“They claimed allegiance to the Reformation. To the president. To everything we work so diligently to protect.”
My chest rumbled with the deafening roar of the soldiers.
“They betrayed us. All of us. Without reformation they are nothing but animals, with no structure, no higher purpose, ready to bite the hand that feeds them. Without order they turn on each other, and tear each other apart.”
Two soldiers ripped the bags off of the prisoners’ heads at the same time. They blinked at the harsh overhead lights and tried to gain their bearings as their cuffs were removed.
One had dark skin, the other, light. I froze.
“Fight!” chanted the crowd. “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
The few stories I’d heard of Chase fighting in Chicago refreshed in my memory. The thought of him being forced to do battle for the entertainment of others disgusted me all over again. As I looked around, a new pity slashed through me, this one bright and sour. Violence and brutality to teach compliance, to enforce morality—that was the MM’s way.
At first Marco and Polo drew together, back to back, as if they might fight whatever came their way. I’m sorry, I thought. Sorry they were here, that they’d been caught, that I’d even thought of the Statute hijacking. They had made their decisions long before me, but I couldn’t help but feel responsible for this.
“Only one of you is coming out,” said the Chief of Reformation.
Marco glanced over his shoulder at Polo. His partner’s lips were moving fast, saying something I couldn’t make out over the shouting. And then Marco, already injured, hobbled away, turning so that they were facing each other. Polo tried once, twice, and then one more time to get close to him, his arms open and pleading, but each time Marco jerked back.
“Fight!” demanded the crowd.
The men began to circle, Polo’s steps quick, Marco’s strained and awkward. Polo was still trying to reason. Even from where I was standing I could see that he still didn’t understand.
“Fight!”
I shoved through, getting closer to the fence. Close enough to hear Marco say, “I’m sorry, brother.”
He attacked Polo as though he felt no pain, and as they fell to the ground the courtyard erupted in cheers.
I watched, frozen, unable to look away. It was a trick. They had a plan. Marco would no more hurt Polo than I would hurt Chase. I told myself this even as Polo’s nose broke, as his blood soaked the floor of the arena.
Marco fought like a man possessed. He punched, screamed, and even cried, and as Polo’s body went still under him a moan, filled with despair, tore from him.
The soldiers had to drag him off of his friend. And even as they did, he refused to let him go.
“Brutal!” clapped the chief, no longer magnified by the microphone. “Absolutely brutal!”
At a nod of the chief’s head, one of the soldiers removed his weapon, and shot Marco in the back of the head.
My knees gave way and I fell back into the first row of soldiers. A man caught me around the waist and latched me in place on his lap. I could barely struggle; the horror had rendered my muscles useless.
“Likes a close view, does she?” came a voice beside me.
“Guess so,” grumbled the man I had fallen into. I turned my face to see Tucker’s green eyes blazing back into mine. His lips brushed my ear. “You must have some kind of death wish.”
I tried to get up but he held me in place.
“What do you think is going to happen here?” he demanded. “You’re outnumbered two thousand to one.”
“To two,” I said, but he only scoffed. “You can’t just sit here and watch our friends die.”
He tightened his grip. “You think I have a choice?”
“You always have a choice.”
The prisoners shuffled forward; another was being brought toward the ring.
I strained my eyes through the chain-link, focusing on the man in the front. He was thin, bowed through the back. There was a tattoo on his wrist that snaked up his bare forearm into a beige prison uniform. His ratty hair was long to the shoulders, spilling out from beneath the bag covering his head.
I watched, speechless, as they unchained Frank Wallace from the others and dragged him toward the ring, but before he could get to the gate another of the prisoners attacked one of the guards. A fight erupted, and those closest to me stood again, blocking my way. Tucker latched me under his shoulder as the guards rushed in to manage the prisoners. We were only ten feet away, close enough to see the prisoner who’d started the fight. To see that the bag over his head had fallen free.
The noise went silent. The lights grew dim. Every man between us wavered in my vision.
