by Chele Cooke
Beck placed the bottle next to the car wall and got to his feet, flicking the butt of the cigarette down the tunnel.
“I’ll take you. I should visit Lacie, anyway.”
His hand found the small of her back as they walked and he eased her around people the way he’d done earlier in her life. Back then, his hand would rest on the back of her neck. He would joke that he steered her like he would a horse. Georgianna found that she didn’t mind the contact so much now. For the first time since finding out that Alec was alive, she felt that Beck might truly be on her side.
The rain had begun again and Edtroka became increasingly sullen as they made the long walk. Georgianna, on the other hand enjoyed their journey around the edge of the city, even though she dreaded what waited at the other end. The Veniche in the camps gave them suspicious looks as they passed, a group of children scattered and disappeared into their homes. Edtroka stood out for his height, and even though the Agrah patrols through the camps were more common than ever, a lone Adveni walking amongst them with a Veniche at his side still sent people running.
“Tell me again why we’ve walked halfway to nowhere,” he grumbled as they approached the house, shaking his head and sending water flying in every direction. She thought he resembled a dog at that moment, but she didn’t say anything.
“Because this was the only place everyone would agree to,” she answered. “And I wasn’t about to make yet another journey back and forth just to be told no.”
She glanced up at him. Explaining everything had been the only way to convince Beck to a meeting, let alone to bring escaped dreta out into the open with an Adveni in attendance.
“Plus, I promised to check on the house.”
“Where’s your brother?”
Georgianna pushed the door open.
“They left,” she said. “Went south.”
Edtroka ducked through the doorway after her but before she could take two steps, he had grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her back against him. Georgianna yelped in surprise. With one arm around her, Edtroka drew a copaq weapon and aimed it in front of them.
“See, I told you the Adveni would come armed,” Alec’s snide tone carried down the hallway. “And look, he immediately uses a Veniche as a shield.”
Georgianna grimaced and slipped from Edtroka’s grasp.
“Quit it, ‘Lec,” she said. “Edtroka, it’s alright, it’s them.”
Edtroka holstered his copaq and followed, though his hand still hovered close to his weapon. She could understand why he was nervous.
Beck sat at the kitchen table, watching the rain. For someone about to discuss working with an enemy, he looked relaxed and familiar in her family home. Nyah sat on the edge of her chair next to Beck, and smiled the moment Georgianna entered. Taye paced in frustration behind her.
“Where’s Zanetti?” Edtroka asked.
“As if we were going to bring that…”
“Cartwright!” Beck cut in sharply. “We could not bring him. You understand that we could not give you an ally in a meeting such as this.”
“If you think four on one is a match,” Edtroka scoffed.
“I’ve taken on Adveni twice your size,” Alec sneered.
Edtroka stared back at him and scratched his neck.
“Yes and probably half my speed,” he said. “Well, I suppose I could put a collar on you to make you behave.”
Alec’s hand went to his rifle. But before he could even draw, Edtroka had the copaq pointed at his head.
“Why don’t you put that down?”
“Not a chance.”
Beck was on his feet and had a gun pointed at Edtroka. Even Taye had pulled a hunting knife. Georgianna jumped forwards.
“Alright!” she snapped. “Will everyone give it a rest?”
“You promised us a safe meeting, George,” Beck insisted. “When he is armed, that can’t happen.”
“I’m not giving up my weapon when you look ready to shoot me in the head,” Edtroka warned.
“Everyone should give up their weapons,” Nyah suggested. “Lay all of them on the table.”
The men glared at each other, but they put the guns in the centre of the table, Beck first, then after a few seconds, Edtroka followed suit. Beck looked at Alec, who eventually threw his rifle down as well. Nyah had to prod Taye to give up his knife, but even he relented in the end. Georgianna dumped her bag by the wall.
“I still don’t see the point in all this,” Alec said, resuming his place against the wall.
“The point is that you have information,” Edtroka answered. “Information I could use.”
“Why would I tell you anything? You’re just like the rest, working in the compound, buying dreta…”
“Is that the problem, that I bought a drysta? Or is it that you were not the one to help get her out after she helped save your skin?”
“Excuse me…” Georgianna pressed.
“I wouldn’t help you in a hundred years. Who knows what you’ve done to her.”
“What I do with my drysta is none of your…”
“So you admit it? You’ve hurt her.”
“Actually she’s quite enjoying…”
“Stop, both of you!” Georgianna snapped, glaring from one to the other. “Can you not act like adults for five seconds?”
“George is right,” Taye said. “We’re never going to get anywhere if you two don’t stop bitching at each other.”
“He’s here to help us,” she told Alec sternly before turning to Edtroka. “And you’re not helping, trying to wind him up.”
With a brief smile, Edtroka stepped past her and took a seat opposite Beck.
“I can help you with the compound,” he said. “If I am told what I need to know and you release Zanetti, I will help you.”
“We don’t need his…”
“Cartwright, be quiet.”
Beck shifted in his seat and stared at Edtroka.
“How many men would you need?”
“Two. There are three blocks in the compound, two for inmates and one for dreta. For maximum effect, we would need to blow all three.”
“How many casualties are we talking about?”
