by Kyla Stone
Micah’s eyes widened as he took in the sheer number of enemy soldiers bearing down on them from all sides. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Too many to fight. Too many to run from. As much as he hated the thought, he knew Logan was right.
In all directions, smoke and ash permeated the air. His nostrils filled with the stench of gunpowder, seared flesh, and death.
Slowly, his muscles filled with lead, his heart heavy with grief and horrified disbelief, Micah lifted his hands in surrender.
29
Gabriel
Sound drifted away as Bale’s fingers strangled the life from Gabriel. Gray fog filled his mind. Blackness sucked at the edges of his consciousness. Gabriel struggled uselessly, his strength fading, despair filling him.
A sickening crunch came from behind. Bale reared back with a pained grunt. Bale’s death-grip released for a half a second.
It was all Gabriel needed. He spun and jerked back, staggering, his starved lungs sucking in mouthfuls of precious air. Panting, he leaned heavily against the counter for balance, blinking to clear his blurred vision.
Bale hissed out a harsh breath. He slumped to his knees. Blood gushed from a gash above his left ear and shattered nose.
“Let him go!” Amelia stood behind Bale, desperate and fierce, a large microscope clutched in both hands. She’d sneaked behind them, yanked the microscope from one of the counters, and smashed it into the side of Bale’s head while he choked Gabriel.
Gabriel gasped, straining for oxygen, still dizzy and lightheaded. He tried to stand but instead stumbled into the glass shelves. The shelving unit creaked. One of the cages moved, scraping against the shelf. The mice squealed angrily.
Amelia flung the microscope aside and dove for something beneath the counter. She scrambled to her feet holding Gabriel’s gun. She pointed it at Bale.
Bale didn’t hesitate. He didn’t stop. In an instant, he straightened and flung himself at Amelia with a roar. She pulled the trigger. The gunshot cracked the air. Bale flinched but barely faltered.
Before Gabriel could react, Bale reached her, swatted the gun away, and seized her by the throat. He lifted her high, her hands scrabbling at his arms, her legs kicking furiously, uselessly. He slammed her head against the edge of the stainless-steel counter.
Amelia slipped to the floor, her body loose and flopping. For a terrible second, she didn’t move.
“Amelia!” Gabriel cried.
Amelia groaned. Slowly, she pulled herself to a sitting position. Blood streaked her forehead. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused.
Bale flexed his fingers. A growing blood stain bloomed on his left side, but he barely slowed. He took a menacing step toward her. He was the predator; she the prey. The next time he touched her, he would kill her. Gabriel knew this with a terrible certainty.
“Face me like a man!” Gabriel shouted. “Or is a girl more of a threat to you?”
Bale spun toward Gabriel. The harsh fluorescent lighting sharpened the hard planes of the man’s face. His mouth was a bloodless line, his eyes glittering with brutal, dauntless determination.
Bale smiled at him. Then he charged.
Gabriel shoved the shelving unit with all his strength. The shelf toppled. A dozen heavy glass cages fell on Bale. He collapsed with a crash. Shattered glass sprayed everywhere.
Gabriel staggered back, breathing hard. Dimly, he was aware of Amelia crawling toward the doorway.
But Bale was only down for a few moments. Not enough time to gain the advantage, not with Gabriel’s vision spinning, his throat and ribs burning like molten lava.
Bale shoved aside the broken cages with a curse. Freed mice scurried from the wreckage, fleeing further into the lab. He clambered to his feet, blood staining his suit, leaking from the gunshot wound in his right side, several deep cuts on his face and arms dripping red.
He was a mountain that refused to fall, a beast that would not die.
Bale lifted the frame of a shattered cage, the mouse still squeaking inside, and hurled it at Gabriel.
Gabriel dodged, throwing himself to the right. The cage struck a glancing blow against his left shoulder. He stumbled, knocked off balance. Wet blood slid down his arm. His entire arm tingled, but he felt little pain.
Gabriel spun, his boots crunching glass, and sprinted for the door. He raced out of the lab, frantically scanning the room for Amelia as he ran. He glimpsed a tangle of white-blonde hair, a pale, stricken face. She was still inside, hiding behind one of the counters, crouched behind the med-bot.
