always been a source of shame, an ugly mark on my pale skin.
“I saw that at the capital. The other rebels, the ones who planted the bombs, they painted their hands first. Trying to pin it on me.”
I hated the idea of being a symbol for rebellion. People shouldn’t risk their lives to play revolution. It was too dangerous.
We took dinner in private rather than joining the lines in the mess hall. Trevor got potato soup and bread for us. I kept asking to go outside and hunt. I needed the space and quiet, but Jacob said it was too dangerous in the woods right now, so soon after the attack. I realized I’d taken the sky for granted. Poisonous or not, it was better than this.
I knew I should visit Penelope, but I hated seeing her chained up in that filthy cell. When I met her in the citadel, she was breathtaking, so elegant and fashionable. Besides she wouldn’t recognize me anyway.
April joined us after dinner. She looked tired.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“I’ve followed the directions as best as I can. I believe it might work. It should be ready tomorrow, and then we can test it.”
“Test it?” I asked, but I already knew what she meant: test it on Penelope, the half-starved elite downstairs.
I wished I could talk to her first and ask her what she wanted. It felt wrong to make the decision for her. But it didn’t much matter. As an elite, she couldn’t stay here without being locked up; and she couldn’t go back to the citadel, now that the king had executed her for being a traitor. At least as a human, she’d have a place here. Plus, she hadn’t chosen to become elite, it was just the only way Tobias could save her. I hoped she wouldn’t mind becoming mortal again.
Trevor hadn’t tried to kiss me again since the last time I pushed him away. Part of me was grateful, I had enough to deal with without his hesitant glances, the looks of intolerable impatience, like he was frustrated with me for not being with him. I could tell he wanted to hold my hand, but was trying to give me space.
And I hated that when I was alone in my bed, I wanted to creep into his tent and sleep in his arms, like we used to when I was little and we fell asleep after a day of building forts or slaying imaginary slagpaw.
I still couldn’t get over what he was, what King Richard had turned him into. It seemed like both a terrible curse, but also a powerful gift. Slagpaw were the only things that could fight an elite; the only problem was, they were no use against a strong compulser like King Richard or Tobias. In fact they could be a liability.
I’d been able to compulse the slagpaw away from Tobias this time, but only because I was charged up on elixir and caught him by surprise. A regular human or chosen couldn’t do it at all. It must be because I was a renitent.
Thanks to John Patten’s genetic experiments on my mother, she was able to give birth to me, in secret. My head still spun with questions, but it didn’t matter where I came from. I knew who my real family was. I couldn’t save the woman who raised me, but I wasn’t going to let the king raise my siblings.
I had to get them away from him, but did that mean bringing them here, to grow up in fear, buried underground? I wasn’t sure I had the right to make that choice for them.
I was sure the king was even stronger than Tobias, which meant, if there was a battle, he could turn Trevor against me like he’d done in the trials; force him to kill me, just as he’d forced Tobias against Penelope, or Damien against John Patten.
No matter how I looked at it, it felt I was destined towards a future of betrayal and heartbreak. I finally slept for a few hours, rolling over on the sleeping bag and thin matt, the coolness of the concrete in the winter felt good against the muggy, humid heat that seemed to permeate the closed off structure.
Small vents let in filtered air from outside, but it couldn’t combat the hundreds of heavy mouth breathers and I always felt out of breath down here, like I was choking on carbon monoxide.
My dreams were scattered: blood, ash, my mother’s