Soul of Glass

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

I didn’t eat at all the next day. I just couldn’t manage to get my stomach to stop shaking long enough to accept food. It was ridiculous.

Not very long ago, I had been living in our apartment in the city. Not very long ago, the concept of refusing fresh fruit, vegetables, and meat would have been completely absurd.

But now, I lived in the domes with the kep. Food would appear at my door every day. So much food that Mari and I had to stuff ourselves to finish it.

I’d made myself stare at the food I was wasting and picture the desperate people it could have fed back home and how much Jaime could have made from trading it. But knowing I was wrong for not eating it didn’t make me feel any better. It only made me more nauseous.

Sitting in class, my hands sweat so badly, I had to keep wiping them on my pants so I didn’t drop my tablet.

I searched Mrs. Hale’s face for some hint that my not punishment extra assignment was actually a ploy for them executing Mari and me for sneaking into the Arc Domes. But she only smiled at me and winked.

Part of me wished I had warned Mari to hide in case the guards came to haul her away, but I couldn’t risk putting her on edge and having people find out something was wrong in case nothing was actually wrong. But if I had been told to go to the atrium so I could be publicly executed, then not warning Mari might have doomed her, too.

The horrible loop of doubt swirled around and around in my head, making it impossible for me to focus on anything Mrs. Hale said.

Our class moved from our normal room to the Haven Dome for our afternoon lesson.

They kept us in a pack as we traveled from one place to the other. Everyone around me chatted and laughed. I gripped my tablet, just trying to look calm.

“Lanni.” Walsh weaved between people to walk beside me. “You okay?”

I gripped my tablet hard enough I was amazed it didn’t c***k.

“Of course.” I pressed a smile onto my face. “Haven Dome is one of my favorites. Not the most exotic, but I like knowing I’ve actually worked with some of the plants I eat.”

“You sure?” Walsh put a hand on the back of my waist, steering me out of the stream of students.

“Why are you touching me?” I tried to keep the tension out of my shoulders.

“Old friends look out for each other, Lanni.” Walsh kept his hand on my waist, walking slowly enough to drop us behind the rest of the pack.

“What does that mean?”

“Something’s making you panic.”

“I don’t know what you―”

“What hurts you hurts me, too.” Walsh nodded to two guards as they passed.

They both had full gear on―weapons, helmets, vests, jackets. I hoped that meant they were leaving the domes. The helmets would have been overkill if all they were planning was an execution in the atrium.

“So what is it?” Walsh said.

“Don’t you already know? You spy on me enough.”

I’d expected Walsh to deny it, but he only grinned. “Even I can’t watch you all the time.”

“You’re such an ass.”

We reached the stairs that led up into the Haven Dome.

“Tell me what it is, or I’ll have to find out for myself.” Walsh let go of my waist as we reached the top of the stairs.

There weren’t any tables or planting trays laid out. The students had all lined up in the rows of crops that reached toward the glass.

“I have a new assignment,” I said. “I’m supposed to go to the atrium at six. If they know―”

“Don’t.” Walsh squeezed my shoulder. “The atrium is nothing to worry about. Just go, and play nice.”

“How do you know?” A tiny bit of the fear knotted in my chest loosened. I hated myself for believing him.

“You’re not the only one I watch.” He stepped away from me to stand with two of the girls in our class. Both of them blushed like they were honored to have been chosen.

I made my way to the very end of the line, where I had a clear view through the glass.

Just outside the dome, the mountain dropped away, offering a perfect view of the soaring peaks of the surrounding mountains and the unblemished forest below.

I made myself breathe slowly, keeping my gaze fixed on the view, trying to convince myself that punching Walsh was not an option. Neither was running.

“Good afternoon, class.” Mrs. Burton, the teacher who worked with our class for our practical botany lessons, walked between the two rows of students. “We have an abundance of peppers growing in this dome, and today you are going to help me harvest them and prep the food for distribution.”

A general sigh of resignation floated from the class.

“I hate peppers,” the boy nearest me whispered to the student on his other side. “We should just trash them all so no one has to eat them.”

The other student gave a quiet laugh.

I fixed my gaze on the plants in front of me. Pick the peppers, put them on a cart, send them down to distribution. Easy tasks. Not that different from being on the factory floor.

It couldn’t be more different. Jaime’s voice echoed in my head. That doesn’t mean you can’t survive it.

Everything went blurry for the rest of the lesson.

The other students talked and laughed while they worked. Mrs. Burton didn’t mind. Every once in a while, she’d warn the students not to talk with their hands, but there were no raised voices or punishments threatened if a student fell behind the group’s pace as we harvested.

