My face crumples and my bottom lip quivers. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what? You didn’t do anything. None of this is your fault.”
“I met an older woman down the hall. She lives with her half blind son. She said you had your number in 500 times!”
Dropping his gaze to the floor, he leans away from me, propping himself against the dingy wall riddled with fingerprints and smudges of dirt. “538 if we’re being precise.”
“Rey, why? How could you have not told me?”
“I didn’t want you to worry. You’re always so worried about everyone, about the Gamble, about things you can’t control. I knew what I was doing, and I’d happily do it all again. If putting my number in extra times meant someone else didn’t have to, then I’d do it every time. Those people I helped all have families and children here who need them.”
“What about your cousins?”
“They don’t need me. Not really, not anymore. Caleb is old enough to work, I trained him on the air ducts and he’s real smart. Samara will be old enough to start working in a few months, she’ll make a great nanny. The other two will be fine with their new caretaker for a couple more years. They love me, they’ll miss me, but they don’t need me.”
“Well, what about me?”
“You don’t need me either, Kelsey. You’re too strong and independent, you don’t need anyone.”
“That’s not true!” I shout and I can feel a hot anger burn inside me because this isn’t fair. None of it is fair. “Rey, you’re my best friend, you’re my only friend, what am I supposed to do without you?”
He shifts forward, as though he means to hug me, but then stops himself. “You’ll be ok, Kels. After tomorrow, you’ll always be ok.”
“No, I won’t. I told my father we were going to get married. I told him that you asked and that I said yes.”
“To get away from Wyatt,” he replies, and I can see that it hurts him to think I would only ever marry him as a better alternative to Wyatt Walker. But that isn’t the truth anymore.
“Yes, but now… now I realize it wasn’t just to get away from Wyatt. It’s because I want to be with you.”
I’m crying again, fresh tears streaming down my face and Rey moves forward until our bodies are only a few inches apart. Gently, he cups my face in his hands, his thumbs wiping away the tears dampening my cheeks. I can feel rough callouses and scarred cuts on his fingers from working with the sharp metal in the air shafts.
“Please don’t cry,” he murmurs, resting his forehead against mine. “Not because of me.”
Suddenly he's kissing me. Or maybe I’m kissing him. It all happens so fast I really don’t know, but this time I don't pull away. His lips are soft and gentle and tender, as if he's unsure. I'm unsure too, but somehow, it feels right and safe and comfortable, as though I belong nowhere else in this world except right here with Rey.
As he draws us closer together, nestling me tighter to him and lacing his arms around my waist, I melt into his body. The muscles along his chest are strong and hard from hauling all of his work equipment every day. He tastes of alcohol and tears; my own tears I guess. I find my fingers entwined in his pale blond hair, silky and smooth against my palms. My face flushes, and even through our clothes I can feel a heat radiate between us.
Now I realize I truly do care for Rey as so much more than just a friend. I think, deep down, I always have and was just too stupid to notice. Too stuck in my own little perfect world and now that reality has come crashing in, it has finally ripped open my eyes.
“Stay here tonight,” he whispers as he breaks away, clasping my upper arms as if he’s afraid to let go. “With me, if that’s ok? I don’t… I don’t expect anything, I just want my last night to be spent beside you.”
“Of course,” I say because one night is all we have, just a few short hours to be together. In the morning, Rey will be taken from me, the same way my mother has been taken and his mother and so many tens of thousands of others. Taken and gone forever.
CHAPTER FIVE
I slip into bed beside Rey, on the larger mattress lying on the bedroom floor. After covering me with the thin blanket, he draws me into his arms until my head rests on his chest and I can hear his heartbeat. Soon it won’t beat anymore, and tears swell at the realization that I will probably be the last person on this earth to ever hear it.
We don’t talk, choosing instead to just lay with each other. He gently runs his fingers through my hair and kisses the top of my head and I cry and he lets me without saying anything.
I didn't intend to fall asleep. I wanted to stay awake all night and spend the precious little time I had in Rey's embrace, but in the end, after the day's events, my mind succumbed to the rest I needed.
I wake hours later to find him gazing at me, his blue eyes wandering over my face as if he is committing my image to memory, as if he can take that memory with him after his soul moves on.
"Did you sleep?" I ask and he smiles, but it’s such a sad smile I feel my heart wrench apart like someone has viciously torn it down the center.
"Not really. You know you talk in your sleep?"
In embarrassment I cover my face with my hands as I feel my cheeks flush. "Ugh, no. What did I say?"
He laughs, a light-hearted, cheerful sound that always lifts my spirits no matter how gloomy. "Nothing of importance, but it was kind of cute."
Shifting so he partially leans over me while propped on one elbow, his face turns more serious. "Do you think... do you think I could kiss you again?"
