by Kyla Stone
No more seizures. No more migraines. No more fear and hunger and cold. She would have her violin, her music. Opulent living quarters. Sumptuous dresses. Gloriously hot showers daily. A luxurious bed. Decadent food delivered on a silver platter. Her mother and her brother by her side. Peace and comfort. Safety.
She shook her head. “I can’t just—”
Her mother grasped her arm. “You have to think of yourself for once. Forget everything else!”
What if she could forget it all?
Forget that her murderous father awaited his execution. Forget that her own mother had betrayed her friends stuck outside the safety of the Sanctuary. Forget that President Sloane intended to keep the cure for herself, that Amelia’s plans to smuggle the cure had burned to ashes. Forget that she was trapped here, a gilded prisoner in a gilded cage.
Forget that war was coming, with everyone she cared about in the cross-hairs.
But that was impossible. She couldn’t forget. She could never forget her friends, everyone and everything she loved. She didn’t want to, not for any price or reward or dream.
“No.” Amelia blinked back hot tears. “There are things more important than safety.”
“The Patriots won’t win this war, Amelia. They can’t. The Sanctuary is too strong.”
“That’s not true—”
Her mother dropped the lily on the table next to Amelia’s violin. “The New Patriots attacked us yesterday.”
Amelia stiffened. Every cell in her body went cold. She stared at her mother, aghast. “What? What happened? Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t I hear—”
“Because President Sloane wanted to spare you the worry and heartache. And I agreed. It was a pathetic attempt, Amelia. The Sanctuary demolished their forces in less than an hour. I told you, I picked the right side. I picked the side that will protect us.”
Her lungs constricted. “What about Gabriel? Willow? Benjie?”
“I don’t know.” Her mother rubbed her forehead. Suddenly, she looked ten years older. She looked genuinely sorrowful. “I hope they’re fine. I truly do.”
It wasn’t enough. It couldn’t be enough.
Amelia rose to her feet. A cold, frightening anger thrummed through her. “I need you to leave.”
Her mother wrung her hands together in front of her stomach. A flash of uncertainty crossed her face. “Amelia, please understand. When the Headhunters took me hostage, every minute of every day I only thought of you. I vowed that if I ever had the chance again, I would do whatever I must to keep you safe.”
“Get out,” Amelia said, louder.
Her mother flinched like she’d been slapped. She chewed her lower lip, her mauve lipstick staining her teeth. She hesitated, as if hoping Amelia would change her mind.
But Amelia didn’t change her mind. She stood on the terrace stiffly, her back rigid as butterflies danced and fluttered all around her, the scents of hydrangea and jasmine filling her nostrils, until her mother turned swiftly and swept from the room without a word.
The camera in the corner stared at Amelia with its tiny dark eye. Watching, always watching, waiting to see what she would do.
She fingered her charm bracelet around her neck. She closed her hand around the violin charm, pressing her palm against the sharp point until it hurt.
Her mother had made her choice. It was the wrong one. Amelia wouldn’t make the same mistake. She couldn’t.
Her friends were in danger. It was time to act.
Amelia knew what she should do, what she needed to do. The question was, how far was she willing to go?
13
Gabriel
Gabriel shifted impatiently and peered through his scope past the tree line. Still nothing. His muscles ached. His shoulders were stiff, his fingers half-numb from the cold.
Gabriel and Cleo hunched behind a facade of rocks, dirt, and branches along a steep hillside overlooking a winding mountain road. They’d been waiting for a Sanctuary transport truck to pass by for over six hours. The Patriots planned to ambush the truck, load the Phantom inside it, and use it to gain access to the Sanctuary’s service entrance. Several of their inside guys would be waiting on the other side. Once inside, they’d neutralize the cannons and take down the Sanctuary. “How long do we wait?”
“However long we need to,” Cleo said. “Theo’s man said the truck was coming today. So it’s coming. We wait for the signal.”
