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“One more word and I will personally be visiting you when you get to the prison.”
He mutters the warning into my ear as his body presses into the back of me. Disgustingly close. I know exactly what he means, his words causing a painful memory to flash through my mind. I force it down, along with the urge to slam my head back into his nose, make him bleed, and get him the hell away from me. Because his words reveal more than the fact that he's an evil prick. They reveal that we're not at the prison.
So, where the hell are we?
I hear Leah cry out behind me and it takes everything I have inside not to tell whoever is handling her not to fucking touch her. We go into somewhere, the sounds changing to the murmurs of people, but it goes utterly, eerily silent once I take a few steps into wherever we are.
“Where is he?” the man behind me asks.
“Seventh floor,” a woman answers. “He's waiting for you.”
I'm shoved forward again, almost tripping over my feet as I hurry to catch up with how fast the man is making me walk now. An elevator dings open before footsteps change to the sound of stepping on metal. But there's only two sets of footsteps. Mine and the man. Where is Leah? I squeeze my eyes against the fear and anxiety rising in me as the doors close. A button is pressed far too hard and then we're shooting up.
The doors open again and he pushes me forward. The air feels so…menacing here. Like good things do not happen to the people who come up to the seventh floor. A door creaks open somewhere in front of me, and then I'm shoved unceremoniously into a seat. I sense that there's someone else in here with me.
“You can remove the hand ties and bag,” a raspy voice says. I go still at the sound of it. I know that voice. “With her sister here, I think she'll surely behave. Isn't that right, Miss Palmer?”
I quickly nod. Then the bag is snatched off my head without warning, and I blink into the bright lights of the room. When my eyes focus, it's on the man sitting in front me. The president.
Chapter 3
I've seen the president all my life, smiling on my TV screen, giving grand speeches about the improvements he was bringing to our quadrant that I’ve never actually known to benefit me or anyone else I know, for that matter. His pasty skin goes right along with his creepy, too-wide smile he always has pasted on whenever I’ve seen his face. Right now though, his expression remains emotionless, and if I thought his smile always seemed weird, him without a smile makes him look downright sinister.
The hand ties are cut off my hands and I pull them in front of me, rubbing the marks they've left on my wrists. But I only give them my attention for a second, feeling like the man across from me is far too dangerous to look away from. Most people in my quadrant know better than to believe the smile he gives during his speeches. The rumors about him are too great and horrible to ignore.
“It seems we have a bit of a problem on our hands, Miss Palmer,” he begins.
I swallow. I don't know what to say let alone why I'm here instead of at the prison, but I know it must be for a reason. And I'm sure whatever that reason is goes along with why they never reported that I ran.
“You do know you're going to prison for treason, right?”
“Can you send me and not my sister?” I ask, hoping like hell he gives me some type of mercy.
“That's not the way it works, and you know that. Your sister will be going to prison right alongside you.” He leans forward. “Unless we can reach some sort of…agreement.”
I lean back in my chair, needing the distance from him. “What kind of agreement?”
“You have two options. You can decline to be sacrificed and Leah will take your place. Or you will both be sent to prison. Do you want to see what room you'll be in?”
He pushes a button and the TV mounted on the wall behind him comes to life. It's several camera feeds of what I immediately recognize as the prison.
“You and Leah will be in the room in the right-hand corner,” he tells me.
My eyes shoot there and my breath bursts from me in shock at what I see. A bunch of men toss a crying woman back and forth between them. Her shirt is torn, her hair a wild mess. I can't hear her cries, but just seeing the desperation on her face is enough for my heart to drop to my stomach.
“And if I'm sacrificed, then what happens to Leah?”
Because if I go down to be killed and she goes to prison anyway, then what's the point? She'll die either way. And suffer plenty before it.
He spreads his hands wide. “She can go home. We'll even still send the compensation to her, despite your transgression.”
I open my mouth to immediately agree to be sacrificed, but something stops me, this nagging feeling asking me why I'm being offered this at all. It's never happened before, or maybe it has and I don’t know. Maybe they pick and choose which women who've run to offer this to. Maybe they offer this to everyone and only the ones who don't take the president's offer are shown being thrown in prison.
But then, why me? Why am I being offered it?
“How can I be sure you'll let her go?”
“You're not really in a position to be making sure of anything. I could have them take her to the prison and have her await your decision there instead.”
