by Kyla Stone
The tension in Amelia’s jaw and around her eyes faded as she played. She closed her eyes, lost in the concentration of her art, her fingers moving with a beautiful fluidity and grace. This was what she knew, what she loved with all of her heart and soul.
She thought of Bach’s “Gavotte,” the first truly difficult piece she’d mastered at eleven. She thought of her music room, where the sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the warmth of the sun seeping into the scarred hardwood floors, dust motes dancing as she played, and played, and played. It was her favorite room in the house, the rest of which was huge and cold and empty.
Her bowing intensified. The intricate melody underscored the emotions warring inside her, the splendor of the notes soaring through the air, the darker undertones weaving a tapestry of anguish around her heart.
She lost herself to the music, the way she always did. She pushed out the fear and dread, pushed out the knowledge of what she was about to do, how strong she needed to be.
Instead, for this brief respite, she soared to some invisible place free of pain and despair and heartache, a place only of beauty, of peace. Her heart squeezed as the music flowed through her fingers, building and swelling and filling the entire room until it calmed and centered her, bringing her back to herself.
As the last haunting note faded, there was a moment of complete stillness.
Her father clapped heartily. “That's my girl!” he declared, delight and pride thrumming through his voice.
Amelia opened her eyes, blinking as if coming out of a daze. She tucked the violin inside its case with the utmost care. She cleared her throat. Had to clear it again before she could speak. “Thank you. I love it. But what is this for?”
“This is a celebration!” Her father smiled broadly. From his pocket, he pulled out a long, rectangular aluminum case latched on both ends. He pressed his thumb to the biometric scanner. The latches released with a hiss.
He removed a vial full of clear liquid and held it up. “We did it, my girl!”
Her breath caught in her throat. “Is that what I think it is?”
“We tested this serum on a twelve-year-old boy on the ninth day of infection—after the fever set in but before the hemorrhaging. Yesterday, his viral count had dropped by half. By this afternoon, his fever had broken, he was speaking coherently, his white blood cell count had increased, and his viral load had fallen below day-two threshold levels.
“This morning, we administered the cure to twenty more infected patients. Their viral counts are already dropping.” Her father turned to her, his face shining. “We’ve finally found it, Amelia. We have the cure.”
29
Gabriel
“They’re ready for you.” Jamal gestured for Cleo and Gabriel to follow him into the conference room. The room had a slightly musty smell to it. The Patriots’ leadership sat around the scarred conference table, just like last time.
Only General Reaver was conspicuously absent.
“And how would we even get close enough to take out the missiles?” Colonel Reid swallowed the last dregs of coffee from his styrofoam cup. Empty cups littered the table. The strategy meeting had already been going for well over an hour. “Even with a Phantom, as soon as we strike one cannon, the others will blow us into the next universe.”
Cleo stalked around the table, sat down hard in an empty seat, and shoved in her chair. She sat straight, shoulders squared, prepared for battle. “The cannons swivel, but not three hundred and sixty degrees.”
“Meaning?” Colonel Willis snapped. She wore a black trench coat buttoned to her throat. Her dull blond hair was cut in a sharp bob to her chin. Deep lines scoured her pallid, sour face. With General Reaver gone, she and Colonel Reid were in charge.
Someone offered Cleo a cup. She waved it away. “If we can get the Phantom within the gates, we can take out the guns one by one.”
“You’ll still have to deal with the Sanctuary’s security forces and armored drones,” said a woman in a naval officer’s uniform at the end of the table.
“I didn’t say it would be easy. It will expose Theo and every one of our assets inside.” She looked at each face. “But we’re all in now.”
“We cannot be hasty here!” Colonel Willis said. “We cannot risk it all for one person, even the General. Though we respect her years of service and leadership.”
Cleo’s face clouded. Her lips pulled back from her teeth, and her eyes slitted. Her body fairly vibrated with rage. Gabriel wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d pulled out her gun and shot Willis then and there. Or leapt across the table and strangled the woman with her bare hands.
