by Ivy Baum
Sol said flatly, “She’s coming with me.”
I felt a flash of annoyance. He hadn’t even glanced at me as he said this.
Lucan sighed. “You asked if things were getting boring in the Capitol. Well, I’ll have you know that I have plenty to keep me busy.”
“You mean hunting half-bloods?”
Lucan smiled. “I’ll be on my way now. I’d hate to have to stick around and clean up this mess.”
His eyes sought out mine, and I suppressed a shiver.
“If you do change your mind, come find me.”
With that, he left, his henchman following quietly on his heels.
Sol didn’t make a move to go after either of them. I waited for him to say something, but he was quiet, his gaze fixed on the doorway.
Only when we heard the sound of an engine revving did Sol turn to me.
“Grab your bag. The others are waiting.” The stone-faced countenance had softened—but only a little.
I didn’t move. My gaze went, irresistibly, to the man Sol had sucked the life out of. “What are you?”
For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer.
But then he sighed and straightened. “I’m a Cipher. My gift, if you can call it that, is the power to take someone’s life force. I drain them.”
I looked away. The man on the floor seemed to have shrunk, as though he’d collapsed into himself. “You killed him.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Sol snapped. “Once I turn on my power, it takes over. I don’t like to use it. But you gave me no choice.”
I heard the rebuke in his voice but ignored it. “Why didn’t you just do that to Lucan?”
He smiled bitterly. “Haven’t you guessed? He’s like me. A Cipher.”
“A Cipher can’t attack another Cipher?”
“It would backfire. We can only attack each other by proxy.”
Lucan had said, I’ll have to respond in kind.
He would have attacked me.
I tried not to think about what that kind of death would feel like.
“Come on.” Sol moved toward the door.
I hurried after him. “Don’t you want to know why I was leaving?”
We were in the parking lot now. The light was hazy but growing brighter. I spotted the van idling in the corner.
Sol didn’t slow. “Not really. We’ve already wasted enough time and resources on this little diversion.”
I stopped. “You mean on me.”
He turned. “Frankly, yes. I don’t understand what your problem is. Most people, when I save their lives, just say thank-you.”
“I don’t know why you bothered.”
I’d said it under my breath, but he responded anyway.
“Because that’s what I do. It’s my duty. But it doesn’t mean I have to like it when you risk my team on a petty tantrum.”
“Maybe I should have gone with him.”
He looked at me sharply. “Please tell me you didn’t fall for his charm act. Jesus, what is it with teenage girls and sociopaths? He sees you as an opportunity to take something from me. That’s all.”
That was probably true. But why was he here in the first place?
Sol gave me a hard look. “How long do you think it would take him to get bored and do exactly to you what I did to his men?”
I didn’t have an answer to that. Not one that I wanted to contemplate, anyway.
“Now. Can we please get in the van?”
“We’re leaving?”
“I find it’s best practice not to stick around when there are multiple dead bodies lying around.”
Good point.
As we climbed into the van, he gave me a final, long look. “The next time you endanger my team, I will leave you behind. Don’t do it again.”
Chapter 23
We stopped for gas on the far side of Cody, Wyoming.
I hopped out of the van and into the cold air. Beyond the little oasis of pavement, there were only low, rocky hills and a highway that seemed to stretch out forever.
Sol gave us strict instructions not to “wander off.” He wasn’t looking at me when he said it, but his pointed tone made me flush.
I used the bathroom, then decided I wasn’t ready to get back in the van. I found a strip of brownish grass at the edge of the parking lot and sat, shivering.
“You can’t take it personally, you know.”
I wrenched around and found myself looking up at Junie’s slight silhouette.
I really wasn’t in the mood for company. But before I could open my mouth, Junie had plunked herself down on the grass next to me.
Her words hung between us. We both knew what—and who—she was talking about.
She shot me a sidelong smile. “These last few years have been hard on him. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they haven’t been easy for any of us. But Sol’s probably had it the worst.”
I glanced over, interested in spite of myself.
“Last year…he kind of fell apart.”
“What happened?”
She smiled faintly. “How long do we have left?”
I checked my watch. Okay, not my watch. I hadn’t worn a watch in years. But once Deo noticed that my phone had been confiscated, he’d unceremoniously gifted me with a no-frills unisex digital watch.
“Seven and a half minutes,” I told Junie.
“I guess I’ll have to talk fast, then.”
But she seemed to hesitate before speaking. Her eyes were on some distant place, and I got the sense that she was trying to find a starting point.
“He had a girlfriend. Melantha. Two years ago, she disappeared.”
Melantha. The name made the back of my neck prickle.
I realized, uncomfortably, that the news that Sol had a girlfriend made me distinctly unhappy.
Come on. Don’t be so childish.
“Is she…?”
It seemed insensitive to finish the sentence.
“No one’s heard from her in almost two years.” Junie smiled grimly. “In the half-blood world, that’s as good as a death certificate.”
Her matter-of-fact tone sent a chill down my back.
