14. Chapter 14
Elias
Iknew it was coming, and still I wasn’t prepared.
One of my matches would go home this week, and for the first time, I had no say in who it would be. Not true, a voice in the back of my head reminded me. A chill ran down my spine at the memory of Adah being dragged away.
I stood, pacing my room.
The free week had been a nice break. The Rite lasted thirteen weeks. Eleven trials, but number four and nine were always two weeks. Trial Four gave the nation a week to watch the girls teach and cast their votes. Trial Nine, the public dates.
Monday, the nation had watched and voted. I didn’t have to watch their videos. The decision wasn't mine. And sitting beside my father while he judged and commented on each of my matches wasn't an option.
I threw my door open, marching down the long hall to our foyer.
“Sir?”
“We’re going to the studio, Micah.”
He nodded, dashing ahead of me to the garage.
I could sit back and be as surprised as my matches when the results were reported. Fuck that.
We arrived at Gideon Charles’s Centrum office in record time, and I slid out of the back seat. “I’ll message when I’m ready.”
Micah nodded as I shut the door, pulling the car around the drive.
Why Charles needed offices in both major cities, I didn’t know; it wasn’t as though we filmed a Rite here every day. Once a quarter at most. Sometimes simultaneously.
Silva’s Rite would begin soon. Even though I’d cautioned him to wait until mine was complete. More air time meant better judging in Trial Four, but he was a man in love.
Still, it wasn’t as though Gideon oversaw every Rite. His son was here for that. Always skulking about. Filming everyone.
I rolled my shoulders, stepping through black glass and into a dimly lit waiting room.
A man stood. “Mr. Hale.”
I smiled, trying to remember his name. “I’m here for the footage.”
He nodded. “It’s not quite ready yet. Let me—”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll go up.”
He nodded, pressing a button under his desk, and the elevator doors slid open.
I stepped inside, running a hand through my hair.
The nerves hadn’t settled since the last ball.
To think that a rebel from outside the wall had not only gotten inside, but faked her documents.
How had the file ended up in my office? Had they been in my home?
Impossible. Rebels existed within the outer wall—the signs were everywhere if you bothered to look—but they had never breached the inner one.
In the fifty years since it had been erected, no one got in unless they were invited. August had made sure of that; built his name on putting down the threat beyond it. So many radiation-poisoned people intent on burning our last remaining hope to the ground.
He’d seen a lot out there. It was the reason he was so cold. Why he drank so much.
I’d never understood the threat they truly posed until one of them was standing in my ballroom.
But at least one good thing had come out of it.
Maryn.
She had Elite blood in her veins.
She was a real option.
The doors slid open on the tenth floor, and I strode the length of the hall, raising a fist and knocking.
“Come in.”
I pushed the door wide, frowning. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Calden Charles, Gideon’s heir, looked up from a desk stacked with rows of slender silver bars.
“I work here.” He looked back down. “You don’t.”
I wanted to punch his smug face the way he punched that rebel’s. He knew exactly what he was doing when he took that shot. Of course the drones were gone, but there were always cameras. They recorded everything.
He would be the hero while I just stood there like an idiot.
“I’m here for the tapes.”
He looked up again.
“They aren’t ready.”
I slid a hand into my pocket, scanning the labeled stacks.
My gaze snagged on a bar near the back. Clearance six and above. More footage outside the wall for August, no doubt.
“Trial Four is right there.”
He met my eyes with black, soulless ones that burned into me. What was his problem?
“Some… are ready.”
I curled my fists at my sides. “I’ll take whatever you have.”
He tapped his pen against the glass.
I slid six bars off the tray and into my pocket. “And the ratings?”
He didn’t look up this time. “Still coming in. We’ll have them all by Thursday.”
“Thursday.”
He pushed back his chair and stood. “We have record votes. I don’t have enough staff in the office to count them fast enough for you, Your Highness.”
My jaw flexed as I bit back a reply. “Just give me the running tally as it is today. And I need a room.”
