“Before we recruited Wren,” he reveals, “she was so desperate to escape their base that she let someone break her wrist during a sparring match.”
Luisa’s mother shakes her head in reprimand. “Oh, honey. That must have been painful.”
“Agonizing,” I admit.
“And it didn’t even work.” Gray snorts. “They flew in a healer to fix her. Ellis.”
Seth raises one thick eyebrow. “You must have been important to them.”
I don’t want anyone thinking that the Company views me as a valuable asset, so I give a rueful smile and say, “I think my commanding officer had a crush on me.”
Gray snorts again.
After lunch, I offer to clean up, but Beatriz puts Gray to work instead. As they wash dishes at the sink, I join Seth in the main room by the fireplace, watching as he pushes his chair even closer to the roaring blaze.
When he catches me staring, he says, “I tend to run cold.” Then he laughs. “And yes, I realize that’s ironic considering half my face is melted off. You’d think I’d be hot all the time, huh?”
Since he’s the one who pointed them out, I don’t feel as awkward taking a closer look at his burns. They’re much worse than the ones I used to have. Mine were the result of a pot of boiling water spilled on me as a child, and as I grew older, the skin slowly stretched andwhitened. Seth’s burns don’t look recent, but he clearly suffered more extensive damage than I did. His flesh is an angry red. Deep and jagged.
“What happened?” I ask, because I’m too curious for my own damn good.
A dark cloud floats through his eyes.
Fuck. I shouldn’t have opened my mouth.
To my surprise, he answers. “Just another casualty of Valterra Ridge.”
The confession accelerates my heartbeat. “Oh. I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
Seth touches his neck, running his fingertips over the uneven flesh. His features grow taut with anger. “I got these trying to shield Lu when the bombs started falling and everything caught fire. Managed to get her out, but not without some battle scars.”
As he shifts his harsh gaze to the fireplace, the rabbit stew I just ate threatens to make a reappearance. I gulp down the nausea and try to focus on not losing my lunch.
“We learned about the bombing in school,” I say.
He lets out a derisive laugh. “And I suppose the Company narrative was one of victory, huh?”
I nod. The Primes of the Continent were ecstatic about the result of Valterra Ridge. Hundreds of Mods burned to a crisp by the bombs that rained over their village. Before the location was compromised, the community had been more of an urban legend. The General and his people suspected that a secret community of Aberrant existed somewhere in the wards but were never able to find it. This was partially because Valterra Ridge was located along a dangerous fault line, and it was believed that nobody could survive beyond it. Turns out, a lot of people could.
“It’s good you left that place,” Seth tells me. “The Command, I mean. They warp your mind there. Feed you bullshit until you turn on your own.”
“Like the Tin Block Traitors?” I blurt out.
He grunts. “Yeah. Like them. Godfuckers. Hope they’re burning in hell.”
My throat is almost completely obstructed by the knot of guiltjammed inside it. I want to apologize on behalf of my parents, which is quite possibly the stupidest impulse I’ve ever had, and something I can never do. Telling the truth would destroy everything I’m trying to build here.
Yet it feels like I owe this man something. Like I need to atone. My parents caused more death and destruction than I could’ve ever imagined. I’m sitting here with a man who suffered at their hands, and it makes me want to crawl into a hole and never show my face again.
My stomach flips from the now familiar swirl of shame. This isn’t my sin to bear, I know that, but I also know that everyone would look at me differently if they learned my parents had been traitors to the Uprising.
“They sold us out, but they got their just rewards in the end,” Seth says, shrugging. “God will always have retribution for his children.”
It’s rare to hear someone speak about God in this way. The old religions are banned on the Continent; General Redden had no interest in them. I’ve never known anyone who practiced, but Seth is clearly pious. Maybe he’s earned the right to be, after what my parents did to him.
I suddenly wonder how many other people in the valley are Valterra Ridge survivors, and my hands start trembling. Cross is right. I need to be extremely careful going forward.
“Wren,” Gray says from the kitchen, his tone sharp. “We need to get back.”
