It slid a little way inside the room, then stopped and waited for me to pick it up. He'd written across it in bold, black ink. I stared at the upside down words for several seconds, then reached out and turned the poster right way up for me to read.
It really does exist. And it's called Lunnon.
"Lunnon," I whispered, feeling strangely like crying. It had a name and Trent had given it to me.
It was bizarrely the best gift I had received in my entire life. The name of a distant city that existed outside of Wánměi's walls.
I frowned, looking around the small room I had commandeered. I hadn't intended to stay here, I'd been planning to move on and find out something else. But the cameras had gone dark just after Trent had left that room and I took that as a message. I may have been able to crack keypad codes, tamper with camera lenses temporarily, but that command centre they had set up was where I really needed to be. And to get there, I needed Trent to trust me.
So I'd waited for him to play his hand.
And this was it.
I looked back at the poster and for a moment I really didn't know what to do. All my life I've had my path laid out for me. I've played on the grass verge occasionally, even jumped over the curb with reckless abandon, but I'd always returned to that path carved out by someone else. I am Elite. I was born into it.
All I've been doing is stretching the binds that contain me, testing their limits. Not truly breaking them, because I always returned. I had a suspicion that those in this building broke them. Severed them. Turned Wánměi back on itself.
Who were they? I had to know.
But even as I walked to the door and entered the lock code, making it click open with a buzz, I wasn't sure how far I'd go to find out. I wasn't sure if I could return if I walked too far down this particular path; a path not made for me by General Chew-wen.
Trent stood on the other side, hands in pockets, leaning back against the far wall, waiting patiently. As though he knew I'd come to him once I read his words. It angered me slightly, but right then I didn't have the heart to let the anger out.
"I'm not sure what to say," I admitted.
"It's a lot to take in," he agreed.
I searched his eyes and saw understanding there, compassion for what I must be going through. It made my stomach flip delightfully, and then plummet with the confusion I was drowning in.
"Do others know, or just those living here?" I asked.
"I'm sure those born and raised before General Chew-wen came to power remember. You can't erase history with drugs, you can only dim the memory."
"And place fear in their hearts if they dared to breathe a word of what they know," I offered.
"Exactly."
"We're not meant to want for more," I murmured.
"But you want more, don't you, Lena?" I wished I'd never told him my nickname. It made it all so much harder. A caress across my skin. Waking a need I didn't know existed. I pushed those imagined sensations aside. They only added to the confusion.
"I've always wanted more." A truth that he would have already recognised.
"You're not alone," he whispered. "You could help us."
"Who is us?"
"Everyone here. Some dotted throughout the city. But we need more. Many were culled during the Uprising."
Oh, I had been blind. So blind. This was the revolutionaries' base and I'd stumbled into it. How ironic. My father had spent the last few years of his life obsessed with finding them. I was sure General Chew-wen demanded the same from his Cardinals today.
I forced myself to keep breathing. I ordered the tears I felt welling to stay away. My heart breaking, even as I wrapped it up in steel and looked Trent in his deep blue eyes.
I was staring at their leader, the man who would have taken over from Mason Waters; who had killed my father.
It took everything in me not to step back. To show the pain I was feeling as this knowledge cleaved me in two. I thought the revolutionaries destroyed. Had I known...
"I have little to offer," I pointed out, relieved to hear the normality of my voice.
"You have skills," Trent argued. "You're related to the Chief Overseer. Access that could prove beneficial."
"Beneficial how?"
He shook his head, unwilling to share his plans with me yet.
"Are you ready to meet everyone?" he asked instead.
"Are they ready to meet me?" I replied. His answering smile almost made me stumble.
How did he do that? Have such an effect over me. I couldn't trust him. He was involved with those who ruined my life. I should hate him. But my body hadn't caught up with my mind.
"First," he said, pushing off from the wall with casual grace. I understood now why he seemed that way. A revolutionary who could fight and move with the shadows and dance through the underworld of Wánměi. "Leave your handbag in the room."
I glanced down at my bag, still slung over my shoulder like a shield.
"And any other little tricks you may have under that dress," he added.
My eyes flicked up to his in time to see him scanning the sundress. Or my body beneath it, he seemed a little entranced.
"I'd prefer to keep it with me," I answered coolly, reaching for the familiar tone of voice. "Never know who would go through it when my back is turned."
"Lena," he chastised, and damn it! Why did he have to say my name that way? It held power it shouldn't. "This is your room now, you've already claimed it. The code is unknown to my men."
My men. Proof he was the one in charge. Proof he'd stepped into Mason Waters' shoes.
"They could crack it," I stubbornly argued, my backbone strengthening with every bantered word.
He let a laugh out, half frustrated, half amused.
"They don't wander around with decoders like you do." It was a lie, I knew it. Besides, that command centre would break the code in seconds if the long haired guy wanted to. Trent was humouring me, trying to talk me down from a ledge.
I wasn't sure if I should be flattered or angered. But in the end, I realised there was no way he'd show me their base if I was armed. And technically, what I had stashed in this bag was definitely weaponry of a sort.
