Queen

by Aimee Carter

  “I don’t care about raiding the manor,” said Celia. “I care about separating the impostor’s head from his body.”

  “If you kill Daxton—”

  “He isn’t Daxton.” Her voice rang out through the speakers, as clear as if she were standing right next to Knox. “How long have you known, Creed?”

  Knox stiffened. “Lila told me late in the summer. She found out when Daxton tried to assault her.”

  For a long moment, silence filled the office, and my heart pounded. “You’ve known for nearly six months, and you never said a word to me?” said Celia at last, her voice dangerously soft. “He tried to kill my daughter. He tried to kill me. All this time, all I had to do was tell the public who he really was—”

  “And what good would that have done?” said Knox. “At best, Daxton—”

  “Stop calling him Daxton.”

  Knox took a deep breath and released it. “At best, Victor Mercer would have done exactly what he’s doing now—deny it and use your family to discredit the claim. Augusta would have backed him up, and you would have come out of it looking like a lunatic.”

  “I could have leaked it to the press without my name attached.”

  “No newspaper in the country would have printed it. They’re completely under the government’s control. At best, Victor would have forced the most trustworthy and liked members of the Hart family into backing his claims. At worst, we would have been at war before we were ready. Victor would have pulled no stops to protect his secret, and the Blackcoats would be nothing more than a footnote in the history books, if that. I knew if I told you the truth before we were ready, everything we worked for would be ruined. And that is why I kept it from you.”

  Celia stared at him, her blue eyes wide and full of shock—or shame, maybe. Or sadness. Anger. Betrayal. All of it combined into something I couldn’t name. When she spoke, her voice trembled, as if it took every ounce of willpower she possessed to stop herself from bursting into flames. “How dare you.”

  “How dare you try to destroy everything we’ve worked for,” said Knox. “You’re blinded by anger and revenge. You’ve lost sight of the objective. This isn’t about vengeance or payback for what Victor’s done to you. This is about the country and its half a billion people counting on us succeeding. If you kill Victor now, you’ll only turn him into a martyr, and no one will ever know who he really was. No one will care, because to them, he is Daxton Hart. Is that what you want? For that monster to go down in history as your brother?”

  “Stick a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger,” snarled Celia, and a moment later, the screen went black.

  IV

  Burn

  Knox stood in the middle of the office, his shoulders slumped and his head down, taking one deep breath after another. I couldn’t tell if it was because he was trying not to lash out or break down or both.

  “That—” I began. Knox snapped around to look at me, his dark eyes already accusing. I dropped my folded arms and let them hang loosely at my side. As often as we bickered and fought, we were still on the same side. “That was pretty badass of you, you know. Standing up to her like that.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” His voice was tight and his words were clipped, and he lumbered over to the couch and dropped down gracelessly. “She’s going to raid Somerset and try to kill Daxton anyway.”

  “Can’t really blame her,” I said slowly, not wanting to upset him more than he already was. “Lila’s the only family she has left. Maybe she’ll get her out of there and spare Daxton.”

  Knox shook his head, his fingers tangling in his hair. “If she has a shot, she’ll take it. She isn’t thinking rationally.”

  “Maybe he won’t be there.”

  “We can play the maybe game all day, Kitty. In the end, we won’t know until it’s over.”

  I was quiet for a moment, my gaze drifting over to the black screen. There had to be something we could do. “Have you tried contacting Sampson? He could put a stop to this.”

  “She’ll anticipate that. Sampson knows he ought to stop her anyway. He’s the one who helped me come up with this playbook. If he has any say at all, he’s already trying.”

  “Then maybe he’ll succeed.”

  Knox sighed wearily. “Maybe. What do you want, Kitty?”

  “I—” A pang of pity needled my side as I took in the circles under his eyes and the lines in his face that seemed to grow deeper every day. Now wasn’t exactly the time, but there would never be a good time for this. “Did you hear Lila’s speech?”

  “Yes. I take it you did, too.”

  I nodded. “Most of it. You know she’s saying those things under duress.”

  “It doesn’t matter. She’s still saying them.”

  “But—Benjy noticed something.” I took a step closer to the sofa. He watched me, his dark gaze unwavering. “She’s shoving it down our throats, that Daxton isn’t Victor. She said it at least a dozen times. Benjy said she’s pushing too hard—that any idiot with half a brain can tell she’s protesting too much.”

  “Only those who are willing to hear it,” he said. “Perception, remember?”

  I frowned. “Still. Don’t take this out on her.”

  “You’ve already pardoned her,” he said. “I’m not going to undermine you, not when the public needs to trust you. But you will do and say exactly what I tell you to from now on, understood?”

  Relief flooded through me, and I shrugged. “I could say yes right now, but we both know that would be a lie. But I do promise to talk to you about what I want to say ahead of time, if it comes to me. If something’s impromptu—”

  “Try to do as little of that as possible,” said Knox.

  “I’ll do my best.” I glanced at the door. “Dinner’s almost ready. Are we calling a meeting?”

