by Marie Lu
“It’s possible to be both, isn’t it?” Tremaine gives me a humorless smile.
Back during the opening ceremony party, hadn’t Max Martin taunted Roshan about his “pedigree”? I’d assumed it was an insult about Roshan being on the Phoenix Riders, or maybe because he came from a poor background—but I guess it was the opposite kind of put-down, a challenge flung from one wealthy son to another. “Fancy,” I say. It’s all I can muster.
“Know what my pedigree is?” Tremaine replies. “When I was in primary, my dad got shut away for shooting a store clerk over fifty pounds in a register. My mum tried selling me once, when she was high and ran out of money for another hit. The only reason I could afford to get into Warcross was because a local team was recruiting trainees, offering to pay food and lodging to kids with the most potential. I squeaked in.”
I picture Tremaine as a little boy, on his own as much as I’d been at that age. “I’m sorry,” I say.
“Oh, don’t give me that pitiful face. I’m not telling you this for sympathy points. I just figured you’d understand.” He taps his foot unconsciously against the ground. “It’s fine. I still love my mum, she’s doing well in rehab, and I’m a Warcross champion now with millions in my account. But you try explaining that kind of upbringing to Roshan’s family. That their beloved boy is dating someone like me.”
Tremaine lowers his head and stares blankly at the wet pavement. “I’m not saying Roshan’s always had it easy. But he’s smart as hell, you know? He mastered Warcross within a year of playing it. By his second year, he was in the Wardraft. People like him immediately, are drawn to that quicksilver mind of his.”
“You’re smart, too.”
Tremaine grimaces. “No. I’m . . . that guy who needs all year to study for something that Roshan could ace just by skimming the same material an hour before the big final. I couldn’t read until the sixth grade.” His cheeks flush in the night at this admission. “Roshan was the first pick in our year’s Wardraft, back when we were both wild cards. Two teams fought over him, did you know that? That was the cause of the original rift between the Riders and the Demon Brigade. And that was back when he barely practiced. I was just a straggler who lucked out because Asher saw something in me. I resented Roshan for being the one who always stayed up late to help me out. I fell for him for the same reason.”
“So you started seeing him.”
Tremaine hesitates. “And I started taking pills to keep up with everyone.”
I blink. “Drugs?”
“I started with half a pill a day, and I don’t really remember when I got up to seven or eight.”
I recall the abrupt leave Tremaine had taken from Warcross, right before he left the Phoenix Riders. How gaunt he’d looked that year. Had that entire episode been because of pills? “How long did that go on for?” I ask.
“About a year.”
“Did Roshan know?”
“Everyone knew, especially after I passed out during a practice session. They tried forcing me to quit. Asher threatened to cut me from the team if I didn’t stop. But it wasn’t until I overheard Roshan’s father talking to him before a game that I realized Roshan was out of my league. His father patted his shoulder and said, ‘I’m sorry, son. But what did you expect? It was only a matter of time before he followed his mother’s example.’ I ended up getting in a fistfight with another player during that game, and the Riders were temporarily suspended.”
“I remember,” I murmur.
“I didn’t sleep that night,” Tremaine says. “I knew I was singlehandedly crippling my team. The next day, I packed my things and left without telling Asher or saying good-bye to my mates. Roshan came running after me, asking where the hell I was going.” He shakes his head. “I was so mad and ashamed that I told him I was sleeping with someone else behind his back, that we were done. Coincidentally, the Demons were on the hunt for a new Architect, and they were only too happy to stick it to the Riders.”
I listen quietly. Roshan had never mentioned any of this.
“Look, I’m not proud of it, yeah?” Tremaine mutters. “It doesn’t mean I think I was right. It’s just what happened.”
“And you never cleared the air with Roshan?” I ask.
“Couldn’t bring myself to. And now it feels too late.”
