by Jenna Black
Kurt did not look at all happy with the idea, and Nate couldn’t blame him. He supposed in Kurt’s shoes, he’d feel pretty disloyal if he tried to squeeze money out of a resistance movement he’d been involved with for so long. But all indications were that the resistance had money, and using some of it to fund a new auxiliary resistance movement didn’t seem like it was that bad an idea to him.
“They’re not going to like it,” Kurt said.
“We’ll put the money to good use,” Nate said. “They might not want anything to do with us, but it seems to me having a second resistance movement in place could be to their advantage. We’ll be attracting a lot of attention from Dorothy and from the security department, and who knows what the resistance will be able to accomplish while the government’s attention is focused elsewhere.”
Nate was making things up as he went along, but he actually thought his argument made pretty good sense. Maybe calling five teenagers hiding out in the Basement a “resistance movement” was overstating things a bit, but the longer they all stayed alive and free, the longer Dorothy would be distracted by them.
“I’ll take it to my cell leader,” Kurt said. “It’ll be up to him.”
* * *
It was after midnight by the time Bishop returned from his meeting with his cell leader, and Nadia was still sunk deep in her pool of misery. She knew Thea was broadcasting the footage of her family’s arrest because she hoped Nadia would give herself up to save them. Nadia had put aside her conscience and her personal safety on more than one occasion to protect her family, and she ached to do that now. The thought that her parents were now in Rikers Island and that Corinne and Rory had been robbed of both of their parents and relegated to the foster care system, all because of Nadia’s actions, made her want to throw up.
If she’d had any reason to hope Thea would release her family, Nadia might have considered giving herself up. But with Thea’s callous disregard for human life, it was possible the only reason Nadia’s family were still alive was because of their potential usefulness as hostages. If Nadia turned herself in, her parents and brother-in-law would most likely be found guilty of some trumped-up treason charge and executed. And Nadia would be tortured until she told Thea everything she knew about the resistance and the location of her friends.
So logic told her keeping hidden was the right thing to do. But logic couldn’t soothe her guilt every time the blimp passed near enough for her to hear the broadcast. She wondered if it was going to hover over the Basement all night and dreamed of arming herself with a rocket launcher to bring it down.
Nadia dragged herself away from her brooding thoughts when Bishop finally returned. Nate, who had been pacing across the living room and generally driving everyone crazy, came to a stop and let out a dramatic sigh of relief as Bishop closed the door and worked his way through all the locks.
“I was beginning to worry about you,” Nate said, and Nadia smiled ruefully to herself. Nate had started worrying the second Bishop had set foot outside the building, and he hadn’t let up in the hours since.
Because it was an unseasonably warm night and everyone appreciated the fresh air, they had left the living room window open and kept the lights off inside, so no one got a good look at Bishop until he’d turned away from the door and taken a couple of limping steps in their direction. Then Nate let out a gasp of dismay and quickly crossed the distance between them, and Nadia jumped to her feet. Dante cursed, and Agnes covered her mouth to stifle a gasp.
“Don’t panic,” Bishop said, putting his arms in front of him to stop Nate from hugging him. “I’m fine.”
“The hell you are!” Nate shouted.
Nadia had to agree with him. Bishop’s left eye was blackened and swollen, and he had a fat lip that had obviously bled on him, leaving dark blotches on the lime-green mesh shirt he wore to show off his tattoos. And then there was that limp.
“What happened?” Nadia asked, wondering if everyone she knew was going to get hurt before this whole nightmare was over.
“I got knocked around a little,” Bishop said, still holding Nate off. “Can’t tell you how many times I’ve had worse. Believe me, I’m fine.” He gave Nate’s shoulders a little shake for emphasis.
“I guess Razor wasn’t too happy with your defection,” Dante said. Nadia realized it was the first time either of the former resistance members had said the cell leader’s name and wondered if that meant there had been some lingering distrust. If there was, it was obviously gone now.
