Pawn (5 page)

I blinked, and for a second I was positive I’d misheard him. Only the Harts were granted VIIs. Not even the twelve Ministers of the Union were ranked so high.

“I’m a III,” I said, as if that settled it, because it did. No one changed rank. No one. Everyone took the test, and everyone was marked accordingly. There was no special treatment, no taking it over again. Everyone had the same shot as everyone else. The only exceptions were the Harts, who didn’t take the test at all. “I’m already marked.”

“Yes, I can see that.” Daxton straightened and adjusted his overcoat. “I will only offer this once, and I need your answer immediately. If you say yes, you will leave with me tonight, and your mark will be replaced.”

“And if I say no?” I said.

“I think we both know what happens then.” Daxton checked his gold watch. “My offer is good for the next thirty seconds.”

I stared at him openly, but his eyes were focused on the time. His finger tapped the watch face as each second ticked by, and with every tap, my throat seemed to close up a little more.

A VII. A real VII from the prime minister himself. Wealth, power, and prestige, endless resources and beautiful things, never again having to worry about being arrested and sent Elsewhere—

Benjy.

What would happen to him? What would he do when he found out I’d disappeared? I couldn’t leave him. A VII was worth a lot, but it wasn’t worth losing one of the few people in my life who really mattered.

“Do I get to stay in D.C.?” I blurted, and Daxton gave me his trademark benevolent smile.

“I don’t see why you wouldn’t,” he said. “We have many homes across the country, but the one in Somerset is by far the most lavish.”

Somerset. That was on the opposite end of the District of Columbia, where the Vs and VIs lived. I wouldn’t have to live in a club. I wouldn’t have to work in the sewers. I wouldn’t even have to leave the city. I’d get to see Benjy whenever I wanted, and when he got his VI—

What would he say when he saw a fresh VII on the back of my neck? A VII would guarantee me riches beyond imagining, things that would make the perfumes and fruits and silks that were sold in the markets look like worthless trinkets instead of the treasures they were. A mark that meant we wouldn’t have to break the law to stay together.

So what if I had to be the prime minister’s mistress? He probably had dozens of them. He’d grow tired of me eventually, and then I’d be free to be with Benjy. And I would still be a VII.

Not a III, not a IV, but a VII.

“What’s the catch?”

His lower eyelid twitched, but his expression didn’t change. “Your time is almost up.”

Whatever the catch was, it was worth thirty thousand gold pieces and a VII. I was stupid for hesitating.

“Five,” he said, counting down. “Four, three, two—”

“Yes.” I couldn’t get the word out fast enough. I pictured Benjy’s face when he found out we could stay together, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning.

A VII. A real VII.

Daxton’s lips twisted into a strange hybrid of a smirk and a smile. “I cannot tell you how pleased I am to hear that. There is a car waiting. Shall we?”

He offered me his hand, and his skin was smooth and cool against my damp palm. When we stepped out of the room, half a dozen guards surrounded us, and all of them eyed me. I hunched my shoulders in an attempt to make myself as small as possible.

“What’s the catch?” I said again.

“Why on earth do you assume there’s a catch?” said Daxton, and I didn’t answer. Of course there was a catch. No one changed ranks, ever.

I rushed to keep up with his long strides, and the guards were so close behind us that I couldn’t stop and take a breath. Daxton ushered me down a narrow flight of stairs and through a series of dank hallways, and finally I spotted the exit into the alleyway. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. How was I supposed to let Benjy know I was safe? Daxton had to let me send word. Or did he expect me to cut all ties with my old life completely?

No. I wasn’t going to abandon Benjy, no matter what he offered me.

To my left a door opened. Tabs poked her head out in time to see the prime minister walking beside me, and her mouth dropped open. “Kitty?”

Relief rushed through me. “Let Benjy know I’m okay,” I said. “Go tonight if you can and tell him—”

“Nothing to see here,” said a guard behind us. He stepped in front of Tabs, blocking her view, and Daxton marched me past her.

“Let me— Tabs! Tell him!” I called, but she didn’t respond.

“Come on,” said Daxton, and he pushed me into the alleyway. I shivered. The temperature had dropped several degrees, and my flimsy white dress didn’t provide much protection from the cold. Daxton removed his overcoat, still warm from his body, and draped it over my shoulders.

