New World Ashes (3 page)

I STOPPED TRYING
to calculate time, but since I had awakened in the tiny prison cell I had received four glasses of water and one sad example of a meal. It looked more like vomit than food. I didn’t touch it. Instead, I spent the time reflecting on the man who called himself my grandfather.

My head was slowly starting to un-cloud, allowing me to think clearly again. At some point I realized Fandrin had never once asked about my mother’s whereabouts. And the only reason he wouldn’t need to ask, was because he already knew the answer. Why waste time asking about my mother or father when he knew they were dead? Heat burned in my cheeks, as another thought crossed my mind.

Did he have a hand in their deaths?

The man that I had just met claimed to be my grandfather and then nearly cracked my skull open with his cane. If he was capable of beating his self-proclaimed granddaughter into unconsciousness, then was he not equally capable of sending a Tribe that apparently worked with him to kill his own daughter? Obviously this man had no problem getting his hands dirty—or at least asking others to do it for him. Bile rose in my throat at the thought of his blood also flowing in my veins. I shied away from that thought.

Surely he was lying. It was just a coincidence we had similar features and he was using them to his advantage. Banking on the idea that if he told the poor orphaned teen that she still had family, she might cling to him and ultimately give him what he wanted. Too bad for Fandrin I didn’t actually
need
anyone. What I needed was for the other people I loved to survive—but me personally, I had always been my best when I was alone. Against the odds. Bring on the solitary confinement, it felt like home.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. As much as I wanted to think about Triven and Mouse, it was a luxury I couldn’t afford. They were my one weakness and if I was to survive this—if I was to return to them—I needed to shut them out for now. There could be no pining over my lost friends, or worrying about their safety. They were alive and if I wanted to see them again, I needed to leave my thoughts at that. Loving them had made me soft and now was not the time for weakness.

Just as I locked that allegorical door in my mind, the actual door to my cell opened. I didn’t move, but stared expectantly at the opening as if bored. I was surprised that the boy who entered was not much older than myself. He was striking. The lines of his face were nearly perfect. He had a wide chin and prominent cheekbones that were accented by a long straight nose and high brow. The only imperfection on his otherwise flawless face was a small scar above his left eye. His uniform was similar to the one I had seen The Minister wearing. Slim fitted, tailored white pants and a sharply cut jacket enhanced his already broad physique. Only one silver bar adorned each of his shoulders but several metallic badges crossed the left breast pocket of his uniform, beneath the same round badge I had seen on The Minister. This was an officer. It became apparent officers wore white. Soldiers wore silver, like I had seen in the streets. He stood straight with his hands clasped behind his back as his bright blue eyes looked me over. His jet-black hair was as equally manicured as his suit. Short on the sides with a little more on the top. He was clearly a
high-ranking
officer in The Sanctuary’s military.

I instantly recognized him from the room where I had been interrogated, but at the time he had seemed of little importance. Just another white suit in a room filled with uniforms. Now, however, I realized I should not have overlooked him so carelessly before.

“Get up.” The soldier barked. The loathing in his eyes was nearly palpable.

I glared back at him unmoving. “What, the old man miss me already?”

His hand flashed out with impressive speed, the back striking my cheek so hard it felt as if my eye would explode from its socket. I fell face first into the mattress from the force of his blow and struggled to right myself. I wanted to laugh at him, to make him feel insecure about his strength, but my head was pounding again and my voice seemed to be stuck in my throat. His fingers coiled around the back of my neck as he pulled his lips to my ear.

“Say anything like that again and you will be dragged out of here in a body bag,
Princess
.” His lips grazed my earlobes as he spoke.

Instinctively, I twitched away from him.

I am not sure what it was about the “princess” that bothered me so much, but whether it was the connotation the name carried or the way he said it, I instantly loathed that nickname.

“Got it?” His hissed giving my neck a sharp shake.

I glanced at one of the shining silver badges on his chest. The round emblem had two rigidly sculpted wings at the bottom. Three disjointed rings that arched over the top connected them. Tiny words were engraved on each of the rings.
Equality. Unity. Freedom
. In the middle, a strangely shaped spire jutted up cutting the pressed circle in half.  Beneath that was a simple sliver nameplate. The inscribed letters read
R. James
.

“Yes
sir,
officer James
.
” I put as much contempt in my voice as I could muster.

“It’s
Major
James. And when a Major tells you to get up, you get up!”

Using my neck as a means of steering, he pulled me from the ground and marched me through the door. I only got a quick glance at the barren, all white hallway before a bag was once again pulled over my head. Simultaneously, shackles were clamped on my wrists. The black linen material was dense. I could just barely make out the heavy fabric as it flexed and restricted with each breath. There was no hope of seeing through the hood. I made a mental note to make better use of those few seconds of sight next time they pulled me from my cell.

Since I couldn’t see, I counted. It was obvious from the sound of footsteps that there were five other guards walking with us. Apparently, they would not be underestimating me as I had hoped.

We took a right at sixty-five and then a left at one hundred and ninety-seven. At two hundred and thirty-nine steps I was jerked to a halt by the shackles on my wrists. The cool metal bit into my skin. As my stomach dropped I realized we were moving upward in some sort of lift. One hundred and forty-two seconds later the floor finally stopped moving. I heard the feet around me move again and was rewarded with a barrel of a gun jammed sharply into my spine when I didn’t move forward fast enough.

The sound of our feet was different now, the echo magnified. After thirty more steps, my hands were freed from their restraints and I was shoved into a chair. As abruptly as it had been put on, the black bag was yanked from my head. I recoiled against the brightness, blinking rapidly.