I can’t help but think back to how I’d clutched my head in my hands the night I’d glitched myself into the Warcross Opening Ceremony, completely unaware that my world was about to change forever. Everything became amazing; then, everything turned awful. Life is always like that—you don’t know when you’ll suddenly claw your way out of your circumstances, or when you’ll go crashing back down into them.
“I’m not going to tell you it’s never too late,” I reply. “But, in my experience, it’s always the not doing that I regret more.”
The rain has stopped now, and the puddles in the alleyway have turned into undisturbed mirrors. Tremaine’s the first to push away from the wall. He shoves his hands into his pockets, then glances at me over his shoulder. Whatever vulnerabilities he’d shown a second ago have vanished behind his cool exterior.
“So,” he says, his bravado back. “No chance you’re quitting, huh?”
I shake my head. “Afraid not.”
“Well.” He lingers for a moment, nodding out toward the main streets. “Then we’ll need to stop fooling around in virtual reality and head to the institute for ourselves.”
I look quickly at him. “What do you mean, we? I thought you were out, either way.”
He sends me a message, and a map appears in my view with a blinking red cursor hovering over a place somewhere beyond the northern fringes of Tokyo. Japan Innovation Institute of Technology, the cursor says. Saitama-ken, Japan.
“If you’re going to continue, then I guess I’ll stick it out with you.” He points to the map. “When I went, all I could do was observe the campus from the outside. But I’m sure there’s plenty more going on behind those closed doors than what I could glean from their servers or their front gates. We’ll need to head in at night, when there aren’t so many guards.”
I stare at the map, my fingers tingling. This is where Hideo’s mother had worked, and where Sasuke may have spent his childhood. From the map, it doesn’t look like much—a building of glass and steel, a single structure in a sea of thousands. How can one place hold so many secrets?
“So, tomorrow night?” he says.
I give him a half smile. “Done.”
He heads out into the alley. His emotions are packed away again, but his usual sneer is now replaced with something more open. “See you soon, Princess Peach,” he replies. This time, the nickname sounds affectionate. “And keep yourself safe until then.”
* * *
* * *
THE HOTEL WHERE the Blackcoats are staying is quiet tonight, and I’m the only one walking down its halls. I sigh as the door identifies me and lets me in. My mind is a whirlwind of clues and questions. What if the institute has covered its tracks? What if I can’t find anything? There’s not much time before the closing ceremony, and I still know so little about Zero.
Where is he tonight, anyway?
The instant I close the door to my room, I know something is off. There’s the faint scent of perfume in the air, and a lamp on the far end of the room is turned on.
“Out late?” someone says.
I whirl around to see Taylor waiting for me.
14
I freeze at the sight of her silhouette sitting casually in my chair, one of her legs crossed over the other. Weak light from the windows cuts a striped pattern against her. Even from the other side of the room, I can see her eyes in the shadows, studying me. She’s perfectly groomed, her hair combed neatly back, and her outfit is sleek and monochromatic, blacks and grays. I find myself unconsciously comparing her to the photo I’d seen earlier, of her in front of t
he institute.
“We heard you were out celebrating with the Phoenix Riders tonight,” she says. “Congratulations to your former team.”
Jax had trailed me, after all. I fight the urge to look around to see if she’s standing in here right now, somewhere I hadn’t noticed. “I don’t need you guys to chaperone me all over the city.”
Taylor uncrosses her legs, the sole of her shoe hitting the carpet with a soft thud, and leans forward to rest her elbows against her knees. Her eyes meet mine and lock me in. “Where were you?”
So, she doesn’t trust me. “I was out on the mission that you and Zero assigned to me,” I reply evenly. “Find a way to get in touch with Hideo. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
She frowns. “And did you accomplish anything?”
I take a deep breath. “The Riders are going to let me use their private meeting with Hideo tomorrow.”
“Is that so?” At that, Taylor’s eyebrows lift in mild surprise. “Well. Maybe you are as good as Zero says.”
“I always earn my keep.”
“And is that all you did tonight?”
