by Marie Lu
“Hey, Junebug,” he says with a smile.
“Aren’t you going to be late for something?” I whisper. There’s a nagging feeling in my stomach that Metias isn’t supposed to be here. Like he’s late for something.
But my brother just shakes his head, making several chunks of dark hair fall across his face. The sun lights up his eyes with glints of gold. “Well, I can’t just leave you alone here, can I?” He laughs, and the sound fills me with so much happiness that I think I might burst. “Face it, you’re stuck with me. Now eat your soup. I don’t care how gross you think it is.”
I take a sip. I swear I can almost taste it. “Are you really going to stay here with me?”
Metias bends down and kisses my forehead. “Forever and ever, kid, until you’re sick and tired of seeing me.”
I smile. “You’re always taking care of me. When will you ever have time for Thomas?”
Metias hesitates at my words, and then chuckles. “I can’t keep anything secret with you here, can I?”
“You could have told me about you guys, you know.” The words are painful for me to say, but I’m not entirely sure why. I feel like I’m forgetting something important. “I wouldn’t have told anyone. Were you just worried Commander Jameson would find out and split you and Thomas into different patrols?”
Metias lowers his head, and his shoulders fall. “I never really had a reason to bring it up.”
“Do you love him?”
I remember that I’m dreaming, and whatever Metias might say is simply my own thoughts projected into his image. Still, I ache when he looks down and answers with a slight nod of his head.
“I thought I did,” he replies. I can barely hear him.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. He meets my gaze with eyes full of tears.
I try to reach up and wrap my arms around his neck. But then the scene shifts, the light fades, and suddenly I’m lying in a dim whitewashed room on a bed that isn’t my own. Metias disappears into wisps. Caring for me in his place is Day, his face framed by hair the color of light, his hands readjusting the towel on my forehead, his eyes studying mine intensely.
“Hey, Sarah,” he says. He’s using the fake name he made up for me. “Don’t worry, you’re safe.”
I blink at the sudden change in scene. “Safe?”
“Colonies police picked us up. They took us to a small hospital after they found out who I am. I guess they’ve all heard about me over here, and it’s working out to our benefit.” Day gives me a sheepish grin.
But this time I’m so disappointed to see Day, so bitterly sad that I’ve lost Metias to the shallows of my dreams again, that I have to bite my lip to keep myself from crying. My arms feel so weak. I probably couldn’t have wrapped them around my brother’s neck anyway, and because I didn’t, I couldn’t keep Metias from floating away.
Day’s grin fades—he senses my grief. He reaches over and touches my cheek with one hand. His face is so close, radiant in the soft evening glow. I lift myself up with what little strength I have and let him pull me close. “Oh, Day,” I whisper into his hair, my voice breaking with all the sobs I’ve been holding back. “I really miss him. I miss him so much. And I’m so sorry, I am so sorry for everything.” I repeat it over and over again, the words I said to Metias in my dream and the words I will say to Day for the rest of my life.
Day tightens his embrace. His hand brushes through my hair, and he rocks me gently like I’m a child. I cling to him for dear life, unable to catch my breath, drowning in my fever and sorrow and emptiness.
Metias is gone again. He is always gone.
IT TAKES JUNE A HALF HOUR TO FINALLY FALL BACK asleep, loaded up on whatever drugs a Colonies nurse injected into her arm. She’d been sobbing over her brother again, and it was like she’d fallen down a hole and crumpled in on herself, her bleeding heart torn open for all to see. Those strong dark eyes of hers—now, their expression was just . . . broken. I wince. Of course, I know exactly what it feels like to lose an older brother. I watch as her eyes dance around behind closed lids, probably deep in another nightmare that I can’t help her out of. So I just do what she always does for me—I smooth down her hair and kiss her damp forehead and cheeks and lips. It doesn’t seem to help, but I do it anyway.
