“My leg!” someone screamed. “My leg!”
An android, headless neck sparking, walked around in circles, bumping into overturned tables and blown-apart chairs.
Definitely too strong, Lira thought.
Beside her, Gilly appeared. Her nose was crooked and bleeding. “That...was awesome.”
If the warden hadn’t been drawn in by the fight...surely, after this, she would come to restore order. Any moment now.
Lira kept crawling forward, coughing as the fires from the Sparks flickered out. She scanned her surroundings, looking for Andi and Dex.
At first, she couldn’t see her captain. For a moment, fear swallowed Lira whole.
They’d ruined this.
They’d blown up the entire plan along with the pub.
That was quite a show, Lir.
The com message flashed into her vision, and she knew Andi was safe.
She blinked it away, scanning the darkness again.
There. Motion to her left, near the bar as Andi stood, using a table to pull herself upright. Beside her Dex struggled to his feet. The poor fool looked like a baby fresh out of the womb, disoriented and confused. Lira knew a sympathetic person would help a teammate get his bearings.
Unfortunately for him, Andi was anything but. Lira smiled at that.
With so much smoke clouding the room, she found it hard to see anything farther than a few feet in front of her. But she could hear people moaning. Curses hissed out through clenched teeth.
“Her pub,” the bartender was mumbling. “Her pub, her beautiful pub... The warden will kill me...”
A wail reverberated through the cavernous room. Lira craned her neck around toward the entrance to the pub as guards plowed in through the unhinged doors, guns held before them, emerald lasers cutting through the smoke as they angled about the room, searching for the cause of the attack.
Lira’s stomach twisted.
This was it.
The final step in the plan.
From her vantage point, Andi’s pale hair and metal cheeks, visible now as she stepped forward, were like beacons in the chaos. Smoke curled around her feet like dancing wraiths.
You still have time to stop this plan, Lira’s mind hissed at her. You can’t trust Soyina. You can’t trust Dex.
But then Dex was speaking, his voice like a gunshot amid all the groans and moans.
“It’s about time you showed up.”
The guards lined up in front of him and Andi. Too many rifles aimed at their chests, their heads, their necks. Kill shots, all of them.
Help your captain, that little voice begged Lira. You can’t let this happen.
A single figure stepped through the smoke, and the guards fanned out to make space. Lira watched, teeth clenched, as the warden of Lunamere surveyed the scene.
“Seeing as you’re the only people left standing in this room right now, I’m going to ask you a question and you’re going to answer it truthfully.” She puffed herself up, the red-and-gold sash on her chest shining even in the smoky room. “Were you the perpetrators of this attack?”
Dex tilted his head and flashed her his best smile. “Guilty as charged.”
The warden stepped forward.
And slammed her fist into Dex’s face.
His head turned sideways, and he toppled against an overturned table with a sickening crash.
“You’ve just destroyed thousands’ worth of assets for me,” the warden growled. She looked to her guards. “Detain and scan them. I want to know who these bastards are and what the hell they’re doing in my pub.”
Lira watched it all with a sickness in her gut.
Dex rose and turned back around, his mouth spreading into a bloody smile. “Well, well, Warden. The rumors about your strength are true. I’d love to take you on a date sometime. Perhaps to the Unified Systems, where I can show you a planet truly worth your time.”
The warden’s fists clenched. “Gag him.”
“Do you have any Griss on you? Not the cheap kind you serve here,” Dex said, riling her up further. “I’m positively parched.”
“What is the meaning of this?” the warden demanded, looking to Andi. “Explain yourselves.”
Andi smiled at her like a predator. “Screw you. And screw Xen Ptera.”
A guard marched toward Andi, gun outstretched. He was about to cuff her when Andi leaped to her feet, whirling so fast that she’d grabbed his gun and used it to shoot out his kneecap before the guard could even scream in surprise.
“Detain them!” the warden howled. “Now!”
The rest of the guards converged on her and Dex.
Through the chaos, a single word filtered into Lira’s vision from Andi’s channel.
Run.
Lira shook her head. This couldn’t be the best plan...this couldn’t be the only way. It was happening too fast.
Run.
“Come on,” Gilly said. “It’s time to go.”
But Lira was frozen.
“Lira,” Breck whispered. “We have the command.”
Gilly’s small hand wrapped around Lira’s. She began to pull, gently at first, then insistently as Dex screamed curses and Andi began to shout about damning the queen of Xen Ptera. Once they had them on the ground, bound in cuffs, half of the guards began to move about the room. One of them uncovered the shell of a Spark.
“Right here, Warden. Looks homemade.”
“I want every single person in this pub checked. Identified. Backgrounds. Do it now.”
Unless they left now, the guards would soon discover the rest of the girls.
Run.
The message was there in bright red, hovering before Lira’s eyes.
Lira hated herself for what she was about to do, hated the command Andi had given.
But she allowed Gilly to lead her into the shadows. She stood patiently as Breck silently disabled the single, unsuspecting guard by the hole they’d strategically blown in the back wall. A quick exit point.
