The Revealed (3 page)

“Rogers?”

Charlotte scans the list. “He has confirmed.”

“Hayes?”

“She is also confirmed.”

“Jacobson?”

Pause.

“He’s not on the list.” Charlotte waits behind my mother.

My mother’s eyes narrow in thought for a moment before she concludes, “Don’t follow up.” She shrugs. “If he doesn’t attend, it won’t hurt the campaign. No one will miss him. But make sure Marg Lancing is on that list. She will bring a lot of support if she backs Mark. I want to ensure her endorsement.” The hint of a confident smile lifts the corners of my mother’s mouth.

“Yes ma’am.” Charlotte makes a note on her list and then scurries from the room with her task at hand.

My mother is still perturbed about the incident this morning, I can hear it in her voice as she calls upstairs to me in a strained but ladylike whisper, “Lily, would you mind going to the kitchen to see if they are on track with the menu?”

“Sure.” I don’t even try to hide the excitement in my voice at the assignment. I move down the stairs, walk through the foyer and down the hall, and turn left.

The main kitchen isn’t your average kitchen. It’s restaurant-style, bigger than most people’s houses. It’s complete with a walk-in freezer, a cooking line, a head chef, and full staff on duty seven days a week. There’s not just one refrigerator, but a wall of them. Stoves, large enough to cook for thousands, and every other appliance known to man fill the cavernous room. It sits adjacent to the ballroom, with the backup facilities on the other side of the house in a smaller kitchen setup, typically used for staff meals or for big events.

I spend a lot of time in the kitchens. It’s a good way to stay busy—learning professional cooking techniques while I’m forced to stay inside. The head chef’s name is Ilan Levy. He studied with the best in France for years before coming back to the states. Chefs of his caliber are hard to find after the war, and my mother quickly hired him to take advantage of his talent.

I walk through the kitchen doors and almost collide with a tray of hors d’oeuvres.

“Lily!” Rory’s face lights up. She’s an intern in the kitchen. She swings the tray down and turns to me. “Here to get your hands dirty?” She always keeps her long blonde hair fastened back in a ponytail. The lush curls fall across her shoulder. Rory is a tomboy to the core, so I’ve always found her perfect curls to be deceiving. Her sharp brown eyes confirm the fire she holds just under the surface.

“My mother sent me to check on the status of the preparations for the party.”

“Well, wash your hands. We have some plates you can help me decorate.”

“Really? Okay.” I smile, moving to the sink.

“Please,” Rory says, moving plates off the tray, “you’re a better decorator than I am, babe. Well, almost,” she smirks.

Rory is my age. She turned eighteen about six months before I did, but she has to work and doesn’t have the means to even try to protect herself against The Revealed. She lost both her parents in the war. She’s one of the lucky ones, though. She found a way to pursue her cooking passion, avoiding factory work. It isn’t easy living, but my father is planning on making a lot of changes during his term. He wants to return the nation to what it once was—a land of promise.

Rory and I have grown close in the few months she’s worked here. I count her as one of my best friends—actually, she’s one of my only friends. When you aren’t allowed out of your house, it’s hard to maintain friendships with others. My classmates have moved on. The rich ones are planning for college while stuck in their own homes during their eighteenth year, like me. The others are hunting for jobs. I’m the only one waiting to become a Taken Eighteen. No one else I know has received black letters.

My parents made sure I kept up with my schooling even during the war. They said it was vital I get an education. In fact, rebuilding the nation’s educational system is one of my father’s key campaign messages. After the war, when schools started forming again, I was sent to an elite preparatory school with rich kids and other politicians’ children.

I miss school. My parents let me finish out my semester in December with the rest of my classmates. But because my birthday was that April, they began homeschooling me in January. I’ve been at home ever since.

Rory hands me a decorating bag filled with a lemon-pepper mousse, which I begin swirling over the salmon and dill bruschetta. Rory has a bag of her own and works on the other side of the table on a duck rillettet.

“So anything exciting happen lately?” she asks.

“Well, I stole my father’s car this morning and tried to make it to the highway.”

“What?” Rory’s hand tightens, and the cherry-port compote she is plating smooshes across the plate, ruining the dish. She sets down the bag, “Lily, you did not.” She bites her bottom lip and squeals. “Why didn’t you tell me? You’ve failed so many times, you at least have to let me try to help you next time.”

“Not with your job on the line,” I shake my head.

“I could meet you somewhere. We can do all those things you want to do—go out to a club, go shopping at a real mall.” She pauses. “Well, I mean, you can shop, I’ll just tag along and pretend I have money to burn.”

“Yeah right, like my parents give me money,” I say.

“But you know where they hide it,” she replies, swirling a spoon in the compote, tasting it.

That’s true. But I don’t know if I’d ever have the guts to take it. My parents gave me the safe code for emergencies only. Still, the idea is tempting.

“Ooh,” Rory says suddenly, an idea lighting across her chestnut eyes, “We could go to the college. You would love it. So many boys, and all of them are rich and sexy.”

“You wouldn’t go after a guy just because he’s rich,” I frown at her.

Actually, I long for the colleges like in the movies, where campuses were filled with diversity and self-exploration. If my father could recreate the system like that, he’d get my vote. As it stands, I’m not sure I want to place a ballot at all.

She shrugs. “Not all of us can have the future president for a father. We have to hope we marry the future president.”

“You have no idea what you’re asking.”

“So where were you planning on running without me?” she asks, pouting.

