Lies and Legends Read online

  LIES AND LEGENDS

  Book Three in The Last City series

  Logan Keys

  Copyright © 2017 by Logan Keys

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Dedicated to the fans who have managed to stick with the ups and downs of the series. You are awesome.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  A Note from the Author

  Chapter 1

  Liza

  I am Liza Randusky.

  It is so easy to lose your way when your life is not your own. A sense of who you are can fade when some other force controls you. Whether that be a person, a thing, a past, even an idea---all of it can change the core you… if you let it.

  Time is a construct based on the fact that we will eventually die. All of us. No exceptions.

  The earth will embrace our bodies and we will not rise again. But since humans have found ways around certain limitations, is time still a factor?

  Here in Bodega I was dead. They say for four whole minutes.

  But I came back.

  And since then I have relived that moment at least one hundred times. Cory has seen to that. A man who espoused kindness to trick me into his lair of madness, he holds me captive body and soul. Time is meaningless when inside this world where Cory Prince has placed me. It could be days or centuries, and I would never know.

  It’s only when he gives me a taste of freedom that I realize life has been going on without me.

  But this mind trap is reciprocal I am finding. We’re bound together inside of his game, and we share more than I wish. Perhaps more than he’d like as well.

  It is far more intimate than carnal knowledge to join thoughts. He knows my deepest fears. And since the bond has been overlong, a thing I’d wager is new to him as well as me, I am also learning the things that terrify Cory.

  I study them.

  I pocket them for later.

  For instance, he doesn’t like people staring at him. He projects the fear onto me, making it as if I, too, am bothered by it, or as if it will scare me. These are slips, cracks in his imaginary existence, and I see him in every single mistake. Even here on my bunk, the fake people of Bodega flowing by are robotic and slightly different from memory.

  Cory fails at times to get them right.

  Empty eyes.

  Empty smiles.

  That part is the same.

  But he’s missed the quiet dignity with which these prisoners faded into their end.

  These people dying, they were full of life.

  Cory forces me to relive my death but not my rising in the same mechanical way. But I did not die. I must remind myself of that because each time despair takes hold freshly.

  Despite waking over and over on Bodega Island, and sometimes other places (often we go to my other memories too, things plucked from my mind like making a musical selection), with all this repetitiveness, I am able to think and think.

  That part is actually not so bad.

  Contemplation is not my enemy with so much having happened.

  No, my own mind will never be my enemy. I won’t let it.

  I know exactly whom to hate.

  Being able to repeat things does that to a person. It reveals truths that otherwise might be overlooked, and I am to pull at a single thread that begs the question: Who am I?

  I am not like Jeremy. Ambitious. And I am not like Tommy. Still believing in the goodwill of mankind.

  Neither a zealot who blindly follows the cause, nor a good-natured soul leading by example: and thus, returns us to: Who is Liza Randusky?

  It is a desperate plea now, a mantra. So much so that it’s even written on the walls of this imaginary place.

  The first time I saw it, I’d figured Cory had placed it there to taunt me.

  But the second time I discovered the words chiseled neatly into the walls of Bodega, I touched the rough edges and realized an important thing. That I was the one who’d written it.

  With my mind.

  And if I can control this, it could lead to other things.

  Even so, the question remains. And now I wonder if the doctor had tried to give me a clue. For there is other writing that demands attention. One word in script upon my arm.

  Perhaps the doctor wanted it to mean more than a mere joke for Simon.

  Even here, in this faux world, my arm glows brightly. It has all this time.

  Like a beacon.

  Light at the end of a darkly, perpetuating tunnel guiding me toward the answer. My only companion in this dark place is a word that someone placed like a label on my body, like a name.

  Had he seen my future? Had he foreseen the two young men I’d come to know? Each affecting me differently, who I’d let lead me along----because I wasn’t sure who I was before, or what I wanted.

  But I am now.

  My name is Liza Randusky.

  And I want revenge.

  Chapter 2

  Crystal

  This part of the hospital is as cold as the steel in the toe of my boot come morning. I don't have much patience, and what I do have has been maxed out pacing the linoleum floors under bright yellow fluorescents waiting for the man of the hour.

  With a pen in hand, Jeremy Writer will hopefully write... something... anything... and give life to our only chance at freedom.

