I didn’t look back at him when I said, “You know we’re not all like that, right? There are a lot of humans who would never protest outside the District. Lots of humans who believe Veilorians should have more rights.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Finn said. “That’s what people like you don’t get. It doesn’t matter what a handful of humans think because we’re still prisoners. I refuse to call it anything else. We have a fence around us and armed guards at the gate. We aren’t free.”
I swallowed. He was right, and I wanted to acknowledge that, but I didn’t want to give credit to anything he had to say. Not when he’d worked so hard to hurt me.
“It sounds to me,” I said, “like the walls aren’t the only thing trapping you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he shot back.
I looked over my shoulder at him. “If you ask me, I’d say your hate is keeping you prisoner more than anything else.”
He snorted, but I didn’t wait around long enough to hear how he was going to respond. I opened the door and stepped outside, pulling it shut behind me with a firm but not forceful click.
Chapter Five
My heart was heavy as I wound my way through the District, over the walkways, and eventually down a spiral staircase to the ground. Nearly everyone I saw was Veilorian, and unlike the humans in my part of the city, they were smiling. Happy. With friends or family, laughing and talking—most in English, but occasionally in Veilorian. They even said hello to me when I passed, offering grins that were a hundred times more welcoming than anything my own people had shown me today.
I had nowhere to go other than home, but at the moment the idea of returning to the dark, cramped little house wasn’t the least bit appealing. Lena would probably be at one of her rich friends’ homes, and Mom would be glued to the viewing screen, watching the footage of the protest or listening to Veronica Waters talk about the dangers of the aliens living just outside our door.
As misplaced as Finn’s anger was, I couldn’t deny it was justified. Something I’d never admit to his face. Even I felt hot with rage and indignation when I thought about the things I’d heard on the news, and they hadn’t been directed at me. I couldn’t imagine how deeply they cut him, especially since he was neither Veilorian nor human.
Instead of heading for the gate, I turned the opposite way, moving deeper into the District. I didn’t know where Ione worked, and the last thing I wanted to do was ask Finn, but that didn’t mean I had to leave. I’d been here dozens of times before my cousin and Rye eloped, and I knew where all the best restaurants and bars were. I also knew that unlike in the human part of the city, I wouldn’t need to use the money attached to my implant. Humans had done away with physical money more than a two decades ago, but the District had their own form of currency. Thankfully, I had a handful of coins in my bag from selling items in their market, which would come in handy now.
The sun had moved even lower while I was in Ione’s house and was now completely obscured by the fence, and with it the heat had been replaced by the chilly night air we were all used to. The little bit of sky still visible was brilliant, shining with shades of purple and pink, while high above my head the dark blue had morphed to black. Lights had come on throughout the District, many of them flickering candles since electricity inside the walls was spotty and closely monitored. We only had the one tower to pull in electricity, and most of it was allocated to the human section of Polis, meaning there were strict energy restrictions within the walls. The Veilorians had to ration what little power they were given, or the last few days of the month would be spent in darkness. It happened, more often than humans realized, but like everything else within these walls, the Veilorians had adjusted. Over the last twenty-two years, they’d proven time and time again that they could adapt where humans could not, which was probably why we were a species on the brink of extinction and the Veilorians were thriving.
Through windows, I caught glimpses of shadows as Veilorians went about their normal tasks, having dinner or getting kids ready for bed, while above me on the walkways people traveled, laughing and talking in both English and Veilorian as if there was nothing to worry about.
As far as I could tell, Finn was one of the few Veilorians concerned about what was happening in the human part of the city, but I wasn’t sure who was being foolish. If he was overreacting or if the other Veilorians I passed were being naïve to think their world wouldn’t change. Veronica Waters was convincing, I had to give her that, and the things she’d said on the news weren’t uncommon beliefs.
Was Johnson right? Would she win this election?
I didn’t really want to think about it.
Worry was gnawing at my insides by the time I reached a bar I was familiar with. The room was dark, lit by candles and lanterns like most of the city, but the shadowy interior didn’t make the room feel suffocating. Instead, it was intimate and cozy—welcoming, even.
I’d come here on the one date Ione had convinced me to go on—with a friend of Rye’s named Kael—and even though it hadn’t been a love connection, I’d had a good time. I’d even let him kiss me as we walked back through the city toward Rye’s house, something that would definitely make my mom keel over if she ever learned about it. The kiss had
