The Selection Stories Collection (80 page)

Beside me, Maxon was trying to calm Kriss. “Get on the floor,” he told her. “We’re going to be fine.”

I looked to my right for Aspen and was in awe for a moment. He was on one knee, taking aim, firing deliberately into the crowd. He must have been very sure of his target to do that.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flicker of red. Suddenly a rebel guard was standing in front of us. As I thought the words
rebel guard
, it all clicked into place. Anne had told me this had happened once before, when the rebels had gotten the guards’ uniforms and had sneaked into the palace. But how?

As Kriss let out another cry, I realized that the guards who were sent to our houses hadn’t abandoned their posts at all. They were dead and buried, their clothes stolen and standing in front of us.

Not that this information did me any good now.

I knew that I should run, that Maxon and Kriss should run if they were going to make it. But I was frozen as the menacing figure raised his gun and directed it at Maxon. I looked up at Maxon, and he looked to me. I wished I had time to speak. I turned away, back to the man.

A look of amusement crossed his face. As if he suspected this would be much more entertaining for himself and much more painful for Maxon, he slid his gun ever so slightly to his left and aimed it at me.

I didn’t even think to scream. I couldn’t move at all, but I saw the blur of Maxon’s suit coat as he leaped toward me.

I fell to the ground, but not in the direction I thought I would. Maxon missed me, flying across in front of me. When I hit the floor, I looked up to see Aspen. He’d sprinted to the table and pushed over my chair, crashing on top of me.

“I got him!” someone shouted. “Find the king!”

I heard several shouts of delight, pleased with the declaration. And screaming. So much screaming. As I came out of my stupor, the sounds crashed into my ears again. Other chairs and bodies clamored to the floor. Guards yelled out orders. Shots were fired, and the sickening pops pierced my ears. It was pure pandemonium.

“Are you hurt?” Aspen demanded over the commotion.

I think I shook my head.

“Don’t move.”

I watched as he stood, widened his stance, and aimed. He fired several times, eyes focused and body at ease. By the angle of his shots, it looked like more rebels were trying to get close to us. Thanks to Aspen, they failed.

After a quick survey, he popped down again. “I’m going to get her out of here before she really loses it.”

He crawled over me and grabbed Kriss, who was covering her ears and crying in earnest. Aspen pulled her face up and slapped her. She was stunned into silence long enough to listen to his orders and follow him from the room, shielding her head as she went.

It was getting quieter. People must be leaving now. Or dying.

And then I noticed a very still leg hanging out from under the tablecloth. Oh, God! Maxon!

I scurried under the table to find Maxon breathing with great labor, a large red stain growing across his shirt. There was a wound below his left shoulder, and it looked very serious.

“Oh, Maxon,” I cried. Unsure of what else to do, I balled up the hem of my dress in my hands and pressed it to the bullet wound. He winced a bit. “I’m so sorry.”

He reached up his hand and covered mine. “No, I’m sorry,” he said. “I was about to ruin both our lives.”

“Don’t talk right now. Just focus, okay?”

“Look at me, America.”

I blinked a few times and pulled my gaze up to his eyes. Through the pain, he smiled at me.

“Break my heart. Break it a thousand times if you like. It was only ever yours to break anyway.”

“Shhh,” I urged.

“I’ll love you until my very last breath. Every beat of my heart is yours. I don’t want to die without you knowing that.”

“Please don’t,” I choked.

He took his hand off mine and laced it through my hair. The pressure was light, but it was enough for me to know what he wanted. I bent to kiss him. It was every kiss we’d ever had, all the uncertainty, all the hope.

“Don’t give up, Maxon. I love you; please don’t give up.”

He took an unsteady breath.

Aspen ducked under the table then, and I squealed in fear before I realized who it was.

“Kriss is in a safe room, Your Majesty,” Aspen said, all business. “Your turn. Can you stand?”

He shook his head. “A waste of time. Take her.”

“But, Your Majesty—”

“That’s an order,” he said as forcefully as he could manage.

Maxon and Aspen stared at each other for a long second.

“Yes, sir.”

“No! I won’t go!” I insisted.

“You’ll go,” Maxon said, sounding tired.

“Come on, Mer. We’ll have to hurry.”

