Authors: Masha Leyfer
“Maybe it’s somebody else’s beginning,” I say. “But it’s not yours.”
“So? Is the distinguishment between me and the next person anything real? If we all have the same goal in the end, what does it matter which part of it we fulfil?”
“So your life is worthless on its own?” Even though we’re slated to die tomorrow and Veronica is irritating me a lot, I find her ideas strangely fascinated.
“Of course we don’t matter on our own. If our lives were meant to be more meaningful as individual parts, they would be longer, don’t you think?”
“Hmm,” I say and turn back around to Smaller Sally. This conversation is giving me unpleasant feelings up my spine, and I suspect it’s largely because it’s an argument. And I’m losing. Smaller Sally still lies limp on the ground. I fold up my coat, place it under her head and hopes that she wakes up soon. I try to think of a plan for escape but my mind draws a blank. I can’t think of anything right now. All that I see is the Rebellion camp and my parents’ faces and I think of how much I don’t want to die.
“So who are you exactly?” Veronica asks again. “And don’t tell me we don’t have time for questions now. We have all the time in the world.
“Augustus sent us,” I say carefully.
“Bullshit,” Veronica responds. “Augustus wouldn’t send some random second hand people that we’ve never seen before. You’re not even Sternmenschen. So who are you?”
I roll my eyes.
“Just shut up and think of how we’re going to get out of here.”
“Death,” she says. “Death is the only way that we’re getting out.”
“Keep thinking,” I say and move to the other side of the cell. Nobody says anything after that. I press my knees against my chest and try to think of possible ways to escape. My mind remains blank as a sheet with only the word
out, out, out,
constantly repeating itself.
A little under an hour later, Smaller Sally wakes up. She rubs her head, looks around, and frowns.
“Oh shit,” she says.
“Thank goodness you’re awake,” I say. “I was afraid...Never mind. It doesn’t really matter.”
“Mhh,” she frowns. “What did we do? What happened? We screwed up bad as hell, didn’t we?”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Some guy hitting me with his gun.”
“Right. So we failed,” I say, the words tasting bitter in my mouth. “Now we’re here and they’re planning to kill us tomorrow.”
Smaller Sally nods slowly. “That’s really not good.”
“No, it really isn’t. Can you turn to me for a second?”
“Hmm?”
“I just want to see your eyes.”
“Um. I’m flattered?”
I smile, happy that Smaller Sally can keep her humor, even in a situation like this.
“It’s to check for a concussion,” I explain. “Your pupils are fine. I don’t know how long they’re supposed to be whacked up, but...How do you feel?”
“Fine. My head really hurts, but other then that, fine. What happened to the Sternmenschen?”
“We haven’t gone anywhere,” James’ voice calls from the neighboring cell.
“Good,” Smaller Sally says, scooting closer to the boundary between our two cells. “Because I have some things to settle with you. Veronica. You first. I hear you saved Mike’s life once.”
“Mike Kerman?” She raises her eyebrows in recognition. “Yeah, I did. You know him?”
“Yes, we’re friends of his.”
“Well, well. If we ever get out of here, tell him I say hello.”
“Okay,” Smaller Sally frowns discontentedly. “I will. But right now, I would like to thank you for saving Mike’s life. I don’t know how, when, or why you did it, but in any case, thank you.” Veronica bows her head. “And James,” Smaller Sally turns her steely gaze to the right. “About you, I hear that you tried to kill Mike. Is that true?”
“Yes, it is. And the only regret I have is that I didn’t succeed.” Smaller Sally’s eyes burst into flames and she grabs James by the collar of his shirt through the cell bars.
“Listen up, James,” she says in a dangerous whisper, bringing her face to his ear. “I don’t care what motivations you think you may have had, but whatever they were, they don’t justify harming Mike. Mark my words, the moment we get out of this cell, I am going to make you regret everything.” She glares at him. “Don’t you dare touch Mike ever again, you understand me?” James doesn’t respond. “Do you understand me?” She shouts again, shaking him by the collar. James nods. She lets go of him, throwing him halfway across the cell in the process. She dusts off her hands. “Alright,” she says sweetly. “Now that that’s settled, we have a bigger issue to solve: we have to get out of here.”
“We’re not,” Veronica says. “We’re dying tomorrow.”
“Alright, you are either going to contribute or shut up. Now, where’s the guard? Still passed out? Good, so we can discuss, but keep your voices down, we don’t want to wake him. Ugh, my head hurts like hell. All right, first of all: how and when are we being killed tomorrow?”
“I assume their morning sacrifice,” James says. “Usually they sacrifice a chicken heart or something like that, but I hear that they get rid of prisoners the same way.”
“Which is how?”
“They rip out your beating heart and set your body aflame.”
A shudder of fear goes through my spine at his words. These people are serious about their deaths. But Smaller Sally doesn’t seem as affected by James’ grim prophecy.
“What is this, the ancient Mayan empire?” she scoffs. “All right, tell me more about this sacrifice.”
“It happens very early in the morning, somewhere around six o’clock. They take you down and perform the sacrifice and throw your heart into the...what do they call it?”
“Temple of Decomposition, more commonly known as the Courtyard,” Veronica supplies.