  Knox sighed and straightened, his hair sticking up. “Nothing we can do here to stop it. Whatever happens is going to happen, whether the rest of the Blackcoats are worrying about it or not. And the last thing we need is half of them agreeing with Celia while the other half agrees with me.”

  “So...that’s a no?”

  “That’s a no,” he confirmed, and I furrowed my brow. I couldn’t remember any issue within the past two weeks that the Blackcoats hadn’t discussed and dissected ad nauseam. The idea of Knox hiding something this big from them was practically unfathomable.

  “If Celia and the D.C. Blackcoats go through with it, you’re going to upset everyone here when they find out you knew ahead of time.”

  “I have no intention of letting them find out,” said Knox, and he leveled his gaze at me. “Can I trust you?”

  It was the first time in weeks that he had even asked, let alone offered me the chance to prove it, and I nodded. “I’ll grab some dinner for us.”

  “For us?” he said.

  “I’m staying in here until we know what happened,” I said. Knox started to protest, but I cut him off. “Don’t pretend you’re not going to sit in this room all night, scouring the news for any sign of the raid. I’m watching with you.”

  He rubbed his face with his hands. “It won’t change what happens. If Somerset falls, there’s nothing we can do but watch it burn. And if it does—”

  “We’re screwed. I know.” I opened the door. “Chicken or tuna?”

  “Chicken,” he said, and as I stepped out of the room, he added, “Kitty?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  There was a note of warmth in his voice that hadn’t been there before, and I offered him a small, but genuine smile. “You’re welcome.”

  In the kitchen, Benjy helped two other Blackcoats prepare enough plates to feed everyone staying in the manor, and before I stepped into his view, I watched him chat with the woman with the scar running down her
face. He smiled broadly, his eager voice filtering over the clatter of dishes, and for a moment I let myself be carried back to the countless evenings we’d spent in the kitchen of our group home, helping Nina with dinner or washing up after. The cold marble of Mercer Manor fell away, replaced with wood and brick and heat from the fireplace. I would have given anything to go back there, even for just a day, and have Benjy look at me like I was me again. Maybe I was imagining it, but now that I saw him like this—with someone else, when he didn’t know I was watching—it was clear that there was something missing from the way he talked when we were around each other. An easiness to our banter, jokes that made us both laugh, the way we used to tease each other without wondering if it was the last conversation we would ever have—even though I couldn’t name it, I knew it wasn’t there anymore. Maybe he was the one who felt he couldn’t wholly be himself now that I wasn’t completely me.

  After I’d been Masked, we hadn’t had much time at Somerset to be together, and any time we did have was spent worrying that someone would catch us. In Elsewhere, before the battle, we’d been separated—and, for several days, I’d thought he was dead. That all-encompassing grief had turned into unbridled joy and relief when Knox had revealed Benjy was, in fact, alive—and the weeks we’d spent together since had been comfortable and more like a taste of home than I’d thought I would ever have again. But maybe that was an illusion. Because we weren’t home; we would never go home again. Benjy was the closest thing I would ever have to home again, but as I watched him turn to ladle gravy onto a plate, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was, yet again, holding him back.

  He caught my eye, and something in his expression changed. Once upon a time, seeing me would have sparked joy, and to some extent, it still did. But it was tainted with something else now, and I couldn’t blame him for it. As much as I knew he loved me, I was also tied to the worst memories of his life, and I didn’t know how many more he could stand before he cracked. I’d lost count of the number of times he’d nearly died because of me, and each one was another lifetime of guilt looming over me, knowing I’d never be able to make any of this up to him. We’d been here before, with me holding him back—when I’d achieved only a III on my test, and he was bound to get a VI. I would never be good enough for him, and the more I tried to hold on to him, the harder his life would be. The more his smile would fade every time he looked at me.

  “Kitty—are you hungry?” He quickly finished preparing the current plate before grabbing another. “Chicken, right?”

  “Two. One for Knox, too,” I said, moving forward to help him. The portions were meager at best, but they were exactly what the former prisoners ate, too, and after today, I had no complaints. “How did everything go with Strand?”

  “We’ve brainstormed a few ideas that we can implement starting almost immediately. It won’t be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is, right?” He grinned. “Rivers told me about the tunnels. If they really do extend as far as he thinks they do, that will make our jobs infinitely easier.”

  “Yeah, well, let’s hope he’s right,” I said. It was hard to say when he’d never tried to explore them, but then again, with the guards keeping such a close eye on the prisoners, I wasn’t sure how he ever could have slipped away long enough to do so.

  “He said you’re going to start mapping it tonight—do you mind if I join you?” added Benjy, and I blinked. With the news of Celia’s plan to attack Somerset, I’d completely forgotten.

  “Actually, do you mind taking my place? I—” I hesitated. “I’m going to spend the evening with Knox.”

  Internally I winced, knowing how it must have sounded to Benjy, and sure enough, his hand stilled in the middle of placing a piece of chicken on a plate. “Oh. I thought we could spend some time together tonight.”

