The Girl Who Dared to Lead

  “She’s in the bag,” I said. “I didn’t do anything to her.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Leo, I—” I faltered. What was I even going to say? What excuse did I have for my bad behavior? Irritated by the fact that I still hadn’t seemed to figure out the source of everything, I mumbled a quick, “Never mind,” and looked away, feeling helpless and inexorably broken.

  “Okay,” he replied, clearly trying to placate me.

  I needed to get out of here. I couldn’t stand his guilt over my inability to fix myself. I couldn’t handle this. “I should go.”

  I slid back from the ledge and stood up. Leo twisted around so he could watch me, his brown eyes heavy with sorrow. “Liana,” he pleaded. “You have to talk to someone. You can’t keep all of this bottled up inside.”

  A part of me wanted to shout at him. Tell him that I knew that, and that I was trying, dammit. I was trying to figure it out, process my grief, move on… but I felt stuck. And today was coming at me with the force and weight of terminal velocity.

  But that anger was misguided and wrong. “I wish I could give you what you want,” I told him simply.

  Leo’s eyes grew softer. “You can,” he said carefully. “You just have to try.” He gave me a hopeful look, but I couldn’t meet his gaze, and he sighed. “Is Jang-Mi… okay?”

  I stared at him for a long second, and then snatched up the bag and thrust it at him, the anger coming hot and fast and impossible to stop. “Yes, your precious, murderous friend is still here,” I said. Maybe some of the anger was directed at him, for even thinking I could do it. But most of it was directed at myself for not dropping her—and for wanting to in the first place. For not being able to stop the hatred I felt for her. I just couldn’t see straight where Jang-Mi was concerned, and I seemed to hate that Leo would still want to protect her after what she had done.

  Get yourself together, Liana, I ordered myself.

  Leo grabbed the bag, looking both confused and hurt. “I’ve made you angry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “I know you didn’t,” I said, remorse blossoming in the wake of my emotional outburst. “I’m sorry. I just…” God, what was the magical combination of words that would let me unlock the mystery of all of this torment! I sought them, but try as hard as I could, they continued to elude me. “Forget it,” I finally said. I had to get away and figure this out. There wasn’t any time, only these scant few hours before I had to face her, and I needed every second. “I gotta go.”

  “Wait. Please.”

  I stopped partway to the wall and my escape, and turned to see him standing up. I watched him over my shoulder for a second, and then turned when he came toward me, facing him fully. I wasn’t sure why I stayed, but there was something in his voice that I couldn’t seem to resist, a hopeful yearning that I wasn’t able to bring myself to ignore.

  He studied my face, his eyes sad. “I would do anything I could to remove all that darkness from your eyes,” he breathed softly, one hand coming up to cup my cheek. “Liana, I care about you. We all do. All you have to do is talk to us, and we will help you. I know we can, if you just let us in.”

  I stared back at him. His hand on my cheek was like fire, daring to try to spread life back through me, and for a second, I was sorely tempted to just give in and submit to his care.

  But that would be selfish of me. It wouldn’t make me feel better. It wouldn’t change anything at all. It would just be a distraction. One that I would use to try to forget—if only momentarily—about what today was going to bring.

  “I know you can,” I said, taking a step away from him to get a little distance between us. I stared at him for a long moment before being as honest as possible, and adding, “I just need more time.”

  I didn’t stick around for his reaction. I simply left, stepping out onto the ledge and swinging around the corner, chased away by the pain in my heart and spurred on by a grim sense of purpose.

  Today was my mother’s funeral, after all.

  3

  The last three days had felt like watching several different vid files in sequence, but with nothing in between them to connect them. Every time I blinked, I found myself in a new place with different faces around me. Blink—sitting on the living room couch, barely listening to Maddox as she tried to reach me. Blink—standing in the bathroom, my hair wet, staring at a girl in the mirror whose face should be familiar, but was that of a stranger’s. Blink—walking down the corridor with my friends and family, each step closer to our destination filling me with dread.

