Glass held tight to the skirt of her white dress, willing her smile to stay steady as she strolled with Soren along a corridor with cracked walls covered in ivy and roses. The first time Glass had seen the flowers, a few days earlier, she’d marveled at how lovely they looked against the crumbling concrete. Beauty triumphing over ugliness. Nature redeeming the sins of the humans who’d taken her for granted. But now the roses just looked trapped, far from the woods and meadows where they belonged.
“It’s a lovely ceremony,” the High Protector was explaining, the midday light filtering through the ruined ceiling hitting her face in disorienting flashes. “The first ritual will be held outdoors at sunrise tomorrow. The men and women are washed and anointed and blessed by Earth Herself before the actual pairing begins.”
“I’m sorry,” Glass said. “I think I’m still a little confused. What exactly goes on at the Pairing Ceremony?”
“Oh, goodness, yes.” Soren laughed and it sounded like sunshine. “Of course you’re curious. It’s when the new recruits, girls like you that Earth has gifted us, become true members of our community. We pair each new girl with one of the male recruits, and they consummate the union, thereby becoming Protectors. Then, if their pairing pleases Earth, She blesses us with a true-born child.”
Glass stumbled and held on to the wall while she tried to blink her dizziness away. “Consummate?” she whispered.
Surely Soren couldn’t mean what Glass thought she was implying. Was the Pairing Ceremony a mating ritual? Was that why Glass and the other girls had been taken? A memory slithered out from the back of her brain. Luke’s roommate, Carter, placing his hands on her waist, trapping her against the wall. The feel of his warm breath too close to her skin. She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting back waves of nausea.
“Yes,” Soren said. “As I’d told you, the Pairing Ceremony dates back to the very first Protectors, and the outsiders who welcomed them in. Most of those Protectors healed from the radiation they’d been exposed to on the surface. Outwardly, anyway. When it came time to bring a new generation into the world, they found that they were unable to conceive…” She trailed off and looked at Glass, as if prompting her to continue the story.
A chill ran down Glass’s spine and she scrambled to connect the dots. “They had the new people conceive for them,” she said slowly as unsettling images filled her head.
Soren nodded. “Exactly. The following generations didn’t have the same problems, but it became the most honored ritual in our society, and we’ve been doing it ever since. New recruits are always a little nervous, of course, as I’m sure brides and grooms were in the old world, but with everyone taking part together, it adds a level of unity and community that’s hard to describe.”
Glass’s mouth fell open as her stomach roiled. There was no way Soren could mean… right there, in the open, with everyone watching. That was how they would all prove themselves invaluable to the community?
No. She couldn’t let this happen. Her heart beat frantically against her rib cage, a trapped bird begging for escape. Luke. He had to be on his way to find her. He’d never let this happen to her. He’d find a way…
“I normally arrange the pairs, of course,” Soren said. “But you’re so special to me, and it’s important to me that you feel comfortable. So I was wondering, would you like to be paired with that friend of yours? The handsome dark-haired one?”
“Wells?” Glass asked hoarsely, her throat suddenly dry.
“Yes, he shows a lot of promise, my men tell me.”
Oh my god. Oh my god. The corridor started to spin as gut-wrenching images flooded her head. Wells’s face burning with shame as he looked away, trying to afford his childhood friend a shred of dignity as she undressed in front of him. The agony in his eyes as he was forced to… whispering, “I’m so sorry, Glass,” while he…
No. It was too terrible to imagine.
Though not nearly as terrible as the image of the girls in the den being shoved into the arms of leering strangers. Lina. Anna. Octavia.
Soren glanced behind her as they neared the sprawling courtyard at the center of the building. “I think we’ll perform the ritual here, Glass. The Heart of the Stone. What better place?”
Glass struggled to breathe. Every time she tried to inhale, the breath caught in her chest. Finally, she managed to wheeze out, “That all sounds great.”
Soren pressed her hands into Glass’s shoulders, pleased. “I’m touched, Glass. I can tell how much this means to you. Would you like to be the one to tell your friends about the honor that awaits them? I’m sure it’ll mean a great deal, coming from you.”
“Yes,” Glass said, taking one last shaky breath.
“Wonderful.” Soren sniffed, her tone returning to all-business briskness. “Now’s as good a time as any. I’ve got something to attend to at the front gates.” Her face clouded. “Something… unpleasant, I’m afraid. I’ll look forward to picking up our chat where we left off when I get back.”
She smiled gratefully, reaching out to clasp Glass’s hand one more time before turning and striding purposefully away down a southern corridor, the word unpleasant seeming to linger in the air behind her like a noxious cloud.
Glass shuddered and turned to walk quickly to the sculleries. As much as she dreaded this, it was much better that they found out as quickly as possible. There had to be a way they could get out of it…
She turned a corner, passing the lines of hung laundry, half of it seemingly abandoned, baskets heaped with wet linens, then poked her head inside the steaming scullery. A quick glance showed Lina scrubbing chamber pots along with a few other girls, cloths tied tight over their disgusted faces, but no one else familiar.
A giggle echoed down the alley behind her. She spun around, following the sound to a little bombed-out niche in the massive wall, where two girls stood tangled up in each other. Octavia’s hands were loosening Anna’s curly braid, Anna’s fingers dancing up Octavia’s spine… and they were kissing like it was the greatest discovery of their lifetimes.
In any other situation, seeing Octavia look so happy would’ve filled Glass’s heart with joy. But right now, all she could see was the upcoming Pairing Ceremony. Anna forced to watch as Octavia was shoved into a strange man’s arms… a man whom Earth had “willed” to do what he liked with her.
Stomach churning, Glass cleared her throat.
Anna and Octavia broke apart with a lurch, terror mirrored on each of their faces until they saw who was standing in front of them, and they doubled over with relief and a wonderfully mundane kind of embarrassment.
“We need to talk,” Glass said. “Quickly.”
Both girls went pale as Glass recited the whole sordid plan: the pairings, the ceremony, officially being inducted as Protectors. She kept her gaze cast down at the rocky floor, too horrified by Soren’s intentions to even look them in the eye as she told them.
When she was done, she glanced up at Octavia, and to her surprise, saw more determination than fear in the younger girl’s face.
“It’s time, Glass,” Octavia said. “You know it is.”
“Wells hasn’t signaled that it’s time yet.”
Octavia gripped Glass’s wrist. “No. You have to kill her. You’re the only one close enough to do it.”
“I…” Glass felt bile rising in her throat. She was disgusted by the Protectors, but kill Soren? She looked to Anna, but Anna was staring at her feet. Glass swallowed. “I think that would raise too many alarms. We just need to get our people out. That’s the only priority.”
Octavia’s hand slid from Glass’s wrist, her face falling.
Glass stepped forward. “Have you thought any more about your river plan and using the boats to escape?”
Octavia nodded. “As long as we can manufacture some kind of distraction, we’ll be able to row far enough away that we’ll be out of gunshot range. They could take a wagon and try to catch up, but there’s no road along the river. I think we’ll make it.”
“We need to find Wells and let him know what’s happening. We need to escape tonight, before the Pairing Ceremony happens tomorrow morning. Can you find him?” Glass asked.
“Don’t worry.” Octavia’s voice was firm. “I’ll figure something out.”
Looking at the fierceness in her eyes, Glass believed her. After everything they’d been through, everything they’d survived, none of them were going down without a fight.