Page 73 of Broken Fate
“Reprisals.” I wanted to spit at the word. “They’re going to round people up, and what, kill them? If I’m not turned over to Arcadus?”
Kiel nodded. “One person on day eight. Then two, on day nine. Then four. Eight …”
There was no need to go on. The message was clear. As was what I had to do.
“I have to turn myself in,” I said softly. “They can’t be allowed to do this to anyone. Not because of me.”
“Jada,” Kiel began.
I cut him off, clapping my hands together. “No. No, I will not stand by and let them do this, Kiel. I willnot. Nobody else will die because of me.”
“Clive wasn’t your fault,” Andi said.
“But they would be!” I all but shouted, tears springing into my eyes.
After everything, after the breakthrough Kiel and I had just had … possibilities that would never be flashed through my mind. I cut it off like a diseased limb. There was no point in wasting time on what-ifs for the futureorthe past.
“No.”
Of all the people in the room, Andi was not the one I expected to be the first to speak after my outburst. But she did, stepping forward and resting her hands on my shoulders. We locked eyes.
“We’re not going to sacrifice you,” she said, glancing behind me at Kiel, driving her point home with one look. “That’s exactly what they want. If we do that, we’re playing right into their hands.”
I reached up and removed her arms from my shoulders. “You aren’t sacrificing me. None of you are. I’mchoosingthis.”
I turned to look at Kiel. He knew what I was going to say. It was written in the way the disagreement in his eyes just sort of melted away, his face turning to blank stone.
“Jada,” he tried again, but I silenced him with a shake of my head.
“You said it yourself. They can’t take away my right tochoose. Well, I’m choosing this, Kiel. I have to. Those innocents have to go free. They won’t suffer, not because of me.”
“Then you’ll suffer for them,” Andi said.
I took a deep breath, trying to steady the shaking in my extremities. “I know,” I said. “But I have to go.”
“This isn’t how we do it,” Praksis said. “We don’t give up our own. We can’t give them what they want. It’s a brutal calculation, but these reprisals, they’ll wake far more people to the truth than anything else. This is a huge overstep for them.”
“These arepeople,” I snarled at him, angry because I saw the logic—understood it even. But I couldn’t let it control me. “Living, breathing, people. I will not stand by and let them be hurt, even killed, all because I stood by and did nothing. I’m not better than they are.”
Not even close.
“They’re already being hurt,” Praksis countered. “By believing the lie told them all their lives.”
“I will not let them be led to slaughter just to open their eyes. You’ll have to find another way to accomplish your plan. One that doesn’t include me.” I smiled at them all. “Thank you for giving me this choice. Now, you must let me make it.”
“No.” Kiel’s voice cut through the room.
“You can do this without me,” I assured him.
“No,Ican’t,” he said with a blunt honesty that shocked everyone in the room. “I need you.”
“You think you do,” I said, another smile somehow making its way onto my face. “But you don’t. Besides, you won’t stop me, Kiel. That’s not who you are.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I won’t.”
I blinked. “Huh?” Then what was he talking about?
“None of us can stop you. Nor will we try. In fact”—his face broke out into a smile that died before it reached his eyes—“we’re going to help you turn yourself in.”
