Page 44 of Conform
A ringing silence followed my words as he disappeared.
“What did you say to that Defect?” Vincent demanded.
Dread filled me at my mistake. “I said thank you,” I mumbled, my voice small.
“They do not need your thanks. They owe us thanks for the ability to be graced by our presence. Do you find yourself unwilling to outgrow your status? Do you still see yourself as one of them? If you do, you’re smarter than I thought.”
His words hollowed me out completely.Why?I wanted to scream at him.Why do you hate me?Was I nothing but my defect? The metal collar became a noose as I contemplated demanding an answer.
Workers came out of the hidden door, bringing more food. I didn’t look at my plate, even as pleasant aromas drifted toward me. I heard the noise of cutlery being used. I swallowed, trying to alleviate the tightness in my throat.
“Did you know,” Vincent drawled, when I finally reached for my fork, “that the Defects should be thanking the Elite for their ability to breathe?”
Lightning flashed in the tops of the clouds outside, and a rumbling boom of thunder shook the place ever so slightly. I met his stare for the first time that evening as apprehension settled in my gut. His meal sat untouched.
“There was a petition to fully eliminate every Defect, both Minor and Major. The Elimination Act,” he said casually, taking a sip of his drink.
“Eliminate?” I asked. The energy around the table shifted. Even Gregory remained quiet.
“Yes, eliminate them completely. They have no use for our goal of repopulating this world. We would be better off without them. They are leeches.” His brown eyes found mine, conveying what he hadn’t said: The world would be better off without me.
“Who would clean our cities and dispose of our waste if they were eliminated?” Richard commented.
“They do have their purposes, I suppose, among the trash,” Vincent said, downing his drink.
“We need them for more than trash. Without their genes our procreation pool would bottleneck, resulting in inbreeding,” Phillip stated. “Inbreeding results in weaker genes.”
My first course turned leaden in my stomach, crawling up my throat. I shared blood with these people. I had hoped that, meeting my birth family, I might feel less alone, but I didn’t. They were calmly discussing murdering people, eliminating people for something those people had no control over, and the only reason they didn’t was to avoidinbreeding. I thought I might be sick.
Gregory shook his once-again empty glass, tension lining his face.
“Emeline, with this contract with Collin, it wouldn’t pertain to you,” Phillip told me, cutting into his food. “In the eyes of the system, you wouldn’t be eligible for elimination.”
They all resumed eating in silence. I just stared at my plate of food, provided to plump me up, priming me for breeding another one ofthem.
That was my life’s purpose: to break myself apart within the cage they created for the Minor women. A meek, compliant woman. Either produce an Elite offspring and be thrust into the next mating contract, or produce someone like me and be cast aside. My heart slammed against my chest, raging.
“Murdered,” I said, not looking up from my plate.
“Emeline,” Helen said delicately—a warning.
“They arepeople. Living, breathing people. It is not just elimination. It is murder.” I trembled, my heart refusing to slow. The room felt too small as twenty-seven years of anger clawed to the surface, desperate for release—a rage I had hidden my entire life. My skin was too tight, my chest too warm.
“We could always reinstate the Core Act,” one of my brothers suggested, but I couldn’t focus, the blood pounding painfully in my ears.
“Would you have me eliminated?” I demanded, my voice a whisper.
“What did you say?” Vincent asked.
“Emeline.” Helen’s blue eyes were wide and scared. Her warning fueled my anger. She had only everwarnedme. She had never come for me. She had never comforted me. She had just stood outside my door arguing with my birth father on the other side. Warning me the day they took me away.
Never look at the Elite, Emeline. Just look down and they will leave you be. You must look down.
But now I was looking directly at the Elite, and I couldn’t stomach what I saw. I could never be like her. I couldn’t follow their rules. I couldn’t ignore the things they hid behind their beauty. And I knew—as they did—that I couldn’t be Elite. No matter the dresses. The lessons. The lens. I wasn’t one of them.
I wouldn’t look down.
If that condemned me to the blue color I wore . . . maybe—maybe that wasn’t the worst thing.
