Chapter 27 #2
Lucy’s fingers twitch in my hand and I hold her steady. Roxana crosses her legs and does not betray any emotion in her face. “You used to value the concept of mercy. I mourn the loss of the woman you were. I think that version of Jessa would’ve made a very fine president.”
This penetrates Theia’s armor. As on the tarmac with Lucy, the subject of their friendship—and, by extension, me—wounds her. “We’ll never know, will we? As it appears I have traitors in all sectors. Treason has done his worst.”
Roxana and I scoff in tandem, and Theia turns to us sharply. I say nothing—I’m well trained—but Roxana doesn’t care. “Unironically quoting Macbeth in your position.”
“What else to quote, when surrounded by traitors? My trusted adviser scheming against me. My former best friend undermining my efforts with her pitiful army of Order rejects. The heiress who seduced my soldier away from her cause. My daughter, torn from me by her loyalty to a girl who is not her blood.” Theia pivots to me.
“And my greatest disappointment. The child I saved from death, who betrayed me at every turn. The traitor whose treason keeps me up at night and sits heavy on my heart. This is all your fault, you understand that, yes?”
I swallow. In an instant, I’m two inches tall and five years old. It takes much courage not to tremble. “My fault?”
“Yes. This begins with your arrest. Delilah turns against me, my daughter turns against me, Mason, my longest serving soldiers, everyone. They came rushing to your defense, with no regard toward how your actions could have compromised everything we fought for. If Luciana’s horrid father lives, there is no guarantee he doesn’t come back for his power.
And the Reed children too. You don’t think we’ll be seeing them in ten, twenty years?
Mercy is a weakness. And they showed me their weakness for you.
I could not trust a single one of my closest confidants because of the actions of a horny teenager I should have struck against a rock as an infant. ”
Theia looms over me, and Roxana gets out of her seat and stands in between us. “Don’t even think about laying a hand on my daughter again.”
“Your daughter?” Theia balks, laughing and stepping backward.
“You spawned her, yes, but you did not make her. Did you lose sleep, feeding and soothing a crying infant around the clock for months on end? No. Did you teach her to walk and talk, to eat and to read? No. Did you bandage her scraped knees, or hold her when she nearly died from fever? No. I did. I raised this child. She is more my daughter than yours, no matter how much of your blood runs through her.”
“No, she is not. You may have raised this child, but I loved her.”
“Oh, that is a very pretty thought, Roxana. Is that what keeps you from hating yourself for abandoning your only child? That you ‘loved’ her?” Theia peers around Roxana to me. “This is why I told you love is a weakness. Love does not win wars. Love does not overthrow tyranny.”
Roxana does not back down, even as Theia aims her fiery gaze right at her.
“Your various shortcomings are not her fault. Your inability to see past your own zeal for power is not her fault. The fact that she grew to be twice the soldier you never were, and three times the leader you could’ve hoped to be…
that is not her fault, either. My daughter is not your scapegoat.
What was that phrase you used to love to tell us?
‘The pen that writes our destinies is in our hands.’ You can’t blame Taylor for writing hers. ”
“No, but I can blame her for being an amorous whore who traded her future to shack up with the region’s highest paid prostitute.”
“Jessa, that is enough.” Delilah’s stern voice catches us off guard.
“You can tender your resignation, or we can go public with our intelligence. We know you’ve been bombing civilians and blaming it on the rebels, and we can prove it.
We know you’re tossing UR soldiers into combat against each other and claiming they’re insurgent battles.
We know about the blackmail, the executions.
Roxana has agreed that if you resign, she will surrender her troops.
The fighting will be over. We can truly start again. ”
Theia turns from us, her leather pants squeaking with every move.
Her boots make no sound against the thin carpeting that runs over the entire floor of the library.
Roxana steps back and stands somewhat behind my chair, her hand on the top of my shoulders.
I think back upon Lucy’s remark about this being a trap and scan the room for potential places of ambush.
It doesn’t seem likely, but it can’t be ruled out.
“And what becomes of me?” Theia asks, quieter than before. “I rot in a cell? A cautionary tale for those with too much ambition for the small minds of others?”
“Of course not. You may live free as a citizen in wherever you choose. The other leaders have opened their borders to you, and to Hunter, if she’d like to go with you.
” Delilah slowly walks toward Theia, imploring her with gentle coaxing.
“No one will know what we know. You can live out your life in peace, and enjoy the country you helped build. This is not a failure. It is simply time to move on.”
Little noises of disbelief fill my ear from the side as Lucy contends with this information.
Without a doubt, she’s thinking this is far too lenient for what Theia has done, and she’s right.
Where was this empathy when her father agreed to exchange his life for hers?
And for McGovern’s family, or the Reeds.
Not Thorne, of course—he was a bastard with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
However, it is the granting of mercy, the choosing of empathy over punishment, that separates the real tenets of the Order from Theia’s corrupted version.
Theia sighs, weary and long. How ungrateful we must seem to her.
Not just those of us in the room, but everyone in the country who will never know of her work and her sacrifices.
“What choice do I have? I could resist, yes? Start another civil war, fracture our already precarious union? Make me the villain as you always intended.”
She directs the last line toward Roxana, who jeers at her. “I supported you, Jessa, and you know that. You didn’t want to share leadership with Paul and me.”
“Because you did not have the fortitude to do what was necessary to ensure lasting peace. You still don’t.” Her smile is deadly, and pitying. “I will resign, effective immediately. I do not want to be involved in a drawn-out, dramatic transfer of power. Do as you wish with what I have built.”
She looks upon the tableau of Roxana, Lucy, and me, but I don’t see the scathing hatred of before. It is a resignation, both literally and figuratively, and it makes my heart ache.
“Perhaps one day we’ll learn to stop taking from one another, Roxana.”
