by Kyla Stone
“We hacked the feed—”
“Think, girl! Look how perfectly things have turned out for Sloane. She tried to get rid of me on the Grand Voyager to cover her tracks. Until the virus mutated and became contagious—then she was desperate for the cure. Cheng’s syndicate believed I already had it. They took me hostage, locking me up in a backwoods holding cell somewhere in China, intending to torture the formula out of me. Only I didn’t have it yet, so I couldn’t give it to them.
“Once President Morgan died, Sloane was sworn in. With her new presidential powers, she ordered a black ops rescue that violated a dozen international treaties and would’ve caused a political uproar—if the world hadn’t already been falling apart. But she knew what was coming. She knew there would be no repercussions for her actions.
“Now, she’s doing it again. I’ve formulated a vaccine and a cure. She has the formulas and she has you as a back-up. I became expendable. And as soon as she saw an opportunity, she used you and your pathetic resistance to set me up. Don’t you see? In one fell swoop, she gets rid of me—the only person left alive who can expose her—and makes herself the hero by delivering my head on a silver platter, giving the people the justice, vengeance, and catharsis they’ve longed for.”
It all made a terrible, poetic sense. President Sloane allowed the network to be hacked. She allowed the vidfeed to play for every citizen in the Sanctuary. She acted appalled and horrified, immediately ordering Declan’s arrest. Bale had stunned Declan before he could speak in his defense—or accuse her.
Her mind spun. She’d suspected, hadn’t she? Still, she’d desperately wanted it to be false. Maybe she’d even talked herself into not believing it, simply because she didn’t want to.
How badly she’d wanted the Sanctuary to be real, its promise of hope and safety true. But like so many things, the beauty hid the darkness.
Declan shifted in the metal chair, his shackles clanging. “You have a traitor in your midst.”
“No,” she said, her heart pounding right out of her chest.
“Who did you give the recording to?” Declan asked.
Amelia hesitated.
“A guard?” Declan guessed. “Someone the resistance believed was on their side?”
Harper. The mousy, innocuous guard. She had seemed so gentle and shy, her face so innocent. Looks could be deceiving. Amelia should have known better. She did know better.
But she had to trust Harper. She had no choice.
“You’re nothing but an asset to President Sloane. And asset she still wishes to control.”
Amelia said nothing.
“She wants to use you. Now that she has her vaccine, she still needs a way to control the people. If not with fear, then with hope. You represent that hope. If she controls you, then she controls the people. Simple in conception, complex in implementation.” He glanced down at his mangled hand with a grimace. “She has you giving a speech at my execution, doesn’t she?”
Amelia swallowed. “I don’t know.”
“She will; mark my words. She’s going to announce the cure and execute me at the same time, effectively mingling fear and hope in the minds of the people. A potent mix.” He smiled, blood smearing his broken teeth. “I would have done the same thing, given the opportunity. Alas, I underestimated her cunning. Do not do the same, daughter.”
She pressed her nails into her palms until it stung. “I won’t.”
He leaned forward, gazing at her with his sharp, storm-gray eyes. “You have to be smart now. Not like your whimpering mother or your lazy excuse for a brother. You know now who the true enemy is. You know what you have to do.”
Her hand strayed to the charm bracelet beneath her salmon cashmere sweater. She pulled it out, gripping it hard between her fingers. “Whatever I do, it won’t be for you.”
Her father’s gaze softened. “You kept that for a reason.”
“Not for the reason you think,” she said. But she wasn’t sure whether she was lying or speaking the truth.
Logan opened the prison cell door and stuck his head in. “It’s time to go.”
“You’re my daughter,” her father said. His eyes glistened with unshed tears. Even now, she didn’t know if they were real. “I love you.”
She wanted so desperately to hate him. But she couldn’t.
The love he offered her was twisted, always with strings attached. It was a controlling, conditional, shame-based love. She knew that. She knew it with bone-wrenching clarity.
But a part of her still loved him. No matter what he’d done. A part of her loved him with the pure, unadulterated love of a little girl for her daddy.
She didn’t know how to erase that part of herself.
“I have a gift for you,” he said softly. “It’s located in the top drawer of my desk in my lab office. Sixth floor, suite twenty-two. Whatever you think, I never meant to hurt you.”
Amelia whimpered. She couldn’t hold herself together a second longer. She fled the room before he could see the tears streaking her cheeks.
She slumped against the wall in the narrow hallway, gasping for breath. Her head was thick, her legs weighted with lead.
Logan offered her his arm, though his expression was stern. “You lied. You didn’t have President Sloane’s permission to come here.”
She leaned against him gratefully, letting him lead her out of the small, dingy prison into the light of day. “Thank you for your kindness,” she said. “I won’t forget it.”
Logan only grunted. He was all business again, his gaze distant, already drifting to somewhere over her head.
The beauty of the Sanctuary shone all around her. But she saw clearly, now. Shadows were everywhere.
8
Willow
The Settlement was nothing like Willow expected. It was a massive underground bunker: open in the center, a huge cylinder of space dropping hundreds of feet straight down. The place wasn’t dark or dingy. The air smelled relatively fresh. Located along the ceiling were a series of tubular skylights and a massive vent fan, which provided exhaust for stale air.
