It wasn’t possible that Henry sat and watched thirty children suffocate to death.
It wasn’t.
Maybe it was a lie created by the council to keep the chosen ones’ hate of us alive, to protect the council’s secret that each chosen one was expendable. All they had to do was return to the lab to create more. Maybe something was wrong with the young batch of chosen ones.
The doors slammed open and I froze.
They filed in. Much to my horror, I realized I recognized them—they were the Templeton boys, those chosen ones still training to take their rightful place so far above us. I had only seen a public wrangling twice, but that was before my work at Templeton, before my interactions with the chosen ones. I recognized their faces now, the pawns of the council.
I felt my stomach tighten. It was easy when I didn’t know them. I saw George. He stood emotionless like the rest, a perfect representation of the grace of his sect. I saw him, too. James.
No. No, not him, not here, not for this.
My breathing became ragged. The room was stifling. I could feel Robert’s questioning eyes on me, but I didn’t care. I wanted to get out of there. I needed to leave. But a voice in the back of my head reminded me that it was my duty to watch this.
Duty.
Roll call.
One by one they checked off our numbers. I didn’t dare look up when mine was called, but merely grumbled a reply. I couldn’t see James there. It would shatter the illusion I’d so mutinously created. I couldn’t entirely blame him; logically, I knew that. He had about as much control over his life as I did. Frank was evidence of that.
I vaguely heard Henry’s number, Robert’s, my younger sister’s. God, how I had pretended like she didn’t exist. I hadn’t even heard her come near me. When her number was called, she sniffled. I hoped it was from fear and not another bout of the mysterious illness that had plagued her throughout her childhood. I reached for Louisa, pulling her hand into mine. We weren’t close, but we were sisters.
The room became silent. Insanity forced my eyes up and I wondered why it was taking so long. I saw George again and was unable to stop myself from staring. I watched as the corners of his mouth fought a smile. He nodded to James.
James stepped forward.
No, he couldn’t be the one to read the declaration. Please God, no.
“Will Julia Norris please step forward? Serial number 778234.”
The room was spinning. My heart had stopped. It had to be some nightmare, or maybe I was going crazy—seeing monsters everywhere. She stepped forward, the very epitome of calm. Julia? Henry’s Julia? Did he know what she’d planned to do? Had she known when we talked in the bathroom that she would end her life in some wild statement of rebellion?
Did he help her?
I searched for Henry among the crowd. I could only catch his profile but my heart ached to see his eyes, if I could only see his eyes.
“Julia Norris, you have been found guilty of the murder of thirty chosen ones. You will be taken from this compound and your life shall be forfeit. It has been decided by the council that you shall be put through the cleansing.”
The cleansing—a throwback to the purification rituals of some old-time religion. She would be tortured for days before they finally killed her. They wouldn’t care if she were pregnant. Is that why she did it? Because she knew she was dead either way?
I kept waiting for Henry to do something, to show he felt something for this girl. He sat there stoic, unmoving. He looked like me before I knew that not all feelings were wrong.
There was no fancy speech. There were no verses of poetry. There were just simple sentences—a string of words that had the power to end a life.
Some woman began to cry. I could hear a man curse under his breath. I felt in the core of my being the silent screams of my people, Julia’s people. I tried to force James to look at me, but he wouldn’t even acknowledge my presence. His voice was beautiful, sickly sweet and bitterly cold.
Did Henry help do this?
I remembered his cryptic words in the woods.
If he had a part in this, would he let Julia suffer alone?
I remembered how it was I who had told him about where the young chosen ones were kept.
Did I help him commit murder?
I couldn’t breathe. Then came the pain. Unbearable, wretched pain. My chest was burning and it was excruciating. It was a raw, familiar feeling. I was freezing, shivering, panting. I was dying.
Just let it end. Please let it end.
James placed his hands on Julia’s shoulders, forcing her down onto her knees. George handed him a black bag and whispered something into his ear. I still couldn’t see Henry’s face because he kept it down. He didn’t make a sound. He didn’t fight for Julia.
Her death would be gruesome because she had no female family members to take on part of her punishment. Maybe she deserved to die, but I couldn’t watch her suffer. I was so tired of watching people suffer.
It was there, in that moment, that James’s eyes briefly met mine.
I saw regret. It was only there for a second, but I saw it.
With a quick and violent motion, James placed the bag over Julia’s head. George slowly walked next to her and quietly said something to him. I watched as James nodded to me. In response, George found my face. He kicked Julia forcefully in the gut, his eyes never leaving mine.
Powerless.
I could no longer control my actions. I lunged forward; I wanted to claw George’s eyes out. I wanted to silence forever his damn laugh. She was carrying his child. He was the one who had broken her. I barely knew this girl, but I wouldn’t let her suffer alone. I couldn’t. Not again. I wouldn’t keep her pain a secret like the girl I’d helped clean up at Templeton. Did George attack her, too?
A pair of strong hands held me in place. Robert.
