by Marie Lu
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 explosions 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.
Anden’s quiet for a moment as he considers my words. Then he nods in agreement and presses a hand against his ear. “Commander Greene,” he says, then launches into a series of orders.
I meet Day’s eyes. He still looks upset, but at least his eyes aren’t burning in anger like they were a second ago. He turns his attention back on Lucy, who has an arm wrapped protectively around Eden. He’s curled up in the corner of the jeep’s seat with his legs tucked up and his arms wrapped around them. He squints at the scene blurring by, but I’m not sure how much of it he can actually make out. I reach across Day and touch Eden’s shoulder. He tenses up immediately. “It’s okay, it’s June,” I say. “And don’t worry. We’re going to be fine, do you hear?”
“Why did the Colonies break through?” Eden asks, turning his wide, purple-toned eyes on me and Day.
I swallow hard. Neither of us answers him. Finally, after he repeats his question, Day hugs him closer and whispers something in his ear. Eden settles down against his brother’s shoulder. He still looks unhappy and scared, but the terror is at least tempered, and we manage to finish the rest of the ride without saying another word.
It feels like an eternity (in actuality the trip takes a mere two minutes and twelve seconds), but we finally arrive at a nondescript building near the heart of downtown Denver, a thirty-story high-rise covered with crisscrossing support beams on all four of its sides. Dozens of city patrols are mixed in with crowds of civilians, organizing them into groups at the entrance. Our driver pulls the jeep up to the side of the building, where patrols let us through the door of a makeshift fence. Through the window, I see soldiers click their heels together in sharp salutes as we pass by. One of them is holding Ollie on a leash. I slump in relief at the sight of him. When the jeep halts, two of them promptly open the doors for us. Anden steps out—immediately he’s surrounded by four patrol captains, all feverishly updating him on how the evacuation is going. My dog pulls his soldier frantically to my side. I thank the soldier, take over the leash, and rub Ollie’s head. He’s panting in distress.
“This way, Ms. Iparis,” the soldier who opens my door says. Day follows behind me in a tense silence, his hand still clutched tightly around Eden’s. Lucy comes out last. I look over my shoulder to where Anden’s now deep in conversation with his captains—he pauses to exchange a quick look with me. His eyes dart to Eden. I know that the thought he has must be the same thought running through Day’s mind: Keep Eden safe. I nod, signaling to him that I understand, and then we move past a crowd of waiting evacuees and I lose sight of him.
Instead of dealing with the lineup of civilians at the entrance, soldiers escort us through a separate entrance and down a winding set of stairs, until we reach a dimly lit hallway that ends in a set of wide, steel double doors. The guards standing at the entrance shift their stance when they recognize me.
“This w
ay, Ms. Iparis,” they say. One of them stiffens at the sight of Day, but looks quickly away when Day meets his stare. The doors swing open for us.
We’re greeted by a blast of warm, humid air and a scene of orderly chaos. The room we’ve stepped into seems like an enormous warehouse (half the size of a Trial stadium, three dozen fluorescents, and six rows of steel beams lining the ceiling), with a lone JumboTron on the left wall blasting instructions to the upper-class evacuees who mill all around us. Amongst them are a handful of poor-sector people (fourteen of them, to be exact), those who must have been the housekeepers and janitors of some of the gem-sector’s homes. To my disappointment, I see soldiers separating them out into a different line. Several upper-class people cast them sympathetic looks, while others glare in disdain.
Day sees them too. “Guess we’re all created equal,” he mutters. I say nothing.
A few smaller rooms line the right wall. At the far end of the room, the end of a parked subway train rests inside a tunnel, and crowds of both soldiers and civilians have gathered along both of its platforms. The soldiers are attempting to organize the crowds of bewildered, frightened people onto the subway. Where it will take them, I can only guess.
Beside me, Day watches the scene with silent, simmering eyes. His hand stays clamped on Eden’s. I wonder whether he’s taking note of the aristocratic clothing that most of these evacuees are wearing.
