The room was spotless—no dirty towels, no blood stains.
“Where are the towels?”
“In the incinerator.” Lace pulled the second towel around Elle’s shoulder and hugged her tight. “No one needs to know about this, all right, Sera? We don’t have to tell anyone.”
“No. I’m good at keeping secrets.”
And for the first time since I’d met her, Lace smiled at me. Sadness was woven into the moment, but a sisterhood of silence was born as well, connecting us as women, as mothers. Connecting us in ways I didn’t understand, yet they would change my life forever.
32
Our crime was a small one. Keeping something personal and painful to ourselves made sense to me. The ways of the Erdlanders were still alien, and I failed to grasp the gravity of our deception as I sat at the edge of Lace’s bed and stroked Elle’s hair. Tears fell from her unmoving eyes.
Sal had refused to join us, saying he wouldn’t be a part of covering up Elle’s crime. Whatever her felony was, it had broken her heart, and the love between them cracked and crumbled beneath it.
I continued to sing the songs from my childhood as I ran my hands across Elle’s hair and face, offering comfort in any way I could. Although the lyrics were in Sualwet, they seemed to soothe her. Each breath she took brought her closer to sleep as I sang about the cruelty of the ruby moon’s seduction and the young Sualwet girl who climbed the mountain to join it, only to disintegrate to dust at the top. I murmured the legends and religion of my mother’s people, the cadence of Sualwet a song in itself.
Soon after Elle drifted off to sleep, Lace finally spoke from her position on the floor. “Sal is going to tell them tomorrow, if he hasn’t already.” She bowed her head. “This is the third one she’s lost. This is the end for her.”
“I don’t understand,” I confided.
“I guess you don’t, do you?” She lifted her gaze to my slipper-shod feet.
I inhaled deeply, pulling strength from the ether, hoping it would be enough, that this moment wouldn’t mean my end. “I’ve... never been around Erdlanders before. I lied about the Iaera team. My mother was Sualwet. She died... a few days ago now, in the war.”
“And Tor?”
“He’s an orphan. Grew up alone in the woods.” I didn’t offer any more than that. Those secrets were his to tell.
Lace nodded and licked her lips, her shoulders squared as she finally met my silver eyes.
“Well, here at the camp, you have three chances to carry a pregnancy to term before you’re sent to Life Services. If you can’t conceive with your first Match, they’ll reMatch you and have you try again. If after two reMatches you still can’t, to Life Services you go. This was Elle’s last chance.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why?”
“Why does anyone care who gets pregnant or not?”
“Because we’ve stopped having babies. We’re dying out. Science has been pairing people for a few generations to improve the chance of viable conceptions. If it doesn’t work, then you’re out of the gene pool to give someone else a chance.”
“So, Elle goes to Life Services because she couldn’t keep the baby, and Sal gets reMatched?”
“Yes.”
“So she loses everything? She’s punished for something she didn’t even do?” Indignation crept into my voice, and Lace glared at me to quiet down. After a few breaths I whispered, “There’s nothing else she can do?”
“Nope.”
“Is that why Ada is in Life Services? And Lock?”
“Ada is there because she’s sterile: she never got pregnant with any of her Matches. Lock seems to be unMatchable. Who knows if he could conceive? Every time they medically Match him, he refuses the connection, and he’s never had a natural Match. They probably finally got sick of his excuses and decided to just move him to Life Services and not deal with it anymore.”
“What about you? You aren’t Matched.”
“I was. Once.”
“Could you not conceive?”
“No... I could.” Lace took a breath.
I wasn’t sure if she would continue, if I’d earned the right to hear her story. But when she looked back at me with a hard set to her jaw, I realized whatever had happened regarding her Match had ultimately changed her into the Lace I disliked.