There, on his knees, two guns pointed at his head, was Chase. His shoulders heaved up and down, and from his nose came a trickle of blood. When the soldiers had brought Wallace to the ring, they must have released the ankle chains that bound all the prisoners together, because Chase was now separated from the others who were being forced to lie face down on the ground.
Chase refused to lower. He looked up into the faces of the soldiers with cold defiance in his stare.
But when his eyes found mine, his lips parted, formed the word that tore me apart.
“No.”
And in that moment I felt it. The certainty that we would not escape this place. That we would die here.
The sob rose in my throat.
“I’ll find you,” I had told him once, “and I’ll bring you back.”
I held on to his gaze as though it were my life raft. He rocked back on his heels, and tilted his head, and there was a grief blanketing his shoulders so heavy it nearly paralyzed me.
“Hold on,” I whispered.
I reached into my purse for the knife. If I could create a big enough diversion, he might have a chance—at least he would be able to run. If I was fast maybe I could get away, too.
It was a slim chance at best, but I’d made it this far. I couldn’t give up now.
On the platform, the Chief of Reformation was waiting for a man to test his drink. He grew impatient, slamming one fist on the table. Finally, the man, red in the face and blinking, nodded, and passed along the bottle.
My palms grew damp as I prepared for what I would have to do.
Tucker’s arm, now at a diagonal across my chest, tightened. He was still watching Chase, scarcely breathing, and didn’t let go, even as I attempted to peel back his fingers from my waist.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
Across the ring, another soldier had climbed the platform steps. Stocky and balding, he bent low to deliver a message to the chief. Slowly, Reinhardt lowered his glass and nodded. A catlike grin split his face and he shook his head as if in disbelief, and stood.
He raised his hands, and a hush took the crowd. It began with those closest to him, and then, like wildfire, the silence caught, racing through the courtyard, climbing the walls of the building until no one made a sound.
Glancing skyward, I couldn’t help but wonder how I was still standing. The time felt liquid, flowing by like water in a stream. It had to be after midnight. Maybe there had been a problem with the attack. Maybe Three had failed. Either way, I focused on the task at hand: getting on that platform.
“Don’t move,” Tucker said between his teeth.
Again the microphone’s hiss cut through the air.
“Fellow soldiers!” began the chief, the metallic ring distorting his voice to give it a strange, robotic quality. “The way of the soldier is not always easy. We are ever challenged. Tested by those who would stand in our way.” He paused. “If ever you need validation that your chosen path is indeed the one of righteousness, tonight is the night.”
From the opposite corner of the courtyard came a unit of soldiers leading a man on three separate leashes, not unlike those Tucker had placed around my neck. His face was hidden, his wrists bound in front of him, attached to chains that latched to his ankles, but even at a shuffl
e he still managed to walk tall with his shoulders back and his chest open, as if daring someone to shoot him in the heart. A path cleared as they approached the ring, and in the quiet I could hear Wallace’s voice, crackling with dehydration.
“Let him go, you…” He was silenced with the blunt end of a rifle. A young soldier with dark hair grabbed his bound wrists from behind and forced him to stand.
The prisoner was brought into the ring. It was then I noticed the slight limp, as though he favored one leg.
“I give you a member of the rebel group Three, caught just south of here attempting to flee our border patrol. Shall we show him what happens to those who try to outrun reformation?”
My stomach sunk. I willed it not to be true.
The soldier removed Jesse’s mask, revealing the snake tattoo climbing his neck. I forced my heart to harden, to forget that he had sacrificed himself to save me, and instead focused on why he had done it. So that I could find Chase.
The microphone clattered as Reinhardt dropped it onto the table. Several of the officers attempted to stop him as he rushed down the platform steps, pushing aside girls and soldiers alike.
Now was my chance. Wriggling free from Tucker’s grasp, I dashed around the outside of the ring. The chief was closer to the entrance, and made it in a moment before I reached him. I kept close to the gate, ready for the moment he stepped back out.
