A month marched by, and I had heard nothing from Luke and nothing about him. I thought those first few days that he was just hanging low as not to attract any attention to either of us.
After that, I debated trying to reach him using the dragonfly, but that idea was soon discarded. If someone truly was watching one or both of us, a note, no matter what it contained, would cast their suspicions wider.
Worry started to consume every ounce of perseverance and patience that I had. Luther seemed to realize that something was going on, likely guessed that it had something to do with Luke, and decided to leave the grumpy moody teenager alone.
Every night, I would reach to the other side of my bed, only to find it empty and cold. It was a stark reminder that I still didn't know whether Luke was yet among the living.
I didn't even dare to try to sneak into his room using the hidden entrance. If something had happened, that could get us in even more trouble.
However, I think the real reason I was so afraid to venture into Luke's territory was that I would find him there. He would be there, and I would find that I was just the way that he had gotten integrated more into the Igniters or that I was just a dare to see if he could actually get a gullible young woman to believe he loved her.
It was a good thing my father no longer kept track of my mother's clothing. That dress never made its way back to the closet, and I really didn't want to try to explain to him why it was missing.
He came home for dinner more often now, but it was often spent in a sullen silence with us both picking at our food in the awkwardness.
"How was your day?" My father asked one evening, pretending to be interested in the noodles he kept twirling around the tines of his fork.
I shrugged before noticing the scraped knuckles on his right hand. "What happened to your hand, Father?"
He looked startled as if he hadn't expected me to notice. "I cut it on some cinderblock. It's not a big deal."
Something about the way he said it made me instantly suspect that wasn't the cause, but I didn't say anything. As long as I didn't call him out, maybe he wouldn't try to call me out about Luke.
Later that night, an announcement went out that there were to be executions tomorrow, and it was mandatory attendance. Because of that fact, everyone would work only a half day.
Dread filled my heart the next morning even as it was birthed bright and warm. I dressed in my normal clothes and took the dreaded steps out to the square where everyone would be assembled.
Along with the rest of the citizens, I was squeezed into the square, most of whom were waiting patiently for the moment when the display would be finished.
I wasn't one of those; instead, I inched my way through the crowd, seeking Luke's familiar lanky figure.
He was nowhere in sight, but I didn't give up hope until I spotted his family near me.
His family, his family, standing in the front of the crowd.
I froze, heart pounding in my chest and my breaths starting to strangle me. A low wail managed to escape my throat, and I struggled to compose myself.
No, no, no, my heart screamed as I turned on my heel, wading my way as calmly as I could back the way I had come.
"Miss, you can't leave," an Enforcer said, putting out the barrel of his gun to block my way.
His eyes gleamed with a hardly concealed threat, and I glanced over to find several others holding a barrier around the square.
I lowered my eyes, ducked my head, and returned to the mass of humanity, all of us corralled like sheep. My fingers ran over the ridges of the note I had pocketed that morning, feeling the need to have something that Luke had touched.
"Ilania," Luther said, appearing in front of me, "come along."
I furrowed my brow in confusion, and my mentor sighed, seeming to age twenty years in front of my eyes.
"Even if they don't know it, you're family. Since you are part of the reason we're in this mess, I insist that you join us."
Even as my suspicions were confirmed and I started to realize that I really didn't want to know what Luke's death would be like, I allowed him to take my hand and settle me in the crowd right behind Meara.
From the look that she gave me, Luke's little sister clearly had several cutting remarks she wanted to say to me, but she was interrupted by Enforcers shoving five people out onto the platform.
My eyes lit instantly on Luke, and I found that his gaze was on where I was standing as well. Silently, I thanked Luther for thinking ahead and positioning me where it would only appear he was staring at his family.
He was last in line, a position reserved for those Enforcement deemed especially disobedient. A position that was left for those that they would kill.
As I absorbed all of this, one of the officers shoved the first prisoner forward, a young woman who was perhaps three years older than me.
