by Sam Ryder
But at the same time, so much had happened in the last couple days that I needed a little time to process all of it—and I needed to be alone to do that.
“Trust me, I’ll take you up on that soon. I promise,” I assured her before getting up and heading for the door. I paused in the doorway and turned around. “I may not need the company tonight. But if you have trouble sleeping, you know where to find me.”
I returned to my room, shucked off my clothes, and crawled into bed.
As tired as I was, I had trouble falling asleep. Thoughts kept swirling around in my head that I couldn’t shake.
Why did Belenie take all her stuff with her? What was she worried about it? Did she think too much about the mission and wanted everything “just in case”? That doesn’t make sense. She knew what this trip was about. She didn’t need that much stuff.
I didn’t want to entertain the thought, but it kept coming back to me. What did she know?
As I closed my eyes, my brain relived the events of the previous night. The explosions jarring me awake. The smoke burning my throat and eyes. Crawling over Derig’s lifeless body, his blood coating my hands.
Over and over those thoughts flashed through my mind. But one thing stuck out—a question I’d asked but had been unable to answer.
Why wasn’t Belenie in the cave when the attack had begun?
We assumed the Rising took her. But we never saw her. I didn’t, anyway. I never saw her at all that night.
I thought of the group retiring for the evening, just a few hours before the chaos. Keenak had slept on my left. Who was on my right?
It wasn’t Vega. She slept near the back of the cave with Simon. It wasn’t Belogon, and I knew it wasn’t Derig.
Then I remember a tender hand reaching across my body and squeezing my hand in the dark. Belenie was next to me that night.
So wouldn’t I have seen her at some point? Or at least been aware of where she was, if she was right next to me? If she’d run out into the night when the bombs starting going off, I would’ve known it, right?
They couldn’t have dragged her out of the cave without waking us up. And they would have had to pass over me.
If nobody else saw her, then she must have been gone by the time the attack took place. That was the only logical explanation. My initial theory was still possible: She’d gone for a walk. Derig was on watch, so the only witness could no longer speak.
That left me with three reasonable options: One—she’d planned to go off on her own for some reason; two—the Rising had abducted her and was now holding her hostage; or three—she’d gone with the Rising willingly, maybe even knew where to find them.
I immediately tossed the third option into the void, because it was ridiculous. Belenie was no traitor. Hell, she was an Ender, the Rising’s archenemy. So either she was abducted or she’d ditched us for some reason. It was strange hoping that it was the former, but I clung to that thought even as I slipped into a fitful sleep.
Chapter 39
A cordial meeting
I dreaded getting out of bed the next day. With Belenie missing, the world felt a little emptier. It was strange how the world worked like that. Before I met her, it wasn’t like there was some void waiting to be filled. But now that I knew her, her absence created a void.
When I finally stepped out of my room, Hannah and Adi both welcomed me back with heartfelt hugs, but they wore uneasy expressions on their faces.
“So Belenie is really gone?” Hannah asked.
“The Rising may have taken her,” I said.
“May have?” Even scrunched into a frown, Hannah’s face was a sight for sore eyes.
“We didn’t actually see her during the attack, so it’s possible she slipped away safely.”
“She wouldn’t just abandon you,” Adi said. Though her words were certain, the way she said it was not.
“She may have had a good reason,” I offered. “I don’t know what that might be, but anything is possible in the Ends.”
That explanation didn’t seem to fully satisfy them, and I understood why. It didn’t fully satisfy me. Nothing would, until I learned the truth.
We met the others outside: Gehn, Simon, and Vega. Keenak joined us as well.
“Sleep okay?” I asked Keenak.
“Like the dead.”
“And your arm?”
“Right as rain.” I could tell he was lying, his lips straining slightly. He was in some pain, but that couldn’t be helped. His body would need time to heal the normal way, unless Belenie miraculously showed up.
