by Kit Rocha
Zan. Noah and Emma. Hawk. Ford and Mia. Jade cast a long look over her shoulder at Mad before following Scarlet to stand with Trix and Finn. Lili was already there, proud and defiant next to a stern-faced Jared.
Dallas remained stoic—until Nessa took a step to the left.
She cut him off pleasantly, before he could say a word. "Fuck you. You'll be broke in a year without me. Plus you'll be sober, and none of us want to be sober tonight."
A smile tugged at Mad's lips in spite of himself. Dallas didn't need to take a vote—and he was the only one who didn't realize it.
The urge to smile vanished when Rachel started forward to join the crowd. Cruz caught her arm, holding her in place in the middle of the room. "Rachel—"
"No." Her voice trembled, but there was no mistaking her resolve. "You are not sending me away."
Cruz's tension worried Mad, but Ace was the one who really scared the hell out of him. He'd seen him look more cheerful with a gut wound. "Not here, Cruz."
"Why not here?" Rachel protested. "This is our family. His family." She dropped one protective hand to the flat slope of her belly. "I'd rather die than have this baby in a world where Eden bombs whole fucking sectors and no one—no one fights—" She burst into heavy, wracking sobs that shook her whole body.
Silence swept through the room as Ace wrapped her in his arms, and Mad knew he wasn't the only one remembering the joy and laughter that had followed Amira and Flash's announcement. Rachel, Ace, and Cruz deserved the same celebration.
Instead, they were getting tension and tears.
Mad reached out, but Dallas was already moving. He hopped off the dais and covered the intervening space in three long strides. Cruz went rigid when Dallas stopped in front of him, toe-to-toe in his personal space. "Her call, Cruz."
Cruz eyed him bleakly. "You'd feel the same way I do."
"Of course I would." Dallas raised his voice. "How many fantasies for getting you to the mountains did I cop to, Lex? Was it three?"
"Something like that." The words wavered, and she cleared her throat. "I've had my moments, too."
"See?" Dallas braced a hand on Cruz's shoulder. "We all feel it. And then we nut the fuck up and get the hell out of their way, because that's what we're fighting for. Everyone's right to choose how they fight for what they love."
Cruz's expression remained blank, but Mad felt the conflict raging through him. Or maybe it was just projection, the devious, unattractive part of him that was still trying to figure out the right approach.
He'd watched his grandfather for years. He'd watched Gideon, too. You didn't have to drag or command if you knew how to use someone's natural instincts. A little bit of maneuvering, and he could talk Jade and Dylan out of the line of fire, as long as he was coaxing them toward people who needed them. And Scarlet—her weakness was Jade. He could work with that, too—
—and be as bad as his grandfather, using people's noblest impulses for his own gain.
But damn it, they'd be safe.
Cruz turned away from Dallas and cupped Rachel's cheeks, his thumbs gentle as he wiped away her tears. "I'll make any world you want for our baby. I just want to keep the three of you safe."
She wrapped her fingers around his wrists so tightly that her knuckles turned as white as her face. "Then we have to win."
"We will," Ace replied firmly. His hands covered Rachel's, stroking until her grip relaxed. "C'mon, lover. You always knew we were never gonna leave you. You're ruining Dallas's big dramatic moment."
Cruz's sigh held a lifetime of affectionate irritation. "You're impossible."
"That's why everyone loves me." Ace took a step back, bringing Rachel with him, and Cruz followed. Of course he followed. Love bound them together as visibly as the ink around Rachel's throat—their names twined together into a single work of art.
And then they were lost in the crowd, and it was just Dallas and Mad in the middle of the room with an empty wall to their right and a silent declaration gathered to their left.
"I could have saved you some time," Mad murmured. "This was always going to be their answer. They're as loyal as anyone in One."
"No," Dallas replied just as softly. "They're more loyal, because they have a choice."
And that was the crux of it all. The rift between the sectors and Eden, between Dallas and the other sectors. He wasn't in the market for obedient soldiers or worshipful followers. The O'Kanes were individual people with their own lives, their own hopes and dreams. And they'd fight so much harder because of it.