“Thanks,” I said. How many times had he done this before? How many mistresses had he bought and enticed with a VII? The thought of sleeping with him made me sick to my stomach, but there was nothing I wouldn’t have done to change my III. Benjy would hate it, but he had to understand. This way, I wouldn’t be putting him in danger. This way, he wouldn’t have to spend his life hiding me. This way, I wouldn’t be forcing him to risk his life just so we could be together.

We turned into another alleyway, where a sleek black car waited for us. It stretched the length of three normal-sized cars, and I had to fight to keep my mouth from dropping open. I’d never seen such a big one up close before. Only Vs and above were allowed to own a car, and one this big must have been made especially for the Harts.

Daxton noticed me staring, and he chuckled. I pulled myself together and stood as straight as I could. I might never have been in a car before, but that didn’t give him the right to laugh at me.

A guard opened the door, and Daxton gestured for me to go first. I was halfway inside when I heard it.

Bang.

My heart leaped into my throat. “What was that?”

“Nothing to worry your pretty little head about,” said Daxton, and another pair of hands pushed me into the seat. I struggled to see, but Daxton slid in next to me, blocking my view, and the car door slammed shut. “It’s a long trip to our destination, so I hope you don’t mind that I’ve taken the liberty of making arrangements to ensure that your stomach doesn’t get the best of you.” He winked. “Leather seats. You understand.”

I didn’t understand, since Somerset couldn’t have been more than twenty miles away, but I didn’t care, either. I craned my neck so I could see around him and into the alleyway.

Through the weak light, I made out two men leaving the club, dragging the body of a girl behind them. We were too far away for me to see her face, but her long dark hair was unmistakable.

“Tabs?” I choked. “What—”

“Shh,” murmured Daxton, brushing my hair aside. Before I could push him away, a needle pricked my neck, and everything went black.

III
Celia

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I groaned. It couldn’t be morning already. The need to sleep weighed me down, and my head pounded. Maybe Nina would let me stay home from school today.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I tried to turn over, but something held me in place. With monumental effort, I opened my eyes. As my vision swam into focus, I made out a small crystal chandelier hanging above me, casting rainbows across the white walls.

This wasn’t the group home.

Everything that had happened the night before slammed into my consciousness. The auction. Daxton. The VII.

Tabs.

I struggled to move, but I couldn’t so much as wiggle my fingers. I searched the unfamiliar room for anything that might help, squinting against the bright overhead lights. No visible windows. One door. Lots of open space. If anyone came in, I’d be trapped.

The beeping caught my attention again. It wasn’t an alarm clock; a machine sat beside my bed, measuring my pulse with a green flashing light. Someone had stuck a plastic tube in my arm, and it was connected to a bag of clear fluid.

A hospital room, maybe? If it was, it was the strangest hospital I’d ever seen. If anything, it looked like a bedroom. A very large bedroom with a fireplace in the corner and white everything with gold trim, but still a bedroom.

“Ah, I see you’re finally awake.”

My heart pounded, and the frequency of the beeping increased. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Daxton sitting on a white sofa, holding a drink in his hand. I gritted my teeth. Whatever they were giving me through that tube, it clouded my mind and made my vision blurry, but no amount of medication could make me forget what I’d seen driving away from the club.

“You killed Tabs.” It was hard to speak. My voice sounded deeper and hoarse, and I tried to clear my throat without success.

“No, I didn’t,” said Daxton, walking around the bed until I could see him without straining. “My guards did.”

Again I told my body to move, but I was stuck. If something held me down, I couldn’t feel it, and horror spread through me. Was I paralyzed?

I swallowed. Panicking wouldn’t help. “Why?”

“Because she stuck her nose where it didn’t belong.” He took a sip from his cup. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. She was nobody.”

“She was my friend.” He was lucky I couldn’t move, else my hands would have been wrapped around his throat, treason or not. “And she was a IV.”

“She was a prostitute,” said Daxton, but that was a load of bull. Prostitutes on the streets, desperate to make their family a little extra money, were sent Elsewhere when they were caught. But in the clubs, especially clubs frequented by government officials and the ministers themselves—

“Would you like to see your new mark?”

I didn’t answer. This was my fault. Tabs had been killed because she’d seen me with Daxton. There was no other explanation.

Pulling something from his pocket, Daxton held a small screen a foot away from my face, and with his other hand he slid something cold between the pillow and my skin. It must have been a camera, because the back of my neck appeared on the screen, and I could clearly see the new letters.

VII,
marked in black ink that stood out against my pale skin. I looked away. It wasn’t worth Tabs’s life.

