“Phasers on the ground,” Rylick said. When they didn’t immediately comply, he pressed his phaser harder into Arden’s head. “I’m not messing around. I’ll splatter her brains all over this room.”
Niall was the first to comply. He placed his phaser on the ground, then slowly stepped back with his hands open and raised at his sides. Reluctance was evident in each movement. Colin stood still as if he wasn’t going to obey. He frowned, looking around for a better option. Then, at a pointed look from Niall, he copied Niall’s surrender.
At that moment, Arden realized Uri wasn’t standing in the open. She had no idea where he was, but the fact that he wasn’t in the line of fire gave her hope.
“You too,” Rylick said into her ear.
Arden moved just as slow as the others had. She threw the phaser to the ground while keeping her other hand raised and visible. She kept her body loose, waiting for an opportunity to strike.
Rylick kept his arm around her, the phaser to her head the entire time.
“I’ve seen you,” he said into her ear, low enough that the words wouldn’t carry to the others. “I’ve followed him. Imagine his surprise when he sees you in chains.”
She couldn’t suppress the shiver that ran down her spine. Her heart beat loudly in her chest, filling her ears with the noise. She wanted him to shut up. Didn’t want to hear his taunts.
“Maybe I’ll tell his daddy about your fling.” He chuckled. “Or maybe I won’t.” He leaned even closer so that she felt the heat of his breath practically searing her ear. “Perhaps I’ll just kill you. You can’t imagine how much pleasure that would give me.”
“You don’t scare me.” But the fact that he could ruin Dade did. She tried to keep her spine straight. To swallow down the lump that had formed in her throat. To not let him know just how much he’d affected her.
His arm slid up from her waist to squeeze his hand around her neck. “It might be more amusing to watch when my uncle gets his hands on you.”
Arden could only imagine. The stories of what Dade’s father had done in the past were horrific. She wouldn’t outlive the night, especially if Rylick told about her relationship with Dade.
He squeezed, cutting off her air. “He had her, and he chose you. Why?”
Arden fought against his hand, prying at his fingers. Struggling for an ounce of air. She couldn’t wonder at his statement. Couldn’t focus on anything but the darkness creeping around the edges of her vision.
Then Uri stepped out from behind the van. He fired multiple shots at Rylick. It wouldn’t have worked if Rylick hadn’t already been angry and distracted. He should have been expecting it.
Rylick startled enough that Arden was able to shove her elbow back into his gut, twist, and break his hold. Already moving, her body reacted before her mind caught up. She dropped and rolled, picking up her phaser as she went.
Phase-fire shot from all directions.
Arden headed for cover but wasn’t fast enough. A blast of energy hit her left shoulder. Hot and intense, flashing pain flooded through her system. Moving despite the agony, she managed to wedge herself behind a large machine. Her back pushed to the wall, her good shoulder to the side of the metal. Pressing her fingers to the wound, she winced. Her breath came out in fast pants, and she thought she might be sick. She pushed the fabric of her suit apart to check the damage. It looked bad, but not life-threatening.
Focus, Arden. Focus.
She leaned out, taking a shot at where Rylick had sought cover. Pulling back when he fired in her direction. She looked the other way to check where the boys had disappeared. Uri was still on the other side of the van, while Colin low-crawled under the chassis. He wasn’t quite on the other side yet, his lower half still underneath.
There wasn’t any sign of Niall. That concerned her. She prayed he hadn’t gotten shot and had at least made it out of the line of fire.
The next few seconds went faster than Arden could process, though later she would relive it until it made her sick.
Arden rounded the machine to shoot at Rylick. Uri rose at the same time from the far side of the hovervan, also shooting. Colin finally gained his feet and lurched around the opposite side of the van.
Rylick shot a few rounds toward her. She ducked back behind the machine as large chunks of debris went flying. Then he changed focus to shoot in Colin’s direction.
