Legend (24 page)

When I lie down in my apartment for a brief rest later in the afternoon, I dream of him. I dream that Day has his arms wrapped around me and is kissing me again and again, his hands running up my arms and through my hair and around my waist, his chest pressed against mine, his breath against my cheeks and neck and ears. His long hair brushes against me, and his eyes drown me in their depths. When I wake up and find myself alone again, I can hardly breathe.

His words run through my mind until I can’t even understand them anymore. That someone else has killed Metias. That the Republic is intentionally spreading the plague in the poor sectors. I think back to how we were on the streets of Lake, when he would risk his safety because I needed to rest. Then today, wiping the tears from my cheek.

I can’t find the anger I used to have toward him. And if I discover proof that someone else killed Metias, for whatever reason, then I have no reason to hate him at all. I’d once been fascinated by his legend—all the stories I’d heard before I met him. Now I can feel that same sense of fascination returning. I picture his face, so beautiful even after pain and torture and grief, his blue eyes bright and sincere. I’m ashamed to admit that I enjoyed my brief time with him in his prison cell. His voice can make me forget about all the details running through my mind, bringing with it emotions of desire or fear instead, sometimes even anger, but always triggering something. Something that wasn’t there before.

 

 

“I heard you had a private conversation with Day this afternoon,” Thomas says to me as we sit together, eating bowls of edame in a café. The café is the same one that we visited when Metias was alive. Thomas’s choice of location doesn’t ease my thoughts. I can’t forget the rifle grease smeared on the hilt of the knife that killed my brother.

Maybe he’s testing me. Maybe he knows what I suspect.

I take a bite of pork so I don’t have to answer. I’m glad that the two of us are sitting a good distance apart. Thomas had spent a great deal of effort convincing me to “forgive” him, to let him take me out to dinner.
Why
he did this, I can’t be sure. To draw me out? To get me to say something by accident? To see if I would refuse, and then take this information to Commander Jameson? It doesn’t take much evidence to start an investigation against someone. Maybe this whole evening is just bait.

But then again, maybe he’s really trying to make up with me.

I don’t know. So I tread carefully.

Thomas watches me eat. “What did you say to him?”

There’s jealousy in his voice. My words come out cool and detached. “Don’t bother, Thomas.” I reach out and touch his arm, to distract him. “If a boy killed someone you loved, wouldn’t you keep trying to figure out why he’d done it? I thought he might talk to me if the guards weren’t around. But I’ve given up on him. I’ll be happier when he’s dead.”

Thomas relaxes a little, but he still studies my face. “Maybe you should stop seeing him,” he suggests after another long silence. “It doesn’t seem to be helping you. I can ask Commander Jameson to send someone else to give Day his water rations. I hate to think of you having to interact so much with your brother’s murderer.”

I nod in agreement and take another bite of edame. To stay silent now would look bad. What if I’m eating dinner with my brother’s murderer?
Logic. Caution and logic.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Thomas’s hands. What if those are the hands that stabbed Metias straight through the heart?

“You’re right,” I say without missing a beat. I make myself sound grateful, thoughtful. “I haven’t gotten anything useful out of him yet. He’ll be dead soon, anyway.”

Thomas shrugs. “I’m glad you think so.” He drops fifty Notes on our table as the waiter comes by. “Day is just a criminal on death row. His words shouldn’t matter to a girl of your standing.”

I take another bite before answering. “They don’t,” I reply. “I might as well be talking to a dog.” But to myself I think,
Day’s words will matter if he’s telling the truth.

Long after Thomas has escorted me back to my apartment and left, and long after midnight has passed, I sit awake at my computer and study Metias’s crime report. I’ve looked at the photos enough times now to keep myself from turning away, but it still leaves a queasy feeling in my stomach. Every photo is taken from an angle facing away from his wounds. The longer I stare at the black smears on the knife hilt, the more convinced I am that they’re remnants of rifle grease.

When I can’t look at the photos any longer, I go back to the couch and sift through Metias’s journals again. If my brother had any other enemies, surely there’d be a clue somewhere in his writing. But he was no fool, either. He never would’ve written down anything that could be used as evidence. I read through pages and pages of his old entries, all of them about irrelevant, mundane things. Sometimes he talks about us. These I have more trouble reading.