I would have been denied my water ration if I’d fallen behind on the factory floor. I could have died just because I hadn’t worked fast enough.

I couldn’t make the differences mesh together in my mind. Luxury and laughter should not exist in a world where Death hides in the shadows, just waiting for his chance to strike.

I read each of the signs painted on the walls on my way home. I’d memorized all of them my first week inside, but I still read them. Having something to focus on made being in the tunnels easier.

It wasn’t being underground that set my nerves on edge every time I walked the concrete corridors. It was not being able to see what lurked in front of me.

The halls all had a gentle arc to them, like they’d been built to match the curves of the mountain’s slopes. I suppose it made sense to build everything that way, but if you looked too far ahead or behind, all you could see was concrete walls with no way to know if enemies were racing toward you from just out of sight.

I made Mari dinner―steamed vegetables and grains―but I still couldn’t eat.

I couldn’t trust Walsh. I didn’t even know if Connor Walsh was actually his name.

Mari had already started her homework before I had to leave for the atrium. She just smiled when I kissed her head and left.

I leaned against the wall in the hall of our building. Harper lived a few doors down from us. Part of me wanted to knock on her door and ask her to hide Mari until I was certain my assignment in the atrium wasn’t just a way to get me to walk to my own execution. But there would be no way to hide Mari from the kep, not in the long term. And scaring Mari would only make things worse if Walsh had told me the truth and I really was freaking out about nothing.

“Get your s**t together, Lanni,” I whispered to myself. “You’ve been through too much to fall apart now.”

I twisted my hair into a bun as I headed toward the atrium, just so I would have something to do with my hands as I walked through the corridors and up the three sets of stairs it took to reach the highest of the Arc Domes’ levels.

I’d only been up to the atrium twice before. Once on my second day inside, when our guardian Miranda had taken us on a tour, and once a week later, when I’d started hunting for places to hide and possible escape routes.

I’d searched all the areas I was allowed to enter, looking for an emergency exit or an air vent we might be able to climb through, just in case the kep came after us. Or in case the people who’d blown up the depot targeted the Arc Domes. Or in case Walsh decided to out us as intruders in this perfect world of glass and plenty.

But in the end, it didn’t matter how many ways everything could go horribly wrong. I hadn’t managed to find an escape route, let alone a plan to keep Mari safe if we had to run from a mob of angry, armed kep.

“Hey, Lanni,” a voice called from behind as I climbed the last flight of stairs to the atrium.

I tensed as I turned toward the voice.

One of the boys from my class bounded up the steps behind me, smiling like he was thrilled to see me.

“Hi,” I said as the boy reached me.

“Do you have any idea what Mr. Lewis looks like?” The boy brushed aside his chestnut-brown hair, which had flopped across his forehead.

“Nope.” I kept climbing the stairs.

“Any idea what we’re supposed to be doing?”

We’re.

Gideon Pace.

I looked at the boy, trying to remember the teachers having called him by name.

“I only know that PAM told me to come to the atrium,” I said.

“Well, maybe he’ll be holding a sign.” The boy I thought was probably Gideon shrugged. “Either that or this is going to get really awkward.”

A small but genuine laugh shook a bit of my panic away.

“Hopefully, he’ll know what we’re supposed to be doing,” probably-Gideon said.

We reached the top of the stairs and stepped up into the atrium together.

It didn’t matter that I’d seen it before. My feet still forgot how to move as awe and loathing washed over me.

A forest. That’s what the Incorporation had created. An actual forest.

People sat on the moss surrounding the trees that were big enough to be a hundred years old. Benches had been placed in shadowy corners, perfect for private conversations. A pond filled with fish was surrounded by a pack of mothers trying to entertain their children. A many-branched stream, complete with three footbridges, ran through it all.

When my feet finally figured out they should be moving, they headed toward the glass without me asking them to. The sun had begun to set on the far side of the mountain, and, even though I couldn’t see the sun itself, the colors of the sky smothered the rest of my panic, just for a moment. Like there wasn’t enough of me to take in the beauty and think about all the ways things could go wrong at the same time.

Up above us, the Incorporation Headquarters glimmered in the fading light like fiery jewels that wanted to set the world on fire. Those smaller domes stretched toward the summit of the mountain, peeking out of the slope.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” probably-Gideon said.

“It really is.” I dug my nails into my palms, trying to distract myself from the awful feeling of being too small to have a hope of protecting Mari.

“Mr. Pace. Miss Roberts.” An elderly man toddled toward us, his hand trailing along the glass. “So, you’re the two saps they’ve stuck with me?”