Sunset Rising (14 page)

“I’m sorry for everything
,” Jack said. “I really am.”

“
A bourge is apologizing to
us
?” Raine asked, his tone incredulous.

“I don’t like to be lumped in with the likes of Holt.
He’s a tyrant. For what it’s worth, I was marrying Leisel to gain control of the Dome by becoming president. There are a lot of people who don’t like the way things are under his government. Unlike President Holt, we don’t think you’re very lucky down here at all. Things need to change.”

Reyes put on an expression of mock surprise.
“You mean things should change for the better in the Pit? Isn’t that the same crap your fiancée fed Sunny? And look how much better off she is for it.”

Music fill
ed the room, heralding President Holt’s announcement. A collective groan went through the crowd, but for the first time in my life, I was interested in what Holt had to say. By now he knew we had escaped.

“I bid you a go
od morning.” The president began his address in his usual tight-lipped manner. “The events of the past twenty-four hours have affected us all. My daughter’s wedding, which the entire Dome was anticipating with great excitement and happiness, has been the target of two malicious people intent on destroying the very fabric of our society. Jack Kenner, my daughter’s estranged fiancé, presented himself to me—and to every one of you—as a man who held great promise as the next president. I believe I speak on behalf of us all when I say my daughter’s marriage to him was supposed to be the very symbol of hope, progress, and success for the future of our society.

“
Only her wedding day did not turn out to be the beginning of a bright future beside the man she loved. Instead, she was traumatized!” The president’s voice rose to a yell and his face turned red. I overheard a few people taking bets on when spit would fly out of his mouth. “Jack Kenner is a traitor! He tried to lead my Leisel down a path that would end in the
destruction
of our society, but she said
no
to him. My daughter is
faithful
to her people. She held the good of the people above her own love for her fiancé and above her own personal happiness, and
that
is why Jack Kenner inflicted pain and humiliation on her!” Holt was beginning to look a little crazed, and the spit was beginning to fly. I heard someone behind me being congratulated on winning the bet.

The p
resident paused, trying to get himself under control. Then he looked directly into the camera. “Jack Kenner is a criminal, and he has escaped, with his new wife in tow. I want them found and brought before the tribunal to answer for their crimes of treason.”

His words caught the attention of the entire room.
Everyone was sitting up and staring at the television with shocked expressions on their faces. A murmur went through the crowd, and I wanted to sink lower in my chair, but knew it would only draw attention to me. I glanced over at Jack, and his wide-eyed expression told me to stay calm.

“We have already made a preliminary search with no luck in finding them,” President Holt continued.
“Therefore I appeal to all of you. Anyone with information leading to their arrest will be rewarded with four hundred credits. And anyone found hiding them will be considered a sympathizer to traitors and punished according to our laws. Death.”

The Presidential Seal flashed up on the screen,
signalling the end of the address.

“Well, that
’s it then,” Jack said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table.

I knew he was right.
It was just a matter of time before someone recognized us and collected the reward. The reward was enough to ensure an urchin would never be homeless, even if he lost his job. I looked around the table. I didn’t think Reyes wanted to collect the reward, but maybe one of his friends?

“What do you mean
‘That’s it’
?” Reyes asked. “She’s a hero down here—no one’s going to turn her in.” The murmuring among the crowd was getting louder, and Reyes had to raise his voice to be heard above it. I was getting concerned someone would overhear him.

“Reyes, he’s right, t
hat’s a huge reward. I won’t blame anyone who takes advantage of it,” I said, resting my hand on his arm to quiet him.

“I’ll blame them!” Suddenly he was on his feet, climbing up on his chair.
I couldn’t believe he was doing it with Jack and me sitting right there. He might as well just turn us in himself.

“
Everyone! Listen to me!
” he yelled above the din of the crowd. The guards stepped forward in response to Reyes’s yelling, but the room started to quiet down. In the distance I could hear noise coming from the levels above and below us.

Now that he had the room’s attention, he lowered his voice
, but only slightly. “Sunny O’Donnell took on the president and his darling little daughter when
no one else
has ever had the guts to do it! The bourge treat us worse than their livestock! Our food is their leftovers!” He kicked his food container off the table, sending it skidding across the floor. “Our lives are devoted to making
their
lives better, and what do we get for it? They kill us for being late, they kill us for not having a job, and they kill us for turning thirty-five!”

He paused and looked around the room.
All eyes were on him. A guard was speaking into his communicator. He was probably looking for backup.

