Read Online City of Cruelty and Copper (Temperance Era) by Rhiannon Paille - Free Book Online

out a guffaw. I was a cynic, but I blamed thirteen-hundred-and-ten years on that. I used to be a good Christian girl, I used to help my parents with their business. I never got into trouble with the law or boys. I cracked a smile at Cray, my eyes softening in their sockets.
    “I’m still a virgin.”
    Cray choked.
    I sighed. “You know what happens when you’re fifteen and you become immortal? People protect you, they make laws because of you, they lock you in a lead box. They don’t touch you, they don’t do anything to ruin your purity.”
    “But we’ve burned you! We’ve . . .” He paced, the horrors of the thirty seven Temperance days he had witnessed showing on the leathery mask of his white face. He looked like a ghost. I reveled in every emotional moment of it. From the nervous tick in his fingers to the way his jaw muscle spasmed. I loved the glassy look he gave me as he eyed me from chest to waist, to lips.
    I turned cold eyes on him. “I wanted those things! Anything to . . .” I didn’t want to say it. Hundreds of years tucked away in an ever growing society of stupidity. They were bringing things back from the remainder of the world every year. I’ve seen more and more of it show up in the Arena, rusty cars, refrigerators, cell phones, microwaves, satellites.
    “Die?” Cray offered. He raised his chin, looking satisfied with himself. “Well then consider today a favor.”
    “I’ll consider your death a favor.”
    Cray put a finger to his lips to shush me. I listened, the stands were filling. I closed my eyes wondering what Hattie had done when she went into the tomb and found me missing. I held my breath, my eyes fixed on the Arena as the din rose to an unbearable sound. People shouted at the top of their lungs, greeting their neighbors, wondering what was underneath the thick canvases. I had my thoughts about it. One of the shapes looked like an old fashioned Ferris Wheel. The rest of it could have been anything of the sort, carousel, buggy ride, tea cups, by the looks of it.
    “You know Hattie is going to be furious.”
    Cray shrugged. “Hattie won’t know the difference.”
    My stomach turned to invisible sludge. I hadn’t eaten anything in twelve hundred and some odd years. My body began rejecting food around the hundred year mark and from then on I had lived off the single droplet of water from the Fountain of Youth. My eyes widened.
    “What do you mean?”
    Cray sniffed the air, which was repulsive. “Watch,” he whispered, pointing at the Arena.
    Rab Ketterling appeared in the center of the Arena, wearing the same uniform as Cray. The crowds erupted into a shower of cheers as he smiled widely. Whispers about what was under the canvases shot through the crowd and Rab laughed. His shoulders shook with the sound.
    “Welcome to the thirteen hundred and tenth annual Temperance Day Celebration!” he shouted as the crowd grew silent. The speech went on, chronicling our journey from discovery to present day. I checked off the chain of events in my brain, being present and alive for every single one of them. I wondered when Hattie was going to find out that I was chained to one of the view boxes, that I wasn’t coming out until Cray let me. She should have been there by now. I should have been waiting in the wings, watching Rab through a metal grate.
    I tried to remain calm even though Cray looked smugger by the minute. “What did you plan Cray? Don’t give the people their show?”
    He kept staring at the Arena and completely ignored me.
    He succeeded in making me angry. “Let me out of these damned chains you bastard!” I raised my legs hoping to wrap my heavy combat boots around his neck. Snap, snap, wouldn’t take much even with his oversized body. He slid out of the way, my boot colliding with his cheek. I smirked as he dropped the cigarette and rubbed his face. I expected him to get violent, but he didn’t have to.
    Rab and a couple of servants removed the first canvas. It was