Captive
Captive
Aimee Carter
The truth can set her freeFor the past two months, Kitty Doe's life has been a lie. Forced to impersonate Lila Hart, the Prime Minister's niece, in a hostile meritocracy on the verge of revolution, Kitty sees her frustration grow as her trust in her fake fiancé cracks, her real boyfriend is forbidden and the Blackcoat rebels she is secretly supporting keep her in the dark more than ever.But in the midst of discovering that her role in the Hart family may not be as coincidental as she thought, she's accused of treason and is forced to face her greatest fear: Elsewhere. A prison where no one can escape.As one shocking revelation leads to the next, Kitty learns the hard way that she can trust no one, not even the people she thought were on her side. With her back against the wall, Kitty wants to believe she'll do whatever it takes to support the rebellion she believes in–but is she prepared to pay the ultimate price?
The truth can set her free
For the past two months, Kitty Doe’s life has been a lie. Forced to impersonate Lila Hart, the Prime Minister’s niece, in a hostile meritocracy on the verge of revolution, Kitty sees her frustration grow as her trust in her fake fiancé cracks, her real boyfriend is forbidden and the Blackcoat rebels she is secretly supporting keep her in the dark more than ever.
But in the midst of discovering that her role in the Hart family may not be as coincidental as she thought, she’s accused of treason and is forced to face her greatest fear: Elsewhere. A prison where no one can escape.
As one shocking revelation leads to the next, Kitty learns the hard way that she can trust no one, not even the people she thought were on her side. With her back against the wall, Kitty wants to believe she’ll do whatever it takes to support the rebellion she believes in—but is she prepared to pay the ultimate price?
Captive
Aimée Carter
www.miraink.co.uk (http://www.miraink.co.uk)
To Carli Segal and Veronica O’Neil
Contents
Cover (#ub4436b06-12ef-51f1-9daa-713e4e4a7ad3)
Back Cover Text (#ueee9c196-9811-5271-92ed-f88772a9d467)
Title Page (#u458691be-fcba-5b9c-9abe-ea2e81dcb13b)
Dedication (#u88a702ee-1dfb-5948-908f-c8ad5d1c7a30)
I FADING (#ulink_791af69b-9b6e-5aa7-b36f-a12d48c345aa)
II MIDNIGHT MEETING (#ulink_829f4ffa-5571-5d15-bdfb-8d0b926ee056)
III IMPOSTOR (#ulink_e48e7f31-3845-57d0-b22a-84f4d135ce07)
IV CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT (#ulink_953190d3-9b53-5996-a07a-69d3c7a7053b)
V SECTION X (#litres_trial_promo)
VI SCOTIA (#litres_trial_promo)
VII FIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
VIII SPY (#litres_trial_promo)
IX COLD HOPE (#litres_trial_promo)
X HUNTED (#litres_trial_promo)
XI HEARTBEAT (#litres_trial_promo)
XII GUARDED (#litres_trial_promo)
XIII MERCY KILL (#litres_trial_promo)
XIV TORTURE (#litres_trial_promo)
XV THE CAGE (#litres_trial_promo)
XVI EXECUTION (#litres_trial_promo)
XVII VOICE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
I FADING (#ulink_5e243c43-86de-582c-a095-4e395d2cd3e1)
Somewhere nearby, Benjy was waiting for me.
I could feel his stare as I made my rounds through the grand ballroom of Somerset Manor, greeting each new face with a smile that was becoming harder and harder to hold. They buzzed around me, vying for a few moments of my time, but we all knew they were only here because of my name and face. I was Lila Hart, the niece of the Prime Minister of the United States and one of the few VIIs in the entire country—which, in a roomful of VIs, made me more powerful than them all.
But I didn’t want power or fame. If I had my way, I would be tucked away in my suite with Benjy, stealing as many moments alone together as we could. Instead, I was stuck celebrating my birthday with a roomful of my so-called closest friends, led around by a fiancé I didn’t even particularly like, let alone love.
Except it wasn’t my birthday. These weren’t my friends. And Knox Creed was most definitely not my fiancé.
My name wasn’t Lila Hart. It was Kitty Doe, and on my real seventeenth birthday in September, I’d been kidnapped by the Prime Minister and surgically transformed into his spoiled, rebellious, and supposedly dead, niece against my will. He’d given me a choice: pretend to be Lila or wind up with a bullet in my brain. I wasn’t an idiot, and even though it had meant giving up everything I’d known and everyone I’d loved, I’d chosen to live—and to fight. Three months later, after discovering a lifetime’s worth of political conspiracies and secrets that should have stayed buried, here I was, with Knox clutching my arm as he led me through a crowd of people who would kill me if they figured out who I really was.
I glared up at him and tried to subtly twist my arm from his grip, but he hung on. I didn’t care that he was handsome and tall, with dark hair and even darker eyes, and that most girls would have killed to be in my shoes. They didn’t have to deal with his endless stream of instructions on how to impersonate a girl I hated, nor did they have to pretend to love him in front of the entire country when we spent most days in a constant tug of war.
Besides, I was extremely happy with the boyfriend I already had, thank you very much—a boyfriend who, with his infinite patience, had been waiting over an hour for me to slip away from these people. If I didn’t find a way soon, the night wasn’t going to end pleasantly for any of us.
“We had a deal,” I whispered, leaning into Knox so only he could hear me. “I play nice for a couple hours and leave at nine. It’s now almost eleven.”
“Sometimes plans change,” he said, his fingers tightening around my elbow. Even though he was speaking to me, his eyes scanned the ballroom. “Relax and try to enjoy yourself.”
The only times I’d enjoyed myself in the past few months had been those stolen moments with Benjy. “Lila would have never stayed this long. Every minute I hang around, the more suspicious it looks.”
“I know,” he said quietly, bending down to brush his lips against my ear. The heat of his breath reminded me just how cold it was in the ballroom, and I shivered in my flimsy silk dress. “But sometimes even Lila had to do things she didn’t like. Incoming.”
I turned around in time to see a portly man amble up to us. Minister Bradley, one of the twelve Ministers of the Union who worked under the Prime Minister. I didn’t know many of them on sight, but Minister Bradley’s handlebar mustache was burned into my brain, along with the way my skin crawled whenever he was nearby.
“Lila, my dear, you look ravishing.” He leaned in to bump his dry lips against my cheek, and it took every ounce of willpower I possessed to keep myself from shuddering. “After all you’ve been through, I expected something less...” He made a vague gesture, his eyes locking on my chest.
I didn’t bother to smile this time. “Minister Bradley. I’m surprised to see you here. I thought your wife was sick.”
He chuckled, and his gaze never wavered. “Yes, yes, well, I would never miss a chance to see your beautiful face.”
“In that case, you might want to look up here instead,” I said, and Minister Bradley turned scarlet.
“I’m sorry, Minister,” said Knox quickly, and he hooked his elbow with mine. “Lila’s had a bit too much to drink tonight. If you wouldn’t mind, darling, I need a quick word with you.”
He led me away, and I clutched my glass of champagne. We both knew I hadn’t taken a single sip. I couldn’t afford to drink, not when I needed every wit I had to survive the night.
Weaving through the Ministers and their families, along with several of the most prominent VIs in Washington D.C., Knox led me to a table laden with food and cloth napkins folded into the shape of peacocks. The people lingering nearby began to move in, but Knox shot them a look of pure poison, and they scattered.
“You know how important tonight is,” he said quietly, once we were alone. He handed me a small plate from the end of the table. “Do you really think insulting Minister Bradley to his face is going to make this any easier on you?”
“He was staring down my dress,” I said. “Why do you expect me to smile and let him when Lila would’ve—”
“Right now I don’t care what Lila would have done,” he said. “I expect you not to cause a scene with one of the most powerful Ministers of the Union and make us another enemy we don’t need.”
“Everyone in this place is an enemy.” I turned away and began to pile my plate with bite-size desserts.
“I’m not.”
I hesitated, my hand hovering over a piece of pink cake. I was here because I trusted Knox more than I trusted most people, but some days I wasn’t so sure he cared about me more than he cared about why he needed me in the first place. “If you don’t want me to think you’re an enemy, then stop treating me like a prisoner.”
Knox sighed. “I wouldn’t have to if you quit acting like you don’t know how to behave in public. It’s been months. You should know the rules by now.”
“How can I when you keep changing them on me?” At the next table over, I spotted little bites of steak wrapped in a fluffy puff pastry, and my mouth watered. I hadn’t eaten red meat since October. By now I was almost used to it, but there were days I would have given my right arm for a cheeseburger. Today was one of them.
If it was wrapped in a puff pastry, no one would notice, I decided. Edging toward that table, I tuned out whatever lecture Knox was whispering in my ear and casually picked up a piece. One bite. That was all I wanted.
It was half an inch from my lips when Knox’s fingers closed around my wrist. “Lila, darling, that has red meat in it.”
“Are you sure?” I said innocently, trying to tug my hand away, but his grip was too strong.
“Very.”
I dropped the pastry onto his plate, and the last of my patience went with it. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to pee.” And find Benjy before he gives up on me.
“You need to freshen up,” corrected Knox in a low voice.
“Minister Bradley is staring at me like I’m some prize pig,” I said. “I need to pee.”
Without warning, Knox wheeled me around toward an antechamber nearby, his fingertips digging into my arm, and he didn’t say a word until we’d passed through the doorway. “Do you realize who’s here?”
I glanced over his shoulder. Now that we had left, suddenly the buffet had become the most popular corner of the room, as Ministers, their families, and the clingiest social climbers in the District of Columbia milled around, waiting for us to emerge. They all had VIs tattooed on the backs of their necks—the highest rank we could earn after taking an aptitude test on our seventeenth birthday. The same one that decided the rest of our lives, including our jobs, where we lived, how many children we could have, and how long our lives would be. Their VIs meant endless privilege and put them at the top of the food chain. The III hidden under my VII had earned me a one-way ticket to cleaning sewers for the next four decades, if I’d managed to live that long with the few cruddy resources I would’ve been granted by our gracious government. “Yeah. Every bottom-feeder in Washington.”
“Enough.” Knox glared at me, and his carefully crafted facade finally dropped. He shut the door. “You can either play nice, or you can explain to Daxton why the entire country suddenly knows who you really are. Because those people out there aren’t idiots, despite what you seem to think, and if you keep talking like this where they can all hear you, they will figure it out. Your choice.”
“The only thing that’s going to make them figure it out is if I act like I’m perfectly happy out there, pretending like I care about any of this,” I said, my fake nails digging into my palms. “Lila wouldn’t have stuck around this long.”
Knox grimaced. Glancing at the door, he took a step closer, lowering his voice. “I know, Kitty. I’m sorry about that, I am. But if we slip away now, someone will come looking for us, and that’s the last thing we need tonight, all right?”
“Then you should’ve told me that to begin with instead of playing this ridiculous game,” I said. “I’m not completely unreasonable, you know. If you’d tell me these things—”
“I tell you as much as I can.”
“You treat me like an object, Knox. Right now, in that room—I’m your prop.” I shook my head, torn between seething and breaking down. All I wanted was to go upstairs and be alone with Benjy. With the only person left in the world who still cared about the person underneath Lila’s face.
“You’re not my prop,” said Knox, his tone softening. “I’m trying to protect us both. What we’re doing, dangerous as it is—it’s the right thing to do. You know it is. Don’t mess it up just because you’re having a bad night.”
A painful knot formed in my throat, and I swallowed hard. It was an argument we’d been having for the past month, ever since I had agreed to continue to impersonate Lila. Originally it hadn’t been my choice; after Prime Minister Daxton Hart had bought me at a gentlemen’s club, he’d knocked me out, and I’d woken up two weeks later to discover he’d had my body surgically altered—Masked, he’d called it—to be an exact copy of his niece, Lila Hart, whom he’d secretly had assassinated for leading a rebellion against him. I was supposed to take her place and stop it.
Instead, thanks to Knox, Lila was still alive and hidden underground. And as for me—turned out I wasn’t okay with standing by and letting the government slaughter the people I love.
That was the only reason I’d agreed to stay when Knox had asked me three weeks ago. It had been after an exhausting night and day, when Augusta Hart, Daxton’s mother and the real iron fist around the country, had tried to not only kill me and Lila, but Benjy, too. Instead, I’d put six bullets in her. Now, with Lila seriously injured, it was up to me to pretend to be her until someone took the Prime Minister out of the picture.
That was easier said than done. I’d tried once before and failed—and as a result, Daxton had been in a coma long enough to miss the worst of the fight. When he’d woken up, he’d pretended not to know I wasn’t Lila, but we both knew who I really was. I was nobody to these people. I had been raised as far away from the life of a VII as you could get, in a group home full of Extras born to parents who were only allowed one child. It hadn’t been the most luxurious upbringing ever, but at least I could have had a cheeseburger without having to beg. And at least I’d known exactly who I was. The more time I spent as Lila, the less certain I became that I knew myself anymore at all.
“Think you can handle another hour?” said Knox, crossing his arms over his broad chest.
“One more hour,” I muttered, trying to shove aside my frustration. Knox was right; I’d known exactly what I’d agreed to, and playing nice with the Ministers was part of it. “But Benjy gets to stay with me tonight after the meeting.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You know the risks.”
“I’ll pretend I’m staying in your suite. You can tell everyone we had the best sex of your life—”
“It would probably be the worst.”
I kicked his shin with my heel. “You’re a jerk tonight.”
He swore and rubbed his leg. “And you’re going to get you and your boyfriend killed if you don’t—”
The doorknob rattled, and without warning, Knox pinned me to the wall. His fingers tangled in my straw-colored hair, and his lips found mine as he kissed me with burning hunger I couldn’t escape. I didn’t fight him. Better to be forced to kiss him every once in a while than to have someone catch us talking about my real identity—or worse, the rebellion against the government that we were leading together.
The door opened, and I broke away from Knox, trying my best to look embarrassed. “If you don’t mind, we’re sort of busy—”
I stopped, and all the air left my lungs. Even after two months of coming face-to-face with him on nearly a daily basis, Prime Minister Daxton Hart never failed to make my heart skip a beat. And not in a good way.
He loomed in the doorway, his bushy eyebrows raised in surprise. They were slowly going salt-and-pepper, matching his dark hair that was graying at the temples. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said in a smooth voice. “Lila, darling, your guests are anxiously awaiting your return.”
I held his stare. His dark eyes met mine, and for several seconds, neither of us blinked. Knox had no idea that the Prime Minister knew who I was. Daxton had kept his own secret masterfully, only tipping his hand at Augusta’s funeral in order to scare me into compliance. It hadn’t worked. This was our own private game of chicken, and I wasn’t going to be the first to blink.
“We’ll be along in a minute, sir,” said Knox. For a moment, I almost felt bad for him. He was the only one in the room who didn’t know what was really going on. I should’ve told him Daxton remembered everything—that should’ve been my first conversation after the funeral. But no matter how much I trusted him more than the others, I didn’t trust him completely, and I’d hesitated, focusing on rallying the people for the Blackcoats instead. Eventually time had passed, and I knew the fallout would be bad—the kind we would never recover from. So instead I’d selfishly held on to the truth as a trump card, to play when I needed it most. Or to never play at all.
Knox did know one thing, though: the secret that I had given up at the funeral, when I had brushed my fingertips against the VII on the back of Daxton’s neck and felt the V underneath. I wasn’t the only Hart who had been Masked. The only difference between us was that I still had my handler breathing down my neck. Now that Augusta was dead, the man pretending to be Prime Minister Daxton Hart had no one to stop him from doing whatever he wanted—including killing anyone who dared to step in his way. When everyone I cared about happened to be doing exactly that, it made things personal.
“One minute.” Daxton raised a finger in emphasis. “I would hate for you to miss your birthday surprise, Lila.”
I shuddered to think what he might have cooked up for me, but I forced a smile. “One minute.”
As soon as he shut the door, I leaned in to Knox’s ear and whispered, “How are we getting away for the meeting? He’s not going to let me out of his sight.”
“Leave that to me,” whispered Knox, and he winked. Backing away, he ran his fingers through his hair and smoothed his black shirt and trousers. I tugged on my short purple dress. Three months ago, I would have never believed I’d be allowed to touch silk, let alone wear silk dress after silk dress custom made for me. As nice as the wardrobe was—and the shoes, and the food, and the luxuries I could have never dreamed of as a III—it wasn’t worth risking my life pretending to be Lila, and it definitely wasn’t worth risking Benjy’s by dragging him along.
I swore. He was still waiting for me. “I’m supposed to meet Benjy for a minute—”
“You’ll see him after the meeting.” Knox tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “No matter how bad tonight is shaping up to be, don’t do anything stupid, Kitty. I mean it. Whatever brief flash of joy you get out of it won’t be worth being sent Elsewhere, and you know it.”
Yes, I did. “Benjy and I. All night in your suite.”
“All night, as long as I don’t have to hear you.” Knox smirked and opened the door. A round of applause met us as we walked arm in arm back into the throng of VIs, and several people I didn’t recognize descended upon us, drinks in hand. I steeled myself for another round of pointless small talk. I’d long since stopped trying to remember names. Lila wouldn’t have bothered, and I wasn’t about to make the effort when all they wanted out of me was the power behind my VII. If only they knew what lay underneath it.
“Do you want another drink?” said Knox, even though I still held my full champagne flute. I shook my head.
“But if you can get me one of those puff pastry things—”
Bang.
A shot rang out, and in an instant, my mind went blank. All I could see was crimson against white, a stark contrast that wouldn’t go away no matter how much I tried to block it out.
Bang.
The sight of Augusta’s body going limp, and blood pooling around her on the carpet.
Bang.
The cold metal of a gun in my hands as I squeezed the trigger again and again, knowing that if I didn’t, Augusta would kill Benjy.
Bang.
“Lila—Lila.”
Knox’s voice filtered through the haze toward me. I cracked open my eyes. Even though he hovered only a few inches away from me, he seemed far off, and his face was blurry. I sensed others lurking nearby, but the dull roar in my ears made it impossible for me to hear what they were saying.
“They’re just fireworks,” said Knox, his breath warm against my cheek as his hands gripped my shoulders. Cold seeped through my dress from the marble underneath me, and it took me a moment to realize I was on the floor. “See? Look over there.”
I twisted around as another bang went off. Reflexively I ducked again, but Knox’s hands remained steady. Bright bursts of color filled the grand ballroom, and I had to blink several times before my vision cleared enough for me to make out each one through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Fireworks. Just fireworks. Not gunshots. No one was in any danger, except for Knox if he didn’t get his hands off me.
“I’m fine,” I mumbled, shoving him away. He took a step back, and it was then that I noticed the group of people who had formed a tight circle around us. Each of them stared openly, ignoring the display and instead paying attention to me. Terrific. Not only had I broken down, but I’d done so in front of the country’s highest and mightiest. “I—” I began, wracking my muddled mind for an excuse, but a familiar voice rang through the crowd, cutting me off.
“Lila!”
Benjy burst out from between Minister Bradley and his slack-jawed daughter, and he slid across the floor, kneeling beside me. As soon as I felt his warmth, the knot in my chest began to loosen.
“Are you all right? You were screaming.” His blue eyes were wide and anxious, and his short red hair was disheveled. He reached out to touch my face the same way Knox had, but his hand stopped an inch away. Too many people were staring at us, and no matter how concerned he was, he couldn’t give me away. He couldn’t give us away.
“I’m fine, I promise,” I said again. My cheeks burned, and I pushed myself to my feet, ignoring the way my knees shook. Birthday party or not, I had to get out of here. “I just—I just forgot to eat, that’s all.”
“Back up,” said Knox to the crowd, and he began to corral them away. “Give her some air. Benjy, take her to my suite. I’ll be there in a moment.”
Benjy tucked his arm around me, and I shot Knox a grateful look. Aware of everyone staring at us, I allowed Benjy to lead me to the exit as the bang of fireworks echoed from the garden. Each one sent a shiver down my spine.
This wasn’t normal. I’d never reacted this way before, and it’d been weeks since I’d killed Augusta. It wasn’t as if I’d done it in cold blood. She’d had it coming, after what she’d done to me and Benjy—after what she’d done to her own family, trying to kill her daughter and granddaughter—but apparently my conscience wasn’t interested in listening to reason.
Nor did I have any ends to justify my means. Killing Augusta hadn’t done me any favors—it had only removed Daxton’s leash completely, leaving all of us in grave danger. And that, I thought, was the worst part of all. I’d saved Benjy’s life in the short term by pulling that trigger, but in the long term, we were both one whim away from death.
Daxton stood waiting for us by the double doors, his arms crossed as he regarded me with a look of mock concern. “I’m so very sorry, my dear,” he said, reaching out to take my free hand. I made a point of wiping my sweaty palm against his. “I wasn’t thinking. After all you’ve been through...”
“I’m fine,” I said for a third time. “I just need to sit down.”
“I’m sure your...friend will be willing to help you with that.” He eyed Benjy up and down, and red-hot anger shot through me. Augusta may have been the power behind the throne, but Daxton was still the snake who sat on it.
Benjy cleared his throat. “Knox asked me to help her,” he said. “I’ll be down after.”
“Take your time, boy,” said Daxton, and he shifted his gaze to me. “The most important thing is that dear Lila’s all right.”
His slimy voice followed me even after Benjy and I walked away. I could feel his stare lingering on us, and though my knees still shook, I forced myself to walk faster toward the elevator. As soon as we were inside and the door closed, I let out a breath and turned into Benjy, hugging him tightly and burying my face in his chest.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice muffled by his shirt. “I don’t know what happened.”
He wrapped his arms around me protectively, rubbing circles on my back, and the heat of his body warmed me from the inside out. If I could have stayed like this for the rest of my life, I would have. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Those fireworks scared me, too.”
“Leave it to Daxton to figure out a way to terrorize me at my own birthday party,” I grumbled. “How long do you think we’ll have before Knox comes looking for us?”
“Not long enough,” he said, and I sighed. It was never long enough.
The doors slid open, and together Benjy and I headed into the fourth floor wing. My suite was down the hall from Knox’s, and I would have given anything to drag Benjy inside and disappear for the rest of the night. But the party wasn’t the only thing happening tonight, and I wouldn’t have missed another Blackcoat meeting for anything. I was already behind enough—immediately after Augusta had died, Knox and the Blackcoats had seized the opportunity and sent me around to several cities across the country to rally supporters while Daxton was still too busy recovering to pay close attention. Denver, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles—I’d traveled for over a week, and by the time I’d returned, everything within the Blackcoats had shifted. Lila and her mother—Daxton’s sister, Celia—had gone underground to hide, leaving Knox in control. Even now, weeks later, I was still catching up on the plans they’d come up with while I’d been away. I couldn’t miss anything else.
The lights in Knox’s suite turned on automatically as we stepped into the sitting room. Even though my knees had stopped shaking by now, I let Benjy help me to the couch, eager for as much contact as we could get before Knox returned. It had been days since I’d been able to steal as much as a simple hug from Benjy, who, as a legitimate VI, had earned his place as Knox’s assistant. But with Knox constantly hovering over us, raising an eyebrow each time I so much as dared to smile at Benjy, it was next to impossible to find any time to just be with him. And that, above all else, was what I missed about my old life.
“I’m sorry I didn’t find you earlier,” I said, tucking my legs underneath me on the sofa. The navy leather was cool against my skin, and after spending hours in the sweltering ballroom, I welcomed it.
“Don’t be. It isn’t your fault.” Benjy sat beside me and draped his arm over my shoulder, and I wasted no time curling up against him. “I nearly punched Minister Bradley for the way he was looking at you, though.”
I grinned. “That would have made the whole thing infinitely more interesting.”
“Until I was sent Elsewhere,” he said. “Then it wouldn’t have been as funny.”
My smile vanished. I touched his cheek, turning his head until he was facing me. “You know I won’t let that happen, right? No one’s going to hurt you, not while I have something to say about it.”
