“No, she asked me to bring you something you might’ve eaten in New York.”
“Why?”
Claire shrugs. “Why did she ask? To make you feel more at home, I suppose.” The phrasing stops my hands mid-crack and I set the oyster on my plate.
“Home.” My life has become an uncontrollable trash fire and I am loath to make this my new normal. “Just days ago, they considered executing me, and now she wants me to feel at home. I have no home. They took it from me.”
Claire heaves a sigh like it’s a hefty bag of flour. She reminds me of Ruby with the distinctly maternal skill of treating everyone as both a blessing and a burden. “Lucy, I can’t imagine what this is like for you. I’m sure it’s tough. But, unless I’m mistaken, nobody here is under any obligation to make it any easier. Despite that, someone is.” She gathers her things together, arms full of baskets and bags. “Have a good night.”
Upon hearing the snap of the lock, I chug the rest of my wine and plop down on the couch. This is not home. I’ll never be home again. I’ll never sit on my chaise in my room, I’ll never look out my window and daydream about faraway lands. I’ll never smell the faint odor of my mother’s perfume pressed between the pages of her books.
I want my home. I want the petrichor rising from the asphalt after a rainstorm. I want the bed with the blanket my mother gave me. I want a warm and willing body to touch me in a way that brings me to life. I want to hear Papa’s gruff voice yell at me for some trivial trespass. More than anything, I want my choices back.
Near our last day,Taylor brings me to a cavernous theater. The stage is shrouded in a tattered, thick green curtain, which sways gently above the dusty wood floor. We file into a row ofold wooden seats, creaking and rigidly uncomfortable. Once the sizable crowd settles, the curtain opens on Theia and the soldiers erupt in raucous applause. Taylor, Mason, and I are still. In fact, Mason is already taking a nap.
“Glad to see everyone in such high spirits.” Theia’s voice echoes around us, picked up from an unseen microphone and amplified through speakers hanging on the walls, a rare, blatant display of electricity. “Welcome, welcome. Quite a lot of people here today. Not too long ago I would be speaking to only the first few rows. I looked out at them, these idealistic warriors who wanted to change the world, and I wondered how we would ever get this rebellion off the ground.” Behind her, a wide white screen rolls down with a loud whir and a map of the Five Regions flickers on it from a projector behind us. The Southeast is colored in red. “Those brave soldiers who came before you, they are liberating towns and cities from the chokehold of the Rangers in the Southeast. Region Leader Silas McGovern has been removed from power.”
Theia pauses for a round of applause. Clapping for the slaughter of children. How easy death is when it’s faceless. The image of Prometheus handing a torch to a collection of distressed humans flickers on screen.
“Many of you are probably wondering where the name ‘Order of Prometheus’ comes from. Kind of a funny name for a rebellion, isn’t it? Pretentious at best. But it is simple. In the myths, Prometheus defied the gods and gave humans fire. He was a champion for the common man. Here, we humbly seek to do the same. To elevate the common man, to give each and every one of you back the power that is yours by birthright. To bring back democracy and freedom, our legacy, which was stolen from us.”
A picture comes up on the screen of a disjointed snake, the words “Join or Die” written on the bottom. It looks familiar, something I’ve seen in my mother’s library, perhaps.
“We will have freedom and equality again, from border to border, I am sure of it. But we need your help.”
The name of each leader appears on the map. My eyes are glued to my own last name, projected in a gold stamp font: PICCOLO. The others blare at me—THORNE, REED, WOLFSHIELD—an elite squad of people tenuously holding all the power in the regions. A group I was supposed to join. The crowd boos.
Names disappear from the map and the regions turn bright orange like a rising sun. “This country—the land, the sky, the soil—it is not theirs. It belongs to you. You are not here by accident. Each and every one of you is committed to this cause and integral to its success.”
People rise to their feet and clap enthusiastically. Both Taylor and Mason remain unmoved, surely no strangers to this mass indoctrination. Once the audience calms down, Theia continues, “This rebellion is not for the lazy, nor for the content. Make no mistake, it is time to work. It will be hard work. It will be grueling. It may kill you. But your blood, your sweat, your tears will be sown into the soil of this once great nation, and you will leave a legacy better than any before you: the enduring fire of freedom.”
Her enraptured crowd erupts in unison. “No compromise! No surrender! Freedom or death!”
A big to-do is made of her saying goodbye, and then people’s names are called and they file into separate groups near the stage. We leave against the current of recruits anxiously awaiting their orders. Outside the auditorium, an absurdly tall young man steps into our way. =
Taylor eyes him up and down. “Yes, Private Dabrowski?”
“Pardon me, Eos.” His dark eyes flit to me, and a flash of recognition lights them up. Then, as expected, he narrows them in thinly veiled contempt.Yeah, maybe I don’t like you either, buddy.He straightens his posture. “Captain Pollitt needs you to take over his training station, the unarmed, hand-to-hand combat. Theia approved the change.”
Taylor expels an annoyed sigh. “Great.” She looks to me. “You may have the rest of the day off.”
Like I can be shaken off that easily. She had the impertinence to snatch me from my home; I will saddle myself to her in a way that is as inconvenient as possible. “Nope. I’m coming with you. Lead the way,Eos.”
“Fine. Dismissed, Dabrowski.” She nods her head to the left. “Let’s go.”
We venture to an area similar to the place I’ve been training, but there’s much more here than rotting wood obstacles and rope swings. Teams belay each other from the tops of gargantuan trees. Others are scaling trees as fast as they can, grabbing colored ribbons from different branches and relaying them back down to a partner. In the distance, soldiers vault through complicated obstacle courses, and beyond them, another range for firing weapons.
Taylor walks over to a circular area of hard, packed dirt. On the edge of the circle stand about seven recruits, ages ranging from teens to late thirties by my estimation. Each dressed in khaki pants and tucked-in olive-green Henleys, hands bound in white gauze.
“Good afternoon, soldiers. I will be your captain for this exercise today. I assume you have each completed the necessary training which precedes this?” She waits for a round of nodding heads. “Good. Who would like to begin?”
A timid young woman steps forward. “Captain?” She radiates uneasiness like a faint glow, eyes never focusing and extremities twitching. “Um, well, my name is?—”
“I know who you are,” Taylor says. “What is the problem, Private Carlson?”
“Uh, so, Captain Pollitt is good, but he’s not, you know…you.”
Taylor sighs. “Do you have a point?”
