The Girl Who Dared to Endure

by Bella Forrest

  “Our new home is over the hydro-turbines,” he finally said. “Hidden between Turbines 2 and 3, in an unused monitoring facility.”

  I looked over at Tian, who was wearing a satisfied smile on her face, her eyes already seeking and holding my own. “I told you there was a good hiding place over the hydro-turbines,” she crowed, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief.

  She was right, and while I was happy for her victory, my mind was already whirling. Over the hydro-turbines was perfect; Strum would know how to get in and out of there unnoticed, as the turbines belonged to Water Treatment. We knew who the father of all the undocs was and had enough evidence between Sadie’s files and the three AI fragments to sink them all.

  Now all we had to do was round every last legacy up before Sadie, Plancett, or Dreyfuss noticed what we were up to.

  37

  The hours after Eric’s call and Lacey’s message consisted of a whirlwind of activity, from planning the raid with Lacey and Strum, to meeting all the people who were going to be involved, to finally getting to our starting points and beginning to shift into what would be our final placements before the raid on the undoc stronghold began.

  It had taken Lacey and Strum only four hours to formulate a plan of attack, which was impressive, considering the location the undocs had chosen to hide in was damn difficult to get to. The large monitoring station between the hydro-turbines was only accessible from the Tower through doors on the east side of the compartment, and the legacies undoubtedly had guards at those doors. Guards who would buy time for their comrades in the back to escape, and possibly warn Sadie and the others that their cover had been blown.

  Meaning a direct assault through the doors was going to be impossible.

  Coming at them through the access hatches on the outside was also impractical. The water kicked up there by the hydro-turbines would render the lash beads completely useless, and Quess didn’t have any time to make more humidity-resistant lash ends. So that option had been eliminated as well.

  That left the ventilation ducts that fed into the section. Which were numerous, as the entire monitoring station held rooms and offices for the Divers who came in to perform inspections and studies on the hydro-turbines, which often took days or weeks. And because of the station’s proximity to the river below, the humidity rate was high—and lots of ventilation was required to keep the water from eroding the metal of the Tower.

  But it was all we had, considering the plan Lacey and Strum had formulated. Even now, they and their teams were moving into position, hauling large canisters of X-21J—a sleeping agent designed by the Medica and the Knights to help stop large-scale riots should they occur—to dump in the atmospheric processors that led into the rooms. The plan was to flood the place with the gas. It was late at night (or early in the morning), and we were banking on most of the legacies being asleep when the gas started pouring through. But there was every chance that some would be awake. And they would have a small window of opportunity to escape, or call Sadie or Dreyfuss for help. Which was why it was critical for us to be in the vents, ready to enter, then secure and restrain every legacy as soon as the gas started to pour in.

  But Scipio help me, I hated crawling around in vents.

  I shifted slightly in the cramped tube Leo and I were hiding in, trying to relieve some of the pain that had developed in my lower back in the thirty minutes he and I had been here. We were holding position in a junction, listening for Maddox and Quess to confirm troop placement before we proceeded to the next turn.

  Because everyone had to be in place before anyone started anything. And in some places, some people had to climb through hundreds of feet of duct before reaching an opening, circumnavigating the entire area. In order to prevent confusion, Maddox was guiding us to our designated placements step by step, but that took time.

  Lots and lots of nail-biting, stomach-churning time. It was almost a joy when I finally heard Maddox say, All right, primary teams, go ahead and move forward to the next junction, and then hold for secondary teams.

  Even though her words meant that Leo and I would be holding our positions again for several minutes, forward motion was good, and I quickly unfolded myself until I was lying on my stomach. My lower back twinged in protest, but I ignored it as I shuffled onto my hands and knees and began to crawl down the dark shaft.

  Leo was carrying the light behind me, and out of habit, I kept as far to one side of the tunnel as possible to let light stream past me and illuminate the path ahead. Even though he was supposed to be in front of me, I was smaller and could maneuver more quickly in the tight confines of the room. We would switch eventually, either in the tunnels if the room we were entering was occupied, or in the room itself if it wasn’t. I spotted a gap between two bits of duct, indicating a duct heading straight down, and I slowed to a stop, settling in the middle of the tunnel to block the light with my body while signaling for him to kill the light.

  I stopped at the edge and peeked over into the room below. Darkness greeted my eyes, telling me the room wasn’t being used or was filled with sleeping people, and I quickly crossed over the space, moving as silently as possible. I moved down a few feet and then managed to turn around enough to check on Leo’s progress. My heart raced in my chest as he carefully pulled himself over the gap, taking his time. If the room was filled with sleeping people, the slightest sound from either of us might wake them up and warn them of our presence.

  The hand light in his grip made the slightest tapping sound as he reached out with that hand to brace his weight, but it was whisper-soft, only loud in my ears. Within seconds, he was securely on the other side of the vent, and I was moving again. There was another forty feet of duct space before the vent dead-ended, and I turned left, remembering my instructions from last time, and then stopped about ten feet in. Team 2 in position, I dutifully reported.

