Rite of Rejection (Acceptance Book 1) (11 page)

“Becca, it’s me, Eric.”

I stop thrashing long enough to find Eric crouched down in front me, his eyes narrowed in concern.

“Eric?” One nod from him and I’m up and in his arms.

“Look at your face. What happened?”

I can’t find my voice to answer him. Instead, I pull him closer, desperate for protection against the darkness that can’t get me with him here. Hot blood pounds in my ears, my body still tensed to fight. I don’t understand what he’s doing here, but the relief of being safe overwhelms my other emotions.

He holds me, rubbing small circles against my back until I stop shaking and can tell him what happened. Eric moves gentle fingers against my cheek and arm. Light presses on my ribs bring a hiss to my lips, but Eric proclaims nothing broken. He helps me gather my collection into the bag and put all the tossed picture frames back in place, staying silent the whole time.

When everything is back in place Eric lifts my chin until I meet his gaze. “Are you okay?”

I nod and force a small smile. “I’m glad you’re here now. But…what are you doing here?”

“Well, this is the best job in the PIT, and I needed something to get my OneCard. I came here after dinner when the rest of you were talking about garbage tactics. The troll of a man in charge tried to put me in the kitchen, but I talked him into janitor duty.” He runs a hand through his shortened blond hair and smiles down at me. “I thought it might be nice if we got to spend more time together. Now, I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”

“We have to get out of here.” I grip his hands so tight it hurts, but the pain lets me know I’m still alive. “I can’t do this, Eric. I’m not strong enough to live in here.”

“We’re going to get out. Before you know it this place will be nothing more than a bad dream.”

“Promise?”

Eric holds out his arm as if we’re at the Acceptance ball and he’s about to lead me out on to the dance floor for a romantic waltz. “Promise. Now let’s go home.”

I thread my arm through his and pretend I’m back in the blue satin dress and new white gloves. For one blissful minute I’m the pampered princess walking on the arm of the prince who can make all my dreams come true. But then the moment passes. Eric shoves my trash bin back in place in the stairwell and we make our way out of the darkened building, a bag of priceless junk hanging on my shoulder.

Twelve

“Nothing at all down that way.” My sixth alley search of the night wasn’t any more successful than the others. “Unless you count the quartet of…ladies.”

I shiver at the memory of how they called after me, their suggestions far from ladylike.

“The same for me, minus the ladies.” Eric smiles and marks off both alleys on our hand-drawn map. Weeks of searching and our only escape supplies are a few old poles and a burlap sack. At this rate, we’ll never have everything we need before the end of summer. I do my best to stay positive for the others, but with Eric I don’t have to pretend.

I slump onto a busted box, my feet burning from hours of walking, searching through piles of junk no one in the PIT has any use for. Eric sits down next to me and grabs my hand. When we first got here, his palms were smooth and unmarked. Now the pads of his fingers are callused, and a small scar runs across his palm from a run-in with a stray nail. “Come on, Becca. Don’t give up.”

I tilt my head back and soak up a minute of the cool night air. With my eyes closed, I can pretend we’re sitting on the front porch swing at my parents’ house.

“I think I smell burnt rice. Are you ready for dinner?”

“Wow, Eric, when you say it like that, it sounds like a dream date.” I smile up at him, ready to move past my sour mood, but Eric isn’t smiling.

“When we get out of here, I’m going to take you on a real date.” He grips both of my hands and his face is more serious than I’ve ever seen it. “As soon as we get settled, we can go out for a fancy dinner and dancing. I’ll buy you a fancy dress, ten times nicer than the one you wore to Acceptance.”

“I’d like that.” And I mean it. At first, the way Eric acted so familiar made me nervous, but now it’s a comfort. I could love him.

“Good, but for now it’s burnt rice in the dining hall.” His smile is back and we walk in silence toward another unsatisfying meal.

A light breeze blows through little pockets of weeds growing between the buildings. Spring is slowly fading into summer. Back at my parents’ house, flowers of every shade of the rainbow are blooming in window boxes and tended beds. The closest thing to color we have here is an occasional dandelion.

There’s one poking up near the corner of a building and I tug Eric over so I can pick it. Its yellow petals are pale, almost sickly, but compared to dust, rocks and dirty concrete it’s a thing of beauty. Pinching the stem at the bottom I pluck it from the sandy soil.

“Here, let me.” Eric takes the stem and tucks it behind my ear. “Beautiful.”

The side of my cheek will be stained yellow from the pollen, but I don’t care. “Let’s find one for you, there must be more around here.” The flower has done more than lift my spirits. My legs aren’t as tired as they were just minutes ago. I skip around the side of the building in search of another flower.

