Captive

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

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.