The Fall

“You never—we never—Char, nothing happened. They made it a nursery for appearances. This was a long time ago.”

“You’re not that naïve. It’s just a matter of time, Eren. Adam gets bored. He’ll want a new toy.”

“He insisted,” Eren said. “He controls everything.”

“Yeah. Kinda worked that one out already.” I leaned in and lowered my voice. “Eren, this room is bugged. It’s gotta be.”

He shrugged and spoke normally. “It is. I found four.”

“That means there are at least eight, and two of them probably aren’t even electronic.”

“That’s what you said last time,” he said mildly.

“Last time? Catch me up a little faster, here.”

He shrugged, and I had the impression that he was trying to force his voice to sound bored. “You wake up like this every so often. We talk, and you go back into stasis. I don’t think it bothers him.”

I slid the door to the nursery firmly shut and leaned against the formica counter in the kitchen. A cold prickle waved through the back of my skull. “Eren, how long have I been… asleep?”

He rubbed the side of his head, looking pained. “Well, technically, it’s not sleep; it’s more like stasis. The body ages, but the mind—”

“How long, Eren.”

“You always ask this. It’s not going to—”

“How. Long.”

He met my eye. “Five years.”

Reeling, I put out a hand. He grabbed it, steadying me, but released me as soon as I had my balance.

Five years.

Five years of droning on through meaningless, mindless tasks in Central Command, unable to form memories or connections, while the Arks barreled on toward Eirenea. Five years of listening to Adam talk, of hearing his taunts. Of watching him build a great and merciless empire on board the Ark.

Five years of a lifeless “marriage” to Eren, who clearly no longer returned my affections.

Five years of planning my escape.

It seemed to me that it had passed overnight, but I read the exhaustion in Eren’s face, and I knew that what we’d once had together was long adrift, gone to sea. No one loves a puppet.

That had been my choice, too. Before all of this, I’d told Eren that we couldn’t be together anymore, that we had bigger things to focus on. That I had to become more than a daughter, or even a wife. So I set him free.

And judging by the speed with which his hand had pulled away from mine, he was free indeed.

“That makes me… twenty-two years old.”

I heard a note of panic rising up in my voice, but Eren just stared at me like he’d seen this scene play out before.

“Eren, I have to get out of here.”

“You say that, too,” he said quietly.

“I have to find my family. Do I say that?”

He gave me a sympathetic nod. “Then you won’t let me stay with you. You get back in bed. But you keep the light on all night, like you’re trying to stay awake.”

I hobbled over to his wardrobe, leaving the blanket on the cold floor. Maybe he had a pair of pants I could wear if I rolled the legs up.

The row of uniforms perfectly tailored to my size was like a slap in the face. I yanked one down and stepped into it angrily, pulling it up over my hips and around my nightshirt. Of course they fit me. They were my clothes. I lived here. Eren moved to help with the zipper, but I shrugged him off angrily. It took longer, but I’d far rather put on my own clothes than accept one more second of his sympathy.

I yanked my ID card off the mattress and pulled Eren’s shoulder down towards mine, so that I could whisper directly into his ear. Maybe Adam had planted a bug right inside Eren’s head, and I’d never be free of him. Maybe his Lieutenant noticed the syringe I’d swiped, and he was waiting for me just outside the door. At that moment, I didn’t even care. I was furious. “I’m leaving,” I muttered. “Right now. And you can come or not; I don’t care.” I pulled away, meeting his gaze with fire. “Have I ever said that before?”

I let my eyes glass over as we marched through the hall. The next phase of my plan was significantly less clear. “So,” I muttered, “my plan is to sneak into InterArk Comm Con and ping Europe.”

“Not gonna work,” he whispered back. “They know what’s going on. They don’t care.”

More like, they’d rather leave it alone so we can all get to Eirenea in one piece. Not that I blamed them. From their perspective, Adam had presided over five years of relative peace. Left alone, he was no threat to any ship but his own. “So we’ll make them care.”

“Charlotte.”

The warning in his tone was clear, and I could guess what he was thinking. If I failed, he had another year of waiting to look forward to. Another year under Adam’s thumb. His age had increased tenfold in the dark circles beneath his eyes. Eren had felt every minute of the years I’d lost in the space of a single dream.

