by Tarah Benner
“This’ll go easier on your stomach than solid food,” said Amara. “You can’t eat or drink too much too soon, or you’ll make yourself sick.”
But Lark hardly heard her. She was too focused on the sustenance in front of her and the beautiful open spaces.
The sun was sinking below the low-slung clouds, turning the sky a dazzling violet. In the dying rays of golden light, the desolate stretch of dirt didn’t look barren and ugly. It was the most beautiful thing Lark had ever seen.
As Bernie rubbed her back and Amara patted dabs of aloe onto Lark’s sunburned lips, she felt a forceful sob work its way up her throat. Bernie put an arm around Lark as her tears broke free and disappeared into the bone-dry earth.
“Stop it,” said Amara in a stern voice. “You’re parched enough as it is.”
A crazed chuckle burst out of Lark’s mouth, and Bernie and Amara helped her to her feet.
Lark was still dazed and unsteady, but with both of them supporting her under the arms, they finally made it back to the colony.
In the distance, Lark could make out the flickering glow of firelight in the square and the lumpy silhouettes of women gathered around them. Several heads turned in her direction as they walked toward Lark’s shanty, and Bernie tightened her grip and glared daggers at the women.
Lark knew she must look like hell, and many of the women probably thought that she was the one who’d lured Zachariah down the Seam. They’d already labeled her a murderer, and most of them were too terrified to contradict Portia’s story.
“They think it was me, don’t they?” Lark murmured.
“Who cares,” growled Bernie. “Those bitches’ll believe anything.”
“Why did she let me go?”
Bernie sighed. “I don’t know.”
Lark waited for Bernie to elaborate, but she didn’t.
“Does Mercy still think I did it?” Lark pressed.
Bernie shook her head. “I didn’t talk to her. I went to her compound, but they wouldn’t let me in. I’ve been going every day. This afternoon I went by right after work, and Daya came out and said I could go get you.”
“That’s weird.”
“It’s not like Mercy had any proof that you were involved with Zachariah.”
“Just Portia’s word,” said Lark.
“That woman will believe anything that comes out of Portia’s mouth,” said Amara unexpectedly.
Bernie and Lark exchanged impressed looks. It wasn’t like the healers to badmouth Mercy and her daughters.
“You don’t care for Portia, I take it,” said Bernie.
“It doesn’t matter,” Amara muttered, avoiding Bernie’s gaze. “All I can say is that the woman is out for blood.”
“You’re not kidding.”
“She’s hiding something,” said Lark.
Bernie made an odd sound somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. “If you ask me, she was the one Zachariah was boning.”
“Shh!” hissed Amara, looking around as if someone might be listening from the weeds.
Lark had stopped dead in her tracks. “You’re right,” she whispered.
Why hadn’t she seen it before? Portia had no reason to grieve for Zachariah, and yet when she’d run up to the square to deliver the news, she looked as though she’d lost the love of her life.
“What’s that?” asked Bernie.
“You’re right about Portia. I saw her in the woods the other night.”
“What?”
“Quiet!” snapped Amara, steering them toward their shanty.
Her face was much different than it had been when she’d pulled Lark out of the pit. Her mouth was taut with worry, and her eyes were full of panic. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep that to yourself.”
Lark was watching Amara’s face carefully. “Keep it to myself?”
Amara didn’t reply, but her alarmed expression was as good a confirmation as any.
“So it was Portia.”
“You knew?” Bernie spluttered.
“Of course I knew!” Amara whispered, looking agitated. “The healers know everything that goes on around here. It doesn’t matter. If you want to live, you better forget what you think you saw.”
“I know what I saw,” said Lark.
“I can’t believe you!” Bernie snapped. “You knew it was Portia all along, and you let Lark rot down there.”
“I didn’t have a choice!” Amara hissed. “She made me swear I wouldn’t tell anyone. She said she would kill me if it got out.”
“Why should I keep it to myself?” asked Lark.
Amara shot her a warning look. “Mercy Peters is unbearable at the best of times, and right now she’s grieving the loss of her youngest son. If she finds out . . .” Amara trailed off, looking as if she’d already said too much. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“You can’t what?” Lark pressed. “What is it that you aren’t telling us?”
“Nothing, okay? Just . . . Just don’t go rubbing salt in Mercy’s wounds.”
“Rubbing salt in —” Bernie broke off, looking too incensed to speak. “Lark just spent four days shitting in a hole for a crime she didn’t commit.”
“I know,” said Amara. “But it could have been a lot worse.”
Bernie opened her mouth in wordless fury.
“Please, Lark,” said Amara. “You have to let this go, or you’ll just make things worse — for all of us.”
Lark glanced at Bernie, utterly bewildered. Her body was thrumming with curiosity. Amara obviously knew more about the situation than she let on, but she wasn’t going to tell them.
As soon as they walked in the door, Denali was at Lark’s feet. His tail was wagging like crazy, and he kept jumping up and trying to lick Lark’s sunburned face.
“How’s the administration handling this?” Lark asked, bending down to scratch behind Denali’s ears. “Zachariah’s death, I mean.”
