by Kyla Stone
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 thei
r 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.”
“Or should I say, who will you destroy?”
“I would never hurt Micah.”
Cerberus laughed mirthlessly. “Did I say you would? Men have battled over their claims for desirable women since the dawn of time. It is the way of things.”
“I would never fight my own blood.” But Gabriel had, once. He’d trained a gun on his brother’s back.
He winced at the memory. He wanted to believe he never would’ve pressed the trigger. But that was a lie. It was a shadow, a darkness, an ugly, malformed thing hiding in the deepest part of him.
If Simeon had ordered him to do it, Gabriel would have pulled the trigger. Just like he had betrayed Amelia, turning her over to Simeon and then to Kane—he would have done the same thing to his brother.
He took a breath, forcing the thoughts from his mind. He reached into his pocket and touched the tatter of blue cloth from Nadira’s headscarf, which he’d kept with him since her death, since she’d given up her life for him, offering him a redemption he hadn’t deserved.
He wasn’t that person anymore. He was someone different now. Someone better.
Cerberus watched him with a predatory glint in his gaze, like he was assessing Gabriel for weaknesses, for chinks in his armor. Cerberus was trying to rattle him before the battle. But why? To what end?
“Who’s going to protect her?” Cerberus asked. “You and I both know your brother doesn’t have what it takes. He’s a beta. He’s soft, weak, good for child-rearing and domestic tasks and little else.”
“My brother is one of the bravest men I know. You don’t know anything.” Gabriel indulged a brief fantasy of ripping out the man’s tongue at the root. “Stop talking, Cerberus. Before l make you.”
“See? That’s what I’m talking about. He’s no alpha. Not like you.”
Gabriel ignored him. He raked his hand through his hair, scanning the trees, the road empty but for the half-dozen Patriots preparing the truck. Tension filled every inch of his body, straining taut as a rubber band about to snap.
“That girl you love,” Cerberus said, that taunting edge still in his voice. “She’s a special one. I saw it the first time I laid eyes on her. Beautiful. Undisciplined. Appears meek, but she’s stubborn beneath those impeccable manners. I’ve tamed my share of fillies and—”
Gabriel spun on him, jaw clenched, eyes flashing, right hand hovering over the butt of his gun, ready to draw. “Don’t you dare talk about her.”
Cerberus lifted both hands, palms up, grinning slyly. His gray-blue eyes glinted with cruel amusement. “She brings out the animal in you, doesn’t she?”
Gabriel turned away, his jaw rigid. He couldn’t afford to think about these things before a battle. All the things he could lose. All the things he’d already lost and could never get back again. They threatened to unravel him.
“How far would you go to save her, huh, Gabe? Would you burn the Sanctuary to the ground?”
“No.” That answer, at least, he was sure of. “I wouldn’t kill innocent people. And if you do, I swear, I’ll kill you.”
“Time to go!” Jamal Carter called from inside the truck. He was a black guy in his mid-twenties, with a full beard and piercings glinting from his lip, nose, and ears. He was almost as skilled with a knife as Cleo, but without the lethal temper.
Cleo rapped the side of a blue barrel with a savage smile. “This one has your name on it, Rivera.”
“I mean what I said,” Gabriel said as he swung himself into the truck. Cerberus said nothing for once. He folded his knife, slid it into his pocket, and followed Gabriel, that sly, predatory half-smile still plastered across his face.
The truck was stacked with barrels along the back and sides of the interior walls. Nestled in its center was the Phantom. It was a HERF, an EMP gun that fired an intense, controlled electromagnetic pulse at a narrow target, permanently disrupting anything electronic in its path. It would neutralize the Sanctuary’s lethal cannons.
It was a beast of a weapon carted on an armored, wheeled base for ease of movement and accurate targeting. The base featured reinforced shield wings that unfolded during combat to protect the gunner.
“Lose the dog fur,” Cleo snapped at Cerberus.
