by Wren Weston
Lila rested her forehead on the shower wall while water rained down on her shoulder. Very soon, her eyes grew hot, and she felt the little hiccup of self-pity burn in her throat.
She didn’t have time to fall apart. Nor could she afford to go before the committee looking like a mess. One misstep, and her father and a friend might be sentenced to death.
It would be her fault again.
What would life be like without her father? Even though he’d only been about work lately, he was the one person she could always go to for help and advice. But that would change today, no matter what. Either she’d become a slave and would only be allowed to see him with her new matron’s permission, or he’d be hanged and she’d never see him at all.
He’d never see his grandchild, if she decided to keep it.
He would not be around to help them, either.
She’d really be alone then.
She and her child would be alone.
Her breath caught at the thought.
It didn’t return. Not completely. As she struggled to fill her lungs, her body warmed until she felt hotter than in Dixon’s bed under a thousand blankets. Then, like a snap of her fingers, the heat turned to ice.
Hot then cold.
Cold then hot.
Hot then cold.
She grabbed the wall as her vision cut out, the white walls pinwheeling to pink and blue and brown around her. She cut off the water and lurched out of the tub, lightheadedness pumping through her veins. Her stomach lurched too, cramping horribly. She wasn’t sure if she was going to throw up or embarrass herself.
Perhaps both?
Was this a miscarriage? Had fate stepped in? Would she lose the baby after all?
She stumbled to the toilet, dizzy, barely making it in time. Every bit of her emptied in a rush as she sat upon it, her body freezing and burning again, her breath never quite catching. Her skin turned clammy and sweaty, and she snatched up the trash can in the corner. It might have weighed a thousand pounds, though it contained nothing but a few tissues. She hunched over it, gagging, an invisible hand punching her in the chest and stomach as she heaved.
Nothing came out but a few stands of silver. Her heart thudded in her chest, a million beats per minute, thudding and smacking against her skin. The stomach cramps pressed on as she struggled to fill her lungs.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe.
Oh gods, she couldn’t breathe.
She was going to die.
Her heart would give out.
Should she have Tristan—no, Dixon—call her an ambulance? How would she pay for it? She had no money.
Her stomach cramped again. She gagged, and her abdomen tightened into soreness. An invisible demon sat upon her chest.
She became too frightened to be embarrassed.
She was dying. This was what dying felt like.
The moment she finally gathered her breath to call out, her stomach cramps eased. Her heartbeat slowed to normal. She didn’t feel quite so cold or so hot, and her vision finally returned. Once the lightheadedness faded, she put down the trash can and stood up, catching her reflection in the mirror.
She was just a girl, standing in a bathroom alone. She’d never looked so pale before, and her eyes had reddened as if she’d been crying.
That was her body’s final revenge against her.
Wincing at the pale woman she barely recognized, she cleaned up the toilet and took another shower. She hadn’t died. She hadn’t had a miscarriage, either.
Why did she feel as though she’d dodged death, then? Showering calmly now, when only moments before she’d believed that she would die?
What the fuck had just happened?
She stepped out of the shower, her skin puckering to gooseflesh as she pulled on her clothes, her hands shaking as tried to clasp her bra and button her trousers. She sopped up the water she’d sloshed on the floor and padded from the bathroom dressed in black trousers and a gray sweater.
She had been in the bathroom for so long that everyone had woken up for the morning. The smell of bacon filled the air and turned her stomach. Spoons and metal clinked together as Katia stirred something in a pan, the scraping barely noticeable over the stovetop fan. Tristan chuckled at her side, ignoring the pan before him filled with eggs. He murmured something in her ear, and a dollop of eggs fell onto the stove from his spatula.
Katia giggled and kissed him on the cheek, stroking him on the chin in a lingering embrace. She’d dressed for the day, if dressed meant wearing another of Tristan’s old t-shirts and a short robe.
Dixon sat on a counter barstool, a frown on his face.
Lila knew her expression would be far worse. She turned away and plopped into the rickety chair in front of Toxic’s computer, the frame grating under her weight.
Dixon whipped his head around.
He tossed her the mesh hood.
Lila had almost forgotten to put it on. Gods, how much she needed the thing! Had they heard how sick she’d been in the bathroom? Her cheeks heated as she pushed it over her head, the mesh scratching against her skin. She had an urge to crawl back into Dixon’s room and hide.
Or die.
For real this time.
Dixon scribbled a message on his notepad and knelt beside her. You were in there a long time. Are you okay?
“Yes,” she said under her breath, checking the computer’s progress. It had finished compiling all the photographs for the missing kids in the Allied Lands.
Dixon shoved his notepad in her face again. Are you sure?
“I’m fine.”
I don’t believe you. Your hands are shaking. He put his notepad on the floor, adjusting her hood so that it curled around her neck. Then his arms snaked around her waist, and he stroked her back, just as she’d done so many times to him in the past.
Resting her chin on the crook of his shoulder, she let him work. After all, she already looked like shit, and she’d receive no comfort in a few hours, not after the blackcoats tossed her into a holding cell for the serum, for slavery, or for execution.