“I’m not the one you should be worried about.” His gaze met mine, and he leaned in slowly until his breath was warm against my skin. “Promise me you won’t take any more chances, Kitty. What happened tonight—”
“I couldn’t help it,” I said. “I didn’t even know what was happening until it was over.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” he said softly. “I overheard what you said to Knox. You’re doing this for the right reasons, all right? I know it’s hard sometimes—”
“You have no idea.” My face grew hot, and frustration boiled inside me, threatening to burst the last ounce of self-control I had left. “Having to be someone else all the time—never getting to be me anymore, having my every move watched... I’m losing myself, Benjy. Sometimes I look in the mirror and forget this isn’t my real face. And sometimes—sometimes I feel like Kitty Doe died, and even if Knox lets me walk away from this tomorrow, I’ll never find her again.”
Heavy silence settled over us, and Benjy’s gaze bore into mine as he traced my lower lip. Lila’s lower lip. “She didn’t die,” he whispered. “I see her every time I look at you. You are vivacious, and no one—not even Lila Hart—will ever drown you out. I don’t care what you look like. The real you will never fade.”
He had no idea how badly I needed to hear that right now—or maybe he did, and that was exactly why he’d said it. I slowly gravitated toward him, my entire body aching to be as close to him as possible. But before I could kiss him, he shifted and slipped his hand into his suit pocket.
“I almost forgot—I made you a birthday present,” he said, and I sat back, disappointment washing over me.
“It isn’t my birthday,” I said. “It’s Lila’s.”
“Then consider this a belated birthday present. Or an early one. Whichever you’d like.” From his pocket he pulled a white cloth napkin, the sort that had been folded into peacocks around the buffet. He’d refolded it into a simple square, and I raised an eyebrow.
“It’s...lovely,” I said. “Thanks?”
He laughed, a deep, throaty sound I would never get tired of hearing. “Open it.”
I unfolded the napkin, and my eyes widened. On the inside was a simple ink drawing of a house on a lake. Sitting in a field beside the lake were two stick figures—one with long hair, and one with Benjy’s freckles. They cuddled together as the sun shone down on them, and a lump formed in my throat.
“I can’t make this better right now,” said Benjy, “but I can promise that it will be one day. We’ll have our cottage in the woods, or our cabin on the beach—whatever you want. I’ll go anywhere as long as you promise you’ll be there with me. I’m going to spend my life with you, Kitty, and I don’t care if the entire country tries to stop us. You’re my future. It’s always been you for me, and it always will be.”
Finally he closed the distance between us and kissed me—a sweet, gentle kiss that held within it every single one of the thousand days I’d loved him as my everything, long after I’d begun to love him as a friend. I shifted into his lap, not caring whether or not someone could walk in at any moment and see us. I needed this. And after all we’d been through together, Benjy and I both deserved this.
He wrapped his arm around me again, safe and secure as I ran my fingers through his hair. He tasted like home. Like everything I missed about my old life, where we would spend the evening curled up together as he read to me. We would never have those moments again, but as soon as we were free of this place, we could make new ones. I’d spent so much of my time worrying about the present, worrying about being Lila, that I’d never let myself stop and think about what my future might hold. It seemed almost like asking too much—like I was challenging the universe by thinking about a life with Benjy as far away from the Harts as possible.
But Benjy had always been an optimist. He’d always seen good in the world where I wasn’t so sure it existed. And this kernel of hope, this ink on cloth, was exactly the future I wanted. I knew in that moment, as I deepened the kiss between us, that I would do whatever it took to get it.
“Kitty,” he whispered, breaking away long enough to glance anxiously at the door. “We shouldn’t be—”
“I am so sick of being told what I should and shouldn’t do,” I murmured. “Everything will be fine. Trust me. Knox agreed to let me stay in here tonight. He’s pretending I’m sleeping in his room, but he’s going to let us have the night together.”
Benjy’s gaze snapped back to me. “You mean—?”
I nodded. “I think it’s about time, don’t you?”
Even though we’d been together for years, finding a moment alone in a group home with thirty-eight other kids hadn’t exactly been easy, and neither of us had wanted it to be rushed. Now that we were both seventeen, I was Lila Hart, and Benjy was my fiancé’s assistant. It was dangerous, but behind closed doors, with Knox willing to cover for us—we would finally have that freedom. I wasn’t wasting it.
“The wedding’s less than a month away,” I said. “We might not have another chance before then, not like this. And I’ll be damned if I’m marrying Knox without showing you exactly how much I love you.”
Benjy blinked, looking torn between eagerness and confusion. “Is that why you want to do this? So Knox isn’t—”
“If he thinks I’m ever letting him touch me no matter how married we are, he’s going to lose his hand,” I said. “I want to do this, Benjy. More than anything. If you don’t, we can wait, but—”
“I want to.” He sounded breathless, and he pressed his lips together, his eyes locked on mine. “Like you said, more than anything. I love you. I just don’t want Knox to be the reason you’re doing this.”
“He’s not, and he never will be.” I brushed my lips against his again. “You’re the only reason I need.”
“Ahem.”
I sprang apart from Benjy, my heart racing. Knox stood framed in the doorway, his arms crossed and his brow furrowed. “Ever heard of knocking?” I said, glaring at him.
“Considering it’s my suite, no.” He pushed off the wall and closed the door. “If you keep this up, it’ll only be a matter of time before someone catches you. I won’t be able to protect you then.”
“So I’ll tell them the truth—sometimes a girl just needs to be kissed instead of slobbered on.” I tucked Benjy’s drawing into the pocket of my dress. “Is the party over already?”
“No, but I couldn’t very well stay down there while my fiancée was ill upstairs. Speaking of, how do you feel?”
“Better,” I said, doing my best to look like nothing was bothering me at all. “When are we going?”
“We are not going anywhere.” Knox moved to his desk and bent down to touch the screen. “I am leaving now.”
“What? But—”
“Do you really think I’m going to let you come, after what just happened down there?” said Knox. “You need your rest.”
“That wasn’t my fault.”
He straightened. “Fainting aside, you’re having a bad day, and the last thing you need is a long night. The last thing I need is to worry about whether or not you’re holding up all right.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “Knox, please. We’re in this together. You said so yourself—”
“And right now that means I have to look out for you and your health. You’re exhausted. Your temper’s shorter than it’s ever been. Look at you—you’re practically shaking. You’re a liability, Kitty, and tonight is too important for me to take that kind of risk. I’ll fill you in when I get back, but right now, I need to go.”
I gaped at him. “You can’t just cut me out like this—”
“I’m not cutting you out,” he said steadily, but there was an edge of impatience to his voice. “It’s one meeting.”
“I’ve already missed three because of the speeches.”
“There will be plenty of others,” said Knox. “And look on the bright side—you’ll have even more time to spend with Benjy.”
Tempting as it was, staying behind meant missing the entire reason I had agreed to put up with this and people like Minister Bradley in the first place. I would have the rest of the night to be alone with Benjy—right now, I wanted to be a Blackcoat. I wanted to do what I was here to do: be the voice of a rebellion that, if successful, would mean Benjy and I would one day have that cottage by the lake. It would mean never looking over our shoulders again, worried someone might see us and catch on to who I really was. It would mean being Kitty Doe again instead of Lila Hart. It would mean finding myself and being the person Benjy saw when he looked at me. The more meetings I missed, the more excuses Knox would have to dismiss my opinions and push me aside. I was here to fight. Not to be his prop or his mouthpiece. And no matter how much he insisted I wasn’t, everything he had done that evening had said otherwise.
I cast a frustrated look at Benjy, and he slipped his hand into mine, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
“It’s probably better if you relax tonight,” he said. “I think you’ll like this new book I bought the other day. I’ll read some of it to you, if you’d like.”
“Enjoy some time with your boyfriend, Kitty,” said Knox. “I’ll be back soon enough. If anyone checks on us, tell them I’m in the shower.”
“Yeah, taking a cold one,” I grumbled. He didn’t rise to the bait, and instead he disappeared into his closet and up through the secret passageway that lay behind it. He’d shown it to me one of my first nights in Somerset, and it was the only safe way we had of leaving the property undetected.
As soon as he shut the door, I stood. “I’m going after him,” I said, tugging down the hem of my dress. Not the outfit I would have chosen, but I didn’t have time to change. “Cover for me.”
Benjy stood as well, reaching out as if to stop me. “Kitty, you heard him—”
I twisted away from his grip. “If it wasn’t for him, we’d have this by now.” I gestured to the napkin sticking out of my dress pocket. “We wouldn’t have to worry about the Harts or the wedding or fireworks driving me crazy. We’d be happy, and we’d never have to think about this nightmare again. Instead, Knox asked me to stay, and I did. Not for him, not for Lila, not for the parties or the jewelry or the private planes, but because of this.” I jabbed my finger toward the closet. “If I’m not there, then what’s the point of doing any of this anymore? I’m not his property, and he doesn’t control me. I’m not letting him leave me behind.”
Benjy sighed, but at least he didn’t argue. “Then I’ll go with you.”
“Someone has to stay behind and make sure no one finds out we’re gone,” I said. He opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him off. “Please, Benjy. It’ll be safer if it’s just me anyway.”
He gritted his teeth, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “Okay. Just—be careful. And here, take this.”
He shrugged off his suit jacket and draped it over my shoulders. I slipped my arms inside the sleeves, the fabric warm from his body. “Thanks,” I said, softening. “Make sure no one discovers we’re gone, all right?”
“I’m sure I’ll figure something out,” said Benjy, scowling. I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him.
“I love you. When I get back, I’m yours for the rest of the night. Okay?”
He nodded, and without giving him another chance to talk me out of it, I stepped inside the closet. Knox may have thought he owned Lila, but I wasn’t her. Tonight, I was Kitty Doe again, and I wasn’t going down without a fight.
II MIDNIGHT MEETING (#ulink_5683a0e5-dc5c-5ce7-aa8e-f797b56c7fb2)
The passageway above the fourth floor was as dusty and dirty as ever. Without a flashlight, I was plunged into darkness, and even after my eyes adjusted to what little moonlight filtered in, I couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of me. Cobwebs caught my hair and cheeks, and once I thought I felt a spider running down the back of my dress, but I forced myself to stay calm and move forward. I’d taken this route a dozen times before. I could do this.
At last I found the staircase that led downward, and from then on out, it was only a matter of not tripping. The heels I wore made that more difficult than it should have been, and twice I had to catch myself on the wooden bannister. By the time the creaky steps turned into the dirt tunnel underneath the grounds of Somerset, I’d collected two splinters in my palm, and I was fervently wishing I’d stopped long enough to grab a pair of boots.
The tunnel was pitch-black. I ran a hand across the dirt wall to guide me, keeping my ears peeled for any sign of Knox. But I would have seen the light from his flashlight if he was still in the tunnel, and satisfied that I was alone, I picked up the pace. I had no guarantee I’d be able to slip into the bunker undetected. By now the guards knew me, but I didn’t have the codes, and I’d have to catch up to Knox if I wanted access. Even then, it was entirely possible he’d tell me to go home, though if he thought I would listen after his little speech in the suite—
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
A hand clamped over my wrist, tugging me away from the wall, and I swore loudly enough that they probably heard it back in Somerset. Yanking my arm away, I thrashed wildly in the darkness. “Let—me—go!”
Light flooded the tunnel, and Knox stood with his free hand still wrapped bruisingly around my wrist. “Not until you answer my question.”
“I will kick you again,” I said, squinting against the brightness.
“Still not an answer.”
I scowled. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
His eyes narrowed, and for a long moment, we stood face-to-face, both waiting for the other to back down. Neither of us did.
“Do you understand how delicate this situation is?” said Knox. “If you and your aversion to obedience say the wrong word to the wrong person—”
“Maybe if you stopped acting like I’m an untrained dog and started treating me like a person who’s as much a part of this as you are, I’d stop pulling against your invisible leash,” I said. “I have every right to be there, and you know it. If you keep acting like I’m a liability—”
“I wouldn’t if you stopped being a liability.”
“—then I’ll leave,” I finished, ignoring him. “If I can’t work with the Blackcoats, then I don’t have any reason to be here anymore.”
“Oh?” Knox arched an eyebrow. “And where would you go?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m here because you asked me to be part of this, and I agreed, because it is the right thing to do. But this—leaving me behind, treating me like I’m incapable of making a right move without you—this isn’t what I signed up for. If you don’t let me go to that meeting, then I’ll disappear. I don’t care how many Shields you have searching for me. Scour the entire country. You will never find me.”
His brow furrowed, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “I asked you to stay because I thought you’d cooperate and help us. The more time I spend chasing after you and cleaning up your messes, the less time I have to focus on the rebellion. Do you understand?”
“The more you treat me like a child, the more likely I’ll be to act like one,” I said calmly, keeping a tight rein on the anger boiling inside me. I wasn’t about to give him any reason to dismiss me. “Do you understand?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Fine. You start behaving, and I’ll start trusting you.”
“Good. Now let go of me.”
Knox released my wrist, and I rubbed it, hoping it didn’t bruise. Purple would be hard to hide against Lila’s porcelain skin.
“Come on, we’re going to be late,” he said, and he led me down the dirt tunnel, the beam of light swinging with each hurried step. “Celia and Lila are supposed to be there tonight, which means you have to watch what you say, all right?”
“Watch what I say about what?” I said, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other without stumbling.
“They still don’t know Daxton’s an impostor,” he said. “No one does.”
I blinked. “Wait—you mean you haven’t told any of the Blackcoats?”
“Of course not. One of them will inevitably leak the information to Celia, and as soon as she finds out, she’ll storm Somerset and throw our entire plan into jeopardy.”
I frowned. Celia, Lila’s mother and Daxton’s sister, was the reason so much of this had happened in the first place. After Daxton had brutally executed her husband, she’d created the Blackcoats, an underground army bent on seeing the Harts stripped of their power and the ranking system abolished for good in favor of the democracy on which America had been built. In the process, she’d used her only daughter, Lila, to captivate the crowds and ensure even more support from the higher ranks for her rebellion. Lila had been reluctant, though, and as the target on her back grew and word of her impending assassination reached their ears, she and Knox had formed a plan: fake her death and hide her underground, where Daxton would never find her. No one else, not even Celia, had known.
The only thing they hadn’t counted on was Daxton having someone else Masked to take Lila’s place—me. And as soon as they discovered what had happened, my education about the real horrors of the country had begun. They’d involved me in the Blackcoats’ plans ever since, and like hell was I giving up my chance to make a difference just because Knox said so.
But Knox had kept Celia in the dark about nearly everything. Even she hadn’t known about her daughter still being alive until she had kidnapped Greyson, Daxton’s son, in an attempt at retribution. She’d never wanted to harm him, but the Harts hadn’t known that, and in the process of rescuing him, they thought they’d killed Celia—and me, for that matter. Luckily for both of us, we’d survived.
While I had agreed to take Lila’s place on a more permanent basis, however, Celia had been forced underground. Not that I thought she minded, but Knox was right: if she found out Daxton wasn’t really Daxton after all and she—or Greyson—should have been ruling the country instead, she would have unleashed the Blackcoats on Somerset without a second thought. Or a cohesive plan in place.
“We have to tell Sampson and the others eventually,” I said. “If they know, maybe they can strategize—”
“It won’t matter,” said Knox as we reached the metal door that opened up to an abandoned alleyway. “They could try to out him, but the media is in Daxton’s pocket. Anyone who went to press with the news would be labeled a traitor and executed before sundown. No one should have to make that sacrifice for nothing.”
The cold December night made me shiver, even with Benjy’s jacket. But it wasn’t far to the bunker, and I hugged myself and toughed out the chill. “The Blackcoats don’t have contacts in the media?”
“Of course we do,” he said. “That doesn’t change the fact that it won’t make any difference. There are a million ways Daxton could spin it, and he’ll never let anyone close enough to prove it.”
“What about Greyson?” Daxton’s eighteen-year-old son was less than enthusiastic about following in his father’s footsteps, but even inexperienced, he would be infinitely better than Daxton.
Knox’s mouth formed a thin line, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders. Normally it would have been a sweet gesture, but tonight it felt more like a threat. “Do you want to see the masses go after him once the rebellion begins?”
“You mean it hasn’t already?” I said, but he didn’t answer. I bit my lip. Greyson was one of my only friends, and the last thing I wanted was for him to get caught in the cross fire.
We were meters from the bunker when Knox stopped and faced me, his dark eyes bearing into mine. “Listen to me, Kitty,” he said in a low, hurried voice. “Telling the others about Daxton doesn’t outweigh the risks of Celia finding out—and if the other Blackcoat leaders know, she will find out sooner rather than later. And what happens after that is anyone’s guess. Do you understand me?”
“But maybe one of them could think of a way to get the word out and turn Daxton’s supporters against him,” I said. “Too many people have already died—”
“Those people were willing to risk it,” said Knox. “We’re all willing to risk it.”
“I’m not willing to risk Benjy’s life,” I said. “He didn’t agree to any of this, and if there’s a war on Somerset, he’ll get caught in the middle.”
“I’ve already promised to protect you both—”
“You’re not a god, Knox,” I said. “You can’t guarantee we’ll both get out of this alive, and you know it. If we tell them, we could find a way to replace Daxton and have a revolution without anyone else dying—”
“There’s no such thing as a bloodless revolution.”
Knox’s voice cracked like a whip through the alleyway. He glanced around quickly, as if to reassure himself we were alone, and then leaned in close enough for me to smell the champagne on his breath. Not strong enough to knock me over, but it was a stark reminder of the evening we’d had.
“I’ve made you a lot of promises, Kitty, and I intend on keeping them. But I can’t do that if you second-guess every move I make and insist on being in the middle of everything. Do you want a rebellion, or do you want to keep things as they are? Because this isn’t a problem that a single bullet will solve. Even if we cut Daxton out of the picture, we still have the entire government to worry about—including all twelve Ministers of the Union, who will see a chance to seize power for themselves and do everything they can to make it happen. Daxton will be removed from his position one way or the other, but there are countless other steps we have to take in the meantime before we even consider putting that plan into action. People are going to die no matter what we do. Right now, all we can do is try our best to minimalize the casualties.”
Furrowing my brow as I digested everything he said, I crossed my arms to stop myself from shivering more than I already was. “I’m just saying there might be another way to do this.”
“If there was, we would have figured it out already.” Knox straightened. “Promise me you won’t bring up Daxton.”
“Promise me you’ll at least consider trying it my way.”
He scowled. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
He punched a nine-digit code into a small metal box, and a moment later, the door to the bunker opened. We stepped inside. A long concrete hallway stretched out in front of us, and the darkness obscured the high ceiling. I swallowed hard and tried not to think about what was up there, just out of sight: two dozen guards, each with a rifle pointed directly at us.
Guilty until proven innocent. That was how it was for the government, and that was how it was for the Blackcoats. Knox could talk about a rebellion and change until he was blue in the face, but as I followed him through the corridor, my head down and Benjy’s jacket clutched around my shoulders, I began to wonder whether or not anything would really change if the Blackcoats succeeded. I believed in freedom and democracy with everything I was, but if Celia and Knox won the rebellion, the people would still be under the rule of the Hart family. In the end, how many lives would really change for the better?
I pressed my lips together. The Blackcoats weren’t perfect, but they were fighting for the rights of the people—the same rights Daxton Hart and the twelve Ministers of the Union took pleasure in denying them. As I watched Knox punch in another code at the end of the dark corridor, the day of my testing flashed through my mind, and cold fear prickled down my spine, a ghost of a life that was slowly slipping away from me with each day that passed. I knew what it was like to be one of them. I knew what it was like to wake up every morning wondering if today would be the day I ran across a Shield in a bad mood, and he would drag me into the street and shoot me in the head just because he had a gun and I didn’t. I knew what it was like to watch it happen to others and worry I was next. And I knew what it was like to consider the possibility that maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world after all.
It was preferable to the alternative: being sent Elsewhere, a place that, until two months ago, I had deluded myself into thinking was some kind of summer camp for criminals, the elderly, and those deemed unfit for society. Daxton had cleared that up for me my first day as Lila, when he’d taken me hunting in a lush forest. We hadn’t been hunting deer or quail, though. We’d been hunting humans.
That was why I was doing this. Not for the people who wanted to keep their heads down and live as happily as their ranks allowed, but for the people whose lives didn’t belong to them anymore. For the people who saw what this world was really like and had no way of escaping it.
Knox led me through a twisting hallway full of armories and colorless bunks, where refugees and members of the Blackcoats stayed. The heart of the bunker was set in the center, where roughly a dozen people had gathered on ratty and worn chairs and couches, each poring over papers I knew would be burned once the meeting ended. Several heads raised when Knox and I joined them, and a few of them even waved. Knox didn’t wave back.
I watched them closely. Most were decades older than me, their faces lined by age and stress. A handful looked to be in their twenties, but even they seemed weighed down. My heart sank. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t good.
In the center of the ragtag group sat an officer wearing a black-and-silver uniform. Sampson, a high-ranking member of the Shields, and one of the leaders of the Blackcoats. I’d only met him a few times, but as I found a place at the edge of the group, he offered me a warm smile. I smiled back.
“Well?” said Knox impatiently. “What happened?”
Sampson’s smile faded. “The raid failed.”
Knox swore loudly. “How? We had everything planned down to the last detail—”
“Celia found out right before it happened,” said Sampson. “She changed the plan.”
Silence. Slowly Knox’s face went from pink to red to purple. Not once in the past few months, not even when I’d been at my worst, had I ever seen him turn those colors.
It was then that I noticed Celia and Lila were missing, despite Knox’s assumptions that they’d be there tonight. Was this why? Was Celia avoiding him? Or had she been uninvited from her own rebellion?
“You know not to listen to Celia without going through me first,” said Knox in a low, dangerous voice. “No matter what she says—”
“Her ideas weren’t bad,” said Sampson. Even he seemed to shrink under Knox’s glare. “And what was I supposed to do? Say you’d taken over her own army?”
“You should have protected our people.” Knox slammed his fist into a worn wooden coffee table, and half the group jumped. I dug my nails into my palms. “Days—that’s how long we have. Days, Sampson. We needed those supplies. Celia doesn’t have the military knowledge or experience—”
“And you do?” snapped Sampson.
“I’m not some spoiled VII who’s never had to work for anything a day in her entire life,” said Knox.
Before I could stop myself, I snorted.
All eyes turned toward me. My face grew warm, but it was Knox’s stare that made me feel as if I were about to spontaneously combust.
“Did you have something to say, Kitty?” he said. His voice slithered through me, turning my blood to ice.
I should have kept my mouth shut. After everything that had happened that evening, the last thing I should’ve done was add fuel to the fire that was Knox’s temper, but something inside me broke. “If you’re going to rag on Celia for inheriting her VII, then at least acknowledge you had your VI handed to you, too. We all know your father’s title will pass to you one day, and it wouldn’t do to have the next Minister of Ranking with a IV or a V, would it?”
As I repeated the very words he’d said to me when he’d first told me he’d never taken the test, Knox’s face drained of all color, and the silence around us turned deafening. “If you have a problem with any of this, then there’s the door,” he said in a deceptively even voice. But the dark look in his eyes offered me a single promise: if I walked out of there, I would never be allowed back.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” I sucked in a deep breath. I didn’t owe him an apology for defending Celia, not when he was acting like this. “I’m just saying, we’re here because none of us believes in the rank system in the first place. You have every right to be upset with her, but don’t drag Celia down based on her rank. It only makes you look like a hypocrite when your VI is as good as my VII.”
“Perhaps so,” said Knox coldly, “but between us, I’m the one who could earn my VI if I had to, while you’re the one who earned a III.”
My mouth dropped open, and his words twisted in my chest like a knife. No matter how bad a mood he was in, no matter how rebellious I was feeling, he had never used my III against me before.
