Wells shifted against the tree trunk, wincing as his exhausted muscles cramped in protest. It was dawn, but he hadn’t been able to sleep at all. Eventually he’d given up and volunteered for lookout duty, which the bleary-eyed Arcadian on guard had gratefully accepted.
His eyes drifted toward the grave site, where a new mound of dirt rose up from the grass like a scar. Wells had spent much of the night sitting by Priya’s grave, which he’d draped with flowers, although he hadn’t managed to do it as artfully as she or Molly had. But at least, he thought with relief, Molly’s fever had finally broken. Clarke had asked Sasha to convey what they’d discovered about the wintershade before she left, and the only bright spot in Wells’s day was telling everyone in the infirmary cabin that they’d make full recoveries as soon as the wintershade left their systems.
He glanced again at the crude tombstone, which was marked with nothing more than PRIYA. He didn’t even know her last name, or why she’d been Confined, or whether she’d ever been in love. Would her parents ever find out that she’d died? If the bracelets were still functioning, then there was a chance they’d been told already. If not, then Wells would have to wait until they arrived on Earth. He imagined a woman who looked like Priya stepping off the dropship, looking around with large brown eyes as she searched for the daughter who’d been taken from her, and while the other parents embraced their children, Wells would have to lead Priya’s mother to her grave.
A twig snapped, and Wells jumped to attention, searching the woods for signs of movement, but it was just an errant squirrel. Though he’d never admit it, he’d been hoping it was Sasha.
He knew he was being an idiot. She wasn’t going to magically reappear just because he couldn’t stop thinking about her. And he’d done the right thing, letting her go home. He just wished he’d thought to ask where her people lived, or if she would ever come back. What if he never saw her again?
Another thought nagged at the back of his mind, refusing to be dismissed. What if Sasha hadn’t really meant anything she said? What if their kiss was just part of her escape plan?
Shouts rose up from the clearing, yanking him from his stupor. They weren’t the usual early morning “get your hands off my breakfast” shouts, or the “if you try to get out of water duty I’m going to kill you” shouts. Wells rose to his feet and headed over. He had a feeling he knew what this was about.
A group was clustered around the infirmary cabin, and as Wells approached, two dozen faces turned to look at him. Most appeared to be confused, but a few blazed with anger.
“She’s gone,” Graham spat, striding toward Wells.
For a brief moment, Wells considered playing dumb, pretending that Sasha had somehow escaped. But he knew what his father would have said to that. A true leader owns up to his mistakes, rather than blaming others. Not that Wells thought releasing Sasha was a mistake.
“You said you were going to bring her back, and then you let her go.” Graham looked around the group to make sure his words had prompted the proper amount of resentment.
“What were you thinking, Wells?” Antonio asked, his eyes widening in disbelief. “She was the only leverage we had over the Earthborns. They already killed Asher and Priya. What’s to stop them from wiping out the rest of us?”
“We don’t even know where Sasha’s people are, let alone if they realized that we had her. Besides, they weren’t the ones who killed Asher and Priya,” Wells protested. “It was the other faction of Earthborns. The violent ones.”
“That’s what she told you,” a girl chimed in. Wells turned and saw Kendall looking at him with a mixture of sorrow and pity. “But we didn’t ever have proof, did we?” The expression on her face made it clear she thought Wells had been played.
“Just admit it!” Graham snarled. “You let her go, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Wells said, his voice calm. “I did. It was the right thing to do. She didn’t know anything about Octavia, and we weren’t gaining anything by keeping her here. We can’t just lock people up without a reason.”
“Are you serious?” Antonio stared at Wells incredulously. His normally cheery face was twisted with rage as he gestured dramatically toward the crowd. “Your father locked us all up for hardly any reason at all.”
“So what, then?” Wells asked, raising his voice in frustration. “We’re going to keep making the same mistakes? We have the chance to do something different. Something better.”
Graham snorted. “Cut the crap, Wells. We all know the only thing you’re ‘doing’ is some mutant Earthborn slut.”
The fury that Wells had been trying to contain ignited in his chest, and he lunged wildly at Graham, throwing his fists up. But before he could wipe the smug smile off that asshole’s face, Eric and another Arcadian boy wrenched Wells’s arms behind him. “Let it go, Wells!” Eric shouted.
“See?” Graham turned around to face the others, clearly delighted. “You see? I think he’s made it pretty damn clear where his loyalty lies.”
It wasn’t Graham’s words that hurt; it was the look on everyone’s faces. Most were staring at Wells like they believed Graham, and were disgusted with Wells.
Kendall’s lip was trembling. Eric’s face was red with frustration. Antonio was glaring. Wells glanced around for Clarke, before remembering that she was gone. He’d done the right thing. Why couldn’t everyone see that?
But maybe it wasn’t the right thing, a small voice in his head countered. After all, Wells knew that even the greatest leaders make mistakes.
As the Colonel moved past Wells’s unit, Wells exhaled and undid the top button of his jacket. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that the uniforms he’d admired so much as a child were pretty ridiculous in practice. Just because soldiers on Earth had dressed like this shouldn’t mean they had to do the same in space.
“Whoa, check it out. Jaha’s going rogue,” one of his fellow cadets jeered. “Don’t you know what happens to officers who violate the dress code?”
Wells ignored him. While the other cadets always seemed energized by the training exercises on Walden, they left Wells exhausted. Not the physical component—he liked running laps on the gravity track, and sparring during combat drills. It was the rest of it that left him vaguely nauseous: conducting practice raids on residential units, stopping random shoppers at the Exchange for questioning. Why did they have to assume that everyone on this ship was a criminal?
“Attention!” the Colonel bellowed up ahead.
Automatically, Wells threw his shoulders back, lifted his chin, and pivoted into position as the cadets formed a straight line down the corridor.
