Queen, Page 2

  “America is supposed to be a fair meritocracy. We’re all supposed to receive what we deserve based on our skills and intelligence. But unlike the rest of us, there is a small section of the population that is born into a life of luxury that they never have to work a day in their lives to earn. The Hart family included.

  “But being born into a life of privilege isn’t the only way to get a VI or a VII. I received a VII after I was Masked, for instance. And I wasn’t the only one.” I gripped the edge of the podium so tightly that I felt a splinter wedge its way into my palm. “Over a year ago, another citizen was Masked as a Hart—a man named Victor Mercer. Except he wasn’t Masked as a background figure like Lila, too many steps away from power to be anything more than a pawn. Victor Mercer was Masked as the one and only Daxton Hart—Prime Minister of the United States.”

  An audible gasp rose through the crowd, and they began to push forward in their eagerness to hear more, jostling for a better position. Victor Mercer had been a high-ranking official who ran Elsewhere with his brother for years, and no doubt many of the former prisoners remembered his particular brand of sadism. Several shouted at me, demanding proof, and I shook my head, my voice rising.

  “I’ve felt the V on the back of his neck myself. But he’s done a masterful job of destroying nearly all of the evidence that he was Masked. Some still exists, though. And when the time is right, the Blackcoats will release it and prove that the man who calls himself Daxton Hart—the man dictating our lives, the most powerful man in the country—is an impostor.”

  I had to shout the last few words into the microphone to be heard over the audience’s roars of outrage. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Knox give me an approving nod, though he still didn’t smile. Either way, it was enough. At last we’d agreed on something—that telling the truth, the full truth, was what would eventually help lead the rebellion to victory.

  “This country belongs to the people, not to the ruling class,” I called above the noise. “We’re the majority—we’re the ones their policies and decisions affect, while they constantly hover above the law. They kill the lower ranks for sport. They live in luxury while IIs and IIIs starve. And we have the power to stop them. Yet not once, in the seventy years the Harts and the Ministers of the Union have been in power, have we risen together to face these injustices. But now we can. It’s our responsibility to stand together against these monsters—against the impostors that rule our government. This is our country, and we need to take it back before the man who calls himself Daxton Hart destroys it completely.”

  At last a rousing cheer rose from the crowd, and I exhaled sharply. My hands shook, and my heart pounded, but I felt as if I were floating. I wasn’t done yet, though, and the next portion wouldn’t be so easy. I’d gone back and forth with Knox, arguing about it for days, but ultimately telling the truth meant telling the entire truth—and that meant calling out the real Lila Hart.

  “Daxton will try to tell you that every word I say is a lie,” I said. “He’ll ask for proof. He’ll call this a trick to gain sympathies. He’ll insist I’m only acting as a puppet for the leaders of the Blackcoat Rebellion. But the real puppet here is Lila Hart. I’ve seen the speeches she’s given since the Battle of Elsewhere. I’ve heard her cries for peace. And we—the Blackcoats—will do all we can to make sure no more blood is spilled in this war. But when peace means lying down and allowing the government to execute us, for standing up for our freedom and for those who can’t stand up for themselves, I’m afraid we can’t do that. Peace without freedom is imprisonment. It’s oppression. They can try to scare us. They can try to threaten our families and our lives, but ultimately we won’t have lives if we can’t decide for ourselves how we live.

  “I don’t blame Lila,” I added. “I know that, if she could, she would be here with me, giving this speech much more eloquently than I ever could. And I say to her, right now—” I looked directly into the camera. “You are not alone. Whatever Victor is holding against you, whatever he’s doing to make you obey—we know those aren’t your words, and we know they aren’t your beliefs. And we will do everything we can to help you, the way we’re doing everything we can to help the people. You are one of us, and we will not forget you.”

  I paused to allow that to sink in. While the citizens of Elsewhere couldn’t have cared less about Lila, the rest of the country did, and they had to know she was a puppet. It wouldn’t completely cut off Daxton’s counterpoints, but maybe it would be enough to plant the kernel of doubt.

