by Tess Sharpe
“Use the guard’s glove,” Rhi hissed before Hepzibah could reach to open the door. “Ours might not work. His will have the extra security chips in them.”
Hepzibah nodded, grabbing the nearest guard’s still-smoking hand as he struggled against her. She pressed his palm against the sensor on the door, and it slid open with an obedient click. The women rushed inside, leaving the singed guards behind. Hepzibah whipped a strip of metal from her belt, slapping it against the door, and it began to smoke and sizzle as soon as it touched the stone and metal that made up the dome, frying the door’s circuitry—and making it impossible to open.
“So they can’t get in,” Hepzibah explained.
“But now we can’t get out,” Rhi said, alarmed, the feeling of being trapped closing in on her. What would Ansel do if he arrived back here to find his guards out of commission, his garden destroyed, and her sitting there?
She knew, of course. He’d kill her.
The moment she and Ansel were face to face again, only one would survive. She knew that. She’d been preparing for it. Praying that she was strong enough… and smart enough. That she could finally make him pay.
“Don’t worry,” Hepzibah said, pulling out a black baton and brandishing it. “I have that covered.” She twisted the handle, and a bright green laser sprang out. “This cuts through anything. You have to put some muscle into it, but it’s gotten me out of more than a few scrapes.” She patted her pockets as they saw smoke billowing. “I have three more ember bombs—how are you on ammo?”
Rhi looked down at the charger cells on her gun. “I’m still pretty much full.” She took a second to look around the vast entryway and up at the winding red marble staircase. “His office is on the second floor.”
They raced up the stairs and pelted down the long hallway at the landing, Hepzibah following Rhi until the girl stopped at a door—then holding her arm out, blocking Rhi before she could reach for the knob. “Wait.”
With her little laser cutter, Hepzibah prodded the door. It sparked. Rhi’s stomach dropped, a horrible sense of defeat filling her. “Not a force field?” she asked.
“I’m afraid so. But don’t worry.” Hepzibah began to jab along the door jamb, and when that sparked, she moved farther down the wall, tapping around and smiling triumphantly when she found the right spot. She thrust the laser into the wall, her muscles taut as she dragged it down through the layers of wood and plaster and stone.
“They always count on you going through a door or window,” she explained to Rhi as she cut another line and then a third at the top to form a door of her own. “So they guard those spaces more fiercely. But I much prefer a good wall.” She spun, a whirlwind of power and confidence, her foot striking the seam she’d carved. Half the wall broke to pieces that burst into the room, plaster dust and stone fragments flying, and Rhi let out a delighted laugh. Their own door!
They ducked inside the office; when Rhi saw the picture on the president’s desk, everything else faded away. It was a photograph of him with Umbra, framed in red stone. He was seated in one of the Council chairs—she recognized it from that day he killed her parents, the elaborate carved flames sprouting behind him like a crown. And Umbra… oh, Umbra… it had been so long since she’d seen her face. The light blue of her skin that reminded Rhi of a sky she hadn’t seen for years until she’d crashed on Earth. The tilt of her head, the glint in her eyes that even he couldn’t dim. In the photo, Umbra was kneeling at his feet, and his arm rested on hers, right above the implant, like a warning. A reminder: I own you.
His words on the comm echoed in her head: She is mine.
But she wasn’t. She wasn’t. Rhi had to keep reminding herself of that. Umbra belonged to herself—she would never be Ansel’s. He could never know her or understand her or even care for her. He just wanted to control her.
She grabbed the photograph and threw it across the room so it crashed into the bookcase lining the farthest wall and fell on the floor in pieces. For a moment, there was just silence, Hepzibah quiet and watchful. Blood rushed to Rhi’s cheeks, but when she met the Mephitisoid’s eyes, Hepzibah smiled and kicked over the antique globe by the fireplace. It rolled lopsidedly across the ground, a large dent in it.
“Feel better?” she asked.
Rhi nodded.
