“I look exactly like Lila, and everyone in this damn place knows it,” I said firmly. “You’re just beginning to see the differences more clearly. There were two boys in my group home—they were identical twins, and no one could tell them apart at first. But the more we got to know them, the easier—”
“You can spare me. I know how telling twins apart works.” His scowl deepened, and I wondered what I’d said to upset him. But it was gone as soon as it came, and someone must have talked in his ear, because he stopped fussing with my hair and touched the piece. “All right. Kitty—they’re ready for you. Remember your talking points, and for once, would you please stick to them?”
I shook my hair out, letting the shoulder-length blond bob fall wherever it wanted. “Do I get to tell my version of events, or yours?”
“I want you to tell the truth,” he said. “The entire truth. We can’t afford lies and misdirection anymore, not when Lila and Daxton are the ones feeding them directly to the people.”
The corners of my mouth tugged upward in a slow smile. “Really? The entire truth?”
His dark eyes met mine, and he leaned in until I could see the gray that ringed his irises. “Every last bit of it.”
Whatever his reasoning was—whatever he was using me for—I didn’t care. He was giving me permission to be myself for the first time in months, and I wasn’t going to turn him down.
Someone had fixed a bright light over my spot behind a makeshift podium, and I climbed back up the steps and walked over, my boots thumping against the wooden planks. Hundreds of faces stared up at me expectantly, but the moreI focused, the more discontent I saw in the crowd. The people of Elsewhere, who had not only survived the battle, but in some cases an entire lifetime of captivity, were less forgiving than most. During my few days here as a prisoner, I’d been beaten up and threatened more times than I could count. They were hostile, merciless, and quick to protect their own skins above all else.
But this was different. The government had cut off several of Elsewhere’s key supply lines and destroyed most of the stores in the battle, and the more time that passed, the fewer resources Knox and the Blackcoats had to take care of everyone. They were going hungry, slowly but surely, and if I didn’t do this—if I couldn’t convince the people to listen—then we would soon starve. And they knew it.
I cleared my throat. The microphone hooked up to the podium amplified my voice, making it echo through the square. Two weeks ago, a cage had stood in the center, and every evening, insubordinate citizens had been forced to fight to the death for a second chance. Now only a twisted lump of melted steel remained.
Things in Elsewhere weren’t easy, and they wouldn’t be for a long time. But at least that ruined cage was a reminder that they were marginally better than before.
In my peripheral vision, Knox stood with his arms crossed, giving me a look, and I didn’t need to hear him to know what he was trying to tell me. They wouldn’t be able to hold the broadcast channel open forever. If I wanted the five hundred million people who lived in the United States to hear me, I had to start talking.
I pushed the number from my mind and held my head high. This wasn’t about me. This was about the rebellion, about freedom, about doing the right thing for the people—I was just the mouthpiece. Nothing more.
“Good afternoon,” I said, and for the first time, I used my own voice and accent instead of the dialect I’d painstakingly learned in September. “As I’m sure you’ve put together by now, my name is not Lila Hart.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd, and Knox took a deep breath, his shoulders rising and falling slowly. His lips were pressed together, and even from twenty feet away, I could see the fear and anticipation in his eyes. We were both keenly aware of how much was riding on this.
“My name is Kitty Doe, and seventeen years ago, I was born here, in Section X of Elsewhere,” I said. “My biological mother is Hannah Mercer, and my biological father was Prime Minister Daxton Hart.”
These were facts I had only become aware of two weeks earlier, when Hannah—my mother—had confessed her affair with the Prime Minister. The words stuck in my throat, and even after repeating them countless times to myself, theystill didn’t feel real.
“I was lucky,” I continued. “Because of who my father was, he had the power to make arrangements for me outside Elsewhere, in a group home for Extras and orphans in Washington, D.C. I am, as far as I know, the only person to ever leave Elsewhere.”