Defiance (17 page)

When I realize I’m staring again, I look down at my bag and carefully go through it without once looking up. Everything is there, and I feel a sense of accomplishment for breaking whatever strange hold Rachel’s had over me since the moment she came out wearing that cursed dress.

“I’m ready,” she says, and I look at her, standing in the sunshine, grieving and beautiful, her boots peeking out from beneath her silk skirt, her eyes hard with something I’ve never seen there before.

I look, and I’m afraid.

That he’s taken her innocence. That something will blow up in our faces today, and this will be our last moment of peace together.

That somehow I’ll fail her. Oliver. Jared. Myself.

“I’ve made a new magnetic bracelet for you,” I say, and scoop it off the table. It’s a cuff of battered copper that covers the tracking device I’ve worked so hard to perfect. I’ve burned the outline of a Celtic knot into the center and filled it with brilliant sapphire wires, each attached to an inner gear that, unbeknownst to her, can turn this tracking device into a weapon.

I’m hoping I never have to activate it. But it’s better to be prepared than dead.

She takes the cuff, runs her fingers over the wires, and then tugs it over her arm. “Why do I need a new magnetic bracelet if I’m going to be in the Wasteland?”

“I hid the tracking device inside of it.”

“How will we know if it’s working?”

“You’ll feel a gentle buzz against your skin, and the wires will start to glow. They’ll glow brighter the closer we come to him.”

I don’t tell her I’ve embedded a tracking device inside the cuff that will lead me to her as well. Just in case.

“Then we’re ready,” she says, and the hardness in her eyes makes me ache.

I want to give her something more valuable than just another one of my inventions. Something that will remind her of love. Family.

Me.

I reach into my front pocket and close my fist around the leather pouch I’ve carried since the day my mother died. “I want to give you something else,” I say as I pull the pouch out into the open.

“What is it?” She glances at her bag as if wondering what else she can possibly add to the pile.

“No, not a weapon. Something more … feminine.”

Which sounds incredibly stupid, but I don’t know how to do this.

She frowns and looks down at herself. “I think I’m already feminine overkill.”

“Yes,” I say in fervent agreement, and she raises puzzled eyes to mine. But I have no intention of explaining myself. Instead, I say, “I have a gift for you. It would mean a lot to me if you’d accept it.”

She holds out her hand, and I press the soft, time-worn bag into her palm while making sure to look at the wall behind her. She tugs open the brown drawstring and dumps the contents into her hand.

It’s an intricately designed silver pendant made of a dozen interlocked circles with a glowing blue-black stone in the center of it. The necklace hangs on a glittering silver chain. It’s the one thing of beauty I can call my own.

“It was my mother’s. The only thing I have left of hers,” I say, and hope she understands that this means she’s my family now.

She clenches her fingers around it, and then slowly reaches out to hand it back to me. “I can’t accept this.”

I close my fingers around hers, the necklace still resting in her palm, meet her eyes, and say what Oliver once said to me.

“You’re worth so much more than anything I can give you. If you can’t believe that right now, believe in me.”

She stares at me, and I hold her gaze. I don’t know what she sees in my face, but she turns, lifts up her hair, and waits for me to fasten the chain against the back of her neck.

When she turns back, the pendant rests against her chest, glowing like it was always meant to be hers. I can’t tell what she’s thinking. She still looks fierce, running on rage and grief. But one day, maybe, she’ll look at the necklace and realize I see much more inside her than the tangled mess she feels now.

“It’s a Celtic knot. The same design I burned into the cuff I just gave you. It symbolizes eternity. The stone is a black sapphire, which symbolizes faithfulness.” I reach out and trace my finger over the pendant.

She looks at my finger, and then back at me, and a tiny tremble goes through her.

“It means”—I lean closer and will my words to take root within her—“I will always find you. I will always protect you. I won’t let you down. I promise.”

Something softens the fierceness of her gaze. It’s a small shift, but I catch it. “Do you remember the first time we met?” I ask, closing my hand around the pendant, her skin warm against mine. “Reuben Little stole bread from Oliver, and you chased him through the Market, cornered him in an alley, and were pelting him with items from the trash heap.”

