Once the hatch is opened, we limp down the gangway. The faces around me are a mixture of tears and relief. We cling to each other, hugging, squeezing. We did it. We made it through. Staring at the bloodied ID tag still clutched in my hand, I find it hard to feel anything.
I’m not sure how long we stand like that, but when we finally pull apart, we’re ringed by Slade and a dozen other Imps.
Her eyes look anxious. “Did you find anything?”
Digory pulls out Cordoba’s blood-stained badge and thrust it into her hand. “He didn’t make it. None of them did. But we’re fine, thank you, Sir.”
The Sergeant swallows hard and hands the badge off to one of her subordinates. “Congratulations, Recruits.” Her usual disdain is replaced by a cross between disappointment and surprise.
She never expected to see us again.
Alive.
Slade’s smile is devoid of mirth, malice, or any emotion whatsoever. “You’ve successfully completed your orientation period and survived Basic Pre-Trial Prep. Tomorrow you graduate-and, as a reward, you will have the opportunity to visit with your Incentives one last time before the Trials begin.”
Twenty
Graduation Day. On this last day before the Trials, the Establishment has moved us from our cramped and sparse barracks to the Officer’s Lodge. Each of us has been provided with a private luxury suite-in honor of our accomplishment.
I barely recognize myself in the floor-length mirror. I’m not used to seeing such a crisp reflection, especially one that’s decked out in fancy clothes I’d never expect to wear in a million years. My dress uniform is made up of a stark-white, long-sleeved shirt; cobalt-blue pants with a complementing vest; and a long-tailed coat that’s embroidered with silver brocade the same color as the buckle on my leather belt. A white silk scarf is neatly coiled around my neck, matching the gloves on my hands. I shift my weight in a pair of gleaming black boots.
The garments feel strange, constricting yet cushy against my skin. I sigh. When I first arrived at Infiernos, I wouldn’t have had any idea how to put this stuff on. I turn my head from side to side. Whatever was in those cleansers in that biometric voice-activated shower I just took has left my hair a shiny, wavy black. My skin seems healthy and tanned, not burned. I actually look … well … not too shabby. A wide grin spreads across my face.
After what’s seemed like forever, the moment I’ve been longing for these past few months is here.
I’m finally going to see Cole and Mrs. Bledsoe again!
I let loose a chuckle. They probably won’t even recognize me.
Neither will Digory.
My elation evaporates, along with my saliva.
This isn’t just a graduation ceremony. It could very well be the last moment I share with the people I love most in this entire world.
By the time the bullet-shaped Trans-Cab shuttles me over to the steel-domed Academy Pavilion, there’s already a procession filing into the building in full military regalia, complete with marching band. But despite the legion of soldiers, the only sound I can hear is my heart thudding in my ears.
My eyes scan the troops as I pass them. They’ve stopped marching and are frozen like statues. Hundreds of eyes creep over me, like a swarm of cockroaches devouring a piece of bread, as I make my way up the steps and through the front doors of the Pavilion. Even the trumpeters have stopped playing their procession march, the last notes trapped by the atrium’s vaulted ceiling and bouncing back in discordant echoes.
Even though I’ve completed Orientation and successfully made it all the way to graduation, these soldiers still see me, Lucian Spark, as a traitor to the Establishment. They’d never accept me into their ranks. The contempt they feel for me now is just as potent as it was on the day I stepped off the freighter ten weeks ago. If not more so.
I want to shout at them at the top of my lungs, tell them I don’t give a damn, that the last thing on earth I want is to be one of them. But I can’t make a scene. Not with so much at stake. And they know that.
The only thing I care about is seeing Cole at last.
Inhaling deeply, I raise my head high and match their stares until they start to fidget and look away. Then I dash up marble steps two at a time to the balcony, my eyes searching the crowd for the others.
Cypress is standing not more than ten feet away, peering over the railing at the crowd below. She looks stunning in her uniform. Her raven hair’s been washed and combed to a lustrous sheen, plaited at the sides and joined in a long braid that hangs down her back. Her skin looks like it’s been polished to a smooth creamy finish, with just the right hint of pink on her cheeks to complement her wine-colored lips.
She could almost pass for one of those princesses pictured in the Establishment’s banned fairy tales-except for her eyes, which are vacant and puffy. In the three months that I’ve known her, I’ve never seen her look so … defeated.
I walk over to her. “What’s wrong? Why haven’t you gone into the auditorium?”
She barely glances at me. “Not sure I can face them. Don’t know what to say.”
“Them? You mean your Incentives?” I sit down beside her.
She nods. I can feel her shoulder trembling against mine.
I sense that now’s the time she’ll be the most receptive. I can’t help her unless I know exactly what’s troubling her, even though there’s probably nothing I can do. Reaching out, I hesitate a moment, then take her hand, expecting her to rip it away and shove me. But she does neither.
“Cypress. I know it’s none of my business, but after the Fallen Five disappeared, how did you … I mean …?”
“How did I survive?” Her smile is laced with bitterness. “Believe me, I’ve asked myself that question many times over the years. When my brother was recruited, his only options were my mother and me. Two out of the ten Incentives who had no one to fight for us after the Recruits disappeared. Since it couldn’t be proven one way or another that the Fallen Five had deserted, the Establishment decided that rather than shelve us, the adults would be taken to the mines.” She pauses. “I never saw my mother again.”
She looks away as if she’s reliving that painful memory. I can see the anguish etched into her face as if by a powerful chisel.
“I’m so sorry, Cypress. I know what losing a mom feels like.”
“She was one of the lucky ones. Probably died within a year or two.” She shakes her head. “Us children weren’t as fortunate. We were forced into servitude at the Emporiums. Harmony House.”
The Emporiums. Centers of unspeakable perversions, where every depravity can be purchased by sick minds in possession of enough currency.
Her eyes squeeze shut. “I was only six at the time. Unfortunately, I was a very pretty child … ”
“I’m so sorry.” I squeeze her hand. “But with your brother missing and your mother dead, who are your Incentives?”
She takes a deep breath and stares at me, her eyes hollow, empty wells. “My two children.”
I can barely contain my rage. “Those animals. They took an innocent young girl and-”
She sneers. “I’m the animal, Lucian. I wanted to have a child, replenish the stock. Though I didn’t bargain on twins.”
I grab both her wrists. “But why-?”
“So I’d be deemed tainted and decommissioned. Nothing spoils the mood more in the pleasure pits than a girl who’s in the breeding stage.” Her eyes meet mine. “Boys have a longer shelf life.”
I grip Cypress tighter, this time to steady myself.
“So you see, I used my own children-gave them up as ransom-to get transferred from that hell hole to a work farm without ever once laying eyes on them.” A chuckle dies in her throat. “And now it’s all come full circle and I’m getting exactly what I deserve. No wonder my brother abandoned me. He could sense what kind of terrible, selfish person I am.”