Legend

Now let’s try mine.” She turns to the dark-haired captain and nods once. “Cop her.”

I have no time to stop what happens next.

The captain lifts his gun and points it at my mother. Then he shoots her in the head.

THE WOMAN THOMAS SHOOTS HASN’T EVEN CRUMPLED TO the ground yet when I see the boy launch himself from the rooftop. I freeze. This is all wrong. No one’s supposed to get hurt. Commander Jameson did not tell me that she intended to kill anyone from the house—we were supposed to take them all back to Batalla Hall for arrest and questioning. My eyes dart to Thomas, wondering if he feels the same horror I do. But he remains expressionless, his gun still drawn.

“Get him!” Commander Jameson yells out. The boy lands on one of the soldiers and knocks him to the ground in a shower of dirt. “We’re taking him alive!”

The boy who I now know is Day lets out a wrenching scream and charges at the nearest soldier even as they close in around him. Somehow he manages to get a hold of the soldier’s gun, although another soldier instantly knocks it from his hands.

Commander Jameson looks at me and pulls the pistol from her belt.

“Commander, don’t!” I blurt out, but she ignores me. Metias flashes through my mind.

“I’m not going to wait for him to kill off my soldiers,” she snaps back at me. Then she aims at Day’s left leg and fires. I wince. The bullet misses its mark (she was aiming for his kneecap)—but it hits the flesh of his outer thigh. Day lets out a scream of agony, then goes down amid a circle of soldiers. The cap flips off his head. His blond hair spills out from beneath it. One soldier kicks him hard enough to knock him out. Then they cuff him, blindfold and gag him, and drag him into one of the waiting jeeps. It takes me a moment to turn my attention to the other prisoner we pulled from the house, a young man who’s probably Day’s brother or cousin. He’s screaming something unintelligible at us. The soldiers shove him into the second jeep.

Thomas gives me an approving look over his mask, but Commander Jameson just frowns at me. “I can see why Drake labeled you a troublemaker,” she says. “This isn’t college. You don’t question my actions.”

A part of me wants to apologize, but I’m too overwhelmed by what just happened, too angry or anxious or relieved. “What about our plan? Commander, with all due respect, we didn’t discuss killing civilians.”

Commander Jameson lets out a sharp laugh. “Oh, Iparis,” she replies. “We’d be here all night if we kept negotiating. See how much faster that was? Much more persuasive to our target.” She looks away. “No matter. Time for you to get in a jeep. Back to headquarters.” She makes a quick motion with her hand, and Thomas barks out an order. The other soldiers hurry back into their formations. She climbs into the first jeep.

Thomas approaches, then tips his hat at me. “Congratulations, June.” He smiles. “I think you really did it. What a run! Did you see the look on Day’s face?”

You just murdered someone. I can’t bring myself to look at Thomas. Can’t bring myself to ask him how he can bear to follow orders so blindly. My eyes wander to where the woman’s body lies on the pavement. Medics have already surrounded the three wounded soldiers, and I know they’ll be placed carefully in the medic truck and taken back to headquarters. But the woman’s body lies unattended and abandoned. A few heads peek out at us from the other houses along the street. Some of them see the body and quickly turn away, while others keep a timid gaze on Thomas and me. Some small part of me wants to smile at the sight, to feel the joy of avenging my brother’s death. I pause, but the feeling doesn’t come. My hands clench and unclench. The pool of blood underneath the woman is starting to make me feel sick.

Remember, I tell myself, Day killed Metias. Day killed Metias, Day killed Metias.

The words echo empty and uncertain in my mind.

“Yeah,” I say to Thomas. My voice sounds like a stranger’s. “I think I really did it.”

PART TWO

THE GIRL WHO SHATTERS THE SHINING GLASS

THE WORLD’S A BLUR. I REMEMBER GUNS AND LOUD voices, and the splash of ice water over my head. Sometimes I recognize the sound of a key turning in a lock and the metallic smell of blood. Gas masks look down at me. Somebody won’t stop screaming. There’s a medic truck siren wailing all the time. I want to turn it off, and I keep trying to find its switch, but my arms feel weird. I can’t move them. A horrible pain in my left leg keeps my eyes and cheeks moist with tears. Maybe my entire leg’s wasted.

The moment the captain shot my mother plays over and over in my head, like a movie stuck on the same scene. I don’t understand why she doesn’t move out of the way. I yell at her to move, to duck, to do anything. But she just stays there until the bullet hits her and she crumples to the ground. Her face is pointed right at me—but it’s not my fault. It’s not.

The blurring comes into focus after an eternity. What’s it been, four or five days? A month, maybe? I have no idea. When I finally open my eyes, I see that I’m now in a small, windowless cell with four steel walls. Soldiers stand on either side of a small, vaultlike door. I grimace. My tongue is cracked and bone-dry. Tears have dried against my skin. Something that feels like metal cuffs binds my hands tightly to the back of a chair, and it takes me a second to realize that I’m sitting. My hair hangs over my face in stringy ribbons. Blood stains my vest. A sudden fear seizes me: my cap. I’m exposed.

Then I feel the pain in my left leg. It’s worse than anything I’ve ever experienced, worse even than the first time I got cut in that knee. I break out in a cold sweat and see stars flicker in the corners of my vision. At that moment, I would give anything for a painkiller, or ice to put out the fire in my injured thigh, or even another bullet to put me out of my misery. Tess, I need you. Where are you?

When I dare to look down at my leg, though, I see that it’s wrapped in a tight, blood-soaked bandage.

One of the soldiers notices me stirring. He presses his hand against his ear. “He’s awake, ma’am.”

Minutes later—maybe it’s hours—the metal door swings open and the commander who ordered my mother’s death strides in. She has her full uniform on, cloak and all, and her triple-arrow insignia shines silver under the fluorescent lights. Electricity. I’m in a government building. She says something to the soldiers on the other side of the door. Then it swings shut again, and she saunters over to me with a smile.

I’m not sure if the red haze clouding my vision is because of the pain from my leg or my rage at her presence.