  Blink—staring at two dark gray metal boxes on the dais constructed in the back of the cafeteria, long crimson banners laid across them, the tails touching the floor.

  The room was a den of noise, filled with the thousands of incidental sounds that were produced when a large number of people gathered. The squeaking of chairs being dragged against the floor, the sharp barks of coughing, the creak of uniforms, skin sliding on skin, the constant murmur of voices, each one like a strike against my cold and clammy skin.

  Someone said something just next to me, their voice sounding as if it was coming from underwater, but I couldn’t hear the words over the whoosh of the blood rushing around in my head. My mouth was dry, and when I swallowed, it felt like my esophagus had been filled with small rocks, tight and choking. My knees trembled, my breath came out in a wheeze, and then a hand, warm and solid, slid into mine and squeezed slightly.

  I looked over to see the strong lines of my brother’s face peering down at me from behind his thin wire spectacles, and felt like I was seeing him for the first time, even though I vaguely remembered seeing him and my father earlier in the hall. I blinked at the thick, dark beard that had sprouted on his normally cleanshaven face. His thick, wavy hair was also a touch too long, like he’d forgotten to get it cut, and was tied at the top of his head in a small, neat bun.

  He looked concerned and sad, and there was something in his eyes that told me his heart was broken, and he really didn’t know what to do about it. I knew exactly how he felt. My efforts to sort through my own emotional turmoil still hadn’t yielded any results, and now that we were here, I was woefully unprepared.

  I turned away and looked back up at the boxes we were drawing near, my breath catching in my chest. Alex guided me the entire way, moving forward at a resolute march, his back and spine stiff, and I allowed him to lead me. Up the stairs we went, the steps creaking loudly in my ears. Then between the two boxes, up, up, up, until he stopped just short of the top.

  I stared at the floor for a second and struggled to find the courage to look, while Alex’s hand tightened in mine. I heard his sharp intake of air, followed by a slight, choked sound, and squeezed my eyes shut, knowing who he was looking at.

  Knowing who I had to look at.

  I lifted my chin, pointing it in the direction of the top of the box, and then slowly slid my eyes open, confident that this would be the only way I could do it, and hating myself for being such a coward.

  My mother was lying there, nestled inside like a pearl in an oyster. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, her eyes closed. As if she could be sleeping. Sternly.

  I would’ve laughed at my own observation, but my heart went ahead and decided to break instead, horrified that I could even think of cracking jokes at a time like this. These were the final moments I was going to get with her, and I still didn’t know what to say.

  Scipio help me… she looked so lifelike. I half expected her eyes to open. For them to focus on me, and for her to smile at me—something she had almost never done when she saw me, until the end. She began to blur around the edges, and I realized that the tears were coming again. My eyes seemed to have a never-ending body of water contained within them these days.

  Ugh, I was doing it again! If she woke up right at this moment, she wouldn’t smile. She’d probably be like, “Liana, crying is a selfish use of your time. You should be doing something productive like catching my killers.”
br />   The thought only made me want to cry harder as her imagined words reignited the feelings of failure that haunted me.

  Alex shifted beside me and slid his hand from mine to move a piece of her hair out of the way so that he could rest his fingertips against the high arch of her cheekbone. “She’s so cold,” he said, his voice empty and devoid of any emotion.

  I swallowed back my tears, trying to put on a brave face. I realized it was Alex’s first time seeing her since the vid of the challenge had been broadcast live to the entire Tower.

  “When was the last time you saw her?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

  Tears escaped my brother’s eyes as he blinked, looking at me. “When was the last time I was home?” he asked in way of answer.

  That had been… almost a year ago. When he’d come home to celebrate our birthday. I looked up at my brother, my heart aching for him, understanding almost perfectly the agony he was experiencing at this moment. He was angry at himself for not going to see her more, and feeling selfish for not making time for her.

