Part of me doesn’t either. Part of me wishes I could submit to chains, to captivity and silence. But I have lived that life already, in the mud, in the shadows, in a cell, in a silk dress. I will never submit again. I will never stop fighting.
Neither will Kilorn. Neither will Farley. We will never stop.
“The others like us . . .” My voice shakes, but I have never felt so strong. “The others like me and Shade.”
Farley nods and pats a hand to her pocket. “I still have the list. I know the names.”
“And so does Maven,” I reply smoothly. Cal twitches at the name. “He’ll use the bloodbase to trace them, and hunt them down.”
Even though the train sways and shakes, twisting over dark tracks, I force myself to my feet. Shade tries to steady me but I brush his hand away. I must stand on my own.
“He can’t find them before we do.” I raise my chin, feeling the pulse of the train. It electrifies me. “He can’t.”
When Kilorn steps toward me, his face set and determined, his bruises and scars and bandages seem to fade. I think I see the dawn in his eyes.
“He won’t.”
A strange warmth falls over me, a warmth like the sun though we are deep underground. It’s as familiar to me as my own lightning, reaching out to envelop me in an embrace we can’t have. Even though they call Cal my enemy, even though they fear him, I let his warmth fall on my skin and I let his eyes burn into mine.
Our shared memories flash before me, parading every second of our time together. But now our friendship is gone, replaced by the one thing we still have in common.
Our hatred for Maven.
I don’t need to be a whisper to know we share a thought.
I will kill him.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
[Acknowledgments TK]
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BACK AD
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
VICTORIA AVEYARD was born and raised in East Longmeadow, MA, a small town known only for the worst traffic rotary in the continental United States. She moved to Los Angeles to earn a BFA in screenwriting at the University of Southern California, and stayed there despite the lack of seasons. She is currently an author and screenwriter. You can find her at www.victoriaaveyard.com.
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COPYRIGHT
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
RED QUEEN. Copyright © 2015 by Victoria Aveyard. 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
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Library of Congress catalog card number:
ISBN 978-0-06-231063-7 (trade bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-06-236271-1 (int. ed.) —
EPub Edition June 2014 ISBN 9780062361691
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FIRST EDITION
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