Page 93 of Dissent

The realization that someone cared for me—trulylovedme—filled me with so much emotion, I didn’t know what to do with it all. And I had screwed it all up. Tears welled up in my eyes again, and I gasped as they came pouring out. “I’m so sorry, Jacob.” I dropped my hands to my side, curling them into fists. “I’m so sorry that I ruined everything.”

He turned to look up at me then, the anger faltering, before falling away. He closed the gap between us and took me gently into his arms, being careful with my raw back. “Shh…it’s okay,” he cooed. “It’s okay.” I sobbed into his chest. “We can fix this. We can figure this out, but you’ll need to cooperate.”

Cooperate?

“When they’re done burning the camp tonight—”

I stopped listening. “Wait a minute,” I pulled away. “What do you mean ‘burning the camp tonight’? What’s happening?”

Jacob hesitated for a moment, but finally answered me. “We’ve discovered the location of the rebel base. A REG operation is scheduled for tonight.”

Oh my god.My hands flew back to my mouth, fingers curling into fists at my lips. “You guys are going to destroy the camp.”

Jacob’s eyes hardened once more, and then he nodded.

“Jacob, you can’t.”

He turned away from me. “It’s too late for that, Mara. I’m heading the operation in a few hours.”

“No! No, please,” I begged, gripping his sleeves. “Please, you have to stop this. It’s not what it seems! Please, trust me.”

Jacob locked his gaze with mine, studying me, calculating something. “Mara, I can’t. Even if I really wanted to, I can’t stop this now.”

I let him go, covering my face with my hands. They were all going to die. They didn’t know what was coming, and there was nothing I could do. The realization sent my gut twisting itself into a knot, and my heart hammered away in its cage, anguish filling me.

It was all over.

It was one thing to resolve myself to death, but at least I knew everyone else was alive. It was a whole other thing to know that they were all going to die while I was here, knowing the fate that awaited them. I wanted to curl up, to hide in a corner and pretend none of this was happening.

But I couldn’t do that.

I had to do something.

All of their faces flashed before me. Sasha, Edith, Wes, and Chelsea. And then Matias. His brown tousled hair that fell just above his brow, and his deep brown eyes that I felt I could lose myself in forever. He may have chosen Chelsea, but I…I liked him.

Was it love? I didn’t know.

I cared for him though…deeply. I wasn’t ready to say that word—to say I loved him. I was too afraid to claim that. Too afraid of getting hurt. Because they burned the last boy I dared to care about in the arena. And now, here I was, in the basement, knowing that they were going to burn down the camp. And Matias was going to share Chase’s fate.

I couldn’t let that happen.

I had to warn them. I had to fight back. I needed to get out of here.

My mind spun, working fast, desperately trying to figure out a plan. And I could only think of one way out. I looked at Jacob, grabbing his hands, holding them up to my chest as I looked into his eyes. “Jacob, you have to help me. You have to help me escape.”

48: Checkmate

Hisfacecrumbledwithhurt. I knew what I was asking of him. It was so much more than just asking him to help me get out of the basement. I was asking him to betray his family, to betray his country, to go against everything they had ever taught him. Worst of all, asking him to help me escape was asking him to say goodbye to me. Because the second he helped me, our relationship would change. An invisible shift, and it would never be the same. I knew it, and so did he.

I watched the knowledge soak deep into him, the changing emotions flickering across his face as he weighed out and measured what I wanted from him, what Ineeded. And when he spoke, each word carried the weight of it, the weight of the decision he was about to make. A warning hanging on the edge, cautioning me to think through each tiny step, because there would be no going back.

“I love you, Mara. You’ll always be my little sister, and I always believed it was my job to protect you against everything as best I could, even if it meant protecting you against yourself.” He closed his eyes, letting out a heavy sigh. “When I leave this room, the door will be left open. Wait one hour before you go upstairs. Then get out. Leave as quickly and as quietly as you can. No one will stop you.” My heart lifted, fluttering as the knowledge of what was about to happen seeped in.

“Thank you.”

He took a step back, pulling his hands out of mine, curling them into fists on either side of him. “Listen to me, once you leave here, that’s it. I won’t be able to help you anymore. Moving forward, you’re one of them.”

My heart stopped. Here it was, the hammer of truth ramming down on me. “We’ll be enemies,” I acknowledged.

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