by Sonya Weiss
I turned around and walked up to him. “I don’t care if you trust me or even if you like me. I don’t have a problem with any of you unless you get in the way of saving my sister.”
RILEY
When I walked into the barracks, one of the Supernaturals said, “Sir, we have a big problem.”
“Bigger than the war?”
He flushed. “I…well…”
“Continue.”
The Supernatural looked uncomfortable and glanced at the others, clearly not wanting to continue.
“What is it?”
“Your friend, Henry, told Juliet to kill you.”
There’s no way Henry would turn against me. If there was anyone I trusted with my life, it was him. “How’d you find out this information?”
“Prior to Juliet being brought in from the Void, we set up video and audio in the hospital ventilation system in order to track our wounded. I can show you.” He climbed up on a bunk and pushed at the ceiling tile quickly before removing a black box. He jumped down and opened it. The lid of the box contained a small monitor, and the base of it held a set of speakers. “It’s at the one hour and thirty-two second mark, sir.”
The monitor picture revealed Henry in the operating room. Juliet lay on the table, the wound on her leg exposed. A nurse began scrubbing the area with an antiseptic wash. Henry dropped a surgical tool and leaned down near Juliet’s ear. His words were clear. “You have to kill Riley to save us.”
I straightened, barely able to believe what I’d seen and heard. “Contact Mallen. Have him find Henry.” My muscles ached from the force of having to hold myself back. I wanted to charge from the base and demand answers, but I needed to be rational. In control. Knowing about Henry raised questions about Juliet. Questions that refused to be silenced.
“Then what do you want me to do?” Adler asked.
I knew what he was asking without him having to say it. By making the statement, Henry became a traitor. The others stared at me, knowing what the older Supernatural meant to me, knowing our laws against treason. Unlike the humans, we didn’t use a court system. Crimes were punished immediately. They waited, holding their breath to see if I was a weak king who chose emotion over loyalty. I hated even the idea of calling for Henry’s death, but I was not a king who would turn his back on disloyalty. Leading the people meant making hard decisions for the greater good.
“Find him. Have him held for execution.” I turned away so none of them would see what the words cost me. Heaviness weighed my body down, and it hurt to swallow past the lump in my throat.
Chapter 12
JULIET
The Supernaturals talked among themselves, whispering about me.
The Jeep returning made everyone stop talking. Rick walked over and handed me a bag. “Your uniform.”
I limped forward and took it. “Prison orange jumpsuit?”
“It’s blue,” he said and looked like he wanted to say more, but a second Jeep pulled up and Agent Davis joined us.
He searched through the group and motioned to a girl with uneven blond hair cut so short it looked like someone had put a bowl on her head and hacked it off. I knew her. We’d played together for years as children in the same neighborhood until her parents had moved too far away. I smiled my recognition and she smiled back, but it didn’t change her features. She still had the saddest eyes I’d ever seen.
“This is Nixie,” the agent said, unaware I knew her. “She’ll wait here and take you to the dining barracks as soon as you’re changed.” Agent Davis glanced at his watch. “The rest of you grab chow.”
Nixie’s arms were a mass of raw marks crisscrossing each other. Her face was a road map of scars. She darted a look at me from eyes that flashed from blue to black before lowering her gaze.
I walked into the barracks with her moving behind me like a silent shadow. Rows of steel frame bunk beds filled the space. On the empty bunk near the window, I tossed the bag onto the mattress and faced her. “What happened? You disappeared.”
She lowered her paper thin voice, as afraid now as she’d been as a child. “I had to for a while. The humans were hunting me. A girl in my class at school said she’d seen me heal.” Twisting her hands together, fearful of talking about her abilities, she said, “We have to go. If we’re late, we won’t get to eat and I’m hungry.”
Since she looked like a strong wind could blow her away, I pulled the uniform from the bag and quickly changed into it. The material had piping down the sides of the sleeves and the center. I thought it was a weird choice for a prison uniform and said so.