Cerberus scowled. “This is a rare albino wolf pelt—”
“I don’t give a damn. From now on, you’re a Coalition soldier. Hence the butt-ugly uniforms we’ll provide you shortly. Now get rid of it, or I’ll use it as an ashtray.”
Gabriel clambered into the barrel. He watched as Cerberus carefully, almost lovingly folded the pelt and placed it beneath the passenger seat in the truck’s cab. Then Jamal hammered the lid over Gabriel’s hunched body, and he saw no more.
Five minutes later, the truck was on its way.
The next time Gabriel saw the light of day, he would be inside the Sanctuary.
16
Willow
A gavel struck the table above Willow and Finn. Raven sat back down. The low murmur of the crowd settled into taut silence vibrating with tension.
Willow straightened her shoulders. She hoped the hovering microphone wouldn’t pick up the frantic hammering of her heart.
“Men and women of the Settlement,” a black woman with short-cropped hair and large golden hoop earrings spoke into her own hoverphone, “we’ve called a town hall to hear out the strangers who’ve come to our door requesting assistance.
“We once had a member, Aiko Nakamura, whom many of you knew and loved. Her daughter, Raven Nakamura, is not a member, but many of us here have the pleasure of knowing her. Raven has asked us to hear them out. Out of respect for her and her mother, we have chosen to do so. Raven, do you vouch for these strangers?”
Raven stood again. She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead and nodded. “Yes,” she said in a loud, clear voice. “I vouch for them.”
“I am Councilwoman Fabiola Pierre,” the woman said. “Here, we are not ruled by bloated governments or corrupt tyrants, but by the vote of the Council and the will of the people. Our decision today will be final. That being said, please introduce yourselves and make your plea known.”
Willow cleared her throat. In a trembling voice, she explained who they were, providing a summary of what they’d survived since the Hydra virus, their latest alliance with the New Patriots, and Amelia’s recovery from the Hydra virus.
Low gasps swept the room at that news.
“The Sanctuary keeps their resources to themselves,” Willow said into the hovering microphone, her voice echoing in the cavernous room. “The Patriots have chosen to take the
Sanctuary—and the cure—by force. They are planning to attack in only a few days’ time, if they haven’t already.”
A sour-faced blond woman sighed impatiently several times as Willow spoke. Her gaze fluttered over Willow and Finn, aloof and impatient. An elderly man next to her sat forward, shoulders hunched, peering at Willow intently beneath wiry gray brows.
“We fear the loss of our friends and the bloodshed of many innocent people,” Finn said. His strong left arm pressed comfortingly against her shoulder. “We fear that the vaccine and the cure will not be distributed to the people who need it if something isn’t done. We’re asking for your help.”
“We are an isolated, insular community,” said Pierre. “We’re not fighters.”
“But you have airjets, don’t you?” Willow saw by their tight-lipped reactions and narrowed eyes at Raven that they did.
“Do not mistake who we are,” Senator López said. “We do not seek bloodshed, but neither will we hesitate to defend ourselves.”
“Good,” Willow said. “But you can also defend other innocent people. Your jets could mean the difference. They could change everything.”
Councilwoman Pierre leaned back in her chair and laced her fingers on the table. “We have survived this long by keeping our nose out of everyone else’s business. Before the fall, the government left us alone. Now, after, the Sanctuary leaves us alone. This is how we want it.”
Willow gritted her teeth, struggling to keep from snapping a sarcastic reply. These people had their heads in the sand. They didn’t get it. They had no clue what was happening outside their little underground enclave, and they didn’t care.
Finn put his hand on her arm. She bit her lip, but nodded at him. It was time to try Finn’s way. This was a battle that couldn’t be won with violence—only with wits.
“With all due respect,” Finn said, “that won’t last. We came through Atlanta. We saw what the Sanctuary did there. They hired mercenaries to clear it and kill anyone in their way—infected and uninfected alike. They’re systematically neutralizing potential threats before they rise, just to protect themselves.”
