Inquest

by Gladden, DelSheree

  “But I didn’t even do it,” I complain. “You saved yourself and all I managed to do was break my ankle.”

  His expression turns conniving. “That’s true,” he says, “I did save my own life. That was supposed to be your job, Libby Sparks. I think you owe me one, now.”

  “What do you want?” I ask.

  “Let me stay with you for a few days.”

  More than a little surprised, I’m not sure what to say. I put aside all my doubts when I was faced with my mom’s questions, but that doesn’t mean they’ve disappeared completely. “Milo,” I begin.

  “I never got to finish what I started to say at the dance,” he interrupts.

  That’s true. “What were you going to say?”

  “I was going to say that I didn’t want you to get back together with your ex-boyfriend because I want that position for myself,” Milo says, “and before you say anything, I’m only asking to stay because I want to take care of you. I’m not trying to pressure you into anything. I’ll even sleep on the floor.”

  “Milo…” I can’t make him sleep on the floor.

  “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

  The honest need in his voice is so hard to resist. “But what about your parents? Even they will notice if you just stop coming home all together.”

  “That’s debatable,” Milo says.

  “And what about Celia? She spends almost every afternoon with us. Your parents will definitely notice when she doesn’t come home. It just won’t work,” I say.

  Milo slides his arm under my head and moves closer to me. “But if I could make it work, you’d let me stay?”

  “That’s not what I meant, Milo.”

  “You want me to stay. Admit it,” he says, his fingers tracing the curves of my jaw, my ear, my shoulder. Every stroke steals a little more of my concern that this may be a very bad idea. He could get hurt because of me. “Admit it,” he says again.

  “Yes, I want you to stay,” I say weakly. My eyes are still closed, letting me linger in the moment a little longer. “But that’s why you can’t. Milo, if you get any closer to me you may just end up like my dad. My relationship track record isn’t very good. I’m not meant for…for anything good.”

  Rolling onto his elbow, Milo jostles my leg painfully. I hiss at the pain too sharp for the narcotics I’m on. Milo apologizes immediately, his hand landing lightly on my thigh in an effort to stabilize me. Or maybe he is still trying to convince me, because the way his fingers trail up my jeans to my hip certainly aren’t doing anything to drive me away from him. My own fingers start drawing twisting paths over his chest without my permission. Not good, but I don’t pull my hand away. Milo pulls in closer. Maybe I should have checked the side effects of these painkillers more carefully.

  “Libby,” Milo begins. The rough quality of his voice brings heat to my belly. “Libby, what happened today, it scared me. A lot. I know I joke with you about being responsible for saving my life, but you’re not invincible. I never thought you were, but watching your mom come after you, I really saw for the first time what danger you’re in. I don’t want to leave your side.”

  Hot desire quickly mellows into loving warmth. “Milo, if you think I’m fallible, then you’re at even more risk. Just look at today. My mom had me trapped, but she went after you to hurt me even worse. If I weren’t so selfish, I would make you stay as far away from me as possible. You can’t count on catching a lucky break every time. The more you’re with me, the more danger you’re in.”

  Milo’s concern twists into bitterness. “Libby, you have no idea how much danger I’m in, but that’s not the point. With your ankle broken, you need me here. Strength, Speed, Vision, how much can they really help when you can’t even get off the bed by yourself? I won’t leave you helpless.”

  “I’m not helpless,” I argue.

  “Then get up and walk across the room.”

  I scowl at him and push up to my elbows. The movement makes my leg twinge, but I can handle it. I sit up all the way and drop my left foot to the floor. That was the easy part. Biting the inside of my cheek I take a deep breath and slide my right foot to the side. A strangled scream catches in my throat, choking me with pain. Milo’s hands are on me at once, pushing me down to the pillow and settling my legs back in place. Gentle fingertips sweep across my tear-streaked face.

  “You need me to stay, Libby,” he whispers. “I need you to let me stay. Please.”