Guilt flashed across his face. He knew what he’d said, but he made no move to apologize. We stared at one another as the seconds passed. My hands tightened into fists, and the edges of my vision went dark as I tried to figure out what to say. He was right, of course—I’d earned my lowly III, but not because I wasn’t smart. I couldn’t read anything more than my name, and I’d had to take the test orally, which had resulted in me never getting the chance to finish it. If I had—maybe I’d be a VI, like Benjy. Maybe Daxton would have never hunted me down, and maybe my life would be completely different.
But I couldn’t live off of maybes, and neither could Knox. He might have thought he was the smartest person in the room, but that didn’t mean the rest of us were worthless. That didn’t mean my opinion didn’t matter at all. And if this was what he really thought of me, then no matter what I said, no matter how many good ideas I had, he would never really listen to them. Why would he, when his VI was so superior to my III?
With my chin raised, I turned to face the others, pointedly ignoring Knox. Bad day or not, if this was how he was going to be, then screw him. “Daxton died last year, in the explosion that killed his wife and son.”
“Kitty—”
“He’s been Masked,” I added as if Knox hadn’t said a word. “The impostor is actually a V. I don’t know who he is or where he came from, but the real Daxton’s dead.”
Sampson looked back and forth between me and Knox, disbelief coloring his sharp features. “Is this true?”
Reluctantly Knox nodded, his jaw tight and his fists clenched. “Yes. I found out shortly after it happened. No one else knows, and it needs to stay that way. If Celia finds out—”
“We would all be marching on Somerset before the night was out,” said Sampson gravely. “But even if we cannot tell her, this changes everything, Knox.”
“We can’t go to the media. You know we can’t,” said Knox. “We’d be throwing away our contacts’ lives—”
“I’m not suggesting we do,” said Sampson. “I am, however, suggesting we discover who this man truly is. If we can find proof, we’ll have leverage against him. He knows the Shields won’t follow an impostor. The Ministers of the Union would revolt. We would have the ability to effectively strip him of his power completely and give the country something to unite against, all in one fell swoop.”
“Why don’t you just kill him?” I said. “Wouldn’t that solve everything?”
“We already tried that, remember?” said Sampson, eyebrow raised. I scowled.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I grumbled.
“Like what, Kitty?” said Knox. “Like if it wasn’t for you, this mess would’ve been over with months ago?”
I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood. I’d been the reason the assassination attempt hadn’t worked. I’d stupidly let Celia talk me into helping her out, and instead of giving Daxton the full dose, I’d chickened out and given him half. “Give me another syringe. I’ll kill him this time.”
Sampson shook his head. “We never approved an assassination in the first place. That was Celia’s idea.”
I glanced at Knox, but he wouldn’t meet my eye. Sanctioned by the Blackcoats or not, he’d been the one to supply Celia with the poison.
“There must be something we can do to get rid of this guy,” I said. “He’s one man. He’s not invincible.”
“You’re right, he is one man,” said Sampson. “And if by some miracle we managed to get around his heightened security and succeed, the government would live on without him. No one would ever know he was Masked. Right now, he’s more valuable to us alive as someone for the people to rally against. Dead, he’s a martyr, and we cannot instigate real change within order. We must take advantage of the chaos revealing his true identity would provide. Besides,” he added, leaning in closer to me, “Greyson is next in line, and he’s an unknown. A weak, inexperienced unknown at that. He would crumble under the pressure from the Ministers within days. Celia is far too unstable to take control of the country by herself right now, not to mention everyone thinks she’s dead. That leaves you, Kitty. Do you want to be Prime Minister?”
I frowned. “I’d rather go back to being a III.”
“Then, while I thank you for this additional insight, why don’t you let us try things our way for a while?”
I stared at my hands, fighting the instinct to keep arguing. Unlike Knox, Sampson wasn’t in a piss-poor mood, and I had to trust one of us knew what we were doing.
“So, what now?” said a woman with a scar running down the side of her face. “How are we going to figure out who the Daxton impostor is?”
“We get boots on the ground and dig,” said Sampson. “There must be a paper trail. Augusta wouldn’t have allowed a stranger into a position of power without having some leverage over him.”
“If it ever existed in the first place, Daxton would have made sure it was destroyed by now,” said Knox, his expression stormy.
“That would be the logical thing to do,” agreed Sampson. “We still have to look.”
“But the chances of any evidence still existing—”
“Kitty,” said Sampson, interrupting him. I snapped my head up. “If you had something to tie you back to your old life, would you keep it or destroy it?”
I blinked. It was a stupid question, but he had no way of knowing that. I clung to the things that made me feel like Kitty Doe as if my life depended on it. “I’d hold on to it,” I said. “I’d keep it secret, but I wouldn’t destroy it if it was the only evidence I’d ever existed in the first place.”
He gave me a small smile. “Exactly. If the impostor has found it, there’s a good chance he kept it. Knox, that’s where you come in. Do you think you can get close enough to find it?”
“I’ll try,” he said, lacing his fingers together so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
“You’ll do more than try. If we know who he is, that could give us enough power to make all the difference in this war. An armory isn’t always made up of guns and knives. Sometimes information is the most powerful weapon of all.”
Knox scowled deeply, but at last he said to Sampson, “If this gets me killed, I’m blaming you.”
But as he said it, his eyes met mine, and we both knew the truth: he would blame me instead.
III IMPOSTOR (#ulink_6d30c260-952b-5d6e-82e5-1c320df5da09)
The meeting dragged on for nearly an hour. They discussed plans for missions I didn’t understand, people whose names I didn’t recognize, and endless back and forth about whatever was due to go down in a few days. No one mentioned specifics; it was clear they had discussed the details at the meetings I’d missed, and I couldn’t decide whether to be offended they wouldn’t tell me now or to agree that they were making the right move not letting me know.
As badly as I wanted to be allowed in on things, Sampson and Knox were right. I didn’t know anything they didn’t. My role was to impersonate Lila and give their speeches to audiences around the country, as I’d done in the weeks after Augusta’s death. I wasn’t a soldier. I wasn’t a strategist. I wasn’t a politician. I was nothing more than the face I wore, a face that wasn’t even mine. As the minutes dragged on, I felt more and more like the little kid hanging around the group home with the big kids all over again, pretending to know what they were talking about as they sniggered into their hands and whispered behind my back. I was nothing but a hanger-on. And if there was one thing I hated, it was being useless.
After the meeting was over, Knox led me back into the dirt tunnel under Somerset without saying a word. I hadn’t tried to speak to him on the way out of the bunker, but now that we were alone without dozens of weapons pointed directly at us, the silence grew too loud to bear. It was my fault he had to risk his life now, all to find evidence we didn’t even know existed, and no matter how upset we both were with each other, I couldn’t shake the guilt that ate away at me.
“I’m sorry it turned out this way,” I said. “But they had a right to know.”
Knox said nothing. Instead he quickened his pace, and I had to all but jog to keep up.
“Knox—stop. Come on. They know how dangerous it is to tell Celia. They’ll keep it quiet.”
“If you had kept it quiet like we’d agreed, I wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place,” he snapped. They were the first words he’d said to me in an hour.
I gaped at the back of his head. “Maybe if you hadn’t been such a jerk, I wouldn’t have blurted it out. I’m more than just a III, and you know it.”
“Are you?” He stopped suddenly, and I nearly ran into him. “Because sometimes I’m not so sure, Kitty.”
I straightened to my full height, despite the blisters that had formed on my feet. “I don’t know what crawled up your ass and died, but whatever it is, stop taking it out on me. I’m sorry the raid failed, and I’m sorry for being a mess at the party, but I am not your punching bag.”
“Then what are you, Kitty?” He took a step nearer to me, swallowing up every last inch of distance between us. The heat from his body radiated to mine, and with him this close, I could barely breathe. “What the hell have you done to help? Every chance you get, you sabotage not only yourself, but me, too. Do you realize that if you fail, so do I? We’re supposed to get married in less than a month. Is this your plan? To have me killed just because you can’t keep yourself under control?”
“That won’t happen,” I said as evenly as I could. “Daxton wouldn’t hurt you to prove a point to me.”
“Oh? Why the hell do you think Celia’s husband was executed?”
I faltered. I had never heard many details about what had happened to Lila’s father, only that he had been publicly executed by firing squad in front of her and her mother. It had been why Lila had joined the Blackcoats and agreed to give her mother’s speeches, but other than that, her father and his death were mysteries to me.
“If you keep spiraling like this, then it’s only a matter of time before I can’t protect you and Benjy anymore,” said Knox. “Is that what you want?”
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “It’s been a rough night, all right?”
“It’s always going to be a rough night, Kitty. This is nothing compared to what’s coming. So stop acting like none of us deserves your cooperation, and start proving you’re more than that III on the back of your neck.”
“How? By blindly obeying you?” The words were out before I could stop them.
He surveyed me, his dark eyes bearing into mine. Leaning in close enough for me to feel his warm breath on my lips, he whispered, “Yes. It’ll be the smartest thing you’ve done in months.”
Fury ripped through me, tearing my guilt to shreds. “If I’m so useless to you, then why don’t you marry the real Lila instead?”
“Believe me, if Lila was willing, I would have never asked you to stay in the first place,” he said shortly. “At least she knows how to play the game.”
“Then do it,” I said coldly. “Because I’m done.”
I stepped around him and stormed ahead through the tunnel. He didn’t try to stop me, and that only spurred me on. I wouldn’t stay where I wasn’t wanted. I had a life to live that had nothing to do with him or the Harts, and if he was so convinced he would be better off without me, then I wasn’t going to sacrifice myself for him any longer.
Even from a distance, his flashlight was enough to help me see where I was going, and I reached the door into Somerset in record time. I dashed up the creaky wooden staircase and scampered across the ceiling, dropping back down into Knox’s closet with a thump. I didn’t care if anyone heard me. Let them. I’d be gone before they knew it.
“Benjy.” I burst into the living room and headed toward the door. “Pack a bag. We’re leaving.”
“What?” He sat up from his spot sprawled out across the couch, his red hair a mess and his eyes bleary. Apparently he’d been napping. “Where are we going?”
“Anywhere, as long as it isn’t here.”
“Kitty—wait.” He jumped up and crossed the room, catching up with me in only a few long strides. “What’s going on? I thought—”
“Knox doesn’t want me here, so I’m not wasting our time and risking our lives.”
He glanced uneasily at the open closet door. Knox would show up at any moment, but if he had a problem with this, too bad. If I wasn’t good enough for him, then he could find another Lila. “We don’t have anywhere to go,” said Benjy. “I know it’s dangerous here, but out there, with Shields hunting us down, we won’t last ten minutes.”
“Yes, we will,” I said firmly. “Sampson and the Blackcoats will help us.”
“Sampson and the Blackcoats will want you to go back so you can keep being Lila.” He touched my cheek. “Kitty, listen, I know it’s been a tough night—”
“It isn’t just tonight,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as possible despite the bubble of urgency rising inside me. “I need to get out of here, Benjy, and I’d rather be running from Shields than imprisoned by Blackcoats.”
“If we stay here, Knox can help us,” he said. “But if we leave—”
“Knox doesn’t want me here. You should’ve heard the things he just said to me, Benjy. He can’t stand me. He’d rather have the real Lila here than me. He thinks I’m a liability and that I can’t be trusted, and maybe—maybe he’s right.” The cold, hard truth of it settled over me until I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t just doing this for myself and Benjy. If I was gone, that was one less thing for Knox to worry about, too. “Please, Benjy. I know it isn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever suggested, but I can’t do this anymore. I want my own life. I want to be me again—I want to be us. And the longer we stay here, the more afraid I am that we’ll never both make it out of here alive.”
Benjy was silent for a long moment, running his fingers through my hair and staring at me without so much as blinking. At last he took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “Okay,” he said. “We’re in this together, even if that means making a monumental mistake.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Benjy. It won’t be a mistake.” I hoped. “Get your stuff. I’ll be back in a minute.”
I stood on my tiptoes to give him a quick kiss, and I could feel him watching me as I hurried out the door. It wasn’t fair for me to pull him from his life as a VI, one he’d earned on his own, but I’d meant what I’d said. The longer we stayed here, the better the chances were that one or both of us would wind up dead, and that, above all else, spurred me down the hallway toward my suite.
I opened the door and burst inside, only to stop short. My living room was an exact replica of Knox’s, except instead of navy and wood, mine was made entirely of white. The carpet had been replaced since Augusta had died in front of the fireplace, but I still couldn’t stomach looking at that spot. Unfortunately, right now, someone else was standing only inches away, staring directly at it.
“Greyson,” I said, surprised. I closed the door. “What’s going on?”
Greyson, Daxton’s son and Lila’s cousin, stood on the shag carpet in front of the fireplace, his hands tucked loosely in his pockets. He was tall, but the way he slouched made him look several inches shorter than he was, and his shaggy blond hair fell into his eyes. They were dark, like his father’s, and even though he was almost nineteen, he looked younger than me. If he hadn’t been my almost cousin, I would have thought he was cute, but I was too entrenched in Lila’s head to even think about that now.
“Sorry for intruding,” he said. “I tried knocking, but you weren’t here, so I thought I’d leave it, but then I got distracted, and...”
He trailed off. He didn’t have to say anything else. Other than Celia and Lila, who were now safely hidden in the Blackcoat bunker, Augusta had been the only real family Greyson had left. And I’d been the one to kill her.
“You got me something?” I said. The last time he’d brought me a gift, he’d done so thinking I was Lila. She had been his best friend, and it had taken him all of ten seconds to realize I wasn’t really her. His quiet acceptance, as if her supposed death had been inevitable, had nearly broken my heart. Worse, the perpetual haunted look in Greyson’s eyes never let me forget that I was one more constant reminder of his string of painful losses.
I touched the silver disk hanging from a chain around my neck, the same one he’d still given me even after figuring out I wasn’t Lila. It looked like nothing more than a pretty charm, but when pulled apart the right way, it was a lock pick that could open virtually any lock—including an electronic one. I should have given it to Lila when I found out she was still alive, but selfishly I’d hung on to it.
Greyson nodded, and from behind his back, he produced a small box wrapped in silver paper. “Happy Birthday.”
“You know it’s not really my birthday, right?” I said with a small smile. He shrugged, and my smile faded. Gift or not, he still hadn’t forgiven me for killing Augusta. I crossed the carpet and accepted the present. Unwrapping it carefully, mindful of the beautiful swirling paper, I cracked open the black box underneath, and my eyes widened.
Inside the box lay a gold picture frame with a labyrinth pattern carved into the edges. It wasn’t the frame that surprised me, though—it was the picture of Lila and Greyson inside. They sat together in the library buried in the heart of Somerset, and though Greyson held a book, he watched Lila out of the corner of his eye, a secret smile playing on his lips as he tried to see what she was drawing on her sketch pad.
No, not Lila’s sketch pad, I realized with a jolt. Mine. That girl wasn’t Lila—she was me.
I studied the look on Greyson’s face in the picture. He looked relaxed and happy—the kind of happy you couldn’t fake. “When...?”
“While Daxton was unconscious,” said Greyson. He cleared his throat, and his cheeks flushed. “Right before you saved my life.”
“I didn’t save your life,” I said. “It was never in any danger in the first place.”
He shrugged again. “I was going to tell Grandmother I didn’t want to be Prime Minister. I think she knew, but if I outright refused...” His Adam’s apple bobbed, and his eyes turned red. “Do you think she would have replaced me, too?”
Forgetting for a moment all that had happened and every reason he had for not wanting me anywhere near him, I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around him. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I do know she loved you more than anything, though.”
At first he didn’t move, but after several seconds, he finally returned my embrace, hugging me tight enough to bruise. “Because of who I am,” he managed, his voice breaking, “or because of who I was supposed to be once she decided to get rid of the impostor and make me Prime Minister instead?”
I couldn’t answer that. Maybe that was all Augusta had ever been—the kind of person who had no problem saying goodbye to the people she loved if it brought her more power. Or maybe that had been the armor she’d worn to protect her deepest vulnerabilities. I’d only ever seen the bad in her; it was Greyson who had seen the good, if there’d been any to begin with. “It doesn’t matter now,” I said. “Remember her the way you want, and try to forget the rest.”
His shoulders shook, and he clung to me the way I clung to Benjy in my worst moments. He had no one. His parents and older brother were dead; the man pretending to be his father was really a Masked stranger; Lila had disappeared underground; and Knox was so busy trying to change the world that half the time he didn’t have a second to spare for me, let alone Greyson. I was it, and whether or not he’d forgiven me for what I’d done to the last family he had left, his face in the picture had said it all. And I was going to walk away from him to save my own skin.
No, he would have Lila once the rebellion was over. She and Celia would return, and Greyson would have his family again. He wouldn’t have to be Prime Minister if he didn’t want to be, and in the end, everything would work out for him. If I wasn’t there to make sure of it, Knox would.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, pulling away after nearly a minute had passed. I started to tell him he had nothing to be sorry for, but he took the picture frame from me and fiddled with something on the back. “Here. This is what I wanted to show you.”
I took the frame back and blinked. Instead of Greyson and I sitting together in the library, it now held a picture of Benjy with his arms around a girl with a round face, dirty blond hair, and bright blue eyes.
My mouth dropped open. Once again, that girl was me—actually me, Kitty Doe, before I’d been Masked as Lila. Benjy’s shock of red hair was as vivid as ever, and he bent his head to kiss my cheek as I grinned ear to ear. Unlike the picture with Greyson, I remembered the moment this had been taken, almost a year ago. The brand-new sweater I wore gave it away. It had been our last Christmas together in the group home—the last one our matron, Nina, had seen before Daxton had hunted and killed her in the vast forests of Elsewhere.
I traced my old face over the glass. Everything about it was different now, and I would never look in the mirror and see Kitty Doe again. I almost hadn’t recognized myself, and seeing this picture now—the only one I had from before I’d been Masked as Lila—made my insides knot together. I’d had nothing then, only Benjy and the hope of a better future. That better future had turned into a III and a job cleaning sewers, and only the strange color of my eyes had saved me from a short, brutal life underground. If I forgot my own face so quickly, then what hope did I have of anyone else remembering it? I had been a nobody. I still was a nobody, but at least now I was a nobody who might be able to make a difference in the lives of the IIs and IIIs who hadn’t been lucky enough to have the same eye color as Lila Hart.
And here I was, about to run away from the only thing that made my life worth anything at all.
More than my guilt over leaving Greyson, more than my trepidation over dragging Benjy underground, that was what cracked my resolve. I would still leave—I had to, to save Benjy’s life, to save my own, and to give Knox a chance at seeing his plans through without me getting in the way. But I’d be damned if I wasted this chance to make the difference I’d risked my life for in the first place.
“How did you find this?” I said, still staring at the photograph. It had been less than a year since that moment, but it felt like another lifetime. Nothing was the same anymore, and nothing would be ever again.
Greyson shrugged. “I found it in Grandmother’s things with the others.”
“Others?” An idea began to form in my mind. If Greyson could find a picture of me, one I hadn’t even known existed, then Sampson must have been right—there had to be one of the real Daxton.
“She had an entire file on you,” he said. “Pictures, test results, your birth certificate—”
My head snapped up. “Birth certificate? Why would she have all of that?”
“I don’t know.” Greyson frowned. “I didn’t read everything, but there were reports on you, too—yearly ones, like she’d been keeping tabs on you. I thought you knew.”
I blinked. I’d had no idea. “Do you know where the file is now?”
“I don’t know. Daxton cleared everything out after she died.” His face fell. “I’m sorry, I should have saved it. I wasn’t thinking—”
“It’s okay,” I said hastily, my mind whirling as I clutched the picture frame. “Thank you—for this, for the frame, for everything.”
“’Course,” he mumbled. “There’s a switch on the back—here, like this.” He took it gingerly and pointed to a barely visible button. “Hold it down for five seconds, and it’ll change into you and Benjy. Press it again, just once, and it’ll change back to us.”
“Thanks.” I took the frame back and tried it. My face dissolved into Lila’s once more. Instead of being sorry to see me go, I was relieved. This was my life now. As much as I wanted to go back in time to last Christmas, all I could do was go forward. It was the only option any of us ever had.
Greyson shuffled his feet and shoved his hands into his pockets again. “You were really pretty before.”
“Thanks,” I said quietly. It didn’t matter, not anymore. I was stuck as Lila Hart for the rest of my life, however long or short it might be.
He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for—for being distant. You don’t deserve that.”
I did, though. “I get it. I’d be distant, too.”
Greyson jerked forward, as if he wanted to move toward me but had stopped himself at the last instant. “Grandmother—she deserved what she got. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at her for everything she did. She didn’t have to, but she did and...I’m sorry.”
For a second time, I hugged him tightly. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about, okay? You’re my friend. You’ll always be my friend, no matter where we are or what’s going on.”
“You, too,” he mumbled. “When this is all over and I’m—I’m Prime Minister, I’ll make sure you get to be that girl again, okay?”
A lump formed in my throat. “Okay.”
He let me go, and the smile on his face nearly made me forget how impossible his promise really was. I could never be Kitty Doe again, and if he ever had to be Prime Minister, it would mean only one thing: I had let him and the entire country down, and the Blackcoats had lost.
The way Greyson’s gaze lingered on me as we said our good-nights made it seem almost as if he knew tonight would be the last time we saw each other. I watched him leave, part of me aching to give him one last hug, and another part of me wishing I didn’t have to say goodbye at all. But I had no choice—I had to get Benjy out of there, and there was no more reason for me to stay. I wanted the future he had drawn on that napkin. I wanted the lake, the cottage, the sunshine, the happiness, and the only way I would ever have it was to get out of the line of fire before the war began.
I couldn’t leave yet, though—not until I found proof that Daxton was an impostor. I wasn’t useless. I wasn’t just a stupid III who was only good for cleaning sewers. I wasn’t going to make Knox put his neck on the chopping block because of me, and I wasn’t going to let the entire world come crashing down around Greyson, trapping him in a life he didn’t want the way Daxton and Knox had trapped me. He deserved better. We both did.
After I changed into the most durable outfit Lila owned—jeans, a thick sweater, a leather jacket, and a pair of boots I could actually walk in—I stuffed a duffel bag full of clothes, jewelry, small electronics, and anything we might be able to pawn for food and shelter until we found someplace more permanent. A single one of Lila’s bracelets was worth more than most IIs and IIIs made in a decade, and she had several jewelry boxes full of them. I would’ve felt guilty if I hadn’t known the Harts could replace them without batting an eye, but it was a fair price for stealing my life.
A knock on the door made me jump and drop a pearl earring into the bag. “Who is it?” I called, my heart racing. I shoved the duffel bag underneath the bathroom sink.
“It’s me.”
Knox. I scowled. “I’m busy.”
“I don’t care how busy you are—I need to talk to you.”
Damn. Knox must have caught Benjy packing, which meant he was here to stop me. I couldn’t let him try, not yet. Not when I didn’t know what he’d do to keep me here, and not when the Blackcoats needed that file. Knox wouldn’t stand a chance sneaking around Daxton’s office, but I did. “Fine,” I called. “I’m changing. Give me a minute.”
I looked around the living room frantically. How was I supposed to get past him when he was right outside the door?
Stupid question. My eyes fell on the ceiling in the corner of the room, where a grate led into a maze of metal tunnels that made up the ventilation system throughout the entire fourth level of Somerset. I’d used them to sneak around undetected before Augusta’s death, but I’d been forced to show my hand to Knox and Benjy, rendering my secret useless. Until now.
As quietly as I could, I pushed the end table underneath the vent. Using the shelves on the bookcase, I climbed up and pushed the grate out of place. It had been weeks since I’d done this, but before becoming Lila, I’d been an expert at sneaking in and out of tight spaces—namely the maze of sewers underneath the Heights, the poorest corner of the city. Somerset was less than twenty miles away, but they couldn’t have been more different.
