Captive

by Aimee Carter

  He trailed off. He didn’t have to say anything else. Other than Celia and Lila, who were now safely hidden in the Blackcoat bunker, Augusta had been the only real family Greyson had left. And I’d been the one to kill her.

  “You got me something?” I said. The last time he’d brought me a gift, he’d done so thinking I was Lila. She had been his best friend, and it had taken him all of ten seconds to realize I wasn’t really her. His quiet acceptance, as if her supposed death had been inevitable, had nearly broken my heart. Worse, the perpetual haunted look in Greyson’s eyes never let me forget that I was one more constant reminder of his string of painful losses.

  I touched the silver disk hanging from a chain around my neck, the same one he’d still given me even after figuring out I wasn’t Lila. It looked like nothing more than a pretty charm, but when pulled apart the right way, it was a lock pick that could open virtually any lock—including an electronic one. I should have given it to Lila when I found out she was still alive, but selfishly I’d hung on to it.

  Greyson nodded, and from behind his back, he produced a small box wrapped in silver paper. “Happy Birthday.”

  “You know it’s not really my birthday, right?” I said with a small smile. He shrugged, and my smile faded. Gift or not, he still hadn’t forgiven me for killing Augusta. I crossed the carpet and accepted the present. Unwrapping it carefully, mindful of the beautiful swirling paper, I cracked open the black box underneath, and my eyes widened.

  Inside the box lay a gold picture frame with a labyrinth pattern carved into the edges. It wasn’t the frame that surprised me, though—it was the picture of Lila and Greyson inside. They sat together in the library buried in the heart of Somerset, and though Greyson held a book, he watched Lila out of the corner of his eye, a secret smile playing on his lips as he tried to see what she was drawing on her sketch pad.

  No, not Lila’s sketch pad, I realized with a jolt. Mine. That girl wasn’t Lila—she was me.

  I studied the look on Greyson’s face in the picture. He looked relaxed and happy—the kind of happy you couldn’t fake. “When...?”

  “While Daxton was unconscious,” said Greyson. He cleared his throat, and his cheeks flushed. “Right before you saved my life.”

  “I didn’t save your life,” I said. “It was never in any danger in the first place.”

  He shrugged again. “I was going to tell Grandmother I didn’t want to be Prime Minister. I think she knew, but if I outright refused...” His Adam’s apple bobbed, and his eyes turned red. “Do you think she would have replaced me, too?”

  Forgetting for a moment all that had happened and every reason he had for not wanting me anywhere near him, I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around him. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I do know she loved you more than anything, though.”

  At first he didn’t move, but after several seconds, he finally returned my embrace, hugging me tight enough to bruise. “Because of who I am,” he managed, his voice breaking, “or because of who I was supposed to be once she decided to get rid of the impostor and make me Prime Minister instead?”

  I couldn’t answer that. Maybe that was all Augusta had ever been—the kind of person who had no problem saying goodbye to the people she loved if it brought her more power. Or maybe that had been the armor she’d worn to protect her deepest vulnerabilities. I’d only ever seen the bad in her; it was Greyson who had seen the good, if there’d been any to begin with. “It doesn’t matter now,” I said. “Remember her the way you want, and try to forget the rest.”

  His shoulders shook, and he clung to me the way I clung to Benjy in my worst moments. He had no one. His parents and older brother were dead; the man pretending to be his father was really a Masked stranger; Lila had disappeared underground; and Knox was so busy trying to change the world that half the time he didn’t have a second to spare for me, let alone Greyson. I was it, and whether or not he’d forgiven me for what I’d done to the last family he had left, his face in the picture had said it all. And I was going to walk away from him to save my own skin.

  No, he would have Lila once the rebellion was over. She and Celia would return, and Greyson would have his family again. He wouldn’t have to be Prime Minister if he didn’t want to be, and in the end, everything would work out for him. If I wasn’t there to make sure of it, Knox would.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, pulling away after nearly a minute had passed. I started to tell him he had nothing to be sorry for, but he took the picture frame from me and fiddled with something on the back. “Here. This is what I wanted to show you.”

