“Let him go, you…” He was silenced with the blunt end of a rifle. A young soldier with dark hair grabbed his bound wrists from behind and forced him to stand.
The prisoner was brought into the ring. It was then I noticed the slight limp, as though he favored one leg.
“I give you a member of the rebel group Three, caught just south of here attempting to flee our border patrol. Shall we show him what happens to those who try to outrun reformation?”
My stomach sunk. I willed it not to be true.
The soldier removed Jesse’s mask, revealing the snake tattoo climbing his neck. I forced my heart to harden, to forget that he had sacrificed himself to save me, and instead focused on why he had done it. So that I could find Chase.
The microphone clattered as Reinhardt dropped it onto the table. Several of the officers attempted to stop him as he rushed down the platform steps, pushing aside girls and soldiers alike.
Now was my chance. Wriggling free from Tucker’s grasp, I dashed around the outside of the ring. The chief was closer to the entrance, and made it in a moment before I reached him. I kept close to the gate, ready for the moment he stepped back out.
I was closer to the prisoners now, closer to Wallace, whose dry lips edged into a dangerous grin as he recognized me. Behind him, Chase was attempting to stand, staring at Jesse with shock on his face.
“You,” Reinhardt said to Jesse. I doubted anyone past the first row could hear him.
Jesse spit on the ground and the crowd booed. “Did you miss me, Chancellor?”
“Can’t say that I have,” said Reinhardt. Hands clasped tightly behind his lower back, he approached Jesse, examining him slowly. He reached for Jesse’s throat, and for a moment I thought he might choke him, but instead he ripped open his sweat-drenched collar, revealing three old scars, not unlike those I had carried before they’d been mutilated.
Whatever Three had done or hadn’t done, I was proud of Jesse in that moment.
“Did you really think you could kill me?” asked the Chief of Reformation. “Was that the plan tonight? Amid all these soldiers, loyal to the cause?”
“Got pretty close last time,” said Jesse with a cocky smirk. His gaze moved around the circle, pausing only momentarily on me, then on Chase, and resting on Wallace.
Reinhardt hummed his agreement. “So close I thought you’d died in the blast. Unfortunate for you that you did not.”
A grim realization settled over me. Jesse had tried to kill Reinhardt—that had been the attempt on the Chief of Reformation’s life when Chase and I had been in Knoxville. Everyone had said Three was behind it, even DeWitt had confirmed it.
Some of us saw what was happening, he had said. Dr. Aiden DeWitt, who’d lost his girls—his wife and daughter, Cara. Frank, aka Francis Wallace, who’d joined the FBR to enact change from within and ended up killing his partner to save a boy from the street. Billy.
And Jesse Waite. Chase’s uncle. Who’d been framed by the FBR from the very beginning.
Three men.
The Chief removed the baton from his belt. Jesse threw his shoulders back.
“Do your worst,” he challenged.
And Reinhardt did. He lifted the baton and smashed it down on Jesse’s shoulder. As he fell to one knee, the chancellor hit him on the back, again, and again, until Jesse fell to his elbows. His chains rattled as he attempted to stretch against them, to break free.
“Stop!” I heard Chase shout. But no one heard his voice but me. The crowd had taken on new life, stomping their feet, cheering and clapping and screaming encouragement to their leader. My fingers latched in the chain-links, shaking it, feeling for a weak point to break through. As if it would do any good.
“Think you could kill me?” shouted the chief, the sweat dripping from his face. “Me? The arrogance.” He struck Jesse’s side. “The ego.” A strike on his hip. “I have the president on my side.” Crack. “I have reformation on my side.” Crack. “I have God on my side.” He fell back a step, the exhaustion clear in his body. “What do you have? Nothing.”
Jesse crawled toward me, not because I was there, but in retreat. His gaze met mine, and I saw him then, really saw him, for the first time. He wasn’t cold and distant and protected by his sarcasm now. He was afraid, and tired, and there was regret in his eyes. I may not have been the one he wanted to see in that moment, but he locked on to me all the same, and I hoped he knew that he was not alone.
The chief kicked him in the gut, and a cold laughter from those nearby broke out. Jesse collapsed into the fence, the chain-links clattering against the supporting beam in waves. With tears blurring my vision, I pressed my fingers through the holes in the metal, feeling his back rise with each stunted breath.
There is but one man with a thousand hands. Cut off his head, and his limbs lose their purpose.
“Jesse,” I whispered, and slipped the knife through the link beneath his knee. “I’ll tell Chase what you did for him. I’ll get him out of here, just like I said I would.”
He nodded, just a slight movement of his chin.
Slowly, painfully, Chase’s uncle rose. Something deep pulled him up, making him stand. Something powerful. Something indestructible.
“Yeah,” said Jesse. “Well I have family on my side.”
The chief laughed. A forced, mocking sound that only thinly veiled his fury.
Both hands still bound together, Jesse charged. Reinhardt planted his feet, threw his head back and laughed even harder, as if he was made of iron and nothing could ever defeat him. As they collided in the center of the ring his laughter choked off abruptly.
It was not until Jesse backed away that I saw the knife emerging from the left side of the Chief of Reformation’s chest.
For several long seconds, the laughter continued. The soldiers roared, invigorated by Jesse’s last stand. But as Reinhardt fell to his knees, the courtyard plunged into whispers. By the time he took his last, gargling breath, you could have heard a pin drop.
He fell face down in the ring of his own creation, and didn’t move again.
Jesse closed his eyes, a look of peace on his face. I didn’t watch him fall, but I heard the shots. A dozen, at least, before I finally heard him hit the ground.
There was one final beat of stunned silence, and then chaos erupted.
More shots rang out. Some of the girls near me screamed, and a soldier to my left was hit in the crossfire and fell to the ground. I shoved through the bodies, clambering to get closer to the ring and the prisoners. As I neared the gate where the soldiers were crowding, I was sandwiched between two bodies. I shoved through them, my dress ripping.
The chain-link fence slammed against the supporting beams, sending a high reverberating clang through the night.
“Dead!” men were shouting. “The chief is dead!”
It would only be a matter of time before they turned on the prisoners.
Finally I found Chase. He’d risen to a stand but the young soldier I’d seen managing Wallace was now behind him, facing the opposite direction.
“Get off him!” I screamed, and with all my strength, threw him aside.
Billy fell to the ground, a silver ring of keys skimming across the pavement away from us.
I cursed myself and dove after them, but another man snatched them up first. Wallace, his hands already free, snatched them up and raced for the other prisoners. Strong arms spun me, and in the next moment I found myself pushed down as Chase ducked the blow of a baton. The soldier was pushed into us, and Chase kicked him aside, barely staying upright.