Willow yanks from my grasp, but gets only three steps before the door zips shut.
Fifteen seconds are up. And Elm is dead—eaten by the creatures hiding inside the Wall.
Willow collapses into the grass, croaking out Elm’s name between small broken gasps. Tears burn my eyes, but don’t seem to fall. Maybe it’s because I’m too hollow to tackle the haunting emotion of failure again. Maybe it’s because I need to be strong for Willow. Maybe I’m just numb.
Elan Brickbat turns on the heel of his white shoes, throws me a firm glance, and then walks away. He passes a sealed envelope to Lead Enforcer, Sachem, then climbs into his sleek car. Trailed by three cars of Enforcers, he zips away as if this was all just another boring breakfast meeting.
Sachem opens the envelope and reads a portion of the paper inside. “Take them back, Hawke.”
Hawke lowers his gun. “Yes, sir.”
Why is Hawke taking us? Is it because of Brickbat’s paper? The enemy knows I’m friends with Hawke, but they’re acting as if they trust him to be on their side.
What game are they playing? Should I warn Hawke?
The other Enforcers return to their cars. The Wallkeeper hammers the bars back in place. I walk tentatively to Willow as she pushes herself to her feet. Her knees buckle, but Hawke catches her and lifts her into his arms.
He looks so tender and Willow so fragile. Is that what we looked like when he lifted me away from the horror of the Wall a few days ago? It’s such a soft, yet broken, picture.
“Come, Miss Parvin.” He holds Willow with one arm and stretches his free hand out to me.
It’s a gesture he didn’t need to make. I would have followed anyway. But the fact that he made this effort to provide me with comfort through the touch of our hands makes me want to cry again.
We climb into the back of an Enforcer car. Hawke slides into the driver’s seat. Before starting, he pulls a small silver case from his pocket and removes what I can only assume are his Testimony Log contact lenses. I glance away as he pulls the thin man-made membrane from his eye.
Once the silver case is returned to his pocket, we start driving. A line of other Enforcer cars follows us. That eliminates any escape plan I might have had.
I want to ask Hawke if he’ll get in trouble for taking out the contacts, but Willow’s lapsed into a dead silence. She stares out the window with her neck craned too far for me to see her face. What do you say to someone who’s just lost the person dearest to them?
When Jude died, I wanted no words. No comfort. There was nothing that could comfort. I wanted to lie in that forest until I slipped into heaven, which I practically did because of the toxin the assassin inserted into my veins. I’ll never know if my hopelessness was sparked by the toxin or by my own sorrow.
I reach to take her hand, but think better of it and clench mine again in my lap. Anger burns my skin. If the Council and the Enforcers had allowed Elm through three days ago, he wouldn’t have died.
I think back to how he carried me the last day before I returned to the East—how he and Willow were my pillars of strength and survival in those last hours. He was strong for a fourteen-year-old and proud of it. And he loved Willow. He loved her as much as a young teenager could love a girl.
They were grafting partners after all.
Will Willow now be alone the rest of her life? What does albino culture call for? Brickbat said she was under the care of the Council, which I wouldn’t classify as care at all. If she grew reckless and desperate when she thought Elm was alive, what will she do now that the Council has caused his death?
She heaves a sigh and turns away from the window. I face her, ready to be what she needs.
“Elm is not dead.” To my concern, she smiles.
“What do you mean?” I now take her hand without hesitation. God, I don’t know how to combat denial.
She giggles. I can’t even bring myself to smile. “Willow, please, you’re scaring me.”
“Elm wouldn’t die like that.” She points her thumb at the window. “He is free. It was a message. He is free and coming for me.”
I don’t know how she got that out of a disfigured child’s skeleton with an eye patch. “How do you know?”
“He’s my Elm. I know him. He’s smart. He’s strong. He survives.”
“Yes, but how Willow? What else do you know?”
She slams her tiny fists in her lap. “He survives, Parvin! This is all we need to know.”
I turn my head away and lean back against the bench seat. I want out of this car—somewhere my family doesn’t hurt me, my friend doesn’t shout at me, the Council doesn’t threaten me. Somewhere my absence and my presence won’t cause harm.
“Your reaction was pretty convincing, Miss Willow,” Hawke says from the front in a low voice.
Willow speaks soft again, but I can’t bring myself to look at her. “I was afraid of where Elm is. Afraid I won’t go home. It was easy to pretend.”
We remain silent after this. I ought to speak to Hawke. Say something about leaving him abandoned in the dark last night. How did he get to the Wall anyway? And Jude . . . we still haven’t talked about Jude.
“Hawke—”
“I thought we’d established that I’m Solomon.”
I clap my lips shut. Solomon sounds like a different person to me—not the Enforcer I came to trust while in the West. “Solomon is what Jude called you.”
Hawke is silent. I hold my breath. Then he says in a low, almost contemplative, voice, “Yes, it is.”
Should I tell him about my dream of Jude? Thinking of his death now isn’t so painful. Something changed. That dream changed me.
“I don’t think I can call you Solomon.” I might as well admit it.
“Why not?”
I look out the window at the hills rising and dipping as we pass. “It’s too familiar.”
