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Chapter 1
“Grace would have loved it,” I say, smiling at Leah.
My sister gives me a weak smile in return, but it's something. All I've gotten out of her in the past few days leading up to the anniversary of our sister, Grace's, death has been murmured words and her staring into the void I had to pull her out of this year. When I'd asked how she felt about redecorating the house two weeks ago, something Grace had always wanted to do but couldn't, I was relieved to get an enthusiastic yes from her. But now that we're looking at the finished product, I can clearly see it's not enough to make up for all the other emotions I'm sure are rushing through her today. It certainly isn't enough for me.
Seeing the house in a way we could never afford to have it while Grace was alive isn't enough to make the bone-deep grief in me fade. It's not enough to make my anger at her having no choice in being sacrificed to a monster by our government go away. It's not enough to overcome my sorrow at thinking how painful her death must have been or how alone she must have felt.
And today, the same thing will happen to a new family. All over again. I felt utterly helpless when they took my sister from me, and now I know someone else is about to feel the same. But I am avoiding everything to do with Draft Day. I have no choice in the TV staying on because the government controls it during this day, making sure all of this quadrant's residents view the draft, when the sacrifice arrives at the processing center, her coming out to say her final goodbyes before she is to be lowered into the ground at midnight. I will not, however, be paying any attention to the very thing that took my sister from me.
Leah and I have some snacks we saved just for today, to sit in the living room, the TV turned down as low as the government will allow, and play card games while we wait this day out. Based off of the way Leah looks right now, though, I don't really know if she'll be up to any of it. I don't blame her, in fact, I haven't blamed her for the way this last year has been spent. The first few weeks after Grace was sacrificed, Leah, riddled with anxiety and sadness, barely slept and had nightmares about our sister when she did. She couldn’t seem to get out of that state between fear and grief at home.
When we went to work together, I tried my best to keep an eye on her there too because she seemed to be in a daze all the time. Unfortunately, our employers noticed too, and she ended up having her hours reduced due to her lack of productivity. When I had to go to work without her, I was truly afraid to leave her alone each day. Not only because of how she was handling Grace's death, but because I was terrified that my father might come home when I wasn't there.
When I couldn't protect her.
His abuse had gotten worse since Grace was sacrificed; the money given to us as compensation for losing her only making his alcohol addiction easier to support. Which meant, he came home drunk at all hours now as he no longer had to work, hurting Leah when I wasn't there to take the hits for her. Unlike my father, I couldn't afford to quit my job. Not a single penny from the money they'd given my father made it to me or Leah, and I’d had to work as much as I could so we could save the remainder of the money we needed to escape our quadrant. Escape our father. We'd needed another two thousand dollars to be able to pay Edwin to help us escape and get the fraudulent papers required for starting over in a new quadrant.
Two weeks after they took Grace from us, my father came home sober. It instantly made me go on high alert. Richard sober and angry was much more frightening. His hits landed heavier, words harsher without them slurring, and his mind quicker, meaner. He would watch our every move at home, waiting. I had no idea for what, but I knew to be careful. So, when I'd gone to wait for Leah outside the building we worked in but was told they'd sent her home early after giving her a paycheck, something inside of me knew—justknew— I would come home to something bad. I came home instead to something horrible; a scream that made my blood run cold. When I ran into the kitchen, my father had a red-hot fork to Leah's arm, demanding that she give him her paycheck. She passed out from the pain as I charged towards my father. He threw her to the floor like discarded trash and wrapped one hand around my throat while the other curled into a fist and hit me in my stomach so hard, it felt like my entire body exploded with pain. I'd taken a beating that left me aching for days, but it kept Leah from taking it instead, or something worse, and his punches to my body made him forget about our paychecks.
And then…he was gone. He went out drinking a few days later and never came home. We didn't report him missing, dreading each day that he was gone because experience had taught us the longer that he remained gone, the worse it would be when he did return. Angrier, his intent to harm us even greater. Then, after three months of him being gone, we'd finally reported him missing, so we could access the money in his account. Only once the government had investigated and declared him dead, and given us the money, had Leah finally started to come out of the shell she'd been in since Grace died. She began to smile again, laugh again, have some type of twinkle in her eyes again. We had more money than ever in our lives, and no need to run anymore. We were…happy, or as happy as we could be without Grace by our side. Up until a few weeks ago, anyway, when the anniversary of Grace's death approached and Leah started to retreat again. I'm trying everything I can to stop her from doing it. Pretty hard, though, when today’s a reminder that our sister was taken from us and fed to a monster.
The TV in Leah’s bedroom cuts on, and it snaps me out of my thoughts. Leah's looking at it out the corner of her eye, her brows furrowing with sadness. The same cheerful woman who's been announcing the sacrifice for the past fifteen years comes onto the screen, fake smile firmly in place, waving at the people in the crowd. I clench my jaw at the sight of her even though I know none of this is her fault.
“Let's get the snacks and go to the living room,” I say.
Leah nods. “And don't think you're eating all my chocolate, either.”
I raise my brows at her making a joke. Maybe she's handling this better than I thought.
“I say the chocolate belongs to whoever gets to it first,” I challenge her.
Then, I take off out of Leah's bedroom, making a beeline for the kitchen with Leah right behind me. I get there first, but I bypass her precious chocolate, going for my favorites instead. As she heads for the living room, I stop for just a second, peering out the kitchen window as I remember the feeling I had last night. The same one I've had so many nights over the last few months. That I was being watched. At first, I'd thought maybe it was my father. Since they'd never found a body, there is every possibility that he's alive, but I knew it wasn't him. I didn't feel threatened or cold inside like I did when my father watched me. Instead, the stare of someone,something, felt possessive.
Yet safe.
Like it was drawing me closer, even though I knew I should want to stay away.
“Keri?” Leah calls.
“Coming!” I shout back.
As I enter the living room, the woman on the screen walks over to the button she'll press to decide yet another woman's unfortunate fate. A shiver runs through me at the sight of it, at the memories of last year racing through my mind. One button sent my sister to her death. The decisions of others, the crimes of others, killed her. She was far too good for the end she got. I put all my feelings behind me, though, as I reach Leah.
“I say we start with Hangman's Shuffle,” I suggest, sitting on the floor across from her.
Leah rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I bet you do wanna start with the card game you always win at.”
“Well, to be fair, I win at all of them.”
“Not against Grace.” She winces, eyes casting down. “What do you think her future would have been like?”
“Leah,” I say in a sigh.
“Please,” she quietly pleads. “Can we talk about her today of all days as if she isn't gone?Please.”
I take a deep breath, letting myself go to a place I've denied my mind and heart to go ever since Grace died. The anger in me wouldn't allow me to think of the what-ifs and impossible possibilities of what Grace might have had, if it had not been for the draft. I didn't want to think of all the amazing things she could have been and had in her life. I’d needed to be strong, for us both, and focusing on a future that was snatched away from Grace wasn’t going to help me do that.
But for Leah, I allow myself to go there. Just this once.
