Page 22 of Rite of Unity

One of the men fell to his knees, weeping loudly.

A Covenant security guard rushed forward, ramming the butt of his weapon into the man’s back.He cried out through the sack covering his face and my stomach twisted.

“Get up!”

The man struggled to his feet, and I had to lock my limbs in place to keep from reaching out to steady him.

I shouldn't feel guilt.The rebels worked tirelessly to destroy everything my father and the men before him built.The farm.Our one remaining fresh water source.I had heard it so many times the words felt like my own.

“Worthless,” my father grumbled, straightening his coat.

Simmering heat rose to the surface, but I swallowed it down.However much I hated his callousness, the rebels deserved their fate.

A camera zipped down the line, circling all eleven criminals.Three men; eight women.While the men might have been excused for other, lesser crimes, the punishment for rebel sympathizing was death.

When the camera stopped in front of my father, he straightened.“By order of the Covenant States, I carry out this sentence.”

He dipped his chin and the guards began moving along the wall.

Screams were ripped from their lungs as each rebel fell.

I didn’t look away.I had learned long ago that looking away was the one thing my father would never forgive.So I watched each one.When it was over I exhaled, slow and controlled, the way I'd learned to do years ago.

***

When I stepped through the door to my home, it was already dark.I’d considered staying out again, but Mother worried.

I reached my mother and stooped to kiss her cheek.“How are you?”I searched her face.“Sleeping okay?”

“Don’t worry about me, Elias.Your father expected you home last night.He…” she trailed off, squeezing my hand.

I wrapped an arm around her shoulder as she led me to his office.She pushed the door open, and we stepped through.

August’s icy gaze moved between us, and Mom shrugged out of my hold.

“You can go, Helena.I need to talk to my son.”

She looked between us, her shoulders bunching, and I nodded.She didn’t need to be here for whatever had put him in his latest mood.

Patting my arm, she disappeared through the door, letting it click softly behind her.

“Sit,” August said.

I looked between him, standing beside his desk, and the empty chair, then crossed my arms over my chest.

Color rose in his cheeks.“Do you think these little acts of defiance are cute?”

I pressed my lips together but didn’t budge.

Before I could duck, a glass was flying past my head and crashing into the wall.I flinched, and a smirk played at the corner of his lips.“It’ll be decades before I’m gone, boy.When I give you an order.I expect you to follow it.”

“I gave you the arrest you wanted.It was broadcast on every channel.”The words tasted like ash, but I said them anyway.“The whole nation saw Joe’s insides ripped apart by the infe—”

“Enough.”

August crossed the room, pressing his nose to mine.It galled him that I was taller, broader.Every day, he hated me more.Hated that I was the only thing keeping him in power.The laws had been in place long before he took office—a son or nothing.They were no less strangling today than the day I was born.

We glared at each other.