The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf (The Tribe) (28 page)

Tears started to leak from my eyes. “Connor, I’ll go get Wentworth and bring her here. You have to hang on. . . .”

“No, Ashala.” His hand twitched, and I clasped it in mine as he rasped, “Shot.”

Shot?
That made no sense — there’d been something in the sky, but it had come from the forest, not the center! Footsteps came rushing through the trees in our direction. I looked up in alarm and let out a cry of joy at the sight of red medical robes. A doctor, or a nurse! “Help!” I called. “Please, we —” But the words died on my lips as the blond figure came closer, and I took in the weapon held steadily in his hand. I couldn’t make out the details of his face in the gloom, but I didn’t need to.

It was Evan, Briony’s enforcer.

We hadn’t been shot at from the center. We’d been shot at from the trees, where Evan had been . . . hiding? Running? I didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. The important thing was that I had to get away so I could find Wentworth and save Connor’s life.

“You.”
Evan said with loathing, stopping a few paces away. “I knew it was you.”

Swallowing, I stared up at him. I still had one hand on the pulse in Connor’s neck, and I was frantically aware of his stuttering heartbeat as I tried to figure out what to do. Then I remembered that I’d taken a streaker from the center. Which pocket had it been in?
WHICH POCKET?
I began to feel for it, doing my best to seem as though I was just shifting in place.

“You’re alive,” Evan hissed, “and you’re escaping. Going back to your Firstwood, are you? Do you know she died? Do you even care?”

It wasn’t in the left-hand pocket, which meant I had to search the right. I answered quickly. “Of course I care —”

“Don’t lie to me!” His hand was starting to tremble, and I shut up, recognizing the high, jagged edge of instability in his voice. This was the second time tonight I’d had a weapon pointed at me by someone less than sane, and Wentworth wasn’t here to help this time. No one was, and Connor was relying on me, and
the streaker wasn’t in my other pocket
! Oblivious to my panic, Evan snapped, “You didn’t care.
I
was the one who cared about her.”

Is that what you told him, Bry?
“I did care,” I said. “Briony was one of my Tribe, and I care about them all.” Meanwhile, my eyes searched the area around me, because the weapon had to have fallen out when I descended.

Evan took a step closer. “Then, why wouldn’t you help her? All you had to do was cooperate, do one tiny thing, and he would have let her go. But no, you were too proud, too stubborn, to bother trying to save her.”

Neville never would have given her an Exemption!
Only I didn’t bother saying it out loud. Because something had happened that made Evan insignificant.

The heartbeat beneath my fingers had stopped.

I turned my head, dreading what I would see, and found myself staring into those beautiful blue eyes, the ones that could flash with lightning rage or sparkle like light over water. The ones that gazed at me as if I were all that mattered and all that would ever matter. They were wide open, but I knew he’d never really look at me again.

Connor was dead.

The entire world shifted, breaking apart and leaving me falling into nothingness. Evan didn’t seem to notice. He was still ranting. “You were willing to let her suffer. You were willing to let her die! Maybe I’ll kill you, the way they killed her.”

He paused, clearly expecting me to say something, to beg for my life maybe. I just sat there. Couldn’t he see that it wasn’t important what happened to me now? After a moment, he realized something was wrong. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Yes.” My voice sounded strange to my own ears, hoarse and hesitant, as if I didn’t quite know how to use it anymore.

Evan continued excitedly. “And he’s an Illegal. It was him that was flying, not you. Neville’s golden boy, an Illegal! And you — you
cared
for him.” A grin split his features. “It hurts, doesn’t it, to lose him? Tell me that it hurts.”

Oh, yes, it hurts.
Something hot and savage bloomed in my chest, spreading until my entire body felt like it was on fire with rage and hate and the overwhelming desire to strike back. “She. Didn’t. Love. You.”

He scowled. “You didn’t know her.”

I laughed at that, a crazy, angry laugh that splintered at the edges. “
I
didn’t know her? She was using you, the same way she used everyone to get what she wanted.”

“She didn’t. She wasn’t.” I could hear the note of doubt in his voice, and my lip curled up in triumph. He wasn’t sure if she’d loved him, although he longed to believe that she had. I had a way to get to him now.

I rose. He jabbed the streaker in my direction but didn’t fire it, and anyway, I wasn’t afraid of it anymore. Everything was becoming very strange — the world was going all fluid, seeming to melt into a new, strange version of itself. I thought I was probably dying. It seemed only right that this was the one loss I could not survive. And I wanted to use the time I had left to inflict pain on Evan, the way he’d inflicted it on me.

“Briony told me about you, Evan,” I lied. “How you used to follow her around when you were both kids. She said you were like an ugly dog that she couldn’t get rid of no matter how hard she tried. She
laughed
at you.”

“She didn’t! That isn’t true!”

The shapes were extending outward now, the entire world morphing weirdly, but I kept my focus on him. “You remember her laugh? How pretty it was, like her smile? You kept her amused for
hours.
She could barely speak your name without giggling.”

“She did not.” He raised the weapon, aiming it straight at my heart, and said coldly, “You tell me the truth, or I will kill you.”

“I
am
telling the truth. So go ahead and shoot.” Except he didn’t, and I knew why. He wanted to hear me take it back, to say it was all lies. I never would. He’d taken Connor from me, and I wanted him to pay for it.

The pieces of the world that hadn’t yet transformed started to dissolve. Everything around me seemed to be turning into symbols of themselves in a way that was oddly familiar. Had this happened to me before? I thought somehow that it had, that there’d once been another time when grief and anger had thrown me into this strange state of being.

Evan whispered, “Your eyes . . .”