Roxana hums but doesn’t respond or move from where she’s stood, almost guarding me. Between she and Lucy, Theia’s fearful presence cannot penetrate my nerves as it used to. The power she had over me has dissolved, washed away. In its place I remain, whoever I may turn out to be.
Lucy stands as Theia walks by her and sneers. “I wish I could’ve killed you.”
Oddly, Theia laughs. Short and fast, clearly surprised. “And I suppose the others talked you out of trying?”
“No, nobody did. I still might.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. You wouldn’t want your beloved to think you’re a ruthless murderer like me, would you? The pedestal upon which she’s placed you is dizzyingly high. The beacon of purity and light, Luciana Piccolo.”
They stand at an impasse, with Lucy’s hands twitching at her sides.
Lucy takes a step back and watches Theia walk away.
It is the end of an era, and the beginning of a new life for everyone present, and for many who don’t know it yet.
I cannot help but feel a measure of sadness as she makes for the door.
A single gunshot rings out.
Theia falls to the floor, not unlike how Leader Piccolo did months ago. Maybe that is how the mighty actually fall—thunderous and quick. Delilah rushes toward Theia’s motionless body on the carpet. She takes her pulse, but it’s useless. The shot went clear through her brain stem.
Each of us turn toward the origin of the shot.
Hunter lowers a small handgun, no bigger than her hand, as tears stream down her face. “Mercy is a weakness.”
“Hunter, how could you?” Delilah stands, hands bloody, and her glossy eyes glare at Hunter from across the room. “How are we going to explain this?”
“I don’t know. Spin is your job, isn’t it?
What I do know is my mother. I know my mother never would walk away from power.
This was a farce. Why do you think she dismissed everyone?
No witnesses to hear her pretend resignation.
Besides, she told you herself—none of you had the fortitude to do what needed to be done for lasting peace.
But, as usual, she didn’t account for me. ”
Hunter tosses the gun on a side table and makes her way across the library with deliberate steps.
Upon reaching Lucy and me, she stops and regards us with a pained smile.
Lucy sticks out her hand and Hunter laughs wetly and shakes it.
They appear to have come to an understanding the rest of us cannot comprehend.
The scions of malignant persons, who grew to be much greater than their forebears. “Where will you go?”
“Thinking I’ll head back to the Southwest,” she says, wiping tears from her face. “I might have some unfinished business there. Looking at you two, the love you have…gives me hope, you know?”
Lucy smiles at me and reaches out to take my hand again. “Good luck, Hunter.”
“Back at you, Piccolo.” Hunter looks to me. “Don’t be a stranger, kid. The weather’s nice in Arizona.”
Unable to stop myself, I lean in and take Hunter in a tight hug. The burden she took on so that we didn’t have to bear it, it is another debt I can never repay. “We will see each other again soon, I promise.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that.” Finally, she pivots her attention to Delilah, who is a mixture of grief and confusion, of relief and understanding. “If you can, have them bring her to HQ. I’d like to bury her properly before I go.”
“Yes, of course.”
Hunter nods to us around the room, gives Theia’s body one last parting glance, and walks out of the library and closes the door behind her.
The four of us—five, if you count Theia’s lifeless corpse and continued presence despite this—stare at each other.
There is an insurmountable amount of work to do.
“So…” Lucy purses her lips in thought. “What now?”
“We need someone to step in her place temporarily. I can bring the council in and start restructuring the government, but I cannot do that and guide the nation.” Delilah rubs her forehead, smearing a bit of Theia’s blood on her skin.
“Roxana, you and your people need to help get the towns in order. I will give you a list of my contacts. Patricia can handle hers, I’m sure.
But the people will need to hear from someone. ”
“Why not Taylor? The army knows her. You’d be hard-pressed to find a place where the Underclass haven’t heard of Eos, the hero who swoops in to help when in need. I can’t think of anyone better, or more deserving.”
“I can.” I nearly laugh, it’s so obvious. “You.”
Lucy rolls her eyes. “Taylor, come on. I’m the daughter of a former leader. There’s no way anyone will take me seriously.”
“Who better to unite the nation than someone who embodies the spirit of what we hope to achieve? Total unification?” I ask, gazing up at her.
“The pedigree and education of a leader, but the soul of an everyday citizen. The fierce courage of a soldier, and the gentle altruism of a humanitarian. You have both fought in battle and coordinated them, but also witnessed the actual impact of war and policy on the people. You know how to speak the language of the Upperclass and Underclass. Most importantly, you have the one quality in a leader that most countries do not.” I place my hand in the center of her chest. “The most loving, gorgeous heart. I do not know a single person better for this position, because I do not know a single better person.”
Lucy’s eyes convey multitudes—affection, pride, desire—but the fear grabs me. She chews her lip, glancing to Delilah and Roxana before fixing her gaze back on me. “Look at what happened the last time a Piccolo took power. Years of tyrannical rule and oppression. You know I…I never wanted this.”
“Lucy, you know that we are not the sum of our ancestors. We are not our last names. I mean, I didn’t even have a last name until a couple days ago, and I still don’t know it.”
“It’s Clark,” Roxana interjects quietly.
“See?” Lucy continues to appear reticent and I take both her hands in each of my own. “If you truly do not want this, I will not push you. The choice is absolutely yours and yours alone. I will only say, as certain as the sky is blue, you can do this and you’d be great at it.”
Lucy inhales a deep breath. Here we stand, in the same building we met, a lifetime away from the two women whose lives collided on a crowded dance floor.
She, now a leader in her own right, and me, no longer a lonely orphan soldier but someone connected to the world with an ever-growing family. It began here, and it begins again.
“And you’ll be by my side?” she asks, gripping my hands.
There is nowhere in the world I would rather be, so I answer simply.
“Always.”