CHAPTER 15
I’M RIGHT ON KIRAN’S heels as we charge past the white-fenced paddocks into the barn. The horses within lower their heads and stomp their shod hooves. Only when we stop do my knees threaten to collapse. I grasp a stall door before they give out completely, and open my eyes wide to hold back the hot tears threatening to break free.
“We have to go,” I say weakly. “Now. We have to go now.”
He must be hurting, but you couldn’t tell by the look on his face. It’s completely bland, untelling, but his eyes are dark, like a shadow passing over the sun. He unlatches a stall door and disappears within.
The clomping and nervous whinnies from the horses are like screams to my ears. My head jolts towards each noise and soon I’ve spun in a circle, overloaded by my senses.
From outside comes the patter of footsteps, and I duck down, bracing myself to fight once again. Kiran springs back to my side.
Daphne rounds the corner of the hallway into the barn. Her orange hair is a mess of dirt and grass, matted on one side with blood, and her chest is heaving. She’s been crying too; her pale face glimmers like the moon.
She looks from me to Kiran and back to me. Her arms cross over her waist. She’s holding the plastic bottle in one hand—my supplies. I snatch it from her, and it crinkles in my hard grip.
“You’re running?” she asks, like she’s confused. “With a Driver?”
“Get out of here,” I growl. I helped get her free, now she’s on her own. The farther away from me the better.
“If you leave, I’ll be blamed for what you … and that animal did.”
She’s talking about Brax, but she’s staring straight at Kiran as she says this. He glances my way. She’s obviously figured out there’s something different about him, but she doesn’t know the half of it.
“I don’t know why I helped you,” I mutter. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Kiran gives a little snort, which doesn’t help.
“A dead Watcher,” she says, almost to herself. “No one’s going to buy me now. They’ll think I did it, you understand? They’ll look for me. I won’t even be able to hide in the Black Lanes.”
Kiran points to a saddle blanket and I hand it to him.
“Take me with you,” Daphne says.
Now I’m the one who snorts.
“Please,” she says, stepping closer. When Kiran moves, she jerks to the side and breathes in sharply.
“Please,” she begs now. “I can’t stay here. I’ll be hanged.” She grabs my sleeve, but I shake her off. Big tears are rolling down her cheeks.
Kiran is throwing a saddle on the chestnut mare. This one isn’t shiny like the others; the leather is dull and well worn.
“You should have thought of that before you stuck your guard.” I want to throttle her. If she hadn’t started that fight, I never would have gone outside. I never would have stepped in. That Watcher would still be alive and I’d be free right now.
Maybe Daphne had it right letting Straw Hair go to fry like that. Right now I wish I’d just left my half friend to defend her own self.
I toss Kiran the plastic bottle to stuff in his saddle bag and when I turn back, Daphne’s practically crawling all over me.
“They would have marked me,” she whispers, clawing the front of my tattered dress. “I can’t be sold. I won’t pass.”
I shake her off.
“What are you talking about?”
Her hands pull down her face. “Last auction I was almost sold.” She closes her eyes tight. “Almost. He chose Iris instead. After we met.”
She doesn’t need to say anymore. She broke the purity rule. And judging by the tortured look on her face, it wasn’t by choice.
I push past her as Kiran leads the mare out of the stall, and she crumbles into the side of the barn. She’s bawling with full force now, holding her arms before her like a child begging to be picked up.
“Clover, you can’t leave me.”
“Go,” I tell her, one last time. I turn back to Kiran, who’s watching Daphne’s display with his brows knit together.
Then I look lower and see the dripping band of blood from the wire that was hooked around his left side. It looks like oil in the dim light. Thick black oil.
“Your side.” I rush to him, and he looks down, as though noticing it for the first time. When he lifts his arm, his face warps into a cringe. The shirt is stuck to his skin. He peels it away slowly. The wound is so deep I can feel it in my own side, as if I’m the one that’s been hit.
I skirt around him into the storeroom just past the stall. There are three saddle racks, one atop the other on the side wall; five or six large containers filled with grain and pellets of some kind; and a floor-to-ceiling shelving unit directly to my right. There I find bandages for the horses; I grab one and hurriedly unwind a long piece of four-inch-wide felt.
“I’ll bind you up for now, but it won’t hold for long.”
