Read Online Marked by Jenny Martin - Free Book Online Page B

not quiet enough. Mary’s eyes shift to the doorway, and it’s too late.
    â€œPhee,” she says. Her eyes command me to come in and sit.
    I slip into the empty chair.
    Mary nods, and gestures for the session to resume.
    We’re asked to give our names, and share what brings us here. Deni, the cook, goes first. His village was bombed four years ago. He lost his wife and two sons, but these days, he’s actually sleeping at night. The grief never goes, he insists, but the nightmares don’t come as often. Then it’s Belach’s turn.
    I know Belach well enough. He is older than Hal and Nandan, maybe older than dirt. Grew up in the shadow of the fuel mines in the Gap, then lived through war with Cyan and the aftermath. Here’s a man who’s seen it firsthand: Benroyal’s brand of jack-booted peace, with IP troops sweeping in to take what they wanted. But thirty seconds into his confession, my stomach begins to drop.
    IP Attack. Heavy Casualties. Capture. Interrogation.
    The room is so still. It’s as if there’s no more air, just the stench of vinegar and leftover stew and bleach, and all I can do is clench my teeth against it.
    â€œThey picked me off in Barbouros, east of the Gap,”Belach says. “We weren’t well organized then. We weren’t rebels or even guerillas yet, just kids jumping into a firefight.”
    His eyes are sunken, and his voice is hoarse and burred by hard memory. “The IP pushed back. We were on the retreat, but I couldn’t keep up.”
    Suddenly, I look down and my hands are digging into my lap. My breath’s shallowing up, and I’m squeezing the sides of my legs.
    Belach keeps going, though each word seems to cost more than the last. He points to the scars on his temples, his wrists, and his neck. “They . . . they used stim wire to torture us. Live current. One hour of sleep, then they’d wake us. Seven months they had me, and I still remember . . .”
    I look down at my hands. What Belach endured . . . I’ve got no business being here. To sit in this chair and say I’m afraid. I don’t have the right to be this broken.
    When he is finished, they all look at me.
    â€œExcuse me,” I whisper, standing up. “Excuse me. I’m sorry.” I can’t stop saying it, even walking out the door.
    I hear the scrape of Mary’s chair as I hustle through the kitchen. I’m past the cooks and halfway through the empty dining hall when she catches up.
    â€œPhee . . .” she soothes. “Don’t.”
    My pulse jumps as her hand catches my wrist. It takeseverything I have not to pull away from her. To give in to the irrational scream crouched in my throat.
    â€œYou said you’d give me something.” I say. “A treatment.”
    â€œI know,” she says calmly. “But if we don’t get to the root—”
    â€œI don’t have anything to share. It’s not like that. I wasn’t tortured. I wasn’t left for dead.”
    â€œBut you were hurt, Phee. As surely as anyone else in that room. Just because we can’t see the scars, it doesn’t mean they’re not there.”
    â€œI don’t need to talk about it. Not in front of them. This isn’t what you said. You said—”
    â€œI said we’d try a new program. And I am working on a treatment for you, but you have to be realistic, Phee. No regimen on the planet is going to work without counseling too.”
    I take a breath, tilting away.
    â€œThis is a first step,” Mary adds. “You need to do this.”
    Her voice is warm and steady, but I can’t give in to it. At least not yet.
    â€œCome back with me,” Mary says.
    â€œI will,” I tell her, but I’m already walking away. “After Manjor.”

CHAPTER NINE
    I LEAVE WITH MIYU.
    We won’t be flying directly into Manjor. Instead, at her suggestion,