1
CASSIE
MY HEART WAS BEATING SO hard I was sure the United soldiers could hear it. It radiated out from my sore, bruised chest, ricocheting off the unyielding trees, the ice daggers hanging from every branch. The woods vibrated with my heartbeat, echoing life… or death. Life… or death. Over and over.
My hands were numb and I clutched my rifle by instinct rather than feel. With every breath I pulled in, more lung cells froze, iced over, became hard and brittle. I would never recover. Recovering wasn’t even the point anymore.
It was me against United soldiers, and my heartbeat betrayed my position every second.
For the last hour, I’d been holding steady, but in the Resistance, simply staying alive is the lamest possible default. As much as I wanted to sink into the snow, the ice, and into oblivion, I knew I had to act. And the only action that made sense, the only plan that could possibly work, had a price so high that my brain shied away from it like a nervous horse from a rattlesnake back on our farm.
Once more I sluggishly evaluated already-discarded options. Every one of them ended with me dead, the Uniteds winning, and the rest of the camp fatally compromised. I didn’t mind dying—I’d lost that fear ages ago in the Crazy House. Death was bearable, even preferable at this point. Failure wasn’t. The days, weeks, months of incessant, soul-crushing, body-breaking training had ensured that the merest thought of failure was enough to make every neuron in my brain implode.
As I picked up the faintest sounds of heavy military boots crunching toward me through the thin top layer of ice, my mind focused painfully on the one choice that remained. It was unbearable—the worst choice possible—and the only one that might not lead to failure.
Shit shit shit. I had to do it. It was the only way. Gulping convulsively, I tapped the comm on my coat collar. “Beck, come in,” I breathed.
My twin sister’s voice, tired and cranky, came back. “Becca here. ’Sup?”
2
SEVENTEEN YEARS IN AN AG cell hadn’t prepared me for anything riskier than corn fungus or more difficult than confronting a slacker on my science-a-thon team. The last twelve months had been a one-eighty from my previous life, but the constant that remained had been Becca. Reckless, ridiculous Rebecca. My identical twin. And by identical I mean that we share virtually no similarities except our looks… and a fierce, unbreakable, unshakeable love for each other, no matter what. In everything else—taste in food, clothes, boys, music, weapons—she’s totally nuts.
“I’m on the ridge,” I told Becca quietly, my lips stiff and thick with cold. “I need… I need you to flank east and take out as many of the Uniteds as possible. To give me cover.”
On the other end, Becca was silent. For twenty-seven heartbeats. I knew she was calculating the odds, figuring out the plan, realizing that she was going to be sacrificed for the good of the camp and me. Realizing that I was sending her to die.
Death was nothing, but I was terrified of losing my sister, the only family I had left. Like I said, the worst choice possible. War had put me in this position. War puts everyone in this position.
Becca’s voice came back with only the slightest waver. “Roger that, Cass. Leaving now.”
Becca’s comm clicked off just as I opened my mouth to say, No, don’t! I changed my mind!
My quick breaths were like punches against my breastbone. I tapped my comm again. “This is Cassie,” I told the relay. “I’m heading toward the mountain. United’s hot on my tail. Expect company.”
“Copy that,” said a voice through the crackly comm system.
Much closer now, a branch snapped, sounding like a boulder shattering in these hard, icy woods. The United soldiers were sweeping the area. They were almost on me. Becca should be in place now. Suddenly my cold-slowed reactions burst into animal-survival mode, my muscles twitching, my whole being consumed by a primitive refusal to be prey. It was now or never.
3
WITH EVERY COLD, CRAMPED MUSCLE screaming, I broke out of my hiding place and quickly took my bearings. I couldn’t see the United soldiers yet but heard them coming up the ridge I was on.
Feeling much, much older than eighteen, I snuck toward the edge of the woods. I’d been motionless for so long that my hands and feet felt dead, making me clumsy, loosening my hold on my rifle. I stumbled against a rough-barked pine, whacking my shoulder, and bit down a grunt of pain.
Then I heard shouts. The first sound of gunfire made me stiffen, whipping my head toward the sound. Oh, God, that was Becca. That was Becca giving me cover. I crouched as I heard a spray of bullets and a choked scream.
Becca! I took an unconscious step in her direction. No, don’t turn back, I ordered myself.
After a few more steps through snow halfway to my knees, I caved and looked back. Through the woods I saw that Becca was still standing, blooms of red like poppies spreading over her white winter gear. She was yelling and flipping the bird with one hand, because of being Becca.