Finally there was nobody else there other than me, Michael, and Jason. And the girl in the corner who seemed to be packing up her things.
Michael smiled and his eyes lit up for the first time that evening. “You probably can’t convince Ruth that you need help picking out your underwear.” He grinned, his hand trailing from my hair down my neck. “Not that I’d mind.”
My cheeks burned and he took my hand, still grinning at me, and I knew he was trying to lighten the mood. In a minute we’d have to head down to the train station, then we’d go in different directions. I didn’t want to go.
Michael’s expression grew serious. “Ava, there’s something I need to talk to you about. Something I found out in the medical unit today.”
I waited for him to tell me that my mortality had hurt him, that he’d been damaged for good. “The electrical device in my back…”
“The device?” When Michael’s dad held us in the Terminal, he’d injected Michael with two ampules. One was the mortality ampule that blocked Michael’s normal regeneration. The other was a device trapped between the vertebra of his upper spine that sent waves of electricity through his body, torturing him at the push of a button. It was a way to make him do what they wanted. “But it’s electrical like you said. Didn’t it burn out with the EMP burst at the bottom of Tower One?”
He shook his head. “It’s still live.”
I blinked. Felt the blood drain from my face. “But … how?”
“They won’t tell me that.” He took my shoulders. “We know what it did to me but we both know it could be a tracking device too. Or a listening device. Or any combination of those things. As long it’s active, my dad could be tracking me, watching us, listening in…”
No wonder he’d been watching the room as though he thought we were about to be attacked.
“Let me take it out.” It wasn’t what I’d intended to say. What I’d meant to tell him was that he’d be okay, that we’d figure it out, that the people who controlled the device were far away and couldn’t hurt him anymore—but instead the words came out panicked. “I got the mortality ampule out of you. I can get this out, too.”
“No.”
“Michael—”
He tugged away from my hand. “If anyone tries to take it out, I’ll never walk again.”
“That’s what Cheyne told you, but what if he was lying? Nothing can hurt you, Michael. Nothing.”
He shuddered away from me. I’d never seen him scared to do anything, but that was before he knew what it was like to be mortal.
“It’s attached to the nerve endings, Ava. I’m pretty sure he was telling the truth.”
“Well, how do you—?”
“He wasn’t lying.” His voice grated. He was gritting his teeth and I was pushing too hard, but I couldn’t stop.
“I could cut it out and you could be fine—”
“I know because I was awake during the surgery.”
Whatever I was about to say clogged my throat.
They’d done a lot of things to him. Some I’d seen, others I could only guess. I’d always assumed they shot the device into him, the same way they’d shot me with the nectar ampule—quick and over fast. I never imagined they’d opened him up, implanted the device, molded it to him nerve by nerve while he was conscious.
I shut my eyes. “The medical unit here must be able to take it out—safely. Then you’ll heal properly. You can survive anything.”
I waited for him to laugh and tell me I believed in him way too much.
He pulled me close. “They said they’ll try but they didn’t make any promises.”
I rested my head on his chest, wanting the device out of him. Now .
His voice rumbled against my ear as the lights dimmed. I sensed everything shutting down around us. “I guess that’s all the time we’ve got tonight.”
He took my hand and we exited the building, our breath frosting in the chill air. I pulled my puffer jacket closer and we walked to the station in silence. Jason was close behind us but he kept his distance, and I was glad that he seemed conscious of giving us space.
“See you back here tomorrow night.” Michael didn’t let go of my hand. We’d have to take trains in opposite directions—me to the north and Michael to the south.
Mine arrived first, and I didn’t want to get on it.
He crushed me close in a brief hug, not saying anything else, and I couldn’t either. His lips brushed mine. That welcome tingle was gone too soon.
I stepped inside the train and watched him standing on the platform until I couldn’t see him anymore.
When I got back to Tower Seventeen, I hardly noticed the giant trees or the beautiful lights cast across the garden beds, all the flower buds closed now in the dark, but I did notice the extra people in the entranceway.
Three men, all in dark gray, padded jackets stood at the end of the foyer. None of them moved my way or said anything to me, and I got into the elevator without any disruption. When the elevator doors opened onto the top level, I crossed the entrance to the door, which opened to voices coming from the far side of the room.
Ruth and three others—a woman and two men—were huddled around the table, the soft lighting not easing the tension in the room.
There was anger in Ruth’s voice. “She’s only a child!”
The other woman’s voice rose: “Children grow up. Do you refuse to acknowledge what’s happened, even now?”
Ruth drew an angry breath but one of the men interrupted her. “Just because you have unreasonable sympathy for the mortal doesn’t mean we will allow our regions to be put at risk. We bear enough of the burden already.”
“Burden?” Ruth’s voice was scathing. “It’s only acts of provocation that cause retaliation.” Her voice was dangerous. “Or have you forgotten so quickly?” She whirled on the woman. “And no, I don’t refuse to acknowledge what happened. Actually, I’m the only one who wants to deal with it. While you would wish the problem away, I’m trying to build a bridge. We have an opportunity here. We need to know what’s going on with the moss. This is our first opportunity in years to connect—”
The man on the far side noticed me. He cleared his throat and they all turned in my direction. Ruth shot to her feet, her body still tense, straining to compose herself. “Ava … you’re back.”
