CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO #2
The man didn’t beg. He didn’t do anything but release another low whistle before dropping to his knees. His eyes locked on mine as he began panting. Blood trickled from his ears onto the floor. I couldn’t look away. It was the Parting all over again. I stood frozen in horror.
“The Reaper is coming for you all,” the man rasped. “He will tear your buildings to the ground.” He fell fully to the floor, gasping. A gurgling filled the air.
No one had touched him, but he was dying. His eyes began turning red. I felt the world tremble beneath my heels.
The man attempted to whistle again from the ground, but nothing came out. He tried again, unyielding in the face of death. Blood sprayed from his mouth with his last breath.
The blood from his ears pooled on the floor. The world shook again, like at any moment we’d all crash to the ground.
It wasn’t the world, I realized. It was me. I couldn’t stop shaking as some essential part of me, a piece of innocence I hadn’t even realized I had contained, shattered for good.
Collin stood at the head of the table. “Does anyone else need any more entertainment for the evening?”
No one made a sound. I couldn’t look away from the now lifeless body.
“No? Are we sure?” Collin asked, taking a drink. His hand didn’t even shake. My legs shook so violently I thought I might fall into my seat. “Remove him and bring out our meals. Sit.” My legs gave out.
Two men in green picked up the man; his now red eyes were open but unseeing. They carried him out and, with him, the part of me that had ever thought anything good happened in their clouds.
A hand touched my knee. I jumped as I found Collin looking at me. I couldn’t read his expression or maybe I just didn’t want to. He hadn’t prepared me for what I had just witnessed. I pulled my leg out of his grasp, blinking. I felt stuck and hollow.
“Eat,” Collin commanded.
The sounds of forks and knives filled the room.
Slowly people began to talk. I heard laughter from the far end of the table.
I mindlessly lifted my fork and knife, cutting into the meat.
Red spilled onto my plate. My stomach turned.
All I could see was the man’s blood spilling onto the floor—the man Tabitha had said met his death because of me. I laid my fork down. I couldn’t eat.
I couldn’t think. Lightheadedness blurred my vision, and I focused on breathing.
I sat in the cacophony of the Elite, who ate like we hadn’t just witnessed a murder.
Breathe. Again. Again.
A chair scraped against the floor as Collin stood. Distantly, I noticed our plates had been cleared.
“In two days’ time, we shall ambush the underground community,” Collin began, then called for ten members of the Elite to meet him in another room, including all the men of my birth family. I stood when I heard other chairs moving. Collin must have dismissed them.
Collin grabbed my hand. I made to pull away, but he gripped my hand harder, tugging it so I fell into him, his arm snaking around my waist. Everyone watched us. I didn’t have the strength to push him away. I was utterly numb. “Nora will take you.”
Nora’s small hand threaded through my arm, linking with me.
I let her guide me out of the room. With each step, the Elite bowed to us, to me.
Nora sidestepped the pool of blood. It was all I saw on the walk to the private quarters.
I tuned out Nora’s calming words, the kind I assumed she would say to one of her frightened offspring.
Eventually, we were seated in the sunken seating area. I stared straight ahead at the woman in the art piece cloaked in all white, an innocence and purity about her—things I had just lost.
“Tea. The way you make it,” I heard Nora say to someone. Heavy footsteps took off. Minutes, perhaps hours later, I had a warm cup of tea in my hands.
“How?” I asked, my voice cracking.
Nora leaned in. “How what?”
“How did they kill him without touching him?”
“MINDs all have a lethal dose of hemotoxin. It affects our blood. So the Illum can eliminate—”
“Murder,” I spat harshly. “You all say eliminate like it means something different. That man is dead. Collin killed that man.”
Nora didn’t flinch. “Okay, murder.”
I couldn’t look at her. All I saw in her sapphire eyes was Collin. Instead, my eyes locked on the man in the painting. The hand clutched to his heart was red. Was it blood on his hands? Akin to the blood on Collin’s. How could he do that? I had thought . . . I had wanted to believe in his goodness.
I sucked in a sharp breath. “I want to leave.”
“You need to stay until Collin returns,” Nora told me.
I didn’t want to, but I didn’t bother saying so. I had no rights up here. They had taken them from me.
I sat quietly and sipped my tea. It burned my throat viciously.
The unmistakable smell of alcohol swarmed my nose.