“Not so much,” Bishop said. “But the shit didn’t hit the fan until he kicked me up the food chain. Mind if we sit down while we talk? I banged my knee pretty good during the fun and games.”
Nate’s jaw muscles worked busily as he draped one of Bishop’s arms over his shoulders and helped him to one of the cushions. Bishop sat with a heavy sigh, stretching one leg out in front of him while tucking the other close to his body.
“Do you need any ice?” Dante asked, then frowned. “Do you have any ice?”
“Yes, and no,” Bishop responded. “But I do have that frozen dinner.”
Dante went into the kitchen to fetch it, and Nate somehow managed to contain his impatience until the thing was awkwardly perched on Bishop’s sore knee. Nadia thought it might do more good on bare skin, but Bishop’s pants were way too tight to roll up, and she certainly wasn’t going to be the one to suggest he take them off.
“All right,” Bishop began. “So like I said, Razor wasn’t too happy with me and ordered me to tell him everything I knew. I said no, and he was even more unhappy with me.”
“I’m going to kill this guy,” Nate growled, and he looked fierce enough to do it with his bare hands.
“Told you—he didn’t do this. He decided to call in his boss, and that’s when things got a little intense.”
“Who’s his boss?” Dante asked, head cocked to the side. The resistance tried to be as compartmentalized as possible so that a captured member couldn’t name all his fellow resistance members under torture, so neither Dante nor Bishop would have known the name of anyone who outranked their cell leader.
“No one you know,” Bishop said, then turned a shrewd gaze to Nate. “But you know her. Better than you’d like.”
Nate’s eyes widened. “Angel!”
Bishop nodded. Nadia had never met Angel of Mercy, and she never wanted to. The woman owned a seedy club in the Basement, and she’d had her bouncers beat the hell out of Nate a couple of weeks ago to try to keep him from finding Bishop.
“Before you ask,” Bishop said, “no, I didn’t know she was with the resistance. Not until today. But it makes perfect sense. Wanna know how she got the name Angel of Mercy?”
“I assumed it was because she was the exact opposite,” Nate said. He clenched his fists so hard the knuckles cracked.
“Besides her club, she has a side business, called the Pipeline. She helps people get out of Paxco—for profit, of course. You pay her with money or services, and she’ll smuggle you to wherever you want to go. Usually somewhere that has way more opportunities for Basement-dwellers than Paxco does. Chances to get jobs—and better subsidized housing, food, and health care. A lot of her whores are working for her to get a chance at going through the Pipeline. I’m sure her unique skills have come in handy for the resistance.”
“Yeah, I’m sure she’s a real saint.”
Bishop snorted. “I didn’t say that. And she was way pissed at me. Called me a profiteer for trying to sell the information. She sorta had a point, so I’ve got no problem with her considering beating the info out of me.”
“She obviously did more than consider it,” Nate growled.
The look on Bishop’s face said he was genuinely unconcerned about what had happened. “I’m fine. And I managed to guilt her out of going any further. Pointed out that beating the intel out of me was the kind of thing Paxco security would do. I also told her that our new Chairman is an impostor and that if she wanted the whole story, she had
to pay for it. She’s still not happy about it, but she’s agreed to meet with us for an information exchange.”
“When?” Nate asked. “And where?”
“Nine o’clock tomorrow night at her club. Here’s the thing, though: we can’t all go. I don’t think she’s going to double-cross us, but I can’t be sure. She might think it’s better for the resistance to bleed us for the information, then kill us to make sure we don’t get caught and do a bunch of talking. I think we should send me and either Nate or Nadia while the rest of you stay put. She’s not going to believe the intel unless it comes from an Exec, or I’d deal with her by myself.”
“Obviously it’s going to have to be me,” Nate said.
He glanced sidelong at Nadia, perhaps sensing the way she’d bristled at his words. He was getting better at being aware of people’s feelings, because usually he would have been oblivious to it. “Not because you’re not up to it,” he hastened to clarify. “Just because I have more information to trade. I can give her access codes to places like the Fortress and Headquarters on top of information about Thea.”
