Chapter 1
They came; the seventh step up whimpering under their heavy gait, door hinges squealing like a rusty butterfly’s wing in need of greasing. Hushed voices echoing off the walls—too unprofessional to be them, yet it was. They always come just as the sun is beginning to rise, bringing with it the promise of a new try at life. That was the moment they knew we were at our weakest—snuggled in the protective cocoon of our beds, waiting to be born anew the next day.
I still hear her cries at night; wrapped up in my own nest of blankets, humming to myself, trying to dispel her pleas. Humming never works. Neither does writing, reading, or practically anything else. The only partial solution is to get out of bed, away from her memory.
But her memory lives everywhere, impossible to escape.
She lives in the scramble of lines she drew on the wall when we were three. She lives in the scratches on the wooden door frame marking her height. But she mostly lives in the early morning sun, gazing down on our world like the protective, rebellious person she is.
Was, I remind myself. Saints knows what became of her on the Other Side.
I make myself a mug of tea (chamomile—her favorite) and carry it over to the window overlooking the town square. It’s that time of night, the sun is beginning its slow ascent. It carries with it the colors that were Mackie’s favorite: the fiery red of a sunbeam’s shadow followed closely by the subtle violet of a lost boy’s hope.
I press my forehead against the frosty window like we used to as children and close my eyes. I’m in no mood to see the beautiful slurry of colors mixed with the horrid banners that litter the town square, on them written the Relocation Guidelines:
1.The year you are born you are a male that is deemed undesirable
2.The year you are born you are a female that is deemed undesirable or if the ratio is too high
3.On your 18th birthday if you are LGBTQIA+
4.If you have a mental or physical defect
5.If at any point you rebel against the government (including contacting the Other Side)
6.If you are of a race other than White, or of mixed race
7.If at any point you are deemed undesirable by a group of your peers
Guideline three is what got Mackie relocated to the Other Side. Few people know what becomes of the Undesired. It is rumored that they live across the wall in the ancient skeletons of buildings that once stood tall and feast on blood. Only the Runners know what it’s actually like there. Being a Runner is illegal of course—Sir (may Saints bless him) banned human trafficking a while back, back when he was young, and knew right from wrong. And before the US became a dictatorship and split in two, between the Desired and Undesired, of course. But human trafficking is necessary in these times. The 2:1 male: female birth ratio makes it so only half the men get a wife. Runners steal women from across the wall and sell them to the highest bidder. Many men are desperate enough to resort to such animalistic means.
I swallow a sob, Mackie’s cries still echoing in my ears, now mixed with the sinister whispers of the Takers. You were deemed Undesired by a group of your peers, you scrawny little … It’s been exactly two years to the day since she was ripped from her seemingly safe cocoon of blankets and since my life turned on its head. You’d think that everything would go back to normal, but now I’m unsure of what normal even means. Without Mackie’s tilted smile and annoying obsession with collecting houseplants, I don’t know what to do.
I shudder just thinking about what the Takers did to my twin.
My alarm (not that I need an alarm anymore—I’ve given up hope in sleeping past three) aggressively blares its wake up call, startling me out of my reflection of that night. I know that if I can’t stop the almost constant replay of the night, I’ll go mad. Just like they thought Mackie was.
But she’s not crazy.
But if she’s not crazy, why in Saint’s names did they take her?
Because she’s Undesired.
But she’s the least Undesired person I know.
Then why did they take her.
This last thought isn’t posed as a question, and it takes me by surprise. I suppress the urge to hurl my mug of tea at the window. Life’s just unfair.
I unfurl the blanket I wrapped around myself. It flutters to the ground like a pair of frail wings supporting a weighty body. I stare at it for a moment, trying to erase my thoughts. I shake my head.
Time to go to work.
