The Pledge (14 page)

Brook didn’t seem to remember Max from that night at the restaurant, or the club, but nothing was stopping her from trying to get to know him now. She cast a direct glance his way, raking her eyes over his uniform, her gaze filled with so much enticement and appeal that I wondered how any male could ever resist her.

“Who’s your friend, Chuck?” She cocked her head, but she wasn’t really speaking to me at all. I’m not sure she even cared that I stood right beside her or that I’d been asking her all day long not to call me that.

I should have felt nothing, Max was virtually a stranger, yet I recognized the flash of jealousy that coursed through me in an instant. It was an unfamiliar sensation, entirely unwelcome.

Aron took a different approach, ignoring the newcomer altogether. “Are you guys ready to go? I told my dad I’d be at the shop right after school.”

“Your dad’s an ass,” Brook pointed out, her ravenous gaze never leaving Max. She held out her hand. “I’m Brooklynn.”

“Max,” he introduced himself, taking her hand, but the movement was brief and controlled, and I wondered at the guardedness I suddenly saw in him.

Still, my spine remained stiff.

Aron didn’t relent; he cast a sidelong glance at Max. “Regardless of what you think of my father,” he said to Brook, “I still have to be there. Are you coming or not?” He reached for my bag.

But Max beat him to it, taking the strap before Aron had the chance as he slid it from my shoulder. “Actually, if you don’t mind, I’d like to walk with Charlie today.” He said my name as if we were old friends, in need of catching up.

Aron glared at Max but spoke to me. “What do
you
want to do?”

I glanced at Max. Where he seemed cautious with Brooklynn, I felt him opening up as he looked back at me. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing.

But I shrugged anyway. “It’s okay. You two go ahead.”

Brooklynn’s shoulders fell, and I realized she would probably be mad at me again. Still, I watched them go, Aron dutifully carrying her book bag.

“You ready?” Max asked, as he slipped my bag over his shoulder. It looked ridiculously small on him, and I was almost amazed that his arm even fit through the strap.

When he started walking, I fell into step beside him, wondering what his friends—who also wore the dark green uniforms of soldiers—planned to do while we walked. But then they started moving too, matching our pace while maintaining their distance from across the street. It was eerie, like having a long-distance shadow.

“Do they always follow you?” I asked, watching as people moved out of their path.

Max shrugged beside me, as if his answer meant nothing.
“We usually stay together, but I’ve asked them not to bother us. I told you, they’re harmless.”

Examining the two men, I doubted the truth of his words but trusted the sincerity in his tone. As long as they stayed away from us, on their side of the street, I supposed that their presence was nothing but odd. Besides, it was far too easy to forget their existence at all whenever I looked at Max.

I would have to stop doing that: looking at him.

His hand slipped through my elbow, resting just inside the crook of my arm as he led the way. It was a familiar gesture, as if we were comfortable with each other. But that wasn’t true. . . . I could feel electric currents shooting up to my shoulder and all the way down to my toes. There was nothing
comfortable
between us.

And touching him—I would have to stop doing that as well.

But not now. Later, perhaps.

I wasn’t sure how, but I managed to remember the questions I’d meant to ask him. I turned my head to the side and studied his profile. “How did you find me? How did you know where I go to school?”

He didn’t hesitate. “There aren’t that many vendor schools in the city, and this was the closest one to your family’s restaurant.”

He was right, School 33 was one of only three inside the Capitol’s walls; the rest were scattered throughout the country.

“So, why then? Why me?”

“I already answered that. You fascinate me.” He gazed down, and with his free hand reached over to brush a strand of stray hair from my cheek. His fingers left a fiery path on my skin.
“You are beautiful,”
he breathed in that unfamiliar language. And, of course, he had no way of knowing that I’d understood what he’d just said.

“You can’t do that.”

“What?”

“Speak to me like that.” I refused to look away now that he’d challenged me with his words, even though the meaning made me flush.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s illegal. I’m a merchant; you force me to break the law when you speak to me in anything other than Parshon or Englaise. You know that.” I glared at him, daring him to argue.

