by Aimee Carter
A VII for life, but it wouldn’t last long. One less sanitation worker wasn’t anything for the Harts to cry about, and when they didn’t need me anymore, that would be the end of it. The only chance I had at survival was to make sure they needed me until I was ready to make a break for it.
Stay alive. Stay safe. Make Daxton think I was his, and one day I would find a way out of this and back to Benjy. Those were the things that mattered. Whatever Daxton made me do in the meantime would be worth it.
But what was so important that they had to keep Lila alive through me? The people loved her, but tragedies happened. What had she done to make her life so indispensable?
And why had Daxton killed her in the first place?
* * *
I didn’t mean to fall asleep. When I woke up, Daxton was gone, and sunlight streamed into the room through a window behind me that I hadn’t noticed earlier. All I could see through it was blue sky, but at least now I had another way out of here if I needed it.
I rolled over to shield my eyes from the bright sunlight, and I noticed the white couch on the other side of the room. With a jolt I remembered what had happened. I touched my face—Lila’s face—and felt the strange angles and curves. Even her skin was smoother than mine had ever been.
My neck itched, and as I started to scratch it, I froze.
I could move.
I stared at my hands. The skin was so white I looked like I’d never been outside, my nails were perfect and smooth, and when I pressed my fingertips together, they throbbed. Now that the medication had worn off, I could feel every little thing they’d done, and my face wasn’t the only thing they’d changed.
Pushing the blanket from my body, I examined the skin exposed around my flimsy hospital gown. So much paler than my own, without a single freckle or mole. My hip felt tender, and when I pulled up the gown, I saw a delicate tattoo of a butterfly.
So that was what Celia had been talking about. The media would’ve had a field day if they’d known their precious Lila had had it.
“See something you like?” said an unfamiliar voice, and I yanked the blanket back over my lap. Leaning against the doorway, with his arms crossed and his dark hair tousled as if he’d just stepped indoors on a windy day, was Lennox Creed.
Knox. Lila’s fiancé. My fiancé.
I scowled. “She has a tattoo.”
“We all do.” Knox rubbed the back of his neck, and a small thrill ran through me. Did I outrank him? Outranking IIs was nothing, but if he really was a VI...
“On her hip,” I said. “Of a butterfly.”
“Ah, that one.” He stepped into the room and pulled off his jacket. By the time he reached my bedside, I could smell the cold leather. “She had a lot of secrets.”
“Were any bad enough that the prime minister decided she couldn’t die properly like the rest of us?”
Knox smiled grimly. “Apparently.”
At a loss for what to say, I stared at him instead. He stared back. “You’re Knox,” I said.
“And you’re not Lila.” He made himself comfortable on the edge of the mattress. “Celia said your name’s Kitty. True?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to keep an edge in my voice. It still sounded funny to me—had they somehow made me sound like Lila, too? They must have, else I didn’t see how they expected me to pull this off. “What do you want?”
Instead of answering, he stuck out his hand for me to shake. I eyed him as I took it. There was something about him I didn’t trust. It wasn’t every day some strange girl showed up with the face of his fiancée, and he was being too nice, too—casual with this.
“You have a strong grip,” he said. “You’ll need to fix that before you go out in public. Lila was always very delicate.”
“I’ll work on it.” I hesitated. Knox had obviously been close to Lila, and he could be my ticket to pulling off this charade. It wouldn’t hurt to talk to him. “Is that why you’re here? To criticize my grip?”
“Partially,” he said drily. “Celia and I have agreed to work with you to make sure you transition to Lila’s life as seamlessly as possible, so you’ll be seeing plenty of both of us. In the meantime, I thought I’d introduce myself, since we’re going to be married in a few months and all.”
My stomach cramped. Daxton had mentioned I still had to marry him, but part of me had hoped that Knox wouldn’t go along with it now that he wouldn’t be marrying Lila. “I didn’t—” My voice broke, and I cleared my throat. “The prime minister said it was only temporary—”
“Not that temporary,” he said. “The wedding’s set for New Year’s Eve. Lila didn’t do much to help with planning, so you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you.”
“And what if I don’t want to marry you?” I said. “Do I get a say in this?”
The corners of his mouth tugged upward into a darkly amused smile. “Considering Lila didn’t want to marry me either, I’d say no.”
Terrific. On top of everything else, now I had to worry about explaining this to Benjy. “I have a boyfriend.”
“Yes, you do,” he said. “Me.”
“One I actually like.”
“You’ll learn to like me eventually,” said Knox. “Most people do.”
I bit back a retort and ran my tongue over my teeth. They were different, too—straighter, and my front teeth were smaller now. I touched my new face again, mapping out the new contours, and instinctively I brushed my fingertips against the back of my neck to reassure myself of my new mark. Except—
My blood ran cold. Three ridges to indicate a III, not the VII that should have been there. I pulled my hair away from my neck and turned so Knox could see it. “What’s there?” I said urgently. “What rank?”
“A VII,” he said, the confusion in his voice clear. When I turned back around, I must’ve looked as panicked as I felt, because he reached forward without asking. I leaned away, clutching the sheets. He paused. “I’m not going to hurt you. May I?”
