The Elite (Selection)

would haunt me for the rest of my life. I’d never heard anything like it. Or the sickening echo of the crowd cheering it on, as if this was merely entertainment. Or Maxon’s silence, allowing this to happen. Or the crying of the girls around me, accepting it.
    The only thing that gave me any sort of hope was Carter. Even though he was sweating from the trauma and shaking with pain, he managed to pant out comforting words to Marlee.
    “It’ll be … over soon,” he managed.
    “Six!”
    “Love … you,” he stammered.
    I couldn’t handle this. I tried to claw at my guard, but his thick sleeves protected him. I shrieked as he gripped me tighter.
    “Get your hands off my daughter!” Dad yelled, pulling the guard’s arms. With that space, I wiggled myself until I was facing him and thrust my knee up as hard as I could.
    He let out a muffled cry and fell back, my dad catching him on the way down.
    I hopped over the railing, clumsy in my dress and heeled shoes. “Marlee! Marlee!” I screamed, running as quickly as I could. I almost got to the steps; but two guards caught up with me, and that was a fight I couldn’t win.
    From the angle behind the stage, I saw that they’d exposed Carter’s backside, and his skin was already torn, pieces hanging sickeningly. Blood was trickling down, ruining what used to be his dress pants. I couldn’t imagine the state of Marlee’s hands.
    The thought sent me into an even deeper hysteria. I screamed and kicked at the guards, but all that accomplished was the loss of one of my shoes.
    I was dragged inside as the man cried out for the next strike, and I didn’t know whether to be grateful or ashamed. On the one hand, I didn’t have to see it all; on the other, I felt like I’d abandoned Marlee in the worst possible moment of her life.
    If I had been a true friend, wouldn’t I have done better than that?
    “Marlee!” I screamed. “Marlee, I’m sorry!” But the crowd was so frenzied, and she was crying so much, I didn’t think she heard me.

CHAPTER 10
    I THRASHED AND SHRIEKED ALL the way back. The guards had to hold me so tightly that I knew I’d be covered in bruises later, but I didn’t care. I had to fight.
    “Where’s her room?” I heard one ask, and twisted to see a maid walking down the hall. I didn’t recognize her, but she clearly knew me. She escorted the guards to my door. I heard my maids shouting in protest at the way I was being handled.
    “Calm down, miss; that’s no way to behave,” a guard said with a grunt as they threw me onto my bed.
    “Get the hell out of my room!” I screamed.
    My maids, all of them in tears, rushed over to me. Mary started trying to get the dirt from my fall off my dress, but I slapped her hands away. They knew. They knew, and they didn’t warn me.
    “You, too!” I yelled at them. “I want all of you out! NOW!”
    They recoiled at my words, and the tremors running down Lucy’s little body almost made me regret saying them. But I had to be alone.
    “We’re sorry, miss,” Anne said, pulling the other two back. They knew how close I was to Marlee.
    Marlee …
    “Just go,” I whispered, turning to bury my face in my pillow.
    Once the door clicked shut, I slipped off my remaining shoe and climbed deeper into bed, finally making sense of a hundred tiny details. So this was the secret she had been too afraid to share. She didn’t want to stay because she wasn’t in love with Maxon, but she didn’t want to leave and be separated from Carter.
    A dozen moments suddenly made sense: why she chose to stand in certain places or stared toward doors. It was Carter; he was there. The time the king and queen of Swendway came and she refused to get out of the sun … Carter. It was Marlee he was waiting for when I ran into him outside the bathroom. It was always him, standing silently by, perhaps sneaking a kiss here and there, waiting for a time when they could truly be together.
    How much must she have loved him to be so careless, to risk so much?
    How could this even be real? It didn’t seem possible. I knew that there would be a punishment for something like this, but that it happened to Marlee, that she was gone …. I couldn’t understand it.
    My stomach writhed. It so easily could have been me. If Aspen and I hadn’t been so careful, if someone had overheard our conversation on the dance floor last night, that could have been us.
    Would I ever see Marlee again? Where would she be sent? Would her parents have