Elected (The Elected Series Book 1) (16 page)

19

“No!” I breathe out, willing it to be untrue.

“I am sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I swear to you she doesn’t know, though.”

I bob my head, confused at this new information, not sure how to respond. In light of finding the bullets, Vienne’s heritage is that much worse.

“You can’t tell her,” Tomlin urges again. “She can’t know. It would
eat her up inside. She’s loyal to our country. She thinks this is her home.”

I look over at Tomlin, resolute. “She’s right. East Country is her home. I won’t spoil that for her. Especially now.”

Tomlin shakes his head heartily in agreement.

“I’m sorry. Your parents didn’t want you to know. But... they are no longer here.”

I put a hand on Tomlin’s shoulder, letting him know I understand. He nods and then proceeds into the open door I’m holding for him. He turns right, and I go left toward Vienne’s room.

Outside her door, I rest a hand on the outer frame, leaning against it, thinking.

If she knew, would she want to go back? Look for her parents? I brush a hand across my forehead, contemplating this when Vienne’s door opens wide.

“What are you doing out here?” she asks, placing an arm around my waist. “I thought I heard someone. Come inside. You must be exhausted!”

I push the thoughts of Mid Country from my mind and follow Vienne into the room. “I am exhausted.”

“We all are. It’s been a long day.” She has a bandage over the side of her forehead, concealing the angry looking welt she received from the onslaught this morning. Vienne’s previously dislocated shoulder is wrapped in a linen brace. I want to fuss over her, hold her head in my hands and make her feel better. But she’s a step ahead of me, as usual.

“Here.” She pushes a teacup into my hands with her good arm. “I made you some of your favorite mint tea. It’s still warm.”

“Thank you.” I give Vienne an appreciative smile. She watches me as I put the teacup up to my lips.

“Your hands... they’re red!”

“From the ovens. The fires to melt the cartridges were very hot.”

“Well, we’ll get a good night’s sleep tonight, and hopefully they’ll go back to their regular color tomorrow.” She traces her fingertips over the palm of one of my outstretched hands.

I don’t know why, but her warm touch makes me think of Griffin. Before I can stop myself, I blurt out my question.

“So where did Griffin go after the metal scanning? What’s he doing tonight?”

“Went home to stay with his father, I think.”

This is odd, since he now mostly stays in the White House. Where he sleeps, I’m not sure, as Vienne made the arrangements, but it’s strange to think he’s not here in the house with us tonight. Griffin’s been our personal guard ever since he came back with me from the prison. Even though I know we have other protectors, Griffin’s departure makes me feel a little less safe.

“He’s turned your old room into a bachelor pad,” says Vienne absently while pulling back the sheets on her bed.

“My room?” Well, there’s my answer. “And bachelor pad? Didn’t it look male enough when I lived in it?” My voice reveals irritation.

“I didn’t mean it like that. Of course, the room looked like a bachelor pad when you were there too.”

Now I know she’s placating me, but I’m too tired to care. I wash off my face in a nearby basin and undress quickly. I still feel awkward taking off my clothes in front of Vienne. But the same isn’t true for her. She’s been schooled on her role as Madame Elected and is maybe even more loyal to her role than I am to mine. She follows the instructions to be my wife, no matter if I am a man or a woman.

She easily steps out of her flowing apricot dress, letting it pool by her feet. She wears a small slip underneath. Something silky. I realize that, instead of wanting to touch the luxurious fabric on Vienne, I’d rather be wearing it myself.

I chide myself on my selfishness and try to offset it with a compliment. “You truly are a vision.”

She beams. “Thank you.” She steps closer to the bed and pulls me down onto it.

I fall onto one of the soft pillows, burying my head in the crook of her arm and the clean cotton of the sheets. “You smell sweet. Like lavender. How do you always smell so good?” I mumble. I feel like we’ve grown close over the past weeks. At the same time, I am wary of our intimacy. I don’t know how far she’ll take the ruse of us as man and wife or what she’s been taught to do. Maybe she’s been told to flush the femininity out of me at any cost—to make me fall in love with her so I won’t stray from our farce of a marriage.

She burrows closer to me, the heat from her body feeling good against my cold legs. “Because I want to be attractive to you. You like lavender, don’t you?”

She knows me so well. I wonder if there’s anything Tomlin didn’t teach her about me. My favorite kind of tea. My favorite scents. It’ll take me a lifetime to learn all of the specific things she likes and craves in return.

I don’t answer her question but run my hands up her arms instead.

“One day, we’ll have a bunch of children running around,” she says, “and the girls will smell like lavender too.”

I’m quiet, not sure how to respond to her comment about multiple children. It’ll be hard enough to have one, let alone many. But I don’t want to snap Vienne out of her seemingly harmless dream.