The room was huge. Fifteen other soldiers lined the walls, including the boy that reminded me of Mouse. Three of the walls were solid white, covered with strange screens and monitors that didn’t appear to have any depth to them. Moving images of The Sanctuary streets flashed intermittently across the screens. The wall directly in front of me, however, was made entirely of white beams and glass that bowed, curving sinuously into the ceiling. Beyond the glass I could see blue sky and a sea of beige and white buildings below.

There were large, white marble tiles covering the floor and the sparse furniture was made entirely of translucent materials, including the ornate chair I was currently seated in. While it was warm to the touch, it looked like glass, its rigid lines obviously not meant for comfort. Even the large desk in front of me was made of some kind of clear material, though not quite as see-through as my own seat. Sitting on the edge of the desk was a silver plate filled with small sandwiches. I looked away, suppressing my growling stomach.

It was easy to discern that all of this was a ruse meant to impress, to intimidate those brought before the great Minister of The Sanctuary. And while most would have ogled the room in awe, I appraised all of the surroundings in a matter of seconds while barely taking my eyes from the man sitting before me. His fingers were pressed to his lips as he studied me. I returned the stare, refusing to break the silence first. I searched his face, trying to find my features in hi
s
or more accurately trying
not
to find them.

He finally settled his hands into his lap and broke the weighted silence. “Our first encounter did not go exactly as I had hoped.”

“Really? And I thought we were doing
so
well.” I slouched in my chair feigning an ease I did not actually feel.

The older man’s face reddened but he held his composure. Sitting up a little straighter he spoke, “We are not barbarians here, but order must be kept.”

Clearly this man believed his self-proclaimed aristocracy merited respect. I silently took an oath to show him anything but that.

“Right, because cracking your granddaughter across the face is an excellent way to prove you’re not a barbarian. You’re just freaking Grandfather of the Year aren’t you?” I turned to the handsome stone-faced guard that had pulled me from my cell. “You should really get him a plaque or something. You know, so everyone knows how wonderful this man is. Hell, it might even make this place feel downright homey.”

In a stoke of defiant genius, I leaned forward and snatched one of the small sandwiches from his desk and took a huge bite making sure to chew with my mouth open. If he was going to crack me in the head again, at least it wouldn’t be on an empty stomach. I watched the young guard move to restrain me, but to my disappointment The Minister waved him off with a chuckle.

“I nearly missed your smart mouth.” The Minister hesitated. “But I know the truth about that smart mouth of yours. That's just your way of hiding the rage burning inside of you. That hot temper I can see flaring in your eyes, you get that from me.”

I nearly threw up my stolen sandwich. Swallowing it back down I said, “Lucky me.”

“You and I are not so different you know.” He spoke softer now, his blue eyes eerily penetrating.

“You don’t know anything about me.” I crossed my arms in an attempt to shut him out.

“On the contrary my dear, I practically raised you. While you were more
refined
when under my watch, I guarantee that part of the girl I trained—that I nurtured—is in there somewhere. Despite your lack of memories, it’s still there. Ingrained in you.” He tapped the corner of his temple to emphasize his point.

I barked out a wry laugh, spraying some semi-chewed food, and seized another sandwich. I shoved it in my mouth but my throat was so dry I nearly choked on it. I had never questioned my natural abilities when it came to combat or to how I could analyze every situation in seconds. I just always assumed it was some kind of survival instinct. It never crossed my mind that I had been trained,
programmed
to think that way. My memories stopped before my eleventh birthday, before my parents’ deaths. How many of those lost years had I spent being honed into a weapon? And what kind of parents would have let that happen?

I gagged down the last bit of sandwich before speaking. “You said it yourself, I seem to be lacking quite a few crucial memories. Like why the hell I should give a crap about anything you say. You’re nothing to me. Not even a face I would notice in a crowd. How could you possibly delude yourself into thinking you have had
any
kind of influence over me.”

The Minister laughed without humor. “Oh my dear child. How could
you
possibly delude
yourself
into thinking that you could have survived one second outside of The Wall without my influence?” He folded his hands on the desk while leaning toward me. “You survived that city for one reason and one reason alone. You are what
I
made you.”

My lip drew up in the corner with disgust. “Your lies only than flatter yourself.”

Fandrin snapped his fingers at the blonde man standing near the illuminated screens. “Careful who you call a liar, child.”

I opened my mouth to retort, but fell silent as the monitors all flickered to the same scene. There were two small children sparring in a ring while a younger Minister Fandrin watched over them. While the black-haired boy moved with animalistic ferocity, it was the blonde child that caught my attention. She was nearly half the size of the boy fighting with her, but it was clear she was the stronger fighter of the two. She was uncharacteristically graceful for a child. I felt my fingers go numb as I watched the scene before me. There was something familiar in the way she moved. I knew those moves. I knew that face, those eyes…

She was a younger version of…

She was me.

As the tingling spread up my arms, the scene changed and I watched in horror as the little girl sat at a table next to other children and reassembled a gun faster than her surrounding comrades. My throat tightened each time the scene changed—sparring, knife throwing, obstacle courses, shooting… It seemed to go on forever.

When The Minister finally spoke I couldn’t tear my eyes from the screen.

“You were the best cadet at the Academy. Under my personal tutelage, you quickly rose to the top of your class. You were going to be the perfect soldier, a lethal weapon before you hit puberty.” Pride dripped from his words.