I need to let him go.
I can feel the tears threatening to spill from my eyes, but I don’t dare let them fall. “So,” I whisper, my voice trembling from the effort. “Is that it? After everything?” Even as I say it, I know there’s no point. The damage has already been done. There is no turning back.
Day hunches over and presses his hands against his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers.
Long seconds pass.
After an eternity, I swallow hard. I will not cry. Love is illogical, love has consequences—I did this to myself, and I should be able to take it. So take it, June. I am the one who should be sorry. Finally, instead of saying what I want to say, I manage to wrestle down the tremor in my voice and give a more appropriate answer. What I should say.
“I’ll let Anden know.”
Day runs a hand through his hair, opens his mouth to say something, and closes it again. I can tell there’s another part of this whole scenario that he’s not telling me, but I don’t press it. It wouldn’t make a difference, anyway—there are already enough reasons why we weren’t meant to be. His eyes catch the moonlight spilling in from the windows. Another moment passes between us, filled with nothing but the whisper of breathing. “Well, I—” His voice cracks, and he clenches his hands into fists. He stays there for a second, steeling himself. “I should let you get some sleep. You must be tired.” He rises and straightens his coat. We exchange a final, parting nod. Then he gives me a polite bow, turns around, and starts walking away. “Good night, June.”
My heart is ripped open, shredded, leaking blood. I can’t let him leave like this. We’ve been through too much to turn into strangers. A farewell between us should be more than a polite bow. Suddenly I find my feet and rush toward him right as he reaches the door. “Day, wait—”
He spins around. Before I can say anything else, he steps forward and takes my face in his hands. Then he’s kissing me one last time, overwhelming me with his warmth, breathing life and love and aching sorrow into me. I throw my arms around his neck as he wraps his around my waist. My lips part for him and his mouth moves desperately against mine, devouring me, taking every breath that I have. Don’t go, I plead wordlessly. But I can taste the good-bye on his lips, and now I can no longer hold back my tears. He’s trembling. His face is wet. I hang on to him like he’ll disappear if I let go, like I’ll be left alone in this dark room, standing in the empty air. Day, the boy from the streets with nothing except the clothes on his back and the earnestness in his eyes, owns my heart.
He is beauty, inside and out.
He is the silver lining in a world of darkness.
He is my light.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing Prodigy was a thoroughly different experience from writing Legend, one that involved many panic attacks and much desperate sobbing in front of my laptop, and one that involved digging much deeper into my characters’ cores and unearthing their darkest thoughts and memories. Luckily for me, I have the support of an amazing group of people who helped me put this book together:
To my literary agent Kristin Nelson, for being the first set of eyes on this manuscript. I would die in a quicksand swamp without your advice and feedback. To the entire team at NLA, for always getting my back. To beta reader extraordinaire Ellen Oh, for seeing an early draft of Prodigy and knocking some sense into me on some very crucial scenes. To JJ, for being my freakishly sharp sounding board and beta reader as Prodigy gradually formed.
To my unbelievable pair of editors, Jen Besser and Ari Lewin, for taking the first draft of Prodigy and transforming it into something much greater than I could create on my own. Thanks for pushing me hard to strengthen my characters, world, and plot; anyone who thinks that books don’t get edited anymore has clearly never worked with either of you. You are amazing. (Special shout-out to Little Primo!)
To the entire team at Putnam Children’s and Penguin Young Readers for their never-ending support—Don Weisberg, Shauna Fay, Anna Jarzab, Jessica Schoffel, Elyse Marshall, Scottie Bowditch, Lori Thorn, Linda McCarthy, Erin Dempsey, Shanta Newlin, Emily Romero, Erin Gallagher, Mia Garcia, Lisa Kelly, Courtney Wood, Marie Kent, and everyone else who has helped give life to both Legend and Prodigy. No author could ask for a greater support group.
To the awesome teams at CBS Films, Temple Hill, and UTA for the continued dedication to Legend: Wolfgang Hammer, Grey Munford, Matt Gilhooley, Ally Mielnicki, Christine Batista, Isaac Klausner, Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen, Gina Martinez, Kassie Evashevski, and Wayne Alexander. I can’t believe how much I lucked out.
To all of the bloggers, reviewers, and media who covered Legend and Prodigy, and to the booksellers around the nation who put both books into the hands of shoppers. Thank you so much—I am so grateful for all that you do in connecting the right books to the right readers.
To my amazing readers and fans, for the enthusiastic letters and kind encouragement. Every time I saw your messages about Legend, I became that much more motivated to make Prodigy as good as I possibly could. Thank you for taking the time to read my books.
And finally, to the fam bam, my mom, Andre, and all of my friends. Thank you so much for all of your support—you guys are irreplaceable.
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Published by the Penguin Group
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lu, Marie, 1984–
Champion : a Legend novel / Marie Lu.
pages cm
Summary: “June and Day have sacrificed so much for the people of the Republic— and each other—and now their country is on the brink of a new existence. Just when a peace treaty is imminent, a plague outbreak causes panic in the Colonies, and war threatens the Republic’s border cities”—Provided by publisher.
