The Glass Arrow(12)

I don’t know who she belonged to, but she must have done a thorough job keeping him satisfied to land this position. Especially after being such a disappointment in the childbearing arena.

The Governess clicks off the main projector and her mouth forms a grim line.

“The rules of the Garden are outlined by the original Magistrate,” she says. “The Unpromised must not be compromised prior to their first sale. It has always been this way. It must always remain this way. This is how we assure the quality of our product.”

My stomach is hurting now. I know what will come next. Someone’s broken the Purity Rule. Someone hasn’t passed their medical inspection during a pending sale.

It’s a girl with dark skin named Jasmine. She’s brought out onto the stage by a Watcher, wearing the pressed black jacket of his station. He’s enormous, nearly twice her height and thickly muscled. He’s got a messagebox on a belt cutting across his chest, right beside the metallic handle of his wire. I shiver, and immediately the old scars on my right leg begin to ache.

In one of his hands is a sickle-shaped, silver knife.

Even the new girl that was crying on stage is quiet now, watching him with wide eyes. I try to look away, but I can’t. Jasmine is the only one making a sound. She can barely support her weight and bobbles about as though her head is too heavy for her neck.

“As you all know, Jasmine was Promised to a Magnate last month after auction. She fetched a high price, and was in the midst of her ownership transfer when she was discovered impure.”

“I had to,” Jasmine whimpers, so quietly we all strain to hear her.

“Silence,” says the Governess softly.

Jasmine doesn’t have to say any more. We all know what happened. During the interview process she was brought into one of the private rooms for an inspection, and within, the Magnate made her lay down with him. Now he’s discarding her, saying that she’s impure. It happens more often than anyone would like to admit.

The Watcher’s face is blank and uncaring. He has a dimple in his chin, and all of his hair has been removed by treatments. He looks as if he hasn’t even registered what the Governess has said.

I shiver. If anyone’s truly soulless, it’s a Watcher. After they’re plucked from the pool of criminals at the jail they’re biologically altered, not unlike the Pips. But instead of becoming obedient, the Watchers are made more aggressive. Their emotions are turned off somehow and their bones are fused with supports, making them bigger, stronger, and more powerful.

They’re the walking dead. They don’t feel. They don’t speak. They’re lethal.

The Watcher is stiff as a board, waiting for the Governess’s go-ahead to proceed.

My hands begin to tremble. This is one of the worst parts of being here. It hits far too close to home.

I close my eyes and see my ma. She has curly hair, just like mine, though hers is much longer, down almost to her waist. Her skin is sun kissed from years of living in the mountains, and her mouth is fuller, more shapely, than my thin lips. She smiles easily, but when she’s serious, when she drills me on our escape plan, I stand at attention.

Her cheek bears the puckered scar of the Virulent, which she tells me she earned at a facility just like the Garden. Though she never shares the details, I know I was conceived in the same manner that has led to Jasmine’s punishment. I am the spawn of some nameless, impatient buyer who took what he wanted before he signed her papers.

When I open my eyes again, the Watcher is holding Jasmine tightly against his chest with one arm, almost like they are lovers, but for the knife he holds over her face. She pinches her eyes shut and grips his muscled forearm to steady herself. Her arms are so thin and fragile. Like little Nina’s arms.

In a quick, practiced motion, he slices a large X across her right cheek. A short scream bursts from her throat, and then she sags against him, passed out.

*

AN HOUR LATER I am sitting on the floor outside the Governess’s office, still thinking about Jasmine. She’ll be out on the streets now. I wonder if her wound will become infected and kill her, or if she’ll be forced to live in the Black Lanes, selling herself as a Skinmonger. She’s pretty; she’ll find that kind of work easily.

If I was her, I’d break out of the walls; the gatekeepers won’t hold one of the Virulent back. Better she die in the wilderness than die in here, they’d say. That’s what they told my ma when she left anyway.

The Governess’s raised voice begins to leak through the doorway as she relays her instructions to the Watcher who cut Jasmine.

“Clover is a sneaky girl. She has tried almost everything to escape. You must be on guard at all times.”

A moment later, the Watcher, the Pip, and the Governess all emerge through the heavy door of her office. She is smiling smugly. Pleased, I’m sure, with the prospect of a month away from me.

The Watcher types a message on the small black screen that is his messagebox and tucks it back into the pouch in his utility belt. He’s holding a wide silver bracelet in his right hand. The sight of it makes my fists tighten.

The Governess instructs me to hold out my right hand, and I do as she says. She smiles, showcasing her gleaming white teeth. I try to relax, knowing what’s coming.

The Watcher clicks the bracelet around my wrist in one smooth movement. It reaches from my wrist to my elbow and is so heavy my arm automatically falls before I jerk it back up. The Watcher then pulls a narrow silver cylinder from a pocket on his chest strap and presses it into the middle seam of the metal, where it makes a sharp hiss. The sheath becomes so hot I have to bite my tongue to keep from wincing, but soon it is cool again. The bracelet has now been welded to my arm, and only the Watcher’s device can remove it.