My surroundings disappeared for an instant before winking back into being. I was standing in a forest of metal, one where the trees were all shining shapes and glinting edges, and I wasn’t dead after all. Because I knew, with total certainty, that I was asleep. More than that, I knew I was dreaming.

And, in my dreams, I could do whatever I wanted.

There was a man in my forest, one who had blood-red skin and a box of lightning in his hand. He thrust the box toward me, and a bolt came flying out. I dived to the side. I’d intended to move fast, far too fast for even lightning to catch me, because I could be as quick as I liked in my own dream. Only something was wrong. My body was sluggish and clumsy, and the lightning skimmed across my shoulder, leaving searing pain in its wake.

With a roar, I grabbed hold of the red man’s arm, struggling with him for the box. I wanted to tear it from his grasp, except I wasn’t strong enough, even though I knew I should be. There was poison in my body, some kind of foreign substance running through my veins and interfering with my power. Had the red man given me the poison? I didn’t think so. It didn’t matter anyway, because he’d done
something
terrible, and although I didn’t remember exactly what, I was going to punish him for it. That was why I was here, and I’d do what I came to do or die trying.

We staggered together through the forest. I tried to urge strength into my limbs, and a brief flare of power pulsed through my body. I pushed the red man into a tree so fast, he almost tripped over his own feet, and slammed his wrist against the metal trunk, once, and again.

He howled, and the box tumbled from his grasp. Before I could grab it, the red man swung his other hand into my middle, driving the air out of my lungs. I stumbled back, wheezing, and he went for the weapon. Snarling, I brought my foot down on the box. Pain shot through my leg. I ignored it, stomping on the lightning thing over and over until it broke into pieces. The red man lunged, and the two of us went crashing to the ground. He punched my face, and agony exploded through my jaw.

This was
my
dream, and I could do anything I
wanted
!

Again the power came, not as strong as I knew it was supposed to be, but enough so that I could give the red man one almighty shove, sending him flying backward through the air. He bounced along the ground a few times, then stopped, sprawled awkwardly among the metal trees. I jumped to my feet, yelling, “Giving up already?”

He still didn’t move. I limped over to him — his head was lolling against a rock, and blood was leaking out of his skull.
He’s dead.
I’d wanted to make him pay, and I had. I’d killed the red man.

It wasn’t enough to quench the burning anger in my heart.

I searched for another enemy and caught sight of something big and white through the trees. How could I have forgotten? There was a house outside the forest, one that was shiny and windowless and circled by a high wall. The red man had lived there once, even though the house didn’t belong to him. It belonged to someone else.
Not a red man, but a bad man.
I couldn’t remember the other man’s name, or even his face, just that he’d done horrible things, as the red man had. He was someone I could fight. Someone I could kill.

I strode toward the house, heedless of the pain in my foot and jaw.
I’m coming to get you, bad man. . . .

Suddenly a little girl appeared in front of me. She was small and brown and perfect, and there was blue light rippling and sparkling around the edges of her being.
Cassie
. I loved her dearly, but she was in my way, so I tried to get around her. When I stepped to the right, she stepped to the right, and when I stepped to the left, she stepped to the left. Finally, I shouted, “Cassie,
move
!”

Cassie lifted a chubby arm, pointing behind me, and I was afraid. Because I knew that somewhere back there was the terrible thing that the red man had done, the thing that I didn’t remember and didn’t
want
to remember. I shook my head. Cassie frowned, pointing again.

“No!” I yelled.

She stayed exactly where she was with her arm stretched out, directing me toward something heartbreaking in the dark.

I stared over her curls, to the house of the bad man who I longed to fight.
I can push her out of the way. . . .
I couldn’t, though. Because this was my lost sister, whom I’d loved and hadn’t treated right. This was the one person who if she asked me to do something, I had to do it. That was the way things were. I knew that, and so did she.

“Cassie, please don’t make me . . . please don’t . . .” Only I could see that she wasn’t going to listen. She would stand there forever, until I looked.

So I looked.

And saw the angel, lying on the ground.

A scream tore itself out of my throat, and I staggered over to the statue. He was cold, and made of stone, and that was
wrong
! The angel should speak and move and laugh. The angel should fly. I crouched over him, trying to turn his head, to make him smile. “Wake up, please wake up. . . .” He didn’t respond, and I called upon my power.
This is MY dream, and I can do ANYTHING I want.
Something came to life inside me, and I put my hand on the chest of the angel, commanding, “Live!”

There was a jolt, a jump, a twitch. I almost felt him take a breath. Then the momentary flicker faded away, and he remained stone.

I glanced around for Cassie but couldn’t find her. “Cassie! I need help!” Nothing happened. There was no one else to help me. Wait . . . There had been someone else, who’d said that he would help me if I needed him. Who had that been? It was so hard to think! Concentrating, I dredged up a dim recollection of an ancient, laughing being. Someone who lived in all worlds and in the spaces between them.

Someone who had made life where there’d been none.

I called out, putting all my hope and desperation into a single anguished cry. “Grandfather,
help
!”

In response, there was a sound. But to call it that was too small a word, too tiny a description for such a vast thing. It rang out all around me, a long note that was part of a song and yet was somehow the whole song, too. The song sank into my flesh, and I started to shiver, whimpering at the sheer power and complexity of it. Pain flared throughout my body, then faded quickly, and with it went all the hurts in my jaw and shoulder and foot.
I’m better?
Still the sound kept coming, until I felt as if I might fly apart, shattered by a something that was too unearthly for my fragile being to contain. Finally, it stopped, and I was holding the entirety of that wonderful, wondrous music.

I bent to the angel, pressing my lips against his, and whispered,
“Live.
”