“I don’t force you not to look away. You make your own choice; any lawbreaking is your own decision.” I couldn’t tell if he was mocking me, and I felt suddenly trapped by my own actions. His uniform stared back at me.

I stopped walking, and his hand fell from my arm. I narrowed my eyes. “You know exactly what you’re doing,” I accused. “You came to me. I didn’t seek you out. I didn’t find you
fascinating
—”

He stopped too. “Charlie, I was only teasing. Relax, I’m not worried about what you hear and what you don’t. I just want to know you.” His eyes flashed with something real, something honest. Something intense. Then his lips curved into a sly grin. “And are you trying to tell me you aren’t a little bit fascinated by me?”

I was confused. Normally I felt more in control of myself, of my emotions. Yet with Max it was different. I was unsure of
everything, because he was right. I
was
fascinated. And it went far beyond attraction.

But before I could question him about his language, he caught me off guard, turning quickly and ducking his head low as a group of men passed us on the sidewalk. I glanced at the men, wanting to see why Max would avoid them.

They were military men, five in all, dressed in the blue wool uniforms of the guard. They were lower ranking than Max’s soldier grade, and they straightened in a show of respect as they passed, despite the fact that Max refused to acknowledge—or even look up in—their presence.

He kept his head, and his eyes, averted, an action that had nothing to do with his class, since men of the military didn’t abide by the class system. As long as they were enlisted, class held no meaning; rank was the only true divider.

One of the men’s eyes fell on me in a way that made me squirm inside—in the same way the bouncer’s gaze had that night at Prey. Although in Max’s presence, the glance was brief, and for that at least, I was thankful. I wasn’t like Brooklynn in that regard. I preferred to go unnoticed.

For several moments we stood there, waiting in tense silence, until the men had gone.

Once they were past us, Max gripped my elbow again and pulled me away from the busy sidewalk, leading me toward the less traveled paths of the alleyways.

I should have been frightened to be alone with him, away from the busier streets of the plaza—in truth, he was a stranger. But I wasn’t afraid.

“What was
that
all about?”

“What was what all about?” He frowned, nearly dragging me along until we were far from the foot traffic. Finally he slowed.

“Why wouldn’t you look at those men?” I stopped walking, crossing my arms and refusing to take another step.

He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know
exactly
what I’m talking about.”

Clearly agitated, he raked his hand through his hair. “Can we just go? Claude and Zafir are going to notice that I’ve lost them and come searching for us soon.”

The hair on the back of my neck prickled at the mention of the other two men. But I didn’t care. I wanted to know why he’d gone out of his way to avoid the guards we’d just passed. “Not until you answer my question.”

“Your imagination has gotten the best of you, I think. Let it go.”

He was lying. I didn’t know how I knew, but he was lying and I wanted the truth. “Why should I? Is there something dangerous about you? Are you some sort of criminal? What are you hiding?”

He scowled. “You’re the only one who’s broken the law. You’re the one who refused to look away when I spoke to you in—” He stopped himself before he finished his thought. “You’re the one who needs to be more careful. Especially if you
actually
understood what I said.”

My heart raced and my hands shook; his allegation was no longer masked, and I could no longer pretend that he
might
suspect something.

He knew.

I shouldn’t have trusted him; I should never have allowed him to drag me away from my friends and off the crowded walkways at the center of the city.

Suddenly Max was my enemy. I turned away from him and ran, not sure where I was heading; I only knew that I couldn’t risk seeing his two enormous friends again either. So instead I moved in the opposite direction, running down a long, barren alleyway.

“Charlie, wait!” Max called, his voice filled with frustration, but I could hear that he wasn’t coming after me. “Charlie! Don’t go! Can we please talk about this?”

But I kept running, my feet pounding heavily beneath me, until I could no longer hear his words. Especially the ones I wasn’t supposed to understand.

viii

It was hard to work that evening, to pretend to be polite and to smile thinly at the customers who came into the restaurant. Making small talk was nearly impossible.

