by Kekla Magoon
Can’t force it. She’ll lead when she’s ready. Till then, we work and we wait, Chazz kept saying.
Yes, Robyn was reckless. Key had known this all along. From the moment he had first run into her, it was clear she would take any bull by the horns. She wasn’t afraid of anything. It amazed him.
Robyn liked to leap. Key held on to her shirttail and made her look first. There were reasons they worked well as a team. He hated to admit it, because at the moment he was just angry at her. For not trusting him. For running away.
He was mad at himself, too. He should have told Robyn the truth, if no one else was going to. Just like everyone should have told him the truth about his own life. Key knew how it felt to be misled. To be lied to.
Never a good idea to tell someone what they’re not ready to hear. Chazz’s words floated back to him. Along with the pointed expression he had worn. Key didn’t believe in secrets. Some knowledge was too powerful to be locked away.
Chazz was wrong to think Robyn would magically pull it all together and take charge. She needed more information, more help. Key was the planner, the organizer, the one who thought things through.
He couldn’t blame her for being mad, but was she really surprised? What did she think was going on? You couldn’t run a rebellion on the back of a postage stamp. Right now they were a bunch of misfit kids, driven by impulse. It would need to be a well-oiled machine that took Crown down.
Crown.
Key clenched his fists. Thinking about the man in the tower always brought him to rage. Crown was selfish. Power hungry. Cruel. He cast people aside as useless. People who mattered. People who he should have—No. Don’t think about it, Key reminded himself.
One thing Key had decided long ago: he would never be like Ignomus Crown.
Crown might cast people aside when they annoyed him, but Key would not do the same to Robyn.
She mattered. And they had been through too much already. No one got to walk away. Not him. Not Chazz. Not Robyn.
Key snuck through the patrol at the edge of the forest, much the way Robyn had several hours earlier. He thought he would find her at the fire, but the space was empty. Quiet, but for the soft lick of flames.
A blip of fear pulsed through him. If she wasn’t here, where was she?
He rushed toward Nottingham Cathedral. What if he had waited too long to follow her? What if she had run? In the time he needed to think things through, Robyn could have made a half-dozen moves. Key was a ponderous chess game. Robyn was more like a blazing hot potato, always on the move.
The rebellion needed Robyn.
She knew how to get people excited, how to make them believe in something. She was a flame from which it was impossible to look away.
CHAPTER FOUR
Promises, Promises
“You have failed me.”
“Sir—”
“I don’t want to hear it, Sheriff.” Governor Ignomus Crown stood perfectly still behind his desk. When he was motionless like that, it usually meant he was thinking, or else that he was angry to a place beyond words.
Sheriff Marissa Mallet forced herself to hold back the words that would have come next. She was angry, too. Mostly with the way Crown was acting like everything was her fault.
The hoodlum Robyn had infiltrated the Iron Teen contest. Mallet, of course, knew much more about the situation than she let on. It was bad enough to look like a failure. Crown wouldn’t be able to appreciate the nuances of her choice to leave him in the dark. Her choice to let Robyn compete. To hide her real identity from Crown. These things might look like something worse than failure. Betrayal. Treason.
Mallet shifted uncomfortably in place. It takes one to know one. She wasn’t the real traitor here. Not by a long shot.
Crown paced along behind his desk. Mallet hovered patiently near the wingback chairs on the other side. She wasn’t going to sit. She could not appear to defer.
She dared not stand too close, though, either. It tended to remind him of her height advantage, and he had always been a small man who wanted to be the largest.
His stature may not have conveyed power, but his manner did.
The way he smoothed his thumb and index finger over his mustache, around his mouth. It drew her attention to his lips, to whatever he was about to say.
He made her wait for it.
She gritted her teeth and stood patiently.
The jerk.
She had been prepared to give him everything. Her loyalty. Her brilliance. Her energy. Her heart.
“Well, Marissa.”
He called her by her first name. He did it now to bring her down, she knew. How well she knew. His mind, his games.
