Chapter 82
Eighty-Two
Callah
When the infirmary was empty, I stayed to help clean. Mrs. Worthington tried to send me home, but I assured her it wasn't necessary. Either my husband would wake me, or I'd be able to sleep in tomorrow. Either way, she needed help, and in her condition, she should not be doing this all on her own.
I still returned to an empty suite. Hoping he'd be allowed to see me, I busied myself with straightening our things, but there was no use. Days of being alone had our home as tidy as it could be. The shelves had been stocked, the dishes had been organized, and even our clothes were all freshened.
Just as I debated starting on the room I used for healing - because I refused to even think of it as the nursery - the door finally opened. I turned, braced for the worst, only to see my husband drag himself home, finally.
"Are you okay?" I begged, rushing to check him over.
He was clean now, in a new set of hunter's clothing, and his hair was damp from the showers. He also smelled good, but I couldn't figure out why. I still wanted to wrap my arms around his chest and shove my face into him.
"Callah, it's bad out there," he said, peeling me away from him just so he could turn me toward our room. "And no offense, but I really want to lie down."
"Okay, should you change first?" I asked.
He blew out a breath and started unbuttoning his shirt while he walked. "I'm too tired to care. I also have too much to say." The moment we were in the bedroom, he pulled it over his head.
I gasped, turning away as my face heated up. "Tobias!"
"You're supposed to have seen me naked many times by now," he said around a laugh.
So, timidly, I turned back. "I wouldn't want to shame you."
"You've seen my legs. You've seen my chest." He reached for his belt, opening that. "Don't worry, I'm keeping my underwear on."
And I watched. I tried not to stare, but while he changed into his sleeping clothes, he spoke, yet not even those words were enough to make me miss the bulges of muscles and thickness of his limbs. Doing my best not to gawk, I sat down on the edge of the bed.
"The Dragons have made a chain of camps," he explained.
"We're trying to find a way around them or through them.
The problem is, we aren't told which. Over and over, we're confronting small groups of the people up there, and they're fighting back.
Callah, they have dogs, bows, and Dragons have poison. "
"In their tails, yes," I said, aware I was staring at his abdomen.
He paused, catching me looking. "Callah?"
"Sorry!" I yelped, whipping my head around to the wall.
"It's okay," he promised. "I just wasn't sure what you were looking at."
"Your..." I could feel my face flushing. "...stomach."
"Why?"
"It's a very nice stomach, Tobias. I've never seen one with so many..." I made a motion with my hand, trying to explain the ridges of muscles.
"Callah..." he said, gently this time. "I don't mind if you look. I..." He chuckled. "It makes me feel less brutish."
"You are not a brute!" I insisted, turning back to make the point.
Only to find him facing me, every inch of his amazing chest on full display.
There was a patch of hair in the middle, and a trail of it from his belly button that went lower.
On his thigh, I could see the bandage I'd put on him earlier, and it was still dry, but the thigh it wrapped around? That was impressive too.
I clenched my hands in my lap, focusing on how tightly I was gripping them to keep my voice calm. "You are a rather handsome man, Tobias. Intimidatingly large, but very appealing to look at."
He shoved one leg into his sleeping pants, then the other. Hiking them up, he looked anywhere but at me, and his cheeks were as pink as my face felt.
"You are a very lovely woman, Callah." Reaching beside him, he grabbed his shirt and pulled it over his head. "But we have a problem."
"Okay?"
"I just got promoted." He worked his arms into the sleeves, then eased the fabric down, hiding those muscles I'd been enjoying. "Callah, I'm now a team lead. I know the code."
"What?!" He'd just said we had a problem, but hearing that? I sat up straight, nearly standing. "But this is what we've needed!"
"And the door is being watched," he said. "I had to bang on it, and it didn't take long before it opened. That means someone's guarding the inside."
"Okay?" I wasn't sure what that had to do with anything.
"Gideon also told me to enjoy my promotion while it lasts. I think he's going to try to get me killed."
"Why?"
"Because he's a... a demon's butthole!"
I huffed, not sure if I should laugh at that or brace for the worst. "Okay?"
"I know what happened with Meri. He knows that I know, and most people have forgotten, but my wife?
You were Meri's roommate. You're a constant reminder.
He's convinced you're to blame somehow, or all women are.
I'm not sure. What I know is he doesn't trust me, and Mr. Peterson is why I was promoted. Oh, and I'm heading back out in a day."
"Already?" I gasped.
He nodded slowly, then moved to sit on the bed beside me. "Callah, the code? It's 2-0-6-3. I'm not sure - "
"The year the compound was founded?" I asked.
He blinked and jerked back slightly. "What?"
"The compound was closed to the world above on April 4th, 2063. I read that in one of the books. The same one that told me how to get Meri banished, actually. That's why we celebrate the Sealing on that day."
"Oh. So they used the date for the code?"
I shrugged. "It is a four-digit number. It's something they were probably supposed to remember."
"Yeah, that makes sense," he admitted.
