Disobedience

by Kaitlyn Andersen

  His sarcastic whisper carried over to her in the dark.

  “Stories of my monstrous deeds, no doubt,” he bit out.

  “And your execution,” she told him, tapping one of the steel boxes on her hands against the glass meaningfully. He chuckled in response, the deep sound much more pleasant than she expected it to be.

  “Reliance propaganda,” he scoffed, running a dark hand over his bald head.

  They were quiet for several moments before she broke the silence with a question that surprised them both.

  “What’s your name?”

  The silence stretched between them. She supposed their conversation was over. He may be her ally in the Dome for now, but that didn’t make them friends. She supposed she’d just have to keep calling him the Solidarian.

  Finn leaned her head back against her cell and closed her eyes. His soft murmur reached her a few moments later.

  “No one has asked me that in a very long time. My name is Aedan.”

  Finn’s lips quirked slightly.

  “Nice to meet you, Aedan.”

  He didn’t return the pleasantry. Instead, he asked her, “Are you still worried about the girl?”

  She smiled into the night as she thought about shy little Carrow safe on Independence. She wondered if the child had made friends with Tiri yet, and the idea filled her with warmth.

  “Not anymore.”

  Surprise colored his tone as his voice reached her once again.

  “Care to tell me why?”

  Finn’s smile widened.

  “Because the Disobedience is coming.”

  After several beats, Aedan released a soft exhalation, followed by low laughter. “So, the brain was right.”

  Finn let loose a soft sigh. For the first time since finding herself in the Dome, she willingly allowed her eyelids to flutter closed and fell into a deep sleep.

  Help was coming, they just needed to keep themselves alive long enough for it to reach them.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Using the chunky, gelatinous meal cubes in varying shades of gray they were served twice a day as a guidepost for the passage of time, Finn surmised that three days had come and gone since her first voyage into the Dome and the arrival of Mr. Green’s strange note. She’d resorted to eating without her hands like a feral dog in order to keep up her strength.

  Three days without any sign of rescue.

  She hated to admit it to herself, but as each day passed in a blur of sticky gruel and the guards’ stern glares, the spark of hope that had been lit inside of her began to dim.

  How long before it was extinguished completely? What if something had happened to Shane and his crew? What if they weren’t coming? Countless doubts plagued her as the buzz of fluorescent lights and jeers from Viper and Rock drove her slowly but surely deeper into madness.

  “You okay, Finn?”

  She gave AJ a concerned look through her prison of thick glass.

  “She looks the usual amount of brain-dead to me.” Viper chuckled. Her yellow eyes, the only thing visible behind her latex suit, smiled.

  Finn ignored the deadly hybrid and offered AJ a half-hearted smile.

  “Everything’s fine, kid, I’m just going a little stir-crazy in here.”

  Her eyes flitted around their underground jail, finding it suspiciously empty of Reliance guards for the third day in a row.

  “They’re waiting for a new shipment,” Supersonic called out, as though reading Finn’s mind. “It’s why we have such long breaks between Dome shows.” She gestured at the other prisoners. “They’ve got to replace the merchandise.”

  Finn rolled her eyes and shot a glower in the fast-talking hybrid’s direction.

  Merchandise? She supposed it was true enough; they were nothing more than goods to be bought and sold by the Reliance.

  “Don’t worry,” Viper purred to Finn, “you’ll get your chance to die soon enough.”

  As if on cue, the outer doors buzzed and every hybrid’s head, including Finn’s, turned in unison.

  Two lines of soldiers marched into the space, an array of staffs, pulse rifles, and stunner gloves drawn and ready for anything. Moving as one, they filled the cramped space and fanned out to stand in pairs by each cell. Behind them, more soldiers poured in, trailed by three midnight-blue boxes the size of Finn’s shower stall on Independence.

  A low hum sounded as the cubes hovered in the air, one following behind the other as they floated to a stop near three empty cells. One of the soldiers tapped away at a holopad and the boxes dropped to the ground with three simultaneous thuds. On a hiss, their side panels opened to reveal three bound and blindfolded bodies. They were limp and unmoving as the soldiers manhandled each one and threw them unceremoniously into the empty cells.

