Champion (Legend 3)

“You are not your father,” I say, holding his gaze with my own. “You’re Anden. You don’t have to follow in his footsteps; you have your own. You’re the Elector now. You don’t have to be like him.”

I think back on my own loyalty to the former Elector, of all the video footage of him shouting orders from the cockpit of a fighter jet, or heading up tanks in the streets. He was always on the front lines. He was fearless. Now, as I look at Anden, I can see that same fearlessness burning steadily in his eyes, his need to assert himself as a worthy leader of his country. When his father was young, perhaps he had also been like Anden—idealistic, full of hopes and dreams, of the noblest intentions, brave and driven. How had he slowly twisted into the Elector who created such a dark nation? What path had he chosen to follow? Suddenly, for however brief a second, I feel like I understand the former Republic. And I know that Anden won’t go down that same road.

Anden returns my look, as if hearing my unspoken words . . . and for the first time in months, I see some of that dark cloud lift from his eyes, the blackness that gives birth to his moments of furious temper.

Without his father’s shadow in the way, he’s beautiful.

“I’ll do my best,” he whispers.

THE SECOND NIGHT OF THE COLONIES’ CEASEFIRE.

    WELL, NO POINT IN RETURNING HOME TONIGHT. PASCAO and I are gonna run through Los Angeles, marking doors and walls and alerting the people quietly to our cause, and we might as well do it from a central location like the hospital. Besides, I needed to sit with Eden for a while. An evening of blood tests haven’t treated him well—he’s thrown up twice since I’ve been here. While a nurse rushes out of the room with a bucket in hand, I pour a glass of water for my brother. He guzzles it down.

“Any luck?” he asks weakly. “Do you know if they’ve found anything yet?”

“Not yet.” I take the empty glass from him and set it back on a tray. “I’ll check in with them in a little bit, though. See how they’re doing. Better be worth all this.”

Eden sighs, closes his eyes, and leans his head against the mountain of pillows stacked on his bed. “I’m fine,” he whispers. “How’s your friend? Tess?”

Tess. She hasn’t woken up yet, and now I find myself wishing that we could go back to when she was still able to shove the lab team around. I swallow hard, trying to replace my mental image of her sickly appearance with the sweet, cheery face I’ve known for years. “She’s asleep. Lab says her fever hasn’t broken.”

Eden grits his teeth and looks back at the screen monitoring his vitals. “She seems nice,” he finally says. “From everything I’ve heard.”

I smile. “She is. After all this is over, maybe the two of you can hang out or something. You’d get along.” If we all pull through this, I add to myself, and then hurriedly banish the thought. Damn, every day it’s getting harder and harder to keep my chin up.

Our conversation ends after that, but Eden keeps one hand gripped tightly in my own. His eyes stay closed. After a while, his breathing changes into the steady rhythm of sleep, and his hand falls away to rest on his blanket. I pull the blanket up to cover him to his chin, watch him for a few more seconds, and then stand. At least he can still sleep pretty soundly. I don’t. Every hour or so, for the last two days, I shake myself out of some gruesome nightmare and have to walk it off before attempting to sleep again. My headache stays with me, a constant, dull companion, reminding me of my ticking clock.

I open the door and sneak out as quietly as I can. The hall’s empty except for a few nurses here and there. And Pascao. He’s been waiting for me on one of the hall’s benches. When he sees me, he gets up and flashes me a brief grin.

“The others are getting into position,” he says. “We’ve got about two dozen Runners, all in all, already out there and marking the sectors. I think it’s about time for the two of us to head out too.”

“Ready to rouse the people?” I say, half joking, as he leads me down the hall.

“The excitement of it all is making my bones ache.” Pascao pushes open a set of double doors at the hall’s end, ushers us into a larger waiting room, and then into an unused hospital room with the lights still turned off. He flicks them on. My eyes go immediately to something lying on the bed. It looks like a pair of suits, dark with gray outlines, both laid out neatly on top of the sterile blankets. Beside the suits is some kind of equipment that looks a little like guns. I glance at Pascao, who shoves his hands into his pockets. “Check these out,” he says in a low voice. “When I was throwing ideas around this afternoon with Baxter and a couple of Republic soldiers, they loaned out these suits for us Runners. It should help you in particular. June says she uses suits and air launchers like these to get around the city quickly, without being detected. Here.” He tosses me one. “Throw this on.”

I frown at the suit. It doesn’t look like anything particularly special, but I decide to give Pascao the benefit of the doubt.

“I’ll be in the next room,” Pascao says as he swings his own suit over his shoulder. He nudges my shoulder as he passes. “With these things, we should have no trouble covering Los Angeles tonight.”

I start to warn him that, with my recent headaches and medications, I’m probably not strong enough to keep up with him around the entire city—but he’s already out the door, leaving me alone in the room. I study the suit again, then unbutton my shirt.