The door opened behind her. Mallet knew without looking, it would be Nick Shiffley, Governor Crown’s chief of staff and de facto head of security. She could practically smell him coming. His particular aura of greed and cunning wafted off him like cologne.
The security job was rightfully hers. Shiffley hadn’t earned his place at the top. He had weaseled his way in. She had put in the time. She had the experience. Shiffley was a politician, shrewd and oily. He knew how to make things look good. Mallet knew how to get things done. When was Crown going to realize he was ignoring one of his greatest assets?
When was he going to hand her the promotion he had assured her was coming? Police Commissioner of Nott City, the position Crown himself had held prior to his takeover. A takeover which, she could have pointed out, she and her officers had single-handedly facilitated.
Without her, Crown was nothing.
“I could be of help in securing this building,” she said, glancing toward Shiffley. “And securing the entire city.”
Shiffley’s eyes narrowed. He understood. He, too, had failed last night.
“Get your own house in order, Sheriff,” Shiffley said snidely. “And then we’ll talk again.”
The pesky hoodlum had a way of getting under everyone’s skin. Crown’s. Shiffley’s. Mallet’s. Robyn was a Sherwood problem, now gone to the Castle. A blip on Mallet’s otherwise perfect service record.
“My business is with … the governor,” Sheriff Mallet spoke coldly, kicking herself for chickening out on using his first name as he’d just done to her. Ignomus wouldn’t look kindly on that, but it was no better than he deserved.
Securing one building was nothing compared to the work of securing an entire county. And Shiffley couldn’t even manage that simple task. Her own job was much bigger. So she hadn’t caught the hoodlum yet. True, but that was just one mistake in a landscape of greater successes. Including everything it had taken to put Crown in power.
“I think we’re finished here, Sheriff.”
Mallet’s eyes narrowed. Crown had made promises to her. Promises that weren’t contingent on performance, only loyalty. Her performance had been above board. Her loyalty, unwavering. Despite his repeated dismissals and betrayals. She had kept true to her word. If Crown wasn’t prepared to do the same, it was time he started worrying.
Perhaps it was time to take a page from the hoodlum’s playbook, and show Crown what she was truly capable of. There were consequences to underestimating her. She would catch Robyn. Catch her, but not for Crown.
“Very well.” Mallet spun toward the door and strode out of the office. She resisted the instinct to look over her shoulder. Crown would not see her beg for his attention. Not anytime soon.
Without her, he was nothing. It was time he realized it.
CHAPTER FIVE
Seventy-Two Hours
It didn’t take Robyn long to gather all her stuff. A few changes of clothes and some thieving gear, her moped keys, her TexTer.
Robyn stalked through the rooms of the crumbling Nottingham Cathedral. The bedroom they shared with its mattresses on the floor. The kitchen, with its few remaining provisions. The space with Scarlet’s security setup. The office with its wide wooden desk and ratty orange sofa.
She laid her TexTer on the desk. Maybe the others could use i
t.
Time to go.
There was no one to stop her, no one to ask questions. It would be the easiest thing in the world to slip out the door, pull her moped from its hiding place, and disappear.
And go where? They’d know to look for her at the tree house. She’d have to improvise until she figured something out. Seventy-two hours. She could make do until then. She’d figure out her plan, and she’d save them. And then it would all be over.
A vision of home surrounded her. Her canopy bed, her playroom, the moon porch where she could see the sky. The kitchen, full of music and smelling like Dad’s latest attempt at dinner. The kitchen floor, dripping with blood.
No. Robyn shook her head, sinking back into the fantasy. The gardens Mom tended. Art on the walls. The shed, where she and Dad used to tinker. The live oak in the backyard that she loved to climb …
Leaves rustled behind her. Robyn’s heart pounded. She spun around and came face to face with … Governor Crown! The scream tore upward from the base of her belly. Clawlike hands reached out toward her and—
Robyn woke with a start. The vision of trees and grasping claws in front of her gave way to the dim, cool interior room. A crumbling wall of jagged brown bricks.
