Sky Without Stars

by Jessica Brody

  “But you know it’s not true, don’t you, my pretty?” The man sneered. “He’s as much your father as I am. I doubt you’ll ever know who your real father is. Blood whores, like your maman, tend to get around. They’ll do anything for an extra larg.”

  Hugo tried to fight against his restraints again, but the paralyzeur in his veins was still too strong. His neck muscles bulged from the effort and his face contorted. But apparently it was still enough to frighten Monsieur Renard, because he scuttled away from Hugo like a rat.

  “That’s not true!” Alouette shouted, even though she knew she had absolutely no authority in the matter.

  Madame Renard threw her head back and guffawed. “Of course it’s true! Why do you think she dumped you with us in the first place? Because there was no father to dump you with!” She flicked the rayonette toward Hugo. “This one bought you from us like a sac of potatoes at a market stall. He’s definitely not your Papa.”

  Alouette turned back to Hugo. This time her voice was soft, tentative, pleading.

  “Papa?” she whispered.

  Hugo slowly lifted his gaze to meet hers. The gag was still in his mouth. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t need to speak. His eyes said everything.

  It was all true.

  - CHAPTER 68 -

  CHATINE

  CHATINE WAS NOT USED TO hiding in trees. She was used to hiding in the skeletons of broken-down, mold-ridden former freightships. She much preferred the Frets, though. That maze of leaky pipes and exposed beams made sense to her. This tree on the edge of what could only be an abandoned Défecteur camp was jagged and scratchy and far too noisy.

  Below her, her croc parents had Jean LeGrand and his daughter tied to the base of a tree and were now dancing like idiots, celebrating their incoming reward. Chatine knew she had to think and act fast, before Inspecteur Limier arrived. She guessed, from their AirLink conversation earlier, that he was traveling by transporteur. Those hulking vehicles could never make it through these dense trees. Which meant he would be forced to traverse the Forest Verdure on foot.

  She glanced around the clearing for something she could use as a weapon, cursing herself for not taking Sergent Chacal’s baton with her after she’d smashed in his pomp face. Through the tall grass, Chatine spotted a peculiar collection of stones, arranged in some kind of pattern. They were big enough to knock someone out, but not big enough to do permanent damage. She could stash her parents’ unconscious bodies in the woods and be ready to claim the reward when Limier arrived.

  She shimmied toward the trunk of the tree and tested her weight on the next-lowest branch, gingerly pressing her foot down to make sure it would hold her.

  “I will say, though,” her mother was saying below her. “We could really have used that money back then. Those were hard times. No food. Too many debts. We lost our inn. We were so poor, we even had to sell one of our babies. My poor little Henri. My one and only son—”

  The branch snapped. Chatine plummeted. She desperately reached out for something to grab on to. Her hands just barely caught the end of another branch, and she managed to haul herself onto it. The commotion had surely given her away, but Chatine could no longer bring herself to care. Her body, her mind, everything had gone numb. Like a droid had emptied an entire round of paralyzeurs straight into her veins.

  The forest seemed to go dark. Empty. Silent. Until all she could feel, taste, hear, see, and smell were her mother’s words.

  “. . . we even had to sell one of our babies. My poor little Henri.”

  No. That couldn’t be true. Sell Henri? Her mother was lying. She was just playing one of her mind games, toying with Alouette and her father to try to evoke sympathy.

  Henri is dead, Chatine affirmed silently in her mind. His little body was sent to the morgue. My mother told me . . .

  But then her heart started to thunder as she remembered.

  I never saw the body.

  I went to the morgue. I searched the cavs, but it wasn’t there. I always assumed they’d already disposed of it.

  Her gaze shifted down to her Skin as she thought of the alert she’d received tonight about Azelle.

  “Please accept our condolences . . . Her body is being transferred to the Vallonay Med Center . . . May she rest with the Sols.”

  Had Chatine ever seen an alert for Henri? On her own Skin or on her parents’?

  The answer slowly turned the numbness in her veins into a red-hot rage.

