Chapter 18
Callum leads me to the far end of the ballroom, behind a piano. We’re pressed up against a wall, except that entire wall is
glass—a framed portrait of the destruction outside—while I feel like I’m being destroyed inside.
“Explain,” I beg, my voice shaking.
Callum looks up, his eyes wild and scared. “Listen. I missed you, okay? The second we left for the White House, I missed you.
I think I was in love with you even then, Ripley.
“And it’s fucked up. It’s not okay, but I wanted to check on you. I knew my dad had ruined your parents’ lives. I knew he
had threatened you in order to keep them in line. I needed to make sure you were safe.”
A new bubble of anger rises. I didn’t know that. But it makes sense. My heart aches for my parents. For what they lost, and
what they lived in fear of losing.
Callum continues. “I swear I was only going to do it once.”
Everything in me goes glacial. “Do what?”
Callum scrubs his hands down his face. “I just wanted to send you a message. My dad wouldn’t let me write you, and I knew
your parents wouldn’t be okay with letters going to the White House. But it was too easy. I mean, I barely know anything about
hacking. But your training computer—the firewalls—the webcam. And then . . . I saw you.”
“You saw me?” Nausea swims through my chest and I fight to stay on my feet. It’s like the whole world is dropping out from under me.
“I didn’t mean to. But the training computer has a monitoring system built in. You know, how they track your eye movements?”
“Of course it does,” I say, spinning around and covering my mouth in horror.
“And when I tapped into it . . . it started streaming. And . . . it was like seeing you again. I know it was wrong, watching
you in your bedroom. But you said it yourself: We’d had sleepovers. I wasn’t seeing anything you wouldn’t have let me see.
So I watched. And I saw you writing. You were so intent on it . . . and once you uploaded it, I read it.” Callum sighs, his
eyes softening. “You’re an amazing writer, Ripley. And I knew what you were writing about. Who. I knew you were missing me
too.”
My mouth drops open as I listen. I can’t even try to keep the shock off my face.
He read Written in the Stars. He knew it was about him.
Callum looks down in shame. “It’s not okay. I know it’s not. But seeing you . . . I couldn’t lose you again. When you got a new computer, I figured out how to hack that one too. And your tablet, and . . . it wasn’t okay.”
“No, it’s not,” I bite out, my entire body buzzing with humiliation. Shame. Rage.
I think of all the things I did in my bedroom. Private things.
“Did you watch me change?” I demand, swallowing hard.
Callum looks up, his expression fierce. “No. Never.” He steps closer to me and tries to take my hand, but I pull back like
he’s on fire.
“Never. I just . . . I watched you write, Ripley. I watched you look out your window. And I read your stories. I needed to
read your stories. They made me want to be better.”
I push him away, needing to walk away, but there’s nowhere to go to burn off this energy buzzing inside me. We’re trapped
in the middle of a hurricane on a boat with the worst people in the world, who are all laughing at me.
He follows. “Don’t you get it? Your stories made me better. I asked what Orion would do, and I did that.”
I whip around, lifting a finger to his face. “Orion would never violate Saffron’s privacy, Callum!”
He holds his hands up in surrender, and I pace, thinking.
“Why does your dad know?” I ask, looking up. “There’s no way he would have been okay with it.”
Callum grits his teeth. “He found out a few months ago. Someone was poking around in your story, on your devices, and they found my code. It set off a million alarm bells, someone trying to hack the White House without realizing it. And then our security team traced my code. After that, it didn’t take them long to figure out who I was .
. . who you were, to me. We all decided the best thing was to bring you here.
Because once it got out that I’d been spying on you .
. . we had to have a story ready. A love story.
And yes, it was wrong of me to do it without you knowing.
But what if we . . . pretended . . . that you did?
That we were long-distance and you wanted, invited me to watch you?
“It wasn’t so hard for me to pretend, because I’d read your stories. And part of me believed—or hoped—that you felt the same.
“And I wanted to tell you, Ripley, I swear. I was going to. The second I could.”
I bite down, hard. Lyceum. They were searching for the origin of Written in the Stars. They didn’t know they were tripping the White House cybersecurity unit by doing so. All of this is because of them.
“And I guess someone told my dad about your story. How popular it was. He didn’t understand—he barely reads—but he understands
popularity. He was . . . thrilled. For the first time in my life, he actually was excited about something I had done, because
I had found you. And you had written this . . . book.”
I blink, trying to will my mind to keep up. “Why? He banned books, Callum.”
I want to cry, I want to laugh, loud and unladylike. I settle for a little bit of both as my back finds the window and I sink
down. Callum keeps his distance but crouches down across from me.
“He thought he could use you, use us, rebrand a book as a viral sensation. But he’s always thought too small. I saw the truth.”
His voice chills me, and I slowly lift my face to meet his. “And what is that?”
“People want the story, Ripley. You told me that yourself. Stories keep us alive. And we can write that story, Ripley. That’s real power. We can write our own ending. We control the DopaMine feeds and the press. We tell them what story
to tell.”