I crawled through the metal vent, making sure to nudge the grate back into place. It wouldn’t take long for Knox to figure out what I’d done once he grew tired of waiting for me, but he was too big to follow, and he’d have no way of guessing where I was going. For now, all I could do was move as quickly as possible and hope to hell Daxton was asleep.
Fifteen minutes later, I peered down through the metal slats and into Daxton’s office. The lights were dim, and I could hear the distant trickling of water from the fountain near his doorway. The screen on his desk was dark, but I wouldn’t need it. If Greyson had dug up a photograph, there must have been more to find than a few computer files I wouldn’t be able to read anyway.
I dropped down into his office, wincing as my heavy combat boots thudded against the wooden floor. I stood still for the space of several heartbeats, waiting for a sign someone had heard me.
Silence.
Gliding across the floor, careful not to make another sound, I searched for anything that might have held a file Daxton wanted to keep hidden. His desk was the most obvious place, but when I tried to open the drawers, they were locked. Unclasping my necklace, I unfolded the lock pick and had each open within seconds; however, they held nothing more than official-looking papers I couldn’t read, all bearing the Hart family crest. In one, a half-empty bottle of what looked like whiskey sat hidden underneath a false bottom—the same kind I’d used to hide my few possessions at my group home—but no matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find anything that looked like it might have hidden the secrets to Daxton’s real identity.
I straightened and looked around. The walls of his large office were covered ceiling to floor in bookshelves, each one fuller than the last. The ones closest to the door looked neat and organized, as if they hadn’t been touched in years. The closer they got to the desk, however, the more disorganized and cluttered they became. Was it possible he’d hidden something in a book?
No—I wasn’t thinking about this the right way. Daxton would never leave something like that out where anyone could accidentally run across it. He would put it someplace hidden, but secure. Someplace no one would dare to look. Someplace only he would have access to.
Which meant it had to be in this office. After my little stunt trying to kill him, he was the only one with access, even though he pretended he’d lost the memory of that incident. No one else had been allowed in his office without his personal guards present, not even Greyson. This was his most private room in Somerset. If the evidence still existed, it was in here.
I began to touch everything. The chairs, the couches, the fireplace, the lamps, the end tables—nothing in the office got past my hands. But the harder I looked, the less confident I became. Just because I would have kept some sentimental token of my past didn’t mean he would. What if he really had destroyed it? Then what chance would the Blackcoats have of gaining the support of the Shields and the Ministers of the—
Click.
I stilled. My hand rested on the gold frame of the Hart family portrait painted a year earlier, before the deaths of the real Daxton, along with his wife and elder son. On the very edge, where the portrait met the wall, there was a sliver of space that hadn’t been there before. Underneath my thumb, I spotted a tiny button that blended in perfectly with the frame.
My heart sped up as I nudged the frame open. Surely enough, the massive portrait concealed a steel safe—or at least I thought it was a safe. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a square sheet of metal imbedded into the wall. There was no dial, no number pad, nothing.
I searched for any sign of how to open it, but once again, nothing. That made things difficult. Frowning, I brushed my fingertips against the metal, feeling for any slight indents that might give me a clue.
Instantly blue light appeared, forming a square in the center of the safe. I waited for something else to happen, but the blue square didn’t change. Did it want a handprint? No symbols had appeared, and a handprint was the only thing that would reasonably fit in that square.
It didn’t matter what it wanted. My handprint was Lila’s now, and somehow I doubted Daxton would have granted her access to whatever was inside the safe. I clasped my necklace so hard that it left indents in my palm. Time to see how good Greyson really was.
I passed the silver disk in front of the sensor and held my breath. If it didn’t work, would the sensor just ignore my attempt to break in, or would half of Somerset be alerted? I glanced at the opening in the ceiling. It would take me several precious seconds to scale the bookshelves and make it up there. If there were guards outside waiting, or if Daxton was anywhere nearby—
The light changed from blue to white, and to my astonishment, the safe popped open. Apparently Greyson was that good after all. I opened the door and, with trembling fingers, removed the collection of a dozen files inside.
Several of them were nothing but papers I couldn’t read and maps of places I had never been. Another was what looked like a report detailing the car explosion that had killed the real Daxton and his family, leaving Greyson alone. But as interesting as they might have been, it was the thickest folder that I cared about.
I flipped it open, and my real face greeted me with a smile. It was my school picture, clipped to a report card I couldn’t read. I must have been seven or eight—I still had freckles from staying out in the sun too long, and I was missing my front tooth.
Tearing my eyes away, I flipped through the other pictures. There were more than I could have ever imagined, detailing every important moment of my life, including what looked like the day I was born. I squinted at the typed pages that filled the folder to bursting, hoping in vain that the words would make sense for the first time in my life. But they remained a mystery, and the only clues I had were those pictures.
Some of them were noticeably older than the others, yellowing around the edges and slightly discolored. This wasn’t a file Augusta had compiled after I’d been Masked as Lila—she’d been keeping tabs on me throughout my entire life. But why?
I frowned. As badly as I wanted to know, I had another more important question right now, and I was holding the answer in my hands. There was only one file left I hadn’t looked through, and I opened the pages, careful not to touch whatever was inside.
It was slimmer than mine, but still full of the same things—papers I couldn’t read, what looked like a copy of the test everyone in the country had to take on their seventeenth birthday, and certificates I didn’t recognize. And at the bottom of the pile was a single photograph.
Two young men with light hair and dark eyes stood side by side, sporting carefree smiles I envied. They both wore black uniforms, and insignias on their lapels announced their high ranks. One of the men looked strangely familiar, but they both resembled one another in a way that only family could. Brothers? They had to be. They had the same nose, the same eyes, and the same dimpled chin, and the way they slung their arms around one another made it obvious they were more than comrades or patrol partners.
Which one had been Masked as Daxton? I glanced back and forth between them. Did I recognize the man on the left because I subconsciously associated him with Daxton, or had I seen him before? And the man on the right—he shared Daxton’s eyes, the only part of the human body doctors couldn’t modify to resemble someone else’s. Then again, they both did.
The soft sound of footsteps outside the door pulled me from my trance, and I snapped the folder shut and gathered the rest. As silently as I could, I tucked the unnecessary folders back into the safe and closed the portrait before climbing up the bookshelves toward the grate, my file and Daxton’s tucked securely in my arm.
Once I settled back in the ventilation system, I took a deep breath, my mind spinning. Benjy would tell me what was in my file. He would read it to me, and I would know within the hour what secrets Augusta had kept from me.
But if I went to Knox instead, it was the other file that would give me leverage. It could buy me a way to keep Benjy safe outside of Somerset. Something this valuable to the Blackcoats—it could be the ticket to everything we both wanted. I couldn’t change my past, but my future was wide-open. And I wanted it to be as far from D.C. as possible.
My mind made up, I crawled through the vent, pushing the files along in front of me. If Knox wanted to know who Daxton really was, then I hoped he was in the mood to bargain.
IV CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT (#ulink_68e0e679-b25d-58c7-a37f-db2c8b53b641)
By the time I dropped back into my suite, I held only my thick folder. It had taken me another twenty minutes to hide the fake Daxton’s file where no one would ever find it, not without my help, and the only way Knox was going to get it was if he helped me first.
Now that that was done, I turned to unlock the door that led out into the hallway, wondering if Knox was still standing there or if he’d given up and returned to his suite by now. Either way, we had to talk before I left, and I wasn’t going to wait until morning.
“You know you’re not supposed to crawl around the vents anymore.”
I jumped and whirled around, the folder nearly slipping from my grip. Knox sat in front of my fireplace, his dark eyes gleaming with annoyance and a glass of something I wasn’t so sure was water in his hand.
“Have you really been waiting this whole time?” I said casually as if this wasn’t weird at all. I crossed the room to Lila’s desk and set the file down.
Knox rose. “Where have you been, Kitty?” he said, a note of warning in his voice. “It’s been an hour.”
“Saving your cowardly ass, that’s where.”
“My ass is anything but cowardly,” he said as he approached, glass still in hand. I wrinkled my nose. Definitely not water. “What’s that?”
“This?” I opened the file and began to flip through it. “Oh, you know, nothing too much. Just my entire past.” I held up a picture of me at five years old. “Care to explain why Augusta had this?”
Knox furrowed his brow and snatched the file from the desk. A handful of pictures fluttered to the floor. “Where did you get this?”
“The same place I found Daxton’s file,” I said, bending down to pick up the photos. “Along with evidence of who he really is. You’re welcome.”
“I’m not thanking you.” A second later, the weight of what I’d said seemed to settle over him, and he stilled in the middle of rifling through the pages. “You have a file like this on the fake Daxton?”
I nodded. “There’s only one picture, but it has other documents that must have his name on them somewhere.”
“Where is it?”
“I’ll make you a deal,” I said. “Help Benjy and me get to the bunker safely, guarantee us the Blackcoats’ protection, and I’ll tell you where it is. After you tell me why Augusta has been watching me my whole life, of course.”
He moved closer, towering over me. “The Blackcoats need that file, Kitty.”
“And I need to get out of here before you decide I’m not worth the trouble and have me and Benjy killed,” I said. Shock flickered across his face, and his eyes widened as if he couldn’t believe I would ever think that poorly of him.
Good. Now he knew what it was like.
Knox’s expression quickly returned to a smooth mask of neutrality, and he stared at me. “You know I would never do that.”
“Do I? Because lately I’m not so sure. I’m a liability, remember?”
Silence settled over us for the better part of half a minute. Without responding, he flipped through the file, his gaze lingering on a picture of Benjy and me on his sixteenth birthday. I’d scooped a glob of green frosting from my piece of cake and wiped it onto the tip of his nose, and in retaliation, he’d kissed me, smearing some of it on my cheek. It was one of the most recent photographs in the collection.
“It’s a win-win situation for you,” I said. “Tell me what it says, and I’ll not only tell you where Daxton’s file is, but I’ll also be out of your hair permanently. You’ll never have to deal with me again.”
He sighed. “If this is because of what I said before—”
“This is because I have a right to make my own choices and know what’s going on in my own life, and I don’t trust you to tell me without incentive,” I said coolly.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “Why are you leaving, Kitty? You’re not only going to hurt yourself, but the rebellion, too. You’re no good to us locked in a bunker.”
“Apparently I’m no good to you anyway,” I said. “You don’t have to make this difficult, Knox. Just help me, and you’ll get your information. If you don’t want to, then I’ll have Benjy read the file to me instead, and the Blackcoats will never find Daxton’s folder without my help. I guarantee it. But one way or the other, I am leaving.”
He had no way of knowing that I had every intention of handing Daxton’s folder over to Sampson if he wouldn’t help me, but after all we’d been through, part of me desperately wanted to see a flicker of the old Knox again. The one who had believed I could be Lila when no one else would. The one who had treated me like I mattered.
His foot tapped impatiently, but at last he muttered, “Fine. All that’s in here are old report cards and progress reports from your matron.”
I exhaled. “Keep looking. There has to be something.”
Knox frowned, and his gaze shifted back to the pages inside the file. He flipped through them, reading the words I couldn’t. Page after page after page, with no flicker in his expression to give anything away. Slowly doubts began to creep into my mind. Maybe it was useless. Despite the obvious aging in several of the pictures and papers, maybe Augusta had found them after the fact and collected them inside the file.
Knox turned another page, and his foot stopped tapping. He stilled, and his eyes scanned the same document over and over. My heart leaped.
“What is it?” I said, craning my neck to try to see what he was looking at. A certificate of some sort—one with the official Hart seal on it. He pulled the file away before I could get a good look, but it wouldn’t have helped anyway. As always, the letters on the page looked like gibberish.
“Did anyone see you?” he said. The edge to his voice made me square my shoulders.
“Of course not. What does it say?”
He ignored my question. “Good. Now for the last time—where did you get this?”
“I’m not playing this game with you, Knox. What does that say?”
He slapped the folder down on the end table. “It’s the sad story of a girl who was born an Extra, got terrible grades in school, received a III after failing to complete her test, and then blew the opportunity of a lifetime to help not only herself, but the entire country just because she was too stubborn to cooperate. I don’t know how it ends, but at this point, I can virtually guarantee you that her sad life is going to be a short one if she keeps acting like this.”
“My sad life was always going to be a short one,” I said. “If you ever want Daxton’s file, you’re going to cut the bullshit and tell me what you read. Now.”
His eyes flickered to the left before locking on mine again. “A report on the operations they put you through to turn you into Lila. It took longer than I thought, that’s all. There’s nothing in there about why Augusta was watching you or why they chose you—just report cards and pictures.”
I set my jaw. He was lying. I’d never said anything about wanting to know why they’d chosen me to be Lila. I already knew the answer: our eyes were the same rare shade of blue. But with one slip of the tongue, Knox had told me there was more to it. And he had also told me I couldn’t trust him anymore.
We stood only inches apart, and he ducked his head, his lips brushing my ear. “Tell me where you got this, Kitty, before Daxton discovers it’s missing.”
“I’ll put it back,” I said.
“No, you won’t.” We both reached for the folder at the same time, but Knox, with his lightning-fast reflexes, snatched it up first. I glowered at him. “We both know you’re going to go straight to Benjy and make him read every page to you.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” I said. “If you’re telling the truth, then you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“I have plenty to worry about, especially if you found this where I think you did,” he said. “Is the other file there, too?”
I considered him for a long moment. “Yes,” I lied. “And if you let me put mine back, I’ll bring you Daxton’s.”
“Not a chance,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time before Daxton notices it’s missing, and I won’t have someone killed for your curiosity. You’re lucky Daxton doesn’t—”
He stopped suddenly, and his face went from red to pale to ashen in seconds as he flipped through the file again. I frowned. “What?” I said.
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “He knows you’re Masked,” said Knox. “If he hid this file after Augusta died, then he knows.”
“Oh.” I exhaled. “Right. He remembers everything that happened—that I was Masked, that I tried to kill him, that Celia was probably in on it...everything. He’s been lying the whole time.”
Knox clutched the file and closed it again, slower this time. “He remembers everything? All of it? How—” He clenched his jaw, and I could see the muscles shifting underneath his skin. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because—because after Augusta’s funeral, he touched the ridges on the back of my neck and made it obvious he knows everything. And—” I swallowed hard. “I might’ve touched his, too.”
The ridges below our tattoos were the only things that set us apart from the real Harts. My VII hid a III—my real rank. The fake Daxton’s VII hid a V, the rank he’d been before being Masked as the Prime Minister. They were the only evidence anyone had to prove we’d been Masked, and as Harts, we were lucky enough that no one would ever question our VIIs. Except each other.
Knox exhaled sharply and turned away from me. From the way his shoulders rose and fell, it was obvious he was trying to collect himself. At last he faced me again, his neutral expression barely hiding the rage lurking underneath.
“You didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell me this sooner?” he said, and I shrugged.
“What difference would it make?”
“It makes all the difference in the world.” His voice broke. “You have no idea—”
“So tell me,” I said. “Instead of treating me like a child and keeping secrets from me, why don’t you try trusting me instead?”
“Like you trusted me with this?” His expression grew dark. “Where did you find this file, Kitty?”
“I—”
“Where did you find it?”
I scowled. “Daxton’s office, behind the portrait. But you can’t just waltz in there in the middle of the night and—”
Before I could finish, Knox was already halfway out the door. Despite the heavy boots he wore, the plush carpet absorbed the sound of his footsteps, and I ran after him.
“Knox—wait. Wait.” I caught up to him and grabbed his elbow. “The other file, it—”
“You will stay here,” said Knox dangerously. “And you will never mention this to anyone, do you understand me?”
My mouth opened and shut. “What’s the big deal? It’s just a file.”
“And you stole it,” he said. “There was a reason I was the one assigned to this job and not you. I can read and gather all the relevant information without Daxton ever knowing we have it—and without ever knowing the Blackcoats have support in Somerset. Now, thanks to you, all of that’s in jeopardy. If he discovers you’re behind this, then he will figure out I’m helping you. Do you understand?”
“But—it doesn’t have to be you,” I said. “It could be anyone—”
“Who else? Benjy?”
All the air left my lungs, and I could feel the blood drain from my face, leaving my skin cold and clammy. “No. He doesn’t have anything to do with this, and you will not frame him—”
“If you get caught, then it’s either him or me,” said Knox. “Sometimes you have to sacrifice a pawn to win the game.”
“You won’t,” I said, rage surging through me. “If you try, I’ll tell Daxton everything. I don’t care if he kills me.”
“Then let’s both try to make it out of this alive,” said Knox coldly. “Stay here and let me fix this. I won’t tell you again.”
He walked away, his strides long and purposeful, and for a moment I considered not following him. All I had to do was grab the duffel bag I’d hidden and walk straight into Knox’s suite, and Benjy and I would be halfway across the city before Knox realized what we’d done. We’d be free.
I was two steps from the door before I stopped myself. We wouldn’t be free. We would never be free, not until Daxton was dead and Greyson—or Knox, or Celia, or whoever was in charge—gave me my life back. The Shields would hunt us until they found us, and if we were lucky, they’d kill us before Daxton had the chance to send us Elsewhere. There was no such thing as freedom, not in this country, and if Knox was serious about framing Benjy for his crimes, then there was no telling what Daxton might do to him for treason.
I had to know what Knox was doing. He’d kept me in the dark long enough—I couldn’t let him run the show, not this time.
My mind made up, I took off down the hallway, avoiding the corners where the guards were positioned. I ducked through the atrium and past the elevator, making sure I was below the railing so the guards couldn’t see me. My footsteps were as silent as Knox’s, and before long, I crouched a few rooms down from the entrance to Daxton’s suite. Two guards stood outside, both alert with their eyes straight forward. I swore inwardly.
I slipped through the nearest open door, into a dark sitting room meant for guests of the Prime Minister. Squinting, I peered into the corners, and relief washed over me when I spotted a vent.
Within seconds, I climbed onto an end table and pulled myself up. I had memorized the ventilation system when I’d first moved into Somerset, and it was only two quick turns to Daxton’s private living quarters.
I stilled, listening for any signs of life. In the distance, I picked up a soft murmur, but it was too far away for me to make out. Fear prickled in the base of my spine. If Daxton had caught Knox trying to replace my file...
Crawling as quickly as I dared, I made my way from room to room, searching for the source of the conversation. His bedroom and sitting rooms were empty; the same with his multiple guest rooms. At last I came to his office, and with a sinking heart, I situated myself over the vent. Two voices rose up to meet me: Daxton’s and Knox’s.
“...don’t care,” said Daxton, his tone clipped with annoyance. “I’ve given you far more chances than you deserve.”
“I’m not asking for another chance,” said Knox. His voice cracked, and he sounded like a cornered animal. “I’m asking you to look at the facts.”
“I am,” said Daxton, “and what I see is a long list of reasons why I should stop putting up with this foolishness. The files are only the beginning. My patience is wearing thin, Lennox, and though I am a peace-loving man, there are some things not even I can tolerate.”
Silence. I held my breath, waiting for Knox to respond, but instead something shifted through the grates. Daxton stood directly below me, his hands clasped behind his back. He was fully dressed, even though it had to be well into the small hours of the morning by now.
“This is my final offer. Take it or leave it, Lennox. I am no longer interested in babysitting, and she must be detained.”
She. My blood ran cold. They weren’t talking about Knox—they were talking about me.
“And what happens if I don’t take it?” said Knox. I began to slide backward. Detained meant one of two things: it meant Elsewhere, or it meant death. And Knox had promised me months ago that he would kill me before he would let Daxton send me to be hunted by the very VIs who would have happily watched Lila burn.
“You know what happens then,” said Daxton, his voice fading. I didn’t care. I had to get back to Benjy before they found me, and we had to leave. Free or not, I had every intention of waking up the next morning as alive as I was today.
Once I’d cleared the office, I didn’t bother trying to keep quiet. I crawled as fast as I could back to the sitting room, where I dropped to the floor and raced into the hallway. I took the corners half blind and oblivious, but once I was clear of Daxton’s wing, the guards were at a minimum.
I reached my suite in record time. Bursting inside, I grabbed the duffel bag from underneath the sink and ran back into the hallway. I tried the knob to Knox’s suite, but it was locked. Swearing, I fumbled with my necklace, yanking the chain over my head. My fingers trembled, but I managed to unfold the lock pick and make quick work of it.
I nudged open the door and tugged the necklace back around my neck. Benjy had to be packed by now. If he’d stuffed his bag full of books instead of clothes—
I stopped cold. Benjy stood in the middle of the room, but he wasn’t alone. Knox stood beside him, and at first glance, it looked completely innocent. Benjy was pale and his shoulders hunched defensively, however, and his expression silently begged me to turn around and run. I opened my mouth to say something, but instead I spotted the glint of steel pressed against Benjy’s spine, and my stomach nearly turned inside out.
“Knox—what—” I began, but a cold hand settled on my shoulder, and I froze.
“Hello, my dear,” said Daxton, and my throat swelled. Shit. Shit shit shit.
“What’s going on?” I managed to force out. “Is everything okay?”
“You know it isn’t, Lila,” he said, tracing the three ridges on the back of my neck. “Tell me where you put the file.”
“What—what file?” I locked eyes with Benjy, and my heart raced. It would be okay. It had to be okay. This was not going to be the end.
“You know exactly what file I’m talking about,” said Daxton. “Guards—check her bag and search her suite.”
Half a dozen guards appeared from the fringes of the room, and while five of them marched out into the hallway, the last one ripped through my bag. Jewelry glittering with diamonds spilled from the pockets, along with the clothes I’d stuffed inside. My airway threatened to close up. That alone was worth an arrest.
“Knox, tell him it wasn’t me,” I said, but he didn’t move. “Knox.”
“He won’t lie for you,” said Daxton. “Tell me the truth, Lila.”
I searched Knox’s expression for any sign he had a plan, but instead he held my stare blankly, as much of a challenge as it was a surrender. There wasn’t a plan. This was it. We were the pawns, and Knox was making the necessary sacrifices to win the game.
Screw the game. If he wanted to play, then I’d play. “Knox stole that file, not me,” I spat. “He’s hiding the one on you, too. How do you think he got the first one? Do you really think I’d willingly hand it over to him?”
“Yes,” said Daxton smoothly, “because that is exactly what you did. Will you be honest with me, Lila, or do I have to bleed it out of you?”
“I am being honest. Knox is trying to frame me. He’s the leader of the Blackcoats—him and Celia. All this time, they’ve been working together to destroy you.”
A strange sound emanated from deep within Daxton, and it took me several confused seconds before I realized what I was hearing. He was laughing. “Wrong again, my dear. You’re on quite the roll tonight, aren’t you? Knox has been working for me—reporting back on Blackcoat activity, telling me their next moves. How do you think we’ve been ahead of them the whole time?”
“I—” I faltered. Knox didn’t meet my eye, and his grip on Benjy’s shoulder tightened.
No. Not possible. After all this time and everything he’d done to help me—not possible.
“He’s lying,” I said, the words tumbling out of me in a rush as I tried to convince Daxton as well as myself. “He might be feeding you tidbits to make it look like he’s on your side, but he’s really telling the Blackcoats everything he knows about you and—”
“Everything I tell him to say,” said Daxton. “Why do you think the Blackcoats haven’t gotten any closer to their goal? Why do you think tonight’s raid failed? Why do you think they’re cut off at every turn before they can find their footing? No one, not even my sister, is that incompetent.”
