The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf (The Tribe)

by Kwaymullina, Ambelin

  I hadn’t even realized I was still pointing the thing in her direction, and I let my arm fall. I wasn’t going to kill Wentworth, and I couldn’t see how threatening her would solve anything, either, especially since she’d be in trouble herself over this. Grey wasn’t going to take too kindly to being knocked out, and the reason Wentworth had done it was to save my life. Again. “No, I’m not going to shoot you.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” she said bleakly. “I know you were telling me the truth.”

  “Um, you do?”

  “There was an enforcer in the hospital. He told me everything. About how you were being tortured on the machine, and how they’d already killed one Illegal and wouldn’t hesitate to kill another. He said they’d kill him, too, for what he knew.”

  Evan. Briony’s enforcer. What was it Connor had said, that Evan had gone a little crazy and had to be sedated? It sounded like he’d woken up just as nutty as when they’d knocked him out, if he’d spilled all that stuff to Wentworth. Only I didn’t have time to waste thinking about Evan now, not when I had more urgent problems. It was becoming rapidly clear that there were a worrisome number of people running around the center, and Connor was out there somewhere with the Inspectorate.

  I flicked the streaker’s safety switch back on and shoved the weapon into my pocket. “Is Neville still with the enforcers? Fighting the fire?”

  “Yes, as far as I know.”

  “And who else is inside? Besides you?”

  Wentworth looked puzzled by the question. “A couple of my staff. We wanted to fetch some medical supplies, in case anyone needed treatment.”

  “Is that all?”

  It seemed to dawn on her why I might be concerned. Her brow cleared as she replied, “Yes, that’s all. There’s no one to stop you from, ah, getting away. Everyone is outside the gates, and they’re supposed to stay there.”

  That was a relief. Although Wentworth and her staff had broken the rules, and they weren’t the only ones. She must have been thinking the same thing, because she added, “I don’t know what Miriam was doing. That’s why I followed her when I saw her in the center. After everything that enforcer told me, it seemed suspicious.”

  Grey was worried that her precious machine would get all burned up. I opened my mouth to ask how long we had until Grey woke up. Before I could get a word out, Wentworth said, “I helped that enforcer. I gave him a doctor’s robe and let him go. It would have been easy for him to slip out the gates.”

  Wow. Maybe Evan hadn’t been so crazy to talk to her.

  “I should’ve have helped you, too,” she told me remorsefully. “I’m sorry, Ashala! I didn’t know what was happening. I swear I didn’t know.”

  Yeah, but you should have. But she did seem genuinely sorry. And if her haggard appearance was anything to go by, she was punishing herself pretty hard for not acting sooner.

  “Well, you’ve saved my life three times now. I guess that makes us okay.” Then I thought of all the other Illegals who might one day need her help. “Don’t be fooled by someone like Neville Rose again.”

  “I promise you,” she answered, a determined glint in her eyes. “I won’t. And you’ve got to go — get out of this place while you can.”

  “Grey’s seen me, and she probably saw you, too, by the way. If she wakes up . . .”

  Wentworth shook her head. “She’ll sleep for a while yet, but you’re right. We can’t have her telling anyone you’re escaping.” She gazed down at the unconscious doctor. “There’s a drug I can administer. Harmless, but it’ll keep her out until tomorrow, and her memory will be very foggy when she wakes up.”

  Seemed like a plan. “Okay. Won’t you have to get her to the hospital, though? Or I guess you could bring the drug and give it to her here. No one would find her until the morning.”

  “We can’t leave her in this place, not with the fire!”

  Well, I could, but I wasn’t going to argue the point. Besides, Neville would probably start a search if he discovered Grey was missed.

  “We can drag her out of the building,” Wentworth suggested, “and I’ll fetch my people from the hospital. We’ll take it from there.”

  “How are you going to explain her being unconscious in the first place?”

  She grinned, some of her former brightness returning. “I’ll say she was overcome by the smoke.”

