Halo (Blood and Fire Series (A Young Adult Dystopian Series)) (5 page)

“Yes,” I whisper. “I’ll go and see Penny. The fresh air might make me feel better.”

“Excellent. Your father is keen for you to start training again. He wants you to partner up with one of the Falin Belcoras.”

 
The concept that my father has already been planning on replacing Falin Asha makes my stomach twist. I want to smash something, but instead I nod my head, feeling my long hair tangling into even more knots against the pillow. She leaves and I eat my soup, sensing the despair inside me shift for the first time in days. It’s turning into something more volatile and dangerous.

*****

The Therin looks surprised to see me standing at the front door of the Asha Household. I don’t really know if I’ve used the right protocol because I’ve never visited an Elin before. When I’ve come here to see Falin Asha, I’ve always used the back door, but today I march straight up to the front and hammer on the wood. It feels good to flout whatever I
think
I’m supposed to do.

The Therin woman is docile enough, but I can tell she’s a little shaken by my presence. I can have that effect on people sometimes. I think it’s all the killing, but it’s difficult to know for sure. Technically, she shouldn’t be afraid of me at all, but it can happen. A person can sometimes sense, regardless of the drugs, that they’re in the presence of death. She goes to fetch Penny and leaves me in the entranceway, running my hand up and down the white paintwork of the doorframe. I never saw Falin Asha go in or out of here, but it still makes me feel like something is burning up in my head. My eyes are pricking when Penny appears. Her hair is drawn back in a tight bun and her face looks washed out. She waves away the Therin and pulls me by my arm into the house.

“I was wondering how long it would take you to come,” she says. She doesn’t go up the stairs; she sets off into the lower floor of the house, and I follow closely behind her. We walk past the kitchen, where voices leak out into the corridor, and Penny rushes by. I make sure to be as silent as I can, which is very silent. The lower floor of the Asha Household is even bigger than ours, and we walk by five closed doors before Penny stops and opens one, waving me inside.

The room is simple, with a single bed and a small bookshelf above it, where three worn books rest on their side. It smells of Falin Asha in here, a smell I didn’t realise I would know absolutely anywhere until now. A pair of his shoes are pushed neatly halfway under the bed. Penny stares at them and tears creep down her face

“I
―
,” I don’t know what to tell her. That I was just doing what I was supposed to? That I am sorry? I’m not even sure what it is I’m feeling. All I know is that it hurts more than any physical pain I can put myself through, and since my halo stopped working, I really have tried. Tried to find something that hurts more. There are open scars on the backs of my hands to prove it.

Penny scrubs her hands over her eyes and turns to sink down on Falin Asha’s neatly made bed. I picture him here making it before he came to meet for practice on the day of the fight and my heart contracts in a way that makes my breathing uneven. I sit down on the bed with her. “Why did he do it?”

Penny leans forward to prop herself up on her knees, and I notice the back of her neck is all freckly. Those freckles wouldn’t be visible if she was wearing a halo. She doesn’t bother asking me what I mean.
 

“Cai
―
” She winces, like saying the word causes her pain. “Cai wanted to
―
”

“Cai?”

“Caius. That’s the name my brother chose for himself.” She blinks at me, like she’s waiting for me to approve. Caius.
Caius?
That’s going to take some getting used to. Penny’s face hardens when she doesn’t see the response she’s looking for on my face.
 

“Cai wanted to set you free. I told him not to. I told him it would only lead to trouble, but—”

“Set me free? He thought
this
was setting me free? I’m
trapped
. I need to go to the technicians and get them to fix it, but every time I think about doing it I have to come up with a good explanation as to why I haven’t gone sooner. And I can’t think of one.”

Penny’s grey eyes darken a shade, and her eyebrows pinch together. “Cai died so you could have this. Don’t you dare throw it away.”

