“He’s not alone,” Mina said as she stepped into the room. She and the others filed in with quick and silent movements. Working as a cohesive unit, they’d gone from the crew he nearly wanted to strangle back in the electro-van to the people who had his back. All held long blast-phasers pointed at his father. The butts of the phasers rested against their shoulders. They were all looking decidedly twitchy, needing to shoot something.
In spite of all the revelations of the day, Dade didn’t want his father to die. Take down his empire? Certainly. Have him face some kind of consequence for his cruelty? Absolutely. But death would do nothing to right his father’s wrongs. Dade wanted justice above all else.
Once the others were there, Dade lowered his phaser to his side and took a step forward.
Mina had gifted him this time to confront his father. Somehow she’d known that he needed to face this broken piece of his life in order to make a permanent break. Otherwise, hope would have always been there. It would have kept him from moving forward, from making decisions that needed to be made. For this, he’d always be grateful to her.
Roan rounded the desk on one side of Hernim while Coco came around the other. When they reached his father, Coco gave a nod and motioned with her hand. Roan lowered his weapon and slung it across his back. Then he took out a pair of electro-cuffs and secured Hernim, all while Coco kept her weapon trained on him.
Annem had stayed by the door, her back to the wall. She kept her attention trained on the room, but also was turned slightly so that she could simultaneously keep an eye on the hallway beyond.
“We’re in,” Mina said into the comm to Venz.
“Affirmative,” Venz replied. “You have three minutes until the guard rotation.”
Mina looked over at Dade. Her gaze was intense, and she was clearly checking to make sure he was okay.
He nodded.
Surprisingly, he felt relief. As if facing his demons had given him the assurance he needed to go on and make different choices. He let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Feeling free for the first time in weeks as his purpose locked back into place. Things were going to be different from now on.
This situation with Mina and her forcing him to work with her crew had opened his eyes to the other options available. There were other groups who, while they might have different agendas, could be used to get the things he wanted done.
Mina walked over to his father’s data log. She pushed the chair that Hernim sat in out of the way so that she could get at his light board and into his digi-stream. She extracted her datapad from her pocket and hard-linked it so that it would bypass all the control protocols, and then set about following the instructions that Venz relayed to her.
“The information is encoded,” Hernim taunted. “You’re never going to crack it. If you get out of here alive, you’ll have nothing to show for it.”
Mina ignored him and continued to download. She said to Venz, “Upload coming through.” Making the transmission now was a guarantee that if they didn’t make it out, the data would.
They didn’t know quite where the information they wanted was stored, so they took it all. Venz would be able to decode it, he was sure. Dade was also sure that Mina had other uses for what she collected. As far as he was concerned, whatever data she managed to collect, Dade had every intention of retrieving it later. He’d use everything at his disposal to bring his father down.
When she was done working the datapad and while it uploaded, Mina turned to Hernim. She leaned the side of her body on the desk and crossed her arms. “Thank you, Hernim, for being such an admirable host. In gratitude, I’d like to give you a present.”
Roan reached from behind his father and sank the injector into Hernim’s neck, delivering the tag.
“I like to know where the players are at all times,” Mina said. “So I guess we won’t leave here with ‘nothing’ after all.”
His father’s face turned red, and his eyes bulged with anger. It looked like he was going to explode.
Hernim would need the help of Nakomzer and the govies, or even perhaps that of another Solizen with better tech ties, to get the tag removed. It was likely that he’d manage it, but not before he’d burn through a favor or two. Dade couldn’t help the smile that formed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The room was dark when Arden walked in. Niall sat in a chair in one corner, his body turned away from the lamp beside it. When she’d knocked, Niall hadn’t answered. She intruded anyway, under the impression that he was avoiding her rather than sleeping.
Niall didn’t acknowledge her even when the door slid shut, locking them in together.
Not much had changed since his stay with Crispin. They’d given Niall a room alone for his recovery. It was a smaller room than the bunkrooms the others stayed in, but clean and with a decent bed. As with Crispin’s suite, Mina had changed the coding on the door scanner and locked it from the outside. He was as much a prisoner here as he had been there. And yet they’d treated him with respect. Nastasia had seen to his injuries, offering him medication and making sure he was fed.
It was very different than the way she, Dade, and Saben had been taken in. Arden hadn’t realized how much Mina meant her overtures of friendship. She’d let Arden have the run of the hideout, access to all the weapons, and had barely blinked an eye when Arden had gone on her own to Lasair. It was almost as if she’d expected it and had offered as much help as she could by providing an open source of weapons and intel.
The others were gone on their op to the Sky Tower. She’d stayed behind to do this. Needing the illusion of being alone for this conversation even though her every word would be recorded and would no doubt be watched later. Still, Arden knew that unless she confronted him now, it might never happen.
She didn’t know what to say to him. There were so many things, so much locked away inside her because she’d never thought she’d have the opportunity to say the words. It had left those thoughts and feelings stuck deep within, festering.
He stared into space and didn’t so much as turn his head. “Go away.”