Wordlessly I nodded, and he ran his fingers against my mark.
“You were a III?” he said. “Christ, that’s rotten.”
He could tell. The ink said I was a VII, just like Daxton had promised, but the ridges underneath my skin were still there. And if Knox could tell, anyone could. My heart hammered. “They said I’d be a VII, not—”
“Insurance,” said Knox. “They need a way to control you and prove you’re not Lila if they have to. Don’t worry about it, though. It won’t come to that, and no one in their right mind will check your rank.”
I forced myself to breathe steadily. It would be a problem after I ran, but until then, Knox was right. There was no reason for anyone to think I wasn’t Lila, nothing to connect her to an Extra III who was supposed to be in Denver. No one but Tabs, and she was already dead.
No, Tabs wasn’t the only person who knew where I’d been. Daxton had no way of knowing about Benjy, though. He couldn’t.
But what if he did?
I pushed the blanket away and swung my legs around to the side of the bed, ignoring the sharp pain as my feet touched the floor. Something felt off, but whatever else they’d done to me didn’t matter. I had to find a way to warn Benjy.
I pushed myself off the bed and stood. No, not stood—I swayed, seconds away from falling, and my legs shook under the stress of bearing my weight. Shit.
“Whoa, what do you think you’re doing?” Knox reached out to steady me, and when I tried to take a step, my foot caught on the lush carpet. Yes, something was definitely wrong.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I clumsily fell back onto the bed. When I stuck my legs out to see what was wrong with them, my mouth dropped open. They were several inches longer. And thinner.
It wasn’t just my face and my hands and my hip. I was taller, too.
Knox sat down beside me. “They did a good job on you,” he said, glancing at my legs. “If I didn’t know, I wouldn’t be able to tell.”
“Good for them,” I said faintly. “I need some air.”
“Excellent idea. I could use some myself.”
Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to stand on my unsteady legs. This time I knew what to expect.
“Let me,” said Knox, offering me his arm. I pushed it away and shuffled across the carpet. I needed to do this on my own.
By the time I finally reached the door, I was panting, my muscles burned, and a bead of sweat trickled down my forehead. Knox had left it open, and I poked my head around the corner, only to see a long white hallway that looked about a mile long. My heart sank.
“Stubborn little thing, aren’t you?” Knox reappeared beside me with a wheelchair. “You really should learn when to ask for help. There’s no shame in it, you know.”
“I’m not letting you push me around in that thing,” I said flatly.
“You have two choices—stay in this tiny room all day and mope, or go for a ride.” He paused. “Well, you could also try to walk farther than you already have, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Doubt the doctors would, either.”
I didn’t particularly care about what the doctors thought—or the fact that Knox thought the bedroom was tiny—but my legs were shaking so badly underneath me that my knees were practically knocking together. A wheelchair might have been embarrassing, but it had to be better than collapsing.
“Promise to take me wherever I want to go?” I said.
Knox placed his hand over his heart. “You have my word as your loving and devoted fiancé.”
I rolled my eyes and eased myself down into the chair. My legs ached with pain beyond anything I’d ever felt before, and I could feel where they’d elongated the bones and tissue. No wonder they’d kept me unconscious.
“Where to, Your Highness?” said Knox as he handed me a blanket. I tucked it in around my lap, grateful for the warmth.
“Think you can manage a tour?” He’d never let me leave the building, but I might as well learn the layout.
Knox pushed me forward. “I’ll see what I can do.”
The long hallway was only the start of it. Knox wheeled me down another one, then another, and another, and I struggled to remember where we’d turned. It wasn’t until I started imagining the hallways as the sewers that I figured out a way to keep track. I knew the sewer system better than most city workers, and it was dangerous to get lost down there. I was willing to bet it wasn’t half as dangerous as it would be getting lost in this place, though.
“Where are the exits?” I said. The doors all blended into the walls, and none of them looked like they would lead to the streets.
“Thinking about leaving us so soon?” said Knox.
“There might be a fire,” I said lamely, and I could practically hear his grin as he pushed me into an elevator. They were rare in the Heights, most being rickety and the sort that broke down once a week, and I hated the way I felt trapped inside them. But I was stuck in the chair for now, and I doubted this elevator broke down much at all. It was exquisite, with the ceiling made of white molding and buttons that shone like gold. Mirrors surrounded us on all four sides, and I saw the scowl on my unfamiliar face. Lila even looked pretty when she was miserable.
That was also the first good look I had at my new body. As the elevator flew upward, I stared at myself, trying to find any connection to my real appearance. Everything from my hair to my feet had been changed into an exact copy of Lila’s, and the harder I looked, the more I realized even I couldn’t tell the difference.
My eyes widened as I caught sight of my chest, and my hands flew upward. “You gave me implants?”
In the mirrors I could see Knox struggling to keep a straight face. “I didn’t do anything, and I doubt they’re implants. Those haven’t been done in years. Chances are they’re as real as your old ones.”
I didn’t find that very comforting. “What was wrong with mine?”
