Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 64357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
He wears it on his uniform. I know what it is. I know it is not the blood of enemies, or his own blood. It is hers. I know it.
“My love!” He sounds so relieved to see me. He bends down and scoops me up into his arms, picking me up as easily as if I weighed nothing at all. For a brief moment, I feel the tremor that comes with having recently been manhandled for nefarious reasons. Then I smell him and I feel him, and my mind is put at much needed ease. I bury my face in his neck and I breathe deeply.
“I am sorry,” he rumbles. “None of this should ever have happened.”
Arthur
“Is it over?”
She looks into my eyes with a deep sort of desperation. I want to tell her that yes, it is over, that nothing bad will ever happen again.
But how can it be over? How can I look into my wife’s sweet eyes and tell her that our baby will be born to serve a small core of functionally immortal men playing with the rest of the world like puppets and dolls, breaking them when they are bored, elevating them only to crush them?
I will do it, because the alternative is to become the same thing I have always fought to destroy. A rebel. That will not do. The Artifice may not be what I thought it was, but it is… something.
“Yes,” I tell her, not knowing if I am lying or not. “Yes, it is.”
“They killed Lydia,” she says as I carry her out of the rebel den.
“I know they did. I am sorry.”
“She tried so hard to stop them from taking me. I thought she didn’t even like me, but she died for me.”
“She was a very good bodyguard, and an even better woman,” I say. “We will honor her memory.”
“She is at peace now,” Mila says.
Peace? I don’t know about that.
She is cooking burgers for a band of overgrown teenagers living in a perpetual basement. That is one of many secrets I must keep. Of course, there are a thousand things I know about the world that I have not told my bride. Even before all this with the rebellion, I had my secrets. I simply have a few more now.
The weight of my wife in my arms is good. Her scent is good. Knowing I did what I had to do to save her also feels good. I will hold onto this feeling. I will immerse myself in the love I have for my wife, and for the family we are going to have. I will be a father, a husband—and I will crush anybody who so much as entertains a thought of the rebellion.
There will be no more Soma parties in New Boston. There will be no more old friends suffered to penetrate my defenses. And there will be no more living in a potential nest of vipers. A new regime is coming, and I will be at the head of it.
CHAPTER 13
Mila
“Does Arthur like his socks folded this way?”
My mother is frowning at a pair of balled socks as if it is the most perverse thing she has ever beheld. My mother’s ability to become deeply offended by very small things is unparalleled.
“Yes, Mother. He does that himself.”
I am heavily pregnant, and my family is here to help. So far, that help has come in the form of questioning literally every decision that has ever been made in this house, big or small.
We moved from the fortress to another building in what is becoming the artistic precinct in the city. Arthur has renovated not only the home, but the surrounding area. He demolished an entire block, built the property in the middle of it, and instituted grassy grounds replete with plants. This is now the only house in New Boston with a lawn. Tall walls protect us from prying eyes, so there is a certain privacy even in the middle of the bustling city.
“What is this?” She holds up a greasy bag.
“Oh, that is from a food place that Arthur likes,” I explain. “We get deliveries every week or so. They make the best burgers, fries, and milkshakes.”
“Burgers?” Mother says the word in the same way Arthur used to say the word Soma. I say used to, because he now snarls it with intense loathing. My husband was always a warrior, but now he is perpetually ready to go to war for me. Protective is an understatement.
“I’m going to inherit the family home,” Maraline tells me. “The entire estate is going to be mine, now that you are married and going to have a baby.”
Some of her intense disappointment at not being chosen to be Arthur’s bride has faded, though I know I saw jealousy on her face when she met him. He is a very handsome man, and the air of tragedy that hangs about him since the rebels attacked has only served to give him a sort of maudlin appeal.