"Harriet," the leader stated, and I saw out of the corner of my eye a family clinging to each other, "found guilty of breaking Founding Law One. With the help of an illegal marker, she obtained both piercings and a marking."
The other Enforcer tilted her head, so that her hair fell away from her ear, revealing a dangling piece of jewelry. With a quick motion, he jerked it out of her earlobe, and she screamed as it tore through the skin.
He did the same with her other ear, leaving the earlobes torn in half. Then she was turned, so that her back faced the crowd.
The young woman's shirt was removed to reveal a marking of a pink rose blossoming across her lower back.
I closed my eyes as the Enforcer drew a knife from the sheath at his hip. I had seen the removal of markings enough to know what her back would look like after they had removed the skin.
My body shivered slightly from the scream of agony that tore out of her throat, and I only opened my eyes after I heard the thud of her body hitting the boards of the platform. There she would remain until everyone had been dismissed; others had bled out from this practice, usually when they had more than one marking.
The other three seemed to move quicker than the first, likely because I knew what was coming for Luke. When they had concluded the punishments for those before and left them crumpled on the ground, I clenched my fists in the fabric of my skirt.
Luke, despite the fact that he knew the fate reserved for him, calmly locked gazes with me as they read off the charges. However, his shoulders relaxed a fraction when they concluded with no mention of him breaking the marriage Law with me.
The Enforcers stripped off his shirt, and his mother sucked in a long breath.
"Henry, don't they usually hang them?" She whispered to her husband. "Why are they acting as if he broke Law Three?"
Her words sank in, and I felt my body vibrate with barely contained fury.
My breath slowed as they tied his hands to a post; my heart sped up as one of the Enforcers picked up a carving knife.
One long cut down his back, a line of blood flowing the path until it dripped to the floor, and one small grunt of pain from Luke.
I wanted to cover my eyes, plug my ears, and run out of the square as fast as humanly possible as I watched them cut my husband's back into ribbons.
I watched though, feeling every ounce of pain that he was going through, every phantom cut along my back. In relief, I watched his body slump into the puddle of blood that had collected beneath him, and the Enforcers decided that they had sufficiently ensured his death.
"You're dismissed," the head Enforcer growled into the silent square. "Everyone is expected to remain within the boundaries of their normal schedules."
The others cut Luke's body down, unceremoniously allowing him to land face down in the liquid that had leaked from him. In the chaos that resulted after, as both citizens and Enforcement flooded out of the crowded square, I pressed myself as close to the platform as I dared.
"Luke," I whispered, touching his hand, "Luke, can you hear me?"
His head shifted so that one cyan eye could look at me. "Lane," he croaked in a faint voice, "go."
I smoothed the blood-soaked hair away from the cheek it had plastered itself to. "I have to tell you something, love," I whispered, "before you leave me forever."
Knowing that time was swiftly leaving me, I leaned forward and muttered what I had to say to him in his ear, lingering on each word as long as I dared.
As I returned to my former position, I saw the corner of his lips twitch into a small smile. His fingers faintly squeezed mine with the infinitely smaller amount of strength he had left.
"I love you," my husband mumbled before his eye closed, and I saw his body move with one more shallow breath.
A knot rose in my throat, and I felt a tear carve a path for others to follow as I kissed his cheek one last time and muttered back, "I love you too, Luke."
Then I forced steel into my spine and iron into my heart. Acting as if I had not said goodbye to the person I had loved, had held at night, had shared kisses with, I turned on my heel and marched out with the crowd.
From now on, I had to forget everything that I had had with Luke. I had to pretend like I wasn't crumbling inside because the moment that the wrong person found out how deep our relationship went, I would seal the doom of myself and Luther and every single one of the Igniters.
It was time to pull on my model citizen façade and get everything that could be connected back to me out of Luke's belongings before I brought more grief.
However, when the time came, whoever had ordered Luke's death to be carried out that way would pay for every drop of blood they had spilled this day.