Nadia narrowed her eyes at him. Although Thea was probably even more arrogant than Chairman Hayes had been, there was no way she hadn’t thought to change all the access codes since she let Nate go. If he thought offering this “logical” explanation of his objection was making him sound less arrogant and bossy, he was sorely mistaken.
“If you think outdated codes would be helpful, then give them to me,” she said. “But I’m the one who’s going to meet with Angel.” She raised her hand to stave off Nate’s knee-jerk protest and was pleasantly surprised when his mouth snapped shut. “I’m a better negotiator than you are, and I don’t have a personal history with Angel like you do.”
Nate’s jaw clenched in a familiar, mulish way. “I’m not—”
“—going to lose your temper?” she asked with a raise of her eyebrow. What Angel had done to him—on Bishop’s orders—hadn’t been anything personal as far as she knew, but that didn’t mean Nate hadn’t taken it personally. He was already simmering just thinking about Angel; Nadia doubted he’d be able to keep his cool while talking to her.
Nate took a deep breath and lowered his voice to a normal speaking level. “I’m the rightful Chairman of Paxco. Doing stuff like this is part of my job description now. It’s certainly not part of yours.”
“Is this because I’m a girl?” Nadia asked, and realized immediately that yes, indeed, it was. “You think it’s part of your job description to protect the helpless damsel in distress?” Her own temper bubbled to the surface and she glared at him.
Nate met her glare with one of his own, leaning forward as if to intimidate her with his greater size. “I’m sure as hell not sending a sixteen-year-old Executive girl into a Basement bar and sex club to do something I should be doing myself!” He turned to Dante. “She’s your girlfriend! How ’bout a little backup here?”
Nadia blinked in surprise. Somehow, she hadn’t allowed herself to think of Dante as her boyfriend, but she supposed that’s what he was. The thought lit an inappropriate glow of warmth in her chest, and the little grin Dante sent Nate’s way turned up the heat.
“You’ve been engaged to her how long?” Dante asked. “Twelve years or something? And you don’t know better than to think she’s going to take orders from you?”
In all fairness, for most of those twelve years Nadia had been too much of a slave to propriety and societal expectations to stand up to Nate as much as she should have, but she didn’t feel inclined to rush to his defense.
“You’ll do whatever gives us the best chance of staying alive,” Nadia told Nate firmly. “And that’s sending me to talk to Angel, whether you like it or not. Think with your head, not with your—” Nadia cut herself off, wondering if she’d been listening to Bishop and his foul mouth for too long. “Uh, you know.” She felt the blood rising to her cheeks and wished she could will it away.
“You can’t even mention my ‘you know’ without blushing,” Nate said with a smirk. “How do you think you’ll do in a club full of strippers?”
“The club won’t be open yet at nine,” Bishop pointed out. “There might be strippers hanging around getting ready, but they’ll have their clothes on.”
“Nadia should go,” Agnes said, startling everyone. She was usually painfully quiet and shy, but both Nate and Nadia had seen evidence that she had a sharp mind and a good head for strategy. She looked at Bishop. “You said you don’t quite trust this Angel person. If you think Angel might double-cross you, it’s best not to send the only people who know her personally and know what she looks like right into her den. She won’t want to antagonize us by hurting our delegation if she thinks we might be able to hurt her.”
Nadia smiled faintly at the thought of her and Bishop being a “delegation,” but she had to agree Agnes had a point. Nadia didn’t exactly want to venture out into the streets of the Basement, and the idea of setting foot in Angel’s club gave her the shivers, but she could do it.
“Think about everything I’ve faced in the last couple of weeks,” she urged Nate. “Then ask yourself if I’m going to swoon if I see a bunch of strippers.”
“It’s not the strippers I’m worried about,” Nate grumbled, but she could tell he was starting to run out of steam.
“I won’t let anyone hurt her,” Bishop said, giving Nate’s thigh a squeeze.