“Anyway, Sol wouldn’t accept it. He ran off, tried to find her. Pissed off a lot of people. And nearly got himself killed in the process.”
I was fairly sure this wasn’t going to end well.
“Last year, Elena—she ran the Rescue Program—ordered him to come back. She had a job for him. Some newly-manifested half-bloods in a former Treaty Zone. She wanted him to go out there and bring them in before some opportunistic Squad took them out.”
“You’re talking about White Falls.”
She nodded.
“Anyway, Sol refused. He was sure he was on the verge of finding Melantha. Elena went in his place, and the Hunters wiped out her and her team.”
“And the half-bloods?”
“They all died—except for one. Which is how we got our newest team member.”
Right. Clover.
“Why didn’t you leave? After you got Clover, I mean?”
“We almost did. We were getting ready to get out of there. But then we learned about you.”
“You mean Deo sniffed me or whatever?”
Ugh. It really was a gross word.
Junie looked uncertain. “Not exactly. You hadn’t even Manifested yet. From Deo’s perspective, you were invisible. But Nev knew about you.”
“Is she a Sniffer too?”
“To be honest, none of us really knows what Nev is. Only that she’s very old and very powerful. She’s the one who convinced Sol to stay.”
I felt a powerful surge of disappointment. I’d been hoping there was some reason—some better reason—why Sol had wanted to save me.
“Did you know Melantha?”
“Yes. I knew her.” There was a sad, lopsided smile on her face. “We’re about the same age. She was there when I Manifested. In a way, she saved me.”
There were other questions I desperately wan
ted to ask. Did Sol still love Melantha? Was he still trying to find her?
Junie touched my arm. “Look, my point is that Sol’s not perfect. He’s made mistakes just like the rest of us. And when he looks at you, I imagine he sees a reminder of one of his bigger mistakes.”
She was trying to cheer me up. But suddenly, I didn’t want to be cheered up. I could feel a dark mood setting in. “What about everyone else?”
“Huh?”
“I won’t take what Sol says personally. But what about everyone else in my life? What about Sydney? What about Rain? They just ditched me. Like I meant nothing to them.”
Junie looked surprised—then guilty.
She cleared her throat. “Yeah, the thing is…I may have had something to do with that.”
“You?”
“Remember my Source gift?”
I nodded.
“Right. Well…I kind of used it. On Rain and Sydney. And some of your other friends.”
“Why?”
“When we found out about Galen Sotheby—when we figured out he was a mole for the Capitol—we knew things would be getting dangerous for you. The closer you got to Manifesting, the more dangerous.”
“Why not just mess with his brain, then?”
“It would have been risky. It was easier just to keep you away from everyone.” She gave me a lopsided smile. “Sorry I had to ruin your life.”
“Dr. Sotheby didn’t know what I was?”
“No. Not until those fireworks you pulled off at Homecoming. He probably suspected you after your First Fever, though. It was the first time you ever got sick, wasn’t it?”
I nodded.
“It’s part of Manifesting. Though for most people, it doesn’t land them in the hospital. Even so, Galen must not have been sure about you. Or you wouldn’t be alive.”
I shook my head. This, out of everything, was almost the hardest to swallow.
He would have killed me. My best friend’s father, whom I’d known nearly all my life.
Junie seemed to understand. “They can’t help it. They’re brainwashed from birth about the Covenant of Purity.”
I shot her a curious look, but she waved it away.
“I’ll tell you about it when we have more time.”
“I still can’t believe you got Syd and Rain to ditch me.”
“People have certain…inclinations. I like to think of their brains like a set of scales. Under the right circumstances, I can go in and press my thumb on one side of the scale.”
I frowned. “Syd…”
Junie squeezed my hand. “That took work. She really was—is—your friend, Kes. If we hadn’t left town, I never could have kept it up.”
“What about Rain?”
She looked uncomfortable. “Uh…”
I gave a bitter laugh. “Right.”
“Don’t take it personally. Just between you and me, convincing a teenage boy to sleep with someone other than his girlfriend is probably the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”
But the thing was, I didn’t take it personally. It occurred to me that I was almost entirely over Rain. Now I could look at what Junie had done with a sense of wonder.
I said, a little shyly, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but couldn’t you use your gift to make some, uh, money?”
“You mean swindle people?” She was grinning.
I laughed, embarrassed. “I guess.”
“Look, you’re not entirely wrong. There was a time when half-bloods did that kind of stuff all the time. I’m old enough to remember those days. The era of the Dens.”
“Dens?”
“Think of gangs of petty criminals…except with magic.”
“What happened to them?”
She shrugged. “Atameus and his hard-liners took over the Council. Hunter Squads became a part of official policy. They got more aggressive. By the time the Armistice lapsed, most of the Dens had disbanded.”
Her gaze strayed to the van, where Sol was watching us. He looked impatient.
Junie got up.
I asked, quickly, “Hey, Junie? What’s your real name?”
She gave me a strange look. “Why do you ask?”