“But…
why?
” I can’t think of any other question, because I really don’t understand. Having my halo broken, having all these feelings rush through me, conflicting with one another, clawing at me, leaves me feeling wretched. Penny makes it sound like Falin Ash—I shake my head, trying to get to grips with such a monumental name change—she makes it sound like
Caius
gave me a gift.

“Cai’s halo stopped functioning eight months ago,” Penny says, staring at the backs of the shoes on the floor between her feet. “He was always so well behaved. He never caused any trouble. He trained so hard, even when his halo stopped working. I never would have known, but he got angry one day when my father hit me and I worked it out. I kept his secret for him and we became friends. He always wanted to tell you, but I said he shouldn’t. And then, when they said you’d be fighting each other, he snapped. He told me what he was going to do but I didn’t really believe him.”

I bite down on my jaw, feeling my teeth grate against one another. “I had no idea. We trained every day. I never suspected a thing.”

“You wouldn’t have. He was pretty good at hiding it. Plus he didn’t want anything to change. He loved training with you. He loved
―
well,” she blows out a deep breath. “He loved
you
.”

I freeze on the bed, picking apart Penny’s mournful expression to see if she is joking. “He
loved
me?”

She nods, saying something else, but I don’t hear her. My heart is pounding too hard for me to concentrate. I whisper the words to myself again, testing them out in my mouth to see if I can find some truth in the weight of them on my tongue. I can’t. The idea just seems too strange.

Penny grabs hold of my hand, pulling back my focus. “You have to leave.”

My head whips to the door, expecting someone to come crashing through. Maybe the Therin that let me in, or even True Father Asha, himself. Penny shakes her head. “No, Kit. You have to leave
the
Sanctuary
. It’s not safe for you here now. They’ll find out. They’ll make you wear it again.” She points to my neck where my halo still lies, albeit crookedly, beneath my jacket.

“This is ridiculous. Where am I supposed to go?” No one leaves the Sanctuary. Well, no sane person leaves, anyway. There are the Radicals, of course, but they’re crazy. Everybody knows to avoid them. They’re
wild.

“There are plenty of places you can go. You just can’t stay here. Caius would never forgive me if I didn’t make you leave. He wanted you to be free.”

“Penny
―
”

“Kit!”

I grip the edge of the bed until my knuckles turn white. “Why are you calling me that?”

“Because he didn’t just rename himself, okay. He renamed
you
. Kitsch. Kit. I don’t know why he shortened it. I never asked, but, please, just listen to me. Or at least tell me you’ll think about it. He’s gone and I couldn’t bear it if that’s for no reason. He didn’t even
try
and fight you. You owe it to him. You have to
―
”

“Okay!” I hold my hands up. “I’ll think about it.”

“Promise me you won’t go and see the technicians?”

The look in Penny’s eyes is desperate, and I’m too stunned by the idea that my friend was in love with me to really think about what I’m promising. “Okay, I won’t,” I say.

“Good.” She stands up and paces back and forth as though she’s filled with nervous energy. A second later she drops to her knees and reaches under Cai’s bed. She fiddles around for a moment before tugging gently, and when she pulls her arm back, she’s holding onto a small holostick. The small, black square of plastic and metal is scuffed and old, an archaic model in the grand scheme of things. “He would want you to have this.”

“What’s on it?” I take it with shaking hands.

“I don’t know but he carried it around with him everywhere. Now it’s yours.”

I look down at it and panic, wondering what secrets are recorded on the device. It’s about two inches square, cold and heavy in my palm. A small blue light flashes on the top and I drop it onto the bed. “I can’t. I just can’t.” If what she says is true, I definitely don’t want to see what’s on it.

Penny snatches up the holostick and presses it into my hand. “Don’t be so selfish!”

 
She’s right. I am being selfish, which is a new experience for me. I let my fingers curl around the device, feeling its corners dig into my skin, and then stow it into the back pocket of my combat gear. I feel like a monster wearing these clothes right now.

