“I apologized.”
“Oh, yeah. Good for you. You deserve a fucking medal.”
“You don’t want to assassinate the Governor? Fine—you’ve made that clear. But do you have a better idea? Or do you just enjoy scolding me?”
Alex narrows the gap between them and puts his hands on her shoulders, calming her, casually sliding his hands down her arms to take her hands in his. “I don’t want to punish you.” His voice is softer now. He lifts her hands up and over his shoulders, placing his hands on her waist and pulling her close to him. “But in this instance, I do want you to do things my way.”
“Which is how?”
“Go straight to the source.”
A furrow appears on Silver’s brow. “I don’t think I understand.”
“Go back to the beginning: a murderer that Omega can’t catch. Phaeden took Alice because he plans to make a trade, but he’s just as vulnerable as he always was. He doesn’t know they’re using the tunnels, and he doesn’t know how to initiate direct contact.”
“And you’re suggesting?”
“We take a trip into the Out District. Let’s try our luck with the bad guys, and get to them before Phaeden does. Let’s find out what all this fuss is about. Something’s going on here. Something more than Phaeden’s letting on to his staff.”
“You want to go beyond the city walls? With the virus? Are you bonkers?”
“Ethan Raine is a dipshit, but I’m inclined to agree with him on one thing: ten percent really isn’t bad odds.”
“Sure, if he’s telling the truth.”
“You had a gun in his face, so I don’t think he was in a position to lie. Besides, a blood borne pathogen needs a direct pathway into the bloodstream in order for infection to occur.”
“So?”
Alex shrugs. “Just don’t get bit.”
Silver rolls her eyes. “Oh, god. I’m so glad you’re here to offer such unparalleled advice. Why on earth didn’t the Academy invite you back to teach another semester, I wonder?”
Alex ignores her attempt to belittle him. “I think it’s because I was fucking one of my students.” He smiles, nudging her gently. “Admit it. The tactic is solid, and it’s certainly much more strategic than an off-the-cuff assassination plot.”
Silver can find no argument to that. At least, not immediately.
“Find the person responsible for the murders and do what you were hired to do,” Alex presses. “Don’t let yourself get sidetracked. Get to this guy before Phaeden does, and you’ll have him by the balls.”
“How so?”
“Phaeden wants to make a trade, right? If you have the murderer, and you know the method, then you control the rules of engagement. You’ll be the one he’ll have to trade with. It’ll be Alice and your freedom, in exchange for the murderer. He’ll have no choice but to acquiesce.”
Silver’s stopped resisting, he can tell.
He holds her close to him, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her body tight against his. “Please, don’t do anything to jeopardize your repatriation.”
She leans into him, allowing him to run his hands across her back in comforting, sweet caresses. She’s tired, and the exhaustion begins to show on her face as she finally allows her body to relax.
“We’ll head out first thing in the morning?” she clarifies, her mind still racing at a hundred miles an hour.
Though the ache in her chest begs for her to heed Alex’s logic, her mind is already hell-bent on vengeance. He’s right about one thing, though. Taking Phaeden’s life might give her some small satisfaction and a sense of personal justice, but it would also confirm every insult that’s ever been thrown at her.
Conspirator.
Killer.
Traitor.
She’d never be repatriated.
She’d never be free.
Fortunately, she doesn’t need to incriminate herself to get the job done. If she can ally herself with Phaeden’s enemies, there’ll be no shortage of people willing to get their hands dirty.
All she has to do is help set the trap.
Easy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Cyclotrimethylene-trinitramine
It’s late at night when Silver slips quietly from Alex’s bedroom. Turning into the hallway, she comes face to face with Jax and stops dead in her tracks.
A deer caught in the headlights.
“What’re you doing up?”
Jax holds up a can of soda and waggles it in the air before pushing past Silver and disappearing into her own bedroom. Silver can’t help it; she feels dirty. She sneaks back up to her apartment and grabs a beer from the fridge.
