Chosen Ones (13 page)

Chapter 18

You want what you can’t have.

You want it because it will destroy you.

You want to be destroyed.

You want to destroy him along with you.

I could hear Henry’s voice inside my head saying these things to me. Was he right? Was the only reason I sought out any kind of relationship with James because I knew where it would lead me?

Henry seemed bent on destruction. Was I the same? I knew the rules. And there were rules about everything. But I seemed recklessly willing to break them all. Was I doing so out of some need to rebel against a system that had taken so much from me? Or had I merely found another way to end my pain—the destruction of myself?

The need to touch and be touched was like a drug.

As I walked to James’s room after spending the morning scrubbing the countless windows of Templeton, I feared our meeting. I had not seen him since Frank died, and I had been unable to shake the guilt that overwhelmed me when I thought of the incident. I still wasn’t sure I could have done anything to stop his death, but the fact that I did nothing at all left me feeling bereft.

When I reached James’s room, the door was already open. James lay on his bed, his arm thrown carelessly over his eyes.

I sat down on the bed next to him and gently shook him.

“James?”

With a heavy sigh, he slowly sat up. I grabbed his hand and held it in my own. “I’m so sorry.”

“How did you know?” he mumbled.

Could I admit my part in Frank’s death?

“You know what? It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I don’t know why I’m so surprised. I knew they wouldn’t choose me.”

“Wait. What?”

“No one chose me, Tess. They didn’t want me.”

The Introduction Ceremony. James had not been selected by any of the subcommittees. He didn’t know about Frank’s death. Instead, he was feeling the pain of rejection. James would be left to a life of glorified babysitting. He had been labeled forever as insignificant. As nothing.

“I knew after the interviews…”

“What happened during the interviews?” I asked.

“I couldn’t answer the question.”

“Which one?”

“The one about our purpose, our reason for existing. I don’t understand why the hell the naturals need us. And then when they started asking me what I thought about your people, I froze. Because I didn’t know how I felt. I haven’t known how I felt in such a long time.”

James began to pull away from me, but I grabbed onto his arm to stop him. The movement caused me to be closer to him than I had ever been before.

James noticed, too. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered.

I let out a shaky laugh. “You’re talking crazy. I’m not.”

He shook his head. “No. You are,” he replied, scooting away from me, sitting up against the wall. “I…when the other boys would talk about the female naturals, the Templeton girls, I never got it. Sure, some were attractive, but I never felt that thing, you know. I mean I would read about it in books. But I never understood it. Then I saw you in the damn piano room. And I felt it—want. I wanted you.”

I could have stopped him, but I didn’t.

He reached for my hand. “But I won’t ever, Tess. I promise. I understand the rules.”

“Do you want to kiss me?”

I said the words without really thinking about what they would mean to each of us. I was tired of life always being difficult. I knew what it meant to want, but I was sick of how tainted my wants had become. Everything I wanted came at a price. I couldn’t let the council, or Henry, or Julia define my relationship with James.
I
had to define it.

I needed to trust myself.

There were a million reasons I shouldn’t have asked him this question.

But the want was there all the same.

“You can if you like,” I continued, wondering where my bravery was coming from.

James grabbed me by the arms and pulled me toward him. An unfamiliar panic began to run through me—I had never let anyone kiss me before. James slowly, painfully slowly, leaned toward me. I felt a shiver run down my spine at the mere thought of what was about to happen. When his lips pressed against mine, it was so light I wondered how a kiss could ever be considered a sin. When his hand moved through my hair, I pressed against him harder. My heart sped up. This was the line it was so dangerous to cross.

This was the line I wanted to cross and never return from.

I pulled away from James and practically jumped off the bed. I couldn’t look at him, was afraid I would read disappointment on his face. I knew how the kiss felt to me, but what if he didn’t agree? I mumbled something about meeting my supervisor and stumbled out into the hallway.

As I walked away
,
I became aware of how noisy the mansion had become. People were shouting and running. Farther away from me I could see a fellow natural sitting against the wall, crying into her hands. A group of chosen ones were huddled together, talking quickly, as if devising a plan.

I turned to see James following after me. “Tess, wait. We need to talk,” he called out. As a chosen one passed us, he reached out and grabbed James’s arm. The two of them bent their heads in conversation. I watched as the flush in James’s cheeks disappeared. And I saw fear.

