The Girl Who Dared to Rise

by Bella Forrest

  Not to mention, Dinah might have already had him transferred into her department, and if that were the case, he might not even have access to net data yet.

  But that made me consider Dinah as an alternative. Having her real name had its advantages… but what I didn’t have was her identification number, and with the block in place, I couldn’t access the history. On top of that, I was fairly certain she had gone in and erased that data to keep me from accessing it. Without that, I couldn’t net her to ask her to tell Zoe, Eric, and Quess not to worry about our absence.

  And I wouldn’t be able to until the Tourney was finished.

  I realized the Knight who had spoken was looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to respond. Unable to formulate anything past “Thank you,” I forced a smile onto my lips and hit the door scanner, stepping through it as soon as the door was open.

  We filed into our apartment, but the officials remained outside, and would remain there until it was time to go. None of us spoke until the door was closed, and I headed directly into the living room, eager to put some space between us and the officials. Even with walls between us, I felt exposed and vulnerable. People whose loyalty I couldn’t count on were guarding the door. Who knew what was really happening on the other side of that wall?

  Paranoia crept in, and I paused in the living room, and then turned and headed for the hallway, motioning for the others to follow. I opened the door to my room and stepped aside to let Maddox and Leo through first.

  “Tian?” Maddox said as she entered, and Leo and I exchanged looks. He held back to let me push in before him, and sure enough, Tian was sitting up from where she had been reclining on the bed, half her shaggy, white-blond bob standing straight up on one side, and both eyes blinking heavily, as if she had been sleeping.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, alarmed by her presence.

  “I’m—” She broke off, a yawn cracking her mouth open loudly, and then exhaled slowly. “—Here to warn you,” she finished, smacking her lips together. She shook her head, her small hands running up to ruffle her hair and scrub her eyes, and then leapt out of the bed, landing lightly on her feet. “I can’t find Jang-Mi.”

  My stomach dropped. “What do you mean?”

  Tian gave me an exasperated look. “I mean she’s gone, Liana! I woke up at one this morning, and I couldn’t find her! I think whatever’s happening is happening soon. She kept saying that she didn’t want to leave me, but couldn’t stop what was coming. She told me that if she left, I was supposed to wait for her, but when I saw she was gone… I came straight here to tell you. We have to find her. We have to stop her!”

  I hesitated. On the one hand, she was absolutely right—we had to make sure the sentinel didn’t follow through on whatever its programmers were forcing it to do. For all I knew, it was on an assassination mission to take out Lacey or Strum, or even another council member, to create a vacancy in case the Tourney didn’t play out the way our enemies wanted it to. On the other, if we snuck out of the Citadel, and the officials found out—or worse, the final challenge started without us—we would end up forfeiting entirely.

  Could I risk the final challenge of the Tourney to try to put a stop to whatever damage the sentinel was going to do? No. But I could do everything in my power to alert everyone who could put a stop to it.

  “Tian, we can’t leave,” I told her. Her brows drew together and her mouth opened, ready to yell at me, but I cut her off. “We can’t. We’re under guard right now as a precautionary measure for the next challenge.”

  “The challenge!” she exclaimed. “Who cares? Jang-Mi is going to be forced to kill people again! It’s killing her, Liana! Each time she kills someone, she gets farther and farther away, more and more broken! We need to help her!”

  “It doesn’t work like that, Tian,” I said patiently, my heart aching the entire time. I wanted to move heaven and earth to help her. I wanted to take her in my arms and promise her that I would help save the thing that she had forged such a powerful bond with. But I had taken on a responsibility that was far greater in purpose than the problem of the sentinel. I had to make the responsible choice.

  “Jang-Mi might kill a few people here or there, but if we don’t win the Tourney, everyone in the Tower could die. But I’m not going to let that unfold, either. Do you still have your net?”

  The girl gave me a confused look, her nose scrunching up, and then nodded. “Yeah, isn’t that how you found me?”

