“You weren’t supposed to die,” I whisper and ease him out into the road.
Blood covers the windscreen, the front seat, the dashboard. Georgette trembles and won’t go anywhere near the vehicle’s controls. I lean on the front seat and wipe the interior with my voluminous skirt. In the back, the other girl stares at me through haunted eyes.
“Someone’s coming,” she whispers.
I turn to the right and find a set of headlights approaching us from a quarter-mile away. “Can you tell me how to program the vehicle?”
Through stuttering, gasping breaths, Georgette talks me through the dashboard controls, and I enter the coordinates for Mom’s location. The vehicle rolls forward and drives along the Botanical Gardens, and the other driver passes behind us without stopping.
A tense silence stretches out between us. I glance at the rear-view mirror and find Georgette staring at her blood-stained hands.
“Sorry you had to see that.” I shake my head. “I’m sorry they died.”
“It’s me who should apologize,” she says in a voice hoarse with tears. “The electroshocker was supposed to knock him out.”
“A shocker that size doesn’t work against larger people,” I say, trying to fight back tears.
“How do you—”
Georgette doesn’t complete her sentence, and I know why.
I killed Dad.
I killed Dad.
I killed Dad, and now Prince Kevon will die.
Grief cuts through the remnants of the emotion-suppressant drugs and slices through my heart. The back of my throat becomes raw, and the scent of blood and tears and bile fills my nostrils.
The vehicle seems to tilt. My entire spine buckle. I cling to the dashboard, but my arms can’t support my weight.
“Zea!” Georgette lurches forward and places a hand on my shoulder.
Every muscle in my chest constricts, squeezing me tight like a bodice, tight like a noose, tight like the crushing grief and guilt and disgust of what the queen made me do.
“I’ve got to save him.” My words sound choked.
Georgette doesn’t answer. I know why. She thinks I’m having a breakdown, but I’m not. The chemical dam holding back my emotions has broken, releasing everything in a rush of hysteria and hurried breaths. I can’t tell her any of this because I’m hyperventilating.
It takes several moments for my breathing to return to normal, and I can barely hear Georgette’s words of comfort. I swallow several times in quick succession. I should be the one calming her. This is the first time she’s seen so much death.
I wonder if she saw me kill Dad, but I shake off that thought. Of course she did. Everyone saw me.
Ambassador Pascale had made sure to broadcast footage of my encounter with Scorpio all over Netface. A single blast of the shocker hadn’t worked until I went to more extreme measures.
“Dad might have survived if I hadn’t used the poison,” I whisper.
“How were you supposed to know?” she says.
I shake my head and stare out at the blood-spattered windscreen. The route takes us down a tree-lined boulevard illuminated by round lamps atop posts as tall as the trees. We’re in a park of some sort, as there’s no sign of any dwellings.
Moments later, the path splits and meanders around the park to the start of two-and-three-story houses, most of which appear empty. Light shines from their windows, some of which are broken, but there is no sign of life within the richly adorned rooms. Some of the doors look like they’ve been blasted open with explosives.
“At least we’ve missed the rebels,” I say.
Georgette doesn’t answer.
The vehicle takes us around the back of a three-story house. Its wheels bump over the smashed-in fence and stop on a large, metal plate. I open the door, and static sounds from an unseen speaker.
“Hello?” says a male voice.
I glance over my shoulder. The lawn behind us is empty, and the nearest house is about five-hundred yards away. “My name is Zea-Mays Calico, and I’m here to—”
“Zea?” Mom’s voice says through the speaker.
My heart skips. “Mom?”
“It’s alright, Mrs. Calico,” says the man.
“Leo, let her in before those people come back,” Mom sobs.
Anxiety trembles across my nerve endings at the thought of seeing Mom again. If Georgette has reacted badly to Meadowhawk’s death, I imagine Mom’s love for me will turn to loathing. I gulp several times, waiting for instructions.
“Get back in the truck,” he says. “I’ll lower the platform.”
The speaker cuts off, and the metal plate beneath us rumbles. I scoot back into the front seat and let the platform lower us into a basement of polished concrete illuminated by two strips of floor lights. It extends beyond the width of the house and probably toward the neighboring houses. Vehicles of all sizes line both sides, from two-seater cars to motorcycles to jeeps.
I dab my damp hands on my skirt, hoping Leo has cleaning supplies for the interior. If I’m going to transport Mom and the twins back to Master Thymel’s compound, they can’t see all that blood.
Bright lights flood the basement room, making my eyes sting. Whirring sounds from above, making me lean forward and squint up into the night.
“The rebels tracked down my unconscious friends,” Leo says as the hatch above us closes. “They’re returning with reinforcements.”
I open the door, telling Leo that we can block the Amstraadi monitors, and wait for Georgette to emerge from the back seat.
She stares ahead, her eyes blank. I exhale a long breath, my heart clenching with sympathy. It reminds me of the first time I saw someone die, only Rafaela’s demise hadn’t been sudden. The hope that she would survive had kept me alert until the Amstraadi monitor had electrocuted her. Even then, I hoped the doctors might be able to save her life.
What happened to Meadowhawk had been brutal. Senseless. And an accident. I place my palms on the window and wait for her to raise her head. A curtain of black hair obscures her expression, but I know she’s shattering on the inside.
“Georgette.” I tap on the window. “The rebels are coming back with weapons.”
She nods and reaches for the handle. I step back to give her space.
When the door swings open, she falls into my arms. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
I wrap my arms around the sobbing girl. “It was a fluke.”
“Zea?” Leo’s voice fills the downstairs space. “I see several headlights approaching from the park.”
A click sounds from one of the wall panels opposite the vehicle, and the door behind us swings open. We release the hug and continue into a darkened stairwell. It leads to a hallway the size of our house in Rugosa with tall, white walls that lead to a glass atrium. Plants grow around its exterior, making me wonder if this is some kind of upstairs growing space.
“Straight ahead,” says Leo. “We’re in the library.”
A long, burgundy rug leads to a room with mahogany shelves on the wall, all crammed with books. We round a large table laden with writing materials and turn in a slow circle. There are leather armchairs, brass lamps atop low tables, a mezzanine with more bookshelves, but no people.
“Leo?” I say.
“Go to the bookshelf to the left of the rocking chair,” he says.