When I woke up, my neck was throbbing. I rubbed the area where the tranquilizer had struck my made contact with my body and felt a large lump where the dart had embedded into my skin.

I was lying alone in cold cell, chained to the wall as if I were a high-risk criminal that might hurt someone if let free. In a way, I suppose I couldn't blame the Guardians for seeing me as dangerous. Between helping release hundreds of No Name women from captivity beneath the Guardians' noses, overpowering James in the barn and leaving him to die, and escaping Grayson without detection, they probably feared what I was capable of. The idea brought me a strange sense of satisfaction. It was a pleasant change of pace to be taken seriously as a woman, even if it was because I was a criminal.

I glanced around the cell, wondering how long I would remain here before my trial. The room was the opposite of the forest in many ways- cold and bare, with monochromatic stone walls and hard floors, whereas the woods had been warm and teeming with color. It felt like a dream now, a pleasant vision that I didn't want to wake up from. How badly I wished that things had worked out in the forest; that Ruby, Gracie, and I could have continued to live in the woods and build the little cottage and garden we had envisioned. Being so close to having freedom and building a new life just to have it snatched from my grasp hurt worse than if we had never left Grayson at all.

Hours passed in silence as I stared at the cold, gray cell walls, awaiting my fate. I didn't know how long I had been there, but judging by the feeling of sandpaper in my throat, it had been close to a day.

"Hello?" I called through the small slit in the locked door. My voice was hoarse and cracked from dehydration. "Is anyone there? I need a drink of water."

If there was a guard on the other side of the door, they gave no indication that they had heard my request. In fact, no one came to my cell during the rest of the day. With no one to talk to and nothing to do, I had nothing to do but think. My mind ran wild, consumed by my guilt of making things worse for Ruby and potentially leaving Gracie as an orphan. Was Gracie okay? Had we made it back in time to get her to the doctor for treatment? What would happen to her now that her father was dead and her birth and adoptive mothers might be joining him? And what was happening to Ruby? Was she imprisoned in a cell like mine, or was she already... I couldn't bear to think of the alternative.

As I continued waiting in my cell, I grew increasingly more parched. No one arrived, not even to give me food or water. I was abandoned, left alone and forgotten by those on the outside.

By the end of the second day, I was so dehydrated that I could barely stand. There was a small bowl of dirty rainwater in the corner of the room that I would normally never dream of ingesting for fear it was laden with disease, but I was so painstakingly thirsty that I gulped the entire thing down without a second thought.

By the third day of solitary confinement, I felt slightly crazed, longing for any form of human interaction. I began murmuring to myself and cursing at the heavens, asking how they could betray me this way. Had I lived my life so maliciously that God had completely forsaken me, leaving me to suffer so intensely? Was this my punishment for my adulterous behavior, for betraying my husband and partaking in actions that would ultimately lead to his death? Only my thoughts of Ruby and Gracie kept me from losing my mind.

I continued to beg for water through the slit in the door, but it never came. No matter how much I cried out, I was ignored. It was as though I was the only human being left on the planet, like I was left alone to rot in this cell. I was beginning to wonder if this was how the Grayson officials were going to kill me. This would be a discreet way to do it, just starve or dehydrate me to death in a prison where none would be the wiser.

Then the sickness came. I wasn't sure if it was from the potentially contaminated water I had ingested or if I was having a belated reaction to the radiation poisoning, but soon enough, I was on my hands and knees, retching into the corner of the room, shaking from the force of the exertion. Before long, I was begging for death, starting to think this would be a sweet reprieve from the agonized burning in my throat and the ache in my stomach as I continued to dry heave, nothing left in my stomach to expel. Then I blacked out.

***************

I woke up to the sound of rhythmic beeping. I blinked several times, clearing my mind of the grogginess as I stared at the florescent light flickering above me. It took me a moment to realize that I was in a hospital, free from the confines of my prison cell, but chained to my bed, still deemed a dangerous criminal. Other than a massive headache, I felt a little better. I suspected the drugs being pumped into my arm was the cause of my relief.

When the hospital door opened, I jumped, surprised to see Dr. Winthrop. He greeted me with a smile.

"You've caused quite the stir, Mrs. Moberly," he said, glancing at one of the machines I was hooked up to and writing the figures down in my chart.

"So I've heard," I said, my voice cracking from lack of use. "Where's Ruby?"

He glanced at me for a moment, hesitant, before glancing into the hallway, making sure the coast was clear. "You didn't hear it from me, but your No Name woman is in a room down the hall. She is also being treated for symptoms of radiation poisoning. You were both very fortunate you came back when you did."

Dr. Winthrop checked my breathing and put a cuff on my arm to check my blood pressure.

"And Gracie? Is she okay?" I asked, my heart aching as I thought about the amount of misery our sweet girl was in when I saw her last.

"It was touch and go for a while," he admitted. "We had to put her in a medically induced coma until we could contain the swelling in her brain. But she seems to be doing okay now."

"A coma?" I mumbled quietly. The idea caused me to burst into tears. "What have I done?"

Dr. Winthrop handed me a tissue from the bedside table and patted my arm consolingly as I wept into my hands. "You brought her back the moment you saw that something was wrong. That's all that matters, not anything that happened before," he said. "She will be just fine. You all will be."

