by Kit Rocha
Deacon nodded. “And you know I don’t question you. I just needed to make sure.”
“No, Deacon.” Gideon rested a hand on his shoulder. “I always want you to question me. It’s your right. Just like it’s your right to know what I’m thinking. And there’s one reason I’m confident that the Base miscalculated.”
No question what he meant. “Kora.”
“Kora.” Gideon let his hand fall away and resumed walking. “Either the Base doesn’t know she’s here, or they don’t know the lengths to which Ashwin has gone in the past in order to protect her from them. I think Lieutenant Malhotra is loyal to exactly one person in the world.”
Which made the whole goddamn thing even more of a gamble. “It doesn’t bother you, that person not being you?”
“No.” There was no hesitation. No doubt. “I have faith in Kora’s heart.”
So did Deacon. But her heart couldn’t work fucking miracles, and it couldn’t save a man who didn’t understand the concept of salvation. Hell, Kora knew that, too, and it still might not stop her from trying. So there was a very good chance that Ashwin would only break her heart.
“But Deacon?”
“Yeah?”
A cold light glinted in Gideon’s eyes. “Mercy only goes so far.”
“Understood.” There were limits even to Gideon’s benevolence, lines that could be crossed. And if Ashwin Malhotra so much as inched a toe over one of those lines, Deacon would be there to put a bullet in his skull.
Chapter Six
Ashwin hadn’t been this close to Eden in nearly six months.
A lot could change in six months.
The first time he’d seen the city had been from the sky. He’d just turned twelve years old and was packed into one of the Base’s precious helicopters with seven other Makhai soldiers prepared to embark on their first month of survival training.
From the air, Eden glittered. Sun glinted off the endless glass windows on the tallest buildings. Cars zipped down carefully ordered roads, and people filled the sidewalks, the parks, the open marketplaces and squares. A little slice of the world-that-had-been, a perfect circle of luxury and ease encased in a massive wall that kept out the squalor of the sectors.
As an adult, he’d learned that the graceful perfection was a lie. That the men who ruled Eden were greedy and lazy and oozed hypocrisy. That they preyed upon the people they kept powerless and indulged their every petty urge. That the men and women of the Base lived hard lives of sacrifice and dedication to a common goal, while the politicians they served wasted resources with malicious recklessness.
All from behind the safety of their precious wall.
He remembered the day the wall surrounding the city fell. The memories were still crisp and sharp, but long months of recalibration had stripped them of emotion. He could visualize the chaotic charge, the sector leaders driving for the heart of Eden itself. He could recreate the slow trickle of citizens rising up to join them, until a trickle became a river, and a river became a sea of rage.
He could remember the moment he found Kora in the middle of that madness. The knot of people surrounding her. The Special Tasks soldiers closing in, shooting at them. Shooting at her.
He could remember the beautiful simplicity of his rage. The purity of purpose as he charged into the fray, oblivious to the bullets rending his flesh, because every soldier he killed was one who couldn’t threaten her anymore.
He could remember the joy he’d felt when he touched her. The devastation when she refused to leave the patient bleeding out at her feet and come with him to safety. The helpless desperation as his hands tightened on her arms until fear filled her eyes.
He could remember feeling. He simply couldn’t remember what it had felt like to feel.
Now, staring at the crumbling remains of Eden’s walls, he thought there was...a flutter. A tickle across his tongue. Something that tasted like satisfaction.
The people of Sector One had been busy. Where the main checkpoint to Sector One had once stood, now there was a massive stone foundation. Walls rose four feet all the way around, the stones reclaimed from the barrier that had once divided the sector from the city. A temple, according to the Base’s intel.
A temple the newly liberated lower class of Eden was rushing to join in droves.
But the temple wasn’t the only new construction. A vast array of makeshift shelters spread out from it on either side, some built from the same stone, sound and almost cozy. Others were little more than wood and rope and thin tarps flapping in the breeze.
Ashwin stood next to Deacon and tried to take in the sheer number of refugees—more than could possibly have come from One alone. “I didn’t realize there were so many.”