“At ease, Colonel,” the Chancellor’s voice called out. “I’m not here to inspect the cadets.” Wells’s eyes were trained straight ahead, but he could feel the weight of his father’s gaze. “Which is a lucky thing, given some of their appearances.” Wells bristled, knowing exactly whom his father was referring to.
“Sir.” The Colonel lowered his voice. “Who’s in your security detail today?”
“I’m here on unofficial business, so I came alone.” Wells risked a glance and saw that the Chancellor was indeed alone, a rare sight for a high-ranking official coming across to Walden. The other Council members refused to cross the skybridge without at least two guards at their side.
“Can I send a few of the cadets with you, at least?” he said, lowering his voice. “There was another incident on Arcadia this morning and I think it’d—”
“Thank you, but I’m fine,” his father said in a tone that made it clear the discussion was over. “Good afternoon, Colonel.”
“Good afternoon, sir.”
When the Chancellor’s footsteps disappeared around the corner, the Colonel dismissed them and ordered them back to Phoenix, double time. The cadets broke into a brisk jog. Wells hung back, pretending to tie the lace on his boot. When he was sure no one was looking, he peeled off and headed down the corridor after his father.
His father was hiding something, and Wells was going to figure out what it was. Today.
Wells slowed to a walk when he caught sight of the Chancellor turning a corner up ahead—and saw something he hadn’t expected.
His father was standing in front of the Remembrance Wall, a stretch of hallway in the oldest part of Walden that, over the centuries, had become a memorial for everyone who’d died on the Colony. The oldest names were in larger handwriting, carved with knives into the wall by the loved ones left behind. But as time went on and space on the wall grew scarcer, names were carved over by newer and newer names, until the wall was so crowded that most names were almost illegible.
Wells couldn’t imagine what his father was doing there. The only times Wells could recall him visiting the wall were during official ceremonies, honoring Council members who had died. As far as Wells knew, he’d never come here alone.
Then the Chancellor reached up and traced the outline of one of the names. His shoulders slumped, radiating a sadness Wells had never seen.
Wells’s cheeks began to burn. He didn’t belong here, intruding on what was clearly a private moment. But as he started to turn around, taking care to move as quietly as possible, his father spoke up. “I know you’re there, Wells.”
Wells froze, his breath catching in his throat. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I never should’ve followed you.”
The Chancellor turned to look at him, but to Wells’s surprise, he didn’t look angry, or even disappointed. “It’s okay,” he said with a sigh. “It’s time I told you the truth, anyway.”
A chill passed over Wells. “The truth about what?”
“This isn’t easy for me to say,” his father began, a slight tremor in his voice. He cleared his throat. “A long time ago, before you were born, before I’d even met your mother, I fell in love… with a woman from Walden.”
Wells stared at him, stunned. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard his father even use the word “love.” He was so unemotional, so devoted to his job—it didn’t make sense. And yet, the pain in his father’s eyes was enough to convince Wells that he was serious.
In a halting voice, the Chancellor explained that he’d met her as a young guard, during one of his patrols. They’d started seeing each other and had fallen in love, although he’d kept the whole thing a secret from his friends and family, who would’ve been horrified to learn about his feelings for a Walden girl. “Eventually, I realized that it was foolish,” his father said. “If we married, we would only cause our families pain. And by that point, there was already talk of me joining the Council. I had responsibilities to people besides myself, and so I decided to end things then.” He sighed. “She would have hated this life, being married to the Chancellor. It was the right thing to do.” Wells said nothing, waiting for his father to continue. “And then, a few months later, I met your mother and realized that she was the partner I needed. Someone who would help me become the leader the Colony needed.”
“Did you keep seeing her?” Wells asked, surprised by the harsh note of accusation in his voice. “That… that Walden woman?”
“No.” His father shook his head vehemently. “Absolutely not. Your mother is everything to me.” He cleared his throat. “You and your mother are everything to me,” he amended.
“What happened to her? The woman from Walden? Did she ever find someone else?”
“She died,” the Chancellor said simply. “Occasionally, I come here to pay my respects. And that is all. Now you know everything.”
“Why does it need to be a secret?” Wells pressed. “Why did you act like you didn’t want anyone to see you?”
His father’s face hardened. “There are things about being a leader that you couldn’t possibly understand at your age.” He turned on his heel, heading back toward Phoenix. “Now, this conversation is over.”
Wells watched in silence as his father strode off, knowing full well that when they sat down together at dinner that night, they would both act like nothing had happened.
He turned back to the wall, to look at the name his father had touched so tenderly. Melinda. He tried to make out her last name, but it was too scratched-over for him to read. As close as he could tell, it started with a B.
Melinda B. The dead woman his father had once loved, whose memory brought him back to the wall over and over again. The woman who, if things had been different, could have been Wells’s mother.
Wells reached down and rebuttoned his jacket, then turned back toward Phoenix, leaving the ghosts of his father’s past behind him.
“Chancellor Junior was completely out of line,” Graham was saying. “And who the hell knows what he’ll do next?”
“I don’t know,” Lila was saying, “we can’t just—”
“It’s fine,” Wells said, interrupting them. “I’ll make it easy for you. I’ll leave.”
“What?” Kendall said, startled. “No, Wells, that’s not what we want.”
“Speak for yourself,” Graham snapped. “It’s exactly what I want. I say we’re better off without him.”
Wells wondered if Graham was right. Had he done the same thing that his father did long ago, and made an error in judgment because of a girl? What would the Chancellor say, if he were here right now?
“I hope you will be,” Wells told them, surprised by the amount of sincerity, and lack of resentment, in his voice.
Then without meeting anyone’s eye, he spun on his heel and went off to pack his bag for the last time.