Two men stepped out of the staircase near the elevator, guns raised, their movements coordinated. Elite guards, no doubt. Sweat trickled down Henry’s neck. These were no bumbling fools. They had been handpicked by Galen Clarin to protect him. Did he really think he could outwit them? He watched with increasing dread as they checked the small lobby then moved into the corridor, opening every door in a thorough search. His fake blood trail was pointless. He would not escape.
Henry swallowed hard, clung to his weapon. As he considered his nonexistent chances of winning a shoot-out, an electric crackle ran through the ceiling and all the lights winked out. His recording stopped mid-sentence and red emergency dots appeared on each side of the rug. The sunlight filtering through the windows sufficed to navigate the floor, but now his bloody footsteps were invisible. He wouldn’t even have that distraction to help him. He needed a new plan.
His gaze fell on the fire extinguisher across from him. Compressed gas. Hadn’t Treysh been building some kind of explosive device with compressed gas? How had that worked? He hit his head a few times with the heel of his palm in an attempt to jog his memory. He hadn’t been paying attention to the science, really. He’d tried, but Treysh always lost him and he didn’t want to stop her. She would have thought he was stupid. Worse, he would’ve broken her passionate momentum. He should have. Now he had to take a guess, shoot the thing, and hope it’d blow up. He had one single chance. If Treysh and him made it out alive, he promised himself to interrupt as often as he needed to understand.
The two men neared the fire extinguisher. Henry dropped to his belly and crawled to the door. The opening he’d left gave him a good angle. He aimed, imagined the bullet’s trajectory. He could do this. They moved in a tight formation and he’d get them both. It would work. It had to.
The first soldier stepped into view. Henry counted to two. His arm shook despite his best efforts to stabilize it against the floor. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, pulled the trigger. Again and again.
A roaring explosion shook the floor as the three bullets pierced the metal can, releasing the gas inside in one powerful blast. The soldiers crashed into the wall with surprised and pained screams. Henry scrambled to his feet and sprinted down the corridor. As he passed over them, one lifted a dazed hand, reached for his weapon. His movement forced Henry to stop his flight. He couldn’t leave them here.
“I’m sorry, I really am,” he said, before clubbing the stunned soldier with the butt end of his pistol.
Henry knelt next to the second and checked his breathing. Shallow but regular. Neither were dead. Good. He dragged their bodies into the posh office, picked up his shoes, then used the conference chairs to barricade the door. Now they couldn’t come after him. He cast a nervous glance to the elevator and stairs, half-expecting a dozen other soldiers to appear and shoot him down. No one. All he could hear was his heavy panting and the soft buzz of the emergency lights.
Henry collected his thoughts, wiped his shoes clean on the rug, and put them on. He ought to turn the power back on, allow his recording to continue. They’d gone past that room, the first time, in the basement. Treysh had sang and danced. It seemed so long ago now. He wondered if Lungvist had managed to get her out. He wished he could apologize for landing her in prison. He wished he could tell her how alive she made him feel, how unique she was. He would, as soon as he could. Not now, though. Now was the time to get this broadcast back on the air.
Again.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Galen Clarin’s speech cast a heavy silence on the gathered protesters. Angry glares were thrown at the Radio Tower, worried hand-squeezing occurred between friends and family. Maniel paled and whispered to herself, her hands and voice shaking. Praying, Vermen realized. Hans recalled Andeal’s terror when he’d threatened to bring him back to the army, how desperate he had been to escape. He’d been caught, in the end. He was back in Galen’s hands.
The crowd turned toward Seraphin. Just a few at first, but one by one they stared at the rebel leader with one silent question: what now? The Regarian raised a hurt and angry gaze, shook his head with frustration. His fingers shook ever so slightly and there was a wild despair in his pale eyes, a cry of rage he could barely contain. All these people shoved their terror on him, demanding reassurance. He had no answer for them.
The police did.
