Page 123 of Born for Lace

“Can we pretend that we are from the old-world?” I gaze up at Lagos the Rogue, huge and formidable, a guard dog at the door, and he stares back at me, naked and breastfeeding. “And I am yours and you are mine. Can we pretend that this is our home, and that Spero is our baby?”

“Yes, little flower. You can pretend.”

We seemed to start and end at the same time, going through the motions of survival, never really allowing ourselves to grasp the concept of love… Of us.

Now it’s too late.

I bunch the fabric in my small fists and lift it to my face, smothering my mouth and nose, suffocating in the black shirt that still hugs his wild, magnetic presence.

I sob and wail.

When will it stop?

ChapterThirty-Eight

Dahlia

I leave Spero in the community play school, where we take turns working. Though, I haven’t been asked to take a shift. One day, maybe, when I can smile and sing for them.

The air is warm and thick. The kind that holds and deepens odours, rich with the scent of flowers and soil.

With my tiny hacksaw in one hand—my nail file—I cross in front of the community cabins toward the greenhouses.

Today, the Redwind merely stirs my hair, the sky-high mountains screening the community from the deadly gale. Dense red fingers creep down from the clouds above, trying to reach for us, but we are too deep in the valley. I don’t even wear my mask some days—most days.

At my shoulder, a sheer mountain wall looms, and a small stream seems to disappear into a gap. The mountain overlays another behind it and another, a hum sailing from that direction. The drone of technology, cars or engines—the community’s defence force.

I’ve never seen it.

Most of us don’t have clearance to see it, kept in an old-world state, simple and minimalistic.

But I know that the community has their own Community Protection operations and that in the gorge between peaks, less than a kilometre away from where I stand now, a small base hides vehicles, weapons, and trained personnel.

We are self-sustained—mostly—but since The Trade and The Crown control all factories and mines, a lot of equipment is raided and salvaged. If we’re completely honest with ourselves, Common Communities are raider encampments. No different to the Endigo or raiders hoarded up in the ruins.

Slightly more sophisticated.

What other choice is there? To conform to The Trade. Live Meaningful Purpose and return to The Crust. Or raid?

I enter the greenhouse in my new ankle-length linen dress, passing two Common women around my age as they pick from the rack of shovels and rakes.

I channel the Dahlia from the Half-tower. The one desperate for friendship. I remember my first week at The Bite, how eager I was to find someone to call a friend… Anyone…

Even an old man.

Even a reluctant House Girl.

I hope Sweets is safe.

Reaching out, I trail my fingertips over the trays of seedlings that line the walls in grids. Hundreds of them. The baby shoots grow, reaching up toward the overhead artificial lights.

“Your seeds have sprouted!” A girl named Lucy stands from between two rows of small tomato bushes, a soil-stained blue apron covering her from chest to knee. Her brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail that flicks when she moves, while my red hair hangs in tendrils all around me. Wild.Rogue.

“I didn’t touch them,” she says, “but you should check them out. Youdohave a knack for plants.”

I squat at the little plot that is mine to tend to and pat the ground. Healthy baby greens rising from a bed of lush dirt.

“I grew La Mu at the Half-tower,” I mutter to her.

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