At sixteen, I have lived all that I will ever live.
I pull up my dress sleeve and look at the silver bracelet on my wrist. It doesn’t even shine in this sorry excuse for a sunset. I think about drinking the poisoned water. Wonder if it would kill the pain inside of me. Or if it would just make it worse, add a new sickness, like the one that’s now stealing my hope. I wonder if Straw Hair pondered these same questions.
The sky grows dim, then dark—as dark as it will get here. I hear the bass from the Black Lanes pick up. Auction Day is closing, and the Virulent will make lots of money tonight from any drunken merchants or disguised Magnates who want to gamble or hit the brothels.
I hate them. I hate everyone within these walls. And I hate everyone outside of these walls because they have what I can’t. Freedom.
And then, finally, there is peace.
Out of the sewer comes Brax. He trots up the outside of the Garden, past the office, to join me in the yard. His face nuzzles mine, warm and wet and wild. It’s his low whimper that finally breaks me down.
I cry into Brax’s soft silver neck, and he lets me, panting while my hands fist in his fur. Every so often he licks my face, cleaning the salty tears away, and then I cry some more.
Above my choked-off sobs I can still hear the club music. Boom, boom, boom. Mocking me. I can see the man from the auction who grabbed me in the crowd. See Mr. Greer’s scar. My ma’s scar.
And then I know what I must do.
There is one other way to leave the Garden. Not Promised. Not dead. But marked. With a scar on my cheek. They’ll expect me to make a living in the Black Lanes, but I won’t do that. I can be strong like my ma. I can pass through the city gates and be reunited with my family before the next auction.
I must fail the medical inspection. And I must do so before the mayor’s brother has a chance to lay his hands on me. Maybe it’s not what I wanted, not now anyway, but at least I’ll get to choose who touches me, and when.
Silently, I stand, telling Brax to stay while I creep around the side of the building. Daphne’s sleeping on the bedroll, covering herself with all four of the blankets meant to be shared between us. I can see her chest rise and fall. Inside, the Watcher has laid down to sleep too.
I tiptoe back around the plaster wall, to the hidden place behind the office, and pick a small pebble off the ground. Then, with all my might, I heave it in the direction of the barn. It plunks off one of the paddock fences. A horse snorts and stamps his feet.
And then I sit, and wait for Kiran.
CHAPTER 11
KIRAN TAKES FOREVER.
Or maybe time has just stopped since I made my decision. Either way, I’m pacing behind the Watcher office, as far as my tether will let me, thinking that he’s not going to come at all, and why would he after I screwed up his escape, and sent him away, and told him such stupid, stupid stories … when he finally appears in the back exit of the barn.
His shirt glows pale yellow in the lights from the rec yard fence, and his hair is tousled. There’s something soft about the way he looks from this distance. Something not quite real. The edges of him should be sharp against the dark behind him, but they’re not. They shimmer, as though he’s a mirage. Like the dark can’t touch him, no matter how hard it tries.
Then he starts walking towards me, stride long and purposeful, and I see the way the horses flick their ears and stomp their hooves and that golden, shining feeling inside of me gets eaten up by the worries. He hesitates, like always, just before the stream, and when he’s sure the Watcher’s not watching, he leaps over. From the look on his face, I can tell that there’s something he wants to tell me, and it doesn’t look good.
For the first time, I’m glad he can’t talk.
I stand my ground and tell myself the same thing I’m always telling myself: This is Kiran. There’s nothing to be scared of.
Just before he reaches me he stops short. His mouth falls open in surprise. Very slowly, one hand reaches forward to brush aside my hair, and my neck tingles, because the curls feel foreign to my sensitive skin when he moves them.
His face falls. His hand falls. He’s seen the missing earring and knows what that means.
“The mayor’s son,” I tell him, the shame weighing down my words. “A boy.”
Kiran watches me intently, his gaze clinging to my mouth as I talk. A scowl etches deep lines between his brows. There’s too much knowing in his eyes.