A sound grenade exploded over their heads, punching holes through Vermen’s ears and sending his heart into a frenzied beat. Panic spread through the crowd as they ran from the bang, hands raised over their heads. A tear gas can spun at their feet, releasing its chemical components with a hiss. Seraphin dashed out of the yellow cloud. Calls to run and disperse erupted all around, only to be buried under the rhythmic bang of batons against riot shields.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
A striking sound. Meant to intimidate, instill fear, warn of impeding violence. Like the old drums of war. Vermen gritted his teeth, drew on his trained discipline to keep his calm in the growing chaos. He could not stay alone. They needed to stick together.
“Seraphin!”
Gas plunged into Vermen’s throat, scorching it. He scanned around but the smoke thickened with each sound grenade and tears marred his limited sight. The policemen closed in.
A smaller hand grabbed his forearm and pulled him away. A brown woman’s hand, with Maniel’s wedding ring. Vermen followed, relieved Maniel had found him, at least. He tried to wipe his gas-induced tears, but his eyes and throat burned and he knew it wouldn’t go away. People screamed around them, panicked, scattering through the street, away from the advancing policemen.
“Everybody calm down!”
Vermen recognized Alex’s voice. They had jumped upon a bench, a scarf covering the lower half of their face and wore protective lab glasses keeping their eyes safe. Vermen’s heart lifted. As awkward as their first had been, he was glad to find another familiar face.
“Do not sprint!” they called. “Do not scatter. Grab the person next to you and walk fast, all in one direction. Do not run.”
They pointed north—toward the police headquarters—and repeated their advice. Their voice turned raspy but Alex drank from a water bottle and kept going. The protesters obeyed without questions, linked arms with perfect strangers, hurried on. The police line emerged from the cloud, fully armored and gas masks on. One of them, a step behind his colleagues, shot another grenade over their heads.
It burst next to Alex’s head and the shock sent them stumbling off their bench with a cry. The policemen sped the tempo of their batons then charged as they fell, and Alex’s reassuring advice vanished from everyone’s minds. They bolted—a disorganized crowd running into one another. Vermen and Maniel rushed to Alex’s aid and gave them a hand up. They stared at them with a dazed look, their knees and elbows scraped and bleeding. When the police threw a tear gas can their way, Maniel kicked it back with an angry grunt.
“Where’s Seraphin?” Alex asked.
“Let’s go,” she said. “We’ll find him again, but later.”
The line had reached them. Policemen screamed for everyone to move. They pressed behind, never more than a stride away. Insults flew as they herded the mass of confused protesters, yelling for everyone to go faster. Anger tightened Vermen’s throat. Faster? When his body pressed against that of strangers, when every step he took almost crushed someone else’s foot, when the crowd was so compact that weaving through others would be impossible? How were they supposed to go faster? He clung to Maniel and Alex, afraid to lose them to the current, aware that if he did he would not find either again.
Just as, despite his best attempts, he couldn’t find Seraphin’s white head through the crowd.
The houses flanking them on either side gave way to an intersection a little farther ahead. They could use the space. To breathe, but also to sneak deeper into the crowd—to position themselves not one step ahead of the police.
Vermen’s hope was short-lived. A second shield-wielding line of
policemen emerged from the intersection, from the left. Sound grenades exploded overhead from both groups, causing protesters to sprint away or crouch down with surprised screams. When the rhythmic banging picked up pace again, someone panicked behind Vermen and shoved him. Hans’ foot caught another’s and he tumbled to the ground.
He fought to get back on his feet but was hit by random knees, feet, and forelegs, forcing him back down. Someone stepped on his hand as he pushed himself up. He screamed and withdrew it, flattening against the ground and smashing his chin. Then the crowd thinned; he’d reached the police line. Vermen’s heart skipped a beat. He scrambled up as fast as he could, but it didn’t suffice.
“Move, asshole!”
A baton smashed against his hind leg, another on his forearm. He stumbled, almost crashed again, but this time he caught himself.
“Vermen!”
