The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf (The Tribe) (27 page)

The crunching gradually slowed, then stopped. The screeching died down, too, and the saurs began to disperse, drifting into the grasslands. I focused my attention on the crowd. Wentworth had sunk to her knees with her head in her hands. Willis had wrapped her arms around herself, and Duoro was reeling on his feet. Some of the administrators burst into tears, while others clung to one another. And standing in the middle of it all was Neville Rose, who, for once, didn’t seem to have anything to say.

Every last one of the many witnesses below clearly believed that they’d just seen the horrible end of sixteen detainees.

Which meant that after four days, three near-death experiences, and a whole lot of pain, Connor and I could finally get out of Detention Center 3.

I grinned at Connor, but he didn’t grin back, and my smile faded. I’d been so absorbed in what was going on below that I hadn’t noticed that his shoulder was rigid with tension against mine. He looked at me and said hoarsely, “Ashala. There’s something wrong with my ability.”

“What? How —?” I gasped.

“It’s the smoke. I don’t think it’s chemicals burning. I think it’s rhondarite.”

Rhondarite?
No wonder the haze had made me feel queasy before! None of us had considered the possibility that rhondarite could burn, and maybe it couldn’t, in an ordinary fire.
But we’d made a Firestarter fire, which was a lot hotter
.

“Can you use your ability at all?” I asked.

“It isn’t gone, but I can’t control it as well as normal, and I can’t hold back the wind. Also,” he added, “I’m not sure I can fly us out of here.”

And that, I knew, was what was truly worrying him: the notion that he might not be able to get me out of the center the way we’d planned, the prospect of somehow failing me.
Connor. As if you ever could.

“So we don’t fly,” I told him. “We walk, we run — it doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”

The two of us began to slither backward down the roof. We hadn’t even made it halfway when Belle Willis shouted, “Chief Administrator Neville Rose, in the name of the Balance, I am relieving you of command of this center.”

Connor groaned. “She’s going to get herself killed!”

We scrambled back up and saw that Willis was striding toward Neville, her head and shoulders thrown back like a warrior going to battle.
The woman’s gone crazy.
Although she hadn’t, not quite. She must have read the shocked horror and bewilderment of the crowd, just as I had, and understood how vulnerable they were. That, in addition to the lack of enforcers among them, had clearly made her think that she had an opportunity to seize control.

I knew she’d underestimated Neville Rose.

Willis came to a halt in front of Neville, but the wily Chief Administrator refused to respond to her aggressive posture with anger of his own. He shook his head reprovingly and spoke in a clear, carrying voice. “Belle, you have no power to relieve me of command, and you know it. I fear you are somewhat overwrought. Let’s get you evacuated to Cambergull, and we’ll forget all about this, shall we?”

Some of the anxiety among the people below evaporated as they reacted to his familiar, soothing tones. From up here, I could spot all the small movements that showed their trust in him — the way heads turned toward the sound of his voice and bodies repositioned themselves to angle in his direction. I silently urged Willis to see what I saw and to let it alone. Duoro came charging over to her side, gesturing to the grasslands and calling to the crowd, “You all witnessed what happened to those children. Ask yourselves, what was it that made them so terrified that they chose to run into such danger? What has been happening in this place?”

I bit back a scream of frustration, furious Duoro would even hint at wrongdoing in the center before the Inspectorate was safely away.

Neville drew himself up in righteous indignation. “It is outrageous to imply that I had anything to do with the tragic deaths of those children. I fear you have overstepped your authority here, Mr. Duoro.” He spun on his heels, pointing to some administrators. “You, you, and you — come here. I must ask you to watch over the Inspectorate until I can report their misconduct to the appropriate authorities.”

He’s suspicious.
Or maybe he was simply reacting to the events of the night, wanting to stop things from spiraling out of his control further than they already had. Either way, Duoro and Willis were in serious trouble. Connor and I exchanged despairing glances, and I tried to think of something that might help us fix the situation. There didn’t seem to be any way for me to intervene, or Connor, either, not without a blatant use of his ability that would expose the presence of Illegals in the area, which was the last thing we wanted. There seemed to be nothing left to do, no paths left to take. Until a new voice rang out: “Chief Administrator, there’s no need for this.”

Everybody looked at Rae Wentworth, who was standing on the rocky earth where she’d been kneeling before. “Surely,” she continued briskly, “you can see that these people are traumatized? I’m quite certain they hardly know what they’re saying. They need treatment.”

Willis and Duoro both protested that they were perfectly fine. But the three administrators came to an uncertain halt, and Neville was quiet, seeming to be considering Wentworth’s words. It didn’t take a genius to realize that he’d love to attribute any accusations the Inspectorate made to being the result of shock. On the other hand, he’d seen Wentworth come out of the center with Grey, so he was probably suspicious of her as well.
Except,
I thought with rising excitement,
he can’t possibly be suspicious enough.
Because he had no idea what she could do with her ability.

I’d thought that I was out of options. But I wasn’t out of allies.

“I believe,” Neville said, a hint of smugness in his voice, “that you’re right, Doctor. Perhaps this is a matter for the medical staff.”

