This time the hands that reach for me are gentler. I lift my head. It’s Commander Towers, her blond hair straggly and tied roughly at the nape of her neck, her uniform rumpled and sweat-stained. Her hand is raw and bleeding where she hit me.
“Get yourself together, Chase,” she shouts at me, taking me by the shoulders. Her face is only a few inches from mine. “Get out of here.”
“Sir, I have to—”
“That’s an order!” Her voice is nearly as rough and hoarse and raw as mine. “You don’t get out of here now, I’ll court-martial your ass, you hear me? You’ve done your work and you’ll probably get another slew of medals out of it, for all the good that does any of us, but right now you have to go. You’re done.”
I gape at her, my head swimming. I nod, and we struggle to our feet together, slipping and sliding in the mud. I stagger away, leaving her to return to whatever she was doing before someone came to tell her Captain Chase had gone insane.
Alexi’s ruined face threatens to blind me again, but I push it aside. Because I know where I’m going now. Concussion, minor smoke inhalation. He’ll live.
He’ll be in the makeshift sick bay, not the hospital, with minor injuries like those. I spit out another mouthful of mud and bile and blood, scrubbing my sleeve across my face. I reek of sweat and soot and death, but it doesn’t matter.
Because if Cormac knew about this, if he sat there and smiled at me and touched my cheek so I wouldn’t notice the rebels infiltrating the base—then I’m going to kill him myself.
This dream is about the ghosts on Verona. The girl remembers them, but only when she’s asleep, because there’s no such things as ghosts when you grow up.
She’s at school. The teacher, a tall willowy woman with blond hair in a bun, fights for the students’ attention against sirens and drone engines and, once, the crackling, powdery echo of a distant explosion. Eventually, the teacher gives up and puts down her reader, shutting off the display on the front wall.
“I think that’s enough for today,” she says, her lips pinched tight, her eyes darting toward the clock and back. “Do you want to talk about what’s happening instead?”
The girl looks out the window. For a moment she thinks she’s seeing the reflection of her face—but then it moves, becoming a tiny ball of light, visible only because the window lies in shade. It darts away, then comes back, then darts away again, waiting for the girl.
The green-eyed boy in the desk behind hers leans forward. “Don’t follow it,” he whispers. “It’ll lead you into the swamp.”
The ghost shivers and then zips away. A few minutes later a fire breaks out on the next block, and the girl is herded with the other children to safety.
MY EYELIDS FEEL LIKE SOMEBODY’S glued them shut, and there’s a sharp pain as I force them open. Light jabs at me like a knife, and I squeeze my eyes shut again, waiting until the pulsing dulls a little.
When I try again, it works a little better. A dirty gray ceiling swims into focus overhead, and I know immediately I’m not at home, where all the ceilings are carved from rock. My ears register a high, mechanical beeping, and I struggle for a few moments before I can place it. It’s a medical monitor.
I turn my head a fraction, but the haze of light starts to blur and sparkle, and I’m forced to close my eyes. There’s something over my nose and mouth, making it hard to breathe. I reach up and feel with my fingertips, encountering soft plastic, and start to tug it away. There’s a sharp catch in my throat, but before I can start coughing the mask is back over my face, someone else’s hand over mine.
When I risk opening my eyes again, I find Jubilee looming over me, holding the thing over my mouth. She’s filthy, hair mussed, black smudges all over her face, eyes flashing. She’s in combat gear, the dull, semi-metallic gleam of her armor-suit marred by grime and soot.
“Did you know?” she hisses. “I swear to God, I’ll kill you right here.”
I stare at her, trying desperately to swim toward understanding, but it feels like wading through waist-high mud. “What happened?” I ask, and she eases the mask away so I can speak. My voice is a wheeze, my throat raw, and it catches and constricts as coughing takes over my body. My vision starts to darken at the edges, and the black creeps in as I struggle for air, my pulse pounding through my temples.
She shoves the mask back in place, holding it there until the panic starts to recede. I blink back the tears, waiting for her answer.
Her voice is flat, furious. “A rebel managed to sneak onto the base. Planted a bomb at Bravo Barracks, killed over thirty soldiers while they slept.” She leans in, eyes locked on mine. “While I was talking to you.”
The shock that goes through me is a physical thing, the adrenaline surge rushing down my arms until my hands tingle. “No.” The plastic of the oxygen mask swallows my voice. “Oh God, no. I didn’t know. You know I wouldn’t—”
She’s gazing down at me, Stone-faced Chase, absolutely unforgiving, soot and ashes streaking her face like war paint. For a moment I half expect her to pull out her gun and shoot me on the spot, the anguish in her face is so clear. Then she breathes out slowly, dropping her head, and I realize she does know.
“You have smoke inhalation and a concussion, but they won’t have had time to check beyond that,” she says, softer, duller. “Does anything else hurt?” She reaches out to run her hands down my arms, watching for a wince.
“I don’t think so.” I ache all over, and I just want to close my eyes and let the pain carry me away. It has to have been McBride, or one of his lackeys. Everything’s spinning out of control, and I don’t know how to move, let alone steady Avon’s course.
I manage to turn my head, scanning my surroundings. “I don’t think I should be in a room full of soldiers when these guys wake up,” I rasp. My shirt’s been cut away, and there are electrodes stuck to my chest. I can hear my heartbeat on the monitor beside my bed.
She shakes her head in a sharp movement, running her hand up my leg and patting along my side to check my ribs. Only a few days ago I was doing the same for her. Maybe we’ll never meet without one of us ending up in the hospital.
“Nobody here knows who you are,” she replies. “You were still in uniform.” Her jaw squares, and I know this is another tiny cut, another betrayal that’s scored a line across her heart.