“Oliver sent you to find me, so he wouldn’t have to tell my dad I’d run off into the Market on my own again. I was eight,” she says, and grief shivers through her voice at the memory.

It shivers through me, too, and I welcome it. It’s my last connection to Oliver.

I lean a little closer, until the space between us can be measured in breaths. “You were this wild girl with spirit, brains, and so much beauty it almost hurt to look at you. I was this penniless orphan, spurned by our leader and scrounging in trash heaps for my dinner. I never thought I’d be in a position to offer you protection, but I am. And nothing is going to stop me.”

“Nothing is going to stop me, either,” she says, and I hear the warrior she’s becoming coat her grief with purpose.

I lean my forehead to hers, our breath mingling for a moment, while my hand still clenches around the pendant and every rise and fall of her chest scrapes against my skin and makes me feel alive in a way I’ve never felt before.

Then she steps back, picks up her bag, and feels for the weight of her knife sheath beneath her skirt. I strap on my sword, heft my bag, and meet her gaze.

“Ready?”

Her smile is vicious as she holds her hand out to me. “Time to start paying our debt to the Commander.”

I match her smile with one of my own, lock fingers with hers, and together we walk out the door.

A
s we walk hand in hand through Country Low, I realize it’s the last time I’ll see the fields stretching between the orchards and offering the space to breathe. The last time I’ll come around this bend and see the city laid out before me. I should probably feel a sense of loss, but with Oliver dead, Jared somewhere in the Wasteland, and Rachel leaving with me, I find I have nothing left to tie me to this place but a burning hatred for the Commander.

We enter South Edge and Melkin steps out from behind a building. If he wonders why we’re bringing travel bags to the Claiming ceremony, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he follows us as we head toward Center Square. As soon as we turn north, he falls back, apparently satisfied that we’re obeying the Commander’s orders. I scan the street for any guards who might be following us as well, but see no one.

The Commander thinks he’s broken Rachel so badly he’s already won. I can’t wait to prove him wrong.

The streets bustle today, full of people heading to the Square for the ceremony. Most of Baalboden’s citizens will attend. Some because of the ceremony itself. Some because the Commander provides a banquet and dancing afterward.

The deserted shops work to our advantage. I pull Rachel into a side street a block from Center Square, and we hide our bags behind the bushes at the back of the mercantile. It’s closed for the day, and if we duck out of the festivities early enough, we should have no problem reclaiming our belongings.

“That’s good,” I say as she pulls at the branches of a bush until it covers any sign of the bag hidden behind it. We slide back into the crowds heading toward the ceremony. The closer we come to the stage, the more color Rachel loses. We’re nearly to Center Square when I stop and squeeze her hand gently.

“Look at me when you’re on the stage,” I say. “Look at me, no matter what he says. I won’t let him hurt you.”

She nods, but she’s trembling. I don’t know if it’s from anger, trauma, or nerves. Most likely a combination of the three.

By the time we arrive, citizens have filled Center Square. Girls in brilliant jewel-toned dresses cluster together, whispering and giggling as they eye the group of eligible townsmen lined up near the platform, each looking tremendously uncomfortable. The wooden stage, the same one used to carry out Commander-sanctioned executions, is scrubbed clean and draped with red ribbon.

Sylph is here, glowing in her emerald and black dress, her hair somehow tamed into the intricate updo favored by most girls on Claiming day. A quick glance at those assembled shows Rachel is the only one who left her hair unbound. She’s also the only one with a dress cut low enough to attract the notice of every male mingling at the edge of the stage. I see the moment they realize she’s going to be part of the ceremony, and have to stop myself from reaching for my sword just to give them something else to think about.

I wonder which of them will have the nerve to stand up and Claim her. Mitch Patterson? I can’t agree to that. I once saw his left eye twitch for an entire hour. That has to be a sign of mental instability. Wendall Freeman? He can’t hold his liquor. And he tells terrible jokes. Peter Carmine? He’s … I search for the fault I know is there and finally decide he’s too short for her. Too short and too stupid.

