Nightchaser

by Amanda Bouchet

  I gaped. “I’m just one person. And I didn’t start any of this.”

  Bridgebane snaked his hand out fast enough to grab my weaponless arm. I yelped, and Shade leaned in, pressing the gun harder to my uncle’s head. Bridgebane ignored him and pushed up my sleeve, baring the crook of my elbow where the skin still showed a small bruise and needle mark.

  “See?” His eyes cut to mine with an almost frantic edge. “You even do it to yourself. Who will get your blood next, Quin? Where will it stop? When?”

  Stepping back, I wrenched my arm from his grip. “I did it for the children! But you wouldn’t understand protecting someone other than yourself.”

  He flinched. Ruthless, implacable Nathaniel Bridgebane flinched like I’d just slapped him across the face.

  “I wasn’t there.” He went toneless again, his face turning blank. “I couldn’t help Caitrin, and you and she didn’t know what was in the blood.”

  I hadn’t heard my mother’s name spoken out loud in years. It ripped through me like a gunshot, leaving a hole in my chest.

  “You’d already abandoned us.” A tremor crept into my words, and my voice dropped. “Why? Why did you do that?”

  Bridgebane ignored the guns between us and searched my face with his eyes. I could have sworn he was looking for something. Maybe understanding, or even forgiveness. “Because I couldn’t help you—either of you—and I couldn’t stay there and watch.”

  My heart ached, torn between hate and something I didn’t understand, couldn’t process. “So you joined the forces of evil?”

  “Evil is a perspective, Quin.”

  “Evil is evil!”

  “I did what I could.”

  He kept saying that, but I didn’t believe him. He was from Sector 17. He knew their plight. He’d lived through the destruction. His stepsister had ended up the spoils of war—or a bridge to peace, as the conquering Overseer had liked to put it—and Nate had followed her.

  “Mom sucked it up and married that toad.” The Overseer had wanted her, and she’d wanted peace. It had been an attempt to heal the galaxy after my father had shown what out-weaponing everyone in all the worlds could do. “The least you could have done was stick by her instead of buying into Dad’s crap.”

  “I. Did. What. I. Could,” my uncle grated out, his teeth and jaw not even moving.

  “You said you’d kill me!” I yelled, years of anger and betrayal pouring out. “When you brought me here, you said you’d kill me if I ever used my real name or showed myself again.”

  Bridgebane kept staring at me, searching, something weird and unsettling in his eyes. “I put the fear of the Powers into you so you’d hide! And it worked—until you got stupid and stole the lab and then announced yourself over the com into DW 12. Why did you do that?”

  “I thought I was going to die! I didn’t care what I said.” Although the sinking sensation inside me told me I cared a lot now that my father knew I wasn’t dead. My uncle had a point: handing over the lab would have made the Overseer at least think twice about going on a public, hard-to-explain daughter hunt. Without the lab to give him what he wanted, he’d come after me with everything he had.

  “That serum is not worth your life!” Bridgebane shouted. “An unwinnable fight is not worth your life!”

  He wanted to protect me? But he’d said he’d bring me in. Without the lab, it was me. He needed to provide something…or the Overseer would go on a rampage to find more type A1 blood. And the Overseer on a rampage was a terrifying thought.

  I didn’t want to feel anything but hatred for my uncle. I’d loved him once, but he’d ruined that. Now I was confused—about so much.

  “You shot my ship!” I accused.

  “I tried to disable you! You were about to jump into the Widow!”

  “If you take me in, to him, what kind of life do I have?” I asked.

  “An alive one,” he ground out.

  “No one’s taking her anywhere,” Shade cut in. His eyes darted to me, a quick flash of brown. “Would you fucking run already?”

  Bridgebane suddenly raised his gun again. He turned it on his own head, and my reaction was visceral. Immediate. Horror blasted through me, and a hot flare of adrenaline burned in my veins.

  “Would this make you feel better?” He stared straight at me, his finger pulsing on the trigger. “Would Caitrin forgive me then?”