“I’m not leaving!”

Quickly, as if he might suddenly be fine, Maxon reached up to Aspen’s uniform and clutched it in his hands. “She lives. Do you understand me? Whatever it takes, she lives.”

Aspen nodded and grabbed my arm harder than I thought possible.

“No!” I cried. “Maxon, please!”

“Be happy,” he breathed, squeezing my hand one last time as Aspen dragged me away, screaming.

As we got to the door, Aspen pushed me up against the wall. “Shut up! They’ll hear you. The sooner I get you to a safe room, the sooner I can come back for him. You have to do whatever I say, got it?”

I nodded.

“Okay, stay low and quiet,” he said, pulling out his gun again and dragging me into the hall.

We looked up and down, and saw someone running away from us at the far end of the corridor. Once he was gone we moved. Around the corner we stumbled upon a guard on the ground. Aspen checked his pulse and shook his head. He reached over and grabbed the guard’s gun, and handed it to me.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” I whispered, terrified.

“Fire it. But make sure you know if it’s a friend or a foe before you do. This is mayhem.”

It was a tense few minutes of ducking into corners and checking safe rooms that were already taken and locked. It seemed that most of the action had moved upstairs or outside, because the pops of gunshots and faceless screams were muffled by walls. Still, each time we heard a whisper of a sound, we paused before moving.

Aspen peeked around a corner. “This is a dead end, so keep a lookout.”

I nodded. We moved quickly to the end of the short hallway, and the first thing I noticed was the bright sun coming in through the window. Didn’t the sky know the world was falling apart? How could the sun shine today?

“Please, please, please,” Aspen whispered, reaching for the lock. Mercifully, it opened. “Yes!” He sighed, pulling back the door, blocking half the hall from view.

“Aspen, I don’t want to do this.”

“You have to. You have to be safe, for so many people. And . . . I need you to do something for me.”

“What?”

He fidgeted. “If something happens to me . . . I need you to tell—”

Over his shoulder, a hint of red came from behind the corner at the end of the hall. I jerked the gun up and pointed it past Aspen, firing at the figure. Not a second later, Aspen pushed me into the safe room and slammed the door, leaving me alone in the dark.

I
DON’T KNOW HOW LONG
I sat there. I kept listening for something outside the door, even though I knew it was useless. When Maxon and I had been locked in a safe room a few weeks ago, we couldn’t hear a single sound from the outside world. And there had been so much destruction then.

Still, I hoped. Maybe Aspen was okay and would open the door at any second. He couldn’t be dead. No. Aspen was a fighter; he’d always been a fighter. When hunger and poverty threatened him, he pushed back. When the world took away his dad, he made sure his family survived. When the Selection took me, when the draft took him, he didn’t let it stop him from hoping. Compared to all that, a bullet was tiny, insignificant. No bullet was taking down Aspen Leger.

I pressed my ear up to the door, praying for a word, a breath, anything. I focused, listening for something that sounded like Maxon’s labored breathing as he lay dying underneath the table.

I pinched my eyes together, begging God to keep him alive. Certainly, everyone in the palace would be looking for Maxon and his parents. They would be the first ones helped. They wouldn’t let him die; they couldn’t.

But was it past hope?

He’d looked so pale. Even the last squeeze of my hand was weak.

Be happy.

He loved me. He really loved me. And I loved him. In spite of everything that should have kept us apart—our castes, our mistakes, the world around us—we were supposed to be together.

I should be with him. Especially now, while he lay dying. I shouldn’t be hiding.

I stood up and started feeling around the walls for the light switch. I slapped the steel until I found it. I surveyed the space. It was smaller than the other room I’d been in. It had a sink but no toilet, just a bucket in one corner. A bench was pressed up against the wall by the door, and a shelf with some packets of food and blankets lined the back. And then finally, on the floor, the gun sat cold and waiting.

I didn’t even know if this would work, but I had to try. I pulled the bench over to the middle of the room and tipped it on its side with the wide seat propped up toward the door. I crouched below it, checking the height, and realized that wasn’t going to be much cover. It would have to do though.

