by Aimee Carter
After that, I was sure things couldn’t get worse. But this was hell, and of course they did, when a woman on the other side of the wall handed me a tiny heart that belonged to a little girl born that day. I consoled myself by rationalizing that the baby must have died at birth from an unrelated condition, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this heart had been requested from a VI with their own dying baby.
An hour later, a crackle from the communication device strapped to the guard’s shoulder interrupted the silence. We’d packaged eleven hearts by then, and I couldn’t make out the garbled speech, but the guard seemed to understand it clearly enough. “Hart,” he barked. “You’ve been requested.”
“By who?” I said, startled, but he didn’t elaborate. Instead, Noelle shot me a frightened look, and I swallowed the lump in my throat.
It would be fine. If Knox had wanted to hunt me, he would have picked me before breakfast. But even the most airtight logic couldn’t calm the fear churning within me, and I mumbled my goodbyes to Noelle and Teddy, who seemed as oblivious to me as ever, before heading back through the plastic walls.
By the time I reached the locker room, I was naked and shivering despite the blast of warm air coming from somewhere above me. I opened my locker and discovered a fresh set of clothes, and I’d managed to put on my underthings before a guard opened the door.
“Miss Hart?” he said. A rifle was strapped to his back.
I nodded, resisting the urge to shy away and insist he come back when I was fully dressed. “A moment, if you would,” I said in the most Lila-like tone I could muster. I must have still had it, because the guard nodded, and though he didn’t close the door, he didn’t hurry me, either.
A minute later, I emerged in a clean jumpsuit, dry boots, and a heavy winter coat that actually had a prayer of keeping me warm now that it wasn’t soaked through. The guard wasn’t alone—another stood beside him, also holding a weapon, and I took a deep breath. Everything was okay. If they were going to kill me, they would have done it already.
Unless they were waiting for me to get outside, where they wouldn’t have to sanitize the area.
“Miss Hart, if you’d follow me,” said the first guard with an air of politeness I hoped no one intent on murdering me would bother using. He led me back down the brightly lit hallway toward the entrance, even opening the door for me to step through, but I stopped suddenly when I saw who was waiting for me on the other side.
Half a dozen guards stood in a semicircle, including one with an all-too-familiar pair of blue eyes—Rivers.
But he wasn’t what caught my attention. Instead it was the woman in the center, hands on her hips and a scowl on her face, who made me wish I was still in that room handling warm human hearts.
Hannah Mercer.
XI
HEARTBEAT
Hannah’s dislike hadn’t dissipated in the eighteen-odd hours since we’d been introduced. She eyed me like a cat sizing up a mouse, and for the first time since Knox had spared me that morning, I let myself acknowledge the fact that I was terrified.
“Heard you had a bad night,” she said. “Still want to refuse my husband’s offer?”
Mercer’s offer, not hers. The significance wasn’t lost on me. “I’m happy here,” I said stiffly.
She snorted. “Happy? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” She jerked her head and started toward the door, indicating I should follow. I hesitated, but the guards on either side of me left me with no real choice.
It wasn’t until we were both outside and walking through the cold that she spoke. “Jonathan also heard what happened, and he’s insisting you remain with us for your own safety. The girls in this section can be dangerous, and he has no desire for anyone to hurt you.”
“But he’s fine sending three other girls off to be hunted like wild animals,” I said before I could stop myself. To my right, I sensed Rivers stiffen, but Hannah barely glanced at me.
“Consider yourself lucky. Every single one of these girls would kill to be you.”
That was because they had no idea what my life was really like. Hannah did, though—she’d felt the III underneath my VII, yet as far as I knew, she still hadn’t said a word to anyone about it. I could come up with a dozen reasons why she might want to keep that between us, but at the end of the day, because Hannah knew the secret that had so far kept me alive, that made her the biggest danger of all.
“There’s possibility here, you know,” said Hannah half a block later. “It may not seem like much, especially compared to the lifestyle you’re used to, but your stay here doesn’t have to be miserable. If you let us help you, you could have a life here. A family. A real shot at happiness. It’s not all gloom and doom.”
“Which one of us are you trying to convince?” I said. A strange expression flickered over Hannah’s face, and she paused.
“I was in your position once,” she said, gesturing for the guards to give us space. They backed away, forming a wide circle around us. Enough to offer some semblance of privacy, but not far enough to give me the chance to make a run for it. As if I had anywhere else to go. Though why we had guards today and not the day before, I couldn’t fathom.
“What position is that?” I said. “The one where you went from a VII to an X because your uncle decided you weren’t useful anymore, or the one where everything in your life worth loving vanished because you took a gamble and lost?”
A faint smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “You think you’re so alone, don’t you? You think you’re the only person in the world with your problems. Wake up, darling. You’re surrounded by people who lost everything because they took a gamble. You sleep inches from people who your uncle decided weren’t useful anymore.”
She turned, and I thought the conversation was over until she swept her thick braid aside, revealing a scarred X on the back of her neck—one covering a faded V.
