Prodigy

Page 33

“June!” She looks dazed and bewildered, but then she recognizes me. No time for greetings now.
A bullet zips overhead. I duck and shield June again; one of the soldiers near us gets shot in the leg. Please, for the love of— Please let Tess make it safely to the tunnel entrance. I whirl around and meet the Elector’s wide eyes through the window. So, this is the guy who kissed June—he’s tall and good-looking and rich, and he’s going to uphold all of his father’s laws. He’s the boy king who symbolizes everything the Republic is; the war with the Colonies that led to Eden’s illness, the laws that put my family in the slums and led to their deaths, the laws that sent me off to be executed because I’d failed some stupid goddy test when I was ten. This guy is the Republic. I should kill him right now.
But then I think of June. If June knows a reason we should protect him from the Patriots, and believes it enough to risk her life—and mine—then I’m going to trust her. If I refused, I’d be breaking ties with her forever. Can I live with that? The thought of that chills me to the bone. I point down the street toward the explosion and do something I never thought I’d do in my whole life. I yell as loud as I can for the soldiers. “Back up the jeeps! Barricade the street! Protect the Elector!” Then, as other soldiers reach the Elector, I shout frantically at them, “Get the Elector out of this car! Get him away from here—they’re going to blow it up!”
June yanks us down as another bullet hits the ground near us. “Come on,” I shout. She follows me. Behind us, dozens of Republic soldiers have arrived on the scene. We catch a quick glimpse of the Elector getting out of his jeep, then being hurried away behind the protection of his soldiers. Bullets fly. Did I just see one hit the Elector in the chest? No—just his upper arm. Then he disappears, lost behind a sea of soldiers.
He’s saved. He’s going to make it. I can hardly breathe at the thought—I don’t know if I should be happy or furious. After all that buildup, the Elector’s assassination has failed because of me and June.
What have I done?
“That’s Day!” someone calls out. “He’s alive!” But I don’t dare turn around again. I squeeze June’s hand tighter and we dart around the rubble and smoke.
We bump into our first Patriot. Baxter. He stops short for a second when he sees us, then seizes June’s arm. “You!” he spits out. She’s too quick for him, though. Before I can draw the gun at my waist, June’s slipped right out of his grasp. He grabs for us again—but someone else knocks him flat on his face before we can make another move. I meet Kaede’s burning eyes.
She waves her hands furiously at us. “Get to safety!” she yells. “Before the others find you!” There’s deep shock on her face—is she stunned that the plan fell apart? Does she know we had anything to do with it? She must know. Why is she turning on the Patriots too? Then she runs away. I let my eyes follow her for an instant. Sure enough, Anden is nowhere to be seen and Republic soldiers have started firing back up at the roofs.
Anden is nowhere to be seen, I think again. Has the assassination attempt officially failed?
We keep running until we’re on the other side of the explosion. Suddenly there are Patriots everywhere; some are running toward the soldiers and looking for a way to shoot the Elector, and others are fleeing for the tunnel. Running after us.
Another explosion shakes the streetsomeone has tried in vain to stop the Elector with another grenade. Maybe they finally managed to blow up his jeep. Where’s Razor? Is he out for our blood now? I picture his calm, fatherly face alight with rage.
We finally reach the narrow alley that leads to the tunnel, barely ahead of the Patriots hot on our tail.
Tess is there, huddled in the shadows against the wall. I want to scream. Why didn’t she jump down into the tunnel and head for the hideout? “Inside, now,” I say. “You weren’t supposed to wait for me.”
But she doesn’t move. Instead she stands in front of us with her fists clenched, her eyes flickering back and forth between me and June. I rush over and grab her hand, then pull her along with us to one of the small metal gratings that line where the alley’s walls meet the ground. I can hear the first signs of Patriots behind us. Please, I beg silently. Please let us be the first ones to reach the hideout.
“They’re coming,” June says, her eyes fixed on a spot down the alley.
“Let them try to catch us.” I run my hands frantically across the metal grating, then pry it open.
The Patriots are getting closer. Too close.
I stand up. “Get out of the way,” I say to Tess and June. Then I pull a second grenade from my belt, yank out the pin, and toss it toward the alleyway’s opening. We throw ourselves to the ground and cover our heads with our hands.
Boom! A deafening blast. It should slow the Patriots down some, but I can already see silhouettes coming through the debris and toward us.
June runs to the open tunnel entrance by my side. I let her jump in first, then turn to Tess and extend my hand. “Come on, Tess,” I say. “We don’t have much time.”
Tess looks at my open hand and takes a step back. In that instant, the world around us seems to freeze. She’s not going to come with us. There’s anger and shock and guilt and sadness all wrapped up in her thin little face.
I try again. “Come on!” I shout. “Please, Tess—I can’t leave you here.”
Tess’s eyes rip through me. “I’m sorry, Day,” she gasps. “But I can take care of myself. So don’t try to come after me.” Then she tears her eyes away from me and runs back toward the Patriots. She’s rejoining them? I watch her go, stunned into silence, my hand still outstretched. The Patriots are so close now.