Here’s the real question she’d wanted to ask me, and why she was waiting for me here in my room. Be careful out there. Tremaine’s warning reappears in my mind. I narrow my eyes at her. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that someone accessed the Blackcoats’ image databases today, and it wasn’t any of us.” She studies me. “The timing makes me wonder if you know something about it.”
Image databases. Japan Innovation Institute of Technology. My heart leaps into my throat. Tremaine had been poking around in the corporation’s database earlier. I think of the maps he’d shown me, the interiors of the building. Is Taylor talking about him? What if he’d accidentally left a trail? Does she know what he took?
Stay calm, I tell myself. “It couldn’t have been me,” I reply. “I didn’t do anything except meet the Phoenix Riders after tonight’s game and have a conversation with them. No downloading, no hacking.”
She stares at me, but I don’t dare add more. The crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes crinkle as she studies me thoughtfully. A few long minutes pass.
Then, her stare softens, and she relaxes her shoulders. She glances toward the windows. “If Zero suspected you of breaking into our files, he would be here himself, interrogating you. And he wouldn’t be this civil about it.”
The thought sends a chill through me. “Then why are you here instead?”
“I’m here to warn you,” she replies, giving me a concerned look. “You don’t want to get in over your head.”
“But I didn’t do anything.”
She looks doubtful. There’s a pause, and then she clears her throat. “How old were you when you first started bounty hunting?” she finally asks.
“Sixteen.”
She shakes her head. “I was young, too, when I started my first job. Back then, we lived in Estonia, and my father laundered money using the pharmacy he ran as a front. Drugs, you know.”
I watch her carefully. It shouldn’t surprise me that she had early ties to something illegal, given that she’s working for the Blackcoats—but I must look startled by her answer, because she gives me a small laugh.
“Ah, that surprises you. I don’t seem like the type, do I?” She looks down. “I was sharp for my age, and I could repeat things back, word for word, so my father had me run messages for him.” She makes a casual gesture with her arm, miming a back-and-forth action. “You don’t want digital messages lying around on phones to incriminate you. I could say what I was told to say and then forget it the second I said it. He told me I had a good memory. That it’s useful for lies.” She shrugs. “But he wasn’t as good at it as I was.”
I clear my throat. “What makes you say that?”
“I came home one day to see him sprawled on the floor, his throat cut and his blood soaked into our rugs. That copper smell still lingers with me.” The curve of her lips straightens, like she bit into something bitter. I shudder. “Later, I learned that a client of his had come looking for him, and he’d tried to lie his way out of it. The client hadn’t believed him.”
I swallow hard. Taylor doesn’t look at me as she continues. “After that, all I ever did was wonder about how the wires in my brain were hooked up. How those wires stop working the instant your body shuts down. I’d wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, dreaming of being alive one moment and then dead the next.”
She sounds like I imagine a neuroscientist would, someone fascinated with the inner workings of the mind. Had she moved to Japan to work at the institute? I try to picture her as a child with wide eyes and those straight, innocent brows. The thought of her getting away with lies so often seems pretty possible. “Why are you telling me this?” I ask.
“I could convince myself of a lie so well that I’d sincerely think it was true. Do you know what that’s called? Self-deception, Emika. Lies are told more easily when you don’t see them as lies. My father said he wished he had my ability to believe wholeheartedly in something untrue, because if you’re able to believe anything, then you can believe your way into happiness. That’s why I’m alive, and he’s dead. Because my brain could connect that wire, and his couldn’t.” She leans forward, looking earnestly at me. “Maybe you’re good at it, too. I imagine it’s a useful skill for a bounty hunter.”
Stay calm. “I’m not lying to you,” I tell her in a firm voice this time. “I didn’t hack into any Blackcoat databases—I wouldn’t even know where to look.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about,” Taylor agrees.
Her voice sounds genuine, and her expression looks genuine, but I stay wary, waiting for her to make some unexpected move. What did you work on at the institute? And what, exactly, do you do for the Blackcoats?
