Numbers Collide (Numbers Game Saga Book 5)

by Rebecca Rode

  But it was her description of the experience that chilled me. I could almost picture it, almost see the woman on the floor, trembling in agony as every single nerve in her body fired at once.

  Just like Kole.

  “It was painful?” I asked with a small voice. “Did you have nightmares afterward, maybe throw things in your sleep?”

  Rosa pressed her lips together, uncertainty reflecting in her dark eyes for the first time. “Nightmares, yes. And seizures. None of the healers could stop them until Kadee concocted a treatment that worked.”

  A treatment that worked. Excitement rose within me. “Do you think I could get—”

  The wall behind the door slid open, and my biological mother entered.

  Eighteen

  Legacy

  I tensed as the door behind her slid closed without a touch. She stood there, looking me up and down with sharp eyes. Her brown trousers hung low on her narrow waist, held up by a thick belt, and a short black shirt clung tightly to her frame. A cloth headband the same red as her chair held her thick brown hair back.

  But it wasn’t her clothing that held me captivated. I could have been looking in a mirror. Besides her pale skin, she had my eyes, my slightly pointed chin, my slender neck sloping into narrow shoulders. She also looked about ten years younger than I’d imagined and was about my same height. She didn’t look much like a commander, but there was no question we were related.

  Chadd and Rosa straightened.

  “Sit,” Kadee said, sounding much like Rosa had.

  Angling myself so I could keep an eye on all three at once, I sat on the stool in front of her desk as she took her own seat. “I’m Legacy Hawking.” I paused. “Your daughter.”

  “Nobody else you could be.” Her voice was clipped, hard. There was no hint of a mother’s warmth, no curiosity about my life. No indication that this woman wanted anything more of me than a midnight meeting.

  I felt my cheeks warm. My dreams of a heartwarming embrace and tears and hours of reminiscing vanished into smoke. “Chadd said you wanted to discuss an alliance.”

  “Surely you have questions first. Even Chadd doesn’t know everything.”

  The strangeness of it all pulled a bitter laugh from my lips. I’d left my home in the dead of night to come see the woman who’d given birth to me, yet she treated me like an annoying peasant complaining about bad crops.

  “I have plenty of questions,” I growled. “What I don’t have is a lot of time. I’m trying to run a revolution.”

  “As am I. The fighting between our countries has taken far too many resources and needs to end. I understand you’re dealing with a succession problem. Your brother, I believe?” Her eyes with knowledge. She knew far more than she let on.

  Fine. Two could play that game. “My problem began with a scientist you gave asylum to recently. Tell me what you’ve done with Director Virgil.”

  “Ah yes. I’ve spoken with him on several occasions. Smart man. He’s moved on, I’m afraid. Stayed with us for a few weeks and then left. I’m not sure where he ended up.”

  I watched her for a moment, trying to read her, but it was impossible to tell whether she told the truth. “He hurt a lot of people, and I think he’s planning to do it again. If you can find out where he’s gone, I would very much like to have him returned to us.”

  “I’ll look into it.” She cocked her head. “When you say he hurt a lot of people, I assume you refer to the brain chips, the ones that make it possible for your people to speak with each other wherever they are. Correct?”

  “Implants, yes.” I’d forgotten they didn’t have the technology. Gram called people like Kadee vultures, and Virgil had mentioned something about Malrain wanting our tech, but I knew infuriatingly little about these people and their desires. “Virgil triggered an illness in some of our people.”

  “More than some, it seems. My sources say about 10 percent were adversely affected. Such a disaster. I wonder that you haven’t leveled this mess to the ground and started over.”

  A chill gripped me. “Started over?”

  “Well, the fires and the riots. Your medical system is in shambles, your brother seems nearly unglued, and your credit system has taken a dive. Workers aren’t showing up for their jobs and are trying to switch to more secure ones under the radar, creating an illegal employment crisis. You need a clean start. New laws, a new cabinet. I can help you take what’s yours. Align with me, and I’ll solve your problems before week’s end.”