Daxton sighed. “It is a tragedy, what happened to your friend, and because it hurt you, I am so very sorry that it was necessary. But she knew the dangers that came with her profession, and she chose to do it anyway. You cannot blame me for upholding the law.”

I closed my eyes and swallowed the lump in my throat. As much as I hated to admit it, Daxton was right. Tabs knew the risks. We all knew stepping one toe out of line could mean a bullet to the brain, yet instead of accepting her perfectly normal IV, Tabs had turned to prostitution. I’d tried to steal that orange. Benjy had offered to run away with me.

We all dodged bullets from the moment we turned seventeen. Sometimes they caught up with us, and there was nothing I could do about it. Feeling sorry for myself and for Tabs wouldn’t bring her back, and if she’d known what was happening, that I was getting a VII—

She would’ve smacked me upside the head for risking it all because of her, especially when nothing I did would change what had happened.

People died and were sent Elsewhere all the time. It hurt like hell when it happened close to home, but what made Tabs any different from the others who were punished for breaking the law? I hadn’t cried for them. I never thought twice about the articles Benjy read to me about executions. People were there one day and gone the next, and they were the ones who’d risked it.

It was different when it was my friend, but at the same time it wasn’t. Life still went on. Daxton still ruled the country, and I was nobody. At least now I was a nobody with a VII.

Tabs shouldn’t have opened that door. And I shouldn’t have talked to her.

A lock of my hair on the screen caught my eye. Instead of dirty blond, it was the color of wheat and blended in with the pillow.

“What did you do to my hair?” I said. The small mole on my neck was gone, as well.

“You wanted to be a VII,” said Daxton as he switched the camera off. “Did you think I would just hand it to you because you were pretty?”

No, of course not. A snarl rose from the back of my throat, but when I let it out, it sounded more like a whimper than the roar I needed it to be. “What did you do to me?”

“I didn’t do anything to you. You agreed to our arrangement, and now that it’s done, you have two choices. You can accept it, or you can join your friend.”

“What are you talking about?”

He perched on the bed. “I have also lost someone quite close to me recently,” he said, lacing his fingers together. “My dear niece, Lila, was killed while on a skiing trip in the mountains last week.”

The beeping beside me slowed. “She did? But I didn’t hear about it on the news.”

“The media does not know. No one does.”

I stared at him. “I don’t understand.”

He shifted on the bed until he was facing me. “Do you know why I picked you?”

“Picked me for what? To be your mistress?”

“My mistress?” Daxton chuckled, but it was a humorless laugh. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“You—you bought me,” I said, at a loss.

“I did buy you, but not to be my mistress.”

My mind raced. What other reason did he have to spend thirty thousand gold pieces on me? “I don’t understand.”

He leaned in close enough for me to smell the coffee on his breath and count the pores on his nose. “We have searched a long time for someone like you, Kitty. So long that I had begun to give up hope. When my officials told me someone with your unique features had been spotted, I had to come see you for myself. And there you were. Perfect in every way that mattered.” His smile was so cold I wanted to shiver. “Did you know that eye color is the one thing we cannot change? Experiments have been done, of course, but ninety percent of those who attempt the alteration are instantly blinded. The other ten percent go blind within a year.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, so I stayed silent. Daxton didn’t seem to care.

“Tell me,” he said, cupping my cheek. “Have you ever thought about how much better your life would be if you were a Hart?”

Before I could answer—or spit in his face, because I was still deciding—the door on the other side of the room swung open. A pair of guards entered, followed by a woman I’d only seen in photographs and on television.

Celia Hart, Daxton’s younger sister and Lila’s mother.

Pictures didn’t do her justice. Like her daughter, Celia was stunning. Her face, so perfect it must have been surgically altered, was set in a smooth mask, but her eyes burned as she glared at me. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Thinking she meant me, I opened my mouth to answer—honestly, did she think I’d paralyzed myself on purpose?—but Daxton cut me off. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Playing God.” She waved her hand, and her guards disappeared through the door. “Who is she?”

“A nobody. Some tramp I found in a club in the city,” he said, and I hissed.

“I’m not a tramp.
You’re
the one who bought my virginity.”

“And yet you still have it,” he said. “Hold your tongue, Kitty, or I’ll have it numbed, as well.”

“Do it, then,” I said, not feeling half as brave as I sounded. “I have a right to know what’s going on.”

“Your rights extend as far as I let them.” Daxton opened a drawer in the bedside table and pulled out a syringe. “This might sting.”

