So I unseal his uniform and slide my hand across his bare chest, electrified by the feel of skin and coarse hair tickling my palm. He groans, and then he’s peeling my jumpsuit down from my shoulders, baring my torso. My body sings under his touch. He pauses to ask about reproduction inhibitors, and I murmur that I’ve been taking monthly pills to disrupt my hormone levels ever since my scare in the RESCO. His hand grazes my breast and his lips follow, and the ferocity of my longing takes me by surprise. This is not how I imagined our first time, against a counter in a cockroach-infested shack on the roadside, not even lying down, but it’s perfect.
After, sweaty and at peace, we slump to the floor (after inspecting it for cockroaches and other insect or arachnid invaders), and sit with our backs against the counter wall. The biolume pod casts enough light to keep the cockroaches at bay, but I can hear them skittering in the shadows. Ick. Saben’s arm hangs heavy across my shoulder and I snuggle against his side. I’m too hot, but I don’t care.
“What are you doing here anyway?” I ask.
“Wasn’t that enough?” He laughs quietly.
I bang my head against his shoulder. “No, really—why’re you here?”
The muscles of his chest wall tighten under my cheek. “I was part of the siege when Bledsoe killed Alexander.”
Astonished, I pull away far enough that I can read his face. It’s scrunched with grief and guilt.
“There was nothing I could do to stop it. I hope you know that.”
“You could have killed the general.” A chill creeps through me, and I seal my gaping jumpsuit.
“And then I’d have been dead along with Alexander and the others,” Saben says. “Would that make things better? I thought about it—I almost fired. But I knew Alexander would want me to continue to do what I’m doing . . . feed intelligence to the Defiance, undermine the IPF from inside. There are more than a handful of Defiance sympathizers within the IPF, you know.”
I’m still battling with the revelation that Saben and I might have been shooting at each other last week.
“Were you inside the Kube?”
He shakes his head.
There doesn’t seem to be anything to say; I’m sure it makes him feel as weird as it does me. I tell him about Halla’s death, and he squeezes my hand. I’m reminded why I love him so much, when the first thing he asks is, “Is her baby okay?”
I lean against him again and confess that I don’t know where Little Loudon is, whether he’s with his father, or hidden safely somewhere. I tell him about the promise I made Halla.
“He’s not with Loudon Manning,” he says.
I know from his tone that something bad has happened to Loudon. “Why not?”
“He was arrested a couple weeks after you left Atlanta. For ‘crimes against the state.’“
Crimes against the state is a catch-all accusation that can mean almost anything. “Where is he? How is he? What about the baby?”
I feel his shrug. “There were rumors that Manning was being investigated, that the baby was going to be repoed because they were unfit parents, that Halla was going to be arrested—”
“For warning me?”
He nods. “Manning’s in prison somewhere, unless he’s died there. If the government repoed the baby, he’ll have been fosted out by now, or sent to a Kube. Those records are difficult to access.”
It’s his way of telling me I might not be able to find Little Loudon and fulfill my promise to Halla. There’s nothing I can do about it now, so I drop it. Instead, I say, “I’m close to recreating the locust solution. Only a couple more days. Then, we can start releasing test batches of the locusts. The eradication would go so much quicker if we had the means to capture more locusts, though. It’s going to take years for the virus and mutation to affect a large enough part of the population for us to be able to grow crops outside domes.”
He strokes my hair. “It’ll happen. Every last locust is going to die because of you, Everly Jax.”
I’m less certain of that, but I smile anyway. We’ve drifted far from the topic at hand, and I bring it up again. “So, why are you here, exactly?”
His voice gets serious. “There’s a new type of microdrone. It’s experimental, but General Bledsoe is going to try it out against the Kube. The specs on it are top secret, but there are whispers that it deploys a toxic gas. A shipment of them left the manufacturing facility two days ago, headed for Savannah, General Bledsoe’s forward HQ.”
“That’s only two hours from here!”
Saben nods. “A friend got me a copy of the manifest. I couldn’t safely get the intel to you any other way, so I told my commander my mother was ill and he gave me a day’s leave. I should be back on post by morning.”
