me out here, because I’ve lost track.”

Monty’s eyes harden, but his expression remains calm. “What is it you want, Logan?”

“It’s what
you
want, Monty. What I can do for you.”

He’s silent for a moment, assessing me while he wipes beads of condensation from his mug of ale. Then he says, “What can you do for me?”

Reaching into my cloak, I pull out a copper circle about the size of a flat orange. It glows beneath the faint sunlight leaking in past the layer of filth on Monty’s kitchen window.

“Shiny.” Monty says, his tone noncommittal. “But I already have plenty of shiny.”

I place the disc on the table. “Still have that stolen Identidisc around here somewhere?”

He lifts his eye to mine, and his expression reminds me of a snake. Cold. Calculating. And dangerous if cornered. Finally, he nods. “Let’s say I do have one of those. What does that have to do with this?”

“The last thing you need is a guard wandering through with an Identidisc and seeing a list of anyone you happen to be doing business with at the moment. It compromises your reputation, inhibits your ability to do business, and could easily land you in the dungeon. This”—I rub my thumb across the glowing copper surface—“blocks every wristmark within a thirty-yard radius. Basically, if you turn this on whenever you do business, everyone in your house will be dark to the guards.”

He blinks once more and when his eyes meet mine, greed peeks out behind the cold calculation.

I have him.

“I want proof it works,” he says, and gets up to rummage through his cupboards, his dagger still grasped in his hand. In seconds, he returns to the table carrying a black Identidisc. It’s an older model, but a glance at it shows the battery still has enough juice left to take a reading. I remain still while he powers it up and sends out a sonic pulse.

Both of our names show up on the screen.

So does the name Anthony Ruiz.

I frown at Monty. “Who’s Anthony Ruiz?”

Monty shrugs. “A boy who delivers messages through South Edge. Never mind him, turn on your device.”

I comply and wait while the Identidisc sends out another pulse. This time the screen shows no list of citizens in the immediate area.

Monty sets down the Identidisc and looks at me. “How much?”

“I’m thinking it’s fairly priceless.”

“I can put a price on anything. What do you want?”

“Money would be nice,” I say, and Monty’s lips thin. “But I’ll settle for useful information instead.”

“What kind of information is worth a device like this?”

“I’d like to know what the Commander’s been up to lately.”

“That’s a pretty vague request.”

I nod. “Then I guess you’d better tell me everything you know about him, his activities, and anything unusual happening in the compound, and let me decide what’s useful for my purposes and what isn’t.”

Monty shakes his head. “Too steep a price, Logan.”

I shrug, scoop the copper disc off the table, and stand. “I’ll be on my way, then.” I’m halfway through the door when he calls me back.

“Fine. Sit down. Leave the disc. I’ll tell you what I’ve heard.”

I return to the table, set the disc in front of me, and listen while Monty tells me the few things he knows for sure about Commander Chase.

Fact 1: The Commander has a small object attached to a chain and wears it underneath his uniform. Most sources agree he never takes this pendant off.

I don’t see how this is relevant or useful to me, but I file it away just in case. If nothing else, I can use the chain to choke him during hand-to-hand combat if it ever comes to that.

Fact 2: After Jared’s disappearance, the Commander sent two couriers on missions, but neither of them were heading toward Rowansmark. They haven’t returned yet, though the first is due any day.

This might be nothing more than the usual messages, negotiations, and trade between our city-state and another. But the fact that the Commander neglected to send any official message to Rowansmark in the wake of the accusations against his top courier is suspicious. Why not reach out to make peace? Offer to help bring Jared in? The only answer I can come up with is that the Commander needs to find Jared first.

Fact 3: This morning, every remaining tracker in the city except Melkin was sent out on a mission.

I’ve never heard of so many trackers being given missions at once. I can only assume they’ve been tasked to cover all four corners of the Wasteland in the search for Jared, even while Rachel and I look for the package. I don’t like the fact that Melkin wasn’t included in the mass send-off this morning. Either he’s going to be part of our mission, or the Commander has a double-cross up his sleeve.

Let him try it. He isn’t the only one who knows how to think three steps ahead.

I leave the house and a rail-thin boy with hungry eyes detaches from the surrounding shadows and approaches me. I’m guessing this is Anthony Ruiz, messenger boy.

“Logan McEntire?” He waits well out of sword range for my reply.

“Yes.”

Someone bangs a door further down the street, and the boy tenses like he’s ready to run. “Roderigo Angeles is looking for you. His wife needs you to return to Madam Illiard’s shop in North Hub immediately.”

Rachel. She snuck out again. And she’s been caught. The image of my mother’s body wavers and reforms into Rachel lying broken and bloody at the Commander’s feet.

The boy says something else, but I can’t hear anything beyond the pulse roaring in my ears. I toss him a coin for his trouble and hurry toward the main street, fear driving my steps.

S
he hasn’t snuck out. Instead, she’s huddled on the floor, pressed against the back wall of Madam Illiard’s stock room.

I can’t process this Rachel. I’ve never seen her like this.

Sylph is sitting near Rachel, watching her and crying. I ignore Mrs. Angeles and Madam Illiard in favor of heading straight for the girls. Sylph looks up and stands so I can take her place.

I crouch on the floor beside Rachel. She looks into my eyes, and there’s nothing but glassy shock in hers. My heart sinks. “Rachel? What’s wrong?”

She begins rocking as if she needs that simple rhythm to keep herself anchored.

“Can you tell me?” I ask, my mind racing. Maybe something happened to Jared, and my contacts hadn’t heard of it. Maybe she’s realized the magnitude of what it means to leave Baalboden forever, though I doubt that would cause this state of shock. Maybe a man hurt her. I don’t know how, since she’s been in the Angeleses’ care the entire time, but I have to acknowledge the possibility.