Word and Breath by Susannah Noel Page B

“I don’t want this, Jenson. I never asked for this, and it’s not fair of you to drag me into it.”

    Jenson tightened his lips for a minute, as if she’d annoyed him, but he didn’t show his reaction in any other way.

    Riana sat in silence, panting and glaring at him.

    Until finally he reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and retrieved enough currency to pay for their meals. Leaving it on the table, he said, “Walk with me, Riana.”

    She just stared at him suspiciously. “Where are we going?”

    “Just onto the street. I want to show you something.”

    She didn’t trust him. She knew he’d try to get to her in any way he could, but she didn’t think she was in imminent danger from him.
     
    So Riana slowly got up and fell in stride with him as they left the café. They walked wordlessly to the corner of the block.

    Jenson just stood there, so Riana looked around. It was just a normal city corner—two busy streets intersecting, offices, stores, restaurants lining the block, traffic signals herding the cars and pedestrians into a semblance of order.

    After several people had pushed past her to cross the street, Riana let out a ragged breath. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

    Jenson was half a head taller than her, but he didn’t look down at her. His eyes were fixed on a small produce stand across the street—a few bins of vegetables out in front and more inside the storefront. “That business has been in the owner’s family for four generations. The current owner barely scrapes by, but she refuses to give the family business up.”

    Riana saw a tiny woman with white hair come out with a basket and start picking through the bin of apples. “Okay. I realize that’s rare—a nice kind of throwback to the past. But it’s not going to melt my heart with some kind of sentimental impulse and get me to change my mind.”

    Jenson slanted his eyes toward her for a minute. Then focused on the small woman again. “Every morning of her life, she’s gotten up at dawn to get the day’s produce.” He paused, maybe strategically or maybe because of what he was about to say. “For the last two years, she’s gotten up an hour earlier so she can hide certain messages we need to circulate in pieces of fruit.”

    Riana gaped at him. And then at the diminutive, harmless woman. “What? Why are you telling me that? I don’t want to hear—”

    Jenson ignored her and continued, “Look to your left, to the boy selling newspapers.”

    Riana turned despite herself and saw the redheaded boy—maybe eight years old—selling the day’s images of current events put out by the Union. “Jenson,” she warned, “Don’t you dare tell me—”

    He went on, as if she’d never voiced her protestations. “He’s not even nine, and both of his parents were killed in the Horai Riots. And once a week he inserts an extra page into a hundred papers—and then sells them to members of the Front.”

    Riana wanted to scream. Instead, she put her hands over her ears in a silly gesture of denial. “Stop it, Jenson. I mean it. I don’t want to know this. You’re putting these people in danger by telling me this.”

    Jenson turned to face her and wrapped his fingers around her wrists, pulling her hands down in front of her. “You’re not going to turn them in. I know you, Riana. Give it up. Find your purpose. Be who you’re intended to be.”

    At the edge of her control—trapped between crying and raging—Riana shook herself free from him and rubbed her wrists where he’d been gripping them. “Stop it!”

    When her loud voice attracted attention, she lowered it, although the fury in her tone was unabated. “How dare you, Jenson. How dare you drag me into this when you know I don’t want to get involved? All I’ve ever wanted is to be left alone. I don’t care if you think I’m a heartless coward. I’m not going jump into something that’s so much risk—not when there’s no chance of