Celia snatched it away before he could uncap it. “Don’t you dare.”

“But she’s talking,” he said.

Celia tapped the tip of the syringe against his throat. “So are you. Unless you start telling me what I want to hear, I’ll freeze your vocal cords, and who knows how long that’ll last?”

Daxton scoffed, but I could see his hands tighten into fists. “We need a replacement to undo the damage she caused. Mother thought it best if we take advantage of this opportunity.”

“Opportunity?” sputtered Celia. “My daughter’s
dead.
”

Daxton shrugged. “It is of course a shame, what happened to Lila—”

“Don’t you dare act like you aren’t responsible,” said Celia. “You murdered my daughter, and you think you can replace her without any consequences?”

Replace her?

“I didn’t touch a hair on her head,” said Daxton patiently. “Your conspiracy theories are growing tiresome, Celia. It was a freak avalanche.”

“You’re lying,” she said, her voice shaking with anger. “You planned this. I know you did.”

“You just lost your child. Your grief is getting the better of you. Once you’ve had time to adjust, you’ll see the madness in your accusations.”

Her expression darkened. “I’m not crazy. First my husband, now my daughter—”

“Your husband was a traitor,” said Daxton. “Lila was seventeen. No matter how poorly you think of me, dear sister, I do not execute teenagers.”

“No, of course not,” she snapped. “Wouldn’t want to risk making her a martyr, would you? Who knows what kind of revolution that would lead to?”

I cleared my throat, and both Harts focused their glares on me. Terrific.

“As fascinating as all of this has been, what does it have to do with me?” I said.

Celia turned toward Daxton in astonishment. “You haven’t told her? She’s lying here like this, and she doesn’t know?”

Daxton shrugged, and the beeps of the heart monitor next to my bed increased. “What d’you mean, lying here like this?” I said.

“I can’t
believe
you,” Celia all but exploded. “I know better than to think you’d ask me first, but you didn’t ask her, either?”

“Yes, well.” Daxton swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously. “Desperate times, you know. Couldn’t wait. By the time you came out of seclusion...” He gestured at me. “If you’d rather have her killed, it could be arranged.”

“What?” Using every ounce of willpower I had, I finally managed to lift my head from the pillow. “Listen, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not die.”

“You will not murder her,” said Celia fiercely. “You did this, and now you’re going to have to live with the consequences.”

“What consequences?” I said. “What did he do to me? Why can’t I move?”

She jerked her head to the side, and Daxton slouched toward the corner and dropped onto one of the white couches. Celia began searching the drawers. “Your name’s Kitty?”

“Yeah,” I said, watching her closely.

“It’s not short for anything,” said Daxton, but Celia gave him a look so poisonous that he fell silent.

“How old are you, Kitty?” She gave up her search and leaned in toward me. Her cool fingers brushed the back of my neck, and she must have seen the VII, because she pressed her lips together and straightened.

“Seventeen.” My voice cracked. “My birthday was yesterday.”

“Two weeks ago,” said Daxton. “Enough time for the swelling to go down.”

I’d lost two weeks? “What— But you said Lila died a week ago.”

Celia rounded on him. “You
planned
this?”

Daxton shrugged and held up his hands innocently. “An unfortunate coincidence, I assure you. Mother is the one who came up with the idea. I’m merely following instructions.”

“Of course Mother’s behind it,” she said. “You’re too weak to think of anything like this yourself.”

“Would someone
please
explain what’s going on?” I said.

“Daxton, give me your camera,” she demanded, holding out her hand. He grudgingly fished it out of his pocket and tossed it across the room as if it were nothing. Celia caught it and fumbled with the pieces.

“He’s already shown me the back of my neck,” I said. “He promised me a VII for going with him.”

“Did he?” she said. “Well, you certainly have your VII now, don’t you?” She steadied the camera in front of my face with one hand, and with the other she held up the screen for me to see.

At first I didn’t understand. They were my eyes staring back at me, as clear and blue as ever, but nothing else was the same. My skin was paler and freckle-free. My hair had gone from dirty blond to the same wheat-blond I’d seen earlier. My cheekbones were higher, my eyebrows thinner, my nose smaller, and my lips fuller—even the shape of my face had gone from a square to an oval. And somehow my forehead, which had always been a little too small, was now perfect.

I gazed at the image for several seconds before it dawned on me. This wasn’t just a gorgeous face where mine was supposed to be.

I stared into the camera, and Lila Hart stared back.