I hear Koi’s voice.
Only one of you will leave that room alive.
You will do what I wasn’t strong enough to do.
The Evaluator holds the badge between two fingertips, a dangling prize. “The Initiative wants someone for the Rations Department. Someone able to take care of themselves. Citizens get testy there, as you may well know.” He lets the badge drop to the floor. I want to grab it, press it to my chest, never let it go. “A pity,” he says, “that only one of you will work for us. But that’s part of the fun, wouldn’t you agree?” He laughs and rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet.
“The badge holder should report next door for further processing.” With that, he turns around and leaves the room.
There is a moment of silence. The girl and I just sit there and stare at each other.
The girl looks at the badge, then back at me. Her eyes are as wide as oyster shells, and I see the pieces clicking together in her mind.
One badge. One job. One person will get those rations.
One person will leave this room alive.
I stand up a second before she does and dive for the badge. She collapses on top of me and we are one tangled mess, nails clawing, fists pounding, fighting for what we both so desperately need. She is fast, but she isn’t trained like me. She tries to hold me down, and her punches are uneven, her arms as stiff as pieces of wood. I throw her off into the wall. Her head slams against it, and for a moment she looks dazed. She stands up and rushes for me. I sidestep her and watch her tumble back to the ground, already out of breath and sloppy.
I’m guessing there is no way this girl got those scars from real fights. She probably marked herself to look stronger to enemies. It’s clever, but a sign of true weakness. Part of me wants to stop fighting her. She never even stood a chance against me.
You will do what I wasn’t strong enough to do.
Kill or be killed.
There is no other choice. She grabs the badge, and I grab her by the shoulders and slam her face into the floor.
“Give it to me!” I yell. She tries to twist around. I take an arm and twist it behind her back, like a broken bird’s wing. “You won’t win,” I say, but she just keeps on writhing, screaming like an animal.
“So kill me!” she yells. “Kill me and you’ll be just like them!”
I raise my hand and scream, feel my fist pound into her skull, right over her temple. Her body goes slack.
I take the badge from her hand. Then I turn for the door.
There is no handle. I can’t get out.
I bang on the door. “I have the badge!” I yell. “Let me out!”
Nothing. There is a groan from behind me. The girl’s eyes start to flutter open.
Only one of you will leave that room alive.
“She’s done!” I yell to the door. I look up at the cameras. I hold up the badge. “I’m done!”
Nothing. I slump down against the wall and wait. Time is slow. I can hear people walking by outside the door, hear screams from somewhere, and I know that someone else is doing what I have yet to do.
It’s obvious. The Initiative won’t let me out until I do what they want. I take a deep breath. This is what my father trained me to do. This is what I have to do.
Sometimes we have to give up little pieces of our humanity so that we can keep living.
I grab the dagger from my waistband and walk over to the girl. Her face is bloodied and bruised. I hold the dagger right above her heart.
Her eyes flutter open. They look right into mine.
Blue. Peri’s favorite color.
“Do it,” she says through tears. “I want to die. Do it. Please. We don’t have a choice.”
“It’ll be quick,” I whisper.
Then I drive the dagger right into her heart.
CHAPTER 6
ZEPHYR
By the time Collection duty is finished, we’ve filled three carts. Every week, there seems to be more. The carts are solar-powered, geared to help us bear the weight of the corpses. After we deliver them to the Leech Building, Talan takes to the streets with me. In the daytime, it’s safest to walk in the alleyways, away from the crowds. But in the evenings, when the Dark Time is near, everyone walks right in the middle of the street, soaking up the last seconds of light before the darkness settles in.
“Ten years of knowing you, and you still do the same thing every night. It’s boring,” Talan says. Her arm is locked in the crook of mine, her head against my shoulder. “Come home with me instead. I’ll teach you how to braid my hair.”
I roll my eyes. “That sounds great and all, Talan, but I’d rather someone stick a knife in my throat.”
“Suit yourself.”
We end up standing in front of the doors of the Catalogue Dome. It’s open every night at dusk, during the Silent Hour. It’s the same thing we always do, and we stand here frozen, unable to go inside. Every so often, the old automatic doors slide open, creaking from years of overuse. A rush of stale air hits me, and for a moment, I think I might step in.
“Just go, Zephyr.” Talan shoves me in the back. “Girls are so not attracted to pansies.”
I turn around and see her there, hands on her hips. She’s got full lips that are always set in a permanent pout. Even though we’re both seventeen, she looks older, in a good way. I reach out and loop a finger around her belt. “Who says I need a girl when I’ve got you?” I pull her toward me and bury my face in her neck, sweeping her long hair aside.