by Stacey Nash
The blond is still looking my way.
“Jax. How’re you doing?” Evan’s quiet voice comes from right beside me. His translucent eyes regard me from behind tinted glasses, and he pushes his white-blond hair away from his face.
“All right.” He’s been through worse, lost his best pal. He looks at me for a beat too long, like he’s weighing up what to say. If I don’t fill the gap he’ll try to talk about feelings or some crap like that.
“Where’ve you just been?”
“Clean up job. It was a tech activation . . . there’s been more of that lately.” He leaves the rest unsaid ’cause we both get it. More since the attacks started, because of more Collective activity outside their compounds.
“Thought you were on the B-shift,” he says.
“I am.”
Wailing sirens cut our conversation, a series of sharp squeals slicing the air. The port room erupts, but I don’t have bands so I move to stand on the mat and wait for someone who does.
Of course, it’s the blond chick who, smiling, rushes to stand by me on the red center, holding her hand out. I snatch it and in three, two—we’re porting.
My feet thud onto hard ground, long grass brushing knees.
I tug my hand out of hers and draw my blade, spinning around, as do the others, looking for the dark uniform of Collective agents. Be nice to see someone I can take down—like Nik. But the place is empty. Not even a tree, just long grass moving in the breeze.
I stalk through it, parting the way with my blade. Still nothing.
“Anyone here?” the girl calls softly, like she’s afraid it’s Collective and they’ll nab her.
No one answers.
No Collective, no innocents. Not even a sign of tech activation. Where the hell are they? It hits me like a ten-ton truck and I twist to face the girls. “This is a set up. They’re setting frickin’ false alarms! Let’s go.”
I thrust my hand out toward the girl, Hannah. That’s her name. And she takes it gently in hers as if she thinks I’ll hurt her. She doesn’t move for a second, just eyes me while her friend shakes her head.
We port.
Upon landing back at the safe house, the port room is empty, which is odd. It’s never empty, not since they established the shift system. So then, who’s on duty and where are the other three-quarters of this shift?
I draw in a steadying breath to calm the pulse pounding in my ears. “It was a decoy.”
“Noooo . . .” Hannah draws the word out, like lengthening it will make it false.
Retracting my blade, I shove it into my jacket, and ball my hands into my pockets while anger pounds through me. I cross to the computer; not the main one, the newer laptop set up for the third and fourth set of port bands. A glimpse of the last location is enough knowledge to set our bands for the same coordinates.
The girls exchange a guarded look, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to wait around for them to question me. Instead, I grab Hannah’s arm and tap the band on her wrist.
We port.
Again.
My feet hit the ground to the sound of agent’s weapons clashing against resistance. We’re outnumbered; I can see that already. But it doesn’t matter, we’ll best them, and this is what I need.
A few feet away Evan’s swamped; battling against three agents each with two full stars on their sleeves. My blade clicks out in a flash and I jump at the one about to strike Evan across the shoulders. Cutting him off from the side with a boot to the hip, I push him away. Evan doesn’t turn, although he must see me out of his peripheral vision.
The agent rebalances and swings at me, his nose and mouth scrunched into a vicious sneer that says even though I don’t know him, he knows me. Doesn’t change a damn thing. He’s part of the mass-murdering of innocents movement. I raise the blade, and double-handed bring it around in line with his torso, his heart. As it connects his eyes widen, but he doesn’t make a sound just grabs me, his grip deathly tight. His legs buckle, and his torso becomes a dead weight hanging off my arm. I lower it—him—slowly to the ground, his face set in a death mask of shock. I didn’t mean for the clarinium to slice right through him, but all it takes is a touch.
“Fall out. Fall out.” Sam’s voice cuts through the battle. I didn’t realize he was here; the whole shift must be. Makes sense, since the port room was abandoned.
Someone claps my shoulder and I’m porting before I can turn and see who it is. We land on the bull’s-eye with a soft thud and my focus swings to Evan whose hand is still on me. He shakes his head like he’s angry as we both step out of the way and two more groups port in, the two girls supporting a battered middle-aged woman.
