The bitter taste of disappointment stings my tongue. He’s so small, so close in age to my brother, that I can’t stop the image of Eden’s face from overwhelming me. Others exist who were also marked with unusual strains of plague? Well, of course there would be. Why would Eden be the only one in the entire country?
The boy and I just face each other for a while. I think he can see me, but he can’t seem to fix his gaze; he keeps squinting in a way that reminds me of Tess’s nearsightedness. Eden. I think back to the way his irises had bled from the plague . . . from the way this boy’s trying to gauge me, I can tell that he’s almost entirely blind. A symptom my brother probably has too.
He suddenly snaps out of his trance and crawls over to me as fast as he can. He presses both his hands against the glass. His eyes are a pale, opaque brown, not the creepy black that Eden’s had been when I last saw him, but the bottom halves of both irises are dark purple with blood. Does that mean this boy—that Eden—is getting better, because the blood is draining away, or worse, because the blood is draining in? Eden’s irises had been completely filled with blood the last time I saw him.
“Who’s there?” he says. The glass muffles his voice. He still can’t focus on me even at this close range.
I snap out of my trance too. “A friend,” I reply hoarsely. “I’m going to get you out.” At that, his eyes pop open—hope instantly blossoms on his small face. My hands run along the glass and search for something, anything, that can open this goddy cylinder. “How do you operate this thing? Is it safe?”
The boy pounds frantically against the glass. He’s terrified. “Help me, please!” he exclaims, his voice trembling. “Get me out—please get me out of here!”
His words break my heart. Is this what Eden’s doing, terrified and blind, waiting in some dark railcar for me to save him? I have to get this boy out. I steady myself against the cylinder. “You have to stay calm, kid. All right? Don’t panic. What’s your name? What city is your family from?”
Tears have started to run down the boy’s face. “My name’s Sam Vatanchi—my family’s in Helena, Montana.” He shakes his head vigorously. “They don’t know where I went. Can you tell them I want to come home? Can you—”
No, I can’t. I’m so goddy helpless. I want to punch straight through the railcar’s metal sides. “I’ll do what I can. How do you open this cylinder?” I ask again. “Is it safe to open?”
The boy points frantically to the cylinder’s other side. I can tell he’s trying hard to contain his fright. “Okay—okay.” He pauses in an attempt to think. “Um, it’s safe. I think. There’s something over there that they type into,” he replies. “I can hear the beeps and then it makes the tube open.”
I rush to where he’s pointing. Is it my imagination, or do I hear the faint sounds of boots pounding against pavement? “It’s some sort of glass screen,” I say. The word LOCKED stretches across it in red type. I turn back to the boy and knock on the glass. His eyes swivel toward the sound. “Is there a password? How do they type it in?”
“I don’t know!” The boy throws his hands up; his words contort with a sob. “Please, just—”
Damn it, he reminds me so much of Eden. His tears are making my own eyes water. “Come on,” I coax, fighting to keep my words strong. Gotta stay in control. “Think. Any other way this thing opens, aside from the keypad?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know!”
I can already imagine what Eden would say, if he was this boy. He’d say something technical, thinking like the little engineer that he is. Something like, “Do you have a sharp edge? Try finding a manual trigger!”
Steel yourself. I pull out the knife that’s always at my belt. I’d seen Eden take gadgets apart before and reconfigure all the inner wires and circuit boards. Maybe I should try the same thing.
I place the blade against the tiny slit running along the keypad’s edge and carefully apply some pressure. When nothing happens, I push harder until the blade bends. Doesn’t help at all. “It’s too tight,” I mutter. If only June were here. She’d probably figure out how this thing works in half a second. The boy and I share a brief moment of silence. His chin drops to his chest and his eyes close; he knows there’s no way to open it.
I need to rescue him. I need to save Eden. It makes me want to scream.
It’s not my imagination—I do hear the soldiers getting closer. They must be checking the compartments. “Talk to me, Sam,” I say. “Are you still sick? What are they doing to you?”
The boy wipes his nose. The light of hope has already faded from his face. “Who are you?”
“Someone who wants to help,” I whisper. “The more you tell me, the easier it will be for me to fix this.”
“I’m not sick anymore,” Sam replies in a rush, like he knows we’re running out of time, “but they say I’ve got something in my blood. They call it a dormant virus.” He stops to think. “They give me medicine to keep me from getting sick again.” He rubs at his blind eyes, wordlessly begging me to save him. “Every time the train stops, they take a blood sample from me.”
“Any idea what cities you’ve already been to?”
“Dunno . . . I heard the name Bismarck once . . .” The boy trails off as he thinks. “And Yankton?”
