by Jill Cooper
But three were on their knees in front of me, and one removed their helmets. “You are what Ella said you were. You can do what it is she said you could do. Please… let us live.”
“She doesn’t hurt people,” Sebastian said defensively and wrung his hands together. “I, on the other hand…”
I grabbed his arm to stop him from doing something spontaneous he’d regret. “Did you hear what he said? Ella knows what I can do. Ella believes.”
Sebastian did a double take as his jaw slacked.
“I think it’s time I talk to Ella. You stay here, see if there’s anything you can do.” I turned my attention to Francesca. “I know there’s a lot going on, but these men have to be detained until we can bother Henry again.”
“What’s going on with Henry?” Sebastian asked.
“Claire is having her baby. Let’s hope it’s going more smoothly than what’s going on out here.” I sprinted away and headed toward the barn.
****
“She hasn’t said anything since I brought her in,” Mort said as he stepped out of the way and let me into the barn, which earlier had been my bedroom. From inside, the rain battered the windows.
“Wait over here, just in case, but I don’t think she’ll try anything.” But what did I know? I barely knew her, and I thought when we first met we could be friends. Having a little bit of backup certainly wouldn’t hurt.
“Will do. Is that really rain out there?” Mort’s eyes trained on the windows. “I’ve always heard it could rain like this, and not just in small little storms. I just didn’t know it was possible.”
“Everything’s possible,” Ella said from her place in the center of the barn as she sat in a chair. Her head was turned down toward her folded hands, and she didn’t bother to look up, “with the likes of her around.”
I guess she wasn’t interested in pretending anymore.
Good. Because neither was I.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tarnish Rose
Ella peered up at me with her head bent down as I got closer, an ill-mannered glint in her eye but her thin lips spread into a small smile. So, this was fun for her? Playing games with these people?
“Here we are again,” I said softly as I stood in front of her.
“If I knew you were here, trust me, I wouldn’t have come.”
I sucked on the inside of my cheek as I considered her words. “Why did you attack this place?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Same reason you came here, except you’re a friend. We’re hungry. Starving. Thirsty. There isn’t much left out here except for this place. Your friends, the ministers, made sure of that long ago. We don’t obey their rules, we won’t accept their authority.”
“If you hate the ministers and the hunters as much as I do, then why are we enemies? Why can’t we work together?”
Ella turned her head and stuck out her chin. Clearly, I wasn’t going to get an answer out of her. Fine then, I guess I had to find the right button to get her to answer.
“Why are you targeting the children?”
She shrugged. “Some scavengers aren’t as nice as I am. They pay handsomely for children in water, food, supplies we need to survive. Slave labor, wives, concubines to bare children, you name it.”
Ella was an even more disgusting person than I thought she was. “If you kidnap children for profit, you’re not any different than the ones you sell them to,” I said.
“Are you deaf, Tarnish Rose? I do it to survive. If you were me, you would, too.”
“I would never—” The anger grew inside me. I was nothing like Ella. Nothing.
Ella snorted. “Sure, Miss Perfect. Let’s see you struggle to survive for years, and we’ll see what you’re capable of. It’s a bunch of bull. You’d be me. Anyone would.”
“Hardly,” I said with an angry nose flare I couldn’t control.
“Guess we’ll never know since you’re so special, and you’re going to save us all.” Ella’s voice rose and she batted her eyelashes, the anger rolling off her would’ve been enough to suffocate me if I let it.
“You told me you didn’t believe in any of it.”
“Well, I lied. I didn’t want to be close to it. You think I want to be around you when you march off to destroy the hunters, the ravengers? They’ll crush you and anyone around you. Trust me, I know what it is they do.”
Slowly, I began to piece it all together. “You said the dragon killed your family.”
Ella blinked her eyes and gazed far off at the wall. “She might as well have. She stopped us from escaping as the ravengers closed in. Me and my brother only survived because we were little. He taught me how to survive once my parents were dead, until he was dead, too. Then I was left alone. The dream of reaching civilization destroyed along with him.”
“You said you had a sister.”
Ella shrugged. “So what? I’m left with neither.”
“I’m sorry you lost so much but stealing from these people doesn’t make it right.”
“No,” Ella’s tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth, “but nothing ever will. So, you do what you gotta do. You look out for yourself. No one else is going to.”
“So that’s it?” Life was so easy for Ella? So simplistic? Everyone out for themselves? I couldn’t believe anyone would be happy living that way.
“That’s it,” Ella agreed. “I’m an angry scavenger. You’re not. End of the line.”
She was wrong. I could see it on her face and the way she held herself. Ella had so much potential, but she didn’t recognize it. She didn’t see what I saw. A scrapping girl who survived while everyone else around her was killed. Finding a way to get by on little resources and becoming a leader even when she was alone and terrified. If only her innate skill to survive had been channeled in the right way.
I wish it had.
“Why did your parents want to cross the barrier? What were they hoping to find in the land where the ministers rule?”
