“Not…what I…meant,” he slurs, fading fast.
“Get to the point then, Father. What the scorch are you trying to say?”
“Circ,” he moans. “All fake. Not really dead.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
I don’t know what to believe anymore. Father’s dead, and the meaning behind his words with him. If he was trying to give me hope that Circ’s out there somewhere, living, breathing, waiting to sweep me off my feet, he failed. There’s no hope left for me, ’specially by my father’s lies.
Circ would never fool me into thinking he’s dead. Never. I only know it ’cause I’d never do that to him. It’d be the cruelest act of all. I saw him, watched him dying, pierced and broken. He gave me his searin’ charm for tug’s sake!
Burn it, burn it, burn it all to searin’ scorch!
I’m full of rage so deep and controlling that I don’t leave the hut for a long time. At my father. At his lies. At the hope that creeps into me even as I’m denying that it’s there.
I break down. Right there on the floor. Curl up into a ball and cry my eyes out.
I don’t stop until Skye and Lara arrive and wrap themselves ’round me.The two people who mean the most to me. They don’t ask questions, just hold me.
My mind cleansed by my tears, a thought takes hold. At first it’s just a wild idea, but then hope and imagination grab onto it, expand it, turn it into something that feels real, more real’n anything else that’s happened to me over the last year.
I have no choice.
“I hafta go to Confinement,” I say.
~~~
I wanna go alone, but Skye and Lara make the trek with me. It’s the first time I’ve done it as a non-prisoner. If my father was telling the truth, and somehow forced Circ to tell the worst lie of his life to me, the only place he’d be able to hide him away would be in a cage.
“So yer friend Raja’ll be ’ere?” Skye says when we’re partway there. I told them we were coming to free the prisoners, which we are. They don’t need to know what else I’m thinking. Plus, even if I wanted to tell them, I don’t think I’ll be able to speak what I won’t allow my heart to hope.
“Yeah,” I say. “If he’s still alive.” I don’t dare to hope that either.
“I still can’t believe your father confined innocent people,” Lara says.
“He did a lot of wooloo things,” I say.
“I’m glad he’s dead,” Skye says. I am, too, but I won’t say it out loud, not after what he told me.
Confinement rears up in the distance, like the skeletons of massive beasts, frozen in time, the moment ’fore they were killed by a monster even bigger’n they. Will I find my heart between the ribs of one of the beasts? Or did my father manage to hurt me again, even with his last breath, giving me hope when there was none? Either way, exhilaration and anticipation swirl through me like the winds from earlier, gusting the fires this way and that.
Without a word, our steps quicken.
When we reach the edge of the prison, I say, “I’m gonna check every cage for survivors, you start digging them out.”
Grim-faced, Skye and Lara nod.
Each of the cages contains a body. They look dead, but I can tell they’re not, ’cause of the slight rise and fall of chests and shoulders as they sleep the day away. They don’t know ’bout the Glassies or the wildfire, nor would they much care. For their lives are forfeit, stripped away by an evil leader who’d cage them to guarantee his own longevity.
I start running, pausing only momentarily at each cage to confirm the body inside ain’t his. When I get to my old cage, I stop for an eternity, gazing in every nook and cranny, trying to locate the prisoner. If the world has any sense of irony, he’ll be here. My old cage is empty. Perry confirms it. No one’s been here since you, he says. And then: Nice haircut.
I manage to ignore him.
Next to my old cage, Raja lays utterly still, stiller’n my father’s body had been when he passed on. Tears bubble up, drip down my cheeks. More blood on my father’s hands, even after he’s dead. “Oh, Raja,” I say through the bars. I start to dig away the stone and rock blocking the cage entrance.
“Siena?” a voice says.
My eyes light up and I cry out, as Raja rolls over, his face thin and gaunt and perfect. A smile creases his mouth. “I knew you’d come,” he says.
“I thought you were dead,” I say, wiping away the tears just as more well up.
“Me? Nah, I’m a fighter. Like you.”
I’m blubbering and digging and talking nonstop, telling Raja everything between gasps of air. I probably sound—and look—like a wooloo person, but I don’t stop until I’ve dug through and crawled in. I don’t even bother to stand, just squirm over, elbows and knees and hands, fighting my way to a friend I’ve never touched, never been this close to. When I get to him, I tackle him, forgetting how thin and withered away his malnourished body is.
“Ow—hurts,” he groans.
“Sorry, Raja, I’m sorry, I’m just so happy you’re here and alive. I’ve missed you.” I kiss his durty forehead, hug him more gently, feel his emaciated ribs poking into me.
“I missed you, too,” he says, hugging me back.
I feel so full of emotion I almost wanna go hug Perry. I would, too, if he wasn’t so prickly. You don’t look so huggable either, Perry says, you’re all hard edges and bone.
I take it as a compliment.
“Yer friend’s ’ere,” Raja says.
“Yeah, I know,” I say. “I came with her. My sister, too.” I swivel ’round, looking for where Raja spotted them. There’s no one in sight and Raja’s looking at me strangely.
“What the scorch are you talkin’ ’bout?” he says.
“What are you talking ’bout?”
“Not what…who,” he says. “Yer friend with the muscles and dimples.”
Tingles zip up and down my body. I’m dreaming. I’m back in Call Class preparing for my Call, daydreaming, and none of this is happening and I’m ’bout to get called on and laughed at and forced to shovel blaze all by myself ’cause Circ’s gone, and Lara, too, with my mother to follow soon. All. A. Dream.
“He’s ’ere,” Raja says.
And I’m gone, running on all fours like a Cotee, diving through the hole, scratching my back on the underside of the cage and my arms on the rocks and debris, but not caring, not hurting, not feeling anything but hope—real, perfect hope—that somehow, some way my father was telling the truth, that something’ll go right.
I fight to my feet, dash along the remaining cages, ignoring Raja’s cries behind me. Body after random body flashes ’fore my vision and I rush on, all the way to the end of the line, shift to the next line, race along those, too. Hafta find him. Hafta find him now, ’fore my heart explodes and sends me flying every which way. Where is he? Where is Circ? I can speak his name again ’cause he’s real—Raja wouldn’t lie to me, not after all we’ve both been through.
The last cage emerges on my right and I practically crash into it, throw myself against the bars, scan the ground. A body, in the corner, stronger’n most of t’others—could be him. “Circ!” I shriek, trying to squeeze between the bars, not wanting to hafta wait to shovel away the entrance.
The body turns, slowly, a face appearing.
I can’t breathe, can’t will one more breath through my lungs. I’m choking, falling back, curling up, hoping my heart’ll stop beating of its own volition.
The face is Hawk’s.
Chapter Thirty-Seven