Enclave

be strange.

I didn’t look forward to this interrogation at all.

Trial

It didn’t take long to spill our story and show him the tin. He reached inside, letting the pink dust trail through his fingers. The card he handled carefully.

“You say you’ve had this item for some time?” The Wordkeeper glared at the three of us, as if we were guilty of stupidity at least.

Stone explained, “We traded for it together and agreed we’d open it on Fifteen’s … er, Deuce’s naming day.”

“So you had no idea of the contents before now?”

“No, sir,” I said.

Thimble added a timid nod. Her limp made her self-conscious, as the enclave seldom permitted such imperfections. But hers was minor and didn’t impede her performance as a Builder. In fact, I’d say she worked twice as hard, not wanting anyone to feel they’d made a mistake about her.

“Are you willing to swear?” the Wordkeeper asked.

“Yes,” Thimble said. “None of us had any idea what it held.”

They fetched Copper from the kitchens and she witnessed. The Wordkeeper growled as he took the document into evidence. “Get out, all of you. I’ll let you know of my decision in due time.”

I felt sick as we went back to my room. I wanted to show them where it was, anyway. Stone could enter with Thimble present as a chaperone. Like in the old days, in the brat dorm, we flopped onto the pallet together. Stone sat between us and wrapped an arm around each of us. He felt warm and familiar, and I leaned my head against his shoulder. I wouldn’t let anybody else touch me like this, but he was different. We were brat-mates, practically related.

“It’ll be fine,” he said. “They can’t punish us for something we didn’t do.”

Looking at the pleasure in Thimble’s face as she nestled against him, I wondered if she might do better as a Breeder. But the elders wouldn’t let her, even if she’d preferred it. Nobody wanted imperfections passed on, even the small, harmless ones.

“He’s right,” she agreed.

I nodded. The elders looked after us. Certainly, they had to consider the matter, but once they’d studied all the facts, no harm would come to us. We’d done the right thing and turned the paper over as soon as we found it.

Absently, Stone played with my hair; for him, it was a simple instinct. Touching wasn’t forbidden to Breeders. They hugged and patted so easily it alarmed me. Builders and Hunters had to take such care not to be accused of wrongdoing.

“I have to go,” Stone said regretfully.

“To make some brats or look after them?” Thimble asked with a flash of ire.

For a moment, I felt so sorry for her. To me, it was painfully obvious she wanted something she could never have. Unlike me. I had exactly what I wanted. I couldn’t wait to start work.

He grinned, taking the question at face value. “If you must know—”

“Never mind,” I said hastily.

Her face fell. “I should go too. Hope you had a good naming day, Deuce.”

“Apart from seeing the Wordkeeper, it was fine.” I smiled as they both left and fell back on my pallet to think about my future as a Huntress.

* * *

The first time I saw Fade, he frightened me. He had a lean, sharp face and shaggy dark hair that fell over his forehead into the blackest eyes, like a bottomless pit. And he bore so many scars, as if he’d lived through battles the rest of us couldn’t imagine. Hard as life had been here, his silent rage said he’d seen worse.

Unlike most, he hadn’t been born in the enclave. He came in through the tunnels, half grown when we found him, half starved and more than half feral. He didn’t have a number designation, or even any concept of how to behave. Still, the older citizens voted to let him stay.

“Anybody who can survive out in the tunnels on his own has to be strong,” Whitewall had said. “We can use him.”

“If he doesn’t kill us all first,” Copper had muttered back.

Copper was second oldest at twenty-four, and she served as mate to Whitewall, though it was a fluid arrangement. She was also the only one who dared to back-talk him, even a little bit. The rest of us had learned to mind. I’d seen people exiled because they refused to obey the rules.

So when Whitewall decreed the stranger stayed, we had to make it work. It was a long while before I actually set eyes on him. They tried to teach him our ways, and he spent long hours with the Wordkeeper. He already knew how to fight; he didn’t seem to know how to live with other people, or at least, he found our laws confusing.

I was just a brat at the time, so I wasn’t involved in his assimilation. I was training to become a Huntress. Since I wanted to prove myself with blade and boot, I worked tirelessly. When the strange boy got his name, I wasn’t there. He didn’t know how old he was, so they guessed when to christen him.

After that, I saw him around, but I certainly never spoke to him. Brats and Hunters didn’t mix, unless lessons were involved. Those earmarked for combat and patrol duties studied under the veteran Hunters. I’d spent most of my time training with Silk, but a few others had schooled me over the years as well. I formally met Fade much later, after my own naming. He was teaching the fundamentals of knife work when Twist delivered me to his class.

“That’s all,” Fade said, as we joined them.

The brats dispersed with quiet grumbling. I remembered how sore my muscles had been when I started training. Now I took pleasure in the hardness of my arms and legs. I wanted to test myself against the dangers beyond our makeshift walls.

Twist tilted his head at me. “This is your new partner. Silk ranked her as the best in her group.”

“Did she?” Fade’s voice sounded odd.

I met his black eyes with a lift of my chin. Can’t let him think he intimidates me. “Yes. I scored ten out of ten in throws.”

He raked me with a scathing look. “You’re puny.”

“And you’re quick to judge.”

“What’s your name?”

I had to think; I almost said Girl15. I fingered the card in my pocket, finding comfort in its edges. It was my talisman now. “Deuce.”

“I’ll leave you two to talk,” Twist said. “I have other things to do.”

He did, of course. Since he was small and fragile, he couldn’t hunt. He served as a second to Whitewall, running errands for him and taking care of administrative tasks. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him just sitting still, not even at night. I lifted my hand as he went around the jagged metal partition to another section of the settlement.

“I’m Fade,” he told me.

“I know. Everyone knows you.”

“Because I’m not one of you.”

“You said it, not me.”

His head jerked in a nod that said he didn’t want to answer any questions. Since I refused to be like everyone else, I swallowed my curiosity. If he didn’t want to talk, I didn’t care. Everyone wondered about his story, but only Whitewall had ever heard it — and maybe he didn’t even know the truth. But I was only interested in Fade as the one who guarded my back, so it didn’t matter.

He changed the subject. “Silk assigns hunting parties daily. We join the rotation tomorrow. I hope you’re as good as she claims.”