Quinn laughs. “The only thing that’ll change the pod is if every one of those ministers croaks,” he says.
“So let’s see to it that they do,” Ronan says.
This gets Quinn’s attention. He prods Ronan in the chest. “Like you’d give up your fancy house and art studio for the likes of Bea.”
“He isn’t lying,” I say, though how can I be one hundred percent sure? I only know what he’s told me.
“Where are they?” someone shouts from the road. Quinn blinks and looks at me.
“Auxiliaries wouldn’t trust Jude Caffrey or Cain Knavery’s son. I need you both,” Ronan says.
“Vanya’s going to tear out your liver and have it for dinner,” the voice shouts.
Quinn holds my face in his hands. Oh, I missed him. “Is there any chance of this working?” he asks.
I nod. “Your dad took Jazz. I think he’s changing, Quinn. If there’s any chance at all, shouldn’t we take it?”
“Vanya’s nuts. We’re dead if we go back there without Jazz. She’s Vanya’s daughter,” Quinn says, more to himself than to Ronan and me. Suddenly he takes Ronan by the coat collar. Ronan doesn’t flinch. “This better not be a trap,” he says, and steps behind the wheelie bin so he’s out of view of the street. “Now we have to get out of here,” he says.
“This way,” Ronan says without another second’s discussion, and runs to the end of the alleyway. We follow, but as we reach him, he turns around, his eyes wide.
“It’s blocked,” he says, reloading his gun. “Only way out is past whoever you came with.”
“Quinn, let’s get moving. Where are you?” the disembodied voice calls.
Ronan puts a finger to his lips and holds his gun ready.
“QUINN!”
Quinn looks at Ronan’s gun. “Unless his shot is spot on, this could go very badly,” he whispers to me. I open my mouth, about to tell him that Ronan is a perfect shot, when Quinn releases my hand. “Go to the pod with Ronan and I’ll follow. If this is going to work, we should gather everyone to help. I’ll get the others and join you.”
I feel lightheaded. “I need you,” I tell Quinn, hoping he knows how true this is. It was true even when we were only friends.
“Alina and Silas have to be part of this. It’s their fight,” he says. “Besides, they’re the ones with the connections and skills.”
“But . . .”
“Hide.” He pushes me toward the wall, where I hunker down behind a pile of garbage. “You, too,” he tells Ronan, who shakes his head and keeps his gun pointed. “Protect Bea,” he says. Ronan hesitates for a couple of moments, then dives next to me. I must be breathing loudly because he puts his hand over the blowoff valve in my mask.
Quinn fastens the top button of his coat and readjusts the strap of his rifle. “Stay hidden,” he says.
“Anything?” the voice booms.
“Nope,” Quinn says.
“Then let’s get out of here. The drifters must have taken them. Vanya isn’t going to like this. I wouldn’t want to be you when we get back.” The man behind the voice snorts.
Quinn stands motionless, and once the man has retreated, looks at me. My hands are still covered in Jazz’s blood. My frame is thinner than it ever was. I haven’t washed in a long time. I look exactly like someone who needs to be protected. “I love you, Bea,” he says, and before I can protest or tell him I love him, too, he takes off down the alleyway and is gone.
27
ALINA
Vanya wouldn’t hear of me going along with Quinn in the zip, so we have to sit tight. Maude and Bruce have been put to work in the greenhouse. The rest of us are in a cardio room doing interval training with a girl and guy we don’t know.
Terry, who sat with us in the dining hall last night, comes into the room carrying a handful of papers. “Just the newbies,” he says. We stop the treadmills, and he hands us each a list printed on heavy gray paper. I rub it between my fingers.
“Is this stone?” Song asks, turning the schedule over in his hands.
Terry nods. “Yep. We finally managed to make up a batch.”
“Limestone and resin,” Song says. “At The Grove we never tried. Too busy with the trees.”
“What is this, anyway?” Dorian asks, reading.
“Schedules for tomorrow. You’ll get your permanent ones soon.”
I eye the schedule. Morning activities are pretty standard: cardio, meditation, breaks for food. But the entire evening is consumed by something called a Pairing Ceremony.
Dorian waves the paper at Terry. “Pairings?”
“You’ll be told your vocation, get paired, and move into the main house. Most of you, anyway. Some people just get given a vocation and the pairing comes later.”
Silas, who’s breathing heavily after hiking hills for almost an hour, repeats Dorian’s question. “Paired?”
Terry fidgets with the schedules still in his hands. “Didn’t Vanya explain?” Silas shakes his head. “You’ll be given your permanent partners,” Terry says.
“Like work buddies,” Song says. “I saw people going about in pairs and I wondered.”
“Sort of.” Terry smiles and makes to leave.
Silas holds him back. “So I could be partnered with Alina?”
“Well, you’re cousins, so no,” Terry says. He shifts from one foot to the other. “You have to be genetically compatible. You know?” Silas scowls. Dorian and Song, who are standing side by side, frown. But after the tests they’ve done on us, we aren’t completely shocked: Not only will Vanya choose what each of us spends the rest of our lives doing, but she’ll also select our mates. It’s almost enough to make me pine for the pod. Almost. “Breeding’s encouraged and most pairs have children who might actually survive . . . this.” Terry waves his hand around the room, but he means the world beyond it—Earth. “Comes naturally, I suppose.”
“Naturally?” Silas says through gritted teeth.
“So where are the children?” I try to keep my voice steady, remembering the girl in the attic, the fear in her eyes, the sweat on her forearms, and the doctor cool and detached as she counted her own contractions. Will motherhood be my fate, if we stay here?
“We keep them in a nursery and train them from birth,” Terry says.
“You take away the girls’ babies?” I ask, stepping closer to Terry. He doesn’t make the rules here, but I have an urge to hurt him anyway.
“I have no intention of breeding. Ever,” Silas says. Having loved Inger and lost him, I’m not surprised by Silas’s outrage.
“But you want to join us. This is what we do,” Terry says simply.
Silas sits on the end of his treadmill with his head in his hands. We huddle around him. We’re too stunned to ask any more questions, and it’s clear Terry has no power, so we ignore him sneaking out. “It’s a baby mill,” Silas says. “No wonder she’s not interested in Maude or Bruce.” He glances at the couple training in the room. They’re gushing with sweat and probably haven’t much energy to pay any attention to us, but Silas waves us to the other end of the room just in case. “We have to get away from here.”
“And where would we go?” Dorian asks.
Silas glowers at him. “Does it matter?”
“Maybe we’ll all get paired with someone normal,” Dorian says. Is he serious? Does he know what he’s saying?
“Yeah, cool. Maybe you’ll get some hot concubine,” Silas says. “Think about it from Alina’s perspective.” But I wish they wouldn’t—I don’t want the decision to be about me being a girl. It has to be the best thing for all of us.
“Leaving has to be our last resort. There’s no air out there. We’ll be dead in a week,” Dorian says.