by Theresa Kay
Adam rubs his temples with his free hand. “They have the child—”
“Stella. Her name is Stella,” I say sharply.
Jax’s father dips his chin in a nod. “They have Stella, but they have no way to ensure her safety outside the barrier. We—”
“They no longer have her,” says Trel. “Nor do they continue to live. My father’s guard has taken care of that.”
I lean back against the wall and slide down to sit with my knees bent in front of me. The urge to ask Trel how long it will be before the Vi’askari arrive here is strong. I ignore it.
A short, harsh laugh breaks free from my chest. Then another. And another. After all that, my hope once again crashes and burns. Jax is in danger and I am useless to her. Not only does Vitrad have Stella again, he knows we are up to something. He will never let his guard down. We will never succeed. And we are trapped.
Our plan to take Vitrad down with video footage was ludicrous. Some part of me had always known it would never work, but I had never considered an ending like this. If I am lucky, I will die here instead of being locked away in the dark again with only the kiun for light.
Yet… some of the disdain has left Trel’s face. She walks to her brother, rips a piece of her gown off, and wraps it around his arm. When she is done, he grips her fingers where they lie against his chest and squeezes gently. A silent communication passes between them. She nods and looks away.
Rym forces a pained smile onto his face and winks at me. “Why so glum, cuz? Don’t worry about that little flesh wound you have there. I’m under the impression girls like scars.”
It is perhaps one of the most ill-timed, idiotic statements he has ever made, but blazes does it make me chuckle. I must be losing my mind. My shoulders shake with laughter as I rest my forehead in one palm. It cannot be so bad if he can still make jokes. The thought restores a small bit of my hope, and with it comes determination. Giving up now, when I am so close to getting out of this city, away from my uncle, and reuniting with Jax… that would be not only foolish, but selfish as well. Everyone here has much to lose—too much for me to simply give in without a fight.
Rising to my feet, I turn to face Matt. “How far are your trucks?”
“They’re about a mile outside the barrier, hidden in the woods,” he says. He shifts his gaze to Adam, who is barely standing even with Karo’s help. “I don’t think they’re an option right now.”
He is correct. Adam can hardly stand, much less hike through the woods for any distance, but there has to be a way. There has to be something…
“The storage hangar,” I say softly. My eyes fly to Rym as a grin breaks across his face, a genuine one.
“Good thinking,” he says. “I should still have access from the… ‘adjustments’ I made when I went to pick up Jax.”
“How far?” Matt is still eyeing Adam.
“We will make it. Perhaps not quickly, but it can be done,” says Karo. He studies Trel. “Provided we do not run into any problems on the way.”
Trel’s gaze is directed downward. She bites at her lip and closes her eyes for a moment before raising them to meet mine, hesitancy written on her features. What did Rym say to her that has so defused her anger? “If you are intercepted, it will not be my doing,” she says.
“Come with us,” I reply. The words fly past my lips before I can stop them. She has been my friend for so long and I did not realize until this moment how much I have missed her. Rym and I have become close, joined in exile, and I am more than grateful for his friendship, but he cannot take the place of his sister, my last true link to Kov.
Trel shakes her head and rubs a hand over her stomach. “I cannot. I will look over Stella for you. Until you return. I do not agree with your actions, and I have yet to determine exactly how much of what you say is the truth, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt. For Kov.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
A quick nod of acknowledgment, then she waves her hand in the direction of the door. “Now go.”
Adam shuffles forward, leaning heavily on Karo. He fumbles in the pocket of his jacket and pulls out the kitu he showed me earlier. “For Stella,” he says, holding it out to Trel. “I can’t guarantee it will work, but it’s worth a shot.”
She recoils, her mouth open in shock.
“No, no, no.” Adam waves his hand in front of his chest. “It was Tess’s. She gave it voluntarily. There’s another one, Lyn’s, hidden out at the cabin. I can bring it back for your baby.”
Trel’s eyes widen as she takes the kitu from his hand. She runs a finger over the metal and brings it closer to her face. “I thank you for your generosity,” she says softly.