Gilly slipped into the darkness. Breck squeezed in after her.
But Lira stopped and looked over her shoulder one last time, her gut begging her not to go. Never, in all of their missions, had they abandoned their captain.
Even now, the warden of Lunamere was standing over Andi like a predator ready to spring.
“You will rot in hell for this,” she said.
Not happening, Lira’s mind screamed. This is not happening.
It went against every fiber of her being.
But it was an order—all part of the plan—and Lira could not disobey.
It was with great pain that she left her captain behind, a prisoner, and went to secure sweet freedom back on the waiting ship.
Chapter Twenty-Two
* * *
ANDROMA
THE MOONS ABOVE Arcardius hung like two glowing eyes, their mingling light creating a purple hue in the sky.
They stared down onto Averia, the floating green-and-purple mountain that housed the Cortas estate. In daylight, Averia looked like an oil painting rendered by a master’s hand. The rolling green hills, the blue streams flocked on either side by flora in deep reds and yellows and oranges. Then there was the estate itself, all angles and solid lines, like a sprawling white bird with its wings spread across the grounds.
At night, however, all of Averia was bathed in blue.
The moonlight winked down onto the estate, peeking into the windows on the fifth floor, illuminating two girls as they tiptoed their way through the halls, careful not to wake the house.
“It’s just one little ride,” Kalee whispered as Andi followed her best friend and charge past an open doorway that looked like a dark, gaping mouth. “We’ll be back before he even knows we’re gone.”
“You’re crazy, Kalls. It’s not goi
ng to happen.”
Over a year had passed since Andi had been sworn in as Kalee’s Spectre. Until that moment, her life had been so confusing, utterly without direction. Andi was a soldier without a cause, living in the shadows of her mother’s perfect Arcardian image, her father’s constant urge to train harder. To swing faster. To be a better soldier.
Andi loved her planet, dearly, but she was too young to be drafted for anything. Too angry to make friends. She wouldn’t graduate for another three years, and no matter how hard she trained to make her father proud, or danced to become the graceful daughter her mother wished her to be, it couldn’t fill the void.
Andi loved fighting, and dancing. But she’d needed something to call her own.
Then, through a strange twist of fate, General Cortas had chosen her out of thousands. Now she was a Spectre, guarding the general’s daughter. Living in the residential wing of his estate, attending family dinners, her face displayed across the screens of Arcardius as she stayed close by Kalee’s side at balls and high-profile gatherings. She had purpose. She had a position of the highest honor. Her service made her family, and her planet, proud. The title was hers, earned by her.
But more than that...Andi now had a friend as close as a sister. She’d broken through Kalee’s perfect outer image to discover the girl beneath, a girl who had wounds and hang-ups just like Andi. Kalee worked hard to please her father and her planet—she truly wished to lead Arcardius someday, with a military mind and gentle soul, and the general worked her hard. The pressure of it often became too much to bear.
Andi was always there to help pick up the pieces.
Andi had helped Kalee through the hard times, and in return, Kalee had helped Andi break through her own walls, to work through her anger and her feelings of unworthiness.
Though Andi guarded Kalee, she often felt like Kalee guarded her, too. Together, they were a unit.
Now, as they tiptoed past a closed doorway, Kalee put a finger to her lips. A sliver of bright white light peeked out from the crack near the floor.
It was his room.
Valen Cortas, Kalee’s strange, silent older brother who always seemed to appear at the most inconvenient times. She could imagine him in there right now, seated at his easel, bringing images to life on canvas. Rearranging his tubes of oil paint. Or perhaps organizing his clothing by color, much of which was splattered with paint.
“Come on,” Kalee whispered.
Andi took care with each step, holding back a laugh as they slipped past Valen’s room and made it into the main hall of Averia. A grand, sweeping staircase led down to the rounded entry of the estate, where a holo of Arcardius’s symbol spun in midair far below.
Andi leaned on the marble railing beside Kalee and looked up.
One floor above them was the sitting room, tucked away in the far corner, with a picture window overlooking the gardens. It was Kalee’s favorite place to sit and flip through the pages of an ancient paper book. Illustrations covered the pages, a fairy tale of the planets from long ago.
One floor past that was the docking bay, where Kalee’s father kept his personal transport ship.
“You’ve never even considered taking it out for a ride?” Kalee asked.
“It’s state-of-the-art,” Andi said. “The engine alone is worth more than my life, Kalee. If your father caught us with it, I’d lose my position.”
Kalee shook her head, pale ringlets spilling down her back. “It’s my birthday. He won’t mind.”
Andi sighed, gripping the railing so tightly her Spectre gloves grew taut against her skin. “What if I told you it’s never going to happen?”
Kalee smirked. “What if I told you it already has?”
Andi whirled to look at her, eyes widening to match the moons outside. “What did you do?”