Each floor was open to the center, rimmed with a plexiglass railing. Willow’s guard forced her to walk along the outside, closest to the plexiglass railing.
She dared a glance down. And down. It was a bottomless black hole. Did it ever end? Willow stepped back swiftly, her head reeling as her guards tightened their grip on her upper arms.
She hadn’t overcome her distaste for heights after all. But did it count if you were hundreds of feet below the earth’s surface? Just thinking about it gave her a headache.
Every few floors, a walkway bridged the interior, traversing the canyon of open space. On every floor, people scurried like ants: workers in uniforms, strolling families, a couple of kids holding ancient-looking print books in their hands, whispering and giggling to each other.
Despite the fact that she was currently being manhandled by two idiots, these people didn’t seem too bad. Maybe they were even good—most of them. Baseball-cap guy was treating Benjie gently, and even the woman holding a gun to Finn’s spine was careful not to jostle his wounded shoulder.
But there was still the troubling fact that these people were holding Willow, Finn, and Benjie prisoner. She knew better than most that even good people could be backed into a corner, do harm when threatened, could kill to protect their own.
Their captors led them through a labyrinth of bland, twisting hallways into a series of small rooms. Willow, Finn, and Benjie were forced through a decompression chamber and antiseptic foam sprayers, which coated their bodies but dried almost instantly.
“Please wear the personal protection gear we’ve provided, including the mask and gloves,” said the guy in his seventies, gesturing with his gun. His skin was deeply weathered, the lines in his face like cracks in cement.
“We have our own gear,” Willow said.
Finn shot her another look, a mix of alarm and chagrin. She was starting to dislike that particular look inte
nsely.
She forced a fake smile, but it came out like a grimace. “I mean, thank you.”
“Wait here,” said a bearded man in his thirties, pushing them into a sterile and utterly dull room. A large mirror glinted on the right wall next to the steel-reinforced door. There was a metal table bolted to the concrete floor with two metal chairs on either side of it. A single light bulb hung from the center of the ceiling, radiating a sickly yellowish glow.
“It’s like an interrogation room from those old police shows.” Finn knocked his knuckles against a hard metal chair before opting to slide down against the wall instead, facing the mirror. Benjie slumped beside him, looking as exhausted as Willow felt. “That’s a two-way mirror. People are probably studying us on the other side.”
“Maybe they’ll leave us in here and just watch us starve to death,” Willow said bitterly. She was too incensed to sit. She paced around the table like a caged wildcat.
“They won’t,” Finn said, “if we’re reasonable.”
Willow scowled at him. “When have I not been reasonable?”
Finn’s silence said it all. In a nervous, halting voice, he said, “Maybe…maybe you should let me handle this one.”
She glared hard at whoever was behind the mirror. “I love you, but right now I really want to punch you.”
“You know what?” Finn said, now clearly irritated. “You can’t just punch your way out of—or into—everything. Sometimes, words work, too. We need to try talking first.”
“I’m great with words. I’m fantastic at talking. In fact, I do it all the time.” She whirled around, her hands fisted on her hips. “Benjie, aren’t I the best talker in the world?”
Benjie screwed up his face. “The best in the whole world?”
She glared at him. “Benjie.”
Benjie nodded obediently. “Lo Lo is an exceptional word-user.”
“See.” She turned her glare on Finn. “What other deficiencies of mine would you like to correct right now, while our lives are in great peril?”
“None.” Finn lifted his hands, palms out, placatingly. “Absolutely zero.”
“I have a few!” Benjie piped up.
“Not the time, Sir Benjie,” Finn said wryly.
Willow sank into one of the metal chairs and crossed her arms over her chest, settling into a brooding silence. Finn was being an idiot. Where did he come off acting so high and mighty? Sure, she might have handled things a bit better. But he didn’t have to rub it in.
No one was perfect. She was the one risking her neck all the time. It got old after a while. She slid down in the horribly uncomfortable chair, stared up at the concrete slab ceiling, and tried not to think of the mountain of earth pressing down on her.
It felt a lot like the sense of despair crushing her chest, choking off her breath. Finn was right, wasn’t he?
She’d failed. She wasn’t going to help their friends. She’d dragged Finn and Benjie across a mountain wilderness—Finn, injured; Benjie, just a kid—risking frostbite and starvation and infected grizzly bears. They could have died a hundred different ways.
What had seemed like a brilliant idea back at the Patriots’ compound now seemed like the worst kind of hubris, an egregious mistake. She’d let herself get too confident. Cocky and stupid.
She could have lost them both.
She could have lost Finn, the only boy she’d ever loved. She could have lost Benjie, the brother she adored with every ounce of her being, the brother she’d promised her mother she’d protect.
Willow had promised to protect Zia, too. Her guts twisted as her sister’s beautiful, heart-shaped face swam before her eyes. Willow was Ate, the Filipino word her mother had always used which meant “big sister.” She was supposed to be responsible. Every moment of every day.