  “No!” I reached for him. At the same time, Shade gave me a hard shove back.

  “Go!” Shade barked.

  I stumbled back. “Uncle Nate?”

  He kept staring at me, the veins in his hand turning thick and bulging, his gun smashing his dark hair against the side of his head just where some streaks of gray were starting to show up.

  Backing away from him, I lowered my weapon and stuffed it into the waistband of my pants. I had no idea what had happened to this man, why he’d become Bridgebane to me and to everyone else, but I remembered when he’d held me on his lap and played with me. He’d looked like he loved me then. Right now, he kind of looked the same.

  Tears stung my eyes. “Don’t. That won’t earn my forgiveness. Or Mom’s.” I stopped backing up. “I want you to fight. Stand up and fight!”

  He shook his head. “It’s too late for that, monkey.”

  A spasm ripped through my heart. I used to climb all over him. He was big and strong, and I’d been small once upon a time. He’d let me use him like a tree and even found me a book about these extinct furry animals and called me monkey.

  I swallowed hard.

  He lowered the gun from his temple. “Don’t single-handedly ruin what your mother sacrificed herself for.”

  “Peace?” A chill swept down my spine. “What peace do we have?”

  “Have the Outer Zones been annihilated? Has another planet been destroyed? Has your beloved Starway 8 been nuked with everyone inside?”

  I drew in a sharp breath, my eyes widening.

  “It’s give and take, Quin. Choose your battles, or it’s all-out war.”

  I started stumbling back again. “I’ve chosen mine.”

  “He’ll never let it go!” my uncle bellowed. “You’re damning us both. You’re making the wrong choice!”

  “No! You chose wrong!” I thought Mom had, too. But if she hadn’t, would the Outer Zones still have existed today? I wouldn’t have existed, but I wouldn’t have cared if I hadn’t been born in the first place.

  Shade’s athletic tread raced after me, catching up. I turned the corner, and the first shot rang out.

  I skidded to a halt, turning. Shade popped into sight, his body twisting around to return fire. He aimed low. He wasn’t shooting to kill. If he had been, I don’t think he would have missed.

  “Go! Go!” Never stopping, Shade pushed me ahead of him. “He doesn’t want to kill you. No problem killing me, though.”

  We ran, and my uncle stalked after us. The corridor was long but thankfully empty because of the dinner hour. Bridgebane fired, countable seconds between each shot. He wasn’t letting off indiscriminate rounds; he was aiming at Shade only.

  Shade turned to fire back, keeping me behind him. He grunted, and his steps faltered.

  “Where are you hit?” I cried.

  “Thigh.”

  I got under Shade’s arm and helped him. Damn, he was heavy. He took most of his own weight back and limped forward. I tried to shield him this time.

  “Quin!” My uncle’s voice boomed down the hallway. “Don’t leave with that man. You have no idea what he’s capable of.”

  “Coming from you, it must be dire,” I shouted back.

  We needed a shortcut to the Endeavor’s dock before Bridgebane caught up to us. I grabbed Shade’s gun and shot at my uncle. Bullets pinged around his feet and stuck in the impact-absorbent walls. I looked for a ventilation shaft with a blue keypad on it. Red le
d up. We needed down, and we needed it fast.

  “Come back, or I’ll have to find someone else just like you,” Bridgebane threatened. “How do you feel about that? The testing? The searching? Maybe I’ll test every single kid in this place. How would you like that?”

  My stomach clenched at the thought.

  Another shot rang out. Shade and I ducked, hurrying our labored steps.

  “Come back, Quin. Hand over the bounty hunter, come with me, and I’ll tell you everything.”

  I paused in my steps. What more was there? What did he know that I didn’t?

  “Seriously?” Shade took his gun back and hammered off a few shots to slow down my uncle and keep him at a distance before pushing me along again. “You’re crap in a fight. We really have to work on this.”

  “I took you down.” I angled myself to protect him and had to admit that it was a good thing for both of us that my uncle didn’t want me dead.

  “I wasn’t trying,” he said. “And I was worried about Bonk.”