His use of “should” and the look he gives me, tell me he’s here for something more than to warn us about the drone.
“I want to leave the IPF, Everly. I’m not cut out to be a spy. The lying, the deceit—they’re eating at me. I want to ditch my uniform and fight openly with the Defiance. I want to be with you.”
“You can’t,” I blurt.
From the way his gold eyes darken, I know he reads my words as rejection. “No, no, it’s not like that,” I say, straddling his lap and covering his face with kisses. “There’s nothing I want more than to be with you. It’s Idris.” I explain about Idris’s reaction to Alexander’s murder, his intention of killing all the geneborns. “You can’t come to the Kube.” I take his collar in both hands and give him a little shake to convince him. “I have to hope he’ll regain his sanity once the shock of Alexander’s death has worn off a little, but I don’t know. I don’t trust that he won’t hurt you.” Even though Idris and the Defiance owe Saben big time, I’m not sure he wouldn’t kill him for being geneborn. There’s always been friction between Idris and Saben anyway.
“Bastard.”
I don’t know if he’s referring to Bledsoe or Idris. It doesn’t matter. “You have to go back,” I say, my heart breaking.
His arms tighten around me. I wish we could stay like this forever. Well, maybe not in a cockroach infested hovel. But together. Atlanta is four hours away. He needs to leave within minutes. I’m already feeling bereft.
On the thought, he’s sliding me off his lap, rising, pulling me up with him. I need to leave, too. I’ve been gone almost an hour—someone will miss me. I don’t want them tracking me. With the mood Idris has been in lately, I can’t risk him finding Saben.
“When will we be able to see each other again?” I ask when we’re outside. The breeze has picked up and it cools my flushed cheeks. I wish there were time to introduce Saben to my beach.
“Soon.”
It’s a promise I’m not sure he can keep.
“Things are coming to a head in Atlanta,” he says, holding my hand in a loose clasp. “The infighting is brutal. Since Premier Dubonnet’s cancer surgery, the political situation has gone to hell. There are rumors of dissension among the ministers—especially O’Connell and Fonner—and I wouldn’t put it past Bledsoe to stage a coup. My commander was feeling me out about my loyalties last week, I think. He was vague, didn’t give away anything, but that’s the feeling I got.”
I clasp his hand. “Stay out of it.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not the political type. My loyalties are to Amerada, and a military junta in charge is not the path to freedom and recovery. I think the Defiance is our best shot. Not that it’s perfect, but at least Idris and the other leaders aren’t motivated primarily by personal ambition.”
He drops a kiss on the crown of my head. “I’ve got to go.”
“I know. Me, too.”
We stare into each other’s eyes for a long moment. I can’t tear myself away. Swallowing hard, I slowly ease my hand from his. “Stay safe,” I whisper. “If you get yourself killed doing something heroic, I’ll never forgive you.”
“Stay in the lab, out of harm’s way,” he says. He chuckles. “Yeah, like that’ll happen.”
On
the words, he kisses me hard, and strides away. Two seconds later he’s swallowed by a curtain of kudzu. I can hear him for another few moments, but then he’s gone. I trot back toward my ACV, buoyed by reconnecting with Saben and our lovemaking, but worried about his safety. I’ve already lost Alexander and Halla, who might as well have been my sister. If anything happened to Saben . . . it doesn’t bear thinking about.
I’m careless. I’m thinking too much about Saben and not paying attention. As I near the ACV, still hidden where I left it, I get a sense of movement from my right. My reflexes take over. I don’t go for the beamer—he’s too close. I swing around in a crouch and sense a fist coming toward me. I can’t see my attacker clearly in the dark; he’s an indistinct mass, darker than the shadows that hid him, taller and heavier than me. Instinctively, I lock one hand around the fist aimed at my face, half turn, and use my assailant’s weight and momentum to throw him over my shoulder. He tucks and rolls on landing, agile as a cat, and is coming at me again before I can catch my breath. I feint with my left leg toward his groin, and snap my right foot into his chin. There’s a loud click as his teeth snap together. He grunts.
