Once (28 page)

Far below, the Palace mall was crowded with people. Workers were closing up their stores for the morning, pulling down large metal grates to cover their front windows. Shoppers emptied into the streets. Soldiers directed everyone out the various exits, clearing the main floor for the procession. I kept my head down as I started toward the same door I'd gone out of that first night, feeling the soldiers' eyes on me. “Keep moving!” one called out, his words tensing my entire body. “Go to the right when you reach the main road.”

I followed the crowd, squeezed into the space between the Palace fountain and the metal barricades. The man next to me had his son with him, his arm around his shoulders as they took small steps, filing outside. I brought my hand to my face, trying to avoid being noticed by the two older women to my left, red-and-blue scarves tied festively around their necks. “Paradise Road will be the best view,” one of them said. “If we're on the right-hand side, opposite the Wynn Tower, we can avoid the congestion. I'm not getting stuck behind the crowds like we were for the parade.”

Finally we were down the Palace's marble steps, moving faster as we filed along the main strip and across the overpass. I broke off, relieved when I was away from the women, lost in the shifting current of the crowd. It would take time to get to the Outlands. I'd anticipated this, but it was even more apparent now, with everyone packed inside the barricades, shuffling along the sidewalks. Some streets were closed. The procession route was dotted with soldiers, many standing in the narrow road, scanning the roofs of the buildings, their rifles in hand.

I squeezed between people, ducking around a man who'd stopped to tie his shoe. When I passed a restaurant I checked the time against the clock inside. It was nine fifteen. Caleb had been led out of the prison by Harper's contact there. The dissidents should've met him in the Outlands by now. They were probably already at the hangar. With the soldiers concentrated inside the City center, there'd be less security near the wall. No one would come by the construction sites. It could be an hour or more before the handful of soldiers at the prison realized Caleb was missing and got word to the tower patrol.

The day was oppressively hot. I pulled at the neck of my sweater, wishing for an escape from the sun. All around me, people spoke excitedly about the wedding procession and the Princess's dress, and the ceremony that would be broadcast on billboards throughout the City. Their voices seemed far away, a chorus fading into the background, as my thoughts returned to Caleb. Harper had told me he hadn't been hurt. He'd said they would get him out. He had promised that Jo was securing places for us on the Trail, that they'd be waiting in the hangar for me when I arrived. As I crept closer to the Outlands, the minutes passed more quickly. I let myself imagine it, seeing him there, inside the open room. Our fingers laced together as we started through the dark tunnel, putting the City behind us.

I hurried my steps, weaving in and out of the crowd as I moved closer to the old airport. I didn't look at anyone. Instead I fixed my gaze on that spot in the south, just off the main road, where the buildings opened up to cracked pavement.

The Outlands were quiet. Across the gravel, two men sat on overturned buckets, passing a cigarette back and forth. Someone was hanging wet sheets out an upstairs window. I started across the airport parking lot, unable to keep from smiling. The King was probably at my suite. He had just realized I was gone. It was too late now. Here I was, minutes from the hangar, with Caleb so close. He was just inside that door, our packs filled, waiting for me.

I slipped into the old hangar, the planes towering above me. When I reached the back room the boxes had been moved aside, the tunnel exposed, but Jo was not there. I scanned the other end of the hangar, but there was no sign of Harper or Caleb. No maps were set out on the table. No lanterns were scattered about the floor. The light streamed in from a broken window, casting strange patterns on the concrete.

The silence was enough to raise the fine hairs on my arms. Two backpacks sat on the ground by my feet, unzipped, the contents riffled through. I knew immediately something had gone wrong. I backed out of the room. I took in the hangar—the rusted staircases that were scattered in the corners, the towering airplanes above. In the plane to the left of me, all of the shades were down except one. Something—or someone—moved inside. I turned and started toward the door, keeping my face down.

I was nearly at the exit when a familiar voice called out, echoing against the walls. “Don't move, Genevieve.”

I glanced up. The first of the soldiers were exiting the airplane, their guns fixed on me. Their faces were covered in hard plastic masks. “Keep your hands where we can see them.” Stark was in front, circling me at a distance.

Two more appeared from behind a staircase in the corner, while yet another emerged from the tunnel. They spread out across the hangar, moving along the concrete walls to either side of the entrance.

Stark was on me now, yanking my wrists behind my back and looping a plastic restraint around them. I kneeled down, afraid my legs might give out beneath me. I thought only of Caleb, hoping one of the dissidents had warned him of the raid.

As Stark took me toward the back room I heard footsteps nearing the door to the hangar. Someone was coming. The soldiers crouched beside the entrance, their guns in hand, waiting. Before I could act the door opened. Harper stepped inside. I saw him process the scene, just a second too late. He fell first. It happened so quickly I didn't realize he'd been shot. I just saw him lean against the doorframe, the open wound in his chest where the first bullet hit him.

I stood up from the floor. “Caleb!
They're here
,” I shrieked, my voice strange as it left my mouth. “Turn around!”

Stark put his hand over my lips. Caleb was just rounding the corner, his face barely in view. His eyes met mine and then I heard the gun, the shot that ripped through his side. It sounded louder in the massive concrete space, ricocheting off the walls. I watched him stagger back. He lowered himself to the ground, his arm crushed beneath him, his face contorted and strange. I kneeled there, refusing to look away as he seized up, his eyes squeezed shut in pain. Then the soldiers moved in, the great mass of them swallowing him whole.

THE JEEP MOVED QUICKLY, SPEEDING THROUGH STREETS ROPED
off for the parade. Thousands of people leaned over the barricades, still cheering for their Princess, searching the route for signs of her. I was hunched over in the backseat, curled in on myself, unable to believe what had happened. My hands were scraped from when they'd taken me from the hangar. I'd struggled in the soldier's grip, trying to grab onto anything I could, but they'd dragged me away before I could get to Caleb.