  Unfortunately, he's an artist.

  Which means he'll sit staring at that pad of paper until it blurs. And he's done this for two months already. I've lost too much time, and hair, trying to light a fire under the ass of the voice of the uprising.

  Jeremy's fasting, won't eat, won't speak, won't do a damned thing until it all pours out of him just right.

  He shakes his head and puts his pen down, making me crack my knuckles.

  Jeremy picks up his pen and puts it on the line. I hold m
y breath as he leans over and begins---and stops.

  I stifle my growl of frustration.

  Damned writers.

  Just put something on the page already!

  Chapter 3

  Crystal

  Goodman waits, as I wait, as we all wait, every one of the Skulls, both here and off the island. We sit on pause for the parchment our voice will write.

  Goodman’s brows are pulled together, he doesn’t understand why we need Jeremy any more than anyone ever has. “Why can’t we just---”

  I shake my head.

  “But you’re our leader.”

  “We’ve always needed the voice because we need the people. Before there aren’t any left to fight.”

  Karma Cromwell is finishing what her husband started. Purging citizens. The lower parts of society first.

  Goodman doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t have to. He won’t question my leadership, none of them ever have. I didn’t become the head of the Skulls because I was stronger or better or leader material. I lead because they follow and the following came first.

  I don’t fight with them because we are set apart from the poor people trapped in Anthem City, under the thumb of the Authority, and losing lives and rights each day. No, I fight for freedom for every person, as one of them. As long as I keep my focus on that, we, as the rebellion, have never wavered from our goal.

  “Be patient, Goodman.”

  When he doesn’t budge, I stand straight and lift my chin. “Eyes up,” I say.

  He rises and says, “Keep alert.”

  “And stand your ground.”

  Our motto.

  It’s my job to keep my eyes on the end of the tunnel, and my job to help the citizens of Anthem be reborn into that light. Mine. I claim it. I own it with every fiber of my being.

  I’ve never once questioned that purpose. Why would I?

  They’d needed me.

  I answered.

  But if I’m honest, I have questioned my choices of late. Without letting Goodman or other Skulls know it, I’ve wearied of this last round waiting for Jeremy Writer.

  I’m only pretending to have faith, hoping form will follow function. And that fact makes me hate Karma Cromwell even more than her dead husband if that’s possible. She can steal much from me, but belief in our cause, that I cannot abide.

  The doctor approaches. “Jeremy asks for you.”

  I nod, then turn and slap Goodman’s shoulder. “See? What did I tell you!”

  He smiles, but it’s not very bright.

  I head down the hallway after the doctor, but I’m not sure who I’m kidding.

  Jeremy’s cell door is open, not that he’s held here. He’s being secretly cared for.

  He sits in the same position he’s been in for what feels like forever, only there is a paper under his elbow. And it’s got writing on it!

  I snatch up the page. “It’s short,” I say hoping my voice isn’t full of critique. A writer’s nemesis: criticism.

  Jeremy waves me away and rises. He’s hunched over, like he’s one-hundred. He moves to the bed, eyes closed, and he lies on his cot, exhausted over the mere scribblings.

  “You didn’t sign it.” I’m too distracted to do more than skim the words, not stringing them together.

  No answer.

  I grind my teeth, then begin to read again. With but a couple words, the anger bleeds out of me.

  Only a few short sentences, and I go all light-headed.

  Slowly, I re-read. Tears try to spring loose but I squint until I win the struggle.

  Me.

  Crystal.

  Stone cold leader of the rebellion. The only resistance to the Authority who has crushed and purged each one of us almost to death.

  I have to breathe through the burning in my eyes. I turn to find that Jeremy’s fallen asleep. His soft snoring makes my lips twitch.

  Loot in hand, I leave the cell and return to where Goodman’s been in a squat position near the wall, weapon held.

  He stands and asks, “Well? Did he scratch something down?”

  I hand him the paper. He takes it, glancing downward, then back at me. “It's short.”

  I nod with a grin, but lift his hand holding the page to place it in front of him.

  Goodman reads, nodding once, then twice. He does like me and re-reads. Hand fisted over his mouth, emotion blows like wildfire across his features. When he finishes, paper shaking in his grip, he doesn’t look at me, he stares instead down the hallway.

