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She shakes her head.
Now thatistempting. In my time here at Elysium, I've become used to being under observation at all times. I barely even bother to pick out the spies trailing at my heels these days, or play spot-the-camera in the house.
"It would be a risk," Hadria goes on. "You need to understand that. Here at Elysium, there's no way Nero could touch you. Out there—even in the safe house—I can't guarantee your safety."
I can see how much it's costing her to offer this. She can barely force the words out, barely admit that she is willing to let go of control enough to put me into some small risk.
And my first reaction, to my own irritation, is fear. Fear that Nero will find me, that I'm being cast out of the nest with no safety net. For a second, I’m once again that naive little fool who just accepted everything happening to her without the slightest resistance, who never stood up for herself, who neverfoughtfor herself.
But I know how to fight these days. And I can't stay bundled up in bubble wrap for the rest of my life.
Or rather…I don't want to.
So I nod, since Hadria seems to expect a response. "It would be a risk. I understand."
"You can spend the week alone, truly alone," she goes on, "and think through everything that has happened to you here. Thinkabout whether..." She swallows. "Whether you might ever be able to forgive me for the things I've done to you."
It's on the tip of my tongue to reassure her at once, to say at once,of course I can forgive you, but I bite the words back.
What Hadria is proposing, even though I initially hated the idea, actually makes sense.
"And at the end of that week, if you find that you do want to return to me...then there's a café downstairs in the building opposite. Meet me there at 9 a.m. sharp if you want to return to Elysium. I'll wait there for an hour. If you don't show, then..." She gives a shrug. "Then I'll know you've chosen a different fate. I've already set up a bank account for you." She actually turns and rummages in her nightstand, then hands me ten brand new passports, and a card folded up in a piece of paper with typed instructions. "Your new passports," she says. "Use whichever one you like and then burn it when you get wherever you want to go. And that card will give you access to your account. I put a billion in there for you; I think that should cover it."
I drop the passports I've been flicking through curiously—all different nationalities: American, Canadian, British, Australian—to stare at Hadria in shock. "You puta billion dollarsin an account for me?" I choke out, picking up the card to look at it, holding it gingerly by the corners as though it might spontaneously combust.
Hadria gives a nod. "I said I wanted to give you true freedom. I meant it. You can start a brand new life. Be a brand new person. Hire protection if you ever feel you need it—but I will put out the story here in Chicago that you have died, so no one should come looking for you. And of course, I intend to kill Nero in the next few weeks. So once that happens…" She shrugs, thengives me a quick glance. "If you wanted to take your mother with you, I could arrange passports for her, too. Or I can inform her, privately, that you are alive and thriving elsewhere. I believe she'd take that secret to the grave."
"Yes," I say quietly. "Yes, I believe she would." My mother certainly knows how to keep a secret. "And I think—if Iwasto start a new life—I think I would go alone."
Mama. I would miss her, certainly. But freedom always has a cost.
In this case, a billion dollars and a mother, apparently.
"So you'll do it?" Hadria asks softly. "You'll go to the safe house and...consider?"
I look up at her, feeling my heart crack a little at the thought of leaving her. But I owe it to her, and to myself most of all, to make sure that I'm making the choices I truly want to make.
Without duress.
"Yes," I tell her. "I'll go."
And I do.
I go a few days later, trying not to cry as Hadria drives me herself to the safe house, the same apartment where she took me that first day, where we stopped for only moments.
She takes me up there, shows me around. It's as well-appointed as she promised, though a little…sterile. The books are mostly coffee table books, the kind used for display. But there's a giantTV—several, actually—and she even gives me a phone, telling me I can use the internet as much as I like.
I've never told her this, but I've never owned a phone before. My father wouldn't allow it, and it didn't seem necessary to me, anyway. I had no friends. No one to gossip with over text messages or to envy their amazingly curated lives on social media.
Hadria probably knows it, though, based on the way she walks me through opening the phone, putting in a password, connecting to the Wi-Fi. She acts like this is normal, but I know it's not.
I've never been normal.
That's what I'm coming around to seeing, finally.
"I'll leave you now," she says at last, and I let the tears drip down my face as I hug her goodbye. "Please make the right choice foryou," she whispers to me. "I want you to be happy. Happy and free, no matter what."
"Please be careful," I beg her. "Please, please be careful."
