Ruthless Read online

“What is it? Is it just . . .” I couldn’t bear to say my appearance.

  Zack guessed what I meant and immediately shook his head. “You’re as beautiful to me as you always have been.”

  I wanted so badly to believe him. “You say that, but I don’t know if you mean it. It’s like suddenly you want to criticize everything about me except my appearance. Like you’re working so hard to be the good guy and not abandon me that you’re finding all these other things wrong with me.”

  Zack took that in. “I didn’t mean to criticize you, I was just trying to help you, to help the resistance. You . . . I think you’re amazing.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said softly.

  Zack moved toward me, brushing a few sprigs of hair out of my face. “Well, I do. And yeah, we’ve been going through some tough times lately. Saving the world, that’s pretty stressful. But we’ll get through it.”

  Looking at Zack, I remembered how safe he’d once made me feel. But now he felt like an obstacle, like he’d taken the place of that nasty voice in the back of my head. Now, he was the one whispering all the things that made me doubt myself. Perhaps I’d have to learn to ignore him, the way I’d learned to ignore my old mechanical foe.

  I tried to be put at ease by his smile. “I need you to support me. Let me back in that room.”

  He hesitated. “I thought you wanted to keep yourself out, to prove your innocence.”

  I summoned my strength. “I want to talk to everyone.”

  Though his expression conveyed a mountain of reservations, I realized I no longer needed his permission, or Dawn’s. I’d spent all this time following the orders of a resistance that barely existed anymore. The power we had here in Redenção was mine, and wielding it was my responsibility. And if we were going to rid this city of Ciaran, I was going to need all the help I could get.

  2

  With Zack at my side, I entered the boardroom to find my friends whispering their wartime secrets. Eyes turned suspiciously toward me as usual, but I held my ground. “Ciaran’s back.” I could hear the gravity and conviction in my voice. I was speaking more like a leader now, less like the timid little girl who didn’t know if she belonged.

  Dawn’s eyebrows furrowed. “Back?”

  “I just saw him here, outside the gates of Redenção.”

  Jude stood, confused. “The sociopath kid from that prison in West Virginia? Why would he be here?”

  My lack of additional knowledge left me feeling despair. “I don’t know.”

  Dawn hesitantly volunteered, “I heard there was a breakout from that facility a few days ago.” So perhaps those other faces I’d half recognized had been Ciaran’s cellmates after all.

  I looked to Dr. Marko, who’d once been imprisoned in that very place. “How could they have made it outside the perimeter without help? And how could they have gotten all the way here?”

  “Well, call me crazy, but I think they had help,” Dr. Marko said matter-of-factly.

  The truth washed over me like a bitter wave. “Esther.” My mother was using her prisoners as a resource. She’d unleashed my attempted rapist on Redenção as a last-ditch attempt to bring me in. I felt sick to my stomach, remembering the cryptic message Ciaran had delivered. This was her way of hurting me, of trying to coerce me into doing what she wanted—joining up with her.

  “I told you we should have killed her,” Layla muttered. I ignored her—I wasn’t going to let her faze me.

  “We’ll develop a strategy,” Zack promised me.

  I felt my anger hardening into resolve. “We need to find them, before they hurt anyone else. We need to get those soldiers searching through every last tent out there.”

  Dawn nodded approvingly. “Muster your army, start the search. We’ll let you know if we need anything else.”

  “I can help here,” I insisted. Since I knew I wasn’t the mole, I worried that the real mole might have more power without me present.

  It was Dawn who gently said, “We haven’t had any more breaches since you stepped aside. I think it’s best you stay away for now.” The others averted their eyes but cautiously nodded in agreement.

  Their polite dismissal stung. I wanted so badly to argue my value, to force everyone here to listen to my ideas. But I knew if people here suspected me of being a mole, I wouldn’t be much use. “Fine,” I said, heading out to continue my self-exile, feeling the sting of isolation. I might have all the power in Redenção, but still . . . I was on one side of that door, and all my friends were on the other.

