The Season Trials

C H A P T E R F O U R

Unedited.

Sorry for the long wait.

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C H A P T E R        F O U R

"And now we have to go through some more business."

None of us have to nerve to say anything back to Miss Prestige. Looking around the carriage, I can see that others are staying quiet as an act of defiance, others because they're simply too scared to say anything. My silence is because of neither of those. Defiance is pointless. They're going to win either way. Right now, we're helpless to stop what's going on. Nothing we do can change it.

I'm simply silent because there's nothing to say. Nothing they want us to stay.

The army, when they'd first taken over, had summed it up perfectly. Straight after the vicious bloodbath that had been the takeover, they sent out soldiers into all the area. They'd paraded down the streets, every inch of their bodies armed with weapons. "Resistance is futile! Fight and you die!" they'd shouted.

At the time, I'd been barely twelve years old. It was the first time I'd ever seen someone being persecuted for a crime they hadn't committed. Barbaric acts had taken place that night and the weeks after the takeover—many of which I'd been witness to. Bombs set off in the middle of the street catching anyone caught in the crossfire. Bullets fired randomly at innocent child because the soldiers had been the ones wielding the weapons and they'd felt like it.

Everyone seems to be getting the message much quicker now. Resisting is futile. It will only get us killed—they've already proven it.

The only way to survive is to play the part of the meek, subservient child they want to force into the property of someone rich. Any defiance will end badly.

"I have rules to go over." The man in the suit stands in the middle of the carriage. He still hasn't said his name and I doubt he will. To him—someone rich and with all the money in the world to spare—we're nothing but something he'd throw in the bin when he gets before. We're worthless. He's too important to introduce himself to us.

Miss Prestige frowns. "The auctioneer will go over it with them."

He crosses his arms over his large chest, completely ignoring Miss Prestige. "There are rules you must follow. If you don't follow them, you won't like the consequences. The less clean-up we have to do, the better."

I can't help but glance down at my ankle. It's swelling already. Normally, mum would drag me into the kitchen, forcing me to lie on the kitchen bench, as she tended to the wound. She's not a doctor but she does know what ointment works.

I've only ever had a broken bone once in my life, before this. Jaylee and I had been walking through the markets, trying to make deals with the venders to buy some fresh food. Anything that isn't days old is too expensive, even after haggling. Eventually we'd given up, settling on some mouldy vegetables.

The trouble with the markets is that everyone is there to buy their food, in hopes it'll be cheaper. I'd been walking when two small children had knocked me from behind. I'd fallen face first, using my arm to break the fall. Like everyone else around me, I'd heard the snap of the bone breaking. The pain hadn't come until the shock had worn off.

Comparing the two isn't even possible. Here I don't get to sit down and take a break. I've watched countless people die—my own mother included—in a rain of redundant gunfire. My hair has been hacked off with a razor. There's countless guns pointed at all us, ready to fire at random. I don't even have a name anymore, just a number branded onto the inside of my wrist.