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I’m dragged out of the room and back down the corridor. My hands tremble—I fight to steady my breathing, to calm my racing heart, to push Metias back into a safe corner of my mind. A small part of me had hoped that I was wrong about Thomas. That he hadn’t been the one to kill my brother.
By the next morning, all traces of emotion have disappeared from Thomas’s face. He tells me the Denver court has gotten wind of my request for the Elector and has decided to transfer me to the Colorado State Penitentiary.
I’m off to the capital.
WE TOUCH DOWN IN LAMAR, COLORADO, ON A COLD, rainy morning, right on schedule. Razor leaves with his squadron. Kaede and I wait in the dark stairwell leading out from the back entrance of his office until the sounds outside have quieted and most of the ship’s crew have left. This time there are no guards performing fingerprint scans or ID checks, so we can follow the last of the soldiers straight off the exit ramp. We melt right in with the troops that are actually here to fight for the Republic.
Sheets of icy rain pound the base as we step out of the pyramid dock and into the formidable grayness of this place. The sky’s completely covered with churning storm clouds. Landing docks line the side of the cracked cement street, an ominous row of enormous black pyramids stretching off in either direction, slick and shiny with rain. The air smells stale, wet. Jeeps packed with soldiers drive back and forth, splashing mud and gravel across the pavement. The soldiers here all have a wide stripe of black painted across their eyes from one ear to the other. Must be some sort of crazy warfront style. The rest of the city looms in front of us—gray skyscrapers that probably serve as barracks for the soldiers, some new with smooth sides and tinted glass windows, others pockmarked and crumbling as if they’ve been fed a steady diet of grenades. A few are ash and ruins, some with just one wall left, pointing upward like a broken monument. No terraced buildings here, no grassy levels dotted with herds of cattle.
We hurry along the street with our stiff jacket collars turned up in a pitiful attempt to shield us from the rain. “This place has been bombed, yeah?” I mutter to Kaede. My teeth chatter with each word.
Kaede opens her mouth in mock surprise. “Wow. You’re a cracked genius, you know that?”
“I don’t get it.” I study the crumbling buildings that dot the horizon. “What’s with the shell-shocked look here? Isn’t the actual fighting happening farther away?”
Kaede leans in so the other soldiers on the street don’t hear us. “The Colonies have been pushing in along this part of the border since I was, what, seventeen? Anyway, for years. They’ve probably gotten a good hundred miles in from where the Republic claims the Colorado line is.”
After so many years of listening to the constant bombardment of Republic propaganda, it’s jarring to hear someone tell me the truth. “What—so are you saying the Colonies are winning the war, then?” I ask in a low voice.
“They’ve been winning for a while now. You heard it from me first. Give it a few more years, kid, and the Colonies will be right in your backyard.” She sounds kinda disgusted. Maybe there’s some lingering resentment she has against the Colonies. “Make of that what you will,” she mutters. “I’m just here for the money.”
I fall silent. The Colonies will be the new United States. Can it really be possible that after all these years of war, it might finally come to an end? I try to imagine a world without the Republic—without the Elector, the Trials, the plagues. The Colonies as the victor. Man, too good to be true. And with the Elector’s potential assassination, this might all come true even sooner. I’m tempted to press her more on it, but Kaede shushes me before I can start, and we end up walking in silence.
We make a turn several blocks down and follow a double row of railroad tracks for what feels like several miles. Finally, we stop when we reach a street corner far from the barracks, darkened by the shadows of ruined buildings alongside it. Lone soldiers walk by here and there. “There’s a lull in the fighting right now,” Kaede murmurs as she squints down the track. “Has been for a few days. But it’ll pick up soon. You’re gonna be so grateful to be hanging with us; none of these Republic soldiers will have the luxury of hiding underground when the bombs come raining down.”
“Underground?”
But Kaede’s attention is fixed on a soldier walking straight toward us along one side of the tracks. I blink water out of my eyes and try to get a better look at him. He’s dressed no differently from us, in a soaked cadet jacket with a diagonal flap of cloth covering part of the buttons, and single silver stripes along each shoulder. His dark skin is slick behind the sheets of pouring rain, and his short curls are plastered to his head. His breath comes out in white clouds. When he gets closer, I can see that his eyes are a startling, pale gray.
He walks by without acknowledging us, and gives Kaede the subtlest gesture: two fingers of his right hand held out in a V.
We cross the tracks and continue for several more blocks. Here the buildings are crowded close together and the streets are so narrow that only two people can fit down an alley at a time. This must have once been an area where civilians lived. Many of the windows are blown out and others are covered with tattered cloth. I see a couple of people’s shadows inside them, lit by flickering candles. Whoever isn’t a soldier in this town must be doing what my father used to do—cooking, cleaning, and caring for the troops. Dad must’ve lived in squalor like this too whenever he headed out to the warfront for his tours of duty.
