The Choosing

by Rachelle Dekker

  He saw Stark leaning against the wall. He was whistling a tune Remko recognized and cleaning his weapon. Stark still held the record for being able to break down and reassemble his weapon in the shortest amount of time.

  Stark’s head shot up and his hand went to his weapon, then eased as recognition set in.

  “You shouldn’t sneak up on an armed soldier; pretty sure we covered that in training,” Stark said.

  Remko smiled and dipped his head in respect.

  “It’s a little late for a stroll, Remko.”

  “I’m here for a vi . . . visit.”

  “That’s kind of you to come by, but you know I prefer to be alone.” Stark raised his eyes from his gun, a long strand of wheatgrass gripped between his teeth. “But then, I guess you ain’t here to see me.”

  Remko shook his head.

  “Something important happen? Or can’t you go a day without seeing your boyfriend?” Stark chuckled to himself.

  “Just couldn’t sl . . . sleep.”

  “Join the club.” Stark gave him a once-over and then opened the side door. “If anyone asks, Pullman up front let you in.”

  Remko nodded his thanks and stepped into the dark hallway. He tried to remember exactly where Helms’s cell was and where he was in relation to the front door he had come through that morning.

  The inside of the prison was very similar to the underground floor of the Stacks third building. Gray stone lined the walls and floor; dim lighting littered the lengthy tunnel while a strange cold seemed to seep into Remko’s clothes and skin. He could hear footsteps echoing as someone headed toward him. He ducked into another hallway and waited until the sound was gone.

  He reentered the open hall and continued until he came to a familiar split. Veering right, he found very little movement from the people caged behind each cell door. Most of them were fast asleep or keeping to themselves, hunched in corners. Remko remembered that he’d walked nearly the length of the hall before he’d come to another right turn and then seen Helms. As he continued forward, a scream echoed through the stone structure and caused him to stop.

  An eerie silence fell over the place but was disturbed by a bone-crunching thud that made the hairs on Remko’s neck stand at attention. Something was wrong. More boots sounded behind him and a contingent of guards passed him quickly, another set close behind. They took little notice of him as they moved by and Remko followed quietly. More voices bounced off the walls. Their tones were harsh but muffled by the rock barriers that separated them from Remko.

  The commotion was happening up ahead but before Remko could reach the corner a commanding voice yelled for someone to get the doctor. Iron screeched in the dark and boots fell heavy against the stone. Remko rounded the corner to a screen of panic. Five or six guards were moving through an open cell. Several of them knelt over a body while others struggled with another body in the corner. The smell of blood hit him with overwhelming force, but the light was too weak to make out what specifically had happened.

  Then a horrifying thought settled over him. The cell filled with activity was the same one he’d visited earlier. Panic pulled his legs forward into the square, barred room, and he saw Helms cradled in the arms of a guard. Another guard held his hand tightly across Helms’s throat.

  Remko took two large strides and was on his knees beside his fallen friend. A chill filled his fingertips as he touched Helms’s arm. His friend’s face was pale, his mouth gasping for air as thick red streams poured down his neck.

  “Remko, what are you doing here?” the guard with his hand over Helms’s throat asked.

  Remko ignored him. “What hap . . . hap . . . hap . . . ?” He tried to calm his thundering heart so he could manage the words, but it was impossible.

  “Remko, you can’t be here!”

  “What happened!” Remko could feel heat spreading up his neck as Helms’s ragged breath became more faint.

  “We’re losing him!” the guard shouted. “Where is the doctor?”

  “Get out of my way,” another voice yelled. Remko glanced up to see Dodson Rogue’s stocky frame. He glanced at Helms and his face flashed remorse momentarily before transforming back into his regular void expression. “We need to get him out of here.”

  “We can’t move him, sir; he’s lost too much blood,” one of the guards on the floor said.

  “What happened?” Dodson asked.

  “The details aren’t completely collected yet, sir.”

