The Choosing (28 page)

Isaac reached out and grabbed her by the back of her hair and yanked her down. She screamed and felt her tailbone smash into the concrete floor. Pain shot through her lower back and she tried to scramble away. Isaac dropped to his knees beside her and started to wrap a thick cord around her ankles. “I tried to spare you from learning things the hard way, but you are quite persistent,” he said.

Carrington tried to scream for help, but Isaac shoved a thick cloth in her mouth and silenced her cries. Tears soaked the edges of the cloth as she continued to struggle against Isaac’s restraints.

“I will save you, dear. You will be holy.”

A heavy object connected with the side of her skull and the fear fell away as the world crumpled to blackness.

Isaac stared at the crooked man sitting in his living room. Crooked not just because he was a criminal willing to do anything for enough money but because his facial features were contorted and odd. It was as if God had made a mistake when forming his face. Isaac took a deep, steadying breath and tried to make sure the man understood exactly what was being asked of him.

“I want to be clear,” Isaac said. “There can be no mistakes this time.”

“Hey, don’t blame me for Mills’s screwup. I got away, didn’t I?” the man said.

“And now Mills is dead. I don’t think I need to explain what will happen to you if things do not go according to plan.”

“Yeah, yeah, I hear ya. But to pull off what you’re asking the price ain’t gonna be the same. Killing CityWatch guards who ain’t already behind bars is risky business.”

“Just the two transport guards. I’ve arranged for the yard to be clear when they arrive. They will present a problem if not silenced.”

The squirrelly man picked up a golden statue sitting on Isaac’s coffee table. “And the girl?”

“I will deal with her.”

“Suit yourself. Don’t muck it up. Terms as usual: I expect half up front and half when the job is done. I’ll be back tomorrow to collect the rest.”

“No. Give it a couple of days. Tomorrow I’ll be busy.”

“Don’t try and cheat me out of my money!”

Isaac moved like a whip, reaching and wrapping his fingers around the ugly man’s throat in seconds. “Don’t forget whom you are talking to, boy.”

The criminal choked and clawed at Isaac’s hand, finally offering a nod. Isaac released him and the man dropped like a sack of stones into the chair. He cursed under his breath and rubbed his injured throat.

“I assume we have a deal,” Isaac said.

“You’ll have your dead guards before mornin’ light.”

Isaac pulled an envelope full of cash from his coat pocket and handed it to the man, who grabbed it and headed out the back door and into the woods as usual.

Isaac walked back through his home toward the small library where he spent so much time. Under the wooden floor, his bride-to-be was tied and gagged beside yet another unworthy, dying sinner. His frustration was beyond a manageable level. He sat in a large leather chair and let the sound of the clock tick away with his sanity.

He had been given a mission, had mapped out each detail, clear and orderly. He had procured the supplies, secured reliable assistance, followed every step, never
straying from the plan. His orders were clear
 
—to cleanse filthy sinners
 
—and he was prepared. But he had not been prepared for this.

“Why give her to me just to take her away?” Isaac asked. He listened for a response and heard nothing. The voice had been quiet lately and he was beginning to wonder if God had abandoned him altogether.

“I have done everything You asked. Why are You punishing me in such a way? She is not like the others; You told me that. It is why I chose her . . . because You instructed.”

Silence.

Isaac slammed his fists against the arms of the chair over and over. “Why leave me now in my time of need? Do not turn Your back on me!”

Like the soft rippling of a brook, the voice returned and worked to calm the storm raging in Isaac’s mind. The words soothed, massaged, and bandaged the wounds.

“Tell me what to do. Instruct me,” Isaac said.

He listened and nodded.

“I will do anything You ask of me, but please let her be mine.”

Divine guidance filled his heart and he felt peace.

“I will make her believe; I will make her holy. Praise be.”

Remko flipped Helms’s coin into the air and caught it in his palm. He had tried to return it to Helms’s father at the
funeral, but the man had insisted Remko keep it. He said Helms had talked about Remko like he was a brother and that the coin should stay in the family. Remko had promised Helms’s father he wouldn’t stop until he had captured and brought to justice the men who had taken his son. But with only one of them lying in the ground, Remko was coming up short on his promise.

The second man seemed to be a ghost. Some of the other guards had started to doubt he even existed, but Mills had spoken of him as if he were real, and that was what Remko used to fuel the dying flame when the trail to the second man grew cold. After sorting through all the nonsense Mills had spouted, Remko was certain neither Mills nor his partner were the brains behind the operation. There was someone else
 
—someone who was also responsible for the Lint bodies that kept turning up. Whoever it was, Mills had claimed he was connected to the Authority. Remko should be out right now trying to track him. Instead, he was stuck on Stacks duty again.

Remko knew Dodson was worried about his commitment, but leaving him to babysit a building void of residents most of the day was simply cruel. Dodson had been watching Remko like a hawk; he seemed to show up everywhere Remko went. It was impossible to prove the Authority was dirty when one of its members was constantly hovering, scrutinizing.

A CityWatch vehicle pulled up and Dodson stepped
out.
Speak of the devil.
Remko pushed himself off the wall he was propping up and headed down to where Dodson was standing.

“Sir,” Remko said.

“Walk with me,” Dodson said, taking off toward the east. Remko followed, tucking Helms’s coin back into his pocket. Dodson walked until he had put a good amount of distance between the two of them and the rest of the guards lingering around the Stacks. Whatever he was about to tell Remko, he clearly didn’t want anyone else to hear.

“I received a troubling call this morning,” Dodson started. “A CityWatch vehicle has gone missing, along with both its drivers and its passenger.”

