by K. Gorman
He closed the phone and turned back to her with a smile she didn’t like.
“You’re in luck,” Sneering Man said. “The boss wants to see you.”
As one of the men pushed her into the elevator, she didn’t feel very lucky.
She was stuck against the control panel again. Briefly, she considered flattening herself on it—to light it up like one of those holiday trees they used in Mersetzdeitz.
That might push whatever ‘luck’ she had. So, instead, she studied it. The building had thirty floors. Five levels of parkade, and—if she read the panel right—several layers of basement.
An elevator was a straight shaft. Those basements had to be under the parkade.
Which begged the question: did this building go Underground?
They went to the top. A voice with a faint Mersetz accent announced their arrival through the speakers, and the two soldiers pushed her shoulders as the doors opened.
Sneering Man sneered, but not at her.
“I’ll take her from here,” he said.
She followed his gesture to exit first.
‘The Boss’ had an office larger than Aiden’s. Floor-to-ceiling windows lined the outside wall, with a vista of Ryarne’s Uptown skyline. A bar stood on the far left, built into the wall with its lounge space separated from the office space by a freestanding glass fireplace. Wine and martini glasses glimmered in the light. It had a rich gleam to it, and a custom-carved coat of arms was etched into its front.
Ryarne’s coat of arms.
A set of mahogany leather couches curved around a television that was built into bookshelves. Both the couches and television were bigger than Aiden’s, but the layout was similar, with the desk on the far right of the room on the other side of the fireplace. The desk sat in the middle of the space, perpendicular to the windows, with a tiny, expensive-looking laptop open on its glass surface.
The man who sat behind it looked impeccable in a pressed, slate-blue suit—and, seeing him and the office, she immediately felt underdressed. Her beaten-up hoodie matched the jeans she’d fished off the floor this morning. The same ones she’d been running through the tunnels and gathering Underground dirt in, holes and all.
She narrowed her eyes on him. Another Swarzgardian?
A hand on her shoulder made her stop. As they waited for the man to acknowledge them, she studied him. He was older than her father—perhaps edging toward fifty years—and his hair was slightly ruffled, like he’d just run his hand through it. Specks of gray salted it. He cupped a glass of amber liquid in his fingers, then spoke without looking up from his computer.
“What’s your name?”
“Meese.”
He glanced over, lifting an eyebrow.
“Mieshka,” she amended.
Swirling the liquid in his glass, he turned to the window. The ice clinked against the side.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
She followed his gaze. Buildings, some taller than this one, stood half in shadow, their tops glinting wetly in the sun. Windows reflected the few clouds still in the sky. Above the mountains, a jet trail slowly lengthened toward the north. Her heart dropped as she saw it.
It’s too slow to be a bomber, she told herself.
“Too bad it won’t be for much longer,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Have you seen Terremain lately? Even with a shield, it’s a mess.” Shadows fell over his face as he turned away from the window. “All things end. The shield was just prolonging the inevitable. Have a seat. Gerard, how did things go?”
Gerard, huh? She glanced up at Sneering Man as, at his pressure on her shoulder, she moved to the couch on the other side of the room. The leather was soft and cushy. She’d rather have been back in the engine room with the hard metal wall biting into her bra strap.
“He burned a few of our boys, but nothing serious. Couldn’t do anything once the box sucked him in,” Gerard said.
“And the others?”
“The soldiers fled the premises when we entered. Likely, they’re Underground.”
Buck and Jo hadn’t been caught? Of course not. She’d seen Jo fly down those stairs. They’d probably turned on their military-trained-sneak and ghosted their way out.
“Underground. Like the rest of the rats,” ‘The Boss’ commented.
Rats.
Good to know racism wasn’t dead.
“How come she’s not in the box, too?”
“Only fits one, apparently. Ramos is depositing him with the others right now.”
“Ah, yes, that’s right—now I remember. It’s going to be a crowded cell down there.”
Aiden was still alive? She perked up. That was the first time she’d heard anyone confirm it.
The room was quiet for a moment. ‘The Boss’ had taken a moment to study her. She met his eyes.
“You aren’t Aiden’s daughter, are you?”
“No.”
It was the hair, wasn’t it?
“But you have magic.”
“Apparently.”
“What kind?”
“No kind. Aiden explained it to me, but I didn’t really get it. Said I could do something with the crystals.” Half-truths, all of it. She added on the bit about the crystals in case he’d show her where he’d put them.
He didn’t bite. Maybe he saw through her clever ploy. He turned back to his drink.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
He ignored her, staring at the window. Did he have any regrets for the ten million people who lived under that skyline?
“You should be thankful,” he said finally. “You’re in the safest building in the entire city. No one will bomb here.”
“Didn’t realize you were privy to the enemy’s plans.”
“It was all part of the deal.”
She paused. Deal?
It all clicked, then. So that’s how it had worked. He wasn’t from Swarzgard. He was Westran. He’d sold out. Opened the doors of his company for an enemy infiltration.
Her mother had died for this war.
“So, you struck a deal to take down the shield. Did you paint their flag on your roof, too?” Handcuffs dug into her skin when she tensed her hands.