“Yesterday
, for the first time, we saw the bourge humiliated. We saw what pain does to
them
. And that pain was inflicted on them by
one of us
. Sunny O’Donnell is not a traitor! She’s a goddamn
hero
! And anyone who turns her in to the bourge for that measly offer of four hundred credits will have
me
to deal with!” Reyes pounded his first into his palm.

Someone started shouting
“Sunny O’Donnell” over and over, creating a chorus that went up among the crowd. People began to stand, throwing their fists in the air. I couldn’t believe what was happening. How could they see me as a hero? Leisel was the one who humiliated me, not the other way around. She used me to frame Jack as a traitor, and I went along with her plan. I wasn’t a hero—I was a naïve and stupid girl who was duped by a master manipulator.

Jack stood and joined the crowd, putting his fist in the air calling out my name.
He was looking at me with that wide-eyed expression again, willing me to do something. Then I realized I was the only one in the room still seated and not shouting out my name. I stood and put my fist in the air too, yelling “Sunny O’Donnell.” I felt so stupid. I knew we would be put on lockdown again.

Just as the thought entered my mind, armed guards came rushing into the room.
I saw someone at the front of the room get the butt of a gun against the side of his face, knocking him to the floor. Another guard pointed his gun at the ceiling and pulled the trigger, and a loud bang reverberated through the room. I lowered my fist and gave everyone at our table a look that said, “Stop!” I did not want to be the cause of anyone being shot or hurt. Under my angry glare, Reyes stepped down off the chair and lowered his fist.

“Lockdown,” I said for Jack’s benefit.

“It won’t be for long,” he said.

“How would you know that?” Reyes asked.

“Because you were on lockdown all day yesterday.
They need you to cook, clean, serve, work the mines and do all the things you do. When you don’t do them, life in the Dome comes to a halt. We’ll be off lockdown by lunch.”

As I listened to Jack
, something inside me clicked, and I looked at him with new eyes. All along I had only thought of him as the famous bridegroom—as the man who would become president one day. But now I was seeing him in a whole new light. I flashed back to him at the wedding, dressed in the military uniform of a high-ranking officer. I remembered his comments about lockdowns to Bron—about how they were used to divide us. And he thought he knew when lockdown would be over.

It occurred to me that Jack possessed very valuable insight into the bou
rge and how they ran the Pit… insight that could come in handy if someone wanted to start a revolt.

We all hung back at our table as long as we
could before we had to start moving toward the door.

“Take that with you,” I
said to Jack, pointing to his breakfast. No one in the Pit would ever leave food behind. His full container would sit on the table like a beacon.

I stood b
eside Reyes as we shuffled out the door with the rest of the crowd. His hand searched for mine, and I willingly accepted it. I felt guilty for getting mad at him earlier and gave him an apologetic look, to which he responded with a sad one. We both knew we could never go back to the way we were. Our future together had disappeared the minute I agreed to be Leisel’s victim.

“I was hoping to see Summer
, too,” I said. “I wonder why she wasn’t at breakfast.”

Reyes drew his brows together
, and his expression became closed off. “She’s been eating breakfast somewhere else the past few days.”

“What does that
mean?” I asked even though I was pretty sure I knew what it meant; Summer hadn’t been sent home early from that bachelor party. Someone upstairs had claimed her for himself.

“You know
exactly what it means,” Reyes said accusingly. “I’ve only talked to her once since the night you two left for the party, and that’s when she told me about you two meeting Leisel Holt. I’ve seen her a few times since, but she doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t look at anyone. She just keeps her eyes on the floor.”

I knew why Summ
er kept her head down; she was ashamed. I never understood why girls who were taken as mistresses by the bourge felt ashamed and embarrassed. It wasn’t their fault. And the thought of my best friend—the happiest person I’ve ever known—being used by one of those pompous old men at the party sickened me with disgust.

When we came to the stairs, Reyes dropped my hand to encircle my waist with his arms.
I knew he didn’t want to let me go, and maybe if I weren’t so consumed right now with hatred for the bourge, I would feel the same way.

“Stay safe,” he whispered
and then kissed me. Reyes dropped his arms from my waist and turned to Jack. “You touch her, and I’ll kill you.”

