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As asped It was like nothing I’d ever felt before Silk, I repeated in my head I knew the word but had never actually touched the fabric before I squeezed it inthe way it was almost sheer and the way the sun reflected back from it Then I turned to Aron, ive it back to hioing to throw it in the scrap bin You’re sh; you can use the pieces to lanced down at ray cotton dress I wore, plain and loose-fitting like a sack I tried to iainst ht, cool and slippery
When Brooklynn arrived, she dropped her bag at Aron’s feet As usual, she didn’t say "Goodanyway
Unlike his father, there wasn’t an unkind bone in Aron’s body Or ht to describe the elder Grayson Or rude Or lazy It didn’ttraits that his father possessed had apparently bypassed his son
"What? You didn’t bring ?" She jutted her full lower lip in a pout, and her dark eyes flashed enviously as she eyed the silk in ed too et You say that now, but next time it’ll be for Charlie too"
I smiled at Brook’s nickname for Aron He was taller than Brooklynn now, taller than both of us, yet she still insisted on calling hiet
I slipped the delicate fabric intowhat, exactly, I would make from it, already anxious to put needle and thread to it
Brook led the way as we moved around the peri As always, we took the long way, avoiding the central square I’d like to think that it was Brook’s or even Aron’s idea--or that either of thes that happened in the square as I was--but I doubted that was true I knew it bothered e crackled: "ALL SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY MUST BE REPORTED TO YOUR NEAREST PATROL STATION"
"Passports," Aron announced soleiant archway that led to the city streets He reached beneath his shirt, just as Brook and I did, pulling out our IDs
There were more andovernight This one was no different from most: four armed soldiers, two for each line--one for the men and one for the women and children After the photo on each Passport was visuallyit, the identification card was scanned through a portable electronic device
The checkpoints didn’t matter, really; they weren’t ht to keep fro freely about the city To Brook and Aron and me, they were simply another securitywithin the borders of our own country
And if you asked Brooklynn, the checkpoints were a bonus, new opportunities to practice her flirting techniques
Brook and I stood in our line, re silent as aited our turn While our Passports were being scanned into the system and aited to be cleared, I stood back and watched as Brook batted her t Bas Bted her hick black lashes at the young soldier holding her card
He glanced down at the scanner, and then back to her again, and the corner of his mouth rose subtly, almost unnoticeably Brook stepped closer than she needed to when the light on the portable co her
"Thank you," she purred as she held his gaze, her voice low and husky She slipped the Passport down the front of her shirt,new to us They’d been issued for as far back as anyone could remember But it was only in the last few years that we’d been forced to start wearing them in order to be "tracked," so that the queen and her officials knehere ere at all tihtening their stranglehold on the crown
I’d once seen someone taken into custody at one of the checkpoints, a wo another person’s Passport She’d passed the visual inspection, but when the card was scanned, the little light on the reen The Passport had been reported stolen
The queen had no tolerance for crime Theft was treated just as severely as treason or murder would be: All were punishable by death
"Charlie!" Aron’s voice draggedto be late for school, as I tucked my Passport back inside the front of my dress and ran to catch up As I reached the from the crowded square we’d just left behind
None of us flinched or even faltered in our steps Not one of us so e that we’d even heard the sound, not ere so near the guards at the checkpoint ere alatching
I thought briefly of the woman I’d seen that day, the one with the stolen Passport, and I wondered what it had been like for her, standing on the gallows in the square surrounded by a crowd of onlookers People who jeered at her for the crime she’d committed I wondered if her family had come to watch, if they’d seen the trapdoor drop open beneath her feet If they’d closed their eyes when the rope had snapped her neck, if they’d hile her feet swayed lifelessly beneath her