Kiran shrugs away from me as I make for his chest with the wrap. He’s grabbing a Driver jacket off the peg on the wall and preparing to pull it on over one arm.
“You’re going to bleed through,” I tell him.
Kiran slows and then, sighing painfully, lifts his arms so that I can wrap the bandage around his body. When we’re on the outside, I’ll make a poultice to pack the wound, though I know something as deep as this is better suited for city doctors and their stitching kits.
“You’re talking to the Driver,” Daphne says, as if I didn’t know. I ignore her.
“Ignore her,” I tell Kiran. “She’s not coming with us.”
“You haven’t been listening!” she cries. “They’re going to hold me responsible! I have to get out of the city!”
“She’s right.”
My fingers freeze. “Kiran,” I say between clenched teeth.
Daphne stumbles back so hard she hits the wall.
“He can speak!”
“What a surprise,” I say, trying not to pay attention to the fact that it took him weeks to talk to me, but only minutes to speak in front of Daphne. I finish bandaging him a little more tightly than I probably should, and bind it with the tie attached to the end.
Kiran shrugs painfully into his long, dusty coat and stuffs something from the pocket into my hands. When I look down, I see a wadded bunch of fabric. Something pale yellow and lacy.
I swear my whole body goes red.
“It’s a dress,” he says. “I’ve only got one.”
I take it and shake out the outfit. Even though I’m not yet in it, I can tell that it’s going to be snug.
“Did you get it in the Black Lanes?” I frown, thinking of the brothels we passed on the way to the auction stage and not sure I want to know how Kiran got this.
He nods.
“What am I supposed to wear?” Daphne asks.
Before Daphne can steal it from me, I strip off what’s left of the white Promised dress and shove the yellow one over my head. It’s dirty and wearing thin in places, and so short it barely covers my hips. Strips of lace cover my shoulders, which are otherwise bare. There’s no mistaking me for a Garden girl now; I look like one of Mercer’s girls who work in the Black Lanes. Kiran glances at me, then quickly looks down. His fingers fumble as he pulls a flat black square the size of his fist from the saddle bag.
“Costume makeup,” he says.
“Hurry,” I say, remembering the way the city folks dress up like Virulent on auction days.
Daphne’s still going on and on behind us.
“If you leave me, I’ll tell everyone what you did,” she says. “You ran away from the mayor, didn’t you? I’m sure they’ll be looking.”
I’ve had enough of Daphne’s sniveling and scheming. I lunge at her, ready to strike, but before I can bring my arm forward, something catches my hand.
“Easy,” says Kiran, releasing me when I turn to glower at him. “How are we going to get your friend through?”
“We’re not friends,” I tell him.
“We are too,” says Daphne quickly. “Clover, don’t lie.” She’s just saying it so I won’t leave her.
“I really am going to hang tonight,” Kiran mutters dryly. He pulls me close to his face. “Accept it. Plans have changed. Move on.”
I feel my fists bunch at my sides. He’s right. We have to take Daphne because if I believe nothing else she says, I know she’s truthful about turning us in. I need to keep a close eye on her wagging jaw. I look down at the ground to pull myself together, and groan when I see nearly to my navel through my four-star cleavage.
“Let me wear your dress,” Daphne tries.
“It won’t fit you,” I tell her. She’s bigger than me—taller, and curvier. As it is, I can barely twist without popping the seams.
With a short whine, she runs to the supply room, giving Kiran and the mare a lot of room as she passes. When she comes out, she’s got a horse blanket over her shoulders. I’m not sure what she plans on doing with that.
Kiran twists the makeup box, and it opens with a pop. He pulls a red marker the size of my pinky from it and gives it a squeeze. Thick ooze drips out to the ground. With one hand firmly on my chin, he begins to trace an X shape across my right cheek. The thick clumping of the makeup covers my skin. It’s meant to look like flesh. It certainly feels heavy enough.
I close my eyes and summon every amount of strength I have within me. It comes from the ground, right up through my feet, my legs, my body. I breathe deep and think of my ma. How strong she was to leave this city. How she went right through the gates, and the keepers let her go because she was marked. I was already in her belly then, so really, it’s my second time through.
Kiran finishes the X on my cheek and nods grimly.
“I guess that will have to do,” he says, and I wish for the first time that I had a mirror to see how I look. I hope the gatekeeper doesn’t examine me too closely.
“Me next?” Daphne asks, dropping the blanket.