  “Give me the short version then; and where is my doctor?”

  “Two men broke in and slit his throat with a bone knife.”

  Dodson uttered an oath under his breath. The other three guards in the corner escorted a captured man forward into the light. His face was scarred from temple to chin in a near-perfect diagonal line. One of his eyes was mangled, his teeth were missing in the front, and he spit blood to the side.

  “This one of the men?” Dodson asked.

  “Yes, sir. The other ran off. Rivers and Elmer went after him.”

  Helms gasped violently beside Remko and recaptured the room’s attention.

  “Take him away,” Dodson said quietly and then turned to Helms. The group of guards moved out of the cell with the captured villain. A second later a small man with a beak for a nose and wire-rimmed glasses rushed to Helms’s side and pushed the other men aside.

  The guard putting pressure on Helms’s throat released his hand and blood flowed onto the stone. From the way the doctor was shaking his head, Remko feared the worst.

  “No, no, no,” the doctor said, grabbing Helms’s face. “He’s losing consciousness. I need someone to keep him awake.”

  Remko, still kneeling in front of the other two guards, gripped Helms’s hand. Dodson cursed above him and asked another guard what Remko was doing there. Remko blocked them all out and squeezed Helms’s hand. He placed his other hand on Helms’s shoulder, and blood immediately coated his palm.

  “Helms,” Remko said, moving his face to link eyes with his suffering friend. Helms’s eyes seemed to be locked on something above Remko’s head. “Brother, loo . . . look at me.”

  Helms heard Remko’s voice and shifted his eyes to meet Remko’s. Remko smiled and nodded. “Good. It’s go . . . going t . . . t . . .” The anxiousness crowding Remko’s chest made it more than difficult to speak.

  He dug his nails into Helms’s palm and kept his eyes glued to his friend’s face. The doctor was cursing and the guards’ voices overhead rose in panic, but Remko tried to push past the other noise.

  Even if he had the use of his voice he wasn’t sure what he would say right now. Would he tell Helms not to worry, that death would be easy? Would he beg his friend not to leave him suffering through this world alone? Would he remind him of the times Helms had saved his life or the millions of moments he’d saved his sanity? Could he even express the way his heart would break if Helms died?

  The light in Helms’s eyes started to fade and they rolled back toward the top of his head.

  “No, Helms,” Remko yelled. He shook the man’s shoulder and Helms seemed to return for a moment. The whole room went still around Remko as Helms flashed him a half smile and then faded. Remko saw motion over him and to his side, felt the others pulling him away, heard the doctor pounding Helms’s motionless chest and Dodson yelling in rage when Rivers and Elmer turned up empty-handed, but he watched it all unfold through a blurred film; his ears felt stuffed with cotton, his mind unable to register reality.

  Then everything swept into high definition. The doctor wiped the back of his hand across his forehead and announced the time of death as the other two guards leaned forward, defeated. The cell filled with silence and then Dodson kicked the steel-barred door and its echo reverberated through the room and down the corridor. It rocked Remko out of his paralysis and set him on another path.

  His fighter instincts took over and without thinking he walked out of the cell and back the way he had come. His eyes focused forward, his heart beating out a
strong rhythm. Rage rippled down his spine; hate centered in his vision.

  “Remko, where are you going?” Dodson asked. “Remko, stop.”

  Remko shut out his commander’s words and picked up his pace. His jog swiftly turned into a sprint as heavy running footfalls echoed behind him. He was faster, though, and he rushed out into the night air, where a handful of guards were holding the man they had brought from Helms’s cell.

  Remko didn’t stop until he was inches from the prisoner and the collar of his shirt was wrapped in Remko’s fist. His other hand landed with a powerful blow to the criminal’s face. The man’s head snapped backward, his lip split open. Remko hit him again and again. He connected at least four good times before the other guards were able to restrain his arm. Then Remko threw his forehead forward and cracked his skull against the man’s head, the sound exploding into the sky.