“Have a little faith,” I said lightly, speeding up to brush past an oncoming group. “I don’t intend to get caught,” I muttered. “But I can’t just let a twelve-year-old despot control my brain forever.”

“He’s seventeen, now,” Eren said softly.

“They grow up so fast.”

We marched the rest of the way in silence, greeted by the occasional nod to Eren. I was ignored. “How many people has he drugged like this?”

“Unclear,” he murmured. “But you’re the only one who’s consistently under. He’s used it on others. Any one he sees as a threat, of course, and anyone he wants to punish.”

“You?”

His focus slid back to the hallway. “No.”

I barely had time to wonder why Adam never saw Eren as a threat when the door sucked open. Comm Con was much as I remembered it, floating stars and all. This was the place where I’d married Eren. It was where we’d shared our first kiss, and our last.

I half-lowered my eyelids in an attempt to look like I was still in stasis, but no one paid any attention to me. The enormous black amphitheater had maybe four other people, and no one was near the control desk.

“New plan. We ping my dad.”

I couldn’t miss the look of alarm that hit his face, or the care he took to hide it.

“He’s not dead, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I whispered.

“Don’t let them see you talking. Nothing coherent, anyway.”

I angled my face away from the others. “He’s not dead. Adam wouldn’t have made such a big deal out of it all the time if that were the case.”

Eren avoided my gaze with the precision of a fighter pilot. “Adam had no reason not to kill him, Charlotte. And there was opportunity, motive.”

“I’m not sure about that. It was chaos the day of the attack.” I should know. As far as I was concerned, it happened yesterday. “He had a strike team after him, and his Remnant headquarters were obliterated, obviously. There was a big lag between when he lost Isaiah and when you and I got here, which was when he had control of the speaker system.” I paused, reliving the moment, and sucked in a deep breath. “And the oxygen.”

Eren settled himself at his desk, and I sat, robot-like, in a nearby chair.

“Anyway,” I continued, monotone, “I’m not totally convinced he’d take the shot even if he had it. He didn’t know Amiel was dead at that point.”

“Depends on when your dad tried to leave, doesn’t it?” said Eren. “And let’s just agree to disagree on whether he’d take the shot either way. But here’s the real problem: you can’t ping him. You don’t know where he is.”

He had me there. I had no way of knowing where they’d gone.

But I had a pretty good guess.

“Is there a shipment or anything headed toward the European Ark today? I assume we have a good relationship with them, right?”

“To the extent that you could call it a relationship, yes. Adam sends them things from time to time. Usually tech-related. They reciprocate. A bunch of our doctors disappeared right after he started drugging people. There was talk of a strike among the medics, but instead, they just vanished. When our sick bay filled up, Europe stepped in.”

“Europe sent us doctors? Willingly?”

“No, they refuse to give him any personnel. But they accept patients.”

I glanced around the room. By some miracle, no one was paying any attention to us. I guess after five years of puppethood, I had become completely invisible. Predictable, even.

I could work with that.

“So,” I said softly. “When’s the next shipment of patients going out?”

“Not for another week.”

A week. That was a long time to dodge Adam. “I don’t think I can wait that long. He’ll know something’s up any minute now. Certainly by morning.”

“I don’t see that you have any choice. You can’t stay here,” he said, his voice more urgent than before. “He’s going to drug you again.”

“Look who’s suddenly on Team Char.”

“The way I see it, you need to get off this Ark. You can’t hide here. No one can. We have to depose Adam before we land. If he drugs you again, that’s another year gone. We’ll miss our window. Get out. Get some support. Come back and stage a coup.”

Five years ago, Eren would never have dreamed of supporting a coup. I had the sudden, slippery feeling that I was talking to a stranger, that I’d lost something I cared for, and I shivered. I couldn’t think about that right now. “I can’t possibly—”

“If anyone can do it, it’s you.”

“Is there even any support still left around here? Maybe people want Adam in charge. I mean, he destroyed the Remnant and overthrew the Commander. He’s probably not anyone’s first choice, but you never know.”

“I have no idea,” said Eren. “No one talks to me. I’m too close to Adam. And I’m married to you, remember? You’re not exactly popular with either group, either, you know.”

