Page 55 of Brood
“I don’t…understand. Why would they…?” I can’t get all the words out of my raw throat.
“I don’t know. I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now. I insisted I radio over to the doctor’s clinic to explain to you why I wasn’t there. But you never got that message. Did you?”
“No! No, I didn’t know anything about that!” Tears are slipping out of my eyes now. No way to stop them. “You’re saying you…you tried to tell me?”
“Yes. Of course I did. I promised I’d be there, and I would have been if there were any possibility at all. I made an attempt to leave, but the guards at the door were armed. If I’d pushed it, Brody would have claimed I was going feral, and everything would have gotten worse. I’m starting to think that’s what he wanted. To goad me into an action that would give him an excuse to get rid of me. I’m so sorry, Cadence, that you had to go through it alone.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I sob, too weak to control myself.
“I was going to. I was starting to. But then Brody radioed. Right when I…” He makes a helpless sound in his throat. “It can’t be coincidence. I think they might have more cameras in this place than they’ve ever admitted to. He somehow knew to call me right then.”
“What did he say?”
“That the events of that day weren’t to be discussed. With anyone. At risk of penalty.”
“Penalty? Like being arrested in quarters?”
“Or worse. They’ve done far worse before.”
“They have? Who has? Not the council? You’reonthe council!”
“I know. Not the council. But someone else is acting behind the scenes. Making things happen. I’ve figured out that much in my eighteen months as a chief.”
“Brody?”
He nods.
“And…and Rosamund?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know. It’s all done in secret.”
I gulp. “Dr. Cameron?”
“Possibly. The heart attacks started twenty years ago when Brody joined the council, and he would need someone with medical knowledge.”
He sounds so bitter, I sit up with a gasp. “Will?” I choke. “Heart attacks? You mean they’re…? Vanessa?”
He nods very slowly. “I don’t know for sure. But something always felt off about it, and lately… I’m not wrong about this. The heart attacks are a way of getting rid of people who are inconvenient to them.”
“Why was she?—”
“That’s what I can’t figure out. She always followed the rules. Just like me. Just like you. But she couldn’t have a baby, so she was wasting a healthy man.” His face contorts as he says the words. “You were coming of age, and Danny wasn’t as good a genetic match as they wanted. It was discussed multiple times in the weeks before Vanessa died. For a while, it felt like Brody was grooming me—maybe to join his secret network. I think he thought it was some sort of bribe. A young, fertile, beautiful spouse.”
I gag at the thought, and the gags almost immediately turn into heaves. I throw up again. I wouldn’t have even made it back to the toilet if Will didn’t lift me into position.
When it’s finally over, I slump over into his lap again. “I don’t understand,” I whisper. “So our marriage is nothing but…but…”
“No! That was their intention, but that’s not how it turned out. That’s not all our marriage is. It isn’t what they wanted it to be. But you understand, don’t you? If they would be willing to kill Vanessa for no reason other than that, then anything you know about their covert activities could put you in danger. That day, I didn’t know you were pregnant, so I thought they might actually kill you. Now they won’t, of course. But they could kill me.”
I gurgle at the sheer terror that possibility provokes in me.
“Brody knows now I’ll never be on his side, and if he sees me as a threat, he’ll take care of the problem. And then what would happen to you? You’d be immediately married off to one of them.”
“Brody? He must be too old to get a new spouse. Surely not…not Dr. Cam—” I gag again at the very idea.
When I’ve stopped, he eases me back down and gently strokes my face with the washcloth. “I’m so sorry, Cadence. I didn’t know what to do. I thought you’d be safer if you didn’t know any of this. But I can’t stand it. I can’t stand for you not to trust me the way you used to.”
It’s too much to process. Too much to begin to sort out. So I’m crying and choking and desperately trying to breathe as I manage to say, “I’m glad…I’m glad you told me. It’s terrible. Terrible. But I’m still glad it wasn’t…it wasn’t what I thought.”