  Teams 1, 3, 4, 5, 7 are also in position, Maddox’s voice buzzed in my ear. Team 6 is taking a detour due to a damaged duct, and estimating another nine minutes until the secondary teams are in their final positions. Hold tight.

  I tried not to let out an impatient sigh. This was our third round of troop movements, and the secondary teams, the ones hauling the canisters of gas, took the longest time to get into position. Luckily, this was our second to last movement before we were all finally in our final positions, but unluckily, that meant even more waiting. For a long time. A ridiculously long time.

  This time I did sigh, and carefully tried to maneuver myself into something resembling a position of comfort. After three rounds, you’d think I’d have the hang of it, but so far, nothing seemed to alleviate the pain in my back or the occasional bout of impatience that struck me as the seconds marched on into minutes.

  Truthfully, I had mixed feelings about how long this was taking. On the one hand, it was to be expected; we had over seventy people in the ventilation shafts, a quarter of them wriggling around with large canisters of the sleeping agent to put into the air processing units. The rest of us were stuck waiting, just listening for the order that would send us wriggling forward.

  The wait had helped burn off some of the excited nervousness I’d had when we first slipped into the shaft, eager to finally start putting an end to the legacy threat, but once it was gone, I was only left with the dark, my nerves, and a highly overactive imagination that kept going over how everything could go wrong.

  “Stop,” Leo whispered next to me as my shifting weight caused the thin metal beneath us to bend, resulting in a dull thud. I wasn’t too concerned—we still had one more junction to go and weren’t that close to the room yet—but he was right. I needed to try being quieter. The ducts had a funny way of carrying sound, and while our entry point was supposedly just a storeroom, any legacy who was inside and heard a sound coming through the vents might check it out. And we’d be sunk.

  “Sorry,” I replied, my voice just as soft. But the pain in my spine intensified in protest at the new position I had just wriggled into,
signaling that a vertebra was about to pop out of position. “But I have to do something. My back is killing me.”

  I looked over at where he was folded up beside me, his features barely lit by the light between us. We had it set to the lowest setting and would shut it off when we got to our entry point, but for now it was the only thing holding back the claustrophobic darkness. “Me too. I have an idea.”

  I watched as he slowly started to unfold himself, sticking his legs behind him until he was laying on his side. It was a little tight for him—his shoulders were squished between the top and the bottom of the vent—but we were both thin enough that we could lie front to back. That was all it took to convince me, and within seconds I was lying pressed up against him, stretching my legs and lower back out. The relief was immediate, and I couldn’t help the small sound of pleasure that slipped through my lips.

  Luckily, it wasn’t loud enough to carry very far.

  “I feel you,” he whispered, his breath brushing against the sensitive skin of my earlobe and sending shivers down my spine. “Here, move forward a little?”

  Scipio help me, Leo was going to give me a back rub. A part of me wanted to argue; after all, we were just waiting for everyone to get into position before we could move again. We should be alert and ready. At the same time, if I didn’t do something to pass the time, I was going to go stark raving mad. Besides, Leo and Grey weren’t going to do anything to jeopardize the mission. And my back was hurting.

  I tried to steady myself as I shifted forward a few inches, and then his thumbs were pressing on either side of my lower spine, digging into the aching muscles.

  “Oh, that’s perfect,” I said with a sigh, relaxing further into his hands as he found a particularly sore spot and quickly removed the ache with a few strong rubs of his thumbs. This was okay—a distraction in the form of some much-needed pain relief. Besides, it didn’t hurt that he did it so well… Which made me wonder how he knew how to do it in the first place. “Is this Leo or Grey?” I asked, curious.

  “One hundred percent human,” he replied, and I smiled, realizing I was talking to Grey.

  “Hey,” I said with a smile. Then I frowned, realizing I hadn’t touched base with him once since everything had started to gain momentum. Undoubtedly, he was nervous, considering this would be the first time he and Leo were in a combat situation together since he woke up, and I felt bad that I hadn’t taken the time to make sure he was handling it okay. “I haven’t had a moment to ask how you were holding up with all of this. Everything came together really fast.”

  “I’m… nervous,” he admitted. “But I know Leo can handle a fight if things get too crazy. Besides, I should be asking you how you’re holding up. You seem tense.”

  He hit another stiff muscle, and I bit back a groan as his thumb stroked over it. “And the award for understatement of the year goes to…”

  I trailed off and was rewarded by a soft chuckle from Grey. “I suppose you’re right. I feel like I was asleep for months, when in reality it was just a couple of weeks. A lot went down without me. And what’s worse, you had to do all of it alone. You have every right to be stressed.”

  “I wasn’t alone,” I said immediately. “I had the others.”

  He snorted. “That’s not the same, and you know it. You shoulder everything. The responsibility is enormous, and it’s all fallen squarely on you. I can only imagine how hard it’s been—every step back, every deviation, every loss…”

  I sniffled, his words hitting too close to home, touching a nerve that I’d done my best to keep hidden from everyone. Pain flooded me, not only from the idea that I was going to lose the others, but from the sheer amount of stress I had been under for the past few weeks. Grey knew—he understood. I hadn’t been able to talk about it with anyone else because it didn’t seem fair. If I was frustrated with one of them, and started venting to someone else, then it would just create a bad environment. And if I was constantly expressing my doubts and fears to them, it would be toxic to our little group.

