Chapter 5
Don't Miss, Belles
“Ellie, it’s time."
Seven-year-old me turned to Lillemore Chapman-Chen, wanting a smile. I’d had this dream before. It’s always the same, no matter how much I want it to change.
Look at me.
I always wanted it to change. But my will was useless against the powers he had over her.
I kept my mouth in a straight, tight-lipped vice-grip to mirror hers.
“Eliana Glory Kai Xin Chapman-Chen! Youngest Citizen to receive a full scholarship to Babel Institute!”
The crowd erupted, and my vision cleared as I snapped out of whatever trance I’d fallen into.
That’s when the smile came.
Now, she was smiling.
Not at me, though.
My mother was smiling at all those Citizens who were whistling and taking selfies with me in the background.
I was smiling, too. Mine was a practiced smile that had been plastered across my face in front of the mirror several times a day over the last three years, ever since she’d become enamored with him and the idea of getting closer to the top.
I glanced at her for but a moment.
She was smiling alright, but not at me.
She was smiling at Azazel Ofer—the most powerful individual in The Tower, who had finally noticed her and could get her to the top, the only place that mattered in our world.
Same dream ten years running.
A red 9:00 glared at me from my bedside table.
Despite the early hour, I was determined to keep my promise to Zade. I knew he’d never let me hear the end of it if I didn’t show up at the archery range before his rounds. My emotional instability didn’t deter me from being a creature of habit.
Still, I groaned as I rolled out of bed.
“What if Zade Bloomberg proposed?”
The Proctor’s question played through my head as I spat a wad of minty bubbles into the silver sink bowl. I snorted, and some remnant of the toothpaste suds traveled up the back of my throat to tickle in my nose.
The same nightmarish question echoed through my thoughts again about ten minutes later while I was checking my emails on my Visex.
I stifled a laugh before it could bubble out. It wasn’t a happy laugh with blushing and dimples, but the kind that came with a sour taste and a sheen of sweat on the back of my neck.
No LPE results yet. I pursed my lips to the side and narrowed my eyes before shrugging.
Must mean I crushed it.
Another line from the day before echoed through my mind as I stepped out of the dormitory and into the web of traffic.
“I like it when you look at me. Your eyes are so much greener than—”
Greener than…?
What. Does. That. Even. Mean?!
Than what?!
As I stepped out of the Babel compound, I found myself worrying about a guy I’d probably never see again. I was on the brink of achieving everything I’d wanted for the last ten years, yet I kept finding ways to self-sabotage. I was fully aware of my own actions and their potential consequences.
I flashed a toothy grin at the Mod guarding our compound. Then I did another quick scan of my surroundings to be sure.
Now that I had seen him up close—and because he towered above everyone else’s height—I wouldn’t have any problem spotting that creep if he followed me again.
Nope. Not following me.
I smiled, to make sure I wasn’t frowning over not being stalked, and turned left.
Foot traffic worked best on the Illuminated Way, but it was always crowded and way too tricky to get a good pace going.
If I wanted archery time before I had to meet Astrid for “operation graduation preparation” then I needed a clear path.
I tightened my backpack around my torso one last time and set off along the Hi-Lo Way.
It was bustling with HovCrafts, but they wouldn’t bother me as long as I stuck to the railing.
Inhale on the right, left, right.
Exhale on the left, right.
Inhale on the left, right, left.
Exhale on the right, left.
I fell into a rhythm of my feet meeting hyperglass and the count of my breathing.
Chin up, eyes forward. Slight lean. Arms swinging from the shoulders at my sides.
I’d learned over the years that the best way to clear my head was to go for a run.
There were so many different cogs to focus on during a run that the threat of crippling anxiety became much less imminent.
It also helped in getting from one location to another when you covertly fell below the poverty line—not that one existed, according to the giant talking head of an Administrator on the billboard I passed.
Nearly three thousand years of equal prosperity and counting…
By the time I got to the L-lift, I’d managed up a thin sheen of sweat. So, others on the lift gave me extra space.
And down we went.
My stomach lurched in the opposite direction, and I clutched the metal rail, leaving a sweaty handprint for the nanos to clean up. They probably loved it.
I hated, despised, and loathed the L-lift for this reason.
It’s not that I was afraid of heights.
And you see, no one has ever really been afraid of heights.
