Legend

She gives me a cold look. “That’s right. My brother.”

So. This is why she hunted me down. I take a deep breath. “Your brother. I didn’t kill him—I couldn’t have. Unlike you trigger-happy trots, I don’t kill people.”

The Girl doesn’t reply. We stare at each other for a moment. I feel a weird tinge of sympathy and quickly push it away. I can’t feel sorry for a Republic agent.

She motions to one of the soldiers standing by the door. “The prisoner in 6822. Cut off his fingers.”

I lunge forward, but my cuffs and the chair stop me. My leg explodes with pain. I’m not used to someone having this much power over me. “Yes, I was responsible for breaking in!” I shout. “But I’m serious when I tell you that I didn’t kill him. I admit I hurt him—yes—I had to escape, and he tried to stop me. But there’s no way my knife throw could’ve caused anything more than a wounded shoulder. Please—I’ll answer your questions. I’ve given you answers to everything so far.”

The Girl looks at me again. “Nothing more than a wounded shoulder? Maybe you should’ve double-checked.” There’s a deep fury in her eyes, something that takes me aback. I try to remember the night I faced Metias—the moment when he had his gun pointed at me and I had my knife pointed at him. I’d thrown it at him . . . it had hit his shoulder. I’m sure of it.

Am I?

After a moment, she tells the soldier to hold off. “According to the Republic’s databases,” she goes on, “Daniel Altan Wing died five years ago from smallpox, in one of our labor camps.”

I snort at that. Labor camps. Yeah, right, and the Elector is fairly elected every term, too. This girl either actually believes all that made-up crap or she’s taunting me. An old memory struggles to resurface—a needle injected into one of my eyes, a cold metal gurney and an overhead light—but it vanishes as soon as it comes.

“Daniel is dead,” I reply. “I left him behind a long time ago.”

“That was when you began your little crime spree on the streets, I guess. Five years. Seems like you grew used to getting away with things. Started letting your guard down, didn’t you? Did you ever work for anybody? Did anybody ever work for you? Were you ever affiliated with the Patriots?”

I shake my head. A terrifying question emerges in my mind, a question I’m too afraid to bring up. What has she done with Tess?

“No. They’ve tried recruiting me before, but I prefer to work alone.”

“How did you escape the labor camps? How did you end up terrorizing Los Angeles when you should’ve been working for the Republic?”

So this is what the Republic thinks of children who fail the Trial. “What does it matter? I’m here now.”

This time I strike some sort of nerve with the Girl. She kicks my chair back until it can go no further, then slams my head against the wall. Stars burst across my vision. “I’ll tell you why it matters,” she hisses. “It matters because if you hadn’t escaped, my brother would be alive right now. And I want to make sure no other filthy street con assigned to the labor camps escapes the system—so that this scenario won’t play out ever again.”

I laugh in her face. The pain in my leg only fuels my anger. “Oh, is that all you’re worried about? A bunch of renegade Trial takers who managed to escape their deaths? Those ten-year-olds are a dangerous bunch, yeah? I’m telling you that you got your facts wrong. I didn’t kill your brother. But you killed my mother. You might as well have held the gun to her head! ”

The Girl’s face hardens—but behind that I can see something waver, if only for a moment, and she looks like the girl I’d met on the streets. She leans over me, so close that her lips touch my ear and I can feel her breath against my skin. A shiver runs down my spine. She lowers her voice to a whisper that only I can hear. “I’m sorry about your mother. My commander had promised me she wouldn’t hurt any civilians, and she went back on her word. I . . .” Her voice quivers. She actually sounds a little apologetic, like that will help. “I wish I could have stopped Thomas. You and I are enemies, make no mistake about that . . . but I did not wish for such a thing to happen.” Then she straightens and begins to turn away. “That’ll do for now.”

“Wait.” With great effort, I swallow my temper and clear my throat. The question I’d been afraid to think about escapes before I can stop it. “Is she alive? What’d you do with her?”

The Girl glances back at me. The expression on her face tells me she knows exactly who I’m talking about. Tess. Is she alive? I brace myself for the worst.

But instead the Girl just shakes her head. “I don’t know. I have no interest in her.” She nods at one of the soldiers. “Withhold water from him for the rest of the day and move him to a cell at the end of the hall. Maybe he’ll be less temperamental in the morning.” It’s weird to see the soldier salute someone so young.

She’s keeping Tess a secret, I realize. For my sake? For Tess’s sake?

Then the Girl’s gone, and I’m left alone in the cell with the soldiers. They haul me off the chair, across the floor, and out the door. My bad leg drags along the tiles. I can’t hold back the tears that spring to my eyes. The pain makes me light-headed, like I’m drowning in a bottomless lake. The soldiers are taking me down a wide hallway that seems to be a mile long. Troops are everywhere, along with doctors wearing goggles and white gloves. I must be in the medical ward. Probably because of my leg.

My head slumps forward. I can’t hold it up anymore. In my mind, I see the image of my mother’s face as she lies crumpled on the ground. I didn’t do it, I want to scream, but no sound comes out. The pain of my wounded leg reclaims me.

At least Tess is safe. I try to send a mental warning to her, to tell her to get out of California and run as far as she can.

That’s when, halfway down the hall, something catches my attention. A small red number—a zero—printed in the same style as the ones I’d seen underneath the porch of our house and under the banks of our sector’s lake. It’s here. I turn my head to get a better look as we pass the double doors it’s sprayed on. The doors have no windows, but a gas-masked figure clad in white enters and I get a brief glimpse inside. I don’t see much more than blurs as we walk by—but I do manage to catch one thing. Something in a bag on a gurney. A body. On the bag is a red X.