The Stolen Sky (Split City Book 2)

by Heather Hansen

  They’d created the need for the electro-services. A strategic blast on the power grid had taken out service to Sky Tower Two, forcing the Tower to run on auxiliary power. There were so many things that could go wrong before they even made their way inside. It was the most expedient plan, even if it was a gamble.

  Dade didn’t like how parts of this plan left them vulnerable. If anyone looked inside the van, they’d be in trouble, caught in this metal tube without any escape, ready to be picked off.

  The interior of the electro-van was filled with equipment, most of it useless to them. It had taken Venz ten minutes to circumvent the circuitry and make it into a large-scale deadener. One that would keep communication from exiting the Tower, and if it became necessary, cut off communication inside Tower Two as well.

  All four of them barely had room to sit.

  Coco and Annem placed themselves near the front of the cargo hold where a little window in the wall separated them from the cab where Mina drove. They sat close, their bodies touching and heads turned together, whispering. He couldn’t hear what they said, but there was something going on between the two of them. Their whispers were getting louder, punctuated with exclamations.

  Dade leaned against the side of the van between panels of circuit boards. His legs were spread, knees folded up to his chest. The butt of his blast-phaser rested on the ground, the barrel gripped in front of him. He swayed as the van soared through the sky, the metal hard on his rear.

  Yet no matter how badly his body ached, sitting across from Roan was more uncomfortable. They were positioned near the sealed back door. Roan’s intense glare expressed a deep anger at Dade. He suspected it was because Dade had disarmed the altercation between Arden and Roan. And Roan was still spoiling for a fight. Roan’s gaze never turned away.

  Dade wasn’t intimidated. He stared right back. They’d have it out eventually. And he was looking forward to it more and more. Perhaps he should have let Arden pummel Roan. The dude got under his skin.

  It was warm inside the enclosed area. There was a little air shifting through the space to keep the equipment from getting too warm. Even with it, the machines still gave off massive amounts of heat. Dade felt like he was suffocating, like he was baking from the inside out. He shifted once more and pulled at the collar of his running suit.

  Those in the group grew silent as they approached the loading dock below Sky Tower Two. Mina drove inside and stopped at the plasma guard wall, then spoke with the guard through the milky electro-discharge of the plasma guard wall. Dade could hear a voice, though the conversation was muted. This was the most dangerous part of the mission, when they were locked inside without an escape. Dade held himself coiled with the tip of his blast-phaser leaning toward the back door.

  Inside the van, the glow from the panels lit their faces. Roan appeared as stressed as Dade, though his gaze remained on Dade and not on the door. Coco leaned heavily on the wall between them and the front, clearly listening to Mina’s conversation. Beside her, Annem’s eyes were wide. Her mouth moved, but there was no sound.

  It was taking too long.

  Just as Dade let the worry fill him that they were about to be detained, the electro-van was moving again. The breath left Dade’s body with a hiss, burning his lungs. The tightness in his stomach didn’t lessen. Instead, it sat heavy, making him feel cold and sick.

  Several moments later, the van stopped again. Mina didn’t turn to look at them, but she spoke loud enough that they could all hear her. “Be right back, stay alive.”

  She left the electro-van dressed in a utilities uniform. Her absence seemed to pull the quick-seal off the bubbling tension. Roan cracked his neck, and the girls began to argue with each other.

  The feeling of being trapped overwhelmed Dade. He couldn’t see outside of the electro-van to make sure they weren’t attracting attention. There were voices beyond, reminding him that very little stood between him and the inevitable assault. Meanwhile, the girls’ disagreement aggressively became louder.

  “Stop it,” Annem said to Coco, frustration laced in her words. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “You’re telling me what to do,” Annem said.

  Coco rolled her eyes. “I’m not.”

  “Yeah, you are,” Roan said.

  Both Coco and Annem looked at him and said in unison, “Shut up.”

  “Keep it down,” Dade hissed. What idiots. Did they normally fight like this during a mission?

  Roan, of course, didn’t listen to either girl. He held up his free hand. “Hey, don’t take out your anger on me. I’m the voice of reason.”

  Coco snorted. “Reason, right.”

  There was movement outside the electro-van. Dade tensed. This was not the place or time for an argument. He needed to stop them. If Arden were here, she’d probably blast them all center mass—better they die than her. And being in this situation, he wouldn’t fault her. Already his fingers twitched, wanting to deliver the charge.

  “You’re going to get us caught,” Dade said, his voice no more than a hiss of air.

  “Just because you lived in the Towers, don’t think you’re in charge.” Roan sneered at him, his lip curling.

  Dade ground his teeth and gripped the barrel of the blast-phaser tighter. “I don’t. I just want you to shut up so we don’t die.”

  Coco said to Roan, “Don’t act like you’re in charge either.”

  “You’re one to talk,” Annem said under her breath.

  Coco sent Annem a glare full of frustration. “I worry.”

  “Well, stop it.”

  The three of them continued to argue. Dade closed his eyes, his head pounding. His grip tightened on his phaser, becoming painful.

