The Choosing (11 page)

Aaron chuckled deep in his throat and softly shook his head. “No doubt you will soon forget how to see, forget your true identity, but that is what brings us back to the journey, my friends. Life is a journey of remembering and forgetting one’s true self. But don’t fret and be filled with fear if you forget, because only after forgetting can we remember. Yes? And each time you recall who you are, your vision strengthens.”

Aaron had come full circle and jumped up onto a large metal box that sat against the wall in front of the group. “Remember who you are!” He placed his fist over his heart and spoke in a loud voice. “I am Aaron, son of my Father, inheritor of the earth, beautiful and blameless, chosen. I am Aaron, son of my Father, inheritor of the earth, beautiful and blameless, chosen.”

The children close to the front began to giggle again as Aaron chanted this mantra. A couple of them clapped and cheered, causing the other children around Carrington to do the same.

Aaron stopped chanting, climbed down from his metal perch, and marched to a small girl who sat with her mother in the front row. He dropped down to her level and put his fist back up to his heart. The child, as if receiving some
hidden message from him, followed suit and placed her own tiny hand on her chest.

“As I am,” Aaron started, “so are you. You are the daughter of your Father, inheritor of the earth, beautiful and blameless, chosen.”

The small girl smiled, jumped from her mother’s lap, and wrapped her arms around Aaron’s neck. He embraced the child and Carrington felt her skin prickle in response. It was clear Aaron believed that child was exactly as he’d said: beautiful, blameless, chosen.

He unwrapped the girl’s arms from his neck and placed her back in her mother’s care. He stood and slowly surveyed the crowd. “As I am, so are you. Know who you are, my friends. Come and see; take the journey.”

Isaac straightened his collar and ran his palms over his head to smooth his hair. In one short hour he would be picking his future bride and the mother of his heir. He would like to think he was the kind of man who was above frivolous worries, but that didn’t slow his accelerating pulse.

He had completed the necessary preparations; he had researched each inhabitant of the Stacks, reading over profile after profile to secure the proper choice. He had narrowed it down to a handful, and the next step was to speak with each in person before making his final decision. Isaac had done this dance before, learned the moves, followed the steps, held his partner when necessary. He hated this game but knew it was an unavoidable means to his desired end.

If there was another option for securing an heir, Isaac wouldn’t hesitate. Although he worked hard to disguise his insecurities, women had always made him uncomfortable. Their cunning glances, their sexual temptations, their insatiable need for love and affection. It had always been more than he could handle.

His mother had been the worst of all. From the moment
she brought Isaac into the world she had demanded a level of love from him that was impossible to satisfy. The way she had cried when she felt lonely, even in a crowded room, or screamed at him to hold her when he was the one who needed the comfort of her embrace had confused him as a child and infuriated him as an adult.

When her delusional need for adoration wasn’t met she became violent, angry, and cruel. Had Isaac made friends in his youth, he would have been afraid to invite them over. Had he sought solace from other people, she would have shut down his interactions. Her obsession with being the center of his world could have driven him mad, had he known life could be different. Yet despite her demands he had failed to love her properly, and she died by her own hand several years before his father’s passing.

Isaac’s father told him she had been ill. He instructed Isaac to remember her only with love and respect. Isaac had begged God to help him love his mother in her grave, but even after she’d gone he couldn’t love her the way she needed.

A knock sounded at his door and an escort signaled it was time for departure. Isaac took a final glance at himself in the mirror and walked out his front door after the CityWatch guard. He climbed aboard the official vehicle and found Dodson Rogue and Enderson Lane inside.

“Good afternoon, Isaac,” Enderson said.

“Good afternoon. I was unaware I would have company,” Isaac said. The vehicle started forward and smoothly glided toward their destination.

“Well, you are traveling to my facility, so I thought my presence would be appreciated.”

Isaac forced a smile. His disdain for Enderson was nearly as great as his distaste for Dodson. Although they were fellow Authority members and extremely different from one another, Isaac found them both insufferable. Enderson was pompous and narrow-minded and invested less time in religious affairs than a man of the Authority should. It was, after all, the council’s purpose to provide the people of the city with a clear vision of God’s law, and Enderson failed on all accounts. Dodson, on the other hand, was quiet but simple in both appearance and intellect. He was easily fooled and had a temper that could make him look like a child.

“Of course. And you, Dodson?” Isaac asked, trying not to sound appalled. Appearances were important.

“When an Authority member travels outside the boundaries of the city, I want to be there. Besides, we have business at the Stacks.”

“Another Lint girl has gone missing,” Enderson said. “It appears she may have sneaked out on her own. There has been no trace of her after three days.”

“And how does this concern me?” Isaac asked.

“Either the girls have found a way out of the sealed building or they are receiving inside help. We’ll be talking to all the CityWatch guards that patrol the Lint grounds.”

“It is standard procedure to rule out my men as participants in such impropriety,” Dodson said. “We are doing a full workup of the building as well. We’ll find the hole.”

“Or we’ll find the man,” Enderson said. “Ian has asked all Authority members to take part in the interrogation process.”

“When?” Isaac asked.

“Tomorrow morning, early,” Enderson answered.

“If we haven’t found the hole by then,” Dodson said. His face was turning an uncomfortable shade of pink. The contempt Enderson and Dodson had for one another was thinly veiled.

“Obviously,” Enderson muttered, then turned to Isaac. “I’m assuming your participation won’t be a problem.”

Isaac nodded politely. “Anything for the Authority.”

Carrington stood in a large room; a handful of Lints accompanied her. The girls had been pulled from their work in order to clean up and change into casual dresses that were nearly the same color as the gray of their uniforms. No one seemed to know why they were here, but all of them shared a similar sense of dread. It was unheard of to pull a Lint from her trade. Without further information, Carrington could only fear the worst.