  It was true. Her mother had sold her little brother. Sold him like he was a sac of turnips or a jug of weed wine. Sold him like he was nothing. Like he wasn’t Chatine’s sky and stars. Like he wasn’t the only good thing in her life.

  She’d told Chatine the baby was dead.

  She’d blamed Madeline!

  She’d said the girl had dropped Henri on his head.

  Chatine had lived with that horrible image in her mind for the past twelve years. It had haunted her in every waking moment and in every tormented dream.

  And it had been a lie.

  But even more incomprehensible was that Chatine had believed it. She should have known better than to believe anything her parents had to say. They were crocs, the very worst kind. They lied to everyone. Even to each other. Especially to each other.

  But this lie was different. It had changed Chatine. Every single day it had turned her a little darker. A little angrier. For the past twelve years, it had slowly been forming her into the person she now was:

  The girl in the black hood who hid in the ceilings of Frets. Who watched and listened to the world beneath her. Who dreamed impossible dreams of escape. Who was always, constantly, bitterly, eternally . . .

  Alone.

  And who was now watching her entire life vanish into the mist like it had never existed in the first place. Like it had been built upon nothing more than unstable air.

  Chatine stared down at the girl who sat on the cold, wet ground, her hands bound behind her back, her face a canvas of fear and disbelief.

  She hadn’t killed Chatine’s little brother.

  She was innocent.

  She was just as much a victim of the Renards as Chatine was. As little baby Henri was.

  Then a thought struck Chatine so hard, she lost her balance and nearly fell out of the tree again.

  Is he still alive?

  Suddenly, a loud clanging alarm sounded through the forest, and Chatine was blinded by a beam of light so bright, it seemed to illuminate the entire wood. A few seconds later, five hulking, towering droids stomped out of the trees and into the clearing, their sirens whirling and the orange beams from their eyes sweeping the ground.

  “Halt!” one of the droids bellowed. “By the order of the Patriarche, you are commanded to halt. Abandon any weapons you have in your possession. Anyone who makes any sudden movements will be immobilized.”

  Chatine froze. She wasn’t yet sure whether she’d been detected, but if she hadn’t, she wanted to keep it that way.

  Far below, her parents froze too. Her mother dropped her rayonette. Her father shot his hands into the air. It was the first time she’d ever seen her father so willingly obey a basher. But Chatine knew he was not freezing for them. He was freezing for him.

  A man emerged from the trees a moment later, the circuits on his face flashing and flickering as he surveyed the scene.

  “Inspecteur Limier!” her father sang out, sounding, for once in his life, overjoyed to come face-to-face with the enemy of every croc in the Frets. “So lovely to see you on this fine evening. How are you doing, mon ami? Feeling good? Feeling fit? Cyborg circuits functioning in fine form, I see.”

  The inspecteur did not look amused by her father’s playful banter. Then again, the inspecteur never looked amused. He flicked his gaze toward the white-haired man, still bound and gagged next to Alouette. Chatine noticed the look of fear that flashed on the fugitive’s face. His worst nightmare come true.

  “That’s right,” Monsieur Renard said, his hands still high
in the air. “We got him. One Jean LeGrand served fresh to you on a titan platter.” Her father beamed at the inspecteur, like he was expecting a compliment and a pat on the back. “We’ll take the twenty thousand in tokens or titan blocs. It’s all up to you, of course.”

  The inspecteur nodded curtly and made his way toward the two bound prisoners. He looked LeGrand up and down, as though checking to make sure he was real, before turning his sights on Alouette.

  He clucked his tongue. “If it isn’t little Madeline. Alive and well. I thought you were dead. Pity. It would have made all of this so much tidier.”

  LeGrand yelled something inaudible beneath his gag and attempted to kick Limier in the shins, but the large man’s legs were weakened by the paralyzeur still pumping in his veins, and the inspecteur easily stepped back, out of range. “What’s that, LeGrand?” he taunted. “I can’t quite make out what you’re saying.” He reached forward and pulled the gag down.