“When?”

“Sometime last night.” Dodson stopped and turned to face Remko. “The passenger was Carrington Hale.”

Remko felt like someone had socked him in the gut. He tried to play it off as simple concern for a citizen, but Dodson was perceptive and obviously already knew how Remko felt about her.

“Not that I approve, but I know the two of you were close.”

“What hap . . . hap . . .” The word stuck in Remko’s throat, wedged between his panic and his urgency.

“She left Authority Knight’s home last night roughly two hours after sunset and never showed up at her house. Neither did the CityWatch vehicle nor the two guards
escorting her home. I have men searching through all the city’s street cameras now to see if we caught a glimpse of them.”

“The GPS . . .”

“Tried that. It was switched off at the edge of town, just before the intersection of Ferry and Southside, which means whoever did this knew what they were doing. The guards’ chips were discovered out in the Cattle Lands, but still no sign of the guards themselves.”

“And Carrington?”

“Nothing so far.”

Remko thought about the last time he had seen her. He remembered the pain in her eyes, the frailness of her figure, as if she hadn’t eaten or slept in days. He’d noticed the mark on her cheek, barely showing through her makeup but obvious to someone who had studied her every feature. He remembered the way her shoulder had felt under his hand. She hadn’t even struggled against him; her body just wanted to show that she thought executing Arianna like the worst of criminals was wrong. She hadn’t been the only one.

“Against my better judgment, and only because I need my best on this, I’m going to bring you in to help,” Dodson said. “But, Remko, she is the fiancée of a council member. One wrong move and you’re out. And I don’t just mean out of the investigation. Understand?”

Remko nodded and followed Dodson back to the car, Carrington’s tearful face still hovering behind his eyes.

Carrington felt something tickle her cheek and slowly opened her eyes. Bright light and golden strands danced into view. That was odd. For some reason she had expected there to be darkness. She shrugged off her sleepy fog and ran her hand along the golden rods flowing across her vision. They were rougher than they looked and ran to the floor. When she reached it and it was cool and moist, Carrington realized it wasn’t a floor at all, but dirt.

She sat up and felt a soft breeze kiss her skin and skip across her shoulders. All around her the tall golden rods swayed with the wind. Trees in tight patches stood every few yards in the distance, but all around her was golden grass.

Something felt strange and fuzzy in her brain, like she was supposed to remember a detail she couldn’t quite grasp, or like she should know something she didn’t.

The breeze felt perfect blowing against her, and the grass made her feel safe and protected. But she did notice that she was alone. Maybe she wanted to be alone and that’s what she was supposed to remember.

“Dreams are funny that way,” a man said. Carrington turned around and saw Aaron sitting on a stump, a long strand of golden grass sticking out of one corner of his mouth.

The moment she saw his face the memories of reality came rushing back like a storm. Being left alone at Isaac’s
house, discovering his hidden killing room, being bound, being knocked unconscious. She looked around at the beautiful field and understood that she wasn’t actually here, just dreaming. The fear came rushing back too, the terror that gripped her heart hard enough to nearly stop it. Maybe she wasn’t dreaming at all; maybe she was just dead.

“Am I dead?” Carrington asked, suddenly sure his answer would be yes.

“Not yet,” Aaron said.

“Am I going to die?”

“Yes, we are all going to die.”

“I don’t want to die.”

“Why not?”

“I’m afraid.”

“Fear is an illusion.”

“You sound like Arianna.”

Aaron started to chuckle, low at first, but as he continued it grew until he was folded over, his arms wrapped around his stomach, laughing loud enough to wake anything close by. His laugh was infectious and Carrington couldn’t help but join in. A slight giggle turned to full-on laughter and she fell to her side. Aaron slapped his knee to emphasize that he thought what she had said was quite humorous indeed.

“I don’t know why you thought that was so funny,” Carrington said when her laughter finally diminished.

“There is joy in everything if you are looking at it correctly.”

Carrington thought through the current state of affairs in her life and saw nothing remotely joyful. She yanked a bunch of grass from the ground beside her and started pulling it into smaller pieces. “I’m not sure that’s true,” she said.

Aaron jumped off his stump and walked toward her. “That’s because you don’t know who you are.”

“How can you say that? You don’t even know me.”

“Yes, I do.” He sat cross-legged in the grass beside her. “I know that you are perfect, that you are chosen, that you are free.”

Carrington huffed and threw her shredded grass into the wind. “I’m none of those things.”

“Then what are you?”

She drew a circle in the dirt with her finger. “Not much. But it’s okay. I’ve accepted it.”

“I see. And what would you say to the little girl who gave you that flower? Would you tell her to accept the fact that she is worth nothing?”

“No
 
—I didn’t say that . . .”

“And Larkin? Is she worth so little as well? What about Arianna?”

“Of course not!”

“And Warren, or your mother, or your father?”

“I was only talking about me.”

“So . . . only you?”

“Yes, only me.”

“Who says?”

Carrington dropped her eyes back to the ground and saw an image of Isaac snarling in the darkness there. “He owns me.”

“He doesn’t have to. You have power inside you.”

“People keep telling me that, but it doesn’t do me any good. I don’t know how to use it. I am bound to him. There is still a law and it says I am his!”

“The laws of men are silly little things.” Aaron chuckled again.

Carrington felt herself becoming angry. “They are real and I have to live by them.”

“Say you are free and you will be.”

“No
 
—it’s not that simple!”

“You’re right. First you have to believe it. Believe you are free and you will be.”