Hans lifted his head and spotted Maniel ahead, fighting against the current. He dashed, felt the swoosh of air as another baton missed him, and sprinted until he reached the relative safety of the crowd line. She linked her arm in his, but they had no time for relief. The second row of policemen crashed into their group, from the left.
The terrified crowd split in half under the assault, some going north, others running east.
“No! All to the north!”
Seraphin’s voice rose from the crowd, commanding. The fleeing crowd slowed despite the incoming police and some stopped as they reached the east and north streets, at the edge of the dangerous intersection. He stood in the middle, half-hidden by swirling smoke, as white as the gas that spiraled around him. One hand rested at his hip, his skeptar in plain view. Vermen’s breath caught in his raw throat. There was an aura of power about Seraphin that was ridiculously attractive.
“Keep going!” the Regarian called. “North, everyone together. Don’t linger, go!”
Some moved but most stared at him even longer. They whispered to one another. The White Renegade, they said. It’s him. The riot squad stopped. Seraphin stayed put. Alone. Such an easy target. Vermen noted sergeants speaking into a radio, just behind their police line. And here he was, doing nothing, like a teenage idiot drooling over his crush.
“Seraphin!”
The rebel leader turned at the sound of his voice and a thrilled grin split his face. “Hans, I’m so glad to—”
“Get down!”
The sergeants had gestured to their men and three gas cans hit the ground at Seraphin’s feet, in perfect unison. The Regarian stepped back, bringing an arm up to protect his throat. Vermen broke into a sprint as a sound grenade blasted to his friend’s left. A wracking cough emerged from the cloud just as Hans heard a clear order from the enemy line.
“Fire!”
Three consecutive gunshots rang out. Not regular ones. Hans noticed the air-release from crowd-control rubber bullet guns. Two fleshy thumps followed, the first drawing a surprised cry of pain, the second ending it abruptly.
Vermen’s heart stopped, too.
Shot.
No, he had to get a grip. They were rubber bullets. Seraphin was out cold, not dead.
Maniel had already dived into the tear gas. Vermen plunged in too, just as the protesters moved again—northward, in one scared group. Batons hit shields, their fast pace in sync with Hans’ heartbeat. The burning in his throat returned and his eyes watered, so he used his feet to sweep the ground. Glass broke as he stepped on a pair of glasses, the sound squeezing his insides. They had another trip to Serenity planned, now.
A wracking cough stopped Vermen’s search but he heard his companion let out a soft exclamation.
“Here! I have him.”
The coordinated slap of boots on pavement warned them of the approaching police. Vermen hurried to her side and crouched. He patted around the ground until he touched a shoulder.
“Take his head and I’ll grab his legs.”
As he tried to find a hold, his fingers touched something warm. Blood, running down Seraphin’s cheeks and neck. Hans swallowed hard and tightened his grip on the Regarian’s head. They could not stay to examine his wounds.
“Go,” Maniel said. “Follow the crowd.”
They moved out, carrying the Regarian as fast as they could. Hans refused to look at Seraphin’s face when they left the smoke but every gasp their passage drew crushed his heart. Those rubber bullets weren’t meant to kill, he told himself, but they weren’t meant to be shot at close range into someone’s face either.
Maniel swore and called out to the crowd, to no one in particular and everyone at once. Desperation laced her voice. “I need to put him down and see to his wounds!”
Her first answer was another sound grenade. Everyone around ducked but Vermen clung to Seraphin’s head. The riot squad accelerated their shield-bang warning and charged. Most protesters ran but a courageous few linked arms into a protective line between them and the police. Vermen struggled to keep up. With each of his long backward strides, Seraphin’s weight strained him and the baton hits he’d received earlier flared in pain. They couldn’t keep this up forever.
“Vermen…Vermen, what’s that ahead?”
At Maniel’s question he twisted around to see. People were disappearing down a small flight of stairs, on their left, but this was no intersection.
“An open door?”
His heart raced. This was their chance! They had to get inside before this benevolent soul slammed the door shut.
“We have a wounded man,” he yelled. “Let us through!”