Adam smiles. “It’s never been my intention to create conflict with your people. In fact, I’ve been actively working to avoid it. I have a great respect for your race, and I honestly believe if we worked together we’d be able to solve this problem without resorting to…” He trails off.
“Annihilating your race? I do not believe kidnapping was the best way to go about demonstrating your good intentions,” says Trel dryly.
“We didn’t have any other choice. If I didn’t get some results soon, my superiors were going to look into more permanent solutions. Explosive ones. They’d already sent a team out to take care of the human component of Jastren’s continued experiments.”
“The human component?” My brow furrows. He mentioned that Jastren had outside help, but who—
“Bridgelake,” says Matt. “Dane’s been trying to create hybrids of his own for the past few years. More recently, the past six months or so, he’s had help in the form of Jastren Reva. He’s been impregnating the girls with hybrids. First he marries them off either to old men or his cronies. The old men can’t… do the job, and his cronies know it’s hands off until the pregnancy has taken.”
“But Jax…”
“Doesn’t need the help. She’s already got the DNA. She just has to get pregnant. So he gave her to his son.”
I shake my head, stunned. If they had knowledge of what Dane was doing, does that also mean they know what he required of Jace, what Jace has done? Do they think him a lost cause? Is that why neither Adam nor Matt seemed concerned about where Jace was, only Jax? Has Jax unknowingly been in the company of more enemies than either of us realized?
“Did Flint know this?” I ask.
Matt shrugs. “I didn’t have much opportunity to talk to the guy. I was only undercover as a trader in the market for four months or so, and we didn’t exactly cross paths very often. I had…” He averts his eyes. “… other objectives in mind.”
“This is all very enlightening,” says Rym. “But shouldn’t we get moving? The storage hangar may not be far, but our luck is bound to run out eventually, and I wouldn’t like to press it.” He turns to his sister and pulls her into his arms. “Take care of yourself and my little niece or nephew in there.”
Her lips turn up in a small smile and she nods. “Farewell and good journey.” Her eyes travel the room and land on me. “To all of you.”
Matt slings Adam’s other arm over his shoulder and he and Karo assist the older man to the door. Rym follows. I pause and wave goodbye to Trel before moving to catch up with them.
Progress is slow, but thankfully the area is still quiet and there is no one for us to run into. This time, Rym takes the lead and we are a bit more subtle about it. We slink along the sides of buildings and dart across streets. Well, as much as Adam is able to “dart.”
Once the storage hangar is in sight, I breathe a small sigh of relief. We are going to make it. But as soon as the thought passes through my mind, I promptly collide with Rym’s back. He has stopped at the corner of the last building before the storage hangar. He flattens himself against the wall and leans sideways to see past the edge.
“What—”
“Shhhh!” He jerks his head back and pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “There are four askari at the next cross street. I am not
certain what their purpose is, but it will not be simple to get past them undetected,” he whispers.
“Vi’askari?” If my uncle is here… another plan might be in order.
“No. They—”
“What’s the holdup?” Matt says under his breath.
Adam has gotten paler with each block we traversed, and now he is barely holding any of his own weight. Matt is red-faced and breathing heavily, but Karo only looks slightly winded. Still, they cannot carry Adam much farther, and they certainly cannot carry him into any sort of fight. Yet there is no time to think of another plan. We have to find a way to get into the storage hangar.
“We have run into a bit of an issue.” Rym looks to me. “Ideas?”
“Besides trying to talk them into letting us through?” I say. “No. I was raised to be a diplomat, not a fighter.”
Matt snorts. So does Rym. I glare at both of them. “Whether or not I am capable of forcing my way through them does not much matter when between the five of us we have only one weapon.”
“Two,” says Karo. “I have the pulse stick.”
“I’ve got a knife too,” says Matt. “Either one of you have any experience with knives?”
My fingers trace the thin scar on my left forearm. Experience? Yes. Of the type he is referring to? No. But perhaps…
“I have observed Jax with a knife. I may be able to draw on her knowledge through the bond.”
