by Anna Carey
I slipped into the old hangar, the planes towering above me. When I reached the back room the boxes had been moved aside, the tunnel exposed, but Jo was not there. I scanned the other end of the hangar, but there was no sign of Harper or Caleb. No maps were set out on the table. No lanterns were scattered about the floor. The light streamed in from a broken window, casting strange patterns on the concrete.
The silence was enough to raise the fine hairs on my arms. Two backpacks sat on the ground by my feet, unzipped, the contents riffled through. I knew immediately something had gone wrong. I backed out of the room. I took in the hangar—the rusted staircases that were scattered in the corners, the towering airplanes above. In the plane to the left of me, all of the shades were down except one. Something—or someone—moved inside. I turned and started toward the door, keeping my face down.
I was nearly at the exit when a familiar voice called out, echoing against the walls. “Don’t move, Genevieve.”
I glanced up. The first of the soldiers were exiting the airplane, their guns fixed on me. Their faces were covered in hard plastic masks. “Keep your hands where we can see them.” Stark was in front, circling me at a distance.
Two more appeared from behind a staircase in the corner, while yet another emerged from the tunnel. They spread out across the hangar, moving along the concrete walls to either side of the entrance.
Stark was on me now, yanking my wrists behind my back and looping a plastic restraint around them. I kneeled down, afraid my legs might give out beneath me. I thought only of Caleb, hoping one of the dissidents had warned him of the raid.
As Stark took me toward the back room I heard footsteps nearing the door to the hangar. Someone was coming. The soldiers crouched beside the entrance, their guns in hand, waiting. Before I could act the door opened. Harper stepped inside. I saw him process the scene, just a second too late. He fell first. It happened so quickly I didn’t realize he’d been shot. I just saw him lean against the doorframe, the open wound in his chest where the first bullet hit him.
I stood up from the floor. “Caleb! They’re here,” I shrieked, my voice strange as it left my mouth. “Turn around!”
Stark put his hand over my lips. Caleb was just rounding the corner, his face barely in view. His eyes met mine and then I heard the gun, the shot that ripped through his side. It sounded louder in the massive concrete space, ricocheting off the walls. I watched him stagger back. He lowered himself to the ground, his arm crushed beneath him, his face contorted and strange. I kneeled there, refusing to look away as he seized up, his eyes squeezed shut in pain. Then the soldiers moved in, the great mass of them swallowing him whole.
forty-one
THE JEEP MOVED QUICKLY, SPEEDING THROUGH STREETS ROPED off for the parade. Thousands of people leaned over the barricades, still cheering for their Princess, searching the route for signs of her. I was hunched over in the backseat, curled in on myself, unable to believe what had happened. My hands were scraped from when they’d taken me from the hangar. I’d struggled in the soldier’s grip, trying to grab onto anything I could, but they’d dragged me away before I could get to Caleb.
Caleb has been shot, I told myself. I saw his face again as the bullet went through him. He was alone there, on that cold concrete floor, the blood spreading out beneath him.
We sped up the Palace’s long driveway. They ushered me inside, past the marble fountains. The main floor had been emptied out for the wedding, our footsteps sounding down the hollow hall. Reginald was the only one there. He was pacing outside the elevator, that stupid notebook in his hand. He bit down on the end of his pencil.
“Stay away from me,” I said, already imagining the story that would run the following day—how enemies of The New America had been caught the morning of the wedding. How the citizens were all so much safer now. “Don’t even try.”
“Can I have a moment with the Princess?” Reginald asked the soldiers, ignoring my comment. “She needs to be debriefed before she goes upstairs.” The soldiers cut my restraints and stepped away, watching us.
“What do you want?” I asked when we were alone. I rubbed at my wrists. “Some quote about what a joy today has been?”
He rested his hand on my shoulder. His eyes darted to the soldiers, now stationed along the walls of the circular lobby. “Listen to me,” he said slowly, his words barely above a whisper. His face was calm. “We don’t have much time.”
“What are you doing?” I tried to push him away but he came closer, his hand still on me, his fingers digging into my skin.
“It’s over,” he said softly. “As far as you are concerned there is no Trail, there are no more tunnels. You never met Harper, or Curtis, or any of the other dissidents. As far as you know, Caleb was working alone.”
“What do you know about Caleb?”
Reginald looked down. “A lot. Harper and Caleb died today, fighting against this regime.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Look at me,” he said, squeezing my shoulder. He didn’t stop until my eyes met his. “You know me as Reginald—but others know me as Moss.”
He stepped back, letting his words sink in. I stared at his face, seeing him for the first time, the man who was always scribbling in that notepad, running stories in the paper, clipping quotes to suit his needs. This was the same man who’d helped Caleb out of the labor camps, who’d helped build the dugout. He was the one who’d organized the Trail. “Caleb’s dead,” I repeated. A numbness spread out in my chest.
