“Sorry,” Henry said, his voice warped by the buzz of static. “I got held up.”
“You stupid pitcher,” Ronja whispered.
“Your bedside manner is terrible, has anyone ever told you that?” Henry inquired with a weak laugh.
A distant hammering drained the blood from Ronja’s face.
“What was that?” she asked, clutching the radio closer to her cheek. “Henry? What was that?”
“I shoved a filing cabinet in front of the door, but it won’t hold for long,” the boy replied. His tone was frighteningly calm, resigned. “Turns out not all the Offs had headphones.”
The persistent thudding continued as Ronja struggled to speak.
“Ronja, listen to me.”
“No,” she whimpered.
“Ro, please,” Henry begged. “All of you, listen to me.”
“We’re here, H,” Evie assured him in a thick voice.
“I will not let them take my mind, understand? The Anthem will be safe. You will all be safe.”
“What do you mean? What are you talking about?” Ronja demanded, switching the radio from one hand to the other as if it burned her.
“I have one bullet left,” Henry said softly.
Over the radio the click of the safety echoed. Iris let out a sob, clutched Evie tighter.
“Terra,” Henry said.
The girl brought her chin up, her eyes unusually bright.
“This is not your fault, okay? It was my plan. But if you want forgiveness . . . then I forgive you.”
Terra swallowed, screwed her eyes shut.
“May your song guide you home, Henry,” she finally said, her voice low and steady.
“Roark, Evie, Iris.”
The trio of Anthemites straightened when Henry addressed them.
“You were there for me when no one else was,” the boy said, raising his voice to overpower the horrible drumbeat. “I should have stayed with you.”
“You did what you had to,” Roark said levelly. “You will always be our brother.”
“Ronja.”
Ronja released a wrenching sob, clamping her hand over her mouth, staring at the radio as if she could pull Henry from the speakers.
“Please find Charlotte, take her back to the Belly where she belongs. Be happy. Be free. You have a universe inside you. And Ronja . . . maybe the stars are alive after all.”
“Henry—”
The unmistakable screech of metal against concrete as the filing cabinet was toppled.
Ronja felt rather than heard the gunshot. She knew she was screaming, but the sound had been sucked from the airship. Strong arms were around her, to restrain or to calm. She wrenched away, began to run, her bare feet slapping against the polished oak floorboards. She did not make it far before the unbearable weight slammed into her from above, forcing her to her knees.
Ronja wept until a dreamless sleep consumed her.
62: Sedated
Ronja awoke with her cheek pressed to a damp velvet throw pillow. She peeled her swollen lids open, blinked the sting away. A blurred figure sat across from her on a gold-stitched sofa, his head in his hands.
“Roark,” Ronja rasped.
Roark inhaled sharply and brought his hands down. His eyes looked as raw as her own felt. His nose was capped with red.
“Ronja,” he said, his voice rusty. He leaned forward to touch her, but seemed to think the better of it and retracted his hand.
The engine chugged beneath the sofa Ronja lay on. Sunlight crawled across her skin, across the knit blanket wrapped around her, but she could not see its source.
“My cousins?” she finally asked quietly.
“Safe,” Roark replied gently. “Sedated.”
He offered her an olive hand. Ronja reached out to take it, then paused. Her hands were swathed in clean, white bandages. Beneath the linens her burns felt cool and damp, the agony muted by salve. She disentangled herself from her blanket to find she was garbed in a plain white nightshift.
“It was Iris,” Roark reassured her. “She needed to clean your wounds.”
Ronja nodded, then got to her feet, her knees knocking together.
Roark led her by the elbow from the side parlor into the central hall of the airship. Ornately carved wooden pillars lined the sprawling atrium. A massive chandelier cast golden light throughout the room. Lush sofas and armchairs were scattered throughout the forest of columns, accompanied by polished coffee tables and stacks of fine books.
“The chemi, Maxwell, is in the brig,” Roark told her as they walked.
“Okay,” Ronja replied.
