He shifted, straightening and stepping away from the wall half a pace. “What do you mean?”
My eyes met his, and then it was like the rift between us had never been there. I could almost imagine us back in the forest together, under the stars, where my biggest fear was the vastness of the sky.
“Making these decisions for people,” I whispered. “Asking them to give their lives. I’m not supposed to be this person— I was never supposed to be this person. I barely ever made decisions for
I half-expected Oren to reach for me and attempt to comfort me in some way, but he stayed where he was, listening, watching me through the gloom.
“Nina almost died because of me.” I wrapped my own arms around myself, a barrier between me and the world. “Tomorrow more people might die, because of
“Yes.” The word was quiet, calm. It brought me up short, made my gaze swing back to Oren’s. I could see his pale blue eyes in the dark, startling, fixed on mine. “But they’ve chosen it, this fight. You haven’t forced them to do anything. If we die tomorrow, we die having chosen for ourselves.”
We stood on opposite sides of the corridor, staring at each other across the empty space between us. There was so much I wished I could say—that I was glad he’d chosen what he did, that I was glad he was fighting for me, that if we survived tomorrow I wanted us to stay, or to go, or to do anything, as long as it was both of us together.
But the words stuck in my throat. All I could think of was what Olivia had said to me, her words buzzing in my thoughts.
“Oren, I wanted to tell you—”
“I should get back to bed.” Oren spoke almost at the same time I did, drowning out my words. He stopped, blinking. “What?”
My throat felt scratchy, dry as chalk. “Nothing. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Oren took a few steps back, so that when I reached my door there was still more space between us than either of us could reach across. He stopped then to nod at me, the pale eyes serious. “In the morning,” he echoed. And then he was gone.
CHAPTER 21
A hand shook me awake, scattering my incoherent dreams. I didn’t remember falling asleep, but as my eyes focused sluggishly on Marco’s face, I knew I must have done so at some point.
“Time to get ready,” he said, his voice flat. There was no sign of the emotion I’d glimpsed in him the night before. Now he was all hard angles, giving me nothing. “Get to the War Room when you’re done here.”
He left me to get dressed. There was no silent gift of new clothes this time, no thoughtful touches. So I pulled on the same clothes I’d worn during the mission with Nina, ignoring the smell of sweat and battle that still clung to them. The hole in the shoulder of the jacket lined up perfectly with the bandage over my healing wound. The rest of it was littered with scratches that hadn’t made it through the thick leather, and I realized how close I’d come many times over to being torn to ribbons.
I slid both paper birds into my pocket next to the blackout device, then slipped Oren’s knife into a sheath secured to the inside of my boot. The boots were slightly too large for me, but they were better than the ratty shoes that had brought me here from the Institute. I laced them up and headed out.
The others were waiting in the War Room when I got there, with bowls of porridge for breakfast. Parker, Marco, Wesley, Olivia, Dorian and a couple of Iron Wood Renewables were scattered around the table, and all looked up when I walked in. Oren was seated at the far end of the table and glanced at me before looking back down at his bowl as if surprised to find it there.
“Our leading lady arrives,” said Wesley, folding his arms across his peacock-feather coat.
I shifted my weight uncomfortably. “Oren’s the one they want,” I reminded them. “They don’t know about me.”
“Of course.” He gave me a faint smile, the only hint of warmth in the room for me.
I found a seat in front of an untouched bowl, and the others started running through the plan one last time.
Wesley, undercover, would bring Oren and me to Central Processing, claiming to have caught the fugitive —Oren—and his companion. We’d undergo the questioning and screening processes while Wesley met with Prometheus to tell him we were captured and ensure that he asked to see us personally. Meanwhile Olivia would lead the rest of the rebels, Renewable and non-Renewable alike, to cause a commotion in the courtyard and draw as many of Prometheus’s Eagles out of CeePo as they could.
Originally, before Nina, only Wesley had known that I was the one who’d be attacking once we got to Prometheus. The others all thought that Oren, the fighter, was their best bet, and I was just backup. Now everyone fell silent, their eyes shifting toward my end of the table. I picked at my breakfast, feeling their gazes like heavy iron bars.
I glanced at Oren, who would be walking straight into the enemy forces with me. He looked up from his breakfast long enough to meet my gaze, his ice-blue eyes grave. He seemed calm, almost serene, whereas I felt like my stomach was trying to leap out of my throat. Most of my breakfast went untouched.
In terms of supplies, we took very little. We couldn’t very well go armed to the teeth when we were supposed to be captured prisoners. Oren had brought no weapons at all, and I had only the knife he’d given me in the Iron Wood, concealed inside my boot. There was also the blackout device that the others all carried as insurance against me—and none of them knew I had one too. It was still only theoretical, anyway, that it even worked. They wouldn’t have been able to test it here without risking all their machinery. And me, their best weapon.
“How long until we go?” My voice cut through the chatter. I sounded strained, impatient, and I forced myself to take a breath.
Wesley unfolded his arms and straightened. “If you’re ready? We can go right now.”
Every eye in the square was on us as Wesley marched us toward CeePo. We’d taken a long, roundabout route to another point in the city, far from the secret door into the walls we’d entered that first day. Wesley held one of Oren’s arms roughly, jangling the chains around his wrists now and then. I was chained as well, but allowed to walk freely. After all, Oren was the murderer.
We’d toyed with the idea of making the chains out of some metal other than iron, but we couldn’t get the weight right. “It has to be absolutely real,” Wesley had said as he locked the manacles around our wrists. “Otherwise they’ll figure out the instant I bring you in that something’s not right, and we’ll never get to Prometheus.”
And so my senses were muffled, the iron chafing at my wrists, a constant reminder of how powerless I was right then. For a brief, wild moment I wondered if all of this was so they could get rid of me—turn me over to Prometheus, remove the threat once and for all. I glanced at Wesley, seeking some kind of reassurance, but all I could see was his profile, stern and cold.
The faces of the crowd blurred as Wesley hauled us by. I tried to look out for the woman who’d turned us in that first day, but I couldn’t even remember completely what she looked like, much less focus enough to pick her out of the throng. Now and then we’d pass an Eagle, visible despite the crowd with their grey-and-fire uniforms, but they didn’t stop us. Wesley was in his plain clothes— though plain was a stretch, considering the expense of the peacock feathers—but it was clear they recognized him without any difficulty.
The crowd fell back when we reached the steps of Central Processing, leaving us out of earshot for a few precious seconds.
“If you want to change your mind,” Wesley whispered, not looking at Oren and me as we climbed the steps, “this is your last chance.”
