“I understand,” I reply, determined that this time, Mother will notice me. She won’t be able to ignore me this time.
My mentor leaves me to wander the slowly growing crowd and takes her station somewhere on the other side of the aisle left open for Mother. For a loud few minutes, people talk around me, not even noticing me. I don’t look like an Enforcer. Not yet, I think. But soon. Very soon.
Excitement boils in my blood. Butterflies flutter in my stomach but I squash all emotion. Emotion won’t get me noticed. Success will. I will not fail.
Then a hush draws over the crowd. Mother walks through the crowd, and on either side of the aisle, Citizens bow their heads in reverence. Except the Citizen right next to me. An older man. He refuses to bow his head. The Citizens next to him are hissing at him to do it, but he stares straight back at Mother without so much as a nod. She lifts an eyebrow and stops for the briefest of seconds before moving her gaze to me.
I know what I’m supposed to do. It makes me sick to think about it, but failure will not be tolerated. I sneak behind him, then grab him by his arm and pull him into the shadows. Although he struggles, it’s a simple matter of injecting him with the syringe of medication Enforcers use to calm the unwilling. I place my hands around his head and twist. The popping sound his neck makes leaves me nauseated and for a minute, I lean over, pressing my sweaty palms on my thighs.
After a few minutes of breathing shallowly through my nose, I leave his body for one of the disposal crew to clean up. They should be around any minute. I rejoin the crowd with my stomach still rolling. They part for me now and when Mother sees me, she smiles from the stage set in the middle of the Square. I’m disgusted and queasy, but I fight a smile. I’ve been waiting five years for this.
Memories flash by in an endless series of bodies and blood and pain. The minute one ends another starts, filling my body with sorrow, regret, disgust, and anger. For myself. For the woman who did this to me and for the one who let it happen. But there are certain memories I’m grateful for. Ones that make up for every single one of the bad ones. Memories of Gavin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
It is a privilege and an honor to serve as an Enforcer, Elysium’s most prestigious designation … Conditioning is the ideal training method as it is safe, quick, and completely painless.
—EXCERPT FROM SO YOUR DAUGHTER HAS BEEN CHOSEN TO BE AN ENFORCER. CONGRATULATIONS! PAMPHLET
Evie
When I wake, my whole body is sore. Just like in the memories. This is a pain I know well. How many times did they do this before? Too many to count. Enough for me to lose myself, though. Enough to turn me from a normal little girl who wanted to play with dolls and have tea parties to a monster who killed people to impress a different monster. To make someone proud of me.
I open my eyes and survey the people grouped around me. My eyes land on Evangeline. The woman I now realize is my mother. My real mother. I must have been an idiot not to see the resemblance between us. It’s there, slapping me in the face in the color of our eyes. The tilt of our mouths. The upper lip that’s slightly fuller than the bottom. Her face is almost identical to the one I see every time I look in the mirror.
Unlike my reflection, though, she won’t meet my gaze. She knows that I know and that’s just fine with me. I firm my mouth into a straight line. “So, where’s my real father?”
Evangeline’s eyes widen and stare daggers into Eli. “You didn’t tell her?”
Eli looks down at the ground and mumbles, “I thought we should tell her. Together.”
Evangeline—I don’t know if I can think of her as my mom—shakes her head. “You mean leave it to me.” She lowers herself to the bed and tries to stroke my hair, but I jerk myself away from her. She sighs. “Father is your real father.”
I don’t know how to respond to that. Evangeline is obviously my real mom. Eli, on the other hand … I tilt my head to study him, but looking at him, there really isn’t anything physical we share. But … there is something similar. Our mannerisms. Our facial expressions. Even the way he’s looking at me, obviously trying not to let me know how nervous he is about what Evangeline just told me, is something I would do, and I doubt anyone else would even know he’s nervous.
More than that, there’s some kind of connection between us. More of one than I feel toward my mom, and enough of one that I trusted him to get us here. My memories are like leaves fluttering on the wind. No order yet, but something tells me I still don’t have the whole story of what happened between Eli and Evangeline.
I sneak a look at Gavin, who doesn’t seem that shocked. But Asher is gaping at Eli, and a considering look crosses his face when he turns his attention to me.
I frown at him, wondering what he’s thinking, but I say, “This isn’t right. He’s not my dad.” I focus back on Evangeline. “I remember someone else. I never met you until … until after I became an Enforcer.”
Eli has this half smile on his face, but Evangeline shoots a worried look at him. He nods at her to continue, and for a minute she looks like she’s going to refuse, but then she sighs and stands as if she’s too nervous to just sit and do nothing.
“You’re right, Evie. This is all very complicated, but there was someone else. His name was Nathaniel. We were Coupled and he…” She stops and closes her eyes, taking a shaky breath before continuing. “He’s the one who raised you, but he wasn’t your real dad. Not genetically.”
My heart starts pounding in my chest and I know I don’t want to hear the rest of the story, but I can’t make myself tell her to stop. It’s as if my body knows I need to hear the rest.
“I was so young. Just barely sixteen. But Nathaniel and I were in love. I was already approved as a breeder, so it was simply a matter of obtaining the license to Couple. So we went to Mother and applied for it. We were approved, but there was a stipulation.” She looks at me, and lets out this short, humorless laugh before glancing down to her hands. “For me, anyway. But I didn’t know it. Not until after Nathaniel and I were Coupled. Nathaniel and I decided we wanted to start our family right away. We said it was to do our duty for Elysium, but we really just wanted to have children.” She smiles at me, but I can’t smile back, so she looks back at her hands. “I remember that day perfectly. It was two months after our Coupling and I was in what was to be your nursery. Getting it ready in the hopes that it would give me good luck.” She looks at me. “I’d failed to conceive up until this point and she—Mother—came to find me personally. She told me that my genetics were a perfect match for something she was hoping to do. She’d chosen me to be the mother to a new breed of Enforcers. A breed designed specifically for the task. At first I was flattered. Who wouldn’t be?”
She smiles at me, but I’m not amused. She was flattered? Really? How fantastic for her.
She clears her throat. “Um … it was short-lived. She went on to say that the father of the baby I would carry would not be Nathaniel, but would be her own partner. Father.”
Everyone looks at Eli and he shifts from side to side, looking at the ground.
“I don’t understand.” Gavin moves his gaze back to Evangeline. “If she wanted you to Couple with Eli, why did she allow you to Couple with Nathaniel?”