by L O Addison
“We’re going to need sedative rounds,” Kaylin said to Duval. “And none of the cheap stuff. We need something that can knock a person out before they have time to yell for help. We’ll also need a signal cloaking device and a mapping system, plus some concentrated neto acid and a code flooder.”
As Kaylin rattled off the list of things she’d need, she felt her nerves slowly beginning to fade. This was just another job, like the ones she’d completed dozens of times before.
She might not be a good soldier. She might not even be a good person. But she was a damn good thief, and she was going to use every ounce of skill she had to make it out of that base with the Virtue in hand.
23
Lio
“We can’t just let them die.”
Lio’s gut twisted as he finally said the words. They’d been building inside him for the entire evening, ever since Kaylin, Beck, and Matteo had declared they would keep their original plan and try to break into the base. In the hours since their meeting, Lio had typed up a detailed report to transmit back to the Council, feeling more and more guilt with every word he typed.
By allowing the bombing to happen, he was doing his duty. He was following the Council’s strict protocol: the Virtues must be protected, at any cost.
But all he could think of was the sight of Matteo lying on the ground in the barn, writhing in pain as his wound slowly killed him. That had been one man. One life. One narrowly-avoided death. The idea of hundreds of people suffering the same sort of wounds, and Lio not being able to do anything to help them...
Marin looked up from her tablet and stared at him. They had both settled at the same small table in their guest quarters, with hardly any space between them. There was no way either of them was going to leave each other’s side, not in this foreign place.
“We can’t let who die?” Marin finally asked.
Any of them. Beck, Kaylin, and Matteo, who were all risking their lives to stop the bombing. And the innocent kids trapped inside the base, who were probably going to get bombed, despite the efforts to save them.
Lio swallowed hard. “All of them.” He shook his head. “This plan is terrible. If the Council knew...”
He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.
Marin sighed softly. “If the Council knew, they would approve,” she said quietly. “The plans are terrible, but they’re the only possible option. Logically, it’s the only way we can keep the Ascendancy away from the Virtue.”
Logically. There was that word again. For so long, it had been the centerpiece to his life—every action a Collector made had to be rooted in logic. It was the only way for them to ensure peace.
But saving Matteo hadn’t been logical. Far from it. Yet it had been the right thing to do.
“We need to help them,” Lio said. “We can’t just let the three of them walk into the Wardens’ base and get killed.”
Marin held her hands up in a helpless gesture. “They’ve chosen a hopeless mission, and they know it. There’s nothing we can do to stop them, Lio.”
Her voice was calm and steady, as always, but Lio could see the concern etched into her expression. This mission was upsetting her, even if she didn’t want to admit it.
Lio rubbed a hand over his face and stared down at the table. “How did we get to this point?” he whispered.
This mission was supposed to have been so simple—greet the humans, take the Virtue, and leave. Easy. Quick. Harmless.
Marin sighed. “We’re on the brink of an intergalactic war, Lio. From here on out, nothing is going to be simple for any of our people.”
Lio pressed a hand to his aching forehead. “My sworn duty is to ensure peace. How am I supposed to bring peace when everyone seems to want violence?”
Marin shook her head. “I know you’re taught that Collectors are supposed to bring peace to the universe, but that’s really not how it works at all. It’s merely an ideal. All Collectors can do is try to contain Virtues and make peace a possibility. Whether or not people choose to accept that possibility is beyond your control.”
Lio gave a harsh laugh. “That’s far from comforting.”
Marin shrugged. “My job is to protect you. Part of that is making sure you know what you’re getting into.” She reached out and rested a hand on top of his. “Collectors are trained as peacekeepers, because that’s your ultimate goal. But it’s also the rarest outcome.”
Lio shook his head. “I’ve had success on all my other assignments so far.”