She watched as Colin was too slow to shield himself behind the vehicle. Saw the moment the phase-fire hit him in the center of his chest. His eyes rounded, and his mouth dropped open. A large red hole bloomed in the middle of his body.
It lasted seconds, yet it seemed to take forever, moving slowly.
Colin’s body fell backward.
Arden let out an anguished cry. Rage and disbelief filled her. She pushed out of her hiding space, sending out a series of phase-blasts toward Rylick. Uncaring that she was no longer shielded, she stepped forward, shooting as she walked. Tears streaked down her face. Anger, more than thought, propelled her.
“Arden, enough,” Niall screamed loud enough so that she could hear him.
And then it was quiet.
Arden’s chest rose and fell, her breath heavy sounding and harsh inside her ears. Focusing on the hitch it made was the only thing that kept her standing. Heaviness settled over her, making her numb. Her limbs felt like lead as the adrenaline burned off.
The “Stay with us” from Niall, from somewhere behind the hovervan, snapped her into motion.
First she checked that Rylick was no longer a threat. Keeping her phaser up, ready in case he was playing possum. She rounded the sorting machine he’d used as cover.
He lay on the ground, his body slumped at an unnatural angle. His torso leaned over his folded legs. She pushed him back with the toe of her boot, so that his body moved into a prone position. His arm splayed out.
His face was slack.
His eyes stared sightlessly.
Void.
Arden closed her own eyes, gulping back the nausea that threatened to bubble up from her throat as she lowered her weapon. He was dead, and yet she still leaned forward to press her fingers to his throat to make sure there wasn’t a pulse.
She’d killed lots of people. Every life she took broke a little of her inside. But in this case it was more.
She’d killed Dade’s cousin. After Dade had pointedly asked her to give up her feud against his family. How could he forgive her? She’d gone crazy at the sight of Colin being shot. How could Dade not feel the same?
The impact of what this meant, that she’d broken her promise to Dade, had her clutching her chest as she turned away.
She still gripped her phaser as she crossed over to where Colin lay beside the van. Niall knelt at his side, holding Colin’s hand. He pleaded with Colin. “Open your eyes. Fight. You can’t die.”
Colin lay in a pool of blood, while more dribbled from the corner of his lip, shiny and slick. The fibers of his stolen uniform were burned, his middle soft and oozing. His skin grew paler as Arden watched.
He wouldn’t make it.
She felt only terror and anger and overwhelming guilt.
His lips moved, forming words that he didn’t have the breath to speak. Arden dropped her phaser, pushing Niall out of the way so that she could lean close to press her ear against Colin’s lips.
“Choose.”
Then the last of his air expressed from his lungs, and he was gone.
Emotion erupted inside her. Unlike anything she’d ever experienced. She cried out, sobbing and begging, pleading for Colin to come back. Knowing the whole time that she’d lost someone infinitely precious to her. Who left a void that could never be filled.
She felt her heart crack.
A hand shook her. “We need to go.” Tears were cascading down Niall’s face, and his voice was rough. But it was also calm and determined. She watched him physically pull himself together. He picked up Colin’s body, moving him to the van where Uri helped to lay Colin in the back.
Uri shut the hovervan door. The sound rocked through Arden with finality.
“Get in the van, Arden. We’re moving out,” Niall said.
Arden focused on the security of Niall taking charge. She nodded, yet only moved when he walked over to help her up. But her heart stayed locked with Colin, broken in the back of the hovervan.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Choose.
Arden kept her gaze straight ahead, locked on the undecorated urn at the front of the sanctuary. The vessel sat on a tiny table covered with a gold cloth. Colin’s body had been cremated earlier that day and now rested inside. This was all that was left, the totality of his life.
Beside her, her mother sobbed into a handkerchief. Arden’s father had been too sick to attend. That, at least, was a blessing, because she couldn’t take care of anyone else, much less herself.
She couldn’t breathe. It hurt. Everything hurt.