“I kept the baby to term, even delivered it, and I remember hearing it cry when it was born. But something went wrong, and I never got to see it. I don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl. My Match, Jax, was taken away after that. Our baby was taken from me before I got to hold it, without anyone telling me why, and when I came back to the pod, Jax was gone. All his stuff had been removed from our room. I haven’t seen him in two years. He’s not in the system anywhere. It’s like he just disappeared.” Lace glanced up at the fabric-covered window and shook her head. “I’ve avoided being Matched since then, but they’ll force me to sooner or later.”
“This is insane.”
She shrugged. “It’s either this or we let ourselves die off. Which would you do?” The defeat in her voice sounded so complete. Like the weight of Elle’s sorrow, Lace’s acceptance bound her to a life she didn’t want.
“I’d run away,” I said.
“And go where? You’d go back in the water, I bet. I can’t exactly do that.”
“I can’t live underwater, either. I’m half Erdlander. But I still wouldn’t stay here.”
“Well that explains the hair, at least.” The attempted joke hung hollow in the air.
“Lace.” Her eyes met my own, and in that moment, wrapped in the intimacy of our secrets, I trusted her in the cocoon of her room. “Tor and I are leaving tomorrow. You could come with us.”
A glimmer flared in her eyes, but it died as reality doused her imagination. “I can’t. I can’t leave Elle here alone. Tomorrow, Sal will report her, and she’ll need someone to help her. Jikmae, with my luck, I’ll be forced to Match with him.” She grimaced. “He said he loved her, that they were going to have a life in the City, and tonight he wouldn’t even come see if she was all right. What kind of man is that? If I end up Matched with him, I’ll kill him in his sleep.”
Blazing ahead on instinct, I longed for some kindness in the world. I needed there to be something pure. The Sualwet were cold and unemotional, the Erdlanders cruel and vengeful. But maybe, without the others, maybe if it was just us, our small group could make the world something better.
“What if we take Elle with us?” I offered.
“She’ll be taken to Life Services by morning work call.”
“Then we leave tonight.”
33
Tor’s eyes grew wild when I told him what I’d learned about Elle and the Erdlanders. The fire inside him sparked and flared without warning as we spoke. Elgon growled in response to Tor’s reaction. The mountain hound understood something was wrong, and he hunched down, prepared to defend us against the unknown.
Lace stayed with Elle while I calmed Tor down enough to come up with a plan. The problem was, there was no time to make a plan. We had far too much to do. We had to get Elle out of here, and Tor was the only one strong enough to carry her all the way out of camp and into the forest, but I needed him to go with me to rescue Mintoch.
“Who cares?” Lace responded when we told her the problem. “Just leave the flounder here.”
“Or we could just leave Elle here,” Tor retorted, flames sparking at his fingertips. “I mean, she’s useless to you people anyway, right?”
They stood face to face, Lace far shorter than Tor but holding her own with ferocity alone. The last thing I wanted to deal with was Tor setting fire to all the fabric in her room, let alone her, but his righteousness was justified. His passion, his desire to protect others, was one of the most amazing things about him. No way would he would ever leave Elle or Mintoch behind. He’d rather risk everything attempting to free them both.
“Shut up, both of you,” I hissed, trying to contain the volum
e. If these two kept at it, they would certainly wake someone up. “You aren’t helping.”
Elle moaned and curled up tighter on Lace’s bed, mourning even in her dreams.
“Lace,” I said, “you know the way out of here, right?”
“There’s a way through the northern fence that’s seldom monitored. If we can get there fast enough, we can make the forest by morning.”
“Okay, you tell Tor the way. I’m going to go get Traz.”
“What? Absolutely not.”
“Lace, we can trust him.”
“How do you know? We can’t trust anyone,” she insisted. “Look at Sal: he’s willing to turn in his own Match. You don’t understand how ingrained these things are.”
“You’re right, I don’t. But Traz knows what I am, and he hasn’t told yet. If he can help carry Elle, the three of you can get farther than if you try to drag her down the street by yourself. Then Tor and I can get Mintoch.”
I was right, and Lace knew it. Her worry and protest reflected my own feelings and the fears evident on Tor’s transparent face. But tonight was about risks and freedom, and I had faith in Traz, even if I didn’t have faith in his people.