He walked toward me in a daze, his hands shakily holding the wall.

“What is it?” I asked. I had to fight the growing need to place my hand upon his in comfort. It was okay in the privacy of his room, but I couldn’t in front of any of these people. Doing so would make them a part of our relationship, and I wanted them to have nothing to do with it.

“They’re all dead.”

“What do you mean? Who?”

He kept shaking his head.

“Who?” I asked again.

“The young ones. The chosen ones.”

He must have meant those still in the incubation period. Had the council found something wrong with them? Had they wiped them out? I couldn’t imagine how much blood there would be down there.

“A natural did it.”

Clearly I had misheard him.

He pushed past me and began to walk down the hall.

“W-wait,” I stammered. “What do you mean a natural did it?”

“Exactly that,” he replied, refusing to look back at me. “A natural committed murder.”

Chapter 19

The alarm was never good. Used to warn of impending attacks during the early days after our move into the compound, it had now come to stand for something else—a wrangling.

The alarm was used to assemble the compound. Someone was being taken. This was beyond merely being reported; an alarm, a wrangling viewed by the whole camp, meant you had already been found guilty. You were to be the lesson.

It meant death.

As I walked through the overcrowded hallways toward the dining hall, I could feel the panic. One question lingered in the air, caressed the backs of our necks, making the hair stand on end:
Who?

As I stood in my row, I could sense my body reacting. I could feel it betraying my fear without a second thought of loyalty to my defiance. My palms were sweaty. I tapped my foot furiously. I avoided looking around me; I didn’t want to see this happen. I began to memorize the floor, every dull and empty inch. I felt the presence of someone beside me, someone familiar. I glanced up and was caught off guard to see Robert standing there. Of all the places, why would he stand next to me? His eyes met mine and they were empty.

I thought back to James’s words. A natural had killed the young chosen ones? How was that even possible? The council had created such a general feeling of indifference among my people that I didn’t think anyone was capable of even thinking of such an act.

Henry.

No. He couldn’t do anything like this. He wouldn’t murder someone. I had learned from the other Templeton girls on the transport home that all thirty of the young chosen ones had been killed. The cords that kept them alive, aiding in their breathing, had been pulled from their bodies. The lone creator who worked downstairs, the man who I’d watched murder Frank, had been knocked unconscious.

It wasn’t possible that Henry sat and watched thirty children suffocate to death.

It wasn’t.

Maybe it was a lie created by the council to keep the chosen ones’ hate of us alive, to protect the council’s secret that each chosen one was expendable. All they had to do was return to the lab to create more. Maybe something was wrong with the young batch of chosen ones.

The doors slammed open and I froze.

They filed in. Much to my horror, I realized I recognized them—they were the Templeton boys, those chosen ones still training to take their rightful place so far above us. I had only seen a public wrangling twice, but that was before my work at Templeton, before my interactions with the chosen ones. I recognized their faces now, the pawns of the council.

I felt my stomach tighten. It was easy when I didn’t know them. I saw George. He stood emotionless like the rest, a perfect representation of the grace of his sect. I saw him, too. James.

No. No, not him, not here, not for this.

My breathing became ragged. The room was stifling. I could feel Robert’s questioning eyes on me, but I didn’t care. I wanted to get out of there. I needed to leave. But a voice in the back of my head reminded me that it was my duty to watch this.

Duty.

Roll call.

One by one they checked off our numbers. I didn’t dare look up when mine was called, but merely grumbled a reply. I couldn’t see James there. It would shatter the illusion I’d so mutinously created. I couldn’t entirely blame him; logically, I knew that. He had about as much control over his life as I did. Frank was evidence of that.

I vaguely heard Henry’s number, Robert’s, my younger sister’s. God, how I had pretended like she didn’t exist. I hadn’t even heard her come near me. When her number was called, she sniffled. I hoped it was from fear and not another bout of the mysterious illness that had plagued her throughout her childhood. I reached for Louisa, pulling her hand into mine. We weren’t close, but we were sisters.

The room became silent. Insanity forced my eyes up and I wondered why it was taking so long. I saw George again and was unable to stop myself from staring. I watched as the corners of his mouth fought a smile. He nodded to James.

James stepped forward.

No, he couldn’t be the one to read the declaration. Please God, no.

“Will Julia Norris please step forward? Serial number 778234.”