[1. Plague—Fiction. 2. Love—Fiction. 3. Science fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.L96768Ch 2013 [Fic]—dc23 2013028221
ISBN 978-0-698-13541-3
Map illustration by Peter Bollinger.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibilityfor author or third-party websites or their content.
For my readers
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Day
June
Day
June
Day
June
Day
June
Day
June
Day
June
Day
June
Day
June
Day
June
Day
June
Day
June
Day
June
Day
June
Day
June
Day
June
Ten Years Later
Acknowledgments
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
REPUBLIC OF AMERICA
POPULATION: 24,646,320
OUT OF ALL THE DISGUISES I’VE WORN, THIS ONE might be my favorite.
Dark red hair, different enough from my usual white-blond, cut to just past my shoulders and pulled back into a tail. Green contacts that look natural when
layered over my blue eyes. A crumpled, half-tucked collar shirt, its tiny silver buttons shining in the dark, a thin military jacket, black pants and steel-toed boots, a thick gray scarf wrapped around my neck, chin, and mouth. A dark soldier cap is pulled low over my forehead, and a crimson, painted tattoo stretches all over the left half of my face, changing me into someone unfamiliar. Aside from this, I wear an ever-present earpiece and mike. The Republic insists on it.
In most other cities, I’d probably get even more stares than I usually do because of that giant goddy tattoo—not exactly a subtle marker, I gotta admit. But here in San Francisco, I blend right in with the others. The first thing I noticed when Eden and I moved to Frisco eight months ago was the local trend: young people painting black or red patterns on their faces, some small and delicate, like Republic seals on their temples or something similar, others huge and sprawling, like giant patterns of the Republic’s land shape. I chose a pretty generic tattoo tonight, because I’m not loyal enough to the Republic to stamp that loyalty right on my face. Leave that to June. Instead, I have stylized flames. Good enough.
My insomnia’s acting up tonight, so instead of sleeping, I’m walking alone through a sector called Marina, which as far as I can tell is the hillier, Frisco equivalent of LA’s Lake sector. The night’s cool and pretty quiet, and a light drizzle is blowing in from the city’s bay. The streets are narrow, glistening wet, and riddled with potholes, and the buildings that rise up on both sides—most of them tall enough to vanish into tonight’s low-lying clouds—are eclectic, painted with fading red and gold and black, their sides fortified with enormous steel beams to counter the earthquakes that roll through every couple of months. JumboTrons five or six stories high sit on every other block, blaring the usual barrage of Republic news. The air smells salty and bitter, like smoke and industrial waste mixed with seawater, and somewhere in there, a faint whiff of fried fish. Sometimes, when I turn down a corner, I’ll suddenly end up close enough to the water’s edge to get my boots wet. Here the land slopes right into the bay and hundreds of buildings poke out half submerged along the horizon. Whenever I get a view of the bay, I can also see the Golden Gate Ruins, the twisted remnants of some old bridge all piled up along the other side of the shore. A handful of people jostle past me now and then, but for the most part the city is asleep. Scattered bonfires light alleyways, gathering spots for the sector’s street folks. It’s not that different from Lake.
Well—I guess there are some differences now. The San Francisco Trial Stadium, for one, which sits empty and unlit off in the distance. Fewer street police in the poor sectors. The city’s graffiti. You can always get an idea of how the people are feeling by looking at the recent graffiti. A lot of the messages I’ve seen lately actually support the Republic’s new Elector. He is our hope, says one message scrawled on the side of a building. Another painted on the street reads: The Elector will guide us out of the darkness. A little too optimistic, if you ask me, but I guess they’re good signs. Anden must be doing something right. And yet. Every now and then, I’ll also see messages that say, The Elector’s a hoax, or Brainwashed, or The Day we knew is dead.
I don’t know. Sometimes this new trust between Anden and the people feels like a string . . . and I am that string. Besides, maybe the happy graffiti’s fake, painted by propaganda officers. Why not?
You never know with the Republic.
Eden and I, of course, have a Frisco apartment in a rich sector called Pacifica, where we stay with our caretaker, Lucy. The Republic’s gotta take care of its sixteen-year-old most-wanted-criminal-turned-national-hero, doesn’t it? I remember how much I distrusted Lucy—a stern, stout, fifty-two-year-old lady dressed in classic Republic colors—when she first showed up at our door in Denver. “The Republic has assigned me to assist you boys,” she told me as she bustled in to our apartment. Her eyes had settled immediately on Eden. “Especially the little one.”
Yeah. That didn’t sit well with me. First of all, it’d taken me two months before I could even let Eden out of my sight. We ate side by side; we slept side by side; he was never alone. I’d gone as far as standing outside his bathroom door, as if Republic soldiers would somehow suck him out through a vent, take him back to a lab, and hook him up to a bunch of machines.
“Eden doesn’t need you,” I’d snapped at Lucy. “He’s got me. I take care of him.”