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Aimee Carter
The truth can set her freeFor the past two months, Kitty Doe's life has been a lie. Forced to impersonate Lila Hart, the Prime Minister's niece, in a hostile meritocracy on the verge of revolution, Kitty sees her frustration grow as her trust in her fake fiancé cracks, her real boyfriend is forbidden and the Blackcoat rebels she is secretly supporting keep her in the dark more than ever.But in the midst of discovering that her role in the Hart family may not be as coincidental as she thought, she's accused of treason and is forced to face her greatest fear: Elsewhere. A prison where no one can escape.As one shocking revelation leads to the next, Kitty learns the hard way that she can trust no one, not even the people she thought were on her side. With her back against the wall, Kitty wants to believe she'll do whatever it takes to support the rebellion she believes in–but is she prepared to pay the ultimate price?
The truth can set her free
For the past two months, Kitty Doe’s life has been a lie. Forced to impersonate Lila Hart, the Prime Minister’s niece, in a hostile meritocracy on the verge of revolution, Kitty sees her frustration grow as her trust in her fake fiancé cracks, her real boyfriend is forbidden and the Blackcoat rebels she is secretly supporting keep her in the dark more than ever.
But in the midst of discovering that her role in the Hart family may not be as coincidental as she thought, she’s accused of treason and is forced to face her greatest fear: Elsewhere. A prison where no one can escape.
As one shocking revelation leads to the next, Kitty learns the hard way that she can trust no one, not even the people she thought were on her side. With her back against the wall, Kitty wants to believe she’ll do whatever it takes to support the rebellion she believes in—but is she prepared to pay the ultimate price?
Captive
Aimée Carter
www.miraink.co.uk (http://www.miraink.co.uk)
To Carli Segal and Veronica O’Neil
Contents
Cover (#ub4436b06-12ef-51f1-9daa-713e4e4a7ad3)
Back Cover Text (#ueee9c196-9811-5271-92ed-f88772a9d467)
Title Page (#u458691be-fcba-5b9c-9abe-ea2e81dcb13b)
Dedication (#u88a702ee-1dfb-5948-908f-c8ad5d1c7a30)
I FADING (#ulink_791af69b-9b6e-5aa7-b36f-a12d48c345aa)
II MIDNIGHT MEETING (#ulink_829f4ffa-5571-5d15-bdfb-8d0b926ee056)
III IMPOSTOR (#ulink_e48e7f31-3845-57d0-b22a-84f4d135ce07)
IV CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT (#ulink_953190d3-9b53-5996-a07a-69d3c7a7053b)
V SECTION X (#litres_trial_promo)
VI SCOTIA (#litres_trial_promo)
VII FIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
VIII SPY (#litres_trial_promo)
IX COLD HOPE (#litres_trial_promo)
X HUNTED (#litres_trial_promo)
XI HEARTBEAT (#litres_trial_promo)
XII GUARDED (#litres_trial_promo)
XIII MERCY KILL (#litres_trial_promo)
XIV TORTURE (#litres_trial_promo)
XV THE CAGE (#litres_trial_promo)
XVI EXECUTION (#litres_trial_promo)
XVII VOICE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
I FADING (#ulink_5e243c43-86de-582c-a095-4e395d2cd3e1)
Somewhere nearby, Benjy was waiting for me.
I could feel his stare as I made my rounds through the grand ballroom of Somerset Manor, greeting each new face with a smile that was becoming harder and harder to hold. They buzzed around me, vying for a few moments of my time, but we all knew they were only here because of my name and face. I was Lila Hart, the niece of the Prime Minister of the United States and one of the few VIIs in the entire country—which, in a roomful of VIs, made me more powerful than them all.
But I didn’t want power or fame. If I had my way, I would be tucked away in my suite with Benjy, stealing as many moments alone together as we could. Instead, I was stuck celebrating my birthday with a roomful of my so-called closest friends, led around by a fiancé I didn’t even particularly like, let alone love.
Except it wasn’t my birthday. These weren’t my friends. And Knox Creed was most definitely not my fiancé.
My name wasn’t Lila Hart. It was Kitty Doe, and on my real seventeenth birthday in September, I’d been kidnapped by the Prime Minister and surgically transformed into his spoiled, rebellious, and supposedly dead, niece against my will. He’d given me a choice: pretend to be Lila or wind up with a bullet in my brain. I wasn’t an idiot, and even though it had meant giving up everything I’d known and everyone I’d loved, I’d chosen to live—and to fight. Three months later, after discovering a lifetime’s worth of political conspiracies and secrets that should have stayed buried, here I was, with Knox clutching my arm as he led me through a crowd of people who would kill me if they figured out who I really was.
I glared up at him and tried to subtly twist my arm from his grip, but he hung on. I didn’t care that he was handsome and tall, with dark hair and even darker eyes, and that most girls would have killed to be in my shoes. They didn’t have to deal with his endless stream of instructions on how to impersonate a girl I hated, nor did they have to pretend to love him in front of the entire country when we spent most days in a constant tug of war.
Besides, I was extremely happy with the boyfriend I already had, thank you very much—a boyfriend who, with his infinite patience, had been waiting over an hour for me to slip away from these people. If I didn’t find a way soon, the night wasn’t going to end pleasantly for any of us.
“We had a deal,” I whispered, leaning into Knox so only he could hear me. “I play nice for a couple hours and leave at nine. It’s now almost eleven.”
“Sometimes plans change,” he said, his fingers tightening around my elbow. Even though he was speaking to me, his eyes scanned the ballroom. “Relax and try to enjoy yourself.”
The only times I’d enjoyed myself in the past few months had been those stolen moments with Benjy. “Lila would have never stayed this long. Every minute I hang around, the more suspicious it looks.”
“I know,” he said quietly, bending down to brush his lips against my ear. The heat of his breath reminded me just how cold it was in the ballroom, and I shivered in my flimsy silk dress. “But sometimes even Lila had to do things she didn’t like. Incoming.”
I turned around in time to see a portly man amble up to us. Minister Bradley, one of the twelve Ministers of the Union who worked under the Prime Minister. I didn’t know many of them on sight, but Minister Bradley’s handlebar mustache was burned into my brain, along with the way my skin crawled whenever he was nearby.
“Lila, my dear, you look ravishing.” He leaned in to bump his dry lips against my cheek, and it took every ounce of willpower I possessed to keep myself from shuddering. “After all you’ve been through, I expected something less...” He made a vague gesture, his eyes locking on my chest.
I didn’t bother to smile this time. “Minister Bradley. I’m surprised to see you here. I thought your wife was sick.”
He chuckled, and his gaze never wavered. “Yes, yes, well, I would never miss a chance to see your beautiful face.”
“In that case, you might want to look up here instead,” I said, and Minister Bradley turned scarlet.
“I’m sorry, Minister,” said Knox quickly, and he hooked his elbow with mine. “Lila’s had a bit too much to drink tonight. If you wouldn’t mind, darling, I need a quick word with you.”
He led me away, and I clutched my glass of champagne. We both knew I hadn’t taken a single sip. I couldn’t afford to drink, not when I needed every wit I had to survive the night.
Weaving through the Ministers and their families, along with several of the most prominent VIs in Washington D.C., Knox led me to a table laden with food and cloth napkins folded into the shape of peacocks. The people lingering nearby began to move in, but Knox shot them a look of pure poison, and they scattered.
“You know how important tonight is,” he said quietly, once we were alone. He handed me a small plate from the end of the table. “Do you really think insulting Minister Bradley to his face is going to make this any easier on you?”
“He was staring down my dress,” I said. “Why do you expect me to smile and let him when Lila would’ve—”
“Right now I don’t care what Lila would have done,” he said. “I expect you not to cause a scene with one of the most powerful Ministers of the Union and make us another enemy we don’t need.”
“Everyone in this place is an enemy.” I turned away and began to pile my plate with bite-size desserts.
“I’m not.”
I hesitated, my hand hovering over a piece of pink cake. I was here because I trusted Knox more than I trusted most people, but some days I wasn’t so sure he cared about me more than he cared about why he needed me in the first place. “If you don’t want me to think you’re an enemy, then stop treating me like a prisoner.”
Knox sighed. “I wouldn’t have to if you quit acting like you don’t know how to behave in public. It’s been months. You should know the rules by now.”
“How can I when you keep changing them on me?” At the next table over, I spotted little bites of steak wrapped in a fluffy puff pastry, and my mouth watered. I hadn’t eaten red meat since October. By now I was almost used to it, but there were days I would have given my right arm for a cheeseburger. Today was one of them.
If it was wrapped in a puff pastry, no one would notice, I decided. Edging toward that table, I tuned out whatever lecture Knox was whispering in my ear and casually picked up a piece. One bite. That was all I wanted.
It was half an inch from my lips when Knox’s fingers closed around my wrist. “Lila, darling, that has red meat in it.”
“Are you sure?” I said innocently, trying to tug my hand away, but his grip was too strong.
“Very.”
I dropped the pastry onto his plate, and the last of my patience went with it. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to pee.” And find Benjy before he gives up on me.
“You need to freshen up,” corrected Knox in a low voice.
“Minister Bradley is staring at me like I’m some prize pig,” I said. “I need to pee.”
Without warning, Knox wheeled me around toward an antechamber nearby, his fingertips digging into my arm, and he didn’t say a word until we’d passed through the doorway. “Do you realize who’s here?”
I glanced over his shoulder. Now that we had left, suddenly the buffet had become the most popular corner of the room, as Ministers, their families, and the clingiest social climbers in the District of Columbia milled around, waiting for us to emerge. They all had VIs tattooed on the backs of their necks—the highest rank we could earn after taking an aptitude test on our seventeenth birthday. The same one that decided the rest of our lives, including our jobs, where we lived, how many children we could have, and how long our lives would be. Their VIs meant endless privilege and put them at the top of the food chain. The III hidden under my VII had earned me a one-way ticket to cleaning sewers for the next four decades, if I’d managed to live that long with the few cruddy resources I would’ve been granted by our gracious government. “Yeah. Every bottom-feeder in Washington.”
“Enough.” Knox glared at me, and his carefully crafted facade finally dropped. He shut the door. “You can either play nice, or you can explain to Daxton why the entire country suddenly knows who you really are. Because those people out there aren’t idiots, despite what you seem to think, and if you keep talking like this where they can all hear you, they will figure it out. Your choice.”
“The only thing that’s going to make them figure it out is if I act like I’m perfectly happy out there, pretending like I care about any of this,” I said, my fake nails digging into my palms. “Lila wouldn’t have stuck around this long.”
Knox grimaced. Glancing at the door, he took a step closer, lowering his voice. “I know, Kitty. I’m sorry about that, I am. But if we slip away now, someone will come looking for us, and that’s the last thing we need tonight, all right?”
“Then you should’ve told me that to begin with instead of playing this ridiculous game,” I said. “I’m not completely unreasonable, you know. If you’d tell me these things—”
“I tell you as much as I can.”
“You treat me like an object, Knox. Right now, in that room—I’m your prop.” I shook my head, torn between seething and breaking down. All I wanted was to go upstairs and be alone with Benjy. With the only person left in the world who still cared about the person underneath Lila’s face.
“You’re not my prop,” said Knox, his tone softening. “I’m trying to protect us both. What we’re doing, dangerous as it is—it’s the right thing to do. You know it is. Don’t mess it up just because you’re having a bad night.”
A painful knot formed in my throat, and I swallowed hard. It was an argument we’d been having for the past month, ever since I had agreed to continue to impersonate Lila. Originally it hadn’t been my choice; after Prime Minister Daxton Hart had bought me at a gentlemen’s club, he’d knocked me out, and I’d woken up two weeks later to discover he’d had my body surgically altered—Masked, he’d called it—to be an exact copy of his niece, Lila Hart, whom he’d secretly had assassinated for leading a rebellion against him. I was supposed to take her place and stop it.
Instead, thanks to Knox, Lila was still alive and hidden underground. And as for me—turned out I wasn’t okay with standing by and letting the government slaughter the people I love.
That was the only reason I’d agreed to stay when Knox had asked me three weeks ago. It had been after an exhausting night and day, when Augusta Hart, Daxton’s mother and the real iron fist around the country, had tried to not only kill me and Lila, but Benjy, too. Instead, I’d put six bullets in her. Now, with Lila seriously injured, it was up to me to pretend to be her until someone took the Prime Minister out of the picture.
That was easier said than done. I’d tried once before and failed—and as a result, Daxton had been in a coma long enough to miss the worst of the fight. When he’d woken up, he’d pretended not to know I wasn’t Lila, but we both knew who I really was. I was nobody to these people. I had been raised as far away from the life of a VII as you could get, in a group home full of Extras born to parents who were only allowed one child. It hadn’t been the most luxurious upbringing ever, but at least I could have had a cheeseburger without having to beg. And at least I’d known exactly who I was. The more time I spent as Lila, the less certain I became that I knew myself anymore at all.
“Think you can handle another hour?” said Knox, crossing his arms over his broad chest.
“One more hour,” I muttered, trying to shove aside my frustration. Knox was right; I’d known exactly what I’d agreed to, and playing nice with the Ministers was part of it. “But Benjy gets to stay with me tonight after the meeting.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You know the risks.”
“I’ll pretend I’m staying in your suite. You can tell everyone we had the best sex of your life—”
“It would probably be the worst.”
I kicked his shin with my heel. “You’re a jerk tonight.”
He swore and rubbed his leg. “And you’re going to get you and your boyfriend killed if you don’t—”
The doorknob rattled, and without warning, Knox pinned me to the wall. His fingers tangled in my straw-colored hair, and his lips found mine as he kissed me with burning hunger I couldn’t escape. I didn’t fight him. Better to be forced to kiss him every once in a while than to have someone catch us talking about my real identity—or worse, the rebellion against the government that we were leading together.
The door opened, and I broke away from Knox, trying my best to look embarrassed. “If you don’t mind, we’re sort of busy—”
I stopped, and all the air left my lungs. Even after two months of coming face-to-face with him on nearly a daily basis, Prime Minister Daxton Hart never failed to make my heart skip a beat. And not in a good way.
He loomed in the doorway, his bushy eyebrows raised in surprise. They were slowly going salt-and-pepper, matching his dark hair that was graying at the temples. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said in a smooth voice. “Lila, darling, your guests are anxiously awaiting your return.”
I held his stare. His dark eyes met mine, and for several seconds, neither of us blinked. Knox had no idea that the Prime Minister knew who I was. Daxton had kept his own secret masterfully, only tipping his hand at Augusta’s funeral in order to scare me into compliance. It hadn’t worked. This was our own private game of chicken, and I wasn’t going to be the first to blink.
“We’ll be along in a minute, sir,” said Knox. For a moment, I almost felt bad for him. He was the only one in the room who didn’t know what was really going on. I should’ve told him Daxton remembered everything—that should’ve been my first conversation after the funeral. But no matter how much I trusted him more than the others, I didn’t trust him completely, and I’d hesitated, focusing on rallying the people for the Blackcoats instead. Eventually time had passed, and I knew the fallout would be bad—the kind we would never recover from. So instead I’d selfishly held on to the truth as a trump card, to play when I needed it most. Or to never play at all.
Knox did know one thing, though: the secret that I had given up at the funeral, when I had brushed my fingertips against the VII on the back of Daxton’s neck and felt the V underneath. I wasn’t the only Hart who had been Masked. The only difference between us was that I still had my handler breathing down my neck. Now that Augusta was dead, the man pretending to be Prime Minister Daxton Hart had no one to stop him from doing whatever he wanted—including killing anyone who dared to step in his way. When everyone I cared about happened to be doing exactly that, it made things personal.
“One minute.” Daxton raised a finger in emphasis. “I would hate for you to miss your birthday surprise, Lila.”
I shuddered to think what he might have cooked up for me, but I forced a smile. “One minute.”
As soon as he shut the door, I leaned in to Knox’s ear and whispered, “How are we getting away for the meeting? He’s not going to let me out of his sight.”
“Leave that to me,” whispered Knox, and he winked. Backing away, he ran his fingers through his hair and smoothed his black shirt and trousers. I tugged on my short purple dress. Three months ago, I would have never believed I’d be allowed to touch silk, let alone wear silk dress after silk dress custom made for me. As nice as the wardrobe was—and the shoes, and the food, and the luxuries I could have never dreamed of as a III—it wasn’t worth risking my life pretending to be Lila, and it definitely wasn’t worth risking Benjy’s by dragging him along.
I swore. He was still waiting for me. “I’m supposed to meet Benjy for a minute—”
“You’ll see him after the meeting.” Knox tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “No matter how bad tonight is shaping up to be, don’t do anything stupid, Kitty. I mean it. Whatever brief flash of joy you get out of it won’t be worth being sent Elsewhere, and you know it.”
Yes, I did. “Benjy and I. All night in your suite.”
“All night, as long as I don’t have to hear you.” Knox smirked and opened the door. A round of applause met us as we walked arm in arm back into the throng of VIs, and several people I didn’t recognize descended upon us, drinks in hand. I steeled myself for another round of pointless small talk. I’d long since stopped trying to remember names. Lila wouldn’t have bothered, and I wasn’t about to make the effort when all they wanted out of me was the power behind my VII. If only they knew what lay underneath it.
“Do you want another drink?” said Knox, even though I still held my full champagne flute. I shook my head.
“But if you can get me one of those puff pastry things—”
Bang.
A shot rang out, and in an instant, my mind went blank. All I could see was crimson against white, a stark contrast that wouldn’t go away no matter how much I tried to block it out.
Bang.
The sight of Augusta’s body going limp, and blood pooling around her on the carpet.
Bang.
The cold metal of a gun in my hands as I squeezed the trigger again and again, knowing that if I didn’t, Augusta would kill Benjy.
Bang.
“Lila—Lila.”
Knox’s voice filtered through the haze toward me. I cracked open my eyes. Even though he hovered only a few inches away from me, he seemed far off, and his face was blurry. I sensed others lurking nearby, but the dull roar in my ears made it impossible for me to hear what they were saying.
“They’re just fireworks,” said Knox, his breath warm against my cheek as his hands gripped my shoulders. Cold seeped through my dress from the marble underneath me, and it took me a moment to realize I was on the floor. “See? Look over there.”
I twisted around as another bang went off. Reflexively I ducked again, but Knox’s hands remained steady. Bright bursts of color filled the grand ballroom, and I had to blink several times before my vision cleared enough for me to make out each one through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Fireworks. Just fireworks. Not gunshots. No one was in any danger, except for Knox if he didn’t get his hands off me.
“I’m fine,” I mumbled, shoving him away. He took a step back, and it was then that I noticed the group of people who had formed a tight circle around us. Each of them stared openly, ignoring the display and instead paying attention to me. Terrific. Not only had I broken down, but I’d done so in front of the country’s highest and mightiest. “I—” I began, wracking my muddled mind for an excuse, but a familiar voice rang through the crowd, cutting me off.
“Lila!”
Benjy burst out from between Minister Bradley and his slack-jawed daughter, and he slid across the floor, kneeling beside me. As soon as I felt his warmth, the knot in my chest began to loosen.
“Are you all right? You were screaming.” His blue eyes were wide and anxious, and his short red hair was disheveled. He reached out to touch my face the same way Knox had, but his hand stopped an inch away. Too many people were staring at us, and no matter how concerned he was, he couldn’t give me away. He couldn’t give us away.
“I’m fine, I promise,” I said again. My cheeks burned, and I pushed myself to my feet, ignoring the way my knees shook. Birthday party or not, I had to get out of here. “I just—I just forgot to eat, that’s all.”
“Back up,” said Knox to the crowd, and he began to corral them away. “Give her some air. Benjy, take her to my suite. I’ll be there in a moment.”
Benjy tucked his arm around me, and I shot Knox a grateful look. Aware of everyone staring at us, I allowed Benjy to lead me to the exit as the bang of fireworks echoed from the garden. Each one sent a shiver down my spine.
This wasn’t normal. I’d never reacted this way before, and it’d been weeks since I’d killed Augusta. It wasn’t as if I’d done it in cold blood. She’d had it coming, after what she’d done to me and Benjy—after what she’d done to her own family, trying to kill her daughter and granddaughter—but apparently my conscience wasn’t interested in listening to reason.
Nor did I have any ends to justify my means. Killing Augusta hadn’t done me any favors—it had only removed Daxton’s leash completely, leaving all of us in grave danger. And that, I thought, was the worst part of all. I’d saved Benjy’s life in the short term by pulling that trigger, but in the long term, we were both one whim away from death.
Daxton stood waiting for us by the double doors, his arms crossed as he regarded me with a look of mock concern. “I’m so very sorry, my dear,” he said, reaching out to take my free hand. I made a point of wiping my sweaty palm against his. “I wasn’t thinking. After all you’ve been through...”
“I’m fine,” I said for a third time. “I just need to sit down.”
“I’m sure your...friend will be willing to help you with that.” He eyed Benjy up and down, and red-hot anger shot through me. Augusta may have been the power behind the throne, but Daxton was still the snake who sat on it.
Benjy cleared his throat. “Knox asked me to help her,” he said. “I’ll be down after.”
“Take your time, boy,” said Daxton, and he shifted his gaze to me. “The most important thing is that dear Lila’s all right.”
His slimy voice followed me even after Benjy and I walked away. I could feel his stare lingering on us, and though my knees still shook, I forced myself to walk faster toward the elevator. As soon as we were inside and the door closed, I let out a breath and turned into Benjy, hugging him tightly and burying my face in his chest.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice muffled by his shirt. “I don’t know what happened.”
He wrapped his arms around me protectively, rubbing circles on my back, and the heat of his body warmed me from the inside out. If I could have stayed like this for the rest of my life, I would have. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Those fireworks scared me, too.”
“Leave it to Daxton to figure out a way to terrorize me at my own birthday party,” I grumbled. “How long do you think we’ll have before Knox comes looking for us?”
“Not long enough,” he said, and I sighed. It was never long enough.
The doors slid open, and together Benjy and I headed into the fourth floor wing. My suite was down the hall from Knox’s, and I would have given anything to drag Benjy inside and disappear for the rest of the night. But the party wasn’t the only thing happening tonight, and I wouldn’t have missed another Blackcoat meeting for anything. I was already behind enough—immediately after Augusta had died, Knox and the Blackcoats had seized the opportunity and sent me around to several cities across the country to rally supporters while Daxton was still too busy recovering to pay close attention. Denver, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles—I’d traveled for over a week, and by the time I’d returned, everything within the Blackcoats had shifted. Lila and her mother—Daxton’s sister, Celia—had gone underground to hide, leaving Knox in control. Even now, weeks later, I was still catching up on the plans they’d come up with while I’d been away. I couldn’t miss anything else.
The lights in Knox’s suite turned on automatically as we stepped into the sitting room. Even though my knees had stopped shaking by now, I let Benjy help me to the couch, eager for as much contact as we could get before Knox returned. It had been days since I’d been able to steal as much as a simple hug from Benjy, who, as a legitimate VI, had earned his place as Knox’s assistant. But with Knox constantly hovering over us, raising an eyebrow each time I so much as dared to smile at Benjy, it was next to impossible to find any time to just be with him. And that, above all else, was what I missed about my old life.
“I’m sorry I didn’t find you earlier,” I said, tucking my legs underneath me on the sofa. The navy leather was cool against my skin, and after spending hours in the sweltering ballroom, I welcomed it.
“Don’t be. It isn’t your fault.” Benjy sat beside me and draped his arm over my shoulder, and I wasted no time curling up against him. “I nearly punched Minister Bradley for the way he was looking at you, though.”
I grinned. “That would have made the whole thing infinitely more interesting.”
“Until I was sent Elsewhere,” he said. “Then it wouldn’t have been as funny.”
My smile vanished. I touched his cheek, turning his head until he was facing me. “You know I won’t let that happen, right? No one’s going to hurt you, not while I have something to say about it.”