  Well, not all of them. As I retreated into the hall, Macy crossed my path, munching on a bowl of cereal she’d just poured herself. “Isn’t it a little late for cereal?” I joked. Our relationship had remained tense since arriving here, and I took any opportunity I could find to rebuild rapport.

  Macy shrugged. “They always eat dinner in there, planning secret resistance things. I don’t want to bother them, so I make do.”

  I smiled, trying to build a bridge between us. “Yeah, I guess we’re in the same club.”

  Macy rolled her eyes. “Seriously? I’m out here because I’m not important and nobody cares about me. You’re not in there because you’re so important, everything would fall apart without you.”

  “I’m out here because my mom set me up,” I said hotly. “That’s probably why she came here in the first place—to make everyone suspicious of me.”

  Macy’s anger eased for a moment. “Yeah, I’m sorry to hear about the evil mom. Your life got weird.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, pretty weird.”

  There was a moment of tense silence, until Macy offered, “All I’m saying is, it’s no fun, watching all the drama and not being able to do anything to help.”

  “I’m feeling pretty helpless myself right now,” I admitted. “I keep waiting for them to catch the real mole, so I can go back in there and do something again.”

  “That’s dumb. Look, I’ve just been doing the watching-from-the-outside-and-eating-cereal thing, but from what I’ve seen, nothing interesting really happens in that little dining room. Everything that’s actually helped? It’s been you. And no, I haven’t always agreed with you, you know, lying your butt off to everyone, but at least it’s working. And if you’re going to perpetrate this whole stupid hoax, you should keep making it work.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking that in. Macy was right. Everyone else could busy themselves with their battle plans. The real war was happening right now, outside the gates of Redenção, and I needed to go lead that fight.

  3

  Though the general was hesitant to label Ciaran as a suspect without any hard evidence, she agreed to distribute pictures of the escaped inmates to news outlets and circulate hard copies throughout the city. Anyone who spotted them was instructed to notify a patrolling soldier immediately.

  “Bring them in by any means necessary,” I told General Feliciano, unable to contain the venom in my voice. “Kill them if you have to. These are agents of the devil.”

  In her expression I saw hesitation—she’d never heard anything this violent from me before. “We’ll comb the beach,” she tentatively promised me. “Inspect every person. It should only take a few days.”

  But we didn’t have a few days. Early the next morning, I awoke to a muted phone call from the general. “Prophet, I wanted you to be the first to know, before it hit the news.”

  Her grave tone gave me chills. “What happened?”

  “There’s been another incident.”

  I flew down to the barracks, determined to see for myself, but the general wouldn’t let me anywhere near the pilgrim camps.

  “It’s not safe right now, Prophet.”

  I nodded, willing to trust her judgment, as a small council of Redenção’s leaders, including the mayor, arrived to assess the situation. “We need to solve this, and solve it now,” he said, pacing the room with his limping gait.

  The general showed us footage taken by her soldiers, which sen
t my stomach into knots. The first few videos were taken at night, in the midst of chaos—pilgrims bloody and screaming for help. As the footage rolled on, the room fell into a desperate kind of silence.

  “What is this?” I breathed.

  “Late, while everyone was sleeping. Two dozen killed, no one saw the attackers. Everyone is pretty shaken.”

  I swallowed my horror. The scale was far worse than any of the previous attacks. More than twenty people killed, all vulnerable pilgrims with no permanent housing. Terrifying the thousands more still sleeping exposed in their tents. That was the point: to bring fear to the camp, to drive away my supporters.

  “You haven’t found any of the perpetrators?” I asked. “Anyone whose picture I sent you yesterday?”

  The general shook her head mournfully. “We searched the area thoroughly, but never found them.”

  I had a hunch they must have taken downers—the same kind of drugs I’d used last year to see Macy in the Outcast Ward—and infiltrated the camp disguised as unrecognizable Outcasts. But Ciaran had brazenly shown me his true face only the day before . . . why take that risk?

