Curio (2 page)

“I'll see you home, Grey.” Whit's voice rose above the clamor of curfew hour.

She turned and caught him standing in the gutter, scrubbing at his face with his sleeve. He crammed his tweed cap
lower on his clump of coal-black hair. He'd only traded his school uniform for miner's clothes a few months ago, but already he'd changed. His limbs looked harder beneath his coat, and muscle thickened the slope of his neck where it met his shoulder. He straightened, and she could make out the arrow shape of his almost-filled-out chest and lean torso. An ache lodged in her chest and she shook her head. “I'll slow you down. You've seen your Stripe and passed it.”

His frank gaze skimmed her. “And you're not far from it.”

Her cheeks warmed. “I'm not yet seventeen, as you well know, Whitland Bryacre. If I get caught, they'll just turn me over to my parents for discipline. But you . . .”

Beneath the remaining dirt, the color drained from Whit's face. “Best we hurry, then.”

He slipped by her into the alley papered with adverts and Chemist flyers. He turned to stroll backward, his smile gleaming in the swift dusk. “It's not against the law to take a shortcut.”

Grey's gut twisted. She shouldn't let him do this. They weren't walking home from school, safe in their Council School uniforms. Whit was an adult now. And she was practically a walking sandwich board bearing the slogan Keep Away. But he'd offered to escort her and he wouldn't back out now. The best she could do was hurry and hope they both reached their homes before six o'clock.

“All right, but if you didn't live next door, I'd be refusing the offer.” With a glance over her shoulder, Grey followed him into the alley. He shoved his hands into his pockets, and she picked her way over the uneven ground, staying a careful three paces behind.

The thrum of an engine began low and quiet, but it lodged in Grey's chest, sending ice through her veins. Whit melted into the shadows ahead, and she shrank into the space between the wall and a large rubbish bin.

The drone of the chug boat grew louder.
Deputies.

She ducked and wedged farther into the corner, covering the beacon of her blonde hair with her arms. A protruding metal seam on the bin dug into her shoulder, but she didn't dare shift position.

Sharp wind lifted the hem of Grey's coat and bit through her stockings. The muscles in her thighs stiffened.

The quick scuffle of his shoes and a muffled wheeze gave away Whit's presence. He'd taken a spot on the other side of the rubbish bin. “Grey?” The worry in his voice coaxed a spark in her belly.

“I'm here,” she answered. “You should go. I'll stay out of sight till they pass.”

No answer came. Neither did the sound of his retreat. The hum of the chug boat vibrated through Grey's bones and sent spasms up her neck.

“Sounds like they're a block away,” Whit whispered. “What can you see?”

She inched her head up. The slice of street behind them was clear. She eased her way toward the mouth of the alley, keeping her back to the brick wall behind her. A beam of light cut through the dusk, illuminating a group of deputies in long dusters with wisps of green vapor trailing up from their face masks. They stalked from Colfax onto Reinbar, their clotters drawn and crackling with energy. Behind the men a dark craft floated low on an emerald cloud of steam. Black pennants with the spiky Chemist Council emblem fluttered from a mast on the boxy wheelhouse, and more deputies clung to pipes and handrails sprouting from the deck, their attention fixed on something out of sight.

Relief mixed with a sick feeling. “They're tracking someone.” She and Whit could get away, but some poor soul was bound for a punishment facility tonight.

“Can you see who they're after?”

Snarls and frenzied barking answered his question. The men in the street scrambled into a half circle that tightened with each cautious step. So they weren't hunting a curfew breaker but a pack of animals. Probably coywolves, hungry and desperate this time of year.

Grey crept back to her hiding spot. On the other side of the bin, Whit drew in a ragged breath. She pictured his chest rising and falling. Her pulse quickened and she squelched the image. Shortcuts weren't against the law, but her thoughts about the boy next door might be. “Fraternization between unmarried males and females,” the Council called it, or “indecent contact.”