She sent me a sad smile. “The piping glows in the dark. Makes us easy targets if the humans want to shoot at us at night.” She glanced at the door of the barracks, and when she turned her head, I saw the small violet dot near her pupil before it disappeared.
“Your mark is showing.”
She blinked quickly. “Still there?”
“No, it’s hidden again.”
Long ago, there had been numerous healers among the Supernaturals, but they’d been hunted for their skills. Many of them had died struggling to escape, some went into hiding, and others had been caught. Human doctors and pharmaceutical companies had fought over which one had the rights to keep a captured healer in captivity.
“The humans caught me once. They made me heal people until I almost died.” She shrank away as if she could escape the memories of what she’d suffered.
Every time a Supernatural with the gift healed a human, it weakened them, making them more susceptible to human illnesses, diseases, and even death.
She moved forward reluctantly, as careful as a small mouse sensing a cat nearby, and touched the ever present ache in my leg. “You’ll need your strength. I’ll heal you.”
“Stop.” I moved away from her. “I don’t want you to hurt for my sake. Besides, you may need your strength.”
Nixie’s mouth opened in surprise and she stood slowly, looking at me as if seeing me for the first time. “Even when they knew what it did to me, no one ever tried to stop me from healing them.” Adoration filled her eyes. “I knew you were different when we were kids.” She bowed low. “I pledge my loyalty to you.”
Hero worship made me uncomfortable. I wasn’t a hero. Far from it. Touching my bandaged area, I said, “I’ll find Henry and see if there’s anything more he can do for me.”
“After he made the humans remove his band, I thought he’d leave the base, but he’s still lurking around.” She smiled as she said it.
“Probably hiding from the humans,” I said. Him needing to keep out of sight meant I couldn’t ask him to risk getting caught taking the tracker out of Maisy. I would have to find a plan B.
“We should go. The agents will wonder where we are,” Nixie said.
The distance to the dining barracks wasn’t a long one, but it was hard on my leg, not to mention freezing outside. The temperature couldn’t have been above forty degrees, and none of us had jackets. I shivered.
“The humans don’t like us to have jackets because they think it gives us a way to hide contraband like weapons to use against them,” Nixie said. She walked up the wooden steps leading to the door of the barracks and paused to wait for me to catch up. I had to swing my good leg up onto one step, drag the bad one up, put my weight on it, grit my teeth against the pressure, then repeat the process.
By the time Nixie pushed open the door leading into the eating area, I was exhausted.
A soldier wearing military fatigues motioned us forward and scanned our bands with a handheld device that beeped as it passed over them.
“They track us this way,” Nixie whispered. “To make sure we eat. A group of Supernaturals went on a hunger strike.”
A tall woman with blond hair in need of a dye job leaned her butt against a table behind the soldier. She stared at us with assessing eyes. Dipping her hand into the pocket of her lab coat, she withdrew a peppermint, and still staring at us, unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth.
> I’d seen friendlier expressions on a Ragespawn, and those creatures really hated us. “Who’s that?” I asked.
Nixie shuddered. “They call her Dr. Death. She euthanizes Supernaturals who cause trouble.”
“Euthanizes?” Bile rose in my throat.
“Rumor is she does it while smiling,” Nixie said as we slipped past her.
We grabbed trays and slid them along the metal railings to choose food dishes. Nixie leaned over to pick up a bottle of water.
I glanced around to make sure no one was listening but lowered my voice just in case. “I need to find someone who can get a tracker out of my sister.”
She sent me a worried look. “The Supernaturals won’t help you. They’re afraid of you because you look different from them.”
We walked over to an empty table, and I put the tray down. Pulling out one of the metal folding chairs, I sat. “Everyone is staring at you.”
She gave a panicked look around before she relaxed. “Not me. You. It’s your eyes. The humans don’t know what the seven suns mean and the Supernaturals think you’re—” She stopped talking and dipped her head, embarrassed.
“They think I’m what?”
