Page 112

“No...” I said quickly. “No. It's your decision.” I shook my head as if it would help erase all the critical and overwhelming voices in my head, but they only grew louder. “But what if there's a better solution? What if the father would want this baby?” I bit my tongue and looked apologetically at Julie, catching a glimpse of a bright flicker in her eyes. “I don't want to pressure you, but what if you tell him about the baby? What if...”

She stopped.

I did the same, realizing I had gone too far, just because my stupid emotions wanted to remind me Julie was privileged and I wasn't. And that she was getting a chance at something that had been taken away from me just like that.

Julie stared into space as more groups of students rushed past us.

“I'll protect her.” Julie's gaze lost itself on the walls of the hallway. “I alone.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Her?”

Julie was going to have a girl?

“The chance of having a boy is very low for Quatura.”

Okay, so she didn't really know.

“You should get an ultrasound scan.”

She looked at me, her thoughts obviously still elsewhere. “Maybe someday.”

I didn’t say anything else, letting Julie drift in her own bubble of thoughts as I walked beside her toward the lecture hall, indulging in my own painful memories. Memories of a time when I had been forced to give up my future in order to escape my scarred past.

I would never get it back.

Brass Tacks

Chrystopher Tyng

It was Emely Copeland – whom we passed on the stairs leading further down into the lecture hall, while young men chased each other up the stairs next to us and paper airplanes flew through the hall as if we were in elementary school and not at university – who pulled me back to the present.

Emely watched us, next to her this strange Russian guy and other Russians I didn't know, but who all seemed to be absorbed in conversation.

“Do you think we can trust Emely?” I whispered when we were out of earshot and sat down in two of the last free seats in the crowded hall.

“Emely has no bad intentions,” Julie replied quietly beside me. “She’s just loyal to her family and does what she has to do to survive in this town.”

I looked up at Emely, who was no longer staring at us, but also into the void in front of her, into the hall.

“Either you sacrifice yourself for your people, or you turn against them. There's no in-between in Blairville.”

I wondered if Julie was right. I wasn't a good judge, because I wasn't born here, hadn't been raised with this hatred toward other species, knew next to nothing compared to Julie.

It crossed my mind whether she was referring to herself.

“You're not going to sacrifice yourself for your circle or the Councils, are you?”

Julie's empty gaze remained and she stared ahead, just like Emely.

“I'm going to make them pay.”

“For what?”

Julie took a few seconds to answer.

“For a very old scar that will never completely heal.”