  Spirits help me, I can’t do this. I can’t even move. It hurts so badly. I can’t face it without Milo, but I know this might not be a temporary thing. Once I agree to him staying, I don’t know if I’ll be able to give him up. I need him. I need him desperately in so many ways. There isn’t anyone else. He is the only person in this world I can turn to for help. Pain, love, narcotics, something smothers my objections, the warnings, everything but my desire never to be away from Milo.

  “Okay,” I whisper, “but just until I can get around on my own.”

  His arms wrapped around me painfully. “Thank you, Libby. I promise I’ll keep you safe. I love you.”

  Fear and overwhelming joy wrap themselves around my heart, begging to take up permanent residence. I want to let them, but I have to ask. “You really love me?”

  “Of course I do, I just didn’t know how to tell you,” he says. “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how you felt for sure. I wasn’t even sure if you wanted to think about a relationship right now. I know what Lance did. That’s not easy to get over. I also know how much you’re trying to deal with and figure out right now. A boyfriend might not fit into your plans.”

  Not that his admission really changes my earlier fears, but realizing that his holding off and pulling away when I thought we were getting closer was him trying to help me does explain a lot. I smile and wind my fingers with his. “It might be a mistake, but I’d like to try and fit a boyfriend into my screwed-up life if you really want me.”

  “I really do, if you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Then…I think I should take Celia’s advice…”

  My pulse jumps, and combined with the medication, my head starts swimming. I’m afraid I might pass out. If I faint, I’ll never forgive myself.

  “And kiss you.”

  My racing pulse suddenly slows. Everything slows as Milo’s hands gently cup my face. Delicate pressure pulls me toward him and I give up on thinking, breathing, speaking, everything, and close my eyes. He strokes my cheek once and kisses me. My whole world rearranges itself. The throbbing pain is replaced by the feel of Milo’s heartbeat under my fingertips. Every care disappears as his breath pulses against my skin. For one moment, I am just a girl being kissed by the guy she loves.

  Too quickly his lips leave mine. Milo’s hand trails down my skin as he pulls back. The tension that has been haunting him all day evaporates. I would be content to lie next to him for the rest of the day, but an innocent movement of his hand reminds me of something I can’t ignore. After what Mr. Walters said last night, this is one thing I need to know. Something I have to know. If Milo is really willing to throw in with me, I think I need to know what I’m getting into as much as he does. Snaking my hand down to his, I move as if to take his hand. My fingertips reach the palm of his hand and stop. Even still, his hand curls around mine.

  “Milo,” I say, hearing the tremor in my voice that I feared would be there.

  “Hmm?”

  I take a deep breath and slide my hand back up his arm, just enough that I push back his sleeve and leave my fingers touching his marred diktats. His body stiffens immediately. I regret losing his calmness, but I have to keep going. “Milo, what’s a Cipher?”

  “You mean like something to unlock a code?” he asks casually.

  “Mr. Walters called you Cipher. What does that mean?”

  His head shakes back and forth. “It’s just a nickname he gave me when we first met.”

  “When was that? I didn’t think you knew him befo
re we met,” I say.

  “He was my history teacher when I first moved here. I have him again this year,” Milo says. I can feel his pulse running like mad beneath my fingers.

  “Why did he call you Cipher?”

  “Because he knows.” The sudden quiver in his voice scares me.

  Wrapping my whole hand around his wrist I pull it up so we can both see it. “It has something to do with your diktats, doesn’t it? There’s something wrong with them. They aren’t straight and perfect like they’re supposed to be.”

  “Cipher means zero, nothingness,” Milo says quietly.

  He says it like it’s an answer to my question, but I don’t understand. “What does that have to do with your diktats? Why don’t they look like they should?”

  Milo takes one slow breath, and says, “Because they aren’t real.”

  Chapter 24

  Shallow Dreams

  “What do you mean they aren’t real?” I demand.

