Flat as the sycamore leaves, blotted with red. I doubled over, but with nothing left in my stomach, I could only dry heave over the lush ground.
And then I crawled.
Moss stained my tattered shirt, my fingers searching blindly for the crooks of shallow roots to pull myself a few more inches forward, a few more inches away from the Windups. I did not know where I was headed.
After what seemed like hours, my fingers felt the ground stop short. I hooked my hand over the drop, then my forearm, and felt only open air.
I did not know if what awaited me over the edge was a few yards’ dip in the earth or a bottomless chasm. It took the last of my strength to push my body over the drop.
I was only weightless for a quarter of a second, and then my chest smashed against a hard, uneven surface. I did not have to wait for the pain to ebb to recognize my surroundings—I had grown up with the smell, the rough, chalky feeling of its remnants between my fingers. I had landed in one of the train cars, packed tight with our coal.
Some time later, voices I did not recognize awoke me, still curled up against the coal, skin black as singed flesh. The sun had begun to rise, and a brilliant blue sky snaked between the viridescent foliage like a river winding around crooked shores. I could not recall the last time I had seen a clear noonday.
The sight was excruciating. I turned away from its luster, closed my eyes once more.
Below, the Godolia technicians chattered about frayed wires and shot circuit boards.
I did not move, and I did not call out. Coal dust had caked my throat, and I could not speak.
The train began to move, and for the next few hours I watched the sky pan past overhead, dotted with small, puffy clouds that could never hold a candle to the complexity of the night sky. At one point a Windup appeared, jogging alongside the train, steel skin glistening like fresh dew. I waited for it to notice me, pluck me up, fling me to the horizon.
It did not once look down. Eventually it peeled away, and suddenly the sky became clouded, the heat of steam clinging to my cheeks. Above me, tall factory spires reached toward the heavens like the fingers of praying hands. We had arrived in Godolia.
When the train finally slowed to a stop, I did not wait for them to find me hidden atop the coal. Heaving myself upright and rolling, I missed the ladder completely, lay shocked against the gravel ground for a few moments before the earth stopped tilting. As best I could, I staggered quickly to the nearest alleyway. I am not sure what would have happened if someone had bothered to look in my direction and seen me, coal streaked and limping. Perhaps they would have asked for my name, and in my response, heard the Badlands accent twist my tongue.
For the next year, I wandered through the convoluted labyrinth of Godolia. Its streets, although contorted and confusing like the mines of Silvertwin, held not a particle of the cavern’s effortless beauty, nor the comfort I used to find while snuggled into small spaces. The city was as filthy and false as the Windups—a pretty, shiny exterior with purely grotesque innards.
I learned to stay away from the eastern parts of town where the brothels were clustered, and taught myself to sleep sitting up, ready to wake and flee at a moment’s notice. At night, prowlers with sharp tongues and sharper weapons would stalk the alleyways, searching for convenient children to snatch and sell to the highest bidder.
Naturally, I had to teach myself to fight as well.
It was especially difficult due to my leg, which under my unskilled bindings had never quite healed properly. Hand-to-hand combat, the most common defense for those living on nothing but foraged trash scraps, would not be useful to me. I needed a skill that would allow me a safe distance from any assailants, and as I had no money to purchase a firearm, I took to carrying around a metal pole, which I had lifted from an abandoned construction site.
My fighting was not graceful, not with my gnarled leg, and it was not honorable. Whenever a slight noise in the night woke me, the sound of footfalls or something as innocent as a low laugh, I would hover by the nearest corner and wait for them to step into range. I did not hesitate long enough to see if the person intended to do me harm, and I could not risk to. If I did not swing with full force and break something within each person who dared to wake me, I could have been snagged and draped in a brothel’s fake silks by daybreak. My only advantages were surprise and silence. In fact, I hardly said a word at all throughout that entire horrid year, and by the time the Academy officials found me, I had near forgotten how to say anything at all.
They were kind, at first.