Hell, they'd fight smarter because of it.
Mad nodded to acknowledge he understood the difference—and made his choice. Five steps brought him into the crowd, and pride swelled as he turned to face Dallas. He would love his family by blood for all his days, but standing with his O'Kane brothers and sisters would always mean coming home.
"Alright, you crazy motherfuckers." Dallas broke into a wide, feral grin. "Let's tear down the walls of heaven and let a little sin in."
The O'Kanes loved a good party. It didn't matter whether they were celebrating or mourning, focused on sex or laughter or drinking. Dylan had often joked that they would revel even if the world was ending. Again.
Turned out, he was right.
He stood at the edge of the room and tracked an appraising gaze over each smiling face. Who would be the first to fall? They were all so damn protective of each other that it could be anyone, at any time.
He didn't pity the ones who would die fast, though. They were lucky—no pain, the whole fucking thing over and done before they even realized what hit them. No, what Dylan dreaded the most was finding out which ones would survive long enough to die under his hands. Sweet-faced little Nessa? Bren, his stone façade shattered by agony?
Lex?
Dylan snorted and closed his hand around the small case in his pocket. The tablets inside rattled reassuringly. If he let Lex die, he'd be better off climbing onto the gurney with her, because Dallas would kill him, too. Kill him slow, make it hurt.
Maybe Dallas could read his mind. The man appeared out of a crowd of dancers and headed straight for Dylan, his expression so pleasantly lazy that anyone who knew him would have recognized the warning signs.
Dylan had seen that expression plenty. Every time Dallas tried to recruit him.
"Not gonna join the dancing?" Dallas asked as he leaned back against the wall next to him. "Jade's been eyeing you all night."
Jade was worried about him, a distinction that was easy to miss. Dylan shrugged one shoulder. "I'm not in the mood to dance. I'm thinking."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah."
Dallas watched him for a second, waiting for more. When he failed to elaborate, Dallas just smiled. "Maybe I can give you something else to think about. An offer."
Jesus Christ. "You don't waste time, O'Kane."
"Not membership." Dallas huffed. "I figure you know by now that I'd have inked you years ago if you'd let me. I'm talking bigger, Dylan. Something that wouldn't have been possible with Fleming running Five. A hospital."
"You'll need one, if you're going to war." He couldn't quite keep the acid out of his words.
"Maybe even before we go to war," Dallas replied easily. But he cast Dylan a sidelong look. "I take it you don't approve."
He said it as if it was a simple thing, as if his choices were to approve of death and destruction or of Eden's status quo. "My opinion is pointless. You don't need it, no one does."
"You're one of a handful of people in this room who has lived on both sides of the wall. I need all of your opinions."
"All right, you asked for it." He faced Dallas squarely and pinned him with a look. "I was just wondering how many of them I won't be able to save. Statistically speaking, the number's pretty fucking high."
Dallas didn't flinch, but his eyes betrayed his pain. "I know. Even though it's been a couple of years since we buried one of our own, it used to happen too fucking much. But we didn't have resources then
. We didn't have allies. So tell me, Dylan. What do you need to save more of them?"
A miracle. "You never asked why I said no. All those times you tried to get me to join up. Aren't you curious?"
"I guess I figured that after Eden, you weren't ready to start taking orders again."
Taking orders was the least of his concerns. There were things he'd resolved never to do again, of course—if he got another order to torture someone, or to save them so they could be tortured more? He just wouldn't do it. Execution was preferable to losing what was left of his soul. But O'Kane? Nothing he could order Dylan to do would come close to the hell he'd already lived through.
"I don't care about authority," he muttered. "I care about right and wrong. If what you tell me to do is right, I'll do it. If it's wrong, then fuck you."
Dallas tilted his head. "Okay, now I'm curious."
Dylan looked back at the crowd. Ace twirled Rachel in a laughing circle until she thumped her fist against his shoulder in protest. Nearby, Cruz watched indulgently while he chatted with Bren. Six and Scarlet were dancing, and Noelle whispered something to Jade that chased the worry from her gaze as they joined them.