  The implications began to sink in, and I shivered in the damp coolness of the underground. It wasn’t an alliance Kadee wanted. She was asking us to step aside so she could attack NORA and put me on the throne. She wanted victory and everything that came with it—our technology, our resources, our military strength. Our land. And ultimately, an overhaul of everything that made my country what it was.

  I imagined my followers, hungry and hopeful, watching me take the throne that way. They knew me as Legacy Hawking, not the daughter of a Malrain leader bent on winning at all costs. They would never understand. Gram would never understand. If Dad awoke, this would be the greatest betrayal of his life, and he knew what betrayal felt like more than anyone. Alex, if he survived the battle at all, would live the rest of his life convinced I’d sold the family out. He’d be right.

  And Kole. After everything he’d sacrificed, winning this way would never feel like a victory.

  I rose to my feet, cold disappointment ushering in a new level of exhaustion. “I shouldn’t have come. Thank you for seeing me, but I can’t agree to something like this.”

  A new hardness entered Kadee’s eyes. “Like what? You would never have come if you weren’t willing to negotiate.”

  If she’d asked me to meet her for the sake of beginning a relationship, I would have come for that alone. Clearly, the alliance meant more to her than I did. I was such an idiot. Nobody would ever replace Mom. How many times would I need to tell my heart that before it behaved as it should?

  Kadee still watched me expectantly.

  “I wanted you to loan us soldiers,” I finally said. “We need to take the Block back and defeat the Firebrands. I can take it from there.”

  “How many soldiers?”

  I blinked. She was actually considering this. “About four hundred, maybe five. But you’ll never get there without being spotted far in advance.”

  She smirked, suddenly looking much like Chadd. “We’ll get there just fine. But we’re bound to lose dozens in this battle, so I’ll need to be well compensated. I don’t think my earlier demands were unreasonable.”

  “Giving you control over my country is not a reasonable demand.”

  Irritation flickered across her too-familiar features. “I could take NORA right now if I wanted. Your military is as scattered as your loyalties. But I have no desire to rule NORA, and I’d rather put you on the throne than the alternative. We both want the same thing, Legacy Hawking—peace, stability, and prosperity. An alliance is how we get there.”

  My voice rose in pitch, incredulous now. “What you describe isn’t an alliance. You can’t really think I’d agree to let you attack us. People will die, and it will be my fault.”

  “People are dying anyway. We will defeat NORA, understand. I’m simply letting you dictate how and when. A true leader seizes the opportunity to benefit herself and minimize damages.”

  “Damages? Is that what you call it?” I snorted. “Forget it. I refuse to let you attack my people, now or ever. I can’t believe you tricked me into coming here in the first place. You haven’t said a word about the fact that I’m your biological daughter. No ‘I’m proud of how far you’ve come’ or ‘I’m sorry for abandoning you in the hospital’ or anything.”

  For the first time, a glint of uncertainty appeared in her eyes. “Did you expect that, Legacy Hawking?” she asked quietly.

  “A little bit, yeah. I’ve wondered about you for years, yet you don’t seem to care that I exist. At least you didn’t until y
ou discovered I could be used. But you know what?” I leaned forward, getting right in her face. “That’s fine. The life I’ve led before now has been incredible, and every ounce of that is because of the Hawkings. I’ll figure out how to get the Copper Office back without killing a bunch of my own people, and I’ll do it without your help. I hope I never see you again.” I stormed toward the door.

  Her voice was even, unbothered. “Life has been far easier on you than it has on me, daughter. You know nothing of sacrifice. I suppose you don’t even know the circumstances in which you came into the world, do you?”

  “Why would I? You haven’t told me a thing.”

  She motioned toward the stool I’d just vacated. This woman made the term curt seem long-winded. I glanced at Chadd and Rosa, but they didn’t run to block my exit. They didn’t even reach for hidden weapons. They just watched me curiously, as if interested in my response.

