12

 

 

 

ARON screams. It’s an animalistic sound, filled with pain and rage. A beast driven into a corner lashing out at his abuser and torturer. Powerless.

“She’s lying!”

Chaos explodes in the room when guards rush forward to deal with Aron. One of them viciously pinches his injured arm, causing Aron to shriek again. This time in agony.

I sit there watching and wishing I could disappear into thin air. No! I wish I could end this. This whole miserable situation. All of it. I wish I could turn back the clock and make the conversation between Aron and me never take place, so he’d never have had the chance to ask me for help. So I’d never have gone down to the Media Station. I wish I weren’t a Tributant in this room.

Realizing this submerges me in doubt, confuses me. Rocks and crumbles my already shaky faith in the Sectorate.

Aron makes me doubt everything.

I see what they’re doing to him. And I see, I know, that he’s not an animal, not some retarded person only acting out on instinct because he doesn’t have the capacity to learn or grow by himself.

He’s just like me.

“Justa!” Ernst cradles my face between his hands and I stare into his narrowed eyes. The world slides back into view, flooding my senses with a deafening silence that I notice is now pervading the room. I twist out of his grasp and look around me blearily. Nata has taken a seat to the right of the Tributants’ Table. Marcus is next to her, one hand resting on her shoulder. I quickly look away to find Aron, barely able to stifle a cry of disgust when I do. They’re taped his mouth shut. A rivulet of blood trickles down from his torn eyebrow to his cheek.

I look at him and he looks back. The anger in his eyes paralyzes me. But then his eyes soften and I understand that his fury isn’t meant for me. I wish I could let him know that I found the data stick, that it’s safely tucked away in my pocket, but I don’t know how to tell him without words. I cast my gaze down and wait for whatever’s going to happen next. Because even though there is a witness, even though there’s a person in this room who claims to have seen Aron as he murdered Irina, I know that it’s not true. I just do. Aron is innocent, and whatever’s on this stick will prove that.