  I had to admit, I was impressed. She’s good at this, for a beginner. Wentworth bent over Grey, ready to get started on her scheme. I grabbed the box and tucked it under one arm so I could help Wentworth drag Grey with the other.

  “That box has something to do with the machine, doesn’t it?” Wentworth asked as we began to maneuver the unconscious woman down the corridor. “Some vital component?”

  Uh-oh. I wanted to deny it or make up a story, but I couldn’t think of anything fast enough, and anyway, I wasn’t sure how much she’d heard of what Grey was saying before. Apparently, though, Wentworth had constructed a story of her own.

  “You were escaping, but you came back for the machine. To make sure it could never be used on anyone else.”

  Not exactly, but it sounded good. “Yes. I’m going to”— build him a body and name him Fang —“destroy it.”

  She nodded, as if she’d expected no other answer, and we continued on.

  “You know,” I told her, “there’ll be questions tomorrow, especially about how that enforcer got out of the hospital. You should think about leaving, too.”

  We’d reached the end of the corridor, and she straightened. “There’s a fire, Ashala. People might need a doctor. And the detainees — I have to try to protect them. To put things right.”

  After tonight, there aren’t going to be any detainees here. But I couldn’t tell her that. “The best thing you can do for those detainees is to expose what Neville’s done, and to do that, you have to go somewhere he can’t shut you up.”

  I could tell by the stubborn set of her mouth that she didn’t agree. She didn’t bother arguing, though, just held out her hand to me. I shook it, remembering how Connor had shaken Belle Willis’s hand back in the warehouse. Citizens and Illegals and Exempts shaking hands. The world was upside down tonight, in more ways than one.

  “I’m glad to have known you, Ashala Wolf.” A panicked expression came over her face, and she added hastily, “I mean, I’m not glad that you were imprisoned and tortured, or anything —”

  I laughed. “I get it. I’m glad to have met you too, Rae Wentworth. And you know, if you ever need help, you can come to the Tribe.”

  For some reason, that offer really seemed to mean something to her. She sniffed, her eyes glistening with tears. “Thank you. And Ashala — run. Run, and don’t look back.”

  “Believe me, I’m going.”

  I let go of Wentworth’s hand and went to the door, taking a moment to be sure there was no one outside. When I was satisfied it was deserted, I sprinted away with the dog-box clutched securely to my chest.

  And I didn’t look back.

  I flitted through the center, making my way to where I was supposed to meet Connor. But I wasn’t even halfway there when he came tearing out of the night, dressed once again in enforcer black.

  Seizing hold of my shoulders, he demanded, “Are you all right? Ashala, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine —”

  “You were afraid! Why were you afraid?”

  I forgot sometimes that the connection between us wasn’t one way. In moments of extreme emotion, he picked up on my feelings, too. And I had been terrified when Miriam Grey had pointed that weapon at my head. “Connor, I’m totally okay. You can see that, right?”

  He nodded, and I added, “Except — and don’t freak out, now — I did run into Grey, and Wentworth.”

  “You what?”

  “Let me explain.”

  And I did, going rapidly over what had happened. When I’d finished, he drew in a long breath and asked, “You’re sure Wentworth won’t tell that she�
��s seen you?”

  “Positive,” I answered firmly. “We’re good, Connor. Let’s go save them all!”

  He laughed shakily and released me. The two of us raced side by side through the smoky air, the shrill cries of saurs getting louder as we neared the front of the center. Connor tried to take the weight of the box, but I shook my head, holding on to the dog as we made our way past endless white structures.

  He stopped beside one of the center’s tall office blocks. “This rooftop will do. Are you ready?”

  “Just let me find a place for the d— I mean, the machine.” Glancing around, I spotted a small gap between two buildings, then darted over to conceal the box deep in the shadowed space. When I was sure it was completely hidden, I turned back to Connor, only to find that he was staring in the direction of the faroff blaze. “What is it?” I asked.

  “There’s a northeasterly moving in from the Steeps.”

