Champion (Legend 3)

Tess wraps her arms around her knees. “I know.”

I swallow hard and look down. “But I don’t love you the way you want me to. I’m sorry if I ever gave you the wrong impression. I don’t think I’ve ever treated you as well as you deserve.” My heart twists painfully as the words leave my mouth, striking her as they go. “So don’t be sorry. It’s my fault, not yours.”

Tess shakes her head. “I know you don’t love me that way. Don’t you think I know that by now?” A note of bitterness enters her voice. “But you don’t know how I feel about you. No one does.”

I give her a level look. “Tell me, then.”

“Day, you mean more to me than some crush.” Her brows furrow as she tries to explain herself. “When the entire world turned its back on me and left me to die, you took me in. You were the one person who cared about what might happen to me. You were everything. Everything. You became my entire family—you were my parents and my siblings and my caretaker, my only friend and companion, you were both my protector and someone who needed protecting. You see? I didn’t love you in the way you might’ve thought I did, although I can’t deny that was part of it. But the way I feel goes beyond that.”

I open my mouth to reply, but nothing comes out. I don’t know what to say. All I can do is see.

Tess lets out a shaky breath. “So when I thought June might take you away, I didn’t know what to do. I felt like she was taking everything that mattered to me. I felt like she was taking away from you all the things that I didn’t have.” She lowers her eyes. “That’s why I’m sorry. I’m sorry because you shouldn’t have to be everything to me. I had you, but I’d forgotten that I had myself too.” She pauses to look over at the Patriots, who are deep in conversation. “It’s a new feeling, something I’m still getting used to.”

And just like that, we’re both kids again. I see the younger us, dangling our feet over the edge of some broken high-rise, watching the sun dip every evening below the ocean’s horizon. How much we’ve seen since then, how far we’ve come.

I reach over to tap her nose once, just like how I always have. She smiles for the first time.

* * *

The night has transitioned into the early hour before dawn, and the drizzle and slush has finally paused, leaving the city glistening under the moonlight. The evacuation alarm still echoes every now and then, and the JumboTrons continue their ominous red warning to seek cover, but a brief lull has hit the battle and the skies aren’t full of jets and explosions. Guess both sides have to rest up or something. I rub the weariness from my eyes and try to ignore my headache—I could use some rest.

“It’s not gonna be easy, you know,” Pascao whispers to me as we both survey the morning. “They’re probably on the lookout for Republic soldiers.” We’re perched on top of the Armor, watching the field just beyond the city’s boundaries. It’s not like people don’t live outside the Armor, but unlike LA, which is just one large spread of buildings that melts right into its neighboring cities, Denver’s population is sparser outside the safety of its walls. Small clusters of buildings sit here and there. They seem empty, and I wonder if the Republic saw the Colonies approaching from a distance and evacuated their people inside the Armor. Although the Colonies’ airships have returned back to their own land in order to refuel, they’ve left a bunch of jets in the fields, and the areas they’ve occupied are well lit with floodlights. I’m kind of shocked by how repulsed I am at the thought of the Colonies taking us over. A year ago, I would be cheering at the top of my goddy lungs for this exact scenario. But now I just hear the Colonies’ slogan over and over in my head. A free state is a corporate state. The ads I remember from their cities make me shiver.

It’s hard to decide which I prefer, really: watch my brother grow up under the Colonies’ rule, or watch him taken back for experimentation by the Republic?

“Yeah, they’ll be on the lookout,” I agree. Then I turn away from the Armor’s edge and start making my way down the wall. Along the Armor’s outer edge, Republic jets lie parked, manned, and ready. “But we’re not Republic soldiers. If they can hit us with a surprise attack, then so can we.”

Pascao and I are dressed exactly alike, in black from head to toe, with masks pulled over our faces. If it weren’t for a little height difference, I don’t think anyone would be able to tell us apart.

“You two ready?” Pascao mutters into his mike to our Hackers. Then he glances at me and gives a thumbs-up signal. If they’re in place, then that means Tess is in place too. Stay safe.

We make our way down to the ground and then let several Republic soldiers guide us around to a small, discreet underground passage. It leads outside the Armor and into dangerous territory. The soldiers nod a silent “good luck” to us before retreating back inside. I hope to hell this all works.

I look out at the field where Colonies jets are parked. When I first turned fifteen, I had set fire to a series of ten brand-new F-472 Republic fighter jets parked at the Burbank air force base in Los Angeles. It was the first stunt that landed me at the top of the most wanted list, and one of the crimes June herself actually made me confess to when I’d been arrested. I did it by first stealing gallons of highly explosive blue nitroglide from air force bases, then pouring the liquid into the jets’ exhaust nozzles and across the tail end of the jets. The instant their engines turned on, their tails exploded into flames.