Creators(58)

I should have known from the noise.

We were forced to wait more than an hour in the grand lobby of the establishment. As we stood there, men, chosen ones and naturals alike, hustled and bustled through the halls. Their movements were always with a purpose, always anxious. Their conversations hummed like a hive of bees had taken residency inside. The pounding of soldiers’ boots echoed across the halls as groups marched in order.

These men paid us little attention. We were a hodgepodge of girls ranging in age from one girl who barely made it to her teens to an older woman who must have been nearing seventy. Dirty and worn from our long travels, we all stank of sweat. But there was one girl who stood apart. Injured and hastily sewn up after the attack on her compound, a small, waifish girl named Rachel had a haphazard set of stitches that ran from under her left eye down to the top of her lips. She would be hideously scarred forever. The rest of the girls stood apart from her as if they sensed what was coming. Like her disfigurement would crawl from her face and mark theirs, and amongst the finery around them, they were already feeling self-conscious.

Was this feeling, this need to please, something the council had conditioned us into believing, or had it always existed in us girls?

Everyone except Stephanie.

She had made it her mission to stick by the girl during travel. While part of me thought she did it to avoid talking to me about the loss of Henry, Stephanie ate her meals with the girl and slept near her. The firm reserve that she’d called from within herself minutes after he was killed seemed to deplete the further we got from Henry’s body. As we stood there waiting for whatever came next, Stephanie took the girl’s hand in her own.

It was against protocol. We were supposed to blend in. Gather information. As I glanced at her from the corner of my eye, I was growing more certain that something broke inside of her when she watched Henry die. She had lost a sister as well…

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. I wanted things to begin. Left with nothing to do for too long and I would remember Henry, too. The images would return of his blood spilling from him and the way he crumpled to the ground, and I didn’t know how long I could repress it.

A series of bells chimed throughout the halls of the massive building and every man stopped in place. Their whole demeanor relaxed at the wretched sound. The naturals slumped and slouched their way to where we waited while the chosen ones followed behind. That was where they always stood, behind the men who had created them.

I remembered the bells that warned of the attack on the community and my teeth scraped against each other. A few girls next to me stood a little bit straighter while others tried to hide behind their hair.

A man near my father’s age, dressed in a clean and finely tailored suit of tweed, walked back and forth in front of us. Inspecting us. A chosen one followed behind him and when the council member made some observation of a girl, he mumbled it to the chosen one, who jotted it down onto a clipboard. It was as if he were defining us with a simple tsk or cluck of his tongue. I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to hear a tsk or cluck when he passed by me.

When he finally stopped in front of Stephanie’s new ward, Rachel, the man scowled. He slowly looked back at the chosen one who stood behind him. “What is this?”

“One of the girls brought in from the compound attacks. She had all three marks,” the chosen one replied matter-of-factly.

“And who would bid on her?” the man replied.

Bid on her? As if we were something to be owned and traded to suit their needs. But hadn’t that been the way they always treated us girls? I couldn’t help but think of Abrams—the never-ending horror she must have felt when she realized that the two men most important to her were working to ensure the death of her gender. Sacrificing the women in order to create a new master race of superhumans. They had made her a thing, and so she destroyed the world they wanted to rebuild.

Stephanie pursed her lips. Her knuckles turned white with the force with which she clutched onto the shaking girl’s hand. The inspector’s eyes moved to Stephanie. “Let go of her,” he demanded.

I silently begged Stephanie to do what the man said. I needed her here with me. I wasn’t a solider like her, I certainly was no expert on espionage, and I was positive my father had given his most trusted compatriot information that he didn’t think I needed.

Stephanie did not notice my silent pleas. She lifted her head and stared the man down. The inspector’s fingers began to tap furiously against his leg. While the room was absolutely quiet with attention, there was a tension that screamed inside of my ears.