No, they were going to talk. This conversation had been put off for way too long. Arden was going to stop being a coward. She blamed him for things that were perhaps not his fault, and things that could most definitely be traced straight back to him. His decisions had brought them to this point. She didn’t understand most of them, and wanted to. Wanted to make sense of exactly what had led them here.
Thinking about those things—the loss of Colin, the loss of her connections to Lasair, the feeling of resentment that she was only now starting to realize she’d been nurturing—made frustration curl inside her.
Niall looked at her then. His face was sallow under the bruising, and his bones protruded from his paper-thin skin. His eye sockets looked like dark pits, and the whites were striated with red. The skin around his mouth and nose was purple, the rest of him a giant painting of bruises. He hadn’t washed his hair in weeks. Its lank greasiness was tied back.
But his gaze was the worst, defeated and grief-stricken. Feelings she knew firsthand.
“I made it clear I had nothing to say to you,” he said, his voice scratchy.
“And I made it clear I’m not going away.”
It was difficult to separate the Niall she grew up with and was close to from the broken drug addict sitting before her. She could tell that he struggled, his Shine habit not yet kicked. Arden wondered if when Lasair had held him, they’d given him small amounts of the drug so he wouldn’t go into full-blown withdrawal.
Mina had taken one look at him and told him he’d have to suck it up. That she wasn’t wasting precious resources on him. Arden silently thanked her for it. Perhaps a sober Niall could be a friend and ally to her once more.
He snorted. “Not going away? You’re the queen of disappearing.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” She was lost. He sounded so angry with her. Which ticked her off, because she was
the one who should be angry. He had no right to question her loyalty. “I was always faithful to you and Lasair.”
“What about Mom and Dad? Have you seen them? Have you gone back since the explosion to make sure they’re okay?”
Arden was silent. She hadn’t. She’d thought about it early on when she was hurt. But then life had progressed so fast and she’d been distracted.
“No, I didn’t think so,” Niall said snidely.
“I was worried about you.” Her words came out as more of a hiss than she intended. But how dare he question her intentions. It wasn’t as if she meant to forget about them. Arden loved her parents.
“They’re helpless,” he said.
She knew that. The knife in her gut twisted a little more. Couldn’t he see that she’d had to pick her battles? Survival had been her first priority. “It’s only been a few weeks since we’ve seen them. Mom has Shine and enough credits. I’ll go next week.”
Niall’s stare was blank.
How dare he criticize her? He was the one who’d made stupid decisions. Who’d put their family in danger. If it wasn’t for him, they’d still be taking care of their mom and dad and running Lasair. He was the one who’d wanted to start a war with the Solizen. If Niall had gotten his way, they’d be dead by now. He hadn’t seemed that concerned then.
Which made her ask, “Tell me what happened. How did you make it out of the refinery?”
His jaw clenched before he responded, “Why don’t you tell me why you’re playing nice with Mina?”
After he’d skewered her about their parents—rightfully so—she couldn’t very well demand answers without giving any in return. Plus, what she wanted was their brother-sister relationship back, and that meant talking to him. Perversely, it reminded her of the times they had gotten along. Niall had watched out for her like he’d always done with their parents. He’d gone into Lasair originally because there’d been no credits or Govie Buy Certificates with which to purchase them food. He’d dropped out of school solely so that they could eat and keep the roof over their heads. He’d even fought Arden when she’d wanted to join. Eventually he’d given in. And he’d treated her like any other member of the gang while both giving her responsibility and keeping her from knowing too much of his underhanded dealings.
That last part frustrated her even now. She didn’t need secrets to be kept from her. She needed the truth.
Arden found herself admitting to meeting Dade and their relationship. How she’d gone to the refinery, had gotten hurt, and then had left with Dade. She told him of how she’d come to be here with Mina, stopping just short of her knowledge of Uri and Lasair.
He didn’t seem any more welcoming after hearing the explanation but simply getting it off her chest helped. It released some of the tension that had built inside her. Almost like the confession itself, it was what she needed to gain some perspective to heal.
Niall was quiet through it all. Eventually he said, “You’re a fool.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But what specifically are you referring to?”
“Mina manipulated you. How else did you think she was going to get me here? You did exactly what she wanted you to do.”
Arden considered his censure. Mina and her crew were capable of getting Niall here on their own. Though she had to concede that in the end it hadn’t been Mina’s crew who’d gone into Crispin’s territory. She’d understood that Mina didn’t want to start a war. Which was reasonable. But so was Niall’s theory that this outcome was exactly what Mina had planned.
She wondered if it was true, and the possibility made her feel naive and frustrated all over again. How many times was she going to trust in people and get manipulated into doing their bidding?
Still, she shook her head. “No, she needed Dade to get into the Sky Tower and—”
“I’m not saying she doesn’t have other motives. Mina always has twenty plans going at once. What I’m saying is, you did exactly what she wanted. Now we’re both her prisoners. She tagged me, Arden. She tagged you.” He let out a dry, mirthless laugh. “She owns you now. Do you really believe she’s going to let you go?”
