The Phoenix Project (The Liberty Box Book 3)

by C. A. Gray

  I felt Voltolini freeze, but I didn’t know what to make of it until he began to laugh. The laughter scared me. In one smooth movement, he twisted my arm around from behind him while pushing me towards the bed.

  “Oh, what a femme fatale you’ve become!” he crowed, just as he pushed me down with both my hands pinned above my head, ice pick exposed. He looked into my eyes as I fought for breath.

  Play dumb, I told myself desperately. “I… don’t know what you mean!”

  He grinned at me from above, his face inches from mine. “Let’s level with each other, shall we? You came back here to try to kill me—very ballsy of you, if you’ll pardon the expression. I like a worthy adversary, and the mind games do get tiresome. I’m sure you’d agree.”

  “You think the mind games get tiresome?” I spat, abandoning all pretense. I had to admit, it was a relief to be honest. “Oh, the irony!”

  He laughed, almost appreciatively. “Believe me, Kate, I’d love nothing more than to have consolidated power and loyal subjects without all the smoke and mirrors. But alas, that’s not the world we live in.” He twisted the ice pick out of my hand and released me, sitting back on the bed with his head propped up, gazing at me.

  I sat up too, cautious. I had no idea why he’d released me, but since he did—I thought again of the knife tucked into my bra. It would be neither smooth nor subtle to pull it out, unless I did a strip tease or something. Aside from how revolting that idea was in and of itself, it would be even less believable now that we were coming clean with each other. I’d just have to wait until his back was turned—except he wouldn’t be turning his back on me now…

  As I thought this, I said, “And what is the world we live in?” Just to keep him talking.

  Voltolini sighed. “It’s one where the only people one can rule over are so passive that there’s no fun in it anyway. This, Kate—” he indicated himself and me with his finger, “this kind of chemistry, that’s the spice of life!” He shrugged, with mock sadness. “But alas, I can only find it in the sort of woman who’s trying to kill me. It’s a sad state of affairs.”

  He reached up and brushed the hair away from my face, gentle and odious. My heart pounded so hard I was sure he could hear it.

  Grab it now. Grab it right now. Just do it!

  “I think you look best just as you are,” he told me, “au naturale. I’ll get the camera crew together, and we’ll whip up some teleprompter copy. You’ll read exactly what it says, or we’ll slowly dismember your father behind soundproof glass so that the people won’t hear his screams on the air.” He poked my nose with his index finger. “Sound good?”

  I whipped out the knife and flicked open the blade, jabbing it towards his ribs with all my might. He saw it coming much too early and deflected me. I only managed to just graze his arm before he disarmed me, pinning my arms above my head on the bed once again.

  “You monster!” I screamed, panting.

  “Oh, now that’s not very nice,” he whispered, his face hovering above me. Before I knew what was happening, his lips were on mine. I tried to turn my face away but he was persistent. When he finally let me break away, I spat in his face.

  Ben released me calmly as he wiped the spit off his cheek. “Ingrid!” he called.

  A few seconds later, my surly housemaid reappeared.

  He stood up then. “Finish dressing Kate and bring her to the broadcasting room,” he ordered, “But first, strip her down naked. Make sure she doesn’t have any other weapons on her.” Just as he was about to leave the room, he turned back to me and added, “I could do it myself, but you see, I really am a gentleman.” He winked at me, and left the room.

  Chapter 32: Jackson

  We all moved back toward the van in sober silence. I kept glancing at Joe, wondering if there was any way I could get him alone, but I knew there wasn’t. I’d have to bide my time.

  It was only another two hours before sundown. We’d agreed it would be best to arrive at the palace after midnight, but if we drove straight through right now, we’d get there around mid-morning. That meant we had a day to kill at least, and as Nick had pointed out, we needed to have our wits about us. A good night’s sleep would be wise.

  We stopped in a ghost town called Graft for the night. We had our pick of abandoned houses, most of them spaced far apart from one another on desolate plots of land.

