Marked

Chapter Sixteen

"You're safe here, Rachel."

Debra had said this so many times now they'd stopped sounding like words.

The blonde woman sat across from Rachel inside the tiny white cell. Hector sat beside her with one arm slung across her shoulders but instead of a reassuring gesture, it only felt like a lead weight.

Why was Hector sitting across from a poacher so calmly?

Why hadn't he been marked?

"What is this place?" Rachel asked, her eyes swinging up to look at Hector.

Tilting his chin, his brown-eyed gaze met hers, a sort of apology in them but it was Debra who answered.

"A safe haven filled with people like you, Rachel. In this place we all share a common goal. We seek to end the mark and free the people."

"But you're dressed like poachers, you look like poachers, you have marks on your foreheads!"

"It's all false." Hector said gently. "Their marks are not real. Charles knew this when he handed us over to them."

Rachel opened her mouth but no words came out.

She tried to make sense of it, weigh the possibility that Hector and Debra were telling the truth but it seemed impossible.

Nothing got past the capital so how could they?

But then again, the compound had thrived for years on the outskirts of the forest so how much different could this really be?

"How?"

"They are an underground movement that has infiltrated the capital." Hector explained. "They disguise themselves as poachers and use a fake mark that allows them to enter the capital undetected."

Rachel still wasn't convinced.

Her head spun with questions and nothing made sense.

It felt like someone had taken everything she knew and understood about the world and had packed it up neatly into a box and then flipped it upside down.

"But how? Wouldn't they know your mark is a fake one?"

Debra straightened her back and her face lit up with a smile as if she was proud of Rachel for asking all the right questions.

"We have a very specific method for distributing Marks that once belonged to real people so they are not entirely fake. I cannot wait to show you all the details and answer all of your questions but right now I think it would be more beneficial to you to take you on a tour. Maybe get you back to your friends so you can see for yourself that what I'm saying is the truth?"

Her eyes slid over Rachel's face slowly, "You still don't look like you are convinced, honey."

She wasn't but she pressed her lips shut and kept quiet about it.

She might not have felt entirely safe but at least nobody was trying to force her to shoot her brother which was progress.

"So my brother..." Rachel trailed, dreading the answer.

Debra's blue eyes cast down to the floor. "I'm afraid your brother is not here, Rachel. He was just a part of your memories that we used to create a simulation with."

"Oh." She said, surprised. She took a deep breath and weighed her options.

"Look, I hear what you're saying but I think I need a minute to process all of this. Do you mind giving me some space?"