Secondborn

I don’t realize that my feet are bare until Hawthorne asks, “Do you want your slippers?” I shake my head no because I don’t trust my voice not to be thick with emotion, and I don’t know exactly what he’ll see if I open my locker. I try to walk to the door that leads to the tiers of capsules. Hawthorne stops me with a gentle tug on my arm. “Sorry about Barkley. He’s a head case. Stay away from him if you can. He has a crazy fascination for the rules, and I know you don’t.”

Hawthorne’s strong hand on my arm loosens. He’s about to let go of it when I turn and rest my forehead against his chest. I inhale Hawthorne’s scent that I now associate with safety. My shaking shoulders hunch toward him. A sob that I can’t force down breaks through and chokes me. He moves his rifle so that it rests against his back on the gun strap. I hide my face against his chest once more. His hands come up to rest on my shoulders as he holds me to him. “Shh,” he hushes softly, brushing my hair back from my hot face, tucking it back behind my ear. “Whatever it is that’s making you cry, look away from it. It doesn’t have you. I do.”

I can’t get close enough to him. He lifts me up in his arms, and then sits down on a bench, settling me in his lap. He leans his back against the wall. I don’t know how long it takes me to stop crying, but I get the hiccups toward the end. Hawthorne doesn’t tease me about them. He reaches into the pocket of his gun strap and extracts a cloth used to remove condensation from the barrel. “It’s clean,” he says when he uses it to wipe my face.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur.

“About what?” He stuffs the cloth back into the compartment. “I’ve never cleaned my rifle with Roselle’s tears before. I’ll let you know how well it works.” He waits to see if I smile. I don’t. “Are you okay?”

“No,” I reply with a watery look and a set of sniffles.

“You look exhausted. I know you were picked up for brandishing.”

“Who told you?”

“Agent Crow, when he gave me this.” Hawthorne shows me his new moniker and scar. “He also told me he wasn’t done with either of us.”

“Is that all he said?” I ask.

“Yes. Why?” he replies. I cringe. Hawthorne doesn’t know about Agnes Moon. Agent Crow didn’t tell him. How do I tell him that his girlfriend was murdered because he wanted to help me? He’ll never forgive himself . . . or me.

“He killed her, Hawthorne. Agnes is dead. Agent Crow beat her to death. He showed me the photos.” Exhale—that’s how I tell him.

Hawthorne shakes his head. I’ll never forget the look of horror on his face for as long as I live.

“Agent Crow accused Agnes of being thirdborn. Was she?”

His eyes smolder. His nostrils flare. “No! She was secondborn, like us! She was just a Moon. She’s never even been trained to defend herself!”

“He was going to kill her either way, for helping me. He’s insane, Hawthorne. I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. I feel powerless to take away his pain.

“She didn’t want to help. I convinced her to do it.” His lips thin in despair. “I’m going to kill him.”

“One day. I’ll help you.” Rubbing my eyes in exhaustion, I rise from his lap and sway on my feet. Hawthorne stands and catches my shoulders.

“I’m taking you to your capsule.” I don’t argue. He places a comforting hand on the small of my back, and we walk.

“How do you know which one is mine?”

“I asked around once I found out we were in the same air-barracks.”

I pause. “That’s more than coincidence, Hawthorne. There are literally a million capsules on this Base and thousands of air-barracks.”

“I know,” he says grimly.

“Who put me here with you?” I stare at him accusingly, searching his eyes.

He cups my cheek. “I swear to you that I don’t know, Roselle.”

“I don’t either.”

We continue walking until we reach my capsule.

“Get some sleep,” Hawthorne insists. “I’ll check on you later.”

I climb the ladder up four levels, open my capsule, and crawl inside. The door shuts. Resting my head against my pillow, I pull my blanket over me, but for hours, I lie awake in total darkness.

My thoughts turn to last night. Flannigan planted herself in my detention cell. The privateer manipulated me into helping her steal monikers, but for whom? She died to get them. What am I supposed to do with them? Turn them over? Say that I accidentally shot eight Census agents and helped blow up and flood the tunnel-dwelling hunters and their scary interrogation rooms?

A part of me wants to rationalize the eight deaths as mercy killings. They would have died anyway—drowned by the wall of water—except for the one in the elevator. He probably would have made it. But how many thirdborns had he murdered? He had at least twenty kill tallies by his eyes. Maybe I brought justice.