We headed for Belogon’s garden sanctuary to plan our next moves. I hoped the military strategist had had an epiphany overnight. If not, we’d rely heavily on Keenak’s knowledge of his son to decide where to go from here.
Belogon nodded to me as I entered his small house. I held the door as everyone else filed inside. Then I closed it. I cleared my throat, prepared to kick things off.
That’s when someone knocked on the door.
Belogon screwed up his already distorted features. I was guessing he’d asked not to be disturbed. “What?” he hollered.
A large guard stepped in. “Excuse me for the interruption, sir,” the guard said. “But the Queen has sent for Mr. Cutter.”
Everyone looked at me quizzically, as if I might have expected the intrusion. Only I didn’t have a clue. Ever since she’d agreed to support our efforts to rally an army, she’d seemed to have forgotten any of us existed. “What’s she want with me?” I asked.
“The Queen didn’t say,” the guard said. “I am simply a messenger.”
It was tempting to tell the queen to wait; I didn’t have time to entertain her right now. But then again, we wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without her help and technically we were her guests still. “Fine,” I replied. “Continue without me. I should be back within the hour.”
We made our way out of the gardens and back onto the street, heading toward the Queen’s palace. I wondered whether I’d have to do the whole foot-cleaning thing again and then eat breakfast with her. My mouth watered at the thought of the delectable food she would surely have but I immediately felt bad that I would get to partake when the others would not.
The guard led me inside the palace, down the long corridor that led not to the dining hall but to a small throne room. The Queen sat on her throne, looking prim and composed, but it wasn’t she who immediately captured my attention.
What—or more accurately, who—I saw when I walked in was the farthest thing from what I expected.
As the door slammed shut behind me, Atticus stood in the middle of the room wearing a smug grin.
“Cutter!” he shouted. “So we finally meet again.”
Rage boiled in my belly. I gritted my teeth. It took all my self-control not to charge across the space and strangle him with my bare hands. Even knowing his retinue of guards would shoot me dead well before I got halfway to him, the temptation was still strong. “What the fuck are you doing here?” I growled.
“I asked for a peaceful meeting,” he said, gesturing to the Queen, who remained seated, silent. Just watching, like the leader of her mortal enemy wasn’t standing a few feet from her with heavily armed guards. Oh wait. No, the guards weren’t armed. Of course not. The Queen wouldn’t allow them anywhere near her with weapons. At least she was that smart, although her intelligence was in question considering she’d allowed this scum to meet with her. “I assured her there would be no bloodshed. I wouldn’t dare disrespect her chambers like that.”
“And you’re going along with this?” I said to the Queen, dumbfounded. “After all he’s done to your people?” It seemed utterly inconceivable, and yet here we were.
“He requested a peaceful meeting,” she repeated. “There is more than one way to achieve peace in the Ends. Violence is not the only way. Female Enders understand that.”
Maybe that would be true if Atticus wasn’t in the picture, but there was no way he would agree to some kind of peac
eful treaty. I was certain of that much, especially after the things his father had told us about his little electric chair project. I said nothing, flexing my fingers.
Atticus stepped forward. “I have nothing but respect for you, Cutter,” he said, his words dripping with insincerity.
“I don’t give a shit about tradition or respect,” I said. “You give me one good reason why I don’t fill you with a dozen bullets in your chest right now.” Though he and his men had been relieved of their weapons, Alpha and Beta hung at my side.
A broad smile swept across his face. “Oh, Cutter, you won’t do that,” he said.
“Let me guess, you have Belenie as leverage,” I said, realizing why he was so confident in his position.
“Bravo.” Atticus waved his hand at one of the guards, a massive brick house of a man. He stepped to the right, muscles rippling beneath his tight t-shirt, which strained to contain his barrel of a chest. He opened a side door and Belenie was shoved through by another guard. The brickhouse guard grabbed her and dragged her before me. Her eyes met mine, and a thousand I’m sorries passed between both of us. She was sorry for going for a night walk by herself and putting us in this position. I was sorry I couldn’t have rescued her during the attack.
