“Can you get a message out to Haven now?” Bas asked through gritted teeth.
Nova nodded, her face pale. “I can use their equipment to send it, but our transmitter won’t work on its own… We can’t leave here yet.”
“And what do you think the odds are that the Coalition will notice that message?”
Nova shook her head mutely, and Bas turned away from her. “Fix the fucking transmitter so we can get the fuck out of here. I’m taking first watch.”
He stormed past a silent, tense Rory, who had begun administering Lex’s painmod dose, and climbed back up the ladder.
As he emerged from the basement, and the stench of the bedroom washed over him, he glanced at the bed and shuddered with disgust. Rory hadn’t put the mother out of her misery. Coward.
The woman was still breathing, her child curled up beside her in the filthy bed, one arm thrown across her mother’s waist.
Rory caught up to Bas when he was nearly out the front door and stepped in front of him.
“Move,” Bas said through gritted teeth. “I said I’ll take first watch. You sleep.”
Rory’s face was a picture of calm as he searched Bas’s, and Bas narrowed his eyes, putting up every shield he had to prevent Rory from seeing into him.
“I’m ordering you to sleep. We might have to run at any moment. Get rest.”
“You look like shit,” Rory replied evenly. “You’re starting to hallucinate, aren’t you? Since back there on the path. All of us are, after this many hours awake. I know I’m starting to see things that aren’t there… but I can handle a few more hours of this. You need to sleep first.”
Bas swallowed hard, suddenly questioning the existence of the ring he’d shoved in his pocket. But it was there. He could feel it, burning that hole in his breast pocket, radiating light from that goddamn defective sapphire.
“I’m fine. I’ll wake you up in a few hours.” Bas tried to push past Rory again, but Rory shifted, blocking his path.
“As your medic, I’m telling you to rest first. You can’t see yourself right now, but I can. Pale, sweating, hands shaking. You look like the walking dead, and we don’t give zombies guns, now do we? I’ve got this watch. We’ll get out of here at the first sign the Coalies detected that transmission. Sleep.”
Bas clenched his hands into fists to stop them from shaking and stared Rory down.
“The team needs you,” Rory continued. “You have some important decisions to make later. We need you at your best, Brother. This is not it, and you know it.”
Despite his calm demeanor, Bas detected the judgment in his voice.
We need you at your best… When you decide what to do about that girl and her mother.
If the Coalition did show up, Bas would make the right decision without hesitation. The two of them would have to die to keep Haven’s secrets safe. The question of their fate was the rest of Rory’s unspoken sentence, and Bas went ice cold at the thought, revolted by Rory’s attempts to manipulate him, and at his cowardice in not already putting that woman out of her misery. Why hadn’t he ever noticed before how much Rory manipulated everyone? He was using logic and attempting to appeal to Bas’s ego… because he thought that would work on him, the way a soothing, emotional tone worked on wounded animals and people.
Disgusting.
Bas wanted to argue, but he wanted to get the ring out of his pocket more. He wiped the sweat from his upper lip. “Wake me if anything changes, medic.”
Bas stalked into the extra bedroom—the one with a goddamn window—and shut the door firmly behind him, leaning against it for good measure.
His hands shook so badly that he nearly dropped the ring as he pulled it from his pocket.
A tiny lighthouse was still stamped inside the ring. And the star sapphire still laughed at him.
Watchtower.
The ring was not a hallucination.
But he wished it was.
Every person affiliated with the Watchtower resistance was supposed to be dead.
Ten members, the leaders of the resistance, had owned rings just like this one, created when they were just a group of dissidents…. A stupid mistake. It had made it that much easier to identify them and wipe them out. Nine of those rings had been melted down, the stones destroyed along with the rest of their belongings after the executions.
Bas had managed to save the tenth from that fate… so he could wear it, look at it in secret, remember every night what they’d taken from him.
This ring in his palm brought the number of rings to eleven.
It wasn’t possible that the woman dying on the other side of the wall—a woman who managed a Haven safe house—could possibly have a connection to the leaders of a resistance that collapsed fifteen years ago.
It should not exist…. But it did.
The reality of it made the room spin again, punched him in the gut, knocked the air from his lungs, made him fight the urge to puke.
Watchtower.
Who was that dying woman…and how much did she remember?
Even one memory of the event that had ended Watchtower was too much. Whatever happened next, Bas knew one thing:
The woman in the next room needed to die before she had a chance to talk.
I press my eye to the door crack and strain to hear what’s being said. They waited until they thought I was asleep to have this conversation.
Everyone I love most is in the office in our Seattle apartment. Daddy and Mommy huddle together in front of the wood desk, looking down at a holotab. My mom has one hand wrapped around her pregnant belly. Eli.
Nan stands across from them, blocking my view of whatever they’re looking at. Her hair is more gray than white, and she’s ghostly pale in contrast to my parents’ light brown skin.
“But what about Selene?” Mommy asks in a low voice.
Daddy puts a hand on her shoulder. “What about everyone else? All the other children? What about the other parents?”
“We can’t predict what the fallout will be,” Nan says.
