by Kyla Stone
Willow shook her head, though Raven couldn’t see her in the dark. “The Headhunters are all older.”
“I see,” Raven said, a complicated mix of emotions edging her voice, relief mingled with disappointment.
Willow waited for Raven to say more, but she didn’t. She couldn’t even tell if this boy was someone Raven wanted to see or wanted to kill, or both.
There was so much story hidden within Raven’s clipped sentences, so much Willow still wanted to know about her. But she didn’t ask any more questions. Raven was skittish, and she had just spoken more words at one time than she ever had before.
Willow didn’t want to push her. She knew how hard it was to speak some things aloud.
Maybe tomorrow. If tomorrow would ever come.
4
Gabriel
Twenty-one-year-old Gabriel Ramos Rivera stood three feet from the cliff edge, his hand shielding his eyes as he gazed over the rugged, hilly wilderness to the small speck of the Sanctuary in the distance.
Even in the bitter cold, with thick clouds rolling low over the horizon, it was a spectacular vista—gray-blue mountains looming in the distance, the winter valley below streaked with winding rivers that gleamed like silver. The crisp blue sky stretched out, endless and unbroken.
But they weren’t here for the view.
“This is the closest we can get,” Cleo said beside him. She was dressed all in black, a tight jacket zipped to her chin, her automatic rifle slung over her shoulder, several gun and knife holsters at her hips and thighs. The daughter of the New Patriots commander, Cleo Reaver was always prepared for battle.
Gabriel flicked his field glasses over his eyes and switched from infrared to zoom mode. Five miles below and to their northwest, the Sanctuary clicked into focus. “You sure the Phantom will take down those cannons?”
“I’m sure.”
Cleo pulled up a set of roughly-drawn schematics on her holopad and compared them to their real-time view of the Sanctuary. “Once we’re inside the walls, you’ll take this route here through sectors three and five to reach the plasma wall. Your best bet is to set up here, between these two buildings. You’ll have a clear shot of all eight cannons.”
They spent the next hour working out potential kinks in the mission. Of course, it could all go to hell the second they got inside. Probably, it would. A plan was always fluid. You had to be quick on your feet to survive.
Cleo fell silent for a moment as she pulled a cigar and a lighter out of her pocket, lit the cigar, and puffed out a white circle of smoke. She was Indian, with rich, velvet-brown skin. The sides of her skull were shaved, the top a thick knot of purple braids that tumbled down her back. She tossed her head, fully revealing the burn scar that blossomed below her left eye and stretched across her cheek and jawline to the side of her neck.
Rather than hide her scar, Cleo wore it like a badge of honor. She was tough and fierce and dangerous, capable of cruelty—as an undercover Pyro, she’d beaten and burned Willow with one of her cigars—but Gabriel found himself liking her despite himself.
She rocked back on her heels and glanced at Gabriel out of the corner of her eye. She raised her chin, her jaw jutting imperiously. “You’re a fine-looking guy, Rivera.”
He gawked at her, too startled to speak.
She shrugged. “What? I’m just surprised the Black girl isn’t as into you as you’re into her.”
“That’s a long story,” he said, still trying to gain his bearings. Cleo jumped from rage to calm, and from hate to friendship and back again, in a fraction of a second. She was hard to keep up with. He considered lying, but decided against it. “I betrayed her. I nearly got her killed. It’s a mark of her own character that she doesn’t loathe me. I deserve it.”
She eyed him, her gaze wandering over his face, his broad shoulders and toned chest. “If I went for guys, you and I could be good together.”
He sensed the truth of it, whether he liked it or not. He and Cleo were more alike than different. They were both warriors, brave and fearless in battle, determined and iron-willed, both willing to die for a cause.
But where she was still consumed by her hatred, he was learning to let go. Where she would raze anything in her path, he was no longer willing to kill innocents, no matter how noble the reason.
“I thought you liked Celeste,” he said to change to subject.