Tears dripped down Arden’s cheeks. She’d yet to figure out how to numb her pain. She didn’t want to, but she knew if she let emotion sweep her away, there would be no way she’d ever be able to lock it in again. She would just let her anger take her to its inevitable end.
She refused to embrace this, the single most devastating moment of her life. It couldn’t be real.
Choose. Colin’s voice echoed in her head, making her crazy.
The rest of the Lasair gang filled the first few rows of the chapel, sitting in the areas designated for family. She felt them like a second skin. Surrounding her. Insulating her from the world outside the doors of the church. Whatever the final outcome, she needed them, especially now.
She felt so alone. There was no longer an emotional anchor in her life. Her safety broken, her family shattered.
Eventually they’d all die.
Wasn’t that what Colin had said? He’d known that their only outcome would be death. He’d warned her. She thought about all his urgings to leave the gang. Wishing he’d taken his own advice. She wanted him back in her life. She’d give anything to have him back.
And yet, she still couldn’t leave the gang. Now more than ever she was stuck. What did she have left without Colin? Lasair was the only family she could count on.
Colin’s parents were on the other side of her mother. The sisters were holding hands. Grasping each other as if they could keep afloat in their grief. Arden was glad for her aunt’s presence. There was little left inside Arden that could give comfort to anyone else.
She avoided looking at them. Couldn’t handle sharing their pain.
She didn’t know what to do. Be something. Do something.
Figure out how to live with no regrets.
The priest walked the circumference of the front dais, swinging a perforated gold ball on a chain. White smoke billowed from the holes. It smelled sweet, almost cloying. It filled the room, making the already insufferable temperature worse.
Several other priests stationed throughout hummed and chanted together in a prayer, maybe a benediction. Either way, the sound drilled a hole into her skull. She shut her eyes against it. Pushed her fingertips against her temples to relieve the pressure. And yet the tears managed to slip out through her closed lids, coating her fingers.
Finally the long service came to a close. She felt drained and empty. Lost.
Arden slid from her seat. She walked toward the outside of the church’s scarred pews, past the yellowed plaster walls and broken stained glass. Head down, she focused on the tiled mosaic floor, not wanting to speak to anyone. She wasn’t capable of small talk. And she certainly didn’t want to exchange empty platitudes.
When she heard her name, she raised her head reflexively, then realized that Niall had cut off the conversation he’d been in the middle of and was now on his way to intercept her. Her heart rate picked up, rocking her chest with dread. He’d been acting irrationally since “the incident,” as he was now labeling the disaster at the factory. Whatever he wanted to say certainly wouldn’t be good.
She turned, hoping to push through the mourners, to escape into the streets for a few hours, or at least for as long as it took to get herself together before she was accosted with demands from the gang.
That wasn’t to be.
Niall cornered her before she made it out of the sanctuary. He looked exhausted. The lines around his face had deepened over the last few days. Aging him. She knew he suffered Colin’s loss as much as the rest of them. Yet he wasn’t broken, not like her. Her world had ended. He’d found a face for his cause. Colin’s death had made him more determined to move on with his plan. As if genocide were a sensible answer.
“Now is the time to strike.” His voice was hard, and he spoke with little inflection. “They’re suffering a loss.”
“So are we.” They were still inside the church with Colin’s ashes cold at the front and his spirit probably looking on, disgusted. Couldn’t they have this talk elsewhere?
Niall pressed. “They won’t expect it. We’ll have the advantage.”
That he was using Colin’s death to serve his needs made her sick. Her stomach swam. She pressed a fist to it, hoping to hold back the weakness she felt. “Niall, let’s talk later, when—”
He cut her off, his hand slicing through the air. “This is it, sis. It’s been decided. I expect you to be there.” He didn’t add that to ignore his order would be her death warrant. She’d end up number one on Lasair’s hit list. “Take a few days. Get your act together.”