Kalee reached into her pocket, then revealed the silver ignition card she’d swiped from her father’s office earlier. Andi had thought she’d seen Kalee slip something from the desk, but Kalee had learned a few too many tricks from Andi. “One little ride, Androma,” she whispered, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “Do it for your best friend?”
“I could lose my job,” Andi said again.
Kalee frowned. “My father will never know. He sleeps like the dead. And besides, you’re practically part of the family, Andi. A slap on the wrist. Maybe a harsh talking-to from the general if he catches us. But other than that?” She waved a hand. “You took plenty of flight classes. We both know you’d have become a pilot if you hadn’t been given this job.” Her blue eyes turned pleadingly large. “Just one little flight around the mountain. Come on, you’re the one who’s always telling me to lighten up.”
Andi laughed as Kalee wiggled the card in her face.
A voice that sounded like her father’s told her that no soldier, at any time, would disobey orders. But if she was keeping Kalee safe while she flew the transport...she wouldn’t be disobeying at all. “Fine. But if we get caught, I’m saying you kidnapped me and forced me into it.”
Kalee nodded, then grabbed Andi’s hand and tugged her down the hall, toward the stairs. “It’s going to be the best night of your life, Androma Racella,” she said as they reached the steps. “It’s not like it’s going to kill you.”
* * *
Andi woke to darkness, the scent of sweat thick in her nostrils and the too-hot feeling of a metal floor just beneath her, a ship’s engine rumbling close below it.
She cursed, then tried to lift her hands to wipe sweat from her brow.
They were stuck. Bound in chains that clinked as she tried to squeeze her wrists out of the manacles.
For a moment, panic swept through her, twisting itself into her skin, making her itch with the need to run. To get the hell out of here before it was too late.
But then another sound mixed in with the rumble of the engine.
Snores, coming from her left, like the growl of the Marauder when Lira punched it hard and heavy.
Andi knew that snore, had found comfort in it from the very first night she’d heard it, years ago, in the bunkhouse of some brutal bounty hunter on Tenebris. It had always meant she wasn’t alone.
The snore belonged to Dex. And at the sound of it, despite all her anger at him, Andi relaxed as memories of their last moments in the Dark Matter Pub settled into place.
The fighting. The Sparks.
The kiss that left her feeling momentarily like putty as their lips met, like they had so many times before—until her fury took over.
Why was she thinking about that damned kiss? She hated that kiss. She hated Dex’s stupid lips.
She needed to focus.
The plan had worked. They were on a small transport ship, both of them bound in chains, bathed in complete and total darkness. They were prisoners of Xen Ptera, heading to Lunamere, the most horrific prison in all of the Mirabel Galaxy.
They were exactly where they needed to be.
Andi loosed a breath, then leaned her head back against the hot metal wall of the transport ship.
The tranq still in her system called to her and, willing or not, she closed her eyes and sank back into the shadowy depths of sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Three
* * *
VALEN
VALEN WAS A man made of regrets.
Stuck in this endless turmoil—absent of light with only his memories to keep him company—his mind often wandered.
At first he tried to remember the positive memories from his past. His mother’s warm smile, the adventures he’d shared with his sister, diving off the floating chunks of rock that littered Arcardius into the warm pools of water below with friends.
It gave him peace, a tiny glimmer of hope when he couldn’t grasp on to anything else.
Then the darkness chased the good memories away.
Others took their p
lace.
The void expression on his mother’s face when Valen walked past his parents’ bedroom doorway, peering through the cracks as a single word floated out.
Unfaithful.
The shattered conversations at the dinner table. A glass thrown, Valen’s father standing up as his chair fell backward. And not just a single word, but a phrase this time that broke him: you could have stopped her.
It was Valen’s fault his sister was gone. Valen’s fault that he was a weak, pathetic protector who couldn’t do his damned job.
What were older brothers for, after all, if not to protect their younger siblings?
Kalee would still be alive if not for his cowardice—singing in the halls, chasing him through hidden water coves and underground tunnels. Sitting beside him in the dance hall as Androma Racella, Kalee’s best friend from school, performed on stage in front of them.
As he drifted to sleep, he was haunted by one reality.
His sister was dead, and he was alive.
And somewhere out there, her killer ran free.
Thoughts like these were the worst of all.
* * *
Valen sat in his room, staring at a portrait of his sister’s protector turned killer.
A full moon ago, he’d been hard at work on it when Kalee had breezed past his closed door, thinking herself silent on bare feet. But Valen had always been one to pick up on the smallest changes in sound. And even more so, the changes in color.
He loved the way the paint on his brushes dried when he didn’t wash them, deepening from a royal, cloudless sky blue to a nighttime, starless black. Sometimes he saw the way a star shone purple, then white again, as it winked at him from high in the sky. He loved getting his hands on samples of fabric, observing the changes in shade as he twisted them this way and that in his fingertips.
And he always noticed—despite Kalee’s thoughts on the matter—the shifting of shadows slinking beneath his closed door. A dark, formless shape that was there one moment and gone the next.
Zenith Page 13