Cleo ducked her chin, letting her purple braids fall across her face. His hunch was correct, then. Was she actually embarrassed?
“There’s no time for love in the apocalypse,” she muttered.
“There’s always time for love.” He shook his head ruefully. He sounded just like Micah. “But if?”
Cleo’s scar was smooth and shiny in the dappled shadows. It distorted the right side of her mouth, twisting it downward slightly, so she looked like she was scowling even when she wasn’t. Or maybe she was. It was hard to tell with her. “If is a big word,” she said finally. “But I told you she didn’t betray us, didn’t I?”
A pang of guilt struck him behind his ribs. He’d underestimated Celeste. Again. She hadn’t deserved his suspicion. “You did. Celeste is no fighter—” For a moment, he imagined her gripping a gun, still wearing her white stiletto boots, checking her nails before aiming. But that image was wrong—at least, not completely correct. He remembered the ferocious determination in her face when she’d dropped on top of him at the pizza place deep in the ruins of Atlanta. She’d been bloody and disheveled, but very much alive—and more than ready to slit his throat.
He smiled. “Actually, she is. She’s come a long way. She’s a survivor.” He looked at her askance. “But you know Celeste is an elite, right? She was on the Grand Voyager. Her mother was the CEO of a huge big-pharma corporation.”
Her nostrils flared. “That’s—she’s different.”
“How so?”
Cleo looked away toward the tree line, gnawing her bottom lip, clearly flustered. “She’s not like the other elites, okay? She doesn’t look at me like I’m scum on the bottom of her shoe.”
“Neither does Amelia. Or her mother. Or Finn. Silas just hates everyone, but he’s not prejudiced about it.”
“What’s your point?”
“It hasn’t been an easy-to-digest realization,” Gabriel said slowly, choosing his words with care. “The elites are simply people. Some are malicious. Some are selfish. Ignorant, maybe purposefully so. And there are those who are brave and loyal and kind. Just like everyone else. It isn’t right to destroy them all. We need to take down the corrupt power structure, but we don’t have to kill everyone.”
“I do,” Cleo growled. “Billions of people are dead because of them. New Patriots. My friends. My mother, if I can’t stop the virus. I have to do this. I will.”
“And if Celeste was inside the Sanctuary?”
Her jaw worked silently for a moment, her eyes hard as shards of flint. She took several puffs of her cigar. “I am a soldier. I was born to follow orders.”
“Your mother’s orders.” When she didn’t respond, he continued, “The same woman who turned her own children into soldiers.”
“We chose this life.”
His eyebrows shot up, incredulous. “When you were ten?”
“You’re wrong.” Her lips pressed into a thin line. “We always had a choice. Yes, she trained us. She showed us there was another way, that we could fight back. But make no mistake. She loves us, too. She is our mother, and we are her children.” Absently, she rubbed the scars laddering her left wrist. “If she told me to die for her, my only questions would be where and how. You understand?”
“I understand better than you think.”
He did. He’d felt that way for his mentor, Simeon Pagnini, the man who’d taken Gabriel under his wing after his parents had died—his mother from a treatable cancer her corrupt insurance wouldn’t cover, his father from despair and hopelessness, wasting away on Silk. Simeon had introduced him to the New Patriots, had channeled young Gabr
iel’s bitterness and rage into something useful—a thirst for vengeance.
Simeon had taught him tech and hacking, shooting and combat skills, hand-to-hand fighting techniques. He’d been the father Gabriel had never had. Gabriel had given him everything—his devotion, his trust, his life. In return, Simeon had used him, manipulated him, betrayed him.
Gabriel shivered, pretending it was from the cold. Simeon’s stunned, devastated gaze still haunted his nightmares. His own finger on the trigger as Simeon’s body crumpled like his bones had turned to liquid. “Just because you love someone doesn’t mean they’re right.”
Cleo glanced at him, her eyes dark and unfathomable. Her expression was closed. She blew out a last puff of smoke and hurled the cigar over the edge of the cliff. Gabriel lost sight of it as it plummeted down into miles and miles of bristling pine trees and thick underbrush.