  “Leave her alone, Limier!” LeGrand bellowed. “She does not concern you! This is between us. Let her go. You can have me. But let her go.”

  “Why don’t you let me decide what does and does not concern me,” Limier said, his voice eerily steady.

  “Limier,” LeGrand growled. “I’m warning you.”

  But Limier turned away from the white-haired man. “Be patient, LeGrand. I’ll deal with you in a minute. First I have some Délabré scum to take care of.”

  He flicked one hand toward Chatine’s parents. “Arrest both of them.”

  The droids sprang into action, turning toward the two scraggly crocs, who still had their hands in the air.

  One droid managed to get hold of Madame Renard, who kicked and squirmed and tried to slap the basher in the face, but Monsieur Renard was faster. Before Limier had even finished his command, he was already sprinting through the trees. A droid took off after him, and a moment later, Chatine heard a familiar warbling sound, followed by a sickening thump as the rayonette pulse found its target.

  “What the fric is this?” Madame Renard spat, still struggling in vain with her droid. “You can’t do this! What about our reward?”

  Limier let out a mirthless chuckle. “Reward? You honestly think I would ever give money to a Renard?”

  Chatine immediately felt the sharp sting of betrayal. Not on behalf of her parents—Limier could do whatever he wanted with those liars—but on behalf of herself. She, too, had put her hopes on that reward. And she had no doubt that if she had been able to successfully play out her plan, she too would have seen it ripped right out from under her. She wasn’t sure why this should surprise her. She’d never trusted Limier. But the twenty thousand largs had blinded her. Just as they had clearly blinded her parents.

  Chatine heard a strange noise—a scuffling of some sort—and her gaze was pulled back to Alouette and LeGrand, still tied to the tree. Except Alouette was writhing now, kicking and fighting against her restraints as though she’d gone mad.

  “Hush, Little Lark,” LeGrand said soothingly. “Hush.”

  Chatine froze.

  What did he just say?

  She was almost certain she had misheard him from this distance.

  But then the girl bucked again and LeGrand repeated it. This time, louder. “Little Lark. Please look at me.”

  And that’s when Chatine knew she had not been mistaken.

  She had not misunderstood.

  She knew what she’d heard.

  And suddenly, every bit of anger in her blood melted away and all she could feel was hope.

  A surge of deep-rooted, untapped, unexpected, unforeseen hope.

  Little Lark.

  Jean LeGrand had just called Alouette “Little Lark.”

  Her ears were ringing at the sound of that word. There was no way it was a coincidence. Chatine had seen the reaction on Marcellus’s face after he’d read that word. After Roche had scribbled it onto his TéléCom.

  “Lark.”

  That word had meant something to him. That word had gotten Roche sent to a holding cell to await passage to Bastille.

  But it wasn’t a word, was it?

  It was a name.

  It was a person.

  It was her.

  She could remember Marcellus shaking Roche, demanding to know, “Where are they?”

  Chatine had known he was talking about the Vangarde, but at the time, she couldn’t fathom how Marcellus had made the connection. Now she could.

  That girl down there, whispering desperate, tearful pleas to Jean LeGrand, she wasn’t a Défecteur. She was one of them.

  She was a member of the Vangarde.

  That gap in the floor of the mechanical room wasn’t a Défecteur hideout as Chatine had originally thought. It was something else. Something the Ministère had been searching for for the past seventeen years.

  Something worth a one-way ticket to Usonia.

  While the two droids continued to wrestle with her parents, Chatine carefully climbed back down the tree and landed softly on the wet ground. She moved quickly, darting across the undergrowth and leaping over the small rocks that blocked her path. When she was far enough away—out of earshot of even the droids—she pulled back her sleeve. She tapped the screen in her arm to initiate an AirLink and pronounced the name painstakingly slow, so the Skin wouldn’t—couldn’t—miss a single syllable.

  “General Bonnefaçon.”