The hospital is relatively quiet, but a few sounds form a blanket of white noise in my head: There’s a faint whir coming from the ceiling lights, and some sort of dim commotion on the streets outside. Like in the Republic, a screen mounted to the wall broadcasts a stream of warfront news. Unlike the Republic, the news is peppered with commercials the way the streets outside had been, for things that I don’t comprehend. I stop watching after a while. I keep thinking about the way my mother comforted Eden when he first got the plague, how she whispered soothing words and touched his face with her poor bandaged hands, how John would come to the bedside with a bowl of soup.
I’m so sorry for everything, June had said.
Several minutes later, a soldier opens the door to our hospital room and walks over to me. It’s the same soldier who’d realized who I was and had us delivered to this twenty-story hospital. She halts in front of me and gives me a quick bow. Like I’m an officer or something. Just as surprising is the fact that she’s the only soldier in the room with us. These guys must not see me and June as threats. No handcuffs, not even a guard to watch our door. Do they know that we’re the ones who botched the Elector’s assassination? If they’re sponsoring the Patriots, they’re bound to find out sooner or later. Maybe they don’t know we worked for the Patriots at all. Razor had added us fairly late in the game.
“Your friend is stable, I presume?” Her eyes rest on June. I just nod. Best if no one here figures out that June is the Republic’s beloved prodigy. “Given her condition,” the soldier adds, “she’ll need to stay here until she’s well enough to move around on her own. You’re welcome to stay with her in here, or DesCon Corp would be happy to sponsor an additional room for you.”
DesCon Corp—more Colonies lingo I don’t understand. But far be it from me to start questioning the source of their generosity. If I’m famous enough over here to get star treatment in a hospital, then I’ll take it for all it’s worth. “Thanks,” I reply. “I’m fine staying in here.”
“We’ll have an extra bed brought in for you,” she says, motioning toward the room’s empty space. “We’ll come check on you again in the morning.”
I go back to my vigil over June. When the guard doesn’t leave, I look up at her and raise my eyebrows. She turns red. “Anything else I can do for you?”
She shrugs it off and tries to look nonchalant. “No. I just . . . so, you’re Daniel Altan Wing, eh?” She says my name like she’s trying it on for size. “Evergreen Ent keeps printing stories about you in their tabs. The Republic Rebel, the Phantom, the Wild Card—they probably come up with a new name and photo for you every day. Say you escaped a Los Angeles prison all by yourself. Hey, did you really date that singer Lincoln?”
The idea is so ludicrous that I have to laugh. I didn’t know Colonians kept up with the Republic’s government-appointed propaganda singers. “Lincoln’s a little old for me, don’t you think?”
My laugh breaks the tension, and the soldier laughs along with me. “Well, this week you are. Last week Evergreen Ent reported that you’d dodged all the bullets from a Republic firing squad and escaped your execution.” The soldier goes back to laughing again, but I fall silent.
No, I didn’t dodge any bullets. I let my older brother take them for me.
The soldier’s laugh trickles away awkwardly when she sees my expression. She clears her throat. “As for that tunnel you two came through, we’ve sealed it up. Third one we’ve sealed in a month. Every now and then Republic refugees come in just like you did, you know, and the people living in Tribune have gotten really tired of dealing with them. No one likes civilians from an enemy territory suddenly taking up residence in one’s hometown. We usually end up kicking them back over the
warfront. You’re a lucky one.” The soldier sighs. “Back in the day, this all used to be the United States of America. You know that, yes?”
My quarter pendant suddenly feels heavy around my neck. “I know.”
“Well, do you know about the floods? Came fast, in less than two years, and wiped out half of the low-lying south. Places Reps like you have probably never even heard of. Louisiana, gone. Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Carolinas, gone. So fast you’d swear they never existed in the first place, at least if you couldn’t still see some of their buildings peeking out far off in the ocean.”
“And that’s why you guys came here?”
