The Legend Trilogy Collection (5 page)

“Tell me about what might have happened here, cadet,” Commander Jameson demands. “Consider this a pop quiz. This soldier’s identity should motivate you to get it right.”

I don’t even inch from the sting of her words. The details rush in, and I start talking. “Whoever hit him with this knife either stabbed him from close range or has an incredibly strong throwing arm. Right-handed.” I run my fingers along the blood-caked handle. “Impressive aim. The knife is one of a pair, correct? See this pattern painted on the bottom of the blade? It cuts off abruptly.”

Commander Jameson nods. “The second knife is stuck in the wall of the stairwell.”

I look toward the dark alley that my brother’s feet point to and notice the sewer cover several yards away. “That’s where he made his getaway,” I say. I estimate the direction the sewer cap is turned in. “He’s also left-handed. Interesting. He’s ambidextrous.”

“Please continue.”

“From here, the sewers will take him deeper into the city or west to the ocean. He’ll choose the city—he’s probably too wounded to do otherwise. But it’s impossible to track him accurately now. If he has any sense, he’ll have taken half a dozen turns down there and done it in the sewer water too. He wouldn’t have touched the walls. He’ll give us nothing to track.”

“I’m going to leave you here for a bit, so you can collect your thoughts. Meet me in two minutes in the third-floor stairwell so you can give the photographers some room.” She glances once at Metias’s body before she turns away—for a brief second, her face softens. “What a waste of a good soldier.” Then she shakes her head and leaves.

I watch her go. The others around me stay a good distance away, apparently eager to avoid an awkward conversation. I look down at my brother’s face again. To my surprise, he appears peaceful. His skin looks tan, not pale like I’d assumed it would. I half expect his eyes to flutter, his mouth to smile. Bits of dried blood flake off onto my hands. When I try to brush them off, they stick to my skin. I don’t know if this is what sets off my anger. My hands start shaking so hard that I press them against Metias’s clothes in an attempt to steady them. I’m supposed to be analyzing the crime scene . . . but I can’t concentrate.

“You should have taken me with you,” I whisper to him. Then I lean my head against his and begin to cry. In my mind, I make a silent promise to my brother’s killer.

I will hunt you down. I will scour the streets of Los Angeles for you. Search every street in the Republic if I have to. I will trick you and deceive you, lie, cheat and steal to find you, tempt you out of your hiding place, and chase you until you have nowhere else to run. I make you this promise: your life is mine.

Too soon, soldiers come to take Metias to the morgue.

0317 H
OURS
.

M
Y
A
PARTMENT
.

S
AME NIGHT
.

T
HE RAIN HAS STARTED
.

I lie on the couch with my arm draped over Ollie. The spot where Metias usually sits is empty. Stacks of old photo albums and Metias’s journals clutter up the coffee table. He’d always loved our parents’ old-fashioned ways, and kept handwritten journals just like how they’d kept all these paper photos. “You can’t trace or tag them online,” he always said. Ironic coming from an expert hacker.

Was it just this afternoon that he’d picked me up from Drake? He’d wanted to talk to me about something important, right before he left. But now I’ll never know what he had to say. Papers and reports cover my stomach. One of my hands clutches a pendant necklace, a piece of evidence I’ve been studying for a while now. I squint at its smooth surface, its lack of patterns. Then I drop my hand with a sigh. My head hurts.

I learned earlier why Commander Jameson pulled me out of Drake. She’s had her eye on me for a long time. Now she suddenly has one less in Metias’s patrol, and she’s looking to add an agent. A perfect time to nab me before other recruiters do. Starting tomorrow, Thomas is taking over Metias’s position for the time being—and I’m entering the patrol as a detective agent in training.

My first tracking mission: Day.

“We’ve tried a variety of tactics to catch Day in the past, but none of them have worked,” Jameson told me just before she sent me home. “So. Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll continue with my patrol’s projects. For you, let’s test out your skills with a practice run. Show me how you’d track Day. Maybe you’ll get somewhere. Maybe not. But you’re a set of fresh young eyes, and if you impress me, I’ll promote you to be a full agent on this patrol. I’ll make you famous—the youngest agent out there.”

