30
“DO YOU REMEMBER NOW?” I ask.
Emma’s hands clench the arms of her chair so hard that her veins bulge. But her breathing grows steadier, calmer. Then, slowly, her look of shock fades into a small, shy smile. Her grip relaxes. “Yes, it is coming back...”
I can hardly imagine what it must feel like for her. The void that was inside her voice moments ago has been filled. The collar must have been blocking her memories. But what does that mean? Where would her memories start? Here, in the five towers, or before? Would the memories all come at once—the good with the bad? Maybe, if possible, it’s better if she focuses on the most recent things before delving into her life before this place.
I try to help her. “You came from the Blue Tower.”
“Right, Blue,” she says. “Before that I was in Yellow. You captured me. I became your servant. But...” Her smile widens as she rubs her neck where the collar had been moments before. “You ordered me to treat you as the servant. You gave me the only bed. We sailed to Yellow. Our powers...” she pauses, as if struggling to explain what happened between us.
“I drew on your power to heal,” I say. “You drew on my power over the wind. We melded the yellow and blue weaves together. We were very powerful.”
“Yes, yes!” she says excitedly, her fingers tapping on the table. “I joined Blue. We captured many others. But, now I remember, you left Blue. You left me at the Scouring. You went to Red...to find your mother.”
“I’m sorry. I had to go.”
“What happened?” she asks.
“I found my Mom. We talked about our pasts. It helped, a lot. It filled in many gaps. But we did not have much time together. Black captured her soon after I arrived. It was the same Scouring when you and Hank came here.”
“We wanted to find you. I...missed you.”
“I missed you, too. Maybe I should have brought you when I came. I’m so glad you’re here now.” I put my hand over hers. Her skin is rougher, calloused, likely from her work as Axe’s servant. “I’m so sorry about everything that happened. I tried to get to you sooner. I tried...” I look down, unable to bear her steady gaze. I’m not worthy of what she risked for me. It’s my fault Axe captured her. It’s my fault she has to relive these memories like this. “How can I make it up to you?”
“It’s okay.” She squeezes my hand. “But please, tell me who I was...before.”
“Wait, you don’t remember that? You were—you are—Emma Chamberlain. You were the daughter of a British lord. In the 1800s.”
“Chamberlain...yes...” Her hands grip the arms of the chair again, like she’s holding on while accelerating down a dark tunnel of memories.
“Do you remember now?” I ask. “You had a husband, and a son.”
She nods as tears come to her eyes. “I had them, but then...” Her voice breaks. She looks away. “I’m going to need some time.”
“Yes, of course. You are safe here.”
“Thank you, Cipher.” She speaks delicately, with controlled refinement, but it’s clear her mind is a million miles away, probably in an English countryside.
Emma needs time, and probably space, too. I rise from the table and see the other servant by the fire. I had almost forgotten about her. She’s putting more wood into the flames. She deserves the same freedom.
I pull two chairs away from the table where Emma sits and tell the other girl to sit. She does as I say. I look into her blank eyes. They are green, speckled with brown, and wholly devoid of memory or sentiment. She’s the one who looks a lot like Seymour. Her hair is the same color brown. Her cheeks look like they never lost their baby fat. Maybe she’s Seymour’s sister, or mother, or daughter, or something. If they really are related, Seymour should get her back.
I reach around her collar and do the same thing as with Emma, pressing on the inside and channeling hurricane-force wind into a single point at the back.
It works. The collar falls forward, into the girl’s lap.
She stares at it in disbelief. She lifts it with a pudgy hand and flings it across the room. It lands directly into the fire. A perfect throw.
The girl looks to me, scowling. “Who are you?”
The one who set you free, I want to say, but she might have reason to be upset. Getting her memories back might not be pleasant at all.
“I’m Cipher, the Alpha,” I say gently. “Who are you?”
“My name is Hayley. How did I get here?”
“You were the Alpha’s servant.”
“You mean, your servant?” she snaps.
