41. Chapter 41
Maryn
The hall stretched longer than it ever had.
The poison was in the glass. August should be dead by now. A man like that, with his nightly ritual, his favorite glass; it was only a matter of time.
But Elias’s words picked at my nerves. He's gone now.
I turned the corner, stepping lightly. I wasn’t prepared to face Sera or Lydia tonight.
If Micah was caught, would he talk? His sister was in that facility. Rotting. Waiting for someone to save her.
Would he trade me for Jemmi?
I would. Mother above, I would trade anything for my family.
My chest tightened, and I forced my feet to keep moving. Elias couldn’t be that good of an actor. The way he’d looked at me across that dancefloor, that wasn’t performance. Was it?
And Calden. Why had he still not come? Was he okay?
I shoved the thought down and reached for my door.
The room was dark. I didn’t bother with the light, crossing straight to the closet and yanking it open. My bag was at the back, behind the pressed dresses I’d never chosen for myself. I dragged it out, dropping it onto the bed.
My fingers found the ribbon at my wrist. I worked the knot loose, the silk sliding free, and set it on the nightstand.
A soft clap sounded from the corner.
A tiny gasp escaped me, and I was moving before I could stop myself. In a moment, everything else fell away.
“Where were you?”
Calden’s hands stilled.
I stopped in front of him, far enough that I couldn't touch him, slap him, beat my fists against his chest.
“I was taken.” My voice was low, steadier than I felt. “I was drugged and cuffed to a chair and questioned by the bureau. I thought I was going to die and you—” I stopped. Pressed my lips together. “Where were you?”
He pushed off the wall and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me against him.
His voice was low. “I didn’t know.”
His arms were tight, a shield against the rest of the world.
I didn't fight.
All the horror of these two weeks, of holding it alone, and now… possibly failure. It was too much.
I sank into Calden’s embrace, a weight pressing me closer.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered against my ear. “I was in Michigan City. My father needed me and I—” He stopped. “I didn’t know. I just heard Elias’s aide was executed. August did it himself. Attempted poisoning.”
I froze.
Micah was dead. They knew. I failed.
Calden kept talking, unaware that the floor had just dropped out from under me. “I would have been here. Damn the consequences.”
I stayed there a moment longer, my cheek against his shoulder. His heart was steady under my ear. In another life, this could have been enough.
But there was no other life. There was only this one, where Micah was dead, and I had to try again. I pressed against him, just for a second. A goodbye he would never know I was saying.
Then I shoved him away.
“You can’t be here.”
There was a rawness to his expression I couldn’t stand to look at.
He reached for me again, but I backed up, spinning around to grab the ribbon off the table.
“I don’t want you here. Leave.”
Silence behind me, but I could feel his eyes on me. Burning into my back.
“You don’t mean it.”
I tried and failed to re-tie my ribbon. “I do.”
My stomach was twisted in a knot, but I didn’t dare turn to look at him. “I have to get ready for Trial Ten. Go.”
He was silent so long, I might have thought he left if it wasn’t for the searing heat on my shoulder blades.
Then, a sharp intake of his breath.
“You pretended with me. You’re pretending with him.” His voice was colder than I’d ever heard it. “Is anything real for you?”
I spun around, the ribbon dangling off my wrist. “Who says I’m pretending with him?”
The scoff slid between his teeth like he’d eaten something sour. “You don’t love him.”
“He saved me from Covenant Security.” I held his gaze. “And he’s the president’s son. Who wouldn’t want that?”
Calden stiffened, genuine hurt flashing in his eyes.
I didn’t want this. Any of this. But what I wanted had never mattered.
The hurt morphed to anger, and his eyes were black with accusation. “Why did they take you?”
I swallowed, stepping backward. Lie, Maryn.
He moved with me, closing the space between us. “Why did they drug and question you?”
“For leaving Elias the night he took me outside the wall.” I closed my mouth. Too late.
A wild laugh choked out of him. “So they punished you for leaving him, and you love him.”
It wasn’t a question.
“I never said I loved him.”
“Your eyes did.” He prowled toward me. “Your body.”
I backed up, the backs of my thighs hitting the bed.
“Your throaty little laugh at his absurd jokes.”
I sank down, but he didn’t follow, running a hand over his pants again and again. “What was your toast?” His fingers curled into a fist. “I remember. For better or worse.”
I glared up at him, the ribbon fisted tightly in my hand. I slid my legs up and pushed back to give us more space, no longer trusting myself to stand. My thumb traced the outline of rough nails that I’d freed from their gloves on the car ride back.
Calden’s gaze darted down, tracking the movement. His eyes widened, the dark malevolence in them evaporating. He took a step back, then another.
“I didn’t mean to—” He inhaled sharply. “I couldn’t stand it.”
My grip loosened on the ribbon.
“When he kissed you that first time… on the front step.” He swallowed. “I wanted to kill him.”
His gaze shot between me and the empty space beside me, almost pleading.
Something in my chest cracked at the hollowness in his words. Slowly, I dipped my chin.
He sank onto the bed. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper with you.”
A beat of silence. Then he slid closer. “Maryn.”
My name in his mouth, instead of that silly nickname, made some of the numbness recede.
His hand stretched toward my knee slowly, as though I would bolt from the room at any moment.
I watched as long fingers drew circles on the fabric and tiny shocks sizzled through me.
“I need to tell you…” His circles stopped, and he searched my face.
“I’m the spy.”