  The villain started to laugh, low in his throat, and it fired Remko’s anger. He managed to yank himself away from the guards and rushed the prisoner, sending them both sprawling to the dirt.

  Remko wrapped his fingers around the man’s thick neck and let his rage funnel through his arms. The man coughed a laugh and opened his mouth. “I was just following Authority orders.”

  Remko paused for a moment, which gave the other guards the time they needed to peel him away from the man he would have liked to beat to death. Guards helped the criminal to his feet and he locked eyes with Remko. A small crooked smile formed on his face and Remko tugged against the men holding him.

  “Calm down, soldier!” a guard yelled, and a group of CityWatch men dragged Remko back to the front of the prison. “Get ahold of yourself!”

  Remko’s consciousness started to resume control, his actions registering one at a time, and he stopped struggling. His breath came in short huffs. Blood and sweat streaked his face. Dodson moved into view and placed himself inches from Remko, the smoke from his freshly lit cigarette flooding Remko’s mouth.

  “My office, now!”

  22

  Remko sat motionless and watched while Dodson Rogue paced back and forth inside his large, wood-infused office. The floors, the walls, the furniture, the fan swirling overhead—all were the same reddish-brown tone that glistened in the light and amplified every movement. The place smelled like wood, too. Wood and smoke.

  Remko watched the smoke from Dodson’s third cigarette form misty images in the air. Now that he was removed from the chaos and in a place where his blood was no longer pounding in his ears, drowning out the voice of reason, Remko realized how much trouble he had caused. He knew his actions were a violation of the CityWatch code of conduct, though he couldn’t fully collect his memory of the event. Every time he saw the dried blood on his hand and remembered the man who had murdered his best friend, rage hot enough to set the room on fire burned in his gut.

  Dodson hadn’t said much, and most of what little he did say was to himself. Cursing, shaking his head, muttering that he was too old for this, saying that losing Helms was a waste and should have been prevented. Remko was waiting for Dodson to blow a fuse and start railing at him, but he just continued to pace and smoke like a puttering train.

  He pulled the cigarette butt from his lips and rammed it into his gold ashtray. He blew out the last mouthful of smoke and leaned back against his desk, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “I should lock you up for acting like a complete idiot,” Dodson said.

  Remko kept his eyes low and braced for impact.

  “I’m not going to say the scum didn’t deserve it, but your actions were completely unacceptable. For you, of all people, to lose your head like that . . . It isn’t like you, Remko.”

  Remko considered apologizing but decided just to keep his mouth shut.

  “What were you even doing at the prison to begin with? You weren’t on duty.”

  Remko raised his eyes but Dodson held up his hand. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. The only reason I’m not making you spend the next twenty-four hours in a cell is because you had to watch a brother die and because you’ve never had any disciplinary issues before. But you’d better not make this a habit or I’ll beat you myself.”

  “He said he was fo . . . fo . . . following orders,” Remko said.

  “What?”

  “The man . . . said his or . . . or . . . orders came fr . . . from the Authority.”

  Dodson’s facial expression didn’t change. Remko’s anger spiked and his right hand started to curl into a fist. “Sir?”

  “He was a lunatic and murdered one of our own; that’s all.”

  “So he didn’t have or . . . or . . . orders?”

  “No. We don’t send criminals to kill our own.”

  Remko knew he should let it go, but something about the look in the criminal’s eye, the smirk on his face when he had said the words, prodded him. What would he gain from lying about orders? Remko’s instincts told him something was off.

  “How did he get in?” Remko asked.

  “We’re working on that.”

  “Where’d he g . . . get the weapon?”

  “Remko . . .”

  “How’d he kn . . . kn . . . know where Helms w . . . w . . .”

  “Enough.”

  “What ab . . . about the second man?”

  “I said enough!”

  Remko’s whole body was heated. Sweat populated his forehead and he drilled Dodson with frustration. He knew something wasn’t right; there were too many questions.

