Chapter 6
Elias
Abead of sweat trickled down my forehead, but I made no move to swipe it away, standing at attention as the cameras panned lower.
“It’s thanks to you we apprehended so many rebels this week.”
My father’s booming voice carried over the open expanse. Apart from soft whimpering, and the sounds of scraping feet, nothing broke the silence that followed.
A camera dropped lower, buzzing in my face. I stared straight ahead, at my father’s rigid back.
Execution day was his favorite. His chance to prove to the citizens of Centrum that the rebels were easily dealt with. And a reminder to any considering joining them of what awaited if they did.
One of the men fell to his knees, weeping loudly.
A Covenant security guard rushed forward, ramming the butt of his weapon into the man’s back. He cried out through the sack covering his face and my stomach twisted.
“Get up!”
The man struggled to his feet, and I had to lock my limbs in place to keep from reaching out to steady him.
I shouldn't feel guilt. The rebels worked tirelessly to destroy everything my father and the men before him built. The farm. Our one remaining fresh water source. I had heard it so many times the words felt like my own.
“Worthless,” my father grumbled, straightening his coat.
Simmering heat rose to the surface, but I swallowed it down. However much I hated his callousness, the rebels deserved their fate.
A camera zipped down the line, circling all eleven criminals. Three men; eight women. While the men might have been excused for other, lesser crimes, the punishment for rebel sympathizing was death.
When the camera stopped in front of my father, he straightened. “By order of the Covenant States, I carry out this sentence.”
He dipped his chin and the guards began moving along the wall.
Screams were ripped from their lungs as each rebel fell.
I didn’t look away. I had learned long ago that looking away was the one thing my father would never forgive. So I watched each one. When it was over I exhaled, slow and controlled, the way I'd learned to do years ago.
***
When I stepped through the door to my home, it was already dark. I’d considered staying out again, but Mother worried.
I reached my mother and stooped to kiss her cheek. “How are you?” I searched her face.“Sleeping okay?”
“Don’t worry about me, Elias. Your father expected you home last night. He…” she trailed off, squeezing my hand.
I wrapped an arm around her shoulder as she led me to his office. She pushed the door open, and we stepped through.
August’s icy gaze moved between us, and Mom shrugged out of my hold.
“You can go, Helena. I need to talk to my son.”
She looked between us, her shoulders bunching, and I nodded. She didn’t need to be here for whatever had put him in his latest mood.
Patting my arm, she disappeared through the door, letting it click softly behind her.
“Sit,” August said.
I looked between him, standing beside his desk, and the empty chair, then crossed my arms over my chest.
Color rose in his cheeks. “Do you think these little acts of defiance are cute?”
I pressed my lips together but didn’t budge.
Before I could duck, a glass was flying past my head and crashing into the wall. I flinched, and a smirk played at the corner of his lips. “It’ll be decades before I’m gone, boy. When I give you an order. I expect you to follow it.”
“I gave you the arrest you wanted. It was broadcast on every channel.” The words tasted like ash, but I said them anyway. “The whole nation saw Joe’s insides ripped apart by the infe—”
“Enough.”
August crossed the room, pressing his nose to mine.
It galled him that I was taller, broader.
Every day, he hated me more. Hated that I was the only thing keeping him in power.
The laws had been in place long before he took office—a son or nothing.
They were no less strangling today than the day I was born.
We glared at each other.
“The Rite doesn’t excuse you from your duty. I want three more arrests this month. Televised.”
“Should I make up crimes? Or do you want me to troll the Lowers looking for people poor enough? Desperate en—”
The crack sounded moments before I doubled over. A second blow to the ribs made me gag. Not on my face, though. Never my face.
He backed up, and I struggled to straighten, letting my arms hang loose at my sides.
“Do you think this is a joke? They outnumber us one hundred to one. What happens when they stop fearing us? What happens when they think their future leader is weak?”
“This is about Maryn.”
“Number twelve.”
“She’s from the Middle sector. I chose four, just like you asked.”
“You made yourself look like a lovesick fool, swooning over a girl on one knee.”
My fists loosened at my sides. Her face had made it all worth it. The shock, the moment behind the curtain. I had replayed it a dozen times. That was the part August could never know. Not the knee. That I had chosen her because I wanted her.
“Ratings, Dad. The nation swallowed it whole.”
He spun around, reaching for a new glass and pouring amber liquid to the rim.
“It starts small.” He lifted it to his lips, taking a slow sip. “Now men all over the nation will be getting down on a knee for women.”
He spat the words.
“You wouldn’t have gone down on a knee for Mom?”
His brows shot up, and he set his cup down, grabbing a second and pouring it half full.
I stepped forward, and he handed me the second glass, raising his first. “To the Rite.” I clinked our glasses and took a sip, relishing the numbness that followed.
August’s eyes met mine as he set the cup down. “Just get rid of her quick.”