The Society (A Broken World Book 1) (24 page)

"Skye, my name is Skye."

"Today's your lucky day, Skye. I can get you into any place you want to go."

I shook my head desperately as I tried to pry my arm out of his grasp. "I don't want to go anywhere, please just let me go."

He frowned as though unable to believe what he was hearing. "It's okay, there's nobody to overhear you telling me what you really want. I know how girls your age are—desperate, willing to do anything to get into the really dirty restricted areas. I'll take you there, I just need a little something in return."

His free hand had drifted over to my shoulder, tugging on the neckline of my shirt as he pulled me across the street obviously intending on hauling me to whatever low-desirability area he most liked to frequent. There was a brightness to his eyes that seemed to say he was on something again, but his speech was too clear and his movements too crisp for that.

I was so shocked at what was happening that I couldn't do anything more than passively resist as he pulled me out of the park and two steps across the border to a neighboring, undesirable zone.

I opened my mouth to scream, and then suddenly we weren't alone anymore. It was the same woman from the time before in the park. I would've said that she just chanced upon us, but as she came around the tree it was obvious that she was looking for something, and she didn't hesitate in the slightest when she saw the two of us.

The muscular guy had started to let go of me, moving with a suddenness that all but screamed he'd been doing something wrong, but he wasn't moving fast enough. The woman stepped in close and slammed her fist into his gut.

I'd been expecting the guy to drop like a ton of bricks, but apparently there was more to him than just steroid-grown muscles. He grunted from the blow and then lashed out with a backhand that would've taken off her head if it had landed.

Luckily she was even faster than he was. She ducked under the blow and slammed her foot into his knee. This time he didn't just grunt, he screamed out in agony as he collapsed to the ground.

I expected her to stop now that she had neutralized the threat, but instead she kicked him in the throat. I watched in shock as the man clawed at his throat in a futile effort to draw breath.

"What are you doing?"

"Depriving the military of one of their finest."

I shook my head, not understanding. The military didn't interact with the regular franchised citizens. They had their own facilities for training as well as a separate section of land carved out and stocked with all of the normal diversions.

"He can't be military if he is here."

"He wasn't military yet, but it was only a matter of time."

The woman had been calmly watching the man die, but now she turned toward me with a passion that was shocking. She grabbed my arm and shook me. "You need to go back to your dormitory and pretend like none of this ever happened. Do you understand me? Never admit to anyone that you left the green zones."

I nodded numbly, more because I knew that was what I needed to do in order to get away from her, than out of actual understanding.

She released me, and then picked up the body and hurried further down the path. It wasn't until I was back in my room with the door locked that I finally realized what about the woman had seemed so familiar.

Her face, the way she stood, the sudden violence that she had unleashed upon my attacker, it all pointed towards her being someone I'd never met before she'd saved me the first time in the park, but I couldn't get past the feeling that the cadence of her speech was exactly the same as the way my first nanny had talked.

Chapter 18

Tyrell and Jax took turns stopping by Brennan's room every few hours to inject him with morphine, and as a result, Brennan passed the rest of my shift without ever waking up. Alan showed up to relieve me right on schedule, and I went to sleep within minutes of making it back to my room.

My dreams were disturbing, an odd collage of old experiences mixed together with faces from my current life. I relived the episode where I'd nearly been raped, but this time it was Piter who was after me, and Jax was the one who saved me by killing the franchised citizen.

Everything about the dream felt odd, but it especially felt wrong for Jax to be saving me. If I'd had my preference I would have saved myself—that was a big part of why I'd spent so much time learning unarmed combat—but failing that, I would have at least preferred for Brennan to be the one saving me.

I woke feeling tired and wrung out, but when my alarm went off I forced myself out of my hammock and stumbled over to the shower. Bless Brennan for making sure that I would have a plentiful supply of hot water for as long as I stayed in the compound.

My briefings had included plenty of warnings about the deprivations I was going to be forced to endure, but regardless of what I'd thought when I jumped out of that plane, I hadn't really been ready to spend weeks between showers.

I was standing in front of my clothes wearing nothing more than a towel as I tried to decide which of my two uniforms was less filthy when someone knocked on my door. Worry over Brennan drove me to open the door despite my state of near undress.

I'd half expected to find Jax or Tyrell scowling at me, but instead it was Lexis. Even better, she came bearing gifts.

"It looks like I came just in time."

I grabbed my towel more securely as I stepped back out of the way so that she could enter. "Yeah, I guess you did. Nobody has explained how the laundry works yet, so I was just trying to choose between two uniforms that both look like they would stand up in a corner by themselves."

Lexis shook her head at me. "There's a brown linen bag in the bathroom. If you put your dirty things in it and then hang it on your doorknob before you go to bed, someone will take it to the laundry during the night. It will show back up on your doorknob within a day or two, but that doesn't help you right now."

She patted her cart as she wheeled it into my room. "Luckily I've brought something to tide you over until you can get your things cleaned."

"You didn't need to do that, Lexis."

"Yes, I did. I was the foolish old woman who tried to push that chunk of rubber further than it had ever been designed to be pushed. I nearly got Brennan killed, and if he hadn't pushed you out of the way I probably would have gotten you killed in his place."

"I appreciate the thought—I really do—but with all of the other stuff that needs to be done, I'm the last thing that you should be worrying about. Your whole crew must be killing themselves trying to get a shipment of clothes out despite the fact that you don't have any of your machines anymore."

Lexis ducked her head like a schoolgirl who'd been caught doing something she shouldn't have. "It turns out that I'm more of a fool than I realized. Tyrell probably told you that he was headed to his room to sleep when he left you with Brennan—maybe he was even planning on it when he left there—but instead he ended up in my factory building a device to keep the sewing machines running without power."

