Champion: A Legend Novel

by Marie Lu

  I gaze back at her, slowly falling—as I always seem to do—back under her pull. Don’t make me do this, please. I don’t want to say it out loud to her; it might mean that it’s actually true. But she looks so sad and fearful that I can’t keep it in. I let out my breath, then run a hand through my hair and lower my head. “They said a month,” I whisper. “Maybe two. They said I should get my priorities in order.”

  June closes her eyes—I think I see her sway slightly in her seat. “Two months,” she murmurs vacantly. The agony on her face reminds me exactly why I didn’t want to let her know.

  After another long silence between us, June snaps out of her daze and reaches to pull something out of her pocket. She comes back up with something small and metallic in her palm. “I’ve been meaning to give this to you,” she says.

  I stare blankly at it. It’s a paper clip ring, thin lines of wire pulled into an elegant series of swirls and closed into a circle, just like the one I’d once made for her. My eyes widen and dart up to hers. She doesn’t say anything; instead, she looks down and helps me push it onto my right hand’s ring finger. “I had a little time,” she finally mutters.

  I run a hand across the ring in wonder, my heartstrings pulled taut. A dozen emotions rush through me. “I’m sorry,” I stammer out after a while, trying to put a more hopeful spin on everything. That’s all I can say, after this gift from her? “They think there’s still a chance. They’re trying out some more treatments soon.”

  “You once told me why you chose ‘Day’ as your street name,” she says firmly. She moves her hand so that it’s over mine, hiding the paper clip ring from view. The warmth of her skin against mine makes my breath short. “Every morning, everything’s possible again. Right?” A river of tingles runs up my spine. I want to take her face in my hands again, kiss her cheeks and study her dark, sad eyes, and tell her I’ll be okay. But that would just be another lie. Half of my heart is breaking at the pain on her face; the other half, I realize guiltily, is swelling with happiness to know that she still cares. There’s love in her tragic words, in the folds of that thin metal ring. Isn’t there?

  Finally, I take a deep breath. “Sometimes, the sun sets earlier. Days don’t last forever, you know. But I’ll fight as hard as I can. I can promise you that.”

  June’s eyes soften. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

  “Why should you have to bear it?” I mutter back. “I just . . . thought it would be easier this way.”

  “Easier for whom?” June snaps. “You, me, the public? You would rather just pass away silently one day, without ever breathing another word to me?”

  “Yes, I would,” I find myself snapping back. “If I’d told you that night, would you have agreed to become a Princeps-Elect?”

  Whatever words sat on the tip of June’s tongue go unspoken. She pauses at that, then swallows. “No,” she admits. “I wouldn’t have had the heart to do it. I would’ve waited.”

  “Exactly.” I take a deep breath. “You think I wanted to whine to you about my health in that moment? To stand in the way of you and the position of a lifetime?”

  “That was my choice to make,” June says through clenched teeth.

  “And I wanted you to make it without me in the way.”

  June shakes her head, and her shoulders slightly droop. “You really think I care so little about you?”

  Our food arrives then—steaming bowls of soup, plates of dinner rolls, and a neatly wrapped package of food for Eden—and I lapse gratefully into silence. It would’ve been easier for me, I add to myself. I’d rather step away than be reminded every day that I only have a few months left to be with you. I’m ashamed to say this out loud, though. When June looks expectantly at me for an answer, I just shake my head and shrug.

  And that’s when we hear it. An alarm wails out across the city.

  It’s deafening. We both freeze, then look up at the speakers lining all the street’s buildings. I’ve never heard a siren like this in my entire life—an endless and earsplitting scream that drenches the air, drowning out anything in its path. The JumboTrons have gone dark. I shoot June a bewildered look. What the hell is that?

  But June’s no longer looking at me. Her eyes are fixed on the speakers blaring out the alarm across the entire street, and her expression is stricken with horror. Together, we watch as the JumboTrons flare back to life—this time each screen is bloodred, and each has two gold words etched in bold across its display:

  SEEK COVER

  “What does it mean?” I shout.

