Elite (Citizen Saga, Book 1) (17 page)

Lena was exhausted. She'd not eaten since
Wáikěiton
, and she'd been through the wringer since then. I was sure she wouldn't sleep if I suggested it, but when I saw her lift the edge of her sundress up and take a whiff, I knew I had one shot at getting her out of the room and at least switching off for a while.

"Hey," I said, coming alongside her. Her hand dropped from her dress so quickly it was almost comical. "I've been a bad host."

"You have?" she asked, arching her brow.

God, the desire to reach out and kiss it flat was undeniable. But I'd made too much progress with her to fuck it up by overstepping the mark now.

"Yes, I have," I admitted. "I should have offered you a shower, fresh clothes. That sort of thing. You are homeless after all."

She smiled, it was still a little tremulous.

"It can wait." Her eyes darted back to the screen where Si and Alan were checking out the blueprints we had on file of the Palace. They were old and out of date and probably would make it more confusing than help us, but it was all we had.

"Look, take five," I said. "Harjeet won't be here for at least half an hour, and we really need his help to even contemplate storming the Palace."

Her smile tipped up further, amusement gracing her face.

"You don't plan to storm it, Trent," she said and I was so fucking close to kissing those twitching lips it wasn't funny. "You plan to go in by stealth."

"Say it again," I instructed. Oh, damn.

"Say what again?"

Ah, hell. "My name."

"Trent," she said, and she sounded breathless.

I couldn't pull away. I couldn't see anything but her lips, her smile. Her tongue darting out and flicking back in.

I groaned softly and closed my eyes. "You will be the death of me, zebra."

"Not unless you kill me first," she quipped and my eyes snapped open to see hers dancing.

Shit. I was in deep trouble, all right.

I watched as reality stole back across her features. The smile dimming, the laughter in her eyes snuffing out.

"They mean a lot to you, don't they?" I asked, already knowing the answer intrinsically.

"They became my family after my father died."

And there was
my
dose of reality. If she knew who my father was, who her father had been defending the Chief Overseer against when he died, she'd never look at me with laughter in her eyes again.

I had to make sure she never found out. And that meant keeping Carla away from her. My eyes came up just as Carla and Damia chose that exact moment to walk into the room, their gazes landing on Lena and me, and how close we were standing.

"Alan," I said softly, daring the two women to take a step closer and suffer my wrath.

"Yeah, boss?" Alan asked at my side.

"Take Lena to her quarters, she needs clean clothes and a rest before Harjeet arrives."

"What am I? Her butler?"

I flicked him a quelling glance and said, "Please." It hardly sounded like a request at all.

Alan snorted, turned to Lena and held out his hand, "Come on, Princess. If you ask nicely I'll even scrub your back."

He danced out of the way of my fist making Lena laugh out loud. I think the sound surprised her. It certainly earned her a few looks from around the room. The men all surreptitiously thinking dirty thoughts involving her laughter and their part in making it come out.

The women just giving her filthy glares. Thankfully, Alan cottoned on to my reasons for his sudden change in assignments, and steered Lena away before she saw the hatred in Damia and Carla's eyes.

Oh, this was going to be fun.

"We've got a new project," I announced, thinking it best to just focus on work and nothing else. Like how on earth did I ever consider sleeping with these women would be a good idea. Was I mad?

"What's happening?" Damia asked, shifting into revolutionary role with ease. It had been many months since she and I had gotten personal. Carla was still glaring, though, this time at me.

"We're moving the assault of the Palace forward," I said.

"Because the celebration has been brought forward?" Damia queried.

"That and we have a possible in."

"And what would that be?" Carla asked as I shifted through some hardcopy blueprints of the Palace before me. She knew exactly what the reason would be, she was just trying to rile me, so I didn't bother to look up and give her the attention she thought she deserved.

"Chew-wen's holding someone important to Selena," I replied, distractedly. "We'll use her to get in, get to the Chief Overseer, and get out."

Silence. In fact the entire room had gone deathly quiet.

I let out a frustrated sigh, knowing full well what I was going to see before I lifted my eyes.

Carla looking smug.

And Lena at the door looking furious.

It was a toss up on who would kill me first.

"I need my glass," I said, crossing the room and picking up the water. There hadn't been a glass in my bedroom, so Alan had suggested grabbing this one, while he sourced some clean clothes for me. The fact that he had allowed me to wander the halls unattended had surprised me. But then Alan wanted what I wanted. Aiko free.

Trent didn't. He wanted General Chew-wen dead and he was using my grief over Aiko's situation to effect it.

I shouldn't have been shocked. I shouldn't have felt hurt. We'd made no promises to each other. I was using him as much as he was using me, wasn't I?

"Once I've cleaned up," I said at the door on the way out, no one having had the courage to speak the entire time I'd crossed the room and picked up my glass, "I'll tell you where your blueprints are wrong. After all," I added, finally looking Trent in the eyes, "I lived in the Palace for three years."

I watched as his eyelids slowly lowered and his jaw tensed, and then I spun back and kept walking, head high, chin up, out of the room.