  The ice in my heart melted a little too much, and a little too fast. It hurt.

  “Is he okay?” I asked, anxious. “I don’t hear him.”

  Boom! Bridgebane let off a shot, and I jumped.

  Boom! Boom! Shade fired back, pushing us up against the wall.

  “He’s sedated. I didn’t want the bag to freak him out.”

  The bag was mesh on both sides. Ventilation. I looked up at Shade with wide eyes.

  “Come on!” He pulled me forward. “How the hell have you survived so far? Or on the fucking Mile?” he ground out.

  “I’m not useless.” I was working on getting us out of here, although I wasn’t nearly as panicked since discovering that Shade wasn’t my enemy, and that my uncle would rather shoot himself than shoot me.

  Maybe I was still in shock over both those things.

  Shade growled something foul when I stopped again. Ignoring his protest and my uncle’s approaching steps, I reached for the blue keypad on the ventilation access panel next to us. I’d created a system-wide code about ten years ago and secretly programmed it to forever status—Queen Bee was the password. The overlying code could have changed a hundred times since then, but the lock would still remember me.

  “Shortcut,” I told Shade as I quickly punched in the numbers corresponding to my permanent password. I stayed in front of him, so my uncle wouldn’t shoot. The corridors were monstrously long, the elevators were far away, and Bridgebane would be relentless if he thought he could still catch me without hurting me.

  The door to the ventilation shaft swung open. “See? Skills. And on the Mile, I had Jax.”

  “I’ll shoot him in the head, Quin.” My uncle was practically on top of us, his gun raised, his finger on the trigger, and Shade in his sights. He’d made up some serious ground the second we stopped shooting to keep him back.

  My heart pounding, I covered Shade as he dove into the crawl space, leaving blood on the rim of the panel.

  Bridgebane looked livid, but he didn’t shoot. He did start to run, his free hand lifting to grab me.

  I dove in after Shade, turned, and slammed the door shut, nearly catching Bridgebane’s fingers in the crack.

  My uncle roared.

  I roared back. “See you in hell, Uncle Nate!”

  “Quin!” He beat what must have been the butt of his gun against the ventilation shaft door.

  To the thud, thud, thud, I followed Shade as he started to crawl.

  “You’ve left me no choice,” Bridgebane bellowed. “I’ll take one. You choose. Mareeka or Surral.”

  I froze, icing over. Shade stopped with me, turning back.

  I suddenly felt light, but that was just the effect of my blood pressure dropping like a stone.

  Fighting dizziness, I spoke over my shoulder, spoke toward the door. “No, please don’t,” I begged.

  “I can save you from him,” Bridgebane said, his voice tinny through the wall, “but you have to give me something to go on. My position is not a given. If I go, I can’t protect you—or Starway 8.”

  My stomach roiled. I always knew I would do whatever I had to for this place. My whole life was tied up in it. My past. My present. My future. There was nothing that mattered to me more.

  “Mareeka or Surral,” he repeated. “Who can the orphanage live without?”

  Neither. They were the heart and soul of Starway 8.

  Tears welled in my eyes, and I screamed, slamming my fist against the tunnel wall.

  Shade spun fully around in the tight space and took my face in his hands. I saw the fear in his eyes, illuminated by the low light that ran along the metal shaft.

  He shook his head. “No. No, baby. You stay with me.”

  My breathing turned fast and pounding.

  “Just give him some blood,” Shade said, still holding my head. “That’s what he wants, right?”

  I nodded, swallowing hard.

  “Blood exchange,” Shade called through the wall. “Ten days from now at the Grand Temple on Reaginine. No goons. Six bags of her blood, and you leave the women here alone.”

  Shade had taken over the negotiation, but he still looked at me for confirmation. It was my blood, after all.

  I nodded. What else could I do?

  But the Overseer had the formula. He would make the enhancer again.

  But now…we had it, too.

  A clash of monsters rang before my eyes. The spray of blood I saw in the future sickened me.

