BEFORE (8 page)

My brother wears his blond hair longer than I remember, more in style for a Statesman than a schoolboy. 

I stand to greet my family, but Beck bristles and hesitates. A million anxious pressure points build in my chest, pushing outward until they crawl over my skin like little spiders. Something’s wrong.

“Lark. Sister. How are you, my dear?” Tension rolls through my body as Callum clutches me to his chest, hard. His embrace is more like a strangling. 

Annalise touches Callum’s arm. “That’s enough, darling. Poor Lark can barely breathe. You surely don’t want to hurt a future Stateswoman, do you?” 

He releases me with a gentle peck on the cheek and steps back. The pressure in my chest subsides and my heart slows. 

“Lark, darling, you look well considering what you went through.” Annalise’s 

voice is soft and musical. She kisses me once on each cheek, in the manner of the State. When she extends the customary greeting to Beck—who now stands at my side—he recoils, refusing to let her touch him. 

I glare at Beck, my hands on my hips. I know he and Callum haven’t always gotten along, but his behavior is ridiculous. I slide next to him and nudge him forward, but he plants his feet and refuses to move. 

“Are you okay?” I ask. Maybe the shock of the attack has confused him. “Should I call the healer?”

He continues to stand tense with his head tilted as if trying to hear a far off sound. “I’m fine.”

Then what is he doing? This isn’t the time or place for old childhood rivalries. I’m going to have to make a good impression for the both of us. My words take on the formal State tone. “Did Mother send you?” 

A slight forward shift from Callum causes Beck to grip my arm. He subtly repositions his body so he’s between Callum and me. Callum responds to Beck’s oddly protective posture by softening his stance. 

Annalise flashes a pretty smile at me, as if she doesn’t notice Beck and Callum’s odd body language. “She sent Callum, of course, to make sure you were unharmed. But my State job is safety. Specifically ensuring the safety of top officials—like Malin—and our Society’s schools.” She unbuttons her coat and sets it on a nearby coat rack. “I’ve been tasked with discovering how this breach happened and ensuring it doesn’t reoccur.” 

“Really?” I ask. With her perfectly manicured nails and silky black hair, Annalise looks more like a painting than a security guard.

“Really.” 

“You didn’t do a very good job, did you?” Beck clicks his tongue against his teeth. “Lark could have been killed.”

Not ‘we,’ but ‘Lark’. 

Annalise removes a small tablet from her satchel and taps on it. “Let’s see. According to my report, you exposed your position to the Sensitives. Is that correct?”

Beck glares at her and wraps his arm around my waist protectively. Tension ripples off his body. Even through my layers of clothing, I’m positive I feel waves of heat radiating from him. 

“The security system failed. I was trying to distract them from Lark. She
was hidden
until
she
decided to climb the hill.” My heart races inexplicably, as if afraid. I fold myself into Beck’s side. This is my brother and sister-in-law—I know we haven’t always gotten along, but what’s there to be frightened of?

Annalise’s lips form a hard frown. But it’s the movement of her hands I find strange—they appear to quiver. “You have no training in Sensitive enforcement and your first thought wasn’t to stay hidden. It was stand on a hill and show yourself. I find that very interesting.”

Her deep blue eyes dart back and forth between Beck and I as if waiting for an attack. Beck wraps his other arm around me, so he’s more or less hugging me now. Annalise clenches her teeth briefly before disguising it with a bright smile.

Are you looking for me?
Isn’t that what he said when he faced them? My mind whirls, sorting through what I saw, heard and know. Something isn’t right.

“My first, my only thought, is always to protect Lark.” 

Protect me? What is he talking about? He needs protecting as much as I do. Like Callum, we’re all direct descendants of Founders—and under constant threat. 

Without any attempt at subtlety, Beck moves his body so that I’m now standing behind him. 

“What are you doing?” I ask as I jockey to get around him, but he holds me back. I’ve never doubted Beck before, but this is ridiculous.

In response, Annalise throws her head back like those girls in the movies and lets out a melodic laugh. It’s eerily out of place with the tone of our conversation. “Protect Lark? That’s what you call what you did? You lead them right to her.” 

I don’t understand what’s happening. Is she accusing Beck of something? Of helping Sensitives attack me?

