by Aimee Carter
“You gave me a second chance with her,” he said. “And the past few months...they’ve been a gift. I got to say everything I wanted to say. I got to tell her how much I loved her and how much she meant to me. But she stayed because of me. She let Daxton catch her because of me. I was always holding her down, and I’m glad—” Another sob escaped him, and it took him a moment to regain his composure. “I’m glad she finally had the courage to leave me. She deserved to be free.”
“She didn’t want to leave you,” I said softly. “She loved you, and she made sure I knew how important protecting you was.”
“She was always trying to protect me, but she should have been protecting herself.” Greyson turned to me, his eyes red and puffy. “I don’t care what promises you made her. Promise me you won’t make the same mistake.”
My throat tightened, and I swallowed hard. “I can’t make you that promise. I’m sorry.”
He closed his eyes wearily and leaned back against the headboard. Another minute passed, and at last he whispered, “We’re going to kill him.”
“Yeah,” I said. “We are.”
* * *
I waited for the news of my death to hit the media, but it never did.
Part of me was glad. Even though Benjy and Knox knew better than to believe everything they heard on the news, I didn’t want to give them any inkling that they might have lost me. Not before I could explain what had happened.
But the other part of me—the part that had given Daxton’s speech and knew that if news broke that I’d mysteriously died only hours later, everything I’d said would be thrown into question—wished Daxton had crowed about it from the rooftops. He certainly did about everything else. The camera crew even had an interview with him and the former Minister Bradley the day after Lila’s death, and Bradley was all too pleased to discuss how the Ministers of the Union had felt that, during this time of war, it would be best for the country if the Prime Minister could bypass the usual government channels. They left the lingering impression that the dissolution of the Ministers of the Union was temporary, but Greyson and I knew better.
Though we were nearly always in the same room, I gave Greyson as much space as he needed. Sometimes he sat in bed with me and read aloud, and sometimes he sequestered himself on the far side of the room, not saying a word for hours at a time. We watched the news together as much as we could stand, but try as I might, it was impossible for me to read between the lines the way Knox could.
Every morning I woke up with my stomach in knots, certain Daxton would take one look at me and know I wasn’t the real Lila, but over the course of the next several days, I didn’t see him at all. Greyson and I discussed plan after whispered plan of how to take him out. While he slept, at dinner, bribing a guard for a gun—there were any number of ways we could do it, but nothing was a guarantee. And the more distance Daxton kept between us, the more impossible it became. As terrified as I was of having to once again step into Lila’s shoes, I was more than willing to take that risk if it meant getting a clean shot at Daxton. But soon enough, it became painfully obvious that he might not give us that chance at all.
Four days after Lila’s death, I woke up to a crackle in my ear. “Kitty?”
I blinked in the darkness. It was after midnight, and I could hear Greyson’s soft snores from the sofa bed. So where had the voice come—
“Knox?” I gasped. Greyson’s snoring stopped.
“It’s good to hear your voice,” he said, sounding relieved. Greyson sat up and turned on his reading lamp, giving me a questioning look.
“The earpiece,” I said, tapping the cuff. “Knox is on the other end.”
While Greyson fumbled with his, I hugged my pillow and tried not to grin too hard. It had worked. It had really worked.
“Are you okay? Is Benjy all right?” I said, the words tumbling out of me in a rush.
“We’re fine,” he said. “I don’t want to give you too many details, just in case, but—we’re fine. I’ve put Benjy in charge of another division, and he’ll be moving out soon.”
My enthusiasm deflated. “But—you’re supposed to watch his back.”
“I am,” he said. “He’ll be safe, I promise. Safer than the rest of us still in Elsewhere. But talk to me—tell me what’s been going on.”
Any lingering joy I had left over making contact with him dried up completely. He didn’t know. Of course he didn’t—how could he?—but in my excitement, I hadn’t thought about being the one to deliver the news. I didn’t think I could, and I hesitated, trying to force the words to come together.
