by Aimee Carter
The news of her affair with Mercer didn’t seem to surprise anyone in the room, and Scotia shrugged. “Does it matter? If we don’t get the codes in two days—”
“What codes?” I said. “What are you talking about?”
Dead silence. Several prisoners exchanged nervous looks, and Rivers sighed, resting his head against the wall. Scotia, in the meantime, narrowed her eyes. “I’m not in the mood for games.”
“Neither am I,” I snapped. “If there’s some conspiracy or plot going on, I’m not aware of it.”
“How could you not be?” she said, and for the first time since I’d met her, Isabel Scotia looked stunned and confused. “Isn’t that why you’re here? To make sure the plan goes through?”
“I’m here because Daxton caught me breaking into his office, not because of some plan.” But even as I said it, the pieces clicked into place. This was what Sampson and the others had been plotting. “What are the codes to?”
Scotia frowned. “If the higher-ups didn’t tell you—”
“The central armory,” said Rivers. She shot him a warning look.
“Rivers...”
“You’re sleeping with him, and you still can’t get the codes,” he said. “She might be our last shot.”
Scotia took a long, deep breath, her dark eyes burning into mine. I refused to look away, and at last she nodded curtly and stepped aside, allowing Rivers room in the center. He took her place, directly facing me now.
“The Blackcoats need weapons, and nearly three quarters of the nation’s artillery is stored here, in Elsewhere,” he said. “The Mercers aren’t just overseeing the section. They’re also tasked with protecting the armory. We need those codes to get inside, overthrow the Mercers, and arm the rebellion.”
The weight of what he was saying settled over me, and my mind spun. The Blackcoats were going to break everyone out. Thousands of ex-prisoners loyal to them, with three quarters of America’s weapons at their disposal—that could be enough to rival the Shields and the armies Daxton had at his.
He’d said that Knox was behind the failure of the first raid—was that why he was here? To stop the second? Was that why Daxton hadn’t killed me in the first place? So I would be Knox’s excuse to come here and cherry-pick without raising suspicions?
“You can’t trust him,” I blurted. “Knox Creed—whatever you do, don’t trust him.”
Scotia scoffed. “Why the hell would we? He’s one of them.”
Yes, he was. I glanced at the weapons scattered carelessly throughout the room. “Don’t you have enough weapons here to get started?”
“There are hundreds of sections in Elsewhere just like Section X,” said Scotia. “Not even the guards know exactly how many there are. These weapons might be enough to hold the dining hall for a few days, but we might as well be ants against giants.”
“We need the codes if we’re going to have any chance of succeeding,” said Rivers. “Not just us, but the entire operation. The entire rebellion. And if the Mercers offered you a spot in their home—”
“Knox Creed is her fiancé,” said Scotia, crossing her arms as her stare settled on me. “There’s a chance he knows where the codes are hidden.”
“Was my fiancé,” I said, “and even if he does know, I’m the last person he’s going to tell. There’s no point.”
She scowled. “I saved your life today. This is the least you could do to try to repay me.”
“I never asked you to save it,” I snapped. “And I don’t owe you a thing. Knox Creed won’t tell me anything you won’t be able to kiss out of Mercer, and even if he did, you can’t trust a word out of his mouth. He swore he’d protect my b—my best friend, but Benjy’s dead. He swore he’d kill me before he ever let me wind up Elsewhere, but here I am. Dying’s the only thing he’s good for anymore, and I owe him a bullet.”
“If you raise a hand against a guard, let alone a senior official, you’ll be dead in a second,” said Rivers quietly.
“Good.” I clenched my fists. “It’ll be worth it. Knox Creed is a spy, and not only did he kill my best friend, but he sabotaged the last raid, too. He knows everything you’re planning, and I guarantee you he’s here to stop it. Might as well let me kill him. You’ll be doing all of us a favor.”
A ripple of murmurs rose up among the crowd, but Scotia raised her hand, and they quieted. “You want to die?” she said dangerously. “Fine.”
Without warning, she pulled a pistol from the inside of her jacket and pointed it directly at me.
Bang.
I ducked half a second too late. By the time I fell to the concrete floor, crashing into the machine gun and another pile of crates, the plaster wall beside my head had already exploded, leaving white dust clinging to my hair.
My heart pounded, and adrenaline rushed through me as images of white and crimson flashed through my mind, blinding me. Every inch of me felt as if I were on fire, and my muscles tensed, ready to run if she tried again. I groped around for something to use against her, and my fingers wrapped around the handle of the machine gun. I had no idea how to work it, but I would be damned if I was going down without a fight.
Scotia laughed. It was a dark, humorless sound that could’ve easily come from the depths of my nightmares, and I cringed. “What are you going to do with that, princess? Shoot me? You couldn’t find the safety on that if I gave you an instruction manual and circled it in red.”
I clutched the gun to my chest anyway. It was better than nothing.
She huffed, and my vision began to clear in time to see her tuck her pistol back into her coat. “You might think you want to die, princess, but you want to live as badly as the rest of us.”
“You’re crazy,” I said, my voice laced with residual panic.
