Prodigy

Page 35

“No . . .” Day trails off as he wrings his hands in frustration. “It’s not all your fault. And Tess . . . Tess is definitely my fault.” There’s genuine pain on his face—at this point, I can’t tell who it’s for. So much has happened. I feel a curious pang of resentment that makes blood rush in my ears even as it shames me. It’s not fair for me to be jealous. After all, Day has known Tess for years, much longer than he’s known me, so why shouldn’t he feel attached to her? Besides, Tess is sweet, selfless, healing. I am not. Of course I know why Tess had abandoned him. It is because of me.
I study his face. “What happened between you and Tess?”
Day stares at the wall across from us, lost in thought, and I have to tap his foot with mine to snap him out of it. “Tess kissed me,” he mutters. “And she feels like I betrayed her . . . for you.”
My cheeks redden. I close my eyes, forcing the image of them kissing out of my thoughts. This is so stupid. Isn’t it? Tess has known Day for years—she has every right to kiss him. And hadn’t the Elector kissed me too? Hadn’t I liked it? Anden suddenly feels a million miles away, like he doesn’t matter at all. The only thing I can see is Day and Tess together. It’s like a punch to the stomach. We’re in the middle of a war. Don’t be pathetic. “Why would you tell me that?”
“Would you rather I kept it a secret?” He looks ashamed, and he purses his lips.
I don’t know why, but Day never seems to have a problem making me feel like a fool. I try pretending that it doesn’t bother me. “Tess will forgive you.” My words, meant to be comforting and mature, sound hollow and fake instead. I passed the lie detector test without a hitch while I was under arrest—why’s it so hard for me to deal with this?
After a while, he says in a quieter voice, “What do you think of him? Honestly?”
“I think he’s real,” I say, impressed with how calm I sound. Glad to steer our conversation in a different direction. “Ambitious and compassionate, even if it makes him a little impractical. Definitely not the brutal dictator the Patriots said he’ll become. He’s young, and he needs the Republic’s people on his side. And he’s going to need help if he’s going to change things.”
“June, we barely got away from the Patriots. Are you trying to say we should help Anden more than we already have—that we should keep risking our lives for this goddy rich stranger you barely know?” The venom in his eyes as he spits out the word rich startles me, making me feel like he’s insulting me too.
“What does class have to do with this?” Now I’m irritated too. “Are you really saying you’d be glad to see him dead?”
“Yes. I would be glad to see Anden dead,” Day says through gritted teeth. “And I’d be glad to see every single person in his government dead too, if it meant I could have my family back.”
“That’s not like you. Anden’s death won’t fix things,” I insist. How can I make him see? “You can’t lump everyone into the same category, Day. Not everyone working for the Republic is evil. What about me? Or my brother and parents? There are good people in the government—and they’re the ones who can spearhead permanent changes for the Republic.”
“How can you possibly defend the government after everything they’ve done to you? How could you not want to see the Republic collapse?”
“Well, I don’t,” I say angrily. “I want to see it change for the better. The Republic had its reasons in the beginning for controlling the people—”
“Whoa. Wait a minute.” Day holds up his hands. His eyes are now alight with a rage I’ve never seen. “Say that to me again. I dare you. The Republic had its reasons in the beginning? The Republic’s actions are reasonable?”
“You don’t know the whole story about how the Republic was formed. Anden told me how the country started from anarchy, and that the people were the ones who—”
“So now you believe everything he says? Are you trying to tell me that it’s the people’s fault that the Republic’s the way it is?” Day’s voice rises. “That we brought all this goddy crap on ourselves? That’s the justification for why his government tortures the poor?”
“No, I’m not trying to justify that—” Somehow, the history sounds much less viable than it did when Anden was telling it.
“And now you think Anden can fix us with his half-wit ideas? This rich boy’s going to save us all?”
“Stop calling him that! It’s his ideas that might do it, not his money. Money doesn’t mean anything when—”
Day points a finger right at me. “Don’t ever say that to my face again. Money means everything.”
My cheeks flush. “No, it doesn’t.”
“Because you’ve never been without it.”
I wince. I want so desperately to respond, to explain that that’s not what I meant. Money doesn’t define me, or Anden, or any of us. Why couldn’t I have said that? Why is Day the only person I have trouble making a coherent argument to? “Day, please—” I begin.
He jumps off the counter. “You know, maybe Tess was right about you.”
“Excuse me?” I snap back. “What is Tess right about?”
“You might have changed a little over the last few weeks, but deep down, you’re still a Republic soldier. Through and through. You’re still loyal to those murderers. Have you forgotten how my mother and brother died? Have you forgotten who killed your family off?”
My own anger flares. Are you purposely refusing to see things from my point of view? I hop off the counter to face him. “I never forget anything. I’m here for your sake, I gave up everything for you. How dare you bring my family into this?”