“Don’t you look cute together?” Katia squealed from the kitchen.
Lila fidgeted in Dixon’s grip, but he only tightened his embrace.
“Tristan, don’t they look cute together?”
Tristan didn’t turn around. “Yes, Hood and Dixon have always looked cute together.”
“Dixon said you liked pancakes, so I thought I’d make some for breakfast. He said you had a rough day ahead of you.”
“I appreciate the thought,” Lila replied as Dixon finally withdrew.
“It’s bacon in my family. When we’re having a rough day, my mother always makes it. I suppose that’s what happens when you have an older brother. If I’d been the eldest, I suppose everyone would have eaten chocolate chip cookies.”
“Chocolate chip cookies are an excellent choice. They make everything better.”
“I know, right!” Katia giggled. “I fried up bacon for you as well. I can’t help myself. It’s tradition. This isn’t the best in the city, but it was all the corner store had. Tristan went out this morning and got it.”
Lila’s eyes flicked to Tristan, but she didn’t allow her head to move.
Tristan still hadn’t turned around.
“That was thoughtful,” Lila said awkwardly.
He kissed his lover on the forehead. “I wouldn’t have though to do it. That’s just Katia being Katia.”
Katia gave another pretty smile, turned, and flipped a pancake. “Breakfast will be ready in about ten minutes.”
Lila didn’t know much, but she was fairly certain she wouldn’t be hungry.
In the meantime, she saved the folder with the new age progressions to a star drive plucked from her satchel. She then retrieved her laptop from Dixon’s room, sat on the
couch, and started her comparison program. The least she could do was finish this one small task for the oracle before she left for her trial.
Lila saved the information for her father on another star drive. She’d just hit the return key when Katia appeared at her side. “Hood, I’m going to take a shower. I’ll eat later. I’m kind of full, you know. The cook has to taste what she’s making. You can take your hood off while I’m gone. I take very long showers.”
Katia squeezed Lila’s shoulder and padded to the bathroom.
The door closed and the water turned on.
Katia had known Lila couldn’t eat without exposing her face. She’d cooked an entire breakfast that she’d eat cold, all for her lover’s ex.
Just to make Lila feel better.
Lila let her laptop work and trudged to the kitchen. She put a pancake on her plate and a piece of bacon, avoiding the syrup and eggs and anything else that might start her stomach flopping again. Then she sat on the empty barstool between Dixon and Tristan.
“I didn’t ask her to do this,” Tristan mumbled, biting into his pancakes. “I had to tell her why you were here. I told her as much of the truth as I could without revealing your identity. She made me go buy all this stuff.”
“What exactly did you tell her?”
“That you’re an ex, and that you needed a place to stay for a few days. I told her Bullstow is involved. Her father has just served his fourth year of a slave’s term with the LeBeau family, so she knows what that is like.”
The LeBeaus.
They would have sent Katia’s father to either a meat-packing plant or a mine.
“It was a mine, in case you’re wondering. The militia got a bit aggressive with her father during an arrest, and roughed him up. One of them caught his own partner in the chin during the scuffle. To cover their own clumsiness, they claimed that her father had been resisting. They tacked on one count of assault against the militia. Her father’s actual crime? He’d been selling a bit of beer from his home brewery to friends.”
“That’s a misdemeanor. A fine. Why would Bullstow even care?”
“The LeBeaus had a restaurant at the end of the block. A few patrons had gotten hold of his beer and asked the management to stock it. When the family realized he didn’t have a business license and wasn’t lowborn, they sent out a patrol, just because they could. The arrest was a training exercise for a couple of rookies.”
“That makes no sense.”
Tristan stabbed at his eggs. “Of course it doesn’t make sense for a fine to turn into a five-year slave’s term in the damn mines. Luckily, he’ll be out soon.”
“Does she know what you do?”
“Fry’s her brother. Of course she knows.”
“So that’s why he joined you?”
For the first time all morning, he looked her dead in the eye. “That’s why they all join me, Ms. Randolph. All that eye rolling you used to do when I tried to talk about this? The workborn live it every day, and we are sick of your shit.”
Lila traced a grain on the counter. “Not my shit. My militia would never do—”
“That’s what they all say.”
“Change takes time.”
“How much time? How much longer does my kind have to suffer while we wait? Until the next sales quarter? Until the next legislative session? Until the next highborn escapes from trial with her life? I suppose we should sit in the corner like good little workborn, until the highborn see fit to give us our rights.”
Lila didn’t answer. Instead, she nibbled at her pancake. It was quite good, though the flavor differed from Chef’s. The thought struck her all at once that no matter what happened that morning, she’d never eat have anything that Chef cooked again.
The lonely feeling rose once more in her chest.
Tristan cleared his throat. “How is the investigation going?”
“It’s early yet.”
“Dixon told me about your approach with the missing children. I didn’t think of that.”
Neither of them said another word.