“If an inmate is too close to the charge, they will be harmed, not to mention that the guards on duty will use lethal force once they realise what is happening.”
“That many civilian casualties is unacc…”
“Is war,” Edtroka corrected. “If you want prime targets, you must take prime risks.”
Beck’s jaw tightened and he glanced at Georgianna.
“Zanetti doesn’t go.”
“No, I already said that Zanetti is to be…”
“He will be released but he will not go with you. I won’t set it up for you to run.”
Edtroka drummed his fingers against the wood, watching Beck. Georgianna wished she knew what he was thinking. There weren’t any other Belsa he trusted, not that she knew of anyway, and it wasn’t like they could hold some kind of parade for him to pick people out.
“I’ll take Talassi then,” he said finally. “And Cartwright.”
“How do you know about Wrench?” Alec asked.
“Alec, really?” Georgianna asked.
Edtroka gave them a satisfied look and leaned back in his chair. He was too tall for it and his knees pressed against the underside of the table. Still, he looked calm and relaxed.
“Wrench, as you call him, is good with technology. Zanetti told me about his work with the collars. If he can do that, he obviously has steady hands, which is needed for what we’ll be doing,” he explained. “As for Cartwright here, he’s the perfect cover. These men will need to be put into the compound for supposed crimes. There’s nothing supposed about Cartwright’s escape. Not to mention that I like to know what I’m getting and I can already see that he loathes me. He’ll be predictable.”
He glanced over his shoulder at Georgianna.
“Plus, he’ll be far too worried about the fate of my dryst
a here, should he double-cross me.”
The way Alec had looked at her lately, she wasn’t sure that Edtroka was right about that.
“Say we help you,” Alec said quietly, surprisingly not arguing his own involvement in the plan. “What do you want?”
“Information. You lived with the Tsevstakre commander for two years, you overheard things. We already know that you learned how to dismantle the pillars safely, but what else?”
“There was nothing else.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Edtroka said. “I’m not sure you knew what you heard, or how important it was, but I am sure you heard things.”
“Do you think I’m an idiot? We didn’t hear anything.”
Georgianna watched Nyah. She was staring at the table, clutching the wood so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. Beck and Taye both watched the argument brewing between Edtroka and Alec, oblivious to her anxiety, but Georgianna kept her gaze fixed on the young blonde. She knew that Nyah hadn’t wanted Taye ever to know what had happened to her by Maarqyn’s hand and she considered telling Nyah that it didn’t matter. Edtroka already knew that Maarqyn suspected him. He didn’t need Nyah’s admission on that.
“How do you know?” Edtroka demanded. “You don’t know half the words I’m going to tell you, words that have no meaning for you but are everything to the people I’m helping.”
“I told you, there was nothing. Maarqyn was careful. He never spoke of…”
“He never said anything in front of you,” Nyah corrected.
“Ny?”
Taye crouched next to her, but the moment he laid his hand over hers, she pulled away.
“Alec, he never spoke in front of you because he knew what you were. He said things sometimes when you weren’t around. You never tried to learn Adtvenis, you thought it was vile to even try, but I know quite a lot. I never told you, or Maarqyn. I didn’t want him knowing that I could understand him.”
It was as if everyone in the room had been struck dumb. They stared at Nyah, some in interest and some, like Alec, in pure shock. Nyah hadn’t been with Maarqyn for long and yet she might have overheard more than even Georgianna had realised.
Edtroka turned slowly in his chair, the first to move. He reached carefully into his pocket, aware that Beck’s hand hovered close to his weapon on the table. But Edtroka pulled out a piece of paper and placed it down between them.
“Was it about one of these places?” he asked.
Nyah didn’t even look at the note. She shook her head.
“It wasn’t about a place. It was about things… people.”
“Cahlven?”
“Yes,” Nyah said. “It was about them and us.”
“Us?” Beck asked. “The Belsa?”
“The dreta.”
“What did he say?” Edtroka interjected.
Nyah lifted her head and gazed at Edtroka. For a moment, Georgianna wasn’t sure whether she would answer. Edtroka had been the one to sell her out of the compound and into Maarqyn’s hands. Wouldn’t she despise him for that?
“He said that the cinystalq collars have an override, a failsafe,” she said. “Should an attack come, they would activate the failsafe, killing all dreta in an instant. The Veniche would assume that it was the Cahlven.”
Georgianna chewed on her lip. This was a big setback. If Maarqyn thought the attack on the compound had anything to do with the Cahlven, he might activate the failsafe. Everyone would be terrified. They would never dare to fight with enemies on all sides. So that was that. However, when she looked across at Edtroka, she saw he was grinning.
“What?” Georgianna asked. “Edtroka?”
“Like he cares that thousands of dreta could be killed,” Alec snarled. “This won’t change anything to him.”
“Actually, it changes everything.”
He was still smiling, a broad and satisfied grin. Every eye was on Edtroka as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned further back in his chair.
“If there is an override to kill every person wearing a collar,” he said smugly. “That means there is also an override to release everyone wearing one.”