  He wanted me to know it was him. He was trying to bait me . . . or rather, my mother was. She’d crafted a situation she knew would enrage me, in order to make me act the way a prophet never would, to prove to my followers that I was no better than Prophet Joshua or any of the others. I couldn’t fall into her trap. But I couldn’t let my followers die either.

  “Maybe they won’t return,” the mayor said hopefully.

  I shook my head, knowing Ciaran, and my mother. “They’ll be back tonight, and every night. There must be some other way to protect people. Soldiers patrolling . . .”

  “There were soldiers patrolling last night . . .” the general reminded me.

  “And it didn’t help,” I finished for her. I tried to think of anywhere else we could put the pilgrims. “Could we keep them somewhere secure, away from the rest of the city. Like the prison even . . . ?”

  As much as I dreaded the idea of forcing my followers into a prison, I dreaded the forlorn general’s response more. “There isn’t enough room for all of them,” she said apologetically. “We’re overfull as it is.” I’d seen that firsthand, when I’d visited my mother. I knew jail capacities had been greatly reduced since the Revelations, even in Outcast areas, so having a military presence patrolling for petty crimes must have sent local prison populations skyrocketing.

  I tried to think of any other option. “We could ask them to find shelter away from the city. At least for a little while.”

  The general raised an eyebrow. “You can try.”

  I nodded, definitive. “Take me outside.” I silenced her caution with a firm stare, and she reluctantly gathered a posse of troops to protect me: three times as many as usual. Though I assumed Ciaran and his friends weren’t reckless enough to strike during the day, I still broke into a cold sweat as we stepped outside the gates, nervous knowing he might be lurking somewhere in this crowd.

  As I exited, the pilgrims flocked to me with newly panicked faces. Their worshipfulness had turned to desperation—hoping I’d ease their fears, take away their pain, and promise that nothing like this would ever happen to them again. I wished I could make promises like that. I’d never wished more that I was telling the truth, that I could use some supernatural power to protect everyone.

  Thankfully, I noticed the crowd had thinned and was thinning further. A few skeptical faces, loaded up with bags, gave me the hint that perhaps last night’s brutal attack had already convinced some of the message I was here to send: they needed to leave, now.

  It seemed that this tragedy had caused people to question their faith in me. I wanted so badly to apologize and admit that they were right. But before I could reach out to any of the retreating pilgrims, I was stopped by a young grieving Outcast mother: an American about a decade older than me, whose young child had been killed in the attack.

  The moment she saw me, she collapsed at my feet, asking, “Why, why?”

  Her son’s murder had been graphic, from what I’d seen. Not that there was much to see. By the time the cameras reached him, there was hardly anything left of his face. I cried along with her, taking in her pain, feeling the weight of my own responsibility for that death. “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I held her.

  “He was so smart,” she told me, pride still beaming in her eyes. “He already knew his times tables. He had to go to the Outcast school back in Florida because that’s all that would take him, but I knew he was meant for great things.”

  “I know he was,” I said, the guilt building up inside of me.

  She looked at me with a kind of desperate hope. “Maybe he was meant for this. To be a martyr for you.” My stomach sank hearing her twisted logic. I knew she was grasping for meaning after such a tragedy, trying to give her son a purpose when all purpose had been taken away from him. I hated the role I had to play to give her some kind of peace.

  I wouldn’t play it. “No,” I said, shaking my head. “He should have done so much more. I’m so sorry for your loss.” The shame burned inside of me, that someone so young and innocent had died because his mother had made the fatal mistake of believing in me. And because my mother was using this child’s death to pull on my heartstrings like a puppeteer.

  The grieving woman grasped my hand, held my gaze. “We won’t leave, even now. You told us to have faith, and we do.”

  “No!” I said, almost yelling it. “You have to go. Find somewhere safe, away from the city.”