Lila squirmed on her stool as she ate. She finished quickly and put her plate in the sink. The pots and pans from breakfast stared back at her, and she grabbed a sponge to clean them. She might as well start scrubbing dishes. Despite what her father said about the Massons, she might not end up like Ms. Poole. Some eager chairwoman would most likely snap her up, just to put her in the family’s great house as someone to mock, as someone to humiliate on a daily basis. Or perhaps no one would bid on her at all. Everyone had always suspected that she could bring down a family’s network with a few minutes of lazy effort. She’d be a liability to anyone that bid, and if no one bid, she’d be hanged.
Just like Ms. Poole.
Dixon took her sponge and pointed to the computer.
“I should help.”
Dixon shook his head and pointed again. Lila knew what he’d write if she didn’t walk away. The matches were more important than dishes, and more important than her last hour of freedom, too.
Lila returned to her laptop. It had finished comparing the missing children from the Allied Lands with the oracle’s list. She’d ended up with over a hundred results. Scanning through the list, she found at least forty pictures matched in error because of a too-lax tolerance.
Lila skimmed through the bios for the rest. Many of them appeared to be matches, which meant that up to sixty missing kids had flitted in and out of the oracle’s compound in the last ten years, some remaining there permanently. She had trouble believing the oracle had sheltered so many missing children by accident.
Then again, perhaps it wasn’t an accident after all.
Chapter 7
Dixon pulled into a parking spot outside the New Bristol Senate Building. Once again, he and Lila had slipped into Bullstow with no one the wiser. They’d entered through the west gate that morning and wound through the compound to the buildings in the east, all to avoid the paparazzi, the journalists, and the still-chanting protesters.
An effigy of Elizabeth Victoria Lemaire-Randolph had been hung at the gate, dangling from warped, rickety scaffolding built from graying wood. The cloth dummy wore a woolen blackcoat, her family’s lupine coat of arms clumsily scrawled across the back in dripping crimson paint. Rather than both wolves charging in opposite directions, they seemed to be bent over in fits of laughter.
Bleeding.
Lila hopped from the truck and slammed the door. Half a dozen workborn wearing thick coats and brown gardening gloves spread mulch on the flowerbeds near the entrance. Their chins lifted in recognition as she passed, hands never pausing in their work.
Had the oracle sent them?
Dixon squeezed her neck as the pair entered the east wing of the senate building. An even larger crowd than the day before filled the hallway, for a rainbow of dresses and long coats dotted the mob. The senators had brought dates, heirs who wanted to hear the news of Elizabeth Randolph’s demise and report it directly to their matrons.
The blackcoats at the committee room door patted Lila and Dixon down then prodded them inside.
She turned just in time to see Dixon slide his switchblade from his sleeve back into his pocket. He then adjusted his scarf as he spied Chief Shaw. The blackcoat had propped his wrists upon the seatback in front of him and fingered his cuffs, plucking at the seams before pulling his hands apart. Seconds later, they paired again, unconsciously back at the task.
Dixon saw it too. His eyes were sharper, or perhaps he tended to pay more attention to body language, since he could not speak. He gave her shoulder a pat, then took his place in the back corner, surveying the entire room.
Perhaps outside, as well. The gardeners had slipped around the building just beyond the window, joining half a dozen workborn. The group quietly spread mulch they’d already laid out, too focused and too tense to lead anywhere good.
>
Something about it wasn’t right.
Something about it reeked of the oracles.
If the group came for her, she’d have to go along to keep them alive.
She could always get away and surrender later.
Lila sat next to her lawyer, her eyes fixed on the row of empty leather chairs at the front of the room. With so few bodies in the courtroom and the absent committee members, it was difficult to know if she’d arrived early or late.
Perhaps early, since Chief Sutton had not yet arrived to take her seat.
“Elena Weberly was spared by the committee yesterday afternoon,” Mr. Martinez whispered.
“Elena Weberly paid someone to hack the Health Department so that she could have early access to prescription drug studies. She didn’t hack the database herself.”
“She should have gotten the noose.”
“On that we can agree. The Weberlys have been pushing Sonavir to clinics across Saxony as a viable and expensive antiviral. Shit’s hardly better than a placebo, with five times the side effects of Loravir and three times the price. Elena knew all along. She paid off researchers every time they tried to publish a new study on the drug’s efficacy and found it lacking. The whole lot of them should hang for it. Too bad the committee isn’t offering sentences based on intentions.”
Mr. Martinez didn’t answer. He drummed his fingers upon the desk as the senators filed into the room. The men appeared almost embarrassed, like they’d been shoved onstage by accident. None of them caught her eye.
The senators sat in their chairs, shifting as they adjusted their coats and cravats, their boots hidden beneath the long table. Lila imagined their toes dancing upon the hardwood floor like an awkward teen’s.
Senator Masson banged his gavel upon the sounding board, despite the silence. “Ms. Randolph, do you wish to say anything more in your defense before we begin today?”
“No.”
“Well, then. After reviewing precedent with Dr. Vargas for several hours yesterday morning—several hours more than I would have liked—it appears we cannot force the serum upon you. We don’t have enough justification for such a step, and you have already confessed to accessing the BIRD.”
