Many of the books are bound in leather, cracked, and the pages are yellow from age. I don’t know any of the writers’ names: William Shakespeare, Sinclair Lewis, and Edgar Allan Poe. I pluck a book off the shelf, sit on the couch, and flip through it. Several of the margins are covered in tiny handprint. Some of the notes have lines directed towards a word or phrase that is circled. One particular phrase in a book titled Julius Caesar catches my eye:
“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste death but once.”
I put the book back, pick up another one, then another. I spend the remainder of the day going through the manuscripts. Not all have notes written in them. One of Braxton’s men finds some candles to light as the darkness grows, and another locates stale crackers and a small can of tuna. He divides the items among the other guards and himself.
The leather band around my thigh is starting to irritate my skin, so I go through the bedroom, which has the lone bathroom, close the bathroom door, and slip my pants down to remove it. I wash my face and use the toilet, then tuck the knife into my waistband before exiting. I look around the bedroom to see who may live here, since it’s obvious this house is still in use. The only pictures hanging up are landscapes: there are no portraits anywhere. The walls are covered in the same paneling as the corridor.
As I walk around the bed, the floorboard under my left foot creaks loudly as it bends, causing a section of the wall in front of me to pop slightly out of place.
I take hold of the piece to shove it back into place when I notice it has hinges. Swinging it wide, I see a small room. There aren’t any windows, so I grope in the dark looking for a light source. I find a small knob on the wall next to the door and turn it. Lights come on over my head, illuminating a workbench against the wall to the right, a few shelves covered with odd trinkets, and a large drawing hanging on the wall to the left. I go in further to examine the illustration. A rough sketch of Nuceira takes up most of the top half of the page. The small house we’re in isn’t present, but there are a lot of little squares with initials lining practically the entire bottom half of the page.
“Meg, where are you?” I hear Tobin call from somewhere in the house.
“I’m in here.”
He joins me a few minutes later, squeezing himself carefully through the tiny opening. He looks over the picture, noticing the markings at the bottom. I change my focus to the workbench as he moves behind me to get a better look at the sketch. Lined against the back wall on top of the bench are clay pots stained in blood, but the markings are old and brown. Their contents empty. Small stains cover the workbench, outlining whatever containers the blood had been poured into.
From outside the room we hear Gage, another lieutenant, call out. “Tobin, come out here.”
We exit the room, turning the light off, and closing the door behind us. As we leave the bedroom and enter the front room, I see Jagger standing in the entrance to the house, soaking wet, a sack flung over his shoulder. His face and arms are gouged with blast marks, and there’s a deep cut on his forehead. Keller and Gage remove the sack of clothing from Jagger’s shoulder and place it on the couch.
“You said you wouldn’t leave without him so I came up with my own plan,” Jagger says to me. He gives me a wan smile, then collapses onto the floor. Meg is disappointed Jagger did this on his own – for me – while Trea applauds his spirit.
Gage goes outside while Tobin and another guard named Rey help Jagger back onto his feet, half dragging him into the bedroom. I walk over to the couch, staring at the mound of rags. Keller goes into the kitchen and brings back a cup of water. The lump begins to shift, slowly pulling itself into a sitting position. The man brushes the hair from his eyes and accepts the cup in shaky dirty hands. His cheeks are shallow, his torn filthy clothes sagging off of his bony frame. Is the brown color of his hair natural, or dirt? I’m not sure if Lehen is exactly what I expected, or the opposite.
Chapter 22
Lehen takes slow methodical sips, a few drops running down his parched, cracked lips. Keller leaves us as Tobin calls for him.
“How long have you been here, Lehen?” I ask, after bringing him a fresh cup of water.
“I think almost a year, but I’m not sure.” He stares at me, seemingly puzzled by what he sees. “Who are you?”
“Trea.”
He struggles to smile.
I go into the kitchen and locate a bowl, an old worn towel, and a mangled bar of soap. I fill the bowl with warm water and carry my items back to the front room. I soak the towel in the water then scrub the soap bar, trying to get a lather.
“Tell me what happened,” I whisper, as I begin to wash the grime from his face.
“My protector told me if anything were ever to happen to him that I should try and make my way back to the Dormitories. He made me memorize the location, as well as a way to get