I peer around Beck, suddenly feeling small. Callum fidgets with his wrap, clearly agitated, but it’s Annalise who looks furious. Lethal even.

Anger boils inside me. 

“Annalise, what exactly are you trying to say?” I clip my words and step around Beck.

Shock flits across her face. “I’m sorry, Lark. Have I offended you? I’d think you, of all people, would want to get to the bottom of this. Especially since it appears they were looking for you.”

“No, of course not.” It’s a lie, but I don’t want her, or whomever she reports to, to think I’m argumentative. 

Looking for me?
Beck had asked. I shake my head and ball my fists into my thighs. No. They wanted me. The daughter of Malin Greene—the Sensitive hunter—the one responsible for increased labor groups and a crack-down on their freedoms. And Beck offered himself instead.

Annalise slips the screen back into her satchel with a swift movement. “I have everything I need.”

Callum offers his arm to his wife. “Annalise, shall we?” 

She removes her coat from its hook and places her hand lightly on his arm. Her hard eyes drill into me, but she smiles sweetly. “Goodbye, Lark. We’ll see you again soon, I’m sure of it.”

Callum tips his hat before placing it back on his head and then they’re gone, gliding out into the hallway, leaving behind a mess of confusion and suspicion. Do Annalise and Callum think Beck
wanted
the Sensitives to find me? That’s impossible. 

I spin on Beck. “
What
was that?” 

He doesn’t answer. Instead he stares out into the hallway, head tilted toward the spot where Callum and Annalise disappeared.

“Beck,” I huff. “Are you listening to me?”

Fear flashes through his olive eyes. He searches my face for a moment as if trying to register what I said. 

“C’mon, Birdie. We have assessments to take.” He bends down, picks up my bag and hands it to me. 

“The Headmaster hasn’t excused us. We can’t go yet.”

“I don’t think it matters anymore.”

5 

Unlike a few minutes ago, when he couldn’t stop hugging me, Beck leaves me behind as he hurries to class. 

I sprint to catch up to him. I don’t know what exactly just happened, but I think he does. And he’s going to give me some answers, even if I have to force it out of him. 

I beat him to our classroom door and block him from entering.

“What’s going on?” I demand. 

For the first time, I notice how he shakes. I lace my fingers through his and, out of habit, kiss our enjoined hands. Maybe that’s why he held on to me so tightly? Because his hands give away how frightened he is?

“Beck, you don’t really think Annalise was accusing you of leading the Sensitives to us, do you?” 

He shrugs. “Maybe?”

If it weren’t Beck saying it, I’d find this line of conversation ridiculous. Our families are above reproach.
We
are above reproach. Even though his parents don’t work for the State at a high level, everyone knows the Channings are a fine family with a strong sense of duty. 

Mr. Proctor, our Societies teacher, yanks the door open, exposing us to the classroom full of students. 

“Do you two plan on joining us?” he asks. A few students giggle. 

Embarrassed, I drop Beck’s hand and I hurry to my desk. Beck takes his seat next to mine.

“We’ve moved past the assessment,” Mr. Proctor says. “The two of you will have to make arrangements to test privately. Have Bethina call me.”

I hang my head and fight tears. Maybe it’s the stress of the day, but the one thing I wanted, really wanted, isn’t going to happen. 

Aware that everyone’s watching me, I swallow the lump in my throat and dig through my bag until I find old-fashioned paper and a pen. One of the insufferable joys of this class: we have to write on paper, like they did hundreds of years ago. Even though I’m better at it now, taking notes by hand still makes mine cramp and ache. Beck, however, prefers writing—he even does it at home. 

Kyra leans across the aisle toward me. “Are you okay?”

I sniff. “Yes. I’m sure they won’t hold us missing the assessment against us. It couldn’t be helped.”

“Lark, I’m talking about you. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?” Her eyes are full of concern. 

Am I? I’m not panicked or scared anymore. And when Beck and I stood on the hill together, I felt focused and strong—just like the State’s training teaches us. Still, I’m upset. But at what? Annalise’s veiled accusations? My own lack of understanding of the situation? Or am I deso about missing the assessment?

“Everything is fine. The State is investigating.”