He smirked. “It must chafe that you can’t watch them at home any day other than Monday.”
“The tally is all I need from you, Charles.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “First, Nami. Second, Maryn. Third, Sera. Fourth, Beth. Fifth, Phoebe. Sixth, Lydia. Seventh, Rakel. Eighth, Abi. Ninth, Hannah.”
I pressed my lips together to keep my mouth from falling open. “You know them by heart.”
“By heart.” His lips twisted into a mockery of a smile.
“Thanks.”
“Room ten-eleven.”
I turned, yanking the door open and marching out.
There was something about him I didn’t like. He always seemed like he knew a joke no one else did. But a man with access to every surveillance camera in the Covenant States probably did.
In the private space, I slid the first tape in, the ranking circling my mind.
A smile tipped my lips. Rakel in seventh was a surprise, but it wasn’t last. I didn’t know what I would have done if she had been.
Nami first was also a surprise, but I would have put her in the top three for this test regardless.
She was bubbly and sweet. Exactly what a mom of teenage boys should be.
My pulse thrummed. Second. Maryn was second.
Nami’s face lit up on screen. She pointed to a boy and asked him to stand.
“Tell me your favorite government official.”
He slid out of his seat. “Elias Hale.”
Nami smiled, her cheeks dimpling. “He is handsome, isn’t he?”
The boy laughed. “I mean. For you. I just think he’s cool. He sent that girl Mara’s family flowers and food. You don’t see a lot of guys doing that for a fallen match.”
Nami tucked a curl behind her ear. “Do you want to know a secret?”
He leaned against his desk, and it was obvious to anyone watching that he was already smitten.
“I think that was the day I fell for him.”
My lips curled up. She was so damn cute.
I paused the video, tucking it back in my pocket, and slid in number two.
“Today, I’m going to let you teach me something. How does that sound?”
The camera loved Maryn. It found her good side and circled the room, landing on her again. Her gray eyes sparkled as the boys in the room beat their desks excitedly. It was a first for our future leaders. Someone giving them the power. How they must have adored her for it.
“Who wants to go first?”
Several boys’ hands shot up. She searched the room, biting her lip. They waved their hands higher, trying to get her attention. Then, she did something unexpected and called on a boy who wasn’t raising his hand.
“How about you?”
It was Ben. Lydia’s younger brother.
I sat back in my chair.
He looked around the room, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Me?”
Someone laughed.
“Absolutely. Teach me something…”
“Ben. Ben Cannon.”
“Great, Ben. Go ahead.”
My finger drew a lazy circle on the desk as the camera did the same around the room, always keeping Maryn on screen.
“I don’t know what you know already.”
She smiled, tapping her finger to her lip. “Well. Girls in the Middle finish school at sixteen, so anything you learned after that would be new to me.”
“But I heard your dad was Elite.”
Maryn laughed. “That’s true, isn’t it. If I’d been raised inside the wall like you fine men, I could have stayed in school till eighteen like you.”
He nodded. “Okay. I know.”
Maryn nodded, and the camera closed in on her face. She was an attentive listener, never breaking eye contact with her student teacher.
“After the war, men struggled with fertility.” He held up his hands. “You knew that.”
Camera on Maryn again as she nodded encouragingly.
“But, what we didn’t know until medicine got better, was that the—”
“Wow. That was so interesting. Thank you, Ben.”
I sat forward, touching the pause button. I pressed back.
“Was that the—”
“Wow. That was so interesting. Thank you, Ben.”
I scratched my head and backed it up again.
“That the—”
Someone had decided the nation didn’t need to hear the rest of that sentence. Interesting.
I removed tape two and fished in my pocket for number nine. What had Hannah done to put her in last place?
Her fiery red hair was pulled up in a high ponytail, and I smirked. That hair had whipped my face the first time we met.
She gave a lesson that seemed perfectly acceptable. She was polished and confident.
“You could smile.”
I sat forward.
Hannah’s neck flushed and the color raced up to her cheeks.
