CHAPTER 38 #2
I turn to Vincent. He’s watching William, too, his eyes wide with fear, but I don’t think it’s for himself.
The panic is fresh and still forming, as though a terrible realization has clicked into place.
Vincent lurches to his feet a second too late.
The knock has already hit the door, loud as a battering ram.
Harrison’s boots squeak loudly as he pivots toward the sound. Every head in the room turns. A Pinkie moves to open the door, but before it can, the click of the lock cuts through the silence, disengaged from the outside.
I know what’s coming. I realize it an instant before the door bursts open and slams into the robot so hard it flies back.
A squad of Coppers floods in, fully geared in riot armor, moving in a diamond formation that swiftly takes control of the drinking hall.
Their silver-black uniforms gleam like a bullet’s husk, still hot from the chamber, and their eyes, visible through the T-visors, are flat and searching.
Vincent rushes forward, knocking over chairs as he lunges for his brother, but two Coppers step in, batons raised, and block his path.
A third Copper lifts a hand toward William.
“Target acquired,” he says, his voice distorted through the helmet speaker.
Students scatter as the formation breaks apart, and the Coppers descend on William in a brutal advance.
Chairs are kicked over, and sabers clatter from their racks.
Jack pulls Charlotte clear of a baton swing and shields her with his body.
I stumble up beside them, heart pounding, just as the first Copper reaches William.
William stands, defiant despite tears streaking his face.
He starts to speak, but a dozen hands clamp onto his arms and shoulders before he can.
One Copper drives a baton into the back of his knee, buckling his legs.
Another Copper punches William in the ribs, then drags him to the floor, forcing the breath from him in a single, gurgling grunt.
“Vince!” William chokes on the name.
Vincent keeps charging forward. The two Coppers blocking his path move to intercept, but he barrels into them like a furious bull, tearing through the gap with the unstoppable force of someone who no longer feels pain.
Vincent grabs a Copper by the shoulder and yanks back, trying to pull him off William.
“What did you do, Will?” Vincent shouts, his face white with panic. “What the hell did you do?”
“Nothing!” William cries. “Just stupid things that added up. I swear—I didn’t—!”
Vincent whips around, eyes blazing. “What are the charges?” he asks the Coppers. “What laws has my brother broken?”
The sergeant responds with a fist to the side of Vincent’s face.
Blood bursts from Vincent’s nose as he reels, but he doesn’t fall.
He lunges again, fighting savagely as the Coppers close in.
One blow slams into his throat, another into his knee.
His legs buckle, and he crashes to the floor with a thud that echoes through the stunned silence.
William screams, breaking free long enough to lunge forward and grasp his brother’s hand.
They barely touch before the Coppers wrench William back by the shoulders, striking as they drag him.
His legs kick and flail, his body twisting under the assault of fists and batons pounding him into compliance.
Blood spatters across the floorboards. One Copper seizes the back of William’s head and slams it against the frame of an overturned chair as they pass.
The sickening crack of the impact makes me recoil.
All around me, students either freeze or retreat toward the walls, their faces contorted with terror.
At the front of the hall, Harrison stands with one foot forward, his spine rigid and his fist clenched around his cap, trembling with the effort to stay still.
For a brief, startling moment, he looks ready to act, to stop what’s happening.
But he doesn’t. He stays where he is, gripped by the same fear that holds the rest of us back.
The brothers continue reaching for each other even as they’re torn apart; Vincent is crumpled on the floor, dazed and bloodied, while William screams as he’s dragged toward the door.
His voice breaks on Vincent’s name. Vincent claws at the floor, trying to crawl after William, but his hand slips in his own blood.
I’m frozen where I stand, my stomach turning to water, my hands shaking at my sides. Why the hell is no one helping? Why isn’t anyone doing anything?
Then, somewhere deep in the pit of my mind, I hear a voice I don’t recognize, not mine or anyone else’s, but it’s sharp, loud, and commanding: Do it yourself.
I move. The hall blurs around me as I run, chairs and bodies streaking past, my boots striking the floorboards. I slip once, nearly go down, and crash shoulder-first into Harrison.
“Harry,” I gasp, fumbling to open my Bond interface. “What’s William’s Bond number?”
“What?” Harrison reels back, still dazed.
“Give it to me. Now.”
Harrison straightens fast, his cap falling to the floor as he forwards the information. I pull up my civil credit panel. Two thousand gleam back at me, more than I ever asked for from Edmund, more than I ever needed.
I select two hundred civil credits and send them to William.
Terms of service flood the screen, legal warnings and digital agreements flashing red, but I swipe past each one.
My eyes are fixed on the corner of the hall, where the Coppers are almost through the door with William, still fighting and screaming.
Vincent is trailing behind them, arms shaking as he drags himself through the wreckage of broken chairs.
And then…
The sergeant halts, dead still.
He checks his Bond screen, his breath rasping heavily through his helmet’s mouthpiece. Lifting his visor, he sweeps his cold, steely eyes across the hall and locks onto me. He must’ve seen my name on the civil credit transfer. He knows exactly what I’ve done.
The sergeant holds my stare—one second, two—as if etching my face into memory. Then he turns away. “Arrest warrant aborted.”