She does it for me, though. “Aloy, we need to talk about this.” She abruptly sits up next to me, taking my aching hand in hers. She’s gentle with her words, but they hurt all the same. “It’s impossible for you and me. You just can’t...”

“I don’t have the right parts,” I say.

“So we need to think of another way.”

“I know.”

Our words tumble together.

“I understand you don’t want to talk about this, but you promised to help figure it out soon. And I might ovulate in the next few days. You know how hard it is to get pregnant. Each time I ovulate and don’t get pregnant, it’s one more chance gone forever.”

I don’t know much about reproduction. I don’t know how many times Vienne will ovulate throughout her lifetime. The radiation effects have caused women’s cycles to fluctuate randomly. Perhaps Vienne’s ovulation is a thing that happens frequently or maybe just once a year. Maybe she doesn’t even know herself.

“We have to figure this out in the next few days?”

“Yes, if at all possible,” Vienne says, lying back down against my arm. “Do you have any ideas?”

“Not one. You?”

Vienne hesitates. She’s usually forthright with me, so her pause is worrisome. I lean forward on an elbow and look into her eyes.

“You do!” My eyes are wide with expectation. “What is it?”

She blinks and breaks my gaze. “We have one option.”

“That’s great!” I prod. “So we’ll make that happen. What is it? Is there something you can eat or drink to get pregnant on your own? Whatever it is, we’ll get it.”

Vienne gives a sharp, small laugh. It’s more of a choke than laughter, I know, but I still want to hear her answer, so I don’t say anything.

“No, I can’t drink something. I need a man to get pregnant. They really didn’t tell you a thing about reproduction, did they?”

“No.” I look down at my hands, red and blistered in my lap.

“No, they didn’t tell you anything? Or no, you won’t let me include a man?”

“No, I wasn’t told much of anything. I guess they didn’t think I’d need the information. But...” I look over at her upturned face. She’s staring at me now, waiting for my answer. “We can’t involve anyone, Vienne. You know the risks in that. They’ll find out I’m a girl. What if it gets out that the baby isn’t mine? It won’t stay a secret if there are more people involved than just you and me.”

My words are pouring out, one after the other, thinking of multiple reasons why Vienne can’t be shared with anyone. Why bringing a third person into the mix is hazardous. Vienne is mine, and the possessiveness I feel is a new, foreign emotion. I’m not quite sure what to do with it.

“I know someone who’s good at keeping secrets,” Vienne says, her head bent, eyes focused on her lap. I don’t want to hear what she’ll say next, but she goes on anyway, looking up at me again, trying to catch my gaze. “You know it too. You
know
he’s our only choice.”

I still don’t say anything.

“He’s not married yet. And he’s the right age. Eighteen is when men are the most fertile. It’s why we marry at this age. He’s just a month away from eighteen now. He’s the right one, Aloy.”

Vienne takes my face in her hands and makes me look her in the eyes.

“You know who I’m talking about,” she says.

She waits for my response a long time. It feels like nails on my tongue when I finally do open my mouth.

Vienne is still staring at me hard, willing me to voice our only option.

“Griffin,” I say.

20

“It won’t work. He won’t do it,” I say. Rather, I hope Griffin won’t do it. But what man wouldn’t want to be with Vienne?

“Won’t he, though? He’ll do anything for us. For you.”

I’m confused about her meaning, but she goes on. “If you ask him, he’ll do it for you.”

Vienne is convinced, but I’m not as sure. I don’t think Griffin is as devoted to me as Vienne seems to believe. She doesn’t know, for instance, he refuses to give up the name of the assassin. If he cared about me so much, telling me the name of his friend, my attempted murderer, would be
an easy task.

I shake my head back and forth, but Vienne catches my face again between her hands. “We need to ask him soon,” she says. “Tomorrow. We can’t waste any more time.”

“This is the only way for you to get pregnant?”

“Without technology? Yes. If we used the old ways, I could be artificially inseminated, but that’s off limits now. I must have sex with a man. And it has to be Griffin.”

I don’t know much about artificial insemination, but I know it requires refrigeration and some kind of centrifuge. Our society is far from having those capabilities. If that is Vienne’s only other option, it’s certainly off the table.

“Let me think about it overnight, ok?”

Vienne agrees and eventually falls into a deep sleep, her head still resting on my arm.

I don’t sleep, though. All I can think about is Vienne in the arms of Griffin, their two perfect bodies close to each other. The picture makes me want to throw up. Vienne is lovely and beautiful and untouchable. For years I’ve known the Madame Elected would be mine alone—raised just for me. Growing up, I had no friends of my own, so it’s hard to willingly give my new best friend over into another’s open arms now. What if she falls for Griffin and wants to spend all her time with him?

