Page 98 of Because I Killed Him
Edmund lowers the eyedropper and watches me. “And what was that?”
My fingers bunch in my lap. He’s going to make me spell it out. Fine. I will. The truth is, this is the first time since the death duel that we’ve been alone together. I never had a chance to thank him.
“You saved my life,” I say. “Then and now, almost every day since we met. And I’m grateful.”
Edmund tilts his head, as if needing certainty. His eyes don’t just look; they pick me apart, piece by piece, searching my face for any sign of a false note.
Finally, he sets the eyedropper aside. “Well, if you’re gonna lay it on thick like that, I guess I’ve got no choice.”
He pushes back his chair, grabs the coffee pot, and leans over the table to pour me a cup.
“Thank you,” I say, looking up at him.
“You’re welcome,” he replies, dropping a sugar cube into it. “And not just for the coffee.”
Why do I resist? Why, as one among many, do I refuse to bend to Blue? Some call me a radical who rejects authority, but what I truly seek is authority in its rightful form. I will kneel, and kneel humbly, before the man who earns greatness—but never before the man who steals it.
—FREDERICK GLASS, CO-FOUNDER OF THE HERETICS
CHAPTER 22
On Monday morning, all the Civilized World flags on campus hang at half-staff.
Blue, white, and gold, each marked with the double-headed eagle, the flags ripple in the icy wind on the Lecture Halls’ steps or hang stiffly in the parking lot, too frozen to move. In every corridor and on every street corner, students stop beneath them, bow their heads, and give the two-finger salute.
Edmund, Jack, Dickie, Charlotte, and I do it, too. We pause in the first-year Lecture Hall lobby, in front of the flag, next to a giant bronze statue of our first president, and raise our index and middle fingers to honor the victims of the latest Heretic attack.
It happened Saturday morning, a few hours after Edmund and I were talking on his terrace. A group of Heretics bombed a charity event for the families of Coppers who died in the line of duty, killing sixty-three people. Only nineteen of the victims were Blues.
My hand, still raised, clenches as I recall the footage from Benjamin Bogart’s report: low-citizen bodies broken on the floor, their flesh ripped open, with blood rushing in trails that pooled in the craters left by the bombs. One of the victims, whose upper body was all that remained intact, looked the same age as Hillaire.
I try to understand the Heretics. I try to understand why they keep choosing a form of revolution that kills innocent people, but I can’t. I hate that they’re the face of our discontent.
On the way to our first lecture, Foundations of Formality, voices echo through the halls like a riptide, some laced with anger, but most with the melancholy notes of fatigue. We’re all used to this. The Heretics have committed these massacres for nearly sixty years. When we flip on the television and see news of another bombing, it’s as unsurprising and familiar as rush-hour traffic.
As we turn into the corridor toward the lecture room, Charlotte and Dickie break away from our group, whispering about possible birthday gifts for Edmund. I follow a few steps behind Edmund and Jack, who walk with a broad, square-jawed Blue who’s orbited Edmund ever since the death duel in the Tangerine Tree.
“I don’t fear the Heretics,” the Blue says, tossing a shiny red apple into the air. “It’stheywho should fear us.”
“They should,” Jack mutters, taking a pull from his flask. “But sixty-three dead bodies say they don’t.”
“Then we make them afraid.”
“How?”
“All too simple.” The Blue catches the apple and bites into it, juice glistening around his teeth. “We execute the Heretics’ families along with them.”
Jack grimaces. “Start cutting off innocent heads, and you might as well use the blood to print the Heretics’ next recruitment poster.”
“It would be a calculated risk.”
“No,” Jack fires back. “It wouldn’t. A calculated risk would be to try the one thing we haven’t: talk to the Heretics. See if there’s common ground.”
“Common ground?” The Blue tilts his head, a bead of juice slipping down his chin. “That, low-citizen, would be treasonous.” His gaze cuts to Edmund, as if warning him to leash his dog before he does it himself.
Instead, Edmund takes the flask from Jack, sniffs it, then takes a sip.
“I’m not saying it’ll work,” Jack adds as Edmund tosses the flask back. “But if the Heretics ever pull off their real play, attacks like this will be the least of our problems.”