“You have to continue on as though this never happened,” he continued. “You have to marry Charles.”
“I don’t have to do anything.” I struggled free from his grip. “What will that accomplish?” The sound of cheering swelled outside the Palace’s front entrance.
“You need to be here as the Princess,” he whispered, his lips an inch away from my ear. “So you can kill your father.”
He stared at me intently. He didn’t say anything else, instead flipping open the pad and pretending to make notes of our conversation. Then he signaled the soldiers back over, following us into the elevator in complete silence.
forty-two
WHEN I RETURNED TO MY SUITE, THE KING WAS WAITING FOR me. He stared at the wedding dress laid out on the bed, a bundle of papers clutched in his hands.
“You said you’d let him go. You showed me pictures, took me to his cell,” I said, unable to contain my anger any longer. “You lied to me.”
The King paced the length of the room. “I don’t need to explain myself, certainly not to you. You don’t understand this country. You knew about people who were building a tunnel to the outside and you didn’t tell me.” He turned, leveling his finger in my face. “Do you have any idea what kind of danger that would’ve put civilians in? Having an open passage into the wild?”
“The soldiers shot them,” I said, my voice trembling.
The King crumpled the papers in his hand. “Those men have been organizing dissidents for months, planning to bring weapons and who knows what into this City. They had to be stopped.”
“Killed,” I snapped, the tears hot in my eyes. “You mean killed—not ‘stopped.’ Say what you mean.”
“Do not speak to me that way.” The blood rushed to his face. “I’ve had enough. I came here this morning, early, to bring you this,” he said, throwing the bundle of papers at me. They landed on the floor. “I came to tell you how proud I was of you and the woman you’re becoming.” He let out a low, sorrowful laugh.
But I was barely listening, my mind instead running over the events of the morning. He’d ordered Harper and Caleb killed. But who had told him about the tunnel beneath the wall? How had Stark gotten there before me? The questions ran through my mind on an endless loop. Caleb is dead, I kept repeating, but nothing could make it feel real.
“There are nearly half a million people downstairs,” he continued, “waiting for their Princess to come down the street w
ith her father, to offer their good wishes before she is married. I will not keep them waiting.” He headed to the door, his fingers pounding the keypad. “Beatrice! Come help the Princess get ready!” he yelled before disappearing down the hall.
The door slammed shut behind him. I let out a deep breath, feeling the room expand in his absence. I looked down at my hands, which burned now, my wrists red from where the restraints had been. I kept seeing Caleb, his face before he fell, the way his arm was crushed beneath him. I closed my eyes. It was too much. I knew he couldn’t have survived, but the idea that he was gone, that he would never cradle my head in his hands again, never smile at me, never tease me for taking myself so seriously …
I heard Beatrice come in, but I couldn’t stop looking at the scraped skin on my wrists, the only proof that the last several hours had really happened. When I looked up, she was standing there, staring at a spot on the carpet.
“It was Clara, wasn’t it?” I said slowly. “What did she tell them? How much do they know?”
But Beatrice was silent. When she looked up, her eyes were swollen. She kept shaking her head back and forth, mouthing the words “I’m so sorry.” She finally said it aloud. “I had to.”
Something about her expression frightened me. Her lips were twisted and trembling. “You had to what?”
“He told me he would kill her,” she said, coming toward me, wrapping her hands around mine. “He came up early, just after you left. You weren’t here. They’d discovered Caleb’s empty cell. He said he would kill her if I didn’t reveal where you were. I told him about the tunnel.”
I pulled away, my hands shaking.
“I’m so sorry, Eve,” she said, reaching out for me, trying to stroke my face. “I had to, I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t,” I said. “Please go.” She came to me again, her hand on my arm, but I slunk back. It wasn’t her fault. I knew that. But I didn’t want her comfort either, this person who had played a part in Caleb’s death. I turned toward the window, listening to the sound of her choked sobs until they settled into silence. Finally, I heard the door close. When I was certain she was gone I turned, studying the crumpled papers on the floor.
I picked the first one up, calmed by the familiar handwriting. It was the same yellowed paper I’d carried with me since School. The old letter, the one I’d read a thousand times, was now sitting in a backpack off Route 80, outside of that warehouse. I would never see it again.
The sheet was worn around the edges. Wedding day was scrawled along the front in wobbly letters. I sat on my bed, pressing the paper between my fingers, trying to smooth out the hard crease from where he’d crumpled it in his hand.
My sweet girl,
It’s impossible to know if and when you will read this, where you will be or how old. In the passing days I’ve imagined it many times over. The world is always as it once was. Sometimes the church doors open up to a bustling street, and you stride out, your new husband beside you. Someone helps you inside a waiting car. Other times it’s just you and him and a small crowd of friends. I can see the glasses raised in your honor. And once I imagined there was no wedding—no ceremony, no big white dress, none of the tradition—just you and him lying beside each other one night and deciding that was it. From now on, you’d always be together.