Both are warfront cities up in Dakota. I think about the transport they’re using for him. It probably maintains a sterile environment, so people can go in and take a blood sample, then mix them with whatever activates the dormant virus. The tubes in his arms might just be for feeding.
My best guess is that they’re using him as a bioweapon against the Colonies. He’s been turned into a lab rat. Just like Eden. The thought of my brother being shipped around like this threatens to drown me. “Where are they taking you next?” I demand.
“I don’t know! I just . . . I want to go home!”
Somewhere along the warfront. I can only imagine how many others are being paraded up and down the warfront line. I picture Eden huddled in one of these trains. The boy has started to wail again, but I force myself to cut him off. “Listen to me—do you know of a boy named Eden? Have you heard that name mentioned anywhere?”
His cries grow louder. “No—I don’t—know who—!”
I can’t linger anymore. Somehow I manage to tear my eyes away from the boy’s and run to the railcar’s sliding doors. The soldiers’ footsteps are louder now—they can’t be more than five or six cars away. I take one last glance back at the boy. “I’m sorry. I have to go.” It kills me to say these words.
The boy starts to cry again. His hands pound against the cylinder’s thick glass. “No!” His voice breaks. “I told you everything I know—please don’t leave me here!”
I can’t bear to listen anymore. I force myself to step up the side latches of one sliding door and get close enough to the railcar’s ceiling to grab the edge of the top circular seal. I pull myself out into the night air again, back into the sleet that stings my eyes and whips ice against my face, and struggle to regain my composure. I’m so ashamed of myself. This boy had given me whatever help he could, and this is how I repay him? By running for my life?
Soldiers are inspecting the cars some fifty feet away. I slide the seal back into place and shimmy flat against the roof until I’ve reached the edge. I swing down and land on the ground.
Pascao materializes out of the shadows, his pale gray eyes flashing in the dark. He must’ve been looking for me. “Why the hell are you here?” he whispers. “You were supposed to make a scene near the explosion, yeah? Where were you?”
I’m in no mood to play nice. “Not now,” I snap as I start running alongside Pascao. Time to head back to our underground tunnel. Everything whizzes past us in a surreal fog.
Pascao opens his mouth to say something else, hesitates when he sees my face, and decides to drop it. “Er . . . ,” he starts again, this time more quietly, “well, you did good enough. Probably got the word out that you’re alive, even without all the extra fireworks. Your run up there on the roofs was pretty amazing. We’ll see tomorrow morning how the public reacts to your appearance here.” When I don’t reply, he bites his lip and leaves it at that.
I have no choice but to wait until Razor’s finished with the assassination before they help me rescue Eden. A tide of rage against the young Elector swells up in me. I hate you. I hate you with everything I’ve got, and I swear I’m going to put a bullet in you the first chance I get. For the first time since I joined the Patriots, I actually find myself excited for the assassination. I’m going to do everything to make sure the Republic can never touch my brother again.
In the chaos of the burning fire and shouting of troops, we slip away down the other side of the town and back into the night.
LESS THAN TWO DAYS BEFORE THE ELECTOR’S ACTUAL assassination. Thirty hours for me to stop it.
The sun has just set when the Elector, along with six Senators and at least four guard patrols (forty-eight soldiers), boards a train headed for the warfront city of Pierra. I’m riding with them too. This is the first time I’m traveling as a passenger instead of a prisoner, so tonight I’m dressed in warm winter tights and soft leather boots (no heels or steel toes, so I can’t use them as weapons) and a hooded duffle cape that’s deep scarlet with silver trim. No more shackles. Anden even makes sure I have gloves (soft leather, black and red), and for the first time since arriving in Denver, my fingers don’t feel cold. My hair is the way it’s always been, clean and dry, pulled back into a high ponytail. In spite of all this, my head feels warm and my muscles ache. All the lamps along the station platform are off, and no one besides the Elector’s ensemble is in sight. We board the train in complete silence. Anden’s sudden detour from Lamar to Pierra is probably something most of the Senators don’t even know about.
My guards lead me into my own private railcar, a car so luxurious that I know I’m in here only because Anden insisted on it. It’s twice as long as the standard railcars (a good nine hundred square feet, with six velvet curtains and Anden’s ever-present portrait hanging against the right wall). The guards lead me to the center table of the car, then pull out a seat for me. I feel a strange detachment from it all, like none of it is quite real—it’s as if I were exactly where I used to be, a wealthy girl taking her rightful place amongst the Republic’s elite.
“If you need anything, let us know,” one of them says. He sounds polite, but the tightness of his jaw gives away how nervous he is around me.
There are no sounds now except for the subtle rattle of the train on tracks. I try not to focus directly on the soldiers, but from the corner of my eye, I watch them closely. Are there any Patriots disguised as soldiers on this train? If so, do they suspect my shifting loyalties?