They’re red.
“It works,” Abel breathes. I tighten my grip on Rielle as Abel pivots, arms out as he gapes at Evelyn. “We can override Xanthous. It works!”
Rielle’s sobs abate slightly, and I feel her rise.
“What the hell did you do?” I whimper, my fear getting the best of me. Abel’s smile is so wide it doesn’t fit in my mirror.
“I created the second wave of the Crimson—one that can be controlled. One that skips the Exposed phase and puts any newly turned Vessels right where I want them—beholden to me if they want to stay alive.”
“Keep your eyes down, Charlotte,” Rielle whispers, her hand tight in mine. I look down, but not before Abel pulls a different syringe from his coat. This one is filled with a bright red fluid. He kneels to where Maddox sits on her knees, her fists clenched in her lap. I watch her in my mirrors.
“Now. We have to find a way to spread this new wave. It’s injectable for now, and I’ll use what I have on the ones who need it most—”
My heart staggers. The ones who need it most. Seth. Rielle. Lucia. Thomas.
“—but I can make more. I’ll just need a talented Runner to help spread it,” he says softly. “And with the antidote, you can live like this—a Vessel in our army, safe from what’s about to befall the rest of the world.”
He pulls the rubber stopper off the needle with his teeth and leans forward, hand outstretched. But Maddox recoils and spits in his face.
“Fuck you,” she breathes.
A choked cry rips from Rielle, and I squeeze her as hard as I can. I angle my mirror. Maddox’s eyes are a bright, angry red, and a slow, resolute smile slips up her mouth.
“I chose the wrong side once. I’m not doing it again.”
Abel wipes his face with the back of his sleeve.
“Very well,” he says, and Evelyn pulls Maddox to her feet. “But you should know . . . this strain will likely decline much faster. So. Enjoy your pathetic redemptive arc while you can.” Abel signals, and the doors open. More Vessels stream in, grabbing Maddox before making their way to Rielle and me.
Rielle pulls me close. “Charlotte. Dean,” she breathes. The Vessels’ hands are like ice-covered vises as they grip my upper arms, but I cling to Rielle. She brings her lips to my ear.
“He’s been exposed,” she says.
Chapter 38
IT’S DARK AND COLD, BUT THAT’S ALL I KNOW. I hear the familiar clink of metal, and then someone is shoving me to the ground.
I feel hands on my back, and I panic, scrambling as I twist around.
“Charlotte! Charlotte, it’s me! You can open your eyes!” I recognize the voice, and open my eyelids, just a little. I look across the room.
Vanessa sits there, ash smudged on her cheek, her hair down around her face.
“Where’s Harlow?” I ask, just as Harlow kneels next to me and pulls me into a tight hug. “What happened?”
“They grabbed me right after they got you,” she breathes, pulling back before glaring at Vanessa. “And someone stowed away even though I told her to stay put.”
Vanessa drops her arms. “You are not the boss of me!”
“This? Right here?” Harlow yells, motioning to the cell around us. “Is literally why I am the boss of you, Vanessa!”
“I wouldn’t have gotten caught if you hadn’t freaked out!” Vanessa shouts back.
She reads the terror-filled question on my face, and puts her hands to my cheeks. They’re freezing.
“Seth is safe. He got away, I saw it.” Harlow meets my eyes. “What happened?”
For the first time in too long, I tell her everything.
Everything, even about my feelings for Dean. About Seth. Abel.
All of it.
She nods, blinking back tears as I meet her eyes. She thinks that’s it—that the story is done. I don’t want to tell her, because saying the words will make it real. But I know Rielle wouldn’t have told me unless she was sure, and I can’t carry this alone.
“Dean. Harlow. Dean is infected,” I bite out.
Harlow’s hands drop from my face as she sinks to the ground. She licks her lips, her eyes darting over the floor like she’ll find an answer there. Vanessa goes still for a second.
“When?” she asks, and I know she’s doing the same math I am—trying to figure out how long he has left.
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
Tears fill my sister’s eyes, and she shakes her head against the wall.