He understood her anger. After everything her mother had sacrificed, Colonel Willis was ready to abandon General Reaver, to leave her to the ravages of the Hydra virus. And from the look of sheer loathing contorting Cleo’s features, Colonel Willis had just earned herself a life-long enemy.
But there was a hint of fear shining in Cleo’s dark eyes. She needed to convince the people at this table to go to war now, or her mother was dead.
He understood her pain, but a war would put Amelia and Micah and Silas in danger. And that, he could not abide.
“Colonel Willis is right,” he said, rising to his feet.
Cleo shot daggers at him.
“You’re putting everything the New Patriots have fought and died for at risk,” Gabriel said firmly. “You sent my people into the Sanctuary on a mission. Let them do their job. They need more time. If we go in now, we risk the cure.”
“Who’s to say Amelia won’t turn traitor and keep the cure?” Cleo snarled.
Colonel Willis folded her hands neatly on the table. She tilted her head at Gabriel. “I thought he remained here to ensure that didn’t happen.”
Cleo looked about ready to explode. She glared straight at Willis, her eyes glittering onyx shards. “I—I may have overestimated her…connection to Rivera.”
Gabriel winced. Cleo had. But Amelia would still come back. He was certain of it. “Amelia will not betray us.”
“Who knows if this girl is even the cure?” said a balding man at the end of the table.
“It’s reckless—if not downright stupidity—to risk so much on the word of an elite,” spat an older Hispanic woman with short gray hair and glasses. “Even with the Phantom, we should wait until summer as planned, bide our time, and strike when we are ready.”
“General Reaver will die,” Cleo said between gritted teeth.
Colonel Willis leaned forward. She smelled blood in the water. “As we said, that is an unfortunate—”
The conference room door burst open. A low-level Patriot hurried in, his expression strained. He whispered something in Colonel Reid’s ear. Gabriel recognized him—Bao Nguyen, the Patriot Cleo had nearly scalped in the garage bay.
Colonel Reid turned to Cleo, his expression tense. “I’ve just been informed that one of our all-terrain transports has been stolen. The back gate has been tampered with. Several members of the group you brought into our compound are unaccounted for. Captain Reaver, you were in charge of these people. Pray tell, what happened?”
Cleo’s mouth tightened. Her gaze flitted to Gabriel. They were both thinking of the noise they’d heard in the garage bay. Someone had been listening. Willow and Finn and Benjie had disappeared, but he knew without a doubt that they would never warn the Sanctuary.
“Celeste,” Gabriel said with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Celeste betrayed us.”
“Why would she do that?” Cleo asked, whirling on him.
He had believed Celeste had changed. She’d survived two days in Atlanta by herself. She’d survived Sweet Creek Farm, the Headhunters, the fire, the infected rats, the rabid dogs, the Pyros—everything they’d gone through, she’d been right by their side.
“She’s an elite,” he forced out. His words were ash on his tongue. “She’s betting on the Sanctuary over us. She knows they’ll take her in. She can return to her old life o
f comfort and decadence.”
“It might not be her,” Cleo said. “It could be Elise Black, Amelia’s mother. She’s an elite, too.”
“Elise wouldn’t do that,” Gabriel snapped. But he felt like he was climbing an impossibly steep mountain, losing his grip on the slick rocks, about to fall. Nothing made sense.
The table erupted in a rumble of displeasure. “What are you saying?” Colonel Reid growled.
Cleo swallowed. “Presumably, one of the elites in our care fled to warn the Sanctuary.”
“Warn them of what, exactly?” Colonel Willis asked, her tone deadly.
“Someone was spying on me during a private conversation.” Cleo’s nostrils flared. Her lips thinned in a bloodless line. Gabriel could tell she despised admitting to a mistake of any kind. “They overheard privileged information, which included my plans for an impending attack on the Sanctuary.”
