Legend (25 page)

Our father had tried to resign the day before he and Mom were killed in a car wreck.

I follow Metias’s instructions and delete every last trace of his blog.

Then I curl up on the couch and sleep until Thomas calls. I press a button on my phone and the voice of my brother’s murderer fills my living room. Thomas, the soldier who would happily carry out any order from Commander Jameson, even if it’s to kill a childhood friend. The soldier who used Day as a convenient scapegoat.

“June?” he says. “Are you all right? It’s almost ten hundred hours, and I haven’t seen you. Commander Jameson wants to know where you are.”

“I’m not feeling well,” I manage. “I’m going to sleep awhile longer.”

“Oh.” A pause. “What are your symptoms?”

“I’ll be fine,” I reply. “Just dehydrated and feverish. I think I ate something bad last night at the café. Tell Commander Jameson I should feel a little better by evening.”

“Okay, then. Sorry to hear it. Feel better soon.” Another pause. “If you’re still feeling sick by tonight, I’ll file a report and send the plague patrol over to check you. You know, protocol. And if you need me to come over, just call me.”

You’re the last person I want to see.
“I’ll let you know. Thanks.” I hang up.

My head hurts. Too many memories, too many revelations. No wonder Commander Jameson had Metias’s body taken away so fast. I’d been stupid enough to think she did it out of sympathy. No wonder she organized his funeral. Even my test mission to track Day must’ve been a diversion to distract me while they tossed out any remaining evidence.

I think back to the evening when Metias decided to resign from shadowing Chian and joining the Trial enforcers. He’d been quiet and withdrawn when he picked me up from school. “Are you all right?” I remember asking him.

He didn’t answer. He just took my hand in his and headed for the train station. “Come on, June,” he said. “Let’s just go home.”

When I looked at his gloves, I saw tiny specks of blood staining them.

Metias didn’t touch his dinner, or ask me how my day went—which annoyed me until I realized just how upset he was. Finally, right before bedtime, I went over to where he was lying on the couch and snuggled under his arm. He kissed my forehead.

“I love you,” I whispered, hoping to get something out of him.

He turned to look at me. His eyes were so sad.

“June,” he said, “I think I’m going to appeal for a different mentor tomorrow.”

“You don’t like Chian?”

Metias stayed silent for a while. Then he lowered his eyes as if ashamed. “I shot someone at the Trial stadium today.”

This was what bothered him. I kept quiet and let him go on.

Metias ran a hand through his hair. “I shot a girl. She’d failed her Trial and tried to escape the stadium. Chian screamed at me to shoot her . . . and I listened.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know it back then, but now I can tell that Metias felt like he had shot
me
when he killed that little girl. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

Metias stared off into the distance. “Few people ever kill for the right reasons, June,” he said after a long silence. “Most do it for the wrong reasons. I just hope you never have to be in either category.”

The memory fades, and I’m left hanging on to the ghosts of his words.

I don’t move for the next few hours. When the Republic’s pledge starts up outside, I can hear the people on the streets below chanting along, but I don’t bother to stand. I don’t salute when the Elector Primo’s name comes up. Ollie sits next to me, staring, whining every now and then. I look back at him. I’m thinking, calculating. I have to do something. I think of Metias, of my parents, then of Day’s mother, and his brothers. The plague has gotten its claws around all of us, in one way or another. The plague murdered my parents. The plague infected Day’s brother. It killed Metias for uncovering the truth of it all. It took from me the people I love. And behind the plague is the Republic itself. The country I used to be proud of. The country that experiments on and kills children who fail the Trial. Labor camps—we’d all been fooled. Had the Republic murdered relatives of my Drake classmates too, all those people who died in combat or in accidents or of illnesses? What else is secret?

I rise, walk over to my computer, and pick up my glass of water. I stare blankly into it. Somehow, the sight of my fingers’ disjointed reflections against the glass startles me—reminds me of Day’s bloody hands, of Metias’s broken body. This antique glass was a gift, supposedly imported from the Republic’s islands of South America. It’s worth 2,150 Notes. Someone could’ve bought a plague cure with the money spent on this glass that I use to drink water out of. Maybe the Republic doesn’t even own those islands. Maybe nothing I’ve been taught is true.

In a sudden fit of anger, I lift the glass and hurl it against the wall. It shatters into a thousand glittering pieces. I stand there unmoving, trembling.

If Metias and Day had met somewhere other than the hospital’s back streets, would they have become allies?

The sun changes position. Afternoon comes. I still don’t move from where I stand.

Finally, when the sunset bathes my apartment in orange and gold, I break out of my trance. I clean up the shining shards of broken glass. I dress in my full uniform. I make sure my hair is pulled back flawlessly, that my face is clean and calm and devoid of emotion. In the mirror, I look the same. But I am a different person inside. I’m a prodigy who knows the truth, and I know exactly what I’m going to do.

I’m going to help Day escape.