Rise An Eve Novel

On the road just beyond the Palace fountains, people were shouting. I couldn’t make out a word; it all blended together and echoed through the marble hall, coming at us like a rumbling train. Hannah and Lyle, two of the Palace workers, had abandoned their posts at the main desk and were standing in front of the glass doors, watching. All the color had gone from their faces.
    “This is hell,” Hannah said. “I don’t believe they’re actually going through with it. They can’t.” Lyle, who often arranged for the cars that came and went from the Palace, had his arm wrapped around her, his hand clutching her side to hold her up. I ran toward them, pushing through the front doors. There, just beyond the fountains, the back of the platform was visible. It was nearly five feet high, the bottom of it closed off, out of view. Two poles rose up from it, forming a massive T. One prisoner stood on either side of the middle, their hands tied behind their backs, the rope knotted around their necks.
    I took off down the path, climbing the low stone planters that separated the Palace from the road. It was impossible to come up behind them—the back of the platform was blocked by a Jeep, the soldiers watching from the backseat as if it were one of the street performances sometimes held on the main road. Two others held the prisoners’ hands. “Genevieve! Wait!” Charles called over my shoulder. But I was already moving toward the sidewalk, where a row of people pressed against a metal fence, watching.
    “Traitors!” a man in front of the platform yelled. He was from the Outlands; I could tell by his ripped jacket, the elbows muddy. He cocked his head back, then spit, aiming at their feet.
    Through the trees I could just make out glimpses of the two rebels. The man was tall and thin, his ribs visible through his bloodied shirt. He had fair skin, but I didn’t immediately recognize him. It wasn’t until I pushed past the fence and into the crowd that I could make out the thick black hair, hard and dark around the forehead, where it was crusted with blood. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and his glasses were gone, but Curtis was still Curtis. He held his shoulders back, his chin raised as the men in the front of the crowd screamed.
    Jo stood right beside him, her hands tied. Her blond dreadlocks had been cut, her hair now cropped short around her ears. Her shirt was ripped in the front, exposing the top of her chest, where her skin was rubbed raw. “Let me pass,” I yelled, pushing deeper into the crowd, toward the platform. “I need to get through.”
    Hardly anyone recognized me in casual clothes, with my hair falling loose past my shoulders. The dense crowd pressed in, an elbow knocking me hard in the side. I kept fighting through the great swarm of people. A massive oaf of a man leaned on me, and I leaned back, maneuvering in front of him. “What is the matter with all of you?” I screamed. “Why won’t someone stop this?”
    I stepped closer, trying to close the gap, when my eyes locked with Jo’s. In an instant, the floor fell out from under the rebels. I stood there, the tears blurring my vision, as some of the crowd cheered. Others were quiet. She went first, her body only half visible above the platform, her head cocked at a horrible angle. I watched the way Curtis bucked for a few seconds, fighting it, then went still, his toes just inches from the pavement.

thirteen
    THEY WERE BRINGING IN ANOTHER JEEP. THE CROWD WAS shifting to let it through, its cab packed with three more prisoners I didn’t recognize. As the minutes passed and the soldiers pulled down Curtis’s and Jo’s bodies, loading them into a flatbed truck, some of the crowd dispersed back down the main road. A woman beside me pressed her face into her hands, her cheeks flushed. “What’s happening to us?” she mumbled to the man she was with, before they pushed forward, quickly engulfed by the crowd.
    But others stayed, some silent, waiting to watch the next executions. I pushed toward the front of the platform, until I was pressed against the metal fence. I grabbed on to it, kicking off the bottom rail to heave myself over. Charles called out somewhere behind me, but I didn’t listen, instead running up to the back of the platform, where two of the soldiers stood. Their faces were hidden by green bandanas, the edges pulled up to their eyes. They were turned slightly, facing the Jeeps in back, and didn’t see me coming. Before I