“We know roughly where at least six of us are at right now,” Siren said, “One—the bitch you call Frosty, I mean—being included in that number.” Four was giving her a sharp look, as if intending to cut her off, but Siren didn’t back down. “What? You want them to give us everything for nothing?”
By the look on Four’s face, I guessed she wasn’t usually the voice of reason in their group. With a dark frown, he relented and resigned himself to staring broodingly off toward the landing pads while Siren continued.
“Five, Seven, and Nine are missing, but none of us would be surprised to learn they’d joined Team Red Eyes. I know Twelve flipped sides.” She gave me a pointed look. “And rumor has it Three took a bullet in the head trying to bring down the mysterious Carlisle and the Demon of Divinity.”
The memory put an aching itch in my right shoulder, where I’d taken a slug from the same Sanctum Guard who’d accidentally shot his own Seeker in the middle of the rain-soaked streets of Divinity.
“And Two…” Siren started and faltered, her air of lazy smiles and sultry winks giving way to one of consternation.
Four stirred. “Six, if One sided with those things… Two’s gone. You know that.”
“Two is Garrett?” I asked quietly.
I already knew the answer. I’d seen it when I’d been inside the man’s head with Carlisle. But even if I hadn’t known, Siren’s reaction would’ve confirmed it—the slight hiss of breath, the attentive straightening of her posture. I got the feeling she didn’t often care so much about anything.
“That’s Smirks?” Johnny asked.
“Alpha be damed,” Siren half-growled under her breath, “what is it with you people and nicknames?”
“Well, we didn’t know about your nifty number system, did we?” Johnny said. “I mean this with all due diplomacy and everything, but listening to you guys talk about each other is kinda giving me flashbacks to all the jokes our instructor used to tell in basic arithmetic.”
Siren ignored him in favor of skewering me on the end of her resolute stare. “Where is Garrett?”
Probably playing host to a transitioning raknoth as we speak, I didn’t say.
“Frosty and your old High Cleric took him when they fled the White Tower,” Elise said.
Four frowned. “Took him?”
“He had a change of heart when he saw those monsters in the Great Hall,” I said. “He was injured helping me break free from one of the raknoth. I tried to get him out, but they grabbed him first.”
Four looked mildly surprised by the news. Siren just looked frustrated. It was Eight, though, who caught my attention as she stirred and leaned forward to speak for the first time.
“Two had a good heart. We all know this deep down. Deep, even, as he chose to hide his own goodness beneath bitter words.”
Her voice was like the smooth stone foundation at the base of a powerful river, and her words lingered in the air, hovering until she gave a minuscule head bob of approval and settled back into her stony silence.
No one argued with her, but her words stirred something in me in a way that I didn’t quite understand until Four spoke again.
“Will you help us avoid Two’s fate? Help see to it more of our talents don’t fall into their hands?”
And there it was, rankling deeper this time. Because sure, we could all agree that the rise of more Seeker-powered raknoth was the last thing this planet needed. But for these people to come here asking for our help… These people whose precious High Cleric had tried to kill me multiple times. These people who’d spent their lives mercilessly murdering their own kind only to now pretended like they actually knew the first thing about what made a heart good…
I consciously relaxed my hand from Elise’s thigh and moved it back to my own lap, where it couldn’t do any damage, trying to get a grip on the rising storm inside me.
Because, for a second, I’d almost forgotten who and what I was dealing with.
“I understand why you hesitate,” Four was saying. “Were I in your place, I’m sure—”
“How many Shapers have you killed in your life, Four?”
His face darkened, but I was already turning to Siren. “What about you?” She dropped my gaze. I turned to Eight. “And you?”
Eight was the only one of them who didn’t react. She merely held my gaze, steady as a rock. No challenge in her eyes. No apology. Just calm reflection. “Twenty-three,” she finally said.
Shock rippled through me, followed on the heels by a deep, churning nausea. Four shot Eight a dark Why the scud would you tell him that? look. She paid it no mind.
“Twenty-three,” I repeated, looking between the three of them. “So it’s probably safe to say I’m looking at a total of more than fifty dead Shapers between the three of you.”
“Raish,” Four said slowly, “trust me when I say you don’t—”
“Don’t what?” I snapped. “Don’t know what I’m talking about? Don’t know what it’s like to have no choice? To have your back to the wall? To be all alone, hunted by the entire gropping world?” I was on my feet, now, on the verge of shouting. “After everything I went through, do you really think there’s a damn thing you can say to me to justify what you’ve done to your own kind?”
“This was a mistake,” Four said with a dark look at Siren. He stood, moving slowly, as if he were frightened he might startle me. “We’ll leave as soon as your General allows us to do so peacefully. We’ll manage on our own.”
“Manage,” I repeated, looking incredulously at Johnny and Elise. “They’ll manage.” The concern in my friends’ eyes only fanned the flames inside me.
I rounded back on Four. “That feeling deep in your gut right now? The one that’s got your heart beating around the clock? That voice whispering that any minute now, they’ll come blasting through that door or stalking around that corner? That’s what every one of your victims lived with from the day they learned what they were and what they had to fear from people like you. Why should you be the ones who get to walk away from that?”