I was too caught up in my own sullen mood. Angry, and more than a little frightened as well. The implications of someone knowing my secret were almost too much to even consider. No one, aside from my parents, had ever understood what I was capable of.

No one had ever been allowed to know.

But Max had ruined all that, and I had no idea how he’d done it, what exactly I’d done to give myself away. I hadn’t responded to his foreign words, and I’d certainly never admitted to understanding them.

And, most of all, I still wasn’t certain which language he was speaking when he slipped into his class tongue. I shouldn’t even be able to differentiate one from another. All I should be aware of was that it wasn’t mine, and that it wasn’t Englaise.

Yet he’d figured it—
and me
—out. How had he done that?

He said that I intrigued him, but why was that? Had he seen something in me that spoke of my unusual aptitude for deciphering words, for my understanding of all languages?

I must have been too obvious that night at the club, my fear too apparent.

But why did he care? Why had he come looking for me?

My father’s voice shattered my daydreams, embarrassing me for being so foolish, and I was grateful that he couldn’t possibly know what those dreams had been. “
Charlaina?
Did you hear what I said?”

“Sorry, what?” I shook away thoughts of Max. I needed to stop thinking about him. I couldn’t trust him. I couldn’t afford to let my defenses down again.

“There’s someone here to see you.” He was irritated to be repeating himself; he balanced plates of food in both his hands. “He’s waiting by the alley door. You’d better hurry, though. This isn’t a break.”

My stomach clenched. Max wouldn’t come here, would he?

But I couldn’t think of anyone else. Neither Brooklynn nor Aron would come to the back entrance. They were both comfortable enough to come through the front, and then act like they owned the place. My mother would usually show them to a table and feed them while they waited.

I tried to decide what to do, whether I should even go back there to find out, but my father was watching me—glaring, more like it—and I knew I had no choice. If it was Max, I needed to get him out of here. I needed to make it clear that he couldn’t come back.

I slipped through the kitchen doors, feeling light-headed.
The familiar smells did nothing to dispel my uneasiness.

The back door was closed, and I realized that only my father was rude enough to actually shut the door on someone while they waited in the alley. It was probably meant as a lesson for whoever dared interrupt me while I was working.

I took a deep breath, wrapping my fingers around the doorknob. I wasn’t sure I was ready for this.

I tugged it open.

I could have been blown over by the barest of breezes.

Claude—Max’s giant of a friend—stared back at me.

Or rather,
down
on me. And scared the hell out of me as I stumbled backward, nearly falling over my own feet. My heart practically exploded inside my chest.

I caught myself and tried to pretend that it was nothing as I looked around to see if anyone had noticed.

Everyone in the kitchen was watching me, including my mother, who wiped her hands on her apron, her mouth agape.

I glanced back at Claude, forcing myself to look somewhere in the vicinity of his vivid green eyes—to at least pretend I was brave enough to meet his gaze—when I finally spoke. “Can I help you?” My voice shook so much that it was nearly unrecognizable.

“I was told this was yours.” Through the opening of the doorway he thrust my book bag at me. It dangled there, looking flimsy and insubstantial hanging from his enormous hand. “Max asked me to deliver it to you.” His voice boomed, filling the kitchen as if it were too large for the small space. There were no other sounds, and without even looking around, I knew that everyone was still staring.

I reached out to take it and wished that my hand wasn’t trembling. “Thank you.”

He didn’t respond to my words; he just turned on his heel and strode away. I half expected the ground to rumble beneath his footsteps as he retreated, but of course, it didn’t.

He was just a man. A very large man.

I watched him go, not yet ready to face the curious stares of my coworkers. Or my mother.

I was still trying to sift through my jumbled feelings: the disappointment over seeing Claude standing there instead of Max, and the confusion and frustration with myself for feeling that way.

I tried to tell myself that it was better that Max hadn’t come. Obviously he must have known that too or he wouldn’t have sent Claude in his place.