Burn Bright - By Marianne de Pierres Page 0,61

Circle meeting. They are going to use Markes as bait to lure Ruzalia. I tried to warn him against joining them but Brand took me from there … and she found my obedience strip. When she cut it out, it tore my artery. Lenoir came and stopped the bleeding.’

‘Lenoir?’

‘Yes. Lenoir is trying to protect us all. He says the Peaks go to a better place; he calls it the next stage of pleasure.’

‘You believe him?’

Naif took a deep breath. ‘I-I do. I think. At least, I believe he believes it. But the Ripers are divided. Brand wants to take over from Lenoir. They’re voting on it in two passes. If Brand wins, they’ll hunt the League down. All the gangs will be disbanded.’

Joel made an angry sound. ‘Your friend, Rollo, came to us with a similar story but we weren’t sure if he was telling the truth. I must warn Eve. We’ll make sure Ruzalia knows. Is there anything else you can tell me?’

Naif’s heart gave a painful thump. Suddenly she felt used. ‘I’m not your spy, Joel. I’m your sister. I don’t want to be a part of any gang. I want you to come with me. To leave Ixion.’

‘Leave?’ said Joel. ‘Why would I want to do that?’

Naif clasped her fingers together. ‘This place – it’s not how it’s supposed to be. It’s –’

‘Flawed? Dangerous?’ said her brother. ‘Just like Grave. But I can change Ixion. Eve has shown me that. In Grave I couldn’t do anything. The Council, our parents, they suffocated us. But Eve has plans here. She’s amazing. I wish you knew her.’

‘Can you really change anything, Joel?’ Naif couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. She’d longed so much for her brother’s company again, gone through so much to reach him, and now … ‘Do you just want to be a hero?’

Joel didn’t like her questions. ‘What’s happened to you, Ret? You used to believe in everything I did. You made it bearable for me at home, and I tried to protect you. Remember when Father found the Angel Arias?’

‘Of course I do,’ said Naif fiercely. ‘And do you know how it felt when you left? You didn’t even tell me you were going.’

‘I couldn’t,’ he protested. ‘It was safer for you that way.’

‘Safer! Did you even think about how it would be afterwards? Father punished me every day for what you did, and Mother cried. She just cried all the time.’ Naif felt her anger returning. She wanted to shout at her brother.

She’d never been angry with him like this before. Seals didn’t behave like that. But she wasn’t a Seal anymore. Lenoir had changed that. Lottie had changed everything. ‘Then the wardens came and put their electro-eyes in my bedroom. They watched me when I bathed and … Joel, they watched me do everything. And if I tried to leave the compound … the pain.’ She touched her wounded thigh automatically.

His silence might have been guilt. Or indifference. Naif had no way of knowing without seeing his face. And she longed to do that. ‘Joel? Please …’

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘Bye, Ret.’

‘My name is Naif,’ she replied.

Nothing. No rustle of the bushes, or scraping of gravel. But she knew he’d gone.

‘Joel, wait!’ She started down the path after him. ‘Please come back.’

But when she stopped again to listen, all she heard was the faint strains of music from Agios and a scrabbling sound.

She swivelled, catching the slash of a dark figure in her corner sight. Not Joel. He wouldn’t try to scare her like that.

Where was Agios? She could no longer see the church. Her haste had taken her past a large rock face that jutted above her now, obscuring the view behind.

Just follow the path back, she told herself.

But the path – so well lit before – had dimmed with barely enough light to see one step ahead. Naif began to retrace the way she thought she’d come, but the bare dirt disappeared and her feet became tangled in undergrowth.

She stared blindly into the dark, seeing only the outlines of low bushes and, further down the mountain, the brilliant webbed lines of the kars.

Away from the pungent musky scent of the church, the dark smelt dangerous and charged with energy, as if lightning had just struck the spot where she stood.

But there were no storms on Ixion, just the constant, prickling heat.

Naif heard scrabbling again, a few feet ahead. And to the left. Then behind. Something circled her, or more than