  A deep, strangely familiar voice called through the opened doorway. “Keep an eye on the Chihiri halfling; she’s feisty.”

  Recognition slammed into Finn like a falling meteor, and she began to shake. Goosebumps broke out over her arms and the back of her neck.

  It’s not possible.

  And yet, somehow it was.

  The chancellor entered through the doorway. He seemed shorter than she remembered, less imposing. Though what he lacked in stature, he made up for with intensity. His black eyes immediately sought out Finn’s, a feral smile forming as they made eye contact. That face! The haunting visage of the worst possible ghost imaginable.

  He’s alive!

  The last time she’d seen her captor and torturer he’d been bleeding out on the ground from a gunshot wound to the stomach. A gunshot fired by Finn.

  A long black-and-gold cloak hung from his wide shoulders and the dark, thinning hair left on his head had been slicked back in his usual style. His shiny, pointed boots clicked against the floor with each stride that carried him over to her.

  “Hello, dove.” He hummed his nickname for her like a curse. Leaning in closer, his warm breath fanned against the glass, creating a sphere of fog in front of Finn’s startled face. “Surprise,” he whispered.

  She took two clumsy steps back and away from the glass, feeling the blood drain from her face as she did. She began to shake uncontrollably.

  As he watched her reaction, seeming to relish in it, his cold eyes gleamed with unbridled glee. The rest of the room surrounding them had gone deathly silent as their exchange continued. Every ear, hybrid and Reliance alike, was perked to hear what would happen next.

  “It cost me two perfectly good Aquariian healers to undo the damage your little bullet caused,” he spat, “and even then I still feel a twinge in my kidneys every time I take a piss.”

  The chancellor paused to look her over with an assessing gaze. “But here I am and”—his eyes took her in slowly from head to toe, his lips curling with disgust—“here you are.”

  His palm came up to press against the glass of her cell gently, and he released a sigh of regret.

  “And I had such high hopes for you . . . such plans.” Abruptly, his wistful air subsided and his eyes gleamed with pure hatred. “My guidance could have shaped you into the most powerful half-breed these worlds have ever seen.”

  “Guidance?” Though it was still shaky, Finn finally found her voice, and her eyes narrowed at the monster from her nightmares made flesh. “Is that what we’re calling torture these days?”

  His eyes narrowed at her display of defiance, as though sensing the anger slowly overpowering her fear.

  “That torture as you call it, only made you stronger . . . forced your abilities to the forefront. Your potential was limitless. But no,” he growled, “you had to go and get your feelings all twisted up over a useless mutt. What was her name again?”

  A trembling murmur left Finn without her even realizing it until it was too late.

  “Sophie.”

  “Ah, yes. Sophie,” the chancellor breathed, sensing her weakness and pouncing on it as he leaned closer. “You never forget your first kill.”

  Sophie’s anguished cries fil
led Finn’s head as she stumbled backward, her back hitting the wall of her cell hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs. Without any escape, the cries grew louder, staining her vision with the image of the little girl’s blood-soaked dress.

  The chancellor smiled, his evil eyes crinkling at the corners.

  “I must admit, I was disappointed by your debut performance in the Dome. It’s a shame to see such a talented killer denying her true nature. No matter, you’ll turn on them eventually. Perhaps we’ll catch a glimpse of it tomorrow.” He held his hand up to his face in a feigned whisper. “You seem to be fond of the Anunnaki boy. Maybe I’ll add him to my collection.”

  Finn’s body was so racked with tremors, she couldn’t respond. Instead, she watched with tears streaming down her face as the chancellor turned his attention to the rest of the hybrid prisoners.

  “I’m putting a price on this one’s head.”

  Rock and Viper perked up in their cells.

  “What kind of price?” Viper asked him boldly.