I think about making a run for it in the ACV, but he’ll be on me before I can get the door up. I take the offensive while he’s still recovering from the kick, but he’s ready for me. A large hand catches the blow I’m aiming at his throat, and twists my arm so brutally that muscles in my shoulder shriek with pain. Instead of throwing me to the ground, like I did him, he surprises me by pulling me in close and squeezing the air out of me like a python. A mistake, because I can—
It’s my last conscious thought as lightning jolts along every nerve.
Chapter Seven
I wake. I’m groggy, disoriented, fog wreathing my brain. It takes me a few seconds to orient myself. My cheek is plastered against a smooth metal surface, my right hand is twisted painfully up between my shoulder blades, and a heavy weight presses against me, making it hard to breathe. I blink rapidly. Saben, walking back to the ACV, the attack. Someone used an electrical signal disruptor on me. Realizing I’m pinned against the ACV, I struggle. My assailant wraps his fingers in my hair and slams my head against the metal. I see stars.
He’s not an outlaw. He doesn’t have the rank, gamy odor of an outlaw. He smells of soap. IPF? No, his sleeve, mashed against my face, is a softer material than the IPF uniforms.
“What the hell are you doing out here, Jax?”
It’s Idris. His voice is conversational, not loud, but I feel the anger throbbing behind the question. What do I tell him? “Idris, let me—”
He bangs my head against the ACV’s hull again, lightly. “Don’t lie to me, Jax. I’m not in the mood. When Wyck brought me the tracking data that showed your ACV was way off the compound, he thought someone had ambushed you. He wanted to come after you, save you.” I can hear the sneer in his voice. “I suspected you were up to something, so I told him to stay put and came myself. And here you are, safe and sound, not kidnapped.”
He leans down until his lips are against my ear and breathes into it. His moist breath in my ear makes me shudder. “I think you met someone, Jax. I think you’re selling out the Defiance. I’ve had my eye on you since you got back from Atlanta. You liked the cushy life there, didn’t you? Liked being Derrika Ealy. Who’s your master? Fonner? I know you reconnected with him in the capital. Alden? You worked for her for months—she had plenty of time to turn you. Tell me who you’re working for and I’ll kill you quickly. You won’t feel a thing.” His teeth bite down hard on my ear.
The shock, more than the pain, makes me cry out. He laughs and licks the injured lobe. I flinch.
I know he’ll kill me if I don’t convince him I’m not a Prag agent. I take as deep a breath as I can with his weight pressing me against the ACV. When I speak, I aim for exasperated, not defensive, not fearful. “You’re full of shit. Let me up.”
A long moment passes before he eases his weight off of me. He’s still got my arm twisted behind me. “I’m going to let go of you. Keep your arms above your head and your feet spread wide. Try anything and I swear I’ll kill you. Then I’ll kill Wyck when I get back to the Kube.” He jabs the muzzle of a beamer into my side and releases my arm. “You can turn around, slowly.”
I turn, keeping my hands at shoulder height and my legs straddled. My head aches. A deep breath helps calm me. In the moonlight, I catch the swing of his dark hair, the outline of his aquiline nose, a glint off his weapon.
“Talk.”
“I’m not a traitor. I want to overthrow the Prags as much as you do. I’ve seen what they do to people they consider expendable. I’ve been in a RESCO.” The memories make me want to shiver, but I control myself. A gust of wind sets the kudzu leaves flapping. “I got a phone call at the lab, telling me to come here tonight. I thought I knew who it was, so I came. It wasn’t who I thought it was. It was Saben. He had important intelligence for us and didn’t think it was safe to pass it through the usual channels.”
“Saben.” Idris grinds his teeth and takes a step closer to study my face. What he sees there must give him pause, because he says, “What information?”
“Drones. General Bledsoe has a new kind of drone, secret, that he’s going to use against us. Saben isn’t sure what its capabilities are, but he says it may dispense poison gas. They were shipped to Savannah two days ago, so Bledsoe could deploy them at any time.” My shoulder muscles ache with the strain of holding my arms up.