“We can smash more things later. Now we need to find the information on your brother and get out of here.”
The desk had multiple screens set into it. After inserting the first of two drives that Amadeus had given her into the bottom of the desk, Rhi touched the screens with her heat-gloved hands. With Amadeus’s hacking drive working its magic, the desk sprang to life. The main screen in the center that gave her access to Ansel’s personal network was surrounded by a dozen smaller screens—the security feeds. On one, she could see the guards that Hepzibah had hit with the ember bombs, still writhing on the steps outside.
“I’ll keep an eye on the feeds,” Hepzibah said, coming to stand next to her, peering at the screen stationed in the garden. There were guards moving around the house—trying to figure out a way through Hepzibah’s seal on the door.
Rhi focused on the neatly labeled folders on the main screen. Ansel even had them color-coded. So tidy… so neat. She wanted to mess them all up. The virus drive that Amadeus had given her was burning a hole in her pocket, but first she needed to find where Zeke was. The information had to be somewhere on this computer in a document, image, or message.
Rhi searched Zeke’s name and transport schedules, but nothing came up. In a desperate bid, she searched Inhuman, and dozens of folders and hundreds of files showed up. Though she added more keywords to narrow down the search, she found nothing and was about to try a new search when she noticed a folder labeled Heritage House. She touched the screen and opened the folder, which had dozens of files inside—Ansel’s plans for the future.
Dread—a familiar enemy—grew thick in her throat as she tapped open the first file, labeled Initial Stats.
357 girls post-menarche
80 girls pre-menarche
First-Year Goals: 100 live births
Second-Year Goals: 200 live births, begin process of multiple implantations to increase percentage of female twins and triplets in half the breeding population
Third-Year Goals: 500 live births, cycle to second half of breeding population for multiple implantations
The screen swam in front of her as she leaned against the desk, frantically tapping through the rest of the file. There were blueprints for nurseries to hold the babies, a plan that detailed how to convert a Maiden House into a maternity ward, and page after page of rules and regulations on how to properly brainwash an Inhuman girl from birth.
“Hepzibah,” she gasped out the name. As if from a great distance, she heard Hepzibah call out, but she couldn’t respond as a kind of resignation settled over her.
It wasn’t going to matter. Even if she got Alestra out. Even if she got all her friends out. Even if she got Umbra away from Ansel.
He had decided on this long ago. He was already building his sick breeding factory, ready to be stocked with Inhuman girls. She might be able to save her friends, but she’d be leaving the rest of her people behind—all the other girls in all the other Maiden Houses—with no way out. This would be their future.
She’d told herself that if she got Alestra away, it would somehow stop the future she had feared. But she’d been lying to herself so that the guilt wouldn’t crush her.
Now, here it was, in front of her, laid out in a detailed, precise plan: How to turn an entire species into breeding stock in three short years.
“He’s going to do it,” she whispered to herself. “He’s already building it.”
Hepzibah peered at the computer and tapped the screen, her lip curling as one arm enveloped Rhi’s shoulders. “It’s just a plan,” she said dismissively. “Plans can be destroyed. So can buildings. And tyrants. Fire is very helpful in such cases… also explosives.”
“I
failed,” Rhi whispered. “I hadn’t even gotten started, and already—”
“No!” Hepzibah gave her a not-so-gentle shake. “Don’t think like that, Rhi. And don’t talk like that. Failure is not an option. Remember?”
The words broke through her panic. Failure is not an option.
Hepzibah was right—it couldn’t be. The stakes were too high.
You are strong, and you are smart. Her mother’s words echoed inside her.
So start acting like it, she told herself.
Zeke’s location wasn’t in the computer—that would be too easy. Ansel, considering it a game, would have hidden it, just in case she got this far. Another way to mock her… I have what you want.
She straightened in Hepzibah’s grip, and her fear fell away as she stood up. “The bookcase,” she said, her eyes settling on it across the room. “I bet he didn’t put Zeke’s transport routes on the computer. He went old-school.”