“They’ve been coming from every direction.” Deacon indicated the city, then east and west of its former border. “Some out of Seven and Eight, and from Two. And then the homeless from the city.”
The bombing of Sector Two had been the catalyst for war—and the final straw that incited a mini-coup on the Base. An airstrike ordered by a petulant, vengeful bureaucrat that had targeted training houses full of would-be courtesans. Not a military threat, not a security risk. Houses full of women and girls.
“Most of the Base regretted what happened in Two.” It was privileged information, but Ashwin could see the strategic value in its revelation. Especially when Deacon still didn’t trust him. “It fractured the leadership. The general who ordered the strike was permanently relieved from duty.”
Deacon laughed, a sound devoid of amusement. “You’d better tell me that’s a euphemism, or I’ll kick your ass on principle.”
“Yes.” Ashwin turned back to the sea of sad little shacks and tents. People milled in front of the closest one, watching Deacon with an awe untouched by fear. “I wasn’t there for it, but I’ve read the reports. Two generals, three colonels, a major, and six captains were killed in the coup. Everyone who was loyal to the corrupt councilmen.”
“Good.” Deacon’s shoulder bumped Ashwin’s hard as he brushed past. “Because this isn’t even the worst of what they did. These are the survivors. The happy endings.”
Ashwin was accustomed to fear. But something far more cutting lurked beneath Deacon’s words.
Disdain.
It could be lethal to Ashwin’s mission, and that was reason enough for concern. But as he fell into step behind Gideon’s second-in-command, he found it harder than usual to compartmentalize the sheer volume of suffering surrounding him. He noticed details this time. The hungry-looking children clinging to their parents’ legs as he passed. The men and women with scarred faces and threadbare clothing, smudged with dirt and coughing at the dust. The flimsiness of their shelters every time the wind picked up and threatened to tear them apart.
Did Kora come here? She must. She wouldn’t be able to stop herself. The pain would draw her like a moth to the only source of light. She’d take their suffering inside herself and fight it like the highly skilled warrior she was. But it would chip away at her, fracture her psyche bit by bit. Because of the secret Ashwin hadn’t let himself think in six months.
Because of who she was. What she was.
The only way to protect her from it was to stamp out suffering. To fix the world. The hopeless goal of out-of-touch dreamers.
And Deacon.
He stopped in the center of an open-sided tent clustered with tables, where a man was gathering dishes and silverware into a large plastic tub. “Is Stasa around?”
“In the kitchen.” The man grinned widely as he held up an empty bowl. “Hit the line if you’re hungry. Beef stew today.”
“Thanks. Maybe later.” Deacon lowered his voice as they made their way past a serving station loaded with trays. “The families with farms and ranches donate food, and the temple pays the refugees who prepare it. Stasa runs the kitchen. I think she used to cook for one of the brothels in Two.”
Stasa turned out to be a short, solid woman with a ready smile and the eyes of someo
ne who could kill a man without that smile faltering. The glasses perched on her nose, the brightly colored apron tied around her waist, and the matching scarf covering her hair gave the appearance of someone pleasantly harmless, but her easy grip on her knife and the way she sized Ashwin up when he stepped into her kitchen told the real story.
“Deacon.” She tilted her head so he could kiss her cheek, then waved the knife toward Ashwin. “Who is your friend?”
“This is Ashwin. He’s helping us out with a problem.”
“Mmm, the raiders.” She sniffed with disapproval, then went back to chopping vegetables, her blade flashing. “I have heard a few stories.”
If the woman really had worked in one of Sector Two’s training houses, she likely knew more about the darker side of politics than most. “What stories have you heard?”
She muttered something under her breath. “They sound like soldiers, but they act like bandits. Anything these people managed to bring, these men take. Pathetic.”
“That explains why no one’s come to Gideon yet.” Deacon locked his hands behind his head with a groan. “They’re targeting refugees.”