Whatever circumstance it is, wherever you are, I know that you are happy. My hope is that it is a big, boundless happiness that works its way into every corner of your life. Know that I am with you now, as I’ve always been.
I love you, I love you, I love you,
Mom
I folded the letter in my lap. I didn’t move. I sat there on the bed, my face swollen and pink, until I heard the King’s voice, as if startling me from a dream. “Genevieve,” he said, his voice stern. “It’s time.”
forty-three
I STOOD IN THE BACK OF THE PALACE CATHEDRAL, THE GAUZY veil shielding me from a thousand staring eyes. The King was beside me, his face fixed in a grotesque smile. He offered me his arm. As the music started I threaded my hand through his elbow and took the first step toward the altar, where Charles waited for me, the wedding band already out, pressed between his thin fingers.
The string quartet played a long, sorrowful note as I took one step, then another. The eaves were crowded with people clad in their finest silk dresses, ornate hats, and jewels. Their plastic smiles were too much to bear. Clara and Rose were on one aisle, their hair done up in stiff, overblown waves. Clara’s face was drained of color. She didn’t look at me as I passed, instead wrapping her satin sash tightly around her fingers, squeezing all the blood from her hands. I scanned the pews for Moss, finally spotting him in the middle of the front row. We locked eyes for a moment before he turned away.
I was trapped here. The horrible, stifled feeling had returned. I closed my eyes for just a moment and Caleb’s voice came back to me, the smell of smoke as real as it had been hours before. We were supposed to be out of the tunnel by now, moving through the abandoned neighborhood, our packs full of supplies. I took another step, then another, all the should-haves presenting themselves before me, one after the other. We were supposed to be leaving the City, going away from the wall and the soldiers and the Palace, moving east as the sun made its slow arc across the sky, finally warming our backs. We were supposed to be arriving at the first stop on the Trail.
We were supposed to be together.
But instead I was here, more alone than I’d ever been, the diamond tiara heavy on my head. The King paused in front of the altar and lifted the veil for a moment. He gazed at me, playing the role of the loving father, the camera flashing, freezing us forever in this terrible place. He pressed his thin lips against my cheek and let the veil fall back over my face.
Then—finally—he was gone. I stepped up the three short stairs and took my place beside Charles. The music stopped, the people were silent. I focused on my breathing, the only reminder that I was still alive. I steadied my hands, remembering Moss’s words.
The ceremony was about to begin.
acknowledgments
A BIG HUG AND THANK-YOU TO ALL WHO MAKE THIS SERIES possible: funny man Josh Bank, for general awesomeness; Sara Shandler, for her spontaneous “I love Eve” emails, which are so supportive they make me want to dance; Joelle Hobeika, editor extraordinaire, for being able to talk character development and reality television with equal enthusiasm. To Farrin Jacobs, for all those aha! notes. And to Sarah Landis, the all-knowing “third eye,” for seeing the things that we’ve missed (and then some).
To the sharp women who promote these books as if they were their own: Marisa Russell, for blog tours and retweets and signings; Deb Shapiro, for being the first to be All About Eve. To Kate Lee, my Twitter bestie, for all her good work and guidance. And to Kristin Marang, for her time and love spent on all things digital. That two-hour “conversation” was magical.
Much love and thanks to all of my friends, in so many cities, who offered everything from flash mobs to cocktail parties just to celebrate this series’ release. Special thanks to those who’ve kept me afloat during this process: Helen Rubenstein and Aaron Kandell, who read early drafts of this book; Ali and Ally (the aptly named Allies) for understanding. To Anna Gilbert, Lanie Davis, and Katie Sise—my long-distance girlfriends—for talking it out; Lauren Morphew, right back at you. And to T.W.F., for making LA feel like home.
As always, endless gratitude to my brother, Kevin, and my parents, Tom and Elaine, for loving me first and best.
about the author
ANNA CAREY graduated from New York University and has an MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College. She lives in Los Angeles.
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credits
Cover design by Elizabeth H. Clark
Cover art by Steve Stone
copyright
“Monster Mash” by Leonard L. Capizzi, Bobby Pickett (Capizzi Music Co., Chrysall
is One Songs LLC, House of Paxton Music Press). All rights reserved.
Once
Copyright © 2012 by Alloy Entertainment and Anna Carey
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carey, Anna.
Once / by Anna Carey.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Sequel to: Eve.
Summary: “In the second book of this dystopian adventure, Eve will come face to face with the king who has been ruthlessly hunting her—and learn shocking truth about who she really is”—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-06-204854-7 (trade)—ISBN 978-0-06-221644-1 (int’l ed.)
EPub Edition © MAY 2012 ISBN 9780062048561