“Enough,” she said. “Talking won’t take down the Sanctuary. Come on, let’s go.”
5
Amelia
Amelia was exhausted. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt more weary. She hadn’t spoken to her mother since the night she’d arrived, three days ago. Whenever she thought of her mother’s betrayal, what the possible consequences might be, who could get hurt or killed because of it, her throat closed like a fist and her insides burned with anger.
The damage was done. And there was nothing Amelia could do about it. She could only wait and watch as she spent her days wearing pretty dresses and smiling pretty smiles and acting exactly how the elites of the Sanctuary expected her to.
When she wasn’t needed in the lab, she whiled away the hours playing the violin on her terrace or wandering the halls of the capitol, hoping to hear an update about her father or snippets of news about riots, insurrections, political blowback over the Coalition’s role in the Hydra virus—anything.
She hadn’t heard a thing. Harper hadn’t relayed any further messages. Amelia was completely in the dark. And she was tired of it. Every hour and day that passed felt like a screw turning tighter and tighter.
She needed answers. And she knew who would have them. It was time to do something.
Amelia straightened her shoulders and turned to Logan, who had yet to leave her side during the day for anything but using the restroom. A different set of security agents guarded her quarters at night. “I want to see my father.”
Logan glanced down at her, surprise in his green eyes. In his early thirties, he looked every inch the soldier with his broad, straight shoulders, pristine gray Coalition uniform, and angular, clean-shaven face. His skin was a deep olive tone, his dark brown hair shorn close to his skull. “What?”
“I wish to visit Declan Black.”
She’d planned to ask Harper, but she was in a private meeting with President Sloane and the other Coalition members. Probably planning the details of Declan Black’s public execution.
Her stomach twisted at the thought. Even though she’d assumed he was already dead all these months, the thought of his death now—visceral, violent, right in front of her eyes—sent fresh waves of shock and grief roiling through her.
She needed to speak with him one last time before the end. He was still her father. In spite of everything, she wanted this. She couldn’t help it.
He owed her that much.
Logan glanced uneasily down at his holopad. “We need to get permission through the proper channels. President Sloane—”
“Has already given permission,” Amelia said quickly in her most authoritative voice. She knew she was taking a risk in trusting Logan. Harper had warned her not to trust him. He was a member of the president’s private security detail, here to spy on her for the president as much as to protect her. But there was something about him, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. While he appeared strict and stoic, there was nothing cruel about him.
Besides, she had no one else. If she wanted to see her father, she had to take the risk.
He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t see it here—”
“Please.” She grazed his arm with her fingertips and gave him a shy but dazzling smile. She hated how easily she slipped the mask back on, how quickly the skills of charm and charisma—and manipulation—came back to her. She knew how to enchant a man into bending to her will. Before, it had always been her father’s will, not her own. “President Sloane is very busy. I’d rather not bother her again.”
Tears—real ones—glistened in her eyes as she gazed imploringly at Logan. “He’s my dad. I know what he did. He’s going to die for it. I just—I want to say goodbye. President Sloane was going to have Harper take me, but then they both got called away. I’m—I’m running out of time.”
Logan raked a hand over his skull and sighed. He was clearly tired of babysitting duty. “Oh, all right. But stay by my side. And we must be back for your appointment with Dr. Ponniah. She had some more questions for you pertaining to your bout with the Hydra virus.”
Amelia ducked her head demurely, fluttered her lashes, and gave him her most winning smile. “Of course. Thank you.”
Five minutes later, they were in a transport. Logan punched in the coordinates and the cloud took over, automated by the vehicle’s AI.
The sky was slate-gray. A few snowflakes spiraled down, but the dark clouds overhead promised much more, and soon. Amelia shivered, wrapping her wool coat tighter around herself.
