“I’m fine.”The response is terse.
Fine.I’m so tired of that word. Each time I reach out to her, she tells me she’s fine, but we both know that’s bullshit. Usually I play along, so eager to connect with her that I’m willing to pretend she’s not slowly dying inside, but right now I’m too exhausted to pretend.
“Tana,”I say, cringing at the desperate note in my voice. The silent plea for us to go back to the way we used to be.“How do I fix this?”
She doesn’t answer.
I swallow the panic in my throat.“I know you’re angry with me for letting them send you to a camp.”
She still doesn’t answer.
Guilt and regret war inside me, but both eventually dissolve, leaving a hollow emptiness in my chest.“I didn’t have any other choice, Tan.”
Finally, I get a response.
“Yes, you did. You could have let them execute me.”
I grit my teeth, my fingers tightening over the edge of my blanket.“No. I couldn’t.”
“What wouldyourather, Wren?”she says dully.“Being dead or beingthis?”
A flash of pain goes off behind my eyelids as she projects an image into my mind without warning.
I see brown skin. A thin black band. And a red one.
It takes a second to register that I’m looking at her wrists.
Bile sizzles up my throat, burning my windpipe. They marked her.
After General Redden’s Coup against President Severn, he tattooed black bands on the wrists of every known Mod on the Continent. The ones who pledged their loyalty to him received only the black band, but those who resisted were marked with a second tattoo, a red one to indicate their prisoner status.
I feel sick, my stomach eddying, twisting. Although the projection fades, I can’t erase the image of those tattoos from my mind, and I’m suddenly struck with a flash of clarity that burns away all the uncertainty I’ve been harboring about the idea of war.
How do I know I’m fighting for the right side?This.Tana, trapped in a work camp against her will. What the Company does to us is wrong. It’s fuckingwrong,and I’m not going to stand by and let people I care about live as slaves.
“I’m going to get you out of there,”I say firmly.“I promise you that.”
“Don’t make bullshit promises you can’t keep, Wren.”
The blunt reply is like a punch to the gut.“Tana—”
She abruptly severs our link, leaving me in the darkness of my new, unfamiliar bedroom, fighting back tears.
Chapter 8
I wake the next morning from a fitful sleep to find a message from Gray on my new comm, telling me to meet him in the mess hall for our tour of the Dagger. After a quick shower, I get dressed, brush my hair into a low ponytail, and head out the door. I leave my room at the same time another door down the hall buzzes open.
Bare feet peek out, followed by tanned legs, then finally, the owner of those legs. She’s a pretty brunette with rumpled hair, wearing a short dress and holding her shoes in her hands. She sprints away like she really doesn’t want to be seen.
The door is about to close when a pair of green eyes catches mine.
It’s that Saint guy, a smirk lifting his lips when he spots me. He ducks back into his quarters, and I hide my amusement as I pass his door.
It’s my first time trying to navigate the Dagger without a guide, so I’m pleased with myself when I manage to make it all the way to the mess hall without having to check my comm. As I round the corner, the sound of raised voices stops me in my tracks.
Outside the mess hall, Gray and Karra are engaged in a heated argument.
I quickly back away, keeping out of Karra’s eyeline. If Gray seesme, he doesn’t let on. His jaw tightens at whatever she says, and his irritated response makes Karra cross her arms over her chest. Her voice rises, and when I catch a glimpse of her profile, I see that her cheeks are flushed with anger. Finally, she tosses her black hair over her shoulder and stomps off in the other direction.
