Page 42 of Love, Nemesis (Ocean to Ashes #2)
Diane glanced back at the door and then lowered her voice.
“We’re overthrowing the State government.
We’re several groups across the continent now.
People out there have known about the State having the item that The Great Light was attached to, the experiments with Black Breeding, the relationship with Ivan Rowe.
You weren’t the first one to hear this from Ares.
His letters, they’re copies that have been passed around for years.
We debated telling you. We knew how you’d react, hard-pressed to save the State, not wanting to believe The Great Light existed and not wanting to break it if it did.
Above everything else, we knew you’d want to keep the peace. ”
“You’re all a part of this,” Ana said in awe. “And Jasper?”
“He’s not an enemy to the Mystics. We’ve all been helping them get through the borders. He was trying to make contact with them and keep, well, this”—she gestured to Ana in the bed—“from happening.”
Ana leaned back in her bed. Now, Jasper’s behavior made sense. He’d been trying to talk her into Ares’s motives not because he might agree with him—he already had. Jasper hadn’t been taken hostage. His tension around Ares was not because he was wary of Ares’s reaction.
He was wary of hers.
“I’m the enemy,” she whispered, staring forward as she shook her head. “And to all of my friends?”
“It’s not like that, Ana,” Diane said. “We know what you want, what you really want to stand for. And we wanted to tell you, Jasper especially. We argued and argued about it, especially considering your role in all of this.”
“My role?” She slid her legs off the side of the bed, tempted to stand.
“There were a lot of things that put this in motion. There’s been a lot of unrest about the State for the past decade or so. You’ve known that. When Hailey got elected, it got worse, but no one would fight back, and then there was you.”
“At Dal Hull,” Ana breathed.
“An En Sanctan-born State soldier, betraying Hailey’s direct orders at the risk of other Statesmen, and for what? You tried to stop a war artifact from falling into the government’s hands. We knew what the official report was, but people also heard the truth.”
Ana shook her head. “It wasn’t political,” she pressed her hand to her chest. “I didn’t see myself as an En Sanctan. I was just trying to stop something terrible from happening. I wasn’t trying to make a point about En Sanctus and Hailey. It was personal.”
“But people—the people who needed that message—saw what they needed to see. Like it or not, Ana, you’re also one of the faces of the Resistance.”
Ana sat there as her brain struggled to process the way in which her world had completely changed.
“A lot changed in those two years,” Diane continued.
“You isolated yourself and we thought that maybe that was the best favor we could give you, then Pat wakes up right as everything is coming to a head, Jasper goes along to keep an eye on you and keep Ares informed. The ROSE and that young Number were thrown into things, which works in our favor if they manage to kill Ivan.”
“This is what everyone really wanted?” Ana breathed.
“We want to be free,” Diane said, and Ana looked over at her to find steel in her eyes. “We’re done with keeping the peace, but my question for you now is, can you live with that?”
Ana eased off the bed, testing her footing. She walked around the room, watching her feet. She wasn’t sure how she ended up here. Life had taken so many abrupt turns and so quickly.
“It’s going to mean a civil war,” Ana said, “if not one huge, bloody battle. So, the people know Hailey has been collaborating with a Strike?”
“Some say it’s the truth, others that it’s just a conspiracy.
There are different camps,” Diane said. “Hailey, as far as he knows, has turned anyone who will listen to us into a conspiracy theorist to the public. The best we could do was bring in the Mystics. They want what we want, The Great Light destroyed, and they’re immune to Hailey and the Var’s lies and threats. ”
“I understand,” Ana said, standing by the light of the window and feeling the warmth against her face. She looked up at the sun and then walked back toward the bed before crawling in. She was fatigued from her injuries, and the news of the coming calamity.
But maybe Diane was right. Maybe Jasper and Ares were right. Maybe the State, the State she knew, was done with.
“You’ll be gone before it happens,” Diane added. “I just thought I needed you to have the dignity of knowing.”
“I understand,” Ana repeated. She tried not to imagine the farmland in flames or Numbers’ bodies out in the fields. She had to wonder now if the truth was truly worth all of that to them.
Why was it so important for them to get rid of The Great Light? Was an illusion such a thing to hate? Worth spilling rivers of blood? Were illusions such detestable things?
“You want the truth,” Ana said. “A world you feel like is real.” She repeated the sentiment, lying down as she looked at the ceiling. She’d forgotten what it felt like to want that.
“You’re going to die a hero,” Diane said, distress in her voice. It was rare to hear such emotion from her.
If Hailey discovered the symbol Ana had become, she’d die a criminal as well, an outcast to the last home she had. Lying there as she looked at the ceiling, she remembered the Bleeding Grin in flames, and then the State capital all the same.
But maybe that was just how life worked.
Diane stood up but didn’t say anything. Ana now wondered if Diane regretted her decision of telling the truth.
All of her friends had worked so hard to protect her, but she had a hard time not feeling betrayed.
Diane said something else, but Ana didn’t absorb the words. It was hard to rationalize how such a genuine gesture from her could feel so much like a knife in the back.
Diane’s footsteps headed toward the exit, and the door jerked slightly as if she’d started to pull on it.
“l’ll make the arrangements for your burial,” Diane said, restless.
“Diane,” Ana spoke up firmly, turning at last to look at her. “Thank you.”
“Yeah,” Diane replied, looking away before pushing through the door.
Ana waited there in silence as Diane’s footfalls trailed off. She slowly pulled her knees up to her chest, pressing one hand over her face. She sat like that for several minutes in the quiet, clutching the broken watch around her wrist and exhaling deeply.
The watch was completely silent.