“We . . . are so . . . so screwed,” she mutters, looking up at the fluorescent light in the ceiling. “I’ve spent the last few years trying to protect you two, and this is where we all end up. I couldn’t have planned something this shitty.”
“It’s not your job to protect us,” I say before I can think of the thousand reasons I shouldn’t.
Harlow lowers her gaze from the ceiling to find mine. “Of course it is,” she says, her eyes softening.
“It’s not,” I reply. “It never was. And you,” I say, turning to Vanessa. “You need to stop trying to save everyone else at the cost of you.”
Confusion fills Vanessa’s face, and Harlow narrows her eyes. “I know it was you, Vanessa. That sent the transmission to the Torch the night Maddox attacked,” my older sister says.
Vanessa’s eyes widen, and my mind sputters, unable to understand.
“When did you figure it out?” she whispers, her voice catching.
“What?” I interject, but Harlow stays fixed on Vanessa.
“About ten seconds after it happened,” Harlow says. I wait for the rage—for the moment when I have to get between them, but Harlow just shakes her head. “Why?”
Vanessa’s lip quivers, and she hits her fist on the floor as tears rip down her cheeks.
“I thought I could save everyone. I thought I could end this, and you wouldn’t let me. So I told them where I was, but didn’t give my name. But now, Malcolm . . . and Kyle, I . . .” Her voice breaks.
That’s what she’d wanted to tell me. She pushes herself to her feet and paces the cell like she can outrun her guilt.
That I hadn’t been the one who brought them—Vanessa had.
“And Abel sent Maddox,” I piece together. It makes sense now.
“The Torch Enforcers said they were acting without orders. Just wanted to help,” Harlow adds.
“What a fucking mess we are,” I whisper. Harlow leans her head against the wall and wipes tears off her face with the back of her hand.
“We’re going to die here,” she says flatly. “And Dean is going to die here. After all this. We got so far, and—”
“We’re not going to die here,” Vanessa says. Her voice is so strong that I believe her. “Not before I can make this right.”
I shake my head slowly. “I don’t think we can make this right, Nessa. But you’re right. We’re not going to die here.”
Vanessa nods, and I can tell she’s fighting her tears and losing. “I’m so sorry. I am so sorry.” She walks to the wall between us, and I stand and pull her into a hug. Harlow pushes up the wall until she’s standing next to us.
“If anyone should be sorry here, it’s me,” I say, eyeing Harlow over Vanessa’s shoulder, hoping she understands. I’m sorry for loving him.
“And me,” Harlow whispers, her eyes still on mine. I’m sorry for not seeing it.
I reach out, fisting my hand in her leather jacket, and pull her into a hug. She fights me for half a second before collapsing into us, and we all slide down the wall in a sad little sister bundle. Harlow turns to me, her mascara streaming down her face. Her eyes drop to my neck, and a smirk curls up the side of her mouth.
“Is that a hickey?” she asks.
My hand flies to my throat, and Vanessa yanks it away.
“It totally is,” Vanessa whispers.
“Can we not?” I snap, and Vanessa lets my hand go. Harlow gives me a glare. “Can we save the lecture until we rescue Dean and get the hell out of here?”
Vanessa nods, scooting closer. We sit, the silence between us a warm, long-awaited thing.
I’m underwater again, but the panic doesn’t come. The burning in my lungs is warmth in my chest—too familiar to make me afraid.
She’s walking toward me again. The woman with the dark hair and bright eyes. She’s closer than she has ever been before, her vest almost completely unbuttoned.
It’s not here. The Heart isn’t at the Blood Market, I say. My voice sounds like it’s on the surface, carrying through the depths and echoing like we’re in a church.
She eyes me, and I step forward, anger flooding every inch of me as my feet sink into the wet sand. Because I know who she is. I’ve known for a while.
“It was all for nothing, you know. All of it. The headdress did nothing, but my looking for it gave Vanessa time to make a stupid call that cost lives.”
She tilts her head as she looks at me but doesn’t argue. I wait for her anger, but it doesn’t come, so I continue. “And that Cobalt prophecy? It saved a madman. I thought this was all leading somewhere. I thought it was for a purpose. But all it’s caused is destruction. All you are is destruction,” I cry, bubbles flying past my lips. I know Rielle thinks I shouldn’t blame the woman in front of me, but Rielle didn’t have a sister who was marked and given nightmares. She wasn’t chasing down pointless rhymes. My fists shake, and I realize I’m quivering with something bigger than rage.
