“Yeah,” I said, “if by ‘coherent plan,’ you mean ‘obliterating the human population to raise your own hybrid army.’”
“I said coherent. Not compassionate.”
I glared at his calm smirk, glad for the reminder that, no matter what else might be going on, I would never be without good reason to despise this creature. It felt good. Good in a way I doubted many soothsayers would deem “mentally healthy,” maybe. But good all the same.
“Haldin.”
I stirred from my inner hate fest and took in the serious look on Parker’s face.
“I understand you’re not ready to hear this, but I ask you to at least consider that it may be time to—”
“To what?” I searched his calm, calculating eyes. “To forget about my planet and help you instead?”
“That is a supremely shortsighted way of looking at it. If you honestly believe you can still hope to affect the tide of this—”
“You can stop right there,” I said, standing to leave. “Because if you honestly believe I could ever run away and just forget about all this, you haven’t been paying close attention.”
“So that’s what he wants, huh?”
I jerked around at the unexpected voice to find Johnny standing in the doorway, staring past me with unseeing eyes. He looked like he was in shock. But not at what he’d just heard, I thought. He looked like…
“Johnny? What happened?”
“It’s… It’s Bells,” he said, his absent gaze momentarily flicking to Parker on the display before returning to the thousand-yard stare. “She’s… Therese says she looks… better today. There’s still a bunch of tests to run, apparently, but…” He finally stirred from his funk and fixed his eyes on me. “Therese says she thinks the treatment… she thinks it’s working.”
I stood there staring, trying to wrap my head around the news—and moreover around the fact that I didn’t find myself jumping for joy. Why? Because it sounded too uncertain? Too good to be true? Or was it because the treatment in question had come from Alton gropping Parker, and the thought that it might actually be genuine, and not some dirty trick, chilled me to the bone as much as any bad news ever could have?
That moment stretched on forever—me hovering there, all too aware of the silent weight of Parker’s presence on the display beside me. Johnny staring at the raknoth’s image, thinking Alpha knew what. Parker just standing there, lost in his own quiet thoughts.
I waited, wondering if I should say something, expecting any moment that Parker would finally let loose some snide comment, or that Johnny might even thank the raknoth—or at least threaten him about what would happen if this turned sideways. But no one spoke.
Finally, Johnny roused from his reveries, shot a dark look at the display, and turned to me. “We should get to the medica. Freya might want to call that meeting sooner than later.”
And with that, he was gone.
I glanced at Parker, then turned to follow my friend, not trusting myself to talk right then, much less to sort through the raknoth’s bullscud.
“Consider what I said, Haldin,” Parker said before I’d made it three steps.
I hesitated, then killed the connection and followed Johnny out into the hallway. He was propped against the opposite wall, arms crossed, looking like he was trying to decide whether to be happy or angry, or to simply give up and allow himself to melt into the permacrete floor.
“It’s good news about Anna,” I said, not knowing where else to start. “Therese wouldn’t have gotten your hopes up if she didn’t mean it about her getting better.”
For a second, he looked like he wanted to say something, but the somber silence only stretched.
“I take it Therese and Phineas are still safe in Haven?” I finally asked.
Still nothing. He just stood there, lost in some point on the opposite wall, his face an emotionless mask.
This wasn’t right. Any of it. That Annabelle had ever been dragged into this nightmare at all. That the entire situation had gotten so gropped we couldn’t even share a moment’s happiness over the news that maybe she was going to be okay. But this wasn’t just about Annabelle, either. I could see that much on Johnny’s inexpressive face.
He also felt betrayed. And it wasn’t hard to guess why.
“I told you he wanted my help,” I said.
“You just forgot to mention the part where it included an invitation to leave the planet,” he said flatly, not looking up.
“It didn’t seem worth mentioning.”
“Because you’ve already got it all figured out.”
“Because it’s gropping ridiculous.”
He finally looked up. “So you’re not thinking about it? About leaving?”
“No.” I shook my head. “No way. It’s… This is my home, Johnny. Our home. I’m not gonna go flying off looking for monsters when we’ve already got a perfectly good scudstorm in need of tending here.”
“And after we’ve tended that scudstorm?”
I opened my mouth with decisive certainty, only to find that I didn’t have an answer. I wanted to tell him that I’d be right here, ready to defend the planet from the next one—or, Alpha forbid, to finally just enjoy the peace beside him and Elise. But the rakul were out there. Kul’Naga was out there. I’d seen him. Felt his power. And if that creature was truly on an inevitable collision course for Enochia…
Johnny quietly shook his head at whatever he saw on my face. “Come on.” He pushed himself off the wall and turned to leave. “There’s no way I’m gonna win servitor of the year if I don’t get your bruised ass to the medica.”
“Johnny, I’m not gonna—”
I fell silent at his look.
“I might not know what you’re gonna do, Hal, but I know you well enough to know that you don’t really know at this point either. I see that bastard’s words turning in your head. I see you actually starting to consider it. Because that asshole knows what makes you tick. He knows exactly how to appeal to your deepest desire.”
