He smiles. “Only you think so.”
“That’s not remotely true, is it?”
His smile fades. “It’s better to pretend it is.”
“What are you talking about?” Vi asks after my bomb.
“None of this is about Dennel, a leak, any of that. This is about Kaleb. Right and wrong. This is because Kaleb knows something and believes he’s doing what’s right!”
“What?”
“It’s…” I don’t know how to explain four months of clues. Four months of small words revealing enormous truths. Four months that point to the only thing I now know with agonizing certainty. Kaleb is good. In a world of horror, there is one light.
“Kaleb was drafted early. Why? He was banned from leaving the compound. Why? He survived a horrific clash with the rebels and was branded a traitor instead of a hero. Why?”
I motion around the room. “And this. Why are we here? Is the government really sending two insignificant civilian women into enemy territory as undercover operatives for a mission? Please.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying they were getting us out of their way because this isn’t about Dennel. This is about Kaleb. It always has been. He warned me over and over again that I didn’t understand who he was. That he means something to them.”
Vi scrunches her nose as she considers. “Okay, and what are we supposed to do with that?”
I sigh. “I don’t know. What I do know is that Dennel is coming to see me because he’s not the threat we thought.”
She seems frustrated, which makes two of us. I used a lot of words and excitement on an important breakthrough that doesn’t move us any closer to Kaleb.
“How are you, Vi?” I ask, changing the subject to one my brain can process. “How are you handling the prospect of seeing Val again?”
“We’ll see, I guess.” Except her gaze flickers and makes a too-eager connection with her cot. “I’m gonna get some sleep.”
On the outside, interrogation room 1 looks just like 3 and 4. It’s the threat of what’s inside that has my nerves twisted in a thorny vine.
“We’ll be down the hall if you need anything,” the guard says to no one in particular.
Three sets of eyes evaluate each other in the silence that follows. I anchor my gaze on the stranger, Vi’s male counterpart. Close-cropped dark hair with matching two-day stubble rest above a commanding frame of taut muscle. A warrior, the kind featured in legends. But what holds my attention are his eyes, almost violet with an intense blaze poised for explosion. Vi’s fire is tempered by a humor that gives her control of her passion. I sense her brother lives every moment on the cliff’s edge.
“Val,” she whispers, that word so much more than a name in this moment.
His smoldering stare rests on his sister and it’s impossible to tell if she’s about to receive a hug or a punch in the face. Her rigid shoulders make me suspect she’s not sure either. I’m able to breathe again when he moves in for a tight embrace. “Sis, I was so scared when I heard you were taken.”
“I’m fine. They treated us well,” she murmurs into his chest. His expression darkens as he pulls back.
“Well, it shouldn’t have happened. They had no right to take you away.”
“I know.”
“If you’d just come with me like I said, it never would have. They wouldn’t have been able to make you their prisoner.”
“Not now, Val, please?”
The young man studies her with a frown, and they face off: the same person formed into separate fires, forged from the steel of a harsh life. “Twins” also means Val is twenty-four, like his sister, but I suspect years have been added to him that Vi has avoided. If I subtract the trauma, I can see the youth still clinging to this rebel.
“I’m glad you look well, at least. You’ve filled out,” Vi teases, squeezing crafted muscle stretching his shirt.
The hint of a smile spreads across his lips, melting his face into a glimpse of what he could have been. Maybe what he used to be?
“And you’re as puny as ever. Although I see we now have the same haircut,” he snickers, rubbing her head. He’s rewarded with a playful smack.
“Yes, well, that’s a story you will hear at some point.” Her face slips into a thoughtful pout as she studies him. “Why are you here, Val? I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”
His eyes shift, and he casts a heavy look at the door. “What exactly did they tell you?”
A knock interrupts Vi’s response.
“We need you next door,” the guard says to me. “You two can stay here and catch up,” he directs to the siblings.
Dennel nods to the guard when we enter. “Thanks,” he says, stuffing gratitude and dismissal into one word. He waves me toward a chair, but my legs don’t move. Nothing does except my eyelids, which blink a few times in response to the ghost before me.
“Imagine my surprise when I got the message that my cousin, Andie Sorenson, was looking for me.”
My throat starts to work, and I can swallow now too. Small miracles.
He raises his eyebrows. I assume he’s waiting for something besides a blinking and swallowing statue. The battle to rise to the challenge rages within the walls of my skull.
“You can speak, Andie. They’re not listening. It’s just us.”
“Okay, well, imagine my surprise when I was told Kaleb was abducted again and you were involved,” I reply.
I have his attention, and the slight power shift helps me complete the journey to the chair.
“Is that what they told you?”
“Is it true?”
“Would I be here if it was?”
“Maybe. You’re clearly working for the enemy.”
“Whose enemy?”
He sounds like Kaleb.
“Where is he, Dennel?”
The man’s eyes narrow as he evaluates me. “We’re not there yet. Why are you here? Why did they send you?”
“How do you know I was sent?”
“You didn’t escape.”