Whit's face appeared around the bin, his blue eyes searching for her in the shadows. When he spied her, his shoulders dropped and he released a pent-up sigh. She straightened from her crouch, and gestured toward the section of street visible from the alley. “I think they have the pack cornered.”

Whit stole a foot closer to the building's edge. He kept his knees bent and his body poised to run. His jaw clenched, erasing all traces of his easy smile. The shadow of stubble on his chin was thicker than it had been two months ago. What would it be like to slide a finger along his cheek?

She buried her dangerous curiosity as frantic yelps filled the air, underscored by the deputies' shouts. The rumble of the chug boat engine deepened. Whit's eyes snapped to hers.

“A second patrol,” he whispered.

She lurched toward him. “You've got to run for it. Get home.”

He stared at her, motionless.

“Go. I'll be right behind you.”

Whit scanned her face again then his mouth tightened and he nodded once. “I'll watch for you.”

He darted down the alley, but Grey hovered between a squat and a spring, her muscles tight. If Whit was caught out after curfew, they'd stripe him for sure. She had to give him a head start. She imagined him already safe in his home, watching from the window as she dashed to her front door, coywolves and deputies on her heels. The image gave her courage—Whit's angular face, his black hair falling in his eyes, ropey arms crossed over his chest. And a wall between him and the Council's deputies.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
She scooted around the bin. Whit was nowhere in sight.

A shout and a growl sent cold iron through her limbs. Running footsteps, snarls, and a human cry of pain followed.

Grey took a step, but a silhouette in her periphery set her nerves skittering. One glance over her shoulder and the hope of escape evaporated. She whirled to face the threat creeping into the alley.

The coywolf wasn't huge. But his yellow eyes tracked her every move. Matted fur clung to the outline of his ribs, and saliva dripped from his mouth as he advanced. Starving and rabid.

Grey stumbled backward. Where was the patrol now? With Whit safely away, she'd welcome the sight of armed men.

More growls and yelps sounded from Reinbar Avenue along with the clipped tones of deputies fighting off the pack. The coywolf slunk toward Grey, separating her from the mouth of the alley and her only hope of safety.

She took another step backward into the shadow of the buildings. Pain sliced the back of her calf. Her flailing hand met a jagged surface, and she crashed into a stack of pallets behind the ration dispensary.

She braced a bloody palm on the brick wall and pushed to her feet. Eyes locked on the nearing teeth, she scrambled
around the pallets. Warm blood seeped down her leg and glued her stockings to her skin.

The animal lunged, teeth snapping an inch from her leg. He charged again, but something hit Grey from behind.

She struggled as her body was swept into jostling motion. Her limbs bounced to the rhythm of panicked steps.
Whit.
She clenched the fabric of his shirt. The muscles in his shoulders bunched beneath her arms as he ran, carrying her.

“What are you doing? Put me down.”

He spoke between gasps. “You're bleeding.”

“It's not bad. Put me down, Whit, they'll take you.”

“That wolf . . . will take . . . you.”

Grey peered back into the alley. The coywolf gained on them. Whit faltered. She was equal to him in height and almost in weight thanks to her father's genes. Lugging her, he'd never outrun the animal. Grey thrashed against his chest, her wounded hands sliding over his sweat-slicked neck.

“Put me down, Whit. Please.”

A heavy whirring sound preceded the blinding green light by a millisecond. Grey's heart seized.

“Drop me,” she breathed in Whit's ear.

He halted but kept his grip on her.

It was too late. The thrum of the patrol craft drowned out her pleas for Whit to let go. He blinked in the light, mouth agape in a frozen gasp. His chest heaved beneath her. Figures in flapping dusters cut through the spotlight, marching toward Grey and Whit. Behind them in the alley, another deputy stood over the limp form of the coywolf.

“Please, Whit.” Grey's voice shook.

