The Hero Within

by Bec McMaster

  Arik returned to studying the military base below them. "I get it, you know. When they took Nnedi.... They all told me to mourn her as if she was dead. Nobody could get in and out of the city-states, they said. If I tried, I'd probably die.

  "But they didn't know I was a dead man anyway. I never realized how I felt about her until that moment. She was mine. My woman. And I'd let her slip through my fingers. I'd never see her again, unless I got off my goddamned ass. I could feel the warg beneath my skin, all hot rage and blinding pain. I trashed my room and when I came out of it, I thanked my lucky stars nobody had been in there. So I headed for the city, knowing if I stayed they'd have to put me down in the end. I was dead either way; at least if I tried to get her back, we might have a shot."

  Johnny glanced toward him. "What's it like in there?"

  "Bad."

  He scrubbed at his mouth. "It's my worst fear," he admitted softly. "My uncle was a bad man. Broke my will to his when I was barely a kid." He swallowed. "Made me do a lot of things I'm not proud of. You think it can't happen to you, but I know it can."

  Arik's face remained implacable. "They test you to see if you're truly broken. Make you do things you don't want to do. Put a bullet in a friend's skull. Break your own arm. Any hesitation, any resistance, and they take you away and throw you back in the hole. Work you over again. It's relentless. You start reacting. Obeying." His voice softened. "It took me three years, but I could feel myself bending to them. It’s easy to pretend you're invulnerable when you're out here. The only thing that saved me was Nnedi. I knew she was in there. If I focused on her, then they couldn't break me. Lincoln doesn't get it—thinks nothing's strong enough to break his will down—but then he’s never faced the reality of it before."

  Arik glanced at the watch Mayhew had given him. "We've got five minutes."

  "How's that distraction coming along?" Johnny asked.

  Arik put a hand to his ear, pressing the comm device Mayhew had given him. "We all sorted?"

  Static echoed through both their earpieces. "You don't rush a maestro," Mayhew shot back. "Are you in place?"

  "Almost."

  "Then get your asses in place."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  "On my signal," Derek Mayhew's voice whispered in his ear.

  Johnny crouched down by the fence. It felt weird having another man's voice in his head, but he had to admit it was handy.

  "Three, two, one...."

  A spark flared in the distance. A couple of lights went out along the fence. In the distance a dog barked. Warg dogs. Brilliant.

  "Move," Mayhew directed. "You’ve got a minute window before I flick the electrics back on and you need to be inside that fence."

  He and Arik were going in first to clear the way. Behind him, Lincoln hovered over Eden. Both of them were dressed in Confederacy green. He didn't know where Mayhew had gotten the uniforms, but at a glance they might pass for Confederacy soldiers. Mayhew waited with them, using a datapad to take down Ragnarök’s electricity.

  They crouched low and ran. Arik used wire cutters to snip the lowest strand of the fence, then they were both rolling under the fence and moving to take up position. So far, so good. Adrenaline pumped through him, until the night seemed to come alive.

  Johnny looked back, gesturing with his fingers for Eden, Mayhew, and Lincoln to make their move. He scanned the darkness, covering them. Nothing moved, and then they were through the fence, and the faint electric whine began again as Mayhew flicked the security systems back on.

  Arik gestured toward the end. Johnny nodded, holding his shotgun low.

  The laboratories were on the opposite side to the barracks, thank God. The last thing they needed was Confederacy wargs scenting them.

  Johnny rubbed a hand over Eden’s spine, sharing a questioning look with her. You okay?

  She rolled her eyes. I’m fine.

  He was pretty sure there was more to it in her head, but he merely moved on. She wouldn’t appreciate him hovering. Time to hit the labs.

  A warg suddenly melted out of the shadows. One second there was no one there, and the next Johnny could smell him.

  It was one of those moments where both of them were downwind and hadn’t expected the other.

  Johnny recovered quicker, perhaps because he’d been anticipating enforcers around every corner. He leaped forward, jamming the butt of his shotgun against the soldier’s head.

