Prodigy

by Marie Lu

Page 24

  But if I decide not to play out my role, what will happen to Day? I’ll need a way to contact him without Razor finding out. And then what? Day’s certainly not going to see the Elector the way I see him. And besides, I have no backup plan. Think, June. I have to come up with an alternative that will keep us all alive.

  If you want to rebel, Metias had told me, rebel from inside the system. I keep dwelling on this memory, although my shivering makes it hard to concentrate.

  Suddenly I hear a commotion outside the door. There’s the sound of heels clicking smartly together, the telltale sign of an official coming to see me. I wait quietly. The doorknob finally turns. Anden steps in.

  “Elector, sir, are you sure you don’t want a few guards with you—”

  Anden just shakes his head and waves a hand at the soldiers outside the door. “Please, don’t trouble yourselves,” he says. “I’d like a private word with Ms. Iparis. It’ll only take a minute. ” His words remind me of the ones I spoke when I’d visited Day in his cell at Batalla Hall.

  The soldier gives Anden a quick salute and closes the door, leaving the two of us alone. I look up from where I’m sitting on the edge of my bed. The shackles that bind my hands clink in the silence. The Elector isn’t in his usual formal garb; instead he wears a full-length black coat with a red stripe that runs down the front, and the rest of his clothes are elegantly simple (black collar shirt, a dark waistcoat with six shining buttons, black trousers, black pilot boots). His hair is glossy and neatly combed. A lone gun hangs at his waist, but he wouldn’t be able to draw it fast enough to shoot me if I decided to attack him. He’s genuinely trying to show his faith in me.

  Razor had told me that if I was to find a moment when I could assassinate Anden on my own, I should do it. Take the opportunity. But now here he is, unexpectedly vulnerable before me, and I don’t make a single gesture. Besides, if I try to kill him here, there’s zero chance I’ll see Day again—or survive.

  Anden sits down beside me, careful to leave some distance between us. Suddenly I’m embarrassed by my appearance—slouched and weary, with undone hair and nightclothes, seated next to the Republic’s handsome prince. But I still straighten and tilt my head up as gracefully as I can. I am June Iparis, I remind myself. I’m not going to let him see the chaos I’m feeling.

  “I wanted to let you know that you were right,” he starts. There’s genuine warmth in his voice. “Two soldiers in my guard went missing this afternoon. Ran away. ”

  The two Patriot decoys have escaped, as planned. I sigh and give him a rehearsed look of relief, just in case Razor is watching. “Where are they now?”

  “We’re not sure. Scouts are trying to track them. ” Anden rubs his gloved hands together for a moment. “Commander DeSoto has instated a new rotation of soldiers that will accompany us. ”

  Razor. He is putting his own soldiers in place, gradually moving in for the kill.

  “I’d like to thank you for your help, June,” Anden goes on. “I want to apologize for the lie detector test you had to undergo. I know it must have been unpleasant for you, but it was necessary. At any rate, I’m grateful for your honest answers. You’ll stay here with us for a few more days, until we’re sure the danger of the Patriots’ plans is past. We may still have some questions for you. After that, we will figure out how to integrate you back into the Republic’s ranks. ”

  “Thank you,” I say, even though the words are completely hollow.

  Anden leans in. “I meant what I said at our dinner,” he whispers, his words rushed and his mouth barely moving. He’s nervous. A sudden paranoia seizes me—I tap a finger against my lips and give him a pointed look. His eyes widen, but he doesn’t shy away. He gently touches my chin, then pulls me toward him as if he were going to kiss me. He stops his lips right beside my own, letting them rest ever so slightly against the skin of my lower cheek. Tingles run down my spine and along with them, an undercurrent of guilt.

  “So the cams don’t pick it up,” he whispers. This is a better way to talk in private; if a guard were to poke his head inside the door, it would seem like Anden’s stealing a kiss instead of whispering with me. A safer rumor to spread. And the Patriots would just think I’m going along with their plans.

  Anden’s breath is warm against my skin. “I need your help,” he murmurs. “If you were pardoned of all crimes against the Republic and set free, would you be able to contact Day? Or is your relationship with him over now that you’re not with the Patriots?”

  I bite my lip. The way Anden says relationship makes it sound like he thinks there was once something between Day and me. Once. “Why do you want me to contact him?” I ask.

  His words have a quiet, commanding urgency that gives me goose bumps. “You and Day are the most celebrated people in the Republic. If I can form an alliance with you both, I can win the people. Then instead of quelling rebellions and trying to keep things from falling apart, I can concentrate on implementing the changes this country needs. ”

  I feel light-headed. This is sudden, startling, and for a moment I can’t even think of a good response. Anden is taking a huge risk talking to me like this. I swallow, my cheeks still burning from his proximity. I shift a little so I can see his eyes. “Why should we trust you?” I say, my voice steady. “What makes you think Day wants to help you?”

  Anden’s eyes are clear with purpose. “I’m going to change the Republic, and I’m going to start by releasing Day’s brother. ”

  My mouth turns dry. Suddenly I wish we were talking loud enough for Day to hear. “You’re going to release Eden?”