I close my eyes and try to think.

Day killed my brother. I know this because we found a stolen ID tag lying halfway up the third-floor stairwell, which led us to the soldier pictured on the tag, who stammered out a description of what the boy looked like. His description didn’t match anything we have on file for Day—but the truth is, we know little about what he looks like, except that he’s young, like the kid at the hospital tonight. The fingerprints on the ID tag are the same prints found just last month at a crime scene linked to Day, prints that don’t match any civilian the Republic has on record.

Day was there, in the hospital. He was also careless enough to leave the ID tag behind.

Which makes me wonder. Day broke into the laboratory for medicine as part of a desperate, last-minute, poorly thought-out plan. He must have stolen plague suppressants and painkillers because he couldn’t find anything stronger. He himself certainly doesn’t have the plague, not with the way he was able to escape. But someone else he knows must, someone he cares enough about to risk his life for. Someone living in Blueridge or Lake or Winter or Alta, sectors all recently affected by the plague. If this is true, Day won’t be leaving the city anytime soon. He’s bound here by this connection, motivated by emotions.

Day could also have a sponsor who hired him to pull this stunt. But the hospital is a dangerous place, and a sponsor would’ve had to pay Day a great deal of money. And if that much money was involved, he certainly would have planned more thoroughly and known when the laboratory’s next shipment of plague medicine would arrive. Besides, Day wasn’t a mercenary in any of his past crimes. He’s attacked the Republic’s military assets on his own, slowed down shipments to the warfront, and destroyed our warfront-bound airships and fighter jets. He has some sort of agenda to stop us from winning against the Colonies. For a while we thought he might work for the Colonies—but his jobs are crude, without high-tech equipment or noticeable funding behind them. Not really what you’d expect from our enemy. He’s
never
taken jobs for hire as far as I know, and it’s unlikely he’d start now. Who would hire an untested mercenary? Another possible sponsor is the Patriots—but if Day had been working for them on this job, one of the Patriots would’ve drawn their signature flag (thirteen red and white stripes, with fifty white dots on a blue rectangle) on a wall somewhere near the crime scene by now. They’d never miss a chance to claim victory.

But the biggest thing that doesn’t compute for me is this: Day has never killed anyone before. That’s another reason why I don’t think he’s connected to the Patriots. In one of his past crimes, he crept into a quarantine zone by tying up a street policeman. The policeman didn’t have a scratch on him (except a black eye). Another time, he broke into a bank vault but left the four security guards at its back entrance untouched—although a bit stupefied. He once torched a whole squadron of fighter jets on an empty airfield in the middle of the night and has on two occasions grounded airships by crippling their engines. He once vandalized the side of a military building. He’s stolen money, food, and goods. But he doesn’t set roadside bombs. He doesn’t shoot soldiers. He doesn’t attempt assassinations. He doesn’t
kill
.

So why Metias? Day could’ve made his escape without killing him. Did Day hold some sort of grudge? Had my brother done something to him in the past? It couldn’t have been accidental—that knife went straight through Metias’s heart.

Straight through his intelligent, stupid, stubborn, overprotective heart.

I open my eyes, then lift my hand and study the pendant necklace again. It belongs to Day—fingerprints told us that much. It’s a circular disk with nothing engraved on it, something we found lying on the floor of the hospital’s stairwell along with the stolen ID. It’s not from any religion I know of. It’s worth nothing in terms of money—cheap nickel and copper, the necklace part made of plastic. Which means he probably didn’t steal it, and it has a different meaning for him and is worth carrying around with the risk of losing or dropping it. Maybe it’s a good luck charm. Maybe it was given to him by someone he has emotional ties with. Maybe this is the same person he tried to steal plague medicine for. It has a secret; I just don’t know what.

Day’s exploits used to fascinate me. But now he is my matched enemy—my target. My first mission.