Sam’s the last to flick into the room. He too clutches a civilian’s hand—a man, maybe in his early twenties, his eyes flitting dangerously around the room. He doesn’t look hurt but my bet is he’s about to flip out. Sometimes it’s too much for them to take in, but we can’t leave them there to have their minds altered or worse just because they saw.
Silence falls over the room while the A-shift shuffle around tending to each other’s wounds and slumping into seats to await the next call. Hannah brings the woman to Sam and they exchange muffled words. Then she leaves the port room with both civilians in tow.
Sam’s attention catches on me and he frowns. “What are you doing here?”
I shrug. Like he cares, an extra set of hands should be welcome.
“You’re B-shift.”
“Yeah, and the Collective are setting off decoy calls to split our team.”
His whole stance changes; he twists his head to the side and looks at me from the corner of his eye.
“Ha!” He laughs too loudly, his expression a challenge. “They’re not that switched on.” He holds my stare a few moments longer, like he’s trying to send me a silent message then glances away, sweeping the room quickly. “You guys keep this running for another hour then the next shift’s on. Should be quiet for a bit I’d guess.”
Sam looks back to me and shifts his gaze toward the door like he expects me to follow, so I step out of the room a few seconds after he leaves. Rounding the doorway to his bulky frame filling in the corridor, the sight sends a strange pang through my chest. His stance oozes Garrett—buff arms barely covered with a singlet crossed over his barrel chest. Sam just kind of stepped in to fill Garrett’s shoes, and he’s doing a damn fine job.
“You can’t just go jumping into a shift, Jax. It’s not like before.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I need to keep the shifts balanced. Frank wants Beau to send people up north, but . . . we need everyone here. We don’t have enough hands; we can’t even spare one less on shift. You have to stay put, man.”
“Frank?”
“Look, if you want . . .” He glances in the direction of the door. “Let’s walk.”
I fall in beside him, my stomach clenching ridiculously. We make it to the end of the hall silently and this is why I like Sam. He’s not ranting like Beau, or brooding like Garrett did because I didn’t follow the plan. He’s just pleasantly quiet. We swing round the corner and into one of the many tiny rooms in this base. Sam pulls the door behind us and doesn’t look me square in the eye when he talks.
“I’ve been waiting for you to request a move . . .”
“I . . .” There’s nothing to say, nothing I want to say.
“Look, you know how the roster works, three main shifts. Duty, sleep, duty, sleep. It’s a constant loop. While one shift’s on, the other two are catching some Zs. You can’t jump on shift, back to back, or you’ll be sleeping on your feet. No use to yourself, your buddies, or me. You’ll get someone killed, Jax.”
A sigh pushes itself from the pit of my lungs all the way up and out. Pocketing my hands should hide their constant clenching and unclenching. Aiming for I-don’t-give-a-shit, I lean against the window.
“I know it’s hard, man,” he says.
“I can’t just stand around waiting . . . you know. It’s not like . .
.” Mae chose me.
“I know.”
“He’s my father, I feel like—” He stole her from me. I sigh.
Sam raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t call me out on the lie—half-truth, whatever—just plays along. “Maybe you need to get out, clear your head. Get back into the fight.”
I find myself nodding. That’s what I need, a break. For me and for her. She needs time, and I can give it. Switching shifts would be easy. “I don’t know.”
“Come on, man. You always said you were the best.” He gives my bicep a punch. “Now’s your chance to prove it.”
“I need to stop him.”
“Sure, if that’s what you’ve got to do. Do it.”
“You’re right, I need a change.” She needs a change.
“I can do that, and look, if you want to keep a bit busier, I can help you out there too.”
He knows it’s her, not Manvyke. Clenching my jaw, I nod. This is the right choice. All of us being together is too hard on her.
“That’d be great,” I tell Sam. “Swap me.”
