by Kyla Stone
Silas raised his head, his eyes glittering in the glow of the lamplight. “And how can you possibly know that?”
“Because she’s loved.” The moment he said the words, he knew they were true, all the way down to the marrow of his bones. “And she knows she’s loved. By you. By me. By Gabriel and Benjie and Willow and everyone else. Even if we can’t be by her side, she has us here.” He tapped his chest. “And we have her. It’s love that gives us strength, courage, and hope. It’s love that’s going to get us through this.”
He expected Silas to keep arguing, to hurl insults or sneer in contempt. But he didn’t. Silas slumped down on the sleeping bag opposite Micah. “You really believe that.”
“I do.”
“Okay,” Silas said, breathing deeply. “Okay.”
“Even the darkest night will end, and the sun will rise. Victor Hugo wrote that.”
“Les Miserables,” Silas said.
Micah looked at him, surprised.
“I do read on occasion,” Silas said irritably. “When the apocalypse isn’t around to distract me.”
Micah climbed into his sleeping bag and switched off the solar lamp. He listened to Silas breathing in the darkness.
Weariness descended over him. His eyes fluttered closed in spite of himself. He was almost asleep when Silas spoke. “Maybe you’re right.”
Micah blinked. He could make out the dim shape of stars in the dingy glass over his head. “Silas—”
“If you say a word, I’ll punch your teeth down your throat.”
Micah smiled into the darkness.
28
Amelia
“I’m pleasantly surprised that you suggested this, Amelia.” Declan turned from the window to survey her with his sharp gaze.
“I—I thought we should spend more time together.” Amelia forced confidence into her voice. “Outside of the lab.”
“Your timing is impeccable.” He gestured for her to sit at the glossy quartz table in his penthouse suite on the top floor of the BioGen building. Her father had ordered the guards to wait outside the penthouse. They were alone. “I have a gift for you.”
She sat gracefully in the magnetic floating chair, adjusting the skirts of her silk peacock-blue gown. Her newly long hair was bound in a French twist, curled wisps fluttering about her face. Carefully applied makeup accentuated her ice-blue eyes and fine cheekbones.
Despite the external perfection, she was a mess inside. Her father had promised no migraines with this medication, but a lesser headache throbbed dully at the back of her skull.
She forced herself to keep it together. She couldn’t falter now.
She allowed her gaze to stray as her father poured expensive wine from a crystal decanter into two goblets. Where the capitol building was sumptuous and decadent, her father’s quarters were sparse, minimal, but still pristine. The enormous suite was open, sectioned off into a spacious living area, dining room, and office space. The kitchen was hidden behind a floor-to-ceiling aquarium undulating with exotic, luminescent jellyfish.
The entire west side of the penthouse was a wall of glass, revealing the gleaming city below them and the mountains beyond. The white polymer walls pulsed with cerulean ocean waves.
Her stomach tightened at the idea of elites painstakingly preserving jellyfish but caring little for the suffering human beings outside their walls. She forced herself to look away before her anger got the best of her.
She was here for a purpose. She couldn’t forget that.
“I remembered.” Her father watched her closely. “The ocean was always your favorite.”
She blinked back a sudden stinging behind her eyelids. She glanced at the bouquet of lilies she’d brought, now placed on the table beside her plate. “Thank you.”
Earlier in the evening, Amelia had pinned the thumb-drive camera to the stem of a lily just inside the bouquet. She carefully adjusted it to just the right angle, so that her father was in clear view.
“I have a gift for you,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “A gift?”
Her father snapped his fingers. “Bring it now.”
“Of course, sir,” the penthouse AI said in a clipped British accent. “Fetching the gift now.”
“Activate privacy mode,” Declan commanded.
“Powering down,” the AI said before falling silent.
A humanoid service bot appeared from behind the aquarium wall and handed her a gold-wrapped rectangular box tied with a silk bow. She opened it, her fingers shaking, her pulse beating in her throat.
