Galdoni (21 page)

“
Brie?”

She pushed her hood back and let the rain
fall on her face as she walked down the sidewalk. I couldn’t tell
if it was the chill of the rain or crying that made her nose and
cheeks red, but the sight slowed my heart and made me want to go to
her and hold her in my arms, to tell her everything was going to be
alright. I forced myself to hold back. “You shouldn’t be here. You
can’t be around when they find me.”

She stopped a few feet away; the rain fell
between us. “You’re not spending your last free night alone.”

I shook my head. “It’s too dangerous, you’ve
got to-”

She crossed the last few steps while I spoke
and silenced me with a kiss. “I won’t let them take this from me,”
she whispered when she pulled away. She took my hand and guided me
to the back steps of the new city building. I sat on the stairs and
she settled next to me, leaning against my shoulder.

I memorized the profile of her face against
the lights inside the doors, and breathed in her scent as though it
was the last thing I would ever smell. She took one of my hands and
gently traced the scars along the back. “You’re not going to be
safe in there,” she whispered.

I rested my chin on top of her head. “I
wasn’t exactly safe out here,” I replied.

She gave a soft sigh and turned my hand over
to run her fingers along my palm. I closed my eyes and enjoyed just
feeling her touch and the love that flowed from it. “We should
fight them,” she said.

I shook my head. “This is the only way. We
knew it would come to this eventually.”

She sat up and met my gaze. “But is it too
soon?”

I willed my heart to slow at the pleading in
her eyes. “I’ll be alright,” I said, forcing myself to sound
unconcerned.

She frowned slightly. “I don’t believe
you.”

I gave her a small smile. “I’d rather you
think of me safe, then worry about things you can’t control.”

She thought about it for a minute, then
sighed again. “I can’t help but worry.”

I brushed a stray strand of hair from her
face and twirled it around my fingers. “Will you do me one thing?”
I asked quietly.

“
What?”

I studied the hair between my fingers to
avoid meeting her eyes. “Don’t try to stop them when they come to
get me.”

I felt her eyes on me. “I’ve got to,” she
said honestly.

I shook my head and looked down at her.
“It’ll make it that much harder for me to go and someone could get
hurt. We both know I have to do this. If I go quietly, it’ll be
better for everyone.” I held her gaze. “Will you do that for
me?”

Tears filled her soft brown eyes again, but
she blinked them back and nodded. “Yes.” She buried her head
against my chest and I held her tight, fearing every second that
brought us closer to being apart. I counted each breath and
memorized the way her hair fell over her shoulders. She eventually
fell asleep in my arms. I traced her cheek softly, hoping my
fingers would remember the touch of her skin after I returned to
the brutality of the Academy. I held her close and watched the dawn
rise slowly out of the darkest night I could remember.

***

Brie, Nikko, Jayce, and I entered Dr. Ray’s
classroom together. Talking abruptly ceased and all eyes turned to
us. I made my way to my regular chair near the back of the
classroom with Brie at my arm.

“
Kale?”

I turned to see Dr. Ray walk through the
door.

“
Yes, sir?”

“
Come here.”

I glanced at Brie; she watched Dr. Ray in
uncertainty. We hadn’t spoken since our conversation on the city
building steps the night before. There was nothing else to say
between us but lingering gazes and the touch of fingertips. Love
beat so strongly in my chest that my heart threatened to burst
free. I knew it would break the second I walked out the door and
out of Brie’s life. But for now, I gave her a reassuring smile and
went back up to the front of the classroom.

“
You needn’t wear this any
longer,” Dr. Ray said. Without waiting for an answer, he helped me
out of my coat and tossed it toward the garbage can near the door.
It landed in a heap on the ground. He gave me a sharp nod. “Be
proud of who you are. We’re proud of you.”

Several students nodded and smiled at me as
I made my way back to my desk. I sat down, feeling exposed and
liberated at the same time. Dr. Ray could get in a lot of trouble
if the authorities showed up and realized he had known I was
Galdoni. The thought that he dared let me show it in his classroom
filled me with a kind of proud wonder.