At least the flash-drive was still in my bra.
I turned back into the small space, that seemed to be mine now, and placed the handbag on the bed in full view. If they did break in, at least they wouldn't destroy the place trying to find it. I turned and found Trent right behind me, watching my every move. It was strangely a relief that he didn't fully trust me. It made it easier to not trust him in return.
I raised an eyebrow at him.
"If this is now my room, you're in here uninvited," I announced with Elite civility.
He smiled again. He really shouldn't. "It may be my only chance, I thought it prudent to take it while I could."
"A wasted effort," I replied, but the words felt hollow. Much like my heart.
"Lena," he said softly, reaching up as I went to walk past. His fingers wrapped around a strand of my hair that had come loose, his fascination with its colouring blatant in his fixed gaze, in the tender way he threaded it around his hand.
"Yes?" I asked, my throat suddenly dry. His proximity was perhaps the most dangerous thing in this place.
"We're not the enemy," he whispered, moving closer, letting his heated breath wash my cheek.
"I never said you were."
"Zebra," he chastised almost playfully. "You're planning something. You don't trust me."
"You don't trust me," I pointed out, feeling alarmed that he'd seen through me and vaguely impressed at the same time. I'd hidden a lot from people in the past. From Chew-wen. From Wang Chao. I'd grown used to being good at it and here was Trent, my nemesis, seeing right through the act in a flash.
An act I hadn't even consciously chosen to perform; old habits, though, did die hard.
"But I'm not planning to steal anything from you, Elite," he murmured, his fingers still stroking my hair.
"
You're wrong," I choked out. "You're stealing everything."
He stilled. His body so close I could feel his heat. His breaths rougher than before, puffs of air against my chilled skin.
Then he let go of my hair suddenly and stepped back, holding out an arm for me to precede him out of the room.
I walked stiffly, head high, chin up, shoulders back. That last comment had been unintentional, and a little too close to the truth. I cursed myself inwardly, wishing I understood why he made me feel so out of sorts. Why he made me feel anything at all.
The door to my new room clicked shut at our backs, momentarily sealing all that I now possessed inside. I raised my gaze to the nearest camera and hoped the guy in that command centre could read the challenge in my eyes. You take what's mine and I'll retaliate.
The fact that Trent had already called me out on that sat heavily in my heart. The goal was still knowledge, though; finding out what these people had planned. What I would do with it, I didn't yet know. But I had to look out for myself. More so now than ever. There would come a time when that information would be useful, and worth something to someone else.
It was the only defence I had, and right now with my world turning upside down around me and a dangerous man walking too close to my side, I needed every protection I could find.
"I'll show you the dining hall first," Trent said.
"I'm not hungry."
"You'll need to know where it is," he pointed out.
"Am I really going to be walking these corridors unattended?"
Silence for a moment.
Then, "I'm not placing a guard on your door."
"You don't need to, you have cameras."
He sighed. Was probably running a hand through his already messed up hair.
"OK," he conceded. "I guess you want to see the tech room."
"Is that where the wall of vid-screens are and the guy listening in on frequencies is?"
He came alongside me, directing me down a corridor at the next branch, a small smile curving his lips.
"Anything else you saw while you hacked us?" he asked casually.
"That would be giving away my advantage."
"Lena," he said, almost in a purr. "You don't have an advantage here. You're still an Elite."
The heaviness in my heart doubled.
"And that is so bad?"
"If you act like one, yes. You're likely to piss a few people off. And at the moment every syllable out of those lovely lips is dripping in Elitisms."
They were?
"It's who I am," I admitted, but truthfully I wasn't certain who I was anymore.
"I don't believe that," he said softly.
"Then you're misguided." My heart wasn't in it, the words were whispered not flung. "I was born Elite. Raised Elite. I'll die Elite."
He stopped us, just outside what was obviously the doorway to their command centre. I could see the wall of vid-screens out of the corner of my eye. The long haired man who sat before them. And, surprisingly or not, a small group of avidly watching people.
Revolutionaries, I told myself. Feeling my throat close up and struggling to contain my wretched tears.
Trent watched me, his face devoid of obvious emotions, his body moving to shield me from view out of the room.
"You're in the wilds now, little zebra," he whispered. Not reaching for me. Not showing his hand. "Let it all go."
I lifted my face up to his and fell into all that deep blue. Wanting nothing more than to be floating in an ocean of that colour. To be free of everything I felt and everything I had just learned.
"And give it all to you?" I asked, wondering if that would be a good thing or not.
He stared at me, frozen for a second, and then cleared his throat and looked over his shoulder into what he'd called the tech room. When he looked back at me he had that hard mask on his face again, and I realised he hadn't been devoid of emotion before. He'd been drowning in it.
Much like me.
Chapter 25
And I Was Going To Very Much Regret It
Trent
I didn't know how to answer her. She seemed so lost, so vulnerable. All I wanted to do was wrap her up in my arms and protect her from the world. But she was right. I shouldn't trust her. She didn't trust me.
Although her act was definitely fooling me.
