Niall reached forward but stopped just short of touching it. “Don’t. If you try to break into it, the liquid inside will dissolve the tech-chip.”
Arden paused. Placed the tip of her knife against the metal, standing immobile. “And the tech-chip does what?”
“Holds the recipe, of course.”
But if that were true, wouldn’t someone—anyone—on this godforsaken planet remember how it was made? No. If there was a tech-chip, the recipe was so much more than just how to make VitD.
Niall held his hand out for the sphere.
She ignored it. Arden reached down to slide her knife back, keeping her gaze on Niall. Then she stood up and slid the sphere into her utility belt. “We’ve got what we came for. Time to go.”
Niall stood there and looked at her, the hatred he felt for her naked on his face. Tension vibrated between them, though he didn’t make a move toward her.
Arden forced herself not to react. To stay just as calm as he appeared to be. She kept her breathing even, her hand open and loose at her side.
He gave her a tight smile, then turned back to the drawer and extracted another two spheres. His choice wasn’t random. Niall stopped and started several times searching for specific shapes.
“What are those?” she asked as he slipped two of the spheres into his own utility belt.
“It’s not your concern.”
She wanted to press him on the spheres. Mina was after the VitD recipe. He was clearly after something else.
Niall turned to the door. “Right, let’s go.”
Arden hesitated, but Niall had already exited the room.
She followed, realizing he hadn’t turned back toward the center of the maze where Coco and Annem waited for them. Instead, he’d turned the opposite way, going deeper into the halls. This time he didn’t pretend not to know where he was going. Niall navigated with the surety of having been here before.
She ran after him. He didn’t slow or wait for her to catch up. A couple of times she lost him around a corner before sighting him again. She became afraid of where he was headed. That this was a trap. And yet, she still followed and clung tight to her caution.
Arden skidded to a halt when he finally entered a room. She peered inside, realizing it was a refrigeration room. A clear heavy plastic covered the doorway. In spite of it, cold air seeped out.
She pushed past the plastic and stepped inside, cautious in case he was waiting to jump her. Arden’s hand slid to her phaser.
The room was filled with open shelving with rows of vials and containers of liquid. Some looked to be blood samples, perhaps, and others various kinds of serums. She saw a wall of locked cabinets with moonglass doors. Inside were even more specimens. These looked like drug samples of some kind. Everything in the room was clearly labeled and kept with a neat efficiency.
She didn’t see Niall right away. She stepped farther into the room and began to travel the length of it, looking down each aisle. She found him near the back, staring into a shelf. His hands moved over the vials there.
“What is this place?” What she really wanted to know was what dangerous liquid he was trying to find.
“Why do you think Mina wanted the recipe?” Niall asked her, instead. He didn’t even bother to look up from what he was doing. “She saved Dade and put this all in motion. They could have easily infiltrated the CRC without him.”
Arden was silent.
“She wanted you,” Niall said.
Arden shook her head. “She wanted you. And she needed me to bring you here. Because you knew which sphere to take.” She probably even hoped that Arden would convince Niall to join them so she could pick his brain of all his secrets.
Niall grinned at her toothily. “She didn’t know that I’d come happily because it serves my purpose. But you did, you suspected.”
Arden’s lips flattened. She had. She should have said something, told Dade or Mina her suspicions. At least then they could have planned for this. Because there was no doubt she was about to be betrayed. Her blood roared in her ears, but she forced herself to ask, “Letting me know what you’ve done here serves your purpose too, doesn’t it? So tell me, then, what is it that you want?”
“I want you to consider your life,” he bit out. “Just like I’ve been saying all these years. What is Mina going to do with the recipe? Are you going to let her take it from you? Sit back and watch as she becomes the most powerful woman on this planet?”
She had considered that. But she wasn’t about to share her thoughts with him. “Are you saying you want me to join you in . . .” She paused and looked around. Then she raised an eyebrow. “In whatever it is you’re doing?”
Niall ignored her, turning away. He looked through another rack of vials.
Arden saw a blinding shade of red. She was sick of being ignored and treated as if she didn’t deserve any explanation. That ended now. She took out her phaser and shot the shelving next to him, sending glass and liquid exploding.
Niall jumped back. Then let out an audible breath and glared at her. “Was that necessary?”
She shrugged. “I wanted your attention.”
He turned away from her to another shelf, scanning its contents quickly. There were vials of liquid in shades of red, blue, yellow, green. Some of the formulas were thick, some bubbly, some shining as if they had stars inside.
“What are we doing here, Niall?”
“Getting our freedom back.”
Arden scrunched her nose. “Freedom? From whom?”
“From everyone.” He was tucked within the shelf. She couldn’t see his head as he moved the contents around. Then he grunted in success. Pulling back, he held a vial in his hand.
The liquid inside was metallic silver. It looked thick, sticking to the sides like syrup, leaving traces of residue, as it swirled around. Lights, like glowing embers of starlight, seemed to shoot through. They were mesmerizing.
There wasn’t a name on it that she could see. Out of everything here, the vial Niall wanted wasn’t labeled. That made her nervous and set her heart to pounding.
