Page 26 of Phoenix's Fire

"Why do you want to talk?"

He smiled again, this time glancing away. It looked flirtatious. Even knowing his words didn't match, I felt my guts clenching with worry. Did he really want to court me? Would he break it off before mybirthday?

"Because two women have figured out how to escape the compound," he said, "and both of them were your roommates. I want to know what you know."

"Nothing!" I insisted, keeping my voice to little more than a whisper. "Meri was wed in January. She was closer to Ayla than I was, so maybe they shared something? I don't know, Tobias."

"And yet you suddenly began focusing on healing?"

"Because too many of our brave hunters have died," I replied, reciting the words from countless school sermons.

"Okay. You don't trust me. I get it."

And those words made me look up again. Yes, those eyes of his were still waiting. I'd always heard Tobias was a dumb man. He'd grown too big for his brain, he was a lummox, and all the other cruel things said about anyone who was different.

But he'dbeendumb! How many times had he reacted like he could barely put two thoughts together? He'd also never gotten offended when Ayla ordered him around in the infirmary. And yet, he kept showing me more. When Jamison had come back with those yellow arrows in him, Tobias had cracked his mask and told me my friend was alive. He'd explained that Ayla was the Phoenix, confirming the rambling of a fevered man.

Then he'd given me the fletching from one of those arrows.

Tobias knew. I kept denying it, but he spoke to me as if we shared a secret. I just wasn't sure what would happen if I stopped trying to play the proper young woman and admitted what I'd done. Would I be thrown out next? If so, then where was the risk?

Or maybe I'd be locked in quarantine? Punished? Maybe Ayla could take being beaten over and over, but I couldn't. I'd learned how to be a gentle and pious woman. I knew all the words to keep me from being accused. I'd perfected this game, but I only had a couple months left. Mere months before I had to make the same choice Ayla had: death at the hands of a man, or banishment.

I quickly took another bite. "I saw Meri before she was banished," I breathed.

"So you knew what she'd been doing?"

I had to swallow hard to force that last bite of food down. "She didn't do it."

"What?"

My fingers were trembling. This was the dumbest thing I'd ever done, but who else could I talk to? Time and time again, Tobias had trusted me. He'd told me enough that he would get in trouble if I reported him. He'd taken a risk - and I no longer had any friends left.

"I told her what to say," I breathed.

"And Ayla?" he asked. "Did you tell her too?"

I lifted a shoulder in something almost like a shrug. "Going to the surface was her idea. She wanted to control her own death. I just told her it might be possible to live. I..." I couldn't look at him. "I thought that if she was so adamant about it, then maybe God was trying to give her a sign."

"And when it's your turn?" he asked. "Will you impale your husband with a fork?"

"I am actually hoping for a knife."

He chuckled, then reached over to lightly touch the base of my thumb, right by the wrist. "I'll take it, as long as you try to avoid the vital stuff?"

My breath stalled, and I looked up one more time. The man was smiling. He wasn't joking, and he wasn't laughing at me because he thought I was a fool. He was smiling like he was relieved.

"But it's a sin," I reminded him.

"Yep," he agreed. "So is lying to the women, Callah. What happens outside the compound is not to be talked about inside. That's why I want to walk with you. I was hoping we could talk about it, because you've helped your friends get out - and I want out."

"Then just don't come back," I countered.

He shook his head. "It doesn't work that way. If we run, we get gunned down. Why do you think you sometimes treat bullet wounds?"

"Because men are careless and rarely focus on what is on the other side of their target?"

"No, they aim for those who run. It's why gatherers have guns too. It's why we work in pairs. If someone runs, the other will shoot them, and we are not partnered with our friends."