  Mina opened the back of the van. The doors dissolved, going opaque before disappearing altogether. “We’re hooked in. Let’s go.”

  She stripped off her work shirt, throwing it inside the van. Underneath, she wore a running suit like the rest of them. With Mina returning, all the idiots snapped back into shape. As if Mina were the only one who held them together.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Dade silently entered the office in Sky Tower Two. His phaser raised to waist level in case guards were stationed inside. Adrenaline pumped a steady beat through him. He could almost hear it. And gut-clenching nervousness kept him alert.

  His nervousness was not about the job. No, its sole focus was on the man sitting behind the desk.

  Hernim Croix, his father and head of Croix Industries, sat with his head down. He worked over a light board and vid-projector, fully immersed in his task. Not even when the door swished open and closed did he notice Dade’s presence.

  It was ironic that this was how Dade had spent most of his life: ignored and unobserved.

  He walked to the front of the desk and stood waiting for his father’s attention. For some acknowledgment that he stood there with a phaser pointed at his father’s head. That Dade held his father’s life in his hands.

  His father’s office looked exactly like the last time Dade had been here. The only change was in himself. The difference struck him hard. He knew he looked the same on the outside even though every thought, feeling, and emotion had jumbled and twisted inside him into something new, something bolder and a lot more calculating.

  Honestly, he couldn’t believe he was here. When he’d left, his plan had been to never come back to the Sky Towers. Yet he now stood in his father’s office, facing the one person he hadn’t wanted to deal with ever again.

  His father looked up.

  A beat passed, a thunderous moment of time in which each of them simply stared at the other. Dade could hear his heart thump nearly out of his chest. His lungs burned with his held breath. Then Dade raised his hand and swiped off his mask and pulled down his hood. If he were going to do this, then there would be no doubt to his identity. He wanted to look his father in the eyes, to judge the truth of his words.

  The intensity with
which his father glared threatened to shake Dade’s bones. Dade felt his hairline dampen and his hands become slick. Yet Dade remained stiff. He kept himself together, knowing he could do this.

  His father didn’t say anything at first, allowing the silence to stretch. It felt as vicious as the words could have been. That stare was the one he’d faced time and time again. His father never yelled, but there was always the heavy weight of accusation and disappointment. It felt as if he looked straight into Dade’s soul and knew everything about him, could read every secret he had.

  Dade wished he could interpret his father’s expression, but he’d never been good at that. It was one of the things that would have served him well in the past.

  Instead he relied on the coping skills he’d learned here, in Sky Tower Two. He didn’t move a muscle. To do so would signal to his father that he was weak. Most of his concentration he kept on breathing evenly and projecting a confidence he didn’t feel.

  Hernim steepled his fingers to his lips, his elbows on the desk as he considered Dade. There was a long moment where Dade felt the full brunt of his judgment before his father finally snarled, “I knew you’d show.”

  He exhibited no surprise that Dade was suddenly there—alive. Dade had assumed his family had thought him dead. If his father had known he’d survived, why hadn’t he bothered to find him?

  “How’d you get past security?” Hernim asked.

  Dade forced himself to answer with a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “I have friends.”

  His father scowled. “That remains to be seen.”

  Dade held his tongue in the best interests of this mission. Arguing with his father was not what he’d come here for. Their final days together were a blur of disputes. They didn’t see eye to eye and never had. Over the years, those disagreements had only gotten worse. Dade had never been motivated by money or power. Nor had he ever been the son his father wanted. Had failed his father in every way. He’d felt lost. Not fitting the mold his family expected had created a loathing that Dade nurtured within himself.

  Until Saben had been hired as his bodyguard. Things had begun to change then. Dade had realized there could be more to his empty life. And Saben had suggested ways in which to give back to others, as a way to fill that hollow part of his soul. It had helped to soothe that ache of being different.

  Perhaps it had always been inevitable that he and his father would be here now on opposite ends of the table. The trajectory of their relationship was always going to come to a head. Even if Dade had done his best to avoid launching a full-scale conflict.

  Dade cleared his throat. “Why did the govies try to kill me?”

  At the point when the govies had attacked him, neither Dade nor his father had made a move against the other. Hadn’t yet crossed the line where they could no longer go back. For Dade, he hadn’t felt ready. He still didn’t have the necessary leverage or the plans to make his rebellion work out. And wasn’t sure that he could wage a war against his father.

  That had changed. Ready or not, his father had declared war on him.

  The govies couldn’t have known Dade would be rescued. The one thing that never had made sense was that the govies acted against a Solizen and risked outright war. The Solizen were too powerful. Someone must have given permission to shoot at Dade. Nakomzer wouldn’t have ordered the hit unless his father somehow knew and approved of it.

  This was the one thing that he still had a hard time accepting. It gutted him to think this was the case. His father had always been a cold bastard. Dade had known that when the time came, his father would cut him out, regardless of familial relations. Yet he’d never considered the possibility he’d order Dade’s death.

  As much as he turned it over in his mind, he couldn’t come up with another viable scenario. He wanted denial. Wanted it more than he could put into words.

  Dade waited.

  No denial came.