Adam’s head jerks up. “The bond? What bond? Are you saying—”
“That she is my bondmate? Yes. Well, at least that the bond is currently in place.” I shake my head. “It is complicated.”
“You can say that again.” Rym muffles his laugh with his hand.
“Jesus Christ, do you purposely pick the worst possible time for jokes?” asks Matt with an exasperated huff.
“What can I say? It’s a gift,” says Rym in a droll monotone.
Matt rolls his eyes. “Well, funny man, why don’t you go out there and use your ‘gift’ to make them laugh themselves to death.”
“See, makes you feel better, yeah?” Rym grins.
Matt tilts his face up and takes a deep breath.
There are many potential paths we could take, and the possibilities rush through my mind. Most are discarded, but I land on one that is promising. “I am uncertain how feasible it is that I would be able to use the bond to become proficient with a knife in the time that we have. As it is, due to Jax’s unique heritage, it can be quite difficult for me to navigate the connection at all, much less easily access the information I would need. There are only four of them. The gun and the pulse stick may suffice.” I run one hand through my hair. “Karo goes out first. They will not be suspicious of him and he should be able to get close enough to disable one of them with the pulse stick. Matt, you stay here. Once one of them has been disabled, shoot, but only to wound. They are simply doing their jobs and need not die for that. Rym and I will take Adam down one block and cut across the street while they are distracted by you and Karo.”
Matt looks off to the side for a moment, thinking. “That sounds good. But you should take the knife with you in case one of them gets past us.” He pulls a blade from a sheath in his boot and hands it to me, handle first. “If someone gets close enough for you to use this, don’t go for the chest. You’ll probably hit a rib. Neck. Stomach. Armpit. Those are the spots to go for.”
Stomach… I wince. Was Jax able to complete the cut I started? Was she forced to watch her friend’s lifeblood drain out around him? Has she recovered enough to know she needs to get out of Bridgelake, or is she still huddled in Dane’s office where I cannot reach her? I am coming, Jax. Please do not lose hope yet.
EMILY HOLDS TIGHTLY TO my arm, limping as she directs us through the woods to the meeting point. “Almost there,” she mutters. It’s the fifth time she’s said that, so I’m beginning to think it’s just a kind of mantra to her, keeping her on her feet and moving forward.
It’s a good thing—no, a great thing—that Gavin and his men had already left the city. Otherwise they’d be stuck in there along with everyone else who doesn’t have a bit of E’rikon blood or a piece of E’rikon tech to get them out. But they must be way the hell out here. My arm’s going numb from Emily’s grip, and Bree’s panting along behind us. How much longer can they keep up this pace? How long can I?
The drive that got me up and out of Dane’s office is fading, and a tidal wave of despair and hopelessness is looming over me. I’ve held it off so far, building up a fragile dam of anger and determination, but it’s only a matter of time before it will crash down on me. I need to be somewhere safe before that happens. Better yet, with someone safe.
Oh, Lir, I need you.
It doesn’t pain me to think it. My stomach doesn’t twist with guilt. Doubt doesn’t needle at me. Those thoughts and reactions were Jastren using my own emotions against me. At least most of them. He was subtle enough for me not to notice—a whisper here, a niggling suspicion there—but now that my grandfather’s presence has been banished from my mind, the extent of his manipulation has become clear. The only things I still don’t know are exactly how long he did it and why it affected Jace so much more than it did me.
But those are worries for another time. My focus needs to be on getting to Gavin. Once that’s accomplished, someone else can figure out the next steps, I can relax and think about the horrors of today. I can think about Flint, think about Jace… I can fall apart. Not now, though.
I grit my teeth and hoist Emily up as she trips over a tree root. Just. Keep. Moving. One foot in front of the other. One breath at a time.
It seems like ages later when the sound of voices ahead reaches my ears. It’s my turn to say the words: “Almost there.”