“A freak,” she mumbled, looking up, an apology in her eyes.
I twisted the cap off a bottle of water. I understood their misgivings. If I were an ordinary Supernatural and I’d seen a girl with weird markings in her eyes, I might have thought the same thing.
I glanced to my left, to the group of tables lined up near the long, rectangular windows on the wall. Though Riley was seated with a group of other Supernatural boys and had a tray in front of him, he wasn’t eating. As if he felt me looking at him, he turned slightly in his chair. His easy smile warmed me and he winked.
I squeezed my fingers around my fork until it was painful. It would help if he wasn’t hot. If I hadn’t given him my heart and my body. If I could only tell him…the if-onlys turned into missiles lobbing themselves at me, each one finding its target and destroying a little more of me. He loved and trusted me. How could I kill him?
“What can I do to help?”
I took a sip of my water, grateful for her interrupting my thoughts. “I can’t do anything until the tracker is taken out of Maisy. I need a Supernatural doctor.”
She gave a determined nod. “I know someone I can ask to help us find one.”
I let out a long breath.
“If it gives you any comfort, a few of the Supernaturals are watching out for the children, including your sister.”
“Thank you.” I couldn’t stop my voice from cracking. I blinked back tears.
“I know it can’t be easy standing alone, on the side of the humans after what they’re doing.”
“We don’t get to choose our destiny.” If I had that option, I wouldn’t be here and Riley’s life wouldn’t be in my hands. My chin trembled and I looked down at the table.
“For what it’s worth, I admire your strength.” She stopped talking abruptly when Agent Davis made his way over to the table. He crossed his arms, staring down at us.
“You were tardy.” He leaned back and gave Nixie a hard look, zeroing in on her eyes. Staring longer than I liked with a puzzled expression on his face. I couldn’t let him figure out she was a healer.
I knocked my drink over, letting the liquid slosh across the table. “Oops.” I jumped up to wipe at the spill, trying not to let my he-suspects-Nixie-worries run rabid. The diversion worked. I piled the soggy napkins in the middle of the table and settled in the chair again.
The agent drummed his fingers on the table. “It might interest you to know we brought a friend of yours to the base.”
I stopped chewing the unidentifiable meat patty.
“Don’t you want to know who it is?”
“I don’t have any friends left,” I said, trying to act like I wasn’t scared.
“You could be right. He certainly wouldn’t give us any information about you. I believe he said his name was Stone.”
I dropped my fork and rose. “Where is he?”
“Recovering from his interrogation.”
I took a step toward him, my anger rising. “What did you do to him?” Closer to him, my power reacted, leaping to kill mode. Usually, the only time my power reacted strongly was when I was close to a Supernatural enemy. Was it possible my power had evolved to the point it could tell which human I could and couldn’t trust?
The soldiers leaning against the wall across the room shifted their stance from relaxed to alert as they watched us. Dr. Death stuck a hand in her lab coat, pulled out a syringe, and headed in our direction.
Nixie clawed frantically at my arm. “Sit down. Now.” She tugged hard, and off balance, I landed in the chair, nearly missing it as the force of the fall scooted it away from me. I righted myself.
Agent Davis grinned. “And you said you didn’t have any friends. Nixie might have kept you from doing something incredibly stupid just now.”
Thankfully, Rick called him over to another table, and the agent stopped to talk to the doctor before he went to Rick.
The doctor glared at me, then returned to her watchful perch. She reminded me of a vulture, but instead of waiting for prey to die, she wanted to make sure it did. I got the vibe she enjoyed killing. The blank look in her eyes creeped me out.
Nixie leaned in, her brows drawn into a V of worry, nearly working herself into a frenzy. “You can’t show any signs of aggression. I’ve seen what happens to the Supernaturals who fight back. She injects them, and their power arcs like they’ve been electrocuted. You can see it spark outside their body. They twitch and their muscles lock down and they die. So don’t.”
I nodded. Dr. Death had to go. I couldn’t have her lurking around waiting to pounce. I glanced at her. She held up the syringe and flicked the side of it, then smiled at me.
