Knox stared at me, his jaw clenched and his fingers digging into the arm of the couch. For a moment I thought he might lash out at me, but if he had any desire to do so, he managed to swallow it. Instead he said in a shaky butmeasured voice, “If you want to protect someone who’s trying to get us all killed, then you better make sure she doesn’t succeed. Whatever happens as a result of her words and actions—that’s now on you, is that understood?”
“Just add it to the list,” I said. “I didn’t kill Victor when I could have—that’s on me. I told the Blackcoats the truth about him being Masked—that’s on me, too. Lila’s just another drop in the bucket.”
“Until millions of people are dead because you have no idea what you’re doing,” he said. “Must be a hell of a bucket.”
“You know what would be great?” I snapped. “If you could stop treating me like a problem for five minutes. I’m not completely useless, you know. You never would’ve taken over Elsewhere if I hadn’t helped.”
“Debatable,” he said coolly.
“Seriously doubtful. Either way, doing it your way has gotten us here—with the supply lines cut off, and with thousands of people on the verge of anarchy, ready to hang you by the neck and flay you alive because you can’t feedthem. And I just bought you a few extra days.”
“What do you want, a medal?” he said. “If they come after me, they’ll come after you, too.”
“Probably. But now we have a little more time to make sure that doesn’t happen, don’t we?” I headed toward the archway. “If you could give those speeches yourself, you would. But we both know you can’t, so that’s why I’m here.To give a voice to the rebellion now that Victor controls your first pick. Like it or not, you need me, Knox, and the sooner you realize it, the easier this’ll be for the both of us.”
He was on his feet in an instant, and he crossed the room faster than I’d seen him move since the battle. Grabbing my arm, he stared down at me, his skin hot against mine. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d willingly touched me, as if he were trying to deny that I really existed, and I told myself that was why I didn’t immediately pull away from him. Because it was nice to be acknowledged.
“You want to be more than a pawn?” he said. “Then be useful. Start figuring out how to keep the promises you’re making to the people. If you were still one of them, what would you want on the other side of this? What does thisideal world of yours really look like?”
I glared at him. “If you don’t know how to give the people their freedom, then why are we doing this in the first place?”
“Because people like you do,” he said. “I can win us this war, if you’ll let me. That’s my place in all of this. Yours could be so much more if you stopped fighting me all the time and started thinking of solutions.”
“Then stop pretending I’m incompetent and give me that chance,” I snapped.
“Stop acting incompetent, and I will.”
Yanking my arm from his grip, I muttered a curse under my breath and stormed out of the room, making my way out the front door and into the frigid winter air. The days when Knox and I saw eye to eye were clearly over, and never in my life had I been more aware of how easy it was to believe in the same principles, yet not be on the same team. I wanted to be on Knox’s team. I wanted to be on his team more than anything in the world right now, but he refused to let me.
Maybe Knox felt the same way about me. As I marched down the muddy main street of Elsewhere, past men and women dressed in orange and red jumpsuits, my gut twisted, rejecting the thought. I wasn’t completely unjustified, and after all, despite his many good qualities, Knox had never been the understanding or forgiving type. But from where he stood, I knew damn well I’d been a problem. Although Lila had copped an attitude, she had always done what he and Celia had told her to do, nearly losing her life as a reward for her cooperation. I was the one always questioning him. I was the one refusing to do what he told me to, because I was sure I had a better way, and he wouldn’t tell me why it wasn’t acceptable.
And though I’d listened to him upon occasion, I usually did what I wanted to do, never mind what he thought. Time and time again, throughout the months we’d known one another, I’d gone against his wishes. Most of the time, things had turned out all right, though he’d often had to scramble to fix whatever problems I’d caused in the process. But that was what our relationship was like: I caused problems, and he fixed them.