I gaped at her. “What?”
“You heard me,” she said. “My people are gathering everyone now. We don’t have much time before reinforcements come from the other sections, and we’re down a dozen people. We have the weapons we’ll need, but we can’t hold them off on our own until the Blackcoats arrive. We don’t have the manpower.”
I stared at her. “And you want the prisoners to fight?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you have a secret cache of soldiers ready to die for us?”
I opened and shut my mouth. I was no stranger to speeches. In my three months as Lila Hart, I’d stood in front of a dozen crowds in various cities and encouraged them to stand up to the Harts and fight for true equal opportunity. I could recite that speech in my sleep if I had to, but never had I tried to convince anyone to walk straight toward their death.
“If they don’t want to fight, then there’s nothing I can say to convince them,” I said. “They have a right to protect their lives.”
“If we lose, they will bomb the entire section,” she said. “Prisoners, guards—everyone who’s left will be burned alive. If they fight, we have a chance. If they choose to act like cowards and let the rest of us die for them, then they’re dead anyway.”
I gritted my teeth. “If I get up there and convince even one person to stay and fight, their blood will be on my hands.”
“If you get up there and convince enough people to stay and fight, and we win, then they’ll have their lives because of you. They’ll have their freedom.” Scotia shook her head. “We all have blood on our hands already. Now it’s your job to make sure those people didn’t die for nothing.”
There’s no such thing as a bloodless revolution.
Knox’s voice echoed in my mind, and I closed my eyes. He was right. Scotia was right. I had gotten the codes, and now I would have to live with the consequences, both the good and the bad. People were going to die no matter what I did—they’d died already. I owed them a chance to survive.
“Okay,” I said. “On one condition. Benjy doesn’t fight.”
“And neither do you,” he said, touching my temple gently. It was enough to feel like someone was hammering a nail into the side of my head.
“I know how to use a gun. You don’t.”
“You’ve used a gun once. That doesn’t count.”
“But none of them have used weapons before at all,” I said. “I can’t just send them to their deaths without fighting beside them.”
“If you’re with them, they’ll be too busy trying to protect you to do any good,” said Scotia. “No one injured is going to fight. Period. And that includes you, too, lover boy.”
I squeezed Benjy’s hand. “We do this together. You promised. I won’t do this unless I know you’re safe.”
He grumbled. “Okay. As long as you’re not fighting, either.”
“I won’t.”
“I’ll put you with the kids,” said Scotia. “Chances are the guards will go after them to get us to back down, but if we have a few plants—”
“Kids?” I said. “From where?”
“Section J. We’ve got them grouped together right now, but Rivers wants to break them up and scatter them so the guards won’t be able to get them all at once—”
“I know a way out.”
She stopped. “Excuse me?”
“It’s not very big, and it won’t fit many people,” I said. “I don’t know where it leads. But I do know it lets out somewhere that isn’t here. Except—”
“What?”
I hesitated. “You said the Mercers are holed up in the manor?”
She nodded. “We’ve got them surrounded.”
“I need you to figure out a way to get them out of there,” I said. “The tunnel’s in the cellar.”
Someone knocked twice on the door, and Scotia swore. Loudly. “I’ll figure it out. But right now, I need you to get up there and get us as many fighters as you can. Deal?”
I nodded, and she tugged open the trapdoor again. This time, as she and Benjy hoisted me up, I shielded my eyes against the late morning sun. I could do this. I had to do this.
As promised, Scotia’s people had gathered everyone back in the square. Unlike that morning, when everyone had stared up at Benjy and me with emotionless expressions, this time several groups huddled together as if they could shield one another from a shower of bullets. Many were limping or had their arms in slings, and as I gazed out across the crowd, I spotted a row of bodies laid out in the shadows of a nearby building.
My stomach turned. That was why I was doing this—to prevent these people from ending up like them. They had to have a chance, and right now, I was the only one who could give it to them.
I cleared my throat and, with effort, I forced myself to my feet. My legs trembled and my vision was still fuzzy around the edges, but they had come here despite their fear. The least I could do was stand.
“My name’s Lila Hart,” I called. “For the past two days, I’ve been one of you. But before that, I was on the other side—I was a VII, and I saw firsthand the horror that happens here. You don’t need me to tell you what your lives are like. You don’t need me to say how hard they are or how much you put up with just to survive. I’ve been here for forty-eight hours, but many of you have been here your entire lives. You know this place better than I ever will. And you know what’s at stake if Jonathan Mercer and the guards retake this section.”
I glanced down, and through the trapdoor, Benjy smiled up at me encouragingly. I took a deep breath. I had no idea what to say, but as I opened my mouth again, words spilled out without any conscious thought.
“Isabel Scotia won the first round of fighting today, with her selfless and brave soldiers who picked up weapons knowing there was a very good chance they could lose—not just the fight, but their lives, too. They’ve chased the guards back, but they won’t stay there forever. The real battle is still coming, and as it stands right now, we’re going to lose.”
In the middle of the crowd, I spotted Rivers wearing an orange prisoner’s jumpsuit and what must have been hundreds of rounds of ammunition around his body. Two weapons were slung over his shoulders, and he held another at the ready. Our eyes met, and he nodded once.