Hold Me Never (Holding Never) (3 page)

“
Zoey!”

I twist back suddenly to see Emilia running towards me,
her blue eyes wide with anguish. She is seated away from me in the
factory, right at the other end where she polishes the finished
weapons. But every night, we share the same bunk, the same bed. We
are squeezed two, sometimes three, to a bed. And it is only in the
dark that we can share our secrets and our nightmares. Emilia and I
even share the same birthday. In three days' time, both of us would
have turned eighteen.

Now, it seems only one of us would live to be eighteen.

I may not have the chance to wish her happy birthday.

I
look straight into her sea-blue eyes
and
smile as best I can as the words form soundlessly on my lips—
Happy
Birthday
.

Two soldiers are already waiting in the town square,
their faces impassive as they take me from Officer Goddot and unlock
my cuffs. I roll my shoulders and blow out a breath, but my relief
is short-lived. Almost immediately, they grab my wrists and slam my
hands down on a wooden plank. Clamps secure my hands to the plank,
palms down. I am forced to kneel in the middle of the town square,
the glare of the setting sun in my eyes.

People are huddled in clusters, whispering and shaking
their heads. An elderly woman tries to approach me with a bowl of
water but she is shoved back by one of the soldiers. The water
sloshes from the bowl as she falls back. Someone helps her up and
pulls her away quickly, out of sight of the soldiers before they
decide that she should be punished alongside the criminal she had
tried to help.

The minutes tick by. The shadows cast by the milling
crowd and quiet buildings growing longer and more misshapen. I am
not sure if an hour has gone by, but my hands and legs are growing
numb.

One of the soldiers move away from my side. I squint
into the crowd and see horror registering on the faces around me.
They seem to be staring at something behind me. Why? What is
happening?

With rising dread, I turn around. What I see makes me
jerk violently against my restraints. In blind panic, I wrench and
twist my arms with so much force I almost dislocate both my arms from
their sockets.

There is a bucket of hot coals behind me, and a black
iron is thrust deep into the middle of those angry red coals.
Officer Goddot has rolled up his sleeves and has donned a padded,
black glove. Smiling benignly at the gathered crowd, he raises his
voice to address them. “My good people, this young woman, Zoey
Whard, has committed a grievous offense against the Emperor and the
Empress of the Unified States. She has willfully and maliciously
caused damage to the property of the Unified States. All property of
the Unified States is protected by law, and anyone found damaging or
defacing them will be severely punished. Zoey Whard is hereby
punished—by branding!”

An audible gasp can be heard from the crowd.

“
It can't be...”

“
That's too much...no!”

“
...can't do that!”

Officer Goddot's eyes narrow at the mutters and murmurs
rippling through the crowd. I stare up at his twisted face and see
the glowing coals reflected in his eyes. His face is a mask of rage,
his wild, crazed eyes hell bent on violence and revenge. Slighted
and snubbed, demoted and discarded—that is how he has been
treated after all his years of illustrious service to the Imperial
Army. Now is his chance to exact his revenge, to vent his anger and
frustration.

With a roar, he yanks the glowing branding iron from the
coals and thrusts it high into the air. I see the glowing tip of the
branding iron, a red hot “D” that will be seared into my
skin and scorch my flesh. I blink rapidly, as I hiccup quick,
shallow breaths.

What is the D for? D—for damage, destruction,
death?

What will it do to me?

The sight of the glowing iron descending towards the
back of my pale hands releases the scream that has been boiling in my
gut. My scream pierces the night air, exploding all around me as the
back of my eyelids flash white and red and swirl with all my
nightmares.

The
re
is a thunderous sound and the
ground seems to shake and quiver beneath my knees.

Voices and shouts intersperse with my dying scream. The
last of my breath leaves my burning lungs in a whoosh, as I force my
eyes open.

The branding iron is not pressed to the back of my hand.
I stare down at my hands, expecting to see my disfigured hand and
smell the acrid smell of my own burning flesh. Instead, there is no
mark on either of my hands. They are clenched tightly into fists, my
knuckles white and my veins bulging.

But they have not been branded.

Have I been branded somewhere else? My back? My legs?
My face!

My eyes swivel round, trying to see every part of my
trembling body. I don't feel any pain anywhere. No blinding,
burning pain.

A hissing sound near my foot makes me recoil. I let out
a yelp. The branding iron is lying inches from my ankle, sizzling on
the ground.

I recall the thundering of hooves that I thought I'd
heard while I was screaming myself hoarse. That sound wasn't just in
my head, was it?

I turn around cautiously, and stifle another shriek.
There are half a dozen soldiers on horseback behind me.

They are dressed in the black uniform of the Emperor's
Imperial Army. The Imperial Army is the Emperor's juggernaut, an
unstoppable, merciless sledgehammer used to bludgeon and crush
opposing forces and innocent civilians. There is nothing human about
them. Every one of those black-uniformed soldiers is a cold-blooded
killer, a murderer of innocent, courageous lives, a monster.

I close my eyes, the world careening and spinning
horribly to come crashing down on me. Whatever these soldiers are
here for, it is not to save me. My fate has only gotten worse.
Whatever they have in store for me, will be worse, far worse than
anything Officer Goddot can do to me.

“
Oh!
What
do we have
here?” comes a
nasal,
taunting voice.

The speaker dismounts and steps in front of Officer
Goddot, who has gone quite pale and seems to be shrinking in his
boots. I blink at the soldier who is now circling Officer Goddot and
smirking at me.