“I’m not the one you should be worried about.” His gaze met mine, and he leaned in slowly until his breath was warm against my skin. “Promise me you won’t take any more chances, Kitty. What happened tonight—”
“I couldn’t help it,” I said. “I didn’t even know what was happening until it was over.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” he said softly. “I overheard what you said to Knox. You’re doing this for the right reasons, all right? I know it’s hard sometimes—”
“You have no idea.” My face grew hot, and frustration boiled inside me, threatening to burst the last ounce of self-control I had left. “Having to be someone else all the time—never getting to be me anymore, having my every move watched... I’m losing myself, Benjy. Sometimes I look in the mirror and forget this isn’t my real face. And sometimes—sometimes I feel like Kitty Doe died, and even if Knox lets me walk away from this tomorrow, I’ll never find her again.”
Heavy silence settled over us, and Benjy’s gaze bore into mine as he traced my lower lip. Lila’s lower lip. “She didn’t die,” he whispered. “I see her every time I look at you. You are vivacious, and no one—not even Lila Hart—will ever drown you out. I don’t care what you look like. The real you will never fade.”
He had no idea how badly I needed to hear that right now—or maybe he did, and that was exactly why he’d said it. I slowly gravitated toward him, my entire body aching to be as close to him as possible. But before I could kiss him, he shifted and slipped his hand into his suit pocket.
“I almost forgot—I made you a birthday present,” he said, and I sat back, disappointment washing over me.
“It isn’t my birthday,” I said. “It’s Lila’s.”
“Then consider this a belated birthday present. Or an early one. Whichever you’d like.” From his pocket he pulled a white cloth napkin, the sort that had been folded into peacocks around the buffet. He’d refolded it into a simple square, and I raised an eyebrow.
“It’s...lovely,” I said. “Thanks?”
He laughed, a deep, throaty sound I would never get tired of hearing. “Open it.”
I unfolded the napkin, and my eyes widened. On the inside was a simple ink drawing of a house on a lake. Sitting in a field beside the lake were two stick figures—one with long hair, and one with Benjy’s freckles. They cuddled together as the sun shone down on them, and a lump formed in my throat.
“I can’t make this better right now,” said Benjy, “but I can promise that it will be one day. We’ll have our cottage in the woods, or our cabin on the beach—whatever you want. I’ll go anywhere as long as you promise you’ll be there with me. I’m going to spend my life with you, Kitty, and I don’t care if the entire country tries to stop us. You’re my future. It’s always been you for me, and it always will be.”
Finally he closed the distance between us and kissed me—a sweet, gentle kiss that held within it every single one of the thousand days I’d loved him as my everything, long after I’d begun to love him as a friend. I shifted into his lap, not caring whether or not someone could walk in at any moment and see us. I needed this. And after all we’d been through together, Benjy and I both deserved this.
He wrapped his arm around me again, safe and secure as I ran my fingers through his hair. He tasted like home. Like everything I missed about my old life, where we would spend the evening curled up together as he read to me. We would never have those moments again, but as soon as we were free of this place, we could make new ones. I’d spent so much of my time worrying about the present, worrying about being Lila, that I’d never let myself stop and think about what my future might hold. It seemed almost like asking too much—like I was challenging the universe by thinking about a life with Benjy as far away from the Harts as possible.
But Benjy had always been an optimist. He’d always seen good in the world where I wasn’t so sure it existed. And this kernel of hope, this ink on cloth, was exactly the future I wanted. I knew in that moment, as I deepened the kiss between us, that I would do whatever it took to get it.
“Kitty,” he whispered, breaking away long enough to glance anxiously at the door. “We shouldn’t be—”
“I am so sick of being told what I should and shouldn’t do,” I murmured. “Everything will be fine. Trust me. Knox agreed to let me stay in here tonight. He’s pretending I’m sleeping in his room, but he’s going to let us have the night together.”
Benjy’s gaze snapped back to me. “You mean—?”
I nodded. “I think it’s about time, don’t you?”
Even though we’d been together for years, finding a moment alone in a group home with thirty-eight other kids hadn’t exactly been easy, and neither of us had wanted it to be rushed. Now that we were both seventeen, I was Lila Hart, and Benjy was my fiancé’s assistant. It was dangerous, but behind closed doors, with Knox willing to cover for us—we would finally have that freedom. I wasn’t wasting it.
“The wedding’s less than a month away,” I said. “We might not have another chance before then, not like this. And I’ll be damned if I’m marrying Knox without showing you exactly how much I love you.”
Benjy blinked, looking torn between eagerness and confusion. “Is that why you want to do this? So Knox isn’t—”
“If he thinks I’m ever letting him touch me no matter how married we are, he’s going to lose his hand,” I said. “I want to do this, Benjy. More than anything. If you don’t, we can wait, but—”
“I want to.” He sounded breathless, and he pressed his lips together, his eyes locked on mine. “Like you said, more than anything. I love you. I just don’t want Knox to be the reason you’re doing this.”
“He’s not, and he never will be.” I brushed my lips against his again. “You’re the only reason I need.”
“Ahem.”
I sprang apart from Benjy, my heart racing. Knox stood framed in the doorway, his arms crossed and his brow furrowed. “Ever heard of knocking?” I said, glaring at him.
“Considering it’s my suite, no.” He pushed off the wall and closed the door. “If you keep this up, it’ll only be a matter of time before someone catches you. I won’t be able to protect you then.”
“So I’ll tell them the truth—sometimes a girl just needs to be kissed instead of slobbered on.” I tucked Benjy’s drawing into the pocket of my dress. “Is the party over already?”
“No, but I couldn’t very well stay down there while my fiancée was ill upstairs. Speaking of, how do you feel?”
“Better,” I said, doing my best to look like nothing was bothering me at all. “When are we going?”
“We are not going anywhere.” Knox moved to his desk and bent down to touch the screen. “I am leaving now.”
“What? But—”
“Do you really think I’m going to let you come, after what just happened down there?” said Knox. “You need your rest.”
“That wasn’t my fault.”
He straightened. “Fainting aside, you’re having a bad day, and the last thing you need is a long night. The last thing I need is to worry about whether or not you’re holding up all right.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “Knox, please. We’re in this together. You said so yourself—”
“And right now that means I have to look out for you and your health. You’re exhausted. Your temper’s shorter than it’s ever been. Look at you—you’re practically shaking. You’re a liability, Kitty, and tonight is too important for me to take that kind of risk. I’ll fill you in when I get back, but right now, I need to go.”
I gaped at him. “You can’t just cut me out like this—”
“I’m not cutting you out,” he said steadily, but there was an edge of impatience to his voice. “It’s one meeting.”
“I’ve already missed three because of the speeches.”
“There will be plenty of others,” said Knox. “And look on the bright side—you’ll have even more time to spend with Benjy.”
Tempting as it was, staying behind meant missing the entire reason I had agreed to put up with this and people like Minister Bradley in the first place. I would have the rest of the night to be alone with Benjy—right now, I wanted to be a Blackcoat. I wanted to do what I was here to do: be the voice of a rebellion that, if successful, would mean Benjy and I would one day have that cottage by the lake. It would mean never looking over our shoulders again, worried someone might see us and catch on to who I really was. It would mean being Kitty Doe again instead of Lila Hart. It would mean finding myself and being the person Benjy saw when he looked at me. The more meetings I missed, the more excuses Knox would have to dismiss my opinions and push me aside. I was here to fight. Not to be his prop or his mouthpiece. And no matter how much he insisted I wasn’t, everything he had done that evening had said otherwise.
I cast a frustrated look at Benjy, and he slipped his hand into mine, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
“It’s probably better if you relax tonight,” he said. “I think you’ll like this new book I bought the other day. I’ll read some of it to you, if you’d like.”
“Enjoy some time with your boyfriend, Kitty,” said Knox. “I’ll be back soon enough. If anyone checks on us, tell them I’m in the shower.”
“Yeah, taking a cold one,” I grumbled. He didn’t rise to the bait, and instead he disappeared into his closet and up through the secret passageway that lay behind it. He’d shown it to me one of my first nights in Somerset, and it was the only safe way we had of leaving the property undetected.
As soon as he shut the door, I stood. “I’m going after him,” I said, tugging down the hem of my dress. Not the outfit I would have chosen, but I didn’t have time to change. “Cover for me.”
Benjy stood as well, reaching out as if to stop me. “Kitty, you heard him—”
I twisted away from his grip. “If it wasn’t for him, we’d have this by now.” I gestured to the napkin sticking out of my dress pocket. “We wouldn’t have to worry about the Harts or the wedding or fireworks driving me crazy. We’d be happy, and we’d never have to think about this nightmare again. Instead, Knox asked me to stay, and I did. Not for him, not for Lila, not for the parties or the jewelry or the private planes, but because of this.” I jabbed my finger toward the closet. “If I’m not there, then what’s the point of doing any of this anymore? I’m not his property, and he doesn’t control me. I’m not letting him leave me behind.”
Benjy sighed, but at least he didn’t argue. “Then I’ll go with you.”
“Someone has to stay behind and make sure no one finds out we’re gone,” I said. He opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him off. “Please, Benjy. It’ll be safer if it’s just me anyway.”
He gritted his teeth, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “Okay. Just—be careful. And here, take this.”
He shrugged off his suit jacket and draped it over my shoulders. I slipped my arms inside the sleeves, the fabric warm from his body. “Thanks,” I said, softening. “Make sure no one discovers we’re gone, all right?”
“I’m sure I’ll figure something out,” said Benjy, scowling. I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him.
“I love you. When I get back, I’m yours for the rest of the night. Okay?”
He nodded, and without giving him another chance to talk me out of it, I stepped inside the closet. Knox may have thought he owned Lila, but I wasn’t her. Tonight, I was Kitty Doe again, and I wasn’t going down without a fight.
II MIDNIGHT MEETING (#ulink_5683a0e5-dc5c-5ce7-aa8e-f797b56c7fb2)
The passageway above the fourth floor was as dusty and dirty as ever. Without a flashlight, I was plunged into darkness, and even after my eyes adjusted to what little moonlight filtered in, I couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of me. Cobwebs caught my hair and cheeks, and once I thought I felt a spider running down the back of my dress, but I forced myself to stay calm and move forward. I’d taken this route a dozen times before. I could do this.
At last I found the staircase that led downward, and from then on out, it was only a matter of not tripping. The heels I wore made that more difficult than it should have been, and twice I had to catch myself on the wooden bannister. By the time the creaky steps turned into the dirt tunnel underneath the grounds of Somerset, I’d collected two splinters in my palm, and I was fervently wishing I’d stopped long enough to grab a pair of boots.
The tunnel was pitch-black. I ran a hand across the dirt wall to guide me, keeping my ears peeled for any sign of Knox. But I would have seen the light from his flashlight if he was still in the tunnel, and satisfied that I was alone, I picked up the pace. I had no guarantee I’d be able to slip into the bunker undetected. By now the guards knew me, but I didn’t have the codes, and I’d have to catch up to Knox if I wanted access. Even then, it was entirely possible he’d tell me to go home, though if he thought I would listen after his little speech in the suite—
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
A hand clamped over my wrist, tugging me away from the wall, and I swore loudly enough that they probably heard it back in Somerset. Yanking my arm away, I thrashed wildly in the darkness. “Let—me—go!”
Light flooded the tunnel, and Knox stood with his free hand still wrapped bruisingly around my wrist. “Not until you answer my question.”
“I will kick you again,” I said, squinting against the brightness.
“Still not an answer.”
I scowled. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
His eyes narrowed, and for a long moment, we stood face-to-face, both waiting for the other to back down. Neither of us did.
“Do you understand how delicate this situation is?” said Knox. “If you and your aversion to obedience say the wrong word to the wrong person—”
“Maybe if you stopped acting like I’m an untrained dog and started treating me like a person who’s as much a part of this as you are, I’d stop pulling against your invisible leash,” I said. “I have every right to be there, and you know it. If you keep acting like I’m a liability—”
“I wouldn’t if you stopped being a liability.”
“—then I’ll leave,” I finished, ignoring him. “If I can’t work with the Blackcoats, then I don’t have any reason to be here anymore.”
“Oh?” Knox arched an eyebrow. “And where would you go?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m here because you asked me to be part of this, and I agreed, because it is the right thing to do. But this—leaving me behind, treating me like I’m incapable of making a right move without you—this isn’t what I signed up for. If you don’t let me go to that meeting, then I’ll disappear. I don’t care how many Shields you have searching for me. Scour the entire country. You will never find me.”
His brow furrowed, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “I asked you to stay because I thought you’d cooperate and help us. The more time I spend chasing after you and cleaning up your messes, the less time I have to focus on the rebellion. Do you understand?”
“The more you treat me like a child, the more likely I’ll be to act like one,” I said calmly, keeping a tight rein on the anger boiling inside me. I wasn’t about to give him any reason to dismiss me. “Do you understand?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Fine. You start behaving, and I’ll start trusting you.”
“Good. Now let go of me.”
Knox released my wrist, and I rubbed it, hoping it didn’t bruise. Purple would be hard to hide against Lila’s porcelain skin.
“Come on, we’re going to be late,” he said, and he led me down the dirt tunnel, the beam of light swinging with each hurried step. “Celia and Lila are supposed to be there tonight, which means you have to watch what you say, all right?”
“Watch what I say about what?” I said, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other without stumbling.
“They still don’t know Daxton’s an impostor,” he said. “No one does.”
I blinked. “Wait—you mean you haven’t told any of the Blackcoats?”
“Of course not. One of them will inevitably leak the information to Celia, and as soon as she finds out, she’ll storm Somerset and throw our entire plan into jeopardy.”
I frowned. Celia, Lila’s mother and Daxton’s sister, was the reason so much of this had happened in the first place. After Daxton had brutally executed her husband, she’d created the Blackcoats, an underground army bent on seeing the Harts stripped of their power and the ranking system abolished for good in favor of the democracy on which America had been built. In the process, she’d used her only daughter, Lila, to captivate the crowds and ensure even more support from the higher ranks for her rebellion. Lila had been reluctant, though, and as the target on her back grew and word of her impending assassination reached their ears, she and Knox had formed a plan: fake her death and hide her underground, where Daxton would never find her. No one else, not even Celia, had known.
The only thing they hadn’t counted on was Daxton having someone else Masked to take Lila’s place—me. And as soon as they discovered what had happened, my education about the real horrors of the country had begun. They’d involved me in the Blackcoats’ plans ever since, and like hell was I giving up my chance to make a difference just because Knox said so.
But Knox had kept Celia in the dark about nearly everything. Even she hadn’t known about her daughter still being alive until she had kidnapped Greyson, Daxton’s son, in an attempt at retribution. She’d never wanted to harm him, but the Harts hadn’t known that, and in the process of rescuing him, they thought they’d killed Celia—and me, for that matter. Luckily for both of us, we’d survived.
While I had agreed to take Lila’s place on a more permanent basis, however, Celia had been forced underground. Not that I thought she minded, but Knox was right: if she found out Daxton wasn’t really Daxton after all and she—or Greyson—should have been ruling the country instead, she would have unleashed the Blackcoats on Somerset without a second thought. Or a cohesive plan in place.
“We have to tell Sampson and the others eventually,” I said. “If they know, maybe they can strategize—”
“It won’t matter,” said Knox as we reached the metal door that opened up to an abandoned alleyway. “They could try to out him, but the media is in Daxton’s pocket. Anyone who went to press with the news would be labeled a traitor and executed before sundown. No one should have to make that sacrifice for nothing.”
The cold December night made me shiver, even with Benjy’s jacket. But it wasn’t far to the bunker, and I hugged myself and toughed out the chill. “The Blackcoats don’t have contacts in the media?”
“Of course we do,” he said. “That doesn’t change the fact that it won’t make any difference. There are a million ways Daxton could spin it, and he’ll never let anyone close enough to prove it.”
“What about Greyson?” Daxton’s eighteen-year-old son was less than enthusiastic about following in his father’s footsteps, but even inexperienced, he would be infinitely better than Daxton.
Knox’s mouth formed a thin line, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders. Normally it would have been a sweet gesture, but tonight it felt more like a threat. “Do you want to see the masses go after him once the rebellion begins?”
“You mean it hasn’t already?” I said, but he didn’t answer. I bit my lip. Greyson was one of my only friends, and the last thing I wanted was for him to get caught in the cross fire.
We were meters from the bunker when Knox stopped and faced me, his dark eyes bearing into mine. “Listen to me, Kitty,” he said in a low, hurried voice. “Telling the others about Daxton doesn’t outweigh the risks of Celia finding out—and if the other Blackcoat leaders know, she will find out sooner rather than later. And what happens after that is anyone’s guess. Do you understand me?”
“But maybe one of them could think of a way to get the word out and turn Daxton’s supporters against him,” I said. “Too many people have already died—”
“Those people were willing to risk it,” said Knox. “We’re all willing to risk it.”
“I’m not willing to risk Benjy’s life,” I said. “He didn’t agree to any of this, and if there’s a war on Somerset, he’ll get caught in the middle.”
“I’ve already promised to protect you both—”
“You’re not a god, Knox,” I said. “You can’t guarantee we’ll both get out of this alive, and you know it. If we tell them, we could find a way to replace Daxton and have a revolution without anyone else dying—”
“There’s no such thing as a bloodless revolution.”
Knox’s voice cracked like a whip through the alleyway. He glanced around quickly, as if to reassure himself we were alone, and then leaned in close enough for me to smell the champagne on his breath. Not strong enough to knock me over, but it was a stark reminder of the evening we’d had.
“I’ve made you a lot of promises, Kitty, and I intend on keeping them. But I can’t do that if you second-guess every move I make and insist on being in the middle of everything. Do you want a rebellion, or do you want to keep things as they are? Because this isn’t a problem that a single bullet will solve. Even if we cut Daxton out of the picture, we still have the entire government to worry about—including all twelve Ministers of the Union, who will see a chance to seize power for themselves and do everything they can to make it happen. Daxton will be removed from his position one way or the other, but there are countless other steps we have to take in the meantime before we even consider putting that plan into action. People are going to die no matter what we do. Right now, all we can do is try our best to minimalize the casualties.”
Furrowing my brow as I digested everything he said, I crossed my arms to stop myself from shivering more than I already was. “I’m just saying there might be another way to do this.”
“If there was, we would have figured it out already.” Knox straightened. “Promise me you won’t bring up Daxton.”
“Promise me you’ll at least consider trying it my way.”
He scowled. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
He punched a nine-digit code into a small metal box, and a moment later, the door to the bunker opened. We stepped inside. A long concrete hallway stretched out in front of us, and the darkness obscured the high ceiling. I swallowed hard and tried not to think about what was up there, just out of sight: two dozen guards, each with a rifle pointed directly at us.
Guilty until proven innocent. That was how it was for the government, and that was how it was for the Blackcoats. Knox could talk about a rebellion and change until he was blue in the face, but as I followed him through the corridor, my head down and Benjy’s jacket clutched around my shoulders, I began to wonder whether or not anything would really change if the Blackcoats succeeded. I believed in freedom and democracy with everything I was, but if Celia and Knox won the rebellion, the people would still be under the rule of the Hart family. In the end, how many lives would really change for the better?
I pressed my lips together. The Blackcoats weren’t perfect, but they were fighting for the rights of the people—the same rights Daxton Hart and the twelve Ministers of the Union took pleasure in denying them. As I watched Knox punch in another code at the end of the dark corridor, the day of my testing flashed through my mind, and cold fear prickled down my spine, a ghost of a life that was slowly slipping away from me with each day that passed. I knew what it was like to be one of them. I knew what it was like to wake up every morning wondering if today would be the day I ran across a Shield in a bad mood, and he would drag me into the street and shoot me in the head just because he had a gun and I didn’t. I knew what it was like to watch it happen to others and worry I was next. And I knew what it was like to consider the possibility that maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world after all.
It was preferable to the alternative: being sent Elsewhere, a place that, until two months ago, I had deluded myself into thinking was some kind of summer camp for criminals, the elderly, and those deemed unfit for society. Daxton had cleared that up for me my first day as Lila, when he’d taken me hunting in a lush forest. We hadn’t been hunting deer or quail, though. We’d been hunting humans.
That was why I was doing this. Not for the people who wanted to keep their heads down and live as happily as their ranks allowed, but for the people whose lives didn’t belong to them anymore. For the people who saw what this world was really like and had no way of escaping it.
Knox led me through a twisting hallway full of armories and colorless bunks, where refugees and members of the Blackcoats stayed. The heart of the bunker was set in the center, where roughly a dozen people had gathered on ratty and worn chairs and couches, each poring over papers I knew would be burned once the meeting ended. Several heads raised when Knox and I joined them, and a few of them even waved. Knox didn’t wave back.
I watched them closely. Most were decades older than me, their faces lined by age and stress. A handful looked to be in their twenties, but even they seemed weighed down. My heart sank. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t good.
In the center of the ragtag group sat an officer wearing a black-and-silver uniform. Sampson, a high-ranking member of the Shields, and one of the leaders of the Blackcoats. I’d only met him a few times, but as I found a place at the edge of the group, he offered me a warm smile. I smiled back.
“Well?” said Knox impatiently. “What happened?”
Sampson’s smile faded. “The raid failed.”
Knox swore loudly. “How? We had everything planned down to the last detail—”
“Celia found out right before it happened,” said Sampson. “She changed the plan.”
Silence. Slowly Knox’s face went from pink to red to purple. Not once in the past few months, not even when I’d been at my worst, had I ever seen him turn those colors.
It was then that I noticed Celia and Lila were missing, despite Knox’s assumptions that they’d be there tonight. Was this why? Was Celia avoiding him? Or had she been uninvited from her own rebellion?
“You know not to listen to Celia without going through me first,” said Knox in a low, dangerous voice. “No matter what she says—”
“Her ideas weren’t bad,” said Sampson. Even he seemed to shrink under Knox’s glare. “And what was I supposed to do? Say you’d taken over her own army?”
“You should have protected our people.” Knox slammed his fist into a worn wooden coffee table, and half the group jumped. I dug my nails into my palms. “Days—that’s how long we have. Days, Sampson. We needed those supplies. Celia doesn’t have the military knowledge or experience—”
“And you do?” snapped Sampson.
“I’m not some spoiled VII who’s never had to work for anything a day in her entire life,” said Knox.
Before I could stop myself, I snorted.
All eyes turned toward me. My face grew warm, but it was Knox’s stare that made me feel as if I were about to spontaneously combust.
“Did you have something to say, Kitty?” he said. His voice slithered through me, turning my blood to ice.
I should have kept my mouth shut. After everything that had happened that evening, the last thing I should’ve done was add fuel to the fire that was Knox’s temper, but something inside me broke. “If you’re going to rag on Celia for inheriting her VII, then at least acknowledge you had your VI handed to you, too. We all know your father’s title will pass to you one day, and it wouldn’t do to have the next Minister of Ranking with a IV or a V, would it?”
As I repeated the very words he’d said to me when he’d first told me he’d never taken the test, Knox’s face drained of all color, and the silence around us turned deafening. “If you have a problem with any of this, then there’s the door,” he said in a deceptively even voice. But the dark look in his eyes offered me a single promise: if I walked out of there, I would never be allowed back.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” I sucked in a deep breath. I didn’t owe him an apology for defending Celia, not when he was acting like this. “I’m just saying, we’re here because none of us believes in the rank system in the first place. You have every right to be upset with her, but don’t drag Celia down based on her rank. It only makes you look like a hypocrite when your VI is as good as my VII.”
“Perhaps so,” said Knox coldly, “but between us, I’m the one who could earn my VI if I had to, while you’re the one who earned a III.”
My mouth dropped open, and his words twisted in my chest like a knife. No matter how bad a mood he was in, no matter how rebellious I was feeling, he had never used my III against me before.
Guilt flashed across his face. He knew what he’d said, but he made no move to apologize. We stared at one another as the seconds passed. My hands tightened into fists, and the edges of my vision went dark as I tried to figure out what to say. He was right, of course—I’d earned my lowly III, but not because I wasn’t smart. I couldn’t read anything more than my name, and I’d had to take the test orally, which had resulted in me never getting the chance to finish it. If I had—maybe I’d be a VI, like Benjy. Maybe Daxton would have never hunted me down, and maybe my life would be completely different.
