Kingdom of Cages(197)

“It’ll be over,” whispered Chena.

“For you.” Teal turned to face her. “What about me?” She poked her own chest with one finger. “If you’re gone and I’m all that’s left. What happens to me?”

Chena hesitated. Teal. Teal come back. What would they do to Teal without her there? Teal never knew how to take care of herself. “You could come with us,” she whispered. “We’d win. They’d never be able to kill anybody without us.”

“But I don’t want to die, Chena,” said Teal softly. She took another step forward. “I don’t want to give them what they want.”

“No, they want us to live.”

“Do they?” She reached out and touched Chena’s arm, and even through her tears Chena could see Teal’s eyes, Mom’s eyes. “They had to kill Mom to stop her, Chena. Do you really think they want to keep us alive?” Chena’s arms began to tremble and Teal gripped her wrist. “You do this thing and you’ll be giving them what they want.”

Exhaustion washed over Chena. So many bad decisions, so much gone wrong, she couldn’t stand it anymore. “I want it over, Teal,” she said. “There’s no life for us. Even if he was a little boy, there’d be no life for him. They’d just keep poking and prodding him, trying to figure him out. They’d still need to use us all as breeding cows because they’re desperate, Teal. They’re desperate.”

“So, screw ’em to the deck plates,” Teal spat. “If you’re dead, they’ll just fish out your body and take it apart. If you’re alive, you can fight back.”

“I’m tired, Teal.”

Teal laid her other hand on Chena’s arm. “So am I, but we’re not alone. I’ve brought help.”

“Help?” said Chena. How could there be help? There had never been anyone to help them. Not really.

But Teal nodded, and Eden groaned. It hurt. She’d hurt it.

“Let me show you,” said Teal. “And if you don’t like what you see, you can always slit your wrists or something.”

“I…” Chena hesitated, tears and exhaustion fogging her mind. This was wrong. Everything was all wrong. “I killed people already, Teal.”

“So, don’t kill anymore.” Teal held out her arms. “Let me take Eden, and you both come with me.”

Chena looked down at the cold blue water. She should jump. She should do it now. That was the sure way. It would all be over as soon as she hit the water. No more decisions, no more crying, no more blood and loss.

“I didn’t come back to argue with you, Chena,” said Teal. “And my arms are getting tired.”

Over. All over. For her. But for Teal? For the Called and the villagers? The hothousers would fish up her body. They’d take her to pieces and use her for spare parts, and there wouldn’t be a damn thing she could do about it.

And Teal was still standing in front of her, arms out, toe tapping impatiently. Teal, of all of them, had come back.

Chena poured Eden into Teal’s arms. Eden blinked and stirred again as Teal cradled him to her chest. She turned away and began walking down the cliff, toward the beach and Stem. Slowly, one shaking step at a time, Chena began to follow her.


“I have a message for you, Father Mihran.” Tam’s words dropped like lead into the center of the storm.

As one, the committee froze in the middle of their furious debate and turned to stare, mouths agape, hands still in the air.

His family. He had come back to his family, as was right. He stepped into the committee grove to stand at the foot of the table.

The entire family dome was in an uproar. As he’d walked across the family wing, he’d heard a thousand variations on the same theme. The containment measures around Stem had failed spectacularly, and everyone seemed torn between trying to measure the damage they had done to the local ecosystem, telling each other they had known it would never work, and trying frantically to sort through a billion pieces of confused and conflicting data to find out how the fences had gone down, and if anyone had slipped out of the village while they had.

He passed through it all, focused only on telling his family the truth of what had happened, and what was going to happen. He would help his family.

“Tam.” Father Mihran got to his feet and circled the table. “We are glad to have you back. You need—”

“I need to tell you what happened.” Tam grasped the father’s hand. He was shaking again. He wished he could stop that. “Please, Father.”

“Father—” began Senior Dreas.