Marin smiled grimly. “There have only been four of those, and they were minor assignments for a minor Collector. For better or worse, you’re now tackling an assignment you shouldn’t have been given for another forty years.” Her expression suddenly darkened. “So much depends on keeping the Virtue out of the hands of the Ascendancy. I know you know that, but you don’t seem to truly believe it.”
A mixture of guilt and anger built in his chest. “I believe it. I just don’t want to see bombs dropped on the heads of innocents.”
“You’ve never seen war, Lio,” Marin said quietly. “You’ve studied it, but it’s entirely different from actually seeing it firsthand. Once that happens, you’ll understand the logic better. Better for hundreds to die than billions.”
There was conviction in her voice, but also pain that made her words hoarse. That was the only thing that kept Lio from snapping a retort at her. As brutal as Marin’s assessment was, she clearly hated it just as much as he did.
He struggled not to sound defeated as he said, “And better for none to die than hundreds.”
Marin gave a slim smile and patted his hand. “Of course. We can’t depend on Beck’s team succeeding, but we can hope.”
Lio nodded, although he could detect the skepticism in Marin’s voice, and it made his stomach curdle.
She gave a small sigh. “You’ll learn, Lio,” she said softly. “You’ll learn to block out your emotions and focus on the logic. Your job won’t always be this painful.”
Just a few days ago, he would have taken that to be comforting. But all he could think of was the sight of Matteo slowly dying. If Lio had used logic, he never would have activated his Fragment, and Matteo would be dead.
“I’m not sure I always want to be logical,” he murmured.
Marin gave him a soft, patronizing smile. “As I said, give it time. The war will teach you differently.”
24
Beck
Beck tried to catch some sleep, but as soon as he closed his eyes, he realized sleep wasn’t an option. He’d gone on plenty of dangerous missions before, but this mission would be different. This would be suicide.
He managed to keep his eyes closed for an entire forty minutes. Then he swung his legs off his bed and sat up, rubbing at his face. If sleeping wasn’t possible, he might as well get started on planning. This mission might have been largely hopeless, but he was going to make sure it was the most goddamn precise suicide mission to ever occur. If there was even the slightest chance of it succeeding, he was going to make sure they seized it.
Beck was just standing from his bed when a knock came at his door. He snagged his shirt and jeans off his nightstand and shrugged them on, but hesitated a moment as he stared down at his holster and pistol. Just a few days ago, he wouldn’t have bothered to wear the holster just to answer the door. But times were changing.
He buckled the holster around his waist as he strode over to the door, slamming the button on the control panel to open it. Duval stood there in a wrinkled set of clothes, his hair still ruffled from sleep. But his eyes were wide and anxiously blinking.
“You have a visitor,” the commander said.
Beck looked up and down the hallway, but he didn’t spot anyone.
“Who is it?” Beck asked.
“A street kid,” Duval said. “He just showed up at the front of the base waving around a rifle and saying he had business with you and the thief.”
Beck raised his eyebrows. “And you let him in?�
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Duval swallowed hard, and harsh lines hardened his expression. “Our satellite footage just confirmed what he told us. There was another attack.”
Beck’s heart thudded in his chest. “On a Resistance base?”
Duval shook his head, and his voice grew quiet. “No, this one was on the sector of the city you visited earlier today. The same one the kid’s from.”
“What do you mean?” Beck demanded.
“The Wardens targeted the orphan pack who lives there,” Duval said, anger deepening his voice. “They demanded information from the kids, and when they didn’t hand it over, the Wardens started shooting.”
Nausea rose in Beck’s gut, followed only a moment later by a burning sense of rage. “Those sick fucks,” he hissed.
Duval pursed his lips and then nodded. He didn’t seem to know what to say, and Beck couldn’t blame the commander. There were simply no words for this sort of crime.
“What’s the name of the orphan who came here?” Beck demanded.
Duval shook his head. “He won’t tell me. He told me about the attack, but he’s refusing to speak about anything more until he sees you and Kaylin.”
