Appeal

    “Your…” I stammer. “Your true co-leader?”

    Ingrid barks out a laugh. “Don’t sound too surprised.”

    Co-lead a rebellion with Hector’s sister? Is she crazy? Last time I tried to rebel, Hector was the one who locked me up–who shattered me–who brought me here–

    Just so I could rebel again? No way. I’m not signing up for that. “I’m done fighting.” I fold my arms and move my gaze from Ingrid to Ari. “Shatterproof was enough for me. In case you didn’t notice, shattering didn’t change anything. The city is probably still going on, living the same way without us.”

    “That’s exactly the point though,” Ingrid says. “Think about it. You’re punished for marks of your imperfection in Shatterproof until you shatter, at which point you’re sent to a country where you’re punished for marks that signify criminal behavior–call it behavioral imperfection, if you will. Imagine my surprised when I shattered at the young age of eleven, only to wake up in a world that was nightmarishly similar.”

    My stomach clenches as though a fist wrapped around it. I can’t deny that I felt the same terror when I first awoke here. But so what? I shook myself to clear the thought from my head. So what if you thought like Ingrid? That doesn’t make you her “true co-leader.”

    Ingrid tilts her head to better catch my eye. “All I want is to repeal the tattoos law. I can’t do it. My case isn’t strong enough. But ever since Hec met you, he knew you were someone who could. I have the vision, but you have the drive.”

   I push past Ingrid and collapse into an armchair by the fire, hugging my knees against my chest tight enough to press the ache out of my heart. Hec. Well, if he believed in me, he sure had a funny way of showing it.

    Exchanging a glance with Ari, Ingrid approaches me hesitantly. He nods her on and she plants her feet in front of me. “You don’t want to trust me,” she says. “Especially since half of my words are Hector’s, too. Please, hear me out.”

    I lifted my eyes to hers and let out a breath. “Go on.”

    She sank down onto the floor in front of me and folded her legs underneath her. “Hector recognized early on that your heart was too pure for Shatterproof. You were too loyal, too selfless. You cared more about people than perfection. Those are the criteria required to enter the real world. That kind of thinking is the antidote to ideology that put us in Shatterproof.

    “Hec contacted me and we communicated between civilizations until I was sure the time was right. I wanted a strong enough following that you would want to lead it. Hec used his influence with Pierre to ensure you were shattered.”

    My breath in my throat. “You mean–,” I choked out.

    “He’s the one who spoke ill of you. Intentionally, so you’d crack.”

     I stared at her in utter shock, trying to decipher through the ink on her face if she was telling the truth. When I couldn’t find a clue, I glanced over at Ari, who always wore his heart on his sleeve. “So what about him?” I jutted my chin out in Ari’s direction. “Why did he shatter?”

    Ingrid sighed. “That was Hector being an idiot. He was scared Ari would get in the way of your shattering–that he’d do anything to keep you safe. So he did his best to get him out of the way.”

    “But surely you can understand that I find that hard to believe,” I say through gritted teeth, “when it looked to me like he killed my best friend,”

    She lifts her hands up in the air. “I don’t know what to tell you, Bryony. I couldn’t control what he did on his end, only what I did on mine.”

    I clench my jaw to bite back words.

    “Please,” Ingrid leans forward on the balls of her feet. “Forget what you feel–felt–about Hector. I’m different. I need you here, to lead with me. If you’re even half as kind-hearted, half as passionate, half as brave as my brother and Ari have told me, you’re perfect.”

     I crack a smile. “Really? An argument about how perfect I am so that I pick a fight against perfection?”

    Ingrid grins back. “So are you in?”

    I suck in a deep breath. “I’m in.”