And Griffin. The thought of him with someone else is repugnant to me. I want to be the only one to run my fingertips down his back, feeling his strong spine and the curve of his shoulders. To feel his chest resting lightly against mine. I know I shouldn’t be indulging in these thoughts, but in the dark like this, I let my mind wander. The images stir my mind so I can hardly keep still.

I picture his hair. The way it spikes across his forehead, unkempt and dark. His dusky eyes. The way they bore into mine when he looks at me. The way he’s daring, throwing himself between me and a long arrow, but at the same time speaks to East’s children with a patience I’ve only ever seen in Tomlin. He is a constant enigma of opposites. Mischievous but serious. Strong but gentle.

I sleep fitfully, rolling side to side, never getting comfortable. I don’t know when I’m able to rest, but finally the room becomes bright, and I know it’s morning. When I open my eyes, Vienne is already up and sitting in a chair close to the bed.

“Have you decided?” she asks. She’s unwavering in her need for an answer. I’ve never seen her this insistent.

“I guess so.” My eyes are still crusty from a hard slumber. I rub them and sit up on the bed, my feet falling over the side with a soft thud. “Tell me again. This is the only way?”

“Yes. If there was a better option, I would do it.”

I think fast, as a last ditch effort to find an alternative. Who else knows I’m female and incapable of having a child with Vienne? “Tomlin!” I pronounce, before even thinking it through.

“Tomlin?” asks Vienne. “He’s unable to have children. Have you never wondered why he’s unmarried?”

I’m quiet, feeling insensitive. I’m surprised I never deduced this fact about Tomlin before. I’d always thought he was extremely dedicated to the country and my family, and that’s why he didn’t get married. But as stipulated by the Accords, marriage is exclusively about having children. People who can’t produce offspring either wed someone else who’s infertile or don’t marry at all. Love has little to do with the concept of marriage, except that compassionate parents try to arrange an amiable union. I look down, wondering if Tomlin ever loved someone and knew the person couldn’t marry him. I grimace at the thought, realizing I’m the one who now has to uphold the Accord’s harsh rules of population increase.

“It’ll just be a business arrangement. It won’t mean anything more,” Vienne assures me.

I look at my hands, which are slowly returning to their regular flesh tone, as Vienne said they would. She thinks it’s all business now. But in the arms of a muscular, virile man, she may change her mind. She may determine she loves Griffin.

And who couldn’t resist Vienne? In saying yes, I’m risking the possibility of giving Griffin and Vienne over to each other. I will lose them both, I think.

This office of the Elected threatens to crush me under its weight. Over and over, I have to make decisions that go against my fiber. Watching people drink hemlock and die. Letting my parents leave. And now this. Allowing my wife, my friend, to be intimate with someone else. And not just with anyone. Griffin.

I nod my head without looking Vienne in the eyes. I don’t want her to see how full they are, brimming with unease.

She yelps in happiness and gives me a hug. “You’ll see. He’ll say yes. And then you and I will have the most beautiful baby boy. A new ruler for East Country. He’ll be wise, handsome, and strong!”

Vienne is bouncing in her exultation. She must be truly worried about making a baby. I realize her whole life is dedicated to figuring out a way for us to conceive. And I’ve just given her the key.

We make our way down to breakfast, Vienne hopping in her shoes and me shuffling over the floorboards like I’m a prisoner walking to my execution.

Griffin is already there, alone, with a bran muffin coated in honey. The nectar drips down the side of the muffin onto his hand. I stare at his fingers for a moment, lapping up the image of him as mine for the last time.

“Looks like you didn’t get any sleep,” Griffin says toward me.

I don’t want to waste any time with small talk. Especially since the room is vacant except for the three of us. It’s the perfect time.

“We have to talk to you about something,” I mutter.

Griffin raises an eyebrow and lets the muffin fall down onto his plate. “Oh boy. What have I done now?” His smile is impish.

Vienne gives a small laugh and comes to stand by his side. I pull up a chair to his left. We’re bordering him now like bookends.

Griffin stops smiling. “What is it?”

“Aloy has a question for you,” Vienne says.

Griffin looks over at me. “Elected, you know I can’t tell you... we’ve gone over this before.” He’s formal with me, thinking my request will again be for the name of the assassin.

“No, that’s not what I need to ask you.” I run my hands over my head, wiping the small spikes of my hair backward. I rest my fingers on my mouth.

“I need you to have sex with my wife.” There. I’ve said it. My words hang in the air like a knife about to drop.

Griffin looks from me to Vienne and back again, his eyes wide. After a moment of quiet, he settles back over his muffin, pulling a finger through the honey. He doesn’t say a word. Instead, after a solid pause, he laughs out loud, his shoulders shaking with the onslaught.

