by Kyla Stone
“You have reached your destination,” the male AI said, startling Amelia from her thoughts.
Logan escorted her through the front door. The walls were blank and gray, the floor just bare, ugly cement. Two soldiers lounged behind a desk against the far wall. Four more sat around a table playing digital chess. One of them, a thin black woman with an afro and an eyebrow ring, rose to greet them, holding a holopad and a handheld scanner. “State your rank and orders.”
Logan held out his wrist for the scanner. Amelia did the same. “Lieutenant Sam Logan. President Sloane’s security team. We’re here on an unofficial Coalition matter.”
The guard scanned their chips, then perused her holopad, skimming the incoming stream of data. “You’re cleared,” she said, moving aside.
Metal doors clanged. Amelia barely noticed passing through a long, dingy hallway. And then she was in a small room bisected by a wall of diamondglass. Tiny holes clustered in the center of the glass allowed sound to pass through the wall.
Logan shut the door behind her.
With a deep breath, Amelia stepped inside her father’s prison cell.
6
Willow
“We’re here,” Raven said.
After three endless, excruciating days, they’d finally reached the Settlement. Willow thought her legs were going to fall off from exhaustion. Her thighs ached. Her feet were blistered. She was tired and hungry and filthy, but they’d made it.
It would have been far worse without Raven. At night, she’d set snares, capturing three squirrels and a couple of rabbits, which they roasted over their campfire and devoured, their bellies still rumbling with hunger even as they licked the grease from their fingers.
To avoid detection, Raven had built their fires inside a two-foot hole she’d dug, along with a tunnel leading to a second hole, allowing oxygen to feed the fire like a chimney. It also served to dissipate the smoke. The girl was some kind of genius.
“This better be worth it,” Willow muttered as they broke through a thick copse of trees into an overgrown clearing. A large hill rose before them, bristling with boulders and jutting rocks.
“I don’t get it.” Finn glanced around, shielding his eyes from the sun reflecting off mounds of snow. “What am I missing?”
“Where is the Settlement?” Benjie asked.
Raven pointed down at her feet. “Underground.”
Willow squinted. She’d thought they lived in caves or something. But she didn’t see anything like that here. “Where’s the entrance?”
Raven jumped off her board, took a few shuffling steps, and shoved aside artfully positioned underbrush to reveal a set of steel doors set into a sheer rock face. The doors were stenciled with a strange combination of letters and numbers. “Right here.”
Willow tried the door. Locked. She tried the biometric scanner. Access denied. She banged on the metal. “Hello!” she shouted.
Raven waved at a nearly invisible security camera hiding beneath the branch of a leaning pine tree. “They know we’re here.”
“What now?” Willow asked impatiently. They’d come all this way. Now that they were here, she wanted in. Who knew what was happening at the Sanctuary right now? Her friends needed her help.
“We wait,” Raven said simply.
Finn and Raven slid off their backpacks. Finn kicked an area free of snow and sat against a slim birch tree. Benjie snuggled up next to him as he passed out their last granola bars.
Shadow appeared on a ledge about ten yards above the metal doors. He edged along the narrow ridge before leaping from boulder to boulder on the way down the hill.
“Can I pet Shadow?” Benjie asked around a huge bite.
“You don’t pet wolves who don’t know and trust you,” Raven said sternly. “They aren’t dogs.”
Benjie’s face fell.
Raven’s expression softened, but only slightly. “You have to earn his respect. It takes time. But if you sit very still and very quiet, he might decide to investigate.”
Benjie nodded vigorously. He plopped down on the ground, legs crisscrossed, hands folded primly in his lap, and froze.
“Shadow isn’t like a regular wolf. He was raised in captivity, and he’s half genetically engineered, so he acts somewhat different than his wolf cousins, but the same advice works for him, too. Stay low when he’s first getting to know you. It’s a gesture of submission, and an invitation to trust you. Move slowly. Never approach fast. Never hold out your fingers; that’s a good way to get nipped. Let him smell you first.”