  This is why Goodman is my new number two. What does he see down there? The future. That’s what.

  Despite an obvious fight, he breaks down. Goodman cries tears I won’t allow myself. It feels like it’s my release too, watching him.

  Goodman has a family back in Anthem. A wife and daughter. He wants freedom for his legacy.

  We all want that for him. I bet his dreams are filled with the hope that one day he could give them a real life, one without lines for rations, without his wife careful of her every word, or wearing gray. One where she wouldn’t be purged or executed just for being married to a Skull.

  If the Guards ever found out…

  After this passes, Goodman wipes his eyes, clearly embarrassed. He seems complete. Not tired, not weary as we have been for over a year. He looks revived.

  Good.

  Then Jeremy did exactly what I knew he would. His words have life. And they breathe it into every person who will listen to them.

  “He didn’t sign it,” Goodman says. “He needs to sign it.” He lifts the paper and shakes it at me. “It won’t matter what it says if they don’t know it’s from him.”

  “We could write the Skulls?”

  He sighs. “That isn’t enough and you know it.”

  I sigh back at him. “Jeremy won’t sign it. He doesn’t want his mother to know he’s still alive.”

  But I take the paper and head back to his cell. “Jeremy,” I say trying to sound like the leader that I am. “I need you to sign this. It’s meaningless without them knowing you’re alive.”

  “I am?” He sits up and rubs his eyes. His voice comes like another person speaks through him now, and I try not to let it show how that bothers me.

  Hands in his lap, posture defeated. “I am,” he repeats as if convincing himself. “But not as myself.”

  It’s what I’ve felt about him too, but I keep hoping…

  I grab the pen and try to hand it to him, holding the paper flat on his desk. “Then, a new you.”

  He doesn’t move. Jeremy stares at me bewildered as he has since waking.

  Now that he’s talking, I continue, “The people are ready once again, Jeremy, this is the push they need. Maybe just a little longer and we will have to return home.”

  He cuts a hand through the air. “Not yet, Crystal. I’m not ready to go back, maybe never. If you could only understand how close I am to becoming one of those… things. I sense it. They work like a little hive of psychopaths, and whenever they are near, it buzzes in my brain, it tries to take hold of me. Can you imagine in Anthem how many of them are there, all working together like little insects for my family? I’ll become a Guard. I’ll march with them. I’ll kill innocent people all in the name of my family’s rotten-to-the-core ideals. Everything my father ever dreamed of!” Jeremy pauses to breathe. He’s panting like he’s run a mile and I fight the urge to grab onto him. “I can’t do that. Can you see? If you need to leave, then go. But I’m staying.”

  Jeremy fades away at times. The purging, the zombie blood, it takes him from us as often as he is here. He will just… sleep while standing or sitting. It’s spooky and horrific. And he’s right. I fear that one day he will look at me and not be Jeremy ever again.

  The doctor interrupts us. “Feeling better? I see you’ve been writing.”

  He checks Jeremy’s eyes with a pen light. The purple is much darker than it used to be.

  “Not better but not worse,” Jeremy says.

  I show the doctor the p
aper. His emotions are harder to see, but when he finishes, I sense a subtle shift.

  He hands it back to me gently as if it will break. “You’ll send this to the people?”

  “Yes.”

  We sit in silence for a moment. Perhaps it is an unspoken dream we share because it’s too gushy to talk about out loud. Freedom is like that. Young and old. Near and far. Tangible and hidden in the rubble, all at the same time.

  In the shadow of possible true freedom, one becomes very quiet, like a chastised child whose respect needs maturing.

  Jeremy lays back again, his eyes turning from the purple I love, the purple I dream about, they go even darker if possible when they start to leave us.

  “I don’t know why you need me, Crystal. I am only one man,” Jeremy says.

  “Most prophets were but one man,” the doctor says.

  It’s too much. Far too much for a mere teenaged man.

  A single tear falls to the floor, and the doctor and I pretend that we don’t see it before we stare at the moisture where it lands. We listen to the weary voice of the uprising, whispering desperate last words before he goes into that place he returns less and less from, “But this one is made of paper. Don’t you two see that I’m burning away?”