Then she turns, with that sense of hers, and peers right at the crack in the door, catching me like always. I freeze.
“Selene?”
My parents both look at the door, and Nan marches over, exposing me.
She wraps me in a hug, then passes me off to Mommy, who kneels in front of me. “What did you hear, chickadee?”
“Nothing.” I stare down at my bare toes.
She brushes my cheek with a kiss. “Come on now, back to bed. Let’s read you a story.”
“Which one?” I say, getting excited. I’d rather hear a story than spy on their boring conversations anyway.
“Whatever you want.”
“The one about Pandora. But with your ending. The better ending.”
My mother nods, smiling. Then her face catches fire.
The flames leap toward me, and I scream, but she wraps her arms around me, clutching me tight. Her nose starts to melt, and strips of skin blacken. Her charred flesh peels away.
I struggle against her, and her tight grip loosens. Her hands fall away, bones and ash.
“Daddy!”
But my father’s on the floor, and he’s on fire, too. I stumble away from my parents and trip, falling to the floor as smoke fills the room, choking me. Flashing lights. Sirens. I press my hands over my ears. Where’s Nan? Did she abandon me?
No.
None of this is right. My parents died in a car accident, their bodies burned in the crash. This conversation—this night—happened before they died, before Eli was even born.
Selene opened her eyes.
Bright light sent stabbing pains radiating through her skull. She shut her eyes tight and rolled to the side, holding her head with both hands. Her stomach lurched, and she swallowed.
Her mouth tasted like dust.
I’m supposed to be dead.
She forced her eyes open and struggled to sit upright wi
thout puking. Her skull throbbed harder, and her eyes watered, but she rubbed them until her surroundings came into view.
Her heart rate skyrocketed, and bile crept up her throat.
She was on a metal cot with a thin white mattress. Cramped room, tile floor, white walls. Metal toilet and sink. Gray door with a small barred window.
No.
Selene leapt to her feet, and her legs gave out from under her. She crawled another foot, blackness clouding her vision, and heaved over the toilet.
But her stomach had nothing in it.
Her whole body shook as she gripped the edge of the sink and shakily lifted herself up. She leaned against it, panting.
The mirror above the sink was some kind of cheap reflective plastic that distorted her reflection. Tears filled her green eyes as she took herself in. Cut on her cheek, hair disheveled. Her back throbbed, and she turned carefully to look at the spot where she’d felt the bullets.
Her shirt had a tear in it. Two tiny holes, scabbed over, marred her skin.
Darts. Not bullets. Tranquilizers.
Selene’s throat closed, and she reached for her cuff.
Her fingertips found bare skin, slid over the silicone disc embedded in her wrist, making it jiggle back and forth.
Selene started breathing faster as she ran her hand up her arm to the crease of her elbow and the thin strip of tape there.
She ripped it off, wincing as it stretched bruised skin. The bandage had her blood on it.
They’d taken her blood.
Selene fought back a wave of dizziness and forced herself to take a few wavering steps to the door. She leaned against it, standing on her tiptoes to peer through the small window.
In the hallway outside, two cops stood talking, their expressions intense.
Selene couldn’t take her eyes off the patches on their uniforms.
A triquetra with an infinity symbol, cube, and gear.
Terror seized Selene, and she turned her back to the door and sank down on the tiles, breathing too fast.
A red light blinked, and her gaze followed it. Across the cell, in the top right corner, a shiny round disc reflected her. The red light blinked again.
It was a camera. They were watching.
Selene started to hyperventilate.
The Coalition had her.
And they knew she was Protected.
Anders slammed his shoulder into the root cellar doors again, and they shifted, letting more sunlight in, the chain clanging on the other side. He glimpsed the silver key, glinting in the mud two feet away from the doors. So thoughtful of Lydia to leave it there, just out of reach.
Anders had already tried propping the door open slightly with a board he’d torn from the shelving, but he’d been unable to drag the key closer to him. And even if he had the key, he couldn’t reach the lock no matter what he did.
He let out a groan and sank down on the steps. How many hours had he been stuck in here? Long to enough to read every story in Eli’s book at least a dozen times, and for the ancient bulb down here to burn out. His uncle or his dad should have come looking for him already…. He had actually started to regret taking the tracker out of his bike.
“Anders?” A deep voice called from above ground.
“I’m here!” Anders jumped to his feet, shouting, and he banged on the doors again. His voice sounded hoarse from all the yelling he’d already done today, every time he’d heard a sound outside.
The doors shook, and Anders’ heart sped up as the chain clattered. “The key’s in the dirt by your feet!”
Was his dad out there? Or was it his uncle? Anders backed down the steps and grabbed Eli’s book off the floor.
Both doors were flung open, and Anders blinked against the bright light as it flooded the root cellar. When he could see again, he found his Uncle Jay standing there, wearing jeans and a plain blue t-shirt.
Finally. Relief surged through him, and he hurried up the stairs and out into freedom.
“Hey, Princess,” Jay said gruffly. “Do I get a kiss?”
“Nah.” Anders smirked. “One more minute, and I was totally gonna rescue myself.”
