“You’re the firstborn?” he asks weakly. Bikk! He heard! I thought he was too out of it to notice. I never wanted him to know.
There are so many things in his face now, and I know him so well that I can read them all. Pity for me at having been forced into a life of imprisonment and danger as a second child. Guilt that he had the privileged role he wasn’t meant to have. Anger that this important information was kept from him.
And, what he doesn’t want me to see, resentment that his privileged place might be stripped from him.
We all have unworthy thoughts we would never say aloud, the thoughts that make us feel unworthy every time they cross our minds. We don’t all have a sister who knows us so well she can read our mind.
I don’t blame him for that thought. When I found out, I couldn’t help feeling angry that I was cheated out of my rightful place in the world. But it was for Ash. I’d give up anything for him, just as he would for me.
I wonder if it is harder for the winner than for the loser, for the one who got a better deal than fate had mapped out for him?
As they’re taking him away, I feel a tug on my clothes. It’s little Rainbow, looking up at me. She has clutched in her hand a messy pale purple flower made from scraps of fabric.
“Rowan, where’s Lark?” Rainbow asks me. “I made this for her to wear in her hair.”
That’s when I break down for good.
THERE IS NO Rowan, or Yarrow, or whatever else is in my head. There is only grief. I cling to Lachlan and hardly even know who he is. There is only loss and emptiness.
I don’t hear it when Iris comes to tell us that Ash is stable, but Lachlan tells me a little while later when the well of tears seems to have run dry. “I guess I have to face Flint now,” I say, taking a deep breath that ends in a shudder and one slow final tear. I wipe it away and stand up straight.
“I’ll be with you,” Lachlan says. “Always. I won’t let him kick you or your brother out. He’s loved. So are you. The other second children won’t stand for that.”
I don’t know. People get scared, and that makes them clannish. They want to follow a leader, even if they don’t totally agree with his decisions. Lachlan will stand against him, on our side, but will that be enough? Flint has already proven he has no problem being merciless when it suits his cause . . . or him. His very nature is brutal, I think, when there’s nothing to hold it in check.
I walk in first, without knocking or announcing myself. I think the flashbacks will be about me, about my own torture in this room, and I’ve steeled myself to bear it unflinchingly. But when I see the pale outflung arm covered in bruises I don’t think of myself, but of Lark when she was captured and interrogated. There’s a girl strapped to the table.
Adder stands over her, on the far side of the table. Her knuckles are bruised. She could use a club, but she prefers to use her fists.
Flint is on the near side of the table, and turns when he notices me, revealing the strapped-down figure.
Long silvery hair matted with blood. Vivid blue eyes half-shut, glazed over, staring, appearing lifeless until I see a blink. A svelte curvy frame gone gaunt. The most expensive clothes her parents’ credit can buy, torn and filthy.
It’s Pearl.
And despite everything that has happened between us, everything that she’s done, I feel an overwhelming surge of pity for her. I want to protect her from Adder’s fists, and Flint’s plans.
But I’ve gotten to know the world pretty well by now, and I think no matter what I want, it’s not going to go well for Pearl.
“What is she doing here?” I ask. I feel Lachlan move up beside me.
“That’s exactly what I want you to tell me,” Flint replies. “Were the two of you working together? Concocting some little scheme with your Center handlers?” He turns to Lachlan. “I told you we couldn’t trust her.”
I almost have to smile as I say with utter frankness, “Pearl and I would never work together on anything.” Not now.
“She came at the same time you did.”
“We weren’t followed, I’m sure of it,” I say. But am I? I tried to keep watch, but mostly trusted Lark to do it. She was under a lot of stress. If she made a mistake, maybe Pearl had been able to follow us when we left Oaks. But why would she do it?
I step closer and look at her battered face. She seems to be unconscious. Both of her eyes are purple-blue and swollen nearly shut. Her lips are bruised and split. Her nose, which had been at such a perfectly refined angle it was hard to imagine it was natural and not the result of a surgeon’s skill, is now bent at a horrible angle. There are bruises all over her body, finger marks, and larger marks from the grit-filled tube Adder’s associate wields as a club.
“Did it really take so much to make her talk?” I ask, glaring at Adder.
“No,” Adder admits with silky pleasure. “But it never hurts to be sure.” She chuckles unpleasantly. “Well, it doesn’t hurt me, anyway.”
“Pearl,” I say gently. “Can you hear me? It’s Rowan.” Her eyes try to focus. I wonder if she has a concussion. Then I remember she has no idea who Rowan is. “I mean Yarrow. From school.” She’s dazed, and it takes a long time before she recognizes me.
“Yarrow!” she gasps. “Help me!” She moans when talking reopens a recently split lip. “I’m so sorry, Yarrow. She didn’t give me a choice.”
“Who didn’t give you a choice?” I ask.
“Chief Ellena. I tried to say no. I swear I did. But she knew things about my parents, about me. She would have told everyone. We would have been cast into the outer circles. But I didn’t want to do any of it.” She looks at me like she’s drowning. She starts to cry, the tears washing tracks through the blood on her face.