  I shook my head. “No, we couldn’t find your signal. Could Jang-Mi be masking it, somehow?”

  She shrugged, and I sighed. That mystery would have to be solved later. At least she had her net. Through it and her, we could reach Quess—and through him, everyone else. Which was good: I might not be able to leave, but now I could reach the others and get them to help track down the sentinel.

  “Call Quess, and tell him that he needs to get in touch with Zoe. She needs to call Lacey and explain about the sentinel.”

  “Are you crazy?” Tian exclaimed, her eyes round. “Jang-Mi killed two of her people. Lacey will want to tear her apart.”

  “Not if she thinks keeping it intact could lead to Ambrose’s killers,” I replied. It was a guess, but I felt strongly in my gut that it was true.

  Tian bit her lip, a reluctant look on her face. “All right,” she said hesitantly. “I’ll net them, but I get to go with them to find her! I know you’ll tell me to stay, but I have to be sure she’s safe! She’s my friend, Liana, and she doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”

  I exhaled slowly and touched her cheek, wiping away a tear as it started to drip down from one large, shimmering eye. “I believe you, Tian,” I said. “And I think you’re right. You should go.”

  “Liana!” Maddox said harshly, and I gave her an apologetic look.

  “I’m sorry, Doxy, but she has to go.” Tian had proven more than once that she could reach the sentinel—whether it was through her words or through appearing to be in imminent danger—and having her there could help tip things in our favor. She might even be able to get Jang-Mi to stand down without hurting anyone.

  At least, I sincerely hoped she could.

  “Liana’s right,” Leo added. “Tian managed to get Jang-Mi to stop before. Her presence could make a difference.”

  “And whatever this programming is that is compelling Jang-Mi to do this might be too strong for Tian’s presence to help! She should stay here!”

  “Doxy!” Tian said, putting her fists on her hips. “How can you say that? Jang-Mi thinks I’m her long-lost child! I can stop her.”

  Maddox gave her a tight-lipped expression and then sighed. “Okay, let me try it this way. What happens if you fail, and Jang-Mi comes back to herself, only to realize she’s killed her little girl? What happens to your friend then?”

  Tian’s face grew horrified, and then sickened, and for a moment, I was appalled that Maddox would even go there.

  And then I realized she had a point. The sentinel wasn’t completely autonomous. There was someone forcing Jang-Mi to comply, and who knew what that entailed? If Jang-Mi wasn’t able to resist the orders, then there was no guarantee she could stop herself, even for Tian.

  Which was probably why she had been warning Tian that something was going on—she knew that she might not be able to stop herself while they were using her to do whatever it was they needed her to do. If Jang-Mi was self-aware enough to realize that she wasn’t going to have any control over her actions, then that could explain why she had told Tian to wait for her. She knew Tian would try to intervene to stop her, and was afraid of her getting hurt!

  “No,” Tian said, and I realized that my reversal must’ve been showing on my face. At the very least, I was certain she could see the regret there, but she shook her head, as if refusing my unspoken apology. “No! I have to go, Liana! I can help. You won’t be able to stop me after they come and get you for the Tourney!”

  “But by then it will hopefully be too late for you to do an
ything,” I replied. I couldn’t be a hundred percent certain of that, but I hoped that Quess and the others could find the sentinel and stop her before the officials came for us. In which case Tian would be here—and safe. “Now call Quess.”

  She gave me an angry look, but stomped off to net Quess. I stood up slowly, still a little sore from the fight earlier, and Leo leaned close, pitching his voice low so as not to interrupt Tian’s focus on giving Quess my orders.

  “Are you sure about keeping her here? What if they don’t find it before we have to go?”

  “Then she’ll run off to join them,” I replied. “But at least we’ll give them a little time to find it without her, first.”

  I hoped they would. Because I couldn’t get rid of the heavy, sinking feeling that something was about to go terribly wrong.