  “This isn’t about Lila, though,” I said at last. “It isn’t about me, and it isn’t even about Victor Mercer posing as Daxton Hart. This is about you—every single person watching right now. This is about your future, your family, your health and happiness and hopes. All our lives, we’ve been living under a dictator masquerading as a friend, with no way to overthrow him and take back the freedom Americans enjoyed a hundred years ago. But the Blackcoats have opened the door of possibility. They’ve paved the way for real change, and it’s up to us to take this opportunity and turn it into a reality. Our reality. Not a dream, but something we can live. The chance to choose our own paths in life. To be more than the numbers on the backs of our necks.

  “The Blackcoats have crippled the military and seized control of their main arsenals. They have infiltrated the government, and they have worked tirelessly to give us back the inalienable rights that were stolen before any of us were born. But it’s up to us to finish the job. We need to stand together against the Shields, the Harts, and the Ministers of the Union. We need to remind them that we are the ones in charge, not them—that this is our country, and after all they’ve done to us, our families, and our friends, we are revoking their privilege to rule. Because it is a privilege,” I added fiercely. “Not a right. A privilege we gave them through our compliance. And the time has come to take back what is ours. Together, we will prevail, and we will be free.”

  The cheers from the former prisoners were deafening. I could see it in their faces—for these few moments, they forgot about their hunger and their despair. They believed in what I was saying. They believed in hope, and that alone had made everything I’d been through worth it.

  Knox joined me on stage, but instead of saying anything to the audience, he set his hand on my shoulder and led me away. “Good,” he said. “Lila couldn’t have done it better.”

  High praise, considering she had managed to rally the initial support for the Blackcoats from nothing but mild discontent. “Do you think they’ll listen?” I said.

  He pressed his lips together as we descended the stairs toward a waiting Benjy, the crowd’s screams ringing in my ears. “They’d better. We can’t do this alone.”

  And if we didn’t have the support of the people outside Elsewhere, too, then we were already dead.

  II

  Supply and Demand

  The highest-ranking Blackcoats gathered in the living room of the luxurious Mercer Manor, a mansion that had been built inside Elsewhere to house Jonathan and Hannah Mercer. It served as our headquarters now, and most of the rebel leaders were hulking and scarred soldiers who appeared extremely out of place beside crystal vases filled with fake flowers and paintings of pastel landscapes. They looked as uncomfortable sitting on the fancy gilded sofa as I felt standing underneath a portrait of Daxton Hart. The way a few of the soldiers were eyeing it, I had a feeling it wouldn’t be there long.

  While we waited for Knox to finish up in his office, Benjy joined me and laced his fingers through mine. After my speech, he’d gotten swept up in a discussion with a handful of officers, and we hadn’t had the chance to talk until now. As the others spoke in low voices, I squeezed his hand. “That was terrifying.”

  He ducked toward me, his lips brushing my ear. “I can’t believe Knox finally let you tell everyone about Daxton.”

  I bristled. “He didn’t let me do anything.
We planned it together, and I was the one in front of the cameras.”

  Benjy hesitated, and I half expected him to drop my hand. Instead, to my surprise, he kissed my cheek before he straightened. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  I forced myself to unclench my teeth. It had been a long, stressful morning, and the last thing I wanted was to take my anxiety out on him. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  Benjy, more than anyone else in that room, understood why Knox and I fought constantly. As much as Knox had helped me since I’d been Masked as Lila, he had also played fast and loose with my life, at times seeming as if he didn’t care at all whether I made it out of this alive. And while I loved to blame him for it, I hadn’t exactly been as careful as I could have been about my safety, either. But when I took risks, I did so willingly, knowing full well what the consequences might be. When Knox took risks, his own neck was never on the line. It was always mine. And he usually didn’t bother to tell me what he was doing.