  She shook her head, confused. “If we go, what message does that send to the rest of the world? That we’re afraid? Then my son’s death is for nothing.”

  I squeezed her hands. “Your son’s death is a warning, saving others. And you live another day to do the work of Great Spirit. Please. Go somewhere safe. It’s what Great Spirit wants for you.”

  “But my son’s soul is here,” she whispered. “I can’t go, not yet.”

  I tried to smile, reassure her. “Hey, I’m a prophet, right? You have to listen to what I say. Please, tell everyone, that’s what I want you to do, okay? Get out of here.”

  She nodded but seemed unconvinced. My stomach tied itself into knots as I wondered . . . would I be able to keep any of these people safe?

  As I worked my way through the collection of mourners, my hopes dwindled. While some had taken the attack as a sign to abandon their faith, for others the violence had only strengthened their resolve, to prove their piety in the face of danger. Though I urged people to leave, they seemed to think this was some kind of test, that I was asking them to show their loyalty by putting themselves in harm’s way. As I looked out at the vast expanse of tents that remained in place, all those people stubbornly strewn across the beach, I was filled with dread . . . tonight there would be a lot of people in danger.

  4

  When I returned to the barracks, my friends were waiting for me, faces grim—by now, these new attacks had become public. “What’s the plan?” Dawn asked. It was the first time she’d looked to me as a real source of leadership, and my stomach tightened. The truth was, I had no plan. And it sounded like they didn’t either.

  I thought of all the innocent souls waiting outside, vulnerable, praying to a prophet who couldn’t help them. “The general’s going to send another patrol out tonight . . .”

  “Fat lot of good they did last night,” Zack grumbled.

  “I think Ciaran and the other sociopaths are blending in with the crowd,” I explained. “My mother must have given them some downers.”

  Layla tentatively suggested, “We have some of those, too, don’t we?”

  Jude bravely sparked to the idea. “Cops in plainclothes. I’ll do it.”

  Dr. Marko pointed to Jude and Layla. “You’re the only ones who can. The drugs that cause Punishment won’t work on the rest of us, now that our nanotech’s been removed. Non-Outcasts will stick out.”

  “At least that crap in our brains
is useful for something,” Jude muttered.

  Layla clearly didn’t love this plan. “You want me to go into danger again?”

  “They’re not singling you out . . .” Jude said gently.

  Layla was not calmed. “My family has suffered enough . . .”

  “I’ll go,” Zack interrupted.

  “You can’t,” Dawn said, exasperated.

  “Yes, I can,” he insisted, blush rising in his cheeks. “That crap’s still in my head, too.”

  I was deeply confused. “No, it isn’t. I watched you breathe in that gas that removed it.”

  Zack seemed to shrink, as if trying to disappear. “I didn’t actually inhale it. I just pretended.”

  “Why on earth would you do that?” Dawn asked, echoing the confusion and apprehension of the rest of the room.

  Zack looked at me, now beet red. “I’ll explain later. Just . . . I can help now.”

  Irene, usually so quiet, poked her head up to speak. “I’m sorry, don’t we have a mole? Does anyone else think this seems a little suspicious?” I had to admit, I shared her concerns.

  “If he had a good reason, he should say it,” Jude said, gently prodding.

  Zack hesitated, then admitted, “I saw what happened to the rest of you, the way your appearances changed, and not always for the better. I didn’t want to have that happen to me.”

  Layla snorted. “Really? You did this because you are vain?” Her laughter lightened the mood a bit—it had been a long time since any of us had laughed.

  Zack grew irritated, heading for the door. “I said I’d help. Let me know when we have a plan, and I’ll go in with you.”

  As he stepped out, Irene looked to the rest of us. “I know I’m not a fighter, but I can help, too.”

  Dawn shook her head. “No way.”

  Irene seemed offended. “You put yourself in danger all the time . . .”

  “No!” Dawn interrupted. I knew she’d already lost her first wife—she wasn’t willing to lose another.