“We’re not kidding,” says Vienne, her voice serious and low.

“I need Vienne to get pregnant,” I nod once to emphasize the reason and convince myself of its need at the same time.

“And we can’t do it without you,” says Vienne.

Griffin puts down the muffin again and looks at me square in the face. This time the hilarity is wiped off his face.

“Absolutely not.”

I look away from the two of them, not wanting to show my relief or elation about the fact Griffin’s said no. But when I look up, I see Vienne’s face. It’s twisted with intense sadness. I can tell she feels guilty for suggesting this option. But I know she won’t easily give up. That I am not as resolved in making this child bothers me. I should be even more emphatic about the idea than Vienne.

“Why not?” asks Vienne.

“This is ludicrous. You want me to fake having the next Elected with Vienne?”

“Yes,” I say, my head down. “Yes, that’s exactly what we want you to do.”

“You want this? Do you, Aloy? You want me to make
love
to Vienne?”

I swallow the lump in my throat and answer fast so I won’t change my mind. “Yes.”

“I can’t. I won’t do it.”

“I told you he wouldn’t do it,” I say to Vienne.

Vienne turns to Griffin, forcing him to look at her instead of me. “I told Aloy you’d do this for her if she asked it of you. That it would be hard, but you’d agree.”

“And I said you wouldn’t do it,” I respond.

“Well, it looks like Aloy knows me best,” Griffin says, bitterness now dripping from his mouth, his muffin discarded on his plate, the napkin balled up in his fist.

“No, she doesn’t,” comes Vienne’s voice from across the room. “I do.”

I didn’t even hear Vienne crossing the floor. But she’s on the other side of the room now with something cupped inside her hands.

“What do you have?” I ask.

She comes forward, holding out a small box.

Griffin groans.

“What?” I look back and forth between the two of them. They obviously both recognize this object, whereas it’s importance is a complete mystery to me.

“Something Griffin keeps in his room,” Vienne says. “Something of yours, Aloy.”

“Mine?” I ask, my eyebrows scrunched together in a tight crease.

“Vienne, did you really have to go looking through my things?” Griffin asks, his brow tensing.

She comes forward, holding the box out to me. But she’s speaking to Griffin. “I’m the only one who’s supposed to care for the Elected, Griffin. The only one who is, by duty, supposed to be by her side. But it seems I’ve had competition long before I was ever Aloy’s wife. You’ve coveted her for years.”

I open the box, the old hinge squealing as the lid lifts. In it are five small wooden toys—a crudely fashioned bird, whistle, bicycle, horse, and a figure of a little girl.

“These are mine,” I say. “They disappeared a long time ago. I thought... Ama threw them out.”

“I’m sure she did,” says Vienne. “However, each time your mother threw out the figurines you whittled, Griffin found a way to save them.”

“My toys,” I marvel. I’d given up whittling anything that looked like a play thing. Ama didn’t approve.

Griffin is looking down at the table, but without shame he says, “I rescued them for you... so you could have them back one day.”

“You see, he does want you.” Vienne looks over at Griffin, her eyes narrowed. “Don’t you? You’d do anything for Aloy. Anything to protect her and help her keep her secret going. Even help her have a baby.”

“I... I...,” Griffin stammers.

I stare at him. Maybe he does care for me as much as Vienne thinks.

“So will you do it, Griffin?” asks Vienne again, her voice like a piston, steadfast and rapid. “Will you do the one thing Aloy asks of you? Will you help us have a baby?”

He sits quietly in his chair, his hands square on the table. He’s looking at me again. The world seems to stand still. It’s only him and me in the room. No table. No breakfast. No Vienne. There is just Griffin’s full, dark eyes locking with mine.

“Aloy,” he says, his voice low. “This is really what you desire of me?”

His use of the words “desire” and “me” in the same sentence threaten to squeeze my stomach in on itself.

I stare back at him, setting my jaw resolutely even though I don’t feel sure of my words at all. “Yes, it is.”

Maybe he’ll still love me even after having sex with Vienne. Maybe I’ll get Vienne and Griffin and a new baby. Maybe everything will be perfect.

“Then I’ll do it. I’ll make love to Vienne, over and over again, as many times as it takes for her to get pregnant.”

His words, “as many times as it takes,” slice me in two. Like a sword has just lashed through my guts, flaying me open like a fish.
As many times as it takes
. Vienne and Griffin making love over and over again as I wait in the wings for the act to be finished. I feel the bile rising in my throat, and I don’t dare wait for it. I excuse myself from the table, backing up the chair so it makes a sharp scratching sound on the wood floor. I look straight ahead as I exit the room.