Page 294 of Phoenix's Fire

"What about quarantine?" she demanded.

"It's a lie," I breathed.

"What lie?" she pressed. "I always thought there was something wrong. The children are born from mothers I've never heard of. They tell me I must've forgotten them, but I'm not daft!"

"They're from the surface," I explained, looking at the letter again. "Dragons are born from human mothers. Long ago, science made people different to survive after men destroyed the world."

"What?" Ms. Lawton gasped.

I nodded and continued reading. "So every Dragon is a person, and they all have not only human mothers, but sometimes human children. The hunters will take women when they can, locking them away, but in the compound, it is dark compared to the surface. These women are nearly blind, speak a different language that the Righteous are told is gibberish, and then raped."

"No..." Ms. Lawton breathed.

"My mother was from up there," I told her. "Tobias's too, but not related. Ayla has a whole list." I showed her that next. "Please don't turn me in?"

"Child," Ms. Lawton chided. "Have I not done enough to show you I'm on your side? Callah, I have spent almost twenty years trying to protect you girls. I do everything I can to show you love and care, but also to prepare you for the horrors that come in marriage." She paused to lick her lips. "But Ayla found a way out. And Meri, even if her way was horrible."

"She lied," I said. "I told her what to say."

Ms. Lawton paused, slowly lifting her head to gape at me. "You?"

"I encouraged Ayla, too. She wanted to die. I told her that maybe she could live, and now she is. She's happy there, Ms. Lawton, and Tobias said.... Devil's toenails!" I needed to learn to think before I just let words fall out!

She chuckled at that. "So Tobias knows too?"

"He delivers my letters to her and hers to me. He..." I closed my eyes, knowing I was in too far, but there was no reason to stop now. If Ms. Lawton told anyone, I'd definitely end up in quarantine. "He spoke to the Wyvern too."

"So Ayla is with him?"

I nodded. "And she says the world is not evil. It is wild but beautiful, and they will help us if we can get out."

"But we can't," Ms. Lawton said.

"No," I agreed, "but what if we could? What if we stopped letting the men punish us and started punishing them?"

"Callah, they are stronger and larger. You cannot stop them."

"Not at their own game," I agreed, "but we'rewomen, Ms. Lawton." I tapped the paper. "And Ayla knows it too. Right here, she says the compound cannot run without us. Men would starve without women to cook for them. They would be bare without us to mend their clothes. They would be miserable without us to clean. So we don't have to hit them with rods. We simply have to remind them that we have power too."

"And when they beat you for it?" she asked.

"Then we do it more subtly," I told her. "Also, I would not eat the meat."

Her eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"Because it's made of Dragons, and Dragons are people."

Her hands flew to her mouth. "No!"

I just flapped my papers. "I'm tired of being helpless. Ayla's not. Meri's not anymore. But I am the one person in this entire compound who knows that. I also know the girls, the wives, and my intended will protect me."

"Tobias is not that smart," she warned.

"Which makes him easier to control," I assured her. "And he knows all of this. I can change things, Ms. Lawton, but only if people want it to change. Ifwomenare ready to push back."

"Callah, we've been ready for generations. We just haven't known how."

So I leaned to pull out the book. "Well, I'm learning."

"What do you need?" she asked.

"To not get caught."

"That," Ms. Lawton said as she stood, "is the one thing we can make sure of. I know over twenty wives who will be glad to say you were helping them, and you already showed us how. If one person accuses you, the rest of us will say it's a lie. It's jealousy over your intended, or trying to hide their own faults. The men have tried to keep us apart. They said friendships would spread gossip, and they were right, but we're not required to be ignorant!"

"We're just easier to control when we are," I pointed out.

"Exactly," she said as she smoothed her skirts. "But we don't want to be controlled. We want to simply be happy. I think we want that enough to fight for it."

"No," I corrected. "We can't fight them. We need to remind them why they need us. We, Ms. Lawton, need to show them what happens when their wives rebel."