by Kyla Stone
As López shuffled back up to the stage, Raven turned to Willow. She gave a short jerk of her chin. “This is your chance. Don’t waste it.”
11
Gabriel
“They’re being slaughtered out there!” Gabriel cried.
“Shhh,” Cleo hissed beside him. “Shut up. I’m trying to watch.”
They were deep in the forest, a hundred yards above a steep hill overlooking the overgrown dirt road leading to the service entrance of the Sanctuary.
They crouched on a narrow shale ledge, hiding behind a fallen oak’s sprawling clay-encrusted roots and several artfully placed branches and pine boughs. Gabriel and Cleo were both dressed in dark, tight-fitting clothing and reinforced tactical vests, infrared goggles perched high on their foreheads.
“Phase one commences now,” Cleo said eagerly, her eyes bright.
Gabriel hunched over her shoulder, watching the scene unfolding live from one of their drone feeds. The Patriots were attacking the Sanctuary head-on. They’d rolled in with two tanks, eight Humvees, and twice as many RPGs and hand-held rocket-throwers. Maneuvering swiftly, they’d managed to crest the towering ridge that ran along the south-facing perimeter of the Sanctuary.
The eight cannons manning the ramparts of the plasma wall roared to life. The first volley of cannon fire fell far short of the Patriots’ Humvees. The ground forty yards in front of them disappeared in a spray of dirt and debris. A burst of cannon fire wailed overhead. It struck the first Humvee, crippling it.
Gabriel’s chest wrenched. This wasn’t a holofilm. This was real, happening in real-time, right before his eyes. And he was helpless to do a thing.
Another missile pounded a second Humvee, not ten yards from the first. It tipped on its side before erupting into a firebomb. A barrage of high-explosives rocketed toward them. The first vehicle swerved. A blast lit up the screen, illuminating the flaming wreckage of the Humvee. The broken, mangled vehicle belched black smoke.
Cannon fire splintered the trees like matchsticks. Three more Humvees exploded.
The remaining three Patriot Humvees swerved with a spray of dirt and snow, turned tail, and fled. Cannon fire cratered the earth all around them.
“Zoom out,” Cleo instructed. The drone transmitting the feed rose higher. The plasma wall came into view again. The front gates opened, and thirty armored vehicles surged out in pursuit of the fleeing Patriots.
Gabriel couldn’t bear to watch anymore. He turned away, his stomach roiling. “That was the most ill-planned, reckless mission I’ve ever seen.”
Cleo blew out a puff of air, her breath a swirl of white mist. “It was perfectly planned.”
He stared at her. The pieces fell into place, striking him like physical blows. “You not only expected to lose, you wanted to lose.”
“Very good. Would you like a round of applause?”
“You sent your own people out there to die.” His jaw clenched. Acid burned the back of his throat. A dark, ugly anger filled him. “That boy, James Hunt, was in one of those tanks. He was only fifteen. Just a kid!”
“I know that!” she snarled. “You don’t think I know that? I didn’t send them to do anything I wasn’t willing to do myself. They’re willing to die for a cause. We’re all willing to die for that cause.”
“You cannot be serious.”
“Serious as death,” Cleo said. “The Sanctuary has superior defenses, superior weaponry, a superior army. They’re superior in every way but one.”
“And what way is that?” he bit out.
“They’re arrogant. I think there’s a line from some book about giants stumbling over pride.”
“The Bible.”
“What?”
Gabriel remembered his Catholic mother, her strings of prayer beads. He thought of Micah. “It’s from the Bible. Pride goeth before a fall.”
Cleo waved her hand. “There you go. We’re gonna make them fall so hard they’ll never get up again. Inside that enclave, they think they’re safe. We need to draw them out.”
“You’re using yourselves as bait,” Gabriel said slowly. The Patriots’ leadership had only informed each squad of their specific roles. He hadn’t known the full plan until just now. “You’re distracting them with a battle you know you’re going to lose.”