“You brought my family into this!” he yells. “Into all of this! You and your beloved Republic!” Day spreads his arms out. “How dare you defend them, how dare you try to reason with yourself over why they are the way they are? It’s so easy for you to say that, isn’t it, when you’ve lived your entire life in one of their high-rise palaces? I bet you wouldn’t be so quick to logic it all out if you’d spent your life digging up trash to eat in the slums. Would you?”
I’m so furious and hurt that I’m having trouble catching my breath. “That’s not fair, Day. I didn’t choose to be born into this. I never wanted to hurt your family—”
“Well, you did.” I feel myself tremble and fall apart under his glare. “You led the soldiers right to my family’s door. You’re the reason they’re dead.” Day turns his back on me and storms out of the kitchen. I stand there alone in the sudden silence, for once at a loss over what to do. The lump in my throat threatens to choke me. My vision swims with tears.
Day thinks I’m being blindly faithful to the Elector instead of being logical. That I can’t possibly be on his side and still loyal to the state. Well, am I still loyal? Hadn’t I answered that question correctly in the lie detector chamber? Am I jealous of Tess? Jealous because she is a better person than I am?
And then, the thought so painful I can hardly bear it, no matter how angry his words made me: He’s right. I can’t deny it. I am the reason Day lost everything that matters to him.
I SHOULDN’T HAVE YELLED AT HER. KINDA TERRIBLE thing to do, and I know it.
But instead of apologizing, I go back around the shelter and check the rooms again. My hands are still unsteady; my mind is still fighting down the rush of adrenaline. I’d said it—the words that have been stewing in my head for weeks. They’re out now, and there’s no going back. Well, so what? I’m glad she knows. She should know. And to say that money means nothing—that phrase just flowed from her mouth, natural as water. Memories fill my head of all the times we needed more, of everything that could’ve been better with more. There was one afternoon, during a particularly bad week, when I came home early from grade school to find four-year-old Eden rummaging in the fridge. He jumped when he saw me step inside the house. In his hands was an empty can of beef hash. It’d been half full that morning, precious leftovers from the night before that Mom had carefully wrapped in foil and stored away for the next night’s supper. When Eden saw me staring at the empty can in his hand, he dropped it on the kitchen floor and burst into tears. “Please don’t tell Mom,” he begged.
I ran over to him and took him in my arms. He gripped my shirt with baby hands, burying his face against me. “I won’t,” I whispered to him. “I promise.” I can still remember how thin his arms were. Later that night, when Mom and John finally came home, I told Mom that I’d caved in and eaten the leftover food. She slapped me hard, told me I was old enough to know better. John gave me a disappointed speech. But who cares? I didn’t mind.
I slam a door in the corridor in anger. Has June ever had to worry about stealing half a can of beef hash? If she’d been poor, would she be so quick to forgive the Republic?
The gun that the Patriots gave me sits heavily against my belt. The Elector’s assassination would have given the Patriots the opportunity to take down the Republic. We would have been the spark that lit a powder keg—but because of us—because of June—it fizzled out. And for what? To watch this Elector go on to become just like his father? I want to laugh at the idea that he’d free Eden. What a Republic lie. And now I’m no closer to saving him, and I’ve lost Tess, and I’m right back to square one. On the run.
That’s the story of my life, yeah?
When I go back to the kitchen half an hour later, June’s not there anymore. Probably off in one of the hallways, making mental notes to herself about every goddy crack in the wall.
I throw open the kitchen’s drawers, empty out one of the burlap sacks, and start sorting stacks of each type of food into it. Rice. Corn. Potato and mushroom soups. Three boxes of crackers. (How nice—everything’s going to hell, but at least I can fill my stomach.) I grab several bottles of water for each of us and then close up the sack. Good enough for now. Soon we’ll have to be on our way again, and who knows how long the rest of this tunnel is or when we’ll hit another shelter. We have to move forward into the Colonies. Maybe they’ll be willing to help us when we get to the other side. Then again, we might have to keep a low profile. We did ruin the assassination that the Colonies were sponsoring. I sigh deeply, wishing I had more time to chat with Kaede, to coax out all her stories about living on the other side of the warfront.
How did our plans turn into such a mess?
There’s a faint knock on the kitchen’s open door. I turn around to see June standing there with her arms crossed. She’s unbuttoned her Republic coat, and the collar shirt and vest underneath look rumpled. Her cheeks are more flushed than usual, and her eyes are red, like she’s been crying. “The electric circuits in here aren’t feeding into the Republic,” she says. If she had shed any tears, I sure as hell don’t hear them in her voice. “Their cables run down through the other end of the tunnel, the part we haven’t covered yet.”