She stands in front of me, wild red hair streaming in the wind, a fierce gleam in her eyes. I want to reach out and touch her. Let some of the brilliant light she carries spill over onto me. I stretch out my hand, but rational thought kicks in at the last second. I grab Jared’s Switch instead.
“This is too big for you. I’ll make one your size, and we’ll train.”
“But the tracking device—”
It takes me a second to realize she still thinks I need time to work on the device to find Jared. I don’t. I simply need another day or two to finish the one I’m making to find her. Just in case the Commander gets away with whatever treachery I’m sure he’s planning.
“I can do both,” I say. “Listen to me, Rachel.” I wait until her eyes meet mine. “I want you to promise me that if the Commander ever makes you feel threatened, you’ll do exactly what Jared taught you. Strike him down, and get away.”
“If I do that while we’re still in Baalboden, everyone I love will pay the price. I can’t.” Her voice is firm, but her eyes look shadowed. She knows the kind of danger she’s in, but she’s determined, if it comes to it, to lay down her life for Oliver. For me.
As if I could ever let her do that. Anger licks at me, chased by a cold frisson of fear. She isn’t my Protector. I’m hers. And I’m not dropping this until I get her promise.
“Yes, you can.” When she shakes her head, I snap at her. “You can. He’s just a man. A cruel tyrant who doesn’t deserve the power he’s been abusing.” Pain pierces me, swelling on a tide of something almost feral as I remember the heat floating off the dusty cobblestones, the heavy smell of my mother’s blood, the way her breathing hissed in and out slowly until suddenly it was gone. She was gone.
“But—”
“Do you know what happens to girls in Baalboden who cross the Commander, Rachel? Do you?” My voice cracks. “They die. He kills them. He’ll kill you if he finds out what we’re planning.”
“Logan—”
“He’ll kill you. Do you understand?”
She nods.
I look away. At the distant orchard where men crouch behind trees waiting for us to run. Where the idyllic picture of early spring is nothing but a mirage covering the bloody truth of life in Baalboden. I look, but I can’t quite erase the sight of my mother’s lifeless eyes staring at something far beyond anything I could imagine. Missing her is a constant ache I carry with me.
“Logan?”
I turn toward her, braced for the pity I’m sure I’ll find, but she has none. Instead, she watches me with steady understanding.
“I never told you how much I admire your mother.”
The ache in my chest eases. “Really?”
“Really. Dad told me how she was the only woman in Baalboden who wasn’t allowed to go through the Claiming ceremony again after her husband passed on. I guess he died before you were born?”
I nod. Mom rarely spoke of my father. Instead, she’d hold me close and say she was lucky. She had me, and who needed anything else?
“Dad also told me the Commander assigned himself as her Protector, but he wouldn’t check in on her for weeks at a time. Don’t you find that strange? Why break the protocol for your mom and no one else?”
“I don’t know.” But I wish I did. Maybe if he hadn’t kept her from being Claimed again, she’d still be alive.
She frowns, and says slowly, “It’s almost like the Commander hated you from the very start. Dad said he, Oliver, and some of the other men would bring her food. See what she needed in between the Commander’s visits.”
“Until Oliver was sick. Jared was out on a mission. And no one else remembered us.” The words are hard to say. The memories they evoke are worse. The bare cupboards. The desperation in Mom’s eyes as days passed, and we slowly starved.
“She was a hero. It was unfair of the Commander to deny her real Protection. Unfair to treat her differently than any other woman here. It took courage to go to Market without permission. She did it for—”
“Me! She did it for me, and it cost her her life.” I can’t breathe past the sudden wave of guilt and grief tearing at me. “If I hadn’t been hungry, she never would’ve risked it.”
Rachel leans close until all I can see is her. “No. If you hadn’t been there, she wouldn’t have had anything left to live for at all. She loved you, and you were worth the risk. You still are.”
We stare at each other as her words hang in the air between us. Then she steps back, looks at the ground, and says, “Are you going to make me a new Switch or not?”
Turning my attention back to the matter at hand is easy. Figuring out what to do with Rachel’s words isn’t. Setting them aside for now, I search for a stick heavy enough to turn into a Switch, and start working.
By late afternoon, I’ve finished making her Switch and have turned her loose on the dummy. The weighted end smacks into Bob with a satisfying crunch, and she spins the stick, releases the double-edged blade, and buries it into Bob’s heart as he crashes back toward her.
She grins and yanks her weapon free. “For someone who spends his days hunched over boring old papers, you sure know how to create a nice killing stick.”
Time to teach her who she’s dealing with. “I didn’t grow up in South Edge without learning a trick or two,” I say as I pick up Jared’s Switch. “Sheath your blade. We’ll count a solid touch from the blade end as a strike.”
She sends her blade back into its hiding place, widens her stance, and rolls to the balls of her feet. I walk toward her, the resolve I feel to protect her blazing into something hard and bright in the face of her courage.
“I spend my days hunched over boring old papers, do I?” My stick whistles through the air, and she leaps back to dodge the blow. Spinning, I tap her with the sheathed blade before she can raise her arms in defense.
“My point,” I say, and don’t bother hiding my smirk.
She circles me. “Lucky shot.”
I lash out again, but she’s ready. Blocking me with the middle of her Switch, she whirls beneath my outstretched arms and slams the weighted end into my thigh.
Pride keeps me from swearing at the pain. Instead, I sweep her feet out from under her. She flips in midair and rolls forward as she lands, coming up with her stick ready.
The controlled grace of her movements would make Jared proud. I decide the warm emotion sweeping through me must be pride too.
“You’re fast. That’s good,” I say, advancing toward her.
“You’re not bad for a tech head.”
We block, parry, and break apart. She’s strong and quick, but I worry she doesn’t know how to anticipate the unexpected. I step back, inviting an attack, and she charges forward, swinging the weighted end of her stick like a butcher slicing the head from a sheep. I wait until the last second, then drop to the ground and ram her with my shoulder. Her forward momentum carries her over the top of me and she lands face-first in the grass.
She spits dry blades of grass from her mouth, and swears, but a new respect for me is in her eyes.
I laugh, and my fear for her eases into something I can use to focus on planning. She stares at me, a tiny smile flitting across her lips, and the affection on her face makes me feel like the richest man in the world.
“I was a fighter long before I was a tech head.” I offer her a hand up. “You need to be ready for an opponent who does the unexpected.”
She takes my outstretched hand, closing her soft fingers over mine without breaking my gaze. The sun blazes a golden path through her fiery hair, and my eyes slide over her pale skin and come to rest on her lips. Warmth pools in my stomach and spreads lazily through me as I tug her hand and pull her closer.
I’m not going to kiss her. That would be … I don’t know what that would be. I can’t seem to think straight. All I see is Rachel, filling up my empty spaces and making me into more than I ever could be on my own.
Maybe this is what family does for each other. She’s my family now. Which is why, even as I lean toward her, unable to tear my gaze away from the softness of her mouth, I tell myself I’m not going to kiss her.
She steps toward me, face upturned. I lean in.
Behind us, someone clears his throat.