Finally her words registered. He lowered her legs to the ground as two deputies reached them. Both men were massive. Dusters stretched over Chemia-enhanced muscles, and the masks covering their noses and mouths glowed green
from potion-laced filters. One aimed a two-pronged clotter at them, and the other had a slender wooden case strapped to his arm. He flipped the lid to reveal a gauntlet writer with a green-tinted glass platen.

The first deputy's heavy-lidded eyes trained on Whit. “Name?”

Whit mumbled it and the second deputy typed it into the device.

“And you?”

“Grey Haward.” She suppressed a flinch with each click of the keys as her name entered the Council device.

The deputy with the gauntlet writer looked up from the glowing platen. “Whitland Bryacre, you are guilty of breaking curfew and indecent contact. The laws of Mercury City forbid any physical contact between males and females without the permission of the Chemist Council.”

Grey stifled a gasp. Though they were no longer touching, she sensed each ragged breath Whit drew. Tremors shook his hands, but he didn't try to run.

Guilty of indecent contact? Whit was trying to save her, not reproduce with her. Any potion head could see that. Rage sucked at her rib cage, but the fury morphed into a foreign sensation. Strength spread through her limbs as though cement poured through her body. She couldn't stay silent. Both deputies paused as Grey stepped in front of Whit, shielding him.

“He didn't mean to break the law. He was trying to help me. You can't take him.”

The man with the clotter pointed the weapon at her. “Watch yerself, Miss Haward. Maybe you ain't reached your Stripe, but this'un here is guilty of indecent contact—”

Rock-hard resolve pushed all the way to Grey's fingertips and toes, locking her muscles in inflexible knots. “No, he isn't.”

“Hush, Grey.” Whit's voice broke through her defenses.

“Enough.” The first deputy returned to reading Whit's sentence. “Having attained the Age of the Stripe and having put our populace at risk, you are subject to the full punishment of the Council and will be detained until its completion.”

“No.” The word exploded from Grey's mouth. She held out her wrists, her actions springing from the unfamiliar strength. “Take me instead.”

The armed deputy shifted as she edged forward and stared into his masked face. She opened her mouth, but a strangled noise stopped the words on her tongue. Grey spun to see the deputy who'd killed the coywolf push Whit into the brick wall. In a matter of seconds, the agent bound her friend's hands and hauled him away from the wall. Whit sought her as the deputy prodded him toward the floating craft.

Grey's fingers curled in like claws. She lunged toward the deputy shoving Whit, but the man whipped his clotter from its holster. Arcs of green energy crackled between the two prongs of the weapon, and Grey froze as if the device's current already hardened her blood.

Her new bravery cracked when Whit reached the three-rung ladder thrown over the side of the craft. He looked back at her as the deputy disengaged the current binding the manacles around his wrists. Amid the green vapor curling from beneath the bow of the vessel, Whit's face hovered, a mask of pale stone and dark terror.

He wasn't her friend or the boy next door anymore. He wasn't the kid who'd spent Saturday afternoons at Granddad's shop playing cards and swapping stories with her. He was a name and an age on a Chemist Council record.

The deputy shoved Whit's shoulder, and Whit turned and put his hand on the rung. The last she saw of him was his back as he climbed over the railing and disappeared into the craft.

CHAPTER

2

G
rey faced her front door with chin high, but her eyes strayed in the direction of the quiet bungalow next door—Whit's house. Mrs. Bryacre must be in hysterics by now. No doubt she watched the chug boat floating in the street—a bulky black silhouette shrouded in steam—hoping for Whit to climb out. Knowing that he wouldn't.

Another deputy—a dim, potion-headed chump—stood beside Grey. He rapped on the door then rubbed his bandaged hand. He deserved to get rabies from that coywolf bite. She clamped her lips to keep the thought inside. She was underage and safe, but her family didn't have the same protections. What if they took her defiance out on her father? Or her mother. Dread anchored her to the porch as footsteps pounded inside the house.