“Apologies for the mess,” a guard says to me as she escorts us toward one of the smaller rooms. She taps the edge of her cap politely. “We are in the early stages of evacuations, and as you can see, the first wave is still in progress. We can have you, as well as Day and his family, on the first wave as well, if you don’t mind resting for a moment in a private suite.”
Mariana and Serge might already be waiting in rooms of their own. “Thank you,” I reply. We walk past several doors, their long, rectangular windows revealing empty, blank rooms with portraits of Anden hanging on their walls. A couple look as if they have been reserved for high-ranking officials, while others appear to be holding people who must have caused trouble—detainees with sullen faces flanked by pairs of soldiers. One room that we pass by holds several people surrounded by guards.
It is this room that makes me pause. I recognize one of the people in there. Is it really her? “Wait,” I call out, stepping closer to the window. No doubt about it—I see a young girl with wide eyes and a blunt, messy bob of a haircut, sitting in a chair beside a gray-eyed boy and three others who look more ragged than I recall. I glance at our soldier. “What are they doing in there?”
Day follows my lead. When he sees what I see, he sucks in a sharp breath. “Get us in there,” he whispers to me. His voice takes on a desperate urgency. “Please.”
“These are prisoners, Ms. Iparis,” the soldier replies, puzzled by our interest. “I don’t recommend—”
I tighten my lips. “I want to see them,” I interrupt.
The soldier hesitates, glances around the room, and then nods reluctantly. “Of course,” she replies. She steps toward the door and opens it, then ushers us in. Lucy stays right outside with her hand tightly gripping Eden’s. The door closes behind us.
I find myself staring straight at Tess and a handful of Patriots.
WELL, DAMN. THE LAST TIME I SAW TESS, SHE WAS STANDING in the middle of the alley near where we were supposed to assassinate Anden, her fists clenched and her face a broken picture. She looks different now. Calmer. Older. She’s also gotten a good bit taller, and her once-round baby face has leaned out. Weird to see.
She and the others are all shackled to chairs. The sight doesn’t help my mood. I recognize one of her companions immediately—Pascao, the dark-skinned Runner with a head of short curls and those ridiculously pale gray eyes. He hasn’t changed much, although now that I’m close enough, I can see traces of a scar across his nose and another one near his right temple. He flashes me a brilliant white grin that drips sarcasm. “That you, Day?” he says, giving me a flirtatious wink. “Still as gorgeous as you’ve always been. Republic uniforms suit you.”
His words sting. I turn my glare on the soldiers standing guard over them. “Why the hell are they prisoners?”
One of them tilts his nose up at me. Based on all the goddy decorations on his uniform, he must be the captain of this group or something. “They’re former Patriots,” he says, emphasizing his last word as if he’s trying to make a jab at me. “We caught them along the edge of the Armor, where they were attempting to disable our military equipment and aid the Colonies.”
Pascao shifts indignantly in his chair. “Bullshit, you blinder boy,” he snaps. “We were camped out along the Armor because we were trying to help your sorry soldiers out. Maybe we shouldn’t have bothered.”
Tess watches me with a wary look that she’s never used with me before. Her arms look so small and thin with those giant shackles clamped around her wrists. I clench my teeth; my gaze falls to the guns at the soldiers’ belts. No sudden moves, I remind myself. Not around these trigger-happy trots. From the corner of my eye, I notice that one of the others is bleeding from the shoulder. “Let them go,” I tell the soldier. “They’re not the enemy.”
The soldier glares at me with cold contempt. “Absolutely not. Our orders were to detain them until such time—”
Beside me, June lifts her chin. “Orders from whom?”
The soldier’s bravado wavers a little. “Ms. Iparis, my orders came directly from the glorious Elector himself.” His cheeks flush when he sees June narrow her eyes, and then he starts blabbing something about their tour of duty around the Armor and how intense the battle’s been. I step closer to Tess and stoop down until we’re at the same eye level. The guards shift their guns, but June snaps a warning at them to stop.