Ella shrugged. “Better life. They were stupid and foolish. They thought the ministers would provide for us.”
“They do,” I said, and Ella did a double take, staring at me with a shocked open mouth expression, “but if you disobey the rules, you lose your life. Everything is pre-chosen. Your family, your job, your husband. You bare one child, and no more. If you don’t, you’re cast off from society. You work, then you die as if your life never mattered because it didn’t. Nothing happens the ministers don’t want, and if it does…”
“The hunters come,” Ella said softly. We were making progress, but she shook her head. “What does it matter? Die in there or die out here. It’s all the same.”
How could I make her see it didn’t have to be that way?
I called Mort over. “Can you make sure she gets something to eat and drink?”
He paused to give me an exasperated look, but then he nodded as Ella glared at me. “I can do that, sure.”
“She’s still under your guard. That hasn’t changed.”
Ella snorted. “You think you can feed me and I’ll change my mind? I’ll decide I want to join your little crusade? I won’t. It’s stupid, same as you.”
Might be stupid, but it didn’t mean I was about to give up and throw everything I had done away. It also meant I wouldn’t stop caring about people, no matter how misguided they were being.
I left Ella behind and headed back outside. I needed to check on the children and Claire. Plus, I had a deep desire to see Sebastian. When I last saw him, he was wounded, and I needed to make sure he would be okay.
*****
Over by the crops, I saw Sebastian with some others as they inspected the damage. Relieved to see he was all right, I kept my joy to myself as I joined his side.
“What’s the damage?”
“Almost total,” he said as he stood up straight beside me. “We harvested what we could into food storage, but this area probably won’t see another bloom before winter gets here.”
I took a dee
p breath and realized how bad things might be, but at least they did have food storage in the pantry I saw at Claire’s home. I hoped it’d be enough to get them through the cold times on their way. “And you’re arm?”
Sebastian gave me a brief smile as he stretched his shoulder back with a wince. “Almost as good as new.”
“We should take a look at it.”
“I’m fine, Tarnish.”
“We can’t let it get infected. We’ve been slowed down enough,” I whispered.
Sebastian nodded with a twinkle in his eye. “I’ll take care of it, don’t worry. Thanks for caring.”
“Anytime.” I smiled briefly.
“How was your time with Ella?”
I shrugged and let my disappointment show. “She’s no friend of the hunters, but she doesn’t support us, either. She’s lost too much, I think, to come around.”
“Too bad, but I can’t say I’m completely surprised.” Sebastian and I walked along, and he pointed to a building far off on the horizon. “Ella’s men are being held there, but we have a slight problem as this place isn’t equipped with a proper prison. They can’t hold Ella or her men forever. They’re going to have to let them go or…”
“Or?” My eyebrows furrowed together. “You mean murder them?”
“Execute,” Sebastian corrected. “They stormed their walls, ruined their crops, and threatened their children. I can’t say I’d find their execution unreasonable.”
I realized I had been holding my breath and took a quick inhale. “I’m not sure I agree with you, but we can’t ask them to live under a constant threat, either. We’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
“Yup,” Sebastian said, “sandwiched between a rock and a bigger rock. You’ll talk to Henry about it, won’t you?”
I nodded. “You know me too well.”
“What do you think you’ll say?” Sebastian asked calmly, softly. He might not have agreed with me, but he seemed to respect my choices.
“I haven’t the foggiest idea. How are the children?”
“Getting along. Going back to their homes and their warm beds for now. Everything is slowly returning to normal here after some cleanup. Now I’m mostly worried about Henry and Claire. I heard some screams of pain coming from the farmhouse not long ago. The baby hasn’t been born yet.”
I glanced back at the farmhouse and thought about what might be happening inside. Would Claire be all right, or would giving birth be a bigger burden than she was expecting? There was only one way to find out.
****
Henry answered the door when we entered the farmhouse and wiped the blood off his hands on a soiled towel. In the backroom, I heard Claire holler in pain and saw worry lines on Henry’s face.
“The baby isn’t turning. Claire’s in a lot of pain and edging on exhaustion. I worry… I worry about a lot of things.”
Everything I wanted to say to Henry about Ella and the others went out the window. “Is there anything we can do?”
“Pray for us, if you’re the praying type.”
I wasn’t sure who I would pray to or what I would pray for, but I nodded as Henry ran back toward the bedroom. Feeling helpless, I stared up at Sebastian. “What do we do?”
Sebastian shook his head. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do. This will either happen, or it won’t. Henry and Penny are with her. It’s out of our hands.”
His answer might’ve been correct, but I hated it. There had to be something I could do to help, and the idea that I couldn’t….
“You look like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
“Aren’t I?” I threw my hands out. “Look at what I’m charged with stopping. Scavengers, these people losing their crops, and that’s just the tip of it, to say nothing of our actual quest to unseat the minsters to restore creative magic to the world.”
