The Sowing

I know that look very well. It stares back at me whenever I happen to catch my own reflection.

“Did you see the look on Dru’s face, Lucian?” she asks. “She looked so frightened. So lost…” I almost get the feeling she isn’t talking to me. Just trying to make sense of the horror in her own head.

But how do you rationalize a nightmare?

“And I couldn’t do a thing.” She rolls the wagon over to a body set apart from the others.

It’s Mr. Ryland.

His remaining eye has rolled up into his head and looks like a bloodied eggshell. The other socket is a craggy cavern where one of the spikes pierced it.

Arrah stares at him. Her lips are quivering. Tears mix with the soot on her face, streaming down her cheeks like black blood. She drops to her haunches. One of her hands touches Ryland’s face, caressing his cheek before closing his remaining lid.

I stoop beside her, covering the dark craters torn through Ryland’s chest with the tattered remnants of his shirt. Arrah smooths his hair. “He was going to be my father-in-law. Dru and I—we were going to be married. Right after I finished my training and she wasn’t in any more danger of being recruited. Why didn’t she let me die instead? Why?”

I grimace. “Trust me. I know, it’s hard. I’ve lost people too…” I glance away. “Drusilla and you still have the possibility of a future. She loves you. Just like you love her.”

A bitter laugh bursts from her lips. She grabs Ryland by the arms and I take my cue and grab his feet. Then we’re lifting the body between us.

She stares at me across the corpse. “Even if we do make it out of here, every time Dru looks into my eyes, she’ll know that I’m the reason her father is dead. And I’ll know she knows. How can you have a future like that?”

I don’t answer. What can I say that won’t sound hollow?

We maneuver Mr. Ryland into the cart. “Careful,” she says.

Then it’s done. We return and load up for another trip to the furnace.

I grip her hand. “We’re breaking out today,” I mutter.

She squeezes me back. “Who’s we?”

“All of us.”

I nudge my chin toward Leander and Dahlia, who are trundling their own loaded cart toward us, followed by Tristin and Corin wheeling a smaller one. As soon as they’re close enough, I grip the handlebars of our cart and keep pace with them as we head toward the crematoriums.

Leander and Dahlia draw up alongside us. “Did you tell her yet?” he mutters through heavy breaths.

Arrah’s eyes dart back and forth between the two of us. “Tell me what?”

As we roll through the utility corridor and into the crematorium, I fill Arrah in on my excursion to the control room and the cache of weapons now hidden in the duct.

The glazed look in her eyes turns to surprise, and then the familiar Arrah starts to seep through. “You’ve been doing all that while the rest of us have been napping?” Her smile fills me with warmth. “Not bad. Looks like the Fifth Tier has a few surprises left in him.”

I smile back and nudge Leander. “I had a little help from the Second Tier over here. Leander’s not completely useless.”

“Keep talking, Sparkles, and you’ll see how useless my fist is.” Even without looking I can tell he’s smiling when he says this.

My eyes connect with Dahlia. “And of course I couldn’t have put this little Op together without our First Tier.”

She nods. “Thank you.”

When we reach the furnace, Dahlia helps me open the heavy iron door. Waves of heat emanate from the crackling, spooling flames. One by one we toss the bodies inside.

“We need to get away before the next Trial, or one of us ain’t gonna be along for the ride,” Leander says.

“Maybe we should rethink this,” Tristin interrupts. “It might not be safe. We have to have faith that—”

“Faith?” Dahlia whispers. “The only thing I believe in is putting a bullet in each of these bastards’ brains.”

Leander nods. “You got that right, D.” He turns to Tristin. “It’s great that you’re all in tune with the higher powers and shit. But nobody’s coming for us. The only thing that’s gonna save our asses is us.”

Staring at Corin’s vacant eyes sends chills through me. I muss the kid’s hair. “How’s he doing?” I ask Tristin.

“He’s not saying much these days.” Her smile is laced with sadness. She looks up at me. “But he’s hanging in there for now.”

Yeah, but for how much longer?

“That’s why we need to get out of this hell-hole now,” Dahlia murmurs, as if reading my mind.

Tristin pulls Corin closer to her. “I hope this plan of yours, whatever it is, will work. Does it include the Recruits? After all, what happens to them without any Incentives to fight for?”

“They get Shelved? Sent to bed without supper? Who gives a damn about them?” Leander pushes past Dahlia and gets in Tristin’s face. “Look. I don’t give a crap about your religious-pacifist bullshit. You, your brother, and the other insurrectionists are the reason we’re all in this mess in the first—”