Beck nodded, unsurprised by the news. If there was one thing street kids learned fast, it was to trust no one.
“Where is he?” Beck asked, already striding out the door.
“This way,” Duval said, gesturing for Beck to follow him.
“Beck?”
Kaylin’s voice rang through the hallway, startling them both to a stop. Beck glanced around the hallway, but didn’t see her anywhere. Then he glanced down at the small communication unit he had clipped to his holster.
“What’s going on?” Kaylin demanded, her voice coming through the comm unit’s speakers. “I keep hearing a bunch of radio chatter in French, and I can’t understand a word of it, but it doesn’t sound good.”
Duval turned and gave Beck an incredulous look. “You gave her a comm unit? And opened the base channels?”
“Nope, one of the guards gave it to me,” Kaylin said, her voice smug.
“Which one?” Duval barked.
“The tall, red-headed guy with the observation skills of a blindfolded rock.”
Beck pressed a hand to his forehead. “Kaylin, did you steal the comm from him?”
“Doesn’t even count as stealing,” she said. “It was too easy.”
Duval spat a curse and glared at the comm unit, but Beck had to struggle to keep a straight face. He was relieved that Kaylin wasn’t actually a murderer, but he was damn glad she was actually a thief. They’d need every ounce of skill she had.
Duval activated his own comm unit and spoke into it, snapping orders in French. No doubt he was ordering his guards to retrieve the stolen unit from Kaylin.
Beck held a hand up to the commander. “Wait. I’ll go get her. If this kid wants to talk with both of us, I don’t see why we should refuse.”
Duval gritted his teeth, but then he nodded and made a sharp gesture down the hallway, toward the room Kaylin was being kept in. “Go ahead and get her. Just keep a tight leash on her. I don’t want her stealing anything else from my people.”
“Then maybe train your people not to be walking targets for pickpockets,” Kaylin said dryly.
Duval’s mouth twisted in a snarl, but before he could retort, Beck said, “Where’s the boy?”
Duval paused for a moment, and then cleared his throat, composing himself. He seemed to realize Kaylin was baiting him, because he kept his voice calm as he said to Beck, “He’s in the same meeting room we met in earlier. I’m headed over there now. Get the thief and join me.” He strode off, speaking into his comm unit in French again.
Beck nodded and headed toward Kaylin’s room. She was just a single hallway away from his—he’d asked that she be put in an emptied guest room, instead of a cell. A guard was stationed outside Kaylin’s door, and she nodded to Beck and turned to unlock the door for him.
He nodded to the guard and strode inside Kaylin’s room, closing the door behind him. Kaylin was waiting for him, fully dressed and wide awake. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who’d given up on getting some sleep.
“What’s going on?” she demanded.
Beck pointed to her waist, where she had a comm unit clipped to her belt. “Give it,” he said, reaching out toward her and folding his hand in a clasping motion.
Kaylin scowled at him and drew back. “I’m not a dog.”
“No, you’re a person, and one Duval will gladly dispose of if you start making too much trouble,” Beck said, shooting her a stern look. He reached toward the comm unit again. “Now hand it over.”
She met his hard stare with a steely gaze of her own. Finally, Beck let out a short sigh.
“I’ll keep you up to date on what’s happening,” he promised. “You don’t need to listen in on the radio chatter. If anything happens that might affect our plans, you’ll be the first to know about it. And I’ll get both you and Matteo your own comm units before we go into the tunnels, so you’ll be able to communicate when you need to.”
Kaylin considered this for a long moment. Finally, she nodded, and Beck felt a familiar warmth in his chest. Getting Kaylin to trust him in even the smallest things always felt like winning a battle.
Kaylin slipped the stolen comm unit off her belt and tossed it to him. He caught it, tucked it in the pocket of his pants, and then nodded toward the door.
“We need to go,” he said, his tone growing grim as he remembered why exactly he’d come to get her. “The Wardens attacked a group of street kids, and one of the survivors wants to talk with us.”
