Pressa shields her father, and together with Marren, they pull him back. Her father’s sobbing now—rivulets run down his face as he tries in vain to tell people to stop taking his medicines. “Please!” hecalls over and over again, grabbing a passing sleeve and arm and pant leg whenever he can. “Stop! Please!”
This is going to go wrong. The thought amplifies until it becomes a scream in my head. My heartbeat speeds up until I think it’s going to explode. It’s the feeling of being tied down in a gurney in the seconds right before a soldier shoots my mother.
This is going to go very, very wrong.
I see it happen in slow motion.
A young, bone-thin man with hollow cheeks makes a beeline toward the shop’s entrance, trying to pass underneath Mr. Yu’s outstretched arms. He stumbles in his rush, falls, and hits his face hard against the edge of the doorframe. It cuts a deep gash across his cheeks.
Mr. Yu turns to him. I see a flash of worry cross his eyes—and instead of shoving the young man back out of the store, he bends down to help him.
“Steady,” Mr. Yu says to the young man on the ground as he clutches his face and moans. “That’s a nasty gash. I’ll help you bandage it—”
But the young man whirls on Mr. Yu in a blind fury. Pressa sees the glint in the air at the same time I do. She screams and grabs her father to yank him away, even as he holds the bandages in his hand. I open my mouth and lunge in their direction.
Neither of us reaches him in time. The young man’s knife plunges deep into her father’s stomach. Once. Twice.
Then I slam hard into the man and knock the knife from his hand. The weapon goes spinning to the floor as he and I both fall.Above me, Pressa grabs her father as he clutches his stomach, his watery eyes wide with shock.
The young man struggles with me. He’s surprisingly strong for his size, as if he were fighting for his life. Finally, I kick him off me hard enough to send him skidding against the wall. He hits his head and shakes it, dazed for a moment.
Daniel sees the commotion and rushes over, but it’s already too late. Pressa’s father drops to his knees in the middle of his floor as people stream all around him, running to grab everything from his shelves. Mr. Yu’s face has gone paper white, and he’s shaking uncontrollably. Between his fingers clutching his stomach seeps dark blood.
“Dad!” Pressa’s shouting at him as she helps him lean against the wall of his shop. She presses her hand against his leaking wounds too. Blood runs across her skin. “Dad!” She looks helplessly up at me. “Call an ambulance! Now!”
But without the Level system, there’s no way to make a proper call to anyone. I dash out into the street in an attempt to grab the nearest police officer I can see—but there are so many people in the streets, some shoving their way into other shops, others trying in vain to stop them. I run back in, bend down beside Mr. Yu, and strip off my thin jacket.
Mr. Yu’s eyes flutter weakly at me before they go to Pressa. His breaths come in irregular beats. He whispers something to her that sounds like he’s telling her to get out of here. She ignores him and keeps trying to stop the flow of blood.
I take Mr. Yu’s hand and hold it tight. Before either of us can do any more, his eyes fade, the light in them dimming to nothing. Histrembling stops. One of his hands clutches the bandages that he’d been ready to use to help his killer. They’re stained red now.
Pressa’s hands are still pressed against her father’s wounds. Around us, people stumble forward to the shelves to grab handfuls of herbs and powders, stepping over his body as if he were nothing more than an obstacle.
I realize I’m tugging on Pressa’s arm, telling her we have to leave. She tries to shake me off and go back to what she’s doing. Only when June and Daniel join me do we finally manage to snap Pressa out of her reverie and start pulling her away from the store. Marren flees into the street and turns to watch helplessly as people overrun the store. Only then does Pressa break down in tears against me.
I force my eyes away from the scene around us. No matter how strong the country, no matter how invincible one might seem… there is always a tipping point. Always something that can pull the entire house down.
DANIEL
I know what it feels like to be forced to leave your home behind. I know what it’s like to lose your parent. To feel helpless as the world around you burns.
The girl named Pressa is quiet as we leave the hospital the following morning, where they’ve already covered her father’s body. She doesn’t look at me. She barely speaks to Eden, who has his arm around her in a protective grip.
I feel sorry for her. In her eyes, I can see a mirror of my own grief from the past. I can hear the echo of my screams and the blood on the ground.
“The Elector’s plane takes off in half an hour,” June says in a low voice to me as we walk toward the elevators. “We need to hurry. Your President is heading out soon too.”
I nod at June, then look back again at my brother and his friend. In this moment, it’s as if we’re back on the streets of the Republic, evacuating as the Colonies closed in. But this is no battle from an outside force. This is the consequence of a flawed system, something that had been rotting underneath a glistening exterior.
From the screens in the AIS lobby, we can see the police pushing the Undercity crowds back, clubs out, guns sparking. People falling.
I tear my gaze away from the sight and keep going. My job is to keep Eden safe. And right now, the only path to safety is to get out of this country.
We enter the elevator, now functioning only on emergency backup power.
As we rise toward the top floor, the Elector’s private jet comes into view. I stare at it, the red and black paint streaking the sides of the plane, the angled nose, the lights dotting the platform around it. The entire scene feels surreal.
I fall into step behind June, my brother and Pressa silent at my side. What thoughts must be running through his head? What were his last moments with Dominic Hann like? But I don’t have time to dwell on him before we are inside the jet and seated across from Anden.