  It was funny how we forgot things in moments of grief. My mom hadn’t exactly been the kindest or most comforting individual while we were growing up, and she and my brother had butted heads constantly about his decision to join IT. Not that Mom hadn’t supported him serving the Tower in any way he could; she just didn’t understand why he couldn’t use his skills inside the Citadel as a Knight. Her words, not mine, and the very ones that had led to a massive fight between the two of them. It was why he hadn’t been home in a year.

  I licked my lips and looked away from him, envious that he, at least, could understand the source of his pain. I had regrets as well, but they were just part of the equation. I wanted the whole picture. The real one, not the one my imagination seemed to procure.

  Like how life would’ve been had she survived the Tourney. I always seemed to picture the three of us sitting together and having dinner, just talking and laughing, but finally getting along. My mother helping me figure out what was really going on in the Tower, working side by side.

  If you had asked me three months ago if I had ever thought that picture was possible, I would’ve laughed in your face. And to be honest, if my mother had survived the Tourney, that image of us would still be unrealistic. There had been miles and miles between us that would’ve taken a long time to cross.

  But maybe it hurt so much because it hadn’t been that far outside the realm of possibility.

  There was something there, some hidden truth that I hadn’t accepted, and I started to dig deeper, wondering if that was it—the source of all of my pain.

  Someone cleared their throat behind me, breaking my thoughts into a thousand pieces, and I slowly turned to see my father standing there, a hostile look on his face. “People are waiting,” he rumbled, and I felt a sharp spike of anger. My hands curled into fists.

  The urge to hit him was so strong that it was blinding. How dare he try to rush me through this. This was the last moment we were ever going to have with our mother, and he wanted us to just move it along?! I was finally getting somewhere with my own issues!

  My brother grabbed my wrist before I could even lift my arm to swing, knowing my body language well enough to understand what I was about to do. He pushed me back behind him, and then stood nose-to-nose with my father, glaring at him.

  A sudden hush told me that people were noticing the standoff. I honestly didn’t give a damn what they thought, and would’ve allowed Alex to knock the ever-living crap out of my father, but I couldn’t let him. Much like he’d stopped me seconds ago, I had to return the favor. Because we couldn’t do this in front of her. Not at her funeral. She’d be so angry with us for ruining the last day we were ever going to be together, and I’d never forgive myself if I let her down like that.

  God, even dead, she was making me feel like a ten-year-old child who’d been caught doing something wrong.

  “Stop it,” I said sharply, tugging on my brother’s arm. “Not here. Not in front of her.”

  Alex looked back at me over his shoulder, his dark eyes glistening, and then nodded once, not even bothering to give one further glance to our father. He stepped around me, clearly needing some space, and I gave him a moment alone with Mom so he could say his goodbyes.

  I used the time to stare at my father. He glared back at me, but I ignored it, suddenly too tired to care. Instead, I just looked at him. He’d lost weight in the face, and now his beard seemed to wilt instead of bristle. The lines in his face had deepened, becoming almost crag-like, and the bags under his eyes gave them a droopy look, like they were almost too heavy to look at anything but the floor.

  Even with him looking like crap, though, I couldn’t find a shred of sympathy for the man. I resented every inch of space he was taking up. I blamed him for my mother’s death. Blamed him for being too weak to rescue himself from the sentinel. Blamed him for poisoning her own team against her. And most of all, I blamed him for not believing me—and for turning against my mother when she had.

  Neither of us spoke for a long, tense moment, and after enough time had passed, I realized that neither of us would. So I simply turned my back to him. Alex was pressing his lips to Mom’s forehead and whispering something in her ear, and suddenly the pain was back in full force. He glanced at me, offered me a tremulous smile, and then moved away, heading for where Astrid and a few other individuals were standing behind a podium and talking quietly.

  I watched him go, and then turned to my mother and took a step closer to her coffin. For a long moment, I wasn’t sure what I should do. All I could do was stare down at her.

  And then, for the first time since she’d died, I talked about it. Softly, gently, and in a voice only she could hear.

  “I’m going to be honest with you… I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do here,” I said hoarsely. “I’ve been… This has been hitting me really hard, Mom.” So far, so good, but this was harder than I’d thought it would be. Just be honest, I told myself. It’s not like she can yell at you anymore.

