And she is. Theia and Hunter have been the objects of her adulation and unyielding loyalty for as long as she’s been alive. How she must hate me. How she must wish she could disengage me, like strangers on the street.
“But Lucy deserves to live,” Taylor insists, shaking the guilt out. “She fought for us, she saved my life. She bled for a rebellion she had no choice in joining.”
“Oh, you made sure of that, didn’t you?” Hunter asks. She crouches in front of Taylor, stabbing the butt of the rifle into the ground. Hunter leans close and drops her voice to a whisper. “If you insist on her release, Theia will never trust you again. Our plans for the Order, the ones you and I have been dreaming up since we were kids? It’ll all be for nothing. Think about it, Taylor. Think about your future.”
Taylor’s eyes never move from the ground, rain dripping off her forehead. Slowly, she raises her focus. “There is no future for me without Lucy. I love her.”
My heart is full, and shattered.
They gaze into each other’s eyes, a history unfolding between them. The weight of the past, the urgency of the present, the worry of the future, packaged in a glance. A communication only two people who share an intimate knowledge of one another can perpetrate in silence.
Hunter looks about how I feel, flung out into space. Theia creeps forward as Hunter reels back. “It wasn’t enough that I gave you the most important position in my rebellion. It wasn’t enough I raised you as my own. It wasn’t enough.” As scathing as her voice is, the timbre of hurt is apparent. “I wasn’t enough. We weren’t enough. The Order wasn’t enough for you. You selfish, rapacious child.”
Theia grabs Taylor by the lapel and cracks her so hard across the face with the back of her hand, I’m surprised her teeth don’t fly out of her mouth. Blood oozes from Taylor’s nose. Theia strikes Taylor again in the other direction, and it knocks her flat onto the asphalt.
“Get up,” Theia demands. Taylor does, shakily getting back on her knees. Theia crouches in front of Taylor, wiping hair from her face.
“I’m sorry,” Taylor says, casting a quick glance my way.
Theia nabs Taylor by the chin and centers her focus. “Are you? You don’t look very sorry.”
“I am not sorry about saving Lucy.” Taylor’s face is resolute despite the bruise puffing up and the blood trickling into her mouth. “I am sorry for what I had to do to save her.”
Many emotions pass through Theia’s eyes, the whites of them gleaming. I can’t tell if she’s infuriated or sad, flustered or determined. Maybe a bit of all of them. It’s terrifying.
“And for what? For love?” Theia cackles. “What do you know about love? You think love is swooping in and saving damsels? Rain-soaked kisses on an airport tarmac?” Theia tilts her head like a bird of prey, leaning in close enough to Taylor to almost taste the blood on her face. “Love is loyalty. Love is family. Love is taking in the child of traitors and raising her as your own, despite every impulse begging you to snuff her out in the crib.”
Taylor blinks hard a few times, as if she’s misheard. I’m sure her brain is jumbled from the hard knocks she took. “Are you—are you talking about me?”
Theia narrows her eyes into slits. “Yes. If I’d known the pain you’d cause me, I’d have killed you in your mother’s womb.”
“But I’m an orphan. My parents abandoned me.”
“Oh, you are an orphan, but they didn’t abandon you.” Theia tucks some of Taylor’s hair behind her ear. “Your parents ran the Order with me. They were my most trusted confidants and talented soldiers. My closest friends. They betrayed me, and the Order, and I executed them.”
Without acknowledging the extreme pain in Taylor’s eyes, Theia stands in triumph. Twenty years this woman has been holding on to this information. Twenty years she’s been rearing a child she hates. I can’t even begin to imagine how Taylor feels. If it’s anything like she looks, it’s absolutely ruined. The burning halls of Rome crumble in her eyes, Theia standing to the side, playing her violin.
Hunter shoulders her rifle again, looking sympathetic. “Your folks blew up the Region Meeting, kid.”
Horror splashes across Taylor’s face, as stark as blood. “My parents werethetraitors. And you killed them.”
“Yes, treason is punished by execution. While imprisoned at headquarters, I learned your mother was pregnant.” Theia wets her lips, staring beyond us at a memory. “I let your mother livelong enough to bring you to term, but I executed your father immediately.”
“You’re a psycho,” I seethe. “How could you do that to a baby?”
“They nearly brought down the Order.” Theia balks. “The Region Meeting was planted with Order members to gain intelligence. Blowing it up cost us dozens of operatives and years of work. They were lucky I only shot them.”
“So, why not shoot me?” Taylor asks, but it sounds more like a beg. “I’m a traitor, too.”
“I did not waste twenty years training you just to throw it out the window because of your misguided hormones, child. I was so proud of you.” Theia whips toward Taylor, whose face is a portrait of such suffering I could kill anyone standing to try and ease it. “I imagine once I remove you from the taloned grips of this bourgeois succubus, it will not be hard to correct your behavior. Now, let’s go.”
Finished breaking Taylor’s heart, she stalks off toward the helicopter with furious clicks of her heels against the asphalt.
“I’m sorry,” Taylor says in a cracked voice, looking up at me. Fresh tears spring from her eyes. “God, Lucy, I’m so, so sorry.”
I’m losing a part of myself no one is meant to live without, like my heart, brain, or lungs. We are two stars of the same constellation, entwined for eternity, twinkling back and forth until the primordial flames burn out. We should never be apart.
I inhale a deep breath to steady my nerves. “I’m not sorry. I love you, too.”