Even fixed my leg, so it could take my weight as it should. Sealed away the scars that marred my fingertips, from when I pulled myself aboveground.
They wanted me healthy.
Usable.
* * *
By the time I find his room—this place is a fucking maze—my panic is about to slip its leash.
I might lose control right here and now, might start screaming, might start sobbing. Years and years of being cautious, of being stone, coming undone all at once.
My knuckles are too quick against the door, too many raps against the wood, but I cannot seem to stop. My other hand burrows in my pocket, twisting the cloth I keep there to cover my eye, coiling it around my fingers until my heartbeat screams beneath each nail.
I am going to unravel. This is going to unravel me.
“Lucindo,” I shout, every letter sounding cracked. “Open the door. Open the Godsdamn door!”
When he does, I push past him into the room, tracing a small circle around the space for no reason other than my feet want to move. They want to run.
“Sona, what—” he says, my name split by a startled laugh, and suffocated just as quickly when he catches a look at my face. The wildness that cuts it.
I must look unhinged to him. Unlike myself. But this is the first time in years I have been myself in front of other people.
Scared.
“What happened in Franconia?” I whisper.
His hair is glistening wet, water dripping from his temples. A towel is slung around his neck, hands gripping its ends as he stares at me, bewildered. Behind him, the mirror hanging on the bathroom door is pale with steam.
“Same thing that happens to everyone who assists the Gearbreakers,” he says, shrugging. “Eventually.”
A shower.
He sent out a Valkyrie to slaughter a town, and then he took a fucking shower.
I take a step toward him. My nails burrow fresh cuts into my palms, squeezing into fists. I should have let Starbreach finish the job. I should have let her disintegrate me.
It probably took Victoria mere minutes. Minutes, to push my body count from zero to hundreds.
How many innocents has Lucindo claimed?
How many will he pin to me—little gifts, given with a smile, a pat on the back, an assurance of more to come?
I take another step. I am right under him, looking up, heart ticking in my throat.
I reach for his neck—
And loop my arms around it, cheek to his chin.
“Thank you,” I whisper. The water on his jaw traces my cheek.
His arms close around my back. “It’s nothing, Sona, truly.”
Nothing.
I pull away, drag the tears from my eyes with the collar of my shirt.
“Let me do something in return, for the Valkyries,” I murmur, voice thick. “Help, in some way.”
Lucindo grins. “Yeah? How so?”
I meet his eyes, hold them for a long, heavy moment.
“Let me talk to the Gearbreaker.”
He barks a laugh, taking a step back. “What?”
“I can get her to talk. To break.” He starts to laugh again, and my hand falls onto his sleeve. “I am angry, Lucindo. At what they do. At what they think they can do, with no consequence. They think they can steal and kill and it will not matter and it sickens me.” My fingernails curl, puckering the black fabric. “I will be kind. Gentle, you see—she expects violen
ce, is primed for it, and I think … I think she will not expect the likes of me. I will coax the information out, bit by damning bit. And we will use it to destroy them all.”
Lucindo is not laughing anymore, but he is grinning. I let him, let him revel in this cruelty he thinks is his. There is not one lie on my tongue. I watch those dimples sink like bullet holes into each cheek.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ERIS
Unfortunately, at some point I wake up.
Inventory: Headache burrowed into each temple. So much salt on my cheeks that the skin feels like it’s about to split apart. A slightly concerning tremor in my limbs that I can’t pinpoint—hunger, thirst, or the loss of blood, or … drumroll … a thrilling mix of all three.
Mood: Shit.
I feel I can’t be blamed for it.
Back at home, my crew would try to cheer me up with a game they affectionately called Let’s Get Eris As Mad As Possible But Not So Mad She Kills One of Us. This has involved slathering glue on my coffee mug, stealing and ransoming my goggles, setting off the fire alarm—and then hollering and dancing like idiots on the couch cushions while the sprinklers soaked the carpet—and sending gushy, worshipping fan letters to Jenny in my name.
Little psychos.
Heat pricks at the corners of my eyes.