Jack stared back at him
, seemingly unfazed by the threat. I really didn’t want Reyes to create another scene, so I ignored him and joined the flow of traffic on the stairs. Jack followed me. There were armed guards positioned along the staircase who made it their job to keep everyone moving as quickly as possible. It didn’t take very long for us to get back to the apartment that was an exact replica of where I grew up, and yet was so unfamiliar.

“I have to take this off,” I said as soon as we entered the apartment.
Thoughts of Summer and my dad were weighing me down enough without the bulletproof vest adding to it.

Jack lift
ed up one of my arms to examine the bruises Reyes gave me. “Your boyfriend’s a really nice guy.”

I jerked my arm out of his hand.
“It’s none of your business.”

“You’re right.
And that’s the only reason he has any teeth left.”

I ignored hi
m and went into the bedroom, shutting the door behind me in an attempt to get a few moments alone. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cry or be sick. Summer was always the brightest light in this dark Pit, and it tore me apart inside to think of her being abused. I was worried about my dad, too. There was no way for me to find out if he was safe or not.

I just
wanted to kill someone—anyone—to make the madness stop.

I stripped down to th
e vest, undid the straps, flipped it over my head, and let it fall to the floor with a thud. The weight off my shoulders and chest was a relief. I put Jack’s t-shirt back on, and it hung from my skinny frame.

A
loud banging on the door invaded the small apartment. I knew it would be a guard to perform the routine check-in. Reluctantly, I left the sanctity of the room and went out to answer it. I was surprised to find Jack stripped down to his waist doing sit-ups on the floor.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m a little stressed out,” he said between deep breaths, “and exercise always relaxes me.”

He jumped up off the floor and came to the door with me.
I opened it. The guard held out the scanner, eyeing the two of us with a smirk on his face. My shirt was askew, and Jack was half naked and breathing hard. Not hard to tell what the guard thought we had been doing. We both scanned in, and the guard continued to the next house.

“Want to try?”
Jack asked, sitting back down on the floor.

“Why not?”
It might help me work off the anger I was feeling about Summer’s predicament.

I
lay down beside Jack on the floor and fell into sync with him. I had never done sit-ups before, but it seemed easy. I still wasn’t sure how it would ease my stress, though.

Jack rolled over onto his stomach.
“Try this.” Balancing with one leg tucked over the other, he began to push himself up and down using his arms. “Push-ups.”

I rolled over and did the same.
Up, down. Up, down. This felt like a better exercise than the sit-ups. At least I could feel some of the tension in my neck and shoulders turn into fatigue. Jack counted under his breath. We were at thirty.

My breathing was heavier, too.
I was starting to sweat. “How many of these are we doing?”

“Fifty
. I don’t want to push you too hard on the first time.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

After another moment he said “fifty” and stopped. I had only counted thirty-six but stopped, too.

“You’re right, it did help to relax me
.” I rolled my shoulders, enjoying the feel of my weakened muscles, but I still had murderous energy flowing through me. “What’s next?”

He shrugged.
“I don’t know. I don’t have any equipment down here. Usually I lift weights, run the track, swim, that kind of thing.”

“I know!
Teach me to fight—like you fought the guards at your apartment.”

“That’s actually a good idea.
You need to learn self-defense with that boyfriend of yours.”

“I don’t th
ink that’s funny.”

“It wasn’t meant to be
,” he said, and pushed a small table out of our way. “We’ll start with T’ai Chi, an exercise that teaches martial arts through repetition. Just do what I do.”

He stood up straight and slowly brought his
hands up to chest height, crossed them, then stretched out his right hand as he extended his right leg. He curled his right leg, bringing his knee waist high, and then set it down. Then he repeated everything with his left side. Each action was very controlled and flowed into the next. He was going slowly so it was easy for me to follow.

“Seems more like a dance,” I said.
“I was hoping for something faster paced and a little more violent.”

No sooner had I spoken than Jack sped up his
movements. His leg came up and his foot snapped at my chest, stopping just inches from making contact. Less than a second later, the back of his hand stopped just half an inch from my nose.

He smiled.
“Like that?”

“Like that
.”

“You need to learn the
exercises before you can control them. Try again?”

I nodded.

We went back into the first stance he’d shown me, and he repeated all the actions. Our hands were always moving, stretching one way, and then recoiling and stretching another. Our legs were constantly in motion. We squatted one minute then moved one leg up and balanced on the other leg.

“So how long have you and Rey
es been together?”

“Why do you want to know that?
” My relationship with Reyes was none of his business.

“J
ust trying to make conversation.” He shrugged. “Okay, I’m wondering what he whispered to you that made you so upset.”