  The bastard staggered, but didn’t go down. A hand chopped toward his throat, and the gun was knocked from his hands. Johnny moved inside his next strike, delivering a punch to the warg’s ribs. One, two, then a hard uppercut that snapped the warg’s head back.

  Johnny stepped behind him, dragging the warg back against his chest. Slamming a hand around his throat, and another over his mouth, he took him down, kicking his feet out from under him.

  "Stay down," he hissed, holding the warg against his chest.

  The warg struggled, his heels kicking in the gravel as Johnny stared into his eyes and fused him with scent.

  "That’s it," he murmured, as each kick became a little weaker. "Stop moving."

  The soldier slumped in his arms.

  "Nice work," Arik muttered, and there was a somewhat wild look in his eyes. Arik would be getting a lungful of those omega pheromones too.

  Johnny knocked the soldier out, then flipped him over and hastily hog-tied him, ripping the warg’s tunic and stuffing some of the material in his mouth. No point killing him. The blood would only draw attention, and if they needed to rely on Bligh, then a trail of dead wargs would do nobody any good.

  "Any more?" Arik muttered.

  "Not that I can see or hear." His heart raced.

  "Let’s go get our cure then."

  Breaking into the lab was Eden’s first experience in breaking the law.

  She hadn’t been there when Johnny popped the lock on an upper window of the house. But this was different. She kept jumping at shadows, expecting wargs to leap out at every corner.

  The four guys moved like a well-oiled machine. Johnny and Arik rode point, with Lincoln guarding them from behind. She and Mayhew were in the middle, tasked with keeping out of the way until required.

  Fine by her.

  Mayhew slipped a cord into his datapad, and then slid the other end of it into some sort of plug on the keypad to the door. She didn’t fully understand what he was doing, but it worked like magic. The keypad lit up, and then the door was hissing open. Mayhew collected his cord, and they were in.

  "You’re very good," she noted, as Johnny and Arik slipped ahead of them to clear the way.

  "Child’s play."

  "Oh, everyone in the Confederacy can do it, can they?"

  He smiled at her. "Computers always made sense to me, Miss McClain. Spent a lot of time locked up in juvenile detention, and there was a guy in there who knew code. Taught me a little. He was pure genius, and when we got out…. Well, the Confederacy likes to say all its citizens are equal, but they’re really not. I wanted to feed myself and didn’t want to end up back in juvie, so I had to learn how to get credit." He waggled his fingers. "I can steal everything that’s not nailed down with a touch of my datapad."

  "Mayhew," Arik called. "Another locked door. You’re up."

  The labs were all locked down for the night, with bulletproof doors at certain intervals. Mayhew cracked them, one after the other, until they were in Wing C. A sign on the wall said Infectious Diseases.

  Mayhew examined the map he’d pulled up on his screen. "Gold mine." He pointed to a door. "This one."

  The door gave with a hiss, leading into a sterile laboratory. Rows of fridges with glass fronts lined the walls. She could see hundreds of vials within them, labeled neatly and barcoded. And a certain sort of breathlessness went through her. A giddy you did it. Victory. Relief. She could save Lily. She could save Ian and all the others of Absolution who were inflicted with the salt plague. A thousand furious emotions pressing in on her from the inside out, a
nd—

  "What the hell?"

  Eden slammed to a halt as a man's voice broke through the room.

  It went through her, thin as a sharpened stiletto.

  A cut. A slice.

  Miles Wentworth.

  He looked up sharply from where he'd been reading some sort of document a second man had slid in front of him. She hadn't seen either of them from the outside, tucked as they were in the corner, and as Johnny sucked in a sharp breath, she realized she wasn't the only one.

  Their eyes locked together, and Eden felt trapped in a vortex where Miles's mouth dropped open in shock as recognition flared in his dark eyes, and she knew the same expression was painted across her own face.

  "You," she whispered, her heart starting to thunder through her veins.

  He took a step back as if she'd spat the word at him. As if it carried a weight that could dissect him. His gaze tracked sideways, a furtive move that compounded his guilt.

  The truth was etched on every inch of his body and face.

  "You know these people?" the man at his side asked, and Eden saw in the thick dark slashing frown of his brows a similarity between them.