A handful of protesters stepped aside but most ignored Vermen. He sped his pace anyway, pushing through. Although her voice was drowned in the ambient chaos, Maniel kept demanding for room to be made. Her voice was hoarse, broken. If she didn’t look after Seraphin soon, he would die.
“Let them pass. Nobody’s in my house until they are!”
The man’s voice covered the screams, the faraway sound grenades, the stomping of the incoming riot squad. Relief flooded through Vermen as he rushed inside, past the bald dark-skinned man. His wife greeted them, ushering them through a crowded living room and into a backyard garden. They set Seraphin down between rows of cucumber and tomato plants. Panting, Vermen thanked her as Maniel pulled her hair into a ponytail and crouched down.
Seraphin’s pale skin had taken on a sick yellowish hue. Sweaty clothes clung to him and blood clotted his white hair and stained his collar. His skull seemed sunken in under all that red. Vermen swallowed hard, knelt, and brushed strands of Seraphin’s hair aside, clearing his forehead. Explosions, yells, and gunshots still rang outside but they’d found a safe place.
“It’s okay now,” Hans whispered. “I’m sorry about your glasses.”
His words seemed to shake their hostess out of a daze. She cleared her throat. “I’ll get hot water, compresses, and my sewing kit.”
“Don’t.” Maniel withdrew the two fingers she’d put at Seraphin’s neck. “There’s no use.”
Her gaze found Vermen’s and she shook her head. Too late. She let herself fall into a sitting position and took a shuddering breath.
“No.” Vermen reached over Seraphin’s body and grabbed her shoulder. “Reanimate him. Do something.”
Maniel slapped his hand away. “I know my job! He’s dead, Hans. Gone.”
Tears ran down her cheeks despite her angry scowl. Vermen didn’t push the matter. He knew she was right, even though he didn’t want to hear it. His hand grabbed Seraphin’s inert fingers and squeezed. He wanted the terribly pale blue eyes to open again, to tell him not to make a big deal out of things. This wasn’t fair. He had been ready to do just that, to turn their first kiss into a big deal and leave his brother’s ghost behind. But he needed Seraphin for that. He had spent six years trying to be the one to put that bullet in his head, rubber or not. And when he hadn’t been able to, he’d found himself wishing someone else would.
Someone else had.
They had known. They had aimed for his head at short range. Someone had given t
his specific order. Vermen’s hands drifted down, to the pistol at Seraphin’s hip.
“Can we ask you a few questions?”
Hans snapped his hand back when their hosts interrupted. The Burgian man had joined them in the garden. He stood a step behind his wife, his arms crossed, his expression hovering between concerned confusion and an angry frown. Vermen was not in the mood to indulge strangers with long explanations, but they had sheltered them. Too late.
“Only if you really want the answers.”
The man paused to consider for a moment, then nodded. “That’s the White Renegade, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“So you two, you’re his companions or something?”
“We are.” Maniel pulled herself up and wiped her bloodied hands on her pants. “I’ve been with him since day one.”
“Okay, okay.”
The Burgian looked at his wife for support, nervous now. Neither of them must’ve expected to shelter the Union’s most wanted criminals when they opened that door. If these two weren’t in the streets to begin with, they probably didn’t want anything to do with this mess.
“So what’s the plan?” the husband blurted out, proving Vermen wrong. “Is anyone going to the Radio Tower to help Henry? You’re the ones who put all these ideas of rebellions and heroics in his head, you know. You can’t let him face soldiers alone!”
“You know Henry?”
Maniel’s surprised question echoed Vermen’s own. Something else bothered him, though, something more urgent.
“What do you mean, ‘face soldiers alone’?”
“We raised him when Lenz vanished,” the woman answered. “A few minutes ago our boy got on the radio and told the whole world his name and how he had that recording to play, but he didn’t expect to get to the end of it—and he was right. It cut without warning and we don’t have a clue about how he’s faring. So tell us, because I think we deserve to know: what was the plan?”
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