  More often than not, Benjy was caught in the middle somehow. Knox had had no problem faking his death, sending him to Elsewhere, and putting him at risk time and time again as well, and no matter how often he insisted he did it for Benjy’s safety, I had stopped believing him the moment he first put Benjy in the line of fire by hiring him as his assistant. I was the pawn in this game, not Benjy. I was the III who had no place in the world beyond the rebellion. Benjy was a VI—the highest rank a citizen could attain—and he had a future. A real future. I wouldn’t let anyone, especially not Knox, take that away from him.

  But no matter how bitter I was about everything that had happened since I had become Lila Hart, the fact remained that I believed in Knox. I believed he was doing the right thing, and even if I didn’t always agree with his methods—or, more accurately, with how he didn’t seem to trust me with his plans, even when I was a key part of so many—I still knew he wouldn’t sacrifice my life unless he had to. And if my death was the difference between winning the war and losing, I would walk the plank willingly. He knew I would do anything to destroy Daxton Hart and help the people win freedom and equality and real opportunity.

  So he used me. And no matter how much I complained, I let him.

  We were both too stubborn and too convinced we were each in the right. It worked well when we were on the same page, but when we weren’t, we both used our strengths against each other. And that had yet to turn out well for either of us.

  Benjy and I stood in silence, our fingers still intertwined, until at last Knox appeared. He looked even worse than he had earlier, with deep shadows under his eyes and his hair sticking up as if he’d run his fingers through it one too many times. He stepped in front of the fireplace, with Benjy and me on one side, and his lieutenant, a fierce man called Strand, on the other. I hadn’t liked Strand since he’d first arrested me and Hannah the day the Blackcoats attacked Elsewhere, but Knox trusted him, so I grudgingly tolerated him for now. He had, after all, just been doing his job.

  “Now that the country knows Daxton’s real identity, we have to be prepared for a backlash,” said Knox without preamble. “It could go either way. We could gain support—I’m sure we will gain support, after Kitty’s speech. But the government has supporters, too. Powerful supporters who won’t be so willing to lose their Vs or VIs and find themselves on equal ground with the IIs and IIIs. That’s what we’re working against. The brightest and most privileged in the country aren’t interested in equality, and while they’re a small percentage, they have enough power and smarts between them to come up with a countermove to anything we try.”

  “So we just have to be smarter than they are,” said Benjy, releasing my hand. “For every move we make, we’ll have to anticipate their countermoves and come up with our own solutions before they realize what they’re going to do. We have to be three steps ahead of them at all times.”

  “We’re already two steps behind,” said Strand. “They’ve choked off several of our main supply lines. The few we have left are sporadic at best, and half the time it’s too risky to even attempt deliveries. We may have enough bullets to storm D.C., but without food and medical supplies, there won’t be enough of us left to do it.”

  “The citizens of Elsewhere are days away from rioting,” said a fierce-looking woman with a scar running down the side of her face. I recognized her from the Blackcoat bunker in D.C. “If we don’t find a way to feed them, we’ll be dead before the battle even begins.”

  She was right. There were thousands upon thousands of former prisoners in Elsewhere who had chosen to stay and fight for the Blackcoats. We had an army at our disposal, but it was an army that could turn on us at any moment if we didn’t give them what we’d promised: a better life than the Mercers and the Harts ever had. So far, we weren’t delivering.

  “Is there another way to get supplies here?” I said. Several pairs of eyes turned toward me, and I crossed my arms. I had no military experience and no gift for strategizing, not like Benjy did. But I was excellent at asking stupid questions.

  “Such as?” said Strand, barely masking his impatience. He liked me about as much as I liked him.

  “Isn’t Elsewhere almost completely surrounded by lakes? Can’t we come in from a direction they won’t expect?” I said.

  “That’s an idea,” said Benjy suddenly, and he met my eyes and flashed a smile. It was the same smile he had given me back in the group home every time I’d bothered to help him with my homework, and no amount of applause could warm me from the inside out the way that smile did. “We have a strong defense here, and we know that any strike they mount will come from the south, over land. But the lakes surrounding the rest of the state—we have enough ships under our control to bring in something. It won’t be enough to give anyone a life of luxury, but we’ll have the basics, at least.”

