Benjy would have loved this. And if Celia could help make sure he lived long enough to see it, then I had no choice but to tell her.
“I have a boyfriend,” I said at last. “Had a boyfriend, I guess. Daxton said he’d send him Elsewhere if I didn’t cooperate.”
Beside me, I heard Knox exhale, and when he tried to set his hand on my shoulder, I shrugged it off. “What’s his name?” he said.
“Benjamin Doe,” I said hollowly. “Everyone calls him Benjy.”
Celia pulled out another electronic device I didn’t recognize and pushed a few buttons. “I’ll make sure nothing happens to him. Daxton thinks he has all of us cornered, but he overestimates his own power.”
And I was sure Celia overestimated hers. “How?” I said bitterly. “Are you going to have him followed? Assign him personal protection?”
“Something like that.”
Knox fixed another drink and offered it to me. “It’s just water,” he said, and reluctantly I took it from him and sipped. I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since breakfast. “How did you meet Benjy?”
When Knox said his name, I gulped down the contents of the glass to buy myself a few moments. The idea of sharing Benjy with them made my skin crawl. No matter how much Celia and Knox pretended to care about me, it was clear they were using me as much as Daxton was. The only question was for what.
“We grew up in the same group home,” I said, staring at my drink. “We played together sometimes, and when we were seven, he did my writing homework for me without being asked—”
I stopped. They didn’t care, or if they did, it was only to use him against me. Instead of moving on, however, Knox shifted so he was facing me. When I glanced at him, I saw real interest in his eyes. Something about him was less intimidating than Celia, so as he silently encouraged me to go on, I focused on him and tried to forget that she was listening, as well.
“He knew I was struggling in class, and the teacher liked to pick on me.” It had seemed like such a big deal at the time, what Benjy had done for me, but he would have done the same thing for anyone else. He was that kind of person—the same kind who offered to run away with me and destroy the rest of his life so mine might be easier. “So he started doing my homework for me.
He read to me every night, and eventually we just…” I shrugged.
Knox smiled faintly. “It sounds like you have a good friend in him.”
“He probably thinks I’m in Denver by now,” I mumbled.
“I doubt that,” said Celia, and Knox gave her a murderous look. “What?” she added. “She has a right to know.”
“A right to know what?” I said, and when they seemed too busy glaring at each other to answer me, I raised my voice. “A right to know what? ”
Knox looked away, clutching his glass so tightly that I thought it would shatter. “Kitty Doe was legally declared dead the day after you arrived at the Stronghold.”
I opened and shut my mouth, but there was nothing to say. Benjy thought I was dead. First Tabs, then Nina, then me—it wasn’t just my life I’d destroyed. It was his, too. The pain and worry I’d felt for him had to be nothing compared to what he was going through. Did he blame himself? After telling the Shields where I’d gone, he must have. But it wasn’t his fault. I was the one who’d done this to him. Not the Shields, not Daxton, but me.
“What’s the date?” I said suddenly.
“The twentieth of October,” said Celia. “Why?”
I didn’t answer. Benjy’s birthday was the twentysecond, which meant I had two days until he took his test.
“Kitty—” said Knox, but I shook my head.
“Don’t,” I said softly. “Please.”
Two days. I had two days to find him until he would be gone forever, and I would never have the chance to tell him that it wasn’t his fault.
I spent the rest of the drive to Somerset in silence, staring out the window. Everything here was more than I had ever seen before. There were television screens everywhere: in shop windows, mounted on the sides of buildings, even scrolls that ran around intersections broadcasting words I couldn’t read. Instead of sidewalks, this section of the city had motorized walkways, and even though it was nearly nightfall, the rich and the powerful stood still as the walkways carried them wherever they wanted to go. How could a world like this exist so close to the Heights?
The car glided through a gate in a brick wall covered with ivy, and the world outside transformed into a lush green lawn that seemed to go on forever. I sat up straighter. A row of trees bordered the drive, their leaves brilliant shades of gold and ruby, and in the distance I noticed the edge of a looming mansion.
“We’re almost here,” said Celia. “So answer me this, Kitty—are you all right with what you’ve seen today?
Do you think it’s acceptable for people to be treated no better than game?”
Still stinging from the news that Benjy thought I was dead, I glared at her. “Of course not. What do you think I am, a monster?”
“No,” said Knox. “If we thought you would go along with Daxton and Augusta, we wouldn’t be talking to you now. But you have spunk, Kitty, and there’s so much good you could do now that you have Lila’s face. Things even Lila wasn’t able to do.”
Spunk. Daxton had said the very same thing to me.
I pressed myself against the door, ready to spring free. I knew what was coming, and the car began to feel like a cage.
“You saw the speeches my daughter made,” said Celia.
“She was starting a revolution right under Daxton’s nose.”
“And that’s how she wound up dead in the first place,”
I said. “I’m not your puppet. I won’t dance because you tell me to.”
For a moment I thought I saw a flash of guilt cross her face, but it was gone as quickly as it’d come. “No, I suppose you won’t,” said Celia. “Whose puppet are you, Kitty? Daxton’s and my mother’s? Because from where I’m sitting, that’s exactly what it’s beginning to look like.”
“I’m not—” I began, but she cut me off.
“What do you intend to do with your life? With my daughter’s life? Will you waste it doing their bidding?”
“What, when I could be doing yours?”
Her expression hardened, but before she could say anything, Knox held up a hand. “We know you didn’t ask for this, but no matter how unfair it is, that’s the way your life is going to go from here on out. You have a choice.