Without speaking, I pull his head toward mine until our lips meet and I get lost in the moment, my breath stolen away. His right hand laces through my curls, trailing along the side of my neck. Excitement wells inside me, up through my chest, and I'm dizzy and floating.
The harsh buzz of his suite's speakers interrupt, startling me.
"All those selected in the Gamble are to report to the chambers within one hour. Repeat, all those selected in yesterday's Gamble are required by law to report to the chambers with no more than one immediate family member."
I clutch onto Rey’s shirt with both fists. “Don’t go.”
"They'll just come and get me if I stay here."
"We can hide,” I plead with desperation.
He gives another sad smile. "Hide where, Kelsey? For as large as the O.Z. is, there is nowhere to hide here. Eventually they'll find us. I'll end up in the chambers anyway and you'll be thrown in prison for helping me. If they don't shoot us both first."
"I can't just let you go and die!"
"You have to. This is the gamble we take, remember?"
"We didn't take a gamble!" I scream furiously, sitting up and pushing away from him because I am so angry and filled with rage I’m afraid I might burst. "We didn't do anything other than be born and turn eighteen."
"It's the way it is! What choice do we have? What choice does anyone in the O.Z. have?"
I shove myself backward and stand, storming to the other end of the room to halt in the doorway, taking in the dismal emptiness of the rest of his suite. Everything in this world is grey and dull and lifeless, as if death has already come for us all and we now rot below the earth.
After a moment, Rey rises too. I sense him behind me, placing a hand on my arm and turning me to face him.
"Look," he says, both hands on my shoulders, then rubbing my arms because somehow I’ve gotten goose bumps. "I know you're upset and hurting. I am too, but I also know that this is the way things have to be for humanity to survive. Sometimes the greater good is more important than the individual. Sometimes one person has to die, so that others can live."
"So you think you're doing this because it makes you a hero?" I demand angrily because giving up his life to play the role of some sort of martyr is just stupid. No one in the O.Z. will care. All his good deeds will just be forgotten when those people he helped end up starving next month when they once again can’t afford food. Or maybe they’ll die from some illne
ss because they can’t pay for medicine. Or maybe they’ll be selected next year in the Gamble itself. Either way, Rey hasn’t really saved anyone. He only delayed the miserable, inescapable reality of this world.
"No," Rey says with a firm shake of his head. "No, not a hero. I've just always understood that in all probability, this is how my life would end. I'd hoped for more time, but it is what it is. Besides, it hasn't been all bad. I got to spend my last few hours with you."
My heart softens, causing the anger to fade away and replacing it with sorrow. I hug him, my arms wound so tight around his chest I'm surprised he doesn't protest. Rey hugs me back though and that's how we stand in the doorway for almost a full minute. He smells like cotton and the last tiny trace of alcohol. As much as it pains me to accept, I want to remember this moment, one of the last we will ever have, for forever.
"I have to go now," he murmurs, separating us and I feel a sharp stab through my chest, a knife slicing me open from the inside.
"I'm coming with you,” I say. He opens his mouth, but I cut him off. "Don't argue with me, Rey. I'm coming. Technically we're still engaged to be married so we won't be breaking any laws by being seen together."
He consents and then, hand in hand, we walk from his suite to join the throngs of people in the halls all headed for the chambers; the sentenced and their loved ones. Everyone is silent save the sound of a few people crying and the shuffling footsteps on the metal floors. No one seems to notice that the Protector's daughter walks amongst them, for which I am thankful. Together we all climb the stairs, ascending to Sector C where the chambers are housed on the west end.
I've never been to the chambers before, never even walked past the entrance set far down at the end of the Sector C main hall, away from the private suites and public service areas. It seems so simple and innocent enough, a heavy metal door marked with a tiny red sign. In all honesty, I could have easily wandered by it on any other day and never noticed.
Today though, fifty armed Gendarme guards stand outside, dividing those selected into groups to scan their barcodes before ushering them beyond the doors and into what appears to be a long, wide hallway leading to a single room large enough to hold three times the amount of people that are currently selected.
I wonder what the original purpose of the chambers had been, back before the Gamble had ever been invented. Before we needed to kill thousands of people every year with a painless, yet highly toxic gas piped through the air vents of that room.
The thought of Rey going in there sets my heart pounding again, like a wild beast raging against a confinement. I grip his hand in my own, as if that will save him from the inevitable. Subconsciously, I glance around as if I can find an escape. As if we could escape should one be made available. But he'd been right; for as large as ROC is, it is also so very tiny and imprisoning all these miles below the surface of the world. There is no place to hide and there is no escape.
For the first time in my life, it occurs to me that we are all prisoners here, trapped because of the radiation, penalized because of the choices of those who died decades ago. The sins of the past become the punishments of the future. Someone else made a gamble, and now we are the ones who pay.
