Kassy Tayler - Remnants of Tomorrow

The bodies Jon and Peter saw were the scarabs. That was why the streets were empty when we snuck into the dome. They were rounded up and killed to conserve the resources of the dome. I grab on to the railing as my traitorous stomach flips inside me. I shut my eyes tightly against the truth that fills me. The only one who wields enough power to do something so dastardly is my father. He would not hesitate to do the same to my friends, or to any shiners who are still alive.

Findley gently touches my shoulder. It surprises me more than the horrible realization of my father’s deeds. “Are you ill?” he asks in a somewhat gentle voice.

“How many?” I ask.

“How many what?” Findley tilts his head curiously as I stare up at him. I see something in his eyes. Kindness? Or is it merely curiosity. Perhaps I am a novelty to him also, a welcome distraction from the everyday.

“How many people did my father order killed? How many scarabs were murdered?”

His eyes widen. For a brief moment I think he’s going to answer me, that I’ve touched something inside him with my question. Instead his mouth hardens into a thin line and he takes a firm hold of my arm and starts me once again on our journey down the staircase.

There are windows on every landing. Light filters through them, but as we go down, the light dims until I begin to think I might be able to break away from Findley because of my ability to see in the dark. Then we round another landing and I catch the flare from a lantern. The air feels cooler, damper, and I realize we’ve gone below ground level. The stairs end at a heavy door. It has an opening in the top half and three iron bars fill it.

I shiver. Not from the damp cold that feels so very familiar. It is dread that fills me as Findley knocks on the door. I hear the heavy clanking of metal and a wizened face appears behind the bars.

“She’s to see the prisoner,” Findley says.

I practically sigh in relief. For a moment I thought I was trading my luxurious quarters above for a cell. The door opens with a clank and a heavy creak, and Findley puts his hand on the small of my back and urges me through. The man on the other side is much older than Findley. He reminds me of a barrel, short and stout, with thick arms that round out from his shoulders instead of hanging straight and legs that are bowed as if he’s sitting on a barrel. He is bald on top with a ring of gray hair spiking out around his head like a collar. His nose looks as if it’s been smashed innumerable times, and he opens his mouth in a grimace to reveal broken teeth.

“This away,” he says and motions me forward, past a desk and a set of chairs. A thick book sits on the desk, along with a half-eaten meal. Across from the desk is a small water closet. Water drips loudly from a pipe. I look back at Findley, who turns to go down another corridor without a backward glance at me.

The light is dim, but that doesn’t bother me as much as the smell of desperation that permeates the long hall of thick doors and barred windows, ten in all, five on each side. I know behind each door is a prisoner and can only wonder which prisoner I am to see. Levi or Pace? Even though my father said Pace was reunited with his mother and quite happy, it doesn’t mean he’s not in a cell. The last we heard, his mother was a prisoner of my father. For all I know, they could be sharing a cell.

We finally stop before the last door on the right and my escort rattles a ring of keys as he searches for the one he needs. He opens the door, shoves me through it, and slams it behind me with a finality that rattles my bones. I wrap my arms around my body as I look around. The cell is drab and dim. The only light comes from the barred window in the door. A narrow cot is bolted to one wall and there is a small toilet in the corner. The cell is no more than eight feet square, if that.

Levi. I have no trouble seeing the golden hue of his hair as he sits on the cot with his back against the wall and his head down on his knees. He raises his head to look at me, and a smile spreads across his face like a beacon in the darkness.

“Wren!” He comes to me and throws his arms around me. I am so relieved to see him that I crumble in relief against him, even though he reeks from his imprisonment. I don’t care. He’s alive and whole, although battered.

Levi turns me to the window in the door. He pushes my hair away from my face and his brown eyes are full of concern. “You are well? They haven’t hurt you?”

I shake my head. It is obvious he has not fared as well as I have. His face is covered with an assortment of bruises, and his lip is scabbed from a split. I tentatively touch the bruise around his eye and he flinches.

“Funny, we call this a shiner where I come from,” he says as he covers my hand with his.

“We call it a wall-eye.”

The side of his mouth lifts in a half smile. “I ran into a fist, not a wall.”

“They beat you?”

Levi shrugged. “I’ve had worse, believe me.”

I know he has. He has the scars to prove it. The story he told me about his rite of passage with his grandmother’s tribe made me wonder how anyone could stand it, especially someone as young as Levi. Yet he did and his courage and patience are only part of why I am drawn to him.

Levi turns my hand in his and kisses my palm. My eyes fill with tears as I look into his warm brown eyes, so full of life and determination, yet shadowed with pain. His skin is pale. The days spent in the darkness have taken his bronze glow.

“What do they want from you?” I ask.

He gives me another lopsided smile. “Answers.”

“To what?”

“Everything.” Levi leads me to the cot and we sit down. “What about Pace? Have you seen him? Is he safe?”

I shake my head. “I haven’t seen anyone until you. Except for my father.”

“Yes. Your father,” he gently chides me. “You really should have mentioned that before we came inside.”

“I didn’t think it was important.” I turn my head away with shame. “Perhaps if Lyon…”

Levi hastily puts his finger to my lips to stop me and turns my chin back to face him. He points to the corner of the ceiling next to the door and I see a copper pipe that opens with a flare into the cell. Someone is listening, and I have a feeling it is Findley if not my father himself.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say so quietly that only Levi can hear me. “My father knows everything. I told him about the Quest and how you came from America,” I confess. “I saw no reason not to. All he has to do is walk outside to see for himself.”

“And what did he say?”

“He sent me away. He doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to think that life could be better outside. He doesn’t want to acknowledge that life is possible outside.”

“He’s probably given instructions to ignore any attempts my uncle makes at contact.”

“Do you think they—” Levi moves his finger to my lips once more to stop me before I say something that could endanger my friends. Even though I told my father about the Hatfields and America, I did not mention the fact that Lyon and James entered the dome with us, and I certainly have not mentioned Lucy, David, Harry, and Jilly, who would be easy to find inside the dome. We have no way of knowing if Lyon and James are still inside or if they made it out. The last we knew of our friends inside was that they desperately needed help, which is why we came inside. The note they sent attached to Pip’s tiny leg was the only news we had had of them since the disaster that led to our finding a way out. Pip. I haven’t even considered where Pip could be. The tiny canary that became Pace’s friend in the dark hours he spent in the tunnels could be anywhere. All I know is I have not seen him in my many hours of staring out the window.