This isn’t fair.
Ben begins to cry, hitching sobs.
I pull him into a hug.
“Be strong for me,” I whisper in his hair, but he doesn’t answer. I tighten my grip as if I can hold the Ben I know—knew—in place, can keep him with me; but he pushes me away. A jarring strength for such a small body. I stumble, and another pair of arms catches me.
“Get back,” orders the man holding me. Roland.
His eyes are leveled on Ben, but the words are meant for me. He pushes me out of his way and approaches my brother. No, no, no, I think, the word playing in my head like a metronome.
What have I done?
“I didn’t…”
“Stay back,” Roland growls, then kneels in front of Ben.
That’s not Ben, I think. Looking at the History—its eyes black, where Ben’s were brown.
Not Ben, I think, clutching my hands around my ribs to keep from shaking.
Not Ben, as Roland puts a hand on my brother’s shoulder and says something too soft for me to hear.
Not Ben. Metal glints in Roland’s other hand and he plunges a toothless gold key into Not Ben’s chest and turns it.
Not Ben doesn’t cry out, but simply sinks. His eyes fall shut and his head falls forward, and his body slumps toward the ground but never hits because Roland catches him, scoops him up, and returns him to his drawer. The pain goes out of his face, the tension goes out of his limbs. His body relaxes against the shelf, as if settling into sleep.
Roland slides the door shut, the dark devouring Not Ben’s body. I hear the cabinet lock, and something in me cracks.
Roland doesn’t look at me as he pulls a notepad from his pocket.
“I’m sorry, Miss Bishop.”
“Roland,” I plead. “Don’t do this.” He scratches something onto the paper. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but please don’t—”
“I don’t have a choice,” he says as the card on the front of Ben’s drawer turns red. The mark of the restricted stacks.
No, no, no come the metronome cries, each one causing a crack that splinters me.
I take a step forward.
“Stay where you are,” orders Roland, and whether it’s his tone or the fact that the cracks hurt so much I can’t breathe, I do as he says. Before my eyes, the shelves begin to shift. Ben’s red-marked drawer pulls backward with a hush until it’s swallowed by the wall. The surrounding drawers rearrange themselves, gliding to fill the gap.
Ben’s drawer is gone.
I sink to my knees on the old wood floor.
“Get up,” orders Roland.
My body feels sluggish, my lungs heavy, my pulse too slow. I haul myself to my feet, and Roland grabs my arm, forcing me out of the room into an empty hall.
“Who opened the drawer, Miss Bishop?”
I won’t rat out Carmen. She only wanted to help.
“I did,” I say.
“You don’t have a key.”
“‘Two ways through any lock,’” I answer numbly.
“I warned you to stay away,” growls Roland. “I warned you not to draw attention. I warned you what happens to Keepers who lose their post. What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t,” I say. My throat hurts, as if I’ve been screaming. “I just had to see him—”
“You woke a History.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“He’s not a goddamn puppy, Mackenzie, and he’s not your brother. That thing is not your brother, and you know that.”
The cracks are spreading beneath my skin.
“How can you not know that?” Roland continues. “Honestly—”
“I thought he wouldn’t slip!”
He stops. “What?”
“I thought…that maybe…he wouldn’t slip.”
Roland brings his hands down on my shoulders, hard. “Every. History. Slips.”
Not Owen, says a voice inside me.
Roland lets go. “Turn in your list.”
If there’s any wind left in my lungs, that order knocks it out.
“What?”
“Your list.”
If she proves herself unfit in any way, she will forfeit the position.
And if she proves unfit, you, Roland, will remove her yourself.
“Roland…”
“You can collect it tomorrow morning, when you return for your hearing.”
He promised me he wouldn’t. I trusted…but what have I done with his trust? I can see the pain in his eyes. I force one shaking hand into my pocket and pass him the folded paper. He takes it and motions toward the door, but I can’t will myself to leave.
“Miss Bishop.”
My feet are nailed to the floor.
“Miss Bishop.”
This isn’t happening. I just wanted to see Ben. I just needed—
“Mackenzie,” says Roland. I force myself forward.
I follow him through the maze of stacks. There is no warmth and there is no peace. With every step, every breath, the cracks deepen, spread. Roland leads me through the atrium to the antechamber and the front desk, where Elliot sits diligently.
When Roland turns to look at me, anger has dulled into something sad. Tired.
“Go home,” he says. I nod stiffly. He turns and vanishes back into the stacks.
Elliot glances up from his work, a vague curiosity in the arch of his brows.
I can feel myself breaking.
I barely make it through the door and into the Narrows before I shatter.
It hurts.
Worse than anything. Worse than noise or touch or knives. I don’t know how make it stop. I have to make it stop.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t—
“Mackenzie?”
I turn to find Owen standing in the hall. His blue eyes hangs on me, the smallest wrinkle between his brows.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
Everything about him is calm, quiet, level. Pain twists into anger. I push him, hard.
“Why haven’t you slipped?” I snap.
Owen doesn’t fight back, not even reflexively, doesn’t try to escape, the slightest clenching of his jaw the only sign of emotion. I want to push him over. I want to make him slip. He has to. Ben did.
“Why, Owen?”
I push him again. He takes a step away.
“What makes you so special? What makes you so different? Ben slipped. He slipped right away, and you’ve been here for days and you haven’t slipped at all and it isn’t fair.”
I shove him again, and his back hits the wall at the end of the corridor.
“It isn’t fair!”
My hands dig into his shirt. The quiet is like static in my head, filling the space. It is not enough to erase the pain. I am still breaking.
“Calm down.” Owen wraps his hands around mine, pinning them to his chest. The quiet thickens, pours into my head.
My face feels wet, but I don’t remember crying. “It’s not fair.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Please calm down.”
I want the pain to stop. I need it to stop. I won’t be able to claw my way back up. There is all this anger and this guilt and—
And then Owen kisses my shoulder. “I’m so sorry about Ben.”