  - CHAPTER 69 -

  ALOUETTE

  ALOUETTE WISHED THE RENARDS HAD gagged her, too. It would have made it easier to keep the scream locked inside. She felt it bubbling, burning, ready to burst out of her.

  Her father was not her father.

  He’d paid for her.

  Bought her like a loaf of bread from these people.

  These Renards, whose faces tickled the frayed edges of her memory as they were carried off by droids.

  And this creature—this uniformed cyborg—knew her father. He knew her. He’d called her the same name those people had called her: Madeline.

  It was all too much. Everything was too much. She couldn’t take it anymore. She kicked and squirmed and fought against her restraints. She felt the rough bark of the tree scraping at her wrists, but she didn’t care. She needed to get out. She couldn’t be here any longer with this stranger who claimed to be her father. Who’d lied to her for almost her entire life. About everything. Even her name.

  “Hush, Little Lark. Hush,” Hugo whispered to her.

  But those words—those same words that had once calmed her—now only made her angrier, more restless. More determined to flee.

  “Little Lark,” Hugo spoke again. “Please look at me.”

  “No,” she spat. “I never want to look at you again!”

  “Alouette,” her father said. All the regret and tenderness in his voice was gone. “You need to listen to me. This man—Inspecteur Limier—he’s very dangerous. I need you to—”

  “I’ve waited a long time for this, LeGrand.” The chilling words broke though the cold air. Alouette looked up.

  Into the gloom.

  Into the dark forest.

  Into the eerie, terrifying orange eye of the cyborg who was now stalking toward them with the purpose and fastidiousness of a paralyzeur pulse. The long grass parted like oceans as he stalked forward, and his oblivious black boots kicked and pummeled at the gravestones under his feet. It was only now that Alouette realized they were alone with him. The droids had all vanished into the trees.

  “Too long,” the inspecteur said.

  Alouette felt Hugo stiffen beside her. “Look, you can have me, but let Alouette go. She has nothing to do with this. This is between you and me.”

  Alouette watched, alarmed, as the lights flashed on the inspecteur’s forehead and cheek. “So that’s what you’re calling her now, is it? Alouette?” The inspecteur leaned in close to her, his orange eye whirring and clicking. “What’s the matter? You didn’t like the name your déchet mother gave you?”

  “Leave her alone,” Hugo
growled.

  The inspecteur’s lip quirked into an unsettling smile as he stood up straighter and pulled his rayonette from its holster, brushing his thumb tauntingly against the lever on the side. When he spoke again, his voice was impassive, almost businesslike. “I won’t be releasing you or her. You are a criminal and she is the daughter of a worthless blood whore. The Regime has no use for either of you.”

  “Limier,” Hugo implored. “How many times must I tell you? I’m a changed man. I’ve learned to be decent. Moral. Good. I’m no longer the—”

  “You will never change, LeGrand,” the inspecteur shot back, his grip around the rayonette tightening. “Never. Criminals don’t change. You are as permanent, fixed, and unchangeable as this.” Limier bent down and, with the tip of his weapon, tapped five times against Hugo’s upper arm. “2460 . . . 1.” He spat the last number.

  “Fine,” Hugo said. “Then send me back to Bastille. Just let her go.”

  “What good would it do to send you back there? You’ll only escape again. I’ve chased you across Laterre. Hunted you down for far too long. You’ve evaded me one too many times, LeGrand.” Limier clicked his neck to the side, and Alouette could swear she heard metal parts grinding. “I’m done chasing you. This is where the hunt ends.”

  Alouette blinked up at the inspecteur, and suddenly it was as though a blanket of fog was slowly lifting from that memory lurking in the back of her mind.

  She and her father huddled on the cold, wet ground.

  An enormous rock pressing down on them.

  The sound of footsteps.

  “Hush, ma petite. Hush.”

  They had been running. They had been hiding.

  From him.

  Inspecteur Limier’s thumb came to rest on top of the lever on the side of his rayonette. Then, with the flick of his finger, he pushed it until it could go no farther. Until the weapon was armed to its fullest capacity.