The Girl Who Dared to Endure (The Girl Who Dared #6)

I looked at Tian, who was now happily ignoring both of us in order to eat, and then back to him. “She’s just Tian, and this is just breakfast. I won’t lie and tell you I’m not going to ask you some questions, but I also want you to know that I’m not going to hurt you, or starve you, to get answers. If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine, but it will only be worse for you the longer you stay silent.”

The boy considered this for a long time, and after a few seconds had gone by, I returned my focus to my own plate and started eating. Tian was right about Quess’s use of garlic: almost overpowering, but then again not. I wasn’t sure how he did it, but the food was delicious. I was a quarter of the way through my plate when the legs of the empty chair scraped along the floor. A second later, Liam dropped into it and reached for the spoon I had left next to the plate.

I let him enjoy a few big bites, and then cleared my throat. “It’s pretty good, right?” His eyes darted up at me, and he nodded, but didn’t slow down or pause to respond. It was my fault; it wasn’t exactly a question that called for a lengthy response. “How does it compare to the MREs?” I asked casually, taking another bite of my potatoes.

His eyes widened, and then he looked down at his bowl of food. “You weren’t ‘posed to see me take those,” he said sullenly. “I caught a whoopin’ because of you.”

“Someone hit you?” Tian squeaked, flashing me wide, fearful eyes.

“Someone’s always hitting someone where I’m from.” He put his spoon down on the table with a click. “But I’m not telling you nothing about that.”

I studied him for a second. “About what?” I asked innocently.

“About my home. About my people.”

“Oh.” I paused so I could take another bite, then chew, and then swallow. “That’s okay. You don’t have to.”

I was studying his reaction closely, so I didn’t miss the flicker of surprise and uncertainty there. “I… I don’t? But you…”

“We were beating up your leader, Mathias,” I said, and his eyes widened in recognition.

“Does he know I’m here?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

I cocked my head at him. If Mathias had, it wouldn’t matter. Still, I wasn’t sure breaking the news that we had killed his leader was the best way to tell him that, and it certainly wouldn’t do much to reassure him.

“No,” I replied. “Why? What would happen if he knew?”

“Nothing,” the boy said quickly, leaning forward to resume shoveling food into his mouth at a rapid pace, as if a full mouth would keep him from having to say anything. I tried not to let my frustration show. He was clearly lying, but if I pointed that out to him now, he’d clam up completely. I wasn’t even sure why he was talking to me. Was it because Tian had spent all night sleeping on his back, or was it because he was inexperienced?

“That’s good,” I said idly, deciding to test the waters to see how he’d react if he found out otherwise. “I’d suggest you keep your voice down, though. He’s right in the next room.”

His eyes rounded, and his head whipped back and forth between the walls, as if wondering which side was more dangerous. “Can he hear us?”

“Only if we get too loud,” I told him with a smile. “Why? He can’t get out of there. You’re safe.”

Liam’s mouth pulled down. “No one’s safe from him. If I mess up, if I let anything slip to you, he’ll throw me off the Tower. And if he won’t, then he will.”

The way Liam said the second “he” told me he was talking about somebody else. But who? Not Sadie. Then maybe Plain-Face? “Who?” I asked.

He glanced at me, his expression immediately closeted. “No one.”

A lie—but I could tell by how tight his face was that he wasn’t going to answer, and I wasn’t going to push. He was clearly afraid, but at least he had taught me something: there was another “he” in the picture after all, maybe the ‘he’ that Baldy had mentioned. I leaned back in my chair and studied him, deciding to take a different approach. “Is that an expression?” I asked, hoping that it was. “The thing you said about them throwing people off the Tower? Are you just exaggerating to prove a point?”

Liam gave me an annoyed look and folded his arms over his chest. “No,” he said flatly. “Sometimes he makes us all come and watch, if’n one of us screwed up bad enough to warrant the drop.”

“Us?” I asked casually, keeping my body relaxed so as not to show the sudden tension that came over me. They threw people off the Tower if they didn’t follow the rules? And they made the others watch, in order to keep them in line? What would happen to the Tower once these people enacted whatever they had in mind for Scipio? That sort of fear tactic was beyond sickening. It was horrifying.

He shifted in his chair. “It doesn’t matter. Now that I’ve been caught, they’ll be sending people after me. And Mathias.”

“Can they find you?” I asked.

He scowled at me. “I shouldn’t be talking to you,” he declared. “This was all a trick, to try to make me tell you about the others.”

“No,” I replied, shaking my head slowly, trying to emphasize the point. “It isn’t a trick, and I’ve been upfront with you about having questions. I’m not forcing you to answer, but I’m hoping that you will, because you know those people are bad. I promise, you’re safe here. They won’t be able to get you. But I can only keep you safe if you can tell us what they want—and where I can find them.”

He gave me a pitying look. “You don’t find them. They find you.”

My frustration with his stubbornness suddenly turned a corner with that condescending statement, and I frowned. I wanted him to believe me when I said we could keep him safe from the legacies, but he also needed to understand the truth of the situation he was in.

“Look, I mean what I say about trying to help you, but I’m going to be real with you. We are going to find them, one way or another. If you help us, I can make sure that you don’t go down with them, but if you don’t… Well, you’re what, fifteen, sixteen? The Tower will hold you accountable for all of their crimes. You have a choice to make: help us and save yourself, or stay quiet, and go down with them. From the few things you’ve said, they don’t seem like very good people. Why protect them?”

“That’s my business,” he said, and he abruptly stood up, fast enough to scoot his chair back a few feet with a loud grating sound. “I’m done.”

I watched as he strode back over to the bed and threw himself down on it, training his gaze on the ceiling. There was a nervousness to his actions that told me he was worried about what we were going to do to him after this act of defiance, but I was happy to let him sit there and realize that I meant what I said. We weren’t going to hurt him. I worried I had pushed too far, but he needed to know how serious this was. If he didn’t help us, there was nothing I could do to stop the council from charging him. The very least I could do was continue to demonstrate that we weren’t going to hurt him. So I focused on eating my breakfast and talking with Tian.

It wasn’t easy. I really wanted answers from him, but it warred with my desire to make him feel safe. It had been too much to expect everything to happen easily. Still, he had spoken and felt safe enough to eat.

And that was something, even if it wasn’t much.





26





My meeting with Liam had gone about as well as I had anticipated, possibly better, and I hoped I had started to lay the foundation for establishing a little bit of trust. I left the two of them to their own devices and took the dirty dishes with me to the kitchen. There, I got to work washing them, distracting myself with something mundane before I had to head to the war room, where the others were working.