“Saben’s geneborn.”
It seems like a non sequitur, but I know it’s not. It’s his way of calling Saben a liar, of saying he’s untrustworthy. I can almost feel his urge to go after Saben. They never got along anyway; Saben was too considered in his actions for the more impulsive Idris, and Alexander sometimes seemed to favor him because of his greater maturity. Idris resented it. I’ve got to keep Idris here. “His DNA was spliced together in a lab—so what? He’s as loyal to the cause as you or anyone else, and he’s risking his life every day to support the Defiance. Don’t be a bigger jerk than you can help, Idris.”
“You never were one to mince your words.” Idris sounds almost amused, and I think the dangerous moment has passed. “Oh, put your hands down.”
I let my arms drop to my sides. Instant relief. My fingertips tingle. I wiggle them to restore circulation.
“You said you weren’t expecting Saben. Who did you think you were meeting?” A renewed hint of suspicion colors Idris’s voice.
If I tell him Minister Alden without explaining why, he’ll assume I’m working for her. If I make something up, he’ll know I’m lying. I take a breath and hold it. “My mother,” I say on the exhale. Another breath. Might as well go for it. “Our mother.”
“What!”
Idris is on me again, his face a half-inch from mine. I shove him back. He lets me.
“What do you mean ‘our’ mother? My mother is dead.”
Shaking my head, I say, “No. Emilia Alden is our mother. She and Alexander were married. He left her because she and the Prags were doing things he couldn’t stomach. He took you with him, and left me behind because I was only an infant. Alden then dumped me at the Kube because she didn’t want to be distracted from her work.” I try to keep bitterness out of my voice but don’t quite succeed.
“You’re lying.” The words come automatically, but I can tell Idris senses that I’m telling the truth. “Who told you this? Alexander? I don’t believe it.”
“I figured it out, part of it anyway, and confronted Alden. She told me the rest. I told Alexander the morning . . . the morning he was killed.”
“You can’t be my sister.” Idris sounds odd.
I think back to the one time he kissed me and wonder if I feature in his fantasy life. The thought makes me queasy. I hurry into speech. “I’m sorry if you hate the idea, but there’s no way around it. “We share the same DNA. We’re brother and sister. I know it’s hard to get your head around it. I’ve had time to get used to the idea.
It’s a shock to you.” I put a tentative hand on his wrist.
He knocks it away and scowls. “Is there any chance there are more of us?”
I wrinkle my brow at him.
“More siblings.” He spits the word like it disgusts him.
The thought had never occurred to me. I rock back on my heels. My first instinct is to say, “no,” but I hesitate, giving it some thought. “I don’t see how,” I say after a moment. “Minister Alden never mentioned another child, and nor did Alexander. He talked about choosing to take you when he left Alden, and leaving me behind. She gave me chapter and verse on how she came to leave me at the Kube. There were no hesitations, no gaps in their stories, like they were trying to cover up something. I think we’re the only ones.”
Idris paces two steps to either side and pivots to face me. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
Anger and confusion and betrayal mix it up in his voice. I know he means Alexander. “I don’t know,” I say simply. I could speculate, but what good would it do?
Something small rustles in the dead underbrush behind me. Idris jerks his arms up and looses off a beamer blast, the sizzle of it so close raising the hairs on my arms. The brightness disrupts my night vision and I blink. After a split second of confusion and wondering if there was a threat, I recognize what he’s doing. He’s letting out his anger on an unsuspecting rodent or cockroach. I don’t say anything as he sends another blast into the darkness, and then another. Heat radiates from him when he lowers the weapon and thrusts his face close to mine. Even though it’s dark, he’s close enough that I can watch his thin nostrils flaring in and out, and smell sweaty scalp. His pupils are dark tunnels. “We will tell no one about our . . . relationship,” he says. “Not Wyck, not anyone.”
It’s not like I was planning to trumpet the news to the world, but I don’t see any harm in telling Wyck and Fiere. “Why—”
Regeneration (The Incubation Trilogy Book 3) Page 9