I turned on my heel without a word and stalked into the tech room. All eyes on the woman I could actually feel following behind me, even though she wasn't physically touching me and I couldn't hear her footsteps.
Damn, this was bad.
And we had an audience. Not entirely unexpected, Lena was the biggest feat we'd accomplished in years. Or the biggest risk.
"Everyone," I said loudly, making them turn to me and stop staring at the Elite in our midst. As though she was an exhibit at the zoo. "This is Selena Carstairs." No way did I want them calling her Lena. That was mine.
"Honourable Selena Carstairs," Damia reminded everyone, clearly no longer on front door guard duty and here to ride my arse. A quick glance told me Alan must be playing guard. Which was a shame, because I was guessing I could have used his level head 'round about now.
"That's debatable," I replied, holding Damia's disgruntled glare. "Selena's identity has been compromised. She has no home."
"So we take in refugees now?" Zikri, her brother, asked.
I blinked back at him. "Aren't you one?"
He snorted, offered a self-deprecating smile and shrug, and nodded a greeting to Selena. That was the best welcome she'd probably receive.
"This is an unnecessary risk," Carla announced, speaking as though she held authority. She even stepped out of the little group of busy bodies and turned to deliver her next words. "Trent is not acting for the good of the cause, he's been compromised."
So it was a coup, was it?
"No more than he is when you're in his bed," Si muttered, without taking his eyes off the vid-screens.
"Pardon?" Carla demanded, hands on skinny hips.
"Enough!" I barked. "You've seen her. You know why she's here. Now get out and let us get to work."
Carla spun around to glare at me, then lifted a finger to point angrily at my face.
"You're going to destroy everything," she hissed. "Throwing it away for a bit of Elite skirt." Her eyes darted towards Lena, offering a withering glance that would quell a weaker woman. Selena was built from sterner stuff, so I didn't bother to check her reaction. "She's not even all that good looking without her make-up on. And what the hell is with that dress? Hardly Elite."
God, sometimes Carla could be so thick. Her eyes returned to me and I saw what she was trying to hide: Hurt. This was hurting her and I didn't know how to make it stop. I never promised Carla anything. I never make those kinds of promises. She of all people knew that. But still she was hurt.
"What would your father say?" she whispered, landing the blow she should have fired right at the start.
"He's not here," I snapped. "He's dead," I added, hoping to slap some sense into her.
"Like we'll all be when she hands us over to Chew-wen," Carla replied with surprising grace, and then ruined the effect by storming from the room and slamming her shoulder into Lena.
I almost went to her side, but needn't have bothered.
"Wow," Lena said with an amused smile that reached right into the depths of me and turned my world upside down. "She's good. I'll have to take lessons."
Everyone just blinked back at her.
"To perfect my Elite bitchiness?" she added in a questioning tone.
Si snorted, Zikri chuckled and Kevin let out a grunt. All three of them already in love. I realised with a start, that I was smiling, indicating I was just as much part of that group as them. But it was Damia who summed up the moment and brought reality back with a crash.
"You are not one of us. You're a Carstairs. To trust you would be to deny everything we are."
"True," Lena replied holding the Mahiah's steady gaze. "But you're the reas
on why my father is dead."
She didn't elaborate, she didn't add the three years she was then forced to live under Chew-wen's roof. The attention she must have received from Wang Chao because of that fact. The need to escape that had arisen every night in order to break free of the hold. She didn't add any of the things I knew she had chaffed against. Whether the others could work it out for themselves, she didn't care.
She only mentioned the most important part of it. The one thing a young girl would have felt most keenly. The one thing, I suspected, that had made her into who she now was.
Not really an Elite. Definitely not a Citizen.
But a survivor. Like me.
"Yours was not the only father to have been killed," Damia murmured, voicing what everyone else was no doubt thinking.
"But I'm guessing," Lena offered, her tone soft but lethal, "that they all had blood on their hands."
I closed my eyes and shut out the room for a moment, trying to still the rush of memories as they stormed my brain. The news arriving at our then base that the Uprising was over, that my father, our leader, had been killed in General Chew-wen's office. That Calvin Carstairs, the man always at the Chief Overseer's side, had fired the gun.
"And yours didn't?" I found myself asking.
My eyes opened to find her looking at me; sadness, loss, such pain, mixing with that beautiful pale blue. I wanted to look away - to stare into their depths was a trap I knew I couldn't escape. But even if every fibre in my body right then demanded that I do it, I couldn't.
What was this woman doing to me?
"I am not my father's daughter," she said, and it sounded strong and clear, coated in conviction I knew the others would hear.
But I saw the tremble in her lips. I saw the way her hand fisted the material of her dress. I saw the heartache and loneliness in her eyes.
And I knew. This girl was every inch her father's daughter, and if she knew Mason Waters was my father... she'd likely kill me too.
Just as I should be killing her, before she got the chance to destroy everything I'd worked for. Everything we'd all worked for. Everything my father had built up and then lost when he faced General Chew-wen and his right hand man.
Elite (Citizen Saga, Book 1) Page 16