Just ask them.
It’s not the height. It’s the fall.
I was afraid of the fall—mostly of what happened at the bottom.
The splat and die bit.
I hopped off the lift at level 346,765. Then, the archery range was only a block away—no time to even get up to a jog.
I stopped just outside the reach of the automatic door sensor when a shadow passed in front of me and alerted me to the fact that something—or someone—much larger than myself was way too close.
I spun around so fast that I slammed my knuckles on the rough brick of the archery range. A hiss sprang out of me due to both the sting now lancing through my hand and the fact that there was no one behind me.
The lane was empty, as would be expected. Most shops stayed shuttered until after lunch. Zade only opened the range at this hour because he knew I preferred shooting in the morning.
Nothing was there that could have caused that shadow. No gigantic creep ready to stare at my green eyes again and remind me of what my name was. No swirling dark eyes trying to drown my soul.
I checked my hand as I turned back toward the door of Artemis Archery. The skin puckered around the scrapes, and a couple of pinpricks of blood bloomed just beneath the surface.
Shouldn’t affect the shoot, though.
“Ho, Ho!” Barrister hooted the moment I stepped through the door.
He tossed a blue sweat towel at me with a flick of his veiny wrist. “If it isn’t the fancy graduate lady!
” Despite being around my height, he probably weighed twice as much with all the muscle he’d bulked on, most likely with the Administration’s modification assistance by how deeply his voice boomed.
In his opinion, hating the Administration didn’t negate taking advantage of it.
“Leave her be, Bear,” Yu Ting said as she peeked in from the range and reached out to slap Barrister’s arm.
Looking at me, she smiled so big that her eyes turned to barely-there moons.
“He’s already out on rounds. Said you were taking too long, so he had to go and get ‘em over with. He also has to pay off his other Mod buddies as well. They keep comin’ round.
Should be back in half an hour. Would you like me to set you up, or do you want to wait for him? ”
“Ha!” I scoffed. “Wait for who? Do you think I come here to see that old sack?”
Yu Ting’s smile somehow spread even wider as I sauntered toward the shooting range.
“Set me up. Nobody has time to wait around on him.”
“Aye, aye, Captain!” Yu Ting cheered before vanishing back into the shadows of the range.
I stopped at the threshold to turn toward Barrister and toss the sweat-soaked towel back in his face.
“Don’t ever call me fancy again, you douche.
Here,” I slid my backpack from my shoulders and bent down to rifle through it.
The edge of the envelope that Astrid had given me yesterday caught my eye, barely jutting up from the shadows of the side pocket.
I ignored it for the moment and focused on the sack’s central cavity.
From under my sweat towel, water bottle, and protein bar, I pulled out the paper bag full of astronaut ice cream I’d pillaged from the expiry bin at Nian’s.
“Next time, I’ll eat them all right in front of you for being a top-of-the-line prick. ”
I stretched out one arm with the paper bag as I stood and snatched my backpack up in my other hand.
“Elle, you lovable little ball of needles!” Barrister shouted, approaching me with open arms.
I shoved the bag into his chest and kept my elbow locked to indicate that he was fast approaching my no-no-square.
“If you hug me, I’ll never bring you leftovers again, you overgrown turd.”
Barrister chuckled, his round shoulders bouncing as he took the sack. He wasted no time shoving one in his mouth so that when he gave a hoot of thanks for my getting his favorite treat, crumbs flew out all over the tile floor.
I shook my head at the mess and the man who made it before following Yu Ting into the dimly lit archery range.
Five targets adorned each side, capable of moving in all directions and at varying speeds depending on the customer’s requested settings.
Torches hanging in metal canisters along the wooden poles that separated each target marked the firing line.
It would help keep patrons from getting shot by the shooters practicing next to them if Artemis Archery ever had more than one customer at a time.
As per usual, it was only me that morning.
I didn’t have to tell Yu Ting my settings, as she knew I would take all ten with maximum distance, range of movement, and speed.
All I had to do was take my longbow from its bowstand.
It held the second-highest place of honor next to a rusty old heirloom passed down through Zade’s family from before The Last War.
My bow was a gift from Zade for my sixteenth birthday.
He later carved my name into the teal-stained wood of the lower limb and filled it with molten gold for my eighteenth birthday.