“Becca, come here, quick.” Eric’s voice cuts through the early evening air, louder than it needs to be.

I rush back to the other side of the bunkhouse, my thin soles sliding in the dust. In the dimly lit alley, Eric pulls long, thick, coils of rope from under a moldy wooden crate.

“Rope. You found rope!” I run to his side and help him wrap the thick strand around his shoulders so we can carry it back to the bunkhouse. A find like this needs to be hidden away as fast as we can.

“You found it. Now put it back.”

I spin around with my heart lodged in my throat. Eric freezes next to me. The deadpan voice belongs to a tall woman holding a rusted pole like a baseball bat.

She swings the pole around until its pointing at the dead center of my chest. “I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing, but that’s my rope.”

“We didn’t know. I’m so sorry.” I glance at Eric and shift my eyes toward the crate, silently pleading for him to put the rope down.

“Well, now you know.”

Eric doesn’t move and she waves the pole for emphasis. I nudge him with my elbow. We need to get out of here before one of us gets hurt.

Eric hesitates. Please don’t take off and leave me here with the crazy woman holding a blunt weapon. We need that rope, but I’d rather not be left to deal with the consequences of stealing it.

“What proof do you have that you own this rope?” Eric’s voice swells with confidence. I wipe damp palms on my dusty dress.

“I’d say the business end of this pole is all the proof I need.” The woman takes a step closer, but jerks to a stop, staring at me. “Well, if it isn’t little Rebecca Collins. Didn’t think I’d ever see you here.”

My muscles go rigid and the bodice of my dress fills with ice cubes. “What?” I turn to Eric, but his eyes are wide. He doesn’t know who this is either.

“You probably don’t recognize me. It’s been over six years, but I’d recognize that curly hair and button nose anywhere.” She smiles at me, but only the very edges of her lips curl up. “Do they remember me at all back home?”

I step back into Eric, who wraps his arms around me instantly. His embrace is the only thing keeping me on my feet. “Constance? Constance Berger?”

“Then they do remember me. Or at least one of you does. Although, you’re in here, so I’m not sure that really counts anymore.” Constance leans the pole against the side of the building, but she doesn’t look any less dangerous. “Well, come on inside then, we have a lot to catch up on.” She waves her hand around for us to follow and flaps us through the door like a mother hen.

My shock in the alley is nothing compared to the shock waiting for us inside. Constance’s bunk looks nothing like a bunkhouse in the PIT. It looks like a home; one that belongs to someone very poor, but still a home.

Two beds are pushed together in the back corner and made up the way my mother used to with the corners all tucked under. In the other back corner, a tall crate is set up with a bowl on top and a cracked mirror hanging over it. A rectangle table made from an old door and four unmatched lengths of wood dominate the central space. Constance offers us a seat on wooden crates around the table.

“If you don’t mind,” Constance says to Eric, “you can set the rope down over in that corner.”

Eric tightens his grip on the loops around his neck and eyes the door. Without the threat of a rusty pole, there’s nothing stopping him from leaving. Constance shakes her head and releases a sigh that turns into a light laugh. “I’m not saying I won’t share, but for now why don’t you take it off so you can be more comfortable.”

Eric nods his head and lays the rope down without a word. He takes a seat, and Constance strikes up a conversation as if we’re old friends meeting for a cup of tea and gossip.

“Now, Rebecca, you must tell me what naughty things you’ve been up to that earned you a spot in this delightful home away from home.” Her tone is light and airy, nothing like it was outside. I can’t tell if she’s serious or making a joke.

“I could ask you the same thing.” I want to trust her, but I’m not about to let her make fun of me.

“That’s fair. I’ve known I would end up here since I was fourteen.” She lifts her lips in the same smile that isn’t a smile and continues her story in a more relaxed voice. “I was sick. I don’t know if you would remember that. You were so young and our families weren’t exactly close.”

It’s true. Our fathers both work at the same office, but unlike my own mother, Constance’s mother was content to socialize with others in the same economic situation. She never forced her way into club bridge games and exclusive teas. I nod, acknowledging the words she isn’t saying.

“I collapsed one day in school and my mother took me to see Dr. Harold. He rushed me into surgery. I had tumors…on my uterus.” Constance is still facing us, but her eyes are somewhere else. “He told my mother afterward that he tried to get them out without damaging anything else, but they were too advanced. He had to remove too much.”

Constance’s eyes are dry, but she swallows deeply. Her eyes dart back to mine, a range of emotions flashing across her light-green eyes. “When he told my mother I’d never have children, he didn’t look at me. Not once. He looked right through me like I didn’t exist anymore. That’s when I knew I didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?” I’m afraid to know.