They were all so fucking alive, even the ones with an edge of desperation under their cheer.
"My job is difficult," he whispered finally. "Even before the Flares, working in medicine had its problems. Higher risk of alcoholism, suicide—" He hesitated. "Drug addiction. Maybe you can only watch people suffer so much before it drags you under. And it's hard enough when you don't know them. When you do...it's impossible."
"You needed distance," Dallas murmured. "And I've been chipping away at it for years."
"No, not you." On the other side of the room, Mad was standing with Flash and Amira, holding their daughter while she tugged his hair and grasped at his nose. "You have a good thing here, O'Kane, and you're as protected as you can possibly get. Are you sure you want to fuck that up?"
"If I thought we could stay like this forever? No fucking way." Dallas sighed. "It's going to happen, Dylan. With us or without us, rebellion is coming. Do you think Eden will leave us alone if I hold up my hands and swear we had nothing to do with it?"
"I don't know." It wasn't his job to know. It was his job to trail behind the carnage, cleaning up as best he could. "But you have to be prepared to lose some of them."
"I can't. You don't prepare to lose your family. You fight like hell to protect them, and you never get over it when you fail."
He didn't look frightened or sad. He looked like a man poised at the edge of a chasm—unsure of what would happen when he jumped, but beyond certain that the landing would hurt like hell. "Fair enough. Tell me about this hospital."
"We're thinking Sector Three." Dallas leaned against the wall. "We have a few buildings that might work once we've cleared them out. Gideon will provide the labor, Ryder will provide the supplies."
"And you?"
"Security." Dallas lifted an eyebrow. "And hopefully a highly trained doctor who can highly train a few new doctors."
For the first time, his immediate impulse wasn't to say no. Instead, he studied Dallas's carefully composed veneer—such a thin, thin layer over the anxiety that colored everything. He was getting desperate, but not desperate enough to lie.
It was a start. "You gave yourself the hard job. Security's trickier than you think. You build a hospital right before you go to war with the city? You may as well paint a giant bull's-eye on it."
"True enough. We thought about the tunnels under Four and Five but…" He shrugged a shoulder. "Noah could lock Eden's people out, but that's a bell we can't unring. Once he starts fucking with their systems enough for them to notice, the clock starts ticking."
"What about the tunnels under Three?"
"Half of them are caved in. Hell, more than half, for all I know."
"So use all that beautiful labor you were talking about." Dylan looked around the room again, then tipped his head toward the crowd. "You asked me what I need to save more of them. This is it."
"Alright." That simple, as if he could request anything, and Dallas would make it happen. Maybe he would. "I'll talk to Gideon. Maybe Noah can divert the power we need. If not, we have generators."
"Make it work, O'Kane." He took a step away, then stopped and glanced at Dallas. "I'm in, but only if you give me a safe place to work. I'm not going to save them all just so Eden can blow them to hell and back anyway. It's wasteful." And heartbreaking.
"It's a deal."
Chapter Thirteen
Jade sat cross-legged on her tiny bed and worked a comb through her damp hair. "Am I shallow if I admit I miss that bathtub?"
Scarlet threw her head back with a throaty laugh. "If you said you didn't miss it, I'd think you were lying. It was the size of my whole room."
The only reason Jade couldn't say the same was timing. She'd had the good fortune of needing a room right around the time Six had decided she'd rather spend her nights and days with Bren. "The Rios estate reminded me…" She trailed off, but the usual wariness didn't grip her. Sector One seemed like a dream now, but some of the peace of it lingered. "Before I went to the training house, I lived someplace like it."
The bed dipped as Scarlet slid behind her and took the comb from her hand. "You did?"
"Mmm. My father's house." She'd often wondered if childhood memory painted the house as grander than it really was, but Jade had accompanied Cerys there once as an adult—a matter of the debt owed by her father for his newest girl.
He'd stared through Jade without a hint of recognition. "He was my mother's patron. We lived with him until I was seven."