  Miles turned and bolted for the bench in the middle of the room.

  "Stop them!" Mayhew yelled. "If they hit the panic button—"

  "Don't move," Johnny snarled, pointing his handgun directly at Miles. It had been provided by Mayhew, and a thin green dot bloomed right in the middle of Miles' forehead.

  He skidded to a halt.

  A shotgun pumped as Lincoln turned his weapon on the other man, who'd been in the process of reaching for the datapad attached to the wall.

  "Miles and Nigel Wentworth," Mayhew mocked. "What are the odds? Here we are looking for whoever was behind a certain plague ravaging the Wastelands, and who should we find but the Wentworth's themselves. Daddy Wentworth's going to be quite unamused when he discovers the pair of you dabbling in things you shouldn't be."

  "Miss McClain," Miles managed to gape. "What the hell are you doing here?"

  "What the hell am I—?" Her fury burned to the surface, turning her incandescent with fury. This man had tried to murder hundreds, possibly thousands for a fucking mine.

  Eden didn't even realize she was moving toward him until he threw up his hands with a yelp. Her fist was moving independently of her and slammed right through his ineffective guard.

  Miles's head snapped back as her punch landed, sending him staggering into a tray of tools. They smashed to the ground, the violent echo of their landing ringing in her ears.

  "You murderous bastard!" She hit him again, driving the blow through her knuckles and not her fingers, the way Adam had taught her. "You fucking prick! You unleashed a gods damned plague on us as though we weren't even human. You thought you'd wipe out my settlement just so you didn't have to pay more to get your greedy hands on the Copperplate mine. Admit it!"

  "I didn't!" Miles bleated. "I had nothing to do with it!"

  Rage consumed her. She turned to find Johnny right behind her and snatched the spare pistol from his belt. Eden drove the muzzle right into Miles's forehead until it left a white ring of pressure on his skin. "Then tell me how a Confederacy-manipulated plague suddenly managed to afflict Wastelanders? Tell me how a bacteria that could only be found in this fucking lab made its way hundreds of miles west, where it started killing my people." Her hand shook. "Explain why your men were vaccinated against it before they even arrived!"

  "I don't know! I don't know!" Tears and snot ran down his face as he cowered.

  "Henry Chin told me everything!" Eden clicked the safety off, her vision narrowing down the line of the pistol as she stared into his pathetic eyes. "You deliberately infected Wastelanders, so you could move on the Copperplate mine without paying the price we wanted."

  He finally broke, nodding furiously. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I did it! I needed the deal. You don't understand—"

  For a second she actually considered pulling the trigger. The violent urge to end this man filled her like a poison.

  "Don't do it, angel," Johnny said softly. "You know you'll always regret it."

  I want to. I want to so badly....

  "Miles?" Nigel croaked. "Is this true?"

  She saw it in his eyes and wanted to end him. "You don't deserve to live," she managed to say, pushing harder with the pistol, until the scent of urine stung her nostrils. Miles slowly sunk to his knees, shaking, quivering, cowering before her like the pathetic bully he was.

  "Please," he gasped. "Please don't hurt me, Miss McClain! Please. I'll do whatever you want. I promise."

  "His death is not worth your guilt." A hand rested on the small of her back. "Easy, darlin'. Let's leave some of him behind to pay for what he's done."

  Eden tore the pistol down, clapping a hand over her mouth as she gasped. She shook. Violently. She'd almost shot him. Almost murdered a man. He didn't deserve to live—not after what he'd done—but she wasn't a killer.

  She refused to let Miles Wentworth twist her into something she wasn't.

  Eden let Johnny take the pistol from her, and collapsed into his arms. He caressed a hand down her spine.

  "Beautiful," Mayhew breathed behind them, a red light blinking as he held the datapad up. "Got it all on tape—confession and all. You're going down, Wentworth. Both of you."

  Nigel's head snapped up. "I had nothing to do with this. I didn't know he'd taken some of my plague samples!"

  "Your plague samples," Mayhew spat. "There's going to be a lot of people who start asking questions about what you've been up to, Nigel."

  "Are you okay?" Johnny asked, as Nigel bleated something at Mayhew.