Baxter’s words. He’d warned Tess this whole time that I would betray them. And I did. I did exactly what Baxter said I’d do, and now Tess has to live with it. I’ve let her down so bad.
June’s the one who saves me. “Day, jump!” she yells up at me, snapping me out of the moment.
I force myself to turn away from Tess and jump into the hole. My boots splash into shallow, icy water right as I hear the first Patriot reach us. June grabs my hand. “Go!” she hisses.
We sprint down the black tunnel. Behind us I hear someone else drop down and start running after us. Then another. They’re all coming.
“Got any more grenades?” June shouts as we run.
I reach down to my belt. “One.” I pull the last grenade out, then toss the pin. If we use this, there’s no going back. We could be stuck down here forever—but there’s no other choice, and June knows it.
I shout a warning behind us, and throw the grenade. The closest Patriot sees me do it and scrambles to a stop. Then he starts yelling at the others to get back. We keep sprinting.
The blast lifts us clear off our feet and sends us flying. I hit the ground hard, skidding through icy water and slush for several seconds before coming to a stop. My head rings—I press my palms hard against my temples in an attempt to stop it. No luck, though. A headache bursts my mind wide open, drowning out all of my thoughts, and I squeeze my eyes shut at the blinding pain. One, two, three . . .
Long seconds drag by. My head throbs with the impact of a thousand hammers. I struggle to breathe.
Then, mercifully, it starts to fade. I open my eyes in the darkness—the ground has settled again, and even though I can still hear people talking behind us, they’re muffled, as if coming from the other side of a thick door. Gingerly I pull myself up into a sitting position. June’s leaning against the side of the tunnel, rubbing her arm. We’re both facing the space we’d come from.
A hollow tunnel stood there just seconds ago, but now a pile of concrete and rubble have completely sealed off the entrance.
We’ve made it. But all I feel is emptiness.
WHEN I WAS FIVE YEARS OLD, METIAS TOOK ME TO SEE OUR parents’ graves. It was the first time he’d been to the site since the actual funeral. I don’t think he could stand being reminded of what had happened. Most of Los Angeles’s civilians—even a good number of the upper class—are assigned a one-square-foot slot in their local cemetery high-rise and a single opaque glass box in which to store a loved one’s ashes. But Metias paid off the cemetery officials and got a four-square-foot slot for Mom and Dad, along with engraved crystal headstones. We stood there in front of the headstones with our white clothes and white flowers. I spent the whole time staring at Metias. I can still remember his tight jaw, his neatly brushed hair, his cheeks damp and glistening. Most of all I remember his eyes, heavy with sadness, too old for a seventeen-year-old boy.
Day looked that way when he learned about his brother John’s death. And now, as we make our way along the underground tunnel and out of Pierra, he has those eyes again.
* * *
We spend fifty-two minutes (or fifty-one? I’m not sure. My head feels feverish and light) jogging through the dark wetness of the tunnel. For a while we’d heard angry shouts coming from the other side of the mountain of twisted concrete that separates us from the Patriots and the Republic’s soldiers. But eventually those sounds faded to silence as we rushed deeper and deeper into the tunnel. The Patriots probably had to flee from the oncoming troops. Maybe the soldiers are trying to excavate the rubble out of the tunnel. We have no idea, so we keep going.
It’s quiet now. The only sounds are our ragged breathing, our boots splashing into shallow, slushy puddles, and the drip, drip, drip of ice-cold water from the ceiling that runs down our necks. Day grips my hand tightly as we run. His fingers are cold and rubbery with wetness, but I still cling to them. It’s so dark down here that I can barely see Day’s outline in front of me.
Did Anden survive the assault? I wonder. Or did the Patriots manage to assassinate him? The thought makes the blood rush in my ears. The last time I played the role of double agent, I’d gotten someone killed. Anden had put his faith in me, and because of that, he could’ve died today—maybe he did die. The price people seem to pay for crossing my path.
This thought triggers another. Why didn’t Tess come down with us? I want to ask, but oddly enough, Day hasn’t said a word about her since we entered this tunnel. They’d had an argument, that much I know. I hope she’s okay. Had she chosen to stay with the Patriots?
Finally, Day stops in front of a wall. I nearly collapse against him, and a sudden wave of relief and panic hits me. I should be able to run farther than this, but I’m exhausted. Is this a dead end? Has part of the tunnel collapsed on itself, and now we’re trapped from both sides?
But Day puts his hand against the surface in the darkness. “We can rest here,” he whispers. They’re the first words he’s spoken since we got down here. “I stayed in one of these in Lamar.”
Razor had mentioned the Patriots’ getaway tunnels once. Day runs his hand along the edge of the door where it meets the wall. Finally, he finds what he’s searching for, a small sliding lever sticking out from a thin twelve-inch slot. He pulls it from one end to the other. The door opens with a click.