  June grabs my hand and starts to run. “It means that an air strike’s coming. The Armor is under attack.”

  “EDEN.”

  It’s the first word out of Day’s mouth. The JumboTrons continue broadcasting their ominous scarlet notice as the alarm echoes across the city, deafening me with its rhythmic roar and blotting out all other sounds in the city. Along the street, others are peeking out of windows and pouring out from building entrances, as bewildered as we are over the unusual alarm. Soldiers are flooding into formation on the street, shouting into their earpieces as they see the approaching enemy. I run right beside him, thoughts and numbers racing through my mind as we go. (Four seconds. Twelve seconds. Fifteen seconds a block, which means seventy-five seconds until we reach Day’s apartment if we keep up our pace. Is there a faster route? And Ollie. I need to get him out of my apartment and to my side.) A strange focus grips me, just like it had the moment I first freed Day from Batalla Hall all those months ago, like the moment Day climbed the Capitol Tower to address the people and I led soldiers off his trail. I may turn into a silent, uncomfortable observer in the Senate chamber, but out here on the streets, in the midst of chaos, I can think. I can act.

  I remember reading about and rehearsing for this particular alarm back in high school, although Los Angeles is so far away from the Colonies that even those practice drills were rare. The alarm was to be used only if enemy forces attacked our city, if they were right at the city’s borders and barging their way in. I don’t know what the process is like in Denver, but I imagine it can’t be that different—we are to evacuate immediately, then seek out the closest assigned underground bunker and board subways that will shuttle us to a safer city. After I entered college and officially became a soldier, the drill changed for me: Soldiers are to report immediately to a location their commanding officers give them over their earpieces. We must be ready for war at a moment’s notice.

  But I’ve never heard the alarm used for a real attack on a Republic city, because there hasn’t been one yet. Most attacks were thwarted before they could reach us. Until now. And as I run alongside Day, I know exactly what must be going through his mind. It triggers a familiar guilt in my stomach.

  Day has never heard the alarm before, nor has he ever gone through a drill for it. This is because he’s from a poor sector. I was never sure before, and I admit that I never thought much about it, but seeing Day’s confused expression makes it all very clear. The underground bunkers are only for the upper class, the gem sectors. The poor are left to fend for themselves.

  Overhead, an engine screams by. A Republic jet. Then several more. Shouts rise up and mix with the alarm—I brace myself for a call from Anden at any moment. Then, far off along the horizon, I see the first orange glows light up along the Armor. The Republic is launching a counterattack from the walls. This is really happening. But it shouldn’t be. The Colonies had given us time, however little, to hand over an antidote to them—and since that ultimatum, only four days have passed. My anger flares. Did they want to catch us off guard in such an extreme way?

  I grab Day’s hand and pick up my pace. “Can you call Eden?” I shout.

  “Yeah,” Day gasps out. Immediately I can tell that he doesn’t have the stamina he used to have—his breathing is slightly labored, his steps slightly slower. A lump lodges in my throat. Somehow, this is the first evidence of his fading health that hits home, and my heart clenches. Behind us, another e
xplosion reverberates across the night air. I tighten my hold on his hand.

  “Tell Eden to be ready at your complex’s entrance,” I shout. “I know where we can go.”

  An urgent voice comes over my earpiece. It’s Anden. “Where are you?” he says. I shiver as I detect a faint hint of fear in his words—another thing I rarely hear. “I’m at the Capitol Tower. I’ll send a jeep to pick you up.”

  “Send a jeep to Day’s apartment. I’ll be there in a minute. And Ollie—my dog—”

  “I’ll have him sent to the bunkers immediately,” Anden says. “Be careful.” Then a click sounds out, and I hear static for a second before my earpiece goes dark. Beside me, Day repeats my instructions for Eden over his own mike.

  By the time we reach the apartment complex, Republic jets are screaming by every other second, painting dozens of trails into the evening sky. Crowds of people have already started gathering outside the complex and are being guided in various directions by city patrols. A jolt of fear seizes me when I realize that some of the jets on the horizon are not Republic jets at all—but unfamiliar enemy ones. If they’re this close, then they must’ve gotten past our longer range missiles. Two larger black dots hover at the end of the sky. Colonies airships.

