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MARA

October—Present Day

M y stomach growled, demanding that I feed it, but there was going to be no such luck today.

I took a few steps forward, following the line of women to the nourishment counter to collect our daily allotment of pills.

It’s all we needed to survive, really. And it would quell the gnawing hunger, but it didn’t satisfy the way bacon did, or ice cream, or any real food.

But those were luxuries that inmates didn’t get.

We got nourishment pills, and it was like being right back home in Telvia.

I took another several steps, sighing heavily as I waited for my turn.

Patience was not a virtue I held very well, and it was only made worse by spending day in and day out at Hope State Correctional.

Most hours, I sat in a stone-walled room by myself with no one to talk to, no one to interact with. But it was better that way, really.

I wasn’t very good company…not anymore.

The exhaustive hours I spent every day in solitude left me with nothing but my mind, and I quickly discovered that was a really bad thing.

Because my mind had turned against me. No matter how much I begged it not to show me the images of Jacob bleeding out in my arms, or Chase melting away as he burned alive, Harper’s head being shot off, or hellhounds tearing at my flesh.

It showed them to me, anyway. Nothing I did made the memories go away, but being awake helped… a little.

Night was worse.

Sleep was the worst torture in this godforsaken place because when I closed my eyes, the memories were more vivid, more bloody, more real .

But they weren’t really memories, I guess.

They were nightmares that left me screaming in the dark, waking to sobs, cold sweats, and my own blood.

At first, I couldn’t figure out what was happening…

why I was scratched up in the mornings. And some part of me became suspicious that someone was coming into my cell at night and hurting me. But no…that wasn’t it.

It was me.

In my dreams, I fought for my life every night.

Or I fought to save my brother before he bled out, or Chase as he burned.

I fought to keep Wes alive, to keep Matias from falling off the seaside cliff, or to keep Edith from being torn apart by the hounds.

And every morning when I woke up, I had to review in my head what was real and what wasn’t.

Edith was alive.

Matias was alive.

Wes was alive.

Chase was dead.

Jacob was…he was dead, too.

Reliving his death in my mind was the worst part. And each time, he would tell me over and over again, “ It ends with us. Finish it .”

I wanted to. I wanted this whole nightmare to end. I just wanted to be normal. To stop running, to stop hiding. To just live a normal day without thinking of war or death or fearing what would happen if I found myself back at the Presidential Palace. I just wanted it all to be over.

But Jacob wasn’t here anymore.

He was supposed to help me. He had all the answers. He knew what to do. Together, we were going to stop our father from taking over every region. Because if Raúl ruled the United Factions of America, what would he do next? Would he try to consume the world?

My father’s ideas were cruel. In the most successful military coup in history, Raúl took control of the West and South, and then slaughtered their ruling families to make sure no one could contest him, no one could fight the proverbial crown he had stolen.

Then he rounded up all the people into the city of Telvia and condemned each individual.

Three districts. Three castes.

The Noble Class.

The Middle Class.

The Subclass.

The Nobles were lucky. District 1 was filled with luxuries like nice clothing and material possessions you could own just for fun.

But they only consisted of those known to support Raúl’s counterfeit presidency.

Members of the Telvian Council occupied District 1.

Individuals who—I later discovered once I had been kidnapped by rebels—were all families who supported the initial coup.

Men and women who betrayed their factions and supported Raúl’s traitorous acts.

The Middles were better off than the Subclass, but life was harder for them.

They occupied District 2, and many were talented individuals with skills considered valuable to the survival, welfare, or security of Telvia.

But something about them kept them from being Noble Class material.

Some of them had qualities the Telvian Council deemed “unfortunate.” Glasses, imperfections in skin, being too short, too tall…

stuff like that. That would automatically make you a Middle unless your family was a member of the Telvian Council.

The Subclass had it the worst, living on the fringes of Telvian society in District 3.

They were individuals whose relatives had opposed Raúl’s coup.

The actual people who tried to stop him and then retake the factions weren’t around anymore.

They died long ago, publicly executed in a ritual known as the Cleansing in the Arena.

But individuals who were simply relatives—cousins, aunts, uncles—were automatically Subclass citizens, paying the price for their family’s lack of support to Raúl’s regime.

But District 3 also housed individuals who were deemed useless to society.

Orphans, many elderly individuals who could no longer work, those with genetic abnormalities, those with diseases the Council wanted to wipe from existence, and so on.

All of those people lived in District 3 as well.

If you didn’t fit the bill of perfect health, couldn’t contribute productively to society, or lacked any special talents or astounding genetics, then you were a Sub. And Subs didn’t live long.

But it had gotten so much worse than that.

I truly believed my father was getting desperate in fighting the rebels.

The Dissenters had been opposing Raúl and wrecking anarchy for him for years.

But two years ago, their antics had escalated.

A riot broke out at a reeducation camp known as Apex Rehabilitation Institute, leading to the death of my cousin, Javier de la Puente.

And I believed that was what caused Raúl to push for the creation of NIT-V1—Neural Implant Transmitter Version 1.

It was a nanochip, surgically implanted into the brain of an individual.

And it literally controlled people. As much as it hurt to admit it, Jacob was at fault for that.

My brother was bright—so insanely smart—and he designed NIT-V1, and then subsequently NIT-V2.

But when he did, he never thought it would be used on him.

When my brother supported me—saved me and dissented from the Telvian way—my father was faced with the decision of burning Jacob alive in the arena for his treason or modifying him with NIT-V2.

He chose to modify him. And when I gave Raúl an ultimatum—give me the remote that controls Jacob or I kill us all with a bomb—my father did the unthinkable.