Caleb has been shot
, I told myself. I saw his face again as the bullet went through him. He was alone there, on that cold concrete floor, the blood spreading out beneath him.

We sped up the Palace's long driveway. They ushered me inside, past the marble fountains. The main floor had been emptied out for the wedding, our footsteps sounding down the hollow hall. Reginald was the only one there. He was pacing outside the elevator, that stupid notebook in his hand. He bit down on the end of his pencil.

“Stay away from me,” I said, already imagining the story that would run the following day—how enemies of The New America had been caught the morning of the wedding. How the citizens were all so much safer now. “Don't even try.”

“Can I have a moment with the Princess?” Reginald asked the soldiers, ignoring my comment. “She needs to be debriefed before she goes upstairs.” The soldiers cut my restraints and stepped away, watching us.

“What do you want?” I asked when we were alone. I rubbed at my wrists. “Some quote about what a joy today has been?”

He rested his hand on my shoulder. His eyes darted to the soldiers, now stationed along the walls of the circular lobby. “Listen to me,” he said slowly, his words barely above a whisper. His face was calm. “We don't have much time.”

“What are you doing?” I tried to push him away but he came closer, his hand still on me, his fingers digging into my skin.

“It's over,” he said softly. “As far as you are concerned there is no Trail, there are no more tunnels. You never met Harper, or Curtis, or any of the other dissidents. As far as you know, Caleb was working alone.”

“What do you know about Caleb?”

Reginald looked down. “A lot. Harper and Caleb died today, fighting against this regime.”

I shook my head. “You don't know what you're talking about.”

“Look at me,” he said, squeezing my shoulder. He didn't stop until my eyes met his. “You know me as Reginald—but others know me as
Moss
.”

He stepped back, letting his words sink in. I stared at his face, seeing him for the first time, the man who was always scribbling in that notepad, running stories in the paper, clipping quotes to suit his needs. This was the same man who'd helped Caleb out of the labor camps, who'd helped build the dugout. He was the one who'd organized the Trail. “Caleb's dead,” I repeated. A numbness spread out in my chest.

“You have to continue on as though this never happened,” he continued. “You have to marry Charles.”

“I don't have to do anything.” I struggled free from his grip. “What will that accomplish?” The sound of cheering swelled outside the Palace's front entrance.

“You need to be here as the Princess,” he whispered, his lips an inch away from my ear. “So you can kill your father.”

He stared at me intently. He didn't say anything else, instead flipping open the pad and pretending to make notes of our conversation. Then he signaled the soldiers back over, following us into the elevator in complete silence.

WHEN I RETURNED TO MY SUITE, THE KING WAS WAITING FOR
me. He stared at the wedding dress laid out on the bed, a bundle of papers clutched in his hands.

“You said you'd let him go. You showed me pictures, took me to his cell,” I said, unable to contain my anger any longer. “You lied to me.”

The King paced the length of the room. “I don't need to explain myself, certainly not to you. You don't understand this country. You knew about people who were building a tunnel to the outside and you didn't tell me.” He turned, leveling his finger in my face. “Do you have any idea what kind of danger that would've put civilians in? Having an open passage into the wild?”

“The soldiers shot them,” I said, my voice trembling.

The King crumpled the papers in his hand. “Those men have been organizing dissidents for months, planning to bring weapons and who knows what into this City. They had to be stopped.”

“
Killed
,” I snapped, the tears hot in my eyes. “You mean killed—not ‘stopped.' Say what you mean.”

“Do not speak to me that way.” The blood rushed to his face. “I've had enough. I came here this morning, early, to bring you this,” he said, throwing the bundle of papers at me. They landed on the floor. “I came to tell you how proud I was of you and the woman you're becoming.” He let out a low, sorrowful laugh.

But I was barely listening, my mind instead running over the events of the morning. He'd ordered Harper and Caleb killed. But who had told him about the tunnel beneath the wall? How had Stark gotten there before me? The questions ran through my mind on an endless loop.
Caleb is dead
, I kept repeating, but nothing could make it feel real.

“There are nearly half a million people downstairs,” he continued, “waiting for their Princess to come down the street with her father, to offer their good wishes before she is married. I will not keep them waiting.” He headed to the door, his fingers pounding the keypad. “Beatrice! Come help the Princess get ready!” he yelled before disappearing down the hall.

The door slammed shut behind him. I let out a deep breath, feeling the room expand in his absence. I looked down at my hands, which burned now, my wrists red from where the restraints had been. I kept seeing Caleb, his face before he fell, the way his arm was crushed beneath him. I closed my eyes. It was too much. I knew he couldn't have survived, but the idea that he was gone, that he would never cradle my head in his hands again, never smile at me, never tease me for taking myself so seriously …

I heard Beatrice come in, but I couldn't stop looking at the scraped skin on my wrists, the only proof that the last several hours had really happened. When I looked up, she was standing there, staring at a spot on the carpet.

“It was Clara, wasn't it?” I said slowly. “What did she tell them? How much do they know?”

But Beatrice was silent. When she looked up, her eyes were swollen. She kept shaking her head back and forth, mouthing the words “I'm so sorry.” She finally said it aloud. “I had to.”

Something about her expression frightened me. Her lips were twisted and trembling. “You had to what?”

“He told me he would kill her,” she said, coming toward me, wrapping her hands around mine. “He came up early, just after you left. You weren't here. They'd discovered Caleb's empty cell. He said he would kill her if I didn't reveal where you were. I told him about the tunnel.”