“He told me that Summer is being used by those ugly old men I saw at your
bachelor party.”

“Oh.” H
e stopped and looked at me. “I’m really sorry, Sunny.”

“Are you?” My anger came bubbling up to the surface again.
I decided that killing someone actually would be a good release of all these emotions I had pent up. “How about we try out these moves you’ve been teaching me?”

I tried to strike out at him as fast as he
had struck out at me earlier, but he easily blocked my punch. I raised my leg to kick him, but he stepped out of the way. I momentarily lost my balance, but recovered quickly and threw the heel of my left hand toward his face. Knowing he would block that strike, I had my right hand ready to catch him off guard. But he just grabbed both my wrists and somehow spun me around, pinning my arms to my sides.

“Had enough?” he asked.

I raised my leg and brought it down to stomp hard
on his foot. This time I did surprise him, and he let go of me. I whirled around to face him, but he was already in a defensive stance. I took a step forward, he took one back. I sped up my movements and so did he. I threw my right hand in his direction and followed through with my body to put more power behind my strike. Jack stepped backward, but didn’t see the chair behind him and tripped and fell. I was already in motion when he went down, so instead of my strike making contact, I ended up on top of him on the floor. I tried to jump up, but he wrapped his arms around my waist and held me there.

“You catch on quick!
” he said, smiling. “Who knew sparring could be this much fun?”

“Let me up!”
I tried to get out of the hold he had on me, but he was too strong.

Despite my
anger, I was very aware that my entire body was pressed against his. Our faces were only inches away from each other. His smile remained as I struggled against his hold on me, his blue eyes never leaving mine. I put my hands on his chest to push away from him and was surprised at how warm and smooth his naked chest felt. I breathed in his scent, a combination of soap and sweat, and my heart beat faster. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to kiss him or punch him.

“Let. Me. Go!”

“Not until you tell me why you’re trying to kill me.”

“Because it’s your fault
!
You
were supposed to sign her up with some old guy who was going to fall asleep, and then she would be sent home.”

Deep down I knew
that ultimately Leisel had betrayed Summer, not Jack. But it made me furious that he didn’t think enough of Summer to make sure the plan was followed through. And I was angry with myself for letting Leisel manipulate me so easily.

The smile finally left Jack’s lips
, and his expression became more serious. Our eyes locked for what seemed an eternity, neither one of us saying anything to the other. My hands remained on his chest, and I could feel his heart beating strongly just below my fingertips.

Finally, Jack said,
“I did sign her up with Forbes, but I should’ve done more for her. I’m sorry.”

He continued to
hold me against him for a moment, long enough for me to see the sincerity in his eyes, and then he relaxed his arms around my waist. I jumped up, relieved to put distance between us.

“Apo
logy accepted.” I said it tersely, as if my words were a lie. Despite my mixed feelings, it wouldn’t do me any good to hold a grudge against him.

“If I let you beat me up
, will you feel better?” he asked, brightly.

I almost screamed.
Let
me beat him up? But I realized that’s exactly what I wanted. I needed to release all the hatred inside of me before it ate me alive.

Jack stood up and righted the chair.
“Look, I’m frustrated, angry, and feeling helpless, too. I don’t know if Holt has my family locked up or not. I can guarantee he’s already gathering evidence of treason against me so he can legally execute me. And I’m living down here in the Pit where—what do you call us? Borks?—are hated. But I’m hoping that you and I can at least be friends and help each other survive.” He raked a hand through his hair, and it came away black from the coal. “I am really sorry about Summer. If there was any way I could help her, I would.”

Once again I
was seeing another side of him. I guess I had never really thought of Jack Kenner as a person before, only as a famous bourge I frequently saw on television. But he stood before me, half naked and apologetic, struggling with his own fears for his family.

Maybe Jack and I could be friends.

“Bork?” I asked. “We call you bourge. But I think I like bork better. It rhymes with dork.” I gave him a sheepish grin. “A truce?”

“
That would be nice, because I have a feeling it’s going to get rough down here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you. You heard Reyes and his friends—you’re a hero. The one thing people needed down here was a victory and you gave them one. I know you think Leisel humiliated you, but that’s not what they saw. They saw an urchin taking down a bourge and putting her in her place.” Jack looked at me as if waiting for my reaction, but I was still trying to make sense of how I went from being a victim to a hero. My brain hadn’t accepted that information yet.