Page 94 of Because I Killed Him
I know I should say something. Dad’s warning about not making enemies comes back to me, sharp as a cut in my mind. I’ve been waiting for this, hoping for an apology in every hallway and on every street corner. Now that it’s here, I’m surprised by how hard my heart has become and how bitter my first weeks as a Public Person have made me. I can’t forgive Vincent, and it’s not only because I don’t want to.
I don’t know how.
I don’t know how to reach out and shake the hand that tried to kill me, even if it’s trembling, even if it’s sorry. Dad would. He’d know how to lift someone out of their shame without bending himself.
But I’m not Dad, even if I want to be.
Vincent seems to sense he’s not getting the forgiveness he hoped for. He clears his throat and stands slowly, but the fact that he hasn’t put his cap back on tells me he’s not finished.
“Pardon the intrusion,” he says. “Is it true you have joined Mr. Prew’s entourage?”
I stand abruptly from the bench, knowing where this is headed. “Yes. However, I do not have the influence to—”
“I am not requesting a favor, Miss Waldsten. I simply wish to warn you—well, to remind you…”
“Of what?”
“There is no family outside the home.”
December is when students unpack their fur coats, shake off the dust, and start strutting around campus like a sleuth of bears on a stage. Mom says it never used to snow at Grandmaster, but time has a way of changing things, even the weather. Now, the beaches lie under drifts of snow, a cold blanket covering what was once the warm edge of the world.
Despite the campus’s paleness, the mood is dark. Right now, all of us should be packing up and jetting off for two weeks of freedom. I should be in the mountains, skiing with Vivian and Hillaire, or wedged between Mom and Dad at a theater show. Instead, I’m still here, buried under snow and a pile of unfinished assignments.
Frustration hangs over the Lecture Halls as thick as the frost on the windows. Everyone knows this is the Blues’ fault. We’re stuck here because their dormitory renovation delayed the start of the semester by two weeks. Now we’re paying for it by not getting a winter break.
But no one dares say the truth out loud. Instead, we do what we’ve been taught to do: keep our mouths shut and our posture perfect. The days blur together with lectures, training sessions, and carefully measured conversations with Edmund, where I’m still trying to be polite, holding back half of what I want to say.
All the while, Vincent’s warning looms over me like a shadow I can’t shake. Asshole. Who does he think he is, preaching to me?
There is no family outside the home.
I know what Vincent meant. I thought the same thing on Harrison’s jet when he told me he’d joined an entourage. Blues can’t be trusted. Stick with your own. Breaking ranks leads to disaster.
But Vincent is wrong if he thinks this betrayal was mine alone. He knows what happened. The Greens and other low-citizen groups pushed me into this corner. They turned their backs and made it clear they wouldn’t help. So I picked the only color left: blue.
I keep telling myself that joining Edmund’s entourage was the right choice. There wasn’t a better one. Still, Vincent’s words keep festering inside me like mold spores in the bloodstream.
The weight of them hits harder every time I check my civil credit score and see the slow, relentless bleed from trying to keep up with Edmund. It’s always his world and his whims. There’s hardly a club we go to that doesn’t charge civil credits for entry instead of money.
And last week, Edmund even tried to persuade me to paraglide off the Blue Dormitory roof with him, Jack, and Dickie—completely illegal, and an automatic loss of at least twenty civil credits.
For the first time, I understand what Dad meant when he said moneydoesn’t matter in the Civilized World. Every married citizen receives a yearly civil income, enough to live comfortably without ever working. You can take a job if you want more status or luxury, which many people do, though even without it, you’re insulated.
But I see now what Dad was really talking about. Civil income keeps you fed and housed, but it doesn’t protect you. Civil credits do. They decide how much you’re forgiven, how harshly you’re punished, and how much room you’re allowed to make mistakes. They’re the real currency.
I’ve managed to scrape together a few extra civil credits through decent grades and civilized behavior. Still, when I’m hemorrhaging fifteen a week because of Edmund, the loss outweighs the gain.
It makes me wonder if Edmund thinks the fear will fade. Does he think his kind will challenge him again? Is he trying to push me out before he’s forced to fight another death duel? Is he trying to sabotage me slowly, tank my civil credit score, and trigger my expulsion so I’ll be shipped back to the Green District, where he won’t have to keep me safe?
There, his badge can protect me from a distance. There, I’d no longer be his burden until he needs me to testify, to take the stand and point the finger at Irene.
But I won’t be a tool Edmund keeps on a shelf, gathering dust until it’s convenient to pull me down.
I have a future to protect.
Men are too mysterious. One day, they’re spitting in your hand, and the next, they’re tearing up the gardens, furious that the flowers tried to mask your scent when you walked by.
—VIVIAN WALDSTEN
