Facing away from Sarah, Rebecca hadn't moved from where she stood just inside the gate. Occasionally scuffing her shoe against the steel plate that formed the floor of the rattling cubicle, she was clearly impatient to reach the bottom.
I could deal with her right now. The thought suddenly forced itself into Sarah's head. As the Styx girl didn't have her escort, there would be nothing to stop Sarah. The notion gathered momentum, and Sarah knew she didn’t have much time before they arrived at the bottom.
The knife was still in Sarah's handbag — for some reason the Styx hadn't taken it away. She regarded the bag where it lay by her feet, gauging how long it would take her to retrieve the weapon. No, too risky. Much better, a blow to the head. She balled her hands into fists and then opened them again.
No!
Sarah checked herself. Allowing her to be alone with the girl was a demonstration of the Styx's trust. And everything Sarah had been told seemed to fit together, to be true, so she'd decided to go along with them for the time being. She tried to calm herself, taking some more deep breaths. She raised a hand to her neck, tentatively probing the swelling around the self-inflicted wound.
It had been a close call — she'd started to push the knife into her jugular with the desolate intent of sinking it up to the hilt. But with Joe Waites screaming and pleading like a madman, she'd stayed her hand. She'd been prepared to go through with it: She'd lived with the certainty that at some point the Styx would catch up to her. She had rehearsed her suicide in one form or another a thousand times before.
With the knife poised and the silent audience of Styx and Colonists lining the walls around her, she'd listened to what Joe and Rebecca had to say, telling herself that a few more seconds wouldn't make any difference to someone who was already dead.
But then, the story they had told her bore out what was written in the note. After all, the Styx could have executed her there and then in the excavation. So why go to all that trouble to save her?
Rebecca had recounted what had happened on the fateful day Tam lost his life. How the Eternal City had been blanketed in an impenetrable fog and the viperous Will had set off pyrotechnic devices to attract the Styx soldiers. In all the confusion, Tam was drawn into the middle of an ambush and, mistaken for a Topsoiler, had been killed. Worse still, Rebecca said there was a strong possibility that Will himself had wounded Tam with blows from a machete in order to leave him behind as a decoy for the Styx soldiers. Sarah's blood boiled at this. Whatever had happened, Will had saved his own worthless skin, forcing Cal to go with him.
Rebecca also said Imago Freebone, a childhood friend of Sarah's and Tam's, had been present at the incident. According to Rebecca, he had since gone missing, and she could only presume that Will had something to do with this as well. Sarah saw tears in Joe Waites's eyes as Rebecca spoke about this. As a member of Tam's little gang, Imago had been Joe's friend, too.
Sarah couldn't begin to comprehend Will's callous lack of regard for his own brother's life, let alone his murderous behavior. What sort of devious, conniving animal had he become?
Once Rebecca had finished telling her the chain of events, Sarah had asked for a moment alone with Joe Waites, and the Styx girl, much to Sarah's amazement, had granted it. Rebecca and the complement of Styx and Colonists dutifully withdrew from the underground cavern, leaving them together.
Only then had Sarah lowered her knife. She sat in the empty armchair next to Joe. The two of them had talked rapidly while Rebecca and her escort waited in the tunnel leading to the bone pit. Joe retold the tale in rushed whispers, corroborating everything in the note he'd left and the version of events Rebecca had just given. Sarah needed to hear it again from start to finish, form someone she knew she could trust.
When Rebecca returned, she made Sarah a proposal. If Sarah was prepared to join forces with the Styx, she would be provided with the means to track down Will. She would be given the opportunity to right two wrongs: to avenge her brother's murder and to rescue Cal.
It was an offer Sarah couldn't ignore. Too much was left undone.
And, now, here she was, in a metal cage with her avowed enemy, the Styx! What had she been thinking?
Sarah tried to imagine what Tam would have done if faced with the same situation. But it didn't help, and she became agitated, picking at the clot on her neck, not caring in the least that it might cause the cut to open up and start bleeding again.
Rebecca half turned her head but didn't look toward Sarah, as if she could sense her turmoil. She cleared her throat and asked softly, "How are you doing, Sarah?"
Sarah stared back at the Styx girl's head, at the raven-black hair that spilled over the immaculate white collar, and spoke, her voice finding a new aggression.
"Just dandy. This sort of thing happens to me all the time."
"I know how difficult this is for you," Rebecca said soothingly. "Is there anything you want to talk about?"
"Yes," Sarah replied. "You insinuated your way into the Burrows family. You were in the house with my son for all those years."
"With Will — yes, that's right," Rebecca said without any hesitation, but ceased the constant scuffing of her shoe on the iron floor.
"Tell me about him," Sarah demanded.
"What will grow crooked, you can't make straight," the Styx girl said, letting the phrase hang in the air as they trundled downward. "There was something a little strange about him, right from the word go. He found it difficult to make friends and became even more withdrawn and distant as he grew older."
"No question he was a loner," Sarah agreed, recalling the times she had watched Will as he went about his digs.
"You don't know the half of it," Rebecca said in a slightly tremulous voice. "He could be rally scary."
"What do you mean?" Sarah asked.
"Well, he expected everything to be done for him: his laundry, his meals… everything, and he'd fly off the handle at the smallest thing that wasn't just as he wanted it. You should've seen him — one moment he was fine, and the next he'd completely flip out and go into a horrible rage, screaming like a madman and smashing up the place. He was forever getting into trouble at school. In a fight he had last year, he beat up some of his classmates really badly. They hadn't done anything to him! Will just lost it and laid into them with his shovel. Several had to be taken to the hospital, but he wasn't the slightest bit sorry for what he'd done."
Sarah remained silent, absorbing what she'd just been told.
"No, you have no idea what he was capable of," Rebecca said softly. "His adoptive mother knew he needed help, but she was too bone idle to do anything about it." Rebecca slid her hand over her forehead as if the memories were causing her pain. "Perhaps… perhaps Mrs. Burrows was the reason he was like he was. She neglected him."
"And you… what were you there for? To keep tabs on him… or to catch me?"
"Both," Rebecca answered dispassionately as she twisted at the waist to regard Sarah with a steady gaze. "But the priority was to get you back. The Governors wanted you stopped — it's been bad for the Colony to have you unaccounted for. A loose end. Messy."
"And you've managed to pull it off, haven't you? You even got me alive. They'll be delighted with you."
"It's not like that. Anyway, it was your decision to come home." There was nothing in Rebecca's manner to suggest she was gloating over her success. She turned back to the gage again. Every so often, bright illumination from the entrances to other levels flashed before her, reflecting in the lustrous sheen of her jet-black hair.