by Tania Hutley
The stompers guarding the wall stand to attention when they see us, and I give them a nod.
“We’re finally home,” I say to Cale, hearing the relief in my voice.
“You missed Triton?” he asks.
“Being shut in a room wasn’t much fun. Especially with legionnaires always at my door.”
“I didn’t like living in the palace either. It reminded me of Morelle spying on us while we were training for the Skin Hunter contest.”
I glance back at the stompers, then look ahead to the gloomy streets of Old Triton. I can already make out a group of rough sleepers camped out in an alley, far enough from the breach for the stompers not to bother them.
“Compared to Old Triton, Deiterra should have been paradise. I can’t believe I’m so happy to see dark, crowded streets.”
Cale taps his band as he walks. “At least we can finally get back on the network. Change your settings and you should be able to connect.” He punches the change into his control panel, then stops so abruptly I almost walk into him. “Something bad must have happened while we were away. I have dozens of missed calls and messages.”
I pull up my own band’s control panel. As soon as I connect, message alerts start appearing. My chest gets tight when I see how many there are.
Cale is already reading his messages, and his expression is growing darker.
“There’ve been riots.” His jaw clenches. “Your food factories were bombed. Food production had to stop, and now there are shortages.”
“Bombed?” Anger rises in my gut. “Was it the Beast?”
“Who else?” His eyes are dark with rage. “Now he’s selling his own food at inflated prices, and some Old Tritoners can’t afford to eat.”
One of the alerts on my band catches my attention. “I have a message from him. And it’s a long one.”
“From the Beast?”
Instead of answering, I start the recording. The Beast’s face projects above my band, and I turn the sound setting to broadcast so Cale can hear what he says.
“Hello, President Morelle.” The Beast pauses, grinning in a smug way that sets my teeth on edge. “Or whomever you really are inside that Skin. I heard you went away, travelling across the other side of the wall, and you lost all your knights. What a terrible shame.”
I meet Cale’s shocked gaze. “How does he know about the knights?”
Cale shakes his head. “Maybe the same way Sentin was communicating with Detierra. He must have a contact over there to feed him information.”
The possibility raises a lot of questions, but I can’t dwell on what it means, because the Beast is speaking again.
“I decided to look for your real body,” he says. “Your human body. I want to know exactly who it is I’m dealing with.” The image changes, the camera zooming back to take in more of the Beast’s surroundings. He’s standing in a room. When I recognise it, my heart spasms as though my chest has been hit with an electric shock. Behind him, a large window gives an incredible view of both New Triton and Deiterra. It’s the only place in Triton where you can see right over the wall.
“It wasn’t difficult to get past your security, and to the top of your building.” The Beast gazes around my living room in my penthouse apartment. “You really should have your security system updated.”
“Shit,” breathes Cale.
I can’t say a word. My throat is so dry it’s feels like it’s sealed shut.
“I was certain I’d find your human body in your apartment. I thought, where else would you leave it?” The Beast frowns into the camera. “Only it isn’t here, is it? Clever you, hiding it somewhere else.”
“He didn’t find the hidden room,” murmurs Cale. “And he can’t have found your body, or he would have wiped your chip by now.”
“You aren’t here,” says the Beast. “But someone else is.”
My entire body goes cold even before Felicity’s terrified face appears in the holo image.
“Go away,” demands Felicity, her voice shaking. “Go away!”
“But don’t you want to play a game?” The Beast widens his eyes as though he’s trying to look innocent.
Felicity shrinks backward. “I don’t want to.”
“Oh, but you’ll want to play when you see how much fun we can have.” He claps one giant, meaty hand around her wrist. She tries to yank away, crying and struggling to get free, but I know how strong the Beast is. She doesn’t stand a chance.
He drags her closer to the living room’s big feature window. “Don’t blame me for this,” he tells her. “You know who’s really to blame? The person using President Morelle’s Skin. The person who decided to take a trip out there.” He points to the green fields of Deiterra with his free hand. “Instead of staying here to make sure nothing bad happens to you.”