“You’re crazy.” She moved toward me as if she were the predator and I were the prey. “Do you know how many people die in here every day? Hundreds, if not thousands. Do you know how many of them would’ve killed to be in your shoes and have a chance to stop it all? Every last one of them.”
“Then let one of them do it,” I spat, struggling to my feet. The machine gun fell to the floor, and I winced, but it clattered harmlessly against the concrete. “They’d have a better chance anyway.”
Scotia was silent for a long moment, as still and cold as if she were made of ice. “You’re right,” she said at last. “They probably would. And this close to the raid, the last thing we need is another liability. We can manage just fine without you.”
“And that’s what you’re going to have to do,” I shot. “Because I’m through.”
I stood in the corner for the rest of the meeting, hugging my freezing body and trying not to look as exhausted as I felt. No one else tried to convince me to ask Knox for the codes, but every once in a while, I caught someone staring at me. They all hastily looked away, except for the guard with the long blond hair. Rivers.
Our eyes locked as Scotia barked a list of orders for the next meeting tomorrow night. I was only half listening, distracting myself with fantasies of how it would feel to wrap my hands around Knox’s throat and squeeze, but Rivers’s blue eyes were impossible to miss. They were the color of the ocean, like mine.
I held his stare, and he watched me openly, not the least bit ashamed of being caught. There was a question in his expression I couldn’t read, and the moment Scotia ended the meeting, he crossed the room to join me.
“You don’t have to ask Knox directly to help,” he said, and I blinked at him.
“Are you incapable of listening, or do you just not understand the word no?”
“I’m not going to try to threaten or persuade you into helping,” he said, leaning in so only I could hear him. “But if you want to get back at this bastard Knox for what he did to you, then wouldn’t your best bet be to make sure the very thing he doesn’t want to happen
does?”
I glared at him, and he straightened, patting me on the cheek.
“If you need me to smuggle anything in for you, all you have to do is ask,” he added. “First round’s on the house.”
With that, he melted into the steady stream of others leaving through the door, calling out, “Twos and threes, remember! If you’re caught after curfew, it’s your head, not ours.”
Scotia stalked toward me and grabbed my elbow. “You say anything about this meeting to anyone, you’ll be in the cage tomorrow night,” she said. “Please, go ahead and test me on that.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” I said wearily. “I’m not stupid.”
“Sure could’ve fooled me,” she said, and with that, she dragged me back up the narrow staircase and back into the freezing alleyway.
The crowd quickly dispersed, leaving us alone in our journey back to the bunkhouse. She dragged me the entire way, her nails digging through my coat. Scotia was a master at melting into shadows and hiding around corners until she was sure the coast was clear, but it all seemed like a long-winded charade, as the streets were once again abandoned, leaving me to wonder if the cold had chased away the guards or if Scotia had done something to take care of them, too.
“I want my necklace back,” I whispered half a block away from the bunk. Scotia scoffed, her breath visible in the freezing air.
“And I want the armory codes. Not all of us get what we want whenever we ask for it, princess.”
“A friend gave it to me,” I said. “A really good friend.”
“Is that so?” She glanced at me, her dark eyes narrowed. “Funny, a really good friend gave it to me, too.”
I prickled at the suggestiveness in her voice. “Mercer stole that from me, and it’s mine.”
“You want it back? Then get me my armory codes.”
“No.”
“Then I guess it’s mine now, isn’t it?”
I tightened my hands into fists. “It means nothing to you.”
“Maybe thirty seconds ago, but now it means plenty.” She stopped in the middle of an alleyway and faced me. “I don’t know why you’re refusing to help us, but I do know about the speeches you gave. I know what you’ve done for the rebellion in the past, and to see you piss it all away just because you wound up here—do you have any idea how badly you’re hurting morale?”
“Give me my necklace,” I said, ignoring her. She continued on as if I hadn’t even spoken.
“I’ve heard the recordings they smuggled in. The speech you gave in New York City—you’re the reason half of these people agreed to risk their lives and join us in the first place.”
I opened my mouth to insist they were idiots, but stopped suddenly. The speech in New York—that hadn’t been Lila before she’d faked her death. That had been me.
“You’re an inspiration to those people. Just you being here, in our section—it gave them hope. More people risked their asses getting to that meeting tonight than we’ve ever had before, just on the off chance you might be there. And come to find you’re not here to help us—” Scotia shook her head ruefully. “You might’ve already ruined any chance we had of ever being free again.”
“The only reason I’m still alive is so Knox can use me against you,” I said, my voice trembling with cold and fury. “If I ask him about those codes, you won’t stand a chance of ever finding them.”
“So don’t ask,” she said. “Stay with the Mercers. Search for it while they’re sleeping. I don’t care what you do—but if you want to prove you’re more than just a princess, then you have two days to help us before the entire rebellion fails. If we can get those codes, we might have a real shot at winning. But if we don’t, then not only are we all dead, but no one’s going to dare lift a finger against your family for generations to come.” She leaned down until our noses were nearly touching. “We need a leader, Lila. You can be that leader. You can change millions of lives for the better. All you have to do is care enough to try.”