  Day sees Eden before I do. He’s a small, golden-haired figure clutching the railings by the apartment complex’s entrance door, squinting in vain at the sea of people around him. Their caretaker stands behind him with both of her hands firmly on his shoulders. “Eden!” Day calls out. The boy jerks his head in our direction. Day hops up the steps and scoops him into his arms, then turns back to me. “Where do we go?” he shouts.

  “The Elector’s sending a jeep for us,” I reply in his ear, so that the others don’t hear. Already a few people are casting us glances of recognition even as they stream past us in a haze of panic. I pull my coat collars as high up as they can go, then bow my head. Come on, I mutter to myself.

  “June,” Day says. I meet his eyes. “What’s gonna happen to the other sectors?”

  There’s the question I’ve been dreading. What will happen to the poor sectors? I hesitate, and in that brief moment of silence, Day realizes the answer. His lips tighten into a thin line. A deep rage rises in his eyes.

  The jeep’s arrival saves me from answering right away. It screeches to a stop several feet from where the others have crowded around, and inside I see Anden wave once at me from the passenger’s side. “Let’s go,” I urge Day. We make our way down the steps as a soldier opens the door for us. Day helps Eden and their caretaker inside first, and when they’re both buckled up, we climb in. The jeep takes off at breakneck pace as more Republic jets fly by overhead. Off in the distance, another bright orange cloud mushrooms up from the Armor. Is it me, or did that seem like a closer hit than before? (Perhaps closer by a good hundred feet, given the size of the explosion.)

  “Glad to see you all safe,” Anden says without turning around. He utters a quick greeting at each of us, then mumbles a command to the driver, who makes a sharp turn around the next block. Eden lets out a startled yelp. The caretaker squeezes his shoulders and tries to soothe him.

  “Why take the slower route?” Anden says as we veer down a narrow street. The ground shakes from another far-off impact.

  “Apologies, Elector,” the driver calls back. “Word’s that several explosions have gone off inside the Armor—our fastest route’s not safe. They bombed a few jeeps on the other side of Denver.”

  “Any injuries?”

  “Not too many, luckily. Couple jeeps overturned—several prisoners escaped, and one soldier’s dead.”

  “Which prisoners?”

  “We’re still confirming.”

  A nasty premonition hits me. When I’d gone to see Thomas, there had been a rotation of guards standing in front of Commander Jameson’s cell. When I left, the guards were different.

  Anden makes a frustrated sound, then turns to glance back at us. “We’re headed to an underground hold called Subterrain One. Should you need to enter or leave the hold, my guards will scan your thumbs at its gateway. You heard our driver—it’s not safe to head out on your own. Understand?”

  The driver presses a hand to his ear, blanches, and looks at Anden. “Sir, we have confirmation on the escaped prisoners. There were three.” He hesitates, then swallows. “Captain Thomas Bryant. Lieutenant Patrick Murrey. Commander Natasha Jameson.”

  My world lurches. I knew it. I knew it. Just yesterday I’d seen Commander Jameson securely behind bars, and talked to Thomas while he was withering away in prison. They couldn’t have gone far, I tell myself. “Anden,” I whisper, forcing my senses straight. “Yesterday, when I went to see Thomas, there had been a different rotation of guards. Were those soldiers supposed to be there?” Day and I exchange a quick look, and for an instant I feel as if the entire world is playing us for fools, weaving our lives into one cruel joke.

  “Find the prisoners,” Anden snaps into his mike. His own face has turned white. “Shoot them on sight.” He glances back at me while he continues talking. “And get me the guards that were on duty. Now.”

  I cringe as yet another explosion makes the ground tremble. They couldn’t have gone far. They’ll be captured and shot by the end of the day. I repeat these words to myself over and over. No, something else is at work here. My mind flits through the possibilities:

  It’s no coincidence that Commander Jameson managed to escape, that the Colonies’ attack happened on the same day she was being transferred. There must be other traitors in the Republic’s ranks, soldiers that Anden hasn’t rooted out yet. Commander Jameson may have been passing information to the Colonies through them. After all, the Colonies somehow knew when our Armor soldiers would rotate shifts, and particularly that today we had fewer Armor soldiers stationed than usual due to the food poisoning. They knew to strike at our weakest moment.