But I couldn’t live off of maybes, and neither could Knox. He might have thought he was the smartest person in the room, but that didn’t mean the rest of us were worthless. That didn’t mean my opinion didn’t matter at all. And if this was what he really thought of me, then no matter what I said, no matter how many good ideas I had, he would never really listen to them. Why would he, when his VI was so superior to my III?
With my chin raised, I turned to face the others, pointedly ignoring Knox. Bad day or not, if this was how he was going to be, then screw him. “Daxton died last year, in the explosion that killed his wife and son.”
“Kitty—”
“He’s been Masked,” I added as if Knox hadn’t said a word. “The impostor is actually a V. I don’t know who he is or where he came from, but the real Daxton’s dead.”
Sampson looked back and forth between me and Knox, disbelief coloring his sharp features. “Is this true?”
Reluctantly Knox nodded, his jaw tight and his fists clenched. “Yes. I found out shortly after it happened. No one else knows, and it needs to stay that way. If Celia finds out—”
“We would all be marching on Somerset before the night was out,” said Sampson gravely. “But even if we cannot tell her, this changes everything, Knox.”
“We can’t go to the media. You know we can’t,” said Knox. “We’d be throwing away our contacts’ lives—”
“I’m not suggesting we do,” said Sampson. “I am, however, suggesting we discover who this man truly is. If we can find proof, we’ll have leverage against him. He knows the Shields won’t follow an impostor. The Ministers of the Union would revolt. We would have the ability to effectively strip him of his power completely and give the country something to unite against, all in one fell swoop.”
“Why don’t you just kill him?” I said. “Wouldn’t that solve everything?”
“We already tried that, remember?” said Sampson, eyebrow raised. I scowled.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I grumbled.
“Like what, Kitty?” said Knox. “Like if it wasn’t for you, this mess would’ve been over with months ago?”
I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood. I’d been the reason the assassination attempt hadn’t worked. I’d stupidly let Celia talk me into helping her out, and instead of giving Daxton the full dose, I’d chickened out and given him half. “Give me another syringe. I’ll kill him this time.”
Sampson shook his head. “We never approved an assassination in the first place. That was Celia’s idea.”
I glanced at Knox, but he wouldn’t meet my eye. Sanctioned by the Blackcoats or not, he’d been the one to supply Celia with the poison.
“There must be something we can do to get rid of this guy,” I said. “He’s one man. He’s not invincible.”
“You’re right, he is one man,” said Sampson. “And if by some miracle we managed to get around his heightened security and succeed, the government would live on without him. No one would ever know he was Masked. Right now, he’s more valuable to us alive as someone for the people to rally against. Dead, he’s a martyr, and we cannot instigate real change within order. We must take advantage of the chaos revealing his true identity would provide. Besides,” he added, leaning in closer to me, “Greyson is next in line, and he’s an unknown. A weak, inexperienced unknown at that. He would crumble under the pressure from the Ministers within days. Celia is far too unstable to take control of the country by herself right now, not to mention everyone thinks she’s dead. That leaves you, Kitty. Do you want to be Prime Minister?”
I frowned. “I’d rather go back to being a III.”
“Then, while I thank you for this additional insight, why don’t you let us try things our way for a while?”
I stared at my hands, fighting the instinct to keep arguing. Unlike Knox, Sampson wasn’t in a piss-poor mood, and I had to trust one of us knew what we were doing.
“So, what now?” said a woman with a scar running down the side of her face. “How are we going to figure out who the Daxton impostor is?”
“We get boots on the ground and dig,” said Sampson. “There must be a paper trail. Augusta wouldn’t have allowed a stranger into a position of power without having some leverage over him.”
“If it ever existed in the first place, Daxton would have made sure it was destroyed by now,” said Knox, his expression stormy.
“That would be the logical thing to do,” agreed Sampson. “We still have to look.”
“But the chances of any evidence still existing—”
“Kitty,” said Sampson, interrupting him. I snapped my head up. “If you had something to tie you back to your old life, would you keep it or destroy it?”
I blinked. It was a stupid question, but he had no way of knowing that. I clung to the things that made me feel like Kitty Doe as if my life depended on it. “I’d hold on to it,” I said. “I’d keep it secret, but I wouldn’t destroy it if it was the only evidence I’d ever existed in the first place.”
He gave me a small smile. “Exactly. If the impostor has found it, there’s a good chance he kept it. Knox, that’s where you come in. Do you think you can get close enough to find it?”
“I’ll try,” he said, lacing his fingers together so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
“You’ll do more than try. If we know who he is, that could give us enough power to make all the difference in this war. An armory isn’t always made up of guns and knives. Sometimes information is the most powerful weapon of all.”
Knox scowled deeply, but at last he said to Sampson, “If this gets me killed, I’m blaming you.”
But as he said it, his eyes met mine, and we both knew the truth: he would blame me instead.
III IMPOSTOR (#ulink_6d30c260-952b-5d6e-82e5-1c320df5da09)
The meeting dragged on for nearly an hour. They discussed plans for missions I didn’t understand, people whose names I didn’t recognize, and endless back and forth about whatever was due to go down in a few days. No one mentioned specifics; it was clear they had discussed the details at the meetings I’d missed, and I couldn’t decide whether to be offended they wouldn’t tell me now or to agree that they were making the right move not letting me know.
As badly as I wanted to be allowed in on things, Sampson and Knox were right. I didn’t know anything they didn’t. My role was to impersonate Lila and give their speeches to audiences around the country, as I’d done in the weeks after Augusta’s death. I wasn’t a soldier. I wasn’t a strategist. I wasn’t a politician. I was nothing more than the face I wore, a face that wasn’t even mine. As the minutes dragged on, I felt more and more like the little kid hanging around the group home with the big kids all over again, pretending to know what they were talking about as they sniggered into their hands and whispered behind my back. I was nothing but a hanger-on. And if there was one thing I hated, it was being useless.
After the meeting was over, Knox led me back into the dirt tunnel under Somerset without saying a word. I hadn’t tried to speak to him on the way out of the bunker, but now that we were alone without dozens of weapons pointed directly at us, the silence grew too loud to bear. It was my fault he had to risk his life now, all to find evidence we didn’t even know existed, and no matter how upset we both were with each other, I couldn’t shake the guilt that ate away at me.
“I’m sorry it turned out this way,” I said. “But they had a right to know.”
Knox said nothing. Instead he quickened his pace, and I had to all but jog to keep up.
“Knox—stop. Come on. They know how dangerous it is to tell Celia. They’ll keep it quiet.”
“If you had kept it quiet like we’d agreed, I wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place,” he snapped. They were the first words he’d said to me in an hour.
I gaped at the back of his head. “Maybe if you hadn’t been such a jerk, I wouldn’t have blurted it out. I’m more than just a III, and you know it.”
“Are you?” He stopped suddenly, and I nearly ran into him. “Because sometimes I’m not so sure, Kitty.”
I straightened to my full height, despite the blisters that had formed on my feet. “I don’t know what crawled up your ass and died, but whatever it is, stop taking it out on me. I’m sorry the raid failed, and I’m sorry for being a mess at the party, but I am not your punching bag.”
“Then what are you, Kitty?” He took a step nearer to me, swallowing up every last inch of distance between us. The heat from his body radiated to mine, and with him this close, I could barely breathe. “What the hell have you done to help? Every chance you get, you sabotage not only yourself, but me, too. Do you realize that if you fail, so do I? We’re supposed to get married in less than a month. Is this your plan? To have me killed just because you can’t keep yourself under control?”
“That won’t happen,” I said as evenly as I could. “Daxton wouldn’t hurt you to prove a point to me.”
“Oh? Why the hell do you think Celia’s husband was executed?”
I faltered. I had never heard many details about what had happened to Lila’s father, only that he had been publicly executed by firing squad in front of her and her mother. It had been why Lila had joined the Blackcoats and agreed to give her mother’s speeches, but other than that, her father and his death were mysteries to me.
“If you keep spiraling like this, then it’s only a matter of time before I can’t protect you and Benjy anymore,” said Knox. “Is that what you want?”
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “It’s been a rough night, all right?”
“It’s always going to be a rough night, Kitty. This is nothing compared to what’s coming. So stop acting like none of us deserves your cooperation, and start proving you’re more than that III on the back of your neck.”
“How? By blindly obeying you?” The words were out before I could stop them.
He surveyed me, his dark eyes bearing into mine. Leaning in close enough for me to feel his warm breath on my lips, he whispered, “Yes. It’ll be the smartest thing you’ve done in months.”
Fury ripped through me, tearing my guilt to shreds. “If I’m so useless to you, then why don’t you marry the real Lila instead?”
“Believe me, if Lila was willing, I would have never asked you to stay in the first place,” he said shortly. “At least she knows how to play the game.”
“Then do it,” I said coldly. “Because I’m done.”
I stepped around him and stormed ahead through the tunnel. He didn’t try to stop me, and that only spurred me on. I wouldn’t stay where I wasn’t wanted. I had a life to live that had nothing to do with him or the Harts, and if he was so convinced he would be better off without me, then I wasn’t going to sacrifice myself for him any longer.
Even from a distance, his flashlight was enough to help me see where I was going, and I reached the door into Somerset in record time. I dashed up the creaky wooden staircase and scampered across the ceiling, dropping back down into Knox’s closet with a thump. I didn’t care if anyone heard me. Let them. I’d be gone before they knew it.
“Benjy.” I burst into the living room and headed toward the door. “Pack a bag. We’re leaving.”
“What?” He sat up from his spot sprawled out across the couch, his red hair a mess and his eyes bleary. Apparently he’d been napping. “Where are we going?”
“Anywhere, as long as it isn’t here.”
“Kitty—wait.” He jumped up and crossed the room, catching up with me in only a few long strides. “What’s going on? I thought—”
“Knox doesn’t want me here, so I’m not wasting our time and risking our lives.”
He glanced uneasily at the open closet door. Knox would show up at any moment, but if he had a problem with this, too bad. If I wasn’t good enough for him, then he could find another Lila. “We don’t have anywhere to go,” said Benjy. “I know it’s dangerous here, but out there, with Shields hunting us down, we won’t last ten minutes.”
“Yes, we will,” I said firmly. “Sampson and the Blackcoats will help us.”
“Sampson and the Blackcoats will want you to go back so you can keep being Lila.” He touched my cheek. “Kitty, listen, I know it’s been a tough night—”
“It isn’t just tonight,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as possible despite the bubble of urgency rising inside me. “I need to get out of here, Benjy, and I’d rather be running from Shields than imprisoned by Blackcoats.”
“If we stay here, Knox can help us,” he said. “But if we leave—”
“Knox doesn’t want me here. You should’ve heard the things he just said to me, Benjy. He can’t stand me. He’d rather have the real Lila here than me. He thinks I’m a liability and that I can’t be trusted, and maybe—maybe he’s right.” The cold, hard truth of it settled over me until I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t just doing this for myself and Benjy. If I was gone, that was one less thing for Knox to worry about, too. “Please, Benjy. I know it isn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever suggested, but I can’t do this anymore. I want my own life. I want to be me again—I want to be us. And the longer we stay here, the more afraid I am that we’ll never both make it out of here alive.”
Benjy was silent for a long moment, running his fingers through my hair and staring at me without so much as blinking. At last he took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “Okay,” he said. “We’re in this together, even if that means making a monumental mistake.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Benjy. It won’t be a mistake.” I hoped. “Get your stuff. I’ll be back in a minute.”
I stood on my tiptoes to give him a quick kiss, and I could feel him watching me as I hurried out the door. It wasn’t fair for me to pull him from his life as a VI, one he’d earned on his own, but I’d meant what I’d said. The longer we stayed here, the better the chances were that one or both of us would wind up dead, and that, above all else, spurred me down the hallway toward my suite.
I opened the door and burst inside, only to stop short. My living room was an exact replica of Knox’s, except instead of navy and wood, mine was made entirely of white. The carpet had been replaced since Augusta had died in front of the fireplace, but I still couldn’t stomach looking at that spot. Unfortunately, right now, someone else was standing only inches away, staring directly at it.
“Greyson,” I said, surprised. I closed the door. “What’s going on?”
Greyson, Daxton’s son and Lila’s cousin, stood on the shag carpet in front of the fireplace, his hands tucked loosely in his pockets. He was tall, but the way he slouched made him look several inches shorter than he was, and his shaggy blond hair fell into his eyes. They were dark, like his father’s, and even though he was almost nineteen, he looked younger than me. If he hadn’t been my almost cousin, I would have thought he was cute, but I was too entrenched in Lila’s head to even think about that now.
“Sorry for intruding,” he said. “I tried knocking, but you weren’t here, so I thought I’d leave it, but then I got distracted, and...”
He trailed off. He didn’t have to say anything else. Other than Celia and Lila, who were now safely hidden in the Blackcoat bunker, Augusta had been the only real family Greyson had left. And I’d been the one to kill her.
“You got me something?” I said. The last time he’d brought me a gift, he’d done so thinking I was Lila. She had been his best friend, and it had taken him all of ten seconds to realize I wasn’t really her. His quiet acceptance, as if her supposed death had been inevitable, had nearly broken my heart. Worse, the perpetual haunted look in Greyson’s eyes never let me forget that I was one more constant reminder of his string of painful losses.
I touched the silver disk hanging from a chain around my neck, the same one he’d still given me even after figuring out I wasn’t Lila. It looked like nothing more than a pretty charm, but when pulled apart the right way, it was a lock pick that could open virtually any lock—including an electronic one. I should have given it to Lila when I found out she was still alive, but selfishly I’d hung on to it.
Greyson nodded, and from behind his back, he produced a small box wrapped in silver paper. “Happy Birthday.”
“You know it’s not really my birthday, right?” I said with a small smile. He shrugged, and my smile faded. Gift or not, he still hadn’t forgiven me for killing Augusta. I crossed the carpet and accepted the present. Unwrapping it carefully, mindful of the beautiful swirling paper, I cracked open the black box underneath, and my eyes widened.
Inside the box lay a gold picture frame with a labyrinth pattern carved into the edges. It wasn’t the frame that surprised me, though—it was the picture of Lila and Greyson inside. They sat together in the library buried in the heart of Somerset, and though Greyson held a book, he watched Lila out of the corner of his eye, a secret smile playing on his lips as he tried to see what she was drawing on her sketch pad.
No, not Lila’s sketch pad, I realized with a jolt. Mine. That girl wasn’t Lila—she was me.
I studied the look on Greyson’s face in the picture. He looked relaxed and happy—the kind of happy you couldn’t fake. “When...?”
“While Daxton was unconscious,” said Greyson. He cleared his throat, and his cheeks flushed. “Right before you saved my life.”
“I didn’t save your life,” I said. “It was never in any danger in the first place.”
He shrugged again. “I was going to tell Grandmother I didn’t want to be Prime Minister. I think she knew, but if I outright refused...” His Adam’s apple bobbed, and his eyes turned red. “Do you think she would have replaced me, too?”
Forgetting for a moment all that had happened and every reason he had for not wanting me anywhere near him, I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around him. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I do know she loved you more than anything, though.”
At first he didn’t move, but after several seconds, he finally returned my embrace, hugging me tight enough to bruise. “Because of who I am,” he managed, his voice breaking, “or because of who I was supposed to be once she decided to get rid of the impostor and make me Prime Minister instead?”
I couldn’t answer that. Maybe that was all Augusta had ever been—the kind of person who had no problem saying goodbye to the people she loved if it brought her more power. Or maybe that had been the armor she’d worn to protect her deepest vulnerabilities. I’d only ever seen the bad in her; it was Greyson who had seen the good, if there’d been any to begin with. “It doesn’t matter now,” I said. “Remember her the way you want, and try to forget the rest.”
His shoulders shook, and he clung to me the way I clung to Benjy in my worst moments. He had no one. His parents and older brother were dead; the man pretending to be his father was really a Masked stranger; Lila had disappeared underground; and Knox was so busy trying to change the world that half the time he didn’t have a second to spare for me, let alone Greyson. I was it, and whether or not he’d forgiven me for what I’d done to the last family he had left, his face in the picture had said it all. And I was going to walk away from him to save my own skin.
No, he would have Lila once the rebellion was over. She and Celia would return, and Greyson would have his family again. He wouldn’t have to be Prime Minister if he didn’t want to be, and in the end, everything would work out for him. If I wasn’t there to make sure of it, Knox would.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, pulling away after nearly a minute had passed. I started to tell him he had nothing to be sorry for, but he took the picture frame from me and fiddled with something on the back. “Here. This is what I wanted to show you.”
I took the frame back and blinked. Instead of Greyson and I sitting together in the library, it now held a picture of Benjy with his arms around a girl with a round face, dirty blond hair, and bright blue eyes.
My mouth dropped open. Once again, that girl was me—actually me, Kitty Doe, before I’d been Masked as Lila. Benjy’s shock of red hair was as vivid as ever, and he bent his head to kiss my cheek as I grinned ear to ear. Unlike the picture with Greyson, I remembered the moment this had been taken, almost a year ago. The brand-new sweater I wore gave it away. It had been our last Christmas together in the group home—the last one our matron, Nina, had seen before Daxton had hunted and killed her in the vast forests of Elsewhere.
I traced my old face over the glass. Everything about it was different now, and I would never look in the mirror and see Kitty Doe again. I almost hadn’t recognized myself, and seeing this picture now—the only one I had from before I’d been Masked as Lila—made my insides knot together. I’d had nothing then, only Benjy and the hope of a better future. That better future had turned into a III and a job cleaning sewers, and only the strange color of my eyes had saved me from a short, brutal life underground. If I forgot my own face so quickly, then what hope did I have of anyone else remembering it? I had been a nobody. I still was a nobody, but at least now I was a nobody who might be able to make a difference in the lives of the IIs and IIIs who hadn’t been lucky enough to have the same eye color as Lila Hart.
And here I was, about to run away from the only thing that made my life worth anything at all.
More than my guilt over leaving Greyson, more than my trepidation over dragging Benjy underground, that was what cracked my resolve. I would still leave—I had to, to save Benjy’s life, to save my own, and to give Knox a chance at seeing his plans through without me getting in the way. But I’d be damned if I wasted this chance to make the difference I’d risked my life for in the first place.
“How did you find this?” I said, still staring at the photograph. It had been less than a year since that moment, but it felt like another lifetime. Nothing was the same anymore, and nothing would be ever again.
Greyson shrugged. “I found it in Grandmother’s things with the others.”
“Others?” An idea began to form in my mind. If Greyson could find a picture of me, one I hadn’t even known existed, then Sampson must have been right—there had to be one of the real Daxton.
“She had an entire file on you,” he said. “Pictures, test results, your birth certificate—”
My head snapped up. “Birth certificate? Why would she have all of that?”
“I don’t know.” Greyson frowned. “I didn’t read everything, but there were reports on you, too—yearly ones, like she’d been keeping tabs on you. I thought you knew.”
I blinked. I’d had no idea. “Do you know where the file is now?”
“I don’t know. Daxton cleared everything out after she died.” His face fell. “I’m sorry, I should have saved it. I wasn’t thinking—”
“It’s okay,” I said hastily, my mind whirling as I clutched the picture frame. “Thank you—for this, for the frame, for everything.”
“’Course,” he mumbled. “There’s a switch on the back—here, like this.” He took it gingerly and pointed to a barely visible button. “Hold it down for five seconds, and it’ll change into you and Benjy. Press it again, just once, and it’ll change back to us.”
“Thanks.” I took the frame back and tried it. My face dissolved into Lila’s once more. Instead of being sorry to see me go, I was relieved. This was my life now. As much as I wanted to go back in time to last Christmas, all I could do was go forward. It was the only option any of us ever had.
Greyson shuffled his feet and shoved his hands into his pockets again. “You were really pretty before.”
“Thanks,” I said quietly. It didn’t matter, not anymore. I was stuck as Lila Hart for the rest of my life, however long or short it might be.
He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for—for being distant. You don’t deserve that.”
I did, though. “I get it. I’d be distant, too.”
Greyson jerked forward, as if he wanted to move toward me but had stopped himself at the last instant. “Grandmother—she deserved what she got. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at her for everything she did. She didn’t have to, but she did and...I’m sorry.”
For a second time, I hugged him tightly. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about, okay? You’re my friend. You’ll always be my friend, no matter where we are or what’s going on.”
“You, too,” he mumbled. “When this is all over and I’m—I’m Prime Minister, I’ll make sure you get to be that girl again, okay?”
A lump formed in my throat. “Okay.”
He let me go, and the smile on his face nearly made me forget how impossible his promise really was. I could never be Kitty Doe again, and if he ever had to be Prime Minister, it would mean only one thing: I had let him and the entire country down, and the Blackcoats had lost.
The way Greyson’s gaze lingered on me as we said our good-nights made it seem almost as if he knew tonight would be the last time we saw each other. I watched him leave, part of me aching to give him one last hug, and another part of me wishing I didn’t have to say goodbye at all. But I had no choice—I had to get Benjy out of there, and there was no more reason for me to stay. I wanted the future he had drawn on that napkin. I wanted the lake, the cottage, the sunshine, the happiness, and the only way I would ever have it was to get out of the line of fire before the war began.
I couldn’t leave yet, though—not until I found proof that Daxton was an impostor. I wasn’t useless. I wasn’t just a stupid III who was only good for cleaning sewers. I wasn’t going to make Knox put his neck on the chopping block because of me, and I wasn’t going to let the entire world come crashing down around Greyson, trapping him in a life he didn’t want the way Daxton and Knox had trapped me. He deserved better. We both did.
After I changed into the most durable outfit Lila owned—jeans, a thick sweater, a leather jacket, and a pair of boots I could actually walk in—I stuffed a duffel bag full of clothes, jewelry, small electronics, and anything we might be able to pawn for food and shelter until we found someplace more permanent. A single one of Lila’s bracelets was worth more than most IIs and IIIs made in a decade, and she had several jewelry boxes full of them. I would’ve felt guilty if I hadn’t known the Harts could replace them without batting an eye, but it was a fair price for stealing my life.
A knock on the door made me jump and drop a pearl earring into the bag. “Who is it?” I called, my heart racing. I shoved the duffel bag underneath the bathroom sink.
“It’s me.”
Knox. I scowled. “I’m busy.”
“I don’t care how busy you are—I need to talk to you.”
Damn. Knox must have caught Benjy packing, which meant he was here to stop me. I couldn’t let him try, not yet. Not when I didn’t know what he’d do to keep me here, and not when the Blackcoats needed that file. Knox wouldn’t stand a chance sneaking around Daxton’s office, but I did. “Fine,” I called. “I’m changing. Give me a minute.”
I looked around the living room frantically. How was I supposed to get past him when he was right outside the door?
Stupid question. My eyes fell on the ceiling in the corner of the room, where a grate led into a maze of metal tunnels that made up the ventilation system throughout the entire fourth level of Somerset. I’d used them to sneak around undetected before Augusta’s death, but I’d been forced to show my hand to Knox and Benjy, rendering my secret useless. Until now.
As quietly as I could, I pushed the end table underneath the vent. Using the shelves on the bookcase, I climbed up and pushed the grate out of place. It had been weeks since I’d done this, but before becoming Lila, I’d been an expert at sneaking in and out of tight spaces—namely the maze of sewers underneath the Heights, the poorest corner of the city. Somerset was less than twenty miles away, but they couldn’t have been more different.
I crawled through the metal vent, making sure to nudge the grate back into place. It wouldn’t take long for Knox to figure out what I’d done once he grew tired of waiting for me, but he was too big to follow, and he’d have no way of guessing where I was going. For now, all I could do was move as quickly as possible and hope to hell Daxton was asleep.