  “Whichever of you kills her tomorrow in the Dome will not only be granted their freedom, but I will personally see to it you receive enough gold to live out your days peacefully and in comfort.”

  Finn tried to ignore the way the other prisoners’ mouths dropped open in shocked hope. Viper and Rock looked at each other meaningfully before returning their gazes to the chancellor.

  “What’s the catch?” Rock growled.

  “No catch.” The chancellor waved his hand and clucked his tongue. He locked eyes with each prisoner before returning his stare to Finn. “All I ask is that you make it hurt.”

  She didn’t dare look around at the rest of the group for fear of what she would see. As a sinking feeling of dread filled her chest, she knew what she’d find.

  He’d just signed her death warrant.

  “Good luck, my dove.” With that final amused whisper hanging in the air between them, the chancellor strode past the cells, his cloak trailing behind him.

  Finn shivered, cold dread spreading its way through her as her brain and body began to shut down. The sound of his receding footsteps hit her like gunshots. Dimly she recognized AJ calling out to her, but she barely heard him over the sound of her own heartbeat.

  Once the chancellor had made it through the doors and she could no longer hear his retreating steps, Finn collapsed into a heap on the dirty floor.

  THIRTY-SIX

  “Finn, talk to me,” AJ begged.

  She lay on the floor of her cell, her back to the rest of them as her mind swam in an ocean of despair and confusion.

  The chancellor was alive. She hadn’t killed him.

  “Oh look, the newbies are awake,” Supersonic chirped somewhere in the distance. “Welcome to the Imminent Death Club, I’ll make this quick. Do you see that half-Teslan on the ground over there with the red hair? All you really need to know is some bigwig Reliance guy promised a life of comfort and gold to the half-breed who kills her . . . painfully.”

  AJ growled angrily just as Viper cut in.

  “What are you doing? They weren’t even awake when he made the offer. We’ve got dibs.”

  “Fair is fair,” Supersonic shot back.

  “I don’t understand,” one of the newcomers moaned groggily. “Where am I?”

  Supersonic sighed heavily and launched in with her introduction-to-the-Dome speech. When she reached the chancellor’s proposition, Finn finally rolled over.

  “You know he’ll never follow through with that offer, don’t you? The Reliance will never let you disappear with their gold and your freedom. Even if you kill me in the Dome, you’ll never get what he promised.”

  The blindfolds had been removed from the newcomers’ eyes, but their hands remained bound. They seemed completely unfazed by her impassioned speech. Their minds worked to process all of the new information they’d just been given, and all three studied Finn quietly as though tracking her movements and downloading them as data in preparation for the Dome’s games.

  Finn returned the favor, assessing the half-Chihiri. Her plumb-colored skin was covered in iridescent scales that glittered in the artificial light. The half-Saosin had his leathery, talon-tipped wings secured tightly behind his back by thick bands. What appeared to be a half-Goslan—judging by the translucent tentacles sprouting from his ribcage—was next to him.

  The notion seemed ridiculous, given that no human in their right mind would ever breed with the deadly tentacle-clad alien, but after hearing of Viper’s origins in a Reliance lab, she supposed it wasn’t all that surprising.

  The Saosin seemed harmless enough, though those deadly wings could prove problematic. The Goslan’s tentacles would be a challenge, but Finn felt confident enough in her defensive maneuvers to consider him a nonthreat.

  The Chihiri, however, was a wildcard.

  A full-blooded Chihiri came equipped with a unique set of vocal cords. It allowed their voices to reach octaves beyond the normal realm of most alien and human hearing. The anomaly had varying effects on the galaxy’s different races. She’d seen some become entranced by the odd notes and others repelled to the point of incapacitation.

  “She’s right,” Aedan interrupted gruffly. “The chancellor is toying with all of you. In all my time here, I’ve never seen him make an offer like that.”

  “Wow, he must really hate you,” Supersonic chimed in cheerfully.

  “Someone has gotten real chatty all of a sudden,” Viper sneered, her eyes narrowing on the Solidarian before turning Finn’s way. “I think I’ll take the risk, especially if it means putting Brain-Dead out of her misery.”

