Forged(73)

I slam my palms against the glass, scream Bree’s name. The shade remains down. For a long time. Long enough that I quit pounding on the glass and instead slide to the floor. My father, Blaine, now her? It will actually break me. I will come apart at the seams. How many pieces of myself am I expected to lose and still remain standing?

I stare at her blood on my hands.

I can’t stop shaking.

Someone needs to tell me what to do. Someone needs to tell me because I’m about to shatter.

You can’t sit there feeling sorry for yourself, that’s for sure, I hear Blaine chide in my ear. Frank’s dead and everyone’s still fighting. Go tell them it’s time to stop.

He would judge me, even now. But haven’t I done enough? Sacrificed plenty? How much am I expected to give?

Everything, Blaine says. Because people believed.

And right then, the true influence of Bea’s work hits me—the stories in the Harbinger, the propaganda that’s been hung throughout towns, the rumors that have been whispered in quiet streets. I thought they were all lies, but they’re not. They’ll only become lies if I don’t do this, if I choose to make them such.

I’m not the only one who’s lost a brother or father or friend. I’m not the only one who’s been wronged. Down in that square, everyone’s future is a breath away, or maybe a bullet too close to being taken from them. And if I can’t stand with them now, what the hell has this all been for?

I glance at the window to Bree’s room. The curtain is still drawn.

This is the last thing you have to do, Blaine promises. She’ll understand.

There’s always one last thing. There will be another after this. That’s life.

But he’s right. If our fates were reversed, I know he’d already be downtown.

I take a deep breath and stand. Because I must. Because really, when I look at the whole of the matter, there’s no other option.


Several blocks from the square there’s so much debris in the road I have to abandon the car I took from Union Central and continue on foot. The gunfire is deafening, the world an inferno of flames. I end up cornered in a narrow alley, cowering behind a Dumpster while Order members try to take me out from the roof. I’m an idiot, armed with the same handgun that’s been without ammo since I shot Frank’s pilots and no plan whatsoever. Somehow, this all seemed a lot easier in my head.

“You trying to get yourself killed?”

I look across the alley and see Elijah’s cousin peering from behind a door. He points at a trail of dark liquid on the ground. At first I think it’s blood, but notice it’s leaking from an overturned Order vehicle at the end of the alley.

Elijah’s cousin lights a match and tosses it onto the gasoline. The flames snake up the trail, and when they meet the car, I can feel the explosion in my ribs. The gunfire falters. Momentarily deaf, I dart across the alley beneath the cover of smoke and into the opposite building.

We race up a few flights and find Elijah hunched over a table with a half dozen other Rebels, shouting into a radio. He’s covered in blood but he’s fully mobile, so the blood can’t be his. I tell him about Frank, and he immediately starts firing off orders.

“Someone get a call back to Union Central. I want video of the body ready to go. Two guards for Gray over there.” He points to a balcony that overlooks the square. “And get him in a bulletproof vest. I’m not taking any chances.”

Before I’m truly ready, I’m stepping onto the balcony with a pair of Rebels at my side. I cringe, expecting a bullet, but nothing finds us. The platform Frank spoke from earlier is overrun. Abandoned cars and broken bodies are everywhere. Some clothed in black uniforms, but nearly as many in threadbare attire. A group of citizens has been beaten into a corner. A throng of teens smash out the windshield of an Order vehicle, drag the soldiers from the car. I can taste blood in the air and see it on the streets. The world is stained dark.

A microphone is handed to me. Elijah says it will be loud enough. They’ve rigged Frank’s original setup to work for our needs.

A high-pitched whiz sounds, and a white trail blazes toward the dome. It explodes in a starburst of blue—a firework, momentarily louder than the shouting and the screams. Nearly as loud as the popping gunfire.

The noise and foreign color are enough to make people in the square falter. They look up, startled, and the wall behind the platform fills with the image of Frank’s fallen body.

This is my signal.

“Frank is dead,” I say in the brief lull of fighting.

My voice booms through the square. So loud I bet Blaine—wherever he is—can hear me. With this realization, a calm washes over me.

The people turn, trying to locate where my voice is coming from. Some spot me. Others, who have not yet seen the proof of Frank’s demise, find it on the wall behind the overrun stage.

“Some of you know me, and the rest of you probably don’t trust what I have to say,” I continue. “I’ve been called a lot of things—Expat, Rebel, a fugitive for freedom—but the truth is I’m just trying to get by. I’m trying to make it from one day to the next. Like you.”

I realize people are actually listening now. Not all of them, but enough. The soldiers who had cornered their prey pause. The boys dragging men from the Order car let their arms hang at their sides. There are fists, still, and weapons held at bay. But people are listening.