  31

  I checked my indicator. Four hours had gone by since Tian had netted Quess, and I was beginning to chafe under the fact that he hadn’t netted back to let me know what was going on. After a modified conversation with him through her—one in which I thankfully remembered to ask him if he had working shockers with him, confirming that the ones on my wrist weren’t the only ones available—I had anticipated a call back within an hour. But there had been no word.

  I was anxious. Maddox was nervous. Tian was frantic, prowling around the inside of the walls as if the apartment were a cage keeping her in. Maddox and I had both sealed our bedrooms using the biometric locks we had available to us as a precaution to keep her from sneaking out that way, but we wouldn’t be able to keep her in once the challenge started—she could just walk out the front door—and the knowledge made my stomach churn. I just prayed that Zoe and the others had managed to convince Lacey and Strum to help us, and that they were tracking the sentinel down right now.

  That thought only made me feel more apprehensive, and I found myself looking at where Maddox and Leo were sitting, thinking. I didn’t need them for the next part of the challenge—not really. I knew that they wanted to go to watch my back, but we still hadn’t heard from Quess or Zoe, and I was really friggin’ worried. If I could just get them to drop out of the Tourney, they would be free to net the others and find out what was going on.

  I looked at Leo, the only one of us who had managed to remain calm—maddeningly so. He was currently flipping through a crimson manual for the Knight’s Department at a rhythmic pace, the opaque plastic pages making a fwip fwip fwip sound.

  “Leo?” I said, just as Tian swept from the living room to the kitchen, following her little path around the apartment.

  “Hm?” he said, pausing mid-flip and looking up at me.

  “What would you say if I told you and Maddox to drop out of the Tourney so that you could help the others?” I asked carefully.

  His eyes widened for a moment in surprise, and then darkened, as if he had just pulled blinds across them. “No,” he said flatly, turning back to his book.

  “Absolutely not,” Maddox added, looking over from where she was watching the final roster for the Tourney. “Several people have already dropped out: all of Frederick’s team, including Kellan, in fact. But Zale’s team is still intact, and Dylan hasn’t dropped out yet, and neither has Frederick. You’ll be outnumbered six to one.”

  “Five to two,” I said, thinking of my mother. Maddox, however, seemed to miss the connection, and I added, “My mother?”

  “Do you think you can trust her?” she asked, giving me a searching look.

  I bit my lip, considering her question and all the things my mother had revealed to me, and then nodded slowly. “Yeah,” I said, sounding a little surprised even to myself. Maybe it was because I had never considered it possible that my mother would ever support me, or maybe there was still some small part of me that was a little doubtful, but it didn’t matter—something had shifted inside of me, and I was making the choice to trust her.

  I noticed Maddox giving me a doubtful look, and sucked in a deep breath, forcing more confidence into my voice. “Yeah, I really do. So I don’t think that it would be that bad if you guys were to drop out and—”

  “Well, I don’t trust Dylan as far as I can throw the Tower,” Maddox cut in smoothly. “As long as she’s in the Tourney, you are not going in without backup.”

  “I honestly don’t think she’ll try to kill me, Maddox,” I replied. “Drones will be everywhere, security is insane…”

  “And if we dropped out, everyone would see and know that you were vulnerable,” Leo said, filling the air after I slowly trailed off, trying to get them to see my point. He didn’t even look up from the book he was reading, so he missed my frown and the flash of irritation that was undoubtedly shining in my eyes. Instead, he continued flipping through the book he was reading. “Not to mention, if we left to help Quess and the others, you’d be alone and exposed to a possible attack, whether it be before the Tourney or during. Especially without Quess there to keep the drones on you.”

  I bristled and narrowed my eyes at him. “You do realize that I’m in charge, right?” I asked him.

  He and Maddox gave me identical looks that said “you’re not going to win this”, and I sighed, rolled my eyes, and leaned back into the chair.

  “Fine,” I grumbled. I wasn’t about to give up, but I needed to find the right argument to convince them. “Then distract me with something. What’s going on with the standings? How is Dylan’s approval rating?” I asked, dreading the answer. The server kept a real-time account of approval ratings as each Knight logged their preferences, and though they were free to change them until the end of the Tourney, they would give us an idea of who was currently favored by the Knights in the Citadel.

