living room. “Let’s let her finish out the day with the kids, maybe you go for a walk, talk to a friend, whatever you feel like. An afternoon off. Looks like the weather’s breaking, maybe we’ll get a little more sun, everything’ll look different by tonight.”
“Yeah, okay,” Cass said.
She saw him to the door, and they said an oddly formal goodbye, Jay giving her a little half bow before he walked off toward the guard headquarters. He’d been right about the weather; a thick cloud scudded across the sun and was quickly gone, leaving the air warm and inviting.
She should do as he suggested, take that walk, maybe go to the far southern end of Garden Island where you could sit and stare off at the mountains in the distance, skip stones into the river. But she didn’t think she could bear to look across all those rows and rows of kaysev, the chubby deep green leaves hiding a secret killer somewhere in their midst.
And she couldn’t leave Ruthie here, not with Ingrid. She wouldn’t risk losing her daughter, ever again.
She made her decision. She went into the living room. Ingrid stood with her arms folded, glaring, but Cass did not look away. There was so much she wanted to say, but instead she tamped down her anger as she picked up Ruthie from her pallet of blankets, and carried her into the remains of a day in which, yet again, everything had changed.
Chapter 13
SMOKE OPENED HIS eyes when it was quiet in the room, closed them when the people came in. He worked his hands under the blanket, flexed his limbs, tensed his muscles, always going slack and still at the slightest sound.
He was careful, because he knew the people were waiting for him to wake up. What would happen then, he did not know. There were people who wanted him dead, who wanted him to suffer.
The great irony was that Smoke did deserve to be punished, but only one other man left on this earth knew the true reason, and who knew if he was even still alive. It was Smoke’s burden, to know what he had done and to be alone in that knowing. They could punish him for the lives he had taken, for the Rebuilder leaders he had killed, and Smoke would laugh—fighting the fascist warlords was only a tiny penance for his true crime, for that secret crime. They could send in one Rebuilder after another and he would keep killing them until he was exhausted from the effort, until he could no longer lift his blade or his gun, and he would never regret all the blood that got spilled. In that battle he had right on his side, because the battle against the Rebuilders was a battle for freedom and for hope.
But for his other crime, his first crime, he had no justification and no defense....
This was a strange prison, where people came and went freely and he was not shackled, and security was lax. A terrible miscalculation on their part. If they knew anything at all about him, surely they would know he’d bide his time and he would wait for the right moment.
Each day, Smoke let the thin gruel dribble down his face, swallowing just enough to survive. So too with the water held to his lips. And he felt his strength returning. Soon he was able to leave his bed at night to stand at the window, looking out on a moonlit yard; not long after that he was marching in place, doing simple calisthenics, returning to bed only when he was exhausted.
His body was not the same. He was missing two fingers, the flesh raggedly healed at the first knuckle, where the little and ring fingers of his left hand used to be. The skin of his face was crossed with scars he could not see; his arms, his torso, his legs, with scars that he could. There was a persistent ache in one arm and in his hip; his abbreviated walks around the room were hampered by a painful limp.
Each night he pushed himself. Each dawn his body screamed in pain at the effort. And each day he grew stronger. Emboldened by his success, he took to working his hands during the day, squeezing them into fists, getting
“Yeah, okay,” Cass said.
She saw him to the door, and they said an oddly formal goodbye, Jay giving her a little half bow before he walked off toward the guard headquarters. He’d been right about the weather; a thick cloud scudded across the sun and was quickly gone, leaving the air warm and inviting.
She should do as he suggested, take that walk, maybe go to the far southern end of Garden Island where you could sit and stare off at the mountains in the distance, skip stones into the river. But she didn’t think she could bear to look across all those rows and rows of kaysev, the chubby deep green leaves hiding a secret killer somewhere in their midst.
And she couldn’t leave Ruthie here, not with Ingrid. She wouldn’t risk losing her daughter, ever again.
She made her decision. She went into the living room. Ingrid stood with her arms folded, glaring, but Cass did not look away. There was so much she wanted to say, but instead she tamped down her anger as she picked up Ruthie from her pallet of blankets, and carried her into the remains of a day in which, yet again, everything had changed.
Chapter 13
SMOKE OPENED HIS eyes when it was quiet in the room, closed them when the people came in. He worked his hands under the blanket, flexed his limbs, tensed his muscles, always going slack and still at the slightest sound.
He was careful, because he knew the people were waiting for him to wake up. What would happen then, he did not know. There were people who wanted him dead, who wanted him to suffer.
The great irony was that Smoke did deserve to be punished, but only one other man left on this earth knew the true reason, and who knew if he was even still alive. It was Smoke’s burden, to know what he had done and to be alone in that knowing. They could punish him for the lives he had taken, for the Rebuilder leaders he had killed, and Smoke would laugh—fighting the fascist warlords was only a tiny penance for his true crime, for that secret crime. They could send in one Rebuilder after another and he would keep killing them until he was exhausted from the effort, until he could no longer lift his blade or his gun, and he would never regret all the blood that got spilled. In that battle he had right on his side, because the battle against the Rebuilders was a battle for freedom and for hope.
But for his other crime, his first crime, he had no justification and no defense....
This was a strange prison, where people came and went freely and he was not shackled, and security was lax. A terrible miscalculation on their part. If they knew anything at all about him, surely they would know he’d bide his time and he would wait for the right moment.
Each day, Smoke let the thin gruel dribble down his face, swallowing just enough to survive. So too with the water held to his lips. And he felt his strength returning. Soon he was able to leave his bed at night to stand at the window, looking out on a moonlit yard; not long after that he was marching in place, doing simple calisthenics, returning to bed only when he was exhausted.
His body was not the same. He was missing two fingers, the flesh raggedly healed at the first knuckle, where the little and ring fingers of his left hand used to be. The skin of his face was crossed with scars he could not see; his arms, his torso, his legs, with scars that he could. There was a persistent ache in one arm and in his hip; his abbreviated walks around the room were hampered by a painful limp.
Each night he pushed himself. Each dawn his body screamed in pain at the effort. And each day he grew stronger. Emboldened by his success, he took to working his hands during the day, squeezing them into fists, getting
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