As I stood, I tripped over my stupid dress. Huffing, I hunted on the shelves. The thin knife was probably for opening and dividing food, but it worked on the material just fine. Once my dress was cut into an uneven hem around my knees, I took some of the fabric and made a makeshift belt and tucked the knife in it for good measure.

I pulled the blankets over myself, expecting there to be some sort of shrapnel. Looking one more time around the room, I tried to see if there was anything I should take with me, something I could repurpose. No. This was it.

Ducking behind the bench, I aimed the gun at the lock, took a steadying breath, and fired.

The sound echoed in the tiny space, scaring me even though I’d been expecting it. Once I was sure that the bullet wasn’t ricocheting around the room, I went up to check the door. Above the lock, a small crater sat, exposing rough layers of metal. I was upset that I’d missed, but at least I knew this might work. If I hit the lock enough times, maybe I could get out of here.

I hid behind the bench and tried again. Shot after shot hit the door, but never in the same place. After a while, I got frustrated and stood up straight, hoping it would help. All I managed to do was get my arms cut by pieces of the door flying back at me.

It wasn’t until I heard the hollow click that I realized I’d used all the bullets and was stuck. I threw down the gun and ran over to the door. I hit it with all the force of my body.

“Move!” I rammed into it again. “MOVE!”

I hit the door with my fists, accomplishing nothing. “No! No, no, no! I have to get out!”

The door stood there, silent and severe, mocking my heartbreak with its stillness.

I slid down to the floor, crying now that I knew there was nothing I could do. Aspen might be a lifeless body only feet away from me, and Maxon . . . surely by now he was gone.

I curled my legs to my chest and rested my head against the door.

“If you live,” I whispered, “I’ll let you call me your dear. I won’t complain, I promise.”

And then I was left to wait.

Every so often I’d try to guess at the time, though I had no way of knowing if I was right. Each sluggish minute was maddening. I’d never felt so powerless, and the worry was killing me.

After an eternity, I heard the click of the lock. Someone was coming for me. I didn’t know if it was a friend or not, so I pointed the empty gun at the door. It would at least look intimidating. The door creaked open, and the light from the window glared in. Did that mean it was still the same day? Or was it the next? I held my aim though I had to squint to do so.

“Don’t shoot, Lady America!” a guard pleaded. “You’re safe!”

“How do I know that? How do I know you’re not one of them?”

The guard looked down the hall, acknowledging an approaching figure. August stepped into the light, followed closely by Gavril. Though his suit was practically destroyed, his pin—which I now realized looked an awful lot like a North Star—still hung proudly on his bloody lapel.

No wonder the Northern rebels knew so much.

“It’s over, America. We got them,” August confirmed.

I sighed, overwhelmed with relief, and dropped the gun.

“Where’s Maxon? Is he alive? Did Kriss make it?” I asked Gavril before focusing again on August. “There was an officer; he brought me here. His name is Officer Leger; have you seen him?” The words tumbled out almost too quickly to be understood.

I was feeling funny, light-headed.

“I think she’s in shock. Take her to the hospital wing, quickly,” Gavril ordered, and the guard scooped me up easily.

“Maxon?” I asked. No one answered. Or maybe I was gone by then. I couldn’t remember.

When I woke up, I was on a cot. I could feel the stings of my many cuts now, but as I picked up my arm to inspect it, the cuts were all clean, and the larger ones were bandaged. I was safe.

I sat up and looked around, and realized I was in a tiny office. I inspected the desk and the diplomas on the wall and discovered it was Dr. Ashlar’s. I couldn’t stay here. I needed answers.

When I opened the door, I discovered why I’d been tucked away. The hospital wing was packed. Some of the less injured were placed two to a bed, and others were on the floor between them. It was easy to tell that the worst were in beds toward the back of the room. Despite the number of people, the space was remarkably quiet.

I scanned the area, looking for familiar faces. Was it good not to find them here? What did that mean?

Tuesday was in a bed, holding on to Emmica as they cried quietly. I recognized a few of the maids, but only vaguely. They nodded their heads at me as I passed, as if I somehow deserved it.

I started losing hope as the crowd started to thin. Maxon wasn’t here. If he was, he’d have a swarm of people around him, jumping to meet his every need. But I’d been placed in a side room. Maybe he had, too?