“An 18th-century Guarneri, like your last one,” Declan said grandly. “You have no idea how much time and expense went into procuring that.”
She cradled the violin in her hands, running her fingers over the delicate stem, grazing the strings with her fingertips, permanently indented from her years of dedicated practice.
In her former life, she’d wanted to attend Juilliard to become a professional violinist for the Vienna Philharmonic. All that had died with the Hydra virus, but not her love for this instrument, for the beautiful music she created with it.
Her blood quickened, anticipation and excitement thrumming through her. She tenderly plucked a few strings, too overcome for words.
“Play something for me,” her father commanded.
She could not disobey him. In this, she didn’t want to. She shook her head to clear her mind. Both to play, and for what came after. She considered Korngold’s and Mendelssohn’s violin concerto before settling on Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.”
She tucked the instrument beneath her chin. She went quiet and very still. Then she began to play. She drew the bow across the strings, and the first exquisite notes floated through the air, flowing over her, around her, through her. The song was sensuous, dark, and soulful.
The music filled her, swallowed her whole.
The tension in Amelia’s jaw and around her eyes faded as she played. She closed her eyes, lost in the concentration of her art, her fingers moving with a beautiful fluidity and grace. This was what she knew, what she loved with all of her heart and soul.
She thought of Bach’s “Gavotte,” the first truly difficult piece she’d mastered at eleven. She thought of her music room, where the sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the warmth of the sun seeping into the scarred hardwood floors, dust motes dancing as she played, and played, and played. It was her favorite room in the house, the rest of which was huge and cold and empty.
Her bowing intensified. The intricate melody underscored the emotions warring inside her, the splendor of the notes soaring through the air, the darker undertones weaving a tapestry of anguish around her heart.
She lost herself to the music, the way she always did. She pushed out the fear and dread, pushed out the knowledge of what she was about to do, how strong she needed to be.
Instead, for this brief respite, she soared to some invisible place free of pain and despair and heartache, a place only of beauty, of peace. Her heart squeezed as the music flowed through her fingers, building and swelling and filling the entire room until it calmed and centered her, bringing her back to herself.
As the last haunting note faded, there was a moment of complete stillness.
Her father clapped heartily. “That's my girl!” he declared, delight and pride thrumming through his voice.
Amelia opened her eyes, blinking as if coming out of a daze. She tucked the violin inside its case with the utmost care. She cleared her throat. Had to clear it again before she could speak. “Thank you. I love it. But what is this for?”
“This is a celebration!” Her father smiled broadly. From his pocket, he pulled out a long, rectangular aluminum case latched on both ends. He pressed his thumb to the biometric scanner. The latches released with a hiss.
He removed a vial full of clear liquid and held it up. “We did it, my girl!”
Her breath caught in her throat. “Is that what I think it is?”
“We tested this serum on a t
welve-year-old boy on the ninth day of infection—after the fever set in but before the hemorrhaging. Yesterday, his viral count had dropped by half. By this afternoon, his fever had broken, he was speaking coherently, his white blood cell count had increased, and his viral load had fallen below day-two threshold levels.
“This morning, we administered the cure to twenty more infected patients. Their viral counts are already dropping.” Her father turned to her, his face shining. “We’ve finally found it, Amelia. We have the cure.”
29
Gabriel
“They’re ready for you.” Jamal gestured for Cleo and Gabriel to follow him into the conference room. The room had a slightly musty smell to it. The Patriots’ leadership sat around the scarred conference table, just like last time.
Only General Reaver was conspicuously absent.
“And how would we even get close enough to take out the missiles?” Colonel Reid swallowed the last dregs of coffee from his styrofoam cup. Empty cups littered the table. The strategy meeting had already been going for well over an hour. “Even with a Phantom, as soon as we strike one cannon, the others will blow us into the next universe.”
Cleo stalked around the table, sat down hard in an empty seat, and shoved in her chair. She sat straight, shoulders squared, prepared for battle. “The cannons swivel, but not three hundred and sixty degrees.”