I shrug. “Maybe the fields? I’m just tired of it all,” I sigh. “I got another note. It was taped to my bedroom window. I saw it and just lost it. Staying inside isn’t keeping me safe. If anything, it’s like a red flag letting The Revealed know exactly where I am. It’s not like I wouldn’t have come back,” I shrug. “I just wanted to get out for a little bit. I think I at least deserve to see some of the world before The Revealed take me.”

“Stop it,” she says, and reaches across the table to lightly smack my shoulder, “don’t say that.”

But it’s true.

I’m ready to change topics. “So how about you?” I ask. “How’s it going with Coltan?”

“Ugh,” she scrunches her face. “Over it. We started talking about the election. He’s voting for Westerfield!” she says aghast. “Anyone who isn’t voting for your dad is crazy.”

I laugh to lighten the fact that her statement is spoken like someone who believes all the propaganda. Sure, my father means well and really wants all the things he talks about for the country, it’s just not going to be that easy. Not by a long shot.

“Anyway, I met this new guy last week at this restaurant I went to,” she says, “and he asked for my number, so maybe that’ll turn into something. He was cute. But there was also this other guy on Friday. I went to that new club Frost, which is great for meeting guys, I discovered.” She considers that for a moment. “Eh,” she continues, shrugging, “I’ve got options.”

“I’m jealous,” I admit. A boy named Tristan Olivier once kissed me on a dare when I was thirteen. That’s the extent of my love life. Having a father running for president is deterrent enough. Being locked in my own home seals the deal.

“You’ve only got eight more months of this staying-inside crap and then I’ll take you out!” Rory promises, a wild child at heart. “The second you turn nineteen!”

“Done.” I say, though it feels like a lie when my mind floats back to the note on my window.

“What are you two doing?” Ilan says, balancing a large tray on his belly and shuffling around to the refrigerator. “Rory, are you getting Lily into trouble again?”

“Always!” she sings, adding another dollop of cherry compote to the top of the rillettetes.

Ilan drops the tray and comes to inspect our work. He rolls up his sleeves, displaying arms covered in tattoos. He places his hands on his hips, red face peering at our plates. “Lily, I should hire you on as part of the staff.” Ilan admires my appetizer through keen brown eyes. The bright-yellow lemon-pepper sauce dots the tray in an intricate pattern. “At least while you’re stuck in here.”

“Why, so my parents can pay me, chef?”

“Well, someone should.” He grabs one of the metal pans off the rack. “Although with you two talking so much in here, your speed is lacking. We only have today to prep the amuse bouche. I’ve barely started on the entrées. Rory, as soon as you’re done with those rillettetes, make sure they’re back in the cooler.”

“Of course, chef,” she says and nods.

My mother walks through the door. “Lilith.” She looks at me expectantly and adds, “What’s going on? I thought you were going to come back and tell me how things were going.”

“They’re great!” I hold up the decorating bag.

“Yes, well, come on,” she says, motioning for me. “We don’t have time for that. You have your final dress fitting.”

My lips curl into a frown.

Rory laughs. “I’ll go if you want.”

“Wish I could trade you,” I say, but follow my mother.

To me, being targeted by The Revealed seems like having terminal cancer. At first, you’re devastated. You want to fight, claw at every possible escape. There’s anger and frustration at not having any control. You try anything to get out. But at the end of the day, the cancer keeps growing. Just as the black notes keep coming. Eventually, you realize it’s a losing battle. You want to fight, but it isn’t a war you can win. Whether it’s terminal cancer or The Revealed, they’ve already won. There’s nothing left to do but enjoy the time you have. I’ve accepted it. My parents have not. They’re clinging to every scrap of hope they’ve got. Even though the outcome is so obvious.

Most kids don’t face this fight. I’m the only one I know who’s ever received letters from The Revealed. For most rich eighteen-year-olds, the year inside has become a rite of passage, a step into adulthood. They succumb to their house as a prison because they know there will be years of life on the other side. Sure, no parent wants to see their kid go through this, and no kid wants to turn eighteen. But for most kids, the odds of actually being taken are slim. The Revealed have become as much a cautionary tale as a reality. Most eighteen-year-olds don’t really have to face their fear of dying. They most likely won’t be taken and the time spent indoors is fleeting, so it’s endurable.

I know my eighteenth year is also fleeting. But not because I will soon turn nineteen. Because The Revealed will come for me. And that will be the end of life as I know it, whether they kill me or not.

It makes the pomp my parents insist on all the more ridiculous.

My mother sits in her favorite plush chair while I stand on a raised platform in my ball gown for tomorrow night. Gold and plush, the dress corsets my body, pulling everything into tight, womanly lines. When it reaches my hips the dress explodes in silk and ruffles, the fabric draping like a curtain to the floor. The seamstress floats around me, tacking on little flowery details as she goes, completing the effect of the dress.

I’m a cupcake.

I glance over at my mother to gauge her reaction, but she’s got a newspaper covering her face. On the front page is a boy with dark hair hanging in his eyes, framing his sharp face. Bright green-and-gold eyes peek up at the camera, bemused, as he wades through the press. He’s in a crowd with his friends, smirking against the camera flashes. He’s holding a girl’s hand. Two more boys stand around him. One of them has an arm extended to keep the paparazzi at bay, bulging biceps warning against any attempt to get too close.

I know them all. We went to school together. They were a year ahead of me. Most kids just pretended like I didn’t exist. But Roderick Westerfield’s son Kai, the dark-haired boy in the photo, was the worst.