This time it was Connor who reached for
my
hand as Wentworth approached the Chief Administrator. We both knew she was the Inspectorate’s best chance, and I hoped she understood that she couldn’t shield them from Neville simply by making them her patients. Had she grasped how much of a monster he was? Willis and Duoro were in as much danger from Neville now as I’d been from Miriam Grey when she’d pointed a weapon at my head.
Don’t be fooled again, Rae. . . .

I leaned forward for a better view as Wentworth strode toward the Inspectorate. She grasped Neville’s arm as she brushed past him, just for an instant, before hurrying on. She got one pace away from him. Two . . .

Neville staggered, and collapsed.

People cried out, and Wentworth swung around with an artistic gasp, leaping to half catch the Chief Administrator as he toppled over. I was filled with a wild joy at the sight of him falling, even though I knew he was sleeping. I’d never expected to see Neville defeated, at least not tonight, and I was surprised by how much it meant to me.

“You see, Neville?” I whispered in a raw, angry snarl. “
I carry my friends with me,
you bastard.”

Connor tore his hand from mine to fling his arm around my shoulders, pulling me against him. I pressed my face into his shirt, feeling shaky and on the verge of tears.

Below us, there was a moment’s tense silence. Then Jeremy Duoro roared, “The Chief Administrator has been struck down by the Balance!”

I choked back an astonished giggle.
What utter nonsense!
But when I stared down at what was happening, I saw that no one seemed to think that it was nonsense. Neville’s mysterious collapse, following everything else that had happened tonight, seemed to have left them all willing to believe almost anything. Frightened murmurs rose up, a hubbub of anxiety and confusion. And Belle Willis seized her moment.

“We have all been given a message today,” she shouted, her powerful voice rolling out across the yard. “The Balance has spoken, and it has spoken to
us
. There are monstrous things happening inside that center. But we have a chance to put them right. Who among you will help me?”

Wentworth responded instantly, yelling, “I will!”

Others followed her lead, a bit slowly at first, and then faster and faster —“I will!” “I will!” “I will!” The three administrators Neville had sent after the Inspectorate joined in the shouting, too, attempting to mingle with the larger group. Everyone else edged away, leaving them standing in empty circles of space. The whole scene suddenly struck me as hilarious, and I began to laugh. Connor did, too, and pretty soon we were both almost hysterical with mirth, clinging to each other and trying not to make too much noise.

Belle Willis began to issue orders to her newly converted followers, and Connor whispered against my ear, “I think that we can leave now.”

I smothered another giggle. “I think we can, too!”

We slid back down the roof for the second and final time and floated unsteadily to the ground. I retrieved the box, and the two of us began to run, even faster than we had before. The smoke was making me dizzy and ill, but I didn’t slacken my pace, and neither did Connor. On we went until we reached the southern side of the center. He sprinted up the stairs that led to the walkway on the top of the boundary wall, and I followed a step behind. Catching my breath, I leaned on the edge. There were floodlights here, too, and I mentally traced our route — across the bare ground that surrounded the center, into the trees, and then right. If we kept going, we’d eventually come to the road to Cambergull. Once we were over it, there was only a bit more forest before we reached the grasslands and, beyond that, the Firstwood.
I’m coming home, my tuarts.

“So what now?” I asked Connor. “Float down the wall and then run?”

He was staring down at the ground, and I knew he was imagining how visible we’d be, running across that long distance in the glare of the lights. “We’ll be fine. There’s no one here to see us,” I assured him.

He shook his head. “Things keep going
wrong.
And I don’t want to take any more risks. Not with you.”

“It’s not that big a risk! And your ability . . .”

“I can handle my ability. We have to fly, Ashala. Just until we’re over the gravel and into the cover of the trees.”

I wanted to ask if he was sure he’d be able to do it, but that would sound like I doubted him, and I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t really think that there was anything Connor couldn’t do. Taking a tighter grip on the box, I said, “Okay. We fly.”

He grinned at me. And then I was pulled off my feet and flung into the sky at his side.

I went hurtling through the air so fast that it felt like the skin was being pushed back from my bones. I clung onto the box as the two of us careered onward, weaving shakily from side to side as we left the gravelly, floodlit earth behind. We plunged over the forest and slowed, beginning to descend.

Zap!
Something bright and hot streaked upward through the night.

Suddenly I was falling, faster and faster, as if the air itself were trying to drag me down. I couldn’t see Connor, couldn’t see anything except brief, frightening impressions of the world as I tumbled through the trees. Small branches scratched and tore at me, but I somehow managed to miss the large ones, which could have really done some damage. I stopped right before hitting the ground and floated down to rest among the leaves, still clutching the box. I had an instant to realize that there’d been some sort of danger and that Connor had saved my life.

Then he came crashing through the trees to slam into the ground, and I heard the terrible sound of his body breaking.

I stumbled over to his side. “Connor? Connor?” Dropping to my knees, I felt for a pulse at his neck. But his heartbeat was weak and erratic, and when he took a breath, I could hear a dreadful rattling sound. I was gasping for air myself, and I didn’t know if it was his pain or my own that I was feeling. In the dark, I couldn’t see exactly where he was hurt, but it was obvious that it was bad. He spoke a single word: “Ashala.”

And, for the first time, I heard what Ember heard, when he said my name. The way he drew it out, over three syllables, two short and one long.
Ashala. A-shay-la. I love you.