Flint got her story out of her easily enough, but she tells me again in a pained whisper as I bend close. Not long after we left to look for Lachlan and the forest, sentries found Pearl wandering through the cave system. She’d followed us to the secret entrance.
“Why did you follow us?” I ask.
“Your mother—”
“Don’t call her that!”
“Chief Ellena, the head of intelligence, she wanted me to keep an eye on you. All the time, from the first day you came to Oaks. She told me to take you in, be your best friend . . . and tell her everything you did and said.”
“You were her spy!” I say accusingly.
“What choice did I have?”
“Everyone has a choice,” I snap. “You could have told me. You could have lied to her.” But I can imagine how hard it must have been for her. A privileged girl who had never had any hardship, suddenly faced with disgrace and poverty? Of course she would have yielded. And if the brain manipulation started on her, as it had on me, is she really responsible?
But this is Pearl, horrible Pearl, who tormented so many people. There must have been some innate aspect of her real nature that allowed her to act so badly. Just as there must have been of mine.
“After the . . . incident on the rooftop, she was so mad at me. Half her bikking research budget almost fell off the roof, she said. After that, she told me to never let you out of my sight.”
In serious trouble with the head of intelligence, Pearl had to find a way to get back in her good graces. “When I saw you go underground, I didn’t know what it was all about. But it had to be something she wanted to know about. Something big. Yarrow, I have no idea what’s going on here! I swear I don’t. I just wanted to give her something so she’d leave me alone.”
She thought about running back to the Center to tell them, but what if it was just some secret party? What if she summoned the chief of intelligence and a bunch of Greenshirts and it was just a bunch of kids dancing? So she did what was probably one of the bravest things in her life and slid into the blackness after us.
“I thought I was going to die,” she says bleakly. I c
an’t help glancing up, and Flint catches my eye. She is going to die, I realize. She’s an enemy who knows their location. She can’t live.
“You and Lark weren’t there,” she goes on. “There were passageways everywhere! I thought I heard you and went in one direction, but I never found you. The caves went on forever . . .” She drifts into a daze, and Flint continues her tale.
“When we found her she was severely dehydrated. She’d been wandering down there since you came. She told us everything in exchange for a sip of water.” He adds with grudging admiration, “She’s not strong like you or your friend.”
I catch my breath. Lark was so strong. She gave me the world. She gave me myself . . .
Flint interrupts my reverie. “What do you think we should do with her?”
He’s kicking me out, he claims, so why is he asking my opinion? It must be a test. If I pass, I can stay. The right answer, the strategic answer, the one he’s looking for, is that she can’t be allowed to live. She could lead the Center directly to us. In one way, I know this is the right answer. Even if she’s being blackmailed by the Center, she’s still working for the enemy. Her release could mean the death of every single second child, from the ancient grandfathers to tiny Rainbow.
But what if we kept her a prisoner here? It is almost funny to think of snooty Pearl living hidden away from the limelight, wearing secondhand clothes, never doing anything fashionable. She’d never be popular again! Who knows, maybe she’d even change after a while down here. The second children wouldn’t put up with her bullying. Her insults wouldn’t hurt them. She might learn to be a decent human being.
But that would mean she was still a risk. What if she escaped? And a strategist would think of the drain on resources. She would be one more mouth to feed, and a useless one at that.
She left me to die, dangling by my fingertips off the roof. She drugged me. She made dozens of people miserable all her life. She is a dire threat to the people I love. Does she deserve to die?
Flint holds my gaze, and I can almost hear him willing me to be merciless. To believe that the ends justify the means. To be like him. I could . . .
I feel Lachlan’s warmth at my back, and know there is always a better way.
“We let her go,” I say resolutely.
He shakes his head. “I’m disappointed in you, Rowan.”
“Why should I care about that?” I snap. “Look, you can give her a huge dose of whatever you gave Lark.” I have to clench my jaw when I say her name, but I force myself to go on. “Make her confused, wipe her memory.”
“That doesn’t always work,” Flint says.
That’s true. Lark was fuddled and uncertain, but the next day she still remembered chunks of what had happened when the second children captured her. Once we talked about it, she eventually remembered almost all of it.
“Maybe Flame can try something. If the Center can manipulate memories, surely she can, too. She gave me my identity back. Maybe she can take enough away from Pearl that she can go back. So she doesn’t even know who she is anymore!”
I had my real self stolen. I had another person stamped over the core of my own nature. How could I allow that to happen to Pearl?
Would that be, in its own way, even worse than death?
I don’t think Flint is even considering it. He dismisses me brusquely. “You can go now.”
“But what are you going to do with her?” I ask.
“You should be more concerned about what we’re going to do with you,” he replies.
“But you can’t just kill her!” I cry. “She’s young, she’s being controlled . . .”
“This is war, Rowan,” Flint says. “Bad things happen in war. Kill or be killed. It’s human nature.”
“But it shouldn’t be!” I gasp out. Before I can object any further, the entire Underground is shaken by a deep tremor, and a grinding boom echoes through the cavern. I run to the door and look out over the huge chamber. The tree’s leaves are trembling as if rustled by a breeze.
“What was that? Another earthquake?”
For a moment there is silence.