He was probably referring to the fact that I’d killed the Commander and betrayed Isaiah, putting me squarely at odds with both Central Command and the Remnant. That would also account for the depressing fact that in five years, no one had bothered rescuing me, rebellion or not.

“Can you arrange another patient transport? Say, tonight?”

“Charlotte. We have no allies. No resources.”

“Aren’t you the Lieutenant Commander? I seem to remember something about that from my hospital stay.”

He gave me a long look, then turned back to fiddle with the control panel. “I was, for a little while. The position changed hands a few years ago.”

“Yeah, yeah. I met her. Early thirties, kinda stabby, likes to play with needles? Arms like a bear trap.”

“No. I mean, yes, she’s the real LC. But that’s a secret. Officially, on paper, it’s someone else.”

“Anyone I know?” I scanned my brain for candidates, but Eren had stopped dinking around and sat still instead, staring at the constellation hologram. It was disconcerting. “Earth to Eren.”

“Yeah, Char. It’s you.”

I snorted. “Me.”

“Lieutenant Everest,” he said, using our married name. His voice was blank, but there was a sad softness in his eyes that made me reach for his hand. He pulled away, and I whisked air. It was like falling through an unseen crack in the middle of a familiar street.

“Eren, please. We can’t just—”

“Lieutenant!” a voice pierced our conversation, and I forced myself not to jump.

“Mnmm.” I glanced up sleepily. A uniformed man strode toward us, insignia blazing, and my hand wandered toward the emblems on my own uniform. His mouth concealed a sneer. It hit me that he’d probably been in the military all his life, and I, to all the world an idiot, outranked him. Adam played a dangerous game.

He saluted, an action I did not return, and a look of disdain, or pity, crept over his face. “Inform the High Commander that the day’s operations are completed.”

Now, how in the heck was I supposed to talk to Adam?

I sat there, dumb as a stump, until Eren laid a hand on mine. It was warm, and for a moment, I felt secure again. “Here,” he said, his voice gentle and slow. He slid my fingers across the control panel in front of us and pressed my finger over an iridescent plate an inch wide. Fingerprint scanner, I supposed. “InterArk Comm Con to headquarters.”

There was a pause, then a rustle, and Adam spoke.

“Command.”

The two men looked at me, and I used my best sleepy voice. “The day’s operations are complete. Comp-leted,” I corrected myself with a slur.

“Dismiss the crew. Send her over, Everest,” came the reply. “Command out.”

The man in uniform scoffed and trooped away.

The crew filed out of the room without a second glance at me, and when the door closed behind them, Eren cleared his throat. “So.”

“So,” I replied expectantly. “Ideas. Thinking. We need a plan.” He continued to look at me, and I felt a little trill of panic. “Quickly, please.”

“You’re wanted at headquarters,” he said.

I stared at him. “Yeah. That’s why the hurry, slick.” A look I couldn’t place crossed over his face, and I felt myself get angry. He still wouldn’t meet my eye. Another moment passed, and my hands went cold. I was finally free from stasis. Why was he just sitting there? “Look, Eren. I know I can’t imagine what you’ve been through in the last five years, but please. Get it together. If Adam figures out that I’m awake right now, he’ll put me under for another year. That can’t be what you really want.” I heard my voice crack, and it sounded like it belonged to someone else. “Surely.”

“Charlotte,” he said gently. “He’s—”

“Don’t Charlotte me. I am not going back to him. I have to… I have to get out of here.”

Another moment went by. Was he afraid the room was bugged? I leaned in to whisper, for whatever that was worth. “Eren. I’m leaving. With or without you. And the next time I go back to Adam, it’ll be to stop him. For good.”

He looked at me, slack-jawed, but said nothing. What was wrong with him?

My breath came shorter. I’d have to do this without him. Well, maybe it didn’t matter. I had survived on the run before. Granted, Adam was smarter and more prepared than anyone else I’d ever run from, but I couldn’t let that scare me. I would rather die than spend another minute under his spell.

I stood angrily, knocking my chair backwards, and stalked out of the room.

My face burned beneath my skin. So much for Eren Everest. Adam was a threat to everything I’d ever cared about. If Eren thought I would go back to him, or if he thought for one second that I would somehow play nice until we got to Eirenea, then he never knew me at all.