Alex’s attempt at toast and a sweet gesture is still on the kitchen counter, attracting flies. An empty box of colored contact lenses reminds her of Alice, who never leaves the confines of the theater without concealing the natural pigment of her eyes.
Crawling onto the bed, Silver presses her face against Alice’s pillow. It still smells like her. In the distance, gunfire and explosions from the continuation of the Third Reclamation in the Out District bring her thoughts back to Phaeden Rist.
Her intention is to sit in silence and think a while, collecting her thoughts, then return to the comfort of Alex’s arms. Instead, she finishes the bottle and falls asleep, sobbing quietly into her pillowcase.
Five hours later …
Crisp dawn sunlight wakes her as it breaks over the city. Stiff from an uncomfortable sleep, she gets up and stretches, her limbs popping and cracking. She checks her invisible watch and knows instinctively that she’s too late—Alex will already be awake.
Without hesitation, she rushes downstairs and follows the scent of food into the kitchen, where Alex is flipping pancakes. Though she doesn’t say a word, he can feel her standing there in the doorway.
Over his shoulder, “Couldn’t sleep last night?”
Silver shrugs, oblivious to the tightness of his jaw and the irritation in his tone. “I lost track of time, I guess. I’m usually up before dawn anyway. You know that.”
Alex tosses his spatula down with vigor and slides the last pancake onto his plate, spinning around to face her. “Is this just the way things are with you?”
A frown creases Silver’s brow. She’d object, but Alex doesn’t give her the chance.
“I’d forgotten what it felt like to wake up to an empty bed like this.” He drenches the pancakes with cheap syrup. “Never knowing if you’re hot or cold.” He hesitates. “Or dead.”
“Where the fuck did that come from?” Affronted.
“I worry about you, Silver.”
She doesn’t know what to do with that.
“You keep everything so locked away inside yourself,” he goes on. “I never know what you’re thinking.”
“I tell you what matters.”
“Do you?”
Silence.
Alex stares her down. “Why are you so determined to shut me out?”
“I think you’re taking this way too personally. All I did was leave your bed. Is insomnia really such a crime?”
“I think you forget how well I know you, El. I think you forget that it was my bed you left the night before you took your first shift as Commander, or the night before your Banishment and Enforcement Council hearing. It was my bed you left when you thought you were pregnant, and that time I didn’t see you again for three days.”
“What’s your point?”
“You get defensive when you get scared, and you won’t let me in. You keep things from me and you become restless—it’s a familiar routine.”
“I just want to get this over with, that’s all.”
Alex shakes his head. “It’s more than that.”
“You’re wrong.” A lie.
He knows it.
“Never in twenty years. Not when it comes to you.”
“What’s the matter? You think I still plan on killing the Governor. Is that it?”
“Don’t you?”
; Silver grows agitated. “What do you want from me, Alex?”
“The truth would be nice, but I’m not naïve enough to think that I’m ever going to get it.”
He snatches up his plate and brushes past her into the communal living area, leaving her speechless and a little hurt. Convincing herself that the lies and omissions are ultimately for his own good, she lingers in the doorway, hesitant to follow.
She knows she has to sell him something—something real—to keep his curiosity at bay. By the time she commits to follow him, he’s at the table with half a pancake already devoured, and a creased Old World comic book open to the third page.
The closer she gets, the harder he tries to ignore her. Taken by surprise when she kneels down beside him, he almost chokes on a chunk of pancake. Washing it down with a quick swill of water, he fumbles the glass when he feels her hands slide gently onto his lap.
“My world collapsed when I lost you, and that’s the truth.”
It is.
Alex’s attention is drawn back to her like a magnet, his frustration melting away at the sight of such sincerity in her eyes, and yet … she shies away from him. Unable to make eye contact, she looks down at her fingers and picks at imaginary dirt beneath her nails.
“Since then, I’ve done everything possible to try and keep you out of my head.” She sniffs back a sneeze. “And I do mean everything.”
