by Kyla Stone
“We’ll wait for you,” he said with a tilt of his chin at Gabriel. Then he jogged after Silas to the transport.
She turned to Gabriel, her cheeks already reddening. She felt his gaze on her as she walked the two dozen steps to reach him. He leaned against a small maple tree in front of a low concrete building, the windows boarded and covered with black, light-blocking paint.
“You know I would go with you if I could,” he said in a low voice.
She dared to meet his gaze. She could drown in those dark eyes, full of longing, guilt, regret, and desire. Despite herself, she felt the responding tug in her own heart. “You risked yourself to save my mother. It was dangerous. You probably shouldn’t have done it, but you did.”
“And I’ll continue to do it. I’ll keep her safe, I promise you that.”
She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “Thank you.”
He attempted a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I would do anything you asked. You know that, right? I—I owe it to you. But more than that, I want to.”
The air thickened between them. There was so much—the past, the present, the possibilities of the future—it was all there, unspoken but still present. Her veins buzzed. Her breath quickened. “Gabriel—”
“I know this isn’t the time.” His features contorted in a pained expression, like he was forcing himself to hold back the things he really wanted to say. “What you’re about to do is brave and dangerous and possibly incredibly stupid. But if you succeed, you can change the world for the better. You have to do it. And Micah will watch out for you. I know you’re in good hands.”
He swallowed, his hands fisted at his sides. “But if something happened to him or to you—” He looked away, blinking rapidly.
Part of her wanted desperately to go to him, to offer him comfort, to remember what it felt like to be wrapped in those strong, safe arms. But another, stronger part of her held back.
Because she couldn’t forget what came after, either. The look in his eyes when he’d betrayed her. When he’d stood by as Kane dragged her by her hair from the Grand Voyager bridge, intent on violence.
“Gabriel—”
He turned to her with a groan in the back of his throat. His eyes filled with anguish. “I can’t protect you in there. And that thought is killing me.”
“We have to trust each other, then.” He was so close she could have put her hands on his chest. To push him away or draw him closer, she didn’t know.
Before she could react, he took her chin gently in one hand and tilted her chin up. His other hand cupped the back of her head. He bent down and kissed her mouth. His lips were hard and searching, hungry.
Her stomach flipped. The buzzing filled her whole body. She wanted him and she hated herself for wanting him and she was weak—but also warm and wild and falling from a dizzying height…
Amelia gasped. She pulled away. But for a moment, she hadn’t. For the barest moment, the brush of his lips electrifying her entire body—she’d let it happen.
They were so close she felt his heartbeat thrumming through his chest, sensed the hard strength of his body, his arms and shoulders and stomach, could feel the coiled power in him.
His hands dropped to his sides. His body was tense, taut as a live wire, the muscle in his cheek jumping as he clenched his jaw. “Don’t run,” he said quickly. “Please.”
She nodded, breathing hard. Not sure she could trust herself, trust her voice or what she would—or should—say.
“I’m sorry—no, that’s not right.” He smiled wryly. “I’m not sorry for kissing you, Amelia Black. I will never be sorry for every good moment we ever shared. It was selfish to kiss you now, I know that. I know I don’t deserve you, not after—after what I did to you. I accept that. I hate it, but I accept it. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to see you again. I hope you can forgive me that one last kiss.”
She cleared her throat, her cheeks burning. Guilt stabbed through her. It wasn’t fair to give him what she wasn’t sure she should. “I can. I do.”
He moved toward her, then stopped himself. He nodded curtly, as if coming to terms with something deep inside him. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse. “Until next time.”
Gabriel turned and strode between the buildings toward the barracks, his head down, his shoulders hunched, his hands balled into fists at his sides. Exhausted but determined, bone-weary but resolute, doggedly walking into an oncoming storm.
In a way, they both were.
7
Willow
Finn nudged Willow’s foot beneath the picnic table. “Look over there.”
