Guardians (21 page)

“Why don't you rest?” he whispered to her. “I'll take over.”

Esther's initial impulse was to retreat to the dark stairwell, as she often did when she needed to think or had trouble
sleeping. Yet it brought back unsettling memories—not of Trey, but of Aras. She shook off the feeling and on an impulse, headed to the eighth floor, a level below.

The corridor was dark and silent. Moonlight spilled in through the corner windows, forming gleaming pools on the carpet and reflecting off the interior windows that looked out on the dark District. As Esther paced around the rectangular hallway, she found that her thoughts kept returning to her former partner.

For weeks, she had made peace with the thought of him with another girl. Aras had moved on with his life; now she was attempting to move on with hers.

So why did he feel so close to her tonight?

Esther's bare feet were silent as she made her way along the soft beige carpet, leaving a trail of faint impressions. She closed her eyes as she walked; with her arms extended to either side, she let her fingers brush the walls, guiding her.
It was as if she too were blind like him,
she thought. And the more she thought of him, the more she sensed him materialize as a ghostly presence behind her. She could almost feel the softness of his breath on the back of her neck, the warmth of his hand as he reached out to touch her.

To warn her?

Esther's eyes popped open. She could hear it now: a faint cry that seemed to arise from the building itself. It was not a dream. In front of her, the silver panels of the twin elevators shone in the dim light. She leaned forward. Then she pressed her ear against the smooth metal surface and listened.

And she heard it again.

It sounded far away; there was no way of telling whether or not it was even human. For a moment, Esther picked in vain at the sealed doors; then she gave up in frustration. Whoever it was lay far below her, many floors down. She would have to descend to the mall to find out who or what it was.

Esther was halfway down when she hesitated. She could not go alone.

Skar was in her room with Michal, preparing to retire for the night. But when she saw Esther, she got up without speaking and slipped her knife into her pocket. From their bed, Michal watched them both, her face drawn with concern.

“Don't worry,” said Skar in a soft voice. “I'll be back as soon as I can.” She bent down to kiss Michal before joining Esther in the hall.

The girls leaped down the stairs, taking entire landings in each bound. Skar said nothing, but matched her friend stride for stride in the darkness.

The two girls emerged on the deserted main floor. Moonlight streamed down through the skylight far overhead, throwing deep shadows.

“That way,” Esther whispered. Skar nodded and the two ran across the hall and down the twin staircase that led to the basement. After the smoothness of the dusty marble floor, the sharply grooved steps cut into the soles of their bare feet. Then they picked their way across the food court, surrounded on all sides by the soft sounds of boys sleeping, and toward the back corridor where the elevators lay.

Esther approached the two sets of metal panels. Even though they were tightly shut, the stench wafting from them was overwhelming and the air was filled with a distant hum. When she lit a firestarter and held it up, Esther saw that blackened rot seeped from both seams and spread onto the floor.

Skar was already working at one of the doors with her knife. By jamming the blade in and pushing it back and forth, she was able to separate the metal slabs a little bit. It was enough room for both girls to slip their fingers in. As the noise and smell increased, the two girls tried to force the elevator open. Pulling with all of their might, they managed to slide one of the doors open.

Inside was a nightmare come to life.

Dozens of lifeless bodies were packed together in the bottom of a dark shaftway. Freed from their prison, they now spilled out into the hallway at the girls' feet. The humming sound was that of thousands of flies buzzing everywhere.

Esther recoiled, her hands to her mouth. Behind her, she heard Skar's breath quicken.

“Help.” The voice came from somewhere higher up. It was little more than a croak, but Esther knew it belonged to Silas.

“He's still alive,” Skar said, her tone practical.

“Can you move?” Esther whispered to him.

“Yeah.” Silas's voice was louder. “My legs hurt. But I'm all right.”

The two girls glanced at each other in the flickering light. Then, swallowing hard, Esther clicked it off. Without speaking,
they both knew that what they had to do would be easier in the dark.

First, Esther tore off strips of cloth from the bottom of her T-shirt, which both girls tied around their mouths and noses. Then they crouched down side by side and began pulling bodies out of the way.

It was horrific, yet the darkness made it seem abstract, as if it were happening in a dream. Esther tried to touch only fabric, robes that were dried and stiff with what she knew was blood. As they pulled, it tore in their hands, yet bodies began to slide out into the hallway, making the job easier.

Esther yanked on whatever she could grasp that didn't feel human: belts, T-shirts, jeans. Once, her hands closed on a limb that was soft and rotting; clamping her lips together so she wouldn't cry out, she adjusted her grip so she was holding only the baggy denim around it. The air was filled with the sounds of fabric shredding and bodies sliding and landing on the ground with a thump. More than once, pieces of clothing tore off in Esther's hand. At least two of them felt like partnering ties.

Throughout, Esther clung to the one thought that made it bearable:
Silas was still alive
. Were it not for that one hope, she felt she might go mad.

At long last, Esther heard something move above her. It reached out and struck her; by instinct, she grabbed it. It was a foot, blessedly moving and alive.

“I got him,” she whispered. Together, she and Skar pulled the boy free. He slid down the bodies strewn in the corridor and landed on the floor before them.

Esther took out her firestarter and clicked it to make sure he was all right. The boy looked pitiful: His face was bruised and one of his eyes was swollen. Yet he was alive. That was all that mattered.

“We must go,” said Skar. “Someone will have heard us.”

She had put one arm around Silas; together, they were already heading back the way they had come. Esther was about to extinguish the light and join them when her eye fell on something.

It was not a body. No, this was something that had dropped to the side, a strip of blue cloth she had torn from one of the dead.

It was fabric from a shirt.

The same shirt she had given to Aras.

