“Meaning?”
“What do you think would happen to us if you died?Us students, I mean?And I’m not just talking about being sent back to school.”
“You wouldn’t be.Cyrus would never allow—”
“Cyrus has zero authority with the Corps, and you know it!”she snapped, and then visibly reined herself in.“It wouldn’t matter; we’re all going to age out of there pretty soon anyway.And yeah, we’d be on parole the rest of our lives, but what else is new?No, I mean what wouldhappen.”
I looked at her blankly.“I’m not at my best today,” I pointed out.“Why don’t you spoon-feed it to me?”
“I’m not sure I can.How do I explain what it’s like to spend your whole life locked up, not for anything you did, but for what you are?And to have everybody look at you like you’re dangerous, and about to pop off at any minute, and kill them all.Or act like you’re beneath them, just because you inherited traits they consider undesirable, when who decided that?
“Who gave them the right to determine who is dangerous or not?Weres could kill anytime they want to.And I don’t just mean Relics.AnyWere could go on a tear, but most of them aren’t locked away.Because you can’t lock up everybody, and anyway, most don’t want to!
“And neither did we, but nobody believed that, nobody ever gave us a chance.Hell, my own parents were scared of me, did you know that?My grandmother needed to pick up a prescription one day, and left me with my younger sister.I was ten, and sis was eight, and the pharmacy was just down the street, so it was fine—grandma was gone maybe twenty minutes.But my parents came to pick us up during that time, and freaked out when they realized I was unsupervised, like I was just waiting for the chance to—to do something bad.BecauseIwas bad.”
“You’re not bad, Sophie—”
“Not to you!To you, none of us are, and that’s why we want to be better.Not because the Circle tells us ‘do it or else,’ or because the world needs us right now, or for any other reason.Foryou.
“And then I step out of the shower, and you’re just gone, and nobody knows where, and whole clans are out there gunning for you—”
“It was okay—”
“It wasnotokay!You almost died!And do you know what would have happened then?”She grabbed me, her blue eyes burning.“Do you know what I’d havedone to them?”
I gripped her back.“Sophie—”
“They’re scared of what we can do?I’ll show them what we can do—”
I shook her.“No.”
“Yes!I’m the bad guy, remember?I’m the scary bitch who needed to be locked up at ten years old!I’m—”
“Good,” pulling her to me and hugging her, feeling the tension in her back, in her whole body.“You’ve always been good.And you always will be.”
“But I’m not,” she whispered against my hair, her fingers digging into my back.“When they carried you in, when they finally let you come home, and I saw… You were white, so white, like a piece of paper—”
“Sophie—”
“I almost did it, just rampaged.On the clans, the Corps, everybody.I wanted to just—”
“But you didn’t.”
I refrained from pointing out that she would have only succeeded in hurting herself in the end, as one person couldn’t take on the world, no matter what youthful optimism thought, because that wasn’t the point.I just held her, rocking her slowly for a moment, before pulling back.And staring into her tear-streaked face and wondering how I hadn’t noticed before how freaked out she was.
“Youdidn’t,” I repeated.“Just like you didn’t at school.You could have broken out, done terrible things, anytime you wanted to.But that wasn’t what you chose.”
“’Cause I’d be hunted my whole life!”
“Yes, but the Black Circle could hide you.”
“Those fuckers!”She wiped her tears, looking disgusted.
“Why fuckers?If you’re that bad—”
“Don’t start!”
“I’m not starting anything,” I said gently.“I’m saying, the reason for the parole you mentioned is because people do join the dark after release, some because they want to, others because they feel like they don’t fit in anywhere else.Yet you didn’t follow that path.You chose another long before you met me.”