  It took me a second to make sense of his words. The wind. It was going to start blowing the flames through the center, and while composite was fire resistant, it wasn’t fireproof. This place was going to burn, and we could be in trouble if the blaze spread too far while we were still in here. “You can divert the wind, though, right?”

  “I can encourage it in the other direction for a while. But we’d better get this done, and get out.”

  The air pressed in around me, and we rose upward until we landed on the pitch of the roof. I flattened myself against the slope and crawled forward on my elbows to peer over the ridge. Connor did the same. We perched, shoulder to shoulder, looking down at the scene below. The area around the center’s outer wall was lit up by a series of floodlights, and my gaze went to the two vehicles parked by the side of the road that led to Cambergull. I skipped over the sedan, which was probably meant for the Inspectorate, and stared at the bus beside it, heaving a sigh of relief when I made out the shapes of small heads through its windows. The detainees were ready to be evacuated if the fire couldn’t be extinguished, exactly as the Detention Center 3, Emergency Procedures in the Case of Fire required. And their four administrator guardians were standing several paces away, chatting among themselves. Close, but not close enough to be a problem for us.

  Everyone else was waiting outside the gates, red-robed medical staff organizing some kind of first-aid station and beige-robed administrators milling around. As far as I could tell, Wentworth hadn’t returned yet. But someone else had, and I frowned just as Connor said, “Neville.”

  “Yeah, I see him.”

  The Chief Administrator was involved in some kind of discussion with the Inspectorate, and judging from the way Jeremy Duoro was waving his arms around, it was pretty intense. A smile spread over my face as snatches of what the Inspectorate was saying drifted up:

  “. . . deserve an explanation . . . still burning . . .”

  “. . . entirely within our powers to investigate . . .”

  Then Neville’s voice came through clearly as he raised it to speak over both of them: “I am responsible for your safety, and I’m afraid I must insist that you evacuate to Cambergull. You’ll be free to continue your inspection once I’m satisfied that the danger has passed.”

  Willis and Duoro began to raise objections, as if going to Cambergull was the last thing they wanted to do, and I relaxed. They knew what they were doing.

  Feeling increasingly euphoric, I cast my gaze outward, past the road and over the long stretch of ground to the rolling grasslands beyond. The light ended some distance before the edge of the grasses, but I could make out the movements of large scaly bodies in the dark and, more important, a distinctive pale shape that wasn’t moving at all. Hatches-with-Stars appeared to be standing absolutely still, although I was willing to bet she was quivering with excitement. I know how she feels. “Connor? We can start, right?”

  “Yes. Tell Jaz they can begin.”

  I reached for his hand, gripping it as I sent my thought outward: Jaz. JAZ?

  Right here, Ash!

  We’re ready to go.

  His presence disappeared from my mind. Moments later, there was a sudden cacophony of screeches, and a single saur charged out of the dark, then skittered to a halt just inside the reach of the floodlights. There were cries of terror and dismay, and Neville shouted, “Nobody move! If you run, the saur will chase you!”

  The great black beast began to stalk back and forth, head held high and scales gleaming in the light. He swished his tail — once, twice, three times — sending pebbles flying in all directions. Then he rose up to balance on his hind legs, throwing back his head to let out a long, eerie wail.

  Wanders-Too-Far was really hamming it up.

  For a few precious minutes, no one moved and no one looked away from Wanders, who was standing in the opposite direction from where the vehicles were parked. It took a pleasingly long time before someone called out: “The bus!”

  There was a collective intake of breath as everyone realized that the bus containing the detainees was rolling toward the grasslands, and then came a confused babble of shouts.

  “The detainees have got control of the bus!”

  “They’re heading for the saurs —”

  “Nobody move, or that beast will come after us!”

