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When Clarke didn’t reply, Dr. Lahiri walked forward and sat down so he was facing her. “Can I see your arm, please?” Clarke felt her chest tighten, and she forced herself to breathe. He was lying. It was cruel and twisted, but it’d all be over in a minute.
She extended her hand toward him. Dr. Lahiri reached into his coat pocket and produced a cloth that smelled of antiseptic. Clarke shivered as he swept it along the inside of her arm. “Don’t worry. This isn’t going to hurt.”
Clarke closed her eyes.
She remembered the anguished look Wells had given her as the guards were escorting her out of the Council chambers. While the anger that had threatened to consume her during the trial had long since burned out, thinking about Wells sent a new wave of heat pulsing through her body, like a dying star emitting one final flash of light before it faded into nothingness.
Her parents were dead, and it was all his fault.
Dr. Lahiri grasped her arm, his fingers searching for her vein.
See you soon, Mom and Dad.
His grip tightened. This was it.
Clarke took a deep breath as she felt a prick on the inside of her wrist.
“There. You’re all set.”
Clarke’s eyes snapped open. She looked down and saw a metal bracelet clasped to her arm. She ran her finger along it, wincing as what felt like a dozen tiny needles pressed into her skin.
“What is this?” she asked frantically, pulling away from the doctor.
“Just relax,” he said with infuriating coolness. “It’s a vital transponder. It will track your breathing and blood composition, and gather all sorts of useful information.”
“Useful information for who?” Clarke asked, although she could already feel the shape of his answer in the growing mass of dread in her stomach.
“There’ve been some exciting developments,” Dr. Lahiri said, sounding like a hollow speeches. “You should be very proud. It’s all because of your parents.”
“My parents were executed for treason.”
Dr. Lahiri gave her a disapproving look. A year ago, it would’ve made Clarke shrink with shame, but now she kept her gaze steady. “Don’t ruin this, Clarke. You have a chance to do the right thing, to make up for your parents’ appalling crime.”
There was a dull crack as Clarke’s fist made contact with the doctor’s face, followed by a thud as his head slammed against the wall. Seconds later, the guard appeared and had Clarke’s hands twisted behind her back. “Are you all right, sir?” he asked.
Dr. Lahiri sat up slowly, rubbing his jaw as he surveyed Clarke with a mixture of anger and amusement. “At least we know you’ll be able to hold your own with the other delinquents when you get there.”
“Get where?” Clarke grunted, trying to free herself from the guard’s grip.
“We’re clearing out the detention center today. A hundred lucky criminals are getting the chance to make history.” The corners of his mouth twitched into a smirk. “You’re going to Earth.”
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CHAPTER 2
Wells
The Chancellor had aged. Although it’d been less than six weeks since Wells had seen his father, he looked years older. There were new streaks of gray by his temples, and the lines around his eyes had deepened.
“Are you finally going to tell me why you did it?” the Chancellor asked with a tired sigh.
Wells shifted in his chair. He could feel the truth trying to claw its way out. He’d give almost anything to erase the disappointment on his father’s face, but he couldn’t risk it—not before he learned whether his reckless plan had actually worked.
Wells avoided his father’s gaze by glancing around the room, trying to memorize the relics he might be seeing for the last time: the eagle skeleton perched in a glass case, the few paintings that had survived the burning of the Louvre, and the photos of the beautiful dead cities whose names never ceased to send chills down Wells’s spine.
“Was it a dare? Were you trying to show off for your friends?” The Chancellor spoke in the same low, steady tone he used during Council hearings, then raised an eyebrow to indicate that it was Wells’s turn to talk.
“No, sir.”
“Were you overcome by some temporary bout of insanity? Were you on drugs?” There was a faint note of hopefulness in his voice that, in another situation, Wells might’ve found amusing. But there was nothing humorous about the look in his father’s eyes, a combination of weariness and confusion that Wells hadn’t seen since his mother’s funeral.
“No, sir.”
Wells felt a fleeting urge to touch his father’s arm, but something other than the handcuffs shackling his wrists kept him from reaching across the desk. Even as they had gathered around the release portal, saying their final, silent good-byes to Wells’s mother, they’d never bridged the six inches of space between their shoulders. It was as if Wells and his father were two magnets, the charge of their grief repelling them apart. wi
“Was it some kind of political statement?” His father winced slightly, as though the thought hit him like a physical blow. “Did someone from Walden or Arcadia put you up to it?”
“No, sir,” Wells said, biting back his indignation. His father had apparently spent the past six weeks trying to recast Wells as some kind of rebel, reprogramming his memories to help him understand why his son, formerly a star student and now the highest-ranked cadet, had committed the most public infraction in history. But even the truth would do little to mitigate his father’s confusion. For the Chancellor, nothing could justify setting fire to the Eden Tree, the sapling that had been carried onto Phoenix right before the Exodus. Yet for Wells, it hadn’t been a choice. Once he’d discovered that Clarke was one of the hundred being sent to Earth, he’d had to do something to join them. And as the Chancellor’s son, only the most public of infractions would land him in Confinement.
Wells remembered moving through the crowd at the Remembrance Ceremony, feeling the weight of hundreds of eyes on him, his hand shaking as he removed the lighter from his pocket and produced a spark that glowed brightly in the gloom. For a moment, everyone had stared in silence as the flames wrapped around the tree. And even as the guards rushed forward in sudden chaos, no one had been able to miss whom they were dragging away.
“What the hell were you thinking?” the Chancellor asked, staring at him in disbelief. “You could’ve burned down the whole hall and killed everyone in it.”
It would be better to lie. His father would have an easier time believing that Wells had been carrying out a dare. Or perhaps he could try to pretend he hadbeen on drugs. Either of those scenarios would be more palatable to the Chancellor than the truth—that he’d risked everything for a girl.
The hospital door closed behind him but Wells’s smile stayed frozen in place, as if the force it had taken to lift the corners of his mouth had permanently damaged the muscles in his face. Through the haze of drugs, his mother had probably thought his grin looked real, which was all that mattered. She’d held Wells’s hand as the lies poured out of him, bitter but harmless. Yes, Dad and I are doing fine. She didn’t need to know that they’d barely exchanged more than a few words in weeks. When you’re better, we’ll finish Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. They both knew that she’d never make it to the final volume.
Wells slipped out of the hospital and started walking across B deck, which was mercifully empty. At this hour, most people were either at tutorials, work, or at the Exchange. He was supposed to be at a history lecture, normally his favorite subject. He’d always loved stories about ancient cities like Rome and New York, whose dazzling triumphs were matched only by the magnitude of their downfalls. But he couldn’t spend two hours surrounded by the same tutorial mates who had filled his message queue with vague, uncomfortable condolences. The only person he could talk to about his mother was Glass, but she’d been strangely distant lately.