“You couldn’t stop anyone from hurting you,” Nate quipped back.
Bishop grinned. “Ever think I might have brought it on myself? On purpose?”
“Why the hell would you do that?”
“Hey, Agnes,” Bishop said, startling the girl’s eyes wide. “You’ve got a head for this sorta thing. Any idea why I might have goaded Angel?”
Agnes’s brows drew together, but she didn’t have to think very long before she came up with an answer. “Because then you could compare her to the enemy and make her feel guilty.”
Bishop nodded and turned to Nate. “I know my way around these kinds of people. I can keep Nadia safe. And Angel’ll be more likely to cooperate with Nadia than with you.”
“I still don’t like it,” Nate said, crossing his arms over his chest. But he was out of arguments.
CHAPTER THREE
Nadia’s stomach quivered with nerves as she and Bishop stepped out of the relative safety of his apartment building and onto the streets of the Basement. If she allowed herself to think too much about any of Nate’s dire warnings or his graphic descriptions of the depravities of the Basement, she would run screaming back into the building. So instead of thinking, she held her head up high and focused on projecting an aura of ease and confidence.
She was dressed in her now-familiar Basement costume of a formfitting catsuit, a neon-pink wig, and a band of black face paint over her eyes. Her gait was mincing and wobbly, thanks to the four-inch stiletto heels and platform soles of her boots, which made it rather harder to project the proper image, but added yet another subtle layer to her disguise. A lot of things about tonight’s adventure worried her, but being recognized wasn’t one of them.
Nadia couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder right before she and Bishop turned the corner. It was hard to pick out his apartment windows from all the bland, identical ones around it, especially since they’d left the lights off when they left, but she thought she could see the shadowed forms of Nate and Dante standing there watching her progress. She hoped the two of them would be able to keep their dislike for one another under control without her there to act as peacemaker.
She looked resolutely forward as she and Bishop left everything that was familiar behind her.
It was early by Basement standards, so there wasn’t a whole lot of foot traffic, but there was enough to make Nadia jittery, and everyone looked so exotic it was hard not to stare.
“Don’t make eye contact with anyone,” Bishop warned, taking her arm as if to guide her around something and then not letting go. “Pretend like we�
�re alone on the street. And stick real close.”
Like she had any choice when he had his hand on her arm. Not that she felt inclined to complain. Bishop wasn’t particularly large or burly—not like Dante, who exuded strength—but he nonetheless looked scary enough to keep predators at a distance. He wasn’t as exotically colorful as most of the Basement-dwellers, the only color on him being a thin, many-times-ripped chartreuse T-shirt that displayed more than it hid of his heavily tattooed torso. But there were obvious wiry muscles under those tattoos, and his kohl-lined eyes were a particular piercing shade of blue and projected an instant aura of menace. The facial piercings and the currently ultra-short mohawk he was growing put the finishing touches on his look, and she knew it would be a rare Basement-dweller indeed who would choose to mess with him.
The walk to Angel’s club seemed to take forever. Partly because the ridiculous boots with their torturous heels were killing Nadia’s feet, and partly because of her hyperactive threat radar. Avoiding eye contact turned out to be harder than she’d expected. Her eyes kept wanting to scope out her surroundings, take a second look at anyone who might be a predator on the hunt. But keeping an eye on their surroundings was Bishop’s job. Hers was to not attract attention.
Eventually, they stopped in front of a high-rise that looked like all the others around it, except the word ANGEL’S was spray-painted over the entrance. Nadia could hardly wait to get behind a closed door, even though she knew the hard part of her mission hadn’t yet begun. She tried to hurry her steps, but Bishop still had hold of her arm, and he came to a stop, forcing her to stop with him.
“What is it?” she asked, her pulse pounding in her throat.
“They’re gonna search you when we go in,” he warned.
Nadia looked down at herself and blinked. “Where do they think I would hide a weapon in this outfit?” she asked. The catsuit was so tight you could probably see the slightly raised birthmark on her left shoulder blade.