“Exist.”

“I don’t understand. What does that have to do with the PIT?”

Her hands bang sharply against the fragile table, and both Eric and I jump in our seats. “Don’t you get it?” Constance walks over to the small bowl in the corner and splashes a bit of water on her face. Her shoulders rise with a few deep breaths. She walks back to the table, her face still damp. “I can’t have children. That’s what women do; they get married and have babies. That’s our role in maintaining the stability of our society.”

“Are you saying the Machine rejected you because you can’t have children?” I grab Eric’s hand under the table.

“No. The Machine rejected me because the Cardinal has no use for me. Because any man I married wouldn’t have the obligations of a whole family depending on him.”

Please don’t let this be true. The Machine rejected me for having doubts about the Cardinal. If it rejected Constance for not fitting into her role, where does it stop?

“Which brings us back to you. You were a goodie-goodie last time I saw you, but it’s always possible you found your dark side after I left.”

Constance has been completely honest with me and she clearly doesn’t harbor any love for the Cardinal, but I don’t want to tell her. It’s my dirty secret to take to the grave. Constance leans farther on to the table, her eyes completely focused on me.

The door opens and a huge man walks into the room. Other than Daniel, he’s one of the tallest men I’ve ever seen. His long legs and arms are thick with muscles under his hand-me-down clothes. Everything about him screams strength, except his face. The left side is alive and bright, but the right side belongs on a corpse. The edge of his lips hangs down, giving him a half-frown, and his right eyelid droops like he’s falling asleep.

Constance bounces up from her seat and rushes into an embrace and deep kiss that leaves my neck flushed.

“This is my husband, Thomas.” Constance is absolutely beaming. She lifts up on her toes and balances there for a minute before tugging him over to the table. I guess that answers the question of marriage in the PIT. “This is Rebecca. We’re old pals from the MidWest. And this is…actually, I didn’t catch your name.”

Eric stands and holds his hand out to Thomas as if we’ve all run into each other during a night out on the town. “I’m Eric.”

“Go ahead and ask me the question I know you want to ask.” Thomas’s deep voice vibrates through the mostly empty square room. Paired with his height, he’s an imposing figure, but his lopsided smile puts me at ease.

“Are you really married to Constance?” The words blurt out of my mouth before I can clamp a hand down over my lips.

I wait for Thomas to start yelling, but he throws back his head and roars with laughter that bounces his broad shoulders. He wipes away a tear from the corner of his good eye. “Everyone else wants to know what’s wrong with me, but you want to know about the one thing that’s right. I suppose you think we’re crazy, but the PIT actually gave us both the only chance we had at finding real love. Our situation could be a lot worse.”

This time I’m able to get my hands up to my mouth before I blurt out the words swimming in my head. Thomas makes it sound like he’s happy the Cardinal rejected him.

“Don’t be so shocked.” Constance gestures an open hand to the table and we all sit back down. “Even if Thomas and I had found each other and been allowed to marry outside, our life would be dismal at best. Thomas survived a horrible illness when he was just a baby, but the muscles in his face never recovered.”

“Before the PIT, I was the Territory pity case.” Thomas’s words don’t carry any resentment, but there’s pain in the stiff lines of his face. “Everyone treated me like I was dimwitted. As if the disease that ruined my face claimed my brain as well.”

“Your face isn’t ruined, my love.” Constance runs her hand down his slack skin, caressing every flaw like a treasured work of art before turning her gaze back to us. “Outside, I’d have to deal with constant judgment. I’d be labeled as something less, but the PIT is the great equalizer. What harm is there in being barren in a prison where no one can have children?”

“But surely people…” A remaining sense of decorum keeps me from finishing the sentence out loud, but they all know what I mean. Girls in too-tight dresses, their cleavage thrust up to their chins, prance through the alleys and make sauntering laps around the dining hall.

“The Cardinal puts sterility drugs in the food and water,” Constance says as if she’s commenting on the color of her dress. “Everyone has to eat.”

I clutch at the waist of my dress. When we get out of here, eventually I’ll get married, but I’ve never given much thought to children. They were always an assumed part of my future. What if the drugs in here don’t wear off when we leave? What if I can never have children?

I hate the Cardinal and the thought doesn’t make me shameful the way it should. He isn’t protecting anyone by forcing us all in here. He’s cultivating some kind of perfect society that the four of us aren’t good enough to be part of. The Cardinal took my freedom, and now he may have taken away part of a future I’d yet to even dream of.