Burn (Pure #3)(68)

I haven’t given up on the idea of a council. Pressia should be the head of it. Bradwell needs to be in charge of writing the new history, the truth, so we can start to get that information out to everyone. And we need someone like El Capitan to take over the military. We’ll still need to be able to keep the peace…

I’ll be able to get away soon. I promise… When we’re together again, everything will be all right.

He knows Lyda’s scared about the future. She has to be. Everything is so unknown. He imagines the people out there who’ve tried to kill themselves and the attack on the wretches and the babies lined up in incubators awaiting his father’s New Eden, the people in suspension, and all of those survivors out there—scattered around the globe.

It all weighs on him until he feels incredibly small.

Tonight he sneaks the newest letter to Beckley as usual. Beckley stands guard near the front door, and Partridge asks if she’s written anything back.

The answer’s the same as always.

Beckley shakes his head. “Not yet.” He tucks the letter into his breast pocket.

“And how’s she doing?” Partridge asks.

“She stays in the nursery most of her days. She’s decorating it to surprise you. She won’t let anyone in.”

Partridge imagines her painting the walls, decorating the crib, keeping herself busy. That seems like it should be a good thing, but he knows Lyda well enough to assume she’s feeling caged too.

Another guard shows up, and Partridge goes back to the couch. He grips his hands together so hard that they start shaking. This isn’t what he wanted. This isn’t his life. Power—he has all this supposed power, and yet he’s powerless.

He remembers asking his father once if God was real. His father told him that it didn’t really matter, in the end, if God was real or not. “Religion holds us together. Church is important. It gives us order and structure. It’s the best place to legislate policy—from on high. It teaches the masses the difference between good and evil.”

There were so many policies—whom you should and shouldn’t fall in love with, how and when you should marry, what you should and shouldn’t discuss or question in the home, how to raise your children so they never break any policies, and entire books on how to be a good wife and mother.

No, Partridge thinks now. Policies are man-made. God is important. People know the difference between good and evil in their hearts—if they search them. Religions twist good and evil. Their differences are the kind that need to be taught because they aren’t natural. Why else would people think his father was a good man and mourn his death unless someone had shoved the idea of his goodness down their throats? Religion was one of his father’s many tools. He used it well.

Partridge whispers, “God.” It’s all he has. Just one word.





PRESSIA





RUSTLING




By nightfall, she’s made it to the woods that lead to the barren terrain surrounding the Dome—what was once home to shepherds and pickers of berries, morels, tubers. There were farmers too, but so little grew—and never quite the way they expected—that it was hard to think of them as farmers. Some called them tinkerers. They’ve all been flushed out by fire. Pressia feels the trunk of a burned tree, its wet bark peeling like a charred layer of skin. The light rain is ticking against the ashen forest floor.

It’s quiet out here now, and she wishes it were still light. She needs to find a place to sleep before she heads toward the Dome in the morning. She knows how hard it was for Partridge to escape. Will it be that hard to enter? She intends to walk to the door by the loading dock where Lyda was escorted out. She remembers the maps that Partridge and Lyda made. She knows where to look for the Dome’s seams.

It also crosses her mind that she won’t make it to the door at all. There’s a good chance she’ll be devoured by a Dust or a Beast hoping to slaughter fresh prey, or she could get shot as she approaches. It’s strange how used to this idea she’s gotten.

Will someone answer the door? She plans on telling them that she’s Partridge’s half sister, and she has no idea how they’ll react to that. Things could be volatile in the Dome now, in the aftermath of Willux’s death. People might be resistant to let Partridge take over. They should be. He only happens to be Willux’s son. Why should that grant him automatic authority?

The air smells of burned-pine smoke and metal. She finally comes to a stretch of woods that, surprisingly, doesn’t look like it caught fire. Most of the limbs are bare because it’s winter. But she looks closely at a scrubby pine with its twisted branches, spiked limbs, and bulbous roots shouldering up from the ground like buried knees. Its needles are sticky to the touch. She picks up a leaf from the ground; it’s dusty with rust as if the tree has been tinged with iron. New hybrid species keep popping up. Could it possibly be seen as a good thing—a land and its creatures trying to adapt?

She stops and checks the vial and formula again, opening her backpack, popping open the metal box, touching them. They’re fine, and this gives her a little courage. They remind her of her mission here.

She walks deeper through the trees, hoping to find a clump of brush to hide in, a rock or fallen log to block the wind.

But then there’s a rustling.