скачать книгу бесплатно
“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?”