What I don’t tell him is that I intend to figure out how to put an end to this disaster that my father is behind.
Chapter Four
Mae
Jax is avoiding us. I don’t know for certain, but he just kind of disappeared. He’s here but he’s not. It’s my fault, I told him to leave me alone. To stop making my life harder, but I didn’t mean for him to drop off the radar entirely. The only time I’ve seen him in the past few days is when he’s asleep. This is the least time that I’ve spent with him since we met in autumn.
That’s why, now, I’m in our dorm, sitting on the side of my bed watching him like a total loser. Not tugging my joggers on and getting out of here like I should. He always sleeps without a shirt and right now he’s sprawled out on his back, one arm flung above his head and kind of crooked around it, and the other resting over the sheet that covers his stomach. The top of his chest is exposed and, boy, you can tell he’s spent his whole life training. But the defined muscles aren’t what caught my attention. That would be the bruise on the top of his arm so big it just about wraps all the way around the muscle. Deep purple and red; the colors of a new injury. When the heck did that happen? And how? It must hurt like hell.
A noise—the door closing—and Ace raises his head from where he’s curled around Jax’s feet like a shaggy black and white blanket. I turn to the door, too, and Will’s poised, one hand on the knob, watching me. Dressed for duty in his jeans and black tee, he doesn’t smile or frown, just holds that impassive expression that’s almost sad.
I tug my boots on properly and jump up, moving across the room with lightning speed. It’s time our day started; a quick breakfast then straight to the scanner, that’s pretty much the routine. I want to do more—need to—but at the moment, saving every life we can has to be our top priority, no matter how desperately I want to track down my mother or make contact with Cynnie. I never would have thought it possible to grow so close to someone in such a short time; maybe it was the trauma, or her kindness. Either way not seeing her everyday has been an adjustment and with the way she feels about the founders’ ideals—
“Come on, Mae.” Will holds the door open until I’m through then clicks it closed behind us.
We don’t talk as we walk through the halls and downstairs. Will’s thinking, the slight movement of his jaw is a dead giveaway, like he’s gritting his teeth. We’ve been friends for long enough that I don’t need words to know how he’s feeling. I’d be nice to slide my arm around his waist in that easy way we used to have, a comfort against whatever horror we’ll face today, but I can’t. Instead I keep my arms by my sides.
The mood in the dining hall isn’t much different than Will’s. It’s almost empty, what with A crew sleeping and C still on duty, that leaves a handful of Bs and those people not in the fight physically, like Beau. He strides toward us before we’re even fully in the door. A man on a mission with his shoulders squared, his expression stern.
Will groans. “Whatever it is, can’t we have breakfast first?”
Beau blinks then shakes his head as if the thought never occurred to him. “Yes, of course.” He moves over to one of the tables and takes a seat beside Lilly, who unlike Will and me, is not dressed for combat: she’s wearing the white dress again. The same one she wore to Garrett’s funeral. She needs to move forward and get on with life; says the girl who’s still not over her mother walking out almost a decade ago. If only I knew how to help my poor friend. She’s hurting every day and I’m no better than a freaking statue.
A loud laugh draws my attention across the hall to my father, the only happy person in an otherwise somber room. I guess Beau keeps him out of the loop, as he does the other refugees. No point in Dad worrying when he doesn’t fully comprehend the situation. The people he’s with chatter happily, other workers in Martha’s new income creating plan no doubt. After another guffaw his attention snags on me and a slow smile spreads across his face. Some days he still doesn’t know me, but it looks like today he does. I smile back. I’ll catch him after breakfast when my mind isn’t preoccupied with whatever Beau wants.
The hall crammed with old kitchen tables feels so different to the farm. It’s much colder than the camaraderie of everyone eating together. In fact, most tables have only one person seated at them. Like the stranger at that round table in the center, staring vacantly at the wall. She’s not a woman I’ve seen here before. She must be a transfer.