The mark on Keiran’s shoulder was angry red, the area around it, inflamed and tender. Georgianna barely touched it before he flinched and recoiled from her. His bruises were fading, and she made him wash out his mouth with salt water three times in an attempt to clean out the gap where his tooth had been. He’d even been given a change of clothes and a blanket and pillow for the bare tunnel car he was being kept in.
The two guards outside the car had perked up. They no longer threw murderous glances in her direction when she approached, nor did they insist on checking through her bag for things that might help Keiran escape. She assumed that Beck had spoken to them, had assured them that he trusted her and that Keiran was only being kept there for a few more days before being released.
Alec had not stood guard over Keiran again after the first day, for which she was glad. No matter what Beck had told the others, Georgianna wasn’t sure that any words would be able to stop Alec from shooting Keiran in the head if he wound him up tight enough.
Keiran seemed more cheerful, more like himself than when she’d seen him four days earlier. Even after she’d told him that Beck had agreed to meet with Edtroka, Keiran had been sceptical and pessimistic. Now that he knew the meeting had gone as planned, he had relaxed and even asked when he might gain his freedom, something he hadn’t hoped for only days before.
“Wrench came to see me yesterday,” he said.
Georgianna covered the mark with a dressing and took a seat next to him. The floor was uncomfortable and uneven in the small car and she couldn’t imagine that he actually got any sleep in here. Keiran winced as he leaned back against the wall.
“Yeah? Was it okay?”
He ate a mouthful of the stew she’d brought for him before he answered.
“He’s still angry with me. I guess he’s upset I didn’t tell him what I was doing.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Picking up her own bowl of stew, she eased closer to him and jabbed the spoon aimlessly into the mixture. She wasn’t surprised that Wrench was still angry, especially since he’d been dragged into Edtroka’s plan without being asked whether he wanted to be involved or not.
“Guess I didn’t want him to get hurt,” he admitted. “Known him long as I can remember. He’s the closest thing I got to a brother.”
It wasn’t the right time to ask, she knew that, but her curiosity got the better of her. He was always so dismissive about his life before the Adveni, like none of it had mattered. That was when he said anything at all.
“What about your family?” she asked. “Did you ever know them?”
He stabbed at a lump in his stew, breaking it apart with the end of his spoon. Hunching over his knees, he stared at the floor between his feet and scratched the back of his neck.
“Yeah, I knew them.”
Georgianna waited for him to continue, but silence stretched out between them, heavy and suffocating. He knew all about her family and her life yet seemed unwilling to share his own. He’d told her that he wanted to be with her, to share everything with her and yet she wasn’t sure he had any intention of including his past with that. She wondered if it had been because of Edtroka. He’d said that he didn’t want Wrench to be hurt and she couldn’t help but ask herself if that was why he’d kept her at arm’s length for so long as well.
“Are they, I mean, did something happen?”
“Don’t know.” He shrugged and ate a mouthful of stew. “They left.”
“Left?”
“Yeah, I was… suns, I don’t know. I think I was twelve.”
“What do you mean, they left?”
“Just that. One day they said that they were leaving, joining another tribe.”
“You didn’t go with them?”
“I had my training with the Nerrin,” he mumbled around a chunk of meat. “And they made it clear th
at their plans didn’t involve me.”
“What?” Georgianna screeched, louder than she’d intended. “How could they?”
“George, we don’t all have happy families who tell bedtime stories.”
She shrank away from him, turning her gaze onto her stew. She didn’t feel much like eating yet she clung to the bowl for support as Keiran mocked what he assumed was her perfect family. He’d been so impassive and distant around her father. At the time she’d assumed it was because her father had threatened him, but now she could see a different side to it. She could see that Keiran may have scooped Braedon up so as not to be present at a reunion he had never had the chance to experience with his own family. She dropped the spoon into her bowl.
“I didn’t mean…”
“No, I know what you meant, but my family weren’t like that, not with me.”
“So they just left for no reason?”
“My mother set up training for my sister with this other tribe. No one in the Nerrin was looking to take on at the time. They couldn’t stand the idea of parting with her, so they parted with me.”
“That’s… I can’t…”
“Hey, it’s alright. I got by.”
Keiran began eating his stew with more vigour. The conversation was over. She had trouble accepting it, but each time she opened her mouth, she subdued the impulse. Grabbing her spoon, she kept eating. She didn’t want to upset him and it wasn’t as if he could walk away from her.
“Beck said that you’ll be going with him when this all goes down,” she said when she had no more stew to distract herself with.
“That doesn’t surprise me. Keep an eye on the traitor, right?”
“It’s not that.”
He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t argue the point.
“It makes sense to separate you and Edtroka. You both know a great deal.”
“So if one of us is killed, you still have the other,” he finished.
“I didn’t mean…”
“They’re right. It’s the best strategy.”
“Beck will come down and explain the plan. I’ve not really been involved.”
She had been kept separate from the plans to destroy the square and deactivate the cinystalq system. According to Edtroka, it was a safety measure, to make sure that no one knew the entire plan. By keeping them all separate, it meant that nobody could reveal everything if one of them was captured and questioned. It sounded like a sensible idea, but it didn’t quell her fear of what Maarqyn would do to someone while trying to get the answers he would believe they had.