“You can’t hack a notebook,” Hepzibah said, getting the idea and hurrying over to it. Hepzibah began pulling the books off the shelves and leafing through the pages, just in case he’d tucked something between the covers. The rare volumes, with their gilt edges and ancient words, fell to the carpet with dusty thumps. But Rhi had her own method. She closed her eyes, her hands held out, concentrating her entire self on Zeke, on his warm eyes, on his smile that turned sweeter every time he saw Alestra. I need to find him.
Something tickled her fingers, tugging at them, urging her forward to the shelves.
Normally, being able to touch all these books—to smell that special dry, ageless scent that clung to her fingers for hours after— would fill her with delight. But right now, she was methodical. She didn’t know what she was looking for. A notebook? A hard drive? Ansel must have recorded Zeke’s location somewhere.
Her fingers brushed against something crumply and plastic; something inside her lit up, singing like a choir as she pulled out an old book, tucked in a protective bag, shoved behind three volumes on the War of the Wastelands. She paused, a prickle of recognition breaking through the cobwebs of her memory as she brushed dust off it and stared at it through the plastic sleeve.
She remembered it—a leather book with blue embossed stars on the cover. She’d seen this before, somewhere… she’d found it before. The details started to come back to her as she reached deeper into her memory.
The second year they were at the Maiden House, Ansel had come to fetch her one day; it was the first time she’d been allowed off the grounds. Miss Egrit had called it a very special mission in that fake-chirpy way that made Rhi nervous.
Rhi had thought he was going to kill her. But instead, Ansel showed her a crude sketch of a book with stars on the cover, and then he’d reached out to unlock her implant—with that same hand that shot the gun that killed her parents—and said, It’s about time you made yourself useful.
The flashes had filled her mind instantly, as soon as he touched her, releasing one facet of her power—the only one they thought she had. The rough sketch of the book blurred in her vision, images of the lost filling her instead: grass racing up a hill; bark a deep, cracked brown; branches thrusting so high she had to crane her neck to see the top; and a whisper in the air: I’m here, find me, dig, dig, dig.
So she did—she found this book. It had been buried under a tree that was so old its trunk was split three ways, the base so thick that six people would be needed to circle it. He had made her dig the hole, and the longer she dug without finding something, the more impatient he got. When the shovel hit something that went tang, he’d let out a breath—a covetous, triumphant sound she’d never forget.
He’d wanted this book more than anything. His hands shook as he yanked the metal box it rested in out of the hole. He opened it then and there, and he cradled the book in his arms like a kinder man would hold a child. She knew better than to ask what it was about.
Two weeks later, President Lee suddenly resigned, naming Ansel as his successor. She’d always wondered whether the book had something to do with that.
She had the chance to find out now. She could take it, and he’d know she’d done it, this little piece of possible power he’d wrested from someone who’d kept it hidden.
Nothing stays hidden forever. Not even you. Not from me.
The first thing she ever said to him—a warning he should have listened to.
Rhi tucked the star book under her arm, but before she could continue searching, she heard distant footsteps and shouts down below. Hepzibah whirled, tail twitching, eyes narrowed as she focused on the door and the hallway beyond. “We need to go.”
“But—” Rhi protested.
“Now!” Hepzibah barked, rushing to the hole she’d cut in the wall and peering around the edge of it. Her heart pounding, Rhi dashed over to Ansel’s desk, pulled the virus drive Amadeus had given her out of her pocket, and plugged it into the network control panel. The main screen instantly started fritzing out, splitting the files for Ansel’s breeding factory into thousands of bits and then disintegrating them into a random mass of ones and zeroes—a tiny triumph in a night full of too many things that could go wrong.
She looked up just as Hepzibah’s hand closed around her wrist.
“We can’t take the corridor,” Hepzibah said, brandishing her laser knife again and moving to the outer wall. “The guards broke through the front door and are coming up the stairs.”
