Every Missing Piece

Chapter Nineteen

I can only stare as Mercy marches past me and nudges the rubble with her foot. "It was a little messier than I anticipated," she says, considering. "But it got the job done in the end, wouldn't you say?"

"You did this?"

I can hardly get the words out, but Mercy shrugs as if it was nothing, as if she stops the Assembly by blowing up buildings in their faces every day. Maybe she does.

"Honestly, were you expecting anybody else?"

I shake my head, but I can't look past the piles of rocks and debris. The Assembly guards had been in close pursuit until they just...weren't. "Are they...did you kill them?"

Mercy looks at me like I've said something strange. "Does it matter? They would have killed you."

I hadn't thought of it that way, and I guess Mercy's right. It doesn't matter. What's done is done.

But I'd still like to know.

There's a scraping noise behind us, sharp and drawn out. It's impossible to tell if it's coming from curious onlookers or Assembly guards finally making their way through the rubble, but Mercy doesn't wait to find out. She beckons me forward, bouncing impatiently on her toes as she waits for me to follow.

"But where are we—"

"I know it's out of character for you," she cuts in, "but I would highly recommend that you don't stop to argue right now."

It's not so much her harsh words that convince me to follow her as the way she looks as she says them. For the first time I can recall, Mercy's confident and carefree façade has fallen away like a burdensome mask. Underneath, her forehead is drawn with worry, and the wisps of dark hair that fall over her eyes can't quite hide how she's scanning the alleyway nervously. Mercy stands there, still bouncing on her feet, and I recognize that tension as the only way she can force herself to stay put for another second instead of running far, far away.

I recognize it because I can feel it within myself.

The scraping noise comes again, and this time it's clearly the rubble falling away from the wreckage in the middle of the road. There's no time to think and I can only run after her, put my trust in someone else yet again, hope I haven't screwed up too badly this time.

Mercy leads me in a furious chase throughout Gotten. At first, I think she's taking me back to the abandoned house and its hidden entrance to the Desperate camp, but she turns once more and I am utterly lost. We've left the heart of the city behind us and we enter the very fringes of Gotten, its buildings scattered amongst lengthening shadows until they seem like no more than shadows themselves.

I don't know how long we've been running—I don't even want to think about it—but as my heart races, my mind lingers on what might have happened to the people I left behind with every pounding footstep. Are they safe, or are they facing the Keeping even now?

Only when the last of the buildings are behind us and just an untouched layer of ice stands between us and Gotten's wall does Mercy slow down. I look everywhere for a place we can hide from the Assembly, but in a city where no inch of space seems to go unclaimed, I've never seen anywhere appear so deserted.

Mercy kneels down in the snow and begins digging through the ice, her hands already chapped and bleeding. "They used to use this field for farming," she explains, gesturing to the empty expanse of land. "Have you ever been out here before?"

I haven't. Up until now, I'd never had any reason to visit Gotten's fields, and the Assembly was never one to encourage sightseeing. Only the farmers needed to worry about our crops. I was no farmer, so I simply waited for new batches of produce to be sent to the supply, never stopping to wonder where they came from. Now, I know.