Page 43 of Phoenix's Fire

"Gideon no longer has any right to you. Nothing except what you give him. As far as I care, he lied when he made you think he was loving and kind. Helied, and he doesn't deserve to ever see you again. If he tries, I will kill him myself!"

Her head jumped up, but it wasn't fear on her face. This time, it was hope. "Really?" she breathed.

I nodded, making sure she saw. "Really. You can leave everything about him back in the compound. Even your memories of him, if you want."

The air fell from her lungs and her eyes slipped closed. "Then Callah was right. I did need to come here."

"Yeah," I said softly. "I think you really did."

Thirteen

Ayla

My words made Meri relax. Closing her eyes, she slumped back in the chair and let out a very heavy sigh. To me, it sounded like days of confusion and anxiety had just been set free.

So I turned in the chair a little more, facing her fully. "Meri? Now that we're alone, will you tell me what happened? I know you tried yesterday, but I don't understand. If it's too much, you don't have to."

"Which parts?" she asked.

"I want to know every single thing that happened after I left the compound. Mostly if you and Callah are okay!"

"I'm okay," she promised. "Well, I am now. I think Callah is too." She paused, waving all that away. "Okay, let me start at the beginning. After you left, she became Mrs. Worthington's favorite healer. I wasn't allowed to do that since I'm with child, but Callah told me she's good at it. Not as good as you, but good enough to be the first of the girls picked."

"She was usually right after me," I agreed.

"But you leaving changed something about her," Meri said. "It's like Callah realized there's another option. She said the same day you were thrown out, she climbed into the library and started reading. She saw all your books, and so many more. She was even reading something about when they made the compound."

"Oh," I gasped. "I didn't see that one, but there were crates and crates of books I never got to. But Callah promised to put the drawing my mother left for me in there," I explained. "I asked because I didn't want her to get caught with it."

"Well, she did more than that," Meri said. "She read. She learned, just like you did. Ayla, she was trying to plan her own escape, but then we met in the washroom. When she saw I was pregnant, she said I had to go first, and she told me she'd just gotten a message fromyou."

"I told her I'd send back something yellow," I explained. "If I did, it was a sign I was safe."

"Oh!" Meri nodded as if that made complete sense. "Well, Callah didn't get the chance to tell me what your message was. She just said she'd gotten proof you were still alive and doing well. Tobias confirmed it. She also said he helped her. He didn't just ignore it - he went out of his way to help."

"Tobias?" My mouth flopped open.

The guy was a big, dumb lout of a man. I couldn't count the number of times I'd ordered him around in the infirmary. He'd been assigned as a gatherer because he was too dumb to operate a gun safely. At least, that had been the rumor.

"Yeah, him," Meri assured me. "Did you know his mother was from the quarantine too?"

"No..." But Meri didn't know about quarantine. She had no clue what horrors happened in there!

Meri nodded and kept going, unaware of the turn in my thoughts. "Callah said Tobias told her he'd heard things. They talked, and he told her all about how you were safe on the surface."

Which meant Callah hadn't told Meri everything either. That made me feel better. A bit. Meri had always been the more sensitive of the three of us. She was the person who tried so hard to do everything right. When she'd first been put with us, back as ten-year-olds, we'd been sure she would tell on us for anything we did wrong.

She hadn't.

Oh, she'd been scared and confused. She had missed her parents horribly, but she'd quickly become our friend. Callah and I had been the ones to tell Meri she was doing fine. We'd reassured her countless times that she'd get a good husband - and she had. At least by the things we'd been allowed to judge a man by.

Yet that had still ended up a tragedy. Gideon had abused her. Granted, I was sure all men would do the same. So why had Tobias told Callah about me? More importantly, how had he known? He was a gatherer, not a hunter. I would've recognized him by his size alone. The guy had to be as big as a Dragon!

"You should also know," Meri said, her tone changing slightly, "that Jamison came back from the last hunt wounded. It's bad, Ayla. He's lost most of the use of his arm!"

"Good," I grumbled - stopping hard when I realized it had been out loud.

Which made Meri smile. "I knew you didn't really want to marry him!"