  I took the frame back and blinked. Instead of Greyson and I sitting together in the library, it now held a picture of Benjy with his arms around a girl with a round face, dirty blond hair, and bright blue eyes.

  My mouth dropped open. Once again, that girl was me—actually me, Kitty Doe, before I’d been Masked as Lila. Benjy’s shock of red hair was as vivid as ever, and he bent his head to kiss my cheek as I grinned ear to ear. Unlike the picture with Greyson, I remembered the moment this had been taken, almost a year ago. The brand-new sweater I wore gave it away. It had been our last Christmas together in the group home—the last one our matron, Nina, had seen before Daxton had hunted and killed her in the vast forests of Elsewhere.

  I traced my old face over the glass. Everything about it was different now, and I would never look in the mirror and see Kitty Doe again. I almost hadn’t recognized myself, and seeing this picture now—the only one I had from before I’d been Masked as Lila—made my insides knot together. I’d had nothing then, only Benjy and the hope of a better future. That better future had turned into a III and a job cleaning sewers, and only the strange color of my eyes had saved me from a short, brutal life underground. If I forgot my own face so quickly, then what hope did I have of anyone else remembering it? I had been a nobody. I still was a nobody, but at least now I was a nobody who might be able to make a difference in the lives of the IIs and IIIs who hadn’t been lucky enough to have the same eye color as Lila Hart.

  And here I was, about to run away from the only thing that made my life worth anything at all.

  More than my guilt over leaving Greyson, more than my trepidation over dragging Benjy underground, that was what cracked my resolve. I would still leave—I had to, to save Benjy’s life, to save my own, and to give Knox a chance at seeing his plans through without me getting in the way. But I’d be damned if I wasted this chance to make the difference I’d risked my life for in the first place.

  “How did you find this?” I said, still staring at the photograph. It had been less than a year since that moment, but it felt like another lifetime. Nothing was the same anymore, and nothing would be ever again.

  Greyson shrugged. “I found it in Grandmother’s things with the others.”

  “Others?” An idea began to form in my mind. If Greyson could find a picture of me, one I hadn’t even known existed, then Sampson must have been right—there had to be one of the real Daxton.

  “She had an entire file on you,” he said. “Pictures, test results, your birth certificate—”

  My head snapped up. “Birth certificate? Why would she have all of that?”

  “I don’t know.” Greyson frowned. “I didn’t read everything, but there were reports on you, too—yearly ones, like she’d been keeping tabs on you. I thought you knew.”

  I blinked. I’d had no idea. “Do you know where the file is now?”

  “I don’t know. Daxton cleared everything out after she died.” His face fell. “I’m sorry, I should have saved it. I wasn’t thinking—”

  “It’s okay,” I said hastily, my mind whirling as I clutched the picture frame. “Thank you—for this, for the frame, for everything.”

  “’Course,” he mumbled. “There’s a switch on the back—here, like this.” He took it gingerly
and pointed to a barely visible button. “Hold it down for five seconds, and it’ll change into you and Benjy. Press it again, just once, and it’ll change back to us.”

  “Thanks.” I took the frame back and tried it. My face dissolved into Lila’s once more. Instead of being sorry to see me go, I was relieved. This was my life now. As much as I wanted to go back in time to last Christmas, all I could do was go forward. It was the only option any of us ever had.

  Greyson shuffled his feet and shoved his hands into his pockets again. “You were really pretty before.”

  “Thanks,” I said quietly. It didn’t matter, not anymore. I was stuck as Lila Hart for the rest of my life, however long or short it might be.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for—for being distant. You don’t deserve that.”

  I did, though. “I get it. I’d be distant, too.”