“I tell them.” Stasa dumped the board full of chopped carrots into a bowl and shrugged. “I tell them to go to Rios, but they don’t trust leaders. If they were accustomed to fair treatment from them, they would not be refugees.”
Robbing refugees would be effortless for men with Base training. It would also be unsatisfying—it was unlikely anyone living in the desperate conditions had much to take. It also explained the reckless haste of their escalation—true, Ashwin had timed his bait about the temple drop carefully, but he’d still been prepared for an organized attack, not the chaotic, disjointed attempt they’d mustered.
The question was whether failure would drive them back to the easy targets, or prompt them to plan their attacks more carefully. “When was the last attack?”
“Yesterday. They robbed a man who’s been buying and selling clothes and shoes.” The knife hit the small wooden counter with a thump. “Took everything he owned.”
“Shit. Thanks, Stasa.” Deacon tried to press something into her hand. She waved him away, but he folded her fingers around the money anyway. “I owe you. I mean it.”
“You owe me nothing.”
“I’ll come back later, and we can argue about it some more,” Deacon promised. “Take care of yourself.”
He ducked out a side exit, leading them into the bright sunlight behind the soup kitchen, near the truck he’d parked at the edge of the small refugee camp. “Money spends no matter what,” he growled, “but I can only think of a few reasons why someone would steal clothes.”
“Disguises.” Ashwin identified the twinge of discomfort, but it took him a moment to recognize it as worry. “Gideon’s estate. Is it still secure, even with all of the Riders gone?”
Deacon snorted. “The only thing scarier than a Rider is a Rios family guard.” He pinned Ashwin with a sharp look as he yanked open the driver’s side door of the truck and reached for the radio inside. “Don’t worry, Kora will be fine.”
Ashwin stilled, unsure if the words were a test or a warning, but positive they were a message. His concern for Kora had not gone unnoticed. His weakness had been exposed.
Deacon was leaning through the open door, one hand busy with the radio, his back to Ashwin. He could be dead in moments. The first bullet through the radio so he couldn’t transmit a call for help, the second through the back of his skull. Quick, painless. His knowledge of Kora’s value as leverage would die with him.
So would Ashwin’s mission.
His hand crept toward his gun.
The radio crackled with sudden static, then silence as Deacon pressed the button. “Riders, be advised our guests may have ditched their tactical gear in order to keep a low profile. Over.”
Ashwin curled his fingers toward his palm. The instinct to strike fast and hard had been honed by a life in Eden, but here in One, it would do more harm than good. Whatever Gideon Rios’s endgame was, the men and women who followed him believed. Deacon might needle Ashwin out of personal dislike, but the man wouldn’t risk Kora’s safety. He wouldn’t betray her to the Base.
Ashwin was the only one betraying her right now.
The radio crackled again, and Ana’s voice drifted out. “Got it, boss. All clear so far at the tenements. Over.”
Gabe came next. “We just finished up at my cousin’s estate and are headed out to see Hunter’s family. No leads. Over.”
“Am I the only one who wants more details?” Zeke asked, his voice scratchy. “Can you be more specific about what we’re looking for?”
“Zeke—” Deacon cut off abruptly, rubbing his temple as he blew out an exasperated breath.
“Just a rough idea. We need—”
Gunfire exploded over the radio, followed by screams. Ashwin snapped into action, vaulting over the hood of Deacon’s truck and hauling open the door as Zeke’s curses spilled out of the speaker. “We need backup. We’re at Bradford’s silversmith—”
The transmission ended abruptly. Ashwin hauled the door shut as Deacon hit the gas, spinning dirt and gravel as they took off. Deacon steered with one hand, his jaw as set and clenched as his hand around the radio. “Montero,” he barked.
“We’re on our way,” Gabe replied.
“Fuck. Fuck.” Deacon slammed the handset against the wheel hard enough to elicit a burst of static from the radio. Then he adjusted it in his grip and spoke more softly. “Ana—you and Ivan head that way, too.”
“Got it, boss.”