Bale crashed through the lab behind him. Gabriel didn’t have time to scream at her to run, didn’t have time for the fury and terror and dread crashing through him. She already knew what she needed to do.
Amelia would head for the stairwell. It was her only chance. Gabriel had to give her that chance, had to give her time. He had to draw Bale away from her. Instead of going for the stairwell himself, he turned sharply right, betting everything on the hope that Bale wanted him now, wanted to end him.
Gabriel raced for the balcony, Bale hot on his heels. He just needed somewhere to go, something he could use. But there was nothing. Walls, floor, railing, six stories of open space.
He whirled to face Bale, arms up to protect his face.
Bale was panting, one hand pressed against his side, the red stain swelling over his suit jacket and bloodying his fingers. Gabriel was still no match for him, though.
Bale backed Gabriel up against the metal railing. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. Nothing to save him this time.
Bale pummeled him with a series of punishing roundhouse kicks. Gabriel grunted, blocking them with his forearms. The blows vibrated through him. It felt like his bones would crack from the impact.
Bale flashed Gabriel a vicious grin. They both knew it was about to be over. Bale raised his leg, preparing for a final, devastating kick.
Gabriel dropped to the floor, landing hard on his back. He was completely exposed, but it didn’t matter. In his eagerness to end Gabriel, Bale put too much force into the kick. His momentum carried his leg whooshing over Gabriel’s head, slamming into the railing. Bale grunted as his ankle cracked against metal.
He still didn’t go down. He jerked a knife from the sheath at his waist. He glared down at Gabriel, murder in his cold eyes.
Gabriel felt the strength seeping from his battered body. He was going to fail. He hadn’t given Amelia enough time. Bale would kill him, and then he would stalk Amelia, killing her as coldly and efficiently as a hunter killed a deer.
After everything, Amelia would die because of him after all.
And then, suddenly, Amelia was there. She rushed from the hallway, a scalpel gripped in one hand. She charged Bale, driving her weight into the man’s spine, stabbing him with the tiny blade, once, twice, three times.
He turned with a snarl, leaning heavily against the railing on his right side, knife lifted in his blood-streaked left hand, ready to gut her.
There was no time to think. To react. Only one thought seared Gabriel’s mind. Amelia.
Ignoring the pain searing his shoulder, his ribs, his head, he gathered every last ounce of his strength and kicked at Bale’s other leg, knocking his foot out from under him.
Bale wobbled, knocked off balance, his entire weight against the railing, his huge upper body leaning half-over the edge. Amelia lunged at him again, her mouth opened in a silent scream.
Gabriel sprang to his feet, nearly blinded from the blood in his eyes, from the agony exploding through his shoulder, his ribs. He shoved the man with everything he had.
Bale toppled over the railing.
Gabriel and Amelia leaned heavily against the railing, gasping for breath. Gabriel looked over the edge. Several stories down, Bale lay bent and crumpled, a swelling puddle of blood leaking from beneath his broken body.
Amelia turned to Gabriel, her face bone-white, her eyes wild, her hair a tangled mess. Reddened welts ringed her throat. Blood clotted her hair and scalp. An ugly purple egg-sha
ped welt was already forming on the right side of her forehead at her hairline.
They stared at each other for a moment, just breathing. Somehow, against the odds, they were still alive. They were the ones still standing.
“When he slammed you against the counter, I thought you were dead…” Gabriel said hoarsely. “How badly did he hurt you?”
She managed the faintest of smiles. “Not as much as he hurt you.”
He wiped the blood from his eyes, wincing at the shards of agony spearing through his skull. His throat throbbed where Bale had strangled him. Gently, he probed his face. The skin around his cheekbone and right eye was raw, puffy, and swollen, caked in blood. The cuts were deep, but no bones seemed to be broken.
Molten pain seared his side. A cracked rib likely. Deeply bruised, at least. An incredible weariness stole over him. He swayed, held himself up against the railing. “How’s your head?”
“Okay, I think. I’m dizzy, but that’s nothing new.”