“Badly,” said Bernie. “They just hauled his body out two days ago.”
“It took them that long?”
“Yeah. Mercy wanted him buried, but you know San Judas . . . They had to have a body. I guess he’ll be cremated and released to his next of kin.”
“So he was just lying there in the sun for two whole days?”
“That’s how long it took them to get the body drone in here,” said Amara. “Mercy never left his side.”
Lark was thinking hard. “Are they investigating?”
“What’s there to investigate? He fell, hit his head, and drowned. Or he fell and the fall killed him instantly. Same result.”
Lark sighed. It wasn’t as though she was surprised. People died in San Judas every year, and the prison administrators never investigated. Prisoners opting for San Judas did so at their own risk with the understanding that it was run without formal oversight.
Besides, the people sent there were largely forgotten. Few inmates had people on the outside who cared enough to put pressure on the police when they died. Lark was sure the prison administrators chalked up every death to gang violence rather than admit any possible negligence.
Amara helped Bernie get Lark into bed and left her with specific care instructions. Denali curled up at her feet, and Lark devoured a second bowl of mush and another full skin of water.
With food in her belly and enough water to get her out of the danger zone, Lark felt her energy returning.
As soon as darkness descended over camp and Lark was sure the last stragglers had returned to their shanties, she got up, pulled on her jacket, and moved toward the door.
Denali whined.
“Where are you going?”
Lark jumped.
Bernie, who’d been dozing on top of her covers, was instantly alert again. She jumped to her feet and flew across the room to position herself between Lark and the door. “Are you out of your mind?”
“I haven’t been down there for days,” said Lark. “He’s going to think something’s wrong.”
“Who?
Soren?” Bernie spluttered. “You can’t be serious.”
“Why not?”
“You’re considering returning to the scene of the crime after you nearly died in the pit?”
“What? You think Mercy’s got lookouts in the woods?”
“She might! And how are you going to explain your little nighttime stroll down to the river if you get caught?”
“I won’t get caught.”
“No. No way,” said Bernie, crossing her arms over her chest and stepping backward until her butt was flat against the door. “I’m not letting you go back out there.”
“Come on!” groaned Lark. “He’s probably worried about me.”
“He’s worried about you?” Bernie screeched. “You haven’t even known him a week! What about me, Lark? How do you think I felt when they hauled you to the pit, huh? Don’t you think I was worried?”
Lark sighed. She hadn’t considered what her time in the pit must have been like for Bernie.
“I’m sorry,” she said gently. “I know you were worried.”
“I was terrified,” she yelled, sounding slightly hysterical. “I walked out there twice a day just to make sure you were still alive. They wouldn’t let me near you, and I kept wondering when I’d see them hauling up your dead body.”
“I’m sorry.”
Bernie shook her head, eyes shimmering with tears. “You can’t do this to me.”
“Do what?”
“Do something stupid that gets you killed. I can’t do this without you, Lark,” she cried. “I won’t make it in here.”
That statement was enough to extinguish any biting retorts forming on Lark’s lips. It filled her with a heavy rush of sympathy and made her regret all the crazy escape scenarios she’d been imagining.
She’d never considered what it would be like for Bernie if she were gone, but she knew that Bernie wouldn’t make it on her own. Portia and the others would prey on her like a wild animal at the bottom of the food chain.
“Don’t worry,” said Lark, taking a step forward and placing her hands on Bernie’s arms. “I’ll be careful. I promise.”
“Shut up,” said Bernie. “I know you’re never careful.”
“I will be,” Lark insisted.
Bernie didn’t respond, but Lark could see her throat bobbing with emotion.
“Please,” she whispered, giving Bernie’s arms a squeeze. “I need to see him.”
“Why?” Bernie wailed. “You know how dangerous this is.”
“It’s worth it,” said Lark simply.
“You don’t know that!” Bernie spat. “You don’t know anything about this guy!”
“Yeah, I do,” said Lark quietly. “He’s good. I just . . . I can feel it.”
Bernie didn’t say anything. She just stared at Lark with the look of an unshakable skeptic.
Lark took a deep breath. “I know it’s insane, but I haven’t felt this way in a really long time.”
“Your body is still in shock,” Bernie muttered. “You’re dehydrated . . .”
Lark shook her head. “I’m happy, Bern.” She paused, searching for a way to explain the tangled knot of emotions in her chest. “Soren, he . . . He just gets me, okay? I trust him. And I . . . I want to know him.”
Bernie’s mouth fell open. Lark knew it sounded stupid. She knew she was being a big fat idiot, running off to see some guy she’d just met.
For a moment, she wasn’t sure if Bernie was more likely to faint or punch her on the nose, so she was beyond shocked when she closed her mouth and nodded.
Lark cleared her throat, waiting for the start of another tirade, but Bernie just raised both eyebrows and stepped away from the door.
Amazed, Lark reached out and pulled her in for a one-armed hug. She could tell Bernie still thought meeting Soren at the river was a bad idea, but she wasn’t going to stand in her way.