  I gave a weird chuckle at my own dark joke, and then immediately felt bad again. She was dead. She could probably hear my thoughts. I looked around, chagrined, and then sighed again.

  “I guess there are no more secrets between us, huh? Which is good, I suppose. It makes things a lot easier. Although, it feels a little bit one-sided.” I paused, the realization that she was gone hitting me all over again and trapping me in a moment of pain. I pushed it aside, and tried. “Mom, I think… I think what I’m the angriest about is that… is that time was stolen from us.” I sighed and wiped my tears away. “Stupid, right? I mean, you were a hard woman, Mom, and I’ve been used to doing stuff on my own for so long now. We probably would’ve torn each other apart long before we ever figured out what was going on and –”

  That was unfair, and I stopped. Once again, I was talking about unknowns. And that was the problem—there were too many of them. I had no way of knowing whether our relationship would’ve gotten better or fallen apart, and I needed to stop pretending I did and just admit that my grief was a byproduct of the knowledge that I was never going to find out.

  And that hurt. I’d lost any chance of ever getting to find out, and it was tearing me apart. I was torn between a young girl who desperately craved her mother, and a young woman who knew that our relationship hadn’t been perfect, but had wanted to work on it anyway. And there was no way of ever finding out now what that would’ve looked like.

  “I really wanted us to get better,” I told her, my voice coming out thick from the tears that were now spilling over. “I really wanted us to be a family. I know it’s stupid and sentimental, but that’s really what I wanted. I thought I’d never have it—I gave up hope—and then you… you decided to try. You… You gave me hope, and now it’s just gone, and I’m so hurt… and mad. I can’t seem to get my head on straight about it. I just… I just wanted you to be my mother. That’s all I ever wanted.” I paused, and then in an even sm
aller voice, added, “And I was starting to think it’s what you wanted, too.”

  And I now had to accept it wasn’t going to happen. That it had never been mine to have in the first place.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I finished lamely. “I’m going to get through this, and then I’m going to find the people behind this and make them pay. They stole something from us that we can’t ever get back, and even though I can’t predict what would’ve happened between us if you had lived, I can go after them for what they stole from us. I hope it’s enough.” It didn’t feel like enough, but it was the best I had.

  I leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead, like Alex had. Her skin was like a slab of marble, cold and hard. Another tear slipped down my cheek and splashed onto her forehead, and I quickly wiped it off, knowing that she wasn’t able to do it for herself anymore.

  I took one last look at her, trying to memorize every detail I could, and then moved away, heading for where Alex was talking to Astrid. Astrid looked up and greeted me, but the numbness had settled back in, like a heavy mantle around my shoulders. Reality seemed to fall away, and even though I was looking right at it, I remained unmoved by it.

  Blink—Astrid walking to the podium. Saying a few words. Stepping off.

  Blink—Min-Ha Kim’s son, Yeong-Jay, saying something, standing tall and stoic under the bright lights of the stadium.

  Blink—another speaker. Lieutenant Zale. I stared at him, a seething anger burning in me. He abandoned his team—my father, Min-Ha, and my mother—to try to win the challenge, and now two of them were dead. He had no right to stand there and speak for them. None at all!

  Suddenly my brother reached out and grabbed my hand, and I realized I had balled it into a fist and was shaking all over. I withdrew back into my numb state, not wanting to start a fight.

  Blink—speaker after speaker comes and goes. Friends of my mother, friends of Min-Ha, all of them talking, sharing stories, and saying goodbye.

  I was glad that I had decided not to give a speech, though I knew people out there would condemn me for it. I didn’t care. I hadn’t talked about my mother with my friends, so there was no way in hell I was sharing anything with the public. Besides, my feelings weren’t for public discussion. I’d only just discovered the source of my pain, but that didn’t mean it faded away immediately, and the moments between us were extremely personal. Especially after I’d spent my entire life sharing her with others—not just my family, but the Knights who had worked with her, who knew her better than I did in so many ways.