Page 51 of Rite of Unity

“Absolutely.Teach me something…”

“Ben.Ben Cannon.”

“Great, Ben.Go ahead.”

My finger drew a lazy circle on the desk as the camera did the same around the room, always keeping Maryn on screen.

“I don’t know what you know already.”

She smiled, tapping her finger to her lip.“Well.Girls in the Middle finish school at sixteen, so anything you learned after that would be new to me.”

“But I heard your dad was Elite.”

Maryn laughed.“That’s true, isn’t it.If I’d been raised inside the wall like you fine men, I could have stayed in school till eighteen like you.”

He nodded.“Okay.I know.”

Maryn nodded, and the camera closed in on her face.She was an attentive listener, never breaking eye contact with her student teacher.

“After the war, men struggled with fertility.”He held up his hands.“You knew that.”

Camera on Maryn again as she nodded encouragingly.

“But, what we didn’t know until medicine got better, was that the—”

“Wow.That was so interesting.Thank you, Ben.”

I sat forward, touching the pause button.I pressed back.

“Was that the—”

“Wow.That was so interesting.Thank you, Ben.”

I scratched my head and backed it up again.

“That the—”

Someone had decided the nation didn’t need to hear the rest of that sentence.Interesting.

I removed tape two and fished in my pocket for number nine.What had Hannah done to put her in last place?

Her fiery red hair was pulled up in a high ponytail, and I smirked.That hair had whipped my face the first time we met.

She gave a lesson that seemed perfectly acceptable.She was polished and confident.

“You could smile.”

I sat forward.

Hannah’s neck flushed and the color raced up to her cheeks.

The boy laughed.“I just mean.Like.Do you hate kids or what?”

I paused the tape just as the camera zoomed in on her face.

Damn.

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