Someone had put alcohol in my tea. I relished the pain, taking another gulp as if it would burn away the image of the pool of blood.
Blood that covered my soul, Collin’s atrocities ruining me.
I didn’t know how long we were silent before I heard voices.
Collin and Phillip entered, and behind them was Gregory, still in his blue.
Collin and I made eye contact. He broke away from Phillip, coming to stand in front of me.
I didn’t bother to stand. He took a seat in front of me on the table.
He reached his hand toward me, like he might touch me.
I pulled away toward Nora. His hand fell to his side.
“Leave us,” he told them. They all began to rise.
“Don’t,” I begged. Everyone stood frozen.
“Emeline—” Collin started hesitantly. His calmness broke my restraint. “Look, I—”
“You what?” I demanded, turning toward Collin. “Killed someone, used me, embarrassed Gregory, who was innocent in my being in blue. Interrogated the Starlings—hurt them.”
I stood abruptly, sloshing the last bits of my cold tea on my gown. I didn’t care, though. It could be ruined, like the rest of me. “I want to go to my living quarters.”
“You should stay here tonight,” Nora suggested. “So you aren’t alone.”
I couldn’t. I refused to stay in their clouds. I took a step, but Collin grabbed my hand, halting me.
“Forgive me,” Collin whispered. “Emeline, please—” I felt the others go still at those words, but I was past caring.
“For which part?” I demanded. “What am I forgiving you for this time?”
Collin hesitated, his eyes finding mine. “For hurting you.”
“Wrong,” I growled. “I thought you weren’t foolish enough to ask for something unobtainable.” A cup shattered on the floor. “Imagine my surprise to discover you are, in fact, a fool.”
“He was actively working against the Illum.”
“So he should die?” I hissed.
“It’s hard to understand.”
“No, what’s hard to understand is that you told me you didn’t believe in killing Minors, but you just did,” I fumed.
No one else in the room mattered. I raged against that magnetic pull as his endless pools held mine—the sapphires fractured and dull.
I searched for the man I had first met but before I could find him, Collin stepped back, turning away from me.
“That was before.”
I shook my head as a cloud outside shifted.
The light from the moon illuminated the room as if in answer to the questions swirling in my mind.
What role would I play? Silence filled my mind.
I needed to get to the ground. Because they didn’t understand—living up here, they didn’t understand.
I didn’t know what would become of my soul if I stayed here.
“I’d like to go to my living quarters, please,” I said, willing myself to calm.
“Phillip, summon a Pod and get the Force ready for briefing. Gregory, make sure she gets home. We can’t afford any more mistakes.”
I whipped my head toward Collin, seeing him more plainly than ever before.
“I am going with her,” Nora declared, marching up to me as I walked past Collin and up the stairs. Gregory stood by the balcony doors, waiting. Seeing him fully, he had been right. The blue brought out his eyes.
“No, you will not,” Collin stated. “You will stay here.”
“She shouldn’t be alone,” Nora told him, coming up to my side, grabbing my hand.
“Think of your offspring,” Collin urged, a potency to his tone that ripped me apart.
Nora whirled toward Collin, a force. “You will not use my offspring against me,” she seethed through her teeth. “You will not involve them. You will never involve them, do you understand me?”
“No,” Collin said, holding his ground. “I won’t. But we both know they will.”
Nora took several steps back like she had been smacked. Gregory trembled, his mouth a thin line. He wasn’t looking at me. All of him was directed at Nora. The confession I had heard at the Pond. The tinkling voice in answer. I had not been able to find Nora. How had I missed it?
“Arabella is almost of age,” Collin said. “They will use her to get to you.”
Nora released my hand as a single tear rolled down her face. “You wouldn’t.”
Gregory took only two steps when Nora locked eyes with him, and he stopped, his hands fisted tightly at his sides. His entire body shook like it took every ounce of willpower not to close the distance.
Phillip took a step back as he just watched. “The Force will be ready in twenty,” he said quietly.
“I am fine, Nora. Stay here.” I grabbed Gregory’s arm, steering him toward the Pod that sat outside. “Let’s go.”
Collin grabbed my hand, stopping me. I let him, only to deliver the thing he had broken. “Speaking plainly, I wish you hadn’t.”
“Hadn’t what?”
“Chosen me,” I said, pulling my hand out of his. “You chose wrong.”