“There was no need for that. They won’t bomb their own.” He glanced up as Gerard moved behind her.
“Sir, you shouldn’t—”
“Shouldn’t what? Tell her anything? Get off it, I’m not stupid. Yes, Mieshka, I struck a deal. My family is safe. No one will bomb my building.”
My family. She thought of her dad. The uncle in Terremain that they never talked to. Her mother had already died to fight this war, and that grief had divided her family.
“I will.”
The vehemence in her tone surprised her, but a seething, shaking kind of anger had bubbled into her veins, bringing a heat that had nothing to do with Elements—in fact, the mark on her skin was glowing purple, not orange.
She must be picking up the telepath.
“You will what?” ‘The Boss’ watched her, a growing confusion in his gaze. He still hadn’t told her his name, and that pissed her off even more
“Bomb this place.”
Her voice shook, her face flushed with heat. Gerard looked down on her, the sneer returning to his eyes. She met it, anger causing her to clench her fists. She didn’t care anymore.
By the window, the man took a long sip of his drink.
“I see you mean it. Too bad. I’m not one to let loose ends run around. Gerard? Put her with the others.”
Gerard took her by the arm, his quiet smile laughing in her face. She stood, walked into the elevator, and caught a last glimpse of the skyline before the doors whirred shut.
Chapter 25
Jesus Christ, this was the stupidest fucking idea of my life.
Robin crouched behind a small mountain of trash bags, trying her best to blend in with their hunched black forms and ignore the salty, ammonia-tinged reek that seemed to permeate e
very sodden millimeter of air in the short, dark alley, and listened hard for sounds of the pursuit that had been plaguing her for the past hour.
Well, it felt like it had been an hour, anyway. She wasn’t quite sure since Mrs. Murphy still had her phone. She was supposed to get it back today, but she had a feeling that wasn’t going to happen.
In fact, with her skipping, she’d be lucky to get it back this week.
But Meese was worth it, and it felt good to do something for her friend. Even if that something involved running around and hiding from people with fucking guns.
She should be scared. Scared and breathing fast and maybe experiencing hysteria—but she wasn’t.
Somehow, the fear just wasn’t coming.
She found that odd, but she didn’t question it too far. Not now, when she needed to be alert.
So far, she’d gotten lucky—as much as her current situation could be considered lucky. The second she’d taken a step out of that mall Chris had showed them, her hood down, face hidden, and shoulders half-hunched in her best Meese impression, the first pursuer had stridden into view up the street, caught sight of her, and shouted.
There’d been no time to think. Only run.
Now, an hour later, she was still trying to throw them off her scent. And getting pretty damn tired of it.
She’d done her job. She’d gotten them—or most of them—away from Meese.
She just needed them to go away now.
Most of them had, which was great. But two had proven more persistent, and one of those two had a gun. She’d seen him pointing it at things while she’d been hidden on the second floor of one of the old shops, looking though a crack in its broken window.
As for the other one…
Well, she considered him the more dangerous of the two. He didn’t shout or swear like the one with the gun, nor did he brandish a weapon quite so vividly—but, when he moved, he did so with absolute silence.
And there was a certain feel she got from him that she didn’t like. Not anything specific, but just a general unease when she caught sight of him, or happened to hear his footfall.
Twice already, she’d almost walked right out into him.
She didn’t want a third time.
After a few minutes more of careful, quiet listening, she let out a low, steady breath and eased herself up, fingers crawling along the brickwork to steady her sway. She paused as a wave of feeling rushed back into her stiff thighs and fingers of dizziness pricked across the front of her mind—how much time had passed since she’d had that piece of toast that passed for breakfast nowadays? It’d been about ten when they’d first come Underground, but she had no idea how long ago that was.
All she knew was that she’d been playing this cat and mouse game for too fucking long, her arms and legs were tired from all the tight crouching and low crawling, and she was ready to fucking leave.
If she could get into one of the buildings and hide out in an obscure room for like three hours—or even find a way into the rafters above her, since they looked like they went up pretty high and were definitely a good hiding spot—then she’d simply be able to take her hoodie off, put her hair up, and walk out with a vague-enough disguise to get her back onto the main streets.
At least, that was the plan she’d come up with. She was pretty sure it sucked, too, but it was better than her current course of action, at least.
In order to do that, though, she needed to first find a place that she could—either by door, window, or a hole in the wall—get into. Or find a ladder up to the rafters.
Her current alley did not provide that. Both the door and the two windows on her side were tightly boarded, and the wall opposite her was a face of solid, unbroken concrete.
But, by the derelict look of the streets and alleys she’d passed, there’d be opportunities nearby. She suspected that whoever had dumped these trash bags had done so here because it was, as far as the Underground went, as close to the middle of nowhere as one got.
She crept around the bags, covering her nose and mouth so she wouldn’t cough from the stink and taking care not to rustle the plastic or disturb anything that had spilled—a leak from one of the bottom bags gleamed wetly in the nearest bulb, creating a dark stain on the old cement—and she eased her way back out of the alley and onto the larger nearby street.