“What?” Willow asked, turning away from the game she and Finn were playing, a holo version of chess featuring red and blue shimmering medieval knights on horseback, robed bishops, and foot soldiers wielding swords, axes, and bows. Willow was losing, badly.
“Cleo’s staring at Celeste.”
Willow narrowed her eyes. Celeste was leaning against the picnic table, her injured leg stretched out on the bench, her eyes closed against the cold sun.
Ten yards away, Cleo slunk in the shadows of the infirmary building, her arms crossed, a cigar in one hand. Finn was right. She was watching Celeste—like a cat watches a mouse.
Willow poked gently at the scabbing burn on her neck. “I bet she’s a cannibal. She’s probably imagining Celeste’s leg as a rack of lamb cooking over a spit.”
“First, that’s a revolting image. Thank you so much for searing that into my brain.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Second, I’m pretty sure that’s not the reason she’s interested in Celeste.”
Willow glanced between them again. This time, she noticed Cleo’s furtive glances, the way she was gnawing on her bottom lip like she was biting into a juicy steak.
Willow shoved her hair behind her ears and groaned. “Is something in the water? Has some new brain-altering pathogen been released into the air? Wasn’t the apocalypse enough? Amelia has her very weird, very unhealthy love triangle with Micah and Gabriel, even though none of them will admit it. Now Cleo the sociopathic cannibal has a thing for Celeste?”
“You hate her with the fire of a thousand suns?” Finn said, trying to distract her from the fact that his red knight had just knocked out her second bishop. The mounted knight’s horse reared in triumph. Her bishop crumpled to the checkered board, grabbing his throat and gagging dramatically before disappearing in a puff of glittering blue mist.
Finn had already taken out ten pieces to her three. He was unfairly good. Or maybe she was just that bad. She rubbed her neck. The burn had started to itch like crazy. “I wouldn’t use that particular phrase, but hell yes, I do. That psychopath branded me!”
“To be fair, she was undercover.”
“Yeah, but to be fair, she enjoyed the heck out of it.” She prodded at the burn, wincing. It was going to leave an ugly scar. She didn’t care about the scar as much as she loathed the person who’d inflicted it. Cleo was manipulative and petty, cunning and cruel. She was hardly better than the Pyros, undercover or not. “I don’t know what her problem is, but I bet it’s hard to pronounce.”
Finn grinned. “Yeah, she’s mad as a bag of cats, alright.”
She glanced back in time to see Cleo saunter across the yard toward Celeste. Celeste looked at her, a tiny smile on her perfectly symmetrical face. Celeste was all softness and elegance and beauty, while Cleo was solid muscle, battle-scarred, and tough as nails.
Finn was right, as always. In a bizarre sort of way, they made a good pair—as long as Celeste kept Cleo away from the cigars.
Finn swiped his massive hand through the tiny holos hovering over the game board. “There’s something to be said for physical things you can hold in your hand. My dad used to have a board with real ivory pieces.” He sighed dramatically. “We can’t always choose our allies, Willow.”
“How can you say that?” She checked the field, where Benjie
and another little girl his age were sitting in front of the ragged soccer goal, their heads bent over a pack of playing cards. Benjie was overjoyed to have a devoted fan, eagerly teaching her every magic trick he knew.
Past the field, a handful of soldiers clustered in a circle near the barracks, laughing raucously. She couldn’t believe Amelia and Micah were trusting these people. New Patriots. Terrorists. Thugs and criminals. Willow didn’t care what they called themselves. “You know who these people are. What they are.”
“They didn’t create the Hydra virus.”
Amelia had finally told the rest of the group the truth about her father, Declan Black, the chairman of the Unity Coalition. He’d turned out to be as power-hungry, malicious, and wicked as Willow always suspected. The elites had all the power, influence, and wealth they could ever need, and still they craved more. Their greed had destroyed the world.
But none of that changed the fact that the New Patriots were still violent radicals, plenty capable of taking innocent lives if it served their own agenda.