Traz’s door was ajar when I approached, and inside I found him sitting in his bed, waiting expectantly.
“You heard us?” I asked. His Sualwet senses were likely sharpening now that he knew how to use them, just like I’d learned to use mine when I was a child.
“Not exactly. I knew you were up and with Lace. That was enough to make me worry. What has she done this time?”
“Nothing. Lace is... helping Elle.”
“What do you mean? Where’s Sal?”
“Sal’s.... Look, we don’t have a lot of time and I need your help. Elle lost the baby.”
“Oh my gods.” Traz’s shoulders slumped. His face moved from shock to sadness, then to understanding. “Sal’s done with her?”
“Yeah.”
“That jikmae amedu na’lughe!” He stood, his voice rising as he paced around the room.
“Quiet!”
“How can he do that to her?”
I shrugged. “I guess that’s just what Erdlanders do. You would know better than I.”
“So what are we going to do?”
I stood straighter. Fatigue battled adrenaline within me, creating a whirlwind of sensory overload. “We’re leaving.”
“What? You can’t just leave. Where would you go?”
“There’s more.”
I told him about Mintoch, about our plan to leave with Lace and Elle, about my plan to free Mintoch. Images of Lace’s anger and Elle curled up on the bed fueled my delivery with urgency.
“We’re going to go to the mountains. Mintoch can find a way back to the sea, and the rest of us.... I don’t know. Maybe we’ll look for the A’aihea. Maybe we’ll make a new home. I’ve lived out there before. So has Tor. We’ll be fine.”
“Tor and his women, huh?”
“You could come, too.” Until the words left my mouth, I didn’t realize how desperately I wanted him to. Traz was the only connection I had left to the Sualwet, the only other creature who understood what it was like to experience the world the way I did.
“I can’t.” He shook his head. “But I’ll help you.”
We snuck back out to the main room. As we headed toward Lace’s room, I heard a quiet rustling coming from behind Lock’s door.
“You go ahead,” I whispered. “Tell everyone to pack only what we can hold or have Elgon carry.”
“What are you going to do?”
I closed my eyes and extended my senses throughout the pod. “Lock’s awake. I have to find out what he heard.”
“Jikmae,” Traz swore again before heading to Lace’s room. Now doubt we were committing some kind of crime, even if no one had said so outright.
“Lock?” I whispered against the green door.
It slid open, revealing a very awake Lock. His puffy eyes gave away nothing. Instead of speaking, he stepped back and ushered me inside. Unlike Lace’s room, Lock’s was completely stark. It had no decoration, no personalization. It was no more a home than the empty room Tor and I shared.
“So you’re leaving,” he said.
“Yes.”
He nodded without looking at me. “How many of you are going?”
“Me, Tor, Lace, and Elle.”
“I thought I heard Traz.”
“He’s not coming. He’s just going to help Lace and Elle until Tor and I can meet up with them. I’m sorry, Lock. I couldn’t risk telling you.”
“I understand. Some secrets have to be kept.”
I nodded. “You won’t tell?”
“I won’t.” He shook his head and stared at the ground. “Why aren’t you and Tor going with Lace and Elle?”
As quickly as I could, I told him all about Mintoch and our plan to free him.
“You’ll never make it,” Lock said with a frown. “The Hub is too far underground. And the water pressure alone will kill you.”
“I won’t leave him there.”
“You’re really willing to die for some Sualwet kid?”
“Yes. Maybe if someone had done that for my mother, her life would’ve been different.”
“You mean she wouldn’t have had you.”
A grin squeezed through my thin lips. Fatigue threatened to take over. “That probably would have been better for her.”
We stood awkwardly for a moment. Part of me wanted to hug him and say goodbye, to thank him for being a friend and keeping what he suspected about me a secret. On the other hand, he’d acted so strange since he was moved to Life Services. I didn’t know what to think anymore.
“I have to go,” I whispered.
“All right. Well, I hope you make it.”