“Where did you get the scalpel?”
“From the med-bot. I broke it off one of its arms.”
He pressed his hand over the wound in his shoulder. Blood leaked between his fingers. “You should have run. I told you to run.”
She lifted her chin, her eyes sparking with defiance. “Then you would be dead. And Bale would have hunted me down and killed me, too.”
He couldn’t argue with her logic. He’d thought the same thing. He’d been desperate to save her. And he had. But she had saved him too in the end.
“I wasn’t going to leave you,” she said. “I couldn’t.”
He fought the urge to push her hair behind her ears, to draw her close and pull her into the safety of his arms. He wanted to lean down and kiss her, release all the pent-up emotions he shouldn’t allow himself to feel, but still did.
Instead, another wave of dizziness struck him, and he faltered, nearly losing his balance.
She narrowed her eyes as she pulled an auto-injector out of her pocket. “The med-bot had adrenaline stims in one of its compartments. It’ll keep you on your feet until we can get you to a doctor.”
He nodded, and she injected his arm. He barely felt the sting. He did feel the flood of ice-cold adrenaline streaking through his veins. He stood up straighter. “We need to go. We have to get back to the battle.”
She nodded mutely. Gabriel looped his arm around her waist. She was holding him up as much as he was helping her. They ran as best they could, Gabriel hissing each breath. They reached the stairwell and hobbled down six flights of stairs. They stumbled across the polished floor of the lobby, steering well clear of Bale’s body.
They skidded to a halt ten yards from the glass front doors. Amelia gasped.
Outside BioGen, the square was in ruins. The sky had darkened like a stain. Thickly falling snow mingled with the smoke and ash. Snow coated the rubble and the twisted, mangled metal of fallen drones.
Everywhere he looked, he saw bodies. Some wore Coalition uniforms. More in the dark clothing and combat fatigues of the resistance fighters and New Patriots.
So many dead.
“Gabriel!” Amelia pointed, drawing his attention to the center of the square.
Their paltry Patriot forces had been overrun. The hundred or so survivors were pressed into a bloody circle surrounded by hundreds of Coalition soldiers bristling with rifles and pulse guns. Armored drones glided menacingly over the prisoners’ heads.
They’d lost. After everything they’d suffered and sacrificed, they’d still lost. Despair clawed at his throat. “We can’t go out there,” he said numbly. “They’ll kill us. It’s over.”
“No!” Amelia seized his arm. There was no fear or defeat in her expression, only an iron, resolute determination. “We’re not giving up.”
She pointed at a tiny metallic ball he hadn’t noticed before. It hovered in the air several feet behind them, trailing Amelia like a trained puppy. She snapped her fingers and the hovercam flew into her left hand. “We can show them the truth. It’s not over.”
“I don’t think so.” A guard sprang out of the shadows of the stairwell alcove. A white girl in her early twenties, average height, her dull brown hair yanked back in a tight ponytail. She clutched a pulse gun in both hands, arms straight and level, the barrel swiveling between Amelia and Gabriel.
Amelia stiffened. “Harper.”
30
Amelia
Harper trained her gun on Amelia. “I have them, Madam President,” she said into her comm.
Across the lobby, the elevator dinged. The doors slid open, and President Sloane stepped out, daintily smoothing a wrinkle in her white silk blouse with one hand. In her other hand, she held Bale’s pulse gun loosely at her side. She smiled when she saw them. It wasn’t a kind smile.
Harper’s gun swung in Amelia’s direction. “What are your orders, Madam President?”
“Take them out to the square,” Sloane said. Her eyes glittered with triumph. “We will execute them like the terrorists they are.”
“Harper, you need to let us go,” Amelia said urgently. Her throat burned with a searing fire, but she forced the words out. “President Sloane isn’t who you think she is. I know what you did to us. I know you betrayed us. But it’s not too late—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Harper snapped. “Your people attacked us first.”
“What about your people?” Amelia asked, edging closer to Gabriel. The searing pain in her head made her thoughts slow and sluggish. She shook her head, clearing her mind. She had to stay sharp.