  “They’re not real. They’re fake.”

  How is that even possible? Inquests are not an optional event. Everyone has their Inquest on their sixteenth birthday willingly, or they’re hunted down and forced into it. I knew a boy dying of cancer who was bombarded by Inquisitor Moore in his hospital bed.

  “How did you get out of having an Inquest,” I ask feeling slightly dazed. Could I have done the same thing?

  “I didn’t.”

  “But…”

  “I thought for sure I was going to be named a member of the Guardian class. I wanted it more than anything,” Milo says, “so I went to my Inquest eagerly.”

  “What happened?”

  Milo doesn’t answer right away. He lifts the hand I’m holding and stares at the marks on his wrist. The most jagged of the lines deforms even more as he clenches his hand into a fist. “When the Inquisitor started, it was obvious something was wrong. He said my full name…and then nothing. No talents, no name, no class. There was simply nothing for him to tell me. I was nothing.”

  “I…I’ve never heard of that happening before,” I say.

  “Neither had I.”

  I knew what was coming when I stepped into Inquisitor Moore’s house. I knew there was going to be rejection and possibly death. It was horrible, but at least I’d had time to prepare myself for it. Milo was blindsided. His dreams were ripped away in an instant. Memories of the day I finally put the pieces together and realized my own horrible fate crowd painfully into my mind. I know how that feels very well.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “The Inquisitor tried again and again. He spent hours trying to make something happen, but my wrist never changed. When he finally gave up he started panicking, raving about the Guardians coming. It was only luck that the resident Guardian was sick that day. I had no idea what he was talking about, but my parents were pretty freaked out too.”

  “Why were they so scared?” I ask.

  He doesn’t seem to hear me. His eyes harden as his grip on my hand tightens. “They just kept screaming at each other. Celia started crying, but I was the only one who noticed. I didn’t know what to do. She was always just the little snot who bugged me before. Mom and Dad took care of her. I was too busy. Suddenly the roles were reversed,” Milo says. Rolling onto his side lets him bury his face in my hair without disturbing my leg. “She was so scared. I stumbled over to her and held her. We listened together as my parents argued with the Inquisitor about what they should do. The Inquisitor kept shaking his head and saying he had to turn me over. I was upset before, but I started shaking as I listened to them. Turned over to the Guardians. Horrible images of what they were going to do to me blocked everything else out.”

  Forget my leg. I roll, gently, onto my side and press against Milo’s chest. The pain of moving stings my eyes, but Milo’s whole body curling around me helps to soften the hurt. I don’t ask him to go on. I just hope that when he’s ready he will. I know better than anyone how difficult it is to hold a secret inside for so long, and how torturous it is to finally let it out. The room dims in the faded pink light of sunset before he speaks again.

  “The next thing I knew, I was being pulled away from Celia. She grabbed for me but my mom held her back while my dad and the Inquisitor pinned me to the ground. I fought back but my dad clocking me in the head ended that pretty fast. I was too out of it to see the knife, but I felt it.”

  My shoulders convulse under the pressure of a horrified shudder. “They cut you? How could they do that? You could have died.”

  “I almost did,” he says quietly. “My dad knew what he was doing but everything was so chaotic. He started cutting and my mom panicked when my blood started pooling on the rug, and bumped my dad. It was a weird feeling, dying. Once I lost enough blood, I just felt tired. I couldn’t even feel the cuts anymore. If it weren’t for Celia crying hysterically next to me, I don’t know that I would have even tried to fight.”

  “Please don’t say that,” I say.

  Milo kisses my forehead and leaves his mouth hovering over my skin. “Until that night, I thought not becoming a Guardian was the worst thing that could ever happen to me.” The bitter tinge to his voice is buried deep, but not hidden. Shallow dreams cut when they shatter just as much as the more profound ones.