“More land in the west. You have any idea how many refugees there were? Then the west built a wall to keep the easterners from overcrowding their states, from the top of the Dakotas down through Texas.” The soldier slams one fist into the palm of her other hand. “So we had to build tunnels to get in. There used to be thousands of them back when the migration was at its peak. Then the war started. When the Republic started using the tunnels to launch surprise assaults on us, we sealed them all off. The war’s been going on for so long that most people don’t even remember that the fight’s about land. But when the floodwaters finally settled, things over here stabilized. And we became the Colonies of America.” She says this with her chest puffed out. “This war won’t go on for much longer—we’ve been winning for a while now.”
I remember Kaede telling me that the Colonies were winning the war when we first touched down in Lamar. I hadn’t thought too much of it then—after all, what’s one person’s assumption? Rumor? But now this soldier’s saying it like it’s the truth.
Both of us pause as the commotion outside the building gets louder. I tilt my head. There have been crowds of people coming and going from the hospital ever since we got here, but I hadn’t thought about it. Now I think I hear my name. “Do you know what’s going on out there?” I ask. “Can we move my friend to a quieter room?”
The soldier crosses her arms. “Want to see all the commotion for yourself?” She gestures for me to get up and follow her.
The shouting outside has reached a thunderous pitch. When the soldier swings the balcony’s doors open and leads us out into the night air, I’m greeted by a gust of icy wind and a huge chorus of cheers. Flashing lights blind me—for a second all I can do is stand there against the metal railings and take in the scene. It’s some insanely late hour of the night, but there must be hundreds of people below our window, oblivious to the snow-packed ground. All of their eyes are turned up to me. Many of them hold up homemade signs. Welcome to our side! one says.
The Phantom Lives, says another.
Take Down the Republic, says a third. There are dozens of them. Day: Our Honorary Colonian! Welcome to Tribune, Day! Our home is your home!
They know who I am.
Now the soldier points at me and smiles for the crowd. “This is Day,” she shouts.
Another eruption of cheers. I stay frozen where I am. What’re you supposed to do when a bunch of people are yelling your name like they’re completely cracked? I have no goddy clue. So I raise my hand and wave, which brings their shrieks to a higher pitch.
“You’re a celebrity here,” the soldier says to me over the noise. She seems to be much more interested in this than I am. “The one rebel the Republic can’t seem to get their hands on. Trust me, you’ll be plastered all over the tabs by morning. Evergreen Ent is going to be dying to interview you.”
She keeps talking, but I’m not paying attention to her anymore. One of the people holding up signs has caught my attention. It’s a girl with a scarf wrapped around her mouth and a hoodie covering part of her face.
But I can tell it’s Kaede.
My head feels light. Instantly I think back on the blinking red alarm down in the bunker, warning June and me of someone approaching the hideout. I recall the person I thought had been following us down the Colonies’ streets. Was it Kaede? Does that mean that other Patriots are here too? She’s holding up a sign that’s almost lost in the sea of others.
The sign says: You have to go back. Now.
I’M DREAMING AGAIN. I’M SURE OF IT BECAUSE METIAS is here, and I know he’s supposed to be dead. This time I’m ready for it, and I keep a tight rein on my emotions.
Metias and I are walking in the streets of Pierra. All around us, Republic soldiers run around rubble and explosions, but to the two of us, everything seems quiet and slow, like we’re watching a movie in extreme slow motion. Showers of dirt and shrapnel from grenades bounce harmlessly off of us. I feel invincible, or invisible. One or the other, maybe both.
“Something’s just not right here,” I say to my brother. My eyes go up to the roofs, then back down to the chaotic streets. Where is Anden?
Metias gives me a thoughtful frown. He walks with his hands behind his back, graceful as any captain ought to be, and the gold tassels on his uniform clink softly together as he goes. “I can tell this scene is bothering you,” he replies, scratching at the faint scruff on his chin. Unlike Thomas, he’d always been a bit lax about the military’s grooming rules. “Talk to me.”
“This scene,” I say, pointing around us. “This whole plan. Something’s off.”
Metias steps over a pile of concrete rubble. “What’s off?”
“Him.” I point up to the roof. For some reason, Razor is standing there in plain sight, watching everything happen. His arms are crossed. “Something’s not right about him.”