“They weren’t Lila’s.”
“Yeah, but there wasn’t that much of a difference, was there? Who spends so much time staring at Lila’s chest that they’d notice?”
Knox smirked. “Roughly half the population.”
My face turned scarlet, and I was still trying to come up with some kind of retort when the doors glided open, flooding the elevator with sunlight.
For a moment I thought I was imagining things. Clear blue sky stretched out before me, nothing like the smoggy skies of the District of Columbia, and white peaks loomed in the distance. Mountains.
“This is the exit,” said Knox, wheeling me forward so we were close to the edge of the roof. The bitter wind whipped around me, but I was too dazed to worry about the cold. We were in a compound that seemed to be carved out of the mountain itself. When I stood on my shaky legs to look around, there were no towns or houses or anything in sight. Just the roof and snowy peaks.
“You didn’t think we’d keep you in the city while we made the alterations, did you?” said a voice behind me. Daxton.
He sauntered toward us, wearing a crisp black suit that made him look as if he’d come from some extravagant event. Behind him stood a jet with the Hart family crest stamped on the tail, and the air around it seemed to ripple from the heat of the engines.
“Where are we?” I said, wishing my voice wasn’t trembling as much as my knees. I grabbed the rail to steady myself.
“Somewhere no one will find you,” said Daxton, smiling as he removed his leather gloves. “The family calls it the Stronghold, and its location is quite secret. You understand.” He winked. “We thought this was the safest place for you until you’ve adjusted.”
Until there was no chance I’d give away their game publicly, he meant. “How long will that be?”
“That, my dear, is entirely up to you.” He unwound his scarf and stepped toward me. I flinched, but he gently wrapped it around my neck. “Wouldn’t want you to catch cold in this chill.”
“I’ll take her back inside,” said Knox, and he touched my elbow. I stood my ground, refusing to let go of the frozen rail.
“What do you want from me before I’m not your prisoner anymore?”
“My dear,” said Daxton, his eyes wide with mock concern. “You’re not my prisoner. If you really wish to go, we won’t keep you here, but do understand that there will be consequences if you choose to leave.”
Like a bullet with my name on it. “Yeah, I know.”
Knox cleared his throat. “Sir, I believe she means how long she’s stuck here until she can take over for Lila.”
Daxton’s lips curled upward into a leering smile. “Have you decided not to fight us after all? What pleasant news. Mother will be thrilled to hear it.”
I dug my nails into the steel railing. “I’m not going to fight you. Tell me what I need to do to get out of this place, and I’ll do it.”
Daxton cupped my cheek, his hand like fire in the icy wind. “I am so very happy to hear that, darling. I understand how difficult this must be for you, and we are all here to help you. I will have Knox and Celia begin working with you tomorrow. Only your progress will dictate how long it will take. I am hoping for a few weeks, but it will last as long as it must.”
Unless I was hopeless. Then I had no doubt it would be easy enough to replace me.
“When we’re certain you will pass muster, you will meet Mother,” he continued. “She will be the final judge.”
I tightened my grip on the railing and tried not to sway. Nina called Augusta Hart the Bitch Queen, and with good reason. There hadn’t been a single photograph taken of her since before I was born that showed her smiling, and she was notoriously unforgiving with both the people and her own family. It was common gossip that her husband,
Edward, had just been a figurehead while she ruled the country with an iron fist, and apparently the same was true for Daxton.
Knox helped me into my chair, and I struggled to hold back the horror building inside me. Pretending to be a VII was one thing, but I would’ve had an easier time making an elephant tap dance than gaining Augusta’s approval. Any hope I had at outsmarting them faded, and the only thing I had left was staying alive long enough to make sure they didn’t hurt Benjy.
V
Augusta
Lila was right-handed.
Normally this wouldn’t have been a problem, but even though I barely knew the shapes of the cursive letters that formed my name, I could draw. I’d been holding markers and crayons since I was big enough to steal them from the supply cabinets in the group home, and everything I’d ever done had been with my left hand.
It wasn’t just learning how to mimic the curves that formed Lila’s signature. I had to learn to eat with my right hand as well, and the Harts seemed to have an endless stream of rules I had to follow in the dining room alone. Sit up straight, use the correct fork without hesitation, hold my pinkie up as I took a sip of water—everything Lila did instinctively, I had to learn from the ground up. It was a well-rehearsed show, as if Celia and Knox expected the cameras to be on me constantly, and I couldn’t ignore the possibility that they were right. I would have no second chance.
“Get the basics down, and you’ll be fine,” said Knox on the first day of my training. “The trick isn’t to convince them you’re Lila—it’s not to do anything to make them question it.”
That probably held some special distinction for Knox that was supposed to make it easier on me, but I didn’t know enough about Lila to mimic her. Everything I did, from the way I walked to the way I spoke, was different. I had an accent she didn’t. I’d never worn a pair of heels before, and those were all Lila seemed to wear. The foods she ate were ones I hated, which made maintaining her slight weight easy enough, but it also made the urge to sneak into the kitchens for a real meal gnaw at me unbearably.
