by Ann Denton
Tier’s face reddened with rage. He cocked his head. “We will not table this.”
Fell raised her eyebrows, her eyes glinting, understanding that her calm demeanor only pushed Tier closer to a meltdown. “Competent leaders shed all emotions.”
“Competent leaders don’t waste resources.” Tier glowered.
Off his game, Fell had said, and as Lowe looked at the fury in Tier’s expression, he couldn’t help but wonder if the Ancient had gone crazy.
Fell smiled. “You’re right. They don’t.” She caught sight of Lowe. “Request a brief recess?”
The other Ancients nodded, eager to get away from the pissing contest. They filed out quickly, leaving Fell, Dez, and Lowe alone in the room. Fell sat in her chair, closed her eyes, and rubbed her temples.
Lowe and Dez looked each took a seat beside her. Dez put her hand on Fell’s shoulder, squeezing it softly. Lowe opened his mouth to thank her for standing up for Mala, but he couldn’t find the words.
“He’ll be the death of us all, I swear,” Fell muttered. She took a deep breath and looked over at Lowe. “I was just about to come find you.” She pushed her chair back and stood. “You’re now responsible for Ein’s combat training.”
Lowe frowned. Ein’s an engineer. Why— But even as he asked himself the question, he knew. Mala. If she was going to be useful in any capacity, it would be—at least for the foreseeable future—with Ein’s help. The thought made his stomach turn, but he nodded. “Of course.”
“They should be in combat room seven,” Fell said.
Lowe opened his mouth to thank her but Fell lifted a hand. “Don’t. I do what needs to be done.” She waved Dez off, slapped an arm on Lowe’s shoulder, and led the way. “I’ll break the news.”
They’d been kissing when Lowe and Fell arrived.
Verrukter stood off to the side, ready to fight. Mala and Ein had been in the middle of the room, their lips locked together. Ein’s arms wrapped around Mala and he lifted her up against his body.
Lowe hadn’t been sure how he’d feel. Just the thought of Ein kissing Mala had set him on a dangerous, jealous path toward a meltdown.
But seeing them actually kiss, he felt more than just jealousy, he felt anger. A hot, blistering wrath that wanted Ein bleeding on the ground.
Ein’s hands drifted south.
“That’s enough, Ein!” Lowe snarled.
Mala swiveled around in shock. Embarrassment colored her cheeks. She shoved Ein’s creeping hands away.
“Now you’ve made her miss a melt,” Ein groaned. “I’m gonna have to kiss her again.” He shot a satisfied grin at Lowe.
Lowe ignored him, focusing on Mala. He reached for her hand. Caressed her fingers. Her soft, innocent smile was like sunlight. Tier’s trying to take you. He pulled her in and she came willingly.
He felt like crying. Instead, he said, “So, you don’t kiss him back, huh?”
“I … We’ve been at this all day, fighting and melting. I’m sorry,” she sighed. “I wish you’d walked in five seconds earlier, when I told him I hated his guts.”
“Five seconds?” Verrukter chimed in from across the room. “Try five minutes. You were making out so long I thought I might go grab something to eat.”
Lowe looked up at him. Verrukter winked: Just kidding, I had your back. Lowe nodded his thanks.
Mala harrumphed in frustration. “Do you see what I’ve been dealing with all day? The two of them … it’s insane. And then they’re beating me to death on top of it. Help me.”
Lowe rolled his eyes but was elated. “That is exactly what I’m here to do.”
After a minute of explanation about Ein—as Mala’s sole controlled melt provider—needed to prepare for potential missions outside the Center, Fell and Mala left. Lowe turned to Ein, a slow grin crossing his face. “Well, let’s see how that big brain handles a few knocks, huh?”
It was too easy. Ein ran at him, and Lowe grabbed his arm and tugged, sending the lanky man sprawling.
Ein pulled himself up and swung his fist. He had reach but no technique. His body became Lowe’s punching bag. All Lowe’s frustration poured out: the anger at Tier. At Stelle. The fear for Beza. For Mala.
