Chapter 23 #2
“Close the door,” the woman says, but not to anybody in particular.
Roxana is dark-skinned, the color of a harvest moon, with pitch-black hair and light brown eyes that sternly observe everyone with intense calculation.
I’d estimate five foot seven in height, about one hundred and twenty pounds, give or take.
Firmly muscled and older, around the same age as Theia and Delilah.
She wears a gray tank top with a camouflage vest over it, dangling with copper zippers and buttons, and a pair of black cargo pants slim enough to fit inside calf-high combat boots.
Something about her rings familiar to me—perhaps I glimpsed her more thoroughly than I thought during the gunfight on the highway to Lansing.
Private Frank closes the door and returns to her position on our side of the room.
Delilah and I step apart and I back into Lucy’s open palm, which she rests on the small of my back.
Even this, the slightest hint of protection and care, warms me from her touch outward.
So much wasted time denying myself pleasure to focus on a mission that was more servitude than a calling.
“So, who is going to explain to me why an heiress, an assassin, the president’s councilor, and two UR soldiers are in my compound?” Roxana places her hands on her hips and glances around the room.
Delilah motions to the seats. “We need not stand around like we’re waiting for a train.”
Captain Finley sits near Roxana, who chooses to remain standing. Mason takes a seat in the corner, Cassie next to him, and Lucy and I sit across the table in seats side by side. Lucy raises her hand. “Slight objection—I cannot be an heiress when there’s nothing to inherit.”
“What do you want to be called?” Captain Finley asks. “The ghost of leaders past? I’ve been trying out ‘LP,’ I think that’s gonna stick.”
Roxana shoots a look at Captain Finley that, blessedly, shuts her up. “Continue, Delilah.”
Delilah gives Roxana a sidelong glance. Here, something does not add up. The way Delilah surreptitiously looks at Roxana, their relaxed postures, how Delilah leans almost slightly toward Roxana. They are not strangers and they certainly did not meet today for the first time.
“We are preparing to force Theia to resign. The other councilors and I are very disturbed by the actions the new president has taken. Forcing Upperclass citizens to hand over their assets, and executing those who refuse. The violent, brutal suppressions of the remaining police forces. This ridiculous ‘war’ against your—no offense, Roxana—band of smugglers and profiteers has gone on long enough.”
“We were deployed to turn around a losing operation against these rebels.” I am thinking back on the briefs and reports Mason showed me, the veracity of which I did not question.
Maybe if I hadn’t been so lost in my grief, I would have paid more attention to any discrepancies or oddities.
“I figured she sent us here to die, but I didn’t think she lied about the war itself. ”
Roxana tilts her head and scrutinizes me as Lucy slides her hand on top of mine and grips it in a gesture of comfort.
“In comparing intelligence, it would appear some of the more egregious tragedies—the bombing of Derry, the fire that nearly engulfed a third of Atlanta, the surprise attack at Bordentown—were perpetrated by the UR and made to look like we did it. There are several instances of events blamed on our group that we had nothing to do with.”
This information sits in the room heavy—the air is thick with shock. Instinctively, I look at Mason. He is grim, but unsurprised. He and I fought alongside these people—our people, our citizens—that Roxana is alleging are being killed by their own leader.
“Are you saying Theia is intentionally killing our soldiers?” Cassie inquires in a small voice. The bold girl who threatened Lucy is gone, in her place a scared teenager who has never seen combat. “She’s…faking this war?”
“That is how it appears,” Delilah replies solemnly. “We suspected as much but couldn’t confirm it without knowing the movement of Roxana’s soldiers. With these suspicions confirmed, it is more urgent than ever that we remove her from power.”
“She will not go down quietly. Theia has never been fond of a contrary voice.” Roxana crosses her arms over her chest. Again, the familiarity strikes me as odd. That’s precisely what I said—how could Roxana know Theia that well?
“No, I imagine not. We are preparing to take the capital by force, though we would prefer a diplomatic resolution.”
“Are you kidding? You’re going to let her step down peacefully, after everything she’s done?” Lucy scoffs loudly. “Why didn’t my father get a chance to step down? Or the Reeds? Or McGovern’s fucking kids?”
“Right, I forgot Blondie Senior here is a kid-killer,” Captain Finley interjects.
“I did not kill Leader McGovern’s children,” I shoot back.
It was my first assassination, the one Hunter and I had planned meticulously.
Mason would drive the boat. I would take the children into custody.
Hunter would assassinate the leader and his wife.
Instead, I had to do everything by myself because Hunter was gone and I worried about Mason being a Black man alone in the Southeast, so I made Theia keep him back too.
“The night I arrived, there was a coup at the mansion. I killed the leader as he was fleeing alone. His wife and children burned alive inside. I…I tried to go in for them, but the flames had nearly engulfed the entire home.”
While most of the room looks rightly horrified, Captain Finley remains suspicious.
“How come nobody else heard that story? I’m from here, all right?
I grew up in Alabama, I know all about shitty McGovern.
Every person who was around that night said the family were murdered and then Order soldiers ransacked the house and burned it down. ”
“Theia encouraged that story, yes. It helped the optics of our operation to be taken seriously within circles such as yours, or other underground rebellion efforts. We would rather be seen as ruthless and efficient than lucky and messy.” I shove my hands in my pockets.
“Believe what you want, but that is what happened. I do not have any reason to lie to you.”
“Except you don’t want your lover to think you’re a kid-killer,” Captain Finley replies. “Or your disciple over there.”