Benjie’s gaze fixed on Shadow. He looked like he hardly dared to breathe.
“Be careful,” Willow warned.
Raven sat next to Benjie and made a sound like a low whine in the back of her throat. Shadow circled them again and again, sniffing the air, drawing in close before ambling away, only to draw in close again. After several minutes, he came in close enough to brush against Benjie’s shoulder. He could have easily knocked Benjie flat, but he seemed to be taking great care, like he knew Benjie was a child, a pup.
Willow stiffened as Shadow bent his head and pressed his muzzle to Benjie’s cheek. She tried not to think about those teeth, how close they were to her brother’s exposed jugular…
Shadow licked Benjie’s face. Benjie grinned in delight. “He likes me!”
Willow let out the breath she’d been holding. It shimmered like a pale cloud in the chilled air. The wolf turned and ambled back toward the woods. He paused to lift his leg and leave his mark at the base of a gnarled pine before slipping off between the trees.
“What’s he doing now?” Benjie asked.
“Marking a territory so predators will know to stay away. He’s protecting us.” Raven limped several steps to lean her hoverboard against a tree, wincing as she walked. Willow hadn’t really noticed before, but she had a definite limp.
“How’d you hurt your leg?” Benjie piped up.
“A mistake.” Raven’s tone was sharp, clipped. She didn’t want to talk about it. Did it happen before the world broke, or after? Had the Headhunters done it to her?
But it was none of their business. Raven would tell them if and when she wanted to. Willow shook her head at Benjie. He didn’t ask any more questions.
A half hour of waiting turned into an hour, which slipped into two. Raven remained alert, leaning against a tree facing the way they’d come, her whittling knife carving another bird out of a block of wood. Shadow flopped down next to her, his huge head resting on her knee. Finn dozed off, snoring lightly. Benjie fell asleep in his lap.
But Willow couldn’t sit. She couldn’t rest or relax. She paced in tight circles until she wore a path in the dirt and snow.
After more than three hours, Willow had had enough. What the heck could possibly take so long? “Maybe whoever’s monitoring the camera took a sick day. There has to be another entrance somewhere.”
“This is the only one they’ve brought me to,” Raven said. “We stay here.”
“I’m gonna have a look around.”
“These people are touchy,” Raven said, a warning in her voice.
Willow had to do something or she’d go crazy. This was what she’d risked Benjie and Finn’s lives for. It had to be worth it. She had to make it worth it. She touched the gun holstered at her side. She was armed. She was prepared. “Got it. I’ll be back in a few.”
She clambered up the steep hill, her muscles screaming in protest, her boots slipping in the wet mix of snow, clay, and rotting leaves as she grabbed skinny tree trunks and branches to haul herself up.
The top of the hill was a massive, flat clearing. Instead of more woods like she expected, a cluster of old buildings nestled around a paved tarmac, with a small runway stretching off into the distance. It looked like an abandoned airport. Regional, probably.
Her hand on the butt of her gun, ready to draw at any suspicious sound, she went to investigate. The first building was empty of everything but birds’ nests, raccoon droppings, and spider
webs. It was a large warehouse space with a concrete floor, metal roof, and three bay doors along one side. It was a hangar for small airplanes or hovercraft.
Something creaked behind Willow.
Adrenaline rocketing through her, she spun, instinctively flinging her arm out. She hammered her assailant in the face with a satisfying crack. She dropped and kicked, sweeping his legs out from under him.
He fell with a grunt, his gun clattering to the concrete floor.
Willow pulled her own gun and lunged for her attacker. She knelt on his chest and pressed the muzzle of her gun to his forehead.
Or in this case, her forehead. Willow’s attacker was a middle-aged white woman in her forties, dressed in camouflaged hunting gear. Her straw-blonde hair was cut short above her ears, her glasses skewed, one lens cracked from Willow’s blow.