  If that’s the case, then the Colonies may have been planning an attack for months. Perhaps even before the plague outbreak.

  And Thomas. Was he in on the whole thing? Unless he was trying to warn me. That’s why he asked for me yesterday. For his final request, but also in hopes that I would notice something off about the guards. My heartbeat quickens. But why wouldn’t he just shout a warning?

  “What happens next?” I ask numbly.

  Anden leans his head against the seat. He’s probably thinking through a similar list of possibilities about the escaped prisoners, but he doesn’t say it aloud. “Our jets are all engaged right outside Denver. The Armor should hold for a good while, but there’s a strong chance more Colonies forces are on their way. We’re going to need help. Other nearby cities have been alerted and are sending their troops for reinforcement, but”—Anden pauses to look over his shoulder at me—“it might not be enough. While we keep funneling civilians underground, June, you and I need to have a private talk right away.”

  “Where are you evacuating the poor to, Elector?” Day pipes up quietly.

  Anden turns in his seat again. He meets Day’s hostile blue eyes with as level a look as he can manage. I notice that he avoids looking at Eden. “I have troops on their way to the outer sectors,” he says. “They’ll find shelter for the civilians and defend them until I give a command otherwise.”

  “No underground bunkers for them, I guess,” Day replies coldly.

  “I’m sorry.” Anden lets out a long breath. “The bunkers were built a long time ago, before my father even became the Elector. We’re working on adding more.”

  Day leans forward and narrows his eyes. His right hand grips Eden’s tightly. “Then split the bunkers up between the sectors. Half poor, half rich. The upper class should risk their necks out in the open as much as the lower class.”

  “No,” Anden says firmly, even though I hear regret in his words. He makes the mistake of arguing this point with Day, and I can’t stop him. “If we were to do that, the logistics would be a nightmare. The outer sectors don’t have the same evacuation routes—if e
xplosions hit the city, hundreds of thousands more people would be vulnerable in the open because we wouldn’t be able to organize everyone in time. We evacuate the gem sectors first. Then we can—”

  “Do it!” Day shouts. “I don’t care about your damn logistics!”

  Anden’s face hardens. “You will not talk back to me like that,” he snaps. There’s steel in his voice that I recognize from Commander Jameson’s trial. “I am your Elector.”

  “And I put you there,” Day snaps back. “Fine, you wanna talk logically? I’m game. If you don’t make a bigger effort to protect the poor right now, I can practically guarantee that you’ll have a full-on riot on your hands. Do you really want that while the Colonies are attacking? Like you said, you’re the Elector. But you won’t be if the rest of the country’s poor hears about how you’re handling this, and even I might not be able to stop them from starting a revolution. They already think the Republic’s trying to kill me off. How long do you think the Republic can hold up against a war from both the outside and the inside?”

  Anden’s facing forward again. “This conversation’s over.” As always, his voice is dangerously quiet, but we can hear every single word.

  Day lets out a curse and slumps back in his seat. I exchange a glance with him, then shake my head. Day has a point, of course, and so does Anden. The problem is that we don’t have time for all this nonsense. After a moment of silence, I lean forward in my seat, clear my throat, and try an alternative.

  “We should evacuate the poor into the wealthy sectors,” I say. “They’ll still be aboveground, but the wealthy sectors sit in the heart of Denver, not along the Armor where the fighting is happening. It’s a flawed plan, but the poor will also see that we’re making a concerted effort to protect them. Then, as the people in the bunkers are gradually evacuated to LA via underground subways, we’ll have the time and space to start filtering everyone else underground as well.”

  Day mutters something under his breath, but at the same time he grunts in reluctant approval. He shoots me a grateful look. “Sounds like a better plan to me. At least the people’ll have something.” A second later, I figure out what it was that he’d muttered. You’d make a better Elector than this fool.