I gather my thoughts for two days. On the third day, I call Commander Jameson. I have a plan.

I’M DREAMING THAT I’M HOME AGAIN. EDEN SITS
on the floor, drawing some sort of loopy shape on the floorboards. He’s about four or five years old, with cheeks still round with baby fat. Every few minutes he gets up and asks me to critique his art. John and I are crouched together on the sofa, trying in vain to fix the radio that we’ve had in our family for years. I can still remember when Dad brought it home.
It’ll tell us which quarters have plague,
he’d said. But now its screws and dials sit worn and lifeless in our laps. I ask Eden for help, but he just giggles and tells us to do it ourselves.

Mom stands alone in our tiny kitchen, trying to cook dinner. This is a scene I know well. Both her hands are wrapped in thick bandages—she must’ve cut herself on broken bottles or empty tins while cleaning out the trash cans around Union Station today. She winces as she breaks up some frozen corn kernels with the flat edge of a knife. Her injured hands tremble.

Stop, Mom. I’ll help you
. I try to get up, but my feet feel glued to the ground.

After a while, I lift my head to see what Eden’s drawing now. At first I can’t make out what the shapes are—they seem jumbled, littered in random patterns under his busy hand.

When I look closer, I realize that he’s drawing soldiers breaking into our home. He’s drawing them with a bloodred crayon.

I wake with a start. Dim streaks of light, gray and waning, are filtering in through a nearby window. I hear the faint sound of rain. I’m in what looks like a child’s abandoned bedroom. The wallpaper is blue and yellow, and peeling at the corners. Two candles light the room. I can feel my feet hanging off the end of a bed. There’s a pillow under my head. When I shift, I let out a moan and close my eyes.

Tess’s voice drifts over to me. “Can you hear me?” she says.

“Not so loud, cousin.” My voice comes out in a whisper through dry lips. My head throbs with a blinding, stabbing headache. Tess recognizes the pain on my face and stays quiet while I keep my eyes closed and wait it out. The pain goes on, like a pick slamming repeatedly into the back of my head.

After an eternity, the headache finally starts to fade. I open my eyes. “Where am I? Are you all right?”

Tess’s face comes into focus. She has her hair pulled back in a short braid, and her lips are pink and smiling. “Am
I
all right?” she says. “You’ve been knocked out for over two days. How are
you
feeling?”

Pain hits me in waves, this time from the wounds that must cover me. “Fantastic.”

Tess’s smile fades. “You pulled a close one there—closest one yet. If I hadn’t found someone to take us in, I don’t think you would’ve made it.”

Suddenly everything comes rushing back to me. I remember the hospital entrance, the stolen ID tag and the stairwell and the laboratory, the long fall, my knife thrown at the captain, the sewers. The medicine.

The medicine.
I try to sit up, but I move too fast and have to bite my lip from the pain. My hand flies to my neck—there’s no pendant to grab. Something aches in my chest.
I lost it.
My father had given me that pendant, and now I’d been careless enough to
lose
it.

Tess tries to calm me. “Easy, there.”

“Is my family okay? Did some of the medicine survive my fall?”

“Some of it.” Tess helps me back down before leaning her elbows on my bed. “I guess suppressants are better than nothing. I’ve dropped it off at your mother’s home already, along with your gift bundle. I went through the back and handed them all off to John. He says to tell you thanks.”

“You didn’t tell John what happened, did you?”

Tess rolls her eyes. “You think I can keep that from him? Everyone’s heard about the break-in at the hospital by now, and John knows you’re hurt. He’s pretty angry about it.”

“Did he say who’s sick? Is it Eden? Mom?”

Tess bites her lip. “It’s Eden. John says everyone else is fine for now. But Eden can talk and seems alert enough. He tried to get out of bed and help your mother fix the leak under your sink, to prove he felt strong, but of course she sent him back to bed. She ripped up two of her shirts to use as cool cloths for Eden’s fever, so John said if you find any more clothes that fit Mom, he’d be happy to take them.”