  “I won’t make that same mistake again, Libby,” Milo says. “I may not have any dreams of becoming anything now, but I have other things to live for. I won’t let go of you, and I won’t let my parents do the same things they’ve done to me to Celia.”

  “Milo,” I say with more than a little hesitation, “I would have been pissed about the way your parents handled things too, but they were trying to protect you weren’t they?”

  I don’t know how I expected him to react, but laughing wasn’t on the list at all. Until the anger in his voice turns it into a growl. “Their idea of protecting me was to bribe the Inquisitor and nearly kill me, then throw me back to the wolves. I went back to school two days later with bandages all over my wrist. I was the only one wearing a sweatshirt in May. The Guardians were tipped off somehow, and they came after me in the middle of the night. The idiots started in the wrong room, though. Celia woke up screaming. I was right across the hall from her, but by the time I got to her room one of them had a knife to her throat.”

  My throat tightens at a similar memory.

  “I didn’t even think, I just barreled into the room and tackled him like I was back on the field. Strength and Speed couldn’t match me with how caught-off-guard he was. The second one, he was on me before I hit the ground. Celia ran for my dad, but I knew he’d never get there in time,” Milo says, his voice growing darker with every word. “Somehow I managed to get one of their knives, and the first chance I got I put it into the first Guardian’s throat.”

  My breath catches in my throat and my stomach twists painfully. He killed the Guardian? A subtle shiver runs down my spine at the violence in his eyes as he says it. I have no love for the Guardians, but I have no desire to kill them if I can help it, either. I shudder at the lack of regret in Milo’s eyes. I understand the need for deadly force when you’re protecting people, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel the effects of it. I don’t know whether I killed the Guardians that came after me at the mall, but I have nightmares about what I did. Milo’s expression makes it clear his sleep wasn’t disturbed because of his actions. When he speaks again, I feel myself flinch involuntarily.

  “The second Guardian laid me out with a blow to the back of my head and started dragging his friend out the window,” Milo said. “I told my parents we should have left as soon as I woke up after my botched Inquest. I still don’t understand why the Guardians want me, but I knew staying where people knew us and knew our names was a mistake. But they swore the Inquisitor’s bogus report about my Inquest would hold up. They didn’t want to upset our lives.”

  “And Celia almost died,” I say quietly, trying to put aside my discomfort with Milo’s story and focus on what he needs now.

  �
��If I hadn’t gotten there in time they would have murdered her to get to me. My parents let that happen by staying there. I won’t forgive them for that. For everything else, maybe, but not for that.”

  “So it was your idea to move?”

  “Out in an empty little border state we could fade into the background and hide from the Guardians. Celia could be safe out here where the closest major Guardian training compound is five hundred miles away.” Milo pauses and strokes my hair. “I hoped that Celia would be safe here, and that if her Inquest went as badly as mine did, I could get her away from my parents and disappear into the desert before anyone could stop us.”

  I sigh and curl against him even more tightly. He responds in kind.

  “Meeting me has to be the worst thing that could have happened to you,” I say.

  “Not hardly.”

  Shaking my head in frustration, I say, “But you constantly have to dodge camera crews around me. If one of the national reporters gets you on tape the Guardians will know where you are. And I’ve already nearly gotten Celia killed once. I am horrible for you, Milo.”

  “No,” he says firmly. “Libby, you’re the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I wouldn’t change meeting you for anything. I love you.”

  Every time I hear those words on his lips my heart dances to the sound of his voice. My joy is dulled under the weight of what he’s saying this time. He loves me and says he doesn’t regret getting close to me, but life is never that simple. He’s too blinded to see the very real possibilities of how this story we’re writing might play out. I was too selfish to see it earlier. I wanted so much to be loved by someone again that I let Milo put himself at risk. Never did I imagine the depth of what he was putting on the line for me. A terrible realization sinks into my heart. I can’t let him do it anymore. A little over four months of happiness, it will have to be enough to carry me through to the end. Whatever that end might be.