CHAPTER 61 #2
Dad nods, kisses my cheek, and signals for two guards to stay with me.
I wish him luck, then sit up straighter, bracing for the moment he announces his run for Governor of the Rainbow District.
His campaign won’t be the same battlefield I crawled through this year, but it will have its own risks.
From now on, every step my sisters and I take will reflect on him.
I wouldn’t put it past his enemies to dig up dirt on my family and feed it to Benjamin Bogart, who reports for the Blues as if they’re always just out of sight, waiting with a black bag to drag him into an unmarked grave if he missteps.
Next year, there won’t be any side roads to the finish line, and I only hope I’ll be strong enough to help Dad through it.
When the holographic band disappears, Phillipa begins reading Dad’s introduction from a teleprompter. Her words are complimentary, warmer than I expected. I listen carefully until a notification from my Bond beeps in my ear.
Who the hell would be texting me right now?
I glance at the screen, and the red glow makes my stomach clench.
It’s an urgent notice. I open the message, my pulse quickening as I realize it concerns Irene’s death duel challenge.
Back at the Belvoir Infirmary after the piranha attack, I’d received a notification which explained that the death duel was postponed until after I testified against Irene for trying to kill me in the Speakeasy. But now that notice is gone.
In its place, a new one appears: the death duel between Irene and me is postponed until the conclusion of Edmund’s trial, where he’s challenging Irene for breaking their formal agreement.
I blink hard, shake my head, and reread the lines, but the words refuse to change.
What happened to the Speakeasy trial? How the hell could it vanish?
Around me, ripples of unease spread through the amphitheater.
Whispers swell into a restless sea of voices, as if every student received an alert that Irene is challenging them to a death duel, too.
I look up and meet Charlotte’s eyes across the crowd; she’s staring back at me, her face frozen in horrified disbelief.
The noise intensifies as students rush to their feet on every level, some cheering and clapping while others curse and mutter furiously to each other. On the Blue level, the commotion swells into a roar, with feet pounding and voices chanting a single word in unison.
“Bliss!”
A bolt of fear hits me. I pull up The Civilized Voice and see the breaking news headline, stark and merciless, like a knife through Dad’s heart: PRESIDENT REEVE SIGNS EMERGENCY DECREE OVERTURNING BLISS PROHIBITION ACT.
What the fuck?
I leap to my feet, so stunned that my trophy slips from my hands and crashes to the floor. Onstage, a Pinkie quickly crosses to Phillipa and whispers in her ear. Her face blossoms into a serene smile as she turns back to the podium.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she says, “due to an unforeseen security concern, our closing speaker will no longer be presenting today. This concludes the Ovation Ceremony. We thank you for attending, and I wish you a pleasant summer. May you always be virtuous.”
I stumble backward as the two guards Dad left to protect me each grab one of my arms. “Time to move, Miss Waldsten.”
“Where are you taking me?” I demand. “Where’s my dad?”
Neither guard answers until the elevator doors slide shut and we begin to descend. One keeps his eyes fixed on the control panel, while the other murmurs a brief update into his earpiece, then turns to me and says, “You and your father are being evacuated. This sector is no longer secure.”
A cold, paralyzing dread washes over me.
Both guards draw their weapons and hold them low, close to their bodies.
I clutch the energy shield on my chest, my breath shallow and panicked as I think of Dad, out there somewhere in the chaos.
What could the Blues have used to pressure President Reeve into overturning the Bliss ban? How could he betray Dad like this?
When the elevator jolts to a stop, the doors open to pandemonium. A tidal wave of students surges through the atrium, spilling into the courtyard, caps flying into the air like black hail. The word on every tongue is the same, deafening and relentless.
“Bliss! Bliss! Bliss!”
The guards seize my arms again. “Stay tight,” one orders as they pull me forward. Their shoulders drive into the crowd, pushing bodies aside. Their weapons remain low but visible enough to clear a path. Shouts rise around us, wild, thrilled, and half-drunk on victory.
“Command, copy,” one guard says into his earpiece. “Miss Waldsten is secure. Moving her to the vehicle.”
They muscle me through the courtyard, their shouted commands cutting through the chaos as students are shoved aside.
I curse when, through the shifting crowd, I see Irene standing on the sidewalk as if waiting for me.
Her hunting friends surround her, the same ones who tried to kill me, now laughing as if their arrests were nothing more than a joke at my expense.