Ashwin braced himself against the door as Deacon took a hard left onto one of the main roads. He watched people scramble out of the way as the truck shot forward, but most of his mind churned over the implications.
He’d miscalculated the stakes and the speed of escalation. Again.
Predicting people’s actions had never been his specialty, but he should have guessed. He knew all soldiers were given basic training in operating covertly in the various sectors. He should have warned Deacon. The fact that it was tangential to his primary mission was no excuse—before the war, he’d frequently maintained no less than five concurrent objectives without letting the details overwhelm him.
Maybe the six agonizing months of recalibration had damaged him in some way he couldn’t properly assess.
Or maybe Kora was already more of a distraction than he realized.
The truck had shot past the edge of the last tenement and out onto the dusty road leading to Gideon’s estate when the radio finally crackled. Even through the staticky speaker, Gabe sounded tense. “The remaining threats have been eliminated. No civilian casualties. But Zeke and Jaden are both in bad shape. I don’t know if they’ll make it to the hospital. Orders?”
Deacon shuddered before lifting the handset again. “Bring them to Gideon’s.”
“Understood.”
After that, silence. Deacon gripped the wheel like he could wrestle events back under his control by will alone, and Ashwin could relate to the responsibility of it, if not the worry. “Kora’s there,” he said quietly. “I’ve seen her put men back together when there was barely enough left of them to give her a place to start.”
“If they don’t—” Deacon bit off the words and turned his head, keeping his eyes on Ashwin instead of the road for dangerously long seconds. “We both know this is on you.”
For the space of a heartbeat, Ashwin considered the gun again. Shooting Deacon while they were tearing down a road as fast as the truck could go was reckless, but there was brittle, raw truth in the man’s eyes.
Deacon wasn’t talking about a lapse in Ashwin’s judgment or his failure to warn them about the possibilities. Deacon suspected Ashwin’s true mission. Perhaps he had from the beginning.
The man was smart. Too smart to trust him.
Perversely, it made Ashwin reluctant to kill him. “Why didn’t you put a bullet in my head the first night?”
“Oh, I wou
ld have. But Gideon…” Deacon glared at the road ahead. “Gideon believes in miracles.”
No leader as clever as Gideon Rios actually depended on miracles. Which meant Gideon was counting on something else. Someone else.
Kora.
As plans went, it wasn’t even that reckless. Gideon had what few other people alive did—concrete proof that Ashwin had cared enough about Kora to hide her in the dangerous months leading up to the war. But he had no way of knowing that six months of medically prescribed torture had hollowed out Ashwin’s weak, vulnerable parts.
Gideon expected Kora to subvert his loyalties. If Ashwin wanted to complete his mission, all he had to do was give Gideon his miracle.
»»» § «««
Kora wasn’t used to people dying under her hands.
Back on the Base, she’d been so far removed from the battles that true emergencies were rare and terrifying. Either the squad medics stabilized a fallen soldier so he could be brought in for regeneration, or they brought him back in a bag.
The war was a different story. But even then, she’d had luck on her side. She could count on one hand the number of patients she’d lost, who had slipped away while she frantically tried to turn the tide.
And she’d never known their names.
Jaden was bleeding out on Gideon’s priceless formal dining table. There hadn’t been enough time to relocate Kora’s equipment to the barracks or the temple, so here they were, silent faces clustered around the opulent room while blood dripped onto the tile floor.
She brushed her hair out of her eyes and reached for another clamp. Jaden should have already been through regeneration treatment. It was the only thing with any hope of restoring his shredded liver, not to mention the bullet hole in his stomach. But Kora had to get ahead of the bleeding first, stabilize him enough to make regeneration therapy possible, and every second that ticked by pushed that goal farther out of reach. As soon as she repaired one severed vessel, she found another bleeder.
And the seconds kept ticking by.
“Kora.”
She ignored Gideon’s voice and glanced up at the other end of the table, where Ashwin was monitoring Zeke, who was pale and sweaty, hovering somewhere between pained consciousness and oblivion. “How’s his pulse?”