“Yes, exactly. Temple of Decomposition. Pretentious lot, these bastards.”
Smaller Sally frowns. “All right, first of all, who’s
they
?”
“Hmm?”
“You said that
they
take you down and do the sacrifice or whatever. Who’s
they
?”
“A couple of men. They’re...um….I don’t want to say priests,”
“Executioners is the word you’re looking for.”
“Not exactly. They’re the ones in charge of the sacrifices, is what you need to know.”
“And the sacrifice: is it public or is it done in a building somewhere?”
Veronica and James exchange a quick glance.
“We’re not sure,” Veronica says. “All we know is that it’s in a place called the Courtyard. But even if it is public, how many people do you think will come see it? It is extremely early.”
“Well, the Carviates
are
a cult that worships murder.”
“True. But why does the amount of people matter?”
“Are you serious right now?”
“Yes.”
“You can figure it out yourself, what, have you never been in a battle?” Smaller Sally rolls her eyes. “It matters because there’s really only a certain amount of people that we can fend off, obviously.”
Veronica rolls her eyes in response.
“You’re beating a dead horse. We are going to die.”
“Listen up, Veronica,” Smaller Sally says. “You need to shut up and listen to what I’m saying. I couldn’t care less if you live or die, all right? You are nothing to me. But if you die, we die too. So pay attention to what I’m saying. We will return you to Augustus and then you can go off and die all you want. But for now, you are going to shut up and live.”
Veronica doesn’t respond but her face retains its dry sarcastic smirk. Smaller Sally turns to me.
“Molly, what do you have that could be useful?” I look around to make sure that we aren’t being watched and pull a knife from my boot
—
a habit that I picked up from Emily.
Always be prepared. Always be armed to the teeth and then some,
she would always warn me.
“This,” I say and pull another knife from a chain around my neck. “Also this. I have a medical kit in my backpack, and…” I stick my hands into my sweater pockets. “Ah. I have a match box.”
“Good,” Smaller Sally says. “Put it all away before anybody sees it. I have a knife,” she taps her boot as well, “And darts. What about the three of you?”
“We don’t have anything,” James says. “All we had when we came here were guns and they took those away.”
“So we have four weapons total, matches, and medical stuff, yes?” Smaller Sally confirms. I nod. “We can work with that. These sacrifices, you say the priests or sacrifice masters or whatever you call them take us down to the Courtyard, whatever that is. That means that we have that entire trip to deal with them.”
“You want to kill them,” Veronica says.
“Not necessarily. As long as they’re out of the way for long enough to allow us to escape.”
“You think the five of us, keeping in mind that Drew is disabled, so it’s really just four of us and maybe only the two of you if Drew gets any worse, can take on trained Carviate murderers?”
“Sure we can. How many of them are there total? ”
“Two, technically, so-”
“Two! So we outnumber them more than two to one!”
“But they’re trained murderers.”
“And we’re not?” Smaller Sally says evenly. Veronica nods slowly.
“Fair enough.”
“Now listen to the plan.” She leans in and beckons us all closer. Before beginning to speak, she looks around to make sure nobody is watching.
“They’re coming sometime in between five and six in the morning. We have four weapons. That’s one for every able bodied person.”
“I’m still able bodied,” Drew objects, suddenly waking up. “All I have is a little infection.”
“Look who decided to join the party.” Veronica says.
“Everyone will get one,” Smaller Sally continues, ignoring them. “Drew, you just stay out of the way.”
Veronica smiles sourly.
“Do you trust us?”
“No, but what do you get out of killing us?”
“Admittedly, nothing,” Veronica says, nodding. “Continue.”
“We need to get rid of the sacrificers, priests, whatever. I’ll just call them priests. They need to be at least not able to chase us or call somebody who can. Do you know if anybody will notice that the sacrifice hasn’t been performed?”
“We’re not sure. We don’t know much about the sacrifices. We already told you all we know.”
“All right. Let’s assume that they will within fifteen minutes. So we have fifteen minutes to get out of here.”
“That’s your plan?” Veronica asks skeptically.
“Yes. Do you have any problems?”
“It’s extremely vague.”
“Do you have better ideas?” Veronica doesn’t respond. “That’s what I thought. You three get knives.” She pulls out her knife and I pull out one of mine. We hand them through the cell. “Hide them,” Smaller Sally says. I am impressed at how cool she is in a near death situation. “And I’m keeping the darts.”
“And how do you suggest that we get out of the city?” Veronica asks, tucking the knife into her shoe.
“Molly, do we still have the grappling hooks?”
“Yeah, they’re in the backpacks.”
“In that case, we’re using grappling hooks,” Smaller Sally tells Veronica.
“And me?” Drew asks.
“What about you?”
“I don’t really have use of one of my legs.”
Smaller Sally frowns.
“Didn’t you just say you were able bodied?” she sighs. “But we can work with it. We’ll figure you out when he becomes a problem.”
“Drew, you’re always a problem,” James sighs.
“All right, stop complaining,” Smaller Sally says before Drew can retort. “They didn’t take our backpacks, which is...interesting. Alright,” she faces the Sternmenschen again. “We’ll regroup tomorrow, but for now, keep your mouths shut.”