Fifteen minutes later, I peered down through the metal slats and into Daxton’s office. The lights were dim, and I could hear the distant trickling of water from the fountain near his doorway. The screen on his desk was dark, but I wouldn’t need it. If Greyson had dug up a photograph, there must have been more to find than a few computer files I wouldn’t be able to read anyway.
I dropped down into his office, wincing as my heavy combat boots thudded against the wooden floor. I stood still for the space of several heartbeats, waiting for a sign someone had heard me.
Silence.
Gliding across the floor, careful not to make another sound, I searched for anything that might have held a file Daxton wanted to keep hidden. His desk was the most obvious place, but when I tried to open the drawers, they were locked. Unclasping my necklace, I unfolded the lock pick and had each open within seconds; however, they held nothing more than official-looking papers I couldn’t read, all bearing the Hart family crest. In one, a half-empty bottle of what looked like whiskey sat hidden underneath a false bottom—the same kind I’d used to hide my few possessions at my group home—but no matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find anything that looked like it might have hidden the secrets to Daxton’s real identity.
I straightened and looked around. The walls of his large office were covered ceiling to floor in bookshelves, each one fuller than the last. The ones closest to the door looked neat and organized, as if they hadn’t been touched in years. The closer they got to the desk, however, the more disorganized and cluttered they became. Was it possible he’d hidden something in a book?
No—I wasn’t thinking about this the right way. Daxton would never leave something like that out where anyone could accidentally run across it. He would put it someplace hidden, but secure. Someplace no one would dare to look. Someplace only he would have access to.
Which meant it had to be in this office. After my little stunt trying to kill him, he was the only one with access, even though he pretended he’d lost the memory of that incident. No one else had been allowed in his office without his personal guards present, not even Greyson. This was his most private room in Somerset. If the evidence still existed, it was in here.
I began to touch everything. The chairs, the couches, the fireplace, the lamps, the end tables—nothing in the office got past my hands. But the harder I looked, the less confident I became. Just because I would have kept some sentimental token of my past didn’t mean he would. What if he really had destroyed it? Then what chance would the Blackcoats have of gaining the support of the Shields and the Ministers of the—
Click.
I stilled. My hand rested on the gold frame of the Hart family portrait painted a year earlier, before the deaths of the real Daxton, along with his wife and elder son. On the very edge, where the portrait met the wall, there was a sliver of space that hadn’t been there before. Underneath my thumb, I spotted a tiny button that blended in perfectly with the frame.
My heart sped up as I nudged the frame open. Surely enough, the massive portrait concealed a steel safe—or at least I thought it was a safe. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a square sheet of metal imbedded into the wall. There was no dial, no number pad, nothing.
I searched for any sign of how to open it, but once again, nothing. That made things difficult. Frowning, I brushed my fingertips against the metal, feeling for any slight indents that might give me a clue.
Instantly blue light appeared, forming a square in the center of the safe. I waited for something else to happen, but the blue square didn’t change. Did it want a handprint? No symbols had appeared, and a handprint was the only thing that would reasonably fit in that square.
It didn’t matter what it wanted. My handprint was Lila’s now, and somehow I doubted Daxton would have granted her access to whatever was inside the safe. I clasped my necklace so hard that it left indents in my palm. Time to see how good Greyson really was.
I passed the silver disk in front of the sensor and held my breath. If it didn’t work, would the sensor just ignore my attempt to break in, or would half of Somerset be alerted? I glanced at the opening in the ceiling. It would take me several precious seconds to scale the bookshelves and make it up there. If there were guards outside waiting, or if Daxton was anywhere nearby—
The light changed from blue to white, and to my astonishment, the safe popped open. Apparently Greyson was that good after all. I opened the door and, with trembling fingers, removed the collection of a dozen files inside.
Several of them were nothing but papers I couldn’t read and maps of places I had never been. Another was what looked like a report detailing the car explosion that had killed the real Daxton and his family, leaving Greyson alone. But as interesting as they might have been, it was the thickest folder that I cared about.
I flipped it open, and my real face greeted me with a smile. It was my school picture, clipped to a report card I couldn’t read. I must have been seven or eight—I still had freckles from staying out in the sun too long, and I was missing my front tooth.
Tearing my eyes away, I flipped through the other pictures. There were more than I could have ever imagined, detailing every important moment of my life, including what looked like the day I was born. I squinted at the typed pages that filled the folder to bursting, hoping in vain that the words would make sense for the first time in my life. But they remained a mystery, and the only clues I had were those pictures.
Some of them were noticeably older than the others, yellowing around the edges and slightly discolored. This wasn’t a file Augusta had compiled after I’d been Masked as Lila—she’d been keeping tabs on me throughout my entire life. But why?
I frowned. As badly as I wanted to know, I had another more important question right now, and I was holding the answer in my hands. There was only one file left I hadn’t looked through, and I opened the pages, careful not to touch whatever was inside.
It was slimmer than mine, but still full of the same things—papers I couldn’t read, what looked like a copy of the test everyone in the country had to take on their seventeenth birthday, and certificates I didn’t recognize. And at the bottom of the pile was a single photograph.
Two young men with light hair and dark eyes stood side by side, sporting carefree smiles I envied. They both wore black uniforms, and insignias on their lapels announced their high ranks. One of the men looked strangely familiar, but they both resembled one another in a way that only family could. Brothers? They had to be. They had the same nose, the same eyes, and the same dimpled chin, and the way they slung their arms around one another made it obvious they were more than comrades or patrol partners.
Which one had been Masked as Daxton? I glanced back and forth between them. Did I recognize the man on the left because I subconsciously associated him with Daxton, or had I seen him before? And the man on the right—he shared Daxton’s eyes, the only part of the human body doctors couldn’t modify to resemble someone else’s. Then again, they both did.
The soft sound of footsteps outside the door pulled me from my trance, and I snapped the folder shut and gathered the rest. As silently as I could, I tucked the unnecessary folders back into the safe and closed the portrait before climbing up the bookshelves toward the grate, my file and Daxton’s tucked securely in my arm.
Once I settled back in the ventilation system, I took a deep breath, my mind spinning. Benjy would tell me what was in my file. He would read it to me, and I would know within the hour what secrets Augusta had kept from me.
But if I went to Knox instead, it was the other file that would give me leverage. It could buy me a way to keep Benjy safe outside of Somerset. Something this valuable to the Blackcoats—it could be the ticket to everything we both wanted. I couldn’t change my past, but my future was wide-open. And I wanted it to be as far from D.C. as possible.
My mind made up, I crawled through the vent, pushing the files along in front of me. If Knox wanted to know who Daxton really was, then I hoped he was in the mood to bargain.
IV CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT (#ulink_68e0e679-b25d-58c7-a37f-db2c8b53b641)
By the time I dropped back into my suite, I held only my thick folder. It had taken me another twenty minutes to hide the fake Daxton’s file where no one would ever find it, not without my help, and the only way Knox was going to get it was if he helped me first.
Now that that was done, I turned to unlock the door that led out into the hallway, wondering if Knox was still standing there or if he’d given up and returned to his suite by now. Either way, we had to talk before I left, and I wasn’t going to wait until morning.
“You know you’re not supposed to crawl around the vents anymore.”
I jumped and whirled around, the folder nearly slipping from my grip. Knox sat in front of my fireplace, his dark eyes gleaming with annoyance and a glass of something I wasn’t so sure was water in his hand.
“Have you really been waiting this whole time?” I said casually as if this wasn’t weird at all. I crossed the room to Lila’s desk and set the file down.
Knox rose. “Where have you been, Kitty?” he said, a note of warning in his voice. “It’s been an hour.”
“Saving your cowardly ass, that’s where.”
“My ass is anything but cowardly,” he said as he approached, glass still in hand. I wrinkled my nose. Definitely not water. “What’s that?”
“This?” I opened the file and began to flip through it. “Oh, you know, nothing too much. Just my entire past.” I held up a picture of me at five years old. “Care to explain why Augusta had this?”
Knox furrowed his brow and snatched the file from the desk. A handful of pictures fluttered to the floor. “Where did you get this?”
“The same place I found Daxton’s file,” I said, bending down to pick up the photos. “Along with evidence of who he really is. You’re welcome.”
“I’m not thanking you.” A second later, the weight of what I’d said seemed to settle over him, and he stilled in the middle of rifling through the pages. “You have a file like this on the fake Daxton?”
I nodded. “There’s only one picture, but it has other documents that must have his name on them somewhere.”
“Where is it?”
“I’ll make you a deal,” I said. “Help Benjy and me get to the bunker safely, guarantee us the Blackcoats’ protection, and I’ll tell you where it is. After you tell me why Augusta has been watching me my whole life, of course.”
He moved closer, towering over me. “The Blackcoats need that file, Kitty.”
“And I need to get out of here before you decide I’m not worth the trouble and have me and Benjy killed,” I said. Shock flickered across his face, and his eyes widened as if he couldn’t believe I would ever think that poorly of him.
Good. Now he knew what it was like.
Knox’s expression quickly returned to a smooth mask of neutrality, and he stared at me. “You know I would never do that.”
“Do I? Because lately I’m not so sure. I’m a liability, remember?”
Silence settled over us for the better part of half a minute. Without responding, he flipped through the file, his gaze lingering on a picture of Benjy and me on his sixteenth birthday. I’d scooped a glob of green frosting from my piece of cake and wiped it onto the tip of his nose, and in retaliation, he’d kissed me, smearing some of it on my cheek. It was one of the most recent photographs in the collection.
“It’s a win-win situation for you,” I said. “Tell me what it says, and I’ll not only tell you where Daxton’s file is, but I’ll also be out of your hair permanently. You’ll never have to deal with me again.”
He sighed. “If this is because of what I said before—”
“This is because I have a right to make my own choices and know what’s going on in my own life, and I don’t trust you to tell me without incentive,” I said coolly.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “Why are you leaving, Kitty? You’re not only going to hurt yourself, but the rebellion, too. You’re no good to us locked in a bunker.”
“Apparently I’m no good to you anyway,” I said. “You don’t have to make this difficult, Knox. Just help me, and you’ll get your information. If you don’t want to, then I’ll have Benjy read the file to me instead, and the Blackcoats will never find Daxton’s folder without my help. I guarantee it. But one way or the other, I am leaving.”
He had no way of knowing that I had every intention of handing Daxton’s folder over to Sampson if he wouldn’t help me, but after all we’d been through, part of me desperately wanted to see a flicker of the old Knox again. The one who had believed I could be Lila when no one else would. The one who had treated me like I mattered.
His foot tapped impatiently, but at last he muttered, “Fine. All that’s in here are old report cards and progress reports from your matron.”
I exhaled. “Keep looking. There has to be something.”
Knox frowned, and his gaze shifted back to the pages inside the file. He flipped through them, reading the words I couldn’t. Page after page after page, with no flicker in his expression to give anything away. Slowly doubts began to creep into my mind. Maybe it was useless. Despite the obvious aging in several of the pictures and papers, maybe Augusta had found them after the fact and collected them inside the file.
Knox turned another page, and his foot stopped tapping. He stilled, and his eyes scanned the same document over and over. My heart leaped.
“What is it?” I said, craning my neck to try to see what he was looking at. A certificate of some sort—one with the official Hart seal on it. He pulled the file away before I could get a good look, but it wouldn’t have helped anyway. As always, the letters on the page looked like gibberish.
“Did anyone see you?” he said. The edge to his voice made me square my shoulders.
“Of course not. What does it say?”
He ignored my question. “Good. Now for the last time—where did you get this?”
“I’m not playing this game with you, Knox. What does that say?”
He slapped the folder down on the end table. “It’s the sad story of a girl who was born an Extra, got terrible grades in school, received a III after failing to complete her test, and then blew the opportunity of a lifetime to help not only herself, but the entire country just because she was too stubborn to cooperate. I don’t know how it ends, but at this point, I can virtually guarantee you that her sad life is going to be a short one if she keeps acting like this.”
“My sad life was always going to be a short one,” I said. “If you ever want Daxton’s file, you’re going to cut the bullshit and tell me what you read. Now.”
His eyes flickered to the left before locking on mine again. “A report on the operations they put you through to turn you into Lila. It took longer than I thought, that’s all. There’s nothing in there about why Augusta was watching you or why they chose you—just report cards and pictures.”
I set my jaw. He was lying. I’d never said anything about wanting to know why they’d chosen me to be Lila. I already knew the answer: our eyes were the same rare shade of blue. But with one slip of the tongue, Knox had told me there was more to it. And he had also told me I couldn’t trust him anymore.
We stood only inches apart, and he ducked his head, his lips brushing my ear. “Tell me where you got this, Kitty, before Daxton discovers it’s missing.”
“I’ll put it back,” I said.
“No, you won’t.” We both reached for the folder at the same time, but Knox, with his lightning-fast reflexes, snatched it up first. I glowered at him. “We both know you’re going to go straight to Benjy and make him read every page to you.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” I said. “If you’re telling the truth, then you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“I have plenty to worry about, especially if you found this where I think you did,” he said. “Is the other file there, too?”
I considered him for a long moment. “Yes,” I lied. “And if you let me put mine back, I’ll bring you Daxton’s.”
“Not a chance,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time before Daxton notices it’s missing, and I won’t have someone killed for your curiosity. You’re lucky Daxton doesn’t—”
He stopped suddenly, and his face went from red to pale to ashen in seconds as he flipped through the file again. I frowned. “What?” I said.
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “He knows you’re Masked,” said Knox. “If he hid this file after Augusta died, then he knows.”
“Oh.” I exhaled. “Right. He remembers everything that happened—that I was Masked, that I tried to kill him, that Celia was probably in on it...everything. He’s been lying the whole time.”
Knox clutched the file and closed it again, slower this time. “He remembers everything? All of it? How—” He clenched his jaw, and I could see the muscles shifting underneath his skin. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because—because after Augusta’s funeral, he touched the ridges on the back of my neck and made it obvious he knows everything. And—” I swallowed hard. “I might’ve touched his, too.”
The ridges below our tattoos were the only things that set us apart from the real Harts. My VII hid a III—my real rank. The fake Daxton’s VII hid a V, the rank he’d been before being Masked as the Prime Minister. They were the only evidence anyone had to prove we’d been Masked, and as Harts, we were lucky enough that no one would ever question our VIIs. Except each other.
Knox exhaled sharply and turned away from me. From the way his shoulders rose and fell, it was obvious he was trying to collect himself. At last he faced me again, his neutral expression barely hiding the rage lurking underneath.
“You didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell me this sooner?” he said, and I shrugged.
“What difference would it make?”
“It makes all the difference in the world.” His voice broke. “You have no idea—”
“So tell me,” I said. “Instead of treating me like a child and keeping secrets from me, why don’t you try trusting me instead?”
“Like you trusted me with this?” His expression grew dark. “Where did you find this file, Kitty?”
“I—”
“Where did you find it?”
I scowled. “Daxton’s office, behind the portrait. But you can’t just waltz in there in the middle of the night and—”
Before I could finish, Knox was already halfway out the door. Despite the heavy boots he wore, the plush carpet absorbed the sound of his footsteps, and I ran after him.
“Knox—wait. Wait.” I caught up to him and grabbed his elbow. “The other file, it—”
“You will stay here,” said Knox dangerously. “And you will never mention this to anyone, do you understand me?”
My mouth opened and shut. “What’s the big deal? It’s just a file.”
“And you stole it,” he said. “There was a reason I was the one assigned to this job and not you. I can read and gather all the relevant information without Daxton ever knowing we have it—and without ever knowing the Blackcoats have support in Somerset. Now, thanks to you, all of that’s in jeopardy. If he discovers you’re behind this, then he will figure out I’m helping you. Do you understand?”
“But—it doesn’t have to be you,” I said. “It could be anyone—”
“Who else? Benjy?”
All the air left my lungs, and I could feel the blood drain from my face, leaving my skin cold and clammy. “No. He doesn’t have anything to do with this, and you will not frame him—”
“If you get caught, then it’s either him or me,” said Knox. “Sometimes you have to sacrifice a pawn to win the game.”
“You won’t,” I said, rage surging through me. “If you try, I’ll tell Daxton everything. I don’t care if he kills me.”
“Then let’s both try to make it out of this alive,” said Knox coldly. “Stay here and let me fix this. I won’t tell you again.”
He walked away, his strides long and purposeful, and for a moment I considered not following him. All I had to do was grab the duffel bag I’d hidden and walk straight into Knox’s suite, and Benjy and I would be halfway across the city before Knox realized what we’d done. We’d be free.
I was two steps from the door before I stopped myself. We wouldn’t be free. We would never be free, not until Daxton was dead and Greyson—or Knox, or Celia, or whoever was in charge—gave me my life back. The Shields would hunt us until they found us, and if we were lucky, they’d kill us before Daxton had the chance to send us Elsewhere. There was no such thing as freedom, not in this country, and if Knox was serious about framing Benjy for his crimes, then there was no telling what Daxton might do to him for treason.
I had to know what Knox was doing. He’d kept me in the dark long enough—I couldn’t let him run the show, not this time.
My mind made up, I took off down the hallway, avoiding the corners where the guards were positioned. I ducked through the atrium and past the elevator, making sure I was below the railing so the guards couldn’t see me. My footsteps were as silent as Knox’s, and before long, I crouched a few rooms down from the entrance to Daxton’s suite. Two guards stood outside, both alert with their eyes straight forward. I swore inwardly.
I slipped through the nearest open door, into a dark sitting room meant for guests of the Prime Minister. Squinting, I peered into the corners, and relief washed over me when I spotted a vent.
Within seconds, I climbed onto an end table and pulled myself up. I had memorized the ventilation system when I’d first moved into Somerset, and it was only two quick turns to Daxton’s private living quarters.
I stilled, listening for any signs of life. In the distance, I picked up a soft murmur, but it was too far away for me to make out. Fear prickled in the base of my spine. If Daxton had caught Knox trying to replace my file...
Crawling as quickly as I dared, I made my way from room to room, searching for the source of the conversation. His bedroom and sitting rooms were empty; the same with his multiple guest rooms. At last I came to his office, and with a sinking heart, I situated myself over the vent. Two voices rose up to meet me: Daxton’s and Knox’s.
“...don’t care,” said Daxton, his tone clipped with annoyance. “I’ve given you far more chances than you deserve.”
“I’m not asking for another chance,” said Knox. His voice cracked, and he sounded like a cornered animal. “I’m asking you to look at the facts.”
“I am,” said Daxton, “and what I see is a long list of reasons why I should stop putting up with this foolishness. The files are only the beginning. My patience is wearing thin, Lennox, and though I am a peace-loving man, there are some things not even I can tolerate.”
Silence. I held my breath, waiting for Knox to respond, but instead something shifted through the grates. Daxton stood directly below me, his hands clasped behind his back. He was fully dressed, even though it had to be well into the small hours of the morning by now.
“This is my final offer. Take it or leave it, Lennox. I am no longer interested in babysitting, and she must be detained.”
She. My blood ran cold. They weren’t talking about Knox—they were talking about me.
“And what happens if I don’t take it?” said Knox. I began to slide backward. Detained meant one of two things: it meant Elsewhere, or it meant death. And Knox had promised me months ago that he would kill me before he would let Daxton send me to be hunted by the very VIs who would have happily watched Lila burn.
“You know what happens then,” said Daxton, his voice fading. I didn’t care. I had to get back to Benjy before they found me, and we had to leave. Free or not, I had every intention of waking up the next morning as alive as I was today.
Once I’d cleared the office, I didn’t bother trying to keep quiet. I crawled as fast as I could back to the sitting room, where I dropped to the floor and raced into the hallway. I took the corners half blind and oblivious, but once I was clear of Daxton’s wing, the guards were at a minimum.
I reached my suite in record time. Bursting inside, I grabbed the duffel bag from underneath the sink and ran back into the hallway. I tried the knob to Knox’s suite, but it was locked. Swearing, I fumbled with my necklace, yanking the chain over my head. My fingers trembled, but I managed to unfold the lock pick and make quick work of it.
I nudged open the door and tugged the necklace back around my neck. Benjy had to be packed by now. If he’d stuffed his bag full of books instead of clothes—
I stopped cold. Benjy stood in the middle of the room, but he wasn’t alone. Knox stood beside him, and at first glance, it looked completely innocent. Benjy was pale and his shoulders hunched defensively, however, and his expression silently begged me to turn around and run. I opened my mouth to say something, but instead I spotted the glint of steel pressed against Benjy’s spine, and my stomach nearly turned inside out.
“Knox—what—” I began, but a cold hand settled on my shoulder, and I froze.
“Hello, my dear,” said Daxton, and my throat swelled. Shit. Shit shit shit.
“What’s going on?” I managed to force out. “Is everything okay?”
“You know it isn’t, Lila,” he said, tracing the three ridges on the back of my neck. “Tell me where you put the file.”
“What—what file?” I locked eyes with Benjy, and my heart raced. It would be okay. It had to be okay. This was not going to be the end.
“You know exactly what file I’m talking about,” said Daxton. “Guards—check her bag and search her suite.”
Half a dozen guards appeared from the fringes of the room, and while five of them marched out into the hallway, the last one ripped through my bag. Jewelry glittering with diamonds spilled from the pockets, along with the clothes I’d stuffed inside. My airway threatened to close up. That alone was worth an arrest.
“Knox, tell him it wasn’t me,” I said, but he didn’t move. “Knox.”
“He won’t lie for you,” said Daxton. “Tell me the truth, Lila.”
I searched Knox’s expression for any sign he had a plan, but instead he held my stare blankly, as much of a challenge as it was a surrender. There wasn’t a plan. This was it. We were the pawns, and Knox was making the necessary sacrifices to win the game.
Screw the game. If he wanted to play, then I’d play. “Knox stole that file, not me,” I spat. “He’s hiding the one on you, too. How do you think he got the first one? Do you really think I’d willingly hand it over to him?”
“Yes,” said Daxton smoothly, “because that is exactly what you did. Will you be honest with me, Lila, or do I have to bleed it out of you?”
“I am being honest. Knox is trying to frame me. He’s the leader of the Blackcoats—him and Celia. All this time, they’ve been working together to destroy you.”
A strange sound emanated from deep within Daxton, and it took me several confused seconds before I realized what I was hearing. He was laughing. “Wrong again, my dear. You’re on quite the roll tonight, aren’t you? Knox has been working for me—reporting back on Blackcoat activity, telling me their next moves. How do you think we’ve been ahead of them the whole time?”
“I—” I faltered. Knox didn’t meet my eye, and his grip on Benjy’s shoulder tightened.
No. Not possible. After all this time and everything he’d done to help me—not possible.
“He’s lying,” I said, the words tumbling out of me in a rush as I tried to convince Daxton as well as myself. “He might be feeding you tidbits to make it look like he’s on your side, but he’s really telling the Blackcoats everything he knows about you and—”
“Everything I tell him to say,” said Daxton. “Why do you think the Blackcoats haven’t gotten any closer to their goal? Why do you think tonight’s raid failed? Why do you think they’re cut off at every turn before they can find their footing? No one, not even my sister, is that incompetent.”
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Aimee Carter
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: The truth can set her freeFor the past two months, Kitty Doe′s life has been a lie. Forced to impersonate Lila Hart, the Prime Minister′s niece, in a hostile meritocracy on the verge of revolution, Kitty sees her frustration grow as her trust in her fake fiancé cracks, her real boyfriend is forbidden and the Blackcoat rebels she is secretly supporting keep her in the dark more than ever.But in the midst of discovering that her role in the Hart family may not be as coincidental as she thought, she′s accused of treason and is forced to face her greatest fear: Elsewhere. A prison where no one can escape.As one shocking revelation leads to the next, Kitty learns the hard way that she can trust no one, not even the people she thought were on her side. With her back against the wall, Kitty wants to believe she′ll do whatever it takes to support the rebellion she believes in–but is she prepared to pay the ultimate price?