“And what’s that?” I asked, irritation rising in my chest.
Johnny dropped my gaze. “That you need to believe you’re the hero of this story.”
His tone was flat, but he might as well have slapped me. My insides turned over like gravity had momentarily reoriented itself, and I stood there, staring at my friend, wondering how he could say such a thing. I wanted to argue—that I didn’t think that at all, that that’s not what was happening here, that I was the hero of this story, dammit…
But my brain didn’t want to form the words. It was too concerned with the insidious chill worming its way through my insides. Such a simple, harmless statement, and yet it’d left me so stunned. I didn’t understand it. Especially not when it wasn’t all that different from the warnings Johnny had given me before—to remember that this fight didn’t belong to me alone, and that the men and women who chose to support me against the Sanctum were fighting not for me, but for what they believed their planet should be.
They were words I’d tried my best to keep close to my heart. But something about the way he’d just said the words, hero and believe, like maybe Johnny was less than certain himself what to believe anymore…
“Come on,” Johnny said, still avoiding my eyes. “We’re wasting time. We can talk about this when we’re not both ready to collapse.”
I didn’t argue. Just fell in beside him as he turned for the operations room.
We walked down the hallway side-by-side, the silence hanging like a softsteel anchor between us. He was probably right. With the fire growing in my wrists and the incessant hunger pangs growing in my belly, now was hardly the time for a serious inward look. We’d both almost died, I’d just found out my girlfriend had filled my boots as envoy to the freaking Emmútari, and Johnny was clearly dealing with the emotional ride of his sister’s progress. We probably both needed a few minutes to clear our heads.
But that didn’t stop his words from playing through my head over and over a
gain as we marched off for the medica, silent as the urn.
Much as the shared silence bothered me, I didn’t argue when we reached the medica and the medics immediately split us up—taking Johnny off for a quick once-over of his cuts and bruises and guiding me to a room for overnight admission.
There’d been a time not so long ago that every part of me would’ve rebelled at the thought of lying around while the world was burning out there. But now, after everything that had happened, and after what Johnny had just said, I found I was actually kind of looking forward to the idea of a little quiet peace. At least until my medic swept me into a room, and I realized I was going to have roommates for the night.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I grumbled.
“Funny,” said Garrett, looking up from Siren’s bedside to scowl at me even as Four and Eight roused in their own beds. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
30
Bad Company
Even with a full stomach, a cush medica bed, and a heavy dose of painkillers and nanites circling through my blood, the afternoon did not pass particularly pleasantly.
Mostly, I blamed the company. And not just because half of the room’s occupants had tried to kill me at one point or another. It was more that I just desperately needed some time alone with my thoughts. If the medics hadn’t been so clearly understaffed in Oasis, I might’ve worked up the audacity to ask for a separate room.
Truth be told, though, the ex-Seekers weren’t really all that abrasive, aside from the few casual jabs Garrett had thrown my way as I’d settled into the room. Four and Eight had been rather courteous, even, in the light of what we’d all gone through to pull them out of the White Tower square.
For the most part, though, we all stuck to the solitude of our own thoughts, which was fine by me. In a way, it was almost comforting, sharing the heavy silence with four other individuals who were arguably as deeply entrenched in the scud as I was. Almost comforting. Even if they were all murderers.
Some part of me gave an inward and very Alton-Parker-esque eye roll at that hard condemnation, pointing out that maybe I could finally admit that they’d been through a little more than I understood, and that maybe it wasn’t fair to just slap that label across all their foreheads. But maybe that was just the past days’ madness and the warm honey-brain kiss of the painkillers talking. They had all killed people, after all. Lots of people. And it probably said a thing or two about my mental state that I had to actively remind myself that was still a big gropping deal, raknoth invasions and Sanctum incursions be damned.
What I would’ve liked more than anything was to simply sleep the afternoon away in blissful ignorance. But tired as I was, sleep refused to come. There was just too much to worry about. Elise and the Emmútari. Johnny and Bells. Glenbark and the gropping Sanctum. It felt like everyone I knew was waging their own private war at this point, and that I’d somehow managed to stick my would-be heroic head into every single one of them.
The thought reminded me of something Johnny had once said to me about my chronic inability to resist sticking my fingers into every single problem I saw, never trusting that maybe, just maybe, someone other than the mighty Haldin Raish could be trusted to handle business. And maybe it had been that bright moods and low-hanging innuendos had distracted us from the heart of the matter that day. Or maybe I simply hadn’t been ready to hear it. But now, as much as I thought I’d already taken Johnny’s advice to heart, I couldn’t avoid it.
He’d been more right than I’d known.
More right than maybe even he’d known.
Just like I was growing more and more certain that he’d been right about what he’d said back in Central Command earlier: that I was falling straight back into my fae tale delusions of heroic grandeur, and that Alton Parker was gleefully tugging my leash every step of the way.
Since the hybrid armies had fallen and the Legion had retaken Oasis, I thought I’d been doing better. I’d listened to what Glenbark and the others had said. I’d resisted my myriad urges to try to take every matter into my own hands. I’d been a team player. Or so I’d told myself, at least.
