by Kit Rocha
“Royce.” Hawk tightened his grip on her hand and pulled her close. “He likes to play in the old chicken coop. It's back behind the garden.”
Jeni had seen the old coop during her tour of the farm. They used it as a potting shed now, because of its proximity to the garden. But that was on the far side of the house, close to—
She clutched at Hawk's shirt. “The fields on that side are already burning fast. We'll need your car.”
“I know.” He still held the rifle in his other hand. “You remember where we parked it? Go as fast as you can and stay low. I'll be right behind you, Jeni.”
She nodded and took off. It wasn't far to the shed Hawk used as a makeshift garage, but it seemed like she ran forever. Her lungs burned, and her heart thumped painfully. For one brief, terrifying moment, she imagined arriving at the car only to find herself alone, with Hawk nowhere to be found.
She didn't dare look back. Instead, she ran faster.
Panting, she slipped into the shed, then froze at the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked.
Hawk lunged in front of her, both hands up, his rifle pointed toward the ceiling. “Luna, it's us. It's Hawk.”
The girl stepped out of the darkness with a sob. Her hair was a mess, her face streaked with soot and tears. She relinquished the huge revolver to Hawk, but she refused to let go of the grimy stuffed bear she clutched in her other hand. “I heard screaming.”
“The soldiers are close.” Hawk dragged Luna toward his car, and she scrambled into the back seat. Then he pulled open the passenger-side door for Jeni and pressed the pistol into her hands. “Can you use this?”
“Yes.” Gia made sure all her girls could defend themselves.
He squeezed her hand once before clambering into the car, sliding all the way over to the driver's seat. Jeni followed, groping for the door as the engine rumbled loudly in the tiny shed.
She clawed the door shut, and Hawk shifted gears. “Hold on.”
The car surged forward and crashed through the wall. Wood splintered, flying in every direction as they drove straight into hell. All around them, the grass and fields burned in patches that were quickly spreading.
Too quickly. How could it happen that fast? Jeni twisted in the seat to look back at the main house. The blaze was licking at the porch already, and she watched as a column of hot orange traveled straight up to the roof.
“Oh, my God. Oh, God.” Luna whispered the words hoarsely, barely audible over the rumble of the engine, and Jeni realized the girl was staring at the blood that stained her shirt. “Who?”
Hawk shifted gears again, and they shot over the last patch of grass and out onto the dirt road. Gravel plinked against the car as the tires threw it up in all directions, and Hawk's hand clenched on the gearshift. “Shipp,” he said finally, his voice flat and empty.
Luna shook her head. “No.”
The glow from the fires growing behind them cast the interior of the car with eerie shadows. Hawk seemed carved from stone, any hint of emotion hidden beneath smooth efficiency. He checked the mirrors and flicked off the headlights, plunging the road ahead of them into darkness. “I'm going to try to outrun anyone who might be following us. Luna, take my rifle.”
She reached over the seat for the weapon. “Did—?” Her voice failed. “Did Alya…?”
“Big John is with her.” Jeni squeezed Luna's arm, but her words were as much for Hawk as for his sister. “She's fine. She'll be fine.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “We only have to make it to Five. Ryder will have people watching for this. They'll have our backs.”
Luna choked on another sob, this one more heartache than terror. “Does it matter? It's all gone, Hawk, everything is gone.”
He shifted gears again. Jeni couldn't see the way ahead of them, but Hawk seemed to know it. Even as the bright glow behind them faded, the car stayed steady, following the curves of the road.
They climbed a hill, and for a moment Jeni could see the whole of the farm behind them, flames reaching for the sky, the entire house ablaze now. Then they reached the top and slipped down the other side, and everything plunged into pure darkness.
“The house is gone,” he said softly. “But the people are still alive, Luna. That's what matters. That's what Shipp would have cared about. Getting everyone out, and not giving up.”
“And look where it got him,” she shot back.
