dress with sparkles and sequins that reminded me of sea foam. It made me feel like the mermaids I’d read about in fairy tales when I was younger.
“Perfect,” he said finally.
A young girl with curly hair practically tackled Penelope, running into the room in a dark teal dress with black lace.
“You’re back!” she shouted.
“Always, for you,” she said, picking the girl up in a hug. “My youngest sister, Josephine.”
“Your mother will be down shortly,” her father said, gesturing us towards the table. “She’s been… out of sorts.”
The dining room wasn’t nearly as massive as Damien’s, but the cozy wood paneling and candlelight gave it a cheery glow. My stomach rumbled at the dishes already prepared – some strange looking creatures, a few I recognized from the confirmation ceremony, what Penelope had called aphrodisiacs.
Jazmine showed Luke and April how to shoot oysters, and they almost managed to do it without gagging. Camina poked at the alien looking fried squid. But there were also more familiar items; bread and butter, clam chowder, sliced ham. Penelope was talking animatedly with her sister, near the head of the table, telling her all about the citadel.
“Is this seriously how you live most of the time?” Luke whispered to me. It took me a moment to realize, he and April had never actually been inside a compound.
“It’s not like this for everyone,” I whispered back. “Most families get basic staples. I had to hunt for meat. No one goes hungry, but this kind of display is for rare occasions.”
“How about you?” April asked Camina.
“I’d forgotten, what it was like,” she said. “To not worry about a sudden attack. To feel the sanctity of one’s own home and family.”
“In Havoc,” Luke said, “we’re trained never to go near the compounds, where the elite keep their brainwashed human blood slaves.”
“I was taught to believe the ruined cities were deathtraps, full of disease and predators,” I said. “I guess we all fear what we don’t understand.”
“Sorry for the interruption,” a voice called from the end of the hall. My eyes snapped up to take in a woman with a brittle smile in swirling navy skirts that seemed austere. They weren’t as threadbare as the ones I’d been used to growing up, but they’d certainly seen better days – as had the woman. Despite her elegance and the white pearls gleaming from her collar, there was a frantic look about her and she seemed too thin. I recognized the symptoms of the thirst, almost as quickly as I noticed the tall figure behind her.
His dark tailored suit was more suited for practicality than display, and I could see from the scuffs on his leather boots that he’d spent a good amount of time on the road; I would have taken him for a traveler except for the brilliancy of his violet eyes, brought out by the purple hue of the cravat around his neck.
I tensed, squeezing Trevor’s hand under the table.
Elite.
18
It was like all the air had been sucked out of the room. What was an elite doing here? Apart from the rare engineer or annual choosing ceremony, elite were a rare sight in the compounds.
Like idiots, we’d gotten dressed up and left our remaining weapons upstairs. I saw Jazmine’s hand snake under the table and hoped she’d kept a few of her knives, not that it would matter. Penelope flinched and I saw a flicker of fear before she schooled her expression.
“Mother,” she smiled, standing up quickly, giving her mother a kiss on both cheeks. “Father didn’t say you had a guest.”
“Please, allow me to introduce myself,” the stranger said, with a formal bow. The lilt of his accent threw me.
“You may call me Augustine. Please,” he gestured for us to take our seats again.
Penelope’s father glanced at him nervously, picking at his food.
“Josephine, why don’t you play something?” He asked after a few moments of tense silence. Penelope’s sister sprang up to the piano in the corner of the room.
The melody soothed my nerves only slightly. I wasn’t wearing gloves, which meant my marks were easy to see against my skin. They felt like hot brands of guilt. I’d allowed myself to get comfortable, being back in a compound again, but I didn’t belong here. I wasn’t a loyal citizen of the kingdom; I was a rebel, a terrorist and now, an elite-killer. After the wedding fiasco, I was on the king’s most wanted list. He was probably sending out elite to every compound to look for me.