Alan was leaning against the wall just down the hall, a bundle of clothes in his hand, a look on his face that let me know he'd engineered this entire scene. I stopped in front of him, his duplicity making it easier to hold onto the anger at Trent's betrayal and not succumb to the pain.

"You needed to know," he said softly, not making eye contact. "Trent has a role he has to fulfil. Lives depend on it."

"And lives aren't depending on me?"

He finally lifted his eyes to mine, fierce brown stared back at me.

"I want her out of there as much as you," he snarled, the conviction obvious in his tone. I relaxed marginally. "But when it comes down to it, Trent will always choose the revolution. We're on our own."

We're on our own
. For now, it was the best I could hope for. An ally in amongst the enemy.

He pushed off and started walking us back towards my quarters, neither of us speaking the entire length of the deserted halls. He stopped at my door and held out the stack of clothing to me.

"Take your time," he suggested. "Trent will need to calm down."

"Volatile, is he?"

He shook his head, looked off into the distance and said, "Desperate." Then walked away.

I wondered just what made Trent Masters desperate. And then I decided it was better if I didn't know.

The shower was hot and like most places in Wánměi had good pressure. In an abstract kind of way I realised the Overseers had done a good job of keeping the Citizens quiet. Given them that shadow of freedom inside the restrictions of our world. Trent had been right. We had technology to make our lives comfortable. Shiloh had been a blanket gift to the nation, one we celebrated for months. We had access to recreational drugs, rationed to ensure our health and safety, but not banned. We had an infrastructure that was solid; good roads; unlimited electricity; excellent plumbing; a public transport system that flowed.

All we had to do to pay for these privileges was not ask for more.

Part of me didn't want to think that what my father had helped create was faulty. His ideals had become my ideals. Clean, safe, advanced. Protected. But somewhere along the way that message had been twisted, taken out of context and made into something else.

Our world was so clean that to damage it meant a strict sentence. Littering, you were imprisoned. Malicious damage such as graffiti brought about a wipe. The policing of our society had reached extremes. sPol and iPol drones on every corner, more than I had ever seen before. And as for technology, we had Shiloh do more and more of our everyday tasks, all the while she reported back to General Chew-wen and his Overseers.

How was that protection?

I climbed out of the shower and towelled off, feeling at least clean again on the outside. I wasn't sure what state my inside was in, I just knew it was tender, unsteady, a little scared at what I had discovered. A little shocked at what I was beginning to think might be the truth.

I lifted up the garments Alan had found for me and noted they were Citizen appropriate; low slung jeans and a fitted singlet. The sandals I had worn with my sundress purchased in
Wáikěiton
would suffice. They'd have to. But what I would wear to the Palace depended on what approach Trent decided we'd take. He'd wanted to slip in, use stealth, but for that to happen I'd either be dressed in my black nylon-lycra suit, or blend in wearing an Elite gown.

Neither of which I had on hand here.

I slipped the clothes on, relieved in a purely vain way that they fitted well. Making sure my hair was finger brushed straight, I took one last fortifying look in the mirror at my washed out features and too big pale blue eyes and then crossed to the door and swung it open.

I'd expected Alan to be there waiting, standing guard, I don't know. He wasn't.

Trent was. And I really didn't know if I wanted to face him just yet.

His eyes scanned my outfit, but there was a strain behind the deep blue. They didn't linger on my curves and stupidly I took that to heart. I noticed - a little too late, I really was losing my touch - that he held a covered dish, the smell of something hot wafted out from under its lid. My stomach grumbled, announcing the fact that I hadn't eaten since early this morning, and it was now well after dark.

"Is that for me?" I asked, wanting to be the one to seem unaffected.

"For both of us," he replied, ruining my efforts to appear calm.

"Oh," was all I could manage and then after an embarrassing pause I reached out a hand to take the offering.

He smiled, but didn't pass the dish over, instead he looked past me into the room and said, "Let's eat in here."

"Wh..why here?" I stammered and his sharp eyes flicked up to my face, an intense look of curiosity crossing his features.

"Do I make you nervous, Lena?" he asked.

God, damn it!

"Not at all," I snapped and led the way back into my room. I was sure that was a chuckle I heard him cover.

He placed the dish down on the table and lifted the lid. The smell of barbecued chicken wings met my nose, steam rising off the still hot dish making my mouth water. Two pairs of chopsticks lay on the side of the dish, Trent sat down and picked one set up, expertly lifting a wing to his lips before I'd even taken a seat.

"Sorry," he said around a mouthful. "I'm fucking famished."

It somehow made it easier; our shared hunger. I joined him and for a while neither of us spoke. The familiar mixture of hot garlic chilli sauce, the sweet tang of the chicken, and the sharp counterpoint of calamansi limes made me suddenly nostalgic. Street vendors in
Wáikěiton
served this. I wondered if I'd ever get to return to the place I called my true home.

"Where are we?" I asked, between mouthfuls.

"We call it the hub," he said, leaning back and looking satisfied. He'd eaten three wings to each one of mine.

"And where exactly in Wánměi is this hub located?"