“No, not me. The Alpha before me. Axe. I took his place. I’ve set you free.”
Hayley shakes her head, confused. It’s as if this information is too much for her to process. She stands and starts moving toward the door. I don’t stop her, but as she approaches it, the door opens. Rahab is there.
Emma, Hayley, and I watch in silence as the tower’s leader, wearing her usual red dress, strides to the fireplace. She reaches directly into the flames. She pulls out the silver collar, as casually as if she’s picking up a seashell out of the ocean. She approaches me at the table. She holds out the collar accusingly. Her hand is not burned.
“It is one thing to free your servants,” she says. “But it is quite another thing to waste a link. We have only 360.”
This doesn’t make sense. First of all, the collar is some kind of magical metal. It clearly wasn’t burning. It’s as fireproof as Rahab. We also have a long way to go before the Red Tower would need 360 collars. “If there’s that many collars here,” I say, “then it seems like we’re not running out any time soon.”
“Not here, Alpha. That’s how many the Five Towers have.”
Abram said I was the first to bring the towers to 720. And there are 360 collars. “So, in total, there’s enough for half of us?”
Rahab’s fists, one still clenching the collar, plant in their usual place on her hips. “Obviously.”
“Why?” I ask.
“You know how the collars work.” Rahab glances to Emma by the table, then looks toward the door, where Hayley stands motionless as a boulder. “This one has been a servant a long time. She’ll have to be wiped.”
Hayley’s face goes pale as she backs away.
“That’s not fair,” I say. “She just got her memories back.”
“Fair?” Rahab’s gaze swivels to me. “You would speak of fairness? You, who knows enough of your past to know you could be burning for eternity, but who knows not even by what love you were saved and came here, would tell me what is fair? I betrayed a whole city to be saved. It burned—with all its women and children—while I escaped. Is that fair? None of us can speak of fairness, Alpha. I expected more of you.”
She spins off without another word. She takes Hayley’s arm and they leave together, shutting the door behind them.
The fire crackles. The wind blows cool air into the room. Emma and I sit in quiet. We are back together, and her memories are returning. But it’s hard to be happy. Not after what Rahab said. Do even the leaders suffer from their memories here? The guilt of the past hangs over us, only to be forgotten and remembered again. Hayley will be wiped. I will probably be wiped, too, someday. It’s only a matter of time. It’s the constant churn of this place—memories gained, pains felt, powers grow, only to have memories lost, and memories gained again. There’s no way out.
Emma puts her hand over mine. “Don’t blame yourself.”
“I don’t,” I say, more defensive than I intended.
She smiles. “Come, let’s sit by the fire. This wind is making me cold.”
We move together to face the large fireplace. We sit on a fur on the floor. No servants have added more logs. There are no servants to come. So the flames burn low, the coals pulsing red and orange.
I look away. I don’t want a memory. Not yet.
“Emma,” I say, reaching into my pocket. “I have something for you.”
“What is it?”
I h
old out the ruby ring. “This is for the Pairing.”
“It’s beautiful!” Emma gasps, taking the ring. “What’s the Pairing?”
“The Red Tower allows the girls to each pick a boy. The boys wear collars like the one you wore. All of them except for me, the Alpha. Each boy has to do whatever the paired girl commands. And each girl feels whatever the paired boy feels.”
“Like the collars in Blue...” Emma says. “But not for servants. Why does Red do this?”
“Rahab says it allows us to see more from our past. But there’s more to it. I think the pairs are supposed to teach us about controlling our passions. Kind of like how you helped me heal from the memories I saw in Blue. Ever since I learned you were here, I...wanted to pair with you.”
“Thank you, Cipher. I accept.” Her smile makes me feel warmer than I’ve felt in a long time. She slides the ring onto her slender finger. It’s a perfect fit.
She looks at me, eyes open in surprise. “You...”
“What?” I ask.
“You feel...you...”
She knows what I feel. What do I feel? Love? Desire? Embarrassment?
Yes, all of these emotions. I’m an open book, like Emma was in Blue. It’s only fair. I force myself to smile at her. “Hard to explain, right?”