Less than twenty minutes later, a voice spoke over their comm. “Target spotted, three miles back.”
They fell into a focused silence, tense, ready, waiting. Several minutes later, the whirr of the electric engine betrayed the transport’s presence. Through the trees below him, he glimpsed a white-and-blue truck rumbling up the hill.
It stopped thirty yards directly below them. Just ahead of the truck, the fallen birch tree they’d chopped that morning blocked the road. Voices echoed up the hill as two men got out of the cab.
Gabriel slipped on the tactical goggles. He swiped the side of the goggles and flipped through vision overlays—GPS mapping, night vision, electronic detection, infrared.
The world turned to distinctive shades of yellow, purple, orange. He searched for yellowish-red, human-shaped forms. There. A glimpse of glowing red, an arm or a leg through the trees. He pointed silently.
“Hostiles out of the box,” Cleo whispered, activating the squad radio transmitter. “Two heat signatures on the move.”
The reply came a moment later. It was General Reaver, who had refused to remain in quarantine for the battle. She was back at the compound, clad in a hazmat suit and directing operations from the war room. The helmet muffled her voice only slightly, though her frequent, ragged coughs were disconcerting. Especially for Cleo, whose mouth tightened every time her mother came on the line. “Alpha Team One, lead the assault, but protect the transport. It must look pristine for the mission.”
Gabriel gripped his rifle. “Got it.”
From across the road on the other side of the hill, five more Patriots began their slow creep down the jagged incline.
“We have to take them out before they can report our presence,” Cleo said. “You know that, right? Each shot has to be a kill shot.”
His every sense was alert, his body taut, adrenaline flooding his veins. This was war. This was life or death. He managed a tight grin. “Is that a challenge?”
“If you can handle it,” Cleo scoffed.
“Watch and be amazed.” Gabriel hunched behind a tree, rifle butt braced against his shoulder, and peered through his tactical goggles. The two glowing orange-red bodies were making their way into the woods, about ten yards apart. They were taking a break to piss.
“They’re wearing body armor,” he said softly into his comm. “Aim just below the bottom of the neck, top of the chest. A chest shot knocks them down but not out. Get them in the throat, and they’re gone for good.”
“Noted,” she said into his ear, though she was thirty yards away now, creeping through the underbrush. “Let’s see what you’re made of.”
He switched his tactical goggles from infrared to zoom before peering through his rifle’s scope. He steadied his breathing. The first soldier—burly, with a blonde ponytail—turned at a forty-five-degree angle, his head momentarily bent as he unzipped his pants.
A twig cracked to Gabriel’s right. The man’s head jerked up.
Gabriel pulled the trigger. The silencer made a soft pfft sound. The man’s body jerked like a puppet on a string. Red arterial blood sprayed into the air. He clutched at his throat, gurgling. Then he went down.
“A little slow,” Cleo said in his ear.
He pulled away from his scope. Ten yards down the hill, Cleo’s target was already crumpled at the base of a pine tree.
There was a trace of amusement in her voice. “But adequate.”
“Enough prattle,” Cleo’s righthand man, Jamal Carter, said over the comm. Both men were down. The transport was theirs. “Get in the truck. Let’s move
.”
Gabriel clenched his jaw. Everything they’d worked and suffered for—it started now. Tomorrow meant everything. They would either win, or lose it all.
14
Micah
“We’re going to win tomorrow,” Fiona said brightly, her eyes shining as she stared up at the dark canopy of sky above them. The clouds were so thick they obscured the stars. She sipped a steaming cup of tea Luciana had given her. “I have a good feeling.”
Micah and the others were still at Luciana’s house. He, Fiona, and Silas stood on the back porch. It was just after midnight. No one could sleep.
Theo, Kadek, Luciana and several others were still up, deep in preparations for the attack—the real attack, not the false one Cleo had orchestrated. The Sanctuary believed the Patriots had come at them with everything they had. The Sanctuary believed they had beaten off an inferior, rag-tag group of rebels. They had no idea what was coming.
