Prodigy

pulls at me, warning me to take this slowly. Anden might be lying, and this could all be a trap. But if it was just another attempt to arrest Day, then why wouldn’t he just threaten to kill Eden? That would bring Day out of hiding. Instead, he’s letting Eden go.
    Anden waits patiently through my silence. “I need Day to trust me,” he murmurs.
    I put my arms around his neck and move my lips closer to his ear. He smells like sandalwood and clean wool. “I’ll need to find a way to contact him, and convince him. But if you release his brother, he
will
trust you,” I whisper back.
    “I’m going to win your trust too. I want you to have faith in me. I have faith in
you.
I’ve had faith in you for a very long time.” He’s quiet for a second. His breathing has quickened, and his eyes change abruptly. Gone is that sense of distant authority, and in this moment he’s just a young man, a human being, and the electricity between us is too much. In an instant, he turns his face and his lips meet mine.
    I close my eyes. It is so light. Barely there, yet I can’t help but want a little more. With Day, there’s a fire and a hunger between us, even anger, some deep desperation and need. With Anden, though, the kiss is all delicacy and refined grace, aristocratic manners, power, and elegance. Pleasure and shame wash through me. Can Day see this through the cams? The thought stabs at me.
    It lasts for mere seconds, then Anden pulls away. I let out a breath, open my eyes, and let the rest of the room come back into focus. He’s spent enough time here—any longer and the guards outside might start to worry. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” he says, bowing his head slightly before standing up and straightening his coat. He’s pulled back into the shelter of formality, but there’s a slight awkwardness in his stance, and a faint smile on the edges of his lips. “Get some rest. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
    Once he’s gone and the room has fallen back into a thick silence, I curl up with my knees at my chin. My lips burn from his touch. I let my mind wrap around what Anden just said to me, and my fingers run repeatedly over the paper clip ring on my hand. The Patriots had wanted Day and me to join them in assassinating this young Elector. By assassinating him, they claimed, we’d be stoking the fires of a revolution that would free us from the Republic. That we could bring back the glory of the old United States. But what does that
mean,
really? What will the United States have that Anden can’t give the Republic? Freedom? Peace? Prosperity? Will the Republic become a country full of beautifully lit skyscrapers and clean, wealthy sectors? The Patriots had promised Day that they would find his brother and help us escape to the Colonies. But if Anden can do all of these things with the right support and the right determination, if we won’t
need
to flee into the Colonies, then
what is this assassination accomplishing
? Anden isn’t remotely like his father. In fact, his first official act as the Elector is undoing something his father had put in place—he’s going to free Eden, maybe even stop the plague experiments. If we keep him in power, would he change the Republic for the better? Wouldn’t he be the catalyst that Metias had wished for in his defiant journal entries?
    There’s a bigger problem I can’t wrap my head around. Razor
must
know, on some level, that Anden isn’t a dictator like his father was. After all, Razor’s high enough of a rank to hear any rumors of Anden’s rebellious nature. He’d told Day and me that Congress disliked Anden . . . but he never told us
why
they were clashing.
    Why would he want to murder a young Elector who would help the Patriots establish a new Republic?
    In the midst of my churning thoughts, though, one stays clear.
    I know for certain where my loyalties lie now. I won’t help Razor assassinate the Elector. But I have to warn Day, so he doesn’t follow through with the Patriots’ plans.
    I need a signal.
    Then I realize that there might be one way to do it, as long as he’s watching footage of me along with the rest of the Patriots. He won’t know why I’m doing it, but it’s better than nothing. I lower my head slightly, then lift my hand with Day’s paper clip ring on it and press two fingers against the side of my brow. Our agreed signal when we’d first arrived on the streets of Vegas.
    Stop.

LATER THAT NIGHT, I HEAD OUT TO THE MAIN conference room