“Meaning?” Colonel Willis snapped. She wore a black trench coat buttoned to her throat. Her dull blond hair was cut in a sharp bob to her chin. Deep lines scoured her pallid, sour face. With General Reaver gone, she and Colonel Reid were in charge.
Someone offered Cleo a cup. She waved it away. “If we can get the Phantom within the gates, we can take out the guns one by one.”
“You’ll still have to deal with the Sanctuary’s security forces and armored drones,” said a woman in a naval officer’s uniform at the end of the table.
“I didn’t say it would be easy. It will expose Theo and every one of our assets inside.” She looked at each face. “But we’re all in now.”
“We cannot be hasty here!” Colonel Willis said. “We cannot risk it all for one person, even the General. Though we respect her years of service and leadership.”
Cleo’s face clouded. Her lips pulled back from her teeth, and her eyes slitted. Her body fairly vibrated with rage. Gabriel wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d pulled out her gun and shot Willis then and there. Or leapt across the table and strangled the woman with her bare hands.
He understood her anger. After everything her mother had sacrificed, Colonel Willis was ready to abandon General Reaver, to leave her to the ravages of the Hydra virus. And from the look of sheer loathing contorting Cleo’s features, Colonel Willis had just earned herself a life-long enemy.
But there was a hint of fear shining in Cleo’s dark eyes. She needed to convince the people at this table to go to war now, or her mother was dead.
He understood her pain, but a war would put Amelia and Micah and Silas in danger. And that, he could not abide.
“Colonel Willis is right,” he said, rising to his feet.
Cleo shot daggers at him.
“You’re putting everything the New Patriots have fought and died for at risk,” Gabriel said firmly. “You sent my people into the Sanctuary on a mission. Let them do their job. They need more time. If we go in now, we risk the cure.”
“Who’s to say Amelia won’t turn traitor and keep the cure?” Cleo snarled.
Colonel Willis folded her hands neatly on the table. She tilted her head at Gabriel. “I thought he remained here to ensure that didn’t happen.”
Cleo looked about ready to explode. She glared straight at Willis, her eyes glittering onyx shards. “I—I may have overestimated her…connection to Rivera.”
Gabriel winced. Cleo had. But Amelia would still come back. He was certain of it. “Amelia will not betray us.”
“Who knows if this girl is even the cure?” said a balding man at the end of the table.
“It’s reckless—if not downright stupidity—to risk so much on the word of an elite,” spat an older Hispanic woman with short gray hair and glasses. “Even with the Phantom, we should wait until summer as planned, bide our time, and strike when we are ready.”
“General Reaver will die,” Cleo said between gritted teeth.
Colonel Willis leaned forward. She smelled blood in the water. “As we said, that is an unfortunate—”
The conference room door burst open. A low-level Patriot hurried in, his expression strained. He whispered something in Colonel Reid’s ear. Gabriel recognized him—Bao Nguyen, the Patriot Cleo had nearly scalped in the garage bay.
Colonel Reid turned to Cleo, his expression tense. “I’ve just been informed that one of our all-terrain transports has been stolen. The back gate has been tampered with. Several members of the group you brought into our compound are unaccounted for. Captain Reaver, you were in charge of these people. Pray tell, what happened?”
Cleo’s mouth tightened. Her gaze flitted to Gabriel. They were both thinking of the noise they’d heard in the garage bay. Someone had been listening. Willow and Finn and Benjie had disappeared, but he knew without a doubt that they would never warn the Sanctuary.
“Celeste,” Gabriel said with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Celeste betrayed us.”
“Why would she do that?” Cleo asked, whirling on him.
He had believed Celeste had changed. She’d survived two days in Atlanta by herself. She’d survived Sweet Creek Farm, the Headhunters, the fire, the infected rats, the rabid dogs, the Pyros—everything they’d gone through, she’d been right by their side.
