Chapter 13 #3
we were in the hovercopter, all I can hear in my ears is that buzzing.
The vote is next week.
Callum rests his shoulder against mine as we stand in silence. One week, and it’s all going to end all over again. The end
of democracy. Maybe the end of the world.
Seven days to make my decision. I could bail. Escape. Find a way to make sure my parents are safe—maybe joining the Machs
would make that happen—and leave. I don’t know if a salacious PR dip will do enough damage to foil the vote at the Union Conference,
but at least I’ll know I’m not helping get him elected.
Callum brushes a hand along my bicep and my escape fantasy vanishes in a puff of smoke.
Because another copter touches down and the press pours out, heads bent down into their tablets as they excitedly manipulate their images.
The Hammers are working a perimeter as the driver steps away.
No eyes on us. For once, this isn’t for show.
He knows I’m in my thoughts. He knows me, and he’s trying to ground me.
I don’t know what I think. I know Graves is wrong. I know he can’t be president for life. That cannot happen. But about a
couple of things? Callum is right. Running away from power doesn’t fix anything. And I can do more here, with Callum—trying
to convince him—than I could if I ran.
I can’t just look away, let myself get swept into the fantasy. I have to do something.
Maybe I can save the galaxy like this, just like Saffron did.
Maybe the right thing to do is also the thing that feels like coming home. I can feel his eyes on me, like he’s thinking the
exact same thing.
He leans in, so his words are for me and me alone. “You didn’t finish your story,” he breathes, tickling the small hairs against
my neck.
I flush, brushing away the tingles with a hand that plucks along my collarbone. “You want to know how our story ends?” I rasp
back. My voice doesn’t sound familiar.
His lips quirk as he drapes my hand over the nape of his neck, and even underneath my glove, I can feel the heat of his skin.
“Or at least this chapter.”
“What do you think happens next?” I ask.
“That depends,” he says. “What do you want to happen next?” And then he’s ducking his head, just a little, so the distance
between us—between our lips—shrinks.
“You can get in now,” comes a voice, and Callum jerks back, his cheeks pinking, and not from the cold. As the black-suited
figure stomps by, I turn to him and he offers me a wry smile.
My heart squeezes again. We may be fake fiancés, but maybe not everything about it is fake.
“Ladies first?” He extends a palm to help me into the raised vehicle.
I step up, just as something clonks against my knee. I watch in horror as my poker chip goes bouncing from my pocket—when
did I put it in my pocket?—down the tarmac, rolling away.
“You dropped something,” Callum says. It’s foolish, but I can’t leave it here, on some airfield a few miles outside New Washington.
Even though I can’t explain to Callum what it means. He doesn’t require explanation, though. We both race after it.
It’s then that the hovercar explodes behind us.
Red and blue lights.
Red and blue lights.
Red and purple lights—no, that’s wrong. Submit Issue. Alba needs to correct it.
Oxygen mask.
Red and blue lights.
I blink as the world returns from pixels, my eyes burning as the ball of flame devours the place where Callum and I were just
standing, touching, and—I think—almost kissing. The firefighting drones descend, jets of water streaming from their bellies.
If I let my vision blur, they look like moths crowding a bonfire.
What’s real? The press descended, also drawn to the fire, and maybe they were closer than I thought. Maybe they saw the almost-kiss.
Maybe Callum knew—
We almost died. If I hadn’t gone after that stupid poker chip . . . and now it’s gone. Probably forever. I blink three times
fast, trying to stop the buzzing in my ears. My ears are ringing, and they have been since the blast.
Ripley, his voice says. It sounds like we’re underwater.
I turn to look at Callum. He has a blanket over his shoulders, eyes dark with worry. Ash is smeared on his cheekbones, perfectly
highlighting his bone structure like painted-on contour from a glam squad. Even now, he’s so beautiful it hurts.
You’re in shock, the still-working part of my brain says.
A paramedic pulls at my face and puts some sort of cream on my eyebrow. It stings. Slowly, the chaos around me comes into
focus. Security bustles while other Hammers keep the crowd far enough away from the flames, but they can’t stop the zoom of
their cameras.
Callum sits next to me, and when his hand finds mine, it’s the most natural feeling in the world.
We both sit on the back of that ambulance as fire devours the hovercar into a matte black exoskeleton curled in on itself.
Across the way, they’re talking into their cameras about malfunctions in the wiring and overheating engines—but there’s a
hitch in the words. The car wasn’t even on. Engines don’t explode when they’re turned off. I’m no engineer, but even I know
what happened.
So does Callum.
Someone just tried to kill us.