“I was seventeen years old when I was arrested,” she said. “I’d been a V for a week. A Shield decided I was pretty, and when I knocked out his teeth for putting his hand where it didn’t belong, I was the one who was punished, not him. I was lucky I made it here at all—most of the other Shields would have shot me in the alleyway and left me for dead. But I started out just like you, Lila. Bottom rung. Punching bag for the rest of the girls. And I didn’t have a famous face to protect me from the worst of it.”
She gave me a knowing look, and I kept my expression perfectly neutral. If she hadn’t spilled yet, then she wasn’t going to do it in front of a bunch of guards.
“Someone helped me out when I was a little older than you,” she said. “Kept me safe. Gave me an opportunity to advance and, ultimately, have a life worth living. Let me return the favor.”
“Why me?” I said. “Daxton hates me. I won’t be able to get you any special treatment.”
“This has nothing to do with him,” she said, her brow furrowing. I thought I saw something flash across her face again, but it was gone before I could be sure. “I’m doing this because I’m willing to bet your journey’s been more difficult than the rest of us know, and because I think you have an enormous amount of untapped potential. Now that you’re here—now that you’re just another inmate instead of the beloved Lila Hart, I want to give you an opportunity to discover who you really are. And I think your best bet would be to stay with us.”
I barely managed to hold back my snort. “The only thing I have that’s worth a damn is my face and my name. No one cares about the rest of it.”
“I do,” she said. “Jonathan might want you to come to the house because he thinks it’ll buy him a favor somewhere, but I’m much more interested in the side of you no one else sees. Let me help you, Lila. I promise you won’t regret it.”
I held her stare for several seconds, my mind racing. I would hate to leave Noelle in that damp, dan
k place with the likes of Scotia, but Rivers’s words the night before ran through me, drowning out my doubts.
Even if Hannah was lying through her teeth, at least this might get me close enough to Knox to slit his throat and watch him bleed. And maybe—just maybe—getting him out of the way would give the Blackcoats a chance to get the arsenal codes and start a real revolution. My life was over either way. That didn’t mean it was over for everyone else, too.
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to see the house,” I said, and Hannah straightened, squaring her shoulders in an oddly victorious way.
“It wouldn’t,” she agreed. “This way.”
As we walked down the street, several of the men and women going about their duties stared at us. Now that they knew who I was, I supposed this was even bigger news, and part of me hoped it would reach Noelle before dinnertime. When I didn’t come back to the dollhouse, she would worry, and I had no desire to put her through that.
The rest of the walk to Mercer Manor went by quickly, and Hannah punched a sequence into a keypad at the entrance, allowing the gate to open for us. Several of the guards lingered, staying off the property, but a handful joined us, including Rivers.
The small hill was covered in untouched snow, unlike the gray and muddied slush that soaked the other streets. Someone had meticulously plowed the drive to leave a perfectly even trail upward, and we passed several large trees that probably provided ample shade in the summer. If this yard hadn’t been in the middle of Elsewhere, it would have been picturesque.
“Here we are,” said Hannah as we reached the front door. She punched a code into another keypad, and this time she also scanned her handprint. “I’ll get your prints into the system tonight if you decide to stay. Shoes off.”
We stepped into an enclosed porch, and I toed off my boots, too busy looking around to care that my socks were soaking up some of the muddy water. Hannah eyed my feet dubiously, and only then did I pull them off, too.
When we moved into the massive foyer, I understood—everything was clean in a way that made it sparkle. The floor was made of white marble, the walls seemed to shimmer in the light, and a chandelier hung overhead, swaying gently once Hannah closed the door. It was as beautiful as any of the Hart properties, and as I spotted an ornate gold H imbedded into the marble entranceway, I had the sneaking suspicion it did belong to my supposed family.
A grand staircase wound up to the second floor, splitting off and going in two different directions halfway. Off to the right of the foyer was a pair of tightly closed double doors, and to the left was an open and airy sitting room. Beyond that, I made out signs of a dining room, and I thought I heard the faint sounds of dishes clattering in the distance.
“Lunch will be served soon,” said Hannah. “You should join us. Come—I’ll give you a tour.”
She led me around the first floor, showing me the main rooms. There was another, more casual sitting room deeper within the mansion, and the hallways felt like a maze as they turned in on themselves, leaving me as lost as I felt on the streets. On the bottom floor alone, Hannah pointed out three bathrooms, and she walked me through a magnificent dining room meant to seat at least fifty.
“Your family has dined here many times, along with the Ministers of the Union and their loved ones,” she said, gesturing to the dark wood and silver candlesticks. Rich oil paintings hung on the walls, and I recognized a man in one—Daxton’s grandfather, the original ruler of the new United States. The one who had put the ranking system into place and, according to Augusta, saved the country from economic ruin.
Even back then, in the darkest hours of history, it had to have been less barbaric than this place.
“Does my family own this home?” I said as we approached the back of the house. Hannah nodded stiffly.
“Daxton—the Prime Minister allows us to stay here while we watch over the prisoners,” she said. “Another reason why we feel it only appropriate you stay with us. I have one more room to show you down here.”