“Ito and Terra followed us as soon as we left the city,” Roark went on.
Ronja inclined her head without looking at him.
“Terra found Evie on the hilltop and helped her get in.”
Ronja dipped her chin again.
“She wasn’t completely certain she could trust you. That’s why she didn’t tell you Ito was coming.”
Ronja did not respond, but kept her eyes fixed on the gleaming oak beneath her feet.
“Thank you,” the boy said. “You saved my . . . you saved me.”
“You saved me,” Ronja pointed out, numbering the varnished boards as she passed over them.
“No, I almost got you killed. Twice. I thought you were dead.”
Ronja stopped and turned to Roark. The hum of the engines crawled in through the bare soles of her feet, making her bones sing.
“You freed me,” she countered.
“I just took off your Singer,” Roark said. “Freedom is a state of mind.”
Ronja nodded, cast her gaze to the ground again. She could feel his eyes drilling into her, but she could not meet them.
“Come on,” he said, pulling her forward gently by her elbow.
Roark guided her down the rest of the hallway to a small arched doorway carved with ivy. Ronja paused before the door. She could hear nothing on the other side, no screams or cries of pain. Just silence.
Ronja closed her eyes, pursed her lips to keep them from trembling.
“What is it?” Roark asked gently, as though he did not know.
“Henry,” Ronja whispered. “He was supposed to stay behind and now . . . ”
Ronja sucked in a deep, shivering breath. “And now he’s dead. My mother is dead. I hated her so much, but it wasn’t her I should have hated. It was your father. Your grandfather. The Conductor. I spent my entire life hating her and now . . . ”
She trailed off, her throat constricting.
“She knew you came for her,” Roark said gently. “In the end, she knew.”
Ronja exhaled slowly. She placed her hand on the cool, brass knob.
“Victor,” she said slowly, looking back at the boy over her shoulder. “He’s dead. Crushed.”
“I know,” Roark replied, his expression a tranquil mask.
“Okay.”
Ronja took another breath and opened the door.
The room was tiny, but well furnished. Two twin beds with wooden headboards stood against the back wall, guarded by electric lamps with heavy shades. Colorful tapestries decorated the walls, and a small window crisscrossed with wooden slats looked out over the sprawling landscape.
Two sleeping forms lay on the beds.
Ronja covered her mouth with her hands.
“Georgie . . . ” she breathed. “Cosmin.”
Her cousins were laid out on their respective beds, the velvety blankets tucked up to their chins. Their heads had been shaved like her own, making them look even smaller than they actually were. Both were plugged into saline drips, and both were utterly still. Cosmin looked like he was simply sleeping, but a faint smile dusted Georgie’s cracked lips.
Ronja padded forward, her hands still crossed over her mouth. She knew her cousins were in deep comas, but still she scarcely dared to breathe.
“Iris is going to operate on them as soon as we get back to the Belly,” Roark said from behind her. “After we tell Wilcox wha
t your voice can do, there’s no way he can turn you away.”
Ronja heard Roark speaking, but did not acknowledge him. She was staring at Georgie’s wan face, her sunken cheekbones, the tiny mole near the right corner of her mouth.
Her hand trembling, Ronja reached down and cupped the girl’s soft cheek. It did not melt away at her touch or ripple like a mirage.
Ronja drew her hand back.
She turned back to Roark with drowning eyes. The boy stood in the door, leaning against the frame with his arms folded.
He barely had time to unclasp them when Ronja lunged at him, wrenching sobs tearing at her throat. Roark lifted her from the ground like a child and allowed her to cry until she was empty once more.
63: Antidote
The early evening light was stretching across the horizon when they gathered in the silk-embossed lounge. The room was dominated by soaring stained glass windows that colored the sky a hundred shades of itself.
Ronja watched in dull fascination as the Technicolor shards danced across the white bandages that spiraled up her arms. Her eyes were bloodshot. She rubbed them with her palms, hoping to work some moisture back into them.
Roark sat beside her, his thigh brushing hers softly. He had been silent since her reunion with her cousins.
