The Sowing

His smile radiated genuine warmth. I pulled my hand away, suddenly angry at myself but not knowing why. “Wait a minute. Something doesn’t make sense with this plan. “Arrah and I will still be standing on the dais when that BMP goes off.” I glared from Micajah to Jeptha and back again. “You didn’t say anything about this being a suicide mission.”

Jeptha clamped a hand on my shoulder. “It’s not.”

“But you said—”

He reached a hand into his pocket and pulled it out, opening his palm to reveal two yellow tablets. “Just prior to the ceremony, you and Arrah will take these.”

I studied the pills. “What are these, some kind of antidote?”

Jeptha pursed his lips. “More or less. While testing the BMPs, the Establishment figured they’d need a way of counteracting its effects in order to safeguard their own personnel during their use. So they came up with the compound that you allowed Corin to escape the labs with—GX07—which, once ingested, will shield the body’s vital organs from the effects of the pulse during limited exposures. We have enough of this antidote to safeguard the team who will be in range of the BMP.”

Micajah nodded. “It’s kind of like the potassium iodate pills our ancestors used to ward off the effects of nuke radiation during the Ash Wars. And we’ve confirmed that there isn’t any other source of the GX07 for the Establishment to immunize themselves with.”

“So you hope,” I muttered. But there was something else that was bothering me, more than the possibilities of what could go wrong. “The three other trainees—Dahlia, Leander, Rodrigo. They’ll be up there with us. What’s going to protect them from the BMP?”

I already knew the answer even before Jeptha replied.

“The other trainees are virtually Imposers already. Who knows when we’ll get this opportunity again? I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do about that.”

Leander was already a sadistic bastard, taking pleasure in bullying and hurting others. He’d fit right in with the likes of Styles and Renquist. Rodrigo wasn’t much better. But what about Dahlia? She was Mrs. Bledsoe’s daughter. How could I be complicit in her death after all her mother did for Cole and me?

I shook my head then. “No. I won’t do it. They’re just as much victims here as everyone else trampled under the Establishment’s boots. They’re… they’re my friends…”

And in some sick definition of the word, they were. The closest thing I’d had to friends since the deaths of my fellow Recruits during the Trials.

Jeptha sighed. “We can’t force you. But we urge you to remember just what’s at stake here. It’s your choice.”

I hated him in that moment. First the Establishment, now the rebellion. Always forcing me to make hateful choices.

I snatched one pill from his palm, along with the BMP, and jammed them in my pocket without saying a word. I didn’t want to look any of them in the eye for fear I might pummel them.

“I’ll do my part.” I squeezed the words out even as I squeezed past Jeptha and the others, not caring that I still didn’t know exactly where I was or how to get the hell back to the Citadel.

Once out of the main room, I was blindfolded by Boaz and Crowley—to protect the location of this cell should I be found out—and led through a maze of passages until they finally removed the blindfold and released me into the catacombs of the sewers. I braced against a wall, ignoring the slime seeping through my clothes and remembering the last time I was down here. I was with Digory; he’d challenged me to look beyond my personal circumstances and take a stand to do what was right.

If only I’d listened to him then, not gone to Cassius… then maybe we could be together now.

Would assassinating Cassius and the Prime Minister in cold blood be what Digory would want me to do? In the end, even with all his talk of fighting for the greater good, he’d let his personal feelings for me cloud his judgment, hinder his duty.

At that moment, faced with tainting my hands with the blood of my fellow trainees, I understood exactly how torn he must have felt—and how much he must have loved me in order to ignore the inner voices screeching about honor and loyalty to the cause.

I would have done the same for him.

Finding the nearest ladder, I hoisted myself up the rusting rungs, slid open the manhole cover, and peered both ways to make sure no one was looking before crawling out into the snow. The refreshing coolness of the flakes was welcome, ridding me of the stench of the sewers. I opened my mouth, relishing the wetness against my dry tongue.

I figured I’d better get moving, if I was going to have time to reach my contact at the port and make arrangements to get Cole and myself away from this hellhole.

The grate squeaked behind me, followed by soft footfalls on the snow-covered cobblestones. I spun. A figure loomed in the alley behind me, eclipsing me with its long shadow.