She hurried over to take my hands, her expression troubled. “The northern Councilors have traveled to see you. A long journey, but one they felt they needed to make today.” She frowned at me and I realized that all my worry about Michael must have been showing. She lowered her voice. “Are you okay?”
“Fine. It’s nothing. Really.”
As Ruth ushered me toward the table, the woman was the first to reach out her hand. Ruth introduced her. “This is Naomi. Her region is situated on the north-east, bordering Seversand. That is Zachary, from the central northern region, and Peter, from the north-west region bordering Evereach. They are the Councilors for Starsgard’s three northernmost regions.” She cleared her throat, and I could tell she was trying to bury her anger and frustration. “They’ve come here especially to meet you.”
Naomi’s eyes were a deep brown that matched her hair and skin. She wore a dress made of red and gold silk. There were plain gold bands on each of her fingers, and matching gold hair ornaments through her long plait, molded to the shape of her shoulder to keep her hair slung across her chest. It reached her hip but wasn’t as long as Ruth’s.
A single gold bracelet wound up her left forearm, ending with a thumb-sized creature resting against the inside of her arm. I made out the shape of clawed legs, pincers, and a tear-shaped body ending in a stinger.
I frowned from the gold scorpion adorning her arm to her face. She held out her other hand and I shook it. Instead of releasing my hand, she turned it over, palm down into hers. “You have a lot of strength in your hands for such a slender young thing.”
I bit down on the retort: For a mortal, you mean .
“D
ancing does that,” I said, considering her tone, trying to decide if she was insulting me, not liking the sense that she was concealing something.
She still hadn’t released my hand and I gave it a deliberate tug, making her let go of me, and slid out of arm’s length, nodding curtly at the two men. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
They nodded but didn’t move toward me, and Naomi said, “We heard Michael has a problem.”
She’d heard fast.
I reassessed and switched gears, keeping my guard up. Naomi circled me and I decided that I liked her even less than Jonah, the big Councilor with the bundles of plaits in his hair.
“The device in his back,” I said, deciding I needed to speak first. “It wasn’t destroyed by the EMP when we arrived.”
“It’s not a device,” Naomi said. “It’s a bug.”
A bug? I glanced at Ruth, but she was very still, her expression giving nothing away.
“We should know,” Naomi continued, “because it’s one of ours. It’s stolen technology.” Did she glare at Ruth as she said it? “A simple living organism created with the sole purpose of repeating certain … functions.”
“Like a tracking bug?”
“No, no. The medical unit has ascertained it wasn’t modified. Its sole function is to simulate electrocution and cause severe pain. It works by affecting the nerve endings in the same way as touching a live wire. That’s why it’s so closely integrated into his spinal cord. I’m sorry, you know this already. I’m sure you saw the effects firsthand.”
Maybe I’d gone pale. Yes, I’d seen it firsthand. But the man who’d shown me with such glee, well, I’d done worse to him. Officer Reid’s face flew back into my mind, along with the way the light left his eyes when he died. When I killed him for good.
“So it’s still active?”
“And can still be activated. Of course, it’s lost a lot of its potential effect since Michael regained his immortality, but yes, it could still be used to attempt to manipulate him.”
“Wouldn’t they have to be close by to do that?”
“They, yes. Or anyone with the trigger.”
I snatched a breath, wondering who else would have a trigger. Naomi said that the bug was stolen technology from Starsgard, which meant … Starsgard would have the trigger too. I didn’t know enough about them to know who controlled that kind of technology. I hadn’t heard anything about a Starsgardian army or a police force like the Evereach Hazards. And Natalie had said they didn’t have people like the Bashers.
Which left the Council holding the trigger.
If the Council were the only ones in charge, then I could count three in that very room who were not on my side.
Ruth gathered my hand in hers, her expression genuinely worried. “He’s vulnerable, Ava, but we’ll do everything we can to remove the creature.”
Naomi scoffed. “You may try, but only we will succeed. The technology they stole was from our region. We alone can help him.”
I wondered if that was really true, but there was no denial on Ruth’s face to tell me if Naomi was bluffing, and I knew in an instant that Naomi’s help would come at a price.
“What do you want?”
“Come north. Leave the south.”
“That’s it?”
Her smile twisted. “You’d be leaving Michael behind. His family is here.”
It was true. He wouldn’t come with me, or at least I would never ask him to, but I remembered the look of barely contained panic on his face when he spoke about the thing in his back—the same panic I felt about it. If I could do something about that, even if it meant leaving, I would.
“I can have my technical officers here in a few days,” Naomi said. “Michael could be better within the week.”
I barely thought before the words tumbled from my mouth, ignoring the sudden break in my heart. “I’ll do it.”
Naomi’s face split into a triumphant smile.
Ruth snatched my arm. “No!” She whirled on Naomi. “You won’t trick her like this.”
“Trickery?” Naomi smiled. “It’s all open to interpretation, isn’t it?”
Ruth’s face flushed, her eyes fiery. “Why don’t you tell her how far north you want her to go?”