I stood absolutely still as the cold seeped into my bones and the air turned to ice in my lungs. I’d tried caring. All it had gotten me was a one-way ticket to Elsewhere and a front row seat watching Benjy die. Now I had nothing left to lose, and no matter where I was—Elsewhere, D.C., that cabin in the woods—my life would never get any better than it was in that moment, cold and empty and worthless.
“Whether or not the rebellion succeeds or fails, it won’t have anything to do with me,” I said. “And I’m not going to help someone who turns on the people she claims to protect. The only difference between you and Daxton Hart is that he has an entire country behind him, and you have a few dozen supporters who haven’t yet realized you’ll only care about them as long as they can do something for you.” I backed away. “Keep the necklace. I hope every time you look at it, you see Maya’s face, and Poppy’s, and Chelsea’s. And I hope you remember that the only reason they died is because you snitched on them for a chance to give Mercer your dignity.”
I turned away and stalked down the street toward the bunkhouse. I couldn’t do this, not again—I couldn’t hope only to see it all burn. But even as I slipped into the bunk and curled up underneath my thin blanket, my mind whirled with plans and possibilities, leaving me staring into the darkness and wondering if maybe I had one last try left in me after all.
X
HUNTED
The morning bell rang at sunrise, and unlike in the group home where I’d been raised, not a single girl grumbled or complained as they pulled themselves out of bed and trudged into the communal bathroom. I joined them, remaining on the fringes while they went through their routines and whispered to one another, doing everything they could to avoid meeting my eyes. Only Noelle acknowledged me with a squeeze of my elbow and a friendly smile.
I was in the middle of brushing my teeth when a familiar voice boomed through the bunkhouse. “Lineup!”
Williams, the guard who had shot Chelsea the night before. I nearly dropped my toothbrush. “Lineup?” I said, my mouth full of toothpaste. “For what?”
Noelle paled. “No one knows,” she said, her voice trembling. “They choose as many as they want. When you’re taken, you never come back.”
I started to ask who they were, but she and the other girls hurried into the bunk room, and I rinsed my mouth and followed them. Like the night before, each stood in front of their bunk bed, hands hanging at their sides as they looked straight ahead. Even Scotia stood in front of her curtain, her stance wide and her hands behind her back. Our eyes met, and her cold glare made it clear that if I got another girl killed this morning, I would be next.
My heart pounded as I took my place in front of my bunk. Williams burst through the door, and a handful of other guards joined him, crowding the small space. His gaze found mine, and he smirked. I stared back, refusing to flinch.
I waited for him to say something, but instead he remained silent. As the seconds passed, my chest tightened, and I dug my nails into my palms. The other girls all shifted nervously, some hanging their heads so their hair obscured their faces. I glanced at Noelle. She raised her chin as if she wanted them to see her.
Half a minute passed. At last heavy boots echoed against the steps that led to the front door, and Mercer stepped inside the bunkhouse. Towering over us, he scanned each face, his eyes lingering only on mine. To my surprise, he smiled. I didn’t smile back.
“I think you’ll like your pick here,” said Mercer, and at first I thought he was talking to Williams—until a second set of footsteps clunked against the stairs, and Knox walked through the door, his black wool coat dusted with snow.
My entire body tensed. Rage burned through me, setting me on fire, and it took everything I had to remain still. Standing at the head of the aisle, Knox was less than an arm’s length from me. Close enough for me to see the stubble forming
on his jaw. Close enough for me to smell his soap. Close enough for me to reach out and snap his neck in the seconds before every single guard put a bullet in me.
My fingers twitched. It would be worth it if I knew I could do it, but I didn’t have the upper body strength Knox did, and I was still sore and bruised from the day before. If I killed him—when I killed him—I would need to be alone with him if I wanted any chance of succeeding.
“A great selection,” said Knox quietly. He strode slowly up the aisle, eyeing each girl as he passed. “They’re strong?”
“The strongest Elsewhere,” said Mercer. “Fast runners, too, I’d imagine. They’ll be the challenge you’re looking for.”
My stomach turned, and if I had eaten anything the day before, I had no doubt I would’ve been sick all over Mercer’s shoes.
Knox was going hunting.
“This one,” he said, tapping a redheaded girl on the shoulder. “And this one.”
The black girl beside her let out a strange choking sound, and I turned away, biting my tongue to keep myself from blurting out something that would only get more killed.
“One more, I think,” said Knox as he leisurely meandered back up the aisle toward me, now examining each girl on my side of the room. I would be the last.
I forced myself to relax and accept what was coming. My building hadn’t been chosen at random; Knox was here for one person and one person only. Me. This was how he would finally kill me.
Let him try. If I was going down, I was taking him with me.
Knox stopped in front of me exactly as I expected him to, and our eyes met. I saw no hint of familiarity in his—no indication that we knew each other at all, much less that he regretted how things had come to pass.
For a moment I wondered if he, too, had been Masked. I wouldn’t have put it past Daxton, especially if he had discovered the role Knox played in the Blackcoats. It would have been a perfect in into the rebellion. And it would have explained why Knox suddenly seemed to have no desire to keep a single promise he had made to me.