I stepped forward, hand automatically reaching to grab Alpha.
The guard grabbed Belenie’s head in a manner I understood. He could snap her neck in one second flat. I stopped.
Atticus laughed. “Adam here could kill your precious Belenie before you got off a single shot. Yes, you might kill him afterwards. Me too. But you won’t. Not if it means she dies. Am I right? Yes? No? Maybe so?” I said nothing. “That’s what I thought. What do you say? Let’s talk instead.”
The bastard had me. I didn’t know what happened with Belenie, but I sure as hell would not risk her life. “So talk,” I said. “What the hell do you want, Atticus?” I was tired and frustrated and pissed off, but managed to rein in much of my emotions.
“I hear you have my father,” he said. “Good for you. Ol’ Keenak is a drunk and a fool, so I’m not sure how you think he can help you.
“What do you care?” I asked. “You’re the one who threw him out of Rome.”
“True. And I don’t care, not really. I just want a fair fight. My father will…screw things up for you, fill your head with nonsense.”
“Is that all?” I asked. “If so, we’re done. Thanks for the advice.”
“Wait,” Atticus said. I stopped, grudgingly.
“What? After all you’ve done, what could you possibly need to say to me?”
Atticus calmly walked across the room, his back to me, and sat down in a chair. He extended his palm and gestured me to join him in a chair adjacent to him. I didn’t want to sit down, but he wasn’t talking. And I had no leverage.
With every ounce of self-control I had, I headed over to the chair and sat.
“You know, Cutter, I’m a simple man,” he started. “I don’t have a whole lot of tricks up my sleeve. At least not me personally. My soldiers? My guys out there? They have all sorts of tricks. Tricks you wouldn’t believe. But I’m no fighter. I’m a leader. And I am not here to gain some kind of advantage over you. In fact, just the opposite.”
“What are you talking about? You don’t want to trade Belenie for Keenak?”
He chuckled. “No, thanks. I’ve had enough of that fool. I’m here to piss you off, Cutter. I want to get you as angry as possible. And the thing is, the fact that you’re sitting here with me? And I’m still breathing? That’s pissing you off.” He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “Nothing would make you happier than killing me right here. You want to spill my blood all over this floor. You want to wrap your hands around my throat and squeeze until I turn bluer than any of these Ender men you’re trying to side with. It drives you crazy.”
“Why do you want to piss me off?”
“Because I want you to bring it, man. All of it. I want you to gather the troops, rally all the Enders in town, and bring them to my doorstep,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “I want every Ender in the wasteland to come after me and my men. Hell, I don’t even mind if you kill a bunch of them. I just want you to throw everything you have at me. The more pissed you are, the more firepower you’ll bring to the table.”
“This is horse shit,” I said. “Why wouldn’t you just kill me now? All this time, you’ve wanted to kill me. So just do it, then. Have Adam waltz over here and snap my neck. What are you waiting for? Why are you toying with me?” I was hoping he would go for it, which would free up Belenie for long enough for me to make my move.
Unfortunately, Atticus was smarter than that. “Kill you? Right now?” Atticus said in disbelief. “Honestly, Cutter, you know I wouldn’t be able to. I’ve got, what, three people in here? I’ve sent a dozen Wanderers to you at once and none of them have been able to do it. I considered Elias to be one of the most skilled killers I’ve seen in the last decade, and now his rotting carcass lies outside our city because of you. Shit, Cutter, if I tried to kill you right now, you’d find some way to slip out of it and I’d end up dead.”
He was right about that.
“Besides, I want all the Enders,” he continued. “I’m tired of Enders. Every last one of them is nothing more than a thorn in my side. I want to kill them. Not just ‘kill a bunch of them’ or ‘get rid of as many as I can.’ I mean all of them. In my dream world, Enders don’t exist anymore. I can run the Ends as I see fit, and nobody messes with me. So if I piss you off and you bring everybody to Rome to fight me and my people, I get the best possible chance at just wiping out Enders altogether. The few remaining stragglers throughout the Ends can be dealt with in their own time.”