Or so the Patriots hoped.
There were eighty-five Sanctuary citizens ready and willing to fight. They seemed so few. But they would be enough. They had to be enough. Still, Micah couldn’t shake the feeling that the cost of winning would be high, maybe higher than any of them wanted to contemplate.
Micah cleaned his glasses on a corner of his thermal long-sleeved shirt. “I’m praying that we do, if it’s God’s will.”
“It is,” Fiona said with another dreamy sigh. “I can feel it. I’m ready.”
“What do you know?” Silas asked. A savage smile played across his lips. “Have you ever even killed someone?”
Her face fell. She pushed a red curl behind her ear and bit her bottom lip. “Well, no, but—”
“Then you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, cupcake,” Silas snapped, his eyes going hard and glittering. “Why don’t you leave the war talk to the grown-ups?”
“You’re right,” she stammered. Her face bloomed bright red. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.” She whirled and scurried back into the house, clutching her mug with both hands, her eyes glistening with tears.
“Leaving already?” Silas called after her, smirking. “I was just about to poison the tea.”
“Stop it!” Micah rounded on Silas, his temper flaring. Silas had no right to treat anyone that way, especially Fiona, who’d been nothing but kind to him. “She’s not Willow. She can’t take your sarcasm and throw it right back at you.”
“So what?”
“If you’re not careful, you’ll crush her.”
Silas shrugged sullenly. “What do you expect me to do?”
“You can start by not being a jackass. Act like you care.”
“Why should I care?” he snarled abruptly, whirling on Micah. “Why should I care about this ridiculous war? I have a place here. Amelia has a place here. Why am I even doing this, plotting a coup against my own kind? These are elites. They’re my people. I should betray all of you and join my sister in my father’s penthouse. That’s where I belong.”
Micah stared at him, taken aback. Silas’s anger wasn’t aimed at poor Fiona or even Micah. It was something else, something deeper. “You would abandon the people who care about you? You would leave Willow and Benjie out there to die?”
Silas said nothing, his expression stony.
“You would join your father, who despises you? Who never loved you like you deserved? Who betrayed your sister and brutally murdered billions of people?”
Silas’s mouth pressed into a thin, bloodless line.
“You may not admit it, but you want a better world, too. One not ruled by cruel and petty tyrants like the Coalition.”
Silas gave him a withering glare. “You have no idea what I want.”
Micah stared back at him, meeting his flashing gray eyes. Silas always lashed out when he was cornered or vulnerable, just like he did when Amelia contracted the Hydra virus. He was doing the same thing now. “I think you’re afraid. We’re all afraid. But you won’t abandon Willow and the rest of the people struggling to survive outside these walls, Silas. I know you won’t.”
“You don’t know me,” Silas said, but some of the fight left his voice.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I do know you. Amelia knows you. Willow knows you. We’ve fought side by side, Silas. You’ve saved me and I’ve saved you. You can pretend all you want, but I do know you. Deep down under all that snark, you’re a good person.”
Silas let out a bark of bitter laughter.
“I’m serious, Silas.”
“So you think I should fight against my own people?”
“I think you already know what you should do.” Micah shivered in the cold air. In the distance, someone was playing the piano. Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” What was Amelia doing right now? Could she hear the same music?
Likely not. They were in sector six, far from the glittering Capitol and Unity Square. Even in the Sanctuary, there were tiers of people, the elites and everyone else.
But they could change that. They needed to change it. To change everything. “There is no more us and them, my people and your people. There can’t be. We’re all in this together.”
Something in Silas wilted. His shoulders sagged. Whatever battle he’d been waging inside himself seemed to be snuffed out, defeated. At least for now. “We could die tomorrow,” he said, his voice cracking.
“We could. But some things are worth dying for. If we win—if we change the world and save all these people—then it will be worth it.”