Heartbreak, maybe. I had faith for a day, and it felt like coming in from the cold. And then it was snatched away again, before I could even get warm.
“I don’t believe in this shit,” I bark. “And I never should have listened . . .” I don’t finish the sentence, and it’s a live wire on my tongue, thrashing around as I try to find its end—to you. To myself. To Malcolm. To my mother.
She lowers her eyes, like she understands, and we’re still for a moment. Then, her white hands part the fabric of her dress. A pinkish glow burns in the center of her chest. Around us, pipelines wind over the ocean floor. The current undulates, kicking up the sand and whipping swaths of kelp through the water.
Anne looks up, and I follow her gaze. A dark structure reaches out of the sand around us, careening toward the surface.
The Rig.
Chapter 39
I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG WE DOZE. BUT WHEN I wake up, we’re huddled on the floor.
I sit up, gasping for breath. The pipelines don’t empty out at the Blood Market. They stretch all the way out to the Rig.
Abel’s voice sounds in my memory. Her boat sank. It took our doom with her.
Genevieve found the Heart, and she was bringing it back. Abel sank the boat.
The Heart is beneath the Rig.
My mind buzzes as I run my hands through my hair. That has to be it. It has to be. That wasn’t just a dream. It couldn’t have been. It would make sense that the Rig and the Blood Market are so close if they’re both using the same power source.
And if they’re both run by the Torch. Anger pools in my gut at the thought.
I look to Vanessa, asleep on Harlow’s chest. Her shirt rests above the hemline of her jeans, and I lift it slightly.
The scar is there, bright and puckered on her smooth skin.
Se racheter.
Everything that has made sense has come through Vanessa. What if it was just a dream? If we get out of here, we only have one shot.
A creak overhead pulls me out of my thoughts. Harlow twists, gently inching Vanessa off her. The creaking sounds more like a groan now.
“What the hell?” Harlow asks.
I know that sound.
I’ve heard it before, on the Devil’s Bid.
“Move!” I shout, scrambling as we both scoot to the far end of the cell, dragging a now half-awake Vanessa with us.
The groan gets louder, and then the ceiling caves in around us. Lucia crouches in the middle of the cell. She stands slowly, picking drywall out of her hair before looking up at us. We’re frozen in shock, and she shakes her head and does a lifting motion with her hands.
A rope drops from the ceiling, and Seth peers down at me. I grab it and whisper, “Perfect timing.”
Our eyes lock, and a heat unfurls in my gut.
It’s in that exact moment that Harlow leans in front of me and points to Seth. “We’re going to talk about that hickey, Marsali.”
“They’ve still got Rielle and Dean,” I breathe as soon as I climb up.
Seth motions for me to crawl, and I move. Harlow and Vanessa climb up behind me, and we move soundlessly in the dark, using my mirrors to peer into the grates and vents below as we look for Rielle and Dean.
Low growls fill the ceiling, and I stop, chancing a look over my shoulder. Seth is behind me, his eyes wary. I turn back and keep moving.
The sound gets louder, filling my head until it feels like my teeth will crack.
It’s the sound that haunts my nightmares—the one that I heard before on the boat.
A Vessel—one who has slipped past the aware state.
I use my mirror to peer down into the vent, and I see her.
Rielle sits in a cell, her back against the far wall. Her arms rest on her bent knees, and her eyes are fixed straight ahead. I don’t want to tilt the glass to look across the hallway, because I know what I’ll see. But I have to know what we’re getting into.
Maddox is in the cell across from Rielle, and she’s not Maddox anymore. She grunts and shrieks, her arms reaching through the bars as she grasps at air. Even from up here, I can hear her jaw snapping.
A couple of weeks ago, I wouldn’t have cared if Maddox Caine lived or died. Even now, her crimes are so big, so bloody in my recent memory, that I have a hard time feeling anything. But the look on Rielle’s face—the naked heartbreak—it feels like an arrow through the chest. Seth nudges my leg, handing me an iron blade. I swallow, bringing myself back to the moment. We have to get Rielle out of there. We have to save Dean.
