The Ark by Laura Liddell Nolen

Author:Laura Liddell Nolen
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008113629
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-02-25T13:44:07.339000+00:00

Seventeen

Commander Everest strode toward us. Eren was like a statue, and I had long since dropped the fake-struggle routine. The Commander took in the scene with a calculating nod, pausing only on Eren’s face before turning on his heel to leave. “I’ll take your statement in the office, Ambassador. Bring the girl.”

Eren’s arms left my shoulders, and I suppressed a shiver. His hand shifted to my elbow, and we followed the Commander out into the hallway. The guardians filed in behind us, like some kind of parade.

That was when I noticed the cameras.

Three women at the end of the line of guardians sported video equipment aimed squarely at Eren and me. I glanced at his face; it was like stone. That was unsettling, and the fact that I couldn’t control my own expression made it worse. I was mad enough to spit feathers, and I hadn’t recovered from my shock enough to hide it. Eren was the Commander’s son?! I had gotten into some bad situations in my day, but this was by far the stickiest.

At least it explained his relentless questions about me. I should have known there was a darker reason for his curiosity.

On our trip down the hallway, I mentally catalogued every bit of information I had given Eren about myself. He knew I grew up in Manhattan, and that I liked grilled cheese. From my starpass, he knew I had lied to him. Not that he had fallen for it, which was more than I could say for myself.

And that was about it. Eren’s report to the Commander should be fairly thin. At least if I died, no one would know my real name. It was sort of a final consolation prize for my family.

I allowed myself a small moment of pride for having kept him at a distance, but it tasted sour. About five seconds longer, and I’d have given him anything. I had thought I was so smart, that I was the one person in the room who always knew the score. What had happened?

Whatever it was, it would never happen again. That much was certain. I pulled my shoulders back and tilted my chin up and away from the camera. I’d had enough of screwing up. I would be a stone vault from now on.

The plush rugs of the hallway gave way to dark wood, and I focused on the steady tap of the Commander’s leather soles against the floor in an effort to prepare for the scene ahead. It hit me that the soldiers and camera crews around us were doing the same thing: matching their pace to the Commander’s. Even Eren deferred implicitly to his father, pausing as we turned corners, so that the Commander entered each hallway first, perfectly flanked by the rest of the entourage. If the Commander could influence the way people walked, what else was he capable of?

By the time Eren ducked his way around a particularly ornate and low-hanging chandelier, I had more or less gained control of myself.

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