“Do you know what just happened? Where I came from?” Lowe seethed. “Tier called her useless! He wants to lobotomize her!”
That brought Ein to a standstill. “What?”
Lowe clocked Ein in the jaw and he tumbled sideways. A hand on Lowe’s shoulder kept him from following Ein.
“Give him a minute.” Verrukter’s voice was calm, soothing. Completely out of character.
Control yourself, control yourself. The skin beneath his wetsuit bubbled and Lowe swallowed, pushing down his emotions.
Ein rolled up a seated position, cupping his jaw. His eyes were trained on Lowe. And Lowe could read the fear in them. Fear for Mala. He likes her. A lot. That thought churned uncomfortably through his head.
“Tier wants to what?” Ein asked again.
“He wants to get rid of her.” Lowe shook his head. “He has a point, right? How can she do anything when she’s stuck carting you around?”
Ein gritted his teeth. “She’s trying. And apparently I’m learning combat so I won’t be a liability on the outside.”
“You’ll be a liability,” Verrukter shook his head. “Your big mucking mouth is a liability.”
“Shut up or I’ll talk to my sister about you.”
“She can barely stand you,” Verrukter shrugged. “Doubt she’ll listen.”
“She will if I tell her you’re cheating.”
Verrukter took a step forward. “I would never. Neid’s my life—”
This time it was Lowe’s hand that stopped Verrukter.
“Mala is trying to control her melts, but how much are you?”
Ein’s eyes sparked at that. “Don’t. You have no mucking clue. I’ve run forty-two unique experiments. I’ve barely slept cause of this girl. She’s all I think about every Deadwater-damned day. What she wants. What she likes. What she fears. Hopes. Trying to figure out—"
Lowe couldn’t stop himself. He tackled Ein. Mala isn’t yours to think about. She isn’t yours.
Verrukter yelled for them to stop, but then leaned back against the wall to watch the show.
Lowe punched Ein’s side. They rolled across the mats, Ein trying throw Lowe off. Lowe rolled again until he was under Ein. He hooked his feet under Ein’s stomach, and kicked out hard. Ein flew back. His head hit the wall first. He slid to the ground.
“Damnit. You killed him,” Verrukter sighed dramatically. “You’re telling Neid.”
Lowe shook his head as he stood. He was still on edge.
Ein groaned and sat up, holding the back of his head. “What the muck was that for?”
Lowe ground his teeth.
Verrukter laughed. “You really are an idiot.” He kicked Ein’s leg and strode over to Lowe.
“Tier’s not gonna stop, you know,” Verrukter said softly. “When he wants someone gone, they go.” Regret filled his blue eyes.
Lowe remembered Verrukter’s Recruiter. Oma. Tier had held a grudge against her. She’d been gone in two months. Missing on assignment.
“He wouldn’t …” Lowe started.
“We need to find a way to control her melts now,” Verrukter said. “It might be our only shot.”
“I’d asked Beza to find me Klaren’s files—”
Ein interrupted from his spot on the floor. “Tier checked those files out months ago. When she first got here.”
Lowe and Verrukter stared at him.
“If that’s true …” Verrukter trailed off.
“I think he’s always wanted to get rid of her,” Ein grimaced, touching his head.
“But why?”
“That’s a good question,” Verrukter chimed in.
Ein sighed. “He’s got a strange hate for Mala. Well, maybe not so strange, since he killed her predecessor.”
“Klaren and Mala aren’t rela
ted,” Lowe said through his teeth. “Melting isn’t hereditary, she couldn’t be—”
“Spiritual predecessor, then,” Ein said, waving his hands. “Power threat. I don’t mucking care. As far as Tier is concerned, Mala is Klaren, and just as likely to go savage on us, control or no control.”
“She won’t,” Lowe sputtered, incredulous.
But Verrukter turned to him. “You know she hangs out with that magic-loving kid.”
Ein shook his head. “Ges? He’s harmless. His family are dreamers. Bookworms. But …”
“What?”
“I did catch her trying a spell with Alba one night.”
“So?” Lowe rose to her defense, even as the image of Mala doing a spell in the woods came to him.