“Careful. Maddox is contagious,” I whisper down the line. “Mirrors up,” I tell Harlow, who is behind Lucia. Vanessa secures her glass necklace, and for a moment I consider telling her that there’s no way in hell she’s going down there. But when she looks up, I see it in her eyes—she can handle this. I pull the vent up and lower myself down, landing softly on the floor below. Seth lands next to me almost immediately. Two Vessels stand at the far edge of the cell, and they turn at the noise.
I eye them in the reflection as I stalk forward. Weeks ago, I would have been too scared to move. Now everything is different. I am different.
I swing my blade as Seth swings his, and both Vessels drop to the ground.
Harlow and Lucia pop the cell door, and Seth and I search the rest of the cells. There’s no sign of Dean.
“Ri,” Lucia says, rushing into the cell and sliding over to Rielle on her knees. Rielle doesn’t stand. She doesn’t move. Her eyes are glassy, her face streaked with dried tears.
“Ri, we have to go,” Lucia whispers. She stands, putting her hands under Rielle’s arms and lifting. The movement shakes something loose in her, and she blinks, coming back to the moment. She stands, looking at us as Harlow steps closer to Maddox’s cell, her eyes fixed on her mirrored bracelet as she widens her stance. Maddox lets out a terrible, feral sound. Harlow lifts her blade, and a guttural cry rips from Rielle’s throat.
“No,” she yells. Harlow stops, turning. Rielle wipes her face with the back of her hand and steps forward, her lips moving as she whispers softly, just like on the deck of the Cobalt. I understand now—she’s praying. A heavy, expectant silence rolls through the hall as Rielle steps up to the cell, just inches from the Vessel’s straining fingers.
Rielle’s face crumples for a second, but she shakes off whatever wave of emotion threatens to pull her under. She motions to Lucia, who opens the cell door. Rielle steps in, steps forward, raising the blade. I turn away, and I feel Seth move closer to me. I bury my face in his shoulder, and his hand tightens around my waist as a sic
k thunk fills the air.
Seth rubs my back, and I know it’s safe to look again. Rielle walks out of the cell, blood splashed over her face.
It’s done.
We have to go, and when Vanessa whistles the “all clear,” we slip back up into the darkness.
Bright moonlight greets us as we spill out onto the rooftop, where Thomas waits for us, unfamiliar cables and harnesses at his feet. A cable stretches over the roof and into the trees. We’re going to zip-line out of here.
“We can’t leave,” I say, stopping and looking at Harlow. Worry creases her forehead. “Not without Dean. We can’t leave him here.”
Lucia and Seth exchange a look. “We’re staying,” she says. “The reinforcements should be here tonight. And we’re not leaving here until everyone inside is out. If Dean is here, we’ll find him.”
I bite back the dread that rolls over me as I look to Harlow, and her eyes are hardened.
“You know where the Heart is, don’t you?” she asks quietly.
I don’t want to nod, because I know that it means I’ll have to go. Harlow steps closer.
“I think. But it’s a gamble, Harlow. This didn’t come from Vanessa.”
“None of it has,” Vanessa pipes up, securing the harness to her waist with a tug. She looks up at me, and I open my mouth to argue.
“I might be the one who wears this stupid mark, Charlotte. But you’ve been saving the world. And you can finish this,” she says.
“We can save him if we end this,” Harlow says, her dark eyes bright with something between terror and hope.
“I’ll go alone. You stay here and find him,” I counter. “That way, if I’m wrong, we’re not all out there.”
“We’re all going,” Vanessa says. “If it’s out there, I might be able to help.” She’s looking to Harlow like she’s waiting for her to argue. But it doesn’t happen.
Vanessa slides down, and I watch her go. Thomas hands me the harness. Seth’s voice sounds behind me.
“So where are we going?” he asks.
Chapter 40
WE FIND A DINGHY ON THE DOCK AND SYNC UP THE walkie-talkies that Thomas brought.
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