She laughs. “You are a complicated boy.”
“Guilty,” I say with a shrug. “You’re not so simple yourself. Go on and give it a try, if you’d like. Look into the fire.”
She nods, turning to the burning embers.
As she stares, I gather more wood and add it to the fire. She never looks away. It’s like she’s in a trance. But by the time I sit by her side again, she’s back, with tears on her cheeks. The memories must move faster than time here.
She takes her time as she tells me what she saw. It had been the memory of how she met the man she’d run away with. She’d seen it before, but this time was different. It was from his perspective. He was a servant in her family’s manor house. They’d both known they could not be together there. So he’d convinced her to run away and tell all sorts of lies to cover their tracks. He’d been racked by guilt the whole time. They’d found a small, rustic cottage in some remote countryside. It was pleasant enough for a summer. But then came the winter, and the baby. He had gotten sick. That led to the vision I’d seen with her in the Sieve in the Blue Tower—of her returning home, begging forgiveness from her father, and being welcomed back with open arms.
We sit in quiet a while, before she says, “Your turn.”
I’m ready now. Emma is with me. We are paired.
As I stare into the fire, the memory comes.
Paul Fitzroy drives a black car. It’s dark outside. Beads of rain gather on the windshield until the wipers fling them away.
But this time I’m not inside my former self. I see myself from the outside. From Samantha’s perspective. She sits beside me. She stares at my hands—Paul’s hands—on the steering wheel. Her mind is reeling. Her feelings rage. She loves me. She hates me. The things she wants to do to me...
The car stops outside an apartment building. We are in a city. Downtown.
“Same time Saturday night?” Paul asks. “The house will be ours.”
Samantha looks up to the top of the building. It is her building. She wants to get away from Paul. She never wants to see him again. But she can’t bear to get out of this car. Not in the rain. She knows she’ll have to stand on the wet sidewalk as he drives away, with a mess of pink and white petals under wet heels, freshly fallen from spring blooms that suffer the same dismal fate every year. Just like her.
She turns slowly to him—to me. Paul’s face is smiling, but his eyes look tired. He doesn’t want to talk about this. She doesn’t want to talk about this. Maybe they could pretend everything is fine. Maybe they could make it one more day, one more week, until the next Saturday night when the house is empty.
But no. She thinks of those wet petals on the sidewalk. She can’t let herself get trampled like those petals. She can’t get out of this car only to start the same thing again. She knows exactly what will happen, because it’s happened a dozen times before. First she steps into the lobby alone. She makes it to the elevator before she starts crying. Tears streaks down her cheeks by the time she makes it to her apartment door. She’s weeping as she unlocks it. The apartment is spotlessly clean and infinitely lonely. Paul pays for the place. It’s their little secret. She can’t tell her friends about him. She can’t plan a life around him.
She has to say something. “Paul.”
“Samantha.” He smiles, like it’s a joke. This whole thing is always like a joke to him—to me.
“We need to talk,” she says.
The words have immediate effect. He takes a deep breath. His face goes tense. There’s awkward quiet in the car. The rain falls steadily outside, splashing onto the hood and the windshield. She knew this would happen. We need to talk. They’re the last words a man wants to hear.
“About what?” he asks.
“You know,” she says.
“Is something wrong?”
This time she laughs. It’s the kind of laugh that makes him lean further away. “Is something wrong?” she suddenly shouts. She takes a deep breath. She has to control herself. “Everything is wrong, Paul. How long do you expect me to go along with this? I can’t keep waiting. You need to make a decision.”
“I know.” He sounds like he knows he has already lost. His eyes are down, watching as his hand moves from the gearshift to her knee. It takes four breaths, maybe five, before he manages to meet her eyes. “This is hard for you, for both of us. You know how I feel about you.”
“So make your decision,” she says firmly, not trusting him. He’s done this before, playing sincere. Her gaze shifts to his hand on her knee. At least it’s his right hand, the one without the pale line of skin on his ring finger, where the sun doesn’t normally shine.