“She’s an elite,” he forced out. His words were ash on his tongue. “She’s betting on the Sanctuary over us. She knows they’ll take her in. She can return to her old life of comfort and decadence.”
“It might not be her,” Cleo said. “It could be Elise Black, Amelia’s mother. She’s an elite, too.”
“Elise wouldn’t do that,” Gabriel snapped. But he felt like he was climbing an impossibly steep mountain, losing his grip on the slick rocks, about to fall. Nothing made sense.
The table erupted in a rumble of displeasure. “What are you saying?” Colonel Reid growled.
Cleo swallowed. “Presumably, one of the elites in our care fled to warn the Sanctuary.”
“Warn them of what, exactly?” Colonel Willis asked, her tone deadly.
“Someone was spying on me during a private conversation.” Cleo’s nostrils flared. Her lips thinned in a bloodless line. Gabriel could tell she despised admitting to a mistake of any kind. “They overheard privileged information, which included my plans for an impending attack on the Sanctuary.”
For a long, terrible moment, the conference room went completely silent. The Patriots leadership stared at them in shock and alarm.
“How long ago did they leave?” Colonel Reid asked Nguyen, who stood against the wall, twisting his hands nervously.
“Sometime between last watch and now,” Nguyen said. “Could be up to seven hours.”
“And how would they know how to reach the Sanctuary?” Colonel Reid asked.
Nguyen swallowed. “It’s one of the GPS-programmed destinations in this particular vehicle. It wouldn’t be difficult to find it in the system, if you knew what you were doing.”
The hairs on the back of Gabriel’s neck prickled. Could Celeste have figured that out on her own? Or did she have help?
Colonel Reid dismissed Nguyen with a flick of his wrist. “Send out a team. Stop them.”
“Yes, sir.” Nguyen turned and hurried from the room. The door closed with a loud thud behind him.
Whoever it was left hours ago. The action was likely futile.
Colonel Willis glared at Cleo, furious. “How could security be so lax as to allow—”
Cleo cut her off. “You refuse to allow security cameras and surveillance drones!” She shrugged helplessly. “Freedom is our bedrock, o
ur foundation, but it has its downsides.”
“I’ve had quite enough of your excuses—”
“It doesn’t matter!” Cleo shouted. “If the Sanctuary thinks we’re going to attack them, they’ll strike first. We’ll be devastated. They’ll destroy us!”
The Hispanic woman scowled. “Now, wait just a minute—”
Cleo spoke loudly and quickly, trying to regain control of the room. “Which means we have no choice now. We must be the first to attack.”
“We can evacuate,” Gabriel said. A few people nodded. “We should run—”
Cleo whirled on him. “Leave everything and start over? Flee with our tails between our legs? That’s worse than giving up! We’re so close to victory! To changing everything!”
Gabriel leapt to his feet, knocking his chair back. “You’re risking our people inside! You’re risking Amelia, risking the cure—”
Cleo whipped her gun out and pointed it at his chest. Her finger wasn’t on the trigger. It was a show of strength, of dominance, but she still needed him. And they both knew it.
Several Patriots soldiers lounging against the walls snapped to attention, their guns leveled at Gabriel.
Sweat broke out on his forehead. He remained standing, but raised his arms. “You can’t do this.”
“Stand down,” Jamal ordered, his hand hovering over his holster. “Everyone, stand down!”
“We have to do this,” Cleo said. “We’re not risking the cure, we’re ensuring we’re the ones who get the cure! We know the schematics of the Sanctuary. We can protect the labs and the scientists. We can warn our people so they’ll be ready.”
The Hispanic woman adjusted her glasses. “You’re suggesting that we take over now, and the scientists can keep working with the Black girl, even if they don’t have the cure yet. But we’ll have the Sanctuary.”
“Yes. We can win this, we can—”
“Be quiet, girl,” Colonel Willis said. “I will not risk a David-and-Goliath war here. You have no idea what a war entails.”
