Our little arrangement ended the second Warrick realized I had a bit of an attitude problem. Overnight, he had Mercy relocated to the east wing in the hopes that it would save her from my corruption.
“Are you okay?” Mercy whispers.
“No,” I say, in an empty voice. “I’m not. I can’t be engaged. Not tohim.”
I hardly know the new Commandant, but if I had to guess, I would assume he is just like his father. Ruthless and cold-hearted.
Since I plan to put a bullet in his father’s head one day, I don’t think it is wise to get entangled with him.
She hesitates. “Because of Grayson?”
I shake my head. Grayson Sullivan is my best friend and the lieutenant’s son. He’s somewhere in Division Six now. LastI heard, he was in the Wastes, a treacherous ruin full of snow, corpses, and buildings that crumbled. It is uninhabitable and exists at the edge of South Mire. Every once in a while, rumors crop up that the members of the Resistance are living in old bunkers, and soldiers are swiftly dispatched to investigate.
Poor Grayson is drowning under orders right now, hunting a rebel camp that probably doesn’t exist.
“No, Mercy,” I say slowly. “Gray and I kiss when we’re bored. That’s all. Not everything is a love story.”
Mercy doesn’t respond, and I know that I’ve disappointed her. My sister longs for there to be some good left in the world. I feel a spark of guilt when the light fades from her eyes, but it’s better this way. Hope makes it harder to survive.
She should know better than to trust men when our father is a monster. The only person worse than him is the Supreme Director, who rules the Continent.
New Foundry is divided into eight divisions, each designed to function like a sealed unit. And within these clusters are the various boroughs, which are smaller, controlled subdivisions.
When a civilian is classified as Gifted, they are transferred to Division One along with their families and are given a fixed salary. Most of them enlist in the military to gain access to better housing, higher social circles, and generous tax breaks.
“What will we do?” Mercy asks. “I don’t want to be a soldier.”
“I don’t want to be a wife,” I say.
“I’d rather be a wife than a soldier,” Mercy mumbles.
I sit upright so quickly it startles her. But the idea is too perfect to ignore.
“What if you didn’t have to be a soldier,” I say slowly, “and I didn’t have to be a wife?”
“We’re going to run away?” Mercy asks. Her eyes widen, round as saucers. “How will we do that?”
“Well, no,” I say. “We are going to do a switch.” I grab her hand before she can pull away. “It’s perfect, Mercy.”
The sparkle in her eyes vanishes.
“We’re not children anymore,” she says dejectedly. “Warrick knows when we do that.”
She’s right. Warrick is the only person who can tell us apart. I once pretended to be Mercy when he was looking for me. I despised interacting with him then. Each word I exchanged with him felt like glass scraping my throat. He didn’t fall for the trick, and he shook me so hard, my teeth rattled, warning me to never play such foolish games again.
I suspect he knows because he’s a Kinetic and can read our heat signatures.
“But we’re not tricking Warrick,” I say. “We’re deceiving everyone else. Nobody knows us as he does. They won’t be able to tell us apart. This is genius.”
Mercy hesitates. “It’s risky.”
“We owe this to our mother,” I whisper. “I have to punish Warrick and the Supreme Director for what they did to her. I have to go to the Forge. I have to be at the heart of it all.”
I had applied to join the Forge for the last three years, back when Commandant Breckin was in charge. After completing the one-year program, the Commons join the Garrison. They patrol the boroughs, maintain checkpoints along the main roads, and enforce curfews to keep the population in line. Meanwhile, the Gifted serve in the elite corps, headquartered at the capital, and are mainly focused on taking down the Resistance.
If I got into the Garrison, I would be able to learn what happened to my mother and move freely across the Continent, which would give me the chance to learn about the Resistance. If my motherdid,in fact, serve them, I want to know why.
“She was a rebel,” Mercy says softly. “Article V of the Code states that to shelter, assist, or sympathize with the Untamed is to commit treason.”