“You said Junie wasn’t your real name. But everyone calls you that.”
For a moment, I thought she wouldn’t answer. Then she smiled—a hard, resilient smile.
“I’ve had many names. That stuff I was telling you about the Dens? Let’s just say I speak from personal experience. I was involved in things, and I ended up with some very powerful enemies. I haven’t used my real name in decades.”
“Oh.”
The van’s engine had rumbled to life, and I started toward it. But Junie stopped me.
“Kes.” She was wearing a strange, wistful expression. “My name was Karen. Karen Kleinmann. When the Hunters came for me, my family tried to protect me. They’re dead now…and in some ways, Karen died with them.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “Do yourself a favor and remember something. Half-bloods aren’t saints. We’re just another group who pulled the short straw.”
We pulled out of the gas station, and the last glimpse of civilization disappeared behind us.
Soon we had passed the sign for Shoshone National Forest, and the landscape changed from scrubby, rocky hills to greener, more dramatic vistas.
The closer we got, the more restless and talkative people became.
When the van started to slow, I thought we’d arrived. I crawled to the front, stomach abuzz with anticipation.
But when I peered out the windshield, I knew something was wrong.
We had come to a hilltop ridge. There were no trees around us, only sparse grass. Spread out below us was a valley that ended in a sloping wall of thick forest.
Deo had pulled the van off to a small stretch of dirt that served as a turnaround for the narrow road.
I started to ask what was going on, but Deo and Sol were already climbing out of the van.
Junie and Clover, who had been deep in conversation in the rear of the van, finally seemed to notice that we’d stopped.
Junie called, “Hey! Sol! What gives? You gals need a potty break or something?”
I clambered out just in time to see Deo pointing toward the horizon.
In the valley below, a single trail of smoke rose toward the sky.
I frowned. “Is that—?”
A pall had fallen over the group. I knew, with sudden certainty, that the smoke should not have been there.
Junie looked to Sol. “What does it mean?
Sol only shook his head.
Deo turned, wearing the slightly unfocused expression I had come to associate with his type of magic.
Sol folded his arms. “Well?”
Deo shook his head. He seemed reluctant to speak. “Something’s…wrong.”
“Care to be more specific?”
He took a deep breath. “The wards are down.”
Junie said, “Maybe it’s not—”
“It’s not just that. There was magic here recently—something big, something prolonged. And…powerful.”
Sol gave him a sharp look. “And now?”
“There’s still something going on. I don’t know what, exactly. But if I had to guess...I think Sanctuary has been compromised.”
Chapter 24
Fifteen minutes later, we were staked out on a low rise at the edge of a clearing. Sanctuary—what was left of it—lay in front of us.
Junie swore. “The bastards finally did it.”
Sol frowned. “You think this is the work of the Capitol?”
“Who else could it be?”
We had gotten as close as we dared.
A long, winding road had taken us down into the forest. Soon, we were surrounded by trees and my sense of direction had given up entirely.
Deo had slowed to a crawl—the van barely cleared the thick underbrush. But eventually, we’d encountered a turn-off for an even narrower dirt road.
A chain had once barred the way. But someone had barreled through it, and now it lay on the ground, next to a rotted wooden sign that read, Closed for the Season.
As the van slowly edged through the brush, it didn’t escape my notice that trees and branches were askew. It looked as though someone had already crashed through here.
Deo got as close as he dared, then parked the van in a small clearing.
We walked the last quarter-mile. Now we were at the perimeter’s edge, staring down at Sanctuary—or what was left of it.
It wasn’t much—a handful of lopsided picnic tables and a single building—something small and crude, like a Ranger’s Station.
The building was a half-burned wreckage, and it was still smoldering.
Across the way, on the far side of the clearing, a half-dozen gleaming SUVs were parked.
Deo pointed to them. “Those don’t look like standard-issue from the Capitol.”
Sol said, “We need to get closer.”
Junie was shaking her head. “They let it stand for two hundred years. Why attack now?”
Deo said, “This doesn’t feel like the Capitol. It feels more like a group of Hunters gone rogue.”
“But Atameus is on their side. He invalidated the Armistice. He’s given the Hunters everything they wanted.”
“Not everything.” Deo was smiling humorlessly. “And not fast enough for some.” He glanced over. “Sol?”
Sol looked almost surprised to hear his name. His face was distant. Deep in thought—or in shock.
Deo said, “What do you think?”
Sol shook his head. “We have to get inside.”
There was a stunned silence.
Deo said, “You want to go…in there.” He sounded like he was trying to wrap his head around the idea.
Sol’s face was tight. “Right now, we know nothing. Nothing except the fact that something big went down, and…” He gestured vaguely.
“…And the fact that the front door is on fire?” Junie’s tone was pointed.
Sol didn’t answer. I saw a look go between Deo and Junie.
Sol didn’t seem to notice. “We haven’t checked out the back door.”
Deo shook his head. “What’s the value of going inside? We’d be risking our lives—for what?”