I can’t do this.
I have to do this.
It will be quick, I tell myself. Like pulling out my earring. Like taking a punch. Laying down with Kiran will mean nothing. But it already hurts in my soul, stretching my skin too thin, like I’m made of glass and he can see everything, all of it. I don’t want to feel these things. I just want to do this and be done with it.
“Brax, go home,” I say. The wolf’s jaw snaps shut, and he looks up at me. “Home,” I stress, and point to the sewer. Brax whines like a child having a tantrum, then stalks away, boney shoulders rolling beneath his gray fur. He glances back once, and I feel the judgment in his stare, thicker than my own. As soon as he is gone panic spikes in my chest. I lift my chin to Kiran as bravely as I can.
“My thanks for what you did today,” I say to him. “I know what it might have cost you.”
I think of the bodies carried down from the stage by the Watchers just before the auction and shiver. One of them could have been Kiran.
I tell myself I never asked for his help. Not until now.
“There’s another way, you know,” I say, unable to look him straight in the eye.
He’s still watching; I can feel his gaze on me and wish these last moments before I ruin this—whatever it is—would last a little longer.
I take a jerky step forward, noticing how much taller he always seems up close. We’re just inches away now, and the smell of horsehair and leather dusts his skin. I can see each piece of golden hair that’s matted behind his ears. And somewhere deep inside of me I know that I will never again breathe in the scent of leather or see the sun’s bright rays and not think of Kiran.
His body becomes very still, his kiran-stone eyes seeking mine. And suddenly I don’t know. This seemed so easily achievable before. But now it seems wrong. I can’t be Salma. I can’t lie down with some boy on the outskirts of town and then say good-bye, maybe forever. And that would be exactly what would happen. If I lie down with Kiran, I will be marked sometime tomorrow, turned loose by nightfall, and out the city gates before the sunrise.
I will never see him again.
Something begins to twist inside of me, and I knead my stomach absently, trying to force it down. I’m staring at his bare feet and my bare feet, so close they could touch even if I just shifted my balance. I think about the night he touched the scar on my leg. How strange and soft that felt. And I think that maybe it might not be so terrible if he touched me again, just like that.
I tell myself it doesn’t matter. I don’t need him to be kind, I need this to be over.
With a sudden burst of recklessness, I yank the stretchy dress over my head. It takes forever to come off, getting stuck around my shoulders, and then around my hair and my earring, and then the metal bracelet. But finally I’m free of it, in just my underclothes, with the cold air biting into my skin. Goose bumps race over my body. My belly button feels like it sucks back all the way to my spine. I crumple the dress in front of my chest.
“Let’s get this over with,” I mutter.
His eyes go round with shock, and his mouth falls open.
He takes a step back, then forward, then looks around the office. Then up at the night sky. He points at me and turns around. I don’t move, because now he’s the one who’s acting like he’s lost his mind.
“Oh,” I say. “Can you not do it or something?” Maybe Drivers are like Pips, missing the right equipment, I don’t know.
He turns sharply. There’s a glint in his eye that makes my mouth go dry, and I swallow. For a moment we just look at each other, trying to figure out what the other is thinking. Trying to figure out how to begin. I never figured there’d be so much thinking involved. Then he reaches forward and snatches the dress, stretching it taut as one sleeve is still hooked around the chain.
I guess he has the right parts after all.
But he only shakes his head, and attempts to hold the dress in front of me like a curtain.
It takes me a moment to realize what he’s doing.
“I won’t tell on you,” I assure him, pulling the fabric down. His stare drops to my chest and lingers before he blocks it again with the dress.
I snort. “They only gave me a four for these,” I say, pulling back my shoulders.
When he doesn’t move, I step to the side, forcing him to look at me.
“Kiran, come on already, I won’t tell. You have my word.” I make sure he sees my eyes as I pretend to stich my lips shut.
He holds his hands out, then points at his chest. His meaning is clear.
“Why me?”