Jeni twisted in her seat again. “Luna...” The words died when something caught her eye off the side of the road—the dull glint of scarce moonlight off metal.
The moment hovered, drawn out by terror and disbelief. The sound of a second engine swelled, and blinding light filled the car. It took forever, an eternity, and it all happened so fast that Jeni didn't even have time to draw a breath.
The truck hit them hard. The impact jolted her against the window, and pain seared a single thought into her brain—this is it, this is the end. Someone screamed, though it might have been her. There was no way to tell, not with the whole world spinning, awash with agony and confusion and fear and the most unholy screeching she'd ever heard.
Then it was over. Everything was still, quiet.
Too quiet.
She opened her eyes. Hawk was slumped over the steering column, and all the fear she'd ever felt in her entire life paled next to this. She was mumbling something, something, but she couldn't even listen to herself because she needed to touch him, she needed to know—
Her fingers found the base of his neck and the pulse pounding there, too fast but strong, and she could breathe again.
She could breathe, and she sobbed her relief in hot tears that poured down her cheeks. “Hawk, wake up. We have to fight—”
“Jeni.” Luna lay slumped over in the back seat. She didn't move, even when Jeni reached to help her sit up. “This isn't...exactly what I imagined.”
She lifted her arm, and Jeni saw the jagged piece of metal protruding from her side.
“It doesn't hurt,” Luna whispered. “Something like this should hurt.”
Then she died. There was nothing cinematic about it, no last rattling breath or profound words. The light didn't slowly fade from her eyes. She was there and then she wasn't, as quick and as horrible as the truck slamming into the car all over again.
Jeni screamed. She was still screaming when rough hands dragged her from the car and across the gravel.
She didn't know if she could stop.
Ryder
He'd never watched a sector burn.
When Eden bombed Three, he only saw the aftermath, the plumes of smoke that had risen from behind the city's shining towers for days. When they blew up Two, his view had been obscured by Sector Four.
But Six? Six was right in his fucking backyard—and it was in flames.
The wind shifted, blowing acrid smoke across the large balcony that ran the length of his private quarters. Mac Fleming had used this penthouse as a playground, a place to bring women, snort whatever, and survey everything he commanded. Mac's successor, Logan Beckett, hadn't used it at all. He never had the chance.
Ryder used it as his home, but not because he liked it. No, its overstated opulence served as a reminder—and a warning.
He lifted the receiver beside him and waited. The internal line rang through directly to his second-in-command, a man he'd handpicked from a factory in Eight. The job would have gone to Finn, if he hadn't up and joined O'Kane's merry band of brothers. But he had, so Ryder had been left to look elsewhere.
It wasn't that he didn't trust any of the men he'd worked with in Five to get shit done, he just didn't trust them to get his shit done. Every one of them had an agenda, mostly involving money or drugs or fucking over the guys ahead of them in the hierarchy of power. They were selfish, and that was one thing Ryder couldn't stand.
Hector answered, his voice heavy with sleep. “Sir?”
“The city has taken Six.” He gave the man a moment to process that before continuing. “They'll be headed this way
next. Get as many men as possible on the western border. And tell the factory supervisors that it's time to switch to full wartime production.”
“You got it.”
War. The word should have filled him with terror, but there was no room in his heart for fear. It was too full of anger, loss. Vengeance.
He wasn't Dallas O'Kane, a man sitting at the top of a pretty little empire filled with people he was desperate to protect. Ryder had always been a soldier with a mission—take down the Eden-sympathetic leaders of Sector Five. Controlling the manufacture and supply of essential medications was the first step in Jim's eventual plan to bring down the city itself.
A plan that had almost died with him.
Ryder walked inside, secured the sliding door behind him, and reached for the tablet on his desk. With a few swipes, he sent a brusque message to the other sector leaders. It wasn't flowery, but it would tell them what they needed to know.
Because their sectors weren't in immediate danger. No, his was the one sitting between Eden's forces and their target—Dallas O'Kane. And it was just as well. He belonged on the front lines of this conflict. It was part of his destiny, his legacy.