  Greyson jerked forward, as if he wanted to move toward me but had stopped himself at the last instant. “Grandmother—she deserved what she got. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at her for everything she did. She didn’t have to, but she did and...I’m sorry.”

  For a second time, I hugged him tightly. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about, okay? You’re my friend. You’ll always be my friend, no matter where we are or what’s going on.”

  “You, too,” he mumbled. “When this is all over and I’m—I’m Prime Minister, I’ll make sure you get to be that girl again, okay?”

  A lump formed in my throat. “Okay.”

  He let me go, and the smile on his face nearly made me forget how impossible his promise really was. I could never be Kitty Doe again, and if he ever had to be Prime Minister, it would mean only one thing: I had let him and the entire country down, and the Blackcoats had lost.

  The way Greyson’s gaze lingered on me as we said our good-nights made it seem almost as if he knew tonight would be the last time we saw each other. I watched him leave, part of me aching to give him one last hug, and another part of me wishing I didn’t have to say goodbye at all. But I had no choice—I had to get Benjy out of there, and there was no more reason for me to stay. I wanted the future he had drawn on that napkin. I wanted the lake, the cottage, the sunshine, the happiness, and the only way I would ever have it was to get out of the line of fire before the war began.

  I couldn’t leave yet, though—not until I found proof that Daxton was an impostor. I wasn’t useless. I wasn’t just a stupid III who was only good for cleaning sewers. I wasn’t going to make Knox put his neck on the chopping block because of me, and I wasn’t going to let the entire world come crashing down around Greyson, trapping him in a life he didn’t want the way Daxton and Knox had trapped me. He deserved better. We both did.

  After I changed into the most durable outfit Lila owned—jeans, a thick sweater, a leather jacket, and a pair of boots I could actually walk in—I stuffed a duffel bag full of clothes, jewelry, small electronics, and anything we might be able to pawn for food and shelter until we found someplace more permanent. A single one of Lila’s bracelets was worth more than most IIs and IIIs made in a decade, and she had several jewelry boxes full of them. I would’ve felt guilty if I hadn’t known the Harts could replace them without batting an eye, but it was a fair price for stealing my life.

  A knock on the door made me jump and drop a pearl earring into the bag. “Who is it?” I called, my heart racing. I shoved the duffel bag underneath the bathroom sink.

  “It’s me.”

  Knox. I scowled. “I’m busy.”

  “I don’t care how busy you are—I need to talk to you.”

  Damn. Knox must have caught Benjy packing, which meant he was here to stop me. I couldn’t let him try, not yet. Not when I didn’t know what he’d do to keep me here, and not when the Blackcoats needed that file. Knox wouldn’t stand a chance sneaking around Daxton’s office, but I did. “Fine,” I called. “I’m changing. Give me a minute.”

  I looked around the living room frantically. How was I supposed to get past him when he was right outside the door?

  Stupid question. My eyes fell on the ceiling in the corner of the room, where a grate led into a maze of metal tunnels that made up the ventilation system throughout the entire fourth level of Somerset. I’d used them to sneak around undetected before Augusta’s death, but I’d been forced to show my hand to Knox and Benjy, rendering my secret useless. Until now.

  As quietly as I could, I pushed the end table underneath the vent. Using the shelves on the bookcase, I climbed up and pushed the grate out of place. It had been weeks since I’d done this, but before becoming Lila, I’d been an expert at sneaking in and out of tight spaces—namely the maze of sewers underneath the Heights, the poorest corner of the city. Somerset was less than twenty miles away, but they couldn’t have been more different.

  I crawled through the metal vent, making sure to nudge the grate back into place. It wouldn’t take long for Knox to figure out what I’d done once he grew tired of waiting for me, but he was too big to follow, and he’d have no way of guessing where I was going. For now, all I could do was move as quickly as possible and hope to hell Daxton was asleep.