  But someone was moving. Rae Wentworth was coming through the main gates, and following her were two red-robed staff, bearing a stretcher that contained the unconscious Miriam Grey. A few people hissed a warning at them. The stretcher-bearers stopped dead. But Wentworth raced forward. “We have to help the children!” Worse still, her reckless behavior jolted others into action. Some of the crowd began running too, including the Inspectorate. And — the biggest potential disaster of all — Belle Willis did the smart thing and headed for the sedan, yelling, “We can catch them in the car.”

  “Connor,” I gasped.

  “I know,” he replied through gritted teeth.

  The bus picked up speed, barreling over the rocky ground as if it were being pushed along by the wind itself — which, of course, it was. Wanders reacted almost as fast as Connor had, crashing down onto all fours and pounding toward the pursuers. He stopped before he reached them, but he was close enough to be even more terrifying than he had been before, as he stomped one clawed foot on the ground, hissing threateningly. Everyone froze again. Well, almost everyone — Wentworth and Duoro were both inching forward. I muttered angrily, “Stop helping, you idiots!”

  But they were too late. The bus careened into the grasses and rolled to a halt near that pale shape in the dark. Connor exhaled, leaning against me as the saurs converged on the vehicle, stampeding around it until it was hidden from view. There was simply no way, now, for anyone to see the sixteen detainees scurrying out of the bus and through the long grasses to freedom.

  I nudged Connor. “We did it!”

  He replied softly, “Not quite yet. And I think you may have broken my hand.”

  Oh. I had been clinging on tight. Feeling guilty, I started to release him, but he caught hold of my fingers, murmuring, “I didn’t say let go.”

  A goofy grin spread over my face. “Connor . . .” I got no further before the wind brought a sudden gust of unpleasant-smelling smoke wafting over the rooftops. We both ducked our heads, coughing.

  “Sorry. I couldn’t hold the wind and the detainees.”

  I glanced over my shoulder and saw that the sky was lit up with a far brighter glow than it had been before. “It’s spread, all right. And that smell!”

  “They must have been storing more chemicals in this place than we thought. I’ll try to blow it away from us.”

  We’ve started some kind of toxic blaze? “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  I tried to breathe as shallowly as possible, thinking at Jaz, Hurry up, hurry up. I wasn’t sure if he could hear me from this distance, but the saurs seemed to be rushing along anyway.

  There was a high-pitched squealing noise of metal being ripped to shreds as they started to attack the bus. Wanders-Too-Far let o
ut a last fearsome screech and ran back to the grasslands. Soon after, another sound began to echo through the night, a series of sharp, popping snaps — crunch! And again, crunch!

  To my disappointment, everyone below was silent, not realizing what they were hearing. Come on, it’s not that hard to work out. . . . Finally, Jeremy Duoro pointed one trembling finger toward the grasslands. “That sound — it’s bones. They’re eating the children!”

  A groan of dismay swept through the people below, and I chortled as the gruesome noises continued.

  Crunch! Snap! Crunch! It all sounded convincingly realistic, which wasn’t surprising since the saurs really were chewing on bones. The big lizards had spent the past few nights shifting Gnaws-the-Bones’s entire personal stash onto the grasslands, scattering them around the area where Hatches had been standing to mark the way for us.

  The crunching gradually slowed, then stopped. The screeching died down, too, and the saurs began to disperse, drifting into the grasslands. I focused my attention on the crowd. Wentworth had sunk to her knees with her head in her hands. Willis had wrapped her arms around herself, and Duoro was reeling on his feet. Some of the administrators burst into tears, while others clung to one another. And standing in the middle of it all was Neville Rose, who, for once, didn’t seem to have anything to say.

  Every last one of the many witnesses below clearly believed that they’d just seen the horrible end of sixteen detainees.

  Which meant that after four days, three near-death experiences, and a whole lot of pain, Connor and I could finally get out of Detention Center 3.

  I grinned at Connor, but he didn’t grin back, and my smile faded. I’d been so absorbed in what was going on below that I hadn’t noticed that his shoulder was rigid with tension against mine. He looked at me and said hoarsely, “Ashala. There’s something wrong with my ability.”

  “What? How —?” I gasped.