  But holding it in had been toxic to me. Now Grey was back, and it was like he knew exactly what to say to draw the truth out of me.

  “I feel out of my mind half the time,” I told him, giving my thoughts freedom. “I worry about everything and everyone, and… Scipio help me, I’ve gotten so paranoid not knowing who to trust. There’s this one Knight, an old friend of my mother’s. I’ve known her my entire life, and I have no idea whose side she’s on. I still don’t really know if I can trust her!”

  I paused, taking a moment to realize what I had just said. Even with a potential end in sight, I was still doubting those around me. We had Sadie’s files. We had discovered her conspiracy with Plancett and had DNA evidence confirming Dreyfuss’s role in all this, as well as Eric witnessing the exchange between the two of them. I should have been more confident, but all I could feel was anxiety that I was missing someone, something, somewhere. And I couldn’t help it as the truth spilled out of me.

  “Even now, I can’t help but feel like I’ve missed something or someone important, or that all of this is going to wind up to be a huge setup, somehow. The legacies have been ninety bajillion steps ahead of us the entire time. I just can’t seem to believe that this is going to work!”

  “Hey,” he said, his arms coming around my side to pull me tight to his chest, tethering me to him. “It’s okay. I promise you, it’s going to be okay. Let’s think it through logically and see if maybe you did miss something. I don’t think that you did, but maybe it will make you feel better. Let’s see… You got all of the information from Sadie’s computer on how many were in her legacy group and about… half that group’s placements in various departments, right?”

  “Right,” I agreed, curious as to where he was going. “The spy legacies.”

  “Yes, well, Sadie could know that you took those, but her lack of action tells me that she bought your cover story. I mean, that was really sensitive information, but given the measures you and Leo took, she has no reason to believe it’s been stolen. If she thought it had, surely she would have reacted by now.”

  I bit my lip. It was a fair point—unless, of course, they somehow knew what we were up to and were using it as a trap to lure us in. What better way to eliminate your enemy than by drawing them in to a fight that could get them killed?

  “It could be a trick,” I said.

  “Maybe, but this didn’t just come from Sadie’s files. You got the blood tests from both the Medica, and then later from Lacey and Strum. The location for the undoc side of the legacies came from Liam. I mean, it’s not like all of it came from Sadie’s files. A lot of it, yes, like Dr. Smiley, but you had to fit the pieces together to understand it in its entirety, and much of that information was given by multiple sources. If it’s a trick, then it’s one that required a lot more foresight then I think they had time for.”

  My mouth tightened in automatic disbelief. He was right, but I couldn’t seem to get my nerves to agree. All I could think was that if we missed even one legacy—if we let one get away—then all of this could start again. He or she could try to rescue their people before they were executed, or finish whatever plan they had for Scipio before we had a chance to fix him. “I don’t know… It just feels like… It’s so much so fast. I don’t trust it.”

  “Or it’s the result of your investigative work finally paying off,” he said, and I could hear a tinge of exasperation in his voice. “Look, I’m not going to lie. Is there a chance that you were noticed collecting the DNA, or that Sadie somehow figured out that you stole her files? Absolutely. Of course. But I don’t think so. I don’t think so, because every move that’s taken you closer to them has put them off balance, and forced them to react to you, instead of working on whatever it is they’re planning. Every step you’ve made has been logical, and the risks you took were calculated. There is no reason for you to doubt anything, and doing so is a waste of your beautiful mind.”

  His words were like a balm to my
ravaged soul, and it was only the tight confines of the shaft that prevented me from turning around in his arms and showing him exactly how much better he had made me feel. I was still scared, but finally giving voice to those fears helped tremendously.

  “You always know the perfect thing to say,” I said, resting my arm over his and threading our fingers together.

  “That’s because I’m perfect,” he shot back, and I bit back a laugh at the pained quality of his voice. “It’s my burden to bear.”

  I snorted. “Scipio help me, I have no idea how you fit both your ego and Leo’s in that head of yours.”

  “Well, it helps that we have similar interests,” he replied in a hungry voice, and pleasure curled through me when I realized he—they?—were referring to me. Heat bloomed in my cheeks, and I ducked my head, suddenly feeling weird. It was nice that Grey seemed to have a handle on sharing his body with Leo, but I still wasn’t as confident that this could work, even with him insisting that it could. Two minds in one body? It was a recipe for jealousy and pettiness, no matter what Grey or Leo said.

  “I still can’t get over how at ease you are with all of this,” I told him, unable to keep it back. Maddox’s voice buzzed in my ear, notifying me that two more teams had gotten into position, and I paused to make sure we weren’t about to move.

  We weren’t, much to my relief.

  “If I were you, I’d be hurt and angry.”

  “You’re not me,” he interjected softly. “Leo’s not me, either, and he’s just as confused as you are.”

  “Well, I’m not confused, just… I have a lot of doubts,” I admitted. “How can you not feel betrayed?”