And the Scarlet Guard are far from innocent heroes. They are flawed at best, combating oppression with violence. The children of the Dagger Legion remain wary. They’re all just teenagers bouncing from the trenches of one army to another. I don’t blame them for keeping their eyes open.
Morrey still clings to his misgivings. Because of me, what I am. Maven accused the Guard of murdering people like me. No matter how much my brother tries, he can’t shake the words.
As we sit down to breakfast, our bowls of oatmeal hot to the touch, I brace myself for the usual questions. We like to eat outside on the grass, beneath the open sky, with the training fields stretched out. After fifteen years in our slum, every fresh breeze feels like a miracle. I sit cross-legged, my dark green coveralls soft from wear and too much washing to count.
“Why don’t you leave?” Morrey asks, jumping right in. He stirs the oatmeal three times, counterclockwise. “You haven’t pledged your oath to the Guard. You don’t have any reason to stay here.”
“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.”