Page 13 of Dissent

I waited a few minutes, my mind willing him to respond. But time ticked on, andI didn’t receive a reply. I pursed my lips, feeling disappointed and a little worried that he was upset with me.

Knock, knock.

I looked at the door. “Come in.” It opened and there was Chelsea. Today, she’d done a much better job of combing her hair back neatly. It wasn’t perfect, but her red, wild curls had been better wrangled and muscled into control. Her maid’s uniform had also improved, no longer disheveled. “Good morning, Chelsea.”

She entered, holding clean bedsheets in one hand as she looked up at me, her face cold and stern. There was no love lost between us. “Good morning,MissMara.” Her words sounded more like the hiss of a snake than the greeting of a human being. She moved into my room, and every movement reminded me of a cobra ready to strike its enemy at any moment. “I came to change your sheets,Miss.”

Not wanting to aggravate her any more, I got out of bed, putting my tab on my wrist as I moved to get out of her way. She approached the bed and began pulling the sheets off. Then, I saw it. As her hands worked at the sheets, I witnessed the red, angry welts across the top of them. There were several on each hand, many of which must have split open when she was struck because they were scabbed over.

I grimaced, biting my lip. And suddenly, I realized I felt…guilty. As much as this was Belinda’s doing, Chelsea wouldn’t have been punished like this if I hadn’t said she was being defiant on purpose. I shouldn’t have done this to her.

The sudden urge to apologize filled me, and I opened my mouth to speak, “Chelsea, I…” She stopped working the bedsheets and glared at me, her eyes like daggers. “I…” I couldn’t do it. The words were stuck in my throat. Somehow, apologizing to her felt like admitting that Iwasa failure. That I couldn’t get anything right…not even this.

As much as I wanted to, I just couldn’t gather the courage to say the words. And the sensation of guilt and disappointment in myself grew, threatening to overwhelm me. She was still looking at me, her gaze ever piercing. I couldn’t muster the apology she deserved, so I managed the next best thing…gratitude.

“Thank you for changing the sheets.” It was weak of me, and I knew it. But it was all I could offer her. I watched her intently as her eyes flickered. They gave nothing away, so I quickly grabbed my clothes for the day and worked on getting dressed.

It wasn’t long before I was walking down the hall of the mansion. I lifted my wrist and checked my mini-tab for messages.Nothing. I worried my lip, considering if I should just leave him alone or try again. Unable to resist the urge, I sent Chase another message.

Mara:Hey, just wondering if everything’s alright. Message me back, ok?

I already knew the waiting was going to kill me. I continued down the hall to the stairwell. What excuse was I going to use to get out of the house this time? Doing homework at the Academy was always a good one. Maybe I’d tell them I was going to work on my Initiation application. They should be thrilled with that one given our lovely conversation last night. Or I could say—

WHAM!

I lost my balance and fell to the floor.

“Watch where you’re going, Mara!” I looked up to see Jacob. As annoyed as he was that I slammed right into him, he offered me a hand up.

“Jeez, Jacob, you’re like walking into a brick wall,” I teased. Brows drawn forward, he huffed as he pulled me up, a scowl plastered across his face.

Bing, bing!

His tab lit up, letting him know he had a message. I glanced at my own, wishing for it to do the same. “Yeah, well, you’ve got to pay attention to where you’re going.”

Well, aren’t you grouchy?I didn’t dare tell him that. It was best not to egg him on when he was in a foul mood. I opted to change the topic. “Who’s messaging you? Got a girlfriend you forgot to tell me about?” He didn’t react. As he examined his tab, the color drained from his face. “Is everything okay?”

He took a deep breath before he looked up at me, his lips set in a thin line. “The Dissenters finally made their move. They attacked the city this morning.”

“What!How? What happened?”

“It’s a long story, but they went after one of the admin buildings.”

“What did they do?”

He took in another breath and began speaking when his tab went off again. Glancing at it, he responded. “Look, I’ve got to get down to the REG Office. I can’t do this right now.”

“I’ll walk you out.” He didn’t argue, moving to the stairwell as I followed.

“We’re not really sure what happened. All we know is that they got into the building last night and hacked some of the computer systems. We know they took information, but we aren’t entirely sure of what orwhy. They installed some sort of virus into the system, and it’s been corrupting everything. Dad’s going insane!”

As we made our way through the house and out the front door, I could tell he was stressed. As a member of the REG and the heir to the presidency, so much was riding on him, on how he handled this crisis. I followed him to his car parked out on the gravel driveway. “Was anyone hurt?”

“Yeah, but no deaths. They knocked some people unconscious, but no one was seriously injured.”

“So that’s all they did? They just took some files and uploaded a computer virus?”

Jacob halted, turning on me. “What? That’s notenoughfor you,” he accused. “Not enoughdamage?Those systems track everyone! It’s what trackseveryone’s Citizen ID and GPS coordinates. With thousands of people living within the wall, there’s no way to keep track of everyonewithoutthat system. Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter how many checkpoints we have now. It’s useless without that system. Andnowthe freaking systemdoesn’t even work!The virus corrupted the whole fuckingthing!” He ran his hands through his hair.

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