She opened another door, and I stepped inside what was probably the simplest room of the house, but I instantly understood why she’d saved it for last. All three outer walls were made of glass, and the ceiling was angled, allowing for an uninterrupted view of the sky. A line of trees cut off most of the view of Elsewhere, giving it the illusion of being nothing more than a home in the middle of a beautiful forest.
“This is what’s called a solarium. It’s my favorite place,” said Hannah, her voice low, as if she were admitting some kind of embarrassing secret. “It’s especially beautiful at night.”
“It—looks like it would be,” I said tightly. The thought of there being any kind of real beauty in this place seemed so diametrically opposed to the ugliness and horror that I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. But maybe that was the point. Maybe this was how Hannah stayed above it all. If what she’d told me was true, I couldn’t blame her, not really.
We lingered for another minute before she led me to a staircase in the back of the house, and we headed upward. “The third floor is mostly mine and Jonathan’s,” she said. “The second floor is meant for guests. Jonathan took the liberty of having a room set up for you. I hope you like pink.”
She led me down the hallway toward a door marked The Augusta Suite. I nearly gagged at the thought of staying anywhere Augusta had slept, but my disgust grew less vehement when Hannah opened the door.
Inside lay a bedroom that would have been more appropriate for a preteen girl than for Lila Hart, decorated in shades of pink and gold with decals of three-dimensional butterflies glued to the far wall. The gold canopy bed was hidden by a shimmering fabric, and a stained-glass window depicting a sunset cast hues into a mirrored wall, making the entire room explode in color.
“It’s...younger than you may be used to, but you have your own bathroom, and I made sure the servants removed the dolls.” Hannah’s voice had a nervous edge to it, as if she was afraid I was going to judge it harshly after spending the night in a room half this size crammed with twenty other girls.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Thank you. Do you have a daughter?”
Hannah shook her head. “Jonathan and I don’t have any children.”
There was a wistful look to her that made me wonder if she had wanted children, or if she’d had them once and lost them. Asking outright was likely to shatter whatever tentative peace we’d created between us, but another question popped into my mind.
“If you had children,” I said, “would they be allowed to leave Elsewhere and become part of society?”
She pursed her lips, not meeting my eye. “If you’re born Elsewhere, you stay Elsewhere. No one except Jonathan and the other appointed officials ever leave, not without executive order.”
“So you haven’t...?”
“No. Not since I was arrested.” She stepped into the room and opened the drawers. “I’ve set aside some of my old clothes. They might be a little loose, but they should fit. If you’re staying here, I don’t want to see you wearing that damn jumpsuit.”
I glanced down. The red had seemed to stick out like a sore thumb the day before, but now I knew it was the only way for me to blend in. No one else wore regular clothes. Even Hannah wore a white uniform. “I’ll change later. I need to go back to the bunkhouse and—get my things.”
“Your things?” said Hannah, eyebrow arched. “What things?”
I’d tucked the napkin Benjy had drawn for me underneath my mattress for safekeeping, but more urgently, I needed to make sure Noelle knew I was all right. “Just—something sentimental,” I said. “It doesn’t have any real value. I just want to have it.”
She took a long breath and released it sharply. “If you insist. At least wait until after lunch. I suppose I’ll be able to stomach one meal with you in that thing.”
I had to bite my lip to stop myself from a re
tort I’d likely regret. “Thanks,” I managed, and I stepped out of the pink-and-gold room. “Which way?”
Hannah led me farther down the hallway, presumably toward another staircase. Before we reached it, however, we passed an open door, and out of habit, I glanced inside.
It was another guest room—this time marked The Edward Suite—and it was decorated in navy and silver. A four-poster bed and other mahogany furniture dominated the room, and unlike the Augusta Suite, this had no stained glass. It was comfortable, but there were no frills or personal touches.
Except for one. On the bedside table was a gold frame with a labyrinth etched into the metal—the exact same one Greyson had given me for Lila’s birthday.
I stopped in the doorway. This must have been the room Knox was staying in, only a few yards from mine. It would be incredibly easy to sneak into his room and slit his throat in the middle of the night. If I did it right, he might even think I was there to ask his forgiveness. It would be simple. One piece of that stained glass, one slash to the throat—
“He misses you,” said Hannah over my shoulder.
“Knox?” I said, too startled to hide my surprise. “He doesn’t miss me. He never loved me in the first place. It was all some twisted political arrangement.”
“Maybe that’s how it started, and maybe that’s what it is for you, but I know love when I see it. That man would move heaven and earth to keep you safe.”
The ludicrousness of her statement fueled me with an insane kind of courage, and I stepped into the room, heading straight for the picture frame. I picked it up and examined the photograph of Greyson and me inside. I’d been Elsewhere for a single day, but already that felt like another lifetime ago.
My finger twitched toward the switch on the back, the one that would reveal the picture of my real face and Benjy. But with Hannah lurking behind me, I couldn’t risk it. Not even for a split second.
“Knox is the reason I’m here,” I said, tracing the golden labyrinth. “He killed my—he killed my best friend and sent me here all because he thought he couldn’t control me anymore. If he loved me the way you think he does, I’d be back in D.C. right now, and you wouldn’t be on babysitting duty.”