“I don’t want to play with you.” Tears run down Felicity’s cheeks.
“Do you know who’s using President Morelle’s Skin?”
Felicity shakes her head, letting out loud, gulping sobs. “I don’t know.”
“They didn’t tell you anything, did they? They just left you here all alone.”
“Let me go,” she wails. “Let me go.”
“I will let you go,” he soothes. “But first, let’s get some fresh air.” He kicks the window, slamming one foot into it so hard it shakes.
Thanks to the new, extra-thick glass Sentin installed, it doesn’t break. A rush of air escapes my lips. It’s not relief. No, it can’t be called relief, because Felicity is still in terrible danger. But for an awful moment I thought he was going to smash the glass and throw her out.
“What the hell?” he snarls. “You think some toughened glass is going to stop me?”
The Beast lets Felicity go so he can snatch a gun from under his coat. He fires at the window, squeezing the trigger over and over again. Felicity curls into a ball on the floor with her hands over her ears. Gunshots ring out, and small, dark circles appear in the glass, but it doesn’t break.
The Beast pulls an ammunition clip out of his pocket and reloads. Then he empties the gun into the glass, making a tight circle of marks.
When it still doesn’t break, the Beast kicks inside the damaged circle of glass, grunting with effort as he throws his immense weight against it. The glass shudders and shakes. Cracks appear, snaking all the way up to the window frame. With one last kick, the glass shatters. The Beast grabs what’s left of the pane and yanks it roughly out of the frame.
Felicity moans, curling up even tighter as wind howls in through the broken window.
Cale makes a choking sound.
My body is as tight as a clenched fist. Every muscle strains, and my heart is hammering so hard it hurts. All I want is to reach into the holo image and pull Felicity to safety.
Instead, the Beast is the one who reaches for her. He bends to take hold of her arms, then drags her up to her feet.
“Don’t,” whispers Cale. “You can’t do that. Let her go.” I don’t think he knows he’s speaking the words aloud.
“It’s time to play our game now.” The Beast gives Felicity a horrible, leering smile. “We’re going to see if you can fly.”
“No,” whispers Cale. “No, no, no.”
My eyes are burning and prickling. There’s a hard knot in my throat that feels like it’s made of both fire and tears. Like all my rage and grief and denial has been compressed into a tight ball that’s too hot to swallow.
“Don’t.” Felicity’s sobbing so hard she can barely get the word out. “I don’t want to play.”
“Shhh,” says the Beast. “What if you find out you can fly? Wouldn’t that be fun? Wouldn’t that be the best game ever?”
“I don’t want to. Don’t make me.”
He pushes her into the space where the glass used to be, holding her in the rushing wind. The camera angle changes to show the impossible drop below her, the distant ground that’s one hundred and ninety-seven floors away. The bastard doesn’t want us to miss a thi
ng.
Felicity is too scared even to scream. She’s hanging onto his hands, trying to scramble back inside. Only strangled gasps come from her mouth, as though she’s fighting desperately to catch her breath.
“This isn’t my fault.” The Beast stares into the camera. “I’m not the one who decided to change a perfectly good system, and bleed respectable businessmen dry. I’m not the one who decided to give everything away to a bunch of dirty sewer rats, and upset Triton’s peace and prosperity.” He shakes his head, his lips pressed together. “You know who’s to blame, don’t you, Felicity? You have one chance to save yourself. Tell me who’s using the Skin, and I’ll leave you unharmed.”
“She doesn’t know anything,” whispers Cale.
I’d give anything to be able to close my eyes and not have to watch what’s going to happen. Felicity can’t tell the Beast what he wants to know. I doubt she even understands the question. Her eyes are wild, and she’s staring down at the ground far below, struggling against his iron grip, trying to pull herself back inside.
“You’re not going to tell me?” The Beast heaves a giant sigh.