I quiet. Games were never my specialty. “They sent me because I didn’t give them a choice. I told them I was their best hope at getting into rebel territory and finding Kaleb.”
“Right.”
Yes, it sounds unforgivably stupid out loud.
“Well, that’s the official story, but now I’m pretty sure it’s all bull.”
“Okay, so back to my question. Why do you really think you’re here?”
“Because I was in their way. I care about Kaleb and wouldn’t give up on him. They had to get rid of me.”
He studies me, expression softening. I don’t like it. It makes me want to believe he’s not a monster.
“Dennel, please, if you know anything… Can you at least give him a message for me?”
He leans back, still searching my eyes. “Do you actually think I kidnapped one of their high priority prisoners right from under their noses?”
My brain launches into a panic. “But—”
“We don’t have him, Andie. We never did.”
I shake my head.
“Then where is he?” The airy voice sounds nothing like mine.
His eyes shift in confirmation of my terror. “Kaleb never left the base. He’s still there. He always has been. They have him.”
No. No, because I don’t know what to do with that.
“Andie?”
Fact: My name is Andie.
Fact: “But you disappeared!” Such a weak argument.
“I had to. Once Emery said they were releasing Kaleb, I knew it was about to start all over again. I fled while I could and—”
“You fled? What about Kaleb? What’s he supposed to do now?”
My fury is a helpful upgrade from paralysis, but I’m not convince
d it’ll do any good. “Good” is dying. Dying with a twenty-three-year-old soldier at the hands of his own people.
“What was I supposed to do? Emery is obsessed and has lost patience. She’s—”
“Wait, what?”
He doesn’t look at me as he mutters the next statement. “There are videos, aren’t there. They showed you videos?”
Back to swallowing. “Yes?”
“They’re messages.”
“I suspected that. For the real spy.”
He shakes his head. “No. For Kaleb’s father.” He leans forward. “Roberto Novelli was not killed in action six years ago. He defected and now leads the Free Forces.”
He says it with confidence, as though it’s a missing piece, not the entire damn puzzle. Months of half-truths and partial lies snap into place to shove me into a new normal I never would have accepted until this moment.
“So Kaleb’s first abduction. His thirty-four days with the rebels? You said it’s happening again.”
He looks sad. Tired. “It wasn’t the rebels then either. Someone was leaking secrets. The GF assumed it had to be him, but it wasn’t. They wanted to know where his father was, but he didn’t know. Kaleb thought the man was dead too.” He quiets. “It took thirty-four days and the Kalik Closer for them to believe him.”
My eyes burn. At some point tears have joined the conversation.
“And now?”
“They’re trying to draw Roberto out. One last effort to bait him with his son.”
He’s blurry through the haze of tears. “Does he know?”
“Roberto?”
“Is he getting the messages? Does he know they’re butchering his son?”
Dennel doesn’t answer right away, and I choke back a sob.
“Andie, you have to understand the stakes.”
“Understand?” I scream, shoving my chair back. “What am I supposed to understand? Why the only innocent person in this entire nightmare gets brutalized and abandoned? You want to know who the traitor is? We are! Every single one of us. We’re all traitors except Kaleb.”
He doesn’t answer my challenge. There is no defense. No reason to give one. Fact!
“It was you, wasn’t it,” I hiss. “That first time. You were the one passing the secrets that got him tortured and branded a traitor. You owe him your life but not for the fake reasons you told me.” I can barely even say the next sentence. “He knows all this. He’s known this whole time that he’s bait. That at any moment he’d be sent back to hell. Probably killed once and for all. That’s why he didn’t want me near him and kept lying.”
Dennel is torn up. I don’t even know if I believe his reaction. I don’t trust anyone with my loyalties anymore.
He breaks the silence. “They brought him in right after they learned about his father. ‘Drafted him,’ but a select few knew the truth. They were going to own him as leverage against Roberto.” His eyes meet mine. “It wasn’t so bad for him in the beginning. I don’t think they knew what to do with their Ace, and it was better if no one knew why he was there. Then Emery took over his case a year ago. She got impatient, obsessed with tracking down General Novelli.” The story stalls, and his gaze finds something above my head. “At some point, Kaleb figured it out. He’s been carrying this weight since then.”
“The counseling?”
“Monitoring. Sometimes interrogations.”
“His sudden arrest?”
He doesn’t answer.
“His arrest, Dennel! What changed?”
His eyes flick to mine, and I start to shake. Still, I need to hear it. I deserve it. I’m a traitor too. Fact.
“You. You were the change.”
Everything hurts. All of my muscles clench in one giant ache. “He turned himself in to protect me, didn’t he?”
He looks away. “You don’t want to hear this part, Andie.”
God, I don’t, but I have to. I have to finish this.
“Tell me. What really happened that day? What did I do to him?”
He shakes his head, rubbing at his eyelids. “Are you sure?”
No. I nod anyway.