Esther bent and picked it up, but her mind struggled to grasp the meaning of it. Even after she clicked off the firestarter, the pattern of the cloth stuttered and repeated in her brain like an obvious message she still could not understand.

By now, Skar and Silas had already made it to the foot of the dual stairs. Her friend hissed a warning at Esther to hurry up, yet Esther heard her as if through a fog. Thoughts whirled through her head as she tried to make sense of it all.

But there was no time to understand what had happened.

The glow of an approaching torch lit the hall, throwing ghastly light on the pile of dead.

“Esther!”

Gideon was flanked by three guards, one of whom held a gun.

Fingering the shirt fragment, Esther felt as if her life were
draining out of her. For when she heard Gideon's voice—the boy she had nearly partnered with—everything clicked into place.

What the girl Nur told her had been a lie
.

Aras had not left her for someone else
.
He was dead
.

Gideon had killed him and hidden his body
.

Grief and rage came crashing down on Esther like physical things; she felt as if she were drowning. She could not move and did not care or even notice when the guards surrounded her and seized her by the arms.

Gideon was in a bad mood.

He did not want to admit it, but even he was appalled by the carnage uncovered by Esther. He was aware that troublemakers needed to be disposed of in a prompt and efficient way to keep them from spreading dissent. Moreover, he approved of the use of brutality to ensure order.
Yet the number of people Saith had ordered killed,
he now thought with irritation,
was going too far
.

He had called Saith to his tiled office to discuss this and other important matters, but the girl didn't seem to be listening. She sat on the counter, swinging her legs and humming to herself.

“Who laugh at me now?” she asked again and again. Then she giggled and swung her legs harder.

Exasperated, Gideon knew she was talking about Esther.

He had tried explaining things to the little girl. Earlier, Gideon had ordered his guards to drag the dead bodies out of the elevator and into the garage for the sole reason of
ensuring that no one else discovered them. Finding out about the slaughter of so many would shake even the most fervent believer's faith in not only his and Saith's leadership but perhaps the entire system they had devised.

But Saith didn't seem to understand.

“They bad people,” she kept saying. “Ain't no reason they alive.”

For the first time Gideon realized that Saith was more of a risk than he could have ever foreseen. To her, other people were like toys or ants or pieces of dust; having them destroyed meant nothing to her.

Under Saith, people could be put to death for the mildest infraction or perceived flaw. Anyone who was injured or disabled, petty thieves, anyone caught fighting or causing a nuisance, people she deemed unclean in either body or mind, even someone she simply found unattractive. They had all been executed; a single kiss or lecherous glance was punishable by death. Yet most had been guilty of one thing only: disrespecting Saith by refusing to bow or carry her image, or not praying loudly enough.

Gideon found this an emotional and messy way to wield power.

He had decided to leave matters of order and enforcement to Saith; he now realized that had been a serious mistake. The younger girl had gone overboard, and her competition with Esther had become poisonous.

“So,” Saith said now. “When we kill her?”

Gideon sighed. “I told you. Not yet.”

The pretty little face frowned. “Why?”

“I told you, there's one last thing I need her to do.”

Esther sat crouched in the dark.

From the size of her enclosure, she assumed it was a closet of some kind. Esther did not know how many hours she had been there. All she remembered was being led to the fifth floor then thrust into a tiny and windowless space.

Throughout, her mind had been whirling. She thought of Aras, and her heart was filled with guilt and grief. She felt rage, too—directed as much at herself as at Gideon. She had appeased her partner's killer; and the more she thought of this, the more it felt as if her heart would break from shame alone.

Her only hope was that Skar and Silas had escaped. But where could they have gone? And what of all the others?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the lock being undone. Then the door opened and daylight spilled in, making Esther wince.

“He want to see you,” said a guard.

She was dragged to her feet; after crouching for so long in the small space, she could barely stand. Walking between two armed boys, Esther was led to the far staircase, where she was forced to stumble up the stairs.

They were taking her home.

Perhaps,
she thought with sudden and irrational hope,
she would be allowed to rejoin her group. They might be imprisoned, but at least they would be together
.

Yet they turned onto the ninth floor, and Esther was led
down the hall where she had worked. With a sinking feeling, she saw that all of the rooms were silent and deserted. Feathers and bits of paper were strewn on the floor or floated in the air. And everywhere she looked was devastation.

The sickrooms were shorn of their bedding. The few medicines that Esther had collected were destroyed, their plastic bottles smashed and the contents spilled across the floor. In the learning rooms, desks and chairs were overturned, adrift in what seemed to be an ocean of paper that was torn and trampled.

Upstairs was even worse. The rooms in which Esther and her friends lived had been ransacked. Tattered remains of clothing and other belongings that had been emptied out of dressers and boxes were trampled underfoot.

Her children and friends were nowhere to be seen.

Although her heart was shattering inside her, Esther knew she had been taken here on purpose. They wanted her to be humiliated, to have her spirit broken. And so she kept her chin held high, to deprive her captors of any satisfaction. But she faltered when she saw who was waiting for them at the end of the hall.

It was Gideon. He gave the guard a brusque nod and turned to go.

“Murderer.” She could not hold her tongue.

Gideon stopped for a moment. Then, snapping his fingers for them to follow, he disappeared around a corner.

“Where are my children?” Esther shouted the words after him. “Where are my friends?”

No one answered; the two boys just dragged her along with them. The Insurgent leader had disappeared through an open door and they shoved her in as well. Inside, Joseph's library was a shambles, the floor littered with books. A dying fire was burning in the middle of the room. It had already scorched the ceiling and black ash still drifted everywhere.

“Talk to him.” Gideon's voice came from behind her.

A forlorn figure sat alone in a far corner. He was turning the pages of a damaged book, as if to comfort himself with a small, familiar action. Looking traumatized, a striped cat huddled by his feet.

“Joseph?”