Evie was sprawled on a deep green sofa across from them, her newly clean feet propped on the coffee table. She clutched Iris to her side fiercely. The redhead had closed her eyes, but Ronja doubted she was truly asleep. Her muscles were coiled, her jaw pinched.
Terra perched on a stiff-backed chair, her elbows on her knees, her pointer fingers resting against her lips like the barrel of a gun. She had yet to bathe; her blond hair still caked with brown. She stared into space hostilely. Ronja thought it a wonder that her eyes did not burn holes in the patterned rug.
The two prisoners they had rescued from the demonstration lingered on the outskirts of the parlor. The elderly man refused to speak, but the girl had let slip that her name was Sawyer. Neither spoke now. Sawyer twisted her hands and peered out the stained glass window absentmindedly. The man tugged at his Singer, straining against the bombarding notes. Iris would have to attend to them soon, but so far neither showed signs of approaching The Quiet.
Ito stood at the nucleus of the room, her hands on her slender hips, her eyes caustic. “In all my years with the Anthem, I have never seen such startling stupidity,” she began.
No one spoke; there was nothing to say. Ito continued.
“Thanks to you four, we have lost our only direct link to Westervelt Industries, and Henry is lost. If Terra and I had not shown up, you would have joined him.”
Ronja stared at her thighs sightlessly, the brilliant face of her best friend swimming before her.
“You put hundreds of people at risk, weighed the lives of the few over the lives of the many. Do any of you have anything to say for yourselves?”
No one spoke. Sawyer coughed behind them. The engine hummed beneath them, and the wind rushed over the colored glass like waves over a sinking ship.
“What would you like us to say, Ito?” Roark asked tiredly. “We made a call. It had consequences. It saved innocent lives.” Roark sat forward, holding Ito’s blistering gaze in his own. “And also gained us invaluable information.”
Ito narrowed her hooded eyes. Her nostrils flared, but she allowed Roark to continue.
“My father is dead,” Roark said.
Ito drew a sharp breath. Roark nodded in confirmation.
“He was crushed by your dramatic entrance. Ronja denied him the mercy of a bullet, and he bled out on the floor. He tortured her in an attempt to get information from me.”
“Did it work?” Ito asked somewhat desperately, her eyes flashing back and forth between the pair.
“Four agents were made,” Roark admitted, turning to Ronja, who returned her gaze to her thighs. “Ones I knew were safe in the Belly.”
“What matters is what we learned,” Ronja broke in. “The Conductor is planning an attack on the Anthem. He’s going to use a new form of The Music to drain your emotions completely. It can travel through the air—no Singer necessary. It’s still a prototype, but—”
“I can promise you, it works,” Roark finished darkly.
“He’s going to put it in the Singers after he wipes out the Anthem,” Ronja continued. “The entire city will be a shell.”
“He has a torture Song, too,” Roark added. “The Lost Song. Ronja felt that one.”
Ronja waved Roark off. Her brain pinched at the fresh memory. “The chemi, Maxwell,” Ronja said. “He reckons the attack is still three or four months out. You have time to get your people out.”
“Or we could stay and fight.”
All eyes looked to Roark. A ghost of his signature grin hung on the corner of his mouth.
“We can’t fight The Music, Westervelt,” Ito nearly growled.
“Actually, we can.”
Roark turned to Ronja, who felt her stomach flip.
“We can fight it with her.”
Ito was silent for a moment. Her gaze flashed to Ronja, who met it levelly. It took every ounce of her self-control not to crumble.
“Explain,” Ito finally demanded.
“My father used the new Song on me, the one that drains emotion,” Roark said, wincing visibly at the memory. Ronja felt driven to reach out and grasp his hand, but the moment was not right. She itched her nose instead.
“Ronja and Terra stormed in, guns blazing,” Roark continued. “They were captured, of course. Then Ronja started to sing.”
Ronja felt her face grow hot, submerging her freckles in a bath of red. She felt all eyes on her, but she kept her gaze trained on Ito.