  “What about that one?” Molly pointed at a single story home that might have doubled as a shed. “It looks less haunted than the others.”

  “Not sure how you figure that,” Alec muttered. “They all look like the floor might cave in on us.”

  “And like there’s no food in any of them,” Jacob added. Joe’s stomach growled in response to this. I took this as my cue, glancing at Joe.

  “Joe and I can scour the neighborhood for something for dinner. We’ll meet you guys back here,” I volunteered.

  Alec turned to me, eyes narrowed. “Why Joe?”

  I raised my eyebrows, playing dumb. “No special reason. Just sounds like he’s hungry.”

  Joe gave a hollow laugh. “I’ve had more food in the last few days than I have in the last couple of decades. Guess my stomach got used to it.”

  Charlie parked the van, and Nick marched deliberately up to the front to try to find a way in, the others behind him.

  “Why don't you guys wait and see what’s already in the house, before you go looking for more?” Molly suggested.

  “I just want to stretch my legs a bit at any rate,” I told her. “Besides, stale food from two houses is better than stale food from one, right?” I gestured to Joe. “Coming?”

  “I’ll come with you guys too,” Alec volunteered, still watching me with suspicion.

  “It won’t take three men to inspect one kitchen,” Nick called to Alec as he picked the lock on the door. “Why don’t you help us get set up here, they’ll be back soon.”

  Alec glared at me first, and then turned an expression upon Joe that I couldn’t see, but it made him drop his gaze. Then Joe and I set off together.

  The nearest house was about a half mile away. When I was sure we were out of earshot, I said, “You okay?”

  Joe glanced at me, expressionless. “You mean for a man with probably a day to live? Sure, I’m peachy.”

  I gave him a tight smile. “Of all of us, you’re the most likely to survive, you know. We’re all gonna be protecting you.”

  “Until I destroy the control centers, you mean.” He glanced at me with a look that dared me to disagree. “After that, all hell breaks loose, and it’s every man for himself. I can’t shoot. I can’t even run. If Voltolini survives, how do you think this is gonna end for me?”

  I hesitated. “Alec wants you to send out one last message, doesn’t he.”

  Joe said nothing.

  “He wants you to turn the people against Voltolini.”

  Still no reply. The silence was ominous.

  “What did he do, offer to protect you if you help him? Or threaten to turn you over to Voltolini’s guards if you refuse?”

  “You’re wrong,” Joe lied. I knew he was lying from his hesitation, his hoarseness, the way he wouldn’t look at me. “I’m destroying the Liberty Box software and all the backups tomorrow night. Just like we all agreed.”

  This assertion hit me like a punch in the gut. I’d never implied that Joe wouldn’t destroy it—why did he feel the need to reassure me he would?

  “He wants you to set him up as the new Potentate,” I whispered.

  “Of course not, that’s absurd!” Joe protested, too quickly. “I don’t know where you’re getting any of this. You’re crazy!”

  I felt ill. We came upon the decrepit old house, finding the door ajar probably from previous raiders. Joe, eager to get away from me, announced, “I’ll look for a pantry. Meet you in front.” He disappeared to one end of the house. I made my way into the kitchen, going through the motions of looking for food even though
eating was the last thing I felt like doing at the moment.

  What am I going to do?

  Joe and I walked back in prickly silence. When we arrived back at the shed-like structure the group had chosen for the night, I’d made up my mind. Clearly I wasn’t getting anything else out of Joe, and confronting Alec would be equally useless and would likely end in a fistfight, if not worse. Still, I couldn’t risk traveling to the palace with a traitor among us. I decided to tell Nick.

  “What?” Nick demanded. “Joe told you that?”

  “No, I guessed it, and he tried to deny it. But the way he denied it was a clear confirmation.”

  “Jackson, Alec has been one of my hunters since he was a kid, an orphaned teenage kid. Did you know that?”

  “No, but—”

  “I taught him everything he knows. He follows my orders implicitly. I’m the closest thing he has to a father, and I might also add that he’s the closest thing I have to a son!”