The boy laughed. “I just mean. Like. Do you hate kids or what?”
I paused the tape just as the camera zoomed in on her face.
Damn.
***
I stood at the top of the outer wall, not looking down. I gripped the cuffs of the man Corrine had handed over. A rebel sympathizer with three confirmed reports. I squeezed tighter to still the shake in my hands.
“Please,” he said from under the hood. My stomach turned. “Please. I want to see outside the wall just once.”
My jaw tightened as the cameras zoomed in, capturing my face from every angle. Sweat rolled down my back, but I straightened.
“Michael O'Brian. You have been found guilty of rebel sympathizing.”
“Please,” he whispered a third time. “Grant a dying man's wish.”
The shake in my hands was back and I yanked him toward the edge by his cuffed wrists.
He staggered, one foot nearly slipping. My hold tightened, keeping him upright.
Below, something had already scented him.
A shriek split the air and the mass of bodies below surged and clawed at one another, heads thrown back, mouths open.
I glanced down at the dark stain spreading rapidly down his leg and blinked several times.
“For your crimes, there is only one punishment.”
He'd stopped begging. Stopped fighting. The stone in my gut bottomed out.
“By order of the Covenant States, I carry out this sentence.”
I released him, not looking away as the hood flew from his head and wide eyes never found the horizon he had so desperately wanted to see just once.
My hands flexed at my sides, jaw tight, as one camera watched my face and the other followed Michael down. The shrieking pitched higher, feverish, animal. A wet crack silenced it before the feeding sounds rose up to replace it.
I looked up, into the camera.
“Let this be a lesson to all those considering aiding rebels. Your neighbors will report you, and we will come to deliver justice.”
***
Friday hadn’t come soon enough. We were finally at the end of the public trials. Soon, I’d get to spend time with them, to actually get to know them.
That thought appealed to me—with some more than others.
I straightened my tie, ran my fingers through my hair, and shook out my hands.
Turning, I stepped into the room and every eye found me. Some people were intimidated by attention. Not me. The nation had watched my first diaper change on live television.
“Welcome guests!”
The room cheered as I stopped at the center. My gaze snapped to a pair of gray eyes already watching me. I smiled.
It was easy to imagine her as my bride when her gown was the loveliest shade of white I’d ever seen.
They were all wearing white. But there was something different about the way Maryn’s inky black hair contrasted with it so sharply.
Her skin was so pale that her bare arms were almost lost between the edge of her sleeve and her gloves, but it only added to her allure.
“As you know, Trial Four is different from the others. This is your chance to tell me if I’ve made a huge mistake in choosing one of these women.”
Chuckles around the room, but Maryn’s mouth turned down, and I was reminded of Trial One. Cruel, she had called it.
“But,” I said, cutting off their laughter. “No matter which lady you send home, know that I chose each one with intention. Each lady possessed some great quality that I know will make an exceptional wife for a man in the Covenant States.”
I turned to the projection on the wall as the lights dimmed.
Rankings poured down the screen without any fanfare or explanation, and I didn’t have to look to know it was Hannah crying loudly when her rank was announced.
The screen went black, the lights flaring, and I spun around. “Hannah.”
Her shoulders shook, and Nami wrapped an arm around her.
“Don’t touch me,” she cried.
I stepped forward, taking her hand in mine. “Hannah, look at me.”
She blinked, wiping black streaks across her face.
I pulled her into a hug, and her shoulders stilled. Pressing my lips to the side of her head, I whispered, “You will find a perfect match. Men will come looking for you after this.”
She shook her head against my shoulder.
“I’ve heard Deena is already matched again.”
She lifted her head, sniffling. “Really?”
I smiled. “Come on, let me get you out before the cameras get a look at your face.”
She touched a glove to her cheek, and her face crumpled.
I took her hand, and together, we strode to the side exit.
She stopped outside, staring up at me. “I’m sorry I let you down.”
I pulled her into another hug. “You didn’t. I promise.”