Queen. Aimee Carter

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      “Don’t they know they don’t have to do this anymore?” I said as we reached the exit.

      “We can’t all sit around and think all day. This needs to be a functioning community,” said Rivers. “Don’t worry—they’re here because they want to be, not because anyone is pointing a gun at their heads.”

      “They’re here to avoid having someone point a gun at their heads,” I pointed out. “There’s no safe place for them outside Elsewhere.”

      “That’ll change,” said Rivers with such offhanded assuredness that, had he been able to bottle it, I would have given anything I owned for just a taste. “We’ll start mapping out the tunnels tomorrow, once you’ve had a chance to rest.”

      “We’ll start on it after dinner,” I corrected. “Once I’ve had time to take some painkillers.”

      We argued all the way back to Mercer Manor, where Rivers reluctantly agreed to meet me that evening—but only to draw a guide to the tunnels he was already familiar with. It wasn’t the exploration I’d had in mind, but at least we were doing something.

      I refused to let the doctor examine me, instead choosing to lie down upstairs in the bedroom Benjy and I now shared. We’d spent three days trapped together in that room while the Battle of Elsewhere raged outside, but I didn’t see it as a prison. Not anymore. Instead, it was a refuge from whatever storm Knox and the Blackcoats were brewing downstairs, the one place I could be me without having to worry about being silenced or ignored. Or mistaken for someone I wasn’t—though now that the entire country knew who I was, with any luck, those instances would become few and far between.

      I turned on the radio and listened to the soft music, trying to lose myself in it and forget the rest of the world for a little while. But as soon as I closed my eyes, someone knocked softly on the door.

      “This better be good,” I called, turning my face from the pillow enough to watch the door. Benjy slipped inside and offered me a smile.

      “Heard what happened,” he said. “Rivers said you wouldn’t see a doctor.”

      “I’m fine,” I muttered. “Breathing hurts, that’s all.”

      “Oh, that’s all?” He rubbed his hands together, warming them up. “If you won’t let them take a look at you, then at least let me check to see if anything’s broken. You could puncture a lung and die, and then where would we be?”

      “You’d be fine,” I said. “Knox would be adrift. He just wouldn’t realize it for a while.”

      He smiled, but it resembled a grimace far too closely for it to be genuine. “I’m sure Knox will be pleased to know you’re so concerned about him, but I wouldn’t be fine without you, either. Let me take a look.”

      I immediately regretted bringing Knox up at all, but there was nothing I could do about it now. Reluctantly I tugged up my shirt and let him take a look at the angry purple bruise already forming on my side. Benjy gently began to examine my ribs.

      “You shouldn’t go down there alone anymore,” he said. I frowned.

      “Why are we doing any of this if we’re too scared to talk to them? They have a point, you know. We’re up here, getting the best food and the best medical care—”

      “We eat the same things they eat,” he said. “And they have constant access to doctors and nurses.”

      “We still live in this house while they live in bunks,” I said. “That kind of difference might not seem like much, but to them, we might as well be poking them in the eye with our superiority.”

      “We need space to meet and plan.”

      “We could use the dining hall for space,” I countered. “This manor is where the Mercers lived for years. Staying here, while nothing’s changed for the rest of them—it isn’t doing us any good.”

      “What would you prefer we do? Let everyone crowd in here?” said Benjy. His fingers pressed against a particularly tender spot, and I hissed. “No matter what kind of equality we want, there will always be leaders, and those leaders will always have some kind of marginal privilege.”

      “Then what’s the difference between us and the Harts?” I said. “What makes us any better?”

      “We won’t abuse our privileges. We won’t take and take and take and give nothing in return.” He pulled my shirt back down and gently draped a blanket over me. “We’re doing everything we can to make them as comfortable and happy as possible. The bunks aren’t bad at all. They have heat. We’re giving them fresh mattresses and clothes. We can’t do it all immediately, Kitty, not when we’re barely keeping our heads above water. But the sacrifices they’re making right now—if we win, they’ll be worth it. They know that. It’s just a little hard to remember right now.”

      “It’s a little hard to remember a lot of things,” I mumbled, and he sat down on the bed beside me, running his fingers through my hair.

      “Like what?”

      I gave him a look. “You’re patronizing me.”

      “No, I’m serious,” he said. “Talk to me, Kitty. Let me help.”

      There was nothing he could do, not really—but he’d always been a salve to the terrible circumstances of our lives before. Taking a deep breath, I finally said, “I think I’ve forgotten what I really look like.”

      His hand stilled. “I haven’t.”

      “How? I’ve looked like this—like Lila—for months,” I said. “How could you possibly still look at me and see Kitty Doe?”

      Benjy shifted so we were face-to-face, and he touched the curve of my jaw. Lila’s jaw. “It isn’t about what you look like. It never has been. It’s about what’s underneath, and that hasn’t changed.”

      He was trying to be kind—he was being kind, like always. But I could see the way he looked at me sometimes, especially when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. I tried to imagine what it would be like if Benjy were Masked into someone else—Knox, or Greyson, or Strand—and part of me knew that no matter how hard I tried, I wouldn’t be able to separate them completely. He would always be somewhat changed. Maybe Benjy was better at this than I would be—maybe he still saw the real me underneath. But I wasn’t the same anymore. The past four months had changed me irrevocably, and sometimes I wondered if he knew that. Or if he wanted to pretend as badly as I did.

      “Yeah, but—” I hesitated, not knowing how to put the knot of frustration in my throat into words. “It’s not just that. I don’t know where I belong anymore. I’m a Hart. I’m a former prisoner. I’m a Blackcoat. But I’m not really any of those things, either. And I’m not who I look like. I’m not anything except that speech. And even that wasn’t good enough for Knox, not really.”

      Benjy’s hand resumed running through my hair, and he toyed with the ends. “Forget Knox. He’s under so much pressure right now that nothing is going to make him happy, so you might as well focus on making yourself happy instead.”

      I frowned. Happy had become such a foreign concept to me that I wasn’t sure I remembered what it felt like. СКАЧАТЬ