  I’d come this far. May as well see it through. I retraced my steps to sit in the chair. “I have a few minutes. Do enlighten me.”

  Kadee placed her elbows on the desk, leaning closer to me. The hardness she’d displayed earlier turned hot and bitter. “I snuck into your city for a job that would support my two younger brothers after my parents died. One was six, one eight. They would live with a friend during my absence. Your hospital hired me as a janitor. Since I wasn’t legal, they barely paid me anything. I slept in a custodial closet and used the physicians’ showers after hours. My food was whatever the break room provided. It made it so I could send a little money home each month but barely enough for them to live on.” Her voice lowered, and I saw the others lean forward as if straining to hear. “I fell in love with my manager, who kept my secret. At least I thought it was love. We spent several nights together sitting on the rooftop and talking. A few weeks later, I discovered you were coming. I was sixteen.”

  I felt a strangling sensation in my throat. Sixteen. Almost two years younger than I was now. No wonder she hadn’t reported who my father was.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her, and I meant it.

  She glanced at her hands, recovering quickly. “I didn’t have the money for your birth, so a medic friend delivered you and helped me slip away. I returned home to find that my brothers had perished of disease months before and my friend had collected my payments for herself. I returned to my empty home and cried for two days. I decided I didn’t want to be alone in the world anymore, so I went back to bring you home, but you were gone.”

  I swung one leg back and forth, letting the motion distract me from the horror rising in my chest. Not only was I the daughter of a single mother from Malrain, a girl who had only wanted me as a last-ditch alternative to a lifetime alone but also a man who had taken advantage of a minor—a man who probably still worked at the hospital right now. Kadee’s hard manner hurt, but in a way, I understood how it felt to put up walls for protection. She’d lost everyone she loved too. We just handled our grief a little differently.

  If I lost Dad and Kole both, would I end up as hardened and bitter as this woman? It was a question I couldn’t answer.

  One thing was clear. The life I now lived, as terrible as things stood, was a hundred times better than the one Malrain and Kadee would have offered. I tried to imagine being raised by this woman and her brusque manner, comparing her to my own mother, then gave it up immediately. It wasn’t an image that deserved the validation of thought. My journey across the forest had been worth it for this moment alone.

  Thank you, Mom, I thought, sending the words to the fates or wherever Mom lingered.

  “The medicine you gave Rosa,” I said. “I would like to buy some from you.”

  Beside me, Rosa went rigid. In a second, the vulnerability left Kadee’s eyes and the Malrain commander returned. “Agree to my terms, and you’ll have your medicine and my armies.”

  I swallowed, a new grief overcoming me. Country before family. Country before self. No matter how much I cared for Kole, I couldn’t sacrifice NORA to save him. Malrain mother or not, I was still a Hawking.

  “Then we have no bargain,” I said, “because I will never agree to those terms.”

  Kadee examined me for a long moment. Then she clasped her fingers together and leaned back in her chair. “You will change your mind, Legacy Hawking. And when the day comes that you must sacrifice your country to save your family, Chadd will be waiting—because Hawking or not, you’re no better than the rest of us.”

  Nineteen

  Kole

  I lifted the glass lid, inhaling the delicious aroma as steam rose to the ceiling. The rice inside was cooked perfectly—not like the crunchy type I’d grown up with, the old kind that never seemed to soften. I hurried to replace the lid so the steam wouldn’t escape, then smoothed the tablecloth once again with a smile. This had to be the nicest meal I’d ever made, and I’d cooked it all myself. Never mind the fact that it had taken me three tries to get it right.

  Darkness had descended an hour ago. The house around me stood silent, its earlier rush of boxes and people and noise gone for good, gone to “the island,” a mysterious place everybody talked about but I’d never seen. Our last opportunity to be alone. Besides the guards hidden behind the bushes outside and on the rooftop, of course.

