Alexander motions toward General Pierce, who stands outside the bulletproof shield. Next to him is the Texas senator, a spineless, ineffectual woman. The governor’s loyal puppet.

“Bring forward the captives,” Alexander demands sharply.

At a signal from the general, the Guards from the TXRAIL appear on the steps of the granite staircase, dragging Theo, Ciro, and Kano gagged and bound to stand in a line beside me. Each Guard carries a bolt action rifle at their side.

Execution by firing squad. At least it will be quick.

But this fate for Theo? Alexander’s beloved son? The son he saved all those years ago, the child he risked everything for?

No, it’s too cruel. It doesn’t make sense.

Theo spits and screams incoherent pleas at Alexander, his face a sweating, raging red, the veins on his neck popping like tiny ropes that could strangle him.

Does the governor recognize Theo as one of his own? He gives no clue he knows.

Theo makes for the podium, but he trips from the zip-ties binding his ankles and falls hard on his face. Like Ciro and Kano, I’m unable to help him. Theo tries to crawl to his father. To stop him.

Alexander places the microphone on the lapel of his jacket next to his medals and marches up and down his line of prisoners.

“The Common—” There’s an audible gasp from the crowd. “Yes, I will say the name aloud because they do exist. And these are their faces.” Alexander points to me and then to Theo. “These are the faces of the Common.”

He lifts Theo off the ground and hauls him back to my side. Furiously, Theo attempts to talk to me, to force words through his gag, but I hear nothing but the crowd’s violent cries for justice.

You will pay for your crimes. I can hear Governor Roth’s sinister promise. I can’t look at him. I won’t. But he’s on every skyrise, on every screen. I can’t escape him.

I snap my head toward the mass, searching for only one person. Ava, I lied. I want you here. Where are you?

Then my heart lifts. It soars.

A single figure cuts through the press of bodies, elbowing her way to the stairs. Rayla.

Another catches my eye. A youth with a bandana made of flames.

And another. Owen, the boy from Detroit.

Emery. Pawel. Kipling.

They’re all moving toward me.

The rebellion’s here.

Alexander circles me. “Let it be remembered,” he shouts, looming behind me, “that tonight, Texas showed the world how to survive.”

The four State Guards march forward and stand side by side in formation, holding their rifles at attention.

I feel my bonds break. There’s a hot, urgent whisper in my ear. “I got you your stage. Now deliver the truth I never could.” Alexander slips my knife into my hand, slaps the microphone on my collar, and steps between the guns and me.

Ripping the gag from my mouth, I scream the truth before all of Dallas, before the Goddess of Liberty, before Governor Roth.

“If I’m a criminal, then Governor Roth is also a criminal!” I yank the cloth from Theo’s mouth and cut his hands free. “The governor of Texas has an illegal second grandchild!”

“I am Theo Wright—Theo Roth—Alexander’s second child,” Theo proclaims, the microphone picking up his raspy cry. “Halton was my half brother. Governor Roth knew, but he let me live.”

The crowd is dumbstruck. Theo’s face fills the screens. The family resemblance is undeniable.

Governor Roth doesn’t move. As if his kingdom isn’t exploding around him, he sits stock-still, impervious to the bombshell I just released.

“If I should die,” I scream in a rush of emotion, “like my father died, for defying the Rule of One, then so should Governor Roth!”

Rayla and the Common are almost up the steps. They’re pushing through the Strake students. The Guard has taken notice. The soldiers lift their guns.

“Resist much!” Alexander shouts from center stage.

“Obey little!” I implore the people.

Small pockets of the crowd take up the call. “Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved”—a larger group on the right—“once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city, of this earth”—in the center—“ever afterward resumes its liberty!”

Alexander raises his empty hands to the general. “Tell the Guard to stand down, General. Give the people back their liberty. It is right.”

Arms and legs still bound, Ciro and Kano huddle around me, blocking me from the firing squad and the governor, making it impossible for me to see what’s happening.

I dive to the floor between Theo’s legs, frantic for a view of Governor Roth’s next move.

A small lift of a finger. That’s all it takes. Such a small action, and havoc ignites the capital.

Scream Guns pierce the sweltering midnight air. Smoke grenades fill the sky and my lungs. I can’t hear. I can’t breathe. I collapse onto my stomach, the stabbing shrieks intensifying with every inch I move. I see flashes of gunfire, Common members being dragged up the steps by their hair.

Theo falls to the floor next to me. With great effort I reach out my left hand and grip his.

You take one second-born, you take both.

Someone grabs my other hand. Squinting through the haze, I see the outline of my face.

“Ava!” I shout. My sister shoves earplugs into my ears, shutting out the debilitating sound that keeps me on the floor. She pulls me up, and I lift Theo after me.

“Protect the twins!” Rayla’s voice commands somewhere nearby, lost in the haze of the smoke grenades.

With stinging, half-blind eyes, I scour the fleeing, indistinct shapes, willing Roth to appear.

“Roth ran!” Ava yells above the gunshots.

“We have to go after him!” I insist, turning toward the Capitol building.

“Protect the twins!”

“Let go of his hand,” Ava shouts, nodding at Theo. “Grab a weapon and leave him! You have to protect yourself!” She pulls me down the steps away from the Capitol and Alexander.

“Protect the twins!” Emery repeats Rayla’s command, summoning a wall of Common members to surround us.

If I let go of his hand, Theo will crumple to the ground, defenseless from the Scream Gun. He doesn’t know the city. He’ll never find his way out. The Guard will take him. Roth will take him.

“No one gets left behind!” I yell as a Texas State Guard with a rifle breaks through the human shield, barrel aimed at Ava.

Two shots are fired at him: one from Ava, one from Owen, who emerges from the toxic fumes just as the soldier collapses to the pavement.

There’s no time to see if the Guard’s dead. Someone throws a heavy bulletproof blanket over our heads, and the huddled mass pushes us across the boulevard; north, east, I can’t tell.

“To the safe house!” Emery instructs the growing defense.

My racing thoughts overpower the sirens, the screams, the incessant pop, pop, pop of gunfire.

But my mission! Did it work?

Roth’s loyalists saw the truth.

But is truth enough? Can truth be seen in a blind world?

I hope we made them see with new eyes.

PART III

THE MANSION

AVA

I think I killed a man. Or did Owen, Rayla’s new tagalong? We fired at the exact same time—either bullet could’ve been the kill shot. Push that thought aside. Save it for later.