Ronan leads me to one of the green chairs, turning it to face the windows, so I don’t have to look at the drifters. He opens up a compartment in his backpack filled to the brim with protein and nutrition bars and hands me one. I pull away my mouthpiece and take a small bite, which is all I can stomach. “You have to keep up your strength,” he says.
He’s watching me for signs I’ll break down, but I wish he wouldn’t. Every time I catch his eye I see the pity and horror of what might have been. And I’m ashamed. It was my own fault. I wanted to prove to myself how strong I’d become. And I wanted to prove to Ronan that everything he knew about drifters was untrue. Except it wasn’t.
“What are you even doing in The Outlands, Ronan? Isn’t there a servant at home waiting to run you a hot bath and cook you a meal?”
“Yes,” he says. “But I told you, I’m looking for someone.” He pauses. “For Quinn Caffrey. His father sent me. Do you know where he is?”
I want to trust him, and after what he’s just done for me, I probably should, but if Mr. Caffrey’s the one looking for Quinn, it must mean trouble. “I haven’t seen Quinn since the pod.”
Ronan studies me. He knows it’s a lie. “Well, I have to find him,” he says. “Will you help me?”
“I wish I could.”
“I’m a member of the Special Forces, Bea. I was at The Grove. I know what the Ministry did because I was there fighting for them.”
I sit up, pull off the sweater he gave me using one hand to keep my facemask in place, and fling it at him. How could he have destroyed all those trees? And killed so many people?
He doesn’t have the face of an enemy, but that’s what he is—he’s his father’s son. “You. Make. Me. Sick,” I say, and head back into the restaurant, where the three dead men are still bleeding into the carpet.
Ronan runs after me and forces me to look at him. “I didn’t know what we were doing until it was too late. I know the Ministry is full of crap. I want out, and Jude said he’d help. If I find Quinn for him, he’ll change my identity and I can leave the Special Forces. He’ll do it for Quinn, too. . . . And you, I’m sure.” But he doesn’t sound so sure. No Premium father would want his son involved with the likes of me.
I scratch Jazz’s dried blood from my hands. “I don’t want to go back,” I say simply. “And how could you, after you’ve seen what’s possible?”
“I’ll become an auxiliary. I’ll be like you.” He says this like it’s the most magnanimous gesture in the world. It’s all I can do to put my hands behind my back to stop myself from punching his puffed-out chest.
“Do you know what it’s like to be an auxiliary? Do you like running or dancing or kissing or anything remotely normal? Because once you become like me, every breath will cost you. You think that’s a life I want to go back to or one I’d want for Quinn? Leaving the Special Forces and living in Zone Three isn’t going to solve anything. You’ll be in hiding, that’s all. A coward in hiding.” I stop. I’ve been shouting, and my throat hurts. I didn’t hit Ronan, but from his guilty expression, I might as well have.
“I don’t want to hurt people anymore,” he whispers, looking at the floor.
“So fight to make things better.”
Now it’s his turn to be angry. “And how will I do that? The Resistance worked for years to steal cuttings and build a new world. I’m one person. It’s not like I could overthrow the government.”
Maybe I’m being hard on him, but that’s because it’s only people in his privileged position who can change things. “What if we could overthrow the government?” I ask.
He stomps on a glass bottle and it smashes into a hundred pieces. “How?” he asks.
I don’t know yet. But at least I know that he’s willing. And if he is, we’ll find a way.