“Thanks, Lock. Take care of yourself.” I backed out of his room and let the door click shut behind me.
34
Lace and Traz carried what they needed in backpacks. We didn’t dare to go into Elle’s room and risk letting Sal know what we were doing, so Lace packed extra clothes for her and I made sure to bring everything Ada had given me, right down to the second pair of awful shoes. Lace found knives and rope in the kitchen, and Tor used some of the rope to devise a harness for Elgon. Then he strapped two large duffel bags to the harness, and we filled them with clothes, sheets, and as much food as we could fit. Once we were all weighed down with supplies, we rode the transporter down to the ground floor.
Outside, Traz carried Elle, who clung to him in silence. Lace led them toward the northern fence without a word. Elgon whined, but Tor convinced him to follow Lace. Tor and I were soon alone, but we would find our companions in the forest tomorrow. And if we didn’t—well, they would have to decide for themselves where to go from there.
No lights shone from windows or buildings. Overhead, the ruby moon loomed, the smaller moon directly in its path, as if the larger satellite were swallowing it. The Sualwets called nights like this tsi’tsa halach, the gods’ little sacrifice.
Linguistics wasn’t far, but we took our time slinking along the edges of buildings. The fear of being discovered stretched minutes into eternity.
“So I break the glass and the water rushes in,” Tor whispered, eyes darting into the darkness, searching for danger. “If it doesn’t break all our bones, you’re going to breathe for me?”
“That’s the plan. Then we find some stairs or hope the transport works in water.”
“It’s not a very good plan.”
“You got something better?”
“No, but I don’t like the idea of you getting hurt.” His eyes settled on me, gentle concern shaping his features.
“We have no choice and no time. Come on.”
Inside, my codes worked as easily as they did during the day. Security was no higher despite our apprehension. Some part of me assumed sentries and motion sensors would be ready to capture us at any moment. Much to my relief, we strolled through the building as if nothing were
out of the ordinary.
The transporter took us straight to the Hub. We rode in silence.
After pulling the clip my mother had given me from my pocket, I tugged my hair up and fastened it in place. “So it doesn’t get in the way when we’re in the water,” I explained when Tor raised an eyebrow at me.
At the main door, I entered my code, and the doors to the Hub slid open.
Within, the lights were on and my eyes took a moment to adjust. Before I could make anything out, I heard Mintoch’s muffled scream.
~Run!~
Tor pushed me behind him and crouched with a growl, defending me from what was in the room. Past him, I spotted Dr. Vaughn and two guards. The doors closed behind me, and I turned to find Lock standing by the key pad.
“Lock?” My disbelief was so complete that I couldn’t comprehend what had happened. If Lock was here too, then he was in danger. I reached out to him, tried to pull him behind Tor’s increasing heat, but he jerked away with a frown and joined Dr. Vaughn.
“Lock!” I screamed, pushing my way past Tor. “What is going on?”
“I should ask you that.” Dr. Vaughn sneered and stepped forward. “My prize interpreter here late at night with her Match. You wouldn’t be showing off our freak here, would you?” Vaughn stretched an arm toward Mintoch and a growl formed in my chest.
~Serafay, run! Leave me here and get out!~
“You already know why we’re here,” I snapped, staring back at Vaughn’s tight eyes. His short stature was no longer comical. The kindness from our first meeting had faded away, leaving behind the truth of Erdlander cruelties.
“I know why you’re here. I know what you are. You think you fooled me? You’re that bitch Nila’s spawn, aren’t you?”
“You... you knew my mother?” My strength faltered, but Tor’s burning hand held me steady.
Vaughn stepped forward, closer to us than Lock and the guards. The cockiness in his relaxed stance told me he had no idea what Tor could do. “That mother of yours was our best success. She was the first viable Sualwet female we were ever able to mate with an Erdlander male. We’d successfully mixed DNA strands into embryos before, but lab-grown hybrids never survived to term. With her genetics and the study of her offspring, we planned to reshape the future of our race. But Nila escaped us.
Two Moons of Sera Page 21
