Page 43 of Privilege

17

AMITY

When I wasin middle school, back when the security stations were still used for security and not just for watching us all the time, there was a time I had to use one.

My mom taught me what to do if I was ever scared or saw violence. I should press the call button on the nearest station and CSOs would come right away. In school we did simulations.

But this wasn’t a simulation. I was in the next neighborhood over, Homewood, hanging out with girls from school. I can’t remember what we were doing, probably sitting around talking. I was twelve.

There must have been yelling in one of the houses because I remember we fell silent, listening. My brain told me that something was wrong. It was quiet as I looked around the neighborhood. Then with a bang, a screen door slammed and a woman ran out of her house. She was in bare feet and she ran into the yard and paused for a moment.

Everyone stopped to watch her. Her panic, the tight energy of her desperation, drew my gaze. The trees, the grass, the sun, my friends stopped as she froze, seemingly trying to make up her mind.

While we watched her, a man came silently around the corner of the house from the side. He was tall, and I remember the boots he was wearing, black and thick-soled.

He grabbed her roughly, and my heart hammered, adrenaline flooding my system. There was a collective gasp as my friend grabbed my hand and we sat, petrified, under a tree across the street as the woman silently struggled in his grasp and the man slowly dragged her back toward the front door.

I waited with wide eyes for someone to do something. For one of the girls to get up and tell someone, go and find help.

I could see the security station a few houses down and my eyes darted back and forth, looking to see if he was watching us, judging how far the button was and how long it would take for me to run there.

The woman did something, pushed him, broke his grasp, and the struggle renewed on the doorstep. My legs straightened. I don’t remember deciding, but I was running down the street. It took forever to get there. Each step, lifting from the ground, a slow arc through the air, and another push off the ground as my sneakers hit the pavement.

I felt the attention of the two grown-ups snap to me but before they could do anything I was there, pressing the button. I huddled against the station as if it could keep me safe and the other girls ran to cluster around the camera,the microphones, and the blue button to call the Security Officers.

After that everything happened too rapidly for me to digest. The man was yanking her inside the house and slamming the door just as white vans were speeding down the street toward us. My friends pointed to the house and the CSOs clustered in front of the door.

“He won’t let them in,” a girl gasped to me in horror just as the tall woman in front raised her foot, encased in a heavy gray boot, and kicked the door in. The officers swarmed into the house, Tasers in hand.

While we waited, breathless, for evidence that the woman was okay, that the Security Officers had caught the Oath Breaker, I felt someone standing behind me. Whether I could see the edge of her pale gray boots or not, I knew it was an Officer. She stood directly behind me, protecting me, protecting all of us.

I had done my best, I had played my part, and I could relax now. The woman behind me radiated power and calm; she would take care of everything. I was safe.

The memory flashes through my mind as I force my eyes to trace the bright, sharp edges of the knives on the table in front of me despite feeling someone standing directly behind me. They stand close, closer than a stranger should stand.

And there they stay. Regulating my breathing, I glance down. I see black boots and jeans. From the corners of my eyes, side to side, there’s nothing. When I raise my eyes tothe vendor he has busied himself organizing sheaths and is avoiding looking at me. Me and whoever is behind me.

I’m frozen in time again, unwilling to break the silence, not ready to turn around and start an interaction. It’s him—the scent of pine and soap and the hint of chlorine is exactly the same.

From above my left ear, a low murmur. “What are you up to, Pepper?”

I wait three beats before turning and guardedly glance up. Vale, the confusing grown-up version of the boy I remember, is here, standing less than a foot from me. He’s wearing what is apparently Alaska standard, jeans and a leather jacket, with a baseball hat pulled low. His eyes are swathed in shadow.

Instead of answering him, I drink in what I can without running my gaze up and down his body. The broad shoulders, the wide brown curve of his neck, the clean-shaven jaw and full lips.

I freeze. My brain is trying to remind me that this man is part of a dangerous militia, that he stole Zeph away and the Society has put me in charge of spying on him and the Forge. The memory of his father still curls around my subconscious, cold and deadly.

But his broad body, standing so close to me, shielding me from the rest of the market, is giving me the same safe, grounded feeling that the Security Officer did in my friend’s yard all those years ago. I’m relaxing, I’m softening, and suddenly it’s easier to talk to him.

“Sorry, have we met?” I try out, repressing a smile. He blows an exasperated breath.

“Come on. What are you doinghere?” he demands, glancing back to the knife dealer. One hand comes to my back lightly and I close my eyes, feeling the brush of his fingers like a siren going off.

“I need to talk to you, Amity,” he whispers in my ear.

I shoot him an alarmed glance and turn back to the knives.

“How much for this one?” I ask the vendor sweetly. He seems frozen and doesn’t answer me right away, flicking a worried glance at Vale. The pressure of Vale’s hand on my back increases as he turns me firmly toward an alley and ushers me away from the weapons vendor and a few yards from the crowded crush of the market.

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