One entry talks about the night of his induction ceremony into Commander Jameson’s squad, when I’d fallen ill. Another is about the celebration we had together when I scored a 1500 on my Trial. We placed an order for ice cream and two whole chickens, and at one point in the evening, I even experimented with making a chicken and ice cream sandwich, which maybe wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had. I can still hear us laughing, still smell the warm aromas of baked chicken and fresh bread.

I press my fists against my closed eyes and take a deep breath. “What am I doing?” I whisper to Ollie, who tilts his head at me from where he’s lying on the couch. “I’m befriending a criminal, and pushing away people I’ve known my entire life.”

Ollie looks back at me with that universal dog wisdom, then promptly goes back to sleep. I stare at him for a while. Not long ago, Metias would’ve dozed there with his arm draped around Ollie’s back. I wonder if Ollie’s imagining that now.

It takes me a moment to realize something. I open my eyes, then look back at the last page I’d read in Metias’s journal. I think I saw something . . . there. I narrow my eyes at the bottom of the page.

A misspelled word. I frown. “That’s odd,” I say out loud. The word is
refrigerator
, spelled with an extra
d
.
Refridgerator
.
Never in my life have I known Metias to misspell anything. I study it for a second longer, shake my head, and decide to move on. I make a mental note of the page.

Ten minutes later, I find another one. This time the word is
elevation
,
but Metias spells it
elevatien
.

Two
misspelled words. My brother would never have done this by accident. I look around, as if there might be a surveillance camera in the room. Then I lean toward the coffee table and start sifting through all the pages of Metias’s journals. I store the misspelled words in my head. No reason to write them down for someone else to find.

I find a third word:
bourgeoisie
,
spelled
bowrgeoisie
.
Then a fourth one:
emanating
,
spelled
emamating
.

My heart starts to pound.

By the time I finish going through all twelve of Metias’s journals, I’ve uncovered twenty-four misspelled words. All of them come from the journals written in the last few months.

I lean back on the couch, then close my eyes so I can picture the words in my mind. That many misspelled words from Metias can be nothing other than a message to me—the one person who was most likely to go through his writing. A secret code. This must be why he’d pulled all the boxes out of the closet that fateful afternoon . . . this might be the important thing he’d wanted to talk about. I shift the words around, trying to form a sentence that makes sense, and when that fails, I move the letters around to see if each one might be an anagram for something else.

No, nothing.

I rub my temples. Then I try something else—what if Metias wanted me to put together the individual letters that are either missing from each word or in the word when they aren’t supposed to be there? I quietly make a list of these letters in my head, starting with the
d
in
refridgerator
.

 

D L W G W U N O W M J W U T C E E L O F O O M B

 

I frown. It makes no sense. I scramble the letters over and over again in my head, trying to come up with various combinations of words. When I was little, Metias played word games with me—he’d throw a bunch of letter blocks onto the table and ask me what words I could form with them. Now I try playing this game again.

I play it for a while before I stumble across a combination that makes me open my eyes.

JUNE BUG. Metias’s nickname for me. I swallow hard and try to stay calm. Slowly, I line up the leftover letters and try to form words with them. Combinations fly through my mind until one of them makes me pause.

FOLLOW ME JUNE BUG.

The only letters left after that are three
W
’s, then
CTOOMD
.
Which left one logical option.

WWW FOLLOW ME JUNE BUG DOT COM

 

A website. I run the letters through my mind several more times, to make sure my assumption is correct. Then I glance at my computer.

First I type in Metias’s hack that allows me to access the Internet. I put up the defenses and shells that my brother taught me—there are eyes everywhere online. Then I disable my browser’s history, and type in the URL with trembling fingers.

A white page pops up. Only one line of text appears at the top.

I know exactly what Metias wants me to do. Without hesitating, I reach a hand out and press it flat against my monitor.

At first, nothing happens. Then I hear a click, see a faint light scan across my skin, and the white page disappears. In its place appears what looks like a blog. My breath catches in my throat. There are six brief entries here. I lean forward in my chair and start reading.