  “He never should have been taken in the first place. I’ll release him along with any others being used along the warfront. ”

  “Where is he?” I whisper. “When are you—”

  “Eden has been traveling along the warfront for the past few weeks. My father had taken him, along with a dozen others, as part of a new war initiative. They’re basically being used as living biological weapons. ” Anden’s face darkens. “I’m going to stop this mad circus. Tomorrow my order will go out—Eden will be taken from the warfront and cared for in the capital. ”

  This is new. This changes everything.

  I have to find a way to tell Day about Eden’s release, before he and the Patriots kill the one person with the power to free him. What’s the best way to communicate with him? The Patriots must be watching all of my moves from the cams, I think, letting my mind spin. I’ll need to signal him. Day’s face appears in my thoughts and I want to run to him. I want so much to tell him this good news.

  Is it good news? My practical side pulls at me, warning me to take this slowly. Anden might be lying, and this could all be a trap. But if it was just another attempt to arrest Day, then why wouldn’t he just threaten to kill Eden? That would bring Day out of hiding. Instead, he’s letting Eden go.

  Anden waits patiently through my silence. “I need Day to trust me,” he murmurs.

  I put my arms around his neck and move my lips closer to his ear. He smells like sandalwood and clean wool. “I’ll need to find a way to contact him, and convince him. But if you release his brother, he will trust you,” I whisper back.

  “I’m going to win your trust too. I want you to have faith in me. I have faith in you. I’ve had faith in you for a very long time. ” He’s quiet for a second. His breathing has quickened, and his eyes change abruptly. Gone is that sense of distant authority, and in this moment he’s just a young man, a human being, and the electricity between us is too much. In an instant, he turns his face and his lips meet mine.

  I close my eyes. It is so light. Barely there, yet I can’t help but want a little more. With Day, there’s a fire and a hunger between us, even anger, some deep desperation and need. With Anden, though, the kiss is all delicacy and refined grace, aristocratic manners, power, and elegance. Pleasure and shame wash through me. Can Day see this through the cams? The thought stabs at me.

  It lasts for mer
e seconds, then Anden pulls away. I let out a breath, open my eyes, and let the rest of the room come back into focus. He’s spent enough time here—any longer and the guards outside might start to worry. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” he says, bowing his head slightly before standing up and straightening his coat. He’s pulled back into the shelter of formality, but there’s a slight awkwardness in his stance, and a faint smile on the edges of his lips. “Get some rest. We’ll talk tomorrow. ”

  Once he’s gone and the room has fallen back into a thick silence, I curl up with my knees at my chin. My lips burn from his touch. I let my mind wrap around what Anden just said to me, and my fingers run repeatedly over the paper clip ring on my hand. The Patriots had wanted Day and me to join them in assassinating this young Elector. By assassinating him, they claimed, we’d be stoking the fires of a revolution that would free us from the Republic. That we could bring back the glory of the old United States. But what does that mean, really? What will the United States have that Anden can’t give the Republic? Freedom? Peace? Prosperity? Will the Republic become a country full of beautifully lit skyscrapers and clean, wealthy sectors? The Patriots had promised Day that they would find his brother and help us escape to the Colonies. But if Anden can do all of these things with the right support and the right determination, if we won’t need to flee into the Colonies, then what is this assassination accomplishing? Anden isn’t remotely like his father. In fact, his first official act as the Elector is undoing something his father had put in place—he’s going to free Eden, maybe even stop the plague experiments. If we keep him in power, would he change the Republic for the better? Wouldn’t he be the catalyst that Metias had wished for in his defiant journal entries?

  There’s a bigger problem I can’t wrap my head around. Razor must know, on some level, that Anden isn’t a dictator like his father was. After all, Razor’s high enough of a rank to hear any rumors of Anden’s rebellious nature. He’d told Day and me that Congress disliked Anden . . . but he never told us why they were clashing.

  Why would he want to murder a young Elector who would help the Patriots establish a new Republic?

  In the midst of my churning thoughts, though, one stays clear.

  I know for certain where my loyalties lie now. I won’t help Razor assassinate the Elector. But I have to warn Day, so he doesn’t follow through with the Patriots’ plans.

  I need a signal.

  Then I realize that there might be one way to do it, as long as he’s watching footage of me along with the rest of the Patriots. He won’t know why I’m doing it, but it’s better than nothing. I lower my head slightly, then lift my hand with Day’s paper clip ring on it and press two fingers against the side of my brow. Our agreed signal when we’d first arrived on the streets of Vegas.

  Stop.

  LATER THAT NIGHT, I HEAD OUT TO THE MAIN conference room and join the others to hear about the next phase of the mission. Razor’s back again. Four Patriots continue to work in a smaller cluster at one corner of the room, mostly Hackers from what I can tell, analyzing how speakers are mounted on some building or other. I’m starting to recognize a few of them—one of the Hackers is bald and built like a tank, if a bit short; another has a giant nose set between half-moon eyes on a very thin face; a third one is a girl missing an eye. Almost everyone has a scar of some sort. My attention wanders to Razor, who’s addressing the crowd at the front of the room, his figure outlined in light with all the world map screens behind him. I crane my neck to see if I can catch Tess milling around with the others, to take her aside and try to apologize. When I finally catch sight of her, though, she’s standing with a few other Medics in training, holding out some sort of green herb in her palm and patiently explaining how to use it. Or so I think. I decide to save my apology for later. It doesn’t seem like she needs me right now. The thought makes me sad and oddly uncomfortable.