“Why do you do that?” I tap his spoon with mine. A stupid question, but an easy dodge. I never have a good answer for him, and I hate that he makes me wonder.
He shrugs his narrow shoulders. “I like the routine,” he mumbles. “At home . . . well, you know home was bleeding awful, but . . .” He stirs again, the metal scraping. “You remember the schedules, the whistles.”
“I do.” I still hear them in my dreams. “And you miss that?”
He scoffs. “Of course not. I just . . . Not knowing what’s going to happen. I don’t understand it. It’s—it’s scary.”
I spoon up some oatmeal. It’s thick and tasty. Morrey gave me his sugar ration, and the extra sweetness undercuts whatever discomfort I feel. “I think that’s how everyone feels. I think it’s why I stay.”
Morrey turns to look at me, narrowing his eyes against the glare of the still-rising sun. It illuminates his face, throwing into harsh contrast how much he’s changed. Steady rations have filled him out. And the cleaner air clearly agrees with him. I haven’t heard the scraping cough that used to punctuate his sentences.
One thing hasn’t changed, though. He still has the tattoo, just as I do. Black ink like a brand around his neck. Our letters and numbers match almost exactly.
NT-ARSM-188908, his reads. New Town, Assembly and Repair, Small Manufacturing. I’m 188907. I was born first. My neck itches at the memory of the day when we were marked, permanently bound to our indentured jobs.
“I don’t know where to go.” I say the words out loud for the first time, even though I’ve been thinking them every day since I escaped Corros. “We can’t go home.”
“I guess not,” he mumbles. “So what do we do here? You’re going to stay and let these people—”
“I told you before, they don’t want to kill newbloods. That was a lie, Maven’s lie—”
“I’m not talking about that. So the Scarlet Guard isn’t going to kill you—but they’re still putting you in danger. You spend every minute you’re not with me training to fight, to kill. And in Corvium I saw . . . when you led us out . . .”
Don’t say what I did. I remember it well enough without him describing the way I killed two Silvers. Faster than I’ve ever killed before. Blood pouring from their eyes and mouths, their insides dying organ by organ as my silence destroyed everything in them. I felt it then. I feel it still. The sensation of death pulses through my body.
“I know you can help.” He puts his oatmeal down and takes my hand. In the factories, I used to hold on to him. Our roles reverse. “I don’t want to see them turn you into a weapon. You’re my sister, Cameron. You did everything you could to save me. Let me do the same.”
With a huff, I fall back against the soft grass, leaving the bowl at my side.
He lets me think, and instead turns his eyes on the horizon. He waves a dark hand at the fields in front of us. “It’s so bleeding green here. Do you think the rest of the world is like this?”
“I don’t know.”
“We could find out.” His voice is so soft I pretend not to hear him, and we lapse into an easy silence. I watch spring winds chase clouds across the sky while he eats, his motions quick and efficient. “Or we could go home. Mama and Dad—”
“Impossible.” I focus on the blue above, blue like we never saw in that hellhole we were born in.
“You saved me.”
“And we almost died. Better odds, and we almost died.” I exhale slowly. “There’s nothing we can do for them right now. I thought maybe once but—all we can do is hope.”
Sorrow tugs at his face, souring his expression. But he nods. “And stay alive. Stay ourselves. You hear me, Cam?” He grabs my hand. “Don’t let this change you.”
He’s right. Even though I’m angry, even though I feel so much hatred for everything that threatens my family—is feeding that rage worth the cost?
“So what should I do?” I finally force myself to ask.
“I don’t know what having an ability’s like. You have friends who do.” His eyes twinkle as he pauses for effect. “You do have friends, right?” He quirks a smirk at me over the rim of his bowl. I smack his arm for the implication.
My mind jumps to Farley first, but she’s still in the hospital, adjusting to a new baby, and she doesn’t have an ability. Doesn’t know what it’s like to be so lethal, in control of something so deadly.
“I’m scared, Morrey. When you throw a tantrum, you just yell and cry. With me, with what I can do . . .” I reach a hand to the sky, flexing my fingers against the clouds. “I’m scared of it.”
“Maybe that’s good.”
“What do you mean?”
“At home, you remember how they use the kids? To fix the big gears, the deep wires?” Morrey widens his dark eyes, trying to make me understand.
The memory echoes. Iron on iron, the screech and twist of constantly whirring machinery across endless factory floors. I can almost smell the oil, almost feel the wrench in my hand. It was a relief when Morrey and I got too big to be spiders—what the overseers called the little kids in our division. Small enough to go where adult workers couldn’t, too young to be afraid of being crushed.
“Fear can be a good thing, Cam,” he pushes on. “Fear doesn’t let you forget. And the fear you have, the respect you have for this deadly thing inside of you, I think that’s an ability too.”