“What are you going to do with it?” she asked.
He gave her an enigmatic look. Then he flicked the end so that the needle protruded, extending a thumb depressor on the other side. He held it upside down and flicked the moonglass while subtly pushing at the thumb gauge to remove air bubbles.
She stood frozen, not fully believing what he was about to do. But when he moved the injector to his arm, she cried, “Don’t.”
Niall didn’t stop.
Arden felt as if the air had been sucked from her body. She couldn’t believe it. She knew he was going to do something, but not this.
His face crumpled—eyes squinting, then flying wide in pain. He cried out, a wet, hoarse sound. Then he shifted on his feet, stumbling, before dropping to the floor.
She was on him in an instant, trying to ease him over to check whether he was still breathing. His body began to shake in her hands, and then he screeched in agony. She pushed back his head, making sure his airway was clear.
Then he stopped moving. His eyes had rolled back into his head. His mouth went slack.
“Niall.” She shook him, needing him to wake up. There was no way she could get him back to the others. They already had to worry about Annem. She couldn’t carry him by herself.
Arden checked his pulse.
Panic crawled up her chest. It clogged her throat, lodging there. What was she supposed to do? She didn’t like Niall much, but she didn’t want him to die either.
Niall sucked in a deep breath. His eyes shifted and rolled, and then squeezed shut. He hacked a deep cough that ended in a wheeze.
Arden sat back on her butt, too surprised to feel relief. She reached forward. “Niall?”
It took him a while to answer, to eventually look at her. His eyes were clear, though shadowed with pain. He let out a deep groan. “I didn’t expect it to hurt that bad.”
“Are you crazy?” she yelled. She wa
nted to hit him, though she knew that wouldn’t do any good. Instead of taking her anger out physically, she helped him sit up. It was far less satisfying. “What did you inject?”
He stared at her for what felt like forever, but was probably only a second. Then he pushed her away and stood up on shaky feet. “It dissolves the tracker Mina implanted and eats the govies’ data sensor, too. It eats anything that’s been implanted in the body. I’m completely off the grid now. The govies can’t find me. Mina can’t find me. I’m free.” He took off his blackout band and let it fall to the ground. “I won’t need that anymore.”
Normally, uncovering the data chip that lay beneath that skin would immediately put Niall back onto the grid for the govies to track if they weren’t inside the CRC. But if he was right, he was no longer on it. He’d become completely unregistered and untrackable. And, if he was caught, it meant certain death.
Arden blinked. The information slowly clicked itself into place. Freedom. He’d meant freedom from everything, everyone. Quick on the heels of that understanding, another realization struck. That meant he couldn’t go back to Mina’s hideout. She had been clear that no one could get in without a tracker.
Narrowing her eyes, Arden got to her feet.
“I’m giving you a chance to come with me,” Niall said.
Her thoughts spun with all the possibilities. It wasn’t like she wanted to stay. She didn’t like the fact she’d been manipulated by Mina. But there was Dade to consider. She wouldn’t leave him. “Why would you want me to go with you? You don’t trust me. You’ve made that clear.”
He considered her, an unreadable expression on his face. “Because if you don’t, then I will be forced to kill you.”
Arden swallowed hard at his words. Not that she was afraid. It was at the finality of the statement. That he could make it in the first place. “I can’t go with you.”
Niall snarled. He held his hand out. “Fine, your death is on you. Now, give me the sphere.”
Like hell.
Arden rolled her eyes. “You really think I’m going to do that?”
Niall snatched his phaser from the side of his hip and pointed it at the center of her chest. His eyes were manic, bright and feverish. “Do it, or I’ll shoot you and take it. I’m not leaving here without it.”
Arden sucked in a harsh breath. She looked from him to the phaser and back again. Fury heated her from the inside out. She felt the warmth in her belly and in the stain on her cheeks. How dare he threaten to kill her.
Her hands lifted halfway. She kept her palms open. Arden had been right not to trust him. She snatched her own phaser from her hip and aimed it at him. “I won’t stop you from leaving with the other two spheres.”
She didn’t promise not to collect them later.
“I don’t think so, little sister.” He grinned. “Unlike me, you won’t shoot.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
“You’ve gone soft,” he continued to taunt. “I’ve watched you. You let emotion rule you now. You should know better.”
Arden frowned. What could she say to that? It was true. Perhaps she was weak.
“Now, hand over the sphere,” he said.
“No.”
And then . . . he pulled the trigger.
Arden blinked. Damn, he really did it. He really shot at her. She couldn’t believe it.
Niall’s brow scrunched, and he pulled the trigger again.
Arden went from disbelief to frustration in a flash. She may have been weakened by emotions, but she wasn’t irrational. “I took out the phaser core of your sidearm. You really should do a pre-op check, you know.”
She had suspected something but hadn’t really believed it. Unfortunately, her fears had come true. It broke her heart. He’d tried to kill her.
“You sent me in here without a weapon? What if I’d been shot?” Niall threw his phaser away.
“Calm down. Your blast-phaser worked. Good thing you left it in the hub with Coco and Annem,” Arden said with a laugh, referring to the long battle-phaser, and not the small sidearm phaser he’d discarded. “It looks like I was right. You tried to shoot me. I don’t regret that choice at all.”
