CHAPTER ELEVEN #3
“They are people. Living, breathing people. It is not just elimination. It is murder.” I trembled, my heart refusing to slow.
The room felt too small as twenty-seven years of anger clawed to the surface, desperate for release—a rage I had hidden my entire life.
My skin was too tight, my chest too warm.
“We could always reinstate the Core Act,” one of my brothers suggested, but I couldn’t focus, the blood pounding painfully in my ears.
“Would you have me eliminated?” I demanded, my voice a whisper.
“What did you say?” Vincent asked.
“Emeline.” Helen’s blue eyes were wide and scared. Her warning fueled my anger. She had only ever warned me. She had never come for me. She had never comforted me. She had just stood outside my door arguing with my birth father on the other side. Warning me the day they took me away.
Never look at the Elite, Emeline. Just look down and they will leave you be. You must look down.
But now I was looking directly at the Elite, and I couldn’t stomach what I saw.
I could never be like her. I couldn’t follow their rules.
I couldn’t ignore the things they hid behind their beauty.
And I knew—as they did—that I couldn’t be Elite.
No matter the dresses. The lessons. The lens. I wasn’t one of them.
I wouldn’t look down.
If that condemned me to the blue color I wore . . . maybe—maybe that wasn’t the worst thing.
“What did you say, Minor?” Vincent’s tone was dangerously mild.
“Would you have me eliminated?”
My birth father’s eyes locked with mine. He stared into them like he could see right past the lens, his hatred for my defect obvious. His hatred for me.
“There is nothing I wouldn’t do for the Greater Good, for our people.
Collin can cover you up, make you his little plaything, but you’ll never be one of us.
You were a disgrace to this family the moment you opened those hideous eyes.
All of my hard work damned. You ruined centuries of success.
Both our lineages were perfect, generations of Elite. Until you.”
I broke. My chair scraped loudly across the floor as I thrust back from the table, shifting it under my force, and the sound of breaking glass filled the room.
I did not care about the scene I was making, the mess. The red liquid seeping across the white tablecloth. A reflection of the brokenness in me. None of it mattered as I held that hateful man’s stare.
“Easier to eliminate a mistake than admit you carry any responsibility for it. It’s your genes that created this,” I snarled.
His eyes widened. I didn’t bother to wait for a reply as I sent my chair clattering to the ground. I grabbed my clutch, my grip painful. My frantic heart urged me forward.
“I knew I’d like you,” Gregory cooed. He placed his glass in my free hand. I didn’t need help throwing it back. I downed it, letting the burning sensation replace the ache in my throat.
“Emeline,” Helen started, but I was already at the door.
“Do you finally see what I mean? They are defective to their core, uncivilized.” Vincent drawled.
“Who made us uncivilized?” I practically growled.
“And you wanted to save her, Helen,” Vincent taunted. I spun, facing them, as his words pierced my chest.
Helen sat utterly still, her eyes on her plate. Meek and compliant like they wanted me to be. “I was wrong, Vincent.”
She had wanted to save me. No longer, clearly. I was shaking as I stormed from the room. My heart outpaced my steps as my pulse hammered against my clammy skin.
“A Pod, please, now,” I demanded tersely to one of the fellow Defects. The Elite—they weren’t what I thought. All the beauty they surrounded themselves with was a facade to hide the wickedness within.
And you wanted to save her, Helen.
I didn’t hear what the worker said as I kicked off my heels, shedding anything I could that made me like them, and ran into the Pod. The door shut as I scanned my wrist, and I was racing through the stormy clouds as fast as my mind spiraled.
I couldn’t get air in. The chain collar was too tight. I clawed at it as my heart beat faster and faster. I needed air. The back of my throat ached with the urge to scream.
The walls of the Pod pressed in, weighing me down. I couldn’t breathe. I searched the Pod desperately. There was an emergency button somewhere. They had shown us at the end of our education.
Think, Emeline, think.
My pleas were in time with my heart’s hysterical pace. I sucked in a breath but choked on the knot in my throat. The Pod was closing in on me. I clawed at the Pod, running my hands along the doors. I didn’t care how high I was. Where was it? A cold sweat coated my skin, making the fabric cling.
Let me out. Let me out.
Finally, I found it, a small button directly below the scanner. I pressed it blindly—desperately. My heart beat wildly against my ribs in desperation to get out. I tried to breathe again. I couldn’t.
The Pod plummeted to the ground. Rain streaked the windows. I didn’t care that it sent me flying back into the seat. I didn’t care that my head hit the glass. I needed out.
Moments later, the Pod slowed to a stop, hovering just above the ground as the doors opened. I threw myself out the door, taking greedy gulps of air.
The Elite’s towering buildings surrounded me as their clouds pelted me with raindrops, the soft patter cooling my too-hot skin.
I was still in High Town. Thankfully, the street was near-empty, most workers having returned to their living quarters before the oncoming curfew.
I whirled, finding where the buildings grew squat and dull—made from bricks. The Wastelands. It was a ways off.
I clawed at the collar, the gold cutting into my skin. I swore it was leaving a brand just as my birth father’s words had. Thunder clapped in the distance. Years of wanting a way out of the Wastelands—now it was all I saw.
I gathered my skirt in my hands. Barefoot, I began to run.
I swore I heard my name, but I didn’t look back. My feet slammed into the pavement, putting distance between me and the people who had birthed me.
My heart beat harder, but in encouragement now. I took deep gulps of air. With each step, my mind cleared. I could breathe. My raging mind went silent. I tore through the city in blue as rain pelted me, but I welcomed it, willing it to wash it all away.
The buildings slowly grew shorter, closer to the earth, less ornate. I wasn’t far from my building now. I’d have to stop soon. The wounds slowly reopened as my building came into view.
My mind begged me to run more, but my body couldn’t. I was too out of shape. I began to slow, the forty-eight windows and bricks just ahead on the right. I gasped for breath, my lungs ravaged, but my heart refused to settle. Little stars popped into my vision. I hadn’t run in over a year.
They had taken that from me too.
“Emeline?” I heard a deep voice say behind me.
Collin had come. My legs trembled, threatening to give way.
I needed to sit for a minute, just inside.
I could make it inside. My soaking gown slipped from my grasp, and strong arms grabbed me, keeping me upright.
I leaned my head back into a hard chest, looking for sapphire eyes, only to find starburst ones instead.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you, Moonlight.”