“It’s what they want,” he whispered urgently, protectively. He sounded like the Robert I had admired before Emma died.
I didn’t care as I struggled to get away. People were starting to notice. Robert forcefully pinned me to his side, cementing me in place. “Stop this, Tess. It won’t help. They’ll only get you, too.” Louisa gripped onto my hand at Robert’s words.
I looked at my sister, her pale blue eyes wide in terror. Gone was the constant smirk she wore on her thin face. I knew the right thing to do was to keep quiet, be there for her. But how could I ever look her in the eyes if I became yet another natural who didn’t speak up?
“I’ll take on some of her punishment,” I screamed.
The room went silent. I would, for once, welcome the notion of suffering for someone else. If Julia really did what they accused her of, she was a monster. But they created the monster. The council. They were to blame for this.
George pushed through the crowd with a speed that seemed unreal. He grabbed onto my arm and shoved me to the front of the room. Without warning, he bent me over and slammed my face into one of the mess hall tables. I gasped in pain.
He roughly yanked my ponytail away from my neck, leaning down and hissing into my ear: “Do you know what this means, girl? Your sentence will be extended by years. You’ll get another slash mark.”
“Good,” I gritted.
“Stupid bitch,” George whispered so only I could hear.
While George still held my head against the table, I managed to turn so I could see James. I had made a choice. I had used my voice. And I knew how it must have seemed—that I had chosen my people over him.
“I’ll need the iron for the branding,” George yelled.
Chapter 20
Tess,
It is wrong to hate your own country?
What does allegiance mean? Should allegiance be to your family first? To God? To your homeland? What about to your self? I am choosing myself, Tess. Please forgive me.
Right around the time Louisa was born the council noticed a sharp increase in the number of deaths during childbirth. But they never really stopped to think
what it meant. Our country was still struggling. People were still starving, and threats from the Eastern sector seemed more prominent than ever. We had other things on our minds.
Did you know we haven’t had a single successful childbirth in our sector in years? Louisa is a miracle, one of the last naturals born. I know she’s not like you, Tess, but she’s so precious.
Is it possible the council has something to do with this? I feel crazy even writing it, but it makes sense. Once we are gone, they can recreate the world as whatever they want it to be. There are new cries to ban more and more books. What if they get rid of it all? The end of the naturals, no books, no written history of us.
We never existed.
It’s not possible.
God, I’m losing it.
Today I watched a creator beat a chosen one senseless. Even though the teenager could have easily killed his oppressor, he just stood there and took it. Perfect obedience. I cleaned up the blood afterward.
The young chosen one was being punished for asking a question. The group of teenagers to whom I am assigned watched a video about the towers today. Years and years back a group of men flew airplanes into two massive buildings in a place called New York. They showed video of people falling from the sky.
It was horrendous.
The young chosen one asked how the government had failed the people. The creator told him it was humanity that had failed.
They killed two more chosen ones today. Sick. Something called the transformation sickness. That’s seven we’ve lost since I have been there. I’m not supposed to talk to them. I’m not allowed to talk to them.
But there is one who speaks.
And it breaks my heart.
He whispers. He asks me about life on the outside. I have shown him pictures of you and your sisters. He thinks Emma looks kind. He wishes he could meet her.
The council will one day make this boy hate your sister.
One day she’ll hate him in return.
The propaganda monster is in full swing. Every day there is some new report or pamphlet published discussing our need to hold tight to our morals. Beneath the words, I fear there is a pretty nasty tone toward women. The breakdown of the family. The failure of motherhood.
How can I protect my daughters from this? I think I may have given up on you, my girls. I can only fight for myself now.
Jacobson introduced me to a group of men.
I think we’re going to do something.
If I were a good father, selfless, I would stay with you till the end.
I just can’t.
Chapter 21
“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but you aren’t looking so good,” said a girlish voice that shattered my trance. It pulled me from my numbness, the only thing keeping me from screaming.
The crowd was tense. It had taken hours to transport everyone to the square, an abandoned airfield used in the early days of the war. Most of what lay outside of the compound was rubble. The heat was wretched. There was little water. It smelled of death.
I was saving my strength for when I would need it. Standing up for Julia had reduced the torture to a simple death by decapitation.
And my new slash mark burned. It had taken everything in me not to cry when the searing metal was placed against the back of my neck as the entire compound watched. They had to take Henry out of the room because his protests over the action became too loud and violent. He fought for me, but not for Julia.
Unlike when I’d received the mark for my sister, this new mark, the mark for Julia, was excruciating.
That’s what I got for allowing myself to care.
Robert had found his place next to me after the wrangling. “Are you all right?” he asked quietly.
I shook my head, and he placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. It was getting harder and harder to ignore him. He was all I had left of Emma.
I felt the sun burn my cheeks. I would welcome the rawness of my skin later. The sun could char me straight through if it so desired, and I wouldn’t move to shade myself.
“I thought they would be here at least,” the same girlish voice repeated.