Scarlet drew in a deep breath and began pulling the comb through Jade's hair. "What happened?"
"My mother got sick." The memory of her tired, gaunt face came too easily. She'd still been so beautiful to a daughter's adoring eyes—but a patron paid extravagantly for perfection. "My father did what people do with broken possessions. He replaced her."
The sure hands drawing the comb through her hair faltered, then resumed their smooth movements. Her only comment was low, short. Vicious. "Bastard."
"I know." Even though Jade agreed, a perverse, twisted part of her still felt the childlike need to defend him. "I spent years trying to make excuses for him, because I thought he loved her. I thought he loved us."
"You don't throw away someone you love. If you do, you're not worth having someone to love."
Pure, simple truth. Her father might have said he loved Jade, but her mother had shown her the truth of real love. "She had money saved up. It might even have been enough to get us out of Two. But she was dying, and without expensive treatments she wouldn't have lasted more than a couple of years. So she made a deal with the devil. She took me to Rose House."
Scarlet was silent for a long time, her fingers constantly moving through Jade's drying hair. "I don't know," she said finally, "what my dad would have done if he'd had some kind of warning that he was going to die. Impossible to know, I guess."
"He would have done his best." Jade leaned back against her. "That's what the people who love us do. Their best."
She moved, pulling Jade into her lap, and rested her chin on her bare shoulder. "That's why it seems wrong to whine about my dad. I was fourteen when he died—practically grown up. And he was a stand-up guy, you know?" She sighed. "I got lucky compared to a lot of people here, not just the orphans."
"That's how I feel," Jade admitted. "My mother held on until I was fifteen. And every damn day she told me I was loved, I was strong, that I deserved the world. Sometimes I try to imagine what Noelle's parents told her every day, and I can't understand how she still has the courage to smile."
"We do what we have to do," Scarlet whispered.
Jade rubbed her cheek against Scarlet's and closed her eyes. She loved being held like this, Scarlet's familiar body warm and soft and safe. In the first weeks after she'd recovered from withdrawal, she'd had dark moments of wondering if pleasure would be t
ainted for her now. If the sick helplessness of the drugs had done what years of tending to the petty desires of petty men couldn't.
But Scarlet was bright and pure, clean even when she was gloriously filthy. She'd brought joy back to the body that had so betrayed Jade. She was fiercely tender, wildly protective.
Lying in her embrace, Jade hated herself for missing more from Sector One than just the bathtub.
Scarlet smoothed Jade's furrowed brow with the pad of her thumb. "What are you thinking about?"
Jade wished it didn't occur to her to lie. But even with all that joy, with so much trust, it was still her first impulse. With effort, she pushed past it. "About how small my bed seems. And...how big."
"You mean how empty."
Not a question. Maybe Scarlet felt it, too. "Yes. How empty."
Scarlet studied her with an expression as inscrutable as her unspoken thoughts.
How did the people in Sector One do it? God, how did Rachel and Cruz and Ace do it? At least it was expected in Sector One, accepted. Here, it carried the potential to break a heart. Because there was no coming back from you're not enough, even if the words were never spoken.
And that wasn't the biggest danger. "What happened was a dream. We're awake now. If we...did something…"
Scarlet sat up a little straighter. "It wasn't a dream, Jade. But you're right—it's different here. At home."
"Yes," Jade agreed, lifting a hand to cup Scarlet's cheek. "I don't want to hurt you by wanting them. That's the thing that scares me most."
"But you do want them, and how I feel about it won't change that. It can't. It shouldn't." She hesitated. "Permission, is that it?"
Jade wanted to deny it. She was a grown woman, one who owned her life and her body. She didn't need permission to want. But that had always been part of Scarlet's appeal. She'd exploded into Jade's steady, measured life, alive and confident. Bold and sexy as hell.
Scarlet gave so readily, so generously, that Jade hadn't needed to ask for anything. And Dylan didn't wait for her to ask. He'd seen straight into the dark little corners of her heart, and she'd been so grateful for his demands.