His hands squeak against the stiff steering wheel. “Aren’t we . . . familiar?”
I’m on the roll of honesty, so I might as well get it all out. “Yes, but when I was in the West, I felt guilty communicating with you while with Jude. Interacting with you now is . . . hard.” Plus, Elan Brickbat threatened to blow Hawke’s head to bits.
I can’t get too familiar. “You’re not under surveillance anymore, are you?”
He shakes his head.
I gulp. “Then I need to talk to you about . . . Jude.”
Seconds pass like stilted bell tolls. “I know you loved him.”
That’s not what I was going to talk about. I look away. How embarrassing. I can’t discuss love. Not with Hawke, the only contender for my affections. I stopped contact with him in Ivanhoe because I thought I’d never see him again. It made sense to choose Jude. And yes . . . maybe I did love him.
“You don’t have to explain, Miss Parvin. I don’t want this to be uncomfortable for you.”
Too late. “I’m not sure what to say.” This is so awkward. “I actually wanted to talk about Jude’s . . . death.”
“Oh, okay.”
How ironic that we both relax about the topic of murder and tense at the topic of love. “When I was in the Wall, you asked me how he died. You seemed confused that he died.”
The car slows, whether from a rough road or Hawke’s reaction, I don’t know. “Yes.”
Willow stares out the window with vacant eyes and no evidence of hearing a thing we’re saying.
I try to strengthen my voice. “Well, the Council’s assassin found us before we got to the Wall. He . . . put a syringe with a toxin in my neck, threatening to kill me unless Jude inserted a pirate chip into his brain.” The raw harshness of each word scrapes against my throat. “So . . . Jude did it. He put in the pirate chip and it . . . terminated him.”
If only I could see Hawke’s face. He says nothing to this and his silence entraps me. “Just be
fore Jude died, I asked him why he did it. He had only a few seconds left and . . . well, his last words to me . . . were ask Solomon. Then, at the Wall, you told me his death was a choice. What did you mean?”
He rubs a hand over his face. “Jude was always so cryptic. He believed faith could overcome Clocks. He never trusted his own Numbers. To tell you the truth, he fiddled with so many different Clocks, I’m not even sure what his real Numbers were.”
His voice is calm. He’s not angry. He doesn’t hate me. He doesn’t blame me. “But if he thought that, why did he die? Shouldn’t his faith have protected him from death?”
“I don’t know.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I huff. “Why would he tell me to ask you about it if you don’t know? Is there more information?”
“Yes.” He knocks a knuckle against the car window. “I’m quite certain September twenty-fifth was not his zero-out date.”
“But . . . that’s when he died. How are you so sure?”
“Because that’s my birthday. I would have remembered his Good-bye if it landed on my birthday. It doesn’t make sense that he zeroed out on that day . . . unless he was right about being able to overcome our Numbers.”
Jude died on Hawke’s birthday. What can I say to that? Happy birthday, sorry your brother killed himself for my sake?
The car curves away from the Wall. “I wish I knew more, Miss Parvin, but Jude shared most of his secrets with our father.”
These Hawke men and their secrets. “Is your father still alive?”
“Yes, he zeroes-out in April.”
“Oh, Haw—Solomon, I’m sorry.”
He shrugs. “We’ve all accepted it.” From the tension in his voice, I don’t think he likes this topic.
Willow falls asleep beside me, her face pressed against the glass, sticking just enough to keep her head from falling forward.
Maybe I should give Hawke a break. I’ve done what I wanted to—told him about Jude’s death. There aren’t any answers yet, but maybe time will help us figure things out. “It’s strange talking to Enforcer Hawke.”
“Enforcer Hawke—or, Solomon, which I think sounds much more appealing—is the same man who sought your freedom prior to your trial.” A brief smile lines his voice. “The same man on the other side of your NAB sending you messages. The same man who asked Jude to protect you.”
The car slows. “The same man who, three days ago, desperately prayed out of selfishness that you would live, even when he knew you wanted to die.”
“Oh.” It’s all I can get out. Hawke asked Jude to protect me? Does he mean when the albinos first captured me or does he mean longer than that? I can’t imagine independent Jude following me around at the order of his brother.
The automobile is crawling now, the closest thing to a stop. So is my heart—unsure how to pound.
He turns in his seat. “Parvin.”
This is the first time he’s ever said my name without a Miss. If I liked Miss Parvin, the way he says just Parvin leaves me leaning forward in my seat, my stomach fluttering. Parvin . . . what? What will he say?
“I’m on your side.”
This statement, so simple—and to some, like Elan Brickbat, so obvious—cuts loose the film of emotions keeping my tears at bay. A sob escapes and I turn my face sharply away so he won’t watch me. “I know, Hawke. I know you are.”
I’m not alone. I don’t need to be alone.
The car accelerates back to normal speed.
“So then, why are you still trying to keep your Enforcerhood?”
He breathes out a long, slow breath. “What you have come to know as an Enforcer and what I trained to be as an Enforcer are drastically different. After escorting the Newtons here, I stayed in Unity Village because of the injustice. I saw how the Enforcers chose not to register people without Clocks. I remain an Enforcer with the hopes of restoring rightness. To save lives. To make things the way they should be.”