Shock and pain coursed across her expression, followed a split second later by fury. She gritted her jaw and nodded toward the door. “Let’s go,” she said, her tone as heavy and sharp as a steel blade.
Red leaped off the bed and raced across the room after her, the spikes along his back raising as he took in Kaylin’s amped mood. The lizard padded toward the door, but Kaylin held out her hand to halt him.
“Not this time, Red,” she said sternly. “You stay back here.”
The lizard stared up at her and snorted, clearly not happy with the order. But Kaylin pointed a commanding finger back toward the bed. “You’re going to scare the kid. Stay here.”
Red gave one more snort, but he turned around and slunk back toward the bed, shooting Kaylin a betrayed look over his shoulder. For once, she ignored her pet and just nodded toward Beck. “Are we going, or what?”
Beck unlocked the door and guided them through the twisting hallways of the base, their boots striking the ground in a quick rhythm. They passed a few guards, but most of the base was eerily still, its soldiers still asleep in their bunks and blissfully unaware of the chaos going on in the city.
They made their way back to the meeting room they’d been sitting inside just hours before. There were only three people inside—a young guard who stood at attention by the door, Duval, and Adrien.
The orphan boy sat at the head of the table, covered in a mixture of dirt, ash, and half-dried blood. Tear streaks ran through the blood smeared on his face, and his shoulders stooped with exhausted defeat. But despite his haggard appearance, Adrien’s dark eyes smoldered with a fire that seemed to heat the room with rage.
Beck’s gut sank, and beside him, he heard Kaylin suck in a choked breath. Adrien’s words echoed in Beck’s mind: “The Wardens don’t take kindly to snitches.”
Adrien hadn’t given them any useful info before he’d practically chased them off his territory earlier that day. But he had stopped to talk to two Resistance soldiers, and that must have been enough. Someone had been spying, and someone saw the conversation, and someone reported it to the Wardens.
A surge of nausea swept over Beck. This was his fault.
“Do you know him?” Duval asked, pointing a finger at Adrien.
Beck nodded. “We met earlier, when we were scouting out the entrance to the Wardens’ base.” He turned to Duval an
d gestured toward the door. “I think we need some time alone.”
Duval hesitated for a moment, but then he nodded and stood from the table. He gestured to the guard stationed at the door, silently ordering her to follow him outside. The door slid shut behind them, leaving only Beck, Kaylin, and Adrien in the room.
Beck cleared his throat and took a seat across the table from the boy. Adrien still didn’t say a word, his eyes locked in an intense glare.
“Adrien,” Beck said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. So, so sorry. I had no idea—”
Adrien snarled a laugh. “No idea? Bullshit. You knew how deadly the Wardens were, but you decided to waltz all over my territory and drag my siblings into this mess.”
All the air vanished from Beck’s lungs. He should have left Adrien’s territory the moment the boy ordered him to. He never should have tried to pry information out of the kid.
Kaylin took a seat next to Beck, her movements calm, but her expression stricken with grief. “Was anyone killed during the attack?” she asked, her voice a pained whisper.
Adrien’s rage suddenly fell away from his expression, and he stared down at the table with a numb look. “Three,” he said, the word choked. “But it might as well have been eight. They took five of the older ones back to their base.”
Beck bit his lip to keep in a curse. That was half of Adrien’s street family downed in one evening.
“I’m so sorry,” Kaylin whispered.
Adrien ignored her and kept his gaze locked on the table. “They raided our camp as soon as night fell. Someone must have seen us talking and reported it. Usually, the Wardens wouldn’t care about a short meeting like that, but... Something’s got them spooked. They’re on high alert.”
He looked up and stared at them with wide, haunted eyes. “If I’d known, I would have shot you two the moment I saw you.”
“If we’d known, we never would have gone near you,” Beck said. “I swear to you, we had no idea they’d retaliate like this.”