“Lila’s dead.” Greyson’s voice joined our conversation, and I looked at him in shock. He stared at his hands.
“Lila’s—what?” stammered Knox, sounding as if all the air had left his lungs.
“Daxton thinks it’s me,” I said quietly. “He was—he said he was going to let me go, but Lila and I switched places. He blew up the helicopter. He thinks I was the one inside.”
“But—it was—”
“Lila. Yeah,” said Greyson. I hadn’t seen him cry in days, but his voice tightened.
Knox was silent for so long that I thought we’d been disconnected. But at last he cleared his throat and said gruffly, “I’m sorry. If you would rather I not broadcast it—”
“No. Not yet,” said Greyson, looking at me. “Kitty has to pretend to be Lila. If Daxton finds out we outsmarted him— He’s coming undone as it is. I’ve never seen anyone grow more unraveled over such a short period of time. I don’t know how long we have before he loses it completely.”
“Where are you?” said Knox. “The Stronghold?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He has all the Ministers of the Union here. He forced them to sign the amendment giving him absolute power.”
“I figured as much,” he grumbled, and then, as I remembered the cramped meeting room full of Ministers who were now as much prisoners as Greyson and I were, something awful occurred to me.
Knox had no idea his father was dead.
“Knox...” I trailed off and looked at Greyson, but he’d already done the hardest part. I couldn’t make him say this, too. “Your father tried to stop him. He led the movement to have Daxton removed as Prime Minister, but before he could... Daxton—Victor—he killed your father.”
Silence. I could hear Knox breathing on the other end, in and out, in and out, in and out. At last, in a voice hardened into steel, he said, “Good. One less Minister to get in our way.”
I said nothing. As someone who had grown up without real parents, it seemed unfathomable to me that anyone could be so heartless about losing their own. But after what Minister Creed had done to Knox’s brother—and Knox, and Knox’s mother—I couldn’t really blame him for it. Blood didn’t always make a family.
“I’m going dark now,” said Knox. “I have a meeting in the morning, and you two need to get some rest. Do whatever you have to do to stay safe, all right? Don’t take any unnecessary risks, and for God’s sake, Kitty, behave.”
I shook my head, knowing full well he couldn’t see me. The one time I hadn’t followed the rules in this place, I had gotten Lila killed. I wasn’t playing that game anymore. “Tell Benjy I love him.”
“You can tell him yourself when we get you out of there. Good night. And Greyson—” He paused. “I’m sorry.”
The cuff cut to static again, and the other end went dead. I sighed and collapsed back down on my pillows. Hearing Knox’s voice hadn’t solved all my problems, but it had made me feel a little better, knowing he was out there. Knowing I could talk to him now, if I needed to.
Greyson fiddled with something in his ear, and at last he said, “I’m going to take mine off.”
“What?” I squinted at him. “Why?”
“I don’t want to know what the Blackcoats are doing,” he sai
d. “I’ll put it back on if you have to do a speech—I can feed you lines if we need to, so Daxton doesn’t figure out you can’t read—but otherwise, the less I know, the better.”
I blinked. Lila and I hadn’t even considered the possibility that I would have to make another speech as her. “But—”
“I’m not a Blackcoat,” he said. “And while I admire and support you, I don’t want to be one, and I have no business listening to you and Knox discuss your plans. I’m right here with you every day anyway,” he added. “If Knox really wants to talk to me, you can let me know.”
“All right,” I finally said, hugging my pillow. “But you’re an important part of this, okay? Maybe you aren’t on the front lines of the war, but you’ll be on the front lines of rebuilding the country once it’s over, and they’re going to need you. We’re all going to need you.”
He pressed his lips together. He’d said over and over again that he had no interest in being Prime Minister, but now I didn’t see how he had much of a choice. We would need him. A Hart who was an ally of the Blackcoats, even if he wasn’t actually a rebel. I couldn’t run the country, after all. It would have to be him.