She shook her head. “They’re the same people who attacked the Grand Voyager. I don’t care if they say they weren’t a part of it. They’re the same. And I don’t care whether they planned to kill little kids or not. It happened. Your dad is dead because of them. My mom and sister—”
Her voice broke off. Her throat thickened. She blinked rapidly. The New Patriots had killed Zia. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t actually these people. For that, she would hate them with every fiber of her being for as long as she lived.
She didn’t trust them. She didn’t like them. She wanted to get as far away from here as she could.
She swiped her finger over the board to pull her rook out of Finn’s reach. The lights in the castle tower flickered. Finn moved swiftly, barely fluttering his fingers as he captured her extravagantly-gowned queen with his bishop. She hadn’t even seen it coming. The tiny queen shook her fist up at Willow, muttering incoherent curses. Willow gave her the middle finger. The queen burst into blue mist.
“And now they’re allying themselves with the Headhunters,” she continued. “The murderous psychos who killed Nadira. I mean, what are we even doing here? I know what Amelia is doing, what Gabriel is doing. But what are we doing?”
Finn looked at her, his expression turning serious. “What do you want to do?”
Willow shifted restlessly, unable to contain her frustration. She wanted to get away from the New Patriots and never have to see Cleo’s savagely cunning face again. She wanted to protect the people she loved. To find a way inside the Sanctuary and make a safe place for Benjie to grow up. She wanted so many things, all of them outside her grasp. “I don’t know! But I can’t help feeling like this is all some kind of elaborate ruse. The most dangerous predators are the ones that draw you in.”
“Like the Venus Fly Trap.”
“Do you have to ruin every analogy? Plants aren’t remotely scary.”
Finn shrugged with his left shoulder. He still winced. The meds the New Patriots doctor gave him weren’t enough to dull all the pain. “To flies, they are. I thought it was quite apt.”
She destroyed one of his foot soldiers with a flick of her finger, her blue knight galloping across the squares and spearing the red soldier in the chest. “You thought wrong. Didn’t we learn our lesson at Sweet Creek Farm? Nobody does something for nothing.”
“It’s not for nothing,” Finn argued gently. “They want the cure from Amelia. She, Micah, and Silas are risking their lives to smuggle it out.”
“And what if they don’t get it? What if she doesn’t have the cure in her blood after all? What will the New Patriots do to us then? The Headhunters? The Sanctuary? Hell, the Pyros are still out there somewhere. Let’s throw them in the pot, too.”
Finn narrowed his eyes at her. “You’ve got an idea rattling around inside that head of yours, don’t you? Out with it. Before it drives you crazy.”
The idea was half-formed, half-baked. She felt silly even saying it aloud. But the more she thought about it, the more she couldn’t ignore the insistent, unsettling buzz in her gut.
Finn took out one of her soldiers. She took one of his. “I’m not sure. But maybe while Amelia’s off saving the world at the Sanctuary, we need to do something, too.”
He studied her face. “You want to find Raven.”
She looked at him sharply, startled. She kept forgetting how perceptive he was, how well he knew her, like he could read her mind. Lately, she had been thinking about Raven and her enormous, half-tamed wolf, Shadow.
Raven had appeared out of nowhere in the middle of a thunderstorm, sending Shadow to save Willow from the infected stray outside the warehouse. Raven and Shadow had helped them again at Sweet Creek Farm, herding the rabid dogs in a surprise attack against the Headhunters.
Maybe Raven could save them again.
Willow pulled out the wooden bird carving which Raven had given to Benjie. She had carried it in a cargo pocket of her pants all this time. She ran her fingers over the smooth wood. “I doubt we could find Raven if we tried. But we could make it so she finds us.”
Finn nodded. “And then what? You don’t want to bring her here.”
The Sanctuary was dangerous. The New Patriots were dangerous. But maybe they didn’t have to choose between them. Maybe there was a third option. “She talked about a place called the Settlement, remember? She said they were good people. When Cerberus was negotiating with Cleo, he mentioned the Settlement, too. He said they had airjets and other weapons the New Patriots would want. I think it’s the same place. I think maybe they could help us.”