I’m really never going to see them again, am I?
Little.
Godsdamn.
Bastards.
* * *
I didn’t even want them in the first place, not really.
Voxter turned his eyes from the office window, irises slate gray, the same color as the storm clouds blotting the skyline. I was thumbing through the stack of papers, looking over each bolded name, each sprawling, ridiculous disclaimer pinned underneath.
“Well?” he said gruffly.
“Well. I have some thoughts.”
“I remind you that at your age, Shindanai, the Council has graced you with this opportunity—”
“Oh, I feel graced, all right.” I began to draw some of the pages, six in all, and placed them in a neat row on the table that separated us. “Did Jen say I was a loose cannon? That’s a bit hypocritical.”
He sighed, sitting, starch-rigid canvas jacket crinkling around his shoulders. “Your sister supports your promotion.”
“So this is … what? So all the Gearbreaker problem children can get blown up at the same time?”
He hesitated. I shifted the papers, lining their edges up neatly.
“Xander Yoon,” I read aloud. “Eleven years old. Only been in the game a few months now, but his captain has asked—no, has begged—to have him transferred to another crew. Quite a charming kid, I see. Speaks only in violent threats when he bothers to speak at all. His crew’s been sleeping with one eye open for weeks now. He’ll be a great addition.”
I slipped his file noisily back into the stack to stifle Voxter’s response, moving on to the next paper.
“Arsen Theifson,” I read aloud, tracing over his name. “Thirteen years old, demolitionist. Seems to have a bit of trouble listening, accidentally blew a Windup’s thigh before his crew could clear the blast zone, and—oh, and almost blinded them with the shrapnel? Bonus.”
“Eris—”
“Juniper Drake,” I continued. “Twelve years old. Chemist. Corrosives expert. One of her concoctions was so potent that it first burned through its vial, and then a hole through her crew’s truck, while they were on a run, of course. Straight through the pistons and fuel line. Impressive.”
“Miss Shindanai—”
“Nova Atlantiades, thirteen years old. Proficient in sharpshooting and hand-to-hand combat, like the rest, I’m assuming. But she prefers being behind the wheel, apparently likes running circles around Windups, till it got one of her crew nearly flung into a footstep. She seems like fun.”
I didn’t need to look up to know that Voxter’s mouth was stretched taut. I moved on to the last two papers.
“Milo and Theo Vanguard, fourteen and thirteen, brothers. Gunslingers. Theo likes to shoot first and ask questions later—or to put it more simply, he’s trigger-happy. Forgets to turn on his safety sometimes, and sometimes grazes his crew captain’s ear with an accidental shot. I wonder how close he would’ve gotten if he was actually aiming.” I looked over the papers again. “I don’t see what this Milo kid did.”
“Nothing,” Voxter replied. “We thought it would be beneficial having someone your own age in your crew. That, and he has absolutely refused to leave his brother.”
I carefully aligned all their papers again in an even stack, then shoved it across the table. “He sounds boring. And possessive.”
James Voxter is ancient, in theory, but as far as I could tell, he looked about the same as he did when I was small: the hardness to his brow, the rippled burn scar enveloping his right cheek, the wrinkles around his eyes I’m sure wouldn’t come out even if I took a hot iron to them.
“You wouldn’t think this was so funny if you knew what we were up against nowadays, old man.”
He’s quiet for a moment, then he murmurs, “You sound just like your parents.”
The anger rises first, then the irritation. “Ah. Did this work on Jenny, too?”
“She knew them for longer than you did. I didn’t need to try so hard.”
Now I go quiet, biting my lip, biting down on my words. But I can’t get mad at him for telling the truth. “They loved the fight. Loved the adrenaline, like most of the lunatics running around here. They got sick off it. And they—”
“Got stepped on, I know,” I snap, bristling. “It was an honorable death. A Gearbreaker death.”
“Precisely my point, Eris. They didn’t back down. They dug their heels in, and instead of running, they learned to function in the chaos. To turn it in their favor. Jenny has the same ability.”
