Amara Bennett's Arc

Chapter 1 of 13

Amara Bennett wanted to lead the rebellion, but tonight the rebels wanted to kill her. She stood at the mouth of their hideout, a frozen pit ringed with ice and broken timber. Six of them watched her from the shadows. Amara was small, barely reaching their shoulders, and she could feel them counting that against her. A scarred cat slipped between the timbers and rubbed her boot. Nobody laughed. The tallest rebel stepped forward and leveled his own weapon at her chest. "You walked out of the regime's prison," he said. "Only informants walk out." "I escaped," Amara said. Her voice did not shake, but her hands were cold. "I want what you want. I want them gone." "Words," he said. "Prove it, or you go in the pit." She had no papers. No dead officer to name. Nothing they would believe. If she gave them nothing, they would shoot her and drop her body into the ice. She had one thing on her body, and one thing in her coat. Amara pulled her sleeve to her elbow. She turned her forearm to the fire's light. The prisoner number stood out in bold, worn ink. D20979. "They burn this into everyone they cage," she said. "You can't fake it. You can't buy it. I earned it in their cells." The rebels leaned in. One woman traced the digits with her eyes and went pale. Amara guessed she had lost someone behind those walls. But the tall man did not lower his weapon. "Tattoos get carved off corpses," he said. "You could wear a dead man's arm." So the number was not enough. Amara reached slowly into her coat. Every gun in the pit followed her hand. She drew out the officer's sidearm and held it flat on her palm, offering it. The weapon was black and red, marked with the regime's eagle and the command crest. The tall man's face changed the moment he saw it. "Only their commanders carry these," Amara said. "I took it off the man who ran my block. He's dead in the snow now. A spy brings you lies. I brought you his gun." The woman took the sidearm and turned it in her hands. She checked the crest, the serial line, the worn grip. Then she looked at the tall man and nodded once. He lowered his weapon at last. "You're in," he said. "For now." Amara let her breath out. She had bought her way through the door. But the woman kept the sidearm, and the tall man kept his eyes on her, and she understood the cost. She had proven she could reach inside the regime. Now they would expect her to do it again. The cat curled by the fire. Amara pulled her sleeve back down and stepped into the pit, one of them at last, and already owing more than she could pay.