“I hope you’re right about him,” Bernie muttered. “You deserve something good for once.”
fourteen
Lark
The colony was unusually quiet for just past sundown. Lark didn’t hear any loud conversations or bursts of laughter as she made her way across the square.
The atmosphere was subdued after Zachariah’s death, but there was also a charge of tension in the air. Mercy hadn’t determined with any amount of certainty who had lured her son to his death, and everyone knew she wouldn’t rest until she found whoever was responsible.
Normally Lark felt a sense of relief when she entered the forest, but after learning that Portia had seen her sneaking to the river, she felt keyed up and paranoid. Every crack of a branch and crunch of leaves seemed louder than normal, and even the slightest flurry of movement sent her heart into overdrive.
Several times she stopped dead in her tracks — sure she was being followed — but each time it turned out to be an animal or her imagination.
Lark’s head was spinning. Portia was the one whom Zachariah had been seeing, which meant she would stop at nothing to keep Mercy from discovering the truth. Lark may have escaped the pit, but she knew she wasn’t safe.
When she reached the river, there was no sign of a lookout or Zachariah’s body. He’d left no smell and no footprints, and his blood had been washed away. The river was as clear and beautiful as ever, but Lark still felt a tingle of unease.
She was alone, as far as she could tell. The air was still, and the forest was filled with the steady chirp of crickets. Still, Lark felt as though she was being watched as she walked downstream toward the spot where the fence met the wall.
Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the scrunched-up plastic bottle shimmering in the moonlight. It was wedged into one of the gaps in the fence, and it took lots of careful maneuvering to pull it through.
Hands tingling, Lark unscrewed the cap and wriggled a finger down into the bottle. There was a tiny scrap of paper rolled up inside, and when she finally fished it out and smoothed it between her fingers, a sudden surge of heat erupted in her stomach.
The world’s greatest sage
can’t be kept in a cage
For his mind, it will soar
over mountains and moors
While a man strong of body
can break down stone walls
A man with fire in his heart
is the most dangerous of all
Below the poem was another short message:
I missed you the past few days. I heard MM is on a rampage about Z. Please give me a sign that you are alive.
– S
Lark expelled a heavy breath and stared down at the words scrawled across the page. I missed you.
Soren missed her. An unfamiliar feeling rose up inside Lark, making her feel as if she’d grown wings. The heat expanding in her chest was almost unbearable, warming her face and neck as if she’d been baking in the sun for hours.
Lark swallowed and dragged in some air to force her breathing to return to normal. But as she bent down to slip the note inside her boot, she heard a quiet splash of water.
Lark straightened up so fast that she nearly gave herself whiplash. Denali barked, but no animals scattered.
For a second, Lark wondered if she’d imagined the sound. But as she peered across the water, she saw a dark shadow swimming toward her across the river.
Lark froze. With the moonlight reflecting off the water, it was likely the stranger had already spotted her. But if he were one of the lookouts, surely he would have sounded the alarm.
Lark held her breath as the man swam nearer, exhaling only when the moonlight fell across his face. It was Soren.
Delirious with relief and joy, Lark broke into a smile. She reached out to steady herself on the fence and watched Soren climb out of the water.
“Lark?”
The bluish light falling across Soren’s face lightened at once, and Lark realized he was smiling at her.
“It’s me,” she choked, feeling positively buoyant.
In three graceful leaps, Soren skipped up th
e muddy bank until he was standing less than a foot away. Lark caught a sudden whiff of a sweet, dark aroma and inhaled deeply.
Soren’s cargo pants were soaking wet, and he’d left his shirt on the opposite bank. Drops of water were sliding down his strong bare chest, and Lark could see smoky bands of ink twisted around his well-muscled arms. Something round and metallic around his neck caught her eye, but it was too dark to make out what it was.
“It’s good to see you,” he said. “I was worried.”
“You were?”
“Well, yeah.” He made a face that suggested it was odd of her to ask. “I heard Mercy sent you to the pit. She thought you were fraternizing with Zachariah.”
“Yeah.”
Soren shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Lark. This never would have happened if I hadn’t . . .” He trailed off, looking extremely upset.
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “I’ve been coming down here forever. It could have happened even if I’d never met you.”
There was a long pause.
“Can I ask you something?” Soren murmured.
Lark swallowed and nodded.
“Why did you come back?”
Lark thought about that question for a moment and then shrugged. “I guess I was curious.”
Soren grinned. “Curious about me, or curious about my plan?”
Lark’s insides squirmed. “Both.”
She couldn’t tell if that was the answer Soren had been hoping for, but a surge of delight shot across his face, lighting up the entire forest.
Lark hesitated, wondering if she’d been too truthful. She hardly knew Soren at all. She had no reason to feel this strong pull toward him, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.
“Another guard disappeared this week,” said Soren. “I’ve stolen some supplies . . . We’re ready to leave as soon as the fence goes down.”
“We?”
“Me and some friends.”
A shiver worked its way up Lark’s spine. Soren was serious — he was actually contemplating an escape.