Then he shoves her.
Felicity windmills her arms, trying to regain her balance even as she plummets from the window. The camera follows her down, but now, finally, I can drag my eyes away.
I fumble for the control panel and shut the recording off, before leaning over to retch up my guts.
No doubt the Beast focused the camera back on himself after Felicity hit the ground. He probably delivered some last pithy threat, telling me he’s going to do the same thing to my human body. If he did, it doesn’t matter. I don’t need to hear it from a recording. Whatever he has to say to me, he can say in person.
It’s likely he’s set some kind of trap for me. Killing Felicity was probably his way to lure me to him. I don’t care. I’m going to find him anyway.
He’s going to pay for what he’s done.
Seventeen
Felicity’s gone.
Cale and I stand in the living room of the apartment, staring at the broken window. It’s starting to rain, and fat drops are landing inside. The floor’s getting soaked.
I think we were both desperately hoping the recording was some kind of trick, that Felicity wasn’t really dead, and the Beast had faked the footage for some reason. Maybe to lure us here. I would have been glad to walk into a trap if it meant Felicity was still alive.
But Felicity isn’t here. Wind is howling in through the broken window, just like it did in the recording. Moisture is swirling in with it, like the world is crying.
The world should be crying. Felicity was innocent. She lived a lonely life, shut up here so a tyrant could take her place, and she had a terrible death. I should have done more for her.
It wasn’t so long ago that I stood in front of this window looking out at Triton and Deiterra and convinced myself I could change the world for the better. But my ambition has cost the lives of people I care about. And now, instead of staring out at Deiterra with big dreams and wild ideas, I’m watching the floor get ruined.
It’s time to put a stop to all this. To end everything.
I tap my band to bring up the control panel and connect to my assistant. “Send somebody up to fix the broken window in the penthouse,” I tell her.
“Yes, Madam President. I’ll make sure they use the special impact-resistant glass that Sentin—”
“No need. Not anymore. They can just use regular glass.” Now Felicity’s gone, there’s only one secret still hiding up here. One secret, lying in Edward Morelle’s pod, in the hidden room that the Beast couldn’t find. That secret will be gone soon too, when I transfer back into my human body for good.
Soon there’ll be no more Skins, and no need for me to pretend to be President Morelle. Someone else can be President of Triton. I don’t want the job anymore. All I need now is revenge.
Cale turns to me, his face lined with grief. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to kill the Beast.” Amazingly, it comes out sounding calm and perfectly reasonable.
I walk away from the window, heading toward the kitchen. I can’t stand to see the broken window, or the view toward Deiterra anymore. Better to be in the enclosed space of the kitchen with its cold white stools and gleaming bench tops.
Cale follows me. “I’m going to help you,” he says. “But we need a plan. The Beast blew up your factories and killed Felicity to make you angry. He wants you to go charging into his building to confront him, which means he’s planning to ambush you.”
“It’s not an ambush if I know he’s waiting for me.”
“He thinks he can beat you.” Cale leans against the kitchen counter, his arms folded. “And maybe he’s right. We have no idea how strong his Skin is. If he’s not afraid of you, he could be stronger than you are.”
“He expects me to go and see him in this Skin. But I’m going in my Leopard Skin, and I doubt he knows my scientists have been busy upgrading it.”
“They have?” His eyes glint. “I don’t suppose they upgraded my Tiger Skin while they were at it?”
“I don’t think so. Sorry. But you should use it anyway.”
“Shame we don’t have any knights to take with us.”
“No knights,” I agree. “But we have the Wasp Skin and the Devil Bear Skin.” I don’t mention Sentin’s Reptile Skin. I’m not sure I could bear to see anyone else use it.
“Who can we ask to use those Skins? Keren and Spade?”
“I wish it were that easy. Remember how long we trained for the contest, learning to use them?” I meet his gaze, watching his puzzlement turn to shocked realization.
“You can’t ask Brugan and Aza to help us.”