“We have to use their pride and arrogance against them. They won’t be as calculating or prepared if they think the enemy is disorganized and stupid. Think of it like a game of chess with the highest stakes ever. We have to make sacrifices to win the game.”
Gabriel stared at her. He was at a loss for words. “That’s…”
“Brilliant?”
“Horrifying.”
“I’ll take it,” she said. “You know how to win a shoot-out or a hand-to-hand fight, Gabriel. But the art of war is a beautiful thing.”
“It’s a brutal thing.”
She shrugged. “Brutality can be beautiful.”
“Only you would say that.”
She smiled like he’d given her a compliment.
He shook his head. “There must be another way. One that doesn’t involve the wholesale slaughter of your own people.”
“It is the only way!” She glared at him, her teeth bared. The unquenchable fire of her rage filled her dark eyes. She wasn’t beautiful in any traditional sense. But she was strong and fierce, with a terrible will that filled him with both dread and awe.
Gabriel had felt that way himself. He knew that rage. That bitterness and hate. He knew that path. It only led to darkness. “You’re wrong.”
She shrugged as she turned back to the holopad, seemingly unconcerned, but her shoulders were tense, her fingers clawing over the edges of the holopad. “You’re just gonna have to trust me.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Don’t cross me, Rivera, or you will regret it.”
Gabriel glimpsed movement out of the corner of his eye. He lunged right and seized her wrist just as she dropped the holopad and reached for the knife belted to her waist. He grimaced. “Nice try. I’ve seen that trick before.”
She scowled. “Let go of me.”
“It’s hard to trust someone willing to betray anyone who gets in their way.”
“Then don’t get in my way.”
He tightened his grip, grinding her wrist bones.
She didn’t flinch. She met his glare with one of her own. “As long as our objectives don’t cross, you have nothing to worry about from me.”
“And if they do?”
She shook her head, her eyes sharp. “What do you think?”
She would slit his throat in a heartbeat. But at least she didn’t pretend otherwise.
He’d been her, once. He had changed. She could change, too. She could let go of her hatred. “I think you need a friend.”
She flashed a lethal smile. “Friends are a liability.”
“No,” he said. “The people you love are assets. They’re your strength, your power, your everything.”
She snorted, but there was no true disgust behind it. “You sound like your brother.”
“Maybe,” he allowed. “I’ve come to learn he’s right more often than not.”
“Love is a luxury in this world,” she said darkly. “A luxury I can’t afford. Not until this is over, the Sanctuary is ours, my mother is cured, my brother is safe, and President Sloane is dead.” She looked away, staring off at a point in the distance. “Are you going to let go of me?”
“Are you going to restrain yourself from stabbing me in a fit of childish temper?”
Her lip curled. “Maybe.”
He relaxed his grip slightly but didn’t let go. Instead, he pulled her arm closer and yanked down her jacket sleeve, revealing the lines of scars riddling her forearm. “Tell me why.”
“I already told you—”
“Do you keep track out of shame or pride?”
She spat into the dirt. For a long second, she didn’t answer. He started to think that she wouldn’t. Finally, she gave a harsh, hollow
laugh. “Both.”
She was still being honest. And it had cost her. He could see it in the strain around her eyes, the tightness in her mouth. Maybe they were getting somewhere after all. “What about the other side?” He tilted his chin at her other wrist, where her brown skin was smooth and unbroken. “What about the lives you’ve saved? Doesn’t that matter, too?”
She jerked away. He let her go. “There’s only one life that matters now. Everything else can burn.”
He sighed. “I know you feel that way, but—”
She turned to face him. Her eyes glittered with anger. “Whatever you’re trying to convince me of, your come-to-Jesus moment or whatever, it won’t work. You want me to have compassion for those people in the Sanctuary, but I don’t. I can’t. I never will. They’re the enemy.”
“And the children who don’t have a choice?”
“They’ll grow up to be just like their parents. They’re all cruel, greedy, selfish—all killers who won’t get their hands dirty. But their callous disregard makes them killers all the same.”
“Some of them are. Some of them have been fed lies. And some of them are innocent. If we kill them all, we’re just as bad as the worst of them.”