I gave her a confused look. "How is that even possible?"

"He rigged up a big metal wheel on a vertical base that lets it turn without touching the ground, and then ran a chain from the wheel to the shaft that actually powers the sewing machines. It's not smooth—the new recruits from outside of the compound who are turning the wheel can't seem to walk an even pace to save their lives—but it's working. Our seams look like they were done by a novice who'd never touched a machine before, but they still look better than the stuff I used to manage when I did it all by hand. The long and short of it is that we've got a team of three ladies on the sewing machines at all times, and the compound has a score of new residents who have no skill but that of being able to walk at something approaching an even cadence.

"Right now I've got all my girls who are not on a sewing machine cutting out pieces for more work clothes—simple stuff that we can either use here in the compound or trade to one of the other territories—but Tyrell has promised to have another three machines up and running before the end of the day tomorrow. That'll still put us behind where we were supposed to be, but not so far behind that I couldn't see my way to finishing up a few proper outfits for you."

I shook my head, but it was in astonishment rather than in disagreement. "I definitely don't deserve everything you've done for me, Lexis, but I appreciate it nevertheless."

She patted my arm and then started laying out the contents of her cart on a nearby shelf. There was another bodyguard uniform—the original one I'd worn to the meeting with Piter, now tailored so that it would fit without all the pins holding everything in place, and joined by one of the unique, broad-brimmed hats that I'd seen Jax and the other bodyguards occasionally wear—but that was just the beginning of what she'd brought. The uniform was quickly followed by several dresses of varying lengths that ranged from knee-length up to mid-thigh and some loose trousers that combined with a pair of breathable tops to provide me with workout clothes similar to what I'd seen some of Jax's men using for hand-to-hand training.

"I started the dresses before I knew we were going to have problems inside the factory. That'll teach me to put pleasure before business; I should've done a fourth uniform, but I didn't realize you hadn't been told how the laundry service works."

"I'm glad you chose to do the dresses, they're beautiful—more so than anything else I've ever owned."

As seemed to be happening more and more, that wasn't me pretending. All of the people my age had complained for years that they were being mistreated in the course of earning their franchise, but even the most vocal had accepted that that was just the way things were.

In comparison to the people in the city—even in comparison to the people living in Brennan's compound—we'd all had it incredibly easy, but I'd never owned a dress. We'd worked only a few hours each day, which sounded like heaven to someone who was used to routinely putting in twelve-hour days, but until we earned our franchises it didn't matter how hard we worked—in public non-franchised citizens were only allowed to wear the drab utilitarian uniforms that the computerized textile factories turned out by the thousands.

The dresses that Lexis had made me were simple things in comparison to the complicated garments worn by franchised citizens, but they were well made and the material was surprisingly soft. Most importantly, they were mine. The number of times that I'd been able to say that in my life had been vanishingly small, and I'd never been able to say that about something that hadn't been a necessity.

It was hard to believe that the Skye from behind the barrier had something so basic in common with the Skye that Lexis and the rest thought I was.

Lexis patted my arm again as she turned her now-empty cart around. "No need to get sentimental, dear. You'll have this old woman crying if you're not careful."

I went to get the door for her and then realized I'd forgotten something very important. "I don't have anything to pay you with, Lexis. I know you said I would get paid eventually, but it's never come up with Brennan."

That earned me a frown. "I told you that Brennan was paying for all of this. That hasn't changed, but if it had I'd still be making all of this as a gift to you. You just go on keeping our Brennan safe and happy and I'd gladly make you a new outfit each week and consider myself to have gotten the better end of the bargain."

It felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. I'd gotten surprisingly good at compartmentalizing my feelings towards the other people in the compound and the mission that I'd been sent to do, but every so often those conflicting priorities snuck up and ambushed me.

I could see that my response had taken Lexis by surprise, and I desperately looked for another explanation that would throw her off the scent.

"I don't think you're nearly the shrewd trader that you like to think you are. Over the last few days I haven't done a very good job of protecting Brennan or making him happy either one."

Lexis shook her head. "You youngsters are all the same—Brennan too, although I tend to forget that he's as young as he really is. You kept him safe when it mattered most, from that ogre down in the power plant. As for the other, you haven't seen the way that Brennan looks at you when you're focused on something else. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would've said that nothing but some engineering problem could make him light up like that. Do an old woman a favor and don't tell him that I was the one who let that particular cat out of the bag, but trust me when I say that Brennan is getting very attached to you."

Chapter 19

After Lexis had left my room, I spent so long staring dumbly at the door that I almost missed the start of my shift. By the time I realized how late it was, there wasn't time to put my hair up. Instead, I tied it back with a length of ribbon that Lexis had been using to keep the outfits she had brought separate, and then slipped on one of the dresses.

I knew that Jax—and probably Tyrell—wouldn't approve of me being out of uniform, but it seemed foolish to wear my one remaining clean guard uniform on a day when I knew that I wouldn't be leaving Brennan's bedroom. With any luck Brennan would be off the morphine and I would be able to avoid seeing either of his minders.

It wasn't until I was close enough to Brennan's room to see the two guards stationed outside that I realized it wouldn't matter whether I saw Jax today or not. The guards outside of Brennan's door were sure to tell Jax that I'd been out of uniform, but it was too late to do anything about that.

I squared my shoulders and gave each of the men a nod as they let me into Brennan's room. What I saw as I stepped through the door drove all other concerns from my mind. I'd thought it would be the next best thing to a miracle if Brennan had progressed enough to be off most of the morphine. I'd never even considered the possibility that he would be conscious and sitting up when I walked into the room, but that was exactly the sight that met my eyes.