“Why not?”
“Because Brugan’s an asshole. And there’s the small matter of how much he hates you.”
“He hates Milla, not President Morelle. She’ll be the one asking for a favor, and I bet both Brugan and Aza will jump at a chance to use their Skins one more time.”
Cale blinks a few times, digesting this suggestion. “What will you tell them?”
“The truth. The Beast is using an illegal humanoid Skin and I need their help to take him down. I’m not asking them to kill a real person, just disable a Skin. We spent weeks training to do exactly that in the Skin Hunter contest, so they shouldn’t find it too hard.”
“But if you’re using your Leopard Skin, Brugan will know who you are. What’s to stop him turning on you?”
I lift my chin. “If he tries, he’ll regret it.”
He blows out his breath and nods. “You’re right, I suppose he will. I thought you were fearless when I met you, but now? Brugan had better watch out.”
I’d expected Cale to try to talk me into playing it safe and not taking risks. This is better. He finally accepts that I can take care of myself, and it makes me glad.
“Where do you think the Beast’s real body will be stored?” I ask. “In the Phoenix Industries building?”
“It seems likely. But we should do some research.” Cale taps his band. “You search b-Net and I’ll search Sub Zero. Cross reference any mentions of the Beast with property he owns, and we’ll narrow it down from there.”
I do what he asks, scrolling through information until my head is spinning. “According to b-Net, he owns five factories in Old Triton and two buildings in New Triton,” I tell Cale. “But it doesn’t make sense for him to store his body in them. They’re all busy operations, with plenty of staff and nowhere to hide a pod.”
“That’s weird.” Cale frowns at his band’s holo screen. “I found something.” He enlarges the view so I can see the scraper he’s looking at. It’s a 3-D model of the Phoenix Industries building, an impressive steel-and-glass structure. On the top floor is the boardroom where I confronted the Beast.
I shake my head. “He can’t be there. All the floors in the building can be publicly accessed. He doesn’t own a private apartment like I do.”
&
nbsp; “There’s no obvious hiding place.” He raises his eyebrows. “That’s the point. The New Triton part of the building is fifty-eight floors high, and underneath it is one of his Old Triton factories.”
He adjusts the view, so the camera zooms down to Old Triton. Now I’m looking at a large, ugly factory with thick concrete walls. It’s the base of the building that supports the rest.
“And?” I ask.
“Old Triton is twenty-eight stories high, but the Beast’s factory is only twenty stories. It’s not tall enough, yet it’s supporting an entire skyscraper on top of it. See?”
He pulls up a blueprint of the building, positioning it over the 3-D model. The grid lines of the blueprint stop after twenty floors.
“What’s inside the eight floors that aren’t in the blueprints?” I ask. “A private apartment? He doesn’t need eight floors to store one pod.”
“It’s worth checking out, don’t you think?”
I peer at the image. “There are no windows in that part of the building, and I bet you can’t get up there from the factory below.”
“You can probably go down in the elevator from New Triton. But if it’s anything like Morelle’s elevator, there’ll be layers of security. Facial recognition, a retina scan, fingerprints. And we don’t have Sentin to help us crack it.”
At the mention of Sentin, a wave of grief hits me, and I swallow hard, fighting not to let it show on my face. I still can’t believe he’s gone. First him, and now Felicity. It’s too much to bear.
My limbs feel weak and I sit heavily on one of the stools, resting my arms on the counter.
“You okay?” Cale sinks onto the stool next to me. I guess I wasn’t so good at keeping my expression impassive.
“Fine.” I drag in a breath, swallowing down my sorrow. We have work to do and I don’t have time to fall apart. “I’ll find a way to get us down into that space.”
He studies me for a moment, then nods. “I believe you will,” he says softly.
“I’m also going to make sure the Morelle Corporation can keep going without me. The bombings have already caused chaos. My employees depend on their wages, and if something happens to me, I don’t want the factories to have to shut down.”