“I’m just saying. You never know what anyone is capable of.”
Lowe didn’t want to agree. But Stelle came to mind. Her defense of the hospital attack. He hated to admit it. But a little voice in his head whispered, Ein’s right.
Chapter Forty-Three
The door to the combat room opened and Tier came thundering in, Fell on his heels. Tier’s eyes latched onto Lowe and narrowed.
“Everyone else out.”
Verrukter and Ein disappeared.
Fell took a step forward. “We need to talk.” Her voice was too carefully measured. Her hands clutched the sides of her cloak. Something was wrong.
“We just spoke twenty minutes ago.” Lowe didn’t like the way his gut was sparking, telling him to be cautious. It’s Fell, he scolded himself.
“The Ancients have voted—” Tier began, but Fell cut him off with a shake of her head. He closed his mouth, but Lowe watched him steam. He wasn’t used to taking orders. And he clearly didn’t like it.
Fell returned her eyes to Lowe’s. “This situation is very delicate. You heard President Stahl. We need a win. A big win.”
“Understood.”
“We’ve decided on a candidate.”
Lowe gave a stiff nod. “That was quick.”
“Troe wants power. He thinks Kreis will give him more power. So … we’re going to give him the most powerful Kreis of all.”
Lowe’s soul cracked. His body disintegrated. His world darkened.
Tier smiled, the overhead lights casting deep shadows over his eyes. “Mala.”
“You can’t,” Lowe whispered.
“The vote was unanimous,” Fell stated.
He turned to her. “Even you?”
“We cannot waste a resource like this. She seems powerful. But she’s not. She’s hampered. That makes her a good trade. A great trade. She can walk in there and blind him with a single meltdown. He’ll be ecstatic.”
“She’s the least experienced person on site! She’s never been on a mission, she can’t handle an assassination.”
“She won’t be assassinating him,” Tier replied.
“He wants a queen,” Fell reminded him.
“She’ll be killed. Once he finds out … Fell, she has no real combat experience, no subterfuge experience—” Lowe stumbled over his words in his panic but Fell cut him off.
“Stahl’s already approved the plan. A messenger was sent.”
Just like that, she sliced through Lowe’s heart. Everything she’d ever been to him: mentor, friend. It was gone.
Tier chimed in. “And because Mala’s such a novice, she and the others assigned to this mission will be given false assignments.”
“False assignments? You think telling them they’re doing recon or something will make this work? You just called her incompetent!”
“She is.” Tier’s voice was brittle ice. “That’s the beauty of the plan. We are handing them something they think is valuable. And in fact, it’s not.”
“She’s not an it.”
“I suppose not,” Tier spit. “But she is a soldier.”
“Which means what?”
“She took the oath. This is what that means.”
“She swore to protect people. Not to be auctioned off like—”
“Stop.” Fell raised a hand. She took a step forward, reaching for Lowe’s shoulder.
He jerked away from her.
“We need you, Lowe,” she said softly. “We need you to get her there. To make the trade. To get those kids out.”
Lowe’s throat closed. He sank to the ground. He crossed his legs and put his palms on the floor, skimming the surface of the practice mat. He felt dizzy. Queasy. They were asking the impossible of him.
His skin bubbled and his bones cracked. He didn’t fight it—he let the meltdown overtake him, morphing him into a version of himself too small to fit into his suit. He didn’t care if they put him in the brig. He didn’t care about anything.
He didn’t notice Fell leave.
Tears blurred his vision, tears of anger and grief fed by the impossibility of the situation.
I brought her here. I told them what she could do.
Tier stepped up behind him. “That girl should never have been here in the first place. She doesn’t belong. Don’t worry about Stelle. I already told her.”
Tier’s footsteps faded down the hall.
And there was silence.
For a long time there was nothing. Just a vast empty room. Lowe’s eyes stared without seeing.
Lowe felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up. Dez gazed down at him in the dim white light.
“Dez,” his voice cracked.
Dez sat beside him, her amputated arm in her lap. “Lowe.”