“If we get what we want, so be it.”
“No,” he said. “I used to believe that, but I don’t anymore. It nearly destroyed me. I was lost, but the people I loved brought me back. They showed me there’s more to this life than hate and retribution. There has to be more.”
“Not for me.” She swept her braids out of her eyes and gestured at the burned side of her face. “Don’t you get it? I am what I am.”
“People can change.”
Her hands balled into fists on her lap. In the shadows, her eyes gleamed black as onyx. “Not me.”
12
Amelia
Two guards and four armored drones remained outside the door to Amelia’s suite, ostensibly for her protection, though Amelia still hadn’t seen anything or anyone inside the Sanctuary’s walls that she needed protection from.
Except maybe President Sloane herself.
Amelia’s room was exquisite, finely decorated, and scented with lavender. The modern furniture was a mix of soft fabrics and shades of graphite. A domestic service bot waited discreetly by the door, humanoid hands folded, awaiting instructions. The star-studded night sky shone through the opened French doors leading to a private, glass-enclosed terrace.
The terrace was her favorite spot in the whole Sanctuary. It was a garden enclosed in glass. Lush green vines twined the walls on either side of her. Flowering plants exploded with colors—orange marigolds, deep purple chrysanthemums, crimson roses, bone-white lilies.
Something fluttered out of the corner of her vision. A delicate teal-and-black butterfly alit on her forearm. There were more of them. Dozens. They rested on flower petals, their shimmering wings undulating slowly, or fluttered lazily through the sweetly scented air.
“Sunlight on,” she instructed the AI. Warm artificial sunlight flooded the terrace from a port in the ceiling. The glass walls turned dark, reflecting the light. She glanced down at the wrought-iron table, its top inlaid with sparkling chips of sea glass, and lifted the 18th-century Guarneri her father had found for her.
For the next hour, she played and played, her right arm moving in smooth, practiced motions. She played with skill and precision, but also with passion, reverence, devotion. The music flowed through her fingertips, her veins, filling every cell in her body. The ecstasy and longing and anguish of the notes vibrating through her bones took her away, away to a place of peace and beauty, a place where her soul was free.
Finally, as the last golden notes of Mendelssohn’s violin concerto faded, she placed the violin in its case back on the table. Her hand strayed to the charm bracelet hanging from her neck beneath her silken sapphire robe. Her fingers touched the leather thong.
Micah.
Micah had made it for her so she could keep it safe. Micah was still out there somewhere with Silas, possibly in grave danger. Along with Gabriel and Willow and Finn. They were all outside the Sanctuary, where everywhere was dangerous.
She unclasped the bracelet and held it in her open palm. The diamonds winked in the artificial sunlight streaming through the glass in rainbow prisms.
She hated her father and loved him. He’d hurt her and saved her. And now he’d warned her, attempting to save her again.
What if he was lying about President Sloane? His last-ditch effort to destroy her and steal her happiness. He’s telling the truth. You know he is.
What was she supposed to do about it?
There’s good in the world. And it’s worth fighting for. Micah’s words were a mantra she repeated over and over inside her head, clinging to its promise, its hope.
She wished he were here right now. She missed his quiet strength. His resolve. His unwavering certainty and belief in something more, something better. His faith.
She missed his presence. His warm smile and dark eyes, the slightly skewed glasses he was constantly fixing. She knew what Micah would do in her place. She knew it like she knew every note of her favorite songs, every bowing technique to bring out the desired pitch and timbre—the soul—of her beloved music.
There was a knock on the door to her quarters.
“Vera Longoria-Castillo is here to see you,” the AI purred.
A tiny, lemon-yellow butterfly no larger than her thumbnail landed on a daffodil. Its wings opened and closed, opened and closed as it sucked in the flower’s nectar. Something glittered in the upper left-hand corner of the glass roof. A camera lens. Amelia stared at it, unblinking. “Let her in.”