I didn't expect him to answer, he'd gone to a lot of trouble to blindfold me when they initially brought me here. Nothing had changed since then. He still didn't trust me. He still saw me as a means to an end. So when he spoke, I was suitably surprised.

But what he said shocked me more.

"
Tehteh
."

"
Rahee
?"

"No.
Tehteh
."

"That's impossible," I pointed out.

"And that's exactly why we chose it. Who would think to set up their revolutionary headquarters on forbidden land?"

"How did you get in?" It was well known how the Cardinals kept
Tehteh
fenced off and invisible to the rest of Wánměi. The residents in Rahee lived next door to a black hole.

"Like you do." I frowned. "Through the roof."

An amused laugh left me. Then I stilled.

"Can you see them?"

"See what, Lena?" he asked softly, well aware of what I was asking, but making me say the forbidden words.

My gaze flicked around the room as though I'd see a Cardinal hiding there ready to arrest me. I couldn't get my head around the fact I was on
Tehteh
ground. This building part of a segment of Wánměi we were encouraged forcibly to forget. I was sure there were people in Wánměi who did not know of their existence.

But I did. My father had flown in one once, accompanying Chew-wen on a trade visit to one of our suppliers.

I realised I was breathing a little rapidly, angst and uncertainty were definitely partly to blame, but more so the memory of my father's face when he had returned to our apartment after that trip. Elated, walking ten feet off the ground. He couldn't resist telling me all about it and then he spent the rest of the night persuading me to forget. Regret and fear marring his features.

I had forgotten. I had pushed the memory from my mind.

Three weeks later he was dead.

"Aeroplanes," I whispered and Trent's face softened, well aware of the effort it took to say the word aloud.

"Do you want to see one?" he asked and I immediately started shaking my head. "It's OK," he added. "We can only view it from a distance. It's kept in an open door hangar, under guard. But with night visions you can see it fairly well from the roof of the hub."

We used to have an air force. Or so my father had said. We guarded our air space with fighter jets, they were called. But then we closed our borders and our trade partners reduced. The Air Force was replaced with ground to air missiles, and the ever present threat of being shot down should anyone dare to fly over Wánměi.

When he'd told me these stories I thought them wild. Fantasy almost. I think I did question my father's sanity on more than one occasion. But
Tehteh
existed. My father had returned as though still walking in amongst the clouds. And, according to Trent, an aeroplane could be seen from the roof of this building. Under guard.

Why? So Chew-wen could use it again?

"OK," I said, never able to resist a challenge.

Trent smiled, dusted his fingers off on a napkin and stood from the table, holding out his hand for me to grasp. I felt like I was accepting more than his physical support in climbing to my feet.

I felt like I was accepting his guidance in climbing a mountain of lies and mystery and secrets.

The halls were again deserted and I wondered if he'd engineered it that way. He'd be keen to keep me isolated from the rest to avoid me discovering more of his plans. Plans that I was sure would involve using me to get to Chew-wen.

But strangely, I didn't blame him. Bizarrely, I understood. Trent had clearly been raised on knowledge I'd only glimpsed and then been too afraid to retain. It took courage to stand against ideals. It took strength to stay that course and not give in to peer pressure. I didn't trust him, but I respected him. Which seemed a little insane.

We walked up a stairwell that had seen better days. It was solid, but dusty. The odd footprint indicating it was used on occasion, but the dust that coated the treads in layers of grime and neglect told another story. I wondered if reminding themselves that this part of our history still existed was too much for the revolutionaries as well.

It was almost too much for me. Twice I considered turning back. I'm not sure why seeing an aeroplane of all things seemed so monumental. But it did.

At the top of the stairs he turned to me and whispered, "Ready?"

I lied and nodded my head.

"I have to switch the lights off before I open the door," he warned, and I realised I hadn't seen a window in the entire building. Shielding them from detection, but also making the structure seem like a tomb.

"What was this place?" I asked, for something to say as the lights went out and we waited for our eyes to adjust to the darkness.

"An old, disused power station on the edge of
Tehteh
. We access it from Rahee, but it's still on
Tehteh
land. The entrance is one we fashioned, its official door is around the other side."

"Why is it not used?" I asked, as I felt him shift to open the rooftop door. I wasn't sure if my question was to make him pause, allowing myself more time to get prepared.

"It's a back-up generator site for the airport. Not required because..."

"We don't fly planes anymore."

"Exactly," he whispered as the door clicked open and the heat of Wánměi slammed in. "Here," he said, slipping goggles on over my head. "No noise, it carries," he offered as he moved out into the night.

The city lit up the horizon behind us, blinking vibrantly bright lights that spoke of the only home I'd ever known. I loved this country. I loved its people. The lush greens of the vegetation, the impossible height of the buildings, the welcoming shouts of the market stall vendors in
Wáikěiton
. The blissful sound of the call to prayer in
Muhgah Keekee
. The river that slowly snaked through the centre and then disappeared out of sight, to a place we did not dare ever go. The languid heat that left you sweating within seconds, caressing your skin, making you feel adored.