Four paused from hurrying his fellow Seekers to their feet to shoot an incredulous glare at me. “Walk away? You really think any one of us could…” He shook his head, at a loss for words. “You think they were scared? You have no idea what we’ve lived through. You don’t know the first thing about us.”
“I know you’re asking for my help when at least four of your order have already tried to kill me.” I glared at Siren. “Some more recently than others.”
She held my gaze, unflinching. “Do you really think you’d still be here if I’d actually wanted you dead?”
That caught me off guard, right along with the look in her eyes.
“Forget it, Six,” Four said, gesturing for her to come along. “He doesn’t even know how that thing on his neck works. This was a waste of our time.”
I gaped dumbly, trying too late to hide the way his words all but knocked the breath out of me. Whether he was confident about the claim or just fishing for a reaction, I was pretty sure I’d just confirmed I had no idea how to give them what they wanted.
And I was too pissed at that moment to much care.
“Because this is all about you, right?” I practically spat. “We’re just busy trying to save Enochia, but please, don’t let us waste your time. Never mind that you three could’ve been helping if you’d stepped out of your White Tower before now, or that there won’t even be a White Tower anymore if we don’t stop the raknoth. No Sanctum. No anything but hybrids and human blood bags. We’re talking about stopping the end of our world, and you’re telling me I should help you run away and hide. So yeah, I might not know much about you, but I know enough to say you’re either ignorant or cowards.”
Eight’s knuckles audibly cracked as she balled her massive hands into fists. Four held up a hand to warn her off.
“It’s not worth it, Eight,” he glared at me. “He already has us all figured out.”
And with that, he turned on
his heel and stalked off.
Eight considered us for a tight-jawed moment then turned to follow. Siren remained a stretch longer, looking between us and her departing allies a few times in clear frustration before finally rolling her eyes, heaving a sigh, and storming off muttering something about grown men and gropping children.
I clenched and unclenched my fists, watching them go, watching Ordo Carter step forward to meet them and confer about something—probably where he’d been ordered to take them. I found myself hoping Four would do something stupid, lash out, give me a reason to go pound him into the permacrete. But Carter’s squad formed up around the Seekers and escorted them off without incident.
I watched them go with trembling fists, feeling like I was going to explode. I wanted to scream. I wasn’t even sure why I was so angry. And worse, for some infuriating reason, some part of me actually felt bad—dirty on the inside, like I’d stooped somewhere I’d once despised.
Had I been too harsh?
Too harsh to the Seekers who’d spent their lives murdering innocent Shapers?
It was ridiculous to think. And yet, as I watched the Seekers and their escorts vanish behind a distant building, I couldn’t ignore the nagging feeling that maybe I was missing something—and that maybe I was treating them exactly the same way the world had decided to treat me.
30
Breach of Contract
“Well,” Johnny finally broke the silence when we were quite alone in the garden. “I’d like to think that went well.”
“Yeah,” Elise said. “I especially liked the part where we now have three angry Shaper killers walking around Haven with no illusions that we can give them what they want.”
“We’re on it,” Johnny said, busy on his palmlight. “We’ve already got multiple squads keeping their collective eye on ‘em.” He frowned. “Not that they can’t just, you know…” He waved a finger at the side of his head. “But at least we know what they want now. Probably. Maybe.”
We both stared at him.
He shrugged. “I’m telling Freya it went well.”
Elise arched a dark eyebrow at me and mouthed, “Freya?”
I tried to force a smile, but I couldn’t.
“What are we gonna do about them?” I asked finally.
“I dunno,” Elise said. “Something tells me Glenbark’s not gonna be inclined to let them just fly off once Johnny fills her in. The Sanctum would be furious with her for one thing. And evil or not, they might still be able to help.”
“Civil war or invasion by raknoth…” Johnny shook his head. “Never a dull moment in Haven.”
Elise nodded along until her brow folded at some other thought. “Sweet Alpha, I do not like that Lady Swive Eyes, or the way she looks at either of you.”
“Yeah,” Johnny said, absentmindedly bobbing his head. He froze. “Wait, me?”
Maybe it was just my guilty conscience talking—not that I had reason to be guilty—but the tone of his question told me his mind had gone right to where mine had landed. A dark medica room, a near-lethal case of honey-brain, and Siren’s hot mouth nibbling on my ear.
Thankfully, Elise took his tone to suggest a different motivation.
“Johnathan Wingard,” she said, raising a stern finger at him, “do not let that woman get you alone in a room. The aura she gives off…” She shuddered a little. “She reminds me of one of those snakes that starts eating its mate while the poor bastard is still”—she made an inarticulate gesture—“doing his thing.”
Johnny gulped audibly, some combination of horror and infatuation warring on his features. “That’s… terrible to think about,” he said slowly. “Definitely… definitely terrible. Definitely.”
Elise patted his leg. “Just remember Freya.”
“Yeah,” Johnny said, still stuck in whatever delightful horrors were playing out in his head. “Yeah, I’ll just—Wait, what? I told you, I’m not—She’s not…” He stood, drawing himself up with a most dignified air, and shook a finger at Elise. “That would be highly unprofessional, my goodlady. Now…” He looked between us, finger pivoting with him. “Who wants to go see if Therese will let us poke a dead hybrid with a stick?”