It was the only way she and Gabriel might live through this. The only way any of them might live through this.
“Do as I command, Harper,” Sloane snapped. “Shut them up and get them outside. Now.”
“You heard the president.” Harper gestured at them with the gun. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
“She drugged everyone, Harper,” Amelia said. “Your people. She dosed them with a compound identical to Silk to make them docile and malleable. She used the monthly anti-viral shots. Anti-virals are useless in the healthy. They don’t do anything. She knows that.
“She deceived the survivors and fed off their fear. She made them believe the outside was even more dangerous than it was. That they needed the anti-virals to live, but their only purpose was to keep the people under her absolute control.
“She’s a tyrant, Harper. She turned on her own people a long time ago.”
Harper’s gaze darted to President Sloane. The gun wavered slightly.
“All lies to deceive you,” Sloane said. “She’s just like her father. Harper, you are an elite secret service agent. I hand-selected you. Your duty is to your country. Your duty is to obey the orders of your commander-in-chief. Anything less is treason!”
“Your duty is the people,” Gabriel said. “Not to the woman who slaughtered them by the billions.”
Harper’s gaze darted from Sloane to Amelia and back again. Her hands were shaking. She was a good, dutiful soldier. The thought of betraying her president was likely almost too much to bear. Almost. But there was a kernel of doubt in her expression. Amelia saw it.
Harper wasn’t stupid. She’d seen and heard plenty. She’d likely harbored her own secret misgivings for a long time, even if she hadn’t been willing to act on them. But she needed to act on them now. Amelia had to help her see the truth, or everything was lost.
“The soldiers and security agents receive different anti-virals, don’t they?” Amelia’s voice was steady and soothing, like she was calming a wild horse.
Harper looked to President Sloane again, eyes widening. In the uncertainty flitting across Harper’s face, Amelia saw her confirmation.
“She needed your senses sharp,” Amelia said. “Soldiers are trained to obey orders without questioning. She didn’t need to drug you. But the people were scared. They were devastated and angry. They wanted answers. They might have turned against her, rightfully believing the government hadn’
t protected them as promised. So she had to keep them dull and placid, keep them under her thumb.
“She had you perfectly positioned to manipulate the situation and use the resistance to trap Declan Black. All the while, she was the true mastermind, the true enemy of the people.”
Harper stiffened. “You—drugged everyone? You killed all those people? It was you?”
“Harper!” Sloane cried. Her eyes bulged with barely repressed fury. “I am the president of the United States of America! Defy me now, and so help me, you’ll suffer the consequences for your treason.”
Harper shook her head. She lowered her gun. “I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know.”
Relief flooded Amelia. She held out her hands. “I know. I understand. I—”
A gun went off.
Harper sank to her knees, a stunned expression frozen on her face. A pulse blast had struck her in the belly. The sizzling energy savaged skin, muscle, organs, intestines, spine. She toppled to the floor, already dead.
Amelia looked at Gabriel in horrified shock. His hands were still in the air. It wasn’t him. Then who—
“Such a waste. But it had to be done.” Sloane straightened. The pulse gun she’d just used on Harper was now aimed at Gabriel. “I served six years in the Air Force. You think I wouldn’t know how to defend myself? How to defend the Sanctuary? All I’ve ever done is serve and protect this country.”
Gabriel grimaced. “You’re so full of bull—”
“Enough. Now move. I’ll see you hanged as terrorists and traitors for this. Both of you.”
Panic seized Amelia’s insides in an icy vise. Her legs trembled. White spots flitted in front of her eyes.
She struggled to fight it off, to be smart. There was a way out of this. But right now, they had no choice but to obey.
With Sloane behind them, her gun pointed at their backs, and their hands up, Amelia and Gabriel stumbled across the foyer and through the glass doors.
They halted at the top of the marble staircase. Below them, their friends stood slump-shouldered and defeated—surrounded by enemies, awaiting their fate. Drones circled overhead like carrion eager to pick the bones of the dead. She searched for Micah and Silas and Logan, but couldn’t find any of them in the huddled circle of dirty, bloodied survivors.