She watched the people huddled on moving sidewalks, hurrying in the cold to get to wherever they needed to go. The holoscreens on the sides and fronts of the buildings alternated ads with government promos. A beautiful brunette with shiny white teeth spoke silkily, reminding people of curfews, best hygienic procedures to avoid spreading illness, and repeating the Coalition’s motto: Unity through might. Freedom through strength. Peace through safety.
Another Coalition broadcast switched on. A second beautiful woman, this time a blonde, announced the mandatory attendance at Unity Square in front of the capitol steps tomorrow evening at six p.m. for a critical presidential address. A twenty-second videofeed of Declan’s confession and arrest looped several times.
People paused to watch the broadcast on the screens or their Smartflexes. When it was over, they continued with their day. They didn’t understand, she thought dully. Did they really think that Declan Black had acted alone? Did they really believe the rest of the Coalition had nothing to do with it?
Did she?
Most of the Coalition members had succumbed to the virus. Maybe the other co-conspirators were already dead. Maybe it was Senator Steelman. Or General Daugherty. Or Selma Perez or President Sloane, or maybe it was all of them. Or her father really was the only guilty one left alive. She’d been at the capitol for weeks, and she still didn’t know.
They passed the hospital. A few hundred people were lined up outside the glass doors. Teens clustered in groups, wearing dark coats and colorful scarves. Mothers clutched their children’s hands. Workers in different-colored uniforms shuffled their feet and checked their Smartflexes impatiently.
“What are they doing?” she asked.
“Getting antivirals,” Logan said.
Amelia frowned, confused. “But you don’t have anyone infected inside.”
Logan shrugged. “President Sloane says it’s necessary. Every citizen receives an injection every month. The soldiers get something a little different. They inject us separately, anyway.”
“But antivirals only work if you have a virus,” Amelia argued.
Logan gave her an exasperated look. “The doctors said we might get sick if we don’t take them. So we take them. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
Two guards stood at either side of the hospital doors, pulse rifles in their hands. A terrified toddler buried her head against her father’s leg as an armored drone glided past, black and menacing. Further down the street, a smaller surveillance drone dipped low over one of the moving sidewalks, its camera shutter blinking furiously as it took hundreds—thousands—of phot
os and vids.
“Why do you need all this?” she asked. “Martial law. Curfews. Soldiers and drones everywhere. It seems…excessive.”
“President Sloane’s first priority is safety.”
“But you’re safe now.”
“Maybe,” he allowed.
“What about your rights? Your freedom?”
He glanced at her, his face impassive. “President Sloane promised to remove martial law when the time is right.”
“And when would that be? It’s been months. You’re just going to keep putting up with this?”
“What choice do we have?” he said finally, blowing out a breath. “If we want a place inside, we follow the rules, just like everyone else. It’s the only option.”
“There are other options.”
“What? To go outside and risk the Hydra virus? The chaos of gangs and thugs?”
“There’s a middle ground between rights and rule, between freedom and safety. But this isn’t it.”
“I don’t know why you’re so surprised,” Logan said. “Things have been going this direction for a long time.”
She knew that. Her own father had been the rule of might’s most ardent crusader. She sighed and leaned back against the plush leather seat. “Where were you, when it happened?”
His jaw tightened. For a second, she thought he might not answer. But he’d already broken his stoic silence. “I was a Marine. When it all fell apart, I was assigned to Grady Memorial Hospital, ordered to assist with hospital evacuation missions inside the quarantine perimeter. Then I was stationed at a FEMA medical center outside Atlanta. It was this massive, hastily constructed tent-city, a quarantine ‘detention and disposal facility’ inside the Infection Zone. The Infection Zone pretty quickly escalated to include the whole city, then the whole damn country. The things I saw…it’s better in here, trust me.”
The transport pulled up to an unnamed, nondescript one-story building along the northern perimeter of the plasma wall. The wicked purplish-blue plasma wall was thirty feet tall and crackled like lightning. At regular intervals, the walls were mounted by guard towers bristling with enormous cannons. Soldiers carrying large rifles patrolled the ramparts.