His playful expression faltered as his finger landed on me and he seemed to remember that I wouldn’t be going anywhere but straight back to house arrest with an armed guard detail.
“We mustn’t let the Sanctum think the demon’s slipped the leash,” I said in a bad Glenbark impersonation.
“We don’t have to go,” Elise said.
“Yeah,” Johnny added. “I was just gonna swing by for an update, really. See what the fuss is about this big delivery.”
Franco had been rather excited when he’d received word from Therese on the flight back to Haven—something about the rather colossal collection of data drives he’d requisitioned from the Central Enochian Repository being delivered. Whether or not his excitement was born of a sincere belief that they’d find the hybrid breeding facilities by cross-referencing the data on those drives with the list of conditions they’d drafted in Therese’s lab, or just a general enthusiasm for data diving, I wasn’t entirely sure.
Either way, I waved Johnny and Elise on. “You two go. Those data drives aren’t gonna sleuth themselves.”
“All right, then,” Johnny said, clapping a hand on my shoulder before leaving me to say goodbye to Elise. “First one there gets the stick, Lise,” he called over his shoulder, “and I’m not sharing.”
Elise only smiled and came to wrap her arms around me. She planted a soft kiss on my cheek, and I nuzzled into her, closing my eyes and wishing with everything I had that we could simply stay there in that garden and forget about everything else.
“I don’t have to go,” she said quietly. “My dad hardly needs my help combing through a mountain of corporate records.”
“Go. You’re the best he has.”
She smiled. “Oh, I know that. I’m just saying he’ll probably be sad I’m stealing some of his fun.”
I smiled back and kissed her forehead. “Sounds like there’s enough to go around, even for Franco. I think I could use a couple quiet hours to myself anyway.”
She pulled back and looked up at me with those beautiful blue eyes. “Just make sure you eat something before you get back to it?”
Some part of me thought to answer, but I was too caught up just admiring her. The look stretched and gave way to one of those moments where the entire world just simply fell away without warning, leaving me with nothing but the feel of her in my arms and the overwhelming epiphany of just how much I loved this woman.
She searched my face, idly stroking my cheek, seeming to garner at least some part of what passed through me. Maybe she felt it in my mind.
“Go,” I whispered. “Before you make me change my mind.”
She cupped my cheek. “No dark thoughts until I’m back to hold the light?”
I smiled. “Deal.”
And as I walked back to our quarters under armed guard to resume my house arrest, I even managed to keep my promise. Yes, there might’ve been three Seekers, a full Sanctum, five raknoth, and a whole damn hybrid army trying to kill me, but life still could’ve been a whole mountain of scud worse.
I had my friends. I had Elise. And I might not know exactly how we were going to solve this cloaking problem, but we were going to solve it.
And demons to the wind, maybe I’d even throw in a hot shower and fresh clothes while I was at it.
Neck deep as I expected he would be in ripe data drives, I was surprised when my palmlight buzzed a couple hours later with a call from Franco.
“Have you seen the reels?” he asked before the vid feed had even finished establishing.
Having been well-conditioned over the past seasons to automatically dread those words, my stomach was already sinking by the time his concerned expression resolved on my palmlight, flanked by Johnny, Elise, and Therese. They all appeared to be watching something on Franco’s display, eyes wide an
d mouths agape.
“That’s… impossible,” Therese said.
“It’s just…” Johnny muttered.
“What happened?” I asked.
“... Leverages and… scud,” Johnny concluded, as if he hadn’t heard me.
Leverages?
I didn’t like where this was going.
“Check the headlines, Hal,” Franco said. “The story just broke.”
I was already swiping their vid feed over to the wall display and pulling up the reels on my palmlight. I looked at the top story—and froze.
Haldin Raish declared Enemy of Enochia, saves High General, entire transport of legionnaires, from enemy ambush.
“Freya is not gonna be happy about this,” I distantly heard Johnny groan. I was too busy tapping the headline, my stomach sinking further at the vid file waiting at the head of the story.
It started with an aerial shot of a transport—our transport, I knew, by the sight of the approaching canyon and the growing dread in my gut. The vid must’ve been from one of the transports behind us. It was surreal, watching the engines die, watching from the outside as the transport plunged to the rocky ground below, knowing I’d been inside of that falling death trap. Then the vid cut to one of our transport’s interior cams, and I got to watch myself and Glenbark slam into our seats so hard we might’ve momentarily shrank by a foot.
Whoever had put the vid together made it perfectly clear what had happened next, cutting back and forth between the two perspectives to show us sliding for the canyon, clearly doomed. Me inside, eyes closed, brow furrowed. The transport, cresting the lip of the canyon, going over. Me, fists clenched, mouth tearing open in a silent scream. The transport yanking to an inexplicable halt over the gaping mouth of the canyon.
I watched in a numb stupor as the rest played out. Siren and the legionnaires pilling from the rear. Johnny and Glenbark dramatically jumping from the transport as it pitched into the canyon. The hybrid-packed transports springing their ambush.
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