“Ping if you need anything?”

I nod and she goes back to scribbling on her paper. Like me, she hates writing. Unlike me, she’s never really learned to do it, so she always has to borrow my notes. Which means, she doesn’t pay attention.

At the front of the room, Mr. Proctor rambles about the Long Winter. Not even a security breach can save me from that. He seems to think that the easiest way to recover from a nerve-wracking attack is to bore us with history. I don’t see why we even continue to cover this subject. Everyone understands the “Order and History of Society.” Every year, it’s the same class with the same information. If you don’t know it by now, there’s really no hope.

Mr. Proctor’s voice fills my ears. “Ice and snow covered whole continents, destroying livable surface and resulting in a fifty-year war as people migrated. Over half of the world’s population vanished.” 

I don’t need to pay attention, I have it memorized. How the Center, once known as Africa, is only a tenth of its former size; and there were more countries than I can even fathom, instead of our five great societies. How these societies would have destroyed one another if my ancestor, Caitlyn, hadn’t succeeded in aligning them under a common cause: to preserve humanity. 

I follow along as Mr. Proctor taps the wall screen behind his desk, illuminating each society on a map. 

Tap, flash. The West, where we live, shaded green and stretching from our northern cities of Ottawa and Calgary to the southern city of Austin, appears on the wall screen.

Another tap. The East, covering an area that used to be called Asia glows a soft blue.

Tap, Tap, Tap – the South, the Center and the Islands appear.

One more tap. The North – not a really a society anymore other than in name, just an ice covered land mass once known as Europe. Only a few hold-outs still live there.

Mr. Proctor superimposes an image of the world over the ancient map. “The world was vastly overpopulated and spread out before the Long Winter.”

I write the word “Sensitive” on one of the thin blue lines on my paper. Such an oxymoron. It implies a delicate state. But that’s exactly what they’re not. Determined to bring humanity under their control, they unleashed the Long Winter on us—their final act after a millennia of plagues, earthquakes and famine—and nearly decimated the world’s human population.

Luckily, the Founders discovered how to identify the chromosomal abnormality in Sensitives. Most are found during childhood and fitted with irremovable red wristlets that track their every move. Sensitive Enforcers find the rest—those who roam free and hide in the shadows, not in the guarded settlements on the outskirts of major towns. Because no one knows how to fight magic, our Enforcers must catch them off-guard or overpower them. 

But one thing remains the same for both groups: they absolutely cannot be allowed to breed. 

I scan through my book until I locate the images of historical Sensitives. Sometimes, in old books, they’re called witches. But that was before we discovered what they had—extra senses. Then their name was changed.

 I tap a page to zoom in on one. They don’t look anything like the group who attacked Beck and me. The ones today, other than not wearing a mandatory wristlet, looked exactly like us—normal people. Well, if you ignore the woman’s crazy eyes.

The image in my book fades in and out beneath my fingers. I flip the page and find Caitlyn Greene, my ancestor, surrounded by the rest of the Founders, smiling at me from the depths of time. Other than our chestnut-colored hair and small stature, we don’t look anything alike. In fact, with her wide eyes and full mouth, she looks more like Mother—or even Kyra—than me.

How did this woman muster the courage to confront such a dangerous group? She wasn’t much older than me—only twenty-two—when elected Head of State. 

A twinge of shame eats at me. How can I be her descendant? My first reaction wasn’t to face them, but to hide. Unlike Beck. 

The image zooms out again. Much older and stronger men surround her, but their body language indicates deference. Caitlyn was clearly in charge. 

My gaze falls on the man to her left, who—unlike the other men—appears to be the same age as Caitlyn: Charles Channing, Beck’s great-great-grandfather and Caitlyn’s right-hand man. I’ve never seen a picture of one without the other. 

The warrior and the diplomat—that’s how most texts refer to them.

Charles’s arm drapes over Caitlyn’s shoulder in a familiar way, his head turned slightly toward her like he’s going to whisper something in her ear. He’s as fair as Beck and has the same mischievous eyes.

Annalise can’t suspect Beck, can she? Not when his ancestor was Charles Channing. It would be blasphemy. After all, Charles is the one who developed policies and brokered a peace with the four other Societies.