“I was gone, Ito,” Roark said. “Completely void. But when she sang, I woke up. Just like that.” Roark snapped his fingers.
Ito chewed on his words, working her jaw. Shards of multicolored light sprawled across her regal features, but did little to soften her expression.
“What did you sing?” she finally asked Ronja.
“There and Back.”
“How did you know to sing?”
“I didn’t. I just . . . ” She glanced around. Everyone watched her blankly, waiting. Roark touched her hand lightly, shooting electricity into her veins. She fought a shiver and continued in a stronger voice. “You fight fire with water, right? The Music and music are polar opposites. I didn’t know it was an antidote, but it made sense.”
To her surprise, Ito nodded thoughtfully.
“We need her, Ito,” Roark implored. “Without her, we don’t stand a chance. Her voice is . . . ” He gestured at the air helplessly. “With the right training, she could be the best in a generation.”
Ito breathed a heavy sigh, bringing her thumb and forefinger up to knead the bridge of her nose. “I could brand you all traitors,” she muttered. “I don’t care how noble your intentions were, you shot at Wilcox, ran an illegal mission—”
“Let’s be honest, that was not the first time we ran our own mission,” Evie said from the opposite couch. The girl was chewing on a toothpick, as she had been prohibited from smoking on the airship.
“Henry is dead,” Ito continued as though she had not been interrupted.
She trailed off, looking at each of them in turn, her expression unreadable. The airship itself seemed to hold its great breath.
“You also gained invaluable intelligence and an antidote that could potentially save us.”
Ronja emptied her lungs, and felt everyone else do the same.
“Ito,” Ronja said, getting to her feet. Her sore muscles creaked in protest, but she forced herself to stand tall. “I’m sorry I put you all in danger. It was selfish, but I would do it again for my family. If my voice can protect you, if it can fight The Music . . . please. I am begging you. Let me fight for you.”
Ito regarded her for a long moment. They watched her thoughts ticking like clockwork behind her hooded eyes.
“If you are a mutt y
ou’re the strangest one I’ve ever met,” Ito said, her mouth quirking into a vague smile.
“She’s not a mutt.”
64: Singer
The entire room rounded on Terra, who had risen from her seat. Her open hands trembled at her sides. She shoved them deep into her pockets and drew a steadying breath. The girl turned to Ronja, who moved in turn to face her.
“When I tell you this, I put my life in your hands,” Terra began, her eyes on her boots.
Ronja nodded uncertainly, her heart pumping frantically.
Terra sucked in another deep breath and locked eyes with Ronja. “I knew you were a mutt from the start, long before I overheard Iris and Roark discussing your escape. You knew that.”
Terra paused for Ronja to react, but she remained silent and expressionless.
“I also knew you weren’t really a mutt.”
Ronja felt her cracked lips part, but no sound came out. Roark and the others watched the exchange in total silence. Even the engine below seemed quieter.
“My mother worked at Red Bay,” Terra continued. Her voice was steady, but she clenched and unclenched her pocketed fists in quick succession. “She was a scientist, one of the best. Victor Westervelt I sought her out for her work in gene splicing. He forced her to carry out his plans to turn rebels into mutts. It was the perfect plan, really. It was . . . ”
Terra tilted her head backward, her gaze skimming the gold inlaid ceiling. Her eyes were unusually bright in the dying evening sun. “It was the perfect punishment,” Terra continued without looking down.
Ronja flinched as if someone had struck her.
“A mark of shame that would live on through generations, one that would crush any chance of rebellion in the present and future.
“One day, a woman was brought in. She was pregnant. She was supposed to be turned into a mutt. My mother was on duty. Just before the procedure started, the woman went into labor. She begged my mother to let her baby be born before she was turned . . . ”
Terra swallowed. The skin on her throat glistened in the soft light. “My mother allowed it.”
Ronja felt as though her chest had been punctured. The air was gushing from her lungs. The airship tilted though its course was steady.
Vinyl: Book One of the Vinyl Trilogy Page 32
