My eyebrows drew together. They didn’t know the numbers.
Ardaton must’ve kept Ilasall’s gates closed, too wary of any intruders. They didn’t have a hunch that only about half of ourpeople had ended up in Ilasall, the rest cut off by the slam of the gates and Ilasall’s military blocking the catacombs.
Kali batted her eyelashes at the interrogator. “Zero, and zero.”
The woman heaved a sigh. “Fine.” As she shook her head, her low ponytail swished across her back, the raven’s strands a stark contrast to the bright outfit. “But don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.”
Her thin smile accompanied the knife drawing a high arc in the air?—
Clunk. The sound of steel striking steel stopped my heart mid-beat.
Without hesitation, she removed the meat cleaver, the weapon hanging heavy at her hip. Red specks dotted the blade, so tiny compared to the flow of drops running away from Kali’s limb and leaping to the floor.
Kali gaped at her hand. Then a feeble whimper escaped her. A cry. Finally, she threw her head back, screeching as her shoulders shook, the tremors spreading all the way to her toes until she quivered in tandem with her sobs.
A freezing sensation crawled up my legs, seeping into my pores, numbing me.
Yet I couldn’t look away as the curvy woman picked up Kali’s severed pinky, the small digit dribbling blood on the immaculate white floor. “It’s a good thing you don’t need fingers to carry a pregnancy to full term.”
No response slipped past the pain consuming Kali. A sheen of sweat shone on her forehead, but she rolled her lips together, stifling her cries at her mutilated hand, her resolve to keep quiet non-wavering.
“Told you,” the man resting on the table said to his colleague.
“I have barely started,” she retorted, dropping Kali’s pinky into one of the boxes. Rotating the meat cleaver, admiring howthe sharp edge glinted, the woman returned to Kali’s side. “Tell me how many of your people are still out there, and I will release you.” She pressed the tip under Kali’s chin, urging her to look up. “Of course, you will still have to do your duty to Ardaton, but that’s a woman’s purpose. You’ll survive like all the others.”
Survive.
I twisted and turned, fruitlessly testing the strength of my shackles as guttural sounds emanated from deep in my chest—growls disguised as grunts.
Kali had survived enough. For more than five lifetimes combined.
“Like you did?” Kali scoffed. “I’ve noticed your wristband is green. Your city uses the same system as Ilasall. I know you’re assigned to someone. That theyownyou.”
The woman tugged her medical mask to cover her nose, as though a whiff of the foul stench—the blood and sweat—was making her nauseous.
Unless… That roundness of her stomach wasn’t from fat accumulated due to access to good nutrition, the opposite of what black-banded were graced with.
“The Head of Labor,” she proudly stated. “He’s been my Match since I graduated school.”
I gagged. The broadcast in Ilasall had depicted Ardaton’s Head of Labor as a balding man in his sixties who boasted a belly so large it’d hung over his belt.
Kali laughed, the roar of her mirth so unhindered it coaxed my lips to curl. She was a fighter, through and through.
The female torturer scowled at Kali. “What’s so funny?”
She smiled. “The level of your stupidity.”
“Providing for the human race is not stupid.” Between her sputters, the woman accidentally brushed the bloody knife against her white tunic, ruining her pristine appearance, and her scowl widened my smile.
She was marking herself in a pattern I was going to carve into her flesh.
Slice by slice, I was going to flay her along the crimson smears decorating her clothing and then weave the strips of her skin into a rug. Laceration by laceration, I was going to gouge her muscles out. And minute by minute, I was going to enjoy her screams until the last one zapped down my spine in an electrifying pulse.
Kali crinkled her nose. “But being okay with having no choices and allowing someone to fuck you at their disposal so they can climb the career ladder is.”
All three cities had established the motivational system long ago. The more babies the Match produced, the higher position the man could occupy in his chosen governmental division. An abhorrent practice, but effective, nevertheless.
Checking his wristwatch, the slender man crossed his ankles. “Can we speed this along? My lunch break is scheduled in less than half an hour. And we have…anotherto tend to.”