Shame is a rare thing to find hiding in her expression, but Alex catches its fleeting presence there. For just a micro-second, her lips pull down at the corners and she averts her eyes. Her brows peak at the inner corners, causing them to slope like Everest from the center of her forehead.
It’s the faintest glimmer of something so heart-wrenchingly true, and it’s gone just as fast as it appeared.
She lets a tear run loose. “Nothing worked.”
“El—”
“Truthfully, of all the things I thought might’ve happened when I sought you out, the possibility of your fervor wasn’t even on my list.”
“Honestly?”
“At best, I thought I’d find you angry. If I was lucky, I’d hoped you might have the capacity to forgive me. At worst, I was prepared to find you … bound.”
“Married?”
“You were a free man.”
“I was never free.”
Silver shakes her head. “You had no pledge to me.”
“And that’s still my only regret.”
Silence.
“I waited for you, you know.” He hooks a finger under her chin and tilts her up to look at him. “I never believed you were dead, and I never gave up hope.”
Silver battles a sudden rush of feeling, and only just manages to keep the dam from rupturing. “I did,” she barely whispers.
She feels tainted, and unworthy of his devotion.
He slips a hand over hers. “It’s okay, El. Take all the time you need just, please, don’t push me away.”
He chances a kiss, but as their lips touch, Jax appears from the hallway and ruins it.
Immediately, Jax covers her eyes. “It’s way too early in the fucking morning for sentimental crap like that.”
The mood shattered, Silver gets up off her knees and backhands away the rest of her tears. “Crawl back under your rock, you shriveled up old bag.”
Jax responds with an obscene hand gesture and disappears into the kitchen while Silver contemplates the thought of breakfast, eyeing Alex’s pancakes with envy.
“Thanks for making me some, by the way.” She takes a seat beside him. “Very thoughtful of you.”
He takes a large mouthful of pancake. “I was mad at you.”
“You’re always mad at me.”
“No. Sometimes I’m just overwhelmed by how much I love you.”
His calm, understated, matter-of-fact delivery catches Silver off-guard. She doesn’t know how to respond, but it doesn’t matter. The silence is broken again by Jax, re-entering the room with an overflowing pasta bowl of cereal.
Silver watches her spill milk all over the carpet. “You want a bucket instead? Better yet, a trough?”
Jax takes a seat at the table, ignoring Silver’s sarcasm. “No, thanks. I’m good.”
“Well, eat fast. I need your help this morning.”
Jax looks up suspiciously from her cereal, her mouth full. She flicks her eyes from Silver to Alex, and back to Silver again.
“I have a present for you.” Silver cracks a small smile.
The cereal soon abandoned, Silver leads Jax and Alex downstairs to a room behind the box office. She swings open the door to reveal an old front of house staff break room, filled with bombs.
Yup, bombs.
There are bags upon bags of RDX powder, 2-ethylhexyl sebacate, polyisobutylene, and cans of synthetic motor oil. Strewn about the tables are electrical blasting caps and hundreds of meters of hot bridge wire, wound into large reels.
Jax appears on the verge of explosion herself, playing the part of a hungry cat in a room full of frightened mice. “Holy shit!” she squeals.
Alex flanks Silver, intrigued, but less ecstatic. “I’m pretty sure this is a fire hazard. Don’t let your insurance company see it.”
Silver laughs, even though the joke is poking at her own wretched circumstances. Behind them, Oz stumbles into the room in an early morning haze.
“I heard voices …” He looks around. “Oh, hell … is this boom-boom?”
Jax picks up a brick of C-4 and tosses it back and forth between her hands. “Where did you get all this stuff?”
Silver gives her a quick, one-shoulder ‘you-know-how-it-is’ shrug. “I know some people. Ex-Division. They’re holed up in a warehouse on the other side of the Fringe—in the Buffer Zone. I provide the materials, they provide the manufacture.”