“Mmm-hmm.” His uncle handed Anders a water bottle and dropped the key back onto the ground.
Anders shook his head and chugged the water, looking up at the sky. It looked hazy… and it smelled like wood smoke. Stronger than it had before. And it had to be a hundred degrees out here. Apparently root cellars and nanotech shirts were an excellent combination in a summer day prison.
He handed the water bottle back to Jay. “What time is it?”
“Three o’clock.”
Anders lifted a brow at the strange expression on Jay’s face. “Where’s dad? I thought I heard someone earlier…. Did he show up and decide to leave me here as punishment?”
His uncle frowned and looked away.
“Hey. They got away… but I got the card.” Anders pulled the bitstorage card from his back pocket and held it up in a victory pose.
“I’m not worried about that right now.”
“What?” Anders slid the card back into his pocket, confused.
Uncle Jay crossed his arms over his chest and looked at the house like it held something fascinating.
Then Anders remembered his backpack. He jogged over to the shed and found it right where he’d left it. He quickly checked it to make sure everything was still there.
When he discovered that his walkie and bitstick were still there, his relief went up a notch. He would have hated explaining to his dad where that walkie went. He dropped Eli’s book into his bag and rounded the shed. His uncle had walked off and was heading out the wide-open gate, where his two-door Goog was parked beside Anders’ bike.
Anders went straight for his bike, opening up the battery compartment. The part Lydia had needed was gone, as he’d suspected. “Uh-Uncle Jay… you got your repair kit with you?”
Uncle Jay removed a tool box from his trunk and set it at Anders’ feet, not looking at him and not saying a word. His weird EvasiveEnigmaticJay hybrid silence was unnerving. Anders rubbed his ear, pulling on it, then got to work, quickly replacing the connection on the battery. He could understand his uncle’s disappointment, but Anders had gotten the bitstorage card. Didn’t that count for anything?
When Anders was done, his uncle put the tool box back in the trunk and slammed it.
“Um… Shouldn’t we call my dad and tell him I have what he needs?”
Uncle Jay clasped his hands behind his back, and squinted one eye, looking up at Anders. “Get in the car so we can talk.”
“I can ride my bike—”
“We’re not going anywhere yet.”
Uh-oh. Anders turned away, making a face as he slid into the passenger side and shut the door.
When Jay was in the driver’s side, and he’d shut the door, he wrapped his hands around the steering wheel and looked at Anders. “We’ll worry about your dad and that card later. I have something else we need to discuss.”
“Okay…”
“I told you how the messages work—other Haven safe houses send ‘em, and I decode and forward what I get, as well as my own.”
Anders nodded slowly, his heart rate picking up.
“Right after you left this morning, I picked up a new message.”
“What about?” Anders leaned forward, heat coursing through him. Uncle Jay had hardly told him anything last night, and he definitely hadn’t expected his uncle’s conversation to be about Haven.
Jay rubbed his face, pinching his brow. Then he looked at Anders. “If I let you get involved in this, I have to know you’re ready—”
“Last night…” Anders pressed a hand into his chest. “I am ready.”
Jay held up a hand. “Messages are one thing. We move illegal supplies and people, Anders. Sometimes you’ll have to make choices… trade-offs.” Uncle Jay pursed his lips and looked away, out the windshield again. “Sacrif
ices.”
“I know. And I understand that.”
His uncle met his eyes again, but there was something heavy in his. “Do you? Tell me, then… why safeguarding Haven’s Path is important.”
Anders swallowed and sat taller. “If the Coalition finds out about it, they’ll find Haven and destroy it. And Haven’s our best chance at destroying the Coalition.”
“But what is Haven?”
“It’s an underground rebellion.”
“We are an underground rebellion.” Uncle Jay shook his head. “The rebellion is made up of people. Every single person along the Path risks their lives and the lives of their families every time they help the cause, every time they send out a message for Haven.”
Anders nodded, trying to figure out what his uncle was getting at. Hadn’t he already decided to let Anders in on Haven’s secrets last night?
“And the rebellion…” Jay continued. “It’s also the people at the end of Haven’s Path—or working outside of it. We don’t have to know how it works to know that a great many people must be involved in smuggling supplies… and helping people vanish from the Coalition’s database. Hundreds… even thousands of people have to be working with Haven.”
EnigmaticJay was staring at him with an intense gaze. “I will teach you about Haven’s Path… today. But only if you can show me you understand.”
Anders took a deep breath and ran his palms along his jeans. Energy was running through him, a vibrating excitement, but dread wrapped itself around his gut and squeezed. He hated it when he couldn’t parse what people were up to, and once again, his uncle seemed to do things for his own reasons… reasons that made no sense to Anders. He’d been expecting anger… disappointment… maybe another homestead ban until the Selene stuff got smoothed over. And here his uncle was, talking about showing Anders even more about Haven instead. Well, he wasn’t about to blow this chance.
Anders nodded, afraid to say something that would mess it up.
His uncle cleared his throat. “If you have to choose between sacrificing something important to you and protecting Haven’s Path, how will you make that decision?”
Defective (Fractured Era Book 1) Page 22