The room was spinning. My heart had stopped. It had to be some nightmare, or maybe I was going crazy—seeing monsters everywhere. She stepped forward, the very epitome of calm. Julia? Henry’s Julia? Did he know what she’d planned to do? Had she known when we talked in the bathroom that she would end her life in some wild statement of rebellion?

Did he help her?

I searched for Henry among the crowd. I could only catch his profile but my heart ached to see his eyes, if I could only see his eyes.

“Julia Norris, you have been found guilty of the murder of thirty chosen ones. You will be taken from this compound and your life shall be forfeit. It has been decided by the council that you shall be put through the cleansing.”

The cleansing—a throwback to the purification rituals of some old-time religion. She would be tortured for days before they finally killed her. They wouldn’t care if she were pregnant. Is that why she did it? Because she knew she was dead either way?

I kept waiting for Henry to do something, to show he felt something for this girl. He sat there stoic, unmoving. He looked like me before I knew that not all feelings were wrong.

There was no fancy speech. There were no verses of poetry. There were just simple sentences—a string of words that had the power to end a life.

Some woman began to cry. I could hear a man curse under his breath. I felt in the core of my being the silent screams of my people, Julia’s people. I tried to force James to look at me, but he wouldn’t even acknowledge my presence. His voice was beautiful, sickly sweet and bitterly cold.

Did Henry help do this?

I remembered his cryptic words in the woods.

If he had a part in this, would he let Julia suffer alone?

I remembered how it was I who had told him about where the young chosen ones were kept.

Did I help him commit murder?

I couldn’t breathe. Then came the pain. Unbearable, wretched pain. My chest was burning and it was excruciating. It was a raw, familiar feeling. I was freezing, shivering, panting. I was dying.

Just let it end. Please let it end.

James placed his hands on Julia’s shoulders, forcing her down onto her knees. George handed him a black bag and whispered something into his ear. I still couldn’t see Henry’s face because he kept it down. He didn’t make a sound. He didn’t fight for Julia.

Her death would be gruesome because she had no female family members to take on part of her punishment. Maybe she deserved to die, but I couldn’t watch her suffer. I was so tired of watching people suffer.

It was there, in that moment, that James’s eyes briefly met mine.

I saw regret. It was only there for a second, but I saw it.

With a quick and violent motion, James placed the bag over Julia’s head. George slowly walked next to her and quietly said something to him. I watched as James nodded to me. In response, George found my face. He kicked Julia forcefully in the gut, his eyes never leaving mine.

Powerless.

I could no longer control my actions. I lunged forward; I wanted to claw George’s eyes out. I wanted to silence forever his damn laugh. She was carrying his child. He was the one who had broken her. I barely knew this girl, but I wouldn’t let her suffer alone. I couldn’t. Not again. I wouldn’t keep her pain a secret like the girl I’d helped clean up at Templeton. Did George attack her, too?

A pair of strong hands held me in place. Robert.

“It’s what they want,” he whispered urgently, protectively. He sounded like the Robert I had admired before Emma died.

I didn’t care as I struggled to get away. People were starting to notice. Robert forcefully pinned me to his side, cementing me in place. “Stop this, Tess. It won’t help. They’ll only get you, too.” Louisa gripped onto my hand at Robert’s words.

I looked at my sister, her pale blue eyes wide in terror. Gone was the constant smirk she wore on her thin face. I knew the right thing to do was to keep quiet, be there for her. But how could I ever look her in the eyes if I became yet another natural who didn’t speak up?

“I’ll take on some of her punishment,” I screamed.

The room went silent. I would, for once, welcome the notion of suffering for someone else. If Julia really did what they accused her of, she was a monster. But
they
created the monster. The council. They were to blame for this.

George pushed through the crowd with a speed that seemed unreal. He grabbed onto my arm and shoved me to the front of the room. Without warning, he bent me over and slammed my face into one of the mess hall tables. I gasped in pain.

He roughly yanked my ponytail away from my neck, leaning down and hissing into my ear: “Do you know what this means, girl? Your sentence will be extended by years. You’ll get another slash mark.”

“Good,” I gritted.

“Stupid bitch,” George whispered so only I could hear.

While George still held my head against the table, I managed to turn so I could see James. I had made a choice. I had used my voice. And I knew how it must have seemed—that I had chosen my people over him.

“I’ll need the iron for the branding,” George yelled.