I watched as he pushed the button that caused the nanochip to explode in Jacob’s brain, causing my brother to die a miserably painful death.

“De la Puente, move it!” a guard snapped at me.

I brought my attention back to the cafeteria and realized the line had moved a few yards ahead of me, but I was stuck in the same spot. I blinked several times, trying to get myself back into the present, when the girl behind me shoved me forward.

“Move it, Telvian.”

I snapped my head around to glare at her, working hard to control myself.

I had lost track of the days. That happens when you spend most of your time in a cell without windows.

It’s amazing how time blurs into something inconsequential when all you do is stare at stone walls.

I suspected I was taken out for showers every few days, and on those days, I was taken to the nourishment counter for my pills.

But that was it. The rest of the time I was in a cell by myself, riddled with living nightmares in the dark.

Coming out meant I got a small break from my mind, but it came at a heavy price.

I had to deal with the other inmates…and they loved picking fights with me.

Almost every chick in this place had a bone to pick with Telvia for one reason or another, and many more had taken up issues with the Calvernon family—probably because the Calvernons were the ruling family of the North, and we were stuck in their lovely prison hotel with the worst accommodations.

Whether it was that or not, I wasn’t too sure, but what I did know was that literally all of them had some serious anger management problems.

And, of course, it didn’t help that I was a Telvian.

And not just any Telvian, but the First Daughter of Telvia.

Of course, no one knew that I was only half Telvian.

I was Raúl’s illegitimate child, after all.

But to make matters worse, I was, at one time, the betrothed of Wes Calvernon.

And that meant that if people in this place didn’t hate me for being Raúl’s daughter, they hated me for being an “almost” Calvernon .

I turned away from the girl, biting my tongue, and focused on the pain as I walked forward. The fingers of my right hand grazed my left ring finger, seeking out the engagement ring that I knew was no longer there.

It was gone.

Charles made sure of that. He took away the ring Wes had given me shortly after arriving in this place, and I felt so naked without it.

I sought it out instinctually when the nightmares woke me and whenever I brought myself out of the flashbacks that haunted my days.

And every time I found my ring finger empty, it reminded me that everyone had abandoned me in this place… even Wes.

But who could blame him?

I told him I was in love with Matias when I wasn’t in an effort to protect him from his dad. But he didn’t know that. All he knew were the lies I fed him. That I never loved him. That whenever he touched me, kissed me, or looked into my eyes, all I saw was his brother. All I saw was Chase.

But it wasn’t true. None of it was.

I was in love with Wes Calvernon. But Wes Calvernon didn’t want me anymore.

I felt the lump forming in my throat, the tears wanting to pool in my eyes, but I swallowed hard and tried to blink away any sign of the anguish inside me.

I couldn’t do that here. Crying here just made me look weak, and I already had a target on my back.

I didn’t need to embolden anyone into picking another fight with me.

I already had two strikes from earlier in the week.

Another one would undoubtedly send me into the pit.

And I couldn’t go there…not again. Not after what happened the last time.

“Hey Telvian, how does it feel to be an only child?” It was the moronic girl behind me again. I squeezed my empty ring finger, gritting my teeth as I worked hard to ignore her .

“I heard he betrayed the North after he promised to help,” someone else said.

I closed my eyes, taking another step forward. If only they knew that Jacob died trying to save us all, trying to destroy the nanotech before it went live. If only they knew how really effing screwed we all were because he and I failed.

I felt another push from behind me. “Hey Telvian,” the girl started up again. “Tell us what it’s like to be rejected by the First Son. Was it just because you’re a traitorous bitch?”

“Yeah,” the second voice picked up with a snicker, “or did he finally realize that you were just worthless after all?”

I took a deep breath, trying to choke back my sorrow as much as possible.

I knew there was no way they could actually know this, but they had just struck one of my deepest fears—that Wes finally realized I was never worthy of his love.

That he finally figured out just how worthless I really was. And not just him, but all of them.

Because they had all abandoned me.

My friends—Edith and Matias.

The leaders of the rebellion—Sasha and Giza.

And Wes.

Not a single friendly face.

Not that I could blame them.

I had done this to myself—schemed against them all in an effort to protect them.

I lied.

Kept secrets.

Allowed Sasha and Charles to use me like a stupid fucking pawn in a vicious game of deceit.

And in the end, I broke Wes’s heart.

I shattered it—destroyed it after he gave me his trust. And then I shot him, leaving him with the most pathetic excuse I could muster… It’s not what it seems .

God, I was such an idiot . Because I did it all, and in the end, it was all for nothing. And in the process, I lost everything …

Including myself.

The only one who came to see me was Charles, Wes’s father. He took my ring and told me Wes no longer wanted me after I had shot him in Telvia. I didn’t want to believe Charles, but deep down, I suspected it was true.

I took several more steps forward, seeing the nourishment counter in view. I just had to make it there without an incident. Only four people left in front of me. I could do that, right? I could make it just five more minutes without knocking the teeth out of the broad behind me.

“Nah,” the girl behind me started up again. “He didn’t leave her for that. He left her because good ‘ol President Calvernon decided he liked Telvians.”

“Ooo,” the second voice cooed.

“ Oh yeah ,” the first woman purred. “She’s Charles’s new pet, didn’t you hear? He likes to visit her a couple of times a week. I heard that she cries out his name when she’s with him. Guess the First Daughter of Telvia is nothing but a whor—”

I snapped, backhanding the girl so hard she fell to the floor. And then, the biggest prison fight I had ever seen broke out.