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I NOD politely at the two soldiers keeping watch at the door leading to the Arbiter’s House. They don’t react. Both boys – they can’t be much older than me, about seventeen – look ahead unblinkingly, their faces hidden by their caps. They stand with legs slightly apart, their left hands on their side arms and their right arms straight down their sides. Protectors of our Sector. We should be thankful for them keeping out the rabble. Or keeping us inside. Sometimes, I’m not sure which one it is.

The door literally weighs a ton, and the impenetrable metal reflects back a distorted version of me: unremarkable, straight blonde hair cut in the prescribed bob, green eyes that somehow seem too light above a Milky Way of freckles, and a nose slightly turned up at the tip. I look like every other girl in the Sector, and yet, I am different today.

Inadvertently, my fingers touch the mark on my right wrist. The temporary brand looks grayish against my freckled arm. It’s shaped like balanced scales and the Tribunal number is written underneath – 5568-23. This number will inseparably connect me to two other people in the coming days.

The other Tribunal members… I wonder who they are. Well, I’ll find out soon enough. I push the door open and step inside.

The long corridor of the Arbiter House is immaculately white. Marble covers the floors, the walls, and even the ceiling. Lined up on either side are busts on pedestals of all the different Arbiters who’ve served the Sectorate, the last one showing a remarkable likeness to the man who’s waiting for me at the end of the hall.

“Justa. You’re late.”

I wrap my arms around his waist as he gives me an encouraging hug. I notice I’m trembling.

“I was held up in last period. Mr. Bartholomew wouldn’t let me go.” I look up at him, at the man who’s been my surrogate father for almost sixteen years. “I’m sorry, Marcus. I should have insisted to be allowed to leave the classroom.”

Marcus steps back and stretches his muscular arms to hold me a few inches away. He looks at me, his gaze examining my face. I feel dissected, somehow. Then, he lets go of me completely and I suppress the urge to flee from his stern eyes.

“I will take this up with him.” Marcus nods and a rare smile pulls at his mouth. “You’re nervous.”

There’s no use denying it, because he always sees right through me. The man has an unfailing sense of truth. A thing every Arbiter needs, I admit to myself, swallowing my protests. If Marcus thinks he needs to rebuke my Sectorial Legislation teacher, there’s nothing I can do to stop him.

Before I can reconsider my decision, Marcus opens the door and beckons for me to go in first. I suppress my panic. It feels like countless grains of sand from the quarries are clogging up my throat.

The first thing I notice is the color of the narrow room: blue and gray. Different from the white hallway, but just as bleak. Sterile. Like a surgical room impassively waiting for the next patient whose life hangs by a thread.

The second thing I notice is that there are people inside.

Spectator stands line the walls on either side. I cast my gaze down, because I don’t want to be confronted with all those eyes closely watching my every move. Marcus puts his hand on my elbow and ushers me forward toward the long table. One seat is still free. I sit down and look aside. Relief washes over me in briny waves. It is Ernst who sits there and winks at me, and it makes me realize how lucky I really am. I want to tell him how happy I feel to find him sitting next to me, how all of this is somehow easier with a familiar face in the room, with a friend at my side. But I don’t get the chance.

Commotion explodes in echoes through the room. The people in the spectator stands start to jeer, and angry cries fill the space fencing me in. The gray walls close in on me, the voices pull and push and scratch at me. To my right, a door swings open. Two soldiers enter, escorting a third person who can’t stand on his own two feet. Dressed in a gray overall, head lolling forward, crew-cut hair. The soldiers are dragging him forward, pull him to his feet, then make him sit down on a chair in the middle of the courtroom. They leave his hands cuffed, so he’s forced to keep them on his back. His military escorts take a few steps back and line up on either side of him.

The wild shouts coming from the spectators blend into one word. A choir of rough voices sings in my ears:

“Murderer! Murderer!”

His head jerks up and I see the bruise on his cheekbone, the bloody line of his crushed upper lip, and the abrasions in his neck. His eyes force their way into mine, and the brown color of his irises is so radically different from the blue and green that I’m used to, that I’m surrounded by, that I’m a part of. His gaze makes me feel like I am the one with her hands tied.

Contempt.

Nobody has ever looked at me with such revulsion openly. In the Sector, you need to be respectful of your superiors, and I’m his superior. I hold my breath, frozen in my chair. He cocks a battered eyebrow without breaking eye contact, then spits a blob of blood-red saliva onto the floor in front of me and… laughs. He laughs.

I don’t see the soldier coming. I only see the fist hitting his face, knocking his head backward. Then, silence descends in the room.