Ice flooded my veins, my limbs locking. I said nothing, staring at him. Outside, the wind gusted loudly, but my whole focus was on his lips as they moved again.
“No one knows. Not even Lucen. You can’t tell him.”
I should run, laugh, seem confused. This was a trap.
“You were meant to enter my Rite. To work with me, inside the wall, to take down August and the other council members.” He laughed bitterly. “But perfect Elias Hale came along and fucked it all up. Even tonight. He saved his father from the poison.”
Heat ignited in my chest, pressing outward, warming my frozen limbs with an overwhelming urge to scream, to hit something.
I surged forward, slamming my fist into his arm, then stumbled back, my mouth falling open.
His face mirrored mine.
He’d been there. Right there, the entire time, and never said a word.
Then, hysterical laughter bubbled up inside me, bursting free and filling the room.
Calden’s shock melted away, and his lips tipped up in a rare smile.
The laughter continued to pour out of me. I gasped for breath, slowly regaining composure.
At last, I stilled, leaning back against my pillow and staring at him through a new lens.
“I never suspected you.”
“I’ve wanted to tell you for so long.” He leaned back, settling beside me. “You’ve only known me since you joined the Rite, but you were my mission for six months before that.
“I received word of the plan. A girl from the Middle would need to get inside the wall. She’d poison the president in his own home and slip out without anyone ever knowing.
“For a plan like that to work, it had to be someone trained, able to fool the cameras and the world. The only way in was a match with an Elite. So… I knew what I had to do. I would invite you to join my Rite.
“But I wasn’t betting it all without knowing who I’d be working with.”
He blew out a breath, looking over at me again before his focus returned to the ceiling.
“So, I started watching you.
“I planned to tell them they had the wrong girl. A Middle woman with no experience was expected to fool everyone? And kill someone?” He scoffed. “But then I saw you. Really saw you.
“The way you watched the world around you when everyone else turned away. How you saved bread from your lunches and handed it to Lower children on your way home."
My throat tightened.
“But it was the day you went to the public execution that I knew you were the right one. When everyone else stared in sick fascination or fear, you were angry.”
Heat pricked the corners of my eyes, and I blinked furiously, shaking my head. I should have been upset with him. He’d used his access, his father’s resources, to spy on me. But relief was the only thing that washed through me.
“What did you know?” I whispered.
His hand lifted, a finger wrapping around a lock of hair framing my face. It twisted lazily, and the silence in the air was heavy as I waited.
“That we were meant for each other.”
I didn’t respond. Couldn’t.
There was a version of us that I could see so clearly it hurt. Two people who understood the same things, who were working toward the same end. But those people didn’t exist in the real world.
I exhaled a loud breath, pulling back to untangle my hair and staring up at the black lines drawn on my ceiling. An imitation of the crack in my room back home. “I need to get a message to Lucen. Can you help me with that?”
Calden’s smile fell. “Why? His plan didn’t work. I’m getting you out.”
I sat up abruptly. “No.”
He watched me, all the earlier mirth gone from his face. “No?”
I lifted a brow. “You’ve been inside the wall all your life. You had a hundred opportunities to end him, and you never did.” I turned, crossed my legs and faced him. “I guess that’s why they sent me to do the job.”
Calden’s jaw tightened. “You have no idea what I’ve done inside the wall.”
“What could be more important than taking down the president?”
He sat up, sliding back until he was pressed against the headboard. Something shifted in his face. Not anger anymore. Fear.
“You.”
I said nothing.
“If you’re caught—”
“I won’t be.”
He bit down on whatever he was about to say.
“I’m going ahead with Trial Ten. It’s the perfect chance to complete the mission.”
My tablet buzzed on the nightstand. I reached for it.
Trial Ten. Report to your match’s residence on Wednesday at six p.m. Overnight arrangements have been confirmed.
The darkness in Calden’s eyes was back, a barely contained fire, threatening to consume everything in its wake. “I won’t let you.”
I scoffed. “You can’t stop me.”
He ground his teeth, shoulders straightening.
“Going back to that house is suicide. And—” He looked away, a flash of something I couldn’t name, there and gone in a moment.
I stood, exhaling through my nose and climbing off the bed to face him. “You misunderstand. I don’t take orders from you.”
“You won’t go through with Trial Ten,” Calden snarled, following me to the window as I moved to stand beside it. He grabbed my arms. “You don’t understand. You’ll have to sleep with him.”
I looked down. After tonight, there was only one way back into that house. I’d known what it would cost me the moment I read the notification.
“I know.”
He released me, taking a step back, eyes widening.
I lifted an arm, pointing to the window.
“Get out of my room.”
Calden’s hands fisted at his sides, but he made no move toward the window. He shook with rage he'd always been so good at containing. Not anymore. He looked at me as though this was an impossible sacrifice.
"Men will never understand fear the way a woman does. It lives with us, no matter what choice we make. I refuse to give in to mine." I held his gaze. "I said get out."
I crossed my arms over my chest.
The cool, collected man I’d come to know was gone. That undid me more than the anger.
His anger shattered, replaced by something far more devastating. He moved, and it took everything inside me not to flinch as his shoulder brushed mine on his way out.
I waited for a breath, two, three, then sagged, exhaling raggedly.
I reached for my discarded nightdress, crumpled on the corner of the bed, and moved toward the bathroom, hands trembling. Tomorrow, I would be back in the president’s house. Tomorrow, I would finish this.
Behind me, my door creaked open, and I spun around.