“Well, Junebug, reason it out,” Metias says.
I count off on my fingers. “When I got into the jeep behind the Elector’s, the drivers’ instructions were clear. The Elector told them to take me to the hospital.”
“And then?”
“And then Razor ordered the drivers to take the assassination route anyway. He completely ignored the Elector’s command. He must’ve told Anden that I insisted on the assassination route. It’s the only way Anden would’ve gone with it.”
Metias shrugs. “What does it mean? That Razor simply wanted to force the assassination through?”
“No. If the assassination happened, everyone would know who ignored the Elector’s order. Everyone would know that Razor was the one who ordered the jeeps forward.” I grab Metias’s arm. “The Republic would know that Razor tried to kill Anden.”
Metias tightens his lips. “Why would Razor put himself in such obvious danger? What else was strange?”
I turn back to the street’s slow-moving chaos. “Well, right from the beginning, he was able to bring Patriots into his Vegas officer quarters so easily. He got his Patriots on and off that airship as if it were nothing. It’s like he has superhuman abilities to hide out.”
“Maybe he does,” Metias says. “After all, he has the Colonies sponsoring him, doesn’t he?”
“That’s true.” I run a hand through my hair in frustration. In this dream state, my fingers are numb and I can’t feel the strands running against my skin. “It doesn’t make sense. They should have called off the assassination. Razor shouldn’t have gone through with it at all, not after I disrupted it. They would’ve gone back to their quarters, thought things through again, and then attempted another strike. Maybe in a month or two. Why would Razor put his position at risk if the assassination was in danger of failing?”
Metias watches as a Republic soldier runs past us. The soldier tilts his head up at Razor standing on the roof and salutes.
“If the Colonies are behind the Patriots,” my brother says, “and they know who Day is, shouldn’t you both have been taken straight to talk with whomever is in charge?”
I shrug. I think back on the time I spent with Anden. His radical new laws, his new way of thinking. Then I remember his tension with Congress and the Senators.
And that’s when the dream breaks apart. My eyes snap open. I’ve figured out why Razor bothers me so much.
The Colonies aren’t sponsoring Razor—in fact, the Colonies have no idea what the P
atriots are up to. That’s why Razor went ahead with the plan—of course he had no fear of the Republic finding out that he worked for the Patriots.
The Republic had hired Razor to assassinate Anden.
AFTER THE SOLDIER AND I LEFT THE BALCONY AND the throng of people outside our hospital room, I made sure guards stood outside our door (“In case any fans come barging in,” the soldier said before she left), then requested extra blankets and medicine for June. I didn’t want to get up and see Kaede still standing below the balcony. Gradually, the shouts outside started to die down. Eventually, everything sank into silence. Now we’re completely alone, except for the guards standing outside our door.
Everything’s ready to go, but I stand unmoving at June’s bedside. There’s nothing in here I can make into a weapon, so if we really do need to make a run for it tonight, all we can hope for is that we won’t have to fight anyone. That no one will notice we’re gone until morning.
I get up and walk to the balcony. The snow on the ground below is completely trampled and dark with the dirt of boots. Kaede isn’t there anymore, of course. I soak in the Colonies landscape for a while, puzzling once again over Kaede’s sign.
Why would Kaede tell me to return to the Republic? Is she trying to trap me or warn me? Then again—if she wanted to hurt us, why did she hit Baxter and let us go in Pierra? She’d even urged us to escape before the other Patriots could get to us. I turn to June, who’s still sleeping. Her breathing is more even now, and the flush on her cheeks is less pronounced than it was several hours ago. Still, I don’t dare disturb her.
More minutes drag by. I wait to see if Kaede will try again. After the dizzying speed of everything that’s happened to us, I’m not used to being stuck here like this. Suddenly there’s too much time.
A thud sounds out against the balcony doors. I jump to my feet. Maybe a branch broke off a tree, or a shingle fell from the roof. I wait now, alert. Nothing happens for a while. Then there’s another thud against the glass.