Read The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf (The Tribe) for Free Online

haven’t got much time left, and I need you to understand how dangerous Neville is. Did you notice the windows?”
    “What windows?”
    “That’s what I mean. There weren’t any. Not in the machine room, and not in the room where you met Neville. Think about it. Why weren’t there any windows?”
    The answer was obvious. “So no one can see in.” The Tribe had heard lots of rumors about the machine but never any hard facts, and now I knew why. The only ones who ever saw that machine were helpless detainees or people who were completely loyal to Neville, like Connor. “Neville’s hiding the machine, even from people who work at the center.”
    “Yeah. You’ve got to be careful, Ash.” She gave me a hug and whispered, “I’m afraid I had to give them a memory that hurts.” And she was gone.
    I moved closer to the trunk of the tree, pressing my face to the gray bark and breathing in the eucalyptus scent of the leaves. It felt so real that for a few wonderful seconds, it was easy to forget that this wasn’t one of my beloved tuart trees. I tried to lose myself in it, to forget where I really was, and almost succeeded. Until the
crunch!
of the dog biting down on the bone echoed over the grasslands.
    The sound cracked powerfully across my skull, making me feel like my head was splitting open, and I found myself oddly suspended between two places, at once sitting in the tree and strapped to the chair in the room. An image began to form on the screen above the chair, a picture of a young boy walking through the Firstwood. I could see him clearly enough to make out all the places where his Gull City–blue clothing had been mended, and I knew I was strolling along beside him, although I couldn’t see myself. This was
my
memory, being played out from my perspective, and from somewhere in the room, Connor and Grey were watching it, too.
    The boy scampered along with quick, impatient movements. His small, nimble frame made him seem about eight years old, even though he was nearly ten.
I know which day this is
. I shut my eyes tight, hoping to see only darkness.
    Instead, I was pulled into the memory.

Jaz had been chattering since we left the camp, flitting from one subject to another and then back again. I couldn’t keep up with what he was saying, but that was all right, because he never stopped talking long enough for me to respond anyway. So I let him run on, focusing on his behavior. He was fidgety, jumpy, brimming with energy. In anyone else, it might have meant they were nervous. Not Jaz, though. He was himself, which meant he’d believed me when I’d said that the thing with the saurs was all taken care of. He had no idea what was coming.
    I examined the forest, making sure we were alone. We’d traveled some distance from the Tribe’s territory. The caves where we made winter camp, and the vegetable and fruit gardens that were lovingly tended by the Leafers, were far behind us now. I listened hard, but the only sounds were those of birds chirping, animals scurrying through the undergrowth, and the wind, blowing sorrowfully through the tapering, glossy green leaves of the tuarts. I really had expected someone to follow. Maybe Briony, who’d screamed at me that I didn’t have to do this. She thought everything would be okay if we apologized to the saurs on Jaz’s behalf. That was Bry all over, always thinking she could get out of a difficult situation with a few nice words and a pretty smile. Andreas, our only Scaly, had told her it wouldn’t work. The saurs were difficult to communicate with, even for a reptile speaker, but Andreas could talk to them well enough to know that they weren’t interested in an apology. They wanted something else entirely.
    They wanted Jaz.
    As he ran ahead of me, I tried to savor every last second with the brown-haired boy who’d always been my secret favorite among the youngsters. At first I’d loved him for being a Firestarter like Cassie, but I’d soon come to adore him