Four

My first order of business was to get good and hidden. I jogged about halfway down the hall before the sound of footsteps jarred me back to reality, and I forced my pace to slow. If I were going to make it through this, I needed to look like a puppet.

A pair of officers walked past, giving me ample space on the carpet lining the center of the floor. I let my gaze drift idly to the chandeliers overhead. They’d sustained a fair amount of damage during the loss of gravity following An’s torpedo, but someone had taken the time to rehang them, untangling their delicate strings of crystals. They were repaired as well as could be expected. I shifted my focus away. It wasn’t like you could replace something like that up here. There were no craftworkers in Central Command, anyway. The officers passed, and I paused, listening for more footsteps, then took off running again.

It wasn’t until I got all the way to the door that I realized that I had nowhere to go. Subconsciously, I’d been heading for the stairwell and the cargo space beneath the main part of the ship. But it no longer existed, and whatever was left of it wasn’t pressurized. The next thought that hit me was worse: the Remnant was gone, too.

I owe you for that one, An. I haven’t forgotten.

I endured a crippling moment of panic before I finally understood that I had no real options. My only hope was to delay my return to Adam as long as could be believable, and hope I came up with some kind of a plan before he caught on. Which wouldn’t be long.

A weapon would be a good start. Something I could hide in my sleeve.

Eren seemed pretty tight with Adam. Did Adam trust him enough to let him carry a gun? I hadn’t seen one on him, so I decided to search his room. If I got caught, I could always act like I’d wandered in out of habit. After all, it was my room, too, apparently.

The room smelled good in spite of the sterility of space and the crumpled pile of clothes near the door. Peppermint and toasted bread. I shrugged it off and got to work.

A cursory search revealed no gun in his desk, or under the bed, or anywhere in the wardrobe. I grunted and sat back on my heels to think. I was a thief, after all. This shouldn’t be too difficult. I turned up a standard-issue sewing kit, which yielded four needles and a tiny, blunt pair of scissors, and a toolbox, which was functionally worthless. Screwdrivers were nice and all, but Eren’s was long and weighted. Too hard to hide. I rolled the scissors up in my sleeve, securing it with two of the needles.

When the couch turned up fistfuls of crumbs and fuzz, I had to revise my image of Eren yet again. Maybe he wasn’t the soldier I’d thought he was. Maybe time and despair had changed him into someone else. As hard as it sounded, maybe he really was a stranger.

I glanced around the room. There wouldn’t be anything on the screen facing the couch. Too conspicuous, especially if it were repaired. Or monitored. I searched the kitchen, shoving a loaf of bread aside in the process, and found nothing.

I was face-first in the freezer and wrist-deep in the icemaker when the door sucked open, causing me to jump squarely out of my skin.

“Eren.”

“This isn’t much of a hiding place,” he said, his voice gruff. Something in his face made me set my jaw a little tighter. Not regret, exactly. Disappointment, more like. “I don’t know what I expected.”

No way he didn’t have a gun in here somewhere. No way. “Yeah? Give me a minute. I might surprise you.”

I slid the door of the icer open and stuck my hand in, never letting my gaze shift from his face. There was something cagey in the way he moved toward me, as though he were anticipating my next move, and I frowned, confused. It was like he was planning something. Preparing for something.

A fight, maybe.

But his face was tired, so tired. His blue eyes met mine at last, and I saw only resignation. I must have imagined his disappointment.

“Are you hungry? I’ll make you a sandwich. Grilled cheese.” His voice was weary, too.

I backed up. “You stay away from me.”

“S’just food, Char.”

He came close, and I stepped aside. His face swung near as he reached past my shoulder and lifted a hunk of cheese, then the butter, in the same hand.

The icer door popped shut, and Eren deliberately turned his back to me, setting me off-guard. He wouldn’t show me his back if we weren’t on the same side. Obviously we weren’t going to fight. This was Eren, after all. My Eren. I was being ridiculous. Paranoid. Occupational hazard, I supposed.

The nape of his neck had grown pale in the years since we’d left Earth and sunlight, but his haircut hadn’t changed—short and blond, no nonsense—and I caught myself staring. Maybe there was a part of me that had missed him for the last five years, even though my mind hadn’t.

