Elites of Eden (Children of Eden #2)(58)

“And did your Edge friends follow you here? Are they alerting the Center now?” She shakes her head, looking desperately at me.

I’m confused, and turn away from Lark even as her flowing tears beg me to comfort her. I never truly believed that she would betray me. And this . . . She didn’t mean to, I know, but it is still her fault that Mom was gunned down in the street. I trusted her.

“Rowan, I’m sorry!” she wails, pulling at the cords that still tie her, as if she would fly into my arms if she were free. I start to walk away . . . but I can’t.

“She made a mistake,” I say firmly to Flint and Lachlan. “She thought she was helping me. But she didn’t turn me in. She didn’t betray me.” I look at her sweet, sorrowful face. “I trust her,” I say, and I’m absolutely certain that what I’m saying is true.

“Trust,” Flint spits, scowling. Then he seems to relax, and shrugs slightly. “What motivated the girl doesn’t matter. She’s here now, and done is done. Flora, get patrols up to monitor the streets outside the entrance, and put everyone on alert. I want sidearms carried at all times by everyone over twelve years old until further notice.”

She nods brusquely and leaves to make it so.

“And now I think you should go, too, Rowan,” Flint says, and a sudden deliberate gentleness in his voice gives me pause.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I say staunchly.

“You don’t need to see this. You’ve been through enough.”

Perplexed, I look to Lachlan.

“Do you really need to do this?” Lachlan asks his leader.

“She’s been in the Underground, and she’s not a second child. What other choice is there?” He turns to me again. “Rowan, go.” Then he opens a drawer in a rolling cart and takes out a syringe.

Lark understands before I do. “No! Please!” she shrieks. “I’ll never tell anyone, I swear! I’ll tell them I was lying about Rowan, that she’s not a second child! I’ll leave the Edge forever. No! You can’t!” She twists in her bonds, trying to get as far away from Flint as possible. “Rowan, please! You can’t let him kill me!”

I stare at Flint in disbelief.

“I know it’s hard for you to understand,” Flint says, “but we can’t let anyone know about us. Not yet, and not for a long time. We’ve managed to keep this place secret. I won’t put all of us—all the children and families, the tree—in jeopardy because of one stupid girl. Maybe she just made a dumb mistake. But dumb is deadly, and we can’t take any chances. The girl has to die.”

I hurl myself on top of her, protecting her with my body. “Lachlan . . . ,” I beg in a whisper.

He looks torn. “Flint, I appreciate everything you do to keep us safe, but . . . she’s just a young girl, not a Greenshirt or a Center official. There has to be another way. You don’t even know how she found the Underground yet.”

“No,” Flint admits. “Flora reported that she hadn’t yet elicited that information from the girl.” He looks at Lark with a touch of grudging respect. “She withstood interrogation well.”

“Then let’s find that out first. How she came here—and why she came here. Without beating her. Then, when we’re all cooler, we can decide what to do with her.”

“You’re just delaying the inevitable, prolonging the suffering for Rowan, and the girl,” Flint says. “There’s only one option.”

“There are always more options,” Lachlan insists.

Flint agrees, obviously reluctantly, and I hold Lark’s hand while he and Lachlan ask her questions.



* * *



THE EDGE MEMBER assigned to keep a discreet watch on my house followed us when Mom and I went out to get my lens implants. They saw everything—the roadblock, Mom’s murder—but couldn’t help me without giving themselves away. They gave Lark my last known location, and she came searching for me, along with other members of the Edge who were in on the secret of my existence. But no one could find a trace of me.

In despair, Lark went to her star tower, the glorious rooftop where I got my very first, very confusing kiss. And there, by a strange coincidence, she looked down over the edge to the city below and saw me.

She was sure she was imagining it. Of all the vast number of people in Eden, how could it be that she happened to spy the one person she was searching for. She almost stayed on the rooftop, knowing it was only wishful thinking . . . but in the end she dashed down the stairs. She lost us for a long time, but finally spotted Lachlan and me just as we were slithering through the grate that led to the Underground.

How could she know me from so high up? I wondered. I had been up there at night, of course, but even in daylight I doubt I could have picked out any one person from so high up. Could her story be true? I want to believe it.

“No one else knows,” she swears. “Just me, and it was just luck.”

“Why did you want to find Rowan so badly?” Lachlan asks.

“I didn’t just want to find her. I needed to find her!”

“You care about her that much?” Lachlan asks, half-respectful and, I think, half-suspicious.

“I do,” Lark says amid her tears. “And I had to tell her something.”