Agent Davis clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Wrap it up. Time to move it people.”
I pushed away from the table and carried the tray to the trash bin. I dumped the uneaten food and joined the rest of the Supernaturals as they made a mass exit toward the door. I couldn’t see where Riley disappeared to in the crowd.
RILEY
Adler fell into step beside me. “Mallen spoke to Henry and confirmed he told Juliet to kill you. Henry managed to elude the Guards, and no one seems to know where he is.” He paused, then continued. “Juliet didn’t warn you or inform anyone else. Doesn’t that make her as guilty of treason as Henry is? I need to take care of this.”
I stopped walking. “I think the war has fooled you into thinking you have the right to ask questions that are outside your boundaries and to make decisions beyond your authority.”
“It won’t happen again, sir.” Bland tone. Patronizing. Thinking he knew the art of war better than I did.
I gave a small wave of my hand. My power jerked him off his feet. Leaning over him, I extended a hand. “You seem awfully eager to kill Juliet. I can only surmise you either have your own agenda or you’re trying to suck up to me in the hopes that when I take the crown, I’ll find a higher position for you.”
His face reddened.
“What do you want?”
He accepted my help up. “I’m not interested in another position.” He smoothed his clothes and looked me in the eye. “I don’t trust Juliet. When she looks at you, it’s with regret and intention. She’s up to something. I want to make sure no one prevents you from becoming the king. I hate Ide. He’s evil. That’s all it is, sir.”
I wasn’t sure I believed he didn’t have his own agenda. “You’re loyal, willing to lay down your life if needed?”
His shoulders straightened. “For you, absolutely, sir.”
“Juliet is the future queen. I expect you to treat her with the respect due a Supernatural of her station. You will help her and watch over her.”
“Yes, sir.”
My gaze drifted to where Juliet walked through the crowd. In school, she’d always slipped around
in the shadows, not letting herself shine. She’d never acted like the daughter of a king. She wasn’t spoiled. Didn’t demand her own way. I’d never seen her be unkind. She hated the oddity of the seven suns circling her eyes, thought it made her look weird. I thought she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.
I didn’t fully understand Juliet’s power or her destiny to save the humans. But I did understand our love and as far as I was concerned, it was unbreakable. She turned her head and my eyes met hers. She smiled. Had I glimpsed regret in her gaze or was I simply looking for wrongdoing because of Adler’s words? Henry betrayed me and yet she hadn’t mentioned it. That troubled me.
Chapter 13
JULIET
Nixie wove her way through the throng until she was beside me. Her small face pulled into a worried frown. “Dr. Death has you on her radar.”
I stepped out into the chill. The stinging cold made my eyes water. “I picked up on that.”
“She’s zeroed in on Supernaturals before, and they always end up dead. “
“I’ll be careful,” I promised.
“Less talking, more moving!” Agent Davis called out.
He led the way to a small building painted in camouflage colors next to the dining barracks. Inside, rows of folding metal chairs faced a wooden podium. I took a seat, and seconds later, Halo sat beside me, her nose red from the cold. She clutched a paper cup full of coffee in her hand, looking fierce and determined. Nixie slid into the chair on the other side of me.
Her elbow bumped mine, and I scooted my chair over a few inches to give her some room. When I settled the chair back down, a Supernatural boy with spiked blue-tinted hair was watching me from across the aisle. He sat in the third row surrounded by other Supernaturals, yet he stood out. He was the first to look away. When he leaned back in his chair, I saw he was sitting beside Riley.
Agent Davis walked to the podium, and his gaze found me in the crowd. “The faster this war is over, the sooner your lives will return to normal.”
I knew he was lying, telling the Supernaturals what he thought would make them more compliant, something to give them hope. The deception angered me. Our lives would never be normal if the humans won the war. They would force us to live in enclosed areas where we’d be kept under their control until they decided what to do with us. I doubted the decision included living.