  I blinked, taken aback. I didn’t know anybody could view a hothead like Alec so tenderly. I’d better try a different tack, I thought. “Nick, I know you care about Alec—”

  “I don’t just care about him. I trust him implicitly,” Nick said flatly. “He might fly off the handle from time to time, but he’s a team player. I can promise you that.”

  “Because he’s never had a reason not to be!” I hissed, “but now he does! What is the one thing that drives him more than anything else? What is the one topic that gets him hot under the collar faster than anything else?” After a beat, I said, “Maggie! Maggie’s death. He wants to avenge her more than anything, and now he’s got his chance, or at least he thinks he does. The weapon of the control centers is too powerful for him to pass up, even if we all believe it would be wrong for us to use it. He wants to turn the people against Voltolini, then he wants the personal authority to order his execution, just like Voltolini ordered Maggie’s and his parents’—”

  “Enough!” Nick snapped. “This is all slander and conjecture, and I won’t listen to any more of it. Frankly, Jackson, between the two of you, you are the one I know far less about. The last time I counted on you, while Alec stayed by my side and fought, you ran off to the palace like a renegade to save another man’s fiancé!”

  I flinched, like he’d slapped me. “That’s not fair—”

  “Oh, it’s not? I admit that you are an extraordinarily talented marksman, and that you see things that the rest of us don’t. But you’re not a mind-reader, and you admitted that you have no proof. I still lead the hunters, and I expect you to follow orders from now on!”

  With that, he stalked off to the little bundle of blankets Molly had laid out for their bed that night, leaving me standing in the moonlight filtered through a dusty and cracked window. I rested my palm on the window, and pressed my forehead against it with a heavy sigh.

  Joe wouldn’t admit to anything. Nick wouldn’t listen to me.

  I couldn’t stop Alec from coming with us to the palace, and I probably couldn’t stop Joe from doing whatever he’d agreed to do.

  Or could I?

  They must be banking on the rest of us standing guard on the outside, so that we won’t know what he’s doing.

  I’d just have to make sure I was in that room too.

  Alec will try to kill me, I realized. He’ll have to. I’ll be the only thing standing between him and his ultimate revenge.

  Would I have to kill him first?

  Chapter 33: Jackson

  It was Molly in the end who told us what time we should leave Grafton. She laid out the map with Nick, estimating our distance from the palace, the speed we’d need to go to avoid drawing attention to ourselves, and the time buffer we’d require for stops.

  “We’ll probably get about halfway on the gas left in the van,” she said, pointing at a relatively big city called Liarrow, “so we’ll want to be in a big enough place that we can find another one Charlie can steal. It would also help if it was already dark by then so that we can stick to the shadows while he does it.” All told, we left at one-thirty in the afternoon.

  “You’re a good planner,” I observed to her as we piled into the van. “Detail-oriented.”

  “Thanks,” she smiled bashfully. “I used to teach geography and social studies. Maps are kind of my thing. Well, maps and history.”

  “Huh. I don’t know why we didn’t get you involved more on planning our raids.”

  “I was involved,” she winked at me. “You thought Nick came up with all that by himself?”

  I smiled back, quoting, “Behind every great man…”

  Her smile faltered as I slid in to the back seat next to her. Charlie sat in the driver’s seat, Nick up front beside him, and Roger and Jacob in front of us. Alec and Joe lingered outside, acting busy, but I suspected they were really making their own plans. Molly lowered her voice and leaned over to me.

  “What happened between you and Nick?” she whispered. “He seems upset with you, but he won’t tell me why.”

  I pursed my lips, not sure how much to say. “We had a run-in… over Alec,” I whispered.

  “Alec?” Her eyebrows shot up, and I saw her glance at Alec, just as Nick leaned out the driver’s side window and shouted at Alec and Joe, “Get in, guys, chop chop. We got a schedule to keep.”