She’d already lost Zia. She couldn’t survive losing anyone else.
How incredibly, moronically stupid she’d been.
And for what?
She didn’t dare meet Finn’s reproachful gaze. He was probably judging her with every word he didn’t say.
After a few minutes, Finn pulled his large legs to his chest, rested the elbow of his arm on his knees, and stared down at his good hand. “Are we fighting?’
“What?”
He shifted uneasily. “Is this our first fight?”
She forced lightness into her voice, even as she blinked back stinging tears. “We’ve had lots of fights.”
He looked at her anxiously. “Not real ones. Not like this.”
All the remaining fight went out of her. She didn’t want to feel this way for one second longer, even if it meant swallowing her pride. “I’m not mad at you, Finn. If anything, you should be furious with me. I’m the one that got us into this mess.”
He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was low and serious. “Before my parents’ divorce, they fought a lot. Sometimes, everything was great, and we did all kinds of things together. My dad loved the old retro stuff. You know, physical board games with pieces you held in your hands. He collected them. He had twenty-five different chessboards. We’d play as a family, and it was great.
“But working for BioGen was stressful, and he didn’t always agree with what the company was doing, their ethics and such, and sometimes he’d drink. My mom hated his drinking. And they’d fight. Big, brawling, screaming matches.”
Willow didn’t speak. She couldn’t. He’d never opened up to her like this before. She didn’t know what to say.
“When I was little,” he continued, his expression pained, “I would hide under my bed and cover my ears. I was the only kid, so I didn’t have siblings to comfort me. It was just me. So I started thinking I had to do something to stop the fighting, or make things better, or something. So I started cracking jokes when things got tense. I’d make up weird sayings or say something crazy. If I could make my mom laugh, that could break the tension. Sometimes it worked, you know?
“I really thought if I tried hard enough, I could keep my family together. It was my job to keep the peace. To always be silly, goofy Finn. I didn’t get to be mad or upset. Not ever.” He took a breath. “Now, I can look back and see that wasn’t how it was supposed to be. But as a kid, it’s just life, you know?”
Willow blinked back tears. She wanted to go back in time and wrap scared, heartbroken little-kid Finn in her arms and never let go.
Finn was her person. He was allowed to have opinions that differed from hers. Especially in this case, when she knew she was horribly wrong. That was the part she hated more than anything. She had screwed up. She was the reason they were in danger.
She scooted out of the chair and knelt beside him, her kneecaps digging into the cold floor. She took his giant hand in both of hers and held it to her heart. “People argue and disagree and make mistakes, but they still love each other. We still love each other.”
Finn opened his eyes and looked at her, his gaze soft and full of sadness and happiness mixed together. “We love each other?”
She didn’t let the warmth flooding her cheeks distract her. “We do. Because we’re family. We need each other. No matter what happens.”
Finn kissed the top of her head. He smelled like wood-smoke and pine needles. “Thank you,” he said huskily.
Her blush deepened. Instead of hiding her face with her hair, she kept her gaze steady on his. “My turn for a confession. I may have made a massive error in judgment.”
“You wanted to help the people you love. We both did.” He squeezed her hand so hard it almost hurt. “You don’t have to apologize for that.”
She wanted to nestle herself in his arms, to feel his heartbeat against her cheek. She wanted his hand cupping the back of her neck, touching her hair, pulling her to him—but she couldn’t think of all that now. They were imprisoned in enemy territory. Besides, Benjie was looking at her like she’d just grown two heads.
She rocked back on her heels and huffed her bangs out of her eyes
. “So, what’s the plan, then?”
“I vote for the ‘Try not to die’ plan,” Finn said.
“My favorite kind,” Willow said.
They exchanged grins. Everything was right between them again. Together, they’d get through this. Together, they’d figure it out.
“No, really,” she said. “I want to know what you think.”
Finn rubbed the back of his neck. “If we try to break out of here and run, we might escape,
but then we’re in the same position we were in before, with no way to help our friends.”
“And if we just sit here, they could kill us, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“I don’t think they will. They’re not that kind of people.”
“What makes you say that? We don’t know them.”
“This feels different than with the Pyros. Plus, Raven vouched for them. They’re not going to hurt us, even though I’m pretty sure you broke that lady’s nose.”
“I did break her nose. She deserved it.” Willow sniffed. “What do you propose?”
“We go to them and ask to talk. Really talk. And listen.”
“Fine. But how exactly am I going to do that?”
“Just be your usual charming self,” Finn said with a crooked grin.
“We both know my usual self isn’t exactly charming.”
He reached over and tucked an unruly strand of black hair behind her ear. “You are to me.”
She couldn’t have blushed harder if she’d tried. She felt like she would melt right through the cement floor.
Benjie wrinkled his nose. “Ewww!”
Before Willow could come up with an appropriate response, a figure appeared in the two-way mirror—the mirrored pane abruptly shifting to transparent glass. It was Weppler, the blonde woman Willow had attacked, a bandage now wrapped around the middle of her face, her broken nose splinted. “Please keep your protective gear on. If you agree to do so, the Council would like to meet with you and hear what you have to say.”