“I will,” he says. “This Saturday, okay?”
That’s five days. Can she survive five days? When she meets his eyes, she relents. He has the most sensitive brown eyes. “Okay. But that’s it.”
He smiles. “That’s it, Sam. I promise.”
She nods and gets out of the car as fast as she can. They say goodbye and the door closes and the black car races away. This time she doesn’t make it to the elevator. She’s staring at the petals on the pavement when the tears come, falling with the rain.
31
“WHAT’S GOTTEN INTO YOU, MAN?” Hank leans on a staff as we take a break on the training ground. He took it easy on me, I know, but for once I managed to stay on my feet as we sparred. The other boys from the Scouring group gather around us. It’s Seth, Khan, Marcus, and Jafari, who was assigned to take Axe’s place. We’re all covered in sweat, bruises, and red clay dust. The six girls—our pairs—look on from the balcony above. Even if they can’t hear us, they know what we’re feeling.
“The Alpha doesn’t even have to train, ya know?” Seth says with a grin.
“Axe got lazy,” I say, still breathing heavily. “And you guys know I could use it. Besides, I needed to let off some steam.”
“A memory?” Hank asks, leaning closer and dropping his voice.
I nod, but don’t know what else to say. A memory. It sounds so innocent. It’s not. I saw the truth in my own face, through Samantha’s eyes. I had achieved more than I could have dreamed for as a lonely kid without a father. But I still cared only about myself. Otherwise I would have told Sam then, on that rainy spring night, or fifty times before—even before it all started—that it had to stop. If only I could undo it now. It took me a while to tell Emma. It helped to let it vent. She hasn’t given up on me. Neither have these boys.
“Don’t let a memory cause ya problems,” Seth says. “Ya know the best thing to do about it?”
“What?” I ask.
He slams his staff to the ground, hard enough to send a cloud of dust flying. “Beat it out of ya system. Want another go?”<
br />
I raise my dulled sword and shield. Seth smiles as he spins his staff. The four other guys spread out around us. We go at it.
A minute later I’m on my back, heart pounding, legs aching. Seth is standing over me with his staff raised in victory. He’s right. The blur of the weapons slamming into each other, the shuffle of our feet, the blow to my gut—it all made me forget about the memory. For a moment.
“Ya okay?” Seth holds out a hand and helps me up.
“I’m good.” I brush dust off my clothes, but leave my dulled sword on the ground. We have two days until the next Scouring, and I want to go after Black. I know the chances are slim that my Mom will be with them, but it’s happened before. When I was in Blue, Kiyo went straight from a third-class member of Blue to a fighter in the Scouring for Black. And even if my Mom isn’t there, Black has the most members. Capturing from them would bring the towers closer to equilibrium. It would also be revenge.
I glance at Seth’s staff. “Do you think if we all used staffs,” I say, “instead of swords and axes, we could get through the shields of a Black phalanx?”
Seth shrugs and looks to Marcus. “Ask him. He’s been Black.”
Marcus shakes his head as he answers, “Staffs might give us better than a zero percent chance. Slightly better.”
“So what are they weak against?” I ask.
“They’re not weak,” he answers. “Their two girls shut down every other power, and the boys fight with fierce discipline. Plus, they get ten fully armed boys to our six. Sometimes they’ll put a newcomer out with a phalanx, but we’d have no way of knowing who it is.”
“That could be a weakness,” I say. “Why do they do that?”
“I’m not sure,” Marcus says. “I was wiped when I came here. The only things I know about Black were shown in the fire...”
“Like what?” I prod gently, knowing how Marcus can clam up. “We have to learn from each other if we’re going to fight together.”
“It was just a flash of a memory,” Marcus says. “I was in the Scouring, with Black. And I...stepped on the white circle, the one in the middle. The Black team knows that’s the best place to capture someone, but also does whatever it can to avoid touching the circle.”
The Red Tower (The Five Towers Book 2) Page 16