  “Get in line,” Rock snarled. His scalp had done some healing in the days following the Dome, but it did nothing to improve his disposition or seething hatred for Finn.

  If the gleam in his eye was any indication, it looked as though he’d spent the last three days plotting all the ways he planned to make her suffer.

  “You touch her and I’ll kill you!” AJ yelled.

  “I’d love for you to try, whelp,” Viper called to him in a singsong voice.

  “Enough!” Finn yelled and rose to her feet. “If you want a future free from the Dome, you’ll work with us instead of against us. I know the chancellor. He gets off on torturing our kind. This is just another one of his games.”

  “The chancellor is the biggest supplier of half-breeds to the Dome. Everyone knows that,” Viper spat in Finn’s direction. “He spends cycles honing their abilities through pain. He’s a legend, and the Reliance gives him free rein. If he says he can get me out of here with the added bonus of making you bleed, I choose to take him at his word.”

  “Me too,” Rock snapped.

  Finn held onto the fleeting tether of hope still inside her. Her voice softened as she pleaded with them.

  “Please. I know if we can just hold on a little longer, I can get us out of here.”

  Viper laughed, the sound rumbling from deep in her belly.

  “Did you hear that, Rock? She still thinks she’s going to break us out.”

  As the laughter continued, Finn’s chest squeezed painfully.

  There would be no reasoning with them. If Shane and his crew didn’t show up soon, the other prisoners would gladly stain the Dome with Finn’s blood.

  She glanced over at AJ and winced at the fear and anger pulling his beautiful features into a harsh frown.

  She gave him her best attempt at a reassuring nod before returning to sit in the dirt with her back against the cell.

  All she could now was wait and plan.

  Wait for help to arrive and plan for the worst

  As the day bled into night and the lights above them dimmed, the hybrids grew quiet with anticipation, and Finn did her best to get some rest.

  She dreamed of bloodied dresses and the chancellor’s cruel voice.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  They were awakened early the next morning by the telltale hissing within each cell as the prisoners were gassed. Finn sat o
n the ground and waited for unconsciousness to claim her.

  Just as she had a few days ago, she awakened in a dark corridor; the low din of the crowd could be heard outside.

  Finn pushed herself to her feet and waited. Eventually, the door before her opened and she was awash in blinding light. Rather than wait for her eyes to adjust, she moved quickly into the Dome as she sought out AJ. She found the boy standing nervously several feet away.

  She hustled to join him as Mr. Green continued with his obnoxious introductions.

  The three new hybrids were already inside, their bodies huddled close together as each one shifted on their feet and darted wide eyes around the Dome.

  With the others occupied, she rushed to fill him in on the plan when she reached his side.

  “They’re all going to be gunning for me today. You need to stay close to Aedan and keep your distance. I can take care of myself but I can’t be worried about you too.”

  “I’m not leaving you to fend for yourself,” he argued. “Who’s Aedan anyway?”

  Finn rolled her eyes at his obstinance.

  “He’s the Solidarian and he’s going to protect you.”

  He’d already promised Finn he would last night when they’d both spent the dark hours planning for the next day in the Dome.

  “Finn, I can help you,” AJ contended.

  “AJ!” she yelled as urgency began to overtake her. Viper and Rock had just sauntered into the Dome, waving enthusiastically to their cheering fans. “I need you to trust me and do as I say. Got it?”

  His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched tightly, but he nodded once in agreement.

  Aedan emerged next, his red-tinged eyes seeking out Finn’s. The large hybrid made it over to them both in record time, stopping at her side as his eyes scanned the Dome.

  “I hope you’re ready for this,” he told her as he watched the crowd with growing disgust. “I just want to reiterate that this is a terrible plan.” Several meters away, Viper and Rock were watching her with cruel smiles playing at their lips. Their bloodthirsty gazes, alight with anticipation, remained locked on hers. Finn clenched and unclenched her fists as she returned her would-be murderers’ stares.