It didn’t matter. Willow knew better than anyone that women could be just as deadly as men. She dug her knees harder into the woman’s chest. “Hands up!”
“You don’t want to do this,” the woman said.
“I very much do.” Willow kicked the woman’s handgun further away with a jab of her left foot. “You’re going to help me get into this place.”
The sound of heavy footsteps came from behind her. Willow tensed, but didn’t move the gun from the woman’s head.
“Willow? What in the world are you doing?”
“Finn!” Willow exhaled in relief. “Help me, would you? Pick up her gun and aim it at her. Shoot if she moves.”
Finn obeyed. He bent and picked up the gun with his good hand. Once he was aiming at Willow’s attacker, she clambered off the woman and rose to her feet, quickly sweeping the room for any other intruders. “Are you alone?”
“Are you going to kill me?” the woman asked, her lower lip quivering. Blood trickled from her nose.
“Of course not,” Finn said gently. “We aren’t like that. Please just go along with it, and we’ll let you go as soon as we can. We’d never hurt a woman.”
“Finn!” Willow glared at him. Sometimes, he was absolutely worthless. Worse than worthless. “Are you out of your mind?”
Finn shrugged his massive shoulders. “Sorry. She looked scared.”
“This big oaf is terrible at threats.” Willow turned her gun on their prisoner. “He might have qualms about hurting a woman, but I assure you, I don’t.”
The woman raised her arms behind her head. “There’s no need to hurt anyone. We’re pacifists.”
“Right. And I’m a priest.” Willow rolled her eyes. “Show me inside. Take me to someone I can talk to.”
“Freeze!” a male voice outside the building shouted. “Drop your weapons! We have you surrounded! There’s twenty of us to your two. And we have the kid.”
Cold fear shivered through her, icing her veins. She’d been so intent on the woman and berating Finn that she hadn’t even heard them. Some warrior she was. Now they had Benjie. And it was her fault.
She and Finn dropped the guns and raised their hands.
“Don’t you dare hurt my brother!” she cried.
A group of people rushed in—ten through the doorway she’d used, and another ten through one of the open bays at the opposite end of the building, quickly surrounding them. Most of them wore gloves and masks. They all pointed guns at Finn and Willow.
A young guy in a black jacket and a backward baseball cap entered behind the rest, gripping Benjie in front of him with one hand on his shoulder. In his other hand, he held a handgun pointed toward the floor at his side. At least he wasn’t pointing the gun at Benjie. That had to be a good sign.
The woman they’d captured lowered her hands and smirked at Willow. “The tables turn quickly, don’t they?”
Willow huffed her bangs out of her eyes. If that woman wanted an apology, she wouldn’t get it. “For a bunch of pacifists, you sure have a lot of guns.”
“Willow—” Finn warned.
“This is all a misunderstanding,” Willow said, trying again, forcing a smile on her face even though she longed to tackle baseball-cap guy and break his kneecaps for daring to put his hands on her brother. “We’re friendlies.”
The woman spat blood on the floor. She winced as she touched her bloody nose. It looked broken. “You sure don’t act friendly.”
“You snuck up on me!”
“And you’re trespassing on private property!” the woman snapped back.
“Are you all right, Weppler?” Baseball-cap guy asked the woman.
The woman nodded, grimacing.
“We really do come in peace.” Finn shot a warning glance at Willow. “We’d like to talk to your leader. We came with a girl named Raven. She’s just down the hill. She says she knows—”
“Enough,” said a stoop-shouldered older black man in his seventies. “We’ll let the Council figure it out. Take them into custody.”
Someone grabbed her under each arm. She tried to pull away, but they were strong. “Where the heck is Raven?” she asked. Raven popping up and explaining everything would go a long way to diffusing this situation.
“Shadow got scared when the gunshots went off,” Benjie said from behind her, his voice quavering. “He ran into the woods, and Raven followed him.”
