Edmund and Anna dragged Rain into theit house. Rain was seated at the dining chair. She pressed between her parents.
Edmund still couldn't make sense of what had happened. Why had Max suddenly come to their house and beaten his own daughter? Clearly it had something to do with Rain because she harbored a deep grudge against the Max family for shaming theirs.
"What was that about?" Anna asked Rain.
Rain shrugged.
Anna rose from her seat and stood level with her. "Rain, was this your doing?" she continued.
Rain smiled at her mother. "You know the answer, Mom," she said.
"But why?" Edmund asked. "Why did you do it?"
Rain turned to her father. "Because she betrayed Brother Felix and our family."
Edmund and Anna were stunned.
"Not only that, she and her family humiliated us in front of so many people with that slander. You know how Felix is, right? He would never assault a woman when he already had two women at home whom he respected dearly."
Edmund scratched his head, though there was nothing to scratch. "But why use violence to confront Verra? We could have handled it calmly."
"This is why you're always the easiest to fool, Dad, because you're too kind. Everything must be settled peacefully," Rain said, looking into her father's eyes. "Sometimes we need to use force, Dad. Don't just stay silent when we're being attacked."
Edmund and Anna exchanged a look. Then Rain left the house to give them time to think.
***
Rain walked toward her stall. People stared along the way, but she ignored them. When she arrived, she saw a group of thugs ransacking her goods.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Rain demanded of that men—men from the same class as her. "We're all Class F, why you destroy your own people's stalls?" she asked one of the market thugs.
"Because we need money, Rain," the thug replied.
"Who sent you?" Rain asked.
One of them pointed to someone inside a car, but the windows were tinted so Rain couldn't see. "Who?" she pressed.
"Mr. Marcus."
Rain's chest tightened with anger. "That corrupt bastard." She hurried to the car parked at the market entrance—only to be blocked by the same bodyguards she had encountered at her house. "Go away! Don't get in my way. This is my business with that fat man."
"If you want him, step over our dead bodies," one of the five bodyguards growled.
Without hesitation, Rain lunged and kicked them one by one. Her hands were lightning-fast. She locked on to each guard—men twice her size—raking fingers into their eyes, slamming bodies down, stomping heads. She became a ferocious force. She battered them relentlessly; blood flowed from their wounds. The guards were beaten senseless by Edmund's daughter.
Finally Rain subdued the bodyguards. The market thugs scattered and fled. Rain caught one of them. "Restore my stall to how it was."
"O-okay," he stammered.
Rain approached Marcus's car, but it was already pulling away. She sprinted after it, grabbed a woodcutter's axe from a vendor, and hurled it straight into the car's rear tire.
"Yes! Got you!" she shouted.
She reached the car and tried the handle, but it was locked by Marcus. She looked at the axe wedged in the tire, then picked it up, ready to smash the window, until her father intervened.
"What are you doing? Put that axe down. You could hurt someone," Edmund cried.
"But the man inside ordered the thugs to destroy our stall, Dad," Rain said.
"What? Are you sure?"
"Yes! That corrupt fat man paid those thugs to wreck us."
Edmund let go of her hand and began to walk away. Before he left, he turned back and said, "Do what you must, my lovely daughter. I won't stop you anymore."
Her father's words fired Rain up. She smashed the car window. Inside, Marcus cowered so badly he wet himself.
"You bastaaaaaaaard!" Rain grabbed Marcus by the collar and dragged him to the middle of the market.
Marcus trembled violently, begging Rain to release him, but she ignored his pleas and threw him into the crowd.
"There's a huge secret you've never known! When he came to my house, he told me the whole truth!" Rain shouted.
"What truth, Rain?" asked a woman who sold cleaning ash, Elizabeth.
Rain fixed her eyes on Marcus. "Do you have a child who participated in the Star Game?" she asked.
Elizabeth nodded. "Yes, long ago. About six years now. Why?"
"Do you know where your child is now?" Rain asked.
Elizabeth shook her head.
"Your child died during the game, just like my brother. I know it," Rain said, pointing at Marcus. "He told me!"
Elizabeth stepped closer to Marcus, her tears streamed down her face. "Is this true what Edmund's daughter says?" she asked.
Marcus fell silent. Rain planted her foot on his fat back. "Do you want me to kill you right now? If you die, you won't be able to eat cake anymore," she hissed.
Marcus looked at Rain standing behind him and stammered, "I-it's true. Your child is dead. Everyone who joined the Star Game."
Immediately the market erupted. People demanded to know if this was true. No one had ever known what the game actually involved, only the contestants' names that appeared on the billboard.
"Really?"
"This can't be."
"We've been deceived."
"This is outrageous."
"The Elite, with the help of corrupt officials, have stolen our wealth. We must rise up!" cried a man Rain's father's age, his eyes blazing. It was Neil, the father of Frederica, who had been a participant two years earlier.
"That's true, if the class chairman hadn't approved that game, none of our families would have died in vain. Those officials must have taken their cut from the Elites, especially that greedy Marcus!" Lidya spat.
The anger of Class F flared. They seized the fat official and asked him where he should be taken.
"Where will you take me?" Marcus whimpered.
"We'll stone you to death so the class' burden is lighter," Neil declared.
They dragged Marcus to the field, tied him to a post, and, one by one, began pelting him with bricks.
Blood gushed from Marcus's head. Someone had landed a brick straight on his skull. Marcus writhed as his own people—Class F—turned savagely on him.
***
The fury of Class F was spent. Before them lay a heap of a body, already being pecked at by crows, drenched in blood.
They exchanged glances.
"He's dead," one of them said.
"Look at the crows, that's a sign he's carrion," Lidya answered. "What should we do with his body? What if the Elite Troops arrest us for murder?"
Neil stepped forward to calm them. "Cut him up and cook him. That way there's no corpse for the Elite to use as evidence," he suggested.
A murmur ran through the crowd,bNeil's plan was brutal but practical.
"Remember how we once ate the bodies of our kin who died because of that birth-control program?" Neil continued.
The people of Class F looked at each other and nodded. There was grim truth in his words, so they agreed to Neil's wild plan.
***