He pushed a notepad and a pen into my hands. “We’ll be recording everything you two say, but we also want a signed confession and details on Fed forces.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nat didn’t look up when I entered the room. She was wearing a gray pair of Path work pants and a gray T-shirt. Her feet were bare. Her skin was waxy-looking, but I couldn’t see bruises on any of the skin that was showing. So far Hill had kept his word. She hadn’t been hurt.
The door shut behind me, and a lock was thrown.
“You’re a private now,” she said, her brown eyes sunken and dark. “Not bad pay for a job well done.”
I sat down across from her. There was a large black microphone in the center of the table. I pulled the notebook toward me and began to write.
“Do you need water?” I asked, pausing for an answer I knew wasn’t coming. “Something to eat? Are you injured at all?”
I held up the notebook so she had to see it.
I won’t apologize for wanting you to live.
Nat looked at the paper without reaction.
“I was able to make a deal with President Hill—”
“President Hill,” she said.
“I explained to him why you did what you did and he’s prepared to forgive you and let you go.”
“You explained why I did it?”
“Yes.”
“And why did I do it, Cal?”
I took the notebook back and started to write. “You were distraught over the deaths of your parents. Like I said, the president decided to be merciful and is willing to let you go. You just have to tell him everything you know about the Federal forces.”
“I don’t know anything about the Federal forces.”
I held up the notebook again.
The Path broke the Fed line a few hours ago. They’ll be in Philadelphia by the morning. Say something about forces at the front. True or false, it won’t make any difference now.
When I put the paper down, Nat had a thin smile on her face.
“I’m not afraid to die, Cal.”
I scribbled another note.
Do you think all they’ll do is kill you?
Nat’s smile vanished. Her chains rattled as she put her hands flat on the table, like she was bracing herself.
“We’re going to win,” I said. “We were always going to win. Keeping things to yourself won’t do you or anyone else any good.”
Nat said nothing.
Please, I wrote.
Nat flexed her hands into fists and then let them go. Her hair hung down in greasy locks along her cheeks. She looked so tired. I wanted more than anything to touch her.
“Their numbers aren’t what you think they are,” Nat said, her voice steady but lifeless. “They have maybe ten or fifteen thousand good fighters left. They moved them all to the front so the Path would assume they must have more in reserve. They’re going to rely heavily on armor and artillery, which they have a lot of. More than the Path.”
Nat took the pen and a sheet of paper from the notebook. Moments later she pushed it back at me.
“Show them that.”
Scrawled on the paper was a rough map of the front, indicating where their artillery was, along with the location of a small airfield and a brigade of armor. The plastic pen clattered to the desktop. We sat there beneath the buzz of the fluorescent lights.
“What else, Cal?”
The microphone was crouched between us like a rat. I wanted so badly for this to be over, to take Nat’s drawing and walk out of the room, but I forced myself to meet her eyes.
“You have to make the Choice, Nat. You have to say the words.”
She stared back at me, motionless.
“Once you do, this is all over. You’re free.”
“Free to be what?” she asked. “A companion? Ministering to men of the Glorious Path in my robe and veil?”
“You’ll be alive.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”
Sick of the paper, I covered the microphone with my hand and whispered.
“They’re just words.”
Nat pushed my hand away and spoke directly into the microphone.
“My name is Natalie Marie Whitacker. My mother was Staff Sergeant Eliza Whitacker of the U.S. Army rangers. My father was Deputy John Whitacker. Both were murdered by Path forces. In retaliation, and to defend the republic, I attempted to assassinate the traitor Nathan Hill. I am proud of my actions.”
Nat dropped into her chair.
“Those are just words too,” she said.
There was a metallic click behind me as the door opened. I crumpled the notes I had written Nat in my hand and stuffed them in a pocket. Parker’s presence was heavy in the doorway.
“Nat, please.”
She said nothing as Parker stepped inside and unlocked the chain that bound her to the desk. He took her arm and led her out into the hall and away.
“Private Roe?”
A young novice stood in the doorway behind me. “President Hill has asked that you meet him in his ready room in one hour. He thought you might want to go to your quarters until then. They’re this way.”
I followed him out of the building and through the streets of the base, mixing with the soldiers and the novices. The sounds of the war filtered in from far away. I stopped across the street from a long building with a peaked roof.
“That’s our Lighthouse.”
I looked over the novice’s shoulder at another building. “My quarters are that way?”
“Yes.”
I thanked him and crossed the road. Flickering amber light warmed the windows of the Lighthouse and spread onto the concrete below. I remembered years ago when Beacon Quan explained that anyone looking for light should always be able to find it in God’s house.
The Lighthouse was large and empty, carpeted in burgundy with black walls and a thin stage that held the altar. It looked like it had been a movie theater before the Path came. The air was warm from the lanterns hung all around and the thick candles that lined the stage.
The Path insignia hung over the altar, radiant in gold and marble. It was more than simply quiet within the Lighthouse. It was as if time stopped within its walls.
I dropped into one of the seats and thought of Nat, wishing that time could stand still for her too. In less than an hour I would meet with Hill and he would know that I failed to bring her to the Path. After that it wouldn’t be long until someone like Rhames showed up in Nat’s cell. I wondered if she would welcome him when he came.
“Cal?”
Startled, I turned and found James standing behind me in the aisle. He had changed out of his dirty kitchen things and into rumpled novice fatigues.
“Mind if I…”
I moved over and James sat next to me. He closed his eyes and mouthed a prayer. His copy of The Glorious Path was on his knee.
“Not where I expected to find you,” he said.
“Just looking for someplace quiet, I guess.”
James sunk down into his seat, gazing up at the altar, its varnished lines gleaming in the candlelight.
“You remember the first time we came to Lighthouse?” he asked.
I nodded, remembering the two of us as we were then, fresh from the Choice and trembling in our pews as we sat through services for the first time.
“I was so scared.”
“I know,” James said. “You were holding my hand. I remember thinking — why is my brother holding my hand? And when will he stop?”
James laughed and I glanced over at him. “All of this always just felt right to you. Didn’t it?”
“No. I fought it at first too.”
“I wasn’t fighting it, James. I was—” I cut myself off, hating the angry snap of my voice. I looked over my shoulder at the Lighthouse door. Time was still turning on the other side. Why had I come in here? What had I hoped to accomplish?