"Will we though?" I asked through my sobs. I looked up at him, his face blurry behind my film of tears. "You and I both know what will happen to me next."

His brows furrowed in thought. "You never know. Maybe the officials will forgive your crimes." I looked at him questionably and he averted his eyes, unable to look at me. "Just show them how sorry you are at the trial tomorrow, and maybe they will show mercy."

"Tomorrow?" I asked.

He gave a sad smile. "Yes. The entire city has been called to attend the trial and sentencing. It's going to be a big ordeal. A lesson to the rest of the city, by the looks of it."

I nodded, the tears stopping. It made sense. The Grayson officials would want to make an example of me, to let the world know that it didn't matter if you were the wife of a powerful Grayson man, if you broke the rules, you would suffer the consequences. Strangely, I was at peace with the idea of my upcoming trial. No matter how this ended, soon enough, this would all be over.

***************

The next morning, I was discharged from the hospital and brought straight to a van that would carry me to the courthouse. Ruby was already inside, her auburn hair in dishevels. My heart dropped when I saw her face, scabbed and covered with bruises. She tried to give me a small, discreet smile to ease my worries, but it caused her pain to do so. I let out a sigh- leave it to Ruby to try to console me when she had suffered far more greatly than I had.

We didn't speak during the ride. After several days of being separated, I wanted to hold her and tell her how much I loved her one final time, but there were half a dozen guards in the van with us, and judging by Ruby's injuries, they weren't the tolerant type. I suppose they blamed us for making them look like fools, that we were able to not only free the No Name woman, but escape Grayson without capture. No matter what lies the government told the people of Grayson, there was no way to hide that their Guardians had failed to do their job.

The best I could do was caress Ruby's hand against my own, being discreet to avoid detection. It was a small gesture, not noticeable to anyone but the two of us, but it spoke volumes. It said all of the things I wished I could say aloud: I love you, I don't regret any of it, and that I'm here by your side until the very end.

When we arrived at the courtroom, the sidewalk was brimming with protesters. As we exited the car, the crowd erupted with noise. Men of all ages shouted at us, calling us devils, telling us to burn in hell. Some women joined them, but most were either absent, or staring toward the ground in silence, meek and chaste like a good wife.

One face, however, stood out among the others- Delilah Wilburn. Caleb's wife stood among the crowd, her children clutching to her side. Her forehead was creased as though unsure if she should be there. But she stood firm, determined to be a friendly face in the crowd. Of course she would want to be there for Ruby, even if it was the last time she would ever see her friend alive. It's what Caleb would have wanted.

Ruby and I took a seat beside one another at the center of the room, the main attraction in the circus that was Grayson. For the first time in our nation's history, we had made it out of the city without being caught. We had freed women who were deemed prisoners by the government. If the hateful glares of those citizens sitting closest to us were any indication on what our future would be, the officials wouldn't show any leniency.

The panel who would decide our fate filed into the room, all older men who were known to have multiple wives, sending their old ones to the Factories almost as quickly as they could attend their Awakening Ceremony. No matter what Dr. Winthrop said about admitting my faults, there would be no mercy shown today.

Once the panel was settled, they called their first witness to the stand.

"Emilia Bowen," the head panelist called.

I furrowed my brows. I vaguely remembered the name, but the woman who stood up was unfamiliar to me. She was a young woman with strawberry blonde hair and dark eyes made her way to the stand. She was pregnant. Very pregnant. As though she could give birth any day now.

"Mrs. Bowen," the prosecutor started. "Please tell the panel about your interactions with Mia Moberly."

The woman nodded. "Mia and her friend Charlotte were members of my childhood church. From the time we were little girls, they would talk and laugh during the sermons, showing blatant disrespect for the church. I should have seen it then, but they were going down the wrong path.

"As we got older, their malicious tendencies increased. Once, I overheard them talking about the Awakening Ceremony and how they wished they could go through life without having children. I have no doubt that this atrocious way of thinking was why Charlotte's baby died."

I clenched my teeth so tightly, those closest to me turned at the sound of my teeth snapping together.

"Calm down, Mia," Ruby mumbled. "They're just trying to get a rise out of you."

"Well, it's working," I said through clenched teeth. But Ruby's words helped calm me enough to keep my wits about me. I had to be calm, not just for my sake, but for Ruby's too.

Next, the panel called Sister Margaret to the stand. She went on and on about how she knew during the Awakening Ceremony that I would be a troubled wife, that this was the reason it had taken me so long to conceive a child. She even recalled the on instance in the clinic where I implied James would hurt me if I didn't become pregnant.

"Of all the preposterous accusations!" she exclaimed. "It takes a special type of evil to speak such ill of your husband. There's no denying that there's a devil in that girl."

Dr. Winthrop was called next, and to his credit, he kept his responses short and sweet. He only answered when he absolutely had to, and those responses were well thought out, said in a way that told the truth without implicating me. He even dared to give me a discreet wink as he climbed from the stand.

"We have one final witness to call to the stand," the head panelist said. "Mrs. Moberly's husband."

My mouth dropped open in shock. I turned around to see James walking up the aisle toward the stand. He was deathly pale and walked slowly, as though exhausted. A patch of his hair had been shaved away so that I could see dozens of large staples in his scalp, closing the gaping hole that used to be there. As he passed, he gave me and Ruby an arrogant smile, as though bragging that he had survived our attempts to kill him.