Aimee Carter - Captive

“Sorry,” he mumbled, pulling away after nearly a minute had passed. I started to tell him he had nothing to be sorry for, but he took the picture frame from me and fiddled with something on the back. “Here. This is what I wanted to show you.”

I took the frame back and blinked. Instead of Greyson and I sitting together in the library, it now held a picture of Benjy with his arms around a girl with a round face, dirty blond hair, and bright blue eyes.

My mouth dropped open. Once again, that girl was me— actually me, Kitty Doe, before I’d been Masked as Lila. Benjy’s shock of red hair was as vivid as ever, and he bent his head to kiss my cheek as I grinned ear to ear. Unlike the picture with Greyson, I remembered the moment this had been taken, almost a year ago. The brand-new sweater I wore gave it away. It had been our last Christmas together in the group home—the last one our matron, Nina, had seen before Daxton had hunted and killed her in the vast forests of Elsewhere.

I traced my old face over the glass. Everything about it was different now, and I would never look in the mirror and see Kitty Doe again. I almost hadn’t recognized myself, and seeing this picture now—the only one I had from before I’d been Masked as Lila—made my insides knot together. I’d had nothing then, only Benjy and the hope of a better future. That better future had turned into a III and a job cleaning sewers, and only the strange color of my eyes had saved me from a short, brutal life underground. If I forgot my own face so quickly, then what hope did I have of anyone else remembering it? I had been a nobody. I still was a nobody, but at least now I was a nobody who might be able to make a difference in the lives of the IIs and IIIs who hadn’t been lucky enough to have the same eye color as Lila Hart.

And here I was, about to run away from the only thing that made my life worth anything at all.

More than my guilt over leaving Greyson, more than my trepidation over dragging Benjy underground, that was what cracked my resolve. I would still leave—I had to, to save Benjy’s life, to save my own, and to give Knox a chance at seeing his plans through without me getting in the way. But I’d be damned if I wasted this chance to make the difference I’d risked my life for in the first place.

“How did you find this?” I said, still staring at the photograph. It had been less than a year since that moment, but it felt like another lifetime. Nothing was the same anymore, and nothing would be ever again.

Greyson shrugged. “I found it in Grandmother’s things with the others.”

“Others?” An idea began to form in my mind. If Greyson could find a picture of me, one I hadn’t even known existed, then Sampson must have been right—there had to be one of the real Daxton.

“She had an entire file on you,” he said. “Pictures, test results, your birth certificate—”

My head snapped up. “Birth certificate? Why would she have all of that?”

“I don’t know.” Greyson frowned. “I didn’t read everything, but there were reports on you, too—yearly ones, like she’d been keeping tabs on you. I thought you knew.”

I blinked. I’d had no idea. “Do you know where the file is now?”

“I don’t know. Daxton cleared everything out after she died.” His face fell. “I’m sorry, I should have saved it. I wasn’t thinking—”

“It’s okay,” I said hastily, my mind whirling as I clutched the picture frame. “Thank you—for this, for the frame, for everything.”

“’Course,” he mumbled. “There’s a switch on the back—here, like this.” He took it gingerly and pointed to a barely visible button. “Hold it down for five seconds, and it’ll change into you and Benjy. Press it again, just once, and it’ll change back to us.”

“Thanks.” I took the frame back and tried it. My face dissolved into Lila’s once more. Instead of being sorry to see me go, I was relieved. This was my life now. As much as I wanted to go back in time to last Christmas, all I could do was go forward. It was the only option any of us ever had.

Greyson shuffled his feet and shoved his hands into his pockets again. “You were really pretty before.”

“Thanks,” I said quietly. It didn’t matter, not anymore. I was stuck as Lila Hart for the rest of my life, however long or short it might be.

He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for—for being distant. You don’t deserve that.”

I did, though. “I get it. I’d be distant, too.”

Greyson jerked forward, as if he wanted to move toward me but had stopped himself at the last instant. “Grandmother—she deserved what she got. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at her for everything she did. She didn’t have to, but she did and...I’m sorry.”

For a second time, I hugged him tightly. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about, okay? You’re my friend. You’ll always be my friend, no matter where we are or what’s going on.”

“You, too,” he mumbled. “When this is all over and I’m—I’m Prime Minister, I’ll make sure you get to be that girl again, okay?”

A lump formed in my throat. “Okay.”

He let me go, and the smile on his face nearly made me forget how impossible his promise really was. I could never be Kitty Doe again, and if he ever had to be Prime Minister, it would mean only one thing: I had let him and the entire country down, and the Blackcoats had lost.

The way Greyson’s gaze lingered on me as we said our good-nights made it seem almost as if he knew tonight would be the last time we saw each other. I watched him leave, part of me aching to give him one last hug, and another part of me wishing I didn’t have to say goodbye at all. But I had no choice—I had to get Benjy out of there, and there was no more reason for me to stay. I wanted the future he had drawn on that napkin. I wanted the lake, the cottage, the sunshine, the happiness, and the only way I would ever have it was to get out of the line of fire before the war began.

I couldn’t leave yet, though—not until I found proof that Daxton was an impostor. I wasn’t useless. I wasn’t just a stupid III who was only good for cleaning sewers. I wasn’t going to make Knox put his neck on the chopping block because of me, and I wasn’t going to let the entire world come crashing down around Greyson, trapping him in a life he didn’t want the way Daxton and Knox had trapped me. He deserved better. We both did.

After I changed into the most durable outfit Lila owned—jeans, a thick sweater, a leather jacket, and a pair of boots I could actually walk in—I stuffed a duffel bag full of clothes, jewelry, small electronics, and anything we might be able to pawn for food and shelter until we found someplace more permanent. A single one of Lila’s bracelets was worth more than most IIs and IIIs made in a decade, and she had several jewelry boxes full of them. I would’ve felt guilty if I hadn’t known the Harts could replace them without batting an eye, but it was a fair price for stealing my life.

A knock on the door made me jump and drop a pearl earring into the bag. “Who is it?” I called, my heart racing. I shoved the duffel bag underneath the bathroom sink.

“It’s me.”

Knox. I scowled. “I’m busy.”

“I don’t care how busy you are—I need to talk to you.”

Damn. Knox must have caught Benjy packing, which meant he was here to stop me. I couldn’t let him try, not yet. Not when I didn’t know what he’d do to keep me here, and not when the Blackcoats needed that file. Knox wouldn’t stand a chance sneaking around Daxton’s office, but I did. “Fine,” I called. “I’m changing. Give me a minute.”

I looked around the living room frantically. How was I supposed to get past him when he was right outside the door?