The three of us crash through the brush at the edge of a clearing. A few guns are pointed in our direction—clearly we weren’t very quiet in our mad dash—but the barrels are lowered as soon as they figure out who we are. Or at least who I am. Or maybe simply that we aren’t armed. Who cares?
As if getting here was the only thing keeping her upright, Emily’s legs finally collapse under her and she drags me down with her. I don’t particularly mind. Lying down, even if it’s on the ground, is kinda nice.
But there’s more to do.
I give my head a brisk shake and push myself into a sitting position. A couple guys have already rushed forward to help Bree, and more are headed our way.
Stu reaches us first, his brow furrowed with worry. “What happened?”
“I think… I think… she’s been shot,” I pant out.
He drops to his knees beside Emily. She’s pale, her face wet with sweat, and blood soaks the left side of her shirt. Stu glances over at me. “If you have any miraculous healing powers in your arsenal, now would be a great time to figure that out,” he says.
“Sorry, none that I know of. Will she be okay?”
He shrugs as he peels her shirt away. “There are worse places to be shot.” One of his hands goes to her back. “They got her in the shoulder, and it seems like it went all the way through. The blood loss combined with the running—she’s probably in shock. We need to get her somewhere with medical facilities. Where’s Flint? Before we got out, Emily said he was with you.”
Flint. The name ricochets through my head and… Snap. There goes the last of my control.
Despair, anger, fear, and exhaustion combine in a silent laugh that bubbles up from my stomach, shaking my shoulders and hunching me over. Nothing is funny, but it won’t stop. I suppose this laughter is more of the hysterical variety. And that thought sets me off again. I pull my knees to my chest and curl over them, the stupid misplaced giggles morphing into gasping breaths and bone-deep sobs.
Flint is dead and my brother is lost to me.
Flint is dead.
My brother may as well be.
All my trials, everything I went through to rescue Jace, and I’m the one who let in the thing that became his downfall. After all he did to k
eep me from it, I’m the one who fed him to the darkness.
What the hell do I do now? I’m adrift—broken, fractured, shattered. And slithering among the shards of my mind is blackness: boiling, roiling, hatred and anger. This darkness is all my own. It pulls on me. It calls to me.
Life could be so much easier. I wouldn’t have to worry about what comes next, what to do, who I am, where to go, how to feel…or anything else.
But could I live with myself after?
(you wouldn’t have to)
Who would avenge my friend?
(you wouldn’t care)
Can I still salvage my brother’s sanity?
(you can’t)
If I give in, if I give up, will I ever be able to find myself again?
(you… won’t)
NO. I have to be better. I have to be stronger. I can’t give in to this. I can’t become a thing like Jace. I—have—to—fight.
(too late)
The darkness rears its ugly head and washes over me. A jagged spear of agony lands behind my eyes. Freezing spikes of pain stab into my head, and somewhere my physical form goes rigid, spasming against the ground. I am drowning once again. Unclear images, little more than flashes of color, flicker through my head. And the color is red. Red of hair. Red of eye. Red of blood.
My head cracks against the ground, and my back arches up until it’s curved so much that I fear I may break in half. As I seize and shake, bend and unbend, clench and unclench, the heat fills my limbs. I am a bundle of fire and raw nerves. My face is wet, my body rigid, and my lungs are frozen. No cool, sweet air for me. Gasping, shuddering, sobbing…
A hand reaches out to me—and familiar calm suffuses me, wrapping around my body and my mind. The darkness is retreating, crawling away to hide again. To lie in wait until its next opportunity to drive me insane.
I open my eyes. Look up. Green. Gold.
He’s disheveled, dirty, with sticky hands and splattered with E’rikon blood, but it’s Lir.
Here.
I’m on my feet and throwing myself into his arms before any other thoughts process. The hows and whys don’t matter. The only important thing is that he’s here and he’s kept me from going under. And without Jastren’s lies in my head, all I feel is elation at… at… my bondmate’s presence. His smell. His touch. His everything. I wasted so much time pushing him away based on distorted suspicions planted in my mind instead of listening to my heart. For that, I hate Jastren even more.