“Why are you watching me?” I say, surprised how thin my voice sounds.
“It’s like clockwork—your habits,” he almost coos. An impish smile plays on his lips. “But recently, for the past few months, I’ve seen you touch your right wrist when you get nervous. You touch your microchip. But you don’t do it every day like all your regular habits. Just every other day. You didn’t do it today in choir or at lunch . . . yet you touched your wrist at dinner and again just now.”
Did I? I clench my hands into tight fists, my fingernails digging into my palms.
“That throws off the clock. Puzzling.” The harsh yellow lights from above hide Halton’s eyes beneath two dark pits, and I can’t tell where he’s looking. But it feels like my very core.
“My grandfather has ordered more soldiers outside campus starting tomorrow. You were right in the middle of the incident, weren’t you? What did that man steal?”
He’s testing me.
The greenhouse seems to shrink, the glass walls pushing in, the ground threatening to open up and swallow me.
“The thief was a woman. She was shot with a taser for stealing a bottle of water,” I manage to say.
Halton takes another step forward, and I maneuver the wicker basket between us. “I’m sure they’re expecting us at the house,” I say and turn to move down the row, preventing any more questions.
“My grandparents mean to make a match of us. For marriage.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. No. Never! I think to myself, or did I scream the words out loud?
I keep my back turned and my feet moving, entirely focused on getting to the front exit. Suddenly he’s behind me, reaching for my arm.
“My grandfather wants—”
I strike down his approaching hand with a sharp slap.
“I don’t care what your grandfather wants!” I cry.
Red splotches appear on Halton’s cheeks, this time from anger. I place my hand over my mouth, blocking any more words from slipping out. He stares at me, wide eyed, and I’m sure I look the same. A deer in headlights just before impact.
“Like I said, my grandmother would rather have these instead.” With an arrogant leer, he stoops to roughly tear an entire handful of black-eyed Susans from their roots. Something in me snaps, and I break into a run and tackle him from behind.
Our bodies slam into each other in what feels like slow motion. We drop hard to the concrete. Our weight lands heavily on Halton’s arm, and his hold loosens on my mother’s flowers. They scatter crudely across the pavement, and with tunnel vision I crawl to them, but Halton’s strong grip on my dress stops me. He drags me closer and wraps his fingers around my wrist like a noose, pulling tighter the more I fight.
“Let go of me!” I scream. I struggle madly to pull away, but Halton keeps his grasp right where my microchip should be.
The taser gun aimed at my lower neck shocks me back into reality. Halton releases his hold on me, and I lift my hands in the air, thinking this is the end.
“Stand down, Agent,” says Halton, eerily calm, the way his grandfather speaks when he’s calculating. Agent Hayes lowers his weapon, but his eyes show that he wants to shoot. He’s just waiting for a reason.
Halton stands, taking his time to straighten his clothes. He smooths back his greasy hair and brushes the dirt from his jacket. He bends down so there are only a few inches of air between us. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he whispers.
He seizes a handful of flowers from the ground and marches with his bounty down the row, Agent Hayes following in his wake.
I sit paralyzed, a small figure in the large, empty garden. He can’t know.
He can’t.
AVA
Father stands in front of us like a drill sergeant about to scold his troops. His piercing gaze scans Mira before it falls on me, dripping with disappointment.
Mira and I usually have time alone together before our nightly family meetings, but Father followed Mira into the basement directly after dinner. He didn’t want to give us a chance to formulate a defense justifying our switch.
I can’t hear a thing through the soundproof walls, but I saw Roth strong-arm Gwen and the surprise photo shoot over the surveillance video. Not good at all. Father must be livid.
I need just one glance from Mira to reassure me she managed it all fine, but she won’t give it to me.
“Did you honestly think you could trick your own father?” he finally says.
“We’ve done it before,” I say in defense. And we have.
Last year, I found an illegal bottle of Japanese Nikka whisky buried in the tomato garden I was tending in the greenhouse. Hidden in one of the cameras’ blind zones, I made certain no one saw me take it. I couldn’t resist surprising Mira with such a rare delicacy—the government can’t stop all contraband from being sold on the black market. Mira ended up drinking so much celebratory whisky the night we found out our placement level results at Strake, she spent the entire next morning vomiting. I went to school that day in Mira’s place; Father still doesn’t know it was me.
“Your life is not a game, Ava! How could you take such a childish risk on a night like this?”
I hate when he refers to us like we are still children. And our life is one endless game.
“Do you hold no fear for Governor Roth or his agents? Do I need to remind you what he is capable of?”
No, it’s perfectly clear to me what Roth is capable of: anything. Defiant, I keep my head held high, but I can see Mira’s eyes shift to the floor. Why is she backing down?
“Nothing happened,” I say, because she doesn’t.
He gives me an incredulous look. “Routine has gotten us this far, and it is the only reason you two have survived these eighteen years. You are growing too reckless. The odds are already against us without the both of you messing up our schedule. The moment we get comfortable is when everything we’ve worked so hard to keep will be taken from us. Have you completely forgotten what is at risk—”
“Have you?” Mira cuts Father off. “You dared to speak out against Governor Roth during dinner. Threatening him with our society’s collapse . . . threatening him with riots! Why would you go against the rules you made and take such a risk?”
I look from Father to Mira, taken aback not only by what my sister’s saying, but also by her anger. What the hell happened at dinner?
Father rubs a hand hard over his face and opens his mouth for a rebuttal, but Mira can’t keep her words from pouring out.
“And how long have you known Roth’s intention to marry us to Halton? How does that fit into the plan?”
My mouth drops open.
“What?” I turn to Father, expecting him to deny Mira’s revelation straightaway.
“I was just made aware of his intention to do so tonight. I will deal with it when the time comes,” he says. “As I will deal with the Anniversary Gala. Your face will not be on a skyrise.”
It’s my turn for words. The truth is boiling hot inside of me like lava primed to explode. Feelings I’ve never admitted out loud, much less expressed to my father.
“You will deal with it when the time comes. We must always stick to the plan that you made for us. But it’s our life, Father, and this is all happening right now, not in some far-off future. We aren’t just pieces of some mapped-out strategy.”
I take a step toward him. “We can’t go on forever like this. We aren’t children anymore—something has to change. We agreed to continue at Strake for our medical degree, but we have to be allowed our own apartment in the city next semester.”
“Absolutely not,” Father says. “We cannot afford to make careless decisions. The safest place for you both is here with me.”
“We can’t spend our entire life living in our father’s basement!” Mira shouts.
“That’s enough!” Father yells back, raising a trembling hand for silence.