Then, from all around us, an alarm begins to sound. Somewhere, a desperate voice shouts, “The Center! The Greenshirts! They’re here!”
SUDDENLY PEARL CEASES to matter to everyone in the room except me. Flint and Lachlan exchange a quick glance and then Lachlan says, “Stay here, Rowan, I’ll be right back.” He looks keenly alert and hard and fierce in a way that I immediately recognize. He’s ready to do anything it takes to protect what he loves.
Within seconds, I’m alone with Pearl. I want to follow the others, to do something to help. I know where the weapons are, I remember the security drills Lachlan showed me in case of an attack. I could be up the camphor tree in minutes, ready in a concealed sniper position. Not that I know any more about firing a weapon than which way to point it, but still, I might be able to help a little bit. Or I could get the children to safety.
But if it’s not a false alarm, if it’s really true that Center officials are here, is any place safe?
“What’s going on?” Pearl asks in a small voice. She looks so fragile and frightened that most of my remaining animosity melts away. There’s no doubt in my mind that Flint will kill her. Even Lachlan might side with him on this, though he’d be deeply conflicted. The safety of the second children comes first.
But if we’re under attack, anything could happen. Maybe it is a false alarm after all. Maybe there’s just one curious Greenshirt who stumbled onto an entrance and is about to pay for his curiosity with his life.
Or it could be an army.
The best case for us is the worst case for Pearl. If things calm down, Flint will remember her and come back to end the threat. If I want to take matters into my own hands and save Pearl, this will be my only chance. The Underground has many systems in place to repel an attack, and the second children are well trained in what to do, even down to the youngest. I probably can’t do anything to help them—I’d just get in the way. The only life I can save is Pearl’s.
“We’re under attack from the Center,” I tell her. I can see the conflicting emotions flit across her features. The word “attack” has her scared. But for her, the right word might actually be “rescue.”
“If you stay here, Flint will kill you,” I tell her bluntly. “I don’t know if you’re a victim, or guilty as hell. But I hope that if you make it to the surface and get back to Oaks you remember that you would have let me die, but I’m saving your life. You owe me. And the price for my help is your silence. You will never speak of this place. Agreed?”
She nods. Of course, what else would she do? Am I being stupid, trusting her? But trust has to start somewhere. I have to be the one to make the leap. Flint never will.
“There are children down here,” I say, leaning close and making her look at me so she realizes how important this is. “Little kids, and families, who will be killed or imprisoned if they get caught. I don’t know what is happening out there, but if we make it through, you have to swear to keep this secret. To keep the children safe.”
“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” Pearl says miserably. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“Don’t dare say that again!” I shout. “I know you were scared, and felt helpless, but you had a choice. There’s always a choice. Sometimes the choice means you suffer so someone else doesn’t have to. Sometimes it means you give your life so someone else can live. But you can always choose to do the right thing, even if it’s also the hard thing.”
She bows her head, chastened. “I’m sorry.”
Sorry doesn’t help now, I think. From somewhere far away, I hear another muffled boom, and feel the stone beneath my feet shiver.
Letting Pearl go is risky, but it’s right. I just hope if anyone has to suffer for my choice, it’s me, and not the other second children. I unstrap
her wrists and ankles and help her to her feet.
It is so typically Pearl that even under these dire circumstances, just a breath away from death, the first thing she does when her hands are free is to smooth her eyebrows, pinch her cheeks to give them color, and push her disheveled silvery hair away from her face. Live or die, the most important thing is that she look good doing it. I almost laugh at the thought that someone so vain and shallow could be actually maliciously evil. She’s weak, that’s all. She’s a victim of stronger forces.
Then I notice her earrings. She’s still wearing the ones Chief Ellena gave her. They’re teardrop faceted emeralds—not real, of course, but their facets glint with more sparkle than a real stone could. The inside seems to dance whenever she moves her head. What an idiot I’ve been. Pearl lives for fashion, never wears the same outfit twice, changes her jewelry three times a day. And yet since the day the Chief gave them to her, she’s never taken off these earrings.
And now, those gems aren’t just glittering when they reflect the light. They’re gently pulsing a slow rhythm. Comprehension suddenly dawns on me. “Those earrings, they’re from the Chief. She told you to always wear them?”
Pearl touches the earrings and nods, smiling uncertainly as if she’s just received a compliment. But I’m not fooled any longer.
“Oh, Pearl, you played a good game. You had me convinced that you were just an innocent victim. When all along you were a scheming harpy who was happily following the Center’s every order.” My voice is so soft that she doesn’t catch the danger as fast as she should. “Those earrings, they’re trackers, aren’t they?”
Pearl shakes her head and tries to back away, but bumps against the interrogation table. There’s nowhere to go. Another boom rocks the cavern, but I can’t think of anything beyond my hate for Pearl, who abetted the monstrous things that happened to me.
I grab her by the collar, the soft material of her luxurious, impractical inner circle clothes tearing beneath my rough touch. “You knew I was being experimented on!” I shout into her face. If it wasn’t for the tracker earrings I’d be swayed by the utter confusion on her face. But I know how well Pearl can lie and manipulate people. I won’t be fooled.