And then along came Alton Parker, feeding me the secrets that only I could see, that only I could use to save Enochia. He’d placed me right back up on that valiant pedestal where I’d been the only one who could take the necessary steps—the only one who could even see the steps that were needed to protect our planet.
He’d left me no choice.
Or so I’d told myself.
“What do you think over there, Raish?” came Garrett’s voice, tugging my attention back to the medica, where my four roommates were all watching me expectantly.
“About what?” I asked.
“About what?” he repeated, scowling at me. “Alpha, have you heard a word we’ve said in the past five minutes?”
“Should I have?”
“This is why no one likes you,” Four muttered, shaking his head.
I frowned at him. “What happened to all the thank you for saving my life stuff from earlier?”
Four shrugged. “I never said I liked you.”
“I like him just fine,” Siren said sleepily.
“She doesn’t know what she’s saying,” Garrett said, with a pointed look at the drug infusion pumps that were no doubt giving Siren her own case of the honey brain.
“No, he’s got spunk,” Siren argued. “Like a…”
We all watched, waiting for the follow-up until I thought she might’ve actually nodded off.
“… like a three-legged hound,” she said, blinking dazedly, and slurring a little. “You never know quite how he’s going to pull it off, but you’re never disappointed.”
“Uh, thanks?” I said.
Siren just smiled contentedly.
“As I was saying,” Garrett muttered, adjusting her blankets for her, careful not to agitate her shoulder where she’d been shot in the Legion’s initial push.
“We were asking whether you think the High Cleric will command an attack on Oasis tonight,” Four said.
“Oh.” I looked around at them. “Do you?”
“Alpha,” Four said. “You honestly didn’t hear a single word, did you?”
Siren stirred. “He’s too busy thinking about his sexy little…” She trailed off. Then, seeming to re-notice Garrett for the first time, she made an appreciative purring sound and tugged him down by the front of his shirt.
To our collective unease, Garrett’s lack of regard for Siren’s drug-brained declarations did not extend to her romantic advances. I swallowed and did my best to look away and focus on Four and Eight while Garrett and Siren filled the sterile-smelling room with the wet smacks of sloppy kisses.
“It never ends with them, does it?”
“How should I know?” Four asked, openly staring at the lip-smacking pair. “This is forbidden. Was forbidden. They would’ve been killed for this back in the Sanctum.”
Eight cleared her throat loud enough to cut through the pheromones. “And they still might be.”
That, at least, got the two to cool it for the moment. They broke apart, Siren with a breathless little giggle, and Garrett with a glare that said he might’ve considered killing all three of us if it meant he could finish what they’d just started.
“Fine,” he growled. “Let’s get back to the part where we’re all going to die because you people can’t stop pissing off the entire world.”
“Us?” I asked.
He ticked us each off with a pointing finger. “I’m counting three assholes who’ve ended up on the gallows.” His finger paused on me. “And one who can’t seem to eat his morning grains without starting a gropping war.”
“You think this is my fault?” I stared around the room. “You think there’s any version of our history where this wasn’t eventually going to happen anyway? Your Sanctum is a pile of steaming hypocrisy sitting on a mountain of lies.”
“It’s not our Sanctum,” Four said. “It never was.”
/>
No one argued. Garrett’s gaze fell to the floor, a dark look settling on his face, his hand drifting to the spot on his throat where I knew there’d once been an explosive collar—the ever-present mark of their enslavement.
Because they had been slaves, hadn’t they?
“What lies do you speak of?” Eight asked in her reserved tone.
A weary weight settled over me as I remembered Four and Eight hadn’t received the full extent of Alton Parker’s world-shaking truths. I wasn’t looking forward to wading through it all yet again to the open disbelief of Four’s swarthy stare and Eight’s stony one. Luckily, Garrett was willing to do the honors—albeit with a good amount more eye-rolling and open skepticism than I might’ve employed. Still, I was happy to sit back and let him go.
“You trust a raknoth in all of this?” Four asked me when Garrett had finished.
“I was inside his mind,” I said. If any roomful of people on the planet understood what that meant, it was this one. “But even if he somehow misguided me in any way, I am sure of one thing. There was a time when people like us were seen as respected keepers of the peace rather than unholy fiends to be mobbed down and strung up.”
By the uncertain look Four and Eight exchanged, I was pretty sure that they, like Garrett and Siren, had also never heard of the Emmútari before.
“And what happened to these respected keepers of the peace?” Four asked. “You’re not telling us that…”
I nodded. “Sarentus united the twelve nations against—”
“Against an army of manifest demons,” Eight said, her jaw rigid and her brow as stern as that of any cleric reading from the old texts. “An army the likes of which Enochia has never again seen since the Sanctum came to power and Alpha’s light—”
“Permitted Sarentus and his Sanctum to develop their own private kill squad,” Garrett provided, “and to start snuffing out whatever demons remained.”
Eight clearly wanted to argue, but there was also hesitation there.
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