But my health started fluctuating after those first couple of months. Some days I felt fine; other days, I’d be stuck in bed with a crippling headache. On those bad days, Lucy would take over—and after a few shouting matches, she and I settled into a grudging routine. She does make pretty awesome meat pies. And when we moved here to Frisco, she came with us. She guides Eden. She manages my medications.
When I’m finally tired of walking, I notice that I’ve wandered right out of Marina and into a wealthier neighboring district. I stop in front of a club with THE OBSIDIAN LOUNGE scored into a metal slab over its door. I slide against the wall into a sitting position, my arms resting on my knees, and feel the music’s vibrations. My metal leg is ice-cold through the fabric of my trousers. On the wall across from me, graffiti scrawled in red reads, Day = Traitor. I sigh, take a silver tin from my pocket, and pull out a long cigarette. I run a finger across the SAN FRANCISCO CENTRAL HOSPITAL text imprinted down its length. Prescription cigarettes. Doctor’s orders, yeah? I put it to my lips with trembling fingers and light it up. Close eyes. Take a puff. Gradually I lose myself in the clouds of blue smoke, waiting for the sweet, hallucinogenic effects to wash over me.
Doesn’t take long tonight. Soon the constant, dull headache disappears, and the world around me takes on a blurry sheen that I know isn’t only from the rain. A girl’s sitting next to me. It’s Tess.
She gives me the grin I was so familiar with back on the streets of Lake. “Any news from the JumboTrons?” she asks me, pointing toward a screen across the road.
I exhale blue smoke and lazily shake my head. “Nope. I mean, I’ve seen a couple of Patriot-related headlines, but it’s like you guys vanished off the map. Where are you? Where are you going?”
“Do you miss me?” Tess asks instead of answering.
I stare at the shimmery image of her. She’s how I remember from the streets—her reddish-brown hair tied into a messy braid, her eyes large and luminous, kind and gentle. Little baby Tess. What were my last words to her . . . back when we had botched the Patriots’ assassination attempt on Anden? Please, Tess—I can’t leave you here. But that’s exactly what I did.
I turn away, taking another drag on my cigarette. Do I miss her? “Every day,” I reply.
“You’ve been trying to find me,” Tess says, scooting closer. I swear I can almost feel her shoulder against mine. “I’ve seen you, scouring the JumboTrons and airwaves for news, eavesdropping on the streets. But the Patriots are in hiding right now.”
Of course they’re in hiding. Why would they attack, now that Anden’s in power and a peace treaty between the Republic and the Colonies is a done deal? What could their new cause possibly be? I have no idea. Maybe they don’t have one. Maybe they don’t even exist anymore. “I wish you would come back,” I murmur to Tess. “It’d be nice to see you again.”
“What about June?”
As she asks this, her image vanishes. She’s replaced by June, with her long ponytail and her dark eyes that shine with hints of gold, serious and analyzing, always analyzing. I lean my head against my knee and close my eyes. Even the illusion of June is enough to send a stabbing pain through my chest. Hell. I miss her so much.
I remember how I’d said good-bye to her back in Denver, before Eden and I moved to Frisco. “I’m sure we’ll be back,” I’d told her over my mike, trying to fill the awkward silence between us. “After Eden’s treatment is done.” This was a lie, of course. We were going to Frisco for my treatment, not Eden’s. But June didn’t know this, so she just said, “Come back soon.”
That was almost eight months ago. I haven’t hea
rd from her since. I don’t know if it’s because each of us is too hesitant to bother the other, too afraid that the other doesn’t want to talk, or maybe both of us are just too damn proud to be the one desperate enough to reach out. Maybe she’s just not interested enough. But you know how it goes. A week passes without contact, and then a month, and soon too much time has passed and calling her would just feel random and weird. So I don’t. Besides, what would I say? Don’t worry, doctors are fighting to save my life. Don’t worry, they’re trying to shrink the problem area in my brain with a giant pile of medication before attempting an operation. Don’t worry, Antarctica might grant me access to treatment in their superior hospitals. Don’t worry, I’ll be just fine.
What’s the point of keeping in touch with the girl you’re crazy about, when you’re dying?
The reminder sends a throbbing pain through the back of my head. “It’s better this way,” I tell myself for the hundredth time. And it is. By not seeing her for so long, the memory of how we’d originally met has grown dimmer, and I find myself thinking about her connection to my family’s deaths less often.
Unlike Tess’s, for some reason June’s image never says a word. I try to ignore the shimmery mirage, but she refuses to go away. So damn stubborn.
Finally, I stand, stub my cigarette into the pavement, and step through the door of the Obsidian Lounge. Maybe the music and lights will shake her from my system.
For an instant, I can’t see a thing. The club is pitch-black, and the sound’s deafening. I’m stopped immediately by an enormous pair of soldiers. One of them puts a firm hand on my shoulder. “Name and branch?” he asks.
I have no interest in making my real identity known. “Corporal Schuster. Air force,” I reply, blurting out a random name and the first branch that comes to mind. I always think of the air force first, mostly because of Kaede. “I’m stationed at Naval Base Two.”