“Shalom,” I say in a hushed rasp.
“Yes, shalom.” His voice is smiling again. “Another reason you should call me Solomon.”
I quirk my lips to one side. “Because of shalom?”
“The definition of my name, Solomon, is shalom. I guess you could say I’ve always felt that defined my purpose in life.”
His name means shalom? Part of me is jealous. Another part wonders what this means—I can’t give it up to coincidence. Coincidence is God’s way of surprising us.
“I wish my name meant something purposeful. Parvin means a cluster of stars. It can’t get more bland than that.” I could stretch it to mean I’m a shining light or something, but that doesn’t feel like purpose.
“No, no, look. You have to break it down. Par is Scandinavian for Peter, which means rock. And Vin is a Latin name meaning conquering. There you have it: conquering rock.”
“So I went from a star to a rock.”
He chuckles. “The more you think on it, the more you’ll like it.” Has he thought about my name like this?
We bump along in pensive silence. How does Hawke know so much about names? Scandinavian? Latin? Do people study these sorts of things?
“You should be warned, I won’t be an Enforcer for long, Parvin.”
“Why not?”
“I’m raising too many questions. Refuting too many laws.”
“Can’t you just talk to Sachem? He seems like he could be understanding.”
He gives a humorless laugh. “Last night I appealed for Elm’s release, but Sachem said it’s out of his hands. Problems seem to be out of everyone’s hands only because no one chooses to take them on. I’ve taken on enough problems to paint a target on my back.”
I sit straighter. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll be dismissed soon. Maybe even tonight. Taking out my Testimony Log is a pretty big flag.”
“Because of me?” My voice comes out hollow.
“Because of me, Parvin. Because of who I choose to be. It doesn’t fit the Enforcer standard in Unity Village. No matter how many times I argue with Sachem, he still allows all Radicals—registered and unregistered—to be sent across the Wall.”
“But no one is being sent across the Wall right now.” Should I tell him the Council is going to get rid of all Radicals?
“That is because of you.”
“I hope it stays that way until I can find a way to make the crossing safe.”
He says nothing to this, which worries me. How can I make the crossing safe if I’m stuck on this side of the Wall? What if the government starts sending people back through now that they know an albino army isn’t lurking inside?
More lives lost to the cliff on the other side.
Where do I start to protect the Radicals inside my village? I can’t very well tromp around demanding they read my X-book for knowledge about the West. It’s ironic, really, that one reason I wrote my biography was to share my story and save Radicals—to reveal my worth to the people of my Village—yet Mother is proof that it made people hate me and endangered more lives.
According to Hawke and Skelley Chase, I’m quite popular in the High Cities—famous, even. Famous among the people who don’t matter to me.
I don’t feel popular. I feel like a criminal. “Hawke, do you see me as a criminal?”
He laughs—not loud or hard, but enough to convey at least a small amount of humor. That’s a good sign, right? “No, Parvin.”
I sigh.
“I’d classify you as an outlaw.”
Both words still ostracize me from my village. “What’s the difference?”
“A criminal moves against the law. An outlaw moves beyond the law.”
“And that’s . . . better?”
He turns off the small path and the road grows bumpier. We must be close to Unity. “I think so. Some said Jesus was an outlaw.??
?
Jesus? Any reference to God is spoken so infrequently that it’s strange to hear it in normal conversation. This isn’t the first time Hawke has shown signs of sharing faith. After all, he understands shalom.
“I guess I’m okay being an outlaw.” Especially if Hawke views it as a good thing. “You sure know a lot of . . . definitions. Your name, my name, criminal versus outlaw . . .”
He tilts his head. “Jude used to make fun of me. Definitions was the only cap I ever took in school.”
“Cap? What’s that?”
“I’ll tell you later.” He nods toward the windshield. We roll into the courtyard of the county building where two Enforcers wait.
Wait . . . we’re here already? I don’t recognize the Enforcers. Hawke returns his Testimony Log to his eyes and we climb out of the car.
“By order of the Council”—a short ruddy Enforcer pulls out wrist shackles—“Parvin Blackwater is to return to her family and the albino goes to the containment center.”
“The albino has a name,” I snap.
He doesn’t look at me. Hawke doesn’t argue. I want him to, but these other Enforcers can change nothing. They’re just lousy messengers.
I don’t want to go back to my family, where Tawny has taken the role of perfect daughter and Mother doesn’t care about my story. I wasn’t around Father enough to see if he has residual hatred of me.
“We’ll take the albino.” The short Enforcer takes her arm.
“No.” My throat closes and I look to Hawke.
“I will escort Miss Blackwater home.” Then in a quieter voice directed to me, “She’ll be okay.”
“Elm is coming for me, Parvin. Don’t be scared.” There it is again—Willow acting as the adult while I react in fear. We part ways.
“Can I still visit her?” Hawke and I walk on the side of the street.
“Probably.”
“But Brickbat said she’s under the care of the Council now. They’re going to take her away.”
“Not for a few days.” His speech comes out clipped and careful. I hate that Testimony Log.