  “They’ll be expecting it,” said Strand. “That’s why we haven’t tried it.”

  “So we create a distraction. Set up another supply line—make ourselves look desperate. Divert their attention from the water.” Benjy glanced at Knox. “What do we have to lose?”

  “Lives, that’s what,” said Strand. “Human lives.”

  “People are going to start dying anyway if we don’t do something,” I said. “We’ll ask for volunteers. No one goes who isn’t willing. But we’re all prepared to die for this, or else we wouldn’t be here right now. And I, for one, don’t plan on dying of starvation.”

  All eyes turned to Knox. He stared down at the carpet, his arms crossed as he worried his lower lip between his teeth. He was only in his twenties, but in the few months I’d known him, he seemed to have aged a decade.

  “If we do nothing, nothing changes,” he said, his gaze not wavering from the ground. “We do what we have to do to feed our soldiers. Benjy, you’re in charge of setting up the new supply line and the diversion. Strand, you assist.” He called out several other names, assigning them to find volunteers for the mission, as well as to round up whatever supplies we had left. By the time he fell silent and the meeting ended, everyone had a job.

  Except me.

  Benjy turned toward me, his eyes alight with purpose. I hadn’t seen him look so determined since before we’d been sent to Elsewhere, and with as much as Knox and I fought, I was relieved he wasn’t taking his frustration with me out on Benjy. “Do you want to brainstorm with me and Strand?”

  “If feeding everyone in Elsewhere depends on Strand and I working together, we’re all going to starve,” I said, only half joking. “I’ll be around when you get back.”

  Benjy hesitated and glanced at Strand, who tapped his foot impatiently near the entrance to the kitchen. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure. Now go before he tries to shoot me or something.”

  Benjy gave me a quick kiss and hurried to join Strand, leaving Knox and I alone in the living room
. As much as I wanted to be useful, elbowing my way into Benjy’s assignment wouldn’t help anything. He would spend the entire brainstorming session trying to explain something to me or backing me up whenever Strand tried to tear me down, and now that we both had a chance at a future beyond whatever the Harts dictated to us, I refused to hold Benjy back. I’d done enough of that already.

  “So.” I turned to Knox. “What do you want me to do?”

  Knox moved to one of the abandoned couches and sat down heavily, settling his head in his hands. He had been slowly breaking down over the past couple weeks, and as hard as that alone was to watch, it was even more difficult seeing him struggle to hold it together in front of everyone else. Why he was letting his guard down with me, I didn’t know, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I figured it was some form of a compliment. Or maybe he just didn’t care what I thought of him anymore.

  “I want you to explain to me why you thought pardoning Lila in front of the entire nation was a good idea,” he muttered.

  I blinked. “Out of all the things I said, that’s what you’re upset about?”

  “She’s going to get countless numbers of my men and women killed.”

  “So will you. He’s blackmailing her, Knox. She doesn’t have a choice—”

  “Of course she does.” At last he looked at me, his eyes narrowed. The dark smudges underneath them seemed even more pronounced than usual. “We all have a choice, Kitty. Every last one of us, and she’s made hers. She’d rather see everyone inside Elsewhere die instead of face whatever consequences Daxton has in store for her.”

  “And what if it’s a choice between us or killing Celia? Or Greyson?” I said. “You can’t tell me you’d refuse.”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched. “It wouldn’t be easy, but—”

  “Right. You’re the one who isn’t afraid to sacrifice a pawn or two if it means winning the game.” I glared at him. “The people love her. You can’t condemn her as a war criminal, no matter what she does. The best way to get around what she’s saying is to do exactly what I did—acknowledge her. Acknowledge the fact that she’s really on our side, but is being blackmailed. It discredits anything that comes out of her mouth.”