EXCERPT
I sinned.
I ran, and I hid.
I rebelled from my soul’s purpose, and I was promised punishment.
He’s come to punish me.
As soon as the realization hits me, I scramble, kicking against the earth to push myself backward and crawl out from beneath him. He ignores me as I awkwardly rush to my feet and back away; instead, he bends to pick up my mother’s journal.
No!
I lunge for it, but he jerks his hand away, holding the journal beside his head.
“Give that back.”
“No,” he says plainly.
He slowly lowers it in front of him, thumbing open the pages.
I lunge again to snatch it, but he only steps back, narrowing his eyes at me with his head tilted toward the pages. “Stop. Your property is my property now.”
“What?”
What is he saying?
I’m entitled to have my own things.
Except, the Control has license to take authority over the personal property of sinners.
And I’m a sinner now.
I feel frozen as I watch him flip through the pages, reading a sentence here and there. A shiver runs up my spine despite the warmth of the sun, and I hug myself, running my hands up and down my arms. Movement in the distance catches my eye; standing at the tree line, at the edge of the meadow, are the other six members of the Control.
Watching.
Waiting.
The notion of my death claws through my mind, scratching away all other thoughts.
Have they come to kill me?
Will I die today?
How will they do it? Burned at the stake like my mother?
“What is this?” Arlo asks, closing the journal and holding it up. “Is this your mother’s?”
I hear him, but I struggle to respond. The very essence of my being is trapped behind a thick wall of ice inside my mind, frozen and paralyzed to thoughts of punishment and death.
“Forget it,” he says with exasperation. “Come with me.”
He holds out his palm, covered with a black leather glove, and I stare at it as if it’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen, as if it’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen…because it is.
If I take his hand, he’ll lead me away, only I don’t know where to and I don’t know what will happen then. I don’t know if I’ll be hurt or tortured, or if I’ll be killed immediately.
I lift my gaze from his hand to meet his stare. “Are you going to kill me?”
His eyes are blue—bright blue, like the clear sky above. They sparkle as he watches me, waiting for me to take his outstretched hand.
I think it’s the first time I’ve ever really looked at him. I’ve only known him by name and in passing before the other night in the forest. I knew of him; I’d seen him and could identify him easily. But looking at him now, I know I’ve never truly seen him before.
“Not personally, and certainly not today,” he offers. “Come along now. We have things to discuss.”
“What things?”
He takes a step closer, and instinctively, I step back.
“Mercy.”
“What’s going to happen to me? Please. Can’t you just tell me now?”
“I’m not going to ask you again.” His offered palm twitches with threat. “We will drag you away if you insist on resisting.”
Part of me wants to resist. If my fate has already been decided—and I suspect it has—then resistance won’t change the outcome. Resisting might make me feel like I did something, that I at least tried. That part of me makes my knees bend with the urge to run.
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I do enjoy Dystopian reads.
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