As we inch closer and closer to the head of the line, Rey leans down to whisper in my ear. “Don't make a scene. Please don't give them a reason to hurt you or whatever the guards decide to do with people who freak out. I can't go in there, I can't do this with any sort of dignity if I have to think about you being hurt out here."
"Ok,” is all I’m able to say.
And we're at the head of the line, three Gendarme staring at us.
"Barcode," a female guard says, reaching forward and snapping her black- gloved fingers. Rey offers his arm and she scans the code, checking her computer before nodding to me. "It's time to say good-bye."
I'm racked with emotion, tears stinging the backs of my eyes and I feel sick to my stomach as I turn to face Rey. He remains calm and composed as he reaches out and tucks a stray curl behind my ear. "Hey. Everything will be ok."
It won't be, but I can only nod before he adds, "I love you, Kels."
At first, I'm frozen because I don't know what to say, I'm not even sure how I feel. I want to tell him I love him too, but this has all happened so fast… but if I say nothing in our final moments together, I risk hating myself forever.
Brushing aside my hair, Rey holds tight the side of my neck and smiles. “It’s alright. You don’t have to say anything.”
Then he kisses me one last time, sweet and affectionate before dropping his hands and leaving me behind, his tall form and blond hair retreating down the chamber hall.
“I think I love you, too,” I say, but it’s only a whisper and he has already vanished among the others selected for the same fate so I know he couldn’t have heard me.
I want to stay, but I'm not sure what purpose that will serve and one of the Gendarme pushes me from the door so the next person can enter. As I drift away like a ghost, increasing the space between myself and Rey, there is a violent tug on my heart, as though it is a knit sweater and Rey holds one end of a string. The farther I travel, the more it will unravel until I have nothing left but a vast hollowness in my chest.
The door to my suite is before me and I have no idea how I got here. I don't even remember climbing the stairs. I have nowhere else to go, so I scan my wrist and stumble inside, falling to my knees on the polished foyer floor.
Sobs climb through my chest and they hurt so bad I double over as the tears pour, hot against my face. Hugging my arms around myself, I will the agony to stop but it won't, choosing instead to stab into me over and over again.
Rey is dead.
It’s the only, singular thought I have and every time it vibrates through my skull, it gets louder and louder until I can't hear anything else. Between its incessant shouting and the debilitating pain I know I will go insane and I'm not sure I really care.
I have nothing left. My mother has been gone for years, Rey's mother as well. My father is the Protector and however much he loves me, his leadership role comes first because ROC needs him more than I do. There's Elsa, but that's it, and now that I'm eighteen and about to finish my schooling and no longer need a nanny, she'll be sent back to the subs.
And with Rey gone, my father will force me to marry Wyatt. The only future before me, the only option I have, is to spend the rest of my life with a man I can’t stand.
Then a new realization dawns. It isn't my only option. I don't have to marry Wyatt, I don't have to go through with this and I don't have to spend every April fifteenth living in fear that my number will be called. I had never considered the alternative before because it is so radical and insane and... final... that I never had need of such a drastic choice.
Now I do.
I could die too and the pain and fear and hurt will be gone. Maybe, if those religious citizens are to be believed, Rey and I can be together again in whatever place our souls flit to after this world. I’d never put much faith in it before, my father says religions are fairytales, but now it is the only small comfort I can find.
I don't want to die inside ROC though, in the Occupied Zone where the walls crush in on me, where I have been a prisoner my entire life and where the harsh grey metal of the space is cold and empty and unforgiving with cameras watching my every move. I don't know what the surface of Earth looks like. I mean sure, I've seen pictures from before the bombs when everything was dressed in an elaborate array of gorgeous colors, but what waits up there now couldn't be much more than a barren wasteland.
But the sky will be the same, won't it? Surely whatever has happened on the surface couldn't have changed the magnificent blueness of the unending space above. I want to die in freedom, and I want to see the sky, even for just a moment, before I take my last breath.
Sitting up, my mind finally clear again, I think through my plan. I know where the tunnel that leads above ground is located, but it’s locked and only Councilme
mbers’ barcodes have been updated to unlock that door. I'll never get it open without the right barcode which means I need a Councilmember’s help, and that will never happen willingly.
I need a gun and I can't believe this thought is going through my head because it'll break about fifteen different laws and all but guarantee my number is pulled in the Gamble from being entered thousands of times, but I know a gun is the only way to accomplish my goal.
I also know where to find one.
Shoving to my feet, I race into the suite, calling for Elsa and receiving no response. It's Friday, she goes to the food storage warehouses on Fridays to re-stock our kitchen. Good.
Entering my father's study, I pause in the doorway. I really hope it's still there. No one except the Gendarme are allowed to have guns, but when I was ten, I accidentally saw one in my father's bottom desk drawer. I never said anything to anyone, not even Rey, and my father doesn't know I know. It very well could be gone by now, but I have to look.
The Gamble (The Gamble Series Book 1) Page 5