I let out a deep breath. Eden. Of course it’s Eden—still acting like a little engineer even with the plague. At least I managed to get some medicine.
Everything’s going to work out.
Eden will be okay for a while, and I don’t mind dealing with John’s lectures. As for my lost pendant, well . . . for an instant I’m glad that my mother can’t find out about this, because it would break her heart.

“I couldn’t find any cures, and I didn’t have time to do a search.”

“It’s okay,” Tess replies. She prepares a fresh bandage for my arm. I see my worn old cap hanging on the back of her chair. “Your family has some time. We’ll get another chance.”

“Whose house are we in?”

As soon as I ask this question, I hear a door close, then footsteps in the room next to ours. I look at Tess in alarm. She just nods quietly at me and tells me to relax.

A man walks in, shaking dirty drops of rain from an umbrella. He carries a brown paper bag in his hands. “You’re awake,” he says to me. “That’s good.” I study his face. He’s very pale and a little chubby, with bushy eyebrows and kindly eyes. “Girl,” he says, looking at Tess, “do you think he can leave by tomorrow night?”

“We’ll be on our way by then.” Tess picks up a bottle of something clear—alcohol, I guess—and wets the edge of the bandage with it. I flinch when she touches it to where a bullet had grazed my arm. It feels like a match lit against my skin. “Thank you again, sir, for letting us stay here.”

The man grunts, his expression uncertain, and awkwardly nods his head. He looks around the room as if searching for something he’s lost. “I’m afraid that’s as long as I can keep you. The plague patrol’s going to do another sweep soon.” He hesitates. Then he pulls two cans from the paper bag and sets them down on a dresser. “Some chili for you. It’s not the best, but it’ll fill you up. I’ll bring you some bread, too.” Before either of us can say anything, he hurries out of the room with the rest of his groceries.

For the first time, I look down at my body. I’m clothed in a brown pair of army trousers, and my bare chest and arm are bandaged. So is one of my legs. “Why’s he helping us?” I ask Tess in a low voice.

She looks up from wrapping the fresh bandage around my arm. “Don’t be so suspicious. He had a son who worked at the warfront. He died of the plague a few years ago.” I yelp when Tess ties a finishing knot on the bandage. “Breathe in for me.” I do as she says. Several sharp pains stab me as she presses her fingers delicately against different parts of my chest. Her cheeks turn pink as she works. “You might have a crack in one of your ribs, but definitely no breaks. You should heal quickly enough. Anyway, the man didn’t ask our names and so I didn’t ask his. Best not to know. I told him why you got yourself injured like this. I think it reminded him of his son.”

I lay my head back down on the pillow. My body hurts all over. “I lost both my knives,” I mutter, so that the man doesn’t hear me. “They were good knives.”

“Sorry to hear it, Day,” Tess says. She brushes a stray hair from her face and leans over me. She holds up a clear plastic bag with three silver bullets inside. “I found these caught in the folds of your clothes and figured you might want them for your slingshot or something.” She stuffs the bag into one of my pockets.

I smile. When I first met Tess three years ago, she was a skinny ten-year-old orphan rummaging through trash bins in the Nima sector. She’d needed my help so much in those early years that I sometimes forget just how much I rely on her now.

“Thanks, cousin,” I say. She murmurs something I can’t understand, and looks away.

After a while, I fall back into a deep sleep. When I wake up again, I don’t know how much time has passed. The headache is gone and it’s dark outside. It might be the same day, although I feel like I’ve slept far too long for that. No soldiers, no police. We’re still alive. I lie unmoving for a moment, wide-awake in the darkness. Looks like our caretaker hasn’t reported us. Yet.

Tess is dozing on the edge of the bed with her head tucked into her arms. Sometimes I wish I could find her a good home, some kind family willing to take her in. But every time I have this thought, I push it away—because Tess would be back on the Republic’s grid if she ever joined a real family. And she’d be forced to take the Trial because she never took it before. Or worse, they’d learn about her affiliation with me and interrogate her. I shake my head. Too naive, too easily manipulated. I wouldn’t trust her with anyone else. Besides . . . I’d miss her. The first two years I’d spent wandering the streets by myself were lonely ones.