I was closer to the prisoners now, closer to Wallace, whose dry lips edged into a dangerous grin as he recognized me. Behind him, Chase was attempting to stand, staring at Jesse with shock on his face.
“You,” Reinhardt said to Jesse. I doubted anyone past the first row could hear him.
Jesse spit on the ground and the crowd booed. “Did you miss me, Chancellor?”
“Can’t say that I have,” said Reinhardt. Hands clasped tightly behind his lower back, he approached Jesse, examining him slowly. He reached for Jesse’s throat, and for a moment I thought he might choke him, but instead he ripped open his sweat-drenched collar, revealing three old scars, not unlike those I had carried before they’d been mutilated.
Whatever Three had done or hadn’t done, I was proud of Jesse in that moment.
“Did you really think you could kill me?” asked the Chief of Reformation. “Was that the plan tonight? Amid all these soldiers, loyal to the cause?”
“Got pretty close last time,” said Jesse with a cocky smirk. His gaze moved around the circle, pausing only momentarily on me, then on Chase, and resting on Wallace.
Reinhardt hummed his agreement. “So close I thought you’d died in the blast. Unfortunate for you that you did not.”
A grim realization settled over me. Jesse had tried to kill Reinhardt—that had been the attempt on the Chief of Reformation’s life when Chase and I had been in Knoxville. Everyone had said Three was behind it, even DeWitt had confirmed it.
Some of us saw what was happening, he had said. Dr. Aiden DeWitt, who’d lost his girls—his wife and daughter, Cara. Frank, aka Francis Wallace, who’d joined the FBR to enact change from within and ended up killing his partner to save a boy from the street. Billy.
And Jesse Waite. Chase’s uncle. Who’d been framed by the FBR from the very beginning.
Three men.
The Chief removed the baton from his belt. Jesse threw his shoulders back.
“Do your worst,” he challenged.
And Reinhardt did. He lifted the baton and smashed it down on Jesse’s shoulder. As he fell to one knee, the chancellor hit him on the back, again, and again, until Jesse fell to his elbows. His chains rattled as he attempted to stretch against them, to break free.
“Stop!” I heard Chase shout. But no one heard his voice but me. The crowd had taken on new life, stomping their feet, cheering and clapping and screaming encouragement to their leader. My fingers latched in the chain-links, shaking it, feeling for a weak point to break through. As if it would do any good.
“Think you could kill me?” shouted the chief, the sweat dripping from his face. “Me? The arrogance.” He struck Jesse’s side. “The ego.” A strike on his hip. “I have the president on my side.” Crack. “I have reformation on my side.” Crack. “I have God on my side.” He fell back a step, the exhaustion clear in his body. “What do you have? Nothing.”
Jesse crawled toward me, not because I was there, but in retreat. His gaze met mine, and I saw him then, really saw him, for the first time. He wasn’t cold and distant and protected by his sarcasm now. He was afraid, and tired, and there was regret in his eyes. I may not have been the one he wanted to see in that moment, but he locked on to me all the same, and I hoped he knew that he was not alone.
The chief kicked him in the gut, and a cold laughter from those nearby broke out. Jesse collapsed into the fence, the chain-links clattering against the supporting beam in waves. With tears blurring my vision, I pressed my fingers through the holes in the metal, feeling his back rise with each stunted breath.
There is but one man with a thousand hands. Cut off his head, and his limbs lose their purpose.
“Jesse,” I whispered, and slipped the knife through the link beneath his knee. “I’ll tell Chase what you did for him. I’ll get him out of here, just like I said I would.”
He nodded, just a slight movement of his chin.
Slowly, painfully, Chase’s uncle rose. Something deep pulled him up, making him stand. Something powerful. Something indestructible.
“Yeah,” said Jesse. “Well I have family on my side.”
The chief laughed. A forced, mocking sound that only thinly veiled his fury.
Both hands still bound together, Jesse charged. Reinhardt planted his feet, threw his head back and laughed even harder, as if he was made of iron and nothing could ever defeat him. As they collided in the center of the ring his laughter choked off abruptly.