“I would rather be judged for who I am than appreciated for who I am not. Lucy and Private Frank know who and what I am. If you want to make a different judgment, go ahead. I truly do not care what you think of me.”
The tension in the room breaks as Captain Finley snickers and shakes her head. “Yeah, okay, I see why you like her, LP.”
Delilah looks to Roxana. “I would like you to come with us to New York. Your ‘surrender’ alongside the pressure from other councilors I believe will give her more incentive to step down peacefully.”
“In the meantime, what? We keep getting slaughtered by Greens who don’t even know who the fuck they’re fighting?” Captain Finley raises her voice and crosses her arms, clearly incredulous. “This is a big ask from a group that’s done nothing but indiscriminately murder my friends for months.”
I roll my eyes. “Clearly, you’d pull your people back as best you can. Spread out, don’t hoard everyone here because that makes a target. Get somewhere safe for the time being.”
“So, hide like cowards.” Captain Finley huffs.
“That should not be hard for you. An ambush from behind on a civilian road, sending an assassin into an unarmed ballroom, amateurishly derailing a train and setting fire to the local ecosystem—you are excellent in cowardice already.”
Captain Finley barks out a laugh and glares at me over the table. “You must be exhausted from the hoops you gotta jump through to look like the good guy.”
“One of your people shot an innocent woman in a ballroom. She died in my arms. Your pointless ambush cost Mason his arm.”
“The grenade he threw back at us cost him his arm,” Captain Finley replies harshly. “And I don’t know anything about an assassin in a ballroom. We’re too busy fighting for our lives to attend your cute parties.”
“I never sent anyone to a room full of civilians.” Roxana’s light eyes move from me to Delilah. “If they claimed to be one of us, they were lying.”
Lucy puts words to the thought I cannot speak aloud. “Theia sent her.” She laughs like Captain Finley, sarcastic and short. “Of course she did. She sent someone to kill me. God, she sucks. Have I mentioned lately that she sucks? Maybe I’ve been too light on telling everyone how much she sucks.”
“I can’t believe she’s killing our soldiers.” Cassie’s sad, faraway voice cuts through the tension in the room. “Our friends, our families. Not to mention the poor people simply trying to live their lives. The people we thought we were helping and protecting.”
“I don’t believe there is a depth of depravity too deep for Theia,” Roxana remarks quietly. “That has been my experience, anyway.”
Another reference to an unexplained history. Delilah locks eyes with me, and I know she knows I suspect there is another layer here. This game of hide-and-seek information tests my patience.
Delilah gestures to the others. “Would you all mind giving us the room? Roxana and I need to speak to Taylor alone.”
Captain Finley gets up first. “All right, but if the goddamn assassin from the Order of Prometheus kills the boss, I am gonna say I told you so.”
Mason and Cassie leave after Captain Finley, but as Lucy reluctantly gets up, I place my hand on her arm. “Lucy stays.”
Roxana and Delilah share a glance before Delilah nods. “Very well.” Lucy sits back down, but we’re both on edge. “Taylor, as I imagine you have suspected, Roxana has a history with the Order.”
“You two know each other,” I venture. “As long as you’ve known Theia?”
Roxana smiles a little. “You did say she was perceptive.”
“Annoyingly so,” Lucy adds fondly.
Delilah doesn’t look as pleased. In fact, it is the most uncomfortable I’ve seen Delilah look in a long time. She has made a career out of being hard to ruffle. “It’s Roxana’s story to tell, but I must admit to you, Taylor, that I have been keeping information from you, at Theia’s behest.”
Her admission is met with silence and Roxana wearily settles on the edge of her desk.
This information has sat with her for a long time, evidently.
She’s looking at me with such intimate familiarity, far beyond what befits our previous interaction at the ambush.
“Taylor, do you…do you know anything about your parents?”
It’s a struggle to keep my face neutral and I must let up some sign of weakness, because Roxana’s stare gets more intense. Intense, but also sympathetic. I don’t want her pity. “Why? Do you think you might have shot them too? Don’t worry, Theia took care of that for you.”
Roxana’s eyes soften and the stone-faced woman I met a few minutes ago melts into someone else entirely. “Is that what she told you? That your parents are dead?”
“I was led to believe for most of my life that I was abandoned. It was only recently that Theia admitted to having killed my parents.” Again, Lucy tenderly rubs my hand and entwines our fingers together.
I look at Delilah, whose eyes shine with tears.
“Is that the information that you kept from me? I assumed you knew and withheld it to avoid hurting my feelings.”
“No, darling, I’m afraid my deception is worse than that.” Delilah heaves a sigh, somehow packing in a lot of regret in a long breath. “I’m sure it doesn’t mean much to you now, but I agreed to lie to protect you.”
“You know I do not care for this bush-beating,” I reply shortly. “What is going on?”
Roxana reaches behind her and picks up a small, wooden photo frame from a bureau behind the desk.
A natural wood, possibly hand-carved, soft from years of erosion rubbing against hands and bags.
It’s a photo of what I believe to be Roxana in her twenties or early thirties.
A man—tall, blond, and smiling—has his arm wrapped around her shoulders, and she leans into him affectionately.
But what stands out to me is the background.
It’s blurry, but it is undoubtedly the Order headquarters in Pennsylvania.
I can see the peaks of the HQ building in the distance.
“This is HQ. How—is this you? Who are these people?”
“Those are your parents.”
I slowly look up from the photo.
“Taylor…I’m your mother.”