He looked at her, eyes begging her forgiveness, even though she wasn’t the one he needed to forgive him.
“Dez, I brought her here. I told them what she could do.”
“I know. The message to Troe went through our department.”
“She can’t handle this. She’s not ready.”
“Oh, she’s ready,” Dez said. “Not for this, but I don’t think you’d be ready for this if they gave you a decade’s notice. She fights well, hides well. She’s a survivor, Lowe.”
“I know, but she’ll—”
“Die?” asked Dez, and she smiled. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you had a conflict of interest.”
“What?” Lowe said, confused.
Dez punched him lightly on the shoulder. “You love her, muckhead.”
Lowe only sighed. “I … Dez?”
“Yeah?”
“Is it … can you be a good person and a good soldier?”
Dez shrugged. “Save the kids, you’re a hero to their parents. But Mala’s basically a slave. Save Mala and dozens of families stay broken. ‘Hero’ is a subjective term.”
Lowe dropped his gaze, staring at the scratches and patches on the exercise mat.
“It would be better if they’d tell her. If it was her choice. She’d choose it. Herself for the kids.”
“Do you remember your first mission?” Dez sighed. Then chuckled. “You reeked when you got back. I almost bribed the Typicals in the laundry hall to tell me if you’d shat yourself.”
Lowe smiled weakly. “Could’ve just asked.”
“Did you?”
“Maybe.”
Dez reached out her hand and stroked his face. “You just went on recon and you could hardly handle it. I know it doesn’t seem this way. But it’s more merciful.”
His tears returned.
“She’s going to hate me, isn’t she?”
Dez ran her fingers down to his shoulder and squeezed. Then she wrapped him in a hug. “Yes. She will.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Dez left Lowe on the floor of the combat room, after helping him melt back to his mid-twenties. He wasn’t ready to face reality. He definitely wasn’t ready to face Ein. But the mucking smart-ass came back into the room anyway.
Ein whistled. “Looks like you got your own ass-kicking.”
Lowe glared up at him.
“Oh shit. Your eyes are red. This isn’t the part where we have a heart-to-heart, is it?” Ein quipped. “’Cause if you’re about to spi
ll your soul, I’d rather someone just kill me.”
Lowe laughed in spite of himself. “No.” I’m not allowed to spill my soul. Or tell anyone the truth about this Deadwater-damned mission.
“Good. Because there was something else I was going to tell you before you got put in time-out.”
“And what’s that?”
“Klaren’s records are gone, but … I was still able to find out something interesting,” Ein nodded toward the door. “Let’s take a field trip, shall we?”
Ein led him through the Center to the upper levels, where they boarded a sub to the surface, then rowed a dingy to the shore.
The light was dying, the clouds a chalky grey. In the twilight, the men stumbled up the sand, pulling the dingy the last few meters.
The bushes rustled as they walked, animals scurrying off in the distance. An arctic wind pierced their lungs. Each breath was a knife.
“How much farther?” Lowe rasped.
“Not far.”
Two minutes later, they emerged from the tree into a small clearing. A short, windowless bunker squatted in the middle, hunkered down in the shadow of a small mountain. Typicals in black uniforms swarmed through the clearing like ants, carrying baskets of laundry to and from the doors that led to the old tunnels connecting one surface bunker to the other.
“This way,” Ein skirted the perimeter until they reached door at the far side. He rapped on the metal door twice, waited, and repeated the movement.
“What are we doing?” Lowe whispered.
The door swung open, spilling hot yellow light into the dark purple of the trees. A shadow stood before them, the silhouette of a tall, broad-shouldered man. He took a step forward, and Lowe could make out his features. A long nose, angular face, and thin grey eyes peered at him through the darkness. He looked strikingly familiar, but Lowe couldn’t think where he’d seen him.
“This is Streck,” said Ein. “Klaren tried to kill his father.”
“Ah. Awkward introduction, but you’ll have to excuse him; he thinks he’s too smart for manners,” Lowe apologized to Streck.
Ein screwed up his mouth. “Sorry.” The apology was grudging. “But we’re in a hurry. Why did Klaren attack your father?”