Alex kicks at a bag of RDX powder in the corner of the room. “And where did you get the materials?”
“Same place I got my guns.”
Alex looks around the room and performs some swift mental calculations. “You’ve got enough RDX in here to make over five hundred pounds of C-4. What in the world do you imagine you’re ever going to need it for?”
“Up till now, it’s been purely precautionary.”
“Till now?” Alex raises a questioning eyebrow at Silver.
“We’re not walking to the Out District.” She grins. “We’re going to take the truck.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It Goes ‘Boom-boom’
From inside the tunnel, Jax finishes packing bricks of C-4 in measured intervals around the edges of the service passage’s steel doors. She embeds blasting caps in each brick, and uses the hot bridge wire to connect the blasting caps together. A long line of the hot bridge wire leads far enough away into the sewer pipe so that they’ll be protected from the blast.
Jax puts the finishing touches on the detonator attached to the hot bridge wire and grins at Silver. “Ready?”
Silver braces herself against the wall of the pipe. “Always.”
Boom-boom.
Jax detonates the C-4, and in a split second, the frame holding the steel doors in place is obliterated. Blown outward with the force of the explosives, the bent and twisted doors fling open and crash down against the dirt floor outside the tunnel, concealed behind the façade of the Waste Treatment building.
Dust and debris from the blast explodes into the air and blows down the sewer pipe in a thick cloud, making Silver cough and gasp for air.
“Awesome.” She chokes.
Using their shirts and sleeves as basic—and highly ineffective—dust filters, Silver and Jax stumble toward the manhole cover. Surface side, Alex watches a mushroom cloud of dust erupt from the hole, and sees Silver’s hands groping for a firm hold of something to pull herself out.
He scoops up one of her arms and she latches onto him. Using all of his muscle, he hauls her up and out of the hole and plants her back down on her feet, on firm ground.
Disoriented by the smoke and lack of oxygen, she
steadies herself against his chest, breathing fast and shallow. Her eyes are burning and her lungs hurt, and the bottle of water Red passes her is eagerly snatched up.
Alex keeps one arm around her while she douses her face with water, washing the blast debris out of her eyes. Meanwhile, Jax clambers clumsily out of the sewer by herself, struggling to breathe.
Lying on her back in the dirt, wheezing, she gives Alex a sarcastic thumbs-up. “Thanks for the help.”
Silver passes her the water. “Rinse and repeat.”
Behind them, Oz spits the last bits of chunky vomit out of his mouth, and almost upchucks again as he watches a family of rats swarm toward the steaming pile of puke and fight over chunks of Chimera tongue from the soup he consumed an hour ago.
Determined to keep the rest of his meal inside his gut, he takes his t-shirt off and ties it around his face, blocking out the smell from the nearby rotting food dump. “Now what?” Muffled.
Red helps Jax get back on her feet, oblivious to the dusty handprint left behind on her suit from Jax’s ‘thank you’ pat on the shoulder.
“We need to cut power to the electric fence.” Red turns to Alex for the solution. “You can locate the main breaker?”
He glances down into the sewer, making sure the dust has settled before he jumps inside. “I’m on it.”
Armed with a flashlight and a few basic tools, Alex navigates his way through the sewer pipe and drops down into the tunnel on the other side. He climbs the steep slope into the Omega building, and swings the flashlight around.
Empty.
Just as it should be.
It doesn’t take long to find the building’s breaker box, nor for his skilled hands to isolate the power supply to the fence.
Awaiting his cue, the rest of the team congregates by the truck, parked by the fence gate. Jax brings her face right up close to the metal, trying to see if she can feel the electricity running through it.
“How will we know when it’s safe?”
Only Red’s sensitive hearing can detect the faint hum of electricity surging through the wires, and she’s standing right behind Jax. “Why don’t you check?”
Shove.
Red pushes Jax into the fence, and Silver’s never heard her squeal so loud. No harm, though—the power’s already been cut.
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