  Fifteen minutes later, I peered down through the metal slats and into Daxton’s office. The lights were dim, and I could hear the distant trickling of water from the fountain near his doorway. The screen on his desk was dark, but I wouldn’t need it. If Greyson had dug up a photograph, there must have been more to find than a few computer files I wouldn’t be able to read anyway.

  I dropped down into his office, wincing as my heavy combat boots thudded against the wooden floor. I stood still for the space of several heartbeats, waiting for a sign someone had heard me.

  Silence.

  Gliding across the floor, careful not to make another sound, I searched for anything that might have held a file Daxton wanted to keep hidden. His desk was the most obvious place, but when I tried to open the drawers, they were locked. Unclasping my necklace, I unfolded the lock pick and had each open within seconds; however, they held nothing more than official-looking papers I couldn’t read, all bearing the Hart family crest. In one, a half-empty bottle of what looked like whiskey sat hidden underneath a false bottom—the same kind I’d used to hide my few possessions at my group home—but no matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find anything that looked like it might have hidden the secrets to Daxton’s real identity.

  I straightened and looked around. The walls of his large office were covered ceiling to floor in bookshelves, each one fuller than the last. The ones closest to the door looked neat and organized, as if they hadn’t been touched in years. The closer they got to the desk, however, the more disorganized and cluttered they became. Was it possible he’d hidden something in a book?

  No—I wasn’t thinking about this the right way. Daxton would never leave something like that out where anyone could accidentally run across it. He would put it someplace hidden, but secure. Someplace no one would dare to look. Someplace only he would have access to.

  Which meant it had to be in this office. After my little stunt trying to kill him, he was the only one with access, even though he pretended he’d lost the memory of that incident. No one else had been allowed in his office without his personal guards present, not even Greyson. This was his most private room in Somerset. If the evidence still existed, it was in here.

  I began to touch everything. The chairs, the couches, the fireplace, the lamps, the end tables—nothing in the office got past my hands. But the harder I looked, the less confident I became. Just because I would have kept some sentimental token of my past didn’t mean he would. What if he really had destroyed it? Then what chance would the Blackcoats have of gaining the support of the Shields and the Ministers of the—

  Click.

  I stilled. My hand rested on the gold frame of the Hart family portrait painted a year earlier, before the deaths
of the real Daxton, along with his wife and elder son. On the very edge, where the portrait met the wall, there was a sliver of space that hadn’t been there before. Underneath my thumb, I spotted a tiny button that blended in perfectly with the frame.

  My heart sped up as I nudged the frame open. Surely enough, the massive portrait concealed a steel safe—or at least I thought it was a safe. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a square sheet of metal imbedded into the wall. There was no dial, no number pad, nothing.

  I searched for any sign of how to open it, but once again, nothing. That made things difficult. Frowning, I brushed my fingertips against the metal, feeling for any slight indents that might give me a clue.

  Instantly blue light appeared, forming a square in the center of the safe. I waited for something else to happen, but the blue square didn’t change. Did it want a handprint? No symbols had appeared, and a handprint was the only thing that would reasonably fit in that square.

  It didn’t matter what it wanted. My handprint was Lila’s now, and somehow I doubted Daxton would have granted her access to whatever was inside the safe. I clasped my necklace so hard that it left indents in my palm. Time to see how good Greyson really was.

  I passed the silver disk in front of the sensor and held my breath. If it didn’t work, would the sensor just ignore my attempt to break in, or would half of Somerset be alerted? I glanced at the opening in the ceiling. It would take me several precious seconds to scale the bookshelves and make it up there. If there were guards outside waiting, or if Daxton was anywhere nearby—

  The light changed from blue to white, and to my astonishment, the safe popped open. Apparently Greyson was that good after all. I opened the door and, with trembling fingers, removed the collection of a dozen files inside.

  Several of them were nothing but papers I couldn’t read and maps of places I had never been. Another was what looked like a report detailing the car explosion that had killed the real Daxton and his family, leaving Greyson alone. But as interesting as they might have been, it was the thickest folder that I cared about.