“What are you doing, Autumn?” Jack asked when he noticed my exchange with Reyes.
“He’s a friend. I need to talk to him.”
“It’s risky.”
“Remember the only reason I came was to say goodbye to the people I love, and that’s what I’m doing.” There was no way I was going to let him cheat me out of saying goodbye.
“You’re right. I lost sight of our goal here. So is that your boyfriend? The guy your father thought you ran off and married?”
“Does it matter?” I snapped. Reyes was none of his business.
“Yeah, it matters. Look at the size of that guy, and I just married his girlfriend!”
I studied Jack’s expression for a moment to see if he was joking. I had seen him fight and knew Reyes wouldn’t stand a chance against him.
It was our turn to get breakfast, and we were each handed a sealed container with a spoon and a glass of water. I saw Reyes sitting with his friends, Raine and Mica, and for a second, I hesitated. I trusted Reyes, but not always his friends. Would one of them shout out my identity? I didn’t want to get caught so soon. My dad was probably in danger, and I hadn’t seen Summer yet.
Seeing me hesitate, Reyes motioned for me to join him again. He probably already told everyone we were here anyway. I went to sit with him, and Jack mutely followed behind me.
“This is Benjamin and I’m Autumn,” I said in a firm voice. I couldn’t believe those were the first words out of my mouth, but I was afraid Reyes or someone else would use our real names.
I took the empty chair beside Reyes and Jack sat across from us. Reyes gave him a murderous glare before he turned his chair to face me. He put his head close to mine and talked in a low voice.
“What happened?” His voice cracked with emotion. “I waited and waited for you to come back from that bachelor party and you never did. The next thing I know you’re on television in a wedding dress marrying that… bourge!”
“It was all a mistake.” I didn’t know where to begin. “I know what it looked like on television, but that’s not the way it happened. Leisel lied to everyone.”
“If you’re not in love with him, then why did you bring him here?”
“He helped me escape. I owe him.” I hadn’t quite realized it until then, but strangely I did feel responsible for Jack. I knew I shouldn’t. It was partly his fault that I was in this predicament. I glanced over at Jack. He was busy taking the lid off his container and sniffing the contents. His nose crinkled in distaste, but he tried it anyway. Then he put the bowl down and replaced the lid.
Raine and Mica were staring at him too, not sure what to say or how to treat him. We didn’t tend to get a lot of bourge down here dining with us, particularly famous ones.
“What the hell happened, Sunny? Do you know what it did to me to see you up there on the screen with him? The president’s daughter saying he jilted her because the two of you are in love? When the guards dragged you off, I thought they killed you.”
The pain I had caused Reyes was clearly written on his face and a stab of guilt went through me. “I think the president wanted to kill me, but he couldn’t because we were being televised. Then the guards came and took him to safety because of the riot down here.” I was babbling, not answering his question.
“Why did you do it?” He grabbed me by both my arms. His fingers bit into my flesh, and I winced.
“Because the president’s daughter conned me into it!” At my answer he finally released me. Even though I was used to Reyes being rough with me, I rubbed my arms to assess the damage. It wasn’t bad. “Have you seen Summer? Did she tell you anything?”
“Summer told me about the president’s daughter and how she invited you to his place, but then you never came back. I went nuts trying to find out what happened to you, and then I saw you on television marrying him.” Reyes narrowed his eyes, casting an accusatory glare at Jack. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or sad, so I didn’t know what to say or how to make it right. “What the president’s daughter said—about you and him falling in love and trying to get rid of her—made sense at that moment. What other reason could there be?”
“Leisel manipulated me into taking her place at the wedding. She caught Summer stealing food after the bachelor party and threatened to tell the authorities. She also gave me a story about an assassination plot planned against her for her wedding day and wanted me to take her place wearing a bulletproof vest. She convinced me that when she and Jack took control of the president’s office, things in the Pit would get better. So I played the decoy bride. I did it to save Summer. I did it because I believed her when she said she wanted to make things better down here. But in the end, she used us. The whole thing was a plan to convince her father to let her succeed him as president.”
“So you’re not in love with him?”
I shook my head, sorry to be the cause of so much heartache.
His pained expression transformed into one of anger. “If you had just let me protect you in the first place, none of this would have happened. But you’re always so worried about protecting everybody else!”
I pulled my chair away from his, putting a little distance between us. Reyes had a habit of being hurtful when he was angry. Not that I didn’t deserve his anger, but having a conversation with him right then would be pointless. I turned to Raine and Mica. “So what happened here? Why was there a riot?”
“Everyone’s bloody fed up with the bourge, that’s why,” Reyes said, staring at Jack. Jack glared back at him.
“He’s not wrong,” Mica said. “People started lining up for the so-called feast the night before the wedding. The guards didn’t care because no one was making trouble and the night had kind of a festive feel to it. After waiting all night, you know what the feast turned out to be? Bread. They gave us bread with our stew. Do you believe that?” Mica was clearly getting upset, which made me nervous. I didn’t want him to draw attention to our table. “So they’re showing us the wedding on the screen and the well-dressed guests taking their seats, but all we can see are tables heaped with food everywhere!” Mica shot Jack a look of disgust. “Did they actually think we wanted to see your stinkin’ wedding? We only came for the food!”
“Mica, keep it down,” Reyes said. The guards in the room remained oblivious to us. “You’ll start another riot, and yesterday’s was bad enough. Three people were killed, including a little kid. We don’t need to start killing each other too—there are enough bourge doing that for us.”
“He’s just saying what we all felt,” Raine said. “Everyone was just so… angry! So you can only imagine how much we enjoyed seeing the president’s daughter crying her fool head off. I mean we were confused at first because we thought she was the bride. But there she was, falling on the floor, crying and looking pathetic and humiliated. It was epic! We didn’t think it could get any better than that, but then someone tears off your veil.” Raine looked at me with a smile. “It was sweet, sweet revenge finding out that Leisel Holt was humiliated by one of us and you stole her husband! An urchin married the next president.”
“It’s true,” said Mica. “The entire Pit went nuts. Everyone was laughing and clapping and cheering for Sunny O’Donnell… except maybe Reyes.” He eyed his friend. Reyes stared at the floor, glowering. “Then the guards started telling us to keep it down, but why should we? We weren’t fighting—we were having a laugh is all. When we wouldn’t stop, they started getting rough, so people started fighting back. That’s when all hell broke loose. The president sent Domers down here and threatened to cut off our ventilation system. People got scared, grabbed their kids, and ran home. They put us on lockdown.”
“I’m sorry for everything,” Jack said. “I really am.”
“A bourge is apologizing to us?” Raine asked, his tone incredulous.