For a long, terrible moment, the conference room went completely silent. The Patriots leadership stared at them in shock and alarm.
“How long ago did they leave?” Colonel Reid asked Nguyen, who stood against the wall, twisting his hands nervously.
“Sometime between last watch and now,” Nguyen said. “Could be up to seven hours.”
“And how would they know how to reach the Sanctuary?” Colonel Reid asked.
Nguyen swallowed. “It’s one of the GPS-programmed destinations in this particular vehicle. It wouldn’t be difficult to find it in the system, if you knew what you were doing.”
The hairs on the back of Gabriel’s neck prickled. Could Celeste have figured that out on her own? Or did she have help?
Colonel Reid dismissed Nguyen with a flick of his wrist. “Send out a team. Stop them.”
“Yes, sir.” Nguyen turned and hurried from the room. The door closed with a loud thud behind him.
Whoever it was left hours ago. The action was likely futile.
Colonel Willis glared at Cleo, furious. “How could security be so lax as to allow—”
Cleo cut her off. “You refuse to allow security cameras and surveillance drones!” She shrugged helplessly. “Freedom is our bedrock, our foundation, but it has its downsides.”
“I’ve had quite enough of your excuses—”
“It doesn’t matter!” Cleo shouted. “If the Sanctuary thinks we’re going to attack them, they’ll strike first. We’ll be devastated. They’ll destroy us!”
The Hispanic woman scowled. “Now, wait just a minute—”
Cleo spoke loudly and quickly, trying to regain control of the room. “Which means we have no choice now. We must be the first to attack.”
“We can evacuate,” Gabriel said. A few people nodded. “We should run—”
Cleo whirled on him. “Leave everything and start over? Flee with our tails between our legs? That’s worse than giving up! We’re so close to victory! To changing everything!”
Gabriel leapt to his feet, knocking his chair back. “You’re risking our people inside! You’re risking Amelia, risking the cure—”
Cleo whipped her gun out and pointed it at his chest. Her finger wasn’t on the trigger. It was a show of strength, of dominance, but she still needed him. And they both knew it.
Several Patriots soldiers lounging against the walls snapped to attention, their guns leveled at Gabriel.
Sweat broke out on his forehead. He remained standing, but raised his arms. “You can’t do this.”
“Stand down,” Jamal ordered, his hand hovering over his holster. “Everyone, stand down!”
“We have to do this,” Cleo said. “We’re not risking the cure, we’re ensuring we’re the ones who get the cure! We know the schematics of the Sanctuary. We can protect the labs and the scientists. We can warn our people so they’ll be ready.”
The Hispanic woman adjusted her glasses. “You’re suggesting that we take over now, and the scientists can keep working with the Black girl, even if they don’t have the cure yet. But we’ll have the Sanctuary.”
“Yes. We can win this, we can—”
“Be quiet, girl,” Colonel Willis said. “I will not risk a David-and-Goliath war here. You have no idea what a war entails.”
“David won.”
“What?” Willis snapped.
Cleo raised her chin with an imperious tilt. “David won, you bitch.”
The room again fell into shocked silence. Then Jamal let out a loud bark of laughter. A few of the lower ranked Patriots smirked and nodded. They wanted a fight just as much as Cleo did.
Gabriel’s heart sank.
Colonel Willis looked like she was sucking on lemons. Her mouth pinched, her eyes spitting fury. “This is insubordination—”
“Colonel Willis,” Colonel Reid said sharply. He rose to his feet. “That is enough. I believe Captain Reaver is correct. The evidence she gave is compelling. And if this elite manages to warn the Sanctuary, then we have no choice. We have reached the point of no return. We must act. And we must act decisively.” He nodded at Cleo. “Please continue. We are listening.”
“It’s time,” Cleo said triumphantly, not even bothering to glance at Gabriel. He recognized that formidable proud jut of her jaw, that ferocity in her eyes, that cold and reckless disregard for anyone or anything.