After toasting a few slices of bread and smearing them with honey, I pour a mug of coffee and make my way to Beau, who’s now got Lilly’s little brother Levi, hanging off his side. Hopefully he doesn’t have more bad news. It would be better if he were here to tell us that the resistance has shored up all the holes, provided protection for everyone who ever came into contact with me. God knows, they need to.
I slip into the chair directly opposite him and Lilly doesn’t lift her attention from her bowl of oatmeal, just swirls her spoon making patterns in the trails of brown sugar. The kid takes one look at us, and jabs his father in the ribs, then scoots off. Scowling, Will drops into the seat beside me, half a loaf of toasted bread piled on his plate as if he’s going to share with the entire base. Martha must hate the huge dent he leaves in her food supply. Probably wishes he hadn’t told his folks he had a job with Beau, thus needing him to move here.
I take a bite of honey toast and it scratches on the way down as if all the saliva fled from my mouth. My tummy flutters nervously; maybe eating first wasn’t such a good idea.
“Any news on the school?” Will asks.
“That attack hurts.” No one at school would even know who I am, thanks to the Collective and their tech erasing me from my old life when I activated my mother’s cover-up. I’ll probably never finish my schooling, at least not in the near future.
Beau’s hands clench tighter around his steaming mug, and he blows into it, wafting the smell of his stronger-than-nails coffee through the air. “There’s nothing to find out,” he says. “There are no leads because it was just another attack. The Collective flexing their muscles. Trying to threaten us with their strength. That’s all.”
“It just doesn’t seem . . .” Fair, right. I was going to say ‘like them’, but really, I have no clue what’s normal for them. It’s not like I’ve been involved in this fight for a long time. It could be a cycle . . . but it’s more likely a reaction to the hit they took when Will rescued Jax and me.
“Look,” Beau says, “that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I need to take you off the field, Mae.”
“Great idea.” Trust Will to jump in.
I pierce him with a glare, then address Beau. “Ah, why? I have to be there. We need every set of hands we can get and I need to fight them. After everything . . . the Collective . . . Manvyke. They’ve uprooted my whole life.” My mother’s face flashes before my eyes, followed closely by my father’s. “I have to be on active duty.” To find her.
> “That’s just it.” Beau cradles the coffee mug. “We need as many hands in the fight as we can get, or we’ll never put a stop to this.” His glance slides across the room to the woman staring at the blank wall. “With all the recent activity, there have been more refugees than ever before.”
Lilly stops studying her oats. “Before you guys, there hadn’t been any new blood since Jax.”
“I’m not quite sure where you’re going with this,” I say.
Beau sets his cup down. “I need someone to train the newbs who have flowed in from all the recent attacks. The Collective aren’t usually so sloppy.”
I shake my head. “Are you crazy? Lilly just said, we’re the newest resistance members, which makes us the most inexperienced. I can’t train people.”
“Newest, yes, but most inexperienced?” Beau’s face scrunches to one side. “Quite the opposite.”
Will places a half-eaten slice of toast on his plate. “I think it’s a good idea, Mae. We’ll be helping people and—”
“And we’ll be doing nothing to stop Manvyke. Nothing to find my mother. I may as well go back to school and making coffee at Joes.” I laugh. “If only I could.”
“Yes, we will. We’ll be increasing our numbers and the more fighters we have, the better our chances of bringing him down.”
“What about Manvyke—my mom? It’ll take months to train these people, Will. Besides, half the time I can barely hit a target.”
Lilly swirls her cup on the table. “Don’t cut yourself short. You’re good.”
Her too? They’re all freaking ganging up on me. Where the hell is Jax? He’d agree that I need to be in the thick of Collective activity.
“But it’s not something I’ve done my whole life, like you have. Or like my photography. I don’t know how to teach people to fight!”
“Mae.” Will lays his hand on my arm. “I think Beau’s got a good point.”
“No.” I glance at the woman who’s now staring at us. “You just want to keep me tucked away where it’s safe. I’m not a porcelain doll, Will.”