The lights, at least, were a good sign. If nothing else, she’d be able to follow them back to their electrical source, which should be one of the main streets Chris had showed them earlier. Maybe there would be someone who could help her back to the Core. With this many twisting paths and abandoned spaces, she doubted she was the first person to get lost down here.
The smell lingered for a few seconds more, then dissipated as she slipped onto the cross-street, moving as quietly as her sneakers would allow and keeping her hands on the brick to her right with every step. Above, the lighting continued in an intermittent supply, naked bulbs hanging down from the second set of rafters every fifty feet, shining a range of mismatched light through the beams and creating large pockets of dimness between them. A few more garbage bags slumped at the curb of the sidewalk she used, along with various other debris on the narrow street—here a broken lawn chair, there the remains of a heater, half its front ripped off the frame—but they were easy enough to avoid.
A shout made her pause after a minute, and she cocked her head to listen, recognizing the voice.
Gun Guy. Not close, if her ears judged the distance correctly, but who knew how the acoustics down here could mess with that.
At the next intersection, she turned left. Away from the sound.
Dimness slipped over her as she left the lights behind. As she continued on, she made to run a hand through her hair—then stopped, remembering the trash she’d been hiding next to and the few gross things she’d had to scramble over in her escape.
Her lip curled in a silence grimace.
Meese better have a good fucking story to tell me, next time we meet.
And Chris, too, come to think of it. Where the hell had he gone? Not that she’d expected to run into him after he’d done whatever the hell he was going to do to the mall’s electrical circuit, but a part of her had the unreasonable rationale that this was all his fault, and that he should be the one to make it up to them.
She gave her head a small shake—then jerked it up as movement caught her eye.
Her blood froze.
At the opposite end of the alley, silhouetted by the light of the next street behind him, was the second man.
Oh, shit.
Her heart jumped in her chest, and a wild thrash of adrenaline slammed into her veins. Suppressing a sharp, panicked breath, she forced her eyes to unfocus, slipping her attention off him and to the open space on his lower left, and kept her body as immobile as possible—as if she were just another part of the alley, inanimate and uninteresting.
With the dark color of her hair and clothes, the alley’s dimness, and her close proximity to the wall—as opposed to his centered position at the alley’s mouth—he may not have seen her yet.
She held her breath, waiting.
For several long, heart-pounding seconds, nothing happened. He didn’t move. Neither did she. In the distance, the Gun Guy yelled again, his shout unintelligible and full of rage.
Then, the silent man stepped forward.
She spun around and sprinted.
Neither of them spoke. All she heard was the hard pounding of their footsteps and the rush of air sucking in and out of her throat. She stumbled, pain lancing up her leg as she twisted her ankle on something underfoot—but she pushed on, lurched to the alley’s end, and hauled herself around the corner with both hands. Coming into the open, she launched herself onto the street she’d just come from and sprinted, racing as fast as she could despite the pain, arms pumping at her sides.
He slammed into her. Rough hands grabbed her shoulders and shoved her forward.
She went sprawling.
Her hand
s and wrists caught the brunt of the fall, scraping hard against the old, broken concrete. She yelped as the impact slammed through her arms and shoulders and pain rang hard from her knees and shins, one of which caught the left-hand curb.
She twisted around.
“What the fuck, dude? You people have been chasing me for a fucking hour.” She took a ragged breath, hands and lungs shaking from both the exertion and the pain. “Did I do something to piss you off, or do you just like to pick on random fucking girls?”
He stood about half a meter away—far enough that she couldn’t have hit him even if she’d tried to kick out. Playing dumb, she felt, was a far better defense. No way in hell she could fight with him and come out in any winning shape.
Wincing, she pushed herself further upright, bringing her knees closer to her chest. Parts of her hands were bleeding. It was too dark to tell exact damage, but even in the dim light of the nearest rafter bulb, she could see how torn up the skin was. And her knees were already getting that familiar tickle under the denim of her jeans that meant she’d broken the skin there, too.
Give it another two minutes, and she’d be a bloody mess.
The man watched her, gaze flicking over her—by now, he would have noticed that she was not his target. Meese, after all, was quite recognizable with her orange hair, and Robin’s was about as black as it got.
“Where is the Fire girl?” he asked.
“Meese? I don’t fucking know. Haven’t exactly seen her since y’all started chasing me.” She wiped the heel of one hand on her jeans, then attempted to pick some grit from the wound. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
She was careful not to look at him, but she could feel his attention, and the unease it created slithered through her bones.
He didn’t move. “You’re a friend of hers, then?”
In the pause at the end of his sentence, Gun Guy yelled again, his voice even more distant than before.
“No,” Robin said.
This time, she made the mistake of meeting his eyes—and froze.
They were blue, like hers, but a lighter, grayer variety that appeared to pop from the shadows on his pale Caucasian features in a way that was both unsettling and striking. Roughly in his forties, there were two darts of scar tissue that made pock marks on his left cheek, as if he’d been hit with something a while ago, along with a crimp that interrupted his eyebrow on that side.