“You came back,” I whisper to Tess.
Even though Tess still looks wary, something softens in her eyes. “Yes.”
“Why?”
Tess hesitates. She looks over at Pascao, who turns his startling gray eyes fully on me. “We came back,” he replies, “because Tess heard you calling for us.”
They’d heard me. All those radio transmissions I’d been sending out for months and months hadn’t ended up lost somewhere in the dark—somehow, they’d heard me. Tess swallows hard before she works up enough courage to speak. “Frankie first caught you on the airwaves a few months ago,” she says, nodding toward a curly-haired girl tied to one of the chairs. “She said you were trying to contact us.” Tess lowers her eyes. “I didn’t want to answer. But then I heard about your illness . . . and . . .”
So. The news has definitely gotten around.
“Hey now,” Pascao interrupts when he catches my expression. “We didn’t come back to the Republic just because we felt sorry for you. We’ve been listening to the news coming from both you and the Colonies. Heard about the threat of war.”
“And you decided to come to our aid?” June pipes up. Her eyes are suspicious. “Why so generous all of a sudden?”
Pascao’s sarcastic grin fades away. He regards June with a tilt of his head. “You’re June Iparis, aren’t you?”
The captain starts to tell him to greet June in a more formal way, but June just nods.
“So you’re the one who sabotaged our plans and split up our crew.” Pascao shrugs. “No hard feelings—not that, you know, I was a big fan of Razor or anything.”
“Why are you back in the country?” June repeats.
“Okay, fine. We got kicked out of Canada.” Pascao takes a deep breath. “We were hiding out there after everything fell apart during the”—he pauses to glance at the soldiers around them—“the, ah, you know. Our playdate with Anden. But then the Canadians figured out that we weren’t supposed to be in their country, and we had to flee back south. A lot of us scattered to the winds. I don’t know where half our original group is now—chances are that some of them are still in Canada. When the news about Day broke, little Tess here asked if she could leave us and head back
to Denver on her own. I didn’t want her to, well, die—so we came along.” Pascao looks down for a moment. He doesn’t stop talking, but I can tell that he’s just babbling at this point, trying to give us any reason but their main one. “With the Colonies invading, I thought that if we tried helping out your war effort, then maybe we could get a pardon and permission to stay in the country, but I know your Elector probably isn’t our biggest—”
“What is all this?”
All of us turn around at the voice, right as the soldiers in the room snap into salutes. I get up from my crouch to see Anden standing in the doorway with a group of bodyguards behind him, his eyes dark and ominous, his stare fixed first on June and me and then on the Patriots. Even though it hasn’t been that long since we left him behind to talk with his generals, he has a fine layer of dust on the shoulders of his uniform, and his face looks bleak. The captain who’d been talking to us earlier now clears his throat nervously. “My apologies, Elector,” he begins, “but we detained these criminals near the Armor—”
At that, June crosses her arms. “Then I’m guessing you weren’t the one who approved this, Elector?” she says to Anden. There’s an edge to her voice that tells me she and Anden aren’t on the best of terms right now.
Anden regards the scene. Our argument from the car ride over is probably still stewing in his mind, but he doesn’t bother looking in my direction. Well, good. Maybe I’ve given him something to think about. Finally, he nods at the captain. “Who are they?”
“Former Patriots, sir.”
“I see. Who ordered this?”
The captain turns bright red. “Well, Elector,” he replies, trying to sound official, “my commanding officer—”
But Anden has already turned his attention away from the lying captain and starts to leave the room. “Take those shackles off them,” he says without turning back around. “Keep them in here for now, and then evacuate them with the final group. Watch them carefully.” He motions for us to follow him. “Ms. Iparis. Mr. Wing. If you please.”