“But if I didn’t help to rescue you, you would have been at Crispin’s mercy.”
He just shook his head, repeating over and over, “You don’t understand.”
“Then tell me.” She spoke with frustration. Perhaps her voice was a little harder than it should have been. She was sick of all this posturing, the evasive talk. He was her brother. And if he was going to take her to task, then he certainly could trust her as well.
“If you want to start running your own agenda, you need to start thinking farther ahead than you do,” he said. “Stop being a pawn.”
That brought Arden up short. She’d always considered herself a good statistician. She knew how to watch a series of events and guess the probable outcomes, how to manipulate them to her advantage. It was one of the very first things she learned growing up on the street.
Granted, maybe she hadn’t been doing that great a job of it lately. She hadn’t really considered her own agenda or what she’d do if she were in charge of things. Maybe she should. Maybe the risks were worth a bit of freedom.
“You are so worried about yourself,” Niall said. “The truth is, you’re selfish. I’ve only made decisions that take care of you, of Mom and Dad, of Lasair. Can you say the same?”
She couldn’t. The truth of his accusation sunk in, bringing forth an awareness to which she hadn’t given thought. And because of that she stayed silent. Perhaps she deserved his condemnation.
Niall shook his head. “I know that you hate me for the things I’ve done. But that’s what a leader has to do, make the hard decisions. If you want to stay alive without a gang, you need to pull your head out of your ass and start making some hard decisions too.”
Arden didn’t know what to say to that. Instead she asked, “What happened to you?”
“They jumped me in the refinery. Took me out of there before it was blasted. Then the bastards locked me up.”
“Who?” she asked. Arden knew it was Uri, but it was important for her to understand whether he knew. Or whether, like her, Niall had been kept in the dark about Uri’s double-crossing too.
“I’m not sure. I was in a room, and people came in to periodically beat me. They asked me questions, I really can’t remember.” He squinted and looked away.
“Did you recognize anyone?”
“My memory is hazy.”
That answered several of her questions. One, that taking Niall had been planned as an abduction. She was sure Uri used the explosion at the factory to hide the evidence. Additionally, it confirmed that Uri didn’t want other Lasair members to know.
How many other people had been involved?
“Who else made it out? What happened to Kimber?” Niall asked, his voice going hoarse as he asked after his girlfriend. The same girlfriend who Arden suspected was working with Uri. Who’d turned a phaser on Arden and Dade and tried to kill them.
“I don’t know.” Talking about Kimber made her cranky. “The destruction burned so hot that a lot of the bodies were not recovered. They’re unsure how many people died that day.”
She tried to block out the feelings that immediately rose inside her. That the deaths were his fault. Arden had told him that very thing would happen. That there would be a collapse in the power structure between the Solizen, the govies, and the street gangs. And now without VitD, there was chaos. “She’s probably gone.”
Niall muttered, “She’s alive.”
“If you want to believe that.” She didn’t have the will to argue with him. What was the point? But maybe he was right. Kimber was slippery enough to get away and hide out somewhere, waiting for the next opportunity to strike.
He sat for a while, frowning. And then he retreated into that brooding silence where she wasn’t sure whether he was paying attention.
She thought about informing him of Uri’s betrayal and ask what her brot
her thought were Uri’s ultimate plans for Lasair. But she also knew that if she did, Niall wouldn’t tell her anything. He was still keeping things from her. Refusing to tell her the truth.
In the end, he was right. If she wanted an ounce of freedom, she had to start thinking ahead of the people who were trying to control her destiny, and start making the hard decisions. This was the first one: she wouldn’t tell Niall about Uri until it suited her needs. She’d use her knowledge for leverage if she could. Arden had no doubt that she would figure out what was going on. Then she’d start playing her own game.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Saben’s father greeted Dade with a big hug. “It’s nice to see you.”
Dade knew the man meant it was nice that he was there and that he was wearing his real face. Not a synth-mask or a hood to shroud himself. Dade figured Hernim already knew he was alive, so there was no reason to hide anymore. He wasn’t afraid of anyone recognizing him, except maybe the pap-drones. Dade didn’t want to fully out himself yet. Not until he needed to make a public statement. The element of surprise would suit him well then.
If he meant to make a real change within the community, he needed to use his celebrity when it mattered and put his face to the projects that he supported. It would take a while to change his image, however.
Saben stood beside Dade. After greeting his family warmly, he looked around the area with a critical eye. “Things are coming along nicely.”
The once-hollowed-out building had gone through a transformation. Dade had been coming with Saben to help. Every time they showed up, it looked better than the last time they were here. The people had made their temporary camps more permanent. Walls had been erected, both to keep out the bitter cold and to offer each family a bit of privacy. It looked as if a neighborhood had sprouted up out of the cavern of the skeleton building.
On the visicasts, there was talk of moving the displaced citizens to other cities. Yet nothing had been done. No one seemed to care about relocating them.
The Stolen Sky (Split City Book 2) Page 19