The first thought that entered Carrington’s head was that they had been reported sneaking out to see Aaron. There had been several other Lints there; these girls could easily have been among them. But Larkin wasn’t in the room, and Carrington was sure that had she been found
out, Larkin would have been as well. Then again, at this point nothing was certain.

Behind her present fear the thoughts and words of Aaron lingered as they had for the last twenty-four hours. Carrington had barely spoken after they left the abandoned building. She had sat silently in the back of Helms’s vehicle as he and Larkin excitedly talked about the messages buzzing in all their heads. The whir of new ideas, new freedoms, new ways of living resounded.

The warmth that had filled her while listening to Aaron speak was undeniable but had erupted from an idea that was nearly incomprehensible.

“As I am, so are you. Know who you are. Take the journey.”

Aaron was asking them to imagine that they were all trapped in lies of self-identity, that what they had believed about themselves their entire lives could be false. Carrington was sure of who she was and knew her place, yet Aaron’s words shook her truth. One constant question now echoed, like the silent red blink on a radar screen:
What if your identity is a lie?

The doors behind Carrington opened and several CityWatch guards escorted in three Authority members. One of them was Enderson Lane, and the other two she knew only by reputation. Enderson and two guards rounded to the front of the gathered girls; Dodson Rogue and Isaac Knight headed for an adjoining room and shut the door. Carrington’s fear escalated as she waited for what was sure to be impending doom.

“Thank you, girls, for coming so quickly and making yourselves presentable,” Enderson said. “I’m sure you are all very curious about why you were summoned here. To put your minds at ease, let me begin by stating this is not any form of punishment.”

Carrington heard his words but didn’t release the clump of panic she was holding in her chest.

“In fact, this is quite an honor. In life people are rarely given a second chance. Once a bed is made, it is hard to find somewhere else to sleep. Today a rare opportunity is given to each of you. It pains me to say that Authority Knight lost his wife to sickness recently, before she could produce any children to carry on the family name. Because of his position on the Authority Council and the importance of continued bloodlines within this leadership, we have granted him permission to marry again. After careful consideration, he has narrowed down the candidates to those of you standing here before me.”

A few of the girls gasped; one stifled a disbelieving squeal. Carrington was trying to wrap her brain around what Enderson was saying while maintaining her composure. One of the Lints was going to be chosen after initially being rejected, and chosen by a member of the Authority no less. Her first reaction was to wonder if this was another nightmare from which she would wake up any moment filled with an utter sense of failure. But she had woken up, earlier this morning, and prepared for work. She had been ordered back to the Stacks and now
was hearing that she may be married after all. Could it be nothing more than an elaborate hoax concocted by her own hateful mind?

“Authority Knight will speak with each of you individually. Please understand that this opportunity will never come again. I will call you in when he is ready. As God set forth the law, so the law must be obeyed.” Finished with his speech, Enderson walked to join the other two Authority members in the adjoining room.

The girls trickled in and out of the other room. Carrington sat and waited, watching the expressions on the girls’ faces as they entered and exited the chamber. Some of them were beaming, clearly pleased with the way they had presented themselves; others looked as if they had just blown a hole in their own foot. There were sixteen in total, and fourteen had been called. Carrington was still waiting.

Her mind was a train about to derail. The longer she sat, the more the train split down opposing tracks. To be married was all any girl ever dreamed of
 
—to be chosen, to be cared for
 
—and she knew she should be elated to get a second chance for that dream to come true. But what about Aaron? He said she was chosen already. Could she simply ignore the way his words bored deep into her heart?

Of course, she knew that to truly give credence to Aaron’s words was to admit that her life was based on a lie, that her beliefs were untrue. Abandoning everything on the word of
a stranger, regardless of the way his eyes warmed her soul, seemed crazy.
Was
crazy.

So why couldn’t she ignore them?

Unbidden, the smoky picture of Remko slipped through the cracks and further clouded the chaos in her mind. Why his face was now creeping in was beyond her. Sure, he was sensitive and had been nice to her, but she wasn’t attracted to him. How could she be? Pursuing a relationship with him would be dangerous and futile. She tried to push his face from her mind but it only lodged there more firmly.

Each probing thought wrestled with another, threatening to send the train careening straight into a head-on collision and wreck what should be her perfect happiness.

“Carrington Hale.”

Sweat gathered in the centers of her palms and she shook off the clutter filling her head until she could move toward the door.

The room she stepped into was much smaller than the one she’d come from. It was furnished with two plush chairs, a matching couch, a desk, and a standing floor lamp and featured large bay windows that let in the setting sun.

A single man stood facing away from her, looking out the window. His hands were folded behind his back. The guard escorted Carrington toward a chair and motioned for her to sit. He then left and she patiently waited for the man before her to speak. The silence seemed interminable and Carrington thought that maybe he was waiting to see what
she would say, but the pressure of trying to formulate the perfect sentence kept her mouth closed.

The man finally turned and gave Carrington a once-over with his eyes. She focused on keeping her breathing steady and her eyes forward. A small smile tugged at the corner of the Authority member’s face. He was younger than Carrington had expected
 
—and handsome. He had dark hair and smooth skin, was tall and fit, and his smile seemed warmer than that of any Authority member she had encountered thus far. She found her heart racing, not just because she was nervous but because he was holding her stare and making it hard for her to look away.

“It appears silence doesn’t make you uncomfortable,” he said. His voice was calm, steady.

“No, sir; it doesn’t,” Carrington replied.

“I appreciate silence and always find it pleasant when others do as well.” He walked toward the couch across from her and sat. “My name is Isaac Knight. I assume you have been made aware of why you are here.”

“Yes, Authority Knight.”

“Through a careful screening process, I have selected you to be an applicant.”