Anger surged through her veins. Then guilt punctured her, deflating her anger. Raven wasn’t a coward. If she fled, she had a reason. Besides, it was Willow who’d disobeyed Raven’s instructions. None of this would’ve happened if she’d just sat still and waited like a good girl. Patience had never been one of her virtues.
What had she gotten them into?
7
Amelia
On the other side of the diamondglass wall, Amelia’s father slumped in a metal chair. His hands were free, but his ankles were shackled with electronic cuffs to the chair.
His face was barely recognizable. His eyes were blackened, his face marbled in yellow, green, and purple bruises. His straight, aquiline nose was mangled. His lip was swollen and split. Blood caked his dark, silver-threaded hair. He cradled his right hand in his lap. Several fingers were bent grotesquely, the bones shattered.
Amelia looked away, tears burning her eyes. She thought she would feel rage, hatred, a self-righteous fury. Her father had finally been caught. He would finally pay for his despicable crimes, his years of abuse and cruelty. He had finally met justice. But she felt nothing but numbness and a deep, sucking despair.
“Amelia,” he wheezed.
She took a steadying breath and forced herself to face him. “Father.”
He worked his jaw, wincing at the movement. “You came.”
She didn’t have to ask what they’d done to him. He’d clearly been beaten, tortured. She tried to tell herself that he deserved it. But the words sounded hollow in her own head. Did anyone deserve this?
Her hands shook. She curled them into fists at her side. “I don’t know why. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe this was a mistake—”
“I need your help.” His words slurred through split lips. Three of his teeth were missing. “We can work together. We can still turn this around.”
She pushed a strand of her newly lengthened hair behind her ear. It weighed down her head, caused her neck to ache. “I can’t do that.”
Declan’s damaged face contorted. “You don’t get to say no to me. I’m in this position because of you, because of your treachery!”
The words sliced through her, sharp as razors. She shook her head. “You’re here because of your actions. Not mine.”
“You’re hopeless,” he said in disgust. “Just like your mother.”
“No.” She raised her chin. “I’m not. She sacrificed everything for safety. She traded the well-being of her children. She traded her friends. I won’t do that. I am not her. I don’t make deals with the devil.”
She turned toward the door.
“You may think you hate me, but you don’t,” he said softly. “I saved you from your epilepsy. And I'll save you again. I am your father. I love you.”
/>
“No.” A tremor went through her—so soft she hoped he didn’t notice it. Because even now, after all this, in a terrible, inexplicable way, she still longed for her father to love her. She wanted it to be true. “No.”
She forced her feet to take one step, then two. She moved for the door.
“Don’t go,” he said.
She kept walking. She placed her hand on the door handle.
“I have what you came for.”
The metal was cold beneath her hand. She stilled, hesitating. “What did I come for?”
“It wasn’t just me. Isn’t that what you want? You want a name.”
Slowly, slowly, her heartbeat roaring in her ears, she turned around.
He croaked out a bitter laugh. “You could never lie to me, girl. I’ve always seen right through you.”
She didn’t rise to his bait. She didn’t let him see her trembling legs, the flutter of her pulse. Her voice was steady, her eyes clear. “Say the name.”
He gave her an ugly, misshapen smile. “But you already know.”
She breathed in, breathed out. Dread coiled in the pit of her stomach. Some part of her knew what her father was about to say, even before he said it. She forced her gaze to meet her father’s. “President Sloane.”
“Yes.”
Amelia exhaled sharply.
His mouth twisted. “The Hydra virus was President Sloane’s idea. She is the mastermind. I was simply her minion. She is the one who orchestrated it all.”
“She arrested you,” Amelia said, fighting the thing she somehow already knew was true. “She was appalled by the recording we sent. I saw her face—”
“Did you really?” Declan cut in. “Are you sure she didn’t already know what was on that clip, so she had time to prepare her reaction?”