“You should probably go,” Penny tells me. When I get up to leave, she doesn’t join me. “You promised, remember. You won’t go to the technicians.”

“I know.”

“Come and see me in two days. That should be enough time for you to figure out when you’re going.”

Her faith that I will leave the Sanctuary is surprising, given that the only thing beyond the city limits is a wild and desolate landscape. I stuff my hands into my pockets and take a long look around Falin Asha’s old bedroom. He’s not here anymore, and I know that whatever happens, I won’t be coming back again.

RUN

I don’t have the courage to watch the holostick. I don’t want to go home either, even though I can see the Kitsch Household from where I’m standing outside the place where Cai used to live. Instead, I start walking in the opposite direction. The houses by the river are well built, from real brick and mortar, but there are only so many of them. Most of the houses in the Sanctuary are made from reclaimed wood, but they’re put together pretty well. Each small community generally sees to the upkeep of all the houses, lending the labour of their Therin whenever something new needs building, in an attempt to lift the social standing of the area. The Trues, no matter where they live, all have one thing in common: they want to be better than each other. This competitive betterment seems like a futile pastime to me now, as I drag myself, numb, through the winding passageways of an area of lower caste housing commonly known as the Narrows.

Caius and I used to train here when we were smaller. The houses are pressed so close together, and the roofs almost touch in places. This was our favourite location to come and practice rolls, leaping from one building to the next and tumbling across the uneven wooden shingles or jumbled, mismatched slate tiles. Often we would earn ourselves a cuff on the ear for disrupting the peace, but even back then people were lenient with us. It was like they understood what we would one day become: poster children for the amphi-matches, a common bet, role models for a whole generation of Falin.

People recognise me here as I try to slip unnoticed through the crowds. It’s incredibly rare for Trues and Elin to be out walking the streets unless they’re visiting friends or travelling to the education compounds, so I don’t need to worry about their inquisitive questioning. The people out on the streets today are mainly Therin, carrying water and groceries, sweeping and hawking goods. Some of them nod to me as I pass them by, but mostly they just stare.

These people don’t bother me
―
they know not to talk to me for the most part. It’s other Falin I’m worried about seeing. They’re the ones who usually stop me, want to know my latest training techniques, what foreign blades I’ve been gifted by the city for my latest win. It seems to me that every Falin I see will want to talk to me today, because I can guarantee that half the Houses in the Sanctuary have been discussing me. Who is going to replace Cai as my training partner? Which House will have the honour? The Falin won’t care themselves, of course, but they will approach me to appease their Trues, and I can’t handle that right now.

I keep my head down, the sun warming the back of my head until it feels like my hair is on fire. I duck under the covered walkway out of the glare and shove my hands in my pockets. This pulls my trousers taut and reminds me that I have Caius’ holostick on me. Its corners dig into my lower back. I take my hands back out of my pockets, wishing I’d worn my knife belt. Hooking our thumbs through the webbing where it loops around the hips is a habitual trait of nearly all Falin, and I’ve never found anything better to do with my hands than this. But today I didn’t wear my belt. It didn’t feel right, and for the very first time I was apprehensive when I looked at it. It is all the blood. I know the blades are sterile because I cleaned them myself, over and over, but I still can’t seem to shake the feeling that the metal is tainted, and no amount of scrubbing is ever going to fix that. Maybe I need new knives.

It’s a while before I realise I’ve left the Narrows and hit the poorest parts of the Sanctuary. Here the children walk in the streets wearing nothing but ragged pants and their halos. They’re covered in dirt and their eyes have a hungry, hollow look to them as they pass me by. I see two tiny girls, both with pink halos and sticks in their hands, lunging and striking at each other, playing at a real fight. These kids will never make it to the Colosseum, though. Their Houses are too poor to stump up the buy-in for their Falin to compete, and it’s more likely these kids will die in a pit fight somewhere out here, in the stinking backstreets where a Falin’s life is worth less than a week’s food to most families.