A moment later, Vera’s heels clicked across the marble floor. She paused at the French doors leading to the terrace. She wore a jade-green wool skirt that flared gently at the knees and a pair of buttery-soft, heeled leather boots.
“You’re so lucky,” she gushed. “You have one of the butterfly gardens! I think I’d kill for one of these.” There was a barely perceptible edge to her voice that suggested she might want to.
Her smile was too bright, her teeth flashing white, though her eyes betrayed her. They were hard, full of judgment. Amelia wanted to stare her down, give her a piece of her mind. Instead, she dipped her chin courteously and dropped her gaze to her lap. “How may I help you, Vera?”
Vera swiped something on her holopad. “President Sloane would like you to say something tomorrow. We’ll announce the cure before, ah, the sentencing is carried out—” she fumbled awkwardly, as if she’d forgotten it was Amelia’s father awaiting execution. She recovered quickly, her smile widening. “You’re young, beautiful, full of verve. You are just what our people need right now. The girl who lived. A symbol of hope. It will be simply perfect!”
“Of course,” Amelia heard herself say. She pasted a sweet smile on her face to match Vera’s. Be the doll, she thought. Be the sheep. She couldn’t let them see who she really was, what she really thought—especially now that she knew the truth. She couldn’t let them see the wheels turning in her mind, the plans taking shape behind her eyes. “I would love that. What an absolute honor.”
“Excellent! The President’s advisers have already prepared your speech. I’m sending it to your SmartFlex now so you can practice it, but don’t feel you have to memorize it. There will be a hover-teleprompter for you.” Vera swiped the air over her holopad as she prattled off a dozen details Amelia barely heard. “Oh, and President Sloane says don’t forget to get your beauty sleep! We want you at your best tomorrow!”
Amelia nodded. “I will do my best. Please thank President Sloane for me.”
“Of course. Oh, one more thing.” Vera’s smile unpeeled from her face like a sticker. “Your mother wishes to see you.”
Amelia went rigid. Was she strong enough for this, too? But she couldn’t say no. She couldn’t give Vera or President Sloane any reason for suspicion. “Wonderful. Please let her in.”
“As you wish.” Ver
a’s clicking heels faded as she strode away to check off the next duty on her list.
A moment later, Amelia’s mother entered. She wore an elegant creamy white dress embroidered with seed pearls that glinted like a thousand tiny moons in the light. Her glossy auburn hair was pulled back in a French twist. She was as graceful and beautiful as royalty, looking every inch as elite as she was. “Amelia, I’m so glad to see you safe and well.”
“Don’t,” Amelia said through gritted teeth.
“I can explain. Please, just listen—”
“We went through Atlanta to rescue you,” Amelia said. “All of us. Gabriel, Finn, Willow, Celeste. The people you betrayed when you came here. They all agreed to risk their lives for you. Tyler Horne nearly killed Celeste. Finn was shot. He lost the use of his arm. And Jericho…” She pushed back the pain, forced herself to keep going. “The Pyros murdered him. Right in front of us. We would never even have been there if not for you.”
Her mother’s hand fluttered to the hollow of her throat. “I cared deeply for Jericho. I mourned him, too. I didn’t want you to rescue me. I never asked for any of it.”
“That’s not the point. Each one of them went willingly because they cared, because we’re all together in this, because they’re good people. And what you did…that’s how you repay them?”
Her mother pursed her perfectly rouged lips. Her chin quivered. “I’ve always been willing to do anything, to suffer anything, for your safety. I only did what I needed to do—”
“You’re wrong,” Amelia interrupted, willing her voice to remain calm, barely repressing the bitter anger flaring through her.
Her mother plucked a white lily and stroked its petals. “I don’t trust the Patriots, not after what we suffered on the Grand Voyager. I never wished to put Gabriel or Willow in danger, but I have to think of you. I am your mother. You can hate me for the rest of your life, but please know—I’ve only ever tried to keep you safe. Don’t you want to stay here?” Her mother spread her arms, encompassing the terrace, Amelia’s quarters, the whole Sanctuary. “Don’t you want this?”