My head spins.
Another wave of sickness spreads through me. “Did you leak the tape? Of the kiss?”
Callum swallows. “No. The camera was mine, but the footage was never supposed to go out. I warned you, Ripley. There are cameras
everywhere. It keeps us safe. That’s why I always wear this one.” He points to the button camera on his chest. The same pin.
I had assumed it was a campaign pin, half the size of my palm. But the glittering gold face has been a camera this whole time.
I lower my face to my hands.
“I wasn’t trying to get the kiss,” he says quickly, covering his camera pin with his hand. “These don’t transmit anywhere, I swear. I was just trying to figure out who had bombed the motorcade. I didn’t trust anyone. I just wanted to keep you safe.”
It makes sense, but it doesn’t. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to keep the shattered pieces of my chest from spilling
out around me. I can’t break down in front of him. He’s not safe.
“I messed up,” Callum says. “But it was to protect you. I did it wrong, but . . . I couldn’t lose you again.”
Tears blur my vision.
“Because you love me,” he breathes.
My hands shake, and twin tears stream down my cheeks. “I did.”
He rocks back, naked devastation on his face. “No, Ripley. You don’t mean that.”
I shoot to my feet, and he surges forward, placing a hand over my lips. “Please, please don’t say anything now. You’ll regret
it. I know how you feel about me.”
And I rush away, through the ballroom, stumbling drunkenly through couples dancing and crashing into Hux in the doorway as
I go.
For once, he doesn’t follow.
I don’t notice the ocean stilling; I don’t even notice the sun breaking through the clouds. We arrive at a calm spot in the ocean, where the captain decides it’s safe to lower the dome. We had been planning to dock at South Texas, but with the storm intensifying, we’ll be traveling by hovercopter.
The presidential copters touch down first, their black carapaces shiny in the sunlight. Someone behind me even whines about
forgetting their sunglasses.
I don’t remember how I ended up standing here. Ever since Callum told me how he read my story, how he spied on me, the entire
world has seemed like a bad dream.
“Are you okay?” someone asks, his voice low, a hand on my waist. I jerk away, not realizing it’s Hux until too late.
I look up, expecting an expression of hurt, but his green eyes are only careful.
“The president offered you the first takeoff,” he says, and I almost laugh at that. Of course, Graves wants me out of the
public eye. I’m not playing his game. Think of the optics.
Still, Callum is waiting for me by the door, hand out to help me up. My heart stills as I notice Hux pulling himself into
the cockpit.
“Ripley,” Callum says, and I remember the president’s words. He was warning me. If I don’t play my part now, my parents, my
friends, maybe even the entire rebellion could be destroyed. I swallow and step forward, accepting his hand.
Above us, the copter blades whir on, pulling at my air-dried hair. Callum squints in annoyance; they aren’t supposed to power
up until we’re safely inside, but with the storm encroaching, Hux must be hurrying.
Or President Graves told him to get my sulky expression off this boat of camera-toting influencers as soon as possible.
“Did you think about what I said?” Callum says, leaning in toward me. I’m caught halfway into the copter, just barely stepping
up.
“I—” What am I going to say? That part of me wishes we had never met again, that he ruined my memory of him? That he lied
to me?
Because that’s the scariest part. My Callum didn’t lie. This Callum, he’s not mine.
Maybe he never was.
I’ve been his since I slipped this ring on my finger. But it doesn’t work both ways. He owns me, as surely as if he—and his
father—put a blade to the throat of everyone I love.
I glance up at the copter, hoping for an escape, expecting to see Hux watching me from the pilot seat.
But there’s no one inside.
Where did he go? Who’s powering it up?
“Ripley,” Callum tries again.
But I’m saved from answering by the grinding of gears as the copter under my left foot lurches, a rug pulled out from under
me.
With a horrifying whir, the copter blades dip, and cut, as the entire aircraft bends, tilting, racing toward Callum’s head.
I don’t think. I just dive, pushing Callum to the deck beside me.
The Hammers move with surprising efficiency. And once again, Callum is lugged off into a bigger, better, safer copter while I’m left behind.
His forehead is bandaged from where the blades sliced an even line along the skin, but his eyes are brighter.
“You saved me,” he says.
And I realize I did.
“I knew it,” he calls as the Hammers rush him into their backup aircraft. Our original ride is still smoking, copter blades
piercing through the deck, body sideways. Flames are barely licking the shape; a window shatters with the heat.
“I love you, too, Ripley Hart,” Callum says, and the assembled crowd awws like this is some sort of grand gesture.
But he’s whisked away, and I’m left standing in the center of the crowd.
Somehow, I find President Graves’s eyes across the deck. He nods at me once, slowly, barely a dip of his brow.
Once again, I’m reminded that this is a game of chess, and I’m always six moves behind. And I don’t even know what side I’m
on anymore.