The words hit like a kill shot. The Coppers hesitate, momentarily thrown, staring at the sergeant for an explanation. William stops struggling. Vincent freezes mid-crawl. Even Harrison doesn’t breathe.
Then, slowly, the Coppers release their grip. One by one, they let go of William and slide their batons back into place. At a nod from the sergeant, they retreat, swift as moving shadows.
The room hangs suspended, every student caught in shell-shocked silence.
William sways where they left him, blood pearling at the corner of his mouth as he checks the civil credit transfer on his Bond.
Then he looks at me, and the disbelief on his face is painful, a gut-wrenching reminder of how rarely we Greens help our own.
William’s legs tremble as he staggers forward, one arm hanging wrong, as if torn from the socket.
The students who are pressed against the walls stir uneasily, some reaching out as if to steady him, others shrinking back, unsure whether to touch him at all.
Beside me, Harrison draws a sharp breath, only just realizing what I’ve done.
William stumbles once, then again. When he finally reaches me, he lowers his head in a half-bow, his mangled legs refusing to bend any further.
He presses his forehead to my hand with a shuddering weight, smearing blood across my skin as he whispers his thanks.
Once. Then again. And again, each word raspier and more desperate.
I try to shape a response, but the sound dies in my throat when I see Vincent approaching from behind.
He’s only a few paces away, but the effort it takes for him to reach me makes it seem as if he’s leaning on his own ghost. His face is wrecked, hardly recognizable beneath the swelling and bruises, yet he pushes on, one arm pressed against his ribs, where a large, bloated wound is visible through his torn jacket.
When Vincent reaches me, his lips part, struggling to speak through the blood misting around his teeth, but no words come.
At last, with a hoarse, ragged breath, he holds out his hand.
The movement is hesitant, as if he’s already braced for a refusal.
Beside me, Harrison gives a faint shake of his head, but Vincent doesn’t stop.
He extends his hand further, wavering on his injured leg, and in his red-rimmed, trembling eyes, I can see the moment is costing him the final scrap of his pride.
My gaze drops to his bloody hand, where his Blood Ring glints faintly, its green shade dulled by the sting rising in my eyes.
The way his fingers hang there, shuddering in the empty air, is too hard to watch.
I want to stop them, to steady them, even as every instinct I’ve trained myself to follow floods in at once, scrambling to rebuild the wall that’s kept me alive.
My arm feels distant, no longer mine, as I lift it.
But I reach out anyway, clawing through the resistance, and close my fingers around Vincent’s shaking hand.
The moment our hands meet, something inside me dislodges.
It isn’t painful, but it’s warm and deep and rushing, like the relief of a thaw, of stepping into sunlight after too many days in the cold.
The feeling surges through me with a force that pulls me outward, toward Vincent. And with it, I taste tears.
They burn on my cheeks, spilling fast, but I don’t try to stop them. I nod, chin trembling, vision swimming, and hold Vincent’s gaze through the blur.
His jaw tightens as if he’s fighting to stay composed, but I can still see it: the weight lifting from his conscience, the breath he finally lets himself take, the light rising behind his eyes.
It’s freedom.
The same freedom I finally feel.
The drinking hall is a chaotic scene, with distraught students stepping over bloodstains, broken chairs, and scattered sabers.
Even so, the rules prohibit Harrison from ending the Fraternity meeting early.
He orders Pinkies to clean up the mess, then picks up where he left off, his voice wavering slightly as a robot mops a streak of blood beside his boot.
Vincent and William are gone, taken to the Belvoir Infirmary, but everyone else stays until the end.
The moment Harrison gives the word, I slip outside at the front of the crowd.
Above, the sky is an endless black canvas, utterly starless, yet the night still shimmers.
The Luminescent Lake lights up the shoreline, its glittering blue surface unnaturally still, as if it’s holding its breath with me.
Somewhere at the edge of my mind, the sergeant’s face lingers—the way his steely, violence-hardened eyes marked me after I sent William the civil credits—and yet, for now, the fear feels distant. What rises in its place is peaceful.
Dad never calls it forgiveness. He says the word is too small for the weight it carries. He calls it mercy instead… mercy looking down on misery. And tonight, I hope he’d be proud of me.
I don’t realize how slowly I’m walking until I reach the hovercar and see Jack and Charlotte inside, the power core already running.
Charlotte’s face is so tense it creases her forehead, while Jack gazes nervously out the window as if he half-expects the Coppers to come charging back—this time, for me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask as I close the door. “You don’t think I should’ve done it?”
“No, Lore.” Charlotte reaches across the seat, her fingers curling around mine. “What you did was good. It’s just—” She winces and glances at Jack.
His eyes flick between us before he places a hand on my arm. “What you did was good, darling. We just want you to be careful. Sending civil credits to people under the arrest limit comes with debt… the kind that’s rigged never to clear. Most people end up wishing they hadn’t.”
The look on Jack’s face is torn, caught between concern and understanding. But what frightens me more is the realization that he’s not talking about high-citizens like Edmund, or low-citizens with Aegises like himself and Dickie.
He’s talking about the rest of us.
Low-citizens like me.