“How soon?”
“Six days,” the General told me. “Six days during which you give a convincing performance as Juliana and follow every order that descends from my office. That will be your ticket out of here. Do we have a deal?”
“Why six days?” It seemed like an awfully specific period of time, and something told me the General hadn’t chosen it at random.
“Ah, well, there remains a part of our situation that I haven’t yet informed you of. The UCC comprises the eastern half of the landmass you know as the United States, but there’s another country, called Farnham, that controls the rest. Without boring you with centuries of bloody history, I can tell you that Farnham and the UCC have been at war almost continuously since our countries were founded around the turn of the nineteenth century. Six months ago, diplomatic representatives from both countries reached an agreement; a peace treaty would be signed that would prevent any further conflict, and to seal that treaty, the princess of the Commonwealth would marry one of the princes of Farnham. And that wedding is finally going to take place—a week from today.”
“You want me to get married? I’m sixteen!”
“So is Juliana. And yet …” The General shrugged. “We all must do what is necessary to fulfill our obligations. I’m sure you don’t care what happens to the people of this country, and I can’t blame you for that. Why should you give a damn about a place where you don’t belong? However, I’m quite willing to go to the ends of the world—and beyond—to preserve the safety and happiness of the citizens of the Commonwealth to which I’ve pledged my life and service for the past forty years. Your presence here is proof of that fact.” He sat back, hands clasped in his lap, and gazed at me. After a moment of silent contemplation he continued:
“You’ll do as I say. Six days as Juliana and you’ll go free. I’ll return you to your home and this will all be a distant memory.” He stood and walked to the door. When he reached it, he turned back to me. “Agent Mayhew will take over from here. You’ll regard everything he tells you as a directive from me; you’ll obey and follow him, wherever he leads you. Do I make myself clear?”
I lifted my head, my eyes burning with defiance. “What if I refuse?”
“Then I will have Agent Mayhew draw his sidearm and shoot you,” the General said coolly, as if he was talking about the weather. “I caution you not to treat this as a game, Miss Lawson, because I certainly don’t.” He glanced at Thomas. “She’s yours. Don’t let me down.”
“I won’t, sir,” he said, the weasel.
“Good.” The door slid open, and the General left as quietly as he had come. When he was gone, the dam broke; I dropped my face into my hands and sobbed.
It was only later that I realized the General had said Juliana was supposed to be married in a week, yet he was only forcing me to act as her for six days. I couldn’t imagine there was anything wrong with his math, which raised the question: what was going to happen in six days?
ELEVEN
Thomas appeared at my side. He reached out and I shrank away.
“Don’t touch me!” I cried, my voice wet with tears.
“I was only trying to give you this.” He held out a handkerchief. I ripped it from his hand and used it to wipe my face, but as soon as my eyes were dry another flood came. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Just days ago, I was in Hyde Park, living out my normal, uneventful life, and now here I was, trapped in another world, being forced to pretend to be someone else under threat of death. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t figure out a way to make sense of it. I just wanted to be alone, but Thomas refused to leave.
“I have to stay with you,” he said. “General’s orders.”
“I hate you,” I seethed. Every time I looked at him, all I could think was how betrayed I felt. And the worst part was, it didn’t matter. He’d made me no promises, had no loyalty to me. If I’d trusted him, that was my mistake. I could be angry with him all I wanted, hate him with all the strength I had left in me; that was my right. But how could I feel betrayed by someone who had come into my life with the explicit intention of deceiving me?
Thomas nodded. “I don’t blame you.”
I scoffed into his handkerchief. “Yeah, right.”
“Believe what you want,” he told me. “But I’d hate me, too, if I were you.”
I turned my back to him. He moved behind me, toward the wide black screen, and my ears caught a soft, mechanical whirring. I wanted to know what he was doing, but I was too proud to show interest. After a while, the whirring stopped, only to be replaced by a humming noise. It took me a second or two to work out that it was Thomas singing softly to himself.
“Is that supposed to be a joke?” I whirled around and glared at him. I recognized the song. The dj had played it at our—my—prom. We’d danced to it under a cheesy disco ball. A rush of memory threatened to overcome me, but I stood my ground against it; I wasn’t going to be drawn back into everything I’d felt when I believed that lie, when I’d thought it was the start of something instead of the end of my life as I knew it.
Thomas shrugged, feigning innocence. “I like that song.”
“You’d never even heard that song before … before then,” I said, fumbling for words. I wanted to appear as aloof and untouched by our time together as he did, but I was struggling to balance detachment with bitterness. “You’re just trying to upset me!”
“No, I’m not. I’m trying to get your attention. And look—it worked.”
“What’s wrong with you?” I shouted. “Don’t you understand what you’ve done? Doesn’t it bother you at all that your boss just threatened to have you shoot me if I don’t pretend to be this—this other girl?”
“Juliana,” he said flatly.
“I don’t care what her name is!”
“Well, you should,” Thomas told me, a little peevish, which was rich, coming from him. “You should want to know everything about her. If you’re going to pretend to be somebody else, knowledge is crucial. Believe me, I know.”
I almost told him then. I don’t know why, but I felt an overwhelming need to tell somebody, and he was the only person in the room. I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying that I knew more than he thought I did about Juliana, because I’d been seeing her in my dreams ever since I could remember.
But what did I know? It was hard to put my finger on it, and even harder to explain it. I wouldn’t have been able to name a single person that she knew. I only had flashes of her life, buried deep in my memory, pieces I had never before thought to analyze for anything significant, because I’d had no idea that the dreams were anything more than that: dreams. Images that my tired brain threw off like light from a dying sparkler. If I was seeing into her life, was she seeing into mine as well? Did she know I existed, like really existed, or did she think that I, too, was just a fantasy born of secret wishes and an overactive imagination?
“Then tell me something useful,” I demanded. “What do I need to know?”
The weight of Thomas’s gaze was heavy. He looked at me like I was some sort of code he was trying to decipher, as if staring at me long enough would tell him something about me, something he didn’t already know. He indicated the wall behind him; the screen had pulled back to reveal a large, floor-to-ceiling picture window. The overhead lights gave the glass a mirrored effect. I stared at my reflection, trying to imagine it having a life, a name, a personality of its own. Juliana. It just didn’t seem possible. My face was my face; it belonged to me, and nobody else. Even when I could be sure of nothing else, I knew that to be true. I was me, and me alone, something no one else could claim. The thought that there was someone out there who saw the same thing as I did when she looked in the mirror was almost too much to contemplate.