“I hope you understand how important your role is.” Taylor gives me a nod before she rises from my chair and straightens her blouse. She nods toward the streetlights outside the window. “Look.”
Two new virtual figures appear to hover underneath each light, followed by a wave of cheers and boos from the revelers on the street. I recognize my own rainbow hair instantly.
IVO ERIKKSON of SWEDEN | ANDROMEDA
EMIKA CHEN of USA | PHOENIX RIDERS
At the same time, a message pops up front and center in my view.
Congratulations, Emika Chen!
You have been chosen as a
TOP TEN PLAYER
of the
WARCROSS CHAMPIONSHIPS VIII
Taylor smiles at my stunned expression. “You’re the only one chosen so far by write-in votes alone,” she says. “Very impressive.” As she walks past me, she says something in a voice just loud enough for me to hear. “I won’t tell Zero about our conversation, but let this be the last time we need to have one. I think you owe it to all your fans to perform well at the closing ceremony.”
Then she’s gone, leaving me standing in the middle of my room alone with all my questions.
15
Three Days until the Warcross Closing Ceremony
The few hours of sleep that I manage to get are plagued by nightmares, visions of myself standing in an arena, a woman sitting in my chair, a girl with short silver hair training her gun on me, Hideo pulling me close in a bedroom made of glass. I dream of Tremaine leaning against the wall at the Innovation Institute and watching the rain.
That’s what finally shakes me awake—the image of him standing there, unaware of someone watching him in the shadows. I jerk upright in bed mumbling his name, trying in vain to warn him.
By the time I meet the Riders at Asher’s place, I’m an exhausted mess, with dark circles prominent under my eyes. Secretly, I count my blessings that at least the event I’m attending requires makeup and formal wear, so that I don’t show up looking like a ghost.
Asher an
swers the door. “You look terrible,” he says, leaning one elbow against his chair.
“You too,” I reply.
He flashes me a grin before ushering me inside. “Well, Hammie’s going to do something about that.”
Hammie’s already here and waiting for me. She takes my hand and leads me to Asher’s bedroom, where she shuts the two of us in and pulls me over to the closet. I find myself staring at a small rack of dresses.
“I did a little shopping,” she says, holding one of the dresses up against me. She squints an eye shut. “These look about your size.”
I’m quiet as I change out of my clothes and slip on the first dress. It’s Givenchy, a shimmering sea of midnight fabrics that hugs my hips.
Hammie studies me with a thoughtful frown. “It fits a little weird up here,” she says, tapping my shoulder. She turns to grab another dress. “Let’s try a Giambattista Valli. Give you some volume.”
She holds up a beautiful, fluffy pouf of a gown in pale champagne pink. I stare at myself, drowning behind layers of tulle, and imagine what it will be like to see Hideo in person again. “Maybe this is a bad idea,” I start to say.
“Mm, you’re right,” Hammie ponders out loud, hanging the dress back on the rack. “Too much pouf. How about a Dior?”
“No, I mean—” I take a deep breath and close my eyes. “Hideo. This isn’t going to go well.”
Hammie pauses to look at me as she holds up a new ball gown with a bold black-and-white print. “You’re afraid to see him, aren’t you?”
My eyes meet Hammie’s in the mirror. “You didn’t see the look in his eyes when we last talked. He’s not going to hear me out. More likely, he’ll have his bodyguards on me the instant he knows I’m at the party.”
Hammie doesn’t deny it, and I’m almost grateful she doesn’t try to console me with any lies. “Listen,” she replies instead. “One time, my mom and dad had an argument before New Year’s. I don’t remember what it was over. Walking our dog? Something dumb. Anyway, they both decided, regardless, to go separately to their friends’ New Year’s Eve party. I went with my dad. When we got there, my dad saw my mom, sparkling in the most gorgeous silver gown you’ve ever seen in your life. Know what he did? He walked right up to her, said he was sorry, and then they kissed over and over and over. It was disgusting.”