The more she spoke, the more excited she became. Even though he couldn’t hear her, she looked at Griffin from time to time like she was seeking his approval. Her signs were more natural and confident with him around too. She smiled, which I hadn’t seen before.
I peered around the corner to see if Dennis had left the gunroom, but he hadn’t. He needed to get out. He was only there to look around and report back to us.
As I turned back to Griffin and Nyla, a young child’s cry split the air. It was loud enough to startle Nyla. The others flooded out from our room and joined me on the walkway.
Kell was marching Dennis toward us. Rose was running up from behind them. Her mother too. Even the people working on the parade grounds paused what they were doing to watch.
“What’s going on?” cried Marin. “Are you all right, Dennis?”
Kell stared at every one of us, weighing our guilt. “Dennis decided to pay a visit to a room . . . a private room.”
Under other circumstances, we might have been able to pass it off as an innocent mistake. But from the way Dennis was shaking, it was obvious he knew he’d done wrong.
Marin was desolate. “Why did you do such a thing?” she asked him. “Did someone tell you to go in there?”
Dennis didn’t answer. But his eyes shifted to Rose as if he was waiting for her to save him.
Marin understood well enough what the look meant. “What have you done, Rose?” she hissed.
“I didn’t know what was inside the room,” said Rose. “It scared me.”
“Is that so?” Kell sneered. “Well then, ask your brother what’s in there. Ask him what we have lined up against the walls. What horrible little secrets have we been keeping from you all, Dennis?”
Dennis shrank back from him. “There were guns. Lots of guns.”
“Lots of loaded guns,” corrected Kell. “The kind that might accidentally kill a child if he got hold of them. The kind that any responsible colony would kept locked away.” He gritted his teeth. “If you think you need one of those guns, Rose, you should’ve asked. Although I’d like to know what you plan to do with it.”
Chief had joined us now. He looked from one to another of us. “I don’t understand,” he said. “One moment, I’m on the parade grounds dealing with a serious health issue, the next I hear that you took advantage of the situation to spy on us. If you’d just asked me, I would have told you what was in that room.” His voice had an unfamiliar edge. “Please, tell me what we’ve done to make you so distrustful.”
I should have held my tongue, but I couldn’t stand the way that everyone was turning on Rose. “Kell boarded the ship the second night we were here,” I told Chief.
He hesitated. “Is that true, Kell?”
Kell didn’t miss a beat. “Yes. I saw a light through one of the portholes. I got to wondering who’d board their own ship in the dead of night. And why.”
“You went into the captain’s cabin,” I snapped.
“As did you, even though you told us you hadn’t. How else would you have heard our radio transmission?” He paused to let the words sink in. “The thing I really want to know is how you got back into the fort that night without me noticing. Seems that if anybody has been keeping secrets, it’s you, Thomas.”
Chief was hunched over now. He looked older than before. “I trusted you, Thomas,” he said quietly. “I really did. But trust works two ways. I sincerely hope you’ll think ours is worth winning back. If not, I’d urge you to find another home.”
He turned to leave. Kell stayed right beside him, his allegiance unquestioned.
No one else moved.
“There was something else,” began Dennis, but Marin cut him off.
“Enough!” Her eyes roamed from Rose to me as though she couldn’t decide which of us she hated more. “Stay away from Dennis. You told us not to use our elements anymore, Thomas, yet from the mess over there, I can see you dared to combine with Rose. In full view. Never mind the dangers of having human filth strewn across the ground.” Her voice was quiet but venomous, anger visible in every twitch. “As for you, Rose, a real sister would never have done what you did today.” She pulled Dennis toward her, hands draped over his shoulders possessively as he tried to wriggle free. “Do whatever you like, but understand this: Dennis and I will be staying here. I will not let you jeopardize his future.”
As Marin dragged Dennis away, he kept his head turned back and eyes fixed on us. I expected him to appear as angry as his mother did. Marin was right. We’d taken advantage of his trust. Instead, he looked conflicted about the side he’d been made to choose. Or was it more than that? He mouthed a silent word as he retreated, but I couldn’t make it out.
Ananias placed a hand on my shoulder. “What were you thinking, Thomas?”
“Look, something’s going on between Kell and Jerren—”
“So? That’s their problem, not ours.” His voice rose with every word. “What’ll happen to Father if they throw us out? What’ll happen to any of us? There’s no food on that ship. If they make us leave, not one of us will survive—”
“I’m sorry,” I snapped. “All right? I’m sorry.”
There was a flash of anger in Ananias’s eyes. He was bigger than me and stronger. If he wanted to hurt me, it wouldn’t be a close fight, especially without full use of my element. But the anger didn’t last. “You brought us here, Thomas. You were the one who said everything would work out. We doubted you, but it turns out, you were right. And now that we’re safe, you’re risking everything to prove you were wrong. If they knew that you had done that to the sewer . . .” He squeezed my shoulder. “We have friends now. Allies. You can stop doubting that everything is real.”
Alice and Tarn watched me with looks of disappointment and confusion. Griffin and Nyla too. Chief had opened up to me more than to anyone else. Of all of us, I was the one who should have trusted him. If I still had doubts, how could anyone else be reassured by what they saw all around them?
Rose hurried past them, heading toward our room. I ran after her, and caught up to her in the corridor.
“This is all my fault,” she whispered.
“No, it’s mine too.”
“I have no one now.” She drew a quick breath. “I have nothing left.”
I wrapped her in a hug. “You have me.”
She was shaking. “Dennis mouthed a word as he left. It looked like rat.” She must have felt me sigh, because she added, “That’s what I think, anyway.”
I wiped away her tears. “We’ll ask him, all right? Later on, when your mother isn’t around.”
She nodded then, and we hugged. And in the silence of the corridor, I realized at last that Ananias was right: There was no need to doubt that everything was real, when the most real thing of all was right in front of me.
CHAPTER 24
I hid out in our room for the rest of the morning. Maybe it was cowardly, but I couldn’t stand the thought of everyone staring at me, knowing what I’d done.
Away from everyone else, I tended to my father. I collected water so that he could wash himself, and helped him pace slowly around the room to get his muscles working again. Someone, Tarn maybe, had left a pile of clean clothes beside his bed. I turned away while he dressed. In a fresh tunic, he looked almost human again.