I don’t actually have proof that Peter Carmine is stupid, but he looks like he could be, and that’s enough in my book.

Which just goes to show I’m the one who should be worried about mental instability and rampant stupidity. It doesn’t matter who steps forward to Claim her. She isn’t going to be here long enough for them to make good on their offer.

We stick to our plan. Foil the Commander on his own stage. And leave.

I have backup travel bags stashed where the Commander would never think to look, just in case the bags hidden behind the mercantile are inaccessible when we need them. I know where to hide in South Edge and how to block our wristmarks so the guards can’t find us as we figure out a new way across the Wall.

And I have an alternate plan of my own ready for anything the Commander might pull.

We’re as ready as we can be. I step in front of Rachel to block the ogling idiots at the stage, and a bell, sonorous and deep, echoes across the Square. The crowd stirs and whispers as the girls line up to the side of the stage, a bewildering display of color, jewels, and anxious smiles. Sylph sees us, eyes widening at the sight of Rachel in a Claiming dress, and gives a tiny, hesitant wave.

Rachel doesn’t wave back. I’m not sure she even realizes Sylph is there. I don’t think she sees anything but the stage, and the fact that she’ll have to stand next to the Commander while she gives the performance of her life.

The girls begin mounting the stairs, taking dainty steps to avoid tripping over their long skirts. Their Protectors file up the stairs after them. The eligible townsmen yank at their collars as if they’re in danger of choking, and the bell peals three long notes.

The Commander is here.

It’s time.

I pull Rachel to me, inhale the midnight citrus scent of her, and then I let go, and we move to take our place on the stage.

A
rmed guards enter the Square and fan out, stationing themselves at three-yard intervals along the edges. Behind them, the twelve members of the Brute Squad march through the Square, two by two. The lead pair reaches the stage, halts, and pivots to face each other. Each subsequent pair also stops and faces each other until they’ve formed a tight, citizen-free aisle between them.

Another three long peals from the bell and every guard in the Square snaps his right forearm up to his forehead in a rigid salute. Silence, dense and absolute, falls across the Square as the Commander strides down the aisle toward the stage.

My mouth goes dry, my pulse pounds against my skin, and my vision narrows until all I see is him. I press my arm against my side and feel the outline of my knife sheath beneath my skirt as he approaches the steps.

I’m the last in the line of girls across the stage. As he walks up the steps, he meets my gaze and smiles as if only the two of us exist.

My skin crawls, and something hot and sharp seeps out of my grief and begs for his blood.

I reach for the slit in the side of my skirt, but he’s already past me, greeting the Protectors who stand behind their daughters, and turning to face the assembled crowd.

“No weapons,” Logan breathes against my ear. “Don’t give him a reason.”

He’s right, but I don’t take my hand away from the outline of my knife.

The Commander greets his citizens, says a few words about the honorable tradition of Claiming and how protecting the innocent among us keeps us strong, and gestures toward a girl on his left. Her Protector brings her forward, and a young man steps to the stage to Claim her.

My hands shake, but my thoughts are clear.

The girl’s Protector accepts the young man’s claim and hands over his daughter.

The Commander expects Logan to defy tradition and Claim me even though he’s also my Protector.

The girl places her hand into that of her new Protector and recites her vow of obedience while her mother dabs her eyes and her new Protector looks slightly stunned by his good fortune.

He expects me to turn Logan down and ask to be a ward of the state.

Another girl is called. Another man steps forward. Another vow of obedience.

Another step closer to sealing my fate.

I can’t make this look like I’m defying the Commander’s direct orders. Instead, I have to make it look like I’m just another girl, excited to see her dream of being Claimed come true, while Logan makes it look like he’s clueless about the Commander’s plan. The Commander can’t alter the Claiming ceremony for me in front of all these people without raising serious questions. He’ll have to accept the turn of events, at least publicly. We just need to get out of his reach before he finds an opportunity to deal with us privately.