Ryder hesitated, then pulled up a photo on the tablet. It was decades old, older than him, from a time before the Flares. It had been copied from device to device more times than he could count. One bad transfer had corrupted the image, left the upper right corner a mess of gray blocks instead of the vivid hues in the rest of the picture.
But he could still see the faces of the three people featured in the photo, and that was what mattered. Two young men, beaming and regal in their crisp blue uniforms and white gloves, flanked a smiling woman in a simple, flowered dress. His father. His mother. And Jim.
His father stood on the left, his dark skin a sharp contrast to his white shirt and the golden braids decorating the shoulders of his uniform jacket. He looked so damn happy, proud to be wearing that badge. Ryder's mother had tried to explain it to him, how there was a time before the Flares when the military and the police had been separate entities, but he could barely wrap his head around the idea.
How would they have reacted if someone had tried to tell them, on that pleasant spring day, that the world would end in less than two years? Laughter, maybe. Disbelief, certainly. Anger, that anyone would dare suggest their reality was so fragile that it could be ripped away at any moment.
Over the years, Ryder had tried to see pieces of the people he knew in this picture. He didn't bother with his father—he'd only ever known him secondhand, through stories and fond reminiscence. His mother, that was easy. She never lost that spark, her belief that good would always prevail. She even looked the same—the smooth, unlined cheeks were the ones he'd kissed as a child, the ones he'd watched grow sunken and hollow as she neared the end of her life.
Jim was the opposite. The carefree glint in this young man's eyes was foreign to Ryder. His earliest memories of Jim were of a harsh man—not unkind, exactly, but hard, like tempered steel. Surviving the power shift after the Flares—and the death of his best friend—had cost him the contented ease that shone from this photograph. He became a man ruthless enough to survive, and broken enough not to bother.
Except he had. Ryder asked him why once. Why did he fight so hard, work so much, when he didn't really care if he lived or died?
It had taken him a long time to answer. When he did, it was in a gravelly voice thick with memories. “Because I made a promise. And I plan to keep it.”
A promise to Ryder's mother, or to the father he resembled but never knew? And was it a promise to see this uprising through to the end, or to prepare Ryder to do it? Whatever those answers were, Jim had taken them to his grave.
Ryder locked the tablet screen and tossed it aside. His men would be gathering soon, and he needed to be there to explain the situation, and to fight alongside them.
Because he'd made a few promises of his own—and he planned to keep them.
Chapter Seventeen
Pain dragged Hawk out of the darkness, kicking and screaming.
Everything hurt. His arms. His back. His ribs—damn his ribs. The last time they'd ached this badly was the summer he'd slipped while reshingling the barn roof and fallen twenty feet to the ground. His head throbbed with the beat of his heart, and when he parted his lips, he tasted salt and metal.
He'd swallowed enough of his own blood after a few rounds in the cage to know that taste.
But this wasn't the soreness that came after a good fight or even a sound ass-kicking. And Hawk knew, he knew he wanted to linger here in the physical pain, caressing every twinge like a lover, savoring it. Because if he kept going, if he remembered—
Something vast and terrifying waited for him beyond the pain. Horror and guilt and loss and—
Fire.
No, it was better here, where idly trying to squeeze his hands into fists shot off bright flashes of color behind his eyes. Like fireworks, like—
Flares against the night sky.
His breath rasped loud in his own ears. Faster. Panicked. Because it was coming for him, whether he wanted it or not. Consciousness. Memory. The truth, speeding toward him at a hundred miles an hour—
Metal crunching. Jeni's scream.
The denial rose in his throat, caught on terror. Came out as a name. “Jeni.”
“I'm here.”
Joy exploded, better than fireworks. For a few seconds, the pressure on his chest eased. Even the pain wasn't so unmanageable.
She was alive.
But her voice was hoarse. Not the warm, husky rasp that followed a long night in bed, but ragged, shredded. Hawk tried to force his eyes open and hissed as the agony returned, stabbing into his skull.