  Guilt twisted in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t tell Benjy the truth about why I wanted to stay with Knox, not without revealing Celia’s call, but I owed him some kind of explanation. “I need to talk to him about everything going on with Lila,” I said as steadily as I could. “If we don’t come up with a counterattack soon, we’ll lose any ground we gained this morning.”

  Benjy eyed me, and I could sense his uncertainty. I gave him a questioning look.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said, and he finished preparing our plates. “If you finish early, come find me.”

  “I will,” I promised, and taking the plates, I forced a smile before heading back to the office, feeling worse with each step I took. I hated keeping secrets from him, but the more time I spent as Lila, the more of a habit it became.

  As I walked away, able to feel his gaze burning into the back of my skull, I made myself a promise, too. After this war was over, there would be no more secrets between me and Benjy. Even if it meant telling the whole ugly truth, at least we would be honest with one another.

  Knox and I settled in on the sofa, him sitting rigidly while I propped my feet up on a footstool. Every screen in his office displayed a different news channel, and together we watched as the anchors droned on and on about acts of terrorism that hadn’t happened and shortages that didn’t exist. Whatever Daxton’s game was, it involved feeding the public lie after lie about our campaign. With communication between cities nearly nonexistent, few had any way of disproving the news channels’ claims. Or any reason not to believe them.

  “How can you stand watching this?” I said as I ate the last bite of hard biscuit. “It’s all lies. Everything they say is just a bunch of propaganda for Daxton and the Ministers.”

  “I remind myself that out of all the crimes the government commits, lying to the public is pretty low on the list. Every government does it, no matter how good their intentions are or how much they care about their people.” He glanced at me. “We’re doing it right now, to our little part of the world.”

  I scowled. “That’s not what I—”

  “I know what you meant, Kitty. And I gave you my answer.” He leaned back, his posture still stiff. “Once you accept that everything that comes out of a news anchor’s mouth is propaganda, it gets easier to read between the lines. And that’s what I’m listening for. The things they aren’t telling us.”

  I fell silent for several minutes, listening to a man drone on about how the Hart family was holding together during this difficult time, in the midst of such terrible and hurtful accusations from someone they had treated like family. It was easy to sniff out the real story when I already knew it, and I waited for another to come on.

  “How did you get started with the Blackcoats, anyway?” I said. “I know you knew Celia through Lila, but—what, did the three of you have dinner one day and decide to start a revolution? How did that happen?”

  “Something like that,” he muttered. “Celia’s never been particularly subtle about her political ideology. I sought her out, and the rest fell into place.”

  “Wait—was your relationship with Lila an arrangement, then?” I said as a piece of the puzzle clicked into place. It made sense—Lila and Knox had never seemed to get along. “Was it a way to spend time together without being discovered?”

  “Yes,” said Knox, his tone growing shorter. “If it’s all the same to you, I’m not in the mood for conversation right now.”

  It wasn’t all the same to me. I still had a million questions to ask, ones I’d gathered every minute of every day we’d been forced to play pretend. But tensions were high enough right now, and I didn’t want to give him any reason to try to kick me out.

  So for the rest of the night, as the hours dragged by, I kept quiet. Sometimes Knox would make a comment about a story, and I would chime in with a response, but he never elaborated further than that. Those occasional remarks grew less and less frequent as midnight came and went, and sometime around one in the morning, I said hopefully, “Maybe Sampson talked her out of it.”

  Knox’s j
aw tightened. I set my hand over his clenched fist, and only then did he relax marginally. “If we haven’t heard anything by dawn, I’ll believe it.”

  Sometime around two, I fell asleep. I didn’t mean to—I’d promised I’d stay up with Knox, and I wanted to. But my ribs ached, the couch was warm, and the lull of voices was too much to resist. I rested my head against the armrest, promising myself I’d only close my eyes. Within seconds, I was fast asleep.

  The sound of sirens jolted me awake, and I sat up, my head spinning. “What—?”

  Beside me, Knox’s expression was impassive, but his fingers were digging into his thighs. The sirens weren’t coming from Elsewhere. They were coming from the televisions.

  Every news network had a different view of the same scene: an image of the front gate of Somerset. Lights from emergency vehicles flashed across the brick wall, and a camera zoomed in on a team of Shields climbing over onto the property.

  My heart sank. “They raided Somerset after all. Is Daxton...?”

  “I don’t know,” said Knox. “If Celia had the chance, she took it. I guarantee you.”

  Wide-awake now, I leaned forward and watched the images unfolding on the screens. It was the middle of the night in D.C., too, but light flooded Somerset like it was midday. Gunshots sounded in the distance, and I briefly closed my eyes, trying not to imagine where those bullets might wind up. I may not have known the other Blackcoats well, but we were still on the same side.

  Someone knocked on the door, and I jumped. Strand poked his head inside, first glancing at Knox and me, then the televisions. “You’re watching this?”

  Knox nodded. “Call a meeting for dawn. However this turns out, we should know by then.”