“Yes. You were the reason he turned himself in. It wasn’t chance that brought you together. Emery put you into Kaleb’s life as leverage against him, and it worked. He went to her that night and laid down his sword. He begged her to end the game once and for all. He told them they needed to finish it, or he would broadcast the truth to anyone who’d listen. The only thing he asked for in return was your safety.” His eyes float to mine. “They hoped he’d get attached to you. You were his poison, not the other way around. Until you, they had no power over him. He had nothing to lose.”
I’m just sobbing now. Head in my arms, tears soaking my sleeves. He doesn’t try to comfort me. There’s no way to fix the fact that the man you love asked to die to save your life.
I swipe at my eyes and startle Dennel with a sudden blast of resolve.
“Okay. Then what now?”
One. Two. Three. The blood in my head hammers against swollen veins. At first I count each thud. Four. Five. Six. Then, the distracting inhalation of a breath. Pain, oh god, everywhere. Seven. Six. No, eight. Eight. I should count the irregular breaths that interfere with the heartbeats instead, but breathing hurts too much to quantify.
“He’s waking up. What do you want to do about pain management?” I don’t recognize the stiff voice.
“Not right now. Maybe later.”
Silence because it’s cruel even for her.
“He won’t be able to converse intelligently in this state.”
“He doesn’t have to. Give us a minute.”
Moving door, scraping chair. I brace for a private conference in our disturbing partnership.
I try for a defiant look once we’re alone, but my eyes barely allow for light. She gets compliance instead. Me, her valiant rival, retreating into his head for nine. Ten. Eleven.
“You know this isn’t personal.”
It is. So personal. Just not the kind of personal that will help me shrug off this agony as justice. I am DNA. I am bloodline. I am punishment for someone else’s sin.
I want to bark back my defense, but I know from experience the words will come out as a croak. She doesn’t get that satisfaction. I can understand her without rewarding her.
I settle on twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen.
“I know you’re awake, Kaleb.” Stern but not harsh. I don’t take pleasure in tearing you apart. Some days I believe her. Not today.
“Kaleb, look at me.”
I try. I try hard because I want to believe that maybe this is the time I find that one shred of compassion. This is the time I will convince her that my suffering can’t return her son to her. My eyelids finally start to move. Fifteen. Sixteen. Violent breath. Seventeen.
She sighs. I hear the chair creak as she leans back, her eyes probably scanning my broken body strapped to the hospital bed like they do on the days I can still see when I wake up. Primal beatings are not helpful for any of us, but I unleashed a string of my frustrations again last night. They never like that.
“You really are a beautiful boy. Were, maybe. We’ll see, right?”
Eighteen.
Nineteen.
Twenty.
It’s my wrist this time. They broke it because they could. Because they needed another movie for my father to ignore, and the dramatic snap of a limb is a captivating script.
“In case you were curious, we haven’t heard anything from them yet.” She quiets, analyzing my bandaged wrist, her art. “Kaleb…” Her voice is closer now, so soft. “What must it be like to lie there knowing your father had six years to come for you and never has? That he can watch us tear you apart and not so much as send a response. To know he didn’t choose you. I’m really sorry no one chose you.”
&nb
sp; Twenty-one… My eyes are burning now with a new kind of pain. The kind that comes from salt in an open wound. Hot, wet, and this pain spreads as a searing trail down the sides of my face.
“You are awake,” she whispers, fingers brushing my cheek. Her stroke intensifies, moving to my lips, my jaw. “I just… I don’t understand. How can he not come for you? I would have done anything for my Liam. I would have braved ten armies.”
I attempt to swallow the tears shifting from my eyes to my chest, refusing to sob. I’m not Liam. I’m not a four-year-old little boy, alone and scared in a collapsing building. I’m a soldier. A fucking soldier—alone and scared in a collapsing universe.
“He’s not going to come,” I rasp, mostly to distract myself from any risk of further tears she can own, use against me tomorrow.
She pulls back with a long exhalation, and I hear the crack of the chair again.
“You know, I’m really starting to believe that. I thought for sure this time, but you might be right.”
Light begins to seep into my brain. My eyelids are finally trying to cooperate.
“There is no ‘easier’ for you, is there,” she muses, and this time I’m able to open just enough to focus on her. It wasn’t a question. It’s not even a warning. Just a recitation of the reality we’ve both come to accept in our awkward alliance. She will torture me, and I will let her because I have no choice. Because she has a gaping wound that’s become a sanctioned mission. Because this war is about good people turned bad from pain no one understands.
Nineteen. Twenty-nine. Thirty-three. Who knows anymore?
“Are you hungry?”
I shake my head. My stomach cramps in hunger, but I’d never be able to get food down, and she’s not allowed to know that. Hell, she probably already does. Our dance.
“It’s been at least thirty-six hours since your last meal. You need something.”
She sends the command into her com. “Soft foods” is the description. Soft foods for my three broken ribs, swollen jaw, probably my throat too if that’s possible. Everything is shattered after ten days of filming.
“Well, I’ll let you rest. Try to eat something, okay?”
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