“Who?” I mumbled.
“The boys from Templeton.”
Louisa. Always looking for something or someone to love. I was so wrong—Robert wasn’t all I had left of Emma. Louisa looked more and more like her every day. Louisa had always been a little sickly, but there was now a fresh blush to her cheeks. Her blue eyes seemed to become brighter and brighter. She was with me. Alive. My sister. How could I have been so blind?
I cleared my throat. “The chosen ones aren’t what you think they are.”
She rolled her eyes in response. “Says the girl who gets to spend all day with them. They’re perfect, Tess. They protect us. And they seem loads more interesting than the boys around here.”
“Perhaps we can save this conversation for another time?” Robert said in a gentle tone.
Yes. I would need to have this conversation with Louisa. I would tell her the things that had never been discussed with me. I would protect her. She would never go to Templeton. Ever.
My head had started to hurt from all the noise. I sat there listening to the conversations of those around me, refusing to take part.
“Tess, what’s the matter?” Henry asked suddenly, a note of true concern in his voice. Where had he come from? It was as if he appeared from thin air. And in that moment, I didn’t know if I wanted to hit him, yell at him for his actions, or fall into his arms, glad he was safe.
Henry didn’t wait for my response. He never waited for me. He grabbed my arm and started to pull me along with him through the crowd. I vaguely heard Robert and Louisa protest.
It was then I realized he was walking me away, carrying me from the square. A guard asked where we were going, and I heard Henry explain that I was sick. My vision blurred and I could feel my heart pounding in my ears. Henry rushed me through the crowd.
Amid my pain, I began to hear the pain of others. I heard the crowd gasp and some begin to cry. It was happening.
Please! Please! Please! My voice made no sound. A wave of nausea hit me.
They were asking Julia for her last words. As the sound of her voice settled over the crowd, everything inside of me stopped.
She began to speak: “I am alone and miserable; man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create.”
The crowd fell silent. The words from James’s book? What nonsense was she speaking? I didn’t understand the meaning of her words, but it sounded like blame. It felt like blame.
No, I was stronger than this. I wasn’t completely useless. I tried to focus on Julia. My hands gripped Henry’s shoulder, and I blindly hit him as hard as I could. The shock of it caused him to drop me to the ground. This brought on another round of nausea. I fought to hold it back as I scrambled to get up, trying to make my way through the crowd. I didn’t get far.
Henry grabbed me from behind, one arm around my waist, holding me in place. I knew I didn’t have much time. Two naturals were lowering Julia to her knees. She slowly, gracefully held out her arms. They, her own people, people forced into this position by the chosen ones, serving out their punishment because they had no female to speak up for them, tied her arms behind her back. She kept her eyes forward. They brought out the blade. She seemed ignorant of this, almost peaceful. Her gaze wandered over the crowd.
Then everything went black. Henry had forcefully placed his hands over my eyes.
“No,” I managed to say weakly.
The crowd was screaming, a mixture of sadness and anger. It chilled me to the core.
I tried to struggle, but Henry was too strong. He forced me to the ground. He stayed there next to me, hands never leaving my eyes.
The crowd was suddenly silent and I heard the swoosh. It was followed by a thud.
Th
en screaming, unstoppable screaming.
It filled my ears. It electrified my pores. I then realized it was my screaming. And I couldn’t stop.
“Why?” I whispered when he finally let me go, the crowd bumping against us as they headed back to the compound.
“I knew you would feel guilty. You’d blame yourself. And this has nothing to do with you,” he replied stoically.
“Doesn’t it? I told you how. Dear God, Henry, what part in this did you have?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” he replied, a note of frustration creeping into his voice.
I felt my stomach drop. “You did have a part in it. How could you let her die for you?” I charged.
Henry ran a hand over his face. “She didn’t die for me. She died for something greater.”
I took a step away from him. “I don’t even know you.”
“Maybe you never did.”
Chapter 22
I was to serve thirty years at Templeton, one for every young chosen one killed. I didn’t have anyone’s sympathy. They all wondered why I’d stood up for Julia—they couldn’t understand that I didn’t approve of what she’d done. My people were still happy to go along with the whole ruse the council had created. They weren’t ready to rebel.
The more I thought over my punishment, the more I wondered about the Isolationists. What was it like in the wild, living in the destruction of the Middlelands, caught in the middle of a war between Easterners and Westerners? Had they found a way to be free?
It didn’t matter. Maybe before I could have managed at least an attempt to run off, but the council would be watching me now. I couldn’t earn another slash mark; I didn’t even know what happened when you did. I also had to protect Louisa. And somehow, I knew if I earned a third mark, I’d be leaving her alone.
I was to live at Templeton now. I would only be allowed to return to the compound on Sundays.
It didn’t really matter.
On my fist day back at work my supervisor met me. They were going to make an example out of me. “You’ve really done it now, child,” Gwen said, shaking her head.
Chosen Ones (The Lost Souls, #1) Page 13