The soldier's helmet hides his nose and forehead, but I
can see his narrow, gray eyes and weak, wobbly chin. He is dressed
in black, like the rest of the soldiers, but his build is willowy and
his complexion much too fair. From his thin frame protrudes a
paunch.

Despite the danger hanging over my head like a noose, I
can't help thinking that this is the most unfit and unlikely soldier
of the Imperial Army that I have ever come across. The soldiers of
the Imperial Army are all weapons of terror and destruction. Most of
them look like they could crush a man's skull with just one hand.

Except Officer Goddot—who is no longer a soldier,
just an officer overseeing a tiny, godforsaken factory. Downgraded
from fighting to a desk, or rather, conveyor-belt job.

He doesn't look anything like a soldier. He just
looks like a bully.

My eyes flick from the skinny solider to the other five
soldiers behind him.

Oh.

Those look like soldiers all right. Big, broad and bad.

Yet, that pasty-complexioned, whiny-voiced soldier seems
to be the leader of the group. He is swaggering to and fro, his gray
eyes darting from Officer Goddot to me, as if sizing the both of us
up and wondering who would be more fun to terrorize.

His small, narrow eyes settle on me.

“
Release her,” he orders.

The two soldiers standing behind me move immediately to
obey the order. My hands are released from the wooden board and I am
dragged to kneel in front of the soldier.

He looks down his nose at me, his features scrunched up
in a frown. “Pretty little thing,” he pronounces at
last. “It'd be such a pity and a terrible waste to mar such
exquisite beauty so thoughtlessly,” he says over his shoulder.
“Why would you do such a terrible thing, Officer Goddot?”

Officer Goddot blubbers some incoherent response, his
eyes registering fear and shock.

I steal a glance at the soldier standing over me.

What has he got to fear from this scrawny soldier?
There must be much more than meets the eye.

And meeting his eye is what I should not have done.

As I tilt up my head to stare at him, I see his eyes
widen a fraction as our gazes clash. His thin lips curve up slowly
and his eyelids lower. The look in his eyes is unmistakable. I know
that look. I have seen that look before, and I will never forget it.
My whole body tingles and tightens into a dead knot, my hands
balling into fists at my side. It is the look I saw on the face of
that Commander when he laid his greedy, lustful eyes on my mother.
The look of an animal in heat. The look of a predator.

I see the same look now on the soldier standing in front
of me.

That look.

Full of lust and greed and want.

Wanting something that is not his.

Something he has no right to.

A sudden chill courses down my spine and every muscle in
my body is screaming for action.

“
You seem very tensed, my little pet,” the
soldier drawls, running a finger down my cheek. I flinch, and try to
shrink back. There is a sudden flash of anger in his eyes when I
turn my face away. He lunges forward and grabs the back of my neck,
forcing me to look at him. He is smiling, but his smile is full of
hate and hostility. His hand continues down my neck, past my
shoulder and down my chest to the swell of my breast. He grabs my
breasts with both hands suddenly, bringing his face close to mine.

“
Slut!” he growls. “Dirty, little
slut!”

He continue kneading my breasts forcefully, his lips
brushing against my cheek. I whimper, tears burning my eyes.
“P-please...” I stutter. “Please d-don't...”

“
Don't what?” he snarls in my face. “What
are you telling me not to do? Nobody tells me what to do. So who
are you to tell me what not to do? Hmm? Filthy whore!”

I gasp as his hands grope me all over, fondling and
grasping, pinching and rubbing. His hands move down my body and
slide between my legs. Instinctively, I press my thighs close
together to stop him. “Open up,” he grates against my
face.

I shake my head rapidly, a plea gurgling at the back of
my throat.

To my shock, he removes his hand from between my legs
and rears up. Before I can blink, he slaps me hard across the face.
I cry out and fall to the ground.

I try to scramble up but he is upon me in an instant.
Pinning me to the ground with his skinny, ugly body. Just like what
that monster did to my mother!

Wrath, hate, regret, shame—every tormented emotion
that I have buried and reburied in a shallow grave at the back of my
mind comes surging out of me in an explosive wave. There is no
holding back. My mind is flooded with too many memories and images,
my heart shattered into a million bleeding pieces. I am no longer
myself. Just a spitting, screaming, shard of pain.

Clawing and kicking at the soldier, with a strength
that is borne of rage and madness, I wrench his dirty hands off me.
Only his hands are not dirty. They are soft, and manicured and
moisturized. And there are rings, precious rings on all his fingers.
It takes me a heartbeat to realize that these are not the hands of a
soldier, but my wrath overrides my brain.

My hands are around his pale, hairless neck, and we
tumble to the ground in a tangle. Screeching and shrieking, we
wrestle and roll on the ground. It is like a common street brawl and
I almost laugh a crazed, hysterical laugh as my fingers tighten
around his flimsy neck. I feel invigorated, and alive. But I am
aware that this won't last. In fact, I am faintly aware that these
may be the last few seconds of my life. I expect him to pull out his
gun and shoot me in the head any second now. Or knife me in the gut
while I am furiously squeezing his neck. But—the funny thing
is, he doesn't fight back. He just gags and chokes and screeches at
the other soldiers to do something.

I hear my own hysterical curses and laughter.

I will kill you, you monster!

But my victory is short-lived.

Bayonets and barrels are pressing hard at my back, my
neck, my temple.

Even before I have stopped gasping and laughing, I am
hauled up roughly and slammed to the ground.