“Okay,” he said at last. “When the time comes, I’ll be there. Just—in the meantime... I’m not a soldier, and I’m not a battle strategist.”
“Then come up with a way for us to rebuild,” I said, remembering the task Knox had given me after my speech. It was far more suited to someone like Greyson, who had knowledge and experience to draw from. “Figure out how we’re going to transition the country. You’re smart, and you’re inventive—if anyone can do it, it’s you.”
“I’ll try,” he said, and he settled back down into bed. “Good night, Kitty.”
“Good night,” I said, and for the first time since I’d arrived in the Stronghold, it was a good night. Or at least as good as it would ever get, with Lila gone and Daxton still alive. Knox was okay. Greyson had something to focus on other than the loss of his best friend. And now we had a direct line of communication to the rebellion. The Blackcoats’ chances of winning the war had never been better, and though my guilt over Lila’s death was a deep, constant ache that I knew would never leave me, as I drifted off to sleep, for the first time I let myself picture what my life could look like when this was all over.
Several weeks passed, and Greyson and I continued to be virtually imprisoned in Lila’s room together. We had a small Christmas celebration that didn’t include much more than a sip of champagne for us both, and we rang in the New Year by watching the news anchors report on a story about a bombing in New York that Knox assured us hadn’t happened. Daxton continued to avoid us, and by the time mid-January rolled around, I had become certain we wouldn’t see him until the war was over. The few times I tried to go see him, I was denied by guards I was sure would enjoy shooting me if I gave them an excuse, and no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find a way to get to him inside the Stronghold. He was invulnerable.
But then, one evening, as Greyson and I sat across from one another on the sofa, each sketching the other, a guard burst into the room. I jumped, and my pencil made a dark line across the middle of Greyson’s nose.
“The Prime Minister requests your presence at dinner,” he said gruffly.
“Now?” I said.
“Immediately.”
Together Greyson and I stood, and I pulled on a pair of Lila’s most comfortable shoes. My foot had mostly healed by now—enough for me to walk without painkillers, at least—but I slipped my arm into Greyson’s for extra support as we followed the guard.
Daxton already sat at the head of the dining room table, sipping a glass of wine. He stood as we entered and performed an exaggerated bow. “Greyson. My dear Lila. How I’ve missed you both.”
“If only we could say the same,” I said. Though it had been jarring before, now that I had known Lila—now that I had spoken with her and had meaningful interactions, now that I had come to care about her as more than just the girl I had to be—playing a dead girl made my skin crawl.
Greyson and I started toward Daxton’s end of the long table, but two guards stopped us less than a third of the way down. “Your seats are over there, I’m afraid,” said Daxton, gesturing past us. Two place settings sat at the very end of the table, dishes already served. “It isn’t that I don’t crave your company, of course—it’s my guards, you see. Terribly overprotective.”
So my suspicions were right; he must have had some idea that Greyson and I wanted nothing more than to kill him. At least we were all on the same playing field. I took my seat and eyed the juicy steak on the plate. Of course that was what Daxton had chosen to serve us—to serve Lila, who didn’t eat red meat. It was possible he suspected me, but it had been a long time since I’d tried to eat something I knew full well Lila wouldn’t touch. It was far more likely he was just trying to upset me. Upset Lila. And she would have risen to the bait.
“Are you trying to starve me on purpose?” I demanded, picking up the wine instead. Daxton’s hand flew to his chest in a mock apology.
“Oh—oh, dear. Did they...? Of course they did.” He motioned to one of the servers. “I’ve made Lila’s dietary requirements crystal clear to you all. Why you can’t follow a simple request, I’ve no idea.”
Wordlessly the server picked up my plate, and within seconds he replaced it with a chicken stew. It smelled like something Nina, the matron of my group home, would have made, and if I’d had any appetite at all, I would have inhaled it. Annoyed, I picked up my utensils, wishing Greyson and I were taking dinner in Lila’s room instead. At least he appeared to be content for now, cutting into his steak without complaint.