Arden exhaled and looked away.
Uri chose that moment to interrupt them. He said to Niall, “We’ve got a situation.”
Niall nodded and stuck his hands in his pockets, affecting a relaxed stance. He turned back to Arden, warning, “Be there,” before walking away.
She looked to Uri, hoping for some words of wisdom. Maybe he’d offer another way out of this. Or at least he could talk to Niall to get him to hold off just a little more. “You’re not okay with his plans, are you?”
Uri shrugged. “He’s right, screw them.”
“It’s suicide.”
“It’s time,” he said. Then he left too. Only when he took off, it felt like a door had been shut to any chance of a normal life.
The rage inside her began to eat away at her sorrow. Not replace. Her grieving for Colin would never be finished. Perhaps they were right, though. Making everyone pay would make her feel better in a small way. Not just the Solizen, but all of their society who’d allowed this inequity. They were at fault in this too, with the little value they placed on human life.
Arden sighed, swallowing back her need to cry out.
No, she couldn’t display her rage in the way she wanted to. It wouldn’t help.
If she were rational, she wouldn’t even consider the idea. Colin wouldn’t have liked it. He’d be the first person to tell her that she was taking out her anger on innocents. She needed to get a grip and refocus. Find her way out of this darkness. She needed to talk to someone who would set her straight. Remind her that there was still hope. That she could count on things getting better.
There was only one option.
Dade.
He’d give her the perspective she needed. Calm her down. Dade cared about people. It was the best thing about him: he was a shining light she could trust to tell her the truth. To calm the storm inside her.
If only she hadn’t killed his cousin. Arden swallowed back bile. She certainly wasn’t looking forward to facing him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Arden, hidden amid the food carts, stood across the street from the moonglass-and-steel cathedral. She watched the mourners come and go from Rylick’s wake, the Solizen in their dark finery, faces contorted with pain. They clutched at one another as they gave in to their grief.
Two days had passed since Colin’s funeral and six intense days since
Rylick’s and Colin’s deaths. Days filled with agony and regret. Of trying to figure out what she needed to do to make sense of this mess. The grief had given way to anger, then to despair for Colin, for Rylick, and for herself. Watching the mourners made the rawness inside her feel bruised. Emotions she wasn’t ready to deal with wanted to creep out from the space she’d coiled them into. She swallowed, pushing back the tears. Strength was what she needed.
And what she didn’t have.
Dade stepped out of the doorway amid the crowd. He paused at the head of the stairs. Bitter wind blew at his hair and tugged at his cloak. From this angle, she could see sadness even as he held his shoulders back and his head high. Beside him, Saben acted as a buffer for those who sought to speak with Dade. They descended the steps together, flanked by two additional guards.
She followed the group to the quadralift closest to Wild Jacks casino. That lift always malfunctioned when it reached the Fourth Level. The light doors would dissolve and regenerate regardless of anyone waiting to use it. Which meant in order to catch up with him, she could go through Wild Jacks, up the internal casino quadralift to the Fourth Level, and cut across to meet him when the doors opened.
Her stomach did a flip as she took off at a run.
Arden’s shoulder still burned where the phase-fire had caught it. The wound was deep, but the phase-fire hadn’t done permanent damage. She’d allowed a doctor to dress it and had taken a bac-shot to avoid infection. Arden liked the pain. It was penance for her sins. It reminded her she deserved to feel anger. That she was alive.
She raced inside Wild Jacks, cutting through the gamblers, not that they paid any attention. Then exited onto the platform of Level Four, huffing a bit. Arden paused there, out of the way, yet in direct sight of the quadralift door. She hoped that when Dade saw her, he’d want to talk. He had to make the move. With the extra guards, she couldn’t get him alone. Not if he didn’t help.
If this didn’t work, well then, she’d just have to think of something else. She had to talk to him whether he wanted to see her or not.
The Breaking Light (Split City Book 1) Page 18