  Maddox sighed. “You’re in the lead with twenty-eight percent, but Zale has twenty-six, Dylan has twenty-five, and Frederick has twenty-one percent. It’s anyone one’s game, at this point.”

  And a pretty close one, at that. I sighed and began rubbing my eyes, my tension spiking. It was a close race, and one wrong move could get me eliminated. If I didn’t win this next challenge, then there was every chance that the Tower would fall, and I couldn’t let that happen. But at the same time, the danger with Jang-Mi and the sentinel, and the fact that I hadn’t heard from anyone yet, was pressing. Four hours was a long time; they should’ve found the sentinel by now.

  What if Lacey hadn’t agreed to help them? What if they hadn’t been able to stop it?

  What if they were dead right now, while we were stuck up here waiting for this stupid Tourney to begin?

  I went cold at the thought, and once again felt the need to try to convince Leo and Maddox to leave the Tourney and go help the others. It would go a long way toward reassuring me, knowing they were there, and then I could focus on the challenge.

  Or at least, that was what I told myself as I opened my mouth to once again encourage them to drop out. “Look, if you drop as soon as the officials come to collect us, then you can—”

  “Liana, no,” Leo said, closing the book with a snap. “Even without all the danger that it would cause to you, you forget one fundamental thing: you made a promise that you wouldn’t go off on your own again, and if you order us to leave, you are breaking that promise.”

  “And Zoe will kill us and then you, in that order, if we let that happen,” Maddox added.

  “I’ll do it right now,” grumbled Tian as she stalked back in from the hallway, continuing her circuit of our small apartment.

  “Knock it off, Tian,” Maddox said, clearly tired of the young girl’s grumblings. “You need to suck it up and accept that we’re right about this. You don’t need to be out there.”

  “I can help!” the young girl snapped sullenly for the umpteenth time. “Jang-Mi won’t hurt me.”

  “Jang-Mi is not in control,” Leo said flatly. “Or at least, not fully in control. Which is just as dangerous. You should trust Liana and Maddox on this, and stay once they come to collect us.”

  “Well, I won’t,” she said, coming to a stop and ball
ing her hands into fists. “As soon as you’re gone, I’m going to net Quess and find out where he is, and if he won’t help me, then I’ll call Alex and make him help me!”

  I sighed and leaned back onto the couch I was sitting on. It seemed there was nothing any of us could say to change her mind about going, and trying to convince her that we were right was only a waste of breath. She was going to leave the first chance she got, and that was that. I just had to hope that Quess and the others keyed in to the fact that we’d kept her from joining them, and wouldn’t tell her anything.

  And that they were all right.

  I sighed again and stood up, resolving to keep myself busy. All this sitting around and waiting for something to happen was driving me nuts—as was the communications lockdown, and the fact no one had netted Tian back.

  “Anybody want anything?” I asked as I made my way to the kitchen.

  “No, thanks,” Leo said, opening his book back up.

  “Nothing for me,” Maddox added, turning the pad back on and accessing the server.

  “Hot chocolate,” Tian childishly demanded, and I rolled my eyes, but reached up into one of the overhead cabinets to fetch her a packet. I was in the process of pouring hot water into a mug when the doorbell sounded, and I froze.

  “Candidates are ordered to the arena for the presentation of the final challenge,” the automated voice announced.

  I drew in a deep breath, blew it out, and set down the mug, which was now shaking in my hands. No, scratch that, my hand was shaking. I flexed it open and closed a few times, trying to calm the sudden apprehension that had surged.

  I took a few moments to steel myself, and then turned, motioning for the others. They were already standing, and Tian was now leaning against the wall just outside of the hall, a pleased smile on her lips.

  “Time to go,” I said, softly, nodding toward the door. “Tian… I really hope you don’t go, but if you do, please be careful, and don’t do anything dangerous, okay?”