Once someone was convicted of a crime, no matter how innocent or small, they were sent to Elsewhere for life. Population control, I’d been told by Augusta Hart, Daxton’s cold-blooded bitch of a mother. In reality, it was just one more way for the government to assert control over the people.
“I was raised in a group home with thirty-nine other children,” I said. “I thought it was a relatively normal life. I went to school. I played with the other kids. We dodged Shields, snuck into markets, and imagined what our lives would be like after we turned seventeen, when we would take the test and become adults. But there was one thing no one had ever told us—that the freedom we’d imagined, getting to make our own choices and deciding what ourlives would be like...that was all an illusion.
“We were naive to believe it, but we never knew to question it until it was too late,” I added. “We’re all given ranks based on that single test. Compared to the rest of the population and put in our place. A low II, a high VI—it doesn’t matter. Our lives are never in our own hands. Our rank dictates everything. Our jobs. Our homes. Our neighbors. Where we live, what we do all day, the amount of food and care we’re allowed—it can even decide when we die. Some of you have been lucky enough to have easy jobs, ones that don’t take an insurmountable toll on your body. But others aren’t so lucky.
“I wasn’t one of the lucky ones.” I turned around and swept my hair aside, revealing the VII tattooed on the back of my neck and a scarred X running through it. I let the camera linger for several seconds before I turned around. “What you see now is a VII, but the ridges underneath will tell you my real rank—a III. I was assigned to clean sewers far away from my home and the only family I’d ever known. It’s good, honest work,” I added. “But it wasn’t what I’d dreamed of doing. I was one more cog in a machine too big for any of us to fully comprehend, and because I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving my loved ones, I chose to go underground and hide in a brothel instead.”
At some point while I’d been speaking, Benjy had joined Knox on the side of the stage, his red hair fiery in the sunlight and the look on his freckled face relaxed and encouraging. I flashed him a small smile. He was the reason I’d risked my life and entire future to stay, but he was mine—he was private, and while anyone in Elsewhere could see the pair of us walking around together, working on target practice or tending to the recovering victims ofthe battle, I wasn’t going to tell the world about him. He was the chink in my armor, and I wouldn’t give anyone the opportunity to use him against me.
“If you’ll bear with me, I promise this all has a point,” I said as more and more people began to shift and glance at their neighbors. The revelation that I was really the Prime Minister’s illegitimate daughter was only good for so much rapt attention, and I was rapidly burning through it. But the Blackcoats wanted me to tell my story. I wasn’t the only victim of the Hart family, but I was the only one who the people already cared about, without even realizing who I truly was.
“At the brothel, Daxton Hart bought me. But instead of—well, you know—he offered me a VII.” The highest rank in our country, one you had to be born into in order to receive. “I had no idea I was actually a Hart at the time, but even then, no one turns down a VII. No one. A VII meant luxury, enough to eat, and what I thought would be a good life—it was an easy choice, so of course I said yes.” I leveled my stare at a painfully thin woman in a red jumpsuit. I didn’t recognize her, but I needed to look at someone. “On the way out of the brothel, my best friend saw us together by chance. Daxton Hart had her murdered in the alleyway, and while I was screaming, he gave me something that made me black out. When I woke up, it was two weeks later, and I had been Masked—surgically transformed into an identical version of Lila Hart, whom her family had secretly assassinated days earlier.”
More murmurs ran through the crowd, and the woman I was watching held my stare. I had their attention again. Good.
“I was given a choice. Pretend to be Lila, or die. It wasn’t a real choice at all. It never is when you’re staring down the barrel of a gun and waiting for someone to pull the trigger. And I thought that was what my life was going to be—a series of dodged bullets until one day, I wasn’t lucky anymore.