Her cheeks were damp, her body cramped and awkward, curled on the hard orange sofa. She raised her neck off the threadbare arm, immediately aware of stiffness in her muscles.
These surroundings were a far cry from the pristine face of Loxley Manor. Robyn stretched and flexed her limbs as recognition of her real life trickled back in, pressing the dream toward the recesses of her mind, where it belonged.
Robyn wished it had been only a dream, not partly a memory. She wanted to forget finding her parents’ blood in the kitchen, believing they’d been killed by Governor Crown’s newly formed Military Police forces, fleeing through the trees to get to safety—that part was all real. All too real, even though several months had passed, and she now knew her parents were alive.
At least for now.
Robyn pulled off her left glove—the one she constantly wore, even while sleeping—and gazed at the back of her hand. At the Tag emblazoned there in bold black tattoo ink. Her only remaining connection to—
“Oh, thank the moon.” Key burst into the room, ducking under the broken wall and picking his way through the rubble.
Robyn hastily replaced her glove. Instinct.
Key saw her do it, but made no comment. Robyn glanced away from him. More than once, she had trusted Key with her life. But not her secrets.
Perhaps they didn’t really know each other at all.
Key perched his short, lanky frame on the opposite sofa arm, breathing hard, saying nothing. Robyn snapped her glove in place across her wrist. The tiny metal click seemed deafening. She met Key’s gaze and held it, unsure whether to apologize, or wait for him to, or let it all be water under the bridge.
She had meant to be gone before they got back. To avoid this awkward moment.
She had yelled. She had run away from everyone. But Key had lied. Beneath her sleepy sadness, rumblings of his betrayal still churned in her gut.
Key scratched his temple, flicking aside unruly locks of blond hair, as he gazed down at Robyn. He lowered his arm, glancing at the dark rectangle tattooed on the back of his own hand. Perhaps to remind her that she didn’t know his number, either. He’d had it blacked out in protest.
Robyn swung her legs aside to make room for Key’s feet on the cushion. “Why am I sleeping on the couch?” She didn’t know how to say what was really on her mind.
Key shrugged. “It’s been a long night.”
“Yeah.” Robyn rolled her shoulders. Was it just going to be like this? They were never going to speak of what had happened? Did he think things could just go back to normal?
Key pressed his hand against his chest and bent forward. He looked all clammy and red in the face. Robyn gazed at him skeptically. “Are you okay?”
He nodded. “I just”—he breathed—“ran really hard. My heart is pounding.”
“Do you even have a heart?” Robyn snapped. The moment of concern gave way to her annoyance and anger.
“If not, I come by it honestly,” Key retorted.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Robyn said, planting her fists on her knees.
Key glared. “You don’t know everything. About anything. Stop acting like the whole world should cater to you.”
“Not the whole world,” Robyn blurted out. “Just my so-called friends.”
They were both looking at Robyn’s packed bag, on the floor at her feet. It seemed to prove Key’s point.
“I’m sorry, okay?” Key said finally. “Chazz said you’d freak out if you knew everything.”
Robyn scoffed. “Who cares what Chazz thinks?”
Key looked surprised. “Kind of … everyone?”
Robyn stood up. She rolled her aching shoulders and shot him a dirty look. She tried to find the normal, joking tone they usually shared. “We need an interior decorator around here. This couch is not okay.” Her usual mattress wasn’t exactly a palace luxury item, but at least it didn’t leave her joints feeling all kinky and unoiled. “New house rule: If you ever catch me snoozing here again, you better wake me.”
Key grinned, leaping off the couch and moving toward the gap in the wall that used to be a doorway. “Easy for you to say. You don’t have to deal with sleepy-bear you.”
“What are you trying to say?” Robyn planted her fists on her hips and glared, jokingly this time.