Dr. Ray was a few minutes into his lecture
when the door burst open and ten armed guards shoved their way
through. Dane stood triumphantly next to the head guard. He gave me
a wicked grin.

“
I’m teaching a class
here,” Dr. Ray told them calmly.

“
Silence,” a guard with a
black armband commanded. “We’ve come to take KL426 back to the
Academy where he belongs.”

“
He belongs here,” Dr. Ray
stated in the same even tone. Several students chuckled at the look
of frustration on the guard’s face. The guard turned and scanned
the students with an impatient gaze. His eyes fell on me and
widened slightly. He took a step in my direction.

“
He’s a student,” Steven,
one of Zach’s friends from the party, said. He rose and blocked the
aisle to my desk.

“
Yeah,” Brandi, a girl who
was also in my economics class, seconded. She rose to stand behind
him.

A red-headed boy stood wordlessly behind
her, and others followed until every student in the room grouped in
front of my desk. Their actions threatened to break my careful
composure.

“
Get out of our way or
we’ll make you move,” the head guard threatened. He lifted his
gun.

My heart beat loudly in my chest, but I
forced down any show of emotion. “It’s okay; let them through.”

Several of the students glanced back at me.
Steven met my eyes and shook his head. I nodded and he reluctantly
stepped back. The head guard gave a grim smile and pushed his way
past them to my desk.

“
KL426?” he
demanded.

“
My name is Kale,” I stated
firmly.

He lifted his gun threateningly, anger
evident on his face. I merely smiled. “If you’re coming to arrest a
person, you’d better make sure you have the right name.”

The students around me gave small laughs,
but the guard glowered. “You’re not a person, you’re a Galdoni and
a threat to these students. I am under orders to take you off these
premises immediately. Resistance will be punished by death.”

“
Then I’d better not
resist,” I said, my tone heavily laced with sarcasm.

The guard glared at me, uncertain whether I
had agreed to come with him or not. I rose and he took an
involuntary step back. I gave a grim smile. “Lead the way, oh
fearless escort.”

Students mocked him as we walked to the
front of the room. I looked back and caught Brie’s eyes. ‘I love
you’, I mouthed, and then was shoved roughly out the door.

Chapter Fifteen

My welcome back to the Academy was about
what I had expected. The guards led me through the gates that I had
hoped to never enter again, across the cement courtyard, through
the giant, four-inch-thick metal doors, and into my old cell where
they attached my handcuffs to a chain hanging from the ceiling and
proceeded to beat me to within an inch of my life, which hurt a lot
more than I remembered.

When they finally released the chains and
let me collapse on the floor, I curled in on my broken ribs and
bruised organs. Even breathing hurt. Images of Brie and my life at
school felt like a dream, but a dream I wanted to return to more
than anything. Pain throbbed from every inch of my body, but as I
felt the ache of familiar scars, I blocked out all other thoughts
but the memory of gentle hands tending to my wounds, soft laughter
around a familiar table, and the scent of lavender shampoo in the
rain. I fell into a merciful sleep several hours later with Brie’s
name on my lips.

***

The sound of a plate being
shoved through the slot in the door woke me. All I could think of
was
no, no, no. Not here. Don’t let me be
here.
I finally forced my eyes open and saw
the cold gray walls and iron door that had been my home for most of
my life.

Not home,
I reminded myself.
Home
was with Brie, and with Nikko, Jayce, and Dr. Ray. This will never
be home.

I sat up slowly, holding my ribs against the
sharp ache that stole my breath. Blood caked the side of my face
from a gash above my eyebrow. I felt it gingerly. It was about an
inch below the one Dr. Ray had sewn. I remembered Brie’s soft voice
upon finding me awake the first time. I took a shallow breath to
keep futile tears from burning my eyes.

Then I remembered the cameras. I glanced up
at the corner of the room where a tiny security camera had been
recessed behind a thick plate of glass. I wondered if they could
see me. The way Iggy and the others had perused the database, I
knew it wouldn’t be hard to find my cell. I pictured Brie watching
me the way we had the young Galdoni boy while he stared at nothing.
I shook my head. She wouldn’t see me like that. Now I was living
for her.