“You would sacrifice your own life?”
Micah didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”
Silas’s voice was so soft he barely heard it. “What about Amelia’s?”
Micah’s vision blurred. He blinked to clear his eyes. “She would sacrifice herself to save others.” He prayed it would never come to that. He would lay down his own life a thousand times to save hers. To save Gabriel’s. To save all the people he loved more dearly than himself.
Behind them, the door activated, sliding open with a barely perceptible hiss. Theo rolled out onto the porch between them. Low, tense murmurs drifted through the opened door. “It’s way past curfew. We don’t want to attract any unwanted attention. Especially tonight. Luciana said you can stay here. It’s too risky to try and get you back to the agricultural sector.”
“Thank you,” Micah said.
Theo hesitated, worrying his lower lip. “Fiona is a good girl, you know. She’s loyal and brave.” He slanted his gaze at Silas. “She likes to flirt with you.”
Silas grunted. “The feeling is less than mutual.”
“She likes to flirt with everyone, man. Guys and girls. It’s nothing personal—or serious. She’s had a hard time of it. She came here three months ago with her parents and her girlfriend. Fiona is immune. So is her mother. But she watched her father and girlfriend die. You could cut her some slack.”
Silas cleared his throat. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. A rare emotion crossed his face—remorse. “Okay. I’ll talk to her.”
Micah’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline.
“Don’t you know I live for your approval?” Silas rolled his eyes. He shot Micah a wry smirk. “I’m capable of human decency. Don’t act so surprised.”
Micah started to say he wasn’t, but they all knew that was a lie, even Theo.
“Just don’t get used to it.” Silas turned and stalked back into the house.
Despite the circumstances, the anxiety and tension and the violence looming on the horizon, Micah found himself grinning.
Theo stared up at the sky. “What now?”
Micah followed his gaze. There were no stars that they could see, but he knew they were simply hidden. They were still there, waiting for the oncoming storm to pass. He thought of his favorite quote from The Count of Monte Cristo. “All human wisdom is contained in these two words: wait and hope. So we wait. We hope.”
“And tomorrow?”
Micah stared at the barely visible shapes of the mountains above the
faintly gleaming buildings of the Sanctuary. “Tomorrow, we fight for everything that matters.”
15
Gabriel
Gabriel watched Cerberus with narrowed eyes, almost hoping he would make a wrong move and give Gabriel the excuse he needed to take him out. Gabriel hadn’t forgotten, not for one second, that it was Cerberus who had murdered Nadira.
Gabriel and Cerberus and twenty of the Patriots’ best fighters were waiting for their turn to be squashed inside barrels and loaded onto the Sanctuary’s transport truck. The empty fuel barrels were lined with lead to hide their body heat signatures from the infrared scanners at the Sanctuary’s service entrance.
“People are weak.” Cerberus leaned against the trunk of a pine tree on the side of the road, cleaning his blackened fingernails with his knife. “They’ll betray each other for a scrap of bread. They lust after what they can’t have. They’ll break half the world to get it.”
He slanted his cold, cunning gaze at Gabriel. “What will you destroy to get what you want?”
The Headhunter talked too damn much. Every word he spoke was like needles piercing Gabriel’s eardrums. He tried not to imagine strangling the life from the man with his bare hands.
Gabriel hated being forced to work with Cerberus. Cleo and General Reaver had insisted they needed the Headhunters to win the war. Cerberus had bartered the location of the Phantom for his freedom.
Cleo had promised him Cerberus’s life as soon as this was all over. He wasn’t sure if he could wait that long. “Nothing.”
Cerberus shifted. The fur of his white wolf’s cloak stretched across his broad shoulders, rippling in the wind. Tall and barrel-chested, his arms bulging with muscles, he cut a formidable figure. “You and your brother love the same girl.”
A splinter of pain sliced into Gabriel’s heart. He clenched his jaw until his teeth ached. “Shut up.”