  “I didn’t realize Nick was so fond of him,” I murmured, as the van door slid open. Joe and Alec climbed in to the first seat behind the driver’s row, which meant we still had the buffer of Roger and Jacob between us and them. Still, I didn’t know if it was smart to get into it here—the last thing we needed was a divided group.

  Molly sighed, lowering her voice. “You knew we had a daughter who passed away after the crash, right?”

  I looked at her suddenly. “I didn’t know that. I’m sorry, Molly.”

  She nodded. “Thank you. We were never quite the same, of course. For awhile I became Nick’s everything, and he mine. But when we found our way to the cave community and he became the head of the hunters, it gave him a sense of purpose again. Alec showed up when he was about seventeen—the same age Brianna would have been, had she lived. He wasn’t the youngest in the caves, but he was the youngest among the hunters. He was so angry, and so lost. Nick had a stabilizing influence on him, and whether he’d admit it or not, Alec needed that.” She breathed the words so quietly that I had to lean in right up to her ear to hear her. “I think Nick needed it too—to feel like he had a legacy with the younger generation. He was so proud of Alec’s abilities. Like a father would be.”

  I digested this for a few miles. I prided myself on seeing what others missed, and yet I’d never picked up on this relationship between Alec and Nick before. I’ve been too busy analyzing Kate to notice anybody else, I guess.

  “Is he a son to you, too, then?” I asked at last.

  She smiled and shook her head. “That relationship is special to him and Nick—and really, I think it’s mostly just Nick. Alec is…” she seemed to search for her next words carefully. “My impression is that he is so angry, so bitter, that there isn’t much room left for tenderness in his heart. Any capacity for tenderness he might have had was frozen in time somewhere long before we ever met him.”

  “When he lost Maggie,” I guessed.

  She looked at me knowingly. “I’d believe it.” Then, if possible in an even softer voice, she asked, “What kind of a run-in did you two have about him?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I lied.

  “It is strange that he and Joe are suddenly inseparable, though, isn’t it?” Molly observed. “After Alec wanted to kill him in Friedrichsburg? I wouldn’t have predicted that.”

  An idea occurred to me. Perhaps I couldn’t get a confession out of Joe, but maybe I wouldn’t have to. Aloud, I said, “How much have you talked to Joe?”

  She shrugged. “Hardly at all, except in big group discussions. Why?”

  I pursed my lips. “Let’s just say I’ve burned
my bridges with Nick and Joe both, where Alec is concerned. But next time we stop, maybe you can ask him what he and Alec are talking about in secret all the time. I doubt he’ll tell you outright, but you’re very observant, and Nick listens to you.”

  “What is it you suspect?”

  I bit my lip. “I don’t want to bias you. Just—see what you think and let me know, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  We stopped a few hours later for about fifteen minutes; long enough for everyone to use the bathroom, eat something, and either stretch or stare off into the distance contemplating where we would be at this time tomorrow. I watched as Molly casually approached Joe, trying not to stare. Then I realized that the only reason she was able to get him alone and away from Alec was because Alec was approaching me.

  “If you have a problem with me, then just say it,” Alec snarled without preamble.

  I weighed my words. “As long as we’re on the same team, I don’t have any issues with you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Are we on the same team, Alec?” I’d been leaning against the back bumper of the van; now I stood up. “Are we all going to the palace with the same goals in mind?”

  “How dare you.” He narrowed his eyes.

  “You didn’t answer me.”

  “A question like that doesn’t deserve an answer!” He swore, jabbing his finger into my face. I remained impassive. “You’ve been here for what, a couple months? Like that qualifies you to be all holier-than-thou, and go around making judgments? Like you have any idea what our lives have been like here? Why don’t you just go back to Iceland, go back to your ‘Grandfather’ and your useless existence, and let us Americans sort out America!”

  “Alec! That’s enough!” Nick finally noticed the confrontation, and strode toward us deliberately. Everyone else had also turned to watch. I glanced at Joe, and caught his expression before he had a chance to wipe it off his face: it was fear.

  “Whatever,” Alec removed his index finger from the tip of my nose, and stalked off with dramatic flare.