  “You were in the way,” his father said, confirming what Dade knew to be true, that power was more important to his father than his own son.

  The hope that he’d been wrong died instantly. There was a moment of pure heartbreak inside Dade. It sliced through the center of his chest. The heavy shroud of betrayal clouded his mind.

  His father really, truly wanted him dead. It wasn’t just a supposition. He hadn’t read the situation wrong. How much cruelty could be trapped inside a person to decide to end his son’s life?

  The physical manifestation of Dade’s emotional pain was so intense that it nearly brought him to his knees. He found it difficult to breathe. Everything misted over suddenly, as if a sheen covered his senses, as if he watched this whole scene from far away, as if it were happening to someone else.

  Dade’s mind spun. He forced himself to stop and reassess. Deep down, he’d known his father would react to minimize him. Had prepared himself for this. It was why he’d agreed to be here today. His father did not deserve his loyalty.

  “You wouldn’t listen.” His father made a sweeping gesture around his office. The cruel expression never left his face. “This was all yours. I built this for you, and yet you betrayed me.”

  “I didn’t betray you,” Dade said. At least he hadn’t before he’d agreed to help Mina mount a break-in at the Sky Tower. And now, he had no guilt over the current situation. This had happened because his father had pushed Dade to this point.

  “Every time you broke into my facilities and stole VitD was a betrayal of everything we have, of our family. Did you think I would just sit by and allow you to ruin the empire I’ve built?”

  Dade couldn’t deny that he’d worked against his father and the other Solizen. Though it wasn’t with the intention of crushing them. He’d made sure that while he’d stolen from them, his actions wouldn’t cause lasting damage. Could his father say the same? It cost his father nothing but loss of credits, yet Dade had saved people’s lives. He’d make the same choice over again.

  He was proud of the work he’d done. The fact that he’d helped the poor, given access to life-saving meds to children. If he had died that day, his life would have had meaning. No matter how his father twisted his sacrifice, Dade knew it had value, and he would never regret that.

  After he’d fallen off the building, in the moments before he’d blacked out, he realized that the only thing that would do differently if he had a chance to live life over was that he’d work harder for change. Increase his influence to upset the power structure.

  The person who’d really betrayed their connection had been his father. Dade had never sought harm for anyone. He wanted love and hope. Not this anger and resentment that festered between them. He couldn’t be loyal to this man. When he’d woken up and realized he’d been saved, it had lit a fire under him. There was no doubt about his life’s calling. There would be no guilt about what steps he took to guarantee it.

  “I gave you an opportunity to make it right, to sacrifice for your family. You were supposed to marry Clarissa and ensure our family’s power. Yet you planned to run out on that.”

  “I didn’t do what you wanted, so your solution was to kill me?” Dade asked. He was grateful that his voice didn’t shake. Dade wasn’t afraid of him, but Hernim was still his father. There was always going to be the link of birth, the connection that sometimes meant everything but in this case clearly meant nothing.

  How had his father known what they were up to that day? Dade would stake his life that Saben and Clarissa hadn’t betrayed him. Were his rooms bugged? Did his father have spies?

  “I can’t allow anyone who harms the family to live. You’ve made your choice, and I can’t save you from that.” His father was so furious that spittle flew from his lips as he spoke. “Uniting the families would have served us best, but your death helps equally as much. The families will be brought together for a united purpose to punish those who’ve killed you. Things are working out better than I’d planned. Now I just have to make your death real.”

  Dade thought of the protester
s outside. What his father said wasn’t strictly true. The Solizen were slowly losing power, their grip weakening. The world was closing in on his father and his cronies. He might not accept the truth of that yet, but he would in time. And Dade would do anything to help that noose tighten.

  He also realized that by using the govies, his father had made sure they’d take the fall. Nakomzer had played right into his father’s hands. What that meant to the shift in the power balance, where it ended up, was yet to be seen. Dade just hoped that when things tipped, he’d be on the right side.

  All this, and yet he felt he needed to try one more time to dissuade his father from this course of action. He needed to be sure that there was no hope for reconciliation. He swallowed, rewetting his now-dry throat. “Dad.”

  “No, if you were truly my son, you would not have betrayed me.” Hernim made a cutting motion with his hand. “You will pay, and so will Clarissa. The two of you will not ruin my plans.”

  At Clarissa’s name, Dade felt both fear for her and relief that he’d been right. If she had betrayed Dade, his father wouldn’t want her dead. Over the last few weeks, she’d been hounded by visits from the govies. The visinews had suggested that they were looking into collusion charges. But she was also making waves within the Solizen community. Obviously, she was causing problems for his father.

  The threat to Clarissa made Dade’s blood thrum, jump-starting his adrenaline again. There was a surging anger that was difficult to keep in check. He would not let his father destroy any more lives.

  “You were unwise to come alone,” Hernim said. “Pride led you right into my hands. You should have never left, we could have ruled together.”

  Dade refused to let the words hurt. His back remained straight, accepting that he hadn’t chosen this rift. There was nothing he could do to make it better. He would be okay. They were all going to be okay.