“What can we do?” Rhi asked, watching the answer: Hepzibah swiftly sliced a hole in the wall that overlooked the water, then kicked the fragments of plaster and wood and glass free.
Rhi stared at the jagged hole and then at Hepzibah’s expectant face. The shouts and footsteps grew to a crescendo.
Rhi looked at Hepzibah, eyes wide with fear.
“Can you swim?” Hepzibah asked her.
“Swim? No, I—”
“Don’t worry, I can.”
“I can’t—” Rhi began, but her words disappeared into a startled gasp as Hepzibah looped an arm around her waist and jumped out of the hole she’d just cut in the wall, the two women sailing through the night sky into the dark sea below.
23
“I THINK I can get to Umbra,” Carol whispered into her comm, moving through the museum crowd as fast as she could without arousing suspicion. She could see flashes of Umbra’s long green-black hair moving through the people milling around the staircase. “Scott’s with the president, so he’s radio silent for a while. Amadeus, where are you? I need eyes on Jella. Marson doesn’t let her out of his sight.”
“I’m heading up through the kitchens,” Amadeus said. “I’ll find her.”
Mantis chimed in next. “Quiet here,” she reported. “Not so much as a security detail down this street.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Carol said. “Making contact with Umbra next. Stand by.”
The deeper she ventured into the museum, keeping Umbra in sight as she headed into the back hall where the bathrooms were tucked away, the tighter the knot in her stomach grew. She passed an entire room dedicated to the different ways they executed the afflicted, and another filled to the brim with different artists’ interpretations of the final battle between the woman who fell from the stars and the Flame Keepers; by the time she reached the end of the hall, her ire was up and her fists were clenched.
“I’ve got eyes on Jella,” Amadeus said in her ear. “She’s on the move with Marson, toward the archive rooms. I’m following.”
“Scott, you free yet?” Carol asked, knowing he wouldn’t answer until he was. Silence on his end. She didn’t like that Amadeus had no backup, but she needed to make contact with Umbra immediately.
“Let me know when Jella and Marson stop, but don’t engage yet,” Carol whispered.
“Got it.”
Looking around to make sure she wasn’t observed, Carol didn’t take the time to pull on the heat glove to open the door leading to the ladies’ room. Instead, she pressed her bare palm against it, sending
energy sizzling through the sensor. The pad sparked and smoked, and Carol fanned away the acrid smell of burning plastic and metal as the door swung open. They wouldn’t need the damn gloves anymore.
She stepped inside. It was a dank, dark little room with just a handful of stalls, and deep-blue tiles covering the walls and floor. It didn’t look like it got cleaned or used often. Were women even allowed in the museum when it wasn’t being used for big events? Probably not.
Umbra was standing alone, waiting for Fern in the stall. Carol kicked the door shut behind her, and Umbra jumped at the noise, frowning when she saw Carol. Instantly, she straightened up, tension snapping back into her body.
“Madame Khal, did you need something?”
Carol didn’t answer. Instead, she let her abilities do the talking. She laid her palm against the crack in the door, and her skin lit up, heat fusing the door shut against intruders. Umbra’s eyes widened to saucers, gasping in the silence of the bathroom.
“Wait, what? I—”
“I’m not Madame Khal. My name is Carol Danvers. Rhi sent me.” Carol pulled out the disc and pinched it between her fingers. Umbra rushed forward, snatching it from her.
“Is she—” She couldn’t seem to say any more, her eyes begging for an answer.
“She’s fine.”
“Really?” Umbra let out a sob, her hands covering her mouth, stifling the sound. “He—he said she wouldn’t be able to pilot the ship on her own. That she must have steered it straight into the suns.”
“He lied,” Carol said. “She flew that ship all the way to my planet and found me. Our team’s here now, working to free you and Jella and the rest of the girls at the Maiden House. But we need to move fast.”
Umbra sagged against the stall door, sucking air in and out in deep breaths as she tried to calm herself. “She’s really okay? She’s here? She shouldn’t have come back. He’ll kill her.”