Free Forged by Erin Bowman

there until I see what I need. Her pupils shrink under direct light, then expand when I move the beam away. Drastically. It’s her. I let go, and she pushes me off, rubs her sore arm.
    â€œWhat is the matter with you? You weren’t supposed to follow me! Didn’t you see me shaking my head?”
    â€œGray?” Blaine’s voice echoes through the building, and a moment later he stumbles upon the two of us. His expression is nothing but shock—that Emma really is here, that I wasn’t imagining things.
    â€œYou have to go,” she says. “Before they come. They’reusing me to get to you and you need to leave. Both of you. Right now.”
    â€œYou heard her,” Blaine says.
    But I’m still staring at Emma, confused, bewildered. “Why did you even show yourself if . . . I don’t . . .”
    â€œThey’ve had me in town for a few days, hoping I’d make contact with you. I thought they were crazy—why would you be in some random AmWest town?—but they were holding my mother’s life over my head, so I played along. And then there you were, today, out of nowhere, just standing along the Gulf.” She pauses for a moment to really look at me. Tears pool in her eyes. “Please go. You can’t be here.”
    â€œGray,” Blaine urges, tugging my arm.
    â€œI’m not leaving you again,” I say to Emma. “Come with us. We’ve got people that can keep you safe.”
    She shakes her head. “They’re watching me. You have to leave.” The tears are streaming freely now, down her face, her neck.
    â€œDammit, Gray!” Blaine actually hauls me backward. I turn and shove him as hard as I can. He stumbles, and when he catches his balance, he is furious. “Will you separate your heart and your head for one minute? Use your brain! This isn’t right. We need to get out of here. Finish the trade and head back to the bookshop.”
    â€œScrew the damn trade, Blaine! Screw the trade, and screw you.”
    I turn back to Emma, but she is no longer alone. There’s a man restraining her, his grip tight on her wrist. I don’t know where he came from. I didn’t hear anyone else enter the building, but then again, I was yelling like a madman.
    A second man steps between two looms. Like always, a smoke is pinched between his lips. He exhales in my general direction, then smiles.
    â€œGage?” I don’t mean for it to come out as a question, to sound so obviously stunned.
    Emma is screaming for us to run, but there are two more men already bearing down on Blaine. I wish I had a knife, or a gun, or anything other than a worthless flashlight. All that’s left is my fists, and I don’t even have a chance to use them. When I pivot to face Gage, his arm is already swinging, a club barreling at my head.
    The world snuffs out like a candle.

EIGHT
    I THINK WE’RE ON WATER . It feels like the floor beneath my feet is moving separately from me. My hands are bound in my lap, but I’m able to reach back and check where I was clubbed. I find a massive welt and wince.
    I’m lucky it’s not worse. I’m lucky I’m not dead.
    â€œHow are you feeling?”
    Gage.
    We’re in a cramped bedroom with an extremely low ceiling. I’m on one bed, and he’s on another, both feet planted on the skinny patch of floor that separates us. No longer in the dimly lit factory, I can see he has a black eye and wonder if Bree managed to clock him last night. The thought almost makes me smile. Then I hear the unmistakable sound ofwaves against a hull. We must be on water after all. Going who knows where.
    â€œYou’re a snake, ratting us out like that.”
    â€œYou act like it was easy,” he says, “but you’ve seen how Nick operates. He had me deliver your lodging instructions in code , for God’s sake! It took months of eavesdropping before I even caught wind of his