It was terrifying.
“We’re going to war. Not in six months or six years. Now.” Cleo punched the table with both fists. “And we’re going to win.”
30
Amelia
The cure.
Hope and elation and joy flared through Amelia. Even though this was what she came here for, it still seemed too good to be true. An impossible dream. “I—that’s—I can’t believe it!”
“Your blood was the key,” Declan said. “I knew it would be.”
Her mind snagged on his last words. “What do you mean? How could you know? I don’t understand.”
“We may not share DNA,” he said, folding his hands behind his back, “but you are my daughter in every way that matters. I knew you would survive. I knew you would find your way back to me, where you belong.”
He loves you now.
The thought stuck in her mind like barbed wire. She had managed to please him. She was the cure. She was finally something special, something worthy. He had finally looked at her with pride and adoration.
Do you really want to throw all that away?
She could still forget about the recording, could still choose to live in this pretty fiction her father had created. A tapestry of beautiful lies.
But she couldn’t do that. Could never do that. She lifted her chin. “You left me.”
Her father stiffened. He turned his back and stared out the enormous window. She expected him to deny it, but he didn’t.
“On the Grand Voyager. You left me to die.”
“Do you think I wished to let you suffer?” His voice was raw, hoarse. “Do you think I wanted to abandon you? What do you think would have happened if I told them the cure did not yet exist? If I gave them any indication that I would sacrifice my dignity if they tortured my daughter further?”
“You could have done something. You let Kane take me—”
“I had no choice!” He whirled to face her. His mouth pressed into a thin, bloodless line. “If I did not find a way to survive, the entire world—humanity itself—would end. Do you understand the stakes? I could not choose you over the chance to fix BioGen’s error.”
She took a shuddering breath, willing herself to maintain control, to not lose it now. Too much depended on her. She couldn’t let her emotions derail her from her mission. This was the moment. This was her chance.
“It wasn’t an error,” she said carefully, keeping her voice calm and even, though she felt anything but. “You and the Coalition designed the Hydra virus on purpose.”
He didn’t flinch. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
All those years she’d lived walking on eggshells, studying his every facial expression, terrified of a shift in hi
s mood came rushing back to her. She knew when he was lying. The tick beneath his left eye. That extra hitch to the swallow in his throat.
“I was there. I remember. Don’t lie to me.”
Declan’s face darkened. He was losing patience. “It’s in the past, Amelia. Why rehash it now? All we can do is move forward. And we are moving forward. Why are you stuck in the past when we’ve just saved the future?”
She formed each word in her mouth before she spoke it, fragile and delicate as spun glass—and as easily shattered. “You may have found the cure, but you’re also the one who created the virus in the first place.”
He huffed an impatient, dismissive sigh. “Mistakes happen.”
“You released it on purpose. BioGen and the Coalition worked together to intentionally infect a hundred thousand innocent citizens. You called it a moral imperative, remember?”
A line appeared between his brows, thick as a scar. “What is it that you want from me, Amelia? My position has not changed, despite the…unfortunate collateral damage. It is incumbent upon a government to restore order and protect the security of its people.
“Our government was feeble, weak. Our country’s political leaders refused to see the danger lying in wait in their own backyard. The Coalition did what was required. We sacrificed a few to save the many, to ensure our national interests and survival as a nation. The people needed to see the true nature of their perilous situation.”
“You mean you needed them to vote the Coalition into absolute power. To get that power, you murdered thousands of people.”
His expression turned stony. “People die all the time, Amelia. It would have worked. The Coalition would have ushered in a new era of strength, peace, and prosperity. No one could have foreseen how the Hydra virus mutated. That is not my fault. I only did what I did so America could survive.”
“How can you still defend yourself, after all this?”
“Enough!” he growled. “Your constant whining is tiring me. This is my moment of glory, my greatest achievement, one I wished to share with you first, believing you would understand and share my joy. But I see now that I was wrong.”