"But this is a good thing," I insisted. "We have the code. That means you can go, and I'll follow. That should let me out, right?"
"No."
Wait, what? "Why not?"
"You can't use the code to get out," he explained. "The mechanism to open everything is in a room beside the exit. A locked room. Only the elders and leaders have that key. I'm not even sure all of them do, but the only people I've ever seen open it? Mr. Peterson and a few elders."
"Every time you leave?" I asked.
He nodded. "That's why the leader of the hunters doesn't hunt. He has to man the door. I have a feeling there's a guard posted there constantly."
"But if you can get out..."
"And die?" He sighed heavily. "If Gideon wants me dead, I'm as good as gone. He could use the chaos of a fight to gun me down. He could order someone else to do it, promising them my position once I'm gone."
"But that's murder!"
"Out there," he said gently, "the rules are not the same.
Hunters know it's all a lie. We're the men they trust to keep that secret.
The ones who've been good little boys, playing by the rules they set.
That's why I was a gatherer, Callah, not a hunter.
I asked too many questions and was too 'stupid' to be trusted to keep my mouth shut. "
"And now there's just not enough men to be as picky," I realized.
He nodded. "Yeah. But all of this is a mess. Gideon is Mr. Saunder's successor now. They want to kick our wives and widows out, then replace them with wild women."
"In quarantine," I reminded him. "Women who don't need to be controlled because they're secured behind locked doors. Women who can be bred and killed, and no one will have questions."
Ducking his head, he groaned. "Because they want to kill your rebellion before it can even start!"
"No..." I breathed, realizing he had a point.
"They announced the changes right after you and Mrs. Worthington said you didn't need to heal anymore. You pushed, so this is their way of pushing back."
"Punching back!" I huffed.
"Well, they do think men should not spare the rod. This is really no different. Their punishment isn't just. It's not fair. It's not to better things. They use it to keep everyone in line, and it's working!"
"But it's not," I said.
His head snapped around. "What do you mean?"
"The wives can see the problems now."
"Because of you."
"No," I assured him. "I'm nudging them to think the same way, but they're seeing it on their own.
Tobias, I don't think we're as alone as we always feared.
I think everyone has been crushed by the elders until we don't even know how to organize and push back.
We..." I grunted, trying to find the right words.
"We're all so miserable, but we're led to believe we're the only one who feels that way. "
"And so we try to fit in," he agreed. "But why not just move above ground? There's food there. We could survive. Why do they keep us here, suffering constantly? It's not like the elders have it that much better!"
"But they do," I reminded him. "They eat all they want. They have all the items they desire. They make the rules. They have the final say. Tobias, down here? They're gods."
"Oh."
And for a moment, we simply watched each other.
This problem? It was so much bigger than I'd realized.
What had started as Ayla not wanting to get married had become something so much worse.
Each crack showed us more of the horrors that had been hidden behind a cheap facade of faith and respectability.
Now, all of it had chipped away like the paint in the unused halls.
"So what are you going to do?" I finally asked.
"I don't have a choice," he admitted. "I have to go or they'll punish both of us. I'll be killed - or banished. I'm sure they'll find some way to make it sound Righteous. You? You'll be married to another man and beaten into submission."
"But you can just run away," I reminded him. "When you're out there, just go. Find Ayla. She'll help you!"
"I am not leaving you here," he insisted. "Ayla's made it clear she will not help me unless I help you, and I promised her I would. I made it clear I don't want to live up there without you. Callah, you're the whole reason I'm doing this! I could've just - " And he stopped hard.
"Died," I finished for him.
"It was always a possibility."
"No." I was not even going to let him consider that.
"Tobias, I need you. We're in this together!
That's what we decided, and if you can get out, then do.
I'll mourn you like a proper widow, which will give me three months.
Maybe I can even fake a pregnancy, then lose it?
I don't know. But I'll have at least three months.
That's enough time for you and Ayla to get back in, right? "
He didn't answer. Tobias simply stared at me as if he was trying to find the problem with that. I knew there wasn't one. This? It was our best chance. If Gideon wanted my husband dead, then the easiest thing would be if he died!
"Ayla can 'kill' you," I continued. "The Wyvern, if you want.
I don't care, but if it's one of them, then I'll know you escaped.
Let Gideon see it. Make sure he knows, and when I'm told, I will cry.
I will do it because I'm going to miss you so much, but I won't give up.
I'll wait, Tobias, and I will convince these women that we must fight back. "
"But they'll put you on the tree and burn the evil from your soul!"
"And you will be there," I said. "You, and Ayla, and that Dragon she's tamed. All of you can be there to stop them. Let them singe my clothes, or my hair. I don't care, if it means I'll be free!"
"And if I die before I reach them?" he asked.
"Don't."
"It's not that easy."
"Then make it that easy," I snapped. "This is our chance. It has to be."
"But how will you know I survived?" he asked. "Callah, the truth is Gideon will probably shoot me the moment we're outside."
"Tell Ayla to send me something yellow," I said. "She just has to make sure it doesn't kill the man first, and I have a feeling she can do that."