  The first step in healing our relationship looked to have a promising start. I would finally tell her about the nightmares, maybe even the headaches. I wasn’t ready for medical intervention, but maybe if I opened up about my problems, she would too. We’d be like a normal couple for a single night before jumping into battle again.

  The smell of meat—real meat, not the canned kind—made my stomach rumble. Mom usually did the cooking for the three of us and, later, the two of us. When Mom got sick and I went to live with Dane, the fridge sat empty and the kitchen unused except as storage for his alcohol packets. So I’d begun to buy groceries and cook on my own. It wasn’t great. I couldn’t afford the synthetic meat offered at most stores in the Shadows, let alone real meat. But, occasionally, expiring canned meat went on sale. Paired with rotting vegetables and cheap boxed pasta, it made a decently nutritious meal I could make last a few days. At least when Dane didn’t discover it.

  But then Neuromen Labs happened, and then Legacy and me, and the past weeks had been spent scouring the streets for intelligence to keep her safe. I passed a credit here and there for cheap carbs, and it had worked fine. It felt great to prepare food again.

  Despite the cook’s protests, I’d managed to pluck a few ingredients and pans from the kitchen supplies this afternoon before the boxes reached the transport. This spread looked pretty decent, if I said so myself. A hashed meat in some kind of sweet sauce, white rice, and green peas I’d shelled myself. The only thing missing was my date.

  I checked the watch on my wrist again, although it couldn’t have been more than three minutes since I last checked, and frowned. Legacy had disappeared this evening during my trip to the store. A note on the table said she’d gone with the others to check on Millian and she’d be back tonight. I grabbed the radio in my pocket and stared at it, considering. Were Millian’s injuries so extensive Legacy wanted to stay with her? I was woefully ignorant of girls and their friend relationships. I wasn’t all that experienced in romantic relationships either, for that matter. Maybe Legacy simply needed time with someone who wasn’t a guy or family member. Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea.

  I remembered my earlier conversation with Travers and slipped the radio back into my pocket. He was right. I trusted Legacy, but I hadn’t shown her very well. Hounding her on the radio wouldn’t exactly inspire confidence in that fact. Ten minutes. I’ll give her ten minutes.

  Ten minutes passed, then thirty. The pots holding the food went from hot to warm, then cool. The sounds of traffic outside quieted as families retired for the night. I stopped checking my watch after the second hour, worry rising within me. Maybe she’d fallen asleep at Millian’s bedside. But that didn’t sound right either, not with a team of guards st
anding around her. And she would have radioed me if she changed her mind about coming back.

  I finally pulled out the radio and called her. The screen beeped. Out of range. I nearly threw the radio across the room, then tried again. And again. No luck.

  By hour three, I’d tried at least thirty times. I finally radioed her assistant, Foster, and woke him up. He seemed confused by my question, insisting she had to be at the house with me because all guards were accounted for. I strode outside and yanked the guard captain from the bushes, asking whether they’d seen her leave. After grumpy a radio conversation, he admitted they hadn’t.

  The island thought Legacy was here. Everyone here thought she was on the island. That meant that either something had happened to her or she’d lied to everyone about her whereabouts. Something told me it was the latter.

  My panic grew a hot edge of anger, like claws on a monster. The dull edges of another headache threatened an appearance. Maybe Travers was wrong. Maybe we were all deluded in thinking this relationship could work. I was tired of being lied to. My dad, Dane, Virgil, and now Legacy. We were supposed to be able to trust one another. How could I ever look her in the eyes again and truly believe she told the truth?

  Once back inside, I grabbed the radio again and called Travers. When I told him the situation, he went quiet.

  “Stay there,” he said, his voice deep with concern. “I’ll go looking for her. You have no transport, so you can’t search very far, and it wouldn’t do to have you captured by the Firebrands. If they get our new location out of you, we’re all in trouble. It’s possible she’ll call you, so make yourself available and try to stay calm.”