“You know, Arden,” he said in that condescending voice that grated on her nerves, “you need to get your shit together.”
“Excuse me? I’m the one with the phaser on you, remember?” She shook it at him as a reminder.
“Figure out who you are and stop blindly following people.” Then he turned and walked out of the room, saying as he left, “You’re on your own. Good luck.”
She didn’t stop him. He’d been right about that too. She couldn’t shoot him. She had changed somehow. Perhaps she’d become a kinder person. Right now that was aggravating.
Arden sighed. There he went, always walking out of her life.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Arden made it back to the center hub. She was slightly out of breath, and her body shook. Pausing at the door before entering the room where Coco and Annem waited, she took a moment to focus her thoughts. She pushed aside everything she felt, the anger and resentment, the pain of having been betrayed yet again. Damn Niall. She was going to murder him. And screw him for forcing her to make that decision. Blood on her hands was one thing, yet killing her brother would go past what her conscience could easily forgive. But eventually she’d have to do it because he’d make it necessary.
He’d been right. She would always hesitate to kill him. Even though Arden knew she would have to when the time came, the thought of killing her brother made the aching, yawning pit in her stomach roil with acid.
Not that she could think about it now. That jerk had better make it out of here, because she wanted to have that showdown.
Annem hadn’t moved from the floor. Her breathing was still punctuated with short staccato inhales. She’d lost too much blood. Coco had done her best to stanch it, yet it had soaked into the fabric of the suit and left smears on the floor.
Arden wondered whether their plan would work if Annem’s suit was damaged that much. They’d have to try regardless.
Coco stood at the console with her back to the door. Her fingers were moving swiftly across the light board, gathering as much intel as possible. And yet she kept glancing over to Annem to make sure she was okay.
The alarms had started again, and the pulsing blue lights switched to red.
“They’re opening the ring doors,” Arden said. “They’ll get to the center soon enough. We need to go.”
Coco startled and turned around. She looked at Arden, then looked behind her, nose crinkling. “Where’s Niall?”
Arden shook her head. Sometimes words were difficult. How could she explain his betrayal toward her? He’d betrayed their group too. There was always the sense of familial guilt whenever he let her down, even if the blame didn’t belong to her.
Coco scowled. “That prick.”
“Agreed.”
“You know I’m going to kill him, right?”
Arden sighed. “So am I.”
“Okay, just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.” Coco turned back around to the console and quickly finished her task, then made sure the CRC logo appeared as if the mainframe had just been booted.
Arden went to Annem and knelt beside her. She put Annem’s air-breather back on and pulled up the extra fabric in her neck cowl so that there was no exposed skin anywhere on her body. Then she did the same for herself.
This was a terrible place to try out Venz’s new suits. They’d tested them in the hideout, sure. If they were caught, the worst that could happen here was not death. It was capture. That made Arden’s anxiety skyrocket.
He’d fashioned them using the net-tech he’d created to hide their hovervan. As long as every bit of skin was covered, they should be near-invisible, blending in with their surroundings. Except of course, if the illusion was broken, they’d just have to fight their way out. The halo-glass and air-breather were covered in a thin fabric coating as well. He�
��d also woven in a shield to cut off their heat signature, then calibrated the halo-glass so that they could see one another.
By all accounts, it should work. The govies’ gaze should slide off them, and they’d simply walk out as long as they didn’t draw attention to themselves.
Though that also meant that they had to leave behind their blast-phasers. Any weapon that had to be hand carried was ditched in order not to break the illusion. It didn’t leave them completely without weapons, however. Arden still had two phasers at her hip, and two knives at her calves. All four were in sheaths of net-tech. They would have to stay hidden, unless it all went to shit.
Once they were suited up, Arden activated her net-tech. Coco did the same. Arden looked over at her to make sure the halo-glass could get a read. There was a fuzzy shimmer around Coco. Her features were distorted. But Arden could see her shape, and that was enough.
“I’ve got a lock on you,” Arden said.
Coco looked to Arden. “Same.”
Then they turned on Annem’s suit. At first she went shimmery too. But then it started to flicker.
Coco swore.
The damage that Annem’s suit had taken must have broken the weave, making it unable to connect the circuit. “Did you close the hole in the back?”
“No,” Coco said.
“We need to bind it together.”
“With what?”
Arden looked around. Her gaze landed on the open med kit. “Do you have any more quick-seal?”
Coco dumped the contents of the box on the ground, rifling around until she found a tube. “It’s meant to hold skin.”
“Well, it needs to hold fabric till we can get the hell out of here. Then it can fall apart for all I care.”
Arden pulled Annem so that her front faced Arden, her back to Coco. Reaching around Annem, Arden gathered the fabric and pulled it together. The fabric curled back, wanting to separate.
Annem moaned.
Coco went to work sealing up the fabric, whispering encouragement to Annem as she did so. She leaned forward to blow on the quick-seal in an attempt to dry it faster.
The Stolen Sky (Split City Book 2) Page 25