He whistled tunelessly, setting up a pan and flipping on the burner, but the notes sharpened when he reached for the loaf of bread, causing the hair on my arms to lift up.

The bread.

The bread, the bread.

It was wrapped in a chunky, reusable foil case far too big for a single loaf that crinkled beneath his grip as he pulled it from the shelf.

And it made a dense, muted thunk when he laid it on the counter.

When his hand dipped into the package, I swallowed. “Why don’t you let me do th—”

Too late. Too late for anything. The gun was suddenly between us, heavy and cold, and my breath froze in my chest.

“Eren.”

“You’re wanted at headquarters,” he said, flicking the stove off.

I’m not sure I understood until that moment what Eren had been to me. How I’d come to think of him, how my mind had relaxed instinctively in his presence. How I’d trusted him. No one had ever made me feel truly secure, like I could believe, cynical as I was, that I would one day be safe for good. Except Eren.

I really was a terrible judge of character.

I wanted to lift my hands in surrender out of habit, but I couldn’t make myself do it. It was like admitting that everything was broken, that nothing good would ever last. Which should have been obvious, especially to me, who’d lived through the death of Earth. And my mother.

“I’ll never forgive you for this,” I said quietly. “In a hundred years, I will not forgive you.” I stared at his face, looking for some sign of regret, some indication that my only possible blow had landed true, but the only thing I found was exhaustion. His brow creased for an instant, then everything was smooth. Easy. Done.

“There’s nothing for it, Char,” he said, almost gently, and any remaining protest died on my lips. “Let’s go.”

I went. What else could I do?

The hallway stretched before me, gaudy and bright. Maybe Adam would let me wake up in Eirenea, but I doubted it. Maybe, years from now, his horrible drug would become illegal, or he’d die, and I’d be rescued. I’d wake up old, in an old woman’s body, with all the experience of a seventeen-year-old failure.

Maybe my family would come for me.

Maybe the years would pass, and my captor would grow lonely, and I’d wake up with children. For ten minutes a year, I’d drink in their faces and worry over the lives they led.

Or maybe he would let me die.

I found my voice halfway to headquarters. “How could you.”

“It’s for the best,” he said evenly. “You don’t understand. He’s too strong.”

“He must be, Eren. With you on his side.”

“It’s not just me. There isn’t anyone, on any ship, that wants us all to go to war. That’s what he’s saving us from.”

We were a fragile race. We must have always been. Only now, we knew it.

Adam was smug. He had every right to be. I stood before him in the cold room, and he gestured for me to sit. I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. I wasn’t about to spend my last seconds of freedom doing as I was told.

Eventually, his smile grew serious, and my darling husband pressed down on my shoulders until my back hit the chair. The Lieutenant was slouched in a black leather chair nearby. She made no move to assist. Maybe she was drugged, too.

“Welcome back,” Adam said brightly. “I know I already said it, but man. It’s just so good to see the real you, Char.”

“We should do this more often,” I said.

“Eh, don’t hold your breath.” His lip twisted around again, and his hand went to his jacket. When I saw the needle, my tongue couldn’t swallow, and my throat went numb. “Now, Ambassador,” he said. “If you could restrain your wife for a moment.”

Eren’s hand was warm and heavy on my shoulder, and I chewed the inside of my cheek as hard as I could. The pain was the only good feeling I had left.

Adam rolled his eyes. “You’ll have to do better than that. She’s awake. That’s really her. Take it from me. We can’t afford to get complacent.”

The Lieutenant stirred, and Eren glanced at her for a moment before crouching down and pulling my arms together behind the chair.

“Now hold still,” said Adam. “This’ll only sting a bit.”

He looked at Eren, who nodded that he was ready, and came close. My arms jerked against Eren’s grip involuntarily, and he squeezed them tighter. I went ahead and stopped breathing. I needed to last five more seconds without crying, and I wasn’t sure I’d make it.

The needle flashed through the air, taking longer than necessary so that Adam had plenty of time to watch my reaction. I forced every cell in my brain to remain completely frozen. I would not give him the satisfaction. I couldn’t. But at the last minute, weakness won, and I closed my eyes.