Prodigy (Legend 2)

“At least Tess is safe,” I reply.

This eases some of the pain in his eyes. “Yes,” he echoes, sighing deeply. “At least Tess is safe.” I feel an unexpected twinge of guilt. Tess’s face had looked so sweet, so wholly good. And the two of them were separated because of me.

Am I good? I don’t really know.

I help Day take off his jacket and cap. His long hair drapes in strings across my arms. “Let me see that leg.” I kneel, then pull a knife from my belt. I slice the fabric of his pant leg up to the middle of his thigh. His leg muscles are lean and tense, and my hands tremble as they brush up along his skin. Gingerly, I pull the fabric apart to expose his bandaged wound. We both suck in our breath. The cloth has a massive circle of dark, wet blood, and underneath it, the wound is oozing and swelling. “That Medic better get here soon,” I say. “Are you sure you can shower on your own?”

Day jerks his eyes away, and his cheeks turn red. “Of course I can.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “You can’t even stand.”

“Fine.” He hesitates, then blushes. “I guess I could use some help.”

I swallow. “Well. A bath instead, then. Let’s do what we have to do.”

I start filling up the bathtub with warm water. Then, I take the knife and slowly cut through the blood-soaked bandages wrapped around Day’s wound. We sit there in silence, neither of us meeting the other’s eyes. The wound itself is as bad as ever, a fist-size mass of pulped flesh that Day avoids looking at.

“You don’t have to do this,” he mutters, rolling his shoulders in an attempt to relax.

“Right.” I give him a wry smile. “I’ll just wait outside the bathroom door and come help after you slip and knock yourself out.”

“No,” Day replies. “I mean, you don’t have to join the Patriots.”

My smile dies. “Well, we don’t have much of a choice, do we? Razor wants both of us on board, or he’s not going to help us at all.”

Day’s hand touches my arm for a second, stopping me in the middle of untying his boots. “What do you think of their plan?”

“Assassinating the new Elector?” I turn away, concentrating on unlacing, then loosening each of his boots as carefully as I can. It’s a question I haven’t figured out yet, so I deflect it. “Well, what do you think? I mean, you go out of your way to avoid hurting people. This must be kind of a shock.”

I’m startled when Day just shrugs. “There’s a time and place for everything.” His voice is cold, harsher than usual. “I never saw the point of killing Republic soldiers. I mean, I hate them, but they’re not the source. They just obey their superiors. The Elector, though? I don’t know. Getting rid of the person in charge of this whole goddy system seems like a small price to pay for starting a revolution. Don’t you think?”

I can’t help feeling some admiration for Day’s attitude. What he says makes perfect sense. Still, I wonder if he would’ve said the same thing a few weeks ago, before everything that had happened to his family. I don’t dare mention the time I’d been introduced to Anden at the celebratory ball. It’s harder to reconcile yourself to killing someone who you’ve actually met—and admired—in person. “Well, like I said. We don’t have a choice.”

Day’s lips tighten. He knows I’m not telling him what I really think. “It must be hard for you to turn your back on your Elector,” he says. His hands stay slack beside him.

I keep my head down and start pulling off his boots.

While I put his boots aside, Day shrugs out of his jacket and starts unbuttoning his vest. It reminds me of when I’d first met him back on the streets of Lake. Back then, he would take off his vest every night and give it to Tess to use as a pillow. That was the most I’d ever seen Day undress. Now he unbuttons his collar shirt, exposing the rest of his throat and a sliver of his chest. I see the pendant looped around his neck, the United States quarter dollar covered with smooth metal on both sides. In the quiet dark of the railcar, he’d told me about his father’s bringing it back from the warfront. He pauses when he finishes undoing the last button, then closes his eyes. I can see the pain slashed across his face, and the sight tears at me. The Republic’s most wanted criminal is just a boy, sitting before me, suddenly vulnerable, laying all his weaknesses out for me to see.

I straighten and reach up to his shirt. My hands touch the skin of his shoulders. I try to keep my breathing even, my mind sharp and calculated. But as I help him pull off the shirt and reveal his bare arms and chest, I can feel the corners of my logic growing fuzzy. Day is fit and lean under his clothes, his skin surprisingly smooth except for an occasional scar (he has four faint ones on his chest and waist, another one that’s a thin diagonal line running from left collarbone to right hip bone, and a healing scab on his arm). He holds me with his gaze. It’s hard to describe Day to those who have never seen him before—exotic, unique, overwhelming. He’s very close now, close enough for me to see the tiny rippled imperfection in the ocean of his left eye. His breaths come out hot and shallow. Heat rises on my cheeks, but I don’t want to turn away.

“We’re in this together, right?” he whispers. “You and me? You want to be here, yeah?”

There’s guilt in his questions. “Yes,” I reply. “I chose this.”

Day pulls me close enough for our noses to touch. “I love you.”