It was not until Jesse backed away that I saw the knife emerging from the left side of the Chief of Reformation’s chest.
For several long seconds, the laughter continued. The soldiers roared, invigorated by Jesse’s last stand. But as Reinhardt fell to his knees, the courtyard plunged into whispers. By the time he took his last, gargling breath, you could have heard a pin drop.
He fell face down in the ring of his own creation, and didn’t move again.
Jesse closed his eyes, a look of peace on his face. I didn’t watch him fall, but I heard the shots. A dozen, at least, before I finally heard him hit the ground.
There was one final beat of stunned silence, and then chaos erupted.
More shots rang out. Some of the girls near me screamed, and a soldier to my left was hit in the crossfire and fell to the ground. I shoved through the bodies, clambering to get closer to the ring and the prisoners. As I neared the gate where the soldiers were crowding, I was sandwiched between two bodies. I shoved through them, my dress ripping.
The chain-link fence slammed against the supporting beams, sending a high reverberating clang through the night.
“Dead!” men were shouting. “The chief is dead!”
It would only be a matter of time before they turned on the prisoners.
Finally I found Chase. He’d risen to a stand but the young soldier I’d seen managing Wallace was now behind him, facing the opposite direction.
“Get off him!” I screamed, and with all my strength, threw him aside.
Billy fell to the ground, a silver ring of keys skimming across the pavement away from us.
I cursed myself and dove after them, but another man snatched them up first. Wallace, his hands already free, snatched them up and raced for the other prisoners. Strong arms spun me, and in the next moment I found myself pushed down as Chase ducked the blow of a baton. The soldier was pushed into us, and Chase kicked him aside, barely staying upright.
“We have to get out!” I shouted. “Now!”
He didn’t ask questions, he only nodded.
“Cease fire!” shouted one of the soldiers as another shot rang out. “We’re too clos
e! Cease fire!”
Soldiers were shooting soldiers in an attempt to kill the prisoners, but with so many bodies rushing the stage, we were packed like sardines.
“Help!” Billy was swallowed beneath a wave of blue. Chase dove in after him, never hesitating to give anyone in a uniform a chance to attack.
“Chase!” I screamed. I shoved toward where they’d disappeared.
A whistle reached my ears, a soaring, high-pitched song like the hiss of the microphone, only more distant, like a kettle of tea finally reaching the boiling point.
And then the world exploded.
CHAPTER
25
MY breath pulled in and out, in and out, like the waves at the ocean.
My vision was blurry, or maybe it was the cloud of dust surrounding me. Bright lights flickered, lighting the world for seconds at a time. It was difficult to make out my surroundings. Behind me was a hard surface, above me, some kind of warped chain fence.
As if someone was turning up the volume, the sound gradually increased until my chest vibrated with a rumbling, like the world was about to cave in on itself. Groans of pain punctuated the air, and above it all, the wail of a siren, low at first, but getting higher, and louder, just like it had during the air raid drills in the War.
In elementary school, the drills had come once a week. At the sound of the siren screeching over the loudspeakers, we were to duck under our desks, wait for the lights to turn off, and then run for the nearest exit. The teachers had made a game out of it.
Rabbit hides under a tree for Fox to hunt his prey.
Rabbit waits for dark, then rabbit runs away.
I thought of that now, as the blood pumped through my veins and my eyes turned skyward in search of an aerial attack. But as I shoved up to a stand, I realized the attack had already come. The memories slowly returned to me. Jesse, killing the Chief of Reformation. Chase, just beyond the entrance to the ring.
I was missing a shoe, and the heel of the other had broken off. A pale layer of dust coated my skin, and I was bleeding from half a dozen scrapes on my knees and right arm.
The stage that had meant the deaths of Marco and Polo, of Jesse and the Chief of Reformation, and who knew how many others, had been flipped on its side, though it looked like it would cave in on me at any moment.