  Dodson narrowed his eyes to slits and balled the fists that rested over his chest. “I know what you went through is hard, but you remember your place.”

  Remko moved his eyes from Dodson’s face and focused on cooling off. His gut said something was wrong here, but he couldn’t challenge an Authority member like this without serious consequences. He needed to use better judgment.

  “Maybe you need some time in a cell to cool off after all?” Dodson asked rather than said.

  Remko took a deep breath. “No, sir.”

  Remko could feel Dodson watch him a moment longer and then the commander moved around his desk and sat in the huge wooden chair behind it. It was more a throne than a chair, and Dodson was probably the only person who wouldn’t look ridiculous sitting in it.

  “I need to talk to you about something else,” Dodson said. “I know the timing isn’t ideal.”

  Remko looked up to acknowledge that he was listening.

  “It’s come to my attention that you escorted a Lint into the solitary unit earlier this evening. Guard on duty seems to think she was a last-minute addition, but you and I both know that’s not true.”

  Remko had completely forgotten about the events of earlier. Carrington, the kiss, the reason he’d come to see Helms in the first place—all of it had slipped his mind entirely.

  “I need to know what’s going on,” Dodson said.

  Remko didn’t know what to say. He’d known there was a chance he would be found out, but he had hoped there would be more time to come up with a believable story. He scoured his imagination for anything Dodson might buy but came up empty.

  “Remko, I like you. You’re an excellent guard, a smart kid, and a great fighter. I have plans for you within the CityWatch. But I’ve seen smaller things than a woman ruin a man’s potential. Losing Helms was unfortunate; however, he put himself in that situation because he forgot his place. Do you understand?”

  Remko thought he understood, but his head was still too clouded with pain and sorrow to be completely certain. He guessed it meant that he was supposed to return to the life he’d known only hours earlier, before his unwavering trust in the government had been shaken. He assumed it meant he was supposed to ignore the feelings evolving for the girl who was promised to one of the government’s leaders. He supposed it meant it would be in his best interest to ignore the creeping suspicion that was building in his gut. What he didn’t understand was how he was supposed to do any of that.

  He nodded to give Dods
on some assurance and Dodson returned the gesture.

  “Good. Now I am going to chalk up all the events of tonight to something in the water. Know that we will find the second man involved in Helms’s death and both will be brought before the Authority for justice. And from this moment on, you don’t take one step outside the line because next time there won’t be any leniency.”

  Carrington somehow survived another sleepless night. Between seeing Larkin’s horrified face and feeling Remko’s kiss, she could hardly lie still in bed, much less get any rest.

  Work dragged for the second day in a row. It proved impossible for Carrington to stay focused.

  There was a constant circuit running in her head, a loop that never found an end. Memories of Larkin and terror bled into images of Remko and bliss, which brought up Isaac and misery. She was bombarded by the absurd notion that she’d finally received everything she had dreamed of, only to wish she had dreamed of something else. More absurd were the pictures her mind was creating of future moments with Remko—holding hands while walking in the sunlight, sitting close as the sky grew dark, kissing in secret, falling in love.

  Then the guilt bloomed into the horrifying realization that she was thinking about another man when she was already promised to someone. What would the world think if they could get a glimpse inside her head? Here she was, a nothing girl who came from a nobody family now preparing to marry into the Authority circle, and she was daydreaming of a forbidden CityWatch guard. The utter foolishness of it all was shameful, and to treat a man like Isaac with so little respect was selfish.

  Then images of the bone-numbing fear in Larkin’s face—her desperate words begging Carrington not to marry that man, claiming he was a monster—brought her mental journey full circle. She lost count of how many times another Lint had to snap at her to come out of her daze. Her mind was clouding her focus and she was struggling with the simplest of tasks. It wasn’t the ability to do the work so much as the concentration needed that she seemed to have lost.