She half-expected Finn to laugh at her. But he didn’t.
He grinned mischievously, his eyes glinting. “Maybe a quest is in order?”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” He pushed away the holo game board—it didn’t matter, she was losing horribly anyway—and cleared his throat, his expression abruptly grave. “Wherever you go, I’ll be right there with you.”
She tilted her head, masking her suddenly hot face with a curtain of her hair. “It will be dangerous.”
Finn’s gaze slanted beyond Cleo and Celeste toward two Headhunters stalking the perimeter of the rec yard. One was a hulking beast in a German Shepherd pelt, the other tall, skinny, and draped in the sleek black fur of a panther. They paused, hands on their gun holsters, watching Benjie and the little girl playing.
Willow started to rise, outrage burning through her. What did those idiot thugs think they were doing, watching her brother like that? Were they thinking of stealing him, too? Selling him? She’d kill them both before they even took a step—
Finn gripped her arm. “Not now.”
Slowly, she sank back down onto the bench. She didn’t relax or take her gaze off the two Headhunters until they moved on, headed for the training center.
“It may be dangerous out there,” Finn said, “but that doesn’t mean it’s not just as dangerous in here.”
Willow nodded with a huff, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. “The New Patriots aren’t just going to give us guns and supplies and let us waltz off into the sunset. You know that, right?”
“Gee,” Finn said, “if only we could find someone clever and quick-witted and sneaky. Preferably short. Yeah, short is definitely on the list of requirements.”
She kicked his shin beneath the table. “So you’re not totally against it.”
“I’m saying we should do this.” He leaned forward and grasped her hand in his good one. Tingles sparked in her fingertips and shot up her arm. She tried to jerk her hand away, embarrassed, but he was too strong.
Finn was too intent to notice her sudden discomfort. “We were made for this. A crippled giant, a dwarf, and a kid with an ace up his sleeve: a trio of misfits wandering around in a strange and wild forest in the middle of winter.” He flashed her his goofy, lopsided grin, revealing the adorable gap in his front teeth. “What could possibly go wrong?”
8
Amelia
“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Silas muttered.
“Do you ever?” Amelia shot back.
Silas managed a tight grin. “Touché, big sister."
They stood atop a large hill along the two-lane road leading to the Sanctuary. Jamal had brought them to the five-mile perimeter with a military-grade, off-road vehicle via an overgrown national park access road.
For the last four-plus miles, they’d trekked on foot. There was no way to determine the exact distance, since she’d turned off her SmartFlex to avoid identification.
They had passed a dozen old-fashioned “no trespassing” signs and holos auto-repeating, “Nuclear waste facility. Hazardous material. Intruders will be shot on sight.” Within minutes of entering the Sanctuary’s safe zone, two sleek black drones had materialized on either side of the road, halting them in their tracks.
“Nighthawks,” Micah said. “Military-grade, armored, weaponized.”
The drones hadn’t shot them, though several gun turrets swiveled in their direction. They simply hovered within ten yards, watching them, likely capturing them with invisible, embedded lenses and sending a live vidfeed back to Sanctuary command. The drones followed them silently, only the soft whirring of their lifting blades betraying their presence.
Finally, Amelia, Micah, and Silas had reached the Sanctuary. A valley spread before them, mountains bristling with old forest rising steeply to either side. In the distance, a shining band of river wound like a twisting snake. Nestled between the mountains, a pristine city gleamed beneath the winter sun.
The first thing Amelia noticed was the buildings. They were several stories and made of some sort of engineered white quartz, some domed, some spired, others circular and multi-terraced.
She sucked in her breath as her gaze lowered to the wicked purplish-blue plasma wall surrounding the city, thirty feet tall and crackling like lightning. At regular intervals, the walls were mounted by guard towers bristling with enormous cannons large enough to take out any aircraft stupid enough to invade the city’s airspace. The barest hint of movement flickered; soldiers patrolled along the ramparts.