  She looked up. Nodded. There was a hollow mess in her heart as if her anger had suddenly flamed out. All she felt was exhausted. "Yeah. Better now I hit him."

  A smile bloomed over his dangerous mouth. "It was the perfect punch. Adam taught you well." His smile died. "But now it's time to get to work, angel," Johnny murmured, holding his gun on Miles. "This is your part of the action."

  Arik set up by the doors, gun held ready as he stared into the darkened corridors.

  "What are we looking for?" she asked Mayhew shakily. Every fridge was neatly labeled, with a strange barcode on the front.

  He shrugged. "There's nothing in the database. It's like this thing doesn't exist, except in rumors of what brought down Radisson."

  Lincoln grabbed Nigel by the scruff of the neck and hauled him toward the fridges. "Where's the cure for the plague?"

  "I don't—"

  Mayhew put a gun to Miles's temples. "Get the fucking cure, Nigel, or I'll spray your brother's brains all over the floor. If that doesn't inspire any action, then you're next. We're a little short on time."

  "The nanoparticle solution’s called Ener-V," Nigel bleated. "That’s what you’re after to cure the plague. The vaccine should be in the same fridge."

  Eden scanned label after label. Despite the chill in the room, her hair was damp with sweat.

  Phase two was about to kick her in the teeth.

  "Here it is!" she called, finally finding the right label.

  Mayhew scanned the strange code on the front of the fridge. "Give me a moment to check if these are the right vials." He looked at Nigel. "It's coming up as password protected. I could break it, but it would take a while. What's the password?"

  "I can't—"

  Mayhew put the gun to Nigel's head. "I actually don't need you any more, though I'd prefer to double-check."

  "NKW773X," Nigel yelped.

  Mayhew's fingers danced over the keypad. The datapad pinged. "Got it. This is definitely it. There's an entire section on Ener-V in the database. The vaccine’s on the bottom shelf."

  Eden eased open the fridge. Each syringe was preprepared, and they lay in neat racks. Hundreds of them.

  "Get a refrigerated transport box," Mayhew called. "You’ll need to keep them cool."

  He showed her what he meant. There were small silver briefcases in th
e corner with a cooling pack attached, and foam inside them. Hundreds of cutouts lined the foam; the perfect size for the vials. She didn’t understand half the terms he used, but when he adjusted the temperature dial on the side of the box, she could feel the foam pads begin to chill.

  "Start packing them in," he instructed.

  "Inject yourselves first," Johnny cut in, looking away from the door for the first time. Their eyes met. "Just in case we lose those cases."

  Eden swallowed. He’d been tense ever since she told him she was infected.

  Mayhew showed her the instructions on the datapad.

  "How are you getting all of this?" she asked breathlessly as she prepared the small syringe and his arm.

  "Magic." His smile came quick, and she quite suspected he was getting some sort of thrill from the night. "They don’t even know I’m in their system."

  He hissed out between his teeth as she injected him with the full contents of the vial. Then it was her turn. A little whisper of relief went through her as she swiped the alcohol swab over her upper arm. She hadn’t wanted to think too much about the disease, but it’d been on the back of her mind, gnawing away like termites.

  "Pinch here," she instructed.

  Mayhew blanched. "You’re kidding, right?" He held up his hands and backed away. "Sorry, Miss McClain, but I don’t do blood."

  She almost looked at Nigel Wentworth, but there was no way she was letting him put his hands on her.

  "Here." Johnny handed his gun to Lincoln, and strode toward her. "Want me to do it?"

  She nodded. Johnny pinched her skin together between thumb and forefinger, and stabbed the syringe needle deep into the muscle. Eden winced as a flood of pure cold pumped right into her arm.

  He rubbed her arm and dragged her against his chest. "Thank God."

  "I’m okay."

  A shuddering breath tore through him. "Just let me hold you for a second. You weren’t okay, and it’s been driving me crazy. I’m not afraid to die, Eden, but I couldn’t handle it if anything happened to you."

  "Right back at you, big guy."

  He drew back and looked at her, his eyes filled with emotion. Then he hauled her in close, and Eden let him hold her.