Sophie Littlefield - Rebirth

“Okay, right. Well, let’s get you all back to see her, then.”

He led them up the stairs. Windows had been cut in the stairwells, foot-wide square openings leaking insulation and wallboard, a crude but effective way to get light into the interior of the building. Two flights up, they exited into a large room that was divided into cubicles by chest-high walls. Most were empty, though there was evidence that someone was using them-jackets slung over chairs, cups and papers littering the desks. In a large open area, a couple of guys wearing old-fashioned headphones leaned on their elbows, staring at radio equipment that looked like it had been cobbled together from used parts. One made a note on a piece of paper. They barely nodded at Pace.

Beyond the open area was a glass-enclosed office whose tall windows overlooked the quad. On the polished black desk lay a notebook flipped to a blank page, a cup of water sitting on a folded paper napkin. Pace herded them inside, but there was only a single chair besides the one behind the desk, and none of them sat. Cass stared out the window, Ruthie leaning against her, until a cold, hard, familiar voice at the door made her jump.

“This must be our lucky day.”

Evangeline strode around the desk, barely sparing Pace a glance; he backed out of the office as though he was happy to be gone.

The woman had changed very little since the last time Cass saw her. Her hair was still short and pale-shorter than Cass’s, a butter-yellow blond versus Cass’s bleach-white. She was still elegant, still beautiful; her brows tapered in a high arch that made her appear both curious and cool, and her mouth was set in a thin line. Her high cheekbones were perhaps a bit more prominent than before, and she was even thinner, her khaki shirt too large on her, her belt notched tight. But she looked more dangerous, somehow.

She stood behind her desk and regarded Cass coolly, extending her hand but ignoring Dor. “At last. I must say, I wondered if we would ever see you again, after your little disappearing act with Smoke.”

“I never meant to go with him.” Cass hastily launched into the story she’d prepared. “After you told me I could live here, you know, that you’d protect me, I wanted to come. But Smoke said he’d killed someone and that if I didn’t come with him people would think I was part of it. Later…well, eventually he told me it wasn’t true.”

“But not until after you escaped with him. A…disappointment, from our perspective. And a greater disappointment that one of our own helped the two of you leave.”

Cass knew Evangeline had hoped to send Smoke to Colima to be sentenced. His “tribunal” had been rushed, he was to have been taken away the next morning. The tall, bulky man who came to Cass’s cell in the middle of the night made it clear he was only helping her to pay a debt to Smoke. Cass felt a twinge of guilt-Smoke had insisted on her freedom, and she’d never been sure if the Rebuilders were more angry about losing an outlier in her, or in missing a chance to make an example of Smoke. Had that big man suffered for her? Smoke could easily have left her behind, not just then but a dozen other times. He’d brought her to the Box; he’d waited for her when she entered the Convent to search for Ruthie. He’d been standing in the street in front of the stadium when Cass escaped with Ruthie in her arms, wearing the blood of the innocent.

But he had also made her love him. And then he’d left her.

“I never saw anyone helping Smoke,” Cass lied. “I don’t know what happened before he came for me, but he was alone when he came to my cell.”

Evangeline raised one perfect brow. “Gallant of him. We went to considerable trouble to find out who the traitor was that day.”

“Okay…and?”

“We established a man’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt.” Evangeline let a moment pass, a ghost of a smile on her lips. “He was punished. That chapter is closed.”

Cass could guess what that meant-someone had been executed. She wondered if they had accused the right man. Either way, the rebellion was quelled.

It was cold justice, a ruthless order where anyone who found themselves in the crosshairs was destroyed. Cass had no illusions that it was fair. But this still might be the only place where someone like her-not an idealist, not a trouble-seeker, just an ordinary citizen looking for an ordinary life-could find a measure of safety, a routine to live by.

Even thinking that way felt like a betrayal of Smoke, of his passion and his ideals, of his willingness to avenge innocents. But in giving himself away for the people from his past, he had turned away from her. From Ruthie. And now he was likely dead, just like the man who’d helped them escape. What did that make them? Wrong, Cass thought-and soon forgotten, just a couple more decaying corpses in a land already littered and layered with them.

Life was for the survivors. And she would do what she needed so Ruthie could survive.

“So, David.” Evangeline turned her chilly pale eyes on him. “What are you looking for? In our community?”

He held her gaze. “Same as Cass. Same as anyone. I have Ruthie to think about. We’re trying to make a go of it. You can keep my family safe, I figure I can show you I’ll earn my place.”

“Mmm. Sure. It’s just…” A thin smile, insincere, quickly gone. “It’s just strange, though.”

Ruthie whimpered and hugged Cass’s waist, hiding her face in her shirt.

“I just would never have guessed,” Evangeline continued, turning away from Dor and leaning in close to Cass, as though they were girlfriends exchanging confidences. “Leaving Smoke for someone so…different. Smoke’s an idealist-a mistaken one, I must say, but someone who’d fall on his sword for his principles. While David…well, to put it nicely, I mean don’t take this the wrong way, but he reads kind of…well, dependable. Salt of the earth. Hard worker, family man, all of that, but you’ve got a taste for the wild side, right, Cass? I mean, whatever caused you to fall for David? Just between us girls.”

Her smile widened, and here she leaned forward, hands on the desk as if Cass’s fate hung in the balance. Evangeline truly was a beautiful woman, but cruelty made her seem brittle. “I didn’t leave Smoke,” Cass said, knowing she shouldn’t rise to the bait and trying to keep her voice steady. “I was never really with him. I only left the library with him because I didn’t have any other options. Besides, as soon as we got to shelter, it was only a couple of weeks before he was gone again. He went out on an overnight raid and didn’t come back. And by then I’d met David, anyway.”

She turned to Dor and gave him the adoring smile that she’d practiced, an expression she hoped would convince Evangeline of her ardor-but when their eyes met her smile faltered. He was watching her with some dark emotion she couldn’t identify. Anger, most likely; she couldn’t blame him.

If she’d hoped that helping Dor would balance the scales between them, she realized now that was not going to happen. He’d already said he didn’t need her to get inside the Rebuilder compound, and now she had burdened him with Evangeline’s suspicion.

“So you fell in love with David because he was there, ” Evangeline said in a faintly mocking tone. “That makes sense, for you. Convenient. A nice guy. Maybe he gave you an extra biscuit at dinner. Is that it?”

“It was…just one of those things,” Cass said, struggling to find a way to convince her. “I was…”

“Cass started a garden,” Dor said, swinging Ruthie abruptly up on his hip. Ruthie looked surprised, but after a moment she snuggled against his chest. “My daughter loves plants and flowers. Can’t keep her out of the dirt. She started spending a lot of time with Cass and…you know how it goes, one thing led to another.”