I gingerly move my ankle in a circle. It’s a little stiff, but otherwise pretty painless—no torn muscles, no serious swelling. My bullet wound still burns and my ribs ache something fierce, but this time I’m strong enough to sit up without too much trouble. My hands go automatically up to my hair, which is loose and hanging past my shoulders. With one hand, I pull it into a messy tail and twist it into a tight knot. Then I lean over Tess, grab my beaten newsboy cap from the chair, and pull it on. My arms burn from the effort.

I smell chili and bread. There’s a bowl with some steam rising from it on the dresser next to the bed and a small loaf of bread balanced on the bowl’s edge. I think back to the two cans our caretaker had placed on the dresser.

My stomach growls. I devour it all.

As I’m licking the last of the chili off my fingers, I hear a door close somewhere in the house and, moments later, footsteps rushing toward our room. I tense up. Next to me, Tess jerks awake and grabs my arm.

“What was that?” she blurts out. I hold a finger to my lips.

Our caretaker hurries into the room, a tattered robe draped over his pajamas. “You should leave now,” he whispers. Sweat beads on his forehead. “I just heard about a man who’s been looking for you.”

I stare levelly at him. Tess gives me a panicked look. “How do you know?” I ask.

The man starts cleaning up the room, grabbing my empty bowl and wiping down the dresser. “He’s telling people that he has plague cures for someone who needs it. He says he knows that you’re injured. He never gave a name, but he must be talking about you.”

I sit up straight and swing my legs over the side of the bed. There’s no choice now. “He’s talking about me,” I agree. Tess snatches up a few clean bandages and stuffs them under her shirt. “It’s a trap. We’ll leave immediately.”

The man nods once. “You can get out through the back door. Straight into the hall, on your left.”

I take a moment to meet his eyes. In that instant, I realize that he knows exactly who I am. He won’t say it out loud, though. Like other people in our sector who have realized who I am and helped me in the past, he doesn’t exactly
disapprove
of the trouble I cause for the Republic. “We’re very grateful,” I say.

He says nothing in return. I grab Tess’s hand and we make our way out of the bedroom, down the hall and through the back door. The night’s humidity is thick. My eyes water from the pain of my wounds.

We make our way through silent back alleys for six blocks until we finally slow down. My injuries are screaming now. I reach up to touch my pendant necklace for comfort, but then I remember that it’s no longer around my neck. A sick feeling rises in my stomach. What if the Republic figures out what it is? Will they destroy it? What if they trace it back to my family?

Tess slumps to the ground and rests her head against the alley wall. “We need to leave the city,” she says. “It’s too dangerous here, Day. You know it is. Arizona or Colorado would be safer—or come on, even Barstow. I don’t mind the outskirts.”

Yeah, yeah. I know.
I look down. “I want to leave too.”

“But you won’t. I can see it on your face.”

We’re silent for a while. If it were up to me, I’d cross the whole country alone and escape into the Colonies first chance I got. I don’t mind risking my
own
life. But there are a dozen reasons I can’t go, and Tess knows it. It’s not like John and Mom can just pick up and leave their assigned jobs to flee with me, not without raising an alert. It’s not like Eden can just withdraw from his assigned school. Not unless they want to become fugitives like me.

“We’ll see,” I finally say.

Tess gives me a tragic smile. “Who do you think is looking for you?” she asks after a while. “How do they know we’re in the Lake sector?”

“I don’t know. Could be a dealer who heard about the hospital break-in. Maybe they think we have a lot of money or something. Could be a soldier. Even a spy. I lost my pendant at the hospital—I don’t know how they would use it to learn anything about me, but there’s always a chance.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

I shrug. My bullet wound has begun to throb, and I lean against the wall for support. “I’m sure as hell not meeting him, whoever he is—but I got to admit, I’m curious to see what he has to say. What if he
does
have plague cures?”