  “They’ll be unstoppable,” I whispered. “They have this formula… It makes this super soldier stuff.”

  Shade swept his thumbs over my cheekbones. His eyes searched mine. “But if they don’t have you, can’t you make your side unstoppable, too?”

  “But what does the wrath of two unstoppable forces make?”

  Even in the shadows of the ventilation shaft, I saw the grimness that came over his features. “I guess we’ll find out.” He turned again. “And I think I just joined the fight.”

  “Be there, Quin,” Bridgebane ordered. “Or I come back here, and one of them goes to Hourglass Mile.”

  “I’ll be there,” I growled loudly. After I delivered the enhancer to the rebel leaders. My uncle had just forced my decision. I couldn’t destroy the rebellion’s chance of making super soldiers while handing over that same weapon to the Overseer.

  “And Ganavan! I’m transferring her price to your head. Don’t get too attached, Quin. He won’t be around for long. And the bounty hunter had better keep his hands to himself!”

  I snorted. As if that man had the right to… What? Parent me?

  Bridgebane shot at the door. The bullets didn’t come through, of course, or even ricochet off. They stuck, because we had really cool walls.

  Chapter 28

  “Not that way!” I cried when Shade took my three-second breather as incentive to strike out first again. He pitched forward and started sliding down a near-vertical shaft.

  I grabbed his ankle with both hands and tried to gain traction with my bare feet. His weight dragged us both down. He slipped fully over the edge, and so did my head. A huge fan spun below.

  “The sides!” I yelled frantically. “Spread out your arms. There are indents.”

  Shade spread his arms wide and his fingers found the hollows. They were barely there and hardly visible, but there was enough contour to sink his palms into and stop his fall. I pulled on his leg, and he climbed with his arms, indent after indent. His shoulder muscles bunched, and his triceps bulged under his shirt, standing out from the effort.

  Once his hips cleared the edge, he wiggled back, and we flopped down together in the mostly level tunnel, both of us breathing hard.

  “Who the fuck builds a shaft like that?” Seeming incensed, Shade adjusted a still-sleeping Bonk. “There are kids in this place.�
��

  The depressions along the sides of the steep shaft were a half-assed safety feature for whoever was in a harness every year or so doing maintenance on the fan. The slippery drop over the edge was designed to fool intruders. It didn’t seem so steep or different at first, and then, bam! You were falling.

  “It’s a booby trap,” I explained, my heart still racing to a panicked beat.

  “A booby trap?” Shade echoed, scowling.

  “Starway 8 is equipped for war, prepared for just about anything. Except for during those few hours every now and then when the security cameras are undergoing maintenance—like right now,” I said a little sourly.

  “I wondered why no one questioned me on the docks.” Shade snorted softly. “Great timing.”

  I shrugged. I knew Mareeka well enough to guess at her reasoning. “I only let them know we were arriving five minutes before we got here. They didn’t know when we’d come, or even if we’d come, and they didn’t realize I could be bringing this much trouble with me. Honestly, if it’s necessary to take security off-line, what better time to do it than when the news has spread about an awful virus?”

  Shade nodded. “It got me to you, so I’m not complaining.”

  I frowned. “How did you find me? This place is huge.”

  “Bridgebane used to like me. In his way, at least. He sent me his personal com signal the second he located you on Starway 8, hoping for backup.” Something rather devilish crept into his expression, despite the strain of worry and injury. “All I had to do was follow it around a few corners before I came up behind you.”

  “He didn’t even look surprised to see you so fast.”

  “He knows I’m good.”

  I huffed. “And insanely arrogant.”

  “Hardly, sugar.” He winced, straightening out his wounded leg. “Just telling the truth. Now tell me more about this ‘equipped for war’ while I bandage my thigh.”

  “With what?” I asked.

  Shade ripped an entire sleeve off his shirt, sat up as best he could in the tunnel, and started to wrap his leg. I moved to help him, and our fingers tangled, reminding me of other times we’d been tangled up together.

  Unsettled, I drew back, and he tied off the knot.