I pushed off the pallet that made a sorry
excuse for a bed and rose slowly to my feet. I stretched,
pretending not to feel the sharp pain of the gashes across my chest
from the guards’ hungry whips, or the bruises that covered my back
and wings, bringing to life the pain of my old scars and what would
be many new ones. I grabbed the plate from the floor and ate the
meager crusty bread and mystery meat like it was one of Brie’s
sandwiches. After drinking the stale water that had been shoved in
a dirty bowl after the food, I got to work. There was a lot to do,
and I wasn’t in any shape to do it yet.

I began with push-ups, reminding my sore
muscles what they used to be used for before I went to school.
Lying back on the floor to do crunches with my wings out opened up
the crusted gashes across my chest, so I did them shallowly and
concentrated instead on the burn of the muscles across my stomach.
I then picked up my pallet and leaned it against the wall like I
had done so many thousands of times before. I wrapped my knuckles
in the pitiful, dirty blankets that barely deserved the name, and
proceeded to pound my frustrations out on the boards.

My body fell into its old cadence; my
muscles remembered the punches, blocks, spins, kicks, and ducks
that I used to practice every day until they came as naturally as
breathing. In the Academy, instinct was life, and my body hadn’t
forgotten.

But with each hit, the memories of school
and Brie and the others felt more and more like a dream, a dream so
good I wished to curl up on the same battered pallet and fall back
into it, but a dream just the same. With every block, I fought to
keep Brie’s face in my mind, her beautiful brown eyes and perfumed
hair, the way she touched my arm when we talked quietly on the
porch, and the feeling of her head against my chest when she dozed
under my arm. Most of all, I remembered the brush of her lips
against mine, the sweetness of her kiss, and the way her soft smile
lit up any room like summer.

I didn’t let myself wonder whether I would
ever see her again. This was the Academy, and here we lived to die.
I didn’t know if the video would work, but maybe it would give Brie
hope so she wouldn’t waste her precious days worrying about me.
Whether I lived or died in the Arena would be up to me, and I had a
plan.

***

“
Well, well, if it isn’t
KL426,” a guard scoffed as I made my way down the secure hallway to
the mess hall.

“
My name’s Kale,” I
responded casually; I braced for the anger I knew would
follow.

“
Are you talking to me?”
the guard bellowed. He hit me with his club across the shoulders
hard enough to make me stumble forward. But I regained my balance
and kept walking as though nothing had happened. “Stupid beasts,
coming back thinking they have names and such,” he muttered to his
fellow guard. His voice rose. “I don’t care what happened out
there, but you’re less than animals in here, and it’s best if you
remember it!” His voice echoed down the hall and several other
guards laughed.

The other Galdoni around me avoided meeting
my eyes as we turned into the mess hall and found our assigned
tables. Security had increased a great deal since I had been gone.
Instead of getting our own meals, we waited at the tables and the
meals were brought to us. “Like being served at a restaurant,” I
whispered with a chuckle.

Several Galdoni lifted their heads to stare
at me, and one even gave a small smile of surprise, but they
dropped their eyes when a pair of guards walked between the
tables.

I pretended to study my food, but stole
glances around the room. I estimated one hundred and fifty Galdoni
from my age group, about twenty-five short from before we left the
Academy. I recognized most of them, having practiced against them
for when we would fight to the death; I wouldn’t consider any of
them a friend. After a few harrowing experiences in friendship
during childhood that usually ended in life-threatening beatings
and sometimes death, we had learned to avoid each other.

So when I tapped on the arm of the Galdoni
next to me after the guard had passed, I wasn’t surprised at the
look of shock on his face. The Galdoni was huge, hulking,
brown-winged, and a few years older than I. I had fought him a few
times in practice, and knew he hit like a battering ram. A scar
traced down the left side of his face, causing his lip to twist
down in a frightening scowl. He glared at me, then turned back to
eating the gray gruel that tasted more like paste than food.