The Second Rebel by Linden A. Lewis

Author:Linden A. Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2021-08-24T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

THE GIRL IS extraordinarily thin. Her glassy blue eyes pop wide as we enter the safe house, a one-room studio outside the Olympus Mons dome that Lily assures me cannot be traced to the Sisterhood. She tries to push herself up into a sitting position on the bed but, with a wince, sags back into the mattress. She looks toward her guard in the corner, an Aster in traditional wraps who says nothing.

“It’s just me with friends, Nat,” Lily says. She gestures to the Aster, and he goes to stand guard outside.

The girl, Nat, lets the book she was reading fall closed on her stomach. Beneath her oversized gown are clean bandages, and there’s a twitchiness to her, whether from fear or drugs I’m not sure. My heart breaks looking at her.

“I’m glad you’re back, Lily,” Nat says. “I kept hearing people walking by outside, and I thought…” She has a familiar accent, but I cannot quite place it.

“You’re safe here, Nat, I told you,” Lily says. Speaking softly, so as not to make her any more afraid than she already is. “They can’t find you here, and we won’t let them take you back.”

Nat nods and nods and nods, as if trying to convince herself of Lily’s words. I look to Eden at my side, who is so uncomfortable that her skin has taken on a tinge of green. She holds a hand to her stomach, as if to keep her sickness in.

I put on my best smile, though I have never felt less like smiling. “Hello, Nat, I am Astrid.” I try to make my voice like Lily’s, soothing and soft.

Nat puts the end of her blond braid in her mouth and chews, considering. After a minute of silence, she spits it out. “Where are you from?”

“The Order of Andromeda,” I say, but from the curl of her nose, I see that is not what she wanted to hear. “From Mars,” I add. “An orphanage not far away from here.”

“Oh, you look like…” She trails off. “I’m from Máni.”

The blood in my veins turns to ice. Máni and Skadi are the two moons of Earth, called those names only by the people who live on them. Like Ringer. Or, at least, that is what he told me.

“It is not uncommon,” Lily says, interrupting my laser-like focus on Nat, “for refugees to come to Mars from Earth and its moons.” I also hear what she’s not saying: Aunt Sapphira is finding people in the poorest areas and targeting them for trafficking.

Nat’s accent… it is familiar because of Ringer.

Ringer, who is unnaturally silent. Ringer, who is a gap in my mind that I grasp for like a comforting blanket.

“What do I look like?” I ask. “What were you going to say?”

Nat shrugs and turns her attention back toward her book, uninterested in being interrogated. Or scared of me, I fear. “I thought we were going to talk about that place…”

Lily’s hand on my shoulder tells me to concentrate. To calm down.

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