“I know it’s a lot, and I’ve known since I was old enough to understand what evil was, Tarnish, but you don’t have to carry it alone. I’m here. Somehow we can find a way to get through all of this.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “What if she dies? What if they don’t survive what’s coming?”
“We’ll know we did everything we could to help. We can’t control everything, Tarnish.”
“I wish it wasn’t so hard,” I admitted. “I wish I just knew what the right thing to do was.”
“We never know. No one ever does, but we follow our hearts and hope we make the right choices.” Sebastian took my hand in his. “Don’t become overwhelmed.”
“Easy for you to say.” I tried to laugh, but it sounded more like a strangled bird, and I grimaced. Sebastian stroked my arm with his fingers, and the closeness I tried to ignore between us rose up again. “I don’t think…”
A knock at the door caught my attention as outside a bell chimed. I pulled the door open and saw Mel on the other side, fearfully pale and afraid.
“We have a problem!”
I didn’t get to answer before multiple shrieks through the sky stole my breath away. The ravengers were here.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tarnish Rose
I ran outside into the chaos. Everyone was running for shelter, into their homes, the barn, and the city council building. Anything with a locking door. People screamed, footsteps stomped by, and the ravengers cried their battle shriek. They dove out of the sky, chasing people away as if their goal was to shepherd people like cattle. But why come now? Why push people away rather than kill and destroy? Killing was what the ravengers were good at.
“Move!” I yelled as I ran into the crowd and helped people get to buildings and storage sheds. “Get inside and stay there, before it’s too late!”
“What are you going to do?” Francesca asked. “Tarnish, stay with us!” She reached for me as I grabbed the shed door and closed it tight.
“Lock it!” I yelled from outside and peered up toward the sky at the red cloaked ravengers flying against the moonlight. “Don’t let anyone in!”
Hiding might’ve worked for some people, but it didn’t work for me; that’s not what I was chosen to do. I ran through the crowd of charging people and saw the fear in their faces as they clung to their children, bringing them to safety as the ravengers swooped out of the sky.
These people were afraid. These people cowered in a way I could no longer afford to do. I had to stand brave in the face of the ravengers. I had the power to read and maybe, just maybe, I had the power to stop them.
I pulled open my bag and grabbed a book. I flipped it open to a page and started to read as a ravenger charged for me, its robe swaying behind him and his hands outstretched toward me. The words on the page began to glow, I lifted my hand—and the hunter plowed into me.
I fell over, tumbling to the ground, and the book fell from my hand, landing somewhere I couldn’t see. Rolling over onto my belly, I saw the ravenger with its arms wide, sweeping up two McRow children, Thatcher and Drake. Their innocent eyes wide, their little hands extended toward me, and I screeched, extending my hand to them before the ravenger took off to the sky again.
No! It wasn’t possible. I couldn’t lose those children.
I scrambled up to my feet and chased after them. Others ran with me, charging in pursuit. I jumped at the robe, but the ravenger was gone, and as it left, so did the others.
The ravengers hadn’t come for me, they had come for something else. They had come for the children, and now I had to tell Claire and Henry two of their boys had been taken by Temptress’s ravengers.
Somehow it felt like it was my fault, and maybe it had been. That’s when something Ella said came back to me. She had sold children to some scavengers, and the way she smiled as she said it.
Maybe she hadn’t been telling the whole truth. Maybe she hadn’t been dealing with scavengers at all but instead had been dealing with the ravengers themselves. It was time for me to find out. I had to stop falling for her lies and petty party tricks.
&nb
sp; ****
I stomped through the barn with my sights on her, and Ella peered over with a smirk on her face. “Did you lose something, Tarnish Rose? It’s written all over your face.”
How could she make light of this situation? “They are children, Ella! Children.”
She shrugged like it made no difference. Each layer of her personality peeled back only made me slightly more horrified than before. “We were all children once. Who protected me? Who protected you?”
“So, you have been selling the children you steal to the ravengers? Why?”
“You might look at me like I’m horrible, but I’m not. We all have to survive. Every woman, man, and child for themselves. The ravengers give me what I need. A free pass and sometimes food. If you were smart, you’d help me on my next—”
I punched her square against her nose. I wasn’t the type to resort to violence, I hated it, but what she was saying made my blood boil. “What do the ravengers want with the children? What is it they need them for?”
Ella glared at me as a spot of blood trailed out of her nose. “And why would I help you when I can’t stand you? Feeling is obviously mutual,” she muttered through a clenched jaw.
It might’ve been mutual, but all I cared about was getting answers. I pulled my arm back to punch her again as Sebastian ran, slightly out of breath, into the barn. “Claire’s baby is about to be born. Henry and the other elders have asked for an update on what’s going on.”
I glanced at Ella. “What’s it going to be?”
Ella opened her mouth but shut it again and glanced away.
Sebastian came up beside me. “Henry also signed the order for Ella and her gang to be executed in the morning. Crimes against humanity.”
“Executed?” Ella leaned forward, her mouth hanging open. “He can’t do that!”