“Edgy shit.”
He stood and shoved the stack of papers toward to me. “You have a lot to learn, and you can’t do it alone. Not like you think you can.”
“And why not?” I shot back.
He tapped the papers with a knuckle. “Because you need more to fight for.”
My eyes treaded down. Across the top margin of the page, in bolded print: ERIS SHINDANAI’S GEARBREAKER CREW.
My crew. My artillery of loose cannons.
“Fine,” I said, picking up the paper stack and holding it close to my chest. “But I’m not gonna like them.”
* * *
In the one-way mirror, I watch my tongue slither between my teeth. The metallic taste of blood pricks the back of my throat.
I hope you lot are happy, I think to myself. I’m doing this for you, and I’m not even going to get to brag about it.
And then all of a sudden the door is open, and someone’s hand is constricting around my mouth.
I retract my tongue and bite down on the intrusion instead. Their blood replaces mine across my taste buds. The grip doesn’t budge.
I roll my gaze up. Above, two eyes stare back, one red and searing, the other a deep hazel. A chestnut curl unhooks from behind her ear as the silence beats forward.
“Hello,” she says softly. “Would you mind releasing my hand?”
I clamp down harder.
The Bot blinks, and then, expressionless, tears her hand away.
I spit the flesh to the side as she pulls a long strip of cloth from her pocket and begins to bind her hand. The bandage immediately blooms red.
She walks around the room, fingertips tapping each mirrored wall. The glass shifts to an opaque black. This is a momentary relief—I think there’s a lot of blood on my face and looking at myself accelerates the whole “you’re going to die” chant in my head—until I realize what this might mean.
“This soundproofs the room,” she says, and save for the Bot eye and the Pilot military jacket, she doesn’t look like an executioner. Tall, with curly, dark brown hair gathered around her shoulders, fair skin with a spray of freckles on the little babyish curve of her nose. S
he peels back her bandage curiously when she notices it dripping, blinks when this makes it drip faster. “No cameras in here, either. They like a lack of witnesses. In some cases.”
She has the proper Godolia accent, too silky in my ears—s’s soft and hissing and k’s neatly clipped, syllables handled with care.
There are calluses, hard and smooth, peppered generously across her knuckles. My eyes catch on her military jacket, one dark cuff slowly going darker with red. I never thought they’d make a teenager a member of the Valkyries. Never thought anyone her age could be ruthless enough.
“I hate you and I’m going to kill you,” I say.
The Bot moves forward, and I release a low, rumbling growl through clenched teeth. If Godolia thinks the people from the Badlands are animals, then I’ll be a rabid one.
But I can’t help it—I flinch once she reaches my side.
The Bot leans over me, bandaged hand bracing on the table left of my face, her other hand trailing a soft fingertip across my hairline. She peels back the strands encrusted in the gash splitting my forehead, and I bite my lip as they snap free, resisting the urge to start trembling. She’s going to blind me. The Bot’s going to blind me, like I did to her friend, but I’ll feel the pain in totality. I brace myself for the world to go dark.
“This was from taking down the Valkyrie?” she murmurs. “Is this all?”
“Don’t touch me,” I say, hating that my words don’t crawl above a croak, hating my cowardice, my fear. I’m flat against the field again, shuddering along with the grass as the Berserker’s bullets dimple the earth, waiting for someone to pull me back to my feet. But Jenny’s not here. I’m going to die alone.
Her hand moves away from my face, and the heat of her fingertips hovers over my left forearm where the other Bot buried her knife tip. It’s a mess of dried blood; you can’t even see what it’s supposed to be.
“Animals,” she murmurs, thick brows furrowed.
“Wirefucker,” I say to the ceiling. I just woke up and I’m already exhausted. Gearbreakers tend not to grow old most of the time, but right now, under the glare of the light bulb, I feel ancient. Like I could sleep for the whole year and still would wake up aching. I close my eyes. “You can go ahead and do whatever to me. I don’t feel like talking today.”
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