Naomi pressed her lips together but Zachary spoke, with a shrug at Naomi when she shot him a warning glance. “Further even than the land we control,” he said.
But what was further north? “So … beyond your borders, then? But that would surely be the ocean?”
He began to shake his head. “No, there’s another region—”
“That’s enough,” Ruth snapped. “She’s not going.” She turned to me, her expression begging me. I could understand why she wanted to keep an eye on me. What I couldn’t understand was the terror lurking in the back of her eyes. The same terror as when I’d told her about the nectar. “We can help Michael here, Ava, I promise you. You don’t have to go anywhere right now. If you’re really worried, at least let us try first, before you agree to anything.” Her eyes flickered to the others. “I’m sure my wise and patient fellow Councilors will at least give you that chance.”
“Fine,” Naomi said. “The offer will stand. Let them try to get the bug out without damaging his spinal cord permanently.” Her golden rings flashed in the light. “When they fail, you will accept our offer.” She threw back her head, and nodded at Ruth as she passed, pausing only to say, “We’ll see you again, Ava, at the mid-summer festival in a month’s time.”
The two men followed her out, Zachary with a slightly apologetic glance at Ruth and Peter with a veiled expression.
When they were gone, I pressed my fingers to my temples and the throb that had started there. I needed sleep. No good decision could be made when I was so tired.
I exhaled. “If you don’t mind, Ruth, I’m going to get some rest.”
She snagged my arm. “Ava,” she said, her voice quiet. “You have a weakness that the Councilors identified the moment the elevator doors opened on the top of Tower One.”
“I have a lot of weaknesses.”
“You’re much stronger than you think, but also vulnerable in the worst possible way.” She dragged a hand through her hair, upsetting her plait. “Michael,” she said. “They know you’ll do anything for him. Even when you know that he’s okay, that he will be okay, you can’t stand to see him hurt. You showed them that as soon as you risked your life and took the gun from him in the elevator. His immortality would’ve protected him from the moss—no matter how vile its methods—but you put yourself in danger to help him.”
Her hand was soft on mine, gentle but trembling, scared. “Be careful. In every other way you are tougher than any person I’ve ever come across—and that’s saying something—but when it comes to Michael, your loyalty to him makes you an easy target.”
I stared at her hand covering mine. “Is it true, what they said about that thing in his back? Can they get it out?”
“They have a better chance than we do, yes, I admit that. You deserve to know. But to send you north is barbaric to say the least.”
“Why? They live there. It can’t be all that bad.”
“No, Ava. They want to send you far north, beyond the snow belt, to the only wild place in Starsgard.” She brushed a strand of hair from my face with a gentle sigh, and drew me to a seat. “The snow belt stretches from one side of northern Starsgard to the other. Beyond it is a region that belongs to nobody—not Naomi or Zachary—and it’s long been cut off from the rest of Starsgard. There’s a broken tower on the northernmost cliff next to the ocean. The currents converge there as if the world is crashing into itself. Because of its isolation, the tower—number 177—was a weapons testing ground for many years.”
“You mean defensive weapons like the moss?”
She gave me a small smile. “Ava, Starsgard may never have officially gone to war like the rest of the world, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t know what was going on. Seversand has long coveted Evereach’s natur
al resources, their oil and water, their fertile earth. The bomb Seversand dropped was just one of many attempts to assert dominance. I’m sure you can appreciate, as the country in between the two, Starsgard must be prepared for anything.”
She shifted and continued: “The bug implanted in Michael is just a fingertip compared to the other weapons Starsgard developed over the years. The tower was destroyed by the very weapons we tested. It’s mostly rubble now. Abandoned. A defensive place where the moss is overgrown and the remnants of the weapons still rest—some active, some not. The Councilors know it’s not safe but they don’t care. They want you out of sight and out of mind. And if you die there, well, so be it.”
I stared at my hands. “Thank you for telling me all that. But you’re right. Since I lost my family, Michael is everything I care about. You need to get that thing out of his back.” I met her eyes. “You have to get it out of his back. Or I will consider their offer.”
“I promise you, we’ll try.”
Knowing that was the best I was going to get, I excused myself and hit the shower, desperate for rest.
I couldn’t trust Naomi, but I wasn’t sure if I could trust Ruth either.
Chapter Nine
THE NEXT day, I found my way to the shopping mall in the gallery tower and spent the morning there, blending into the crowd, returning to Tower Seventeen with multiple dance shoes and clothes, my own pajamas and day wear, as well as a few extras: some simple make-up and a hairbrush.
And a newspaper.
I was glad Ruth was out so I could study it. My face wasn’t on the front, so I figured that was a good thing. So far I hadn’t seen any air screens in Starsgard at all, nothing blaring the news about the latest political scandal, the football results, or the fact that Starsgard had two new citizens who weren’t like most. Instead, there were newsstands everywhere, as though they relied on paper alone to spread information. Maybe they hadn’t created a micro-organism to mimic a television yet.
I flipped through the pages of the newspaper and was about to close it when I came to the foreign news page. At the top in large letters was:
Beneath the Guarding Stars (Mortality Book 2) Page 9