I looked toward the Queen, who remained silent. “Are you hearing this? All you have to do is say the word and he’s done. He walked right into your web thinking he wouldn’t get caught like the cocky son of a bitch he is. Have him killed and this will all be over.”
The Queen looked uncomfortable. “I cannot,” she said.
“Why not?” There was something I was missing. Something crucial.
“Oh this is rich,” Atticus said, slapping his knee. “You don’t know? The Queen didn’t even bother to tell you when you climbed into bed with her? You have bedded her, right Cutter?”
“What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Talking. About?” I was tired of the games, of Atticus always being a step ahead.
Atticus laughed loudly as if I had just told him a joke. “Want to tell him or should I?”
My eyes roved back and forth between the Rising leader and the Queen. The Queen’s eyes were downcast and she refused to look at me. She looked like a shade of the strong woman I’d first met.
“Fine, I’ll do it,” Atticus said. “It’s like ripping off a bandage, eh honey?” Had he just called the Ender Queen ‘honey’? How was she letting him get away with being so disrespectful while she sat the throne in her own city. “Queen Sierra here has a past with me. We were lovers, once. Until she changed into a freak. But not before she offered me a freakish spawn daughter.”
My mouth cracked open, my jaw trying to drop for the floor. No. No. This had to be a lie. But it wasn’t. I knew it the moment I saw the pain course across the Queen’s expression. I knew nothing about her past, before she transformed into an Ender. Until now.
“So the Ender girl you have in your quarters back in Rome…” I said.
“Ah, so you aren’t so clueless after all,” Atticus said. “At least you heard that much. Yes, she is my—our—daughter. Unfortunately her genetics are more from her mother and she came out all Ender, even before her mother had undergone the transformation. It was creepy as hell.”
The truth was jarring, shocking, but what was worse was the fact that this man continued to hate Enders with every ounce of his being when his own daughter was one. “You’re sick,” I spat.
“Trying to get under my skin?” he said. “Nice try.” He laughed silently to himself. “Man, I wish I could have seen
your face when those trucks came racing out of the city! Oh, damn, it was fun to release those. When I heard the body count, I needed some private time to get off on it. Seriously, Cutter, we’re two steps ahead of you in every way. You’re on a death mission, man.”
I kept my cool. Barely. Mostly because I was fairly certain, he didn’t know we’d recruited the Insurgence. Springing that surprise on him at the right time could make a major difference in whatever was to come.
“Nothing to say? Very well. Your guns can do the talking when we meet again. Or not.” With that, he stood, gesturing to his man, Adam, to bring Belenie with him.
“Leave her,” I said, hating the desperation in my voice. “You don’t need her. You already have every advantage. The men. The firepower. The technology. What is an Ender woman to you?”
He smirked, which gave me his answer, but he had more to say than simply ‘no.’ “Well, beside the fact that I love seeing this get under your skin, Cutter, I’m not a fool. I know that some Ender women have amazing abilities. And her healing will come in most handy during the next battle. She will resist for a time, but not when I threaten to slit my own daughter’s throat. Then she’ll behave like a good little bitch.”
For the first time since I’d entered the throne room, I saw the Queen show some emotion, her eyes darting up. “You wouldn’t,” she said.
“Really, darling?” Atticus said. “I would think after all this time you’d know me better than that.”
The Queen’s bottom lip quivered, wracked with sorrow and fear. I felt bad for her, though I was still angry she’d kept this crucial information from me.
With a final, infuriating bow, Atticus left, Adam and Belenie in tow.
I looked at the Queen, who was clearly distraught, and for good reason. I wanted to be angry at her for keeping secrets, but I couldn’t be. Not after what I’d learned, especially not when I knew what it was like to lose a daughter.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But you should have told me.”
“I know,” she said, her voice breaking on the second word. “God, I know.”