“There, much better,” said Daxton, and he took a bite of his meal. With his mouth full, he added, “Have you two been keeping up with the news?”
“Yes,” I said. “Is that why you wanted us to come to dinner? To make sure we knew you’re winning?”
“To make sure you knew we are winning, darling,” he said. “After all, when we eradicate the rebels, you will both be at the forefront of the celebrations.”
I took a bite of stew, trying to quell my nausea. Being in the same room as Daxton would have been enough to make me sick on a good day, but the thought of supporting him after the war made my stomach roll. “How long do you think it will be before you’ve—before we’ve—won?”
Though Knox didn’t tell me much about what the Blackcoats were doing, he did tell me enough to reassure me that we were getting closer and closer to overtaking the government every day. In fact, hearing him tell it, Daxton was only a few key battles away from losing. I was much more willing to believe Knox than I was Daxton or the media, so when he casually lifted his wineglass and murmured, “Minutes, Lila,” I nearly dropped my spoon.
“What?” I had to have misheard him. He was sitting at the other end of a dining room meant to seat fifty, after all.
“Minutes,” he repeated, his mouth twisting into a gleeful smirk. “With all the trouble they’ve been causing, I thought to myself, why bother trying to reason with them? Clearly they aren’t interested in civilized discussion, so I’ll simply have to take care of Elsewhere myself.”
The edges of my vision went dark, and I clutched my spoon. “How?” I choked out. “What are you going to do, Daxton?”
“Oh, it’s been done,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I ordered the strike hours ago. The bombs should reach Elsewhere...” He checked his watch. “By dessert.”
There was still time. I stood shakily, and the room around me spun. “I need—I need to lie down.”
“You won’t be staying for the show?” said Daxton, disappointment saturating his voice. “I promise you, Lila, you won’t want to miss this.”
I caught Greyson’s eye, and he stood as well, hurrying around the table to help me. “She hasn’t been feeling we
ll for a few days,” he said. “I’m sure the shock isn’t helping.”
“Shock? And here I was, thinking you’d be pleased to know you’re almost free.” Daxton sighed and threw his napkin down. “Fine. See if I try to do anything nice for you again. Go take your nap. I’ll have my guards alert you when the Blackcoats are nothing more than a pile of charred remains.”
Knox was in Elsewhere. Rivers. Strand. Thousands upon thousands of prisoners who had stayed to fight with us. It took a moment for my muddled mind to remember that Knox had moved Benjy, by some miracle—he was in another Blackcoat safe house, far away from Elsewhere and the massacre that was about to occur. No, not just a massacre—there was no word for the sadistic deaths of tens of thousands of people on the orders of a single madman.
I let Greyson lead me out into the hallway, and I leaned heavily on him. Two guards followed, and he glared at them. “I know how to get back to our room.”
“Sir—”
“You’re making it worse,” he said, his grip tightening around my shoulders. “Go.”
They exchanged a look and, reluctantly, they returned to the dining room. If Daxton knew that we were now wandering around the Stronghold without a chaperone, he must not have cared, because they didn’t return.
“Knox.” A lump formed in my throat, and I fiddled with my ear cuff. “Knox—please, you have to be there. They’re going to bomb you. Right now. It’s happening now. You have to get out of there.”
Silence. I looked at Greyson, desperate and panicked.
“It’s not working. It’s not working, Greyson—”
“We’ll go back to the room and use mine,” he said calmly, but I could hear the nervous edge to his voice. “Just take a deep breath and—”
“We don’t have time to go back to the room.” I looked around wildly. The elevator was only a few yards away. “The office. We’ll be able to send them a message from Daxton’s office.”
“But—”
I slipped out of his grip and darted toward the elevators, hitting the down button over and over. It took ten infinite seconds for the doors to open, and I leaped inside. Greyson remained in the hallway, hesitating.