He tried to lift a hand to rub at his head, but his hand jerked to a stop a foot from the floor. Cold metal dug into his wrist, accompanied by the soft clink of chain.
All of the joy fizzled, but something more useful rose in its place—resolve. Fighting through the pain, he cracked his eyes open and blinked until the soft blur across the room turned into Jeni.
Blood splattered her torn clothes. Her hair was tangled around her face, matted with blood and darkened by soot. Her eyes were so red—as if she'd been crying forever. And wide metal cuffs circled her delicate wrists, each attached to a chain fastened to the floor on either side of her.
Hawk's chains jerked tight again, setting off a screaming pain in his shoulders, and that's when he realized he'd tried to move. Tried to get to her, to touch her and reassure himself she wasn't harmed.
Only ten damn feet separated them, and she might as well have been on the other side of the world.
But she knew what he needed. “I'm okay. I'm not hurt.”
He slumped back against the wall and winced as the rough brick dug into the bruises on his shoulders. “What happened?”
“Someone hit us.” She smiled, but it was a forced thing, tight and painful to look at. “They must have known they couldn't outrun you.”
Us.
The cell wasn't that big. Fifteen by fifteen at most, and bare except for the hooks on the walls and the chains holding them.
Holding the two of them.
Dread contracted into a tight knot. There was no direction to turn that didn't end in pain. The farm, in flames. Shipp on the ground, his dead eyes staring blankly past Alya's screaming face.
Only two of them in the damn room. “Luna?”
Jeni's face crumpled. “I'm sorry, Hawk.”
He clenched his teeth until the room swam and Jeni blurred again. He squeezed his eyes shut and regretted it when the memory formed. Luna, only four or five years old. Fearless, even though the other younger kids had been skittish around the older brother who'd roared back into their lives to turn their world upside down.
Not Luna. She'd fixed those eyes on him, big and brown and full of mischief, and he'd known that coming back was the right thing to do. No one would beat the curiosity out of her, bury her under harsh words about
her own worthlessness until that sweet little face with the pointed chin turned pinched and hard and empty of hope.
Hawk had been twenty-five years old. So damn young to feel so fucking old—but Luna's smile had healed him a little. Made him feel like he'd done something right, maybe for the first time.
“How?” he asked, not recognizing his own voice. Not really wanting to know. “Was it—?”
“It was quick.” Jeni breathed out a ragged sigh. “She didn't suffer.”
Maybe not, but she'd died scared and hopeless, all because Hawk hadn't taken two fucking seconds to hug her and tell her she'd be okay. The guilt of that hurt worse than his ribs, but not as much as knowing he had to lock it down. Forget Shipp, forget Luna.
If he didn't pull himself together and think like a damn soldier, Jeni would be next.
He forced himself to breathe. Deep and even, three slow inhalations and exhalations. Then he opened his eyes and focused on Jeni. “Where are we?”
“You're in the dungeon,” a man answered. “Civic Building. City Center.”
Hawk turned his head as much as he could without setting off a cascade of stabbing pain. Bars made up the left side of the wall, like something out of a pre-Flare movie—not just ancient rusting metal instead of shining steel, but theatrical. Menacing and raw, all naked threat. The room they were in was like those spies fried on the wall and left as a message—psychological torture.
The hallway was dark, but he could make out a vague shape through the bars on the other side. Shaggy hair. An unshaved face. A white dress shirt and dark slacks that disappeared into the shadows. Bare feet and ankles wrapped in chains.
“Hawk, meet Nikolas Markovic.” Jeni could have been making polite introductions at a party if she hadn't sounded so goddamn scared. “Dallas's missing councilman.”
The one Lili had sworn she had a feeling about. Hawk didn't know if he wanted to laugh or break down in fucking tears. Because if whoever had seized control of Eden had the power to throw a councilman in a goddamn dungeon—
We're all fucked.