“I have strong self-preservation instincts,” Key quipped, looking back. “They tell me not to interrupt your REM cycle, on pain of suffering and possibly death.”
Robyn rolled her eyes. “Gee, don’t hold back,” she drawled. Not that she could deny she got grumpy when overtired.
And she was tired. Still. She sat back down on the couch and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. Her eyelashes clumped wetly against her skin. She swiped at her cheeks and let her face rest in her hands a moment.
“You wanna talk about anything?” The words slipped out of Key, all quiet.
Robyn glanced his way, surprised he was still in the room. “Weird dream,” she mumbled. “That’s all.”
Quiet settled over them, sure as the stones. Key lowered himself onto the half wall of broken rock and gazed at her in that way of his. The way that said he knew her truth already, despite the things that had never been said between them.
There were things she could say. The words rose up and threatened to choke her. But they wouldn’t come out. Too much had happened. Too much … could still happen.
“Seventy-two hours,” she said finally. And maybe that was enough.
“What?” Key said.
Oh. Right. Key had just come out of the woods, the only place where there were no speakers. The only place safe from Crown’s reach, from Crown’s voice.
It was hard to say the thing out loud. “Crown knows who I am. He set a new deadline. My parents die in seventy-two hours. Unless I turn myself in.”
“We’ll think of something,” Key said.
Robyn stared dejectedly at a boarded-up window. “Or, we already blew it. We messed up our one chance to save at least my mom.” Her chest tightened up with regret. The scene in the governor’s mansion gardens played out over and over in her mind. Mom throwing herself on a guard so the others could escape.
“I don’t know,” Key said. “But, let’s get to work.”
Key disappeared through the gap in the wall. Heading out the opposite way, Robyn went to the bedroom. Her mattress was the one nearest the door—this room still actually had a door, which is why they’d chosen it for their sleep space—so all she had to do was stick her arm into the room to deposit the bag she’d packed. She returned her toothbrush to the plastic cup beside her mattress. Lifelong habits die hard. It was funny, her whole life she’d resisted small chores. Making the bed. Brushing her teeth. Now she clung to the tiny routines. The hints of normalcy. Dul
l tasks like doing the dishes took on new meaning when any meal could not be taken for granted.
She picked her way through the rubble to the bathroom sink. The water ran cold.
They were out of toothpaste. She added it to her mental shopping list, somewhere near the bottom. Food was more important. Anyway Laurel would take care of …
Laurel.
Robyn’s chest twisted into itself.
Laurel, splayed across the jeep windshield like a starfish, blocking the MPs’ advance.
How could Robyn even think about leaving, with Laurel in trouble? Laurel, who’d sacrificed herself to save Robyn and the others.
The gnawing in her stomach could no longer be ignored. Robyn headed into the kitchen. On the wooden plank that served as their dinner table sat two bread heels in a plastic bag.
Robyn took one and filled a cup with water. She slipped through another wall—the wall she figured had once held the room’s actual door—and into the hallway. From the next room came the familiar click-clicking of Scarlet’s servers, constantly checking and re-checking the various digital protections that kept their hideout carefully shrouded from the everywhere eyes of the Nott City Military Police. Robyn shuddered slightly. She glanced in the computer room, but saw no sign of Scarlet. Just the row of flat, blinking machines and their steady, clicking hum. Among other things, Scarlet’s interface kept all the nearby public surveillance cameras running on a twenty-four-hour loop in which nothing at all happened, so the four of them could come and go as they pleased without drawing attention.
Key came down the hall carrying two full loaves of bread.
“Where’d you get that?”
“I bartered,” he said. “Cost me the last of our fresh oranges. Yesterday, before—”
A loud boom echoed, drowning out his voice. It sounded like ten claps of thunder rippling right through the room.
“What the—?” Robyn leaped toward the boarded-up window and peered through the cracks. She couldn’t see anything but the concrete slab wall of the building across the alley.
“They’re building the barricade,” Key said, calmly taking a sip of water. “It’s going to be a big checkpoint.”