There isn’t a single Copper in sight. My gaze drops to Irene’s ankle, and my body stills when I see it bare.
The monitor is gone. That’s why the trial notice disappeared from my Bond.
The charges have been dropped, swept away like Phillipa promised Edmund they would be.
Irene looks into my eyes with poison in hers.
My heart pounds so hard I think I’ll choke.
For a split second, I brace for a smug, gleaming smile to crown her triumph.
Instead, she pulls a cigar from her pocket and saunters through the crowd toward Edmund.
He’s standing with Rosamund, Jack, and Dickie.
When Edmund sees Irene, his face hardens into a dark, steely glare.
She keeps walking until she reaches his side.
Without a word, she reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out his lighter, and lights the cigar with long, steady puffs.
Then, as smoothly as a bullet leaving the chamber, she slides the lighter back into his jacket and turns away, her friends falling in step behind her.
I understand what’s happening. The realization hits me just as the guards push me into the hovercar and slam the door.
Hillaire warned me. She told me the Blues were hungry for revenge, that they’d launch their attack on Reeve, Dad, and everyone brave enough to defy their rule.
Now it’s finally beginning. This is the first move in whatever plan the high-citizens have been crafting in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
In the hovercar, I can barely see Dad through the wall of guards packed in with us. I push forward until they make room for me to sit beside him. “Dad,” I gasp as we lift off toward the campus airport, where his jet waits to take us to safety.
When he doesn’t answer, my eyes drift to the phone in his hand. On the screen, a message from President Reeve is visible:
“I’m sorry, Bruce. I had no choice.”
“Dad,” I say again, but he still doesn’t answer. His phone trembles in his hand as he stares ahead with the vacant, shell-shocked look of a man who’s been knifed in the back, only to turn around and realize it was his best friend.
I throw my arms around his shoulders, trying to comfort him and let him know I’m here.
The phone slips from his hand to the floor.
When I reach down to grab it, I notice something strange.
The sunburst pattern on the carpet doesn’t match the rectangular pattern in the hovercar we took to the Civilized Hall. Why did the guards switch vehicles?
I slide the phone into my pocket and sit upright, a growing sense of unease spreading through me.
The hovercar accelerates, blowing through red lights, its stabilizers shrieking as it cuts hard through turns until the airport comes into view.
Dad’s jet sits on the runway, its engines already spinning in the sunlight.
The hovercar descends and docks in a bay beside the runway.
“The targets are hot until we’re in the cabin,” the head of security says from the front seat. “On my mark, we move.”
As he kicks his door open, I feel a sharp itch crawl along my arm.
I scratch absently, then freeze when my hand comes away wet with blood.
My eyes widen as I follow the streak of green down my sleeve to the hovercar door.
A single, ragged bullet hole punches through the panel where my arm had been.
How is that possible? The windows are supposed to be bulletproof.
And why didn’t my or Dad’s energy shields activate?
Before I can process what’s happening, shouts explode inside the hovercar. “Window’s breached!” a guard yells. “Sniper on us!” Another guard slams his shoulder into me, pushing me down between the seats.
I turn, half in a daze, as I hear a sharp, wet gurgle behind the wall of guards. Dad’s body jerks, then folds forward violently, and a spray of vomit splatters across the carpet.
“Live fire! Principal hit!” a guard bellows as he hauls Dad back against the seat.
Blood pours from the area above Dad’s temple, dripping across his shoulder, soaking through his suit in a murky stain.
My mind disconnects from my body, leaving me staring like an empty sack of skin, unable to accept that the man collapsing in front of me is my father.
“Waldsten is critical!” the head of security barks into his comm. “Head and shoulder trauma! We need an immediate medevac on the tarmac! Secure the perimeter—move, move!”
Dad lets out a groan. His eyes roll back, and his head lolls heavily, as if he can’t hold it up any longer. Then he’s swallowed by the wall of guards as they fight to stop the bleeding.
“Dad!” I scramble off the floor and force my hands between the guards to grab his.
His